In the past, I have written several essays about the importance of momentum. Momentum is this concept of movement, effectively the “quantity of motion of a moving body.” It is the impetus gained by an object hurling through space. Perhaps less scientifically, in the context of startups, it is also what separates success from failure. Successful teams unlock momentum by solving problems and getting things right. Building a company is a rollercoaster of momentum – as you peak, fall down the trough, and race to get back up again – it is a marathon you are sprinting, basically hoping to stay alive and aim towards your Northstar.
I think life is also a lot about momentum, and something I have been very interested in as of late is how do you go from 0 to 0.1. How do you get the ball turning? I think this may be the hardest step in the whole sphere…realizing the world is yours and that you can do anything you set your mind to! Most people do not share this lens. Most people choose to live under self-imposed constraints. That is okay. There are lots of real constraints in the world but I choose to focus on the lens – “I can try to do anything” and only after I have tried for a long period of time can I truly say it is impossible for me to complete x task. This is not the case with most things that I have encountered in life.
So how do you go about building this view?
I think one way is to start making things and getting validation.
Write a blog post. Launch a simple project. Send a cold email. Doing those things convinces you that you can do something that someone else will react to.
That is square 0.
To get to 0.1, you have to learn to train this muscle.
Train this muscle by looking at situations, perhaps finding a brick wall in front of them, and crashing directly through it.
Flex this muscle.
Also published on Medium.