While attending to some of the many errands I have to accomplish before I leave for Spain in a week, I minimized my driving-in-Atlanta-traffic-boredom-and-stress by listening to some pre-recorded CDs including one called the "Momentum Theorem" from when
Dave Ramsey came to visit last Spring.
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Here's an excerpt from
this article that explains exactly what the Momentum Theorem is:
"Isn't it funny how most people work their tail ends off for years only to be labeled an "overnight success"? Right now, our team is experiencing growth like never before! But this isn't how it's always been. We've paid an unbelievable price to get this momentum. We've put in the time, the money, the heartache, the sweat, and everything else we had left. And then, everything took off. But it sure didn't occur overnight.
One thing my team and I have learned over the years is that this type of unstoppable momentum doesn't just happen. Momentum has to be created. There is a process to go through before momentum can result. It takes focused intensity, over time, multiplied by God, to equal unstoppable momentum.
( Fi / T ) x G = UNSTOPPABLE MOMENTUM
Focus? Really? In a society where everyone "should be" on Ritalin? Focus? In a time when my teenagers can have five IM screens open while checking their e-mail, talking on the phone, keeping up with VH1, and doing the homework that gets them on the Honor Roll? We live in a world of true multi-taskers and I'm asking for focus! "-------
You can access the whole talk for free
HERE (5/6/07 called "Momentum").
This REALLY hit home and reinforced that I need to keep taking it ONE STEP AT A TIME -- persevere in what we're doing in business and life. I think we all go through cycles where things are exciting, new, and fun -- and a time when things balance out a bit and get to be routine. For us creative folks, the routine tends to get mundane (and that's where I'm tempted to "check out"). Then there's the freak-a-zoids like me that like to think up the ideas a LOT more than they like the execution part. In fact, most of the time the actually-doing-it part is a big feat.
In the past three years, God has opened a LOT of doors for me in areas that I'd been working on faithfully for years and years. After six years in this business, and twelve working in small business, I was a so-called "overnight success" as a destination wedding photographer according to magazines like PPA and such. I certainly do not feel that statement is warranted but heard it enough to know it was a common perception. People talked... gossiped... questioned.
Here's the thing though... there's no way for them to see all the blood, sweat, tears, and focus that goes before the "overnight" part. Do they know about the 4-hours-of-sleep-per-night for six years plus, or the working numerous jobs part, or the studying for three-degrees-at-a-time part, and bar tending before I could make enough in photography part? How about the 20,000k in credit card debt part? Then the smartening up and paying it off part? I look at the hottest people in different industries now and have a little flutter inside when they claim "it's so easy!" "it can happen overnight". Because, truth be told, it may seem to happen overnight... but
true momentum only happens with focused intensity and TIME.
So a note of encouragement to all the photo-biz people I've been honored to spend time with this past year... keep on doing what you're doing... feeling uncomfortable... taking it ONE step at a Time... even if it becomes routine... because then you know "time" is taking it's turn in the equation ;)
What will you be focused on during your lifetime???
