FOLM (Fear of Losing Momentum)
Replace a bad fear with a good fear
In college, before the internet and before smart phones, a common hang out was to watch TV together. Sports, sit coms, or MTV (yes, that’s how old we’re talking). Commercials created social opportunity intervals amidst the watching, when we could replay the highlights of the last 15 minutes or catch up on whatever random topic.
But watching TV at Shawna’s place had a very different vibe. Shawna watched TV with the remote on her lap, and whenever a commercial came on, she would immediately grab the remote and start cycling through the channels. There would be an occasional short pause (<5 seconds) on a channel and then she’d be off again. Rather than socializing during the commercials, we were all trying our best to keep up with Shawna as she quickly ran through the channels.
Early on in this experience, one of the friends in our group asked, “Why do you keep doing that?” Shawna responded, “There might be something better on another channel, so I’m just making sure I’m not missing it.” This was our introduction to FOMO, well before that acronym was ever established. Shawna was ahead of her time, modeling “Fear of Missing Out” for us in the ‘80s.
In the modern era (😜) where we are surrounded by smart connected devices, FOMO is far more prevalent. A ding or buzz from your phone at dinner can pull you into whatever news flash you just got. A three minute wait at the checkout line is an opportunity to scroll through your social media. In the car you can make calls and catch up with your friends.
No single example above presents a problem. It’s the aggregate effect of FOMO that creates the problem. It feeds into a state of constant distraction. Being regularly randomized by external inputs is now the norm.
FOMO sabotages your focus. The solution is to replace that bad fear with a far more motivational fear: FOLM, Fear of Losing Momentum. It takes a lot of work to build the momentum in your Energy Flywheel1. Once you’ve got that humming, you don’t want to lose it. This momentum supplies us with energy that increases our overall output, and helps us power through the more challenging parts of our work.
Develop your FOLM to the point where it will win out over your FOMO.
The importance of momentum
The Webster dictionary’s definition of momentum is pretty bland. But the ChatGPT definition of momentum paints a much more vivid picture: “Momentum is a fundamental concept in physics that describes the motion of an object. It is a vector quantity, meaning it has both magnitude and direction. Momentum quantifies how much motion an object has and how difficult it is to stop it.” I want to highlight three elements from this:
Magnitude - It’s not simply about having momentum; it’s about how much momentum you have.
Direction - Not all momentum is helpful. You have to make sure that you’re pointing the right direction. I called this out in what my sister Sue taught me2: “Interest compounds … but so does debt. You can stack good on good, for your own longevity. Or you can stack bad on bad, for your own demise. So make sure you point your ship in the right direction, otherwise every action is taking you farther away from your own ideal.”
How difficult it is to stop it - Momentum propels you forward. Your past contributions to your flywheel carry you through the energy-sucking times.
Your momentum is your life force put into action.
To underscore how broadly leveraged momentum is, here are all the different places across uplevel pro (so far) where I’ve called out momentum’s contribution to your individual progress, as well as your team’s progress:
About - Uplevel Pro - This sharing is the motivation behind Uplevel Pro. The articles here are my Grand Synthesis: the wisdom I’ve gathered from my own journey and from the many teachers who helped me along the way. I hope they spark reflection, conversation, and momentum.
Habit-Propelled - The more habits I established, the more my day-over-day momentum built, propelling me through any challenge I encountered.
Energizing Leisure - Just as you optimize and intentionally organize your work energy givers and takers, there is value and momentum to be had by similarly giving attention to how your energy givers and takers are organized outside of work.
Finite Time - This added momentum will then carry you forward, with your “I got all that done in 25 minutes” reflection leading you to the belief that “I can get that much done in any 25 minutes that I have … when I give it my undivided attention.”
Actual Intelligence + Artificial Intelligence = 🥇🏆🎉 - For every type of brainstorming that I’ve ever done, pairwise brainstorming has been the most fruitful for me. It’s two people riffing off of each other, and as the brainstorming continues, the collective momentum builds.
How Do I Stand Out?- It is far less about what you can accomplish on your own and more about what you can bring to a team environment to contribute to the momentum and the output of a group of people.
Play Your Part - Far more leadership is coming from below. Everyone else from first line employees up through middle management demonstrate bottom-up leadership. They initiate grassroots efforts that start at the bottom of the organization and, through progressive successes, gain momentum to be propelled up the organizational hierarchy.
Maximize Smiles per Dollar - Other team members could then readily add their own thoughts to that topic, building momentum and depth for that topic.
Progressing Your Pitch - As each team moved, this built momentum for increasing trust. The more teams that moved to Splash, the more the remaining teams could see it working out, and more easily believe it would also work for them.
Lifelong Student-Teacher - This “Learn-it-all” push was the necessary first step that opened the doors to much more investment in Microsoft’s culture. And once we had enough Learn-it-all momentum, I became an advocate for its complement, “Teach-it-all”.
“We’ll See” - One of the most commonly occurring failures of leadership is over-indexing on the bright shiny object and sucking momentum from meaningful investments. Fight for yours.
Compartmentalization - Maintaining momentum amidst powerful setbacks.
FOMO has its place
FOMO drives you to pay more attention to the world around you. If you’re walled off in your own little world, it’s not healthy for you in the long run. When FOMO is telling you that you’ve fallen too far out of contact, heed it. Just don’t let it take over. FOMO has its place … in cleanly timeboxed slots on your calendar.
Here are the three main components that satisfy your FOMO.
Social media - I’ve already detailed my own timeboxing of social media. Use this as a guide as you set up your own routine. “My updated morning routine includes a 20-minute block for checking all of my social media (5min Strava, 3min Facebook, 2min Instagram, 5min X, 5min LinkedIn).”3
News - News continues to get more and more blended with social media, but there’s value in creating a separate timebox for news. I have a 25-minute block for reading news over lunch. And Charu and I have a 30-minute block to watch the news as we’re preparing dinner. The key here is to record the news and watch it just after, so that you can skip the ads and the boring bits of the news.
Friends - I’m not suggesting at all that you limit your friends. This is just about establishing “at a minimum” touchpoints with family and friends. If you’re in a “heads down” period where it’s hard to find the time to Touch Grass4, these will ensure that you’re maintaining connection. The cadence of check-ins are different for each friend. And group chats are convenient ways to connect at scale.
With your FOMO successfully contained, you can let your FOLM take over. Momentum makes the world go ‘round. 🙂