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

by Dan Sullivan

Michelangelo was not born a great artist. He became one and then ultimately reached legendary levels by continually pursuing what I call the 10x process.

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.

A 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.

Throughout his life, Michelangelo continued to take on projects far beyond—impossibly beyond—his skill level. Most people are afraid to commit fully to the 10x process because it inevitably requires letting go of your current identity, circumstances, and comfort zone. Going 10x means you’re living based on the most intrinsic and exciting future you can imagine. That 10x future becomes your filter for everything you do, and most of your current life can’t make it through that 10x filter. What got you here won’t get you there. To quote the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, “Every next level of your life will require a different you.”

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.

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.

The transformation occurs by operating from a seemingly impossible and imagined future, and takes you in a non-linear and radically different direction and approach than what you (and everyone else) have been doing up to this point.

The most fundamental qualitative change is 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.

Going 10x means your attention is directly on far less, but it’s insanely more potent and impactful because it’s focused rather than spread thin. Finally, 10x is not about any specific outcome. It’s about the process. 10x is a capability. It’s an operating system you deploy for: Dramatically expanding your vision and standards Simplifying your strategy and focus Identifying and removing non-essentials Developing mastery in unique areas Leading and empowering others who excitedly share your vision 10x is the vehicle for transforming yourself and your life.

10x is the means, and freedom is the end.

four fundamental freedoms that 10x people seek: Freedom of Time Freedom of Money Freedom of Relationship Freedom of Purpose17

Freedom of relationship facilitates Freedom of Purpose because relationships open and close doors. Through a relationship, you can make non-linear and 10x jumps

Expanding your freedom is what Dr. James Carse would call the “infinite game,”

Being 2x means you’re stuck in a finite game—

10x is playing the infinite game of expanding your freedom. Freedom isn’t cheap, though. It requires brutal honesty with yourself and others, which is terrifying yet liberating. There are no half-measures or half-commitments with 10x. To achieve freedom of purpose, you must let go of everything that isn’t 10x in your life. This is hard because most of your time is likely caught up in 2x work. Going 10x is the stripping away of everything that’s not “the David” of your core self and highest purpose.

Having 10x goals is one thing. But making 10x your standard, now that’s a different ball game, one that takes pure commitment and courage.

Strive for excellence in few things, rather than good performance in many

‘If you wanted to grow your profits by ten times, how would you do it?’ that would be a much better question because there are likely to be very FEW, maybe even only ONE way to create 10x growth. Indeed, almost nothing you’re currently doing would get you there.

Operating non-linearly based on past assumptions and norms: 2x. Operating non-linearly based on an exciting and seemingly impossible vision: 10x.

“That goal,” Dr. Barnard presses, “It would be impossible, unless. . ? What conditions need to be true for $10,000,000 profit in the next 12 months. Then ask yourself how can you create these ‘unless’ conditions to make the impossible, possible.”

“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.

Almost nothing works for 10x growth, which means if you take it seriously, you’ll have to be a lot more honest about everything you’re now doing.

Almost everything you’re now doing is a distraction from 10x.

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.

Small goals don’t require 80/20 thinking, because small goals don’t require much adjustment from your current approach. Thus, 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.

Only when you make the goal big enough—10x bigger—does it become absurdly and even comically obvious which strategies, relationships, or behaviors won’t work (the 80 percent).

Put simply, if you’re going for 2x growth, then you can keep or maintain 80 percent of your existing life, or what you’re now doing.

10x is the opposite of 2x. 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.

10x is fundamentally and qualitatively different from what your life looks like now. It’s a complete transformation, not simply re-arranging the furniture. Everything in your world, including yourself, will look different at 10x.

tightly scheduled entrepreneurs cannot transform themselves. 2x is working in the business. 10x is working on yourself and working on the business.

10x is qualitative, not quantitative—it’s about different and better, not more. The more different and better you are for a highly specific type of person, the more asymmetric the upside in everything you do.

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.

10x simplifies. 2x keeps things complex and muddled. When you make 10x your target, 80 percent of your current clients and relationships become impediments.

What is your 20 percent that if you went all-in on, you’d become 10x more valuable and impactful? What are the few things you do and the few people you work with that produce most of your success and excitement? What is your 80 percent that is keeping you grinding away, and ultimately a distraction for your biggest future jumps?

Dan Sullivan regularly says, “Nothing happens until after you commit.”

The term for someone like Linda, who has a 10x mindset in a 2x organization or industry, is Rate-Buster.29,30 This expression originated in factory work when a pieceworker radically outproduced the established norm leading to extreme opposition by fellow workers who feared the rate-buster’s high productivity may either lead to a reduction in the piece rate or in a higher expectation of required output.

Overtime, the 10x clients will love you for evolving and growing yourself and the 2x clients will leave, bothered, because you disrupted their status quo and comfort zone.

Hiring Whos to free-up your 80 percent isn’t a cost, but a massive investment in yourself and your business.

Each 10x jump brings you closer to becoming world-class within that 20 percent. Then, leveraging the growth and freedoms you’ve now created, you make another seemingly impossible next jump. Every time you go 10x by letting go of a previous 80 percent and going all-in on a new, more expansive 20 percent, you become more of a master, innovator, and leader. Over time, with enough 10x jumps, you increasingly become the leader to other leaders, wherein you’re directly influencing fewer people but the overall impact and ripples of your influence spread exponentially.

Each of those 10x jumps first involved a qualitative shift within Linda, wherein she expanded her vision and her identity of who she could be. Then, with her elevated vision, she made a qualitative and non-linear shift in her focus and strategy, focusing on her new 20 percent and letting go of her then 80 percent.

Going for 10x growth means you must eliminate 80 percent of your existing clients, roles, behaviors, and mindsets. 10x requires a full-scale transformation of yourself as well as everyone and everything around you.

10x is non-linear—enormous growth does not require more effort, but often requires less, but better. It’s qualitatively focused—you’ve elevated your vision and focus such that you’re now transforming the value and impact of what you do for increasingly specific people. Every time you make a 10x jump, you do so by letting go of your current 80 percent and going deeper into a more powerful and concentrated 20 percent. Letting go of your 80 percent generally involves hiring Whos to take over your 80 percent, and to systemize and organize what is repeatable so you can innovate what isn’t repeatable.

This is one of the most common reasons people and entrepreneurs don’t go 10x. They know it will make those around them feel uncomfortable for a time.

As you radically evolve through the 10x process, many people in your life won’t comprehend the evolution you’ve experienced. It will defy logic and reality to them, and therefore they will disregard or entirely avoid seeing the changes you’ve made. 10x can indeed repel 2x. By embracing the 10x process, you’ll evolve internally and externally far more than the average person, although the 10x process is available to all people who choose freedom over security.

Chad exhibits a quality that only the world’s top achievers do: the ability to rapidly accept a new identity.

Put simply, your identity as a person is what you’re most committed to. It’s the story about yourself you’re committed to, and it’s the personal standards you’re most committed to.