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you’re the context of your thoughts and emotions, and as you change the context, the content changes as well.
Most people reach for just a little bit more—a promotion, a little more money, a new personal record. Going for incremental progress is a 2x mindset, which at a fundamental level means you’re continuing or maintaining what you’re already doing. You’re letting the past dictate what you do and how you do it. 2x is linear, meaning you’re striving to double output by doubling effort. Do more of the same, just faster and harder. 2x is exhausting and soul-defeating. It’s extremely difficult to put the pedal to the metal and grind away for inches of progress.
By contrast, 10x is so big and seemingly impossible that it immediately forces you out of your current mindset and approach. You can’t work 10x harder or longer. Brute force and linear methods won’t get you to 10x.
10x isn’t about more. It’s about less. Michelangelo understood this clearly. When the Pope asked about the secret of his genius, particularly in regard to the statue of David, Michelangelo explained, “It’s simple. I just remove everything that is not David.” Going 10x is the simplification of your focus down to the core essential. Then you remove everything else.
Just as 10x isn’t about more but less, 10x is also not about quantity. It’s about quality.
10x is the equivalent of going from crawling to walking; from not knowing the alphabet to reading; from living in your parent’s basement to living on your own; from being awkward and shy to being a bold and emotionally intelligent leader.
internal, your vision and identity. By changing these, everything else you’re doing simultaneously changes as well. You take your internal and emotional evolution and externalize that in the form of refined standards and results.
frees you. There are two levels of freedom—surface-level freedom and higher-level freedom. Surface-level freedom is external and more measurable. This is “freedom from”—where you’re freed from ignorance, poverty, and slavery. But there is a more abundant kind of freedom that is internal and qualitative. This is “freedom to”—which is where you take full ownership over your life.
Higher-level freedom requires commitment and courage. You choose your standard and live based on that standard, regardless of the associated risks or costs. No one can give you this higher-level freedom. A matter of conscious choosing, freedom to is purely internal. You could have all the external freedoms imaginable and yet not be free.
They shook their head in disbelief, realizing how much of their lives were stuck in 2x mode. It became absurdly obvious they were needlessly maintaining so many situations, projects, and people that were 2x, not 10x. They were operating out of need not want; scarcity not abundance; security not freedom.
Small goals are unable to clarify effective pathways because they are too marginal or linear from your current location. This is a fundamental reason why 10x goals and vision are simpler, easier, and more practical than 2x goals. With a 2x goal, there are too many potential pathways to reach the desired destination. This creates paralysis-by-analysis and makes it extremely difficult to know where to focus your best energy and effort. Conversely, with a 10x goal, only a limited number of strategies or paths will work.
the easiest way to get 2x growth is by going for 10x, because 10x forces you to stop almost everything you’re doing, which is ultimately a waste of time anyway.
“Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
10x separates the signal from the noise.
In psychology, pathways thinking is an attribute of high-hope people—those who are highly committed to specific goals. These high-hope people are continually learning and iterating their process and path toward their goal.
In order to clarify what matters from what doesn’t, you need to specify your goal. Without knowing your goal, it’s impossible to find an effective path forward.
the second requirement for separating the 20 percent that matters and the 80 that’s taking you some other way is setting much bigger goals.
Going for 10x requires letting go of 80 percent of your current life and focus and going all-in on the crucial 20 percent that’s relevant and high-impact.
To go 10x, you simplify your focus by continually letting go of everything that doesn’t meet your 10x filter. Each time you go 10x, the filter gets finer and finer, letting less pass through.
In order to become the best, you must embrace the art of quitting. Those who become the best don’t hold on to any 80 percent activity or identity for too long.
It’s scary letting go of the 80 percent because the 80 percent is your comfort zone.
Your identity is the story you believe about yourself and the standards you hold for yourself.
“The world is divided into two types of people: those who are ‘needers’ and those who are ‘wanters.’ Needers compete for scarce resources and opportunities, while wanters are involved in the continual expansion of cooperation among abundance-minded individuals.”
There is no justification of wants. If someone asks why you want something, you don’t need to explain yourself. You simply want it because you want it.
If you need something scarce, you have to rationalize why you should have it rather than someone else. Not only do you have to justify what you need to yourself, but you have to justify it to everyone else as well.
“The people most likely to grasp that wealth can be created are the ones who are good at making things, the craftsmen.
When you live life based on want, rather than need, you’re playing an infinite game. You see that reality is created and chosen—and is based on wealth, freedom, and value.
Needing is extrinsically motivated, whereas wanting is intrinsically motivated. Needing is security-driven, whereas wanting is freedom-driven. Needing is scarcity-minded, whereas wanting is abundance-minded. Needing is reactive, whereas wanting is creative.
When you operate in the world of needs, you always have to rationalize and justify what you’re doing.
To quote Stephen Covey, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
What you most want and your Unique Ability are connected. You must embrace that you yourself are a unique individual.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path.” — STEVE JOBS1
10x is fundamentally about freedom. The freedom to be, live, and create what you want and how you want. Freedom obviously isn’t free. It requires extreme self-honesty, commitment, and courage. It requires peeling away the layers of fear and attachment that would keep you 2x and living a life based on need, not want. It takes owning the consequences of your wins and losses, as well as the consequences of not being understood by many of those around you.
“To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage. You need to be in a position where your performance can be measured, or there is no way to get paid more by doing more. And you have to have leverage, in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect . . . I think everyone who gets rich by their own efforts will be found to be in a situation with measurement and leverage. Everyone I can think of does: CEOs, movie stars, hedge fund managers, professional athletes. A good hint to the presence of leverage is the possibility of failure. Upside
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