Why do things change? Do things just naturally change for the good overtime or do things gradually decay if left alone? How is momentum created? Why are some people upwardly mobile while others are downwardly mobile? Why do some companies grow each year as they look for new opportunities to reinvent themselves, while some companies shrink gradually while always talking about the “good old days?” These are the questions that my companies have been dealing with over the past few fews, and during the course of this article I will address each of them.

Why do things change?

As a general rule, things change because they erode. As each river of variables enters into our lives, our families or our corporations they usually take a small piece of us everytime they pass through. A family member moves out of town because his job relocated him. Then we lose a friendship. At work your competition locally or internationally comes up with a new invention, innovation of efficiency program and now your company is looking to cut costs to remain competitive. Then someone loses a job. We get older and we gradually become less active. Things start to get sore. Thus, we get even less physically active. Over time we begin to atrophy and our bodies really begin to fall apart. The rains come down, and they wash away part of the soil as the water flows down hill. So are we do combat this natural erosion of families, friendships and finances? We must be intentional about becoming the change that we want to see.

Unless we want to fall victim to the natural erosion that is a part of life, we must show some resiliency. We must fortify our families, our friendships and our businesses with a series of elaborate dams and levies. We must be proactive about making those extra calls to family and friends. We must tend to those relationships like they are a garden. We must pull out the weeds, we must water them consistently by investing time in them. We must look for those bad apples who are poisoning our office cultures. We must not sit back and watch as nature takes its course. Nature is naturally anarchist. Leave things unattended and they will gradually fall part. We must be INTENTIONAL about setting up the systems, the accountabilities, the meetings, and the candor needed to FORCE positive change. Notice, you must FORCE positive change. It will not happen unless you FORCE it to happen. Momentum will never be created in your life or in your business unless you are INTENTIONAL ABOUT MAKING IT HAPPEN. Now let’s talk about some specifics.

Specifically, how do I create momentum at work and in my business?

Now we get down to fun part. If you want to specifically create momentum at work, you must understand that entrepreneurship and work (in general) is usually a survival of the fittest, and one great big tenacity test. In terms of the commercial real estate industry or real estate in general. You won’t experience success unless you have a ton of leads. And you won’t have leads unless you have a ton of prospects. You won’t have a ton of prospects unless you are talking to a ton of people. And you won’t ever talk to enough people if you just talk to the people you know. Thus, you must call people that you don’t know. You must interact with people that you have never met before. Now this could be rough for you. However, your bank does not care how uncomfortable you are. You credit cards companies do not care about how uncomfortable this might make you. They just keep sending those bills. So essentially you are going to have to embark on a journey filled with consistency and diligence knowing that you will get rejected repeatedly. Thomas Edison tried to invent his famous first light bulb over 10,000 times before he finally made a concept and prototype that worked. How many rejections will you deal with?

Upwardly mobile people choose to do the things that downwardly people do not. Upwardly mobile people choose to educate themselves each day and each year. Every year they seem to get smarter, because they are getting smarter. Upwardly mobile people make a plan for their day, their life and their future and they carry out this plan. Downwardly mobile just let life happen to them. Upwardly mobile people choose to implement a regime of daily tenacity that is not common in the world today. Upwardly mobile people choose to deny themselves the instant gratification that comes with buying things now, eating whatever they want, oversleeping, overeating, staying out late and being a slacker. Upwardly mobile people choose daily to discipline themselves so that they can reap the rewards. Downwardly mobile choose daily to not discipline themselves, thus the universal laws of universe deal with them. They get what they sew. They sew minimal effort, and they get minimal results.