Creatures of Momentum

The Ungulate King Has Excellent Posture

Pagan realism

Lotta stuff going on, most of which I can’t do much about. Feels bad. But it’s not that I’ve lost control – it’s that my circle of concern has grown.

But this does mean that my circle of influence has shrunk. Other people’s concerns have multiplied as well, putting pressure on their free time, patience, attention, etc. That means less time to worry about other people’s projects.

I expect a drift towards pagan realism as folks narrow their attention towards adapting, enduring, staying aware of the tides, trying to protect what is fragile, and enjoying what is left. Somewhere between the savage state-level realpolitik and resigned, “lay flat” individualism. Pagan realists only care about useful information about hazards, practical advice, beauty or escapism. In that order.

The crises are well-covered and I am not an artist… So, it’s time to talk about something personal and (hopefully, or else no one will read this) practical, during this period of expanding chaos. It’s time to talk about momentum.

The last of the giants

I’ve used momentum badly, or at least mindlessly, for most of my life. Especially in the context of work. The importance of this clicked when I watched a few episodes of 1923. One character’s arc made something clear: momentum is a mid-range strategic consideration, bookended by upfront and future costs. Pay now and pay later.

For this reason, I caution against the use of momentum. It’s even sketchier than usual – things today are so uncertain in the medium term that you’re not doing yourself any favors by having high momentum. That doesn’t mean give up and lie down, but it does mean being open to more low-mo activities. Research as leisure, for example, is a great way to increase your professional agility.

It’s a time of pathless paths, where readiness beats forecasting. Lifetime career planning is a relic and even trend surfing is not what it used to be. Still, there’s a place for momentum and aggressive, straightforward action. Fortunately, nature has furnished a badass example of an animal that has mastered momentum.

I grew up seeing these monsters all the time. Even face-to-face on multiple occasions, with chandeliers of ice hanging off their beards. To this day, bison are my favorite animal. Absolute tanks. Can handle temperatures 50º below zero. They’re stoic, familial, eat their veggies, and are the largest remaining terrestrial animal in North America.

They are also creatures of momentum. Sitting at nearly 1,000 kilograms with a top speed of 35mph / 56kph, a full grown bison is a hairy wrecking ball. What they sacrifice in agility, they gain back in streamlined power. Few prey animals can both outrun and bulldoze their predators.

For humans, too, momentum can lead to high performance. Labels like “hit the ground running”, “in my groove” and “locked in” signal this quality. You’ve shed other concerns and let some skills erode, but are perfectly equipped for the lane that you’re currently in, and are now winning handily or without too much sweat.

On the other hand, momentum tends to take you too far. You go from being in your groove to in a rut. More momentum often translates to higher inertia, which means your path is more predetermined. Imagine a marketing whiz who gets hooked on their phone. Or a bodybuilder that develops an eating disorder. Baggage can empower your roll, but you’ll want to drop it eventually.

Momentum in film: Spencer Dutton

You can increase and decrease momentum. Spencer Dutton, one of the characters in 1923, was sent to the front in WWI. He didn’t open a single letter from his family. “Once you start wishing for a letter, you catch a bullet,” Dutton says, “we made furniture out of the letters that our men would never get the chance to read.” Unending resolve meant no alternative, no daydream.

Momentum building is a sacrificial act – one that you pay for both now and later.

Years after the war, Dutton still had not read the letters. His momentum, even when dwindling, kept him on a personal warpath. No relationships, just waging war with whatever forces opposed the people around him. Momentum made Dutton a mercenary, capable only of swimming with the current that he was acclimated to, for multiple years.

What does this have to do with normal people, who don’t fight man-eating leopards for a living?

We have intuitions about momentum-building. Marketers ramp up campaigns as they settle on messaging. Ambitious interns study almost sleepless before starting a new job. Endurance athletes steel themselves mentally. Bodybuilders eat boring, gross food on prep. When we sense that something specific will be required of us in the future, we preemptively align ourselves with the demands of the role.

My old boss used to joke that if HR would let her, she would ask every candidate if they were long distance runners. She found that crowd to have the perfect mix of anxiety and determination – exactly what you need to survive the wars of work: megaprojects, startups, audits, pivots, investigations, etc.

When you think of momentum, it sounds more like a vector just considered for sprints and fast-paced sports. Not so. It’s just as, if not more, important for ventures that take months or years. The hurdles of life and work are far larger than in controlled, short-run games.

Another reason we typically neglect momentum as a concept is because planning is favored over preparation, and is easier to sell. Preparation involves planning, but extends well beyond it. Plans typically leave out the operator. They also fail to account for tension. I think maintaining accurate intuitions around momentum is important. Here’s how I would do it.

When to build momentum

It’s not always a good idea to accumulate mass and velocity. You sacrifice agility – or openness – which means that momentum is a real killer in unpredictable environments. Part of the reason I felt compelled to write this piece is because today’s environment doesn’t reward momentum as much as it used to.

There are fewer jobs and professions where momentum is valuable, which is why you need to be particularly careful when you build it. As usual, the majority of gains here can be achieved by simply not building momentum at the wrong time.

The basic litmus test is probably something like:

Reward for high performance + Predictability of future hazards - Cost of building and slowing = Value of Momentum

I don’t know what exactly I’d plug into these scalars and vectors, but you want the value of momentum to be well above the break-even point. Being smart about this means actively making this calculation, well before starting something new, even if it’s just an estimate in your head. Momentum is adaptability debt – right now, interest rates are high.

Though personal momentum, in general, has lost value, three elements of it have gained a premium:

• Identifying when momentum is useful

• Building momentum rapidly

• Controlling crash-outs.

We already covered, briefly, the calculus of momentum. Use it when high performance has large rewards, or in situations where losing is not an option. If the hazards you or your org will face are known, momentum is better. Sometimes you will be forced, or feel compelled, to undertake a heavy task which requires momentum.

Rapid momentum building

Right now I’d actually recommend you avoid increasing momentum – but there will be times when you need it. At risk of cheesing this analogy (my distinction is will be unsanitary to a physicist) there are two inputs to this vector force: mass and velocity. Mass takes longer to develop, but lasts for longer. Velocity is the opposite.

Mass, in the sense of personal momentum, includes things like skills, assets, access to unique resources, a professional network, deep-seated grudges, metabolic health, habits, and so on. Velocity composes motivation, energy, cash, liquidity, hope, naïvité, attention, borrowed time, weather, consumption, etc.

The second group of sources is quicker. Take an extreme example… the hallmark starter pack of any student cramming for an exam: some copied notes, 36 hours of completely dedicated time, and some black market Adderall. Usually works. Always followed by an egregious comedown.

A less intense case is immersive learning. Recently, I read and watched nothing but science fiction for two weeks in order to get in the groove for the launch of Protocolized. A few weeks of immersion is almost enough to get you rolling on the right track. Then you just stay there and accumulate speed for as long as you need to.

Rapid mass gain – the dirty bulk of personal momentum – is another option. The crash-out can suck, but it’s good to have choices.

A manufactured grudge is a good example of a dirty psychological bulk. Athletes (and many analysts) famously create enemies in their imaginations. Kind of a toxic inner monologue, maybe inspired by old hometown rivals or a particularly grouchy in-law. You cast this figure into the foreground of your thoughts, work up a deep desire to prove yourself, and draw on that when things get bumpy.

Problem is that a grudge, like any source of saccharine momentum, will stick around for a long time… and is apt to cause mold.

Controlled crash-outs

Change of direction is inevitable. Your momentum will carry you past the goal posts. There’s a reason that NFL linemen tend to get extra fluffy in retirement.

To make matters worse, pivots are becoming a more frequently-needed maneuver. A managed slowdown is not usually an option, both because the world is chaotic and incentives only work in your favor on the front end of a game, where people are invested in your future wellbeing. In the endgame, you’re on your own.

So you’re left with one option: crashing out.

My dad and I spend a lot of time in the bush. We get our shit stuck a lot.

Even though changing direction means you might crash, momentum gets you there. It lands you in interesting places. You just need to give yourself enough time to dust off, take inventory, and figure out what to do with what you have.

Here’s my blunderchecklist for controlling a crashout:

1. Do not get back on your shit and keep the party going.

2. Take time to rest; return to your baseline as an operator.

3. If you are in a race, accept that you are losing ground

4. Right the ship.

5. Get everything fixed, patched, and sorted.

6. Note your mistake.

7. Get going again – slowly at first.

Over time, I think it’s possible to get good enough at executing this list that it looks to others like more of a judo move of recycled kinetic energy, rather than an inglorious accident. A crashout is expensive, but it’s also a useful source of info.

Why trailblazing and momentum don’t mix

Crashouts compound, which is why momentum actually sucks in an unpredictable environment. It’s like speedrunning a platformer game that you’ve never played before, or going 30 over the speed limit on some unknown country roads in the fjords of Norway.

Trailblazing is a low-mo activity. I once rushed ahead and whacked my machete into a log full of hornets. They were loud enough to hear through the log – if I had been less full of piss and vinegar, that probably wouldn’t have happened.

We’re all trailblazing now. Wtf is going on with AI, climate, and geopolitics? Not to mention the algorithmic swamp, pandemic risk, and economic weirdness. What an adventure. At least we don’t have to deal with measles! Oh, wait…

Overall this is why I caution against momentum-building. My experience as a chess player has taught me a bit about this, too. Attacking requires momentum, but it’s a double edged sword. A failed attack is almost guaranteed to lose you the game. Many games of chess are determined by who can attack last, but spend the whole game arranging their pieces into an effective, or high activity, formation.

This doesn’t require seeing six, eight, twelve moves ahead. It’s a matter of wise preparation, agility and force – not planning.

After all, the old saying is “Fortune favors the prepared”, not “Fortune favors the planners”.