How to Turn a Moment Into Momentum written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
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Overview
On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Don Yaeger, New York Times bestselling author, leadership expert, and speaker. Don’s new book, “The New Science of Momentum,” challenges the myth that momentum is just luck or a sports cliché. Instead, Don shares a research-backed, practical framework for leaders who want to engineer and sustain momentum—in teams, organizations, and personal growth. Drawing from hundreds of interviews with elite athletes, coaches, military leaders, and business executives, Don reveals what separates those who wait for sparks from those who build their own winning streaks.
About the Guest
Don Yaeger is a leadership expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and author of more than 30 books, including several New York Times bestsellers. He’s known for deep-dive interviews with world-class performers, distilling their habits and strategies into actionable playbooks for business and life.
- Website: donyaeger.com
- Podcast: Corporate Competitor
- Book: The New Science of Momentum
Actionable Insights
- Momentum isn’t just a sports cliché—it’s a science that can be engineered with the right culture, recruiting, and preparation.
- Elite leaders don’t just wait for a “spark”—they build frameworks, teams, and habits that make capturing and sustaining momentum possible.
- Culture matters: Avoid pitting teammates against each other, and recruit people who cheer for others’ success, not just their own.
- Preparation is critical: Teams that mentally rehearse “what if” scenarios and study moments in advance are better at recognizing and seizing opportunities.
- Momentum killers: Negativity, selfishness, failing to recognize small wins, and not celebrating team achievements all sap energy and belief.
- Measuring momentum is less about external scoreboards and more about internal belief—a shared sense among the team that success is possible and building.
- Leaders must “speak truth” every week: Honest, clear communication builds trust and belief (the foundation of momentum).
- Building momentum sometimes means making hard choices—like restructuring or changing direction—so you’re ready when opportunity strikes.
- The most successful teams and companies use rituals (like celebrating wins and preparing for “what ifs”) to foster momentum as a habit, not an accident.
Great Moments (with Timestamps)
- 01:06 – The Super Bowl Spark: How One Moment Inspired the Book
Don explains the origin story—watching the Patriots’ epic comeback and asking how moments become momentum. - 02:54 – The Framework: Culture, Recruiting, Preparation
Why momentum starts before the spark, and what leaders can engineer. - 04:23 – Recognizing and Seizing Moments
The Buzz Williams “laptop drill” for building awareness in teams. - 07:29 – Momentum Killers
How negativity, selfishness, and failing to recognize sparks can drain belief and performance. - 10:51 – When Momentum Means Making Hard Calls
Why adapting to change—even when it’s uncomfortable—is essential for future opportunities. - 12:03 – How Do You Measure Momentum?
Why the real scoreboard is a shared sense of belief and engagement. - 14:52 – The Scotty Pippen Story: Why Team Players Matter
What happens when ego trumps the team in critical moments. - 18:26 – Rituals and Habits for Leaders
The weekly habit that builds trust, belief, and lasting momentum.
Insights
“Momentum is a belief system—a shared sense among your team that something big is possible and building.”
“Elite leaders don’t wait for a spark; they build the culture, team, and preparation to seize it when it comes.”
“Celebrate others’ wins as your own—teams with true momentum multiply each other’s energy.”
“Speak truth every week. Trust and belief are the foundation for any lasting success.”
“_
John Jantsch (00:00.898)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Don Yeager. He's a New York Times bestselling author, leadership expert, and sought after speaker with deep experience interviewing world-class athletes, coaches, and business leaders. Don has distilled the secrets of high performance into a practical framework. His latest book, the new
Science of Momentum challenges conventional wisdom and offers a research-backed playbook for leaders who want to sustained success. So, Don, welcome to the show. Should we see how many sports cliches we can use in this interview?
Don Yaeger (00:36.413)
Hey John, thank you so much, looking forward to it.
I don't know. I feel like I'm already in the bottom of the ninth. mean, you know, because anyway, good.
John Jantsch (00:47.31)
So, just take it one question at a time. That's all you could do, So, speaking of cliches, you argue that momentum isn't just a cliche, it's a science. What made you tackle this topic?
Don Yaeger (01:06.493)
So like many of your listeners probably, I was watching the Super Bowl a few years ago when the New England Patriots fell behind to the Atlanta Falcons 28 to 3. And the prognosticator said Atlanta had a 99.4 % chance of winning the game at that stage. Most of America turned the game off because it was over. And then suddenly, Tom Brady.
John Jantsch (01:24.483)
Yeah.
Don Yaeger (01:31.707)
runs 12 yards on third and eight. Tom Brady had him run 12 yards all season long, right? That's not who he is. And one little thing after another started stacking up and pretty soon, as we all know, New England created the greatest comeback in the history of the Super Bowl. And I watched and at the end of the game, Joe Buck said this great line. said, New England has rewritten the word, redefined the word momentum tonight.
So the next morning I came in, opened up the whiteboard in my office, brought in the creative team that works for me, and just wrote the words, how do you turn a moment into momentum? Can momentum be manufactured? Can we engineer it? Can we build it? Or is it we just have to wait on something good to happen? And that started an eight-year project interviewing the best leaders in the world in the worlds of sports, politics, the military, and business to try to understand.
John Jantsch (02:13.027)
No.
Don Yaeger (02:29.828)
How do they construct momentum?
John Jantsch (02:32.716)
Yeah, let's talk little bit about that. Cause I think most people probably think in terms of like momentum, something you just get caught up in, you know, it takes you, it carries you. Right. And you, you argue it's really, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, but again, was going to say, since your argument can be engineered, there like triggers or things that you found that start, you know, that, that process.
Don Yaeger (02:38.491)
Right. Right. And that can be true, but that can be true, by the way. Yeah. But the great ones don't wait on it.
Don Yaeger (02:54.247)
There are actually, a big piece of it is, in fact, in the book, we actually built a model for how momentum can be constructed in your organization. And what's interesting is I used to think it always began with a spark, something that happened, right? What I grew to understand from talking to these great leaders is that there's an entire framework of effort that is created before the spark. in that framework,
The first thing you have to do is create the right culture a culture where we where we actually aren't pitting each other pitting teammates against each other which happens too often then you got to recruit people who are both talented but can cheer for other talented people right and that's very hard to do as well and Then the third thing is there's there's actually an entire model of preparation That that allows you to be mentally in the game when the spark occurs which allows you to capture sparks
John Jantsch (03:49.549)
Thanks
Don Yaeger (03:50.695)
that others miss. And we use great examples from great leaders in all three of those kind of pre-spark elements that teach you that you can actually then engineer the moment. And then as the moment comes, it could be small, but you can treat it as if it's large. if you do so, you can actually, as we said, you can create momentum where other people might be sitting back
and wondering when's my spark gonna happen?
John Jantsch (04:23.606)
Yeah, it's interesting. know, I think a lot of times, you know, people are like, you were just in the right place at the right time. And there is a lot of truth to that, but it's also recognizing the right place, right? And taking action, isn't it?
Don Yaeger (04:35.699)
Yeah. In fact, so, um, one of our great interviews, one of my favorite interviews in the entire book, did 250 interviews with great leaders was with a basketball coach named Buzz Williams. Buzz was the coach at Texas A &M last few years. He's now the coach at Maryland, but, uh, but Buzz all season long off season, all off season long, uh, you're walking by his office or one of his players. He'll say, John, get in here. And he'll pop open the laptop and on his laptop, he'll have.
a contest, a competitive contest that's being played and it's often not in basketball, right? It could be women's volleyball, could be softball, baseball, football. And what he wants is for the player to sit down, he opens up the laptop, hits play, and then he lets them watch six to seven minutes of the contest. Then he closes the laptop and he said, tell me exactly what is the time left in the game right now?
What's the score in this very moment that I just closed the laptop and who has momentum on their side? And explain to me why you believe that. And what he wants is he wants to build within his players this awareness of what's happening around them so that as something good happens, they are better in position to grab onto it, do something with it.
John Jantsch (05:50.594)
Yes.
Don Yaeger (06:01.107)
You know, the business analogy of that would be, you know, those organizations, and there are plenty of them that are very good, that create what if teams, right? A team of executives who sit in on a regular basis are asking themselves, what if? I mean, let's, let's throw something crazy out there. What if the president United States decides to throw tariffs on every country in the world and half of our supply chain is gone? What if, what, what, would never happen.
John Jantsch (06:27.598)
that would never happen. Why are we even talking about that?
Don Yaeger (06:31.485)
But if it were to happen, what would we do? Right? What if the CEO of our greatest competitor is suddenly caught on a big screen at a Coldplay concert, hugging up on his HR director? What if? I mean, that would never happen, right? Nobody would ever do that. But the truth is, if you can start thinking about what if concepts, what it does, forget whether those are the exact same things that happened.
The concept is that we collectively are constantly thinking about the world as our playing field. And when you're thinking about the world as your playing field, you have a greater opportunity to capture those moments when they come.
John Jantsch (07:17.176)
So we've been talking about catching momentum and engineering momentum. What are some ways that you found that people actually, probably not intentionally, but actually kill momentum?
Don Yaeger (07:29.113)
well, one of the easiest ways to kill momentum is to not recognize it when it happens. Right? So something comes along an opportunity, a, and you sit and you're busy chuckling because you're thinking, how crazy is that? And instead of, capturing and using the moment to your advantage, you're, you're laughing about it. And pretty soon the moment's gone. Right? They're called sparks for a reason. you know, they don't last.
John Jantsch (07:34.286)
Sure. Yeah.
John Jantsch (07:50.22)
Yeah.
Don Yaeger (07:55.707)
unless you've built the kindling, which is all the work you do in advance, and you fan the flames, which is what you do after the spark takes hold. so this idea that it's, you, but the other ways you can kill momentum are simply in having a bad, let's say you recruit people and that are so eye centered that if I'm not the reason that good things are happening, then I don't want to be proud. I'm not happy.
You know, the way you discover this is the next time you as a group are celebrating someone on your team that just did something fantastic. They made a massive sale. They closed the deal. They dislodged the competitor. Look for the A players on your team. Where are they in that celebration? Are they at the front high-fiving the guy, the woman that makes this deal? Or are they in the back grousing, damn it, that should have been my deal.
John Jantsch (08:25.944)
Yeah.
Don Yaeger (08:55.345)
Right? Should have been my opportunity. And you start to realize what you have. If you don't have people who can celebrate each other, you know, in the world of neuroscience, there's a whole, whole, you know, discussion around what are called mirror neurons, which is what, which is how, you know, we've, we've all seen somebody walks into a room and yawns. Other people suddenly start yawning, right? Mirror neurons are, we mimic a situation.
John Jantsch (09:19.825)
He
Don Yaeger (09:24.367)
if we feel like we're connected to it. Well, if I feel like your success is to my detriment, then the mirror neurons in the room are actually quite negative, right? And people pick up on that. And suddenly the vibe changes and that's a way to kill momentum, by the way.
John Jantsch (09:39.246)
Mm.
John Jantsch (09:46.126)
Were there any examples of people that you've spoken with over the years? Sometimes you have to make a change that is really hard because you sense, the market's going this way. I remember talking to some folks in advertising in newspapers. In the early days of the eight, yeah. In the early days, but.
Don Yaeger (10:04.432)
Wait, newspapers? Wait, I know, my kids still laugh at me that I still grab the New York Times when I'm going through an airport.
John Jantsch (10:13.474)
You know, they were laughing in the early days of, of, you know, the web and just like this Craigslist thing's a joke. and you know, it pretty much because they, you know, they wouldn't make the move early to say, we got to kill classified ads and make them free because, you know, they're going to eat our lunch if we don't. and, so sometimes, you know, grabbing that momentum or that opportunity that's obvious means you're going to.
Don Yaeger (10:31.677)
Right.
John Jantsch (10:39.512)
killed the golden goose, you know? how do you, did you talk to anybody that really, you know, saw momentum as a real negative to begin with, but as where the market was inevitably headed?
Don Yaeger (10:51.473)
Well, yeah, momentum. mean, if you're momentum is when you had the wind to your back, right? That's what momentum is. If you want positive momentum. So if you shift, if you fence, if you feel the wind is coming to your, to your, to your front, then you, you might need to turn and make a change. mean, there are a couple of companies that we, that we focused on who built momentum after pretty significant layoffs of employees. Like they had to make the hard choices, but in order to get right,
John Jantsch (10:56.386)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (11:17.837)
Yeah, yeah.
Don Yaeger (11:21.309)
for the market in order to get right to be able to capture the next opportunity in the market. They couldn't be, they couldn't have the, so yes, uncomfortable as that was, it was the choice that helped them be ready for an upcoming opportunity to expand that opportunity and take it and create that wind to their back.
John Jantsch (11:45.39)
How do you measure momentum? mean, some cases, there's certainly very tangible results like revenues up, things like that. But I suspect that some of it's sort of incremental. Are there metrics that you can say, this means we have momentum?
Don Yaeger (12:03.217)
No, because momentum at its core is a state of mind, right? It's a belief system at its core. That's what momentum really is. There's a scientific version of momentum, right? Which you would when you see, you know, a swinging of of a pendulum or whatever. There's a scientific version of that. But in in real life, momentum at its core is a is a belief system. So
What you, how do you measure belief system by the number of people who are participating in it, right? If you're the leader and you're the only one that believes, you don't really have momentum because you need, as a group, you have to be able to move into moments. You have to, I mean, remember that question I wrote at the beginning, how do you turn a moment into momentum?
And there was a lot of the preparation piece, having the right people on your team. The recruiting piece is one of the few places in the book where we went with a negative as an example. And the story we share was, you may or may not remember when Michael Jordan retired for the first time from the Chicago Bulls. For all those years, Scottie Pippen had been his Robin.
Right? His bat. He was Batman. Scotty was Robin and Scotty Pippen kind of objected to that. He really wanted to be Batman. He believed he was worthy. So suddenly Jordan's out of the picture and Scotty is Batman. And that first season Scotty is Batman is okay. Good. But when they get to the playoffs, they're in, they're in a key game against the New York Knicks. Two seconds left. Phil Jackson calls a timeout. Scotty Pippen's like,
John Jantsch (13:28.696)
Yes.
John Jantsch (13:33.986)
Yeah.
Don Yaeger (13:55.581)
I'm Batman. got, I'm going to take the shot right now to put us over the top. Cause that's what I've been waiting for. Jackson designs a play for Tony Kukoc to take the shot. Scottie Pippen refuses to get off the bench. He's like, I'm not even going to the game. If you didn't call the play for me, I've waited all these years. Now it's my turn and you're going to give the shot to Tony Kukoc and Pippen refused to get off the bench.
No one on his team ever saw him the same way again. In fact, they, they, they, they, to this day, if in the NBA, you commit a very selfish act as a teammate, it's referred to as pulling a Pippen, right? Because Scotty Pippen was so absorbed with the idea that it had to be his. He, and so, you know, obviously in the NBA, you, you, you, you picked players, you contract with them. So it's not like you can dump Pippen.
John Jantsch (14:25.837)
Yes.
John Jantsch (14:36.459)
You
Don Yaeger (14:52.199)
But what they saw immediately was that he was not and could not be the leader of that team. so when you're picking people to put on your team, pick people who can be happy when somebody else does well, as just as they would be happy if they did it as well for themselves.
John Jantsch (15:13.378)
So, you know, the thing about sports is, I mean, there's a winner and there's a loser, right? In a game. In business, it's not quite so clear.
Don Yaeger (15:22.445)
I would argue that you may not, there's maybe not a scoreboard that is broadcast to the world, but most often internally, we know the scoreboard. I was working with a company last week, a massive international company and they can look at most many of their products that they are currently in the marketplace with and where they were once the leader of the pack in that product line.
Many of them they are they are not anymore now to the world. They still look they're still a pretty they're a fantastic brand Everybody knows who they are, but internally they know they have lost momentum, right? They have lost That others are taking their space. So there are there are There are scoreboards. They just may not be always as public as we're used to in sports
John Jantsch (16:15.128)
So you, great deal of your career and your very successful books have been as a biographer. Would that be the right term to use? Yeah, right.
Don Yaeger (16:22.119)
Yeah, yeah, I'm a teammate with Deon Sanders and all kinds of other people to help tell their stories.
John Jantsch (16:28.138)
So for this book, you probably didn't go live with any CEOs for a couple of months or anything. What's been your tool to kind of extract these stories from some of the folks?
Don Yaeger (16:38.727)
I think what happened was many people were fascinated by the curiosity. The idea that again, you know, in sports, we, we see momentum. everybody. Yeah. The other team has momentum, right? we have momentum. Exactly. It's probably it's, it's as great. It's as used a word as there is in broadcast. but in business and in other places, it's known, but not studied. It's not been studied.
John Jantsch (16:52.878)
Yeah, broadcasters say it all the time during games, right? Yeah.
John Jantsch (17:07.704)
Yeah, yeah, right.
Don Yaeger (17:08.763)
And so the idea that I was coming at it and that I was coming at it from four verticals, right? was, mean, cause we look at it, how did some of the greatest generals in the planet sit down with us to talk about how you build momentum into your game, into your battle plan, right? How do you win small, how do you create small victories to win momentum? And then business, know, some of the great business leaders and politics.
James Carville, Karl Rove, sat down with us to talk about how do you build momentum into a campaign to win an election? You want to peak at the right time, obviously. And so all of these were just fascinating conversations and people, when people find out who else you're talking to, most people of significance kind of want to be in. They want to be in that conversation. So, wait, you got, I'd like to talk next, basically.
John Jantsch (17:58.496)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Jantsch (18:04.366)
Yeah. So if somebody's listening to this, a leader's listening to this and they want to make it a part of their culture, because I think I hear that as much as, as anything, you know, you, got to get as many people to believe, you know, well, that's, that's probably the definition of culture. Um, is there a single habit or ritual that you'd tell somebody? Okay. You have to start this, this week.
Don Yaeger (18:26.579)
I think what you have as a habit among those that, again, I'm just the voice of the people that I had the chance to interview, was you speak truth into the conversation every week. If people start thinking that you're blowing smoke, that you're spinning the numbers, that you're creating, like the company I was talking about last week.
If the CEO were to walk in and say, guys, we are right on the edge of just kicking the world by the tail. Everybody in the room would know that CEO was not telling the truth. So they were either disconnected from the truth or a liar. And you want to be neither of those things if you're a leader. And so one of the most important things you have to do every week is speak truth into the situation so that you can then create a vision that others believe is possible.
John Jantsch (19:06.958)
you
Don Yaeger (19:22.161)
And that's where you begin to create that belief system.
John Jantsch (19:25.802)
And I imagine for a lot of leaders, that's hard because, you they're looked up, you're supposed to have all the answers, you know, you're you're like taking us someplace great, right. And so for them to admit, I don't have all the answers or maybe things aren't going like we thought, I mean, could be really tough, can't it? Yeah.
Don Yaeger (19:28.115)
It's very hard.
Don Yaeger (19:41.423)
It can be, but if you, the alternative is an absolute loser.
John Jantsch (19:48.77)
Yeah. Well, Don, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast. Is there someplace you'd invite people to? know you have your own podcast that you'd love people to listen to and then obviously find out about the new science of momentum.
Don Yaeger (19:58.365)
to corporate competitor.
Don Yaeger (20:04.913)
Yeah, you know, just Don Yeager.com and donyeager.com is the best place. because I know a lot of people misspell my last name, I own all iterations of my last name on the internet. And so, yeah, I welcome your listeners to the conversation.
John Jantsch (20:18.35)
Good for you.
John Jantsch (20:27.086)
Awesome. Well, again, appreciate you stop by and hopefully we'll run into you again one of these days soon out there on the road.
Don Yaeger (20:32.765)
Good job, thank you.
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