10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less

by Dan Sullivan

Chapter Takeaways Going 10x involves the continuous process of increasing the quality and decreasing the quantity of everything you do. How you do anything is how you do everything. Shedding your 2x-identity can be difficult, because as people we have the tendency to avoid loss, overvalue what we currently own, and desire to be seen as consistent. Your identity is the story you believe about yourself and the standards you hold for yourself. Defining and choosing your own minimum standards, no matter how seemingly impossible to yourself and others, is fundamental to experiencing a 10x transformation. Evolving yourself to the level of a higher minimum standard requires commitment and courage, which eventually leads to the development of new capabilities and confidence (Dan’s 4C’s formula). Jimmy Donaldson’s three ingredients to his 10x process are: 1) thinking exponentially and non-linearly bigger, 2) hyper-focusing on quality over quantity, and 3) building a team to handle the 80 percent so you can focus and improve in your craft. 10x goals are easier than 2x goals for many reasons. 10x goals are less competitive. 10x goals require you to focus on very few things rather than many, which improves your brain’s ability to focus—research shows that continual task switching makes flow and high performance basically impossible.50,51 10x goals promote non-linear approaches which produce novel, innovative, and competition-free solutions. Finally, 10x goals foster leadership and tea...