The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure

by Grant Cardone

the best way to dominate is to do what others refuse to do.

I seek out ways in which I can get an unfair advantage—and one surefire way to do this is to do what others won't.

Find something they cannot do, maybe because of their size or their commitment to other projects, and then exploit that.

You need to adopt the attitude that you have so much power in your space that your clients, your market, and even your competition automatically think about you first when they think about what you do.

Think about domination like this: You can't dominate if you don't penetrate, and you won't penetrate by using reasonable levels of activity.

Two things will happen when you take the right amount of action: (1) You will get a new set of problems and (2) your competition will start promoting you.

Determine the capability, actions, and mind-set of those against whom you compete. Do what they will not do, go where they will not go, and think and take actions in 10X quantities that they cannot comprehend.

Don't get too involved in competing on best practices; take your actions to a point considered unreasonable by the world, where you are doing those things that only you and your company would, could, or are willing to do—something I call “only practices.”

It doesn't matter what you do—it does matter that your goal be to dominate your sector with actions, that are immediate, consistent, and persistent and at levels that no one else is willing to operate at or duplicate.

Take any action, and take it to a level that will separate you and your company from everyone else who might be in your space.

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Most people make only enough effort for it to feel like work, whereas the most successful follow up every action with an obsession to see it through to a reward.

Any individual or group that accomplished something significant was completely obsessed with the idea of it.

Nothing great will ever happen without someone becoming obsessed with the concept—and then staying obsessed while approaching each task, challenge, and moment as vital, necessary, and a must.

It is impossible for you to “use up” all of your energy—or creativity. It is impossible for you to run out of ideas.

Entrepreneurs and especially salespeople suffer most when they fail to go all in—

Learn to commit first, and figure out how to show up later.

Simply put: If you are not creating new problems for yourself, then you aren't taking enough action.

One of the major differences between successful and unsuccessful people is that the former look for problems to resolve, whereas the latter make every attempt to avoid them.

So remember: Overcommit, be all in, and take massive levels of action followed up by massive amounts of more actions.

Although there are, of course, times when you must defend, retreat, and conserve, you should only do so for short periods of time—in order to prepare yourself to reinforce and attack again.

although spending money is the most common way for businesses to expand, it is certainly not the only way—and is not nearly as valuable as taking 10X actions consistently and persistently.

Keep taking action until you can't stop your forward momentum.

Success tends to bless those who are most committed to giving it the most attention.

It's somewhat like a lawn or garden; no matter how green it gets or beautiful the flowers, you must continue to tend to it.

You can never take too much action or accumulate too much success.

It's not even necessarily the creativity that is so brilliant but the ability to take massive action that it prompts.

Fear isn't bad or something to avoid; conversely, it's something you want to seek and embrace. Fear is actually a sign that you are doing what's needed to move in the right direction.

An absence of concerns signals that you are only doing what's comfortable for you—and that will only get you more of what you have right now.

As strange as it may sound, you want to be scared until you have to push yourself to new leve...

I know it feels real when you are experiencing it, but admit it: Most of the time, what you fear doesn't even occur.

But regardless of whether you agree with my opinion on emotions, you must reframe your understanding of fear and use it as a reason to move forward rather than as an excuse to stop or retreat.

Use this frequently avoided feeling as a green light to signal you to what you should do!

Adults have their own “boogeymen”—the unknown, rejection, failure, success, and so on. And these boogeymen should be a sign to take action as well. For example, if you're afraid to call on a client, then it's a sign that you should call that client.

fear is a sign to do whatever it is you fear—and do it quickly.

The truth is actually quite the contrary; I am scared most of the time. However, I refuse to feed my fear with time and allow it to get stronger.

It does not take money or luck to create a great life; it requires the ability to move past your fears with speed and power.

The first thing you must do is make success your duty by setting distinct and definitive priorities.

Most people only work enough so that it feels like work, whereas successful people work at a pace that gets such satisfying results that work is a reward.

Try to take this approach: Be grateful to go to work, and see how much you can get done in the time you have. Make it a race, a challenge—make it fun.

My daughter merely gave me another reason to create success—not an excuse to avoid working more.

You cannot blame your family for keeping you from creating the success you deserve.

The first thing my wife and I did was build our daughter's sleep schedule around our priorities.

the point is that we are controlling our time rather than just haphazardly trying to manage it.

The busier you become, the more you have to manage, control, and prioritize.

If you start with a commitment to success and then agree to control time, you will create an agenda that accommodates all you want.

You must command, control, and squeeze every second out of it in order to increase your footprint and dominate the marketplace.