Momentum Podcast: 57

A Short Cut for Immediate Momentum

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

Every Evolutionary Hunter loses momentum. Some days it is difficult to make forward progress, others it feels like the world is literally working against you. When the right combinations of things go wrong, it can make us feel like we are in full constraint and the feeling is almost immediately overwhelming. Even though I discovered the Entrepreneurial Personality Type and the theory of the Evolutionary Hunter, it does not prevent this from happening to me. I have days where I feel like I am running through molasses that is getting thicker. No matter how hard I try, it feels like I can't make progress. Don't be surprised, this happens to all of us. When I was younger sometimes I would spend days feeling this way. That doesn't happen anymore because I discovered the evolutionary hack that puts every Entrepreneurial Personality Type back into momentum almost immediately. Try this and prove it to yourself.

Full Audio Transcript

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is The Momentum podcast, made for empire builders, game changers, trail blazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum, so we can roll over bureaucracy, and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, and then re-write them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop, and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority. The few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future.

And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters. Clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution, and we always will be. Thanks for being here on The Momentum podcast. This is episode 57, A Shortcut for Immediate Momentum.

Sooner or later, it doesn't matter how positive how are, how good you are at keeping your routine and putting the foundation in place for momentum. How much you're contributing. But sooner or later, everyone of us, every entrepreneur I've ever worked with, every entrepreneur I've ever been around gets to that place where we lose momentum. I have days sometimes where I feel like I'm running through molasses. I have days where I don't feel like I can get anything done. And then I have other days, like today, where I get derailed completely by something that might be somewhat beyond my control. I'll share with you what happened.

My daughters have been home schooled for a while. 10 years ago, when I had my daughter Regan, my perspective of the entire world changed completely. I went from just being a human being to being obsessed with protecting my daughter and making sure that she was okay. And making sure that she was in a place where she felt safe, and that she was taken care of, and that things were made well for her. That she was in a place where she had what she needed and she was safe. About four months ago, we enrolled our kids in a school here locally. We've been home schooling them for a while. That's a lot of work. Also, the kids weren't socializing.

So four months ago, Cadey went out looking for schools, and we found a place called Integrity Academy here in Austin. We sat down with the principal there, Allie Ronder, and decided that it seemed like the type of learning environment we wanted to have our kids in. Over the last couple weeks, I've had some uncomfortable conversations with my 10 year old. She let me know that they had some sex education one day, and she was really confused by the way things were explained. It didn't really make sense to her and sex was explained in a technical, somewhat graphic way. The kids were told that it was wonderful when two people had sex, but there was no discussion of consequences or STDs, or any of those things. It was just like this discussion of sex, which made me uncomfortable, and I've been uncomfortable for the last couple weeks.

Today, last night I was having trouble sleeping. It was either intuition or inspiration, or something has been bothering me. And I came downstairs and I looked at the kitchen table. And there was sitting, a book that my daughter had been recommended. A series of books by her teacher. She's 10 years old. I looked at the book, and I just felt uncomfortable, so I came into my office and I looked it up on Common Sense Media.

If you want to have something derail your momentum in a day, let me read to you the first review that I read about this book that was recommended to my daughter at 10 years old by a teacher. It says, "Age 17 plus. I have a mature 11 year old, and most books that are rated 13 to 17 have been okay for her. She bought this book while at her cousin's and read it the same day. I read it later before buying the rest of the series, and I was horrified at the sexual references and phrases, like corn cob up her skinny anus. I will allow her to read the rest of the series after I censor it for myself. I don't understand the author felt she had to include some really, in my daughter's word, gross content." That's just one review.

Then I read this one. "I read the first four in the series. Common Sense's review is way off. The sex is more graphic as the series progresses. You can barely get through a paragraph without the F bomb making an appearance. The main character starts out proud of her virginity, but it is gone by the third book in the series, when she loses it to a teacher." When I read this this morning, I had trouble seeing straight. I had trouble breathing. My pulse was elevated. Everything in my world felt like I wanted to go take action. Honestly, I wanted to go rip the school down, and challenge the teacher and challenge the principal, and let them know how I felt, which we did today.

We've had conversations with them. We're pulling our kids out of the school, and I'm gonna make it my mission to let people know what happened to my daughter. Because as a father, I feel like recommending a book like this to my child with clear sexualization, with a main character that loses her virginity to a teacher. I mean, this review goes on to say, "Later in the series, Zo, the main character, kills two young black boys, who are stereotypically depicted as young gang bangers out to gang rape her. This series is pure trash."

If you've heard some of my podcasts, you probably know, that is not how I view the world. That is not the type of information I would put in front of my daughters. In our home, we don't sexualize women. We don't objectify women. We don't let our kids refer to themselves as bitches or hoes, which is also throughout this book. And I felt like I wanted to go break something. And for me, this is the type of situation that puts me in full constraint, where I immediately feel physiologically broken, like my body starts breaking down. My arms were hurting. I felt like I was in pain. And cognitively, I have trouble making sense of things. I get frustrated. I get angry. I want to yell and scream. And chemically, I get into this place where my head is literally spinning, and the thoughts are going too fast. And all of those things happened today.

Then I remembered this simple shortcut for immediate momentum. If you feel like you're in full constraint, if you feel like you can't move forward, if you feel like I did, like you've been taken advantage of, violated. You've had this type of a situation imposed on you. The first thing that we want to do as entrepreneurs, is we want to isolate. We want to yell and scream. We want to pull back. We want to get into our heads. Here's the shortcut for immediate momentum. Reach out and help somebody else. If an entrepreneur feels a loss of momentum, and we are willing to pick up the phone, reach out, talk to someone. Help them move forward. Help them in any way, we get this immediate reward of dopamine and serotonin.

And today, I had the opportunity to talk to Brian Delaney, an incredibly talented entrepreneur. Dave Woodward, who's one of the executives at Click Funnels, and really one of the most genuinely incredible human beings on the planet. I had a chance to talk to him. I talked to Natalie Hodson today, who is one of the most talented and exciting entrepreneurs I've talked to in so long. I even got the chance to talk to Lynn Trin on the other side of the world this afternoon. Here's what I felt each time. We, as evolutionary hunters, are tribal. We want to help each other, but we forget those things. We forget about it. We forget how much we get out of it. Today, I was given this stark contrast of feeling completely overwhelmed and frustrated and in full constraint, and then the time came for me to get on the phone, and help someone. I've thought about canceling the call. At the last moment, I remembered that when hunters give back, when we help, when we share, when we give someone else momentum, the person who benefits the most is us.

So I didn't cancel the phone call. I got on those calls. I focused on helping the person on the other side of the phone, on the other end of the Zoom conference line. I focused on connecting with them, on seeing what they needed. And each call made me feel subsequently calmer and more connected and more grounded. And now I'm able to do this podcast. Am I still angry? Unbelievably so. Am I still ready to go and take that school apart? Absolutely. I don't think it should be called Integrity Academy. I think Allie Ronder is asleep at the wheel. I think that a school that works with kids that are up to 11, and there's a book with overt sexuality, a main character losing their virginity to a teacher, gang rape scenes and oral sex scenes, along with all kinds of language, is inappropriate in any school, much less a school that only works with students who are up to 11.

And so, do I still feel constrained by that? Absolutely. But when we give back, when we reach out and help someone, as I do this podcast right now, talking to you. Sharing with you. I start feeling calmer. I can feel the tension in my shoulders release as I talk to you about this and get it off my chest, and share with you this strategy that I have for immediate momentum. I can feel it as I speak, the constraint draining from my body and the momentum coming back.

You can do the same. If you're in one of these situations where everything happens at once. If you're in one of these situations where there is constraint imposed on you, like it was with me today. If you're in a situation where you feel like you can't see that light at the end of the tunnel, here's my sincere plea with you. Do not isolate. Do not pull back. Do not get in your head. When we're in that space as evolutionary hunters, we are rewarded with dopamine, with serotonin, with the relief of pressure in our body, with the release of constraint, when we reach out and share.

I often post on Facebook about every three weeks. I put up a post that says, "The fastest way to create momentum is to give it to somebody else. Tag someone you love and prove it to yourself." And I get instant messages all the time from that. Someone says, "You know, I tagged my wife, and I felt great. Thank you. I tagged my daughter and it felt like momentum." It's so interesting how all you have to do is reach out, give momentum to someone else and you get it back. So if you're ever in one of these situations, do whatever you can to reach out and help someone because as evolutionary hunters, we have instincts and motivations and drives that are different than the rest of the world. And when we give of ourselves, we keep the tribe alive. When we share what we've learned, we allow other evolutionary hunters to continue to keep the tribe alive. When we give momentum to someone else, we help our human kind evolve and move forward and create momentum again.

So today, for me, was one of those days. But at the same time, it was also filled with momentum and connection with other people just like me, and some of the most talented entrepreneurs on the planet, like I shared earlier. For you, if you feel stuck, just remember this simple phrase. The fastest way to get momentum is to give it to somebody else. Reach out. Help a fellow entrepreneurial personality type. Give another evolutionary hunter some momentum. Share what you have. Share what you know. Connect with somebody and you will feel it come right back to you.

Thanks for being with me here on episode 56. This has been a challenging episode, but it's a transparent one. That's where I am for today. I would love for you to share this post. Get the word out there. I don't think that there's any excuse for a school that works with 11 year olds to have pornography on a shelf. And like I explained to Allie Ronder, the principal of Integrity Academy today, had a teacher pulled my daughter aside and showed her pornography, I would involve the authorities. And I don't know that I see a big difference between that and what happened today. But even feeling the pain that I'm feeling, the violation that I'm feeling, the frustration that I'm feeling, the insane need to go challenge or, I'll be honest, hurt someone. When I turn that around and instead reached out and helped someone, that was most calming to me, most centering to me, and most grounding today.

I want to share with you that you've helped me. I want to thank you for being here and thank you for listening. And thank you for allowing me to contribute in this way because your listenership, your membership, your being part of The Momentum podcast is contribution back to me. Thanks and I love you for it.

Thank You For Listening!

I am truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your time listening to me and my podcast.

Please feel free to reach out if you have a question or feedback via our Contact Us page.

Please leave me a review on iTunes and share my podcast with your friends and family.

With gratitude,

Alex

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