Momentum Series: Regulate the Pressure

Hey there Evolutionary Entrepreneurs! You’re reading the 2x weekly newsletter where I share practical tips to go from “drowning in work” to OWNING your business and life.

Intentions matter, but Actions are more important.

It’s that time of the year when entrepreneurs are winding down, reflecting on their year, and setting intentions for the next.

As I’ve been doing my reflections, something struck me.

Why is it that entrepreneurs, creators, and visionaries are so good at setting intentions, but most fail to follow through to making their intentions a reality?

Well, it’s quite simple. Action.

There is an old two-part rule that often works wonders in business, science, and art:

1. Take a simple, basic idea and

2. Take it very seriously

To me, that means finding something to be obsessed with, and creating momentum with consistent forward action.

Then the question to ponder now is… what stops or prevents momentum?

And that’s my current obsession: how to create and sustain healthy momentum in business and life.

You’re reading Part 2 of the Momentum Series.

Last week in Part 1, we discussed the first of five steps to creating momentum: Stabilizing your Personal Operating System by Defusing the Noise.

Today, we will explore the second step: Regulating the Pressure.

Let’s dive in.

Today At A Glance:

• To create Momentum in business, you need to elevate your energy

• How to regulate Pressure through Alchemy

• Mental Alchemy: mastering your thoughts

• Physical Alchemy: regulating your nervous system

• Emotional Alchemy: transforming feelings into creative fuel

• Relational Alchemy: building secure relationships

Regulate the Pressure, Elevate your Energy

The Formula for Momentum:

• M = (O - N) E

• Momentum = (Outcome - Noise) Energy

Momentum is created by having a clear outcome, reducing the noise and pressure, and then amplifying it with your elevated energy.

The part around elevated energy is important and often overlooked.

You can create a clear outcome and plan, and eliminate the noise and distractions. But if you’re operating from a depleted tank or low state of energy, momentum will be nearly impossible to create.

This is why burnout and overwhelm is an epidemic in the work and creative space. A silent killer of intentions and goals.

Noise and Pressure, when left unchecked, diminishes your energy.

While noise can be reduced, even eliminated. Pressure is inevitable on the entrepreneurial journey.

What you can do is regulate the pressure, and in doing so:

• You increase your capacity to hold more

• You elevate the energetic state you operate at

• You allow yourself to pour more of YOU into creating

Creating your outcome, your art, your dharma.

How To Regulate The Pressure

Alchemy.

Alchemy is the art of transformation, inner liberation, and change.

You regulate the pressure by transforming it into creative and strategic fuel for forward action and momentum.

There are 4 Forms of Alchemy I’m teaching in my upcoming course:

• Mental Alchemy: transforming chaotic thoughts into clarity

• Physical Alchemy: regulating your nervous system to expand capacity

• Emotional Alchemy: processing your feelings into creative fuel

• Relational Alchemy: creating secure attachment with Yourself, Others, and your Business

The goal is to understand how each form works and then design Energy Rituals and practices into your business and life to create momentum.

I’ll share a few practices in today’s letter and show you how to weave this into how you operate your business.

Mental Alchemy: Master Your Thoughts

Your Thoughts can sometimes create pressure and disrupt Momentum:

• Overthinking: Over-analyzing every minor detail of a project instead of taking action

• Worrying: Imagining worst-case scenarios and failures even when things are going well

• Self-criticism: Beating yourself up over small mistakes which lowers confidence

• Comparing: Seeing others succeed and feeling inadequate or not enough

• Future Tripping: Getting ahead of yourself, worrying about handling future problems

• Scarcity: Believing there isn't enough time, money, or energy to take action on goals

• Inflexible Perfectionism: Refusing to adapt or delegate slows forward progress

Mental alchemy is learning to organize your thoughts, remove the noise, and stay focused on what’s important.

Practice: Create an ongoing Issues List

• Similar to the Defuse the Noise exercise, keep an ongoing Issues List for the 3 Relationship Categories

• Every time an issue comes up, get it out of your head and add it to the list

• Every time you resolve one of the issues, cross it off your list

• Every time you have anxious thoughts, worries, judgments, or stressful thoughts… write it out in a simple sentence

• Writing it out won’t always eliminate the anxiousness, but simply getting it out of your head and onto a list helps defuse the noise and stop the mental spiraling

You’re training your mind and body to think, “I notice and acknowledge this thought, but now is not the time to worry about this, I’ve captured it and will come back to resolve this when I need to.”

Practice: Question your Thoughts

Byron Katie has the best framework for this.

When you have a thought that is triggering stress, question it using her 4 question framework:

• Is it true?

  • The answer to the first two questions is just one syllable: either yes or no. Be still and find your honest yes or no as it arises to meet the question. If your answer shows up as a yes, move to question two. If it’s no, then experience that no for a moment and then move to question three.

• Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

  • If your answer to question one is yes, ask yourself: “Can I absolutely know that it’s true?” Take this opportunity to look again. Shine the flashlight on that moment in time again, and see what reveals itself to you.

• How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

  • Close your eyes and witness the feelings, body sensations, and behaviors that arise when you believe that thought.

• Who would you be without that thought?

  • Closing your eyes, return to the situation. Take a moment to reflect, observe, and experience the situation again, this time without the thought. Who or what you would be without the thought? How would you see or feel about the other person? Drop all of your judgments. Notice what is revealed.

Questioning your thoughts allows you to regulate yourself while being with the thought as it is.

Physical Alchemy: Regulate Your Nervous System

When you understand how your body and nervous system operates, you’ll realize it is nearly impossible to create momentum without building a body that can hold momentum.

• Chronic stress: Being in a constant "fight, flight, freeze, fawn" mode makes it hard to focus and take strategic action

• Adrenal fatigue: Feeling constantly drained leads to lack of motivation and energy to work on goals

• Poor sleep: Not getting enough sleep or rest makes it hard to operate at full capacity

• Physical tension and pain: Headaches, muscle tightness, back pain, etc. are physically limiting and drain mental focus

• Hormone imbalances: Fluctuating hormones like cortisol can impact mood, focus, and decision-making abilities

• Inflammation: Chronic inflammation in the body is taxing and can manifest as brain fog, fatigue, and poor concentration

Physical Alchemy here is about regulating your nervous system, releasing stress in your body, and expanding your somatic body’s capacity to hold more.

Window of Presence

• You’re regulated and present when operating within your nervous system’s window of tolerance

• You’re dysregulated or disassociated when you’re consistently operating outside your window in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn

• You want to be operating within while also expanding your window (capacity)

The Key To Regulation

• Resourcing Safety

• Finding ways to consistently bring our nervous system back within our window of presence

• Processing stress and creating a sense of safety

Key To Expansion

• Pendulation and Titration

• Pendulation: oscillating back and forth between safety and outside the window of presence

• Titration: slowly introducing and allowing the body to interface with states outside the window to expand its capacity

• You know you’ve expanded your capacity when the Noise and Pressure that used to disrupt your momentum no longer does

Practice: Full Body Somatic Release

When you’re feeling dysregulated or overwhelmed:

• Pause and notice where in your body you’re feeling the stress or tension.

• Stand up and do a full body shake. Imagine shaking the stress out of your body.

• If the stress could make a sound, what sound would it make? Make that sound and let it out.

• Tap your body from head to feet and back up. Releasing stress from your tissues and muscles.

• Then come back to stillness and regulate with a few deep breaths

Practice: Joy Alarms

The energy of Joy regulates your nervous system:

• Removes Spotlight Effect: You stop taking yourself so seriously or fixating on what’s going wrong.

• Stress Reduction: Sudden positive activity like dancing jolts your body, reducing levels of the body's stress hormones.

• Release of Endorphins: Triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals.

• Promotion of Relaxation and Fear Reduction: By stimulating the production of serotonin and inhibiting stress hormones, it can aid in relaxation and lowering the perception of fear.

• Shift Your Energy: Law of Entrainment is when two frequencies meet, the lower one will rise to meet the higher one.

Set 1-3 Joy Alarms throughout the day (put on repeat daily):

• When the alarm goes off, stop what you’re doing

• Stand up and dance or shake your body

• Tap into the energy of Joy for a minute

• Then come back to stillness

• Regulate with a few deep breaths

Emotional Alchemy: Transform Feelings Into Creative Fuel

Noise and Pressure trigger sensations and feelings that drive our behaviors.

Trigger > Sensation > Feelings > Perception > Thought > Behavior

Unregulated emotions can disrupt momentum in business:

• Repressed emotions: Ignoring or suppressing feelings like frustration, anger, sadness allows them to build up and eventually erupt, disrupting work

• Emotional reactivity: Flying off the handle when triggered leads to conflicts with your team and customers, distracting you from your goals

• Lack of self-awareness: Not understanding your own emotional patterns leads to repeating self-sabotaging behaviors

• Creative blocks: Getting emotionally stuck prevents ideation and innovation required to stand out in business

• Decision paralysis: Unregulated feelings can lead to emotional paralysis and stalled choices to move work forward

Emotional Alchemy is the transformation of our feelings and emotions into creative fuel for momentum.

Practice: Process your Feelings

1. Define the core emotion you’re feeling

2. Locate the sensation in your body

3. Allow and Accept the emotion and sensation

   1. Can I allow these feelings to be here?

   2. Can I accept these feelings as they are?

   3. Can I appreciate that they carry wisdom for me?

4. Process the Emotion with Healthy Expression

   1. If this feeling could make a sound, what would it be?

   2. If this feeling could move, how would it do it?

5. Feel your Feelings through to completion

6. Regulate your Nervous System

7. Draw the Wisdom from your Feelings

Wisdom of Emotions:

There is wisdom in our emotions if we slow down enough to listen:

• Anger: what wants to be changed?

• Sadness: what wants to be let go of?

• Fear: what wants to be faced?

• Joy: what wants to be celebrated?

• Sexual Feelings: what wants to be created or acknowledged?

Relational Alchemy: Build Secure Relationships

All issues come down to a relationship issue:

• Your relationship with Yourself (like your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial health)

• Your relationship with Others (like your partner, family, friends, team)

• Your relationship with your Business (like your company, finances, clients, marketing, responsibilities)

Having an insecure attachment to your business can create pressure that disrupts momentum:

• Anxious attachment: Constantly needing external validation and reassurance to feel worthy stunts independent progress

• Fearing criticism: Over-focusing on avoiding rejection or critique prevents taking the risks needed for business growth

• Difficulty trusting team: Micromanaging team due to lack of trust slows scalability and reach

• Abandonment fears: Worrying team members and clients will leave can spur desperate behavior rather than thoughtful strategy

• Emotionally detached: Remaining too detached from your business prevents putting in the passion and care required for success

• Avoidant attachment: Withdrawing when challenges arise leads to self-abandonment and giving up more easily

• Identity enmeshment: Having self-worth overly tied to external outcomes like revenue can spur emotional reactivity to normal business ebbs and flows

Most business issues can be solved by creating a secure attachment to your business, team, and clients.

Relational Alchemy is the transformation of unhealthy attachment to secure and healthy attachment to your business.

Practice: Secure Attachment Journalling

• What’s an issue I’m experiencing this week?

• Which of the 3 Relationship Categories (Yourself, Others, Work) does it fall under?

• Breaking it down a bit more, what sub-category (area of life or business) does it relate to?

• What’s my relationship with this area like?

• Where on the Attachment Style Spectrum would I describe my relationship with this area?

• How do I know? What are some examples of behaviors, feelings, and thought patterns I’m experiencing here?

• What CAN I do this week to move closer to a Secure Attachment with this area?

• What WILL I do this week?

Putting It All Together

Regulate the pressure to elevate your energy and expand your capacity for momentum.

Combine all 4 forms of alchemy:

• With this pressure I’m experiencing, what thoughts and stories am I creating?

  • Write them out (Mental Alchemy)

• What feelings am I experiencing?

  • Process the feeling (Emotional Alchemy)

• How is my nervous system responding to this?

  • Regulate your nervous system (Physical Alchemy)

• What would a secure attachment look and feel like?

  • Create a more secure attachment (Relational Alchemy)

Hope you enjoyed this second part of the Momentum Series.

In the next part, we’ll explore the process for refining your desired outcome and turning strategy into a clear operational plan for execution.

See you in the next letter!

Your Pal,

Colin

The Weekly Round-Up

Awesome content and things I’ve shared this past week…

• All Issues Are Relationship Issues (Monk Mode Monday)

• Why Create Company Core Values (YouTube)

• Defining Your North Star (YouTube)