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by
Dan Sullivan
Started reading
June 10, 2023
In psychology, there’s an increasingly crucial concept, psychological flexibility, which is defined as the ability to respond to obstacles successfully and in a way that is congruent with personal standards.6 Essentially, psychological flexibility is moving toward chosen goals even when it’s emotionally difficult. You acknowledge and accept your emotions, but they don’t control you.
core aspect of psychological flexibility is viewing yourself as a context, rather than viewing yourself as content.10,11,12 This enables you to not overly identify with your thoughts and emotions, since you’re not your thoughts and emotions. Instead, you’re the context of your thoughts and emotions, and as you change the context, the content changes as well.
goals.
Leonardo DiCaprio, “Every next level of your life will require a different you.”
You’re letting the past dictate what you do and how you do it.
10x isn’t about more. It’s about less.
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.”
According to constraint theory, the greatest human bottleneck is attention. Our attention is our most finite resource, even more finite and valuable than our time. Indeed, the quality and depth of our attention determines the quality of our time. Most people’s attention is scattered, tugged, and seemingly never right here and right now.
Finally, 10x is not about any specific outcome. It’s about the process.
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.
10x is the means, and freedom is the end.
Dan Sullivan, discovered four fundamental freedoms that 10x people seek: Freedom of Time Freedom of Money Freedom of Relationship Freedom of Purpose17
Going 10x is the stripping away of everything that’s not “the David” of your core self and highest purpose.
the point of no return, that identified a core difference between wannabe entrepreneurs and successful ones.
To go for easy and simple, you’ll have to let go of everything in your life that is needlessly hard. More specifically, you’ll have to let go of everything you don’t truly want.
Choosing what you want takes radical honesty, commitment, and courage.
Everything else they’re doing is noise.
This creates paralysis-by-analysis and makes it extremely difficult to know where to focus your best energy and effort.
The goal determines the process.
“The only way to make your present better,” said Dan Sullivan, “is by making your future bigger.”
There are many paths to 2x or linear progress, which is one reason it’s ineffective and overly complex to go 2x. There are few paths leading to 10x, making the goal simple and highly effective. Again, almost nothing will work for 10x, which is why it’s so useful.
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. As the old Norman Vincent Peale quote states, “Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
10x separates the signal from the noise.
pathways thinking
10x is simple. Very few paths will get you there.
Working too many hours means you’re living 2x, not 10x. It means you’re focused on effort, not transformation.
Bluntly, 20 percent of your focus is producing 80 percent of your best and most desired results.
But here’s where it gets interesting. There is a crucial distinction that hasn’t been clearly spelled-out until now.
when the destination or transformation is minor, then very little needs to change about what you’re now doing.
What got you here won’t get you there.
free himself up to innovate, strategize, and evolve himself and his thinking.
Research shows that in order to activate a flow and high-performance state, a given task requires three things: 1) clear and specific goals, 2) immediate feedback, and 3) the challenge is above and outside the current skill-level.
when the “why” is strong enough, you’ll find the “how.”
“Nothing happens until after you commit.”
“It’s like I become Neo in the Matrix and can dodge bullets.”
pathways thinking,
Hiring Whos to free-up your 80 percent isn’t a cost, but a massive investment in yourself and your business.
wherein you become the most powerful version of yourself—your own Unique version of “The David.”
Chapter Takeaways Seemingly impossible goals are more practical than possible goals because impossible goals force you outside your current level of knowledge and assumptions. Very few pathways create 10x. With genuine reflection, a 10x target spotlights the few pathways—the high-leverage strategies and relationships—with extreme upside. 10x goals enable you to clearly identity the 20 percent of things and people in your life that are producing most of your results, and the 80 percent of things and people in your life that are holding you back. Going for 2x growth means you can keep 80 percent
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the ability to rapidly accept a new identity.
Your identity is fundamentally two things: it’s 1) the story or narrative you have for yourself, and it’s 2) the standards or commitments you hold for yourself.
Nothing happens until you commit.
According to Prospect Theory, humans have an enormous aversion to loss.6 We fear and avoid loss far more than we seek gain. Loss aversion primarily manifests itself in three specific forms—1) continuing to invest in something unprofitable simply because you’ve already invested in it (i.e., sunk cost bias),7,8 2) overvaluing something you own, believe, or have created simply because it’s yours (i.e., endowment effect),9,10,11 and 3) continuing to do something you’ve previously done in order to be viewed by yourself and others as consistent (i.e., consistency principle).12,13,14
You see yourself as a context, not the content of your thoughts and emotions.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
“It isn’t 10,000 hours that creates outliers,” said entrepreneur and angel investor Naval Ravikant. “It’s 10,000 iterations.”
You master at the level of your focus and standards.
the competition is highest for average goals.
you must go all-in.
self-determination theory).
