How Mojo Works

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Larger ovals contrubute more. Lower ovals contribute less..
Figure 1. The components of mojo.

What makes up mojo?

Merriam Webster says:
Mojo is :”a magic spell, hex, or charm, broadly: magical power
// works his mojo on the tennis court
//The team has lost its mojo.“

I’m not sure about the magic part of it, but mojo is something that a person or group has to varying degrees. You know it when you see it, even if you can’t define it. Another example of such a thing was cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who famously said in his 1964 Order, he could not use words to describe pornography but "I know it when I see it."

When something is not well understood, it is indistinguishable from magic. Maybe this is why people are often said to have their “mojo workin’” even if magic is irrelevant.

Parts of Mojo

  • motivation
  • expertise
  • experience
  • support
  • luck
  • faith
  • willingness to act.
This blog will focus on motivation because it is such a big part of mojo and is often a poorly understood concept. It may also be the underpinning of many of the other aspects of mojo. Figure 1 shows the components of mojo as I know them. The higher and larger a component is, the more it contributes to mojo.  Note that experience and willingness to act are influenced by motivation.
In future posts, I intend to explain the components of mojo, how to add external motivation to your own internal motivation to improve your mojo, how motivation can help in many situations, etc.

Here is another way to look at it that you might like.

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