10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan, Benjamin Hardy

Build­ing upon one of his high-lev­el foun­da­tion­al teach­ings: Strate­gic Coach co-founder Dan Sul­li­van explains why achiev­ing 10 times growth is sim­pler than aim­ing for twice growth.

Dan Sul­li­van, the world’s pri­ma­ry coach for high­ly suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neurs, wants you to under­stand that achiev­ing 10 times growth is sig­nif­i­cant­ly sim­pler than striv­ing for twice growth. Most find this notion per­plex­ing at first because just pic­tur­ing 10 times growth makes them believe they need to do 10 times more work to attain it. How­ev­er, being a 10 times entre­pre­neur is noth­ing like what most peo­ple assume.

10 times is not the end result; it’s a coun­ter­in­tu­itive process you can imple­ment every time you desire expo­nen­tial growth in your life and busi­ness. To make 10 times fea­si­ble, you must con­cen­trate on broad­en­ing what Dan defines as your four most cru­cial free­doms-time, mon­ey, rela­tion­ship, and pur­pose. As your time becomes 10 times more valu­able, you pro­gres­sive­ly mul­ti­ply the mon­ey you earn both in terms of amount and prof­itable sat­is­fac­tion. As mon­ey turns into a tool you can increas­ing­ly access with greater ease, you will engage with a grow­ing num­ber of oth­er free­dom-moti­vat­ed indi­vid­u­als. As both your pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al life fills up with 10 times more unique and col­lab­o­ra­tive rela­tion­ships, you will real­ize that your most pow­er­ful pur­pos­es in all areas become 10 times more last­ing and pos­i­tive for every­one involved. You will be impressed by what your life has evolved into, and the mean­ing and impact you’re having.

10 times is fun­da­men­tal­ly about qual­i­ty ver­sus quan­ti­ty, and the qual­i­ty of your free­doms deter­mines the results you achieve.

The startling simplicity of 10x growth

 The pri­ma­ry insight of this chap­ter is that while 2X appears eas­i­er than 10 times growth, the reverse is actu­al­ly true.

With grad­ual growth, every­thing seems essen­tial, and it’s chal­leng­ing to pin­point things to cease doing. How­ev­er, 10 times goals — unat­tain­able goals — push you beyond your exist­ing lev­el of knowl­edge and assump­tions com­pelling you to step back.

In doing so, you dis­cov­er that while there are numer­ous paths to reach incre­men­tal results, there are actu­al­ly very few paths to reach 10 times results. There­fore, gain­ing this clar­i­ty regard­ing the activ­i­ties and peo­ple in your life that are gen­er­at­ing most of your results is crucial.

The con­se­quence of this is that 10 times growth neces­si­tates elim­i­nat­ing the 80% of cur­rent clients, roles, behav­iors, and mind­sets that are hin­der­ing you. This is what makes it so trans­for­ma­tive, and why 10 times can be sim­pler and more direct and demand less effort than twice.

The chal­lenge is to have the brav­ery to relin­quish the 80% of things that appear so impor­tant. It does­n’t mean that you dis­card them entire­ly from your busi­ness, but it does mean that oth­er peo­ple need to take them on.

Recap: With twice, every­thing seems cru­cial. With 10 times, only a few things are cru­cial, and that makes 10 times eas­i­er to pursue.

10 times the quality of everything you do

The cen­tral insight in chap­ter two is that 10 times is main­ly a qual­i­ta­tive aim about qual­i­ty and inno­va­tion. It’s not actu­al­ly a quan­ti­ta­tive aim.

Focus­ing on mas­tery – doing a few things extra­or­di­nar­i­ly well – will be far more effec­tive than doing many things at a com­mon­place level.

Jim­my Don­ald­son, also known as Mr. Beast, illus­trates this think­ing well. He elab­o­rates that by cre­at­ing YouTube videos that are just 10% bet­ter than every­body else, you may receive four times the num­ber of views. In oth­er words, an enhance­ment in qual­i­ty pro­duces expo­nen­tial results.

The asser­tion here is that 10 times goals are sim­pler than twice goals because they are less com­pet­i­tive and require you to delve deep on a few things rather than broad on many things.

Expressed dif­fer­ent­ly, 10 times does­n’t require you to be 10 times bet­ter than every­one else, but it does oblige you to the path of mas­tery. It’s hence more about iden­ti­ty than an aggres­sive action plan.

Recap: To achieve 10 times, do sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er things, better.

10 times embraces abundance and rejects scarcity

This chap­ter pro­pos­es that we don’t require 10 times, but if we get clear on our pur­pose, then we might desire it enough to opt to pur­sue mas­tery in our unique abil­i­ty (what we most have to offer).

This chap­ter com­mences with an intrigu­ing dis­course around “need­ing ver­sus wanting.”

Need­ing is a scarci­ty mind­set pred­i­cat­ed on our belief that we must jus­ti­fy to oth­er peo­ple why we desire what we want. We pre­sume that if we want some­thing, then some­body else will not have it. Instead, if we take a want­i­ng approach to life, we can estab­lish our­selves 10 times goals.

The truth is we nev­er need 10 times goals, but we might indeed  them, and we need to step into that ownership.

The chap­ter then pro­ceeds to explore the notion of mas­tery, link­ing it to the con­cept of a Unique Abil­i­ty. This is the man­ner in which we pro­vide the most val­ue for oth­er peo­ple, and that nobody else could ever dupli­cate even if they desired to.

Our unique abil­i­ty like­ly man­i­fests in numer­ous areas through­out our entire life. So, it’s cru­cial not to restrict it to a very spe­cif­ic modal­i­ty such as teach­ing, writ­ing, con­sult­ing, leading.

When you exhib­it that con­fi­dence in your mas­tery, then you are lib­er­at­ed from hav­ing to con­tin­u­ous­ly be a “sell­er” of your­self. Instead, you can embrace a “buy­er” mind­set and only pur­sue oppor­tu­ni­ties and col­lab­o­ra­tions that align with your 10 times goals.

Once you break free from a scarci­ty mind­set, you can set explic­it stan­dards and bound­aries. For instance, what is the min­i­mal val­ue you are will­ing to accept for your ser­vices? What types of oppor­tu­ni­ties will you wel­come, and what will you decline?      

Recap: If you only pur­sue what you require, 10 times isn’t for you. But if you decide you want it, com­mit to mas­tery in your Unique Ability.

Reveal your 10 times past to clarify your 10 times future

The objec­tive of this chap­ter is to remind you that you’ve already made 10 times leaps in the past, and can do so again.

Many high achiev­ers are inclined to be con­sis­tent­ly frus­trat­ed and unsuc­cess­ful, irre­spec­tive of how much they’ve accom­plished. This is because they mea­sure them­selves against all the goals they’ve set. How­ev­er, these goals or ideals, and regard­less of how far we progress towards them, the fur­ther they retreat because we sim­ply ele­vate what we are work­ing towards.

Instead, mea­sure your advance­ment against where you have been pre­vi­ous­ly. Don’t com­pare your­self with oth­er peo­ple or any ideals. But assess how you have advanced. This gen­er­ates a game you can tri­umph in. Any sit­u­a­tion can be uti­lized for your learning.

This under­scores the sig­nif­i­cance of scru­ti­niz­ing progress against var­i­ous time­frames. The progress in the last day, the last week, the last year, and so forth.

This chap­ter goes a step fur­ther and essen­tial­ly urges you to list out your pri­or 10 times leaps. Again, it’s essen­tial to rec­ol­lect that 10 times isSub­jec­tive, not objec­tive – so sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments for Ben­jamin Hardy encom­pass being admit­ted for a PhD, get­ting mar­ried and start­ing a fam­i­ly, becom­ing a paid author, etc.

With­in this sec­tion, Ben­jamin Hardy and Dan Sul­li­van also intro­duce the con­cept of a “fit­ness func­tion” and inquire:

What are you enhanc­ing for?

What are the attrib­ut­es you wish to cultivate?

What are the cri­te­ria by which you gauge progress and achievement?

To recap: The more you con­cen­trate on some­thing, the more you embody it. To achieve a 10X enhance­ment, con­sid­er what kind of per­sona you should embody to deliv­er the cor­re­spond­ing value.

Embrace 150+ leisure days per year

The core con­cept of this chap­ter is that the peri­ods when you com­plete­ly detach from con­tem­plat­ing your enter­prise will para­dox­i­cal­ly pro­pel you towards your 10X tar­gets more swift­ly than ever.

This chap­ter out­lines Dan Sul­li­van’s wide­ly-rec­og­nized time-block­ing system:

Focus days for engag­ing in your para­mount high-val­ue under­tak­ings, the “20%” that will pro­pel you towards your 10X goal.

Buffer days for ground­work (man­ag­ing oth­er essen­tial respon­si­bil­i­ties not with­in your Unique Ability)

And Free days when you gen­uine­ly abstain from busi­ness focus, enabling you to reju­ve­nate, explore fresh con­cepts, unwind, and connect

The unex­pect­ed truth is that the more free days you take, the more prob­a­ble your suc­cess. Inno­va­tion and exper­tise neces­si­tate you to be well-rest­ed, imag­i­na­tive, and delv­ing into con­cepts beyond your field. Sur­ren­der­ing the low-val­ue 80% activ­i­ties requires you to give your team the “present of inde­pen­dence”, empow­er­ing them to han­dle the work autonomously.

Recap: If you are con­stant­ly toil­ing, you won’t have the room and vital­i­ty to tru­ly break through to 10X.

Establish a self-operating corporation

The cen­tral idea of this chap­ter is that, fun­da­men­tal­ly, you desire to fos­ter an envi­ron­ment where every team mem­ber is empow­ered to pur­sue their Unique Abil­i­ty and esca­late their val­ue tenfold.

This chap­ter revolves around illus­trat­ing the tran­si­tions between four tiers of entre­pre­neur­ship that each entre­pre­neur will need to nav­i­gate on their voy­age towards 10X objectives:

Lev­el 1: Inde­pen­dent per­former, man­ag­ing all tasks yourself.

Lev­el 2: Man­ag­er who has assem­bled a team around them.

Lev­el 3: Leader who has entire­ly dis­en­gaged from oper­a­tions, with lead­ers in posi­tion to over­see every­thing, enabling you to focus on inno­va­tion in your Unique Abil­i­ty and ele­vate your val­ue tenfold.

Lev­el 4: Leader who has estab­lished a busi­ness where every­one, at every lev­el, is empow­ered to con­tin­u­ous­ly refine their scope to con­cen­trate on their Unique Abil­i­ty. Con­se­quent­ly, the full team is engaged in mag­ni­fy­ing their val­ue tenfold.

 

Recap: 10X isn’t solely about you

It con­cerns every indi­vid­ual in your team mas­ter­ing the art of enhanc­ing their own value.

Cru­cial insights and prac­ti­cal guid­ance from “10X is Eas­i­er Than 2X”

The book con­tains a wealth of knowl­edge, and Dan Sul­li­van and Ben­jamin Hardy present a com­pre­hen­sive list of key insights at the con­clu­sion of each chap­ter – almost an excess, in my per­spec­tive! Here, in my view, are the essen­tial action steps from the book:

Duly remem­ber that 10X is sub­jec­tive, and implies “oper­at­ing at an entire­ly new lev­el” in some man­ner. This is why I pre­fer dis­cussing “incre­men­tal ver­sus expo­nen­tial” or “break­through goals” to encap­su­late the same concept.

Devote some time to delin­eate what a cap­ti­vat­ing 10X objec­tive would resem­ble, with­out the need to ratio­nal­ize why you require it. You can mere­ly desire it.

Ensure it not only per­tains to your present work sce­nario but also aligns with your endur­ing realm of intrigue, inspi­ra­tion, and val­ue-gen­er­a­tion over time.

You are the imped­i­ment, hence seek out indi­vid­u­als to han­dle every task unre­lat­ed to your Unique Abil­i­ty. These are the respon­si­bil­i­ties keep­ing you ensnared in the cycle.

Spec­i­fy what you are enhanc­ing for and envi­sion what pur­su­ing mas­tery will entail. How will you lever­age your Unique Abil­i­ty to inno­vate and enhance quality?

When feel­ing dis­heart­ened, prompt­ly assess if you are com­par­ing your­self against your 10X ambi­tions, and instead rec­ol­lect – and cel­e­brate – the strides you have already taken.

Allo­cat­ing ample time away from work, and refrain­ing from infus­ing work into free days is cru­cial. Just as every ath­lete com­pre­hends, recov­ery is an indis­pens­able com­po­nent of top per­for­mance. Arrange your free days far in advance, secur­ing them, allow­ing you to plan around them effectively.

Engage in con­ver­sa­tions with your team regard­ing their Unique Abil­i­ty, and grant them the lib­er­ty to explore ways to ded­i­cate more time to that area.