On Momentum
You are on a downward escalator. Standing still is not maintaining — it's losing ground. Boaz maps the three phases of momentum (heavy lift, momentum, coasting), why coasting is the most dangerous because it still feels like movement, and how top performers learn to manage pace rather than worship speed.
What this edition is about
Boaz's image for effort is a downward escalator: standing still isn't holding position, it's descending at the speed of the machine. Everything you've built has a maintenance cost you didn't agree to and can't decline.
He maps three phases. The heavy lift, where nothing appears to move and most people quit. Momentum, where the same effort produces visibly more. And coasting — the dangerous one, because the scenery is still moving past the window even though nothing is being generated.
The conclusion isn't to run faster. It's to manage pace deliberately, know which phase you're in, and recognise coasting before the escalator does the arithmetic for you.
- Standing still is not maintaining — everything built carries a maintenance cost.
- Three phases: heavy lift, momentum, coasting.
- Coasting is the most dangerous because it still feels like movement.
- Manage pace deliberately instead of worshipping speed.
Teams and operators who've had a good run and can't tell if it's still working.
This page is a summary. The full edition — with the stories and the detail — lives on Substack.
Read “On Momentum”On this edition
The heavy lift, where effort goes in and nothing visible comes out — this is where most people stop. Momentum, where the same effort produces disproportionate results. And coasting, where you're still moving on stored energy while generating none. Knowing which phase you're in determines what to do next.
Because it feels exactly like progress. The results from your earlier work are still arriving, the scenery is still moving, and nothing signals a problem until the stored energy runs out. By then you're back at the heavy lift, wondering what changed. Nothing changed — you stopped adding.