How to Achieve 10x Results in
2019 Using This Simple Strategy
You try.
Like all of us, you have a goal in your life
you’re struggling with.
You want to get in better shape, make more money,
find more clients for your business, switch careers — the list goes on.
What do you do? You set a goal. Your goal is
always reasonable — work out three times a week, write 500 words a day,
outline your business in the next 90 days and find one customer.
You’ve been told, “the journey of a thousand miles
starts with one step,” and you try to make progress little by little, but
somewhere along the line, you fall short.
What gives? You know if you just “put your mind to
it” you’d accomplish your goals, but you can’t bring yourself to execute and
commit long enough.
What if the problem isn’t your inability to follow
through with reasonable goals?
What if your goals are too reasonable and
small?
Enter the 10x rule.
The 10x Rule Explained
Grant
Cardone, entrepreneur, and author wrote the book The 10x Rule: The Only
Difference Between Success and Failure.
Here’s
the rule — Take your original goal and multiply it by 10.
Also, multiply your effort to achieve your goal by 10.
I
know what you’re thinking…
This
is just wishful thinking and macho talk.
But
the 10x Rule is one of the most practical books you’ll ever read.
Some
of the core ideas behind the 10x rule are:
Small
goals are uninspiring — Small goals are easy to accomplish but they’re
also easy to dismiss. You also don’t get much satisfaction from reaching them.
10x
goals stretch your thinking and actions — The common
wisdom is aiming high leads to disappointment, but this thinking is rooted in fear.
Setting 10x goals and multiplying your effort 10x requires a transformation,
which is what we all really want in the first place. The higher the potential
payoff, the less likely you are to quit when things get tough.
Don’t
reduce your target, increase action — What’s the
first thing we do when stumbling toward a goal? We lower it. Instead, why not
ramp up your effort? If we’re honest in these situations we’d see we’re nowhere
near our effort ceiling.
Why Reaching for the
Stars is Safer Than Staying on the Ground
There’s
a quote from Warren Buffet that says, “When the tide goes out you’ll see who’s
swimming naked.”
The
10x rule isn’t just an exercise in lofty thinking. It’s a hedge against the
tightrope of average results.
There’s
nothing wrong with average thinking, average planning, and average amounts of
action…as long as everything goes smoothly. But as soon as situations go south,
failure to set big enough targets causes massive pain.
Just
look at these examples:
Most
Americans grossly underestimate how much money they need to retire.
Many
are living paycheck to paycheck and have no savings.
The
average household has piles of debt (would you survive a repeat of 2008?)
Most
businesses fail because they underestimate how much cash they’ll need to
survive lean times
Almost
all people with ‘revolutionary’ ideas severely underestimate how much effort it
will take to execute those ideas
Living
an abundant lifestyle isn’t just pleasurable, it protects you. Society
emphasizes the virtue of mediocrity, but all morality aside, mediocrity
is mathematically and pragmatically not good because it can all be
swept away in the tide of circumstances.
You
can’t just create 10x goals and make them magically happen. You have to give a
10x effort in as well. But how do you do that when taking normal levels of
actions is hard?
Massive Action =
Massive Results
In
the book, Grant tells the story of running one of his first businesses. He
expected to do reasonably well. He wasn’t unrealistic. It would take time to
earn as much through his business as he did from his former day job. He
estimated he’d get back to that amount in 6 months. It turns out it would
actually take years before he reached the same level of income.
He
reached a point of frustration and began to lean on the crutch of excuses we’re
all prone to leaning on when things go south. The market wasn’t ready for the
product. The timing was off. Clients didn’t have the funds. So it goes.
Rather
than quit, however, he increased his activity.
Instead
of making 5 sales calls per day, he made 50.
Instead
of posting social media updates twice per day, he posted twice per
hour.
As
the company grew, customers started to complain about the frequency of his
email marketing messages. What’d he do? He decided to send messages more
frequently. This turned some of his audience off, but many began to
admire the hustle and his influence grew.
He
had the same business idea, in the same market, with the same customer pool,
and his business exploded. The only thing that changed was his effort.
Aspiring
writers reach out to me a lot. They’re all frustrated with their progress. Many
haven’t even written 50 blog posts yet. I shake my head. They should come to me
if they’re still struggling after having written 500 posts.
This
begs the question — how is the 10x rule any different from the notion
of trying
hard?
4 Levels of Action
According
to the author, we all operate at one of four levels of action:
Do
nothing — Pretty self-explanatory.
Retreat — When faced with any form of resistance we back down
immediately. People in retreat mode fear even beginning the journey of massive
accomplishment.
Normal
levels of action — You go to work and do just enough to not get
fired.
Massive
action — You mentally and physically go all in.
The
author brings up an honest point I love. People at the first two levels aren’t
really ready to take massive action in their lives.
I’ve
heard this argument before — self-help in
general usually works best for people who are already
well-adjusted enough.
Fortunately,
most of us fit into the normal level of action category and can move into
massive action.
I’ll
use myself as an example. I’m a pretty motivated guy. I wake up daily at 5
a.m.
to write, work out three times a week, wrote two books, spoke at a TEDx conference in front
of 1000+ people,
and run a successful side business. By all accounts, I’m doing well and I’m
grateful for how far I’ve come, but am I capable of much more? Absolutely.
As
motivated and productive as I may be, I still have limiting beliefs and mental
barriers that keep me from working ten times as hard to achieve ten times the
results.
These
days, I’m setting 10x goals and focusing on giving 10x effort because it might
be the only way to see what I’m actually made of. But that comes with an
emotional toll right? Life is hard. People don’t necessarily have time or
energy to go 10x. How do we deal with our current realities and find a way to step
up our game?
Stop Being a
Little Bitch
In
the audio version of the book, the author on-the-spot renames one of the
chapters, “stop being a little bitch” as opposed to “stop being a victim.”
Look,
setting aside issues on religion, politics, and sex, let’s just be honest for a
second.
As
a society, we’ve grown marshmallow soft. Slowly but surely, we’re learning to
become more helpless, reliant, and downright whiny.
I
can say this almost objectively — the government isn’t going to save you…hell
they don’t even care about you at all.
I
have my bias, of course, but it seems clear to me people have been conditioned
into expecting good things to just happen and crying when they don’t.
Look,
I get it. Your circumstances
are quite real. No
one’s saying they’re not. But at the end of the day, your life is your life and
you have to live it. Your two choices are to act or don’t. And as much as being
a victim gives you the weird pleasure that comes with martyrdom, you still end
up somewhere you don’t want to be.
Anytime
I feel sorry for myself, feel tired and weak, or feel like giving up. In
essence, I tell myself to stop being a little bitch. I remind myself of the
only two options I have — stay the same or act. After this internal
conversation, I always do the latter.
Let’s
explore some other topics from the book and explore strategies to support your
new 10x way of thinking and living.
An Unusual and Extremely
Useful Way to Look at Success
“Do
kids benefit when they see their moms and dads losing or quitting?”
This
section of the book struck me as something I’ve never heard before.
The
author says to succeed you should treat the acquisition of success as an ethical
issue.
Most
of us look at success as a luxury. We shrug it off with “sure, that’d be nice”
types of phrasing. We look at giving the most of ourselves to our lives and the
people around us as an option, not a duty.
Also,
we all have a tendency to act pious and
believe ourselves to be moral.You think you’re a good person because you
don’t steal, commit acts of violence, or overtly cheat other people. But, if
looking at the acquisition of success as an ethical issue, are you cheating
yourself and others out of what you can contribute?
You
probably are.
If
you’re tempted to rush off and mount your high horse, remember, success means
much more than a monetary reward or status. So, the argument of “I don’t care
about money and status” doesn’t fly here.
Look
deeply at your life…even in the way you treat your family. Are you fully
present? Are you giving them your full self? Or are you physically there
but not mentally because you’re preoccupied with worry or trying to drown that
worry out by tuning out?
The
point of treating success as an ethical problem isn’t to beat yourself up for
not having a million in the bank. The point is actually to humble you by
realizing that doing just enough isn’t something to be proud of.
You’re
alone reading this. Have that conversation with yourself. Are you making
success a duty or are you bullsh**ing yourself?
You
know the answer…
Adopt This Attitude
“Think
about it: What’s the worst thing that can happen to you if you just totally go
for it?”
I
entered a competition against 23 other speakers for a chance to give a talk at
a TEDx conference. I’d been in a Toastmasters club for less than six months. I
had no reason to believe they’d chose me. But I figured, “Why not? The worse
thing that could happen is they say no. That’s it.”
When
I write a new book, I spend a few thousand dollars to produce it. The worst
thing that could happen? I lose a few thousand bucks — not a ton of money in the grand scheme of things. Plus, I can’t sell negative books — I know the downside.
I
make these little bets on my future all the time. And the worst case scenario
is usually just getting my feelings hurt and ego bruised. But we’re emotional
creatures and the fear of failure and rejection can be too much to bear.
What
about you? What imaginary ghosts are
you battling now?
If
you went all in on that idea lingering in your mind, really, what’s the worse
thing that could happen?
You
don’t need a loan from the bank to start a business anymore.
You
don’t have to put your family at risk to start a new venture or find a new
career — you can always use your spare time.
There
usually isn’t a great answer to “Why not?” is there? Just fear. Always fear.
Here’s
what I know. If you do fail, there won’t be a giant crowd to witness it. Others
aren’t paying as much attention to you as you think they are. Also, human
beings have the amazing ability to recover from setbacks. Think of a time that
felt bad in the moment but barely registers with you now.
I’ve
failed at many different things. It felt bad then. But now I think, “Eh. It was
still worth the effort.” Then I move on.
I’m
no different than you. I just act before I’m ready — and the secret
is you’re never really ready.
10X The Quality of
Your Life
I
never seek to judge. I’m not the type to admonish anyone for how they live. My
goal is to get you to think for yourself and make observations that help you
change.
But
let’s just call a spade a spade. There is such a thing as being mediocre. By
way of pure numbers and comparison, some people are just in the middle.
I
know from experience that being in the middle is one of the most dangerous
places you can be — it’s also the riskiest.
Who
got hit hardest by the financial crisis? The middle.
Who
is a few health scares or negative financial windfalls from being destitute?
The middle.
Who
gets put on the chopping block when a company downsizes? Average mid-level
management.
At
least at the bottom, you have aid, support, and assistance. At the top — at 10x levels — you’re constantly prepared for the future and
always taking action, so you know you’re ready for whatever the future brings.
In
the middle, you’re most susceptible to the rug being pulled from underneath
you.
From
a purely pragmatic and practical viewpoint, it seems like escaping the middle
should be a priority.
You
may not be able to 10x your income, but you can 10x your creativity, energy,
and effort.
You
can 10x the standards you have for yourself.
The
core idea of the 10x rule is this — You are nowhere near the universe of what
you’re capable of.
Maybe
going 10x isn’t the key to everything you want in life, but underestimating
your capabilities is the key to not getting it.
I’ve
never looked at success in terms of just status, money, or otherworldly
measures. The level of effort you exert to become successful
turns you into a better version of yourself.
Become
a better version of yourself for the sake of becoming a better version of
yourself.
Ayodeji
Awosika
https://medium.com/publishous/how-to-achieve-10x-results-in-2019-using-this-simple-strategy-8792a9b3f073
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