You’re the Spark – Keys to Making Momentum Contagious

Good morning. Happy New Year.

You’ve got five more days to say that before that expires.

I hope the holidays treated you well. Now that the new year is here, there’s a fresh clock ticking. Resolutions, goals and plans have been made. Now it’s time to focus on execution.

Will you carry momentum forward? Or start from scratch?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. College football helped me figure it out.

Here’s this week’s Rising Tide.

1. You’re the Spark – Keys to Making Momentum Contagious

2. Next Mile: Why Wealth Tech Still Feels Broken 🎧

3. Elevation Point on Laying the Foundation for AI-Driven Growth

4. Milemarker On the Road ✈️

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m texting with my friends who pull for the Miami Hurricanes. Normally, I can’t root for the Canes under any circumstances, but Ohio State is due.

The Buckeyes had been sitting since the Big Ten Championship Game, while Miami had to fight through a first-round slugfest with Texas A&M. You’d think that extra rest would be an advantage. Instead, Miami took ten days to heal up and proceeded to punch a cold Ohio State team in the mouth.

Turns out, rest doesn’t always lead to readiness.

College football is about momentum. Teams that stay sharp, stay aggressive, and keep moving tend to win. The ones that sit back and wait for the next thing to happen? They often find themselves on their heels.

The same is true in business.

As we head into 2026, plenty of things are uncertain; markets, regulations, the political landscape, you name it. But your momentum doesn’t have to be. There are things you can control. Rhythms you can establish. Energy you can create.

Here’s the thing about momentum that’s easy to miss: it’s tied directly to influence.

And as much as you hope that someday, someone else is going to be that spark for your firm, you already know the answer.

You’re the spark.

Your energy, your focus, your drive toward something is the catalyst.

This isn’t just motivational talk. Researcher Sigal Barsade spent her career at Wharton studying something called emotional contagion, the phenomenon where emotions spread through groups like viruses. Her findings were clear: leaders’ moods are disproportionately contagious. Your team is watching you, reading you, taking cues from you whether you realize it or not. If you walk in defeated, that spreads. If you walk in lit up, that spreads too.

Maybe you’re fortunate enough to have other leaders in your firm who carry that fire. I’m thankful I do. But even then, if you’re a wet blanket on motivation, you’ve got to find a way to change. Find the something that got you fired up in the beginning. Remember why you wanted to do all of this in the first place.

Because momentum isn’t just about attitude, it’s about physics.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins describes what he calls the flywheel effect. Picture a massive metal disc mounted on an axle. Getting it to move takes enormous effort. You push, and nothing happens. You keep pushing, and it inches forward. You push again and again, and eventually, the flywheel starts to turn. Then it builds. Each push compounds on the last until the thing is spinning with its own force.

That’s momentum.

No single push gets credit for the breakthrough. It’s the accumulation of consistent effort in one direction. And here’s what matters for you heading into this year: the flywheel doesn’t care about calendar years. If you built momentum in 2025, you don’t have to start over. You get to keep pushing.

But if you stop? If you sit back and wait like Ohio State did? The flywheel slows. And you’re back to pushing from a dead stop.

Our whole industry is built on compounding. That’s the focus. We help clients compound, whether it’s assets or, increasingly, experiences. The math works the same way inside your firm. Energy compounds. Momentum compounds. And so does apathy.

If I go back to this game between Ohio State and Miami, I have a high level of confidence that if it were five quarters long, Miami doesn’t win. Miami carried momentum out of the gate. It was fast and it was transformative. It took Ohio State too long to find theirs. By then, it was too late.

So as you look at the year ahead, here’s where I’d start:

Where do you have momentum right now coming out of 2025? Identify it. Protect it. Double down on what’s working instead of getting distracted by what’s not.

Where do you need it? Maybe it’s a team that’s gone flat. Maybe it’s a service line that’s stalled. Name it honestly but without blame.

Where are you at risk of losing it? Momentum is fragile. It requires continuous reinforcement. Don’t think you can bank it and walk away.

What’s your first push? The flywheel starts with one. What’s the push you can make this week; not this quarter, this week, that gets things moving on something new?

And finally: Who’s carrying the spark? If it’s you, own it. If it’s not, find them and clear their path.

These aren’t rhetorical questions. They’re the work.

Happy 2026. I’d love to hear what you’re planning.

Episode 125: In this special New Year’s 2025 episode, Kyle Van Pelt brings together four standout voices to explore why wealth technology still feels broken—and what actually fixes it.

Jeremy Nelson explains how rising client complexity demands centralized planning and operational tech that can truly scale. Art Ambarik shares how fragmented data and poor transitions create bottlenecks that distract advisors from clients. Kylie Felker shows how efficient systems make room for unreasonable hospitality and deeply human service. And Terry Parham Jr. outlines how impact, efficiency, and effectiveness improve when firms own and streamline their data.

Together, these conversations reveal how better integration, not more tools, is the path forward.

In this episode:

(00:00) – Intro

(00:30) – Jeremy Nelson on rising client complexity and why centralized tech is essential for scale

(03:25) – Art Ambarik on data bottlenecks, advisor transitions, and removing operational friction

(08:30) – Kylie Felker on using efficient systems to create unreasonable hospitality for clients

(15:30) – Terry Parham Jr on evaluating wealth tech through impact, efficiency, and effectiveness

I recently spoke with Elevation Point CEO Jim Dickson about the future of RIAs and why proactive data management and AI-powered tools are becoming table stakes. We also discussed Elevation Point’s new partnership with Milemarker and how a unified data foundation is helping fuel long-term, aligned growth.

Below are a few highlights from our conversation.

1. Atlanta, GA — January 9

2. Phoenix, AZ —January 26-28

3. Charleston, SC — January 26-28

4. Park City, UT — February 5-6

5. San Diego, CA — February 26-28

If you would like to arrange a meeting time, please reply to this email, and we’ll schedule something on the calendar.

Jud Mackrill