The 10X Rule
The Only Difference Between Success and Failure
Ready to 10X your thinking and your action? Fantastic. Grant Cardone is your man. In this high intensity, LET'S DO THIS! book you'll get fired up to go out and crush it. Big Ideas we explore include how to create goals, why MASSIVE ACTION is so important, how to starve fear, why obsession is a gift not a disease and how Smokey would smoke the tortoise and the hare.
Big Ideas
- The 10X Rule10X your thinking + action.
- Action: The 4 DegreesNothing. Retreat. Normal. MASSIVE.
- GoalsWrite daily + stretch!
- ObsessionAs a gift not a disease.
- Starve FearOf it’s favorite food: time.
- Tortoise vs. Harevs. Smokey.
“You’ve probably picked up this book and wondered, what exactly is the 10X Rule? And how will it help me?
The 10X Rule is the Holy Grail for those who desire success. Seriously, if there is an end all, be all—then this is it! The 10X Rule establishes the right levels of actions and thinking that guarantee success and ensure that you’ll continue operating at those levels throughout your life and career. The 10X Rule will even dissolve fears, increase your courage and belief in yourself, eliminate procrastination and insecurities, and provide you with a sense of purpose that will revitalize your life, dreams and goals.
The 10X Rule is the single principle that all top achievers are using in the most flourishing areas of their lives. Regardless of how you define success, this book will show you how to guarantee the attainment of it—with any dream and in any economy. The first thing that has to happen is for you to adjust your thinking to 10X levels and your actions to 10X quantities. I will show you how 10X thoughts and actions will make life easier and more fun and will provide you with more time. After spending a lifetime studying success, I believe the 10X Rule to be the one ingredient that all successful people know and use in order to create the lives they desire.”
~ Grant Cardone from The 10X Rule
Grant Cardone is on a mission to 10X your thinking and 10X your action so you can reach your highest potential.
His energy is palpable on every page of the book. It’s awesome.
The 10X Rule is a quick-reading, hard hitting look at how to move from average to extraordinary in pursuit of our biggest goals as we optimize and actualize. (Get a copy here.)
It’s packed with Big Ideas and I’m excited to explore a handful of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!
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Download PDFAnyone that suggests to me to do less is either not a real friend or very confused.
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Listen to the PodcastThe 10x Rule
“This is the focus of the 10X Rule: You must set targets that are 10 times what you think you want and then do 10 times what you think it will take to accomplish those targets. Massive thoughts must be followed by massive actions. There is nothing ordinary about the 10X Rule. It is simply what it is says it is: 10 times the thoughts and 10 times the actions of other people. The 10X Rule is about pure domination mentality. You never do what others do. You must be willing to do what they won’t do—and even take actions that you might deem ‘unreasonable.’
This domination mentality is not about controlling others; rather, it’s about being a model for others’ thoughts and actions. Your mind-set and deeds should serve as gauges by which people can measure themselves. 10X people never approach a target aiming to achieve just that goal. Instead, they’re looking to dominate the entire sector—and will take unreasonable actions in order to do so. If you start any task with a mind toward limiting the potential outcome, you will limit the actions necessary to accomplish that very goal.”
The 10X Rule.
It’s quite simple.
Expand your thinking of what’s possible by 10 times.
And expand your action by 10 times.
A bit nuts? Of course.
But also (very importantly) very powerful.
Let’s take a moment for a little reflection and make this personal.
What’s your vision for your life? What are your goals that inspire you?
How can you 10X them?
What actions are you taking today in pursuit of those goals? You all in?
How can you 10X them?
← Awesome.
P.S. I’m smiling as I type this. If your pulse hasn’t increased a tad just exploring those questions then please start from the beginning of this Big Idea and re-read/re-answer those questions until it does. :)
The Four Degrees of Action
“One question I’ve received over the years is, ‘Exactly how much action is necessary to create success?’ Not surprisingly, everyone is looking for the secret shortcut—and equally unsurprising is the following fact: There are no shortcuts. The more action you take, the better your chances are of getting a break. Disciplined, consistent, and persistent actions are more of a determining factor in the creation of success than any other combination of things. Understanding how to calculate and then take the right amount of action is more important than your concept, idea, invention, or business plan.
Most people fail only because they are operating at the wrong degree of action. To simplify action, we are going to break down your choices into four simple categories or degrees of action. Your four choices are:
1. Do nothing.
2. Retreat.
3. Take normal levels of action.
4. Take massive action.”
Grant tells us there are four degrees of action and dedicates a chapter to unpacking them.
Most people live in the first three degrees of action: They either do nothing, retreat or take normal levels of action.
The uber-achievers?
They take MASSIVE ACTION.
(Which, of course, matches their MASSIVE VISION.)
I don’t know how many times Grant used the phrase “massive action” in the book, but it was a LOT.
Disciplined, consistent, persistent MASSIVE ACTION.
Followed by more disciplined, consistent, persistent MASSIVE ACTION.
Followed up with more disciplined, consistent, persistent MASSIVE ACTION.
Yah, that’s the ticket.
Quick check-in: How’s your activity level?!
Note that we tend to take massive action in the areas of our lives in which we’re most flourishing while we do nothing/retreat in the areas we’re most suffering. So, you might find that you’re doing really well in some areas and not quite so well in others.
What’s exciting about this, of course, is the fact that you can dial up your results by dialing up your actions.
Remember: Disciplined, consistent, persistent MASSIVE ACTION.
P.S. Grant tells us: “I have been called a lot of things due to my commitment to action—a workaholic, obsessive, greedy, never satisfied, driven, and even manic. Yet every time I have been labeled, it’s always been by someone operating at less than the fourth degree of action. I have never had someone who is more successful than I am considering my excessive action to be a bad thing—because successful people know firsthand what it takes to achieve this kind of success. They know themselves how to get where they want to go and would never identify massive action as undesirable in any way.”
Goals: Write Daily + Stretch!
“Most people are so apathetic about their goals that they only write them down once a year. As far as I’m concerned, nothing worth doing is done only once or twice a year. The things upon which your life depends most are based on the actions you take daily. That is why I make sure to always do two things: (1) I write my goals down every day and (2) I choose objectives that are just out of reach. This opens me up to my full potential, which I use to fuel my action each day. Some people suggest that setting improbable goals might cause a person to become disappointed and lose interest. But if your goals are so small that you don’t even need to consider them on a daily basis, then you are going to lose interest!”
How often do you write down your goals?
As Grant advises, anything that’s important deserves attention more than once a year, eh?
Let’s take a moment to capture your goals.
These are my goals I’m fired up to go out and achieve:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Fantastic.
They stretching you?
Here’s a REALLY good question to gauge that: “Ask yourself whether the goals you have set are equal to your potential.”
We all need to find the goals that fire us up. Of course, Grant encourages us to GO BIG. What stretches him may not sit well with you. Experiment!!!
I personally LOVE to have big goals that fire me up and connect them to masterpiece days—remembering that it’s the consistent, persistent execution of my systems that drives the outcomes.
However you choose to approach it, have fun and here’s to experimenting!!
Obsession isn’t a disease; it’s a gift
“The dictionary defines the term ‘obsessed’ as ‘the domination of one’s thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, or desire.’ Although the rest of the world tends to treat this mind-set like a disease, I believe that it’s the perfect adjective for how you must approach success. To dominate your sector, your goal, dream, or ambition, you must first dominate your every interest, thought, and consideration. Obsession is not a bad thing here; it is a requirement to get where you want to go. In fact, you want to be so fanatical about success that the world knows you will not compromise or go away. And until you become completely obsessed with your mission, no one will take you seriously. Until the world understands that you’re not going away—that you are 100 percent committed and have complete and utter conviction and will persist in pursuing your project—you will not get the attention you need and the support you want. In this context, obsession is like a fire; you want to build it so big that people feel compelled to sit around it in admiration. And as with a fire, you have to keep adding wood to sustain the heat and the glow. You obsess over how to keep your fire burning—or it will turn to ashes.”
Obsession to your mission and your ideals.
How do you view that?
Like a disease or a gift?
Lest you think Grant is going a little crazy here, keep these words from Joseph Campbell in mind (see Notes on A Joseph Campbell Companion): “Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond.’”
And here’s how Michael Lardon, one of the world’s leading sports psychologists/peak performance masters, puts it in his great book Finding Your Zone (see Notes): “Activation energy is the energy required to start a chemical reaction. For example, you may not know that paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit and does not ignite at 450 degrees. Now imagine yourself lost in a forest, cold, needing warmth. You invest energy by rubbing two sticks together, causing friction in hope of igniting some paper and leaves. You create heat by your efforts and even raise the friction area’s temperature up to 450 degrees without successfully creating fire. Sadly, you quit in discouragement, not knowing that the activation energy is 451 degrees. However, if you push a little harder and create a little more heat and raise the temperature one degree, the chain reaction occurs and the fire ignites—burning without more effort, burning by itself.
Great champions know that if they push a little more and prepare better than their competitors, they will move past the threshold and consequently set the stage to enter into the Zone. The difference between good and great is immeasurably small. Sometimes all it takes is a bit more perseverance and you find yourself at the next level. This process of giving that little extra builds upon itself and forms the foundation for great performances.”
That 1 degree.
It makes all the difference.
Here’s to the healthy obsession and MASSIVE ACTION required to create the activation energy necessary to set our lives on fire!
It’s time to starve fear of its favorite food
“I handle this dilemma myself by omitting time from the equation—since time is what drives fear. The more time you devote to the object of your apprehension, the stronger it becomes. So starve the fear of its favorite food by removing time from its menu. For example, let’s say that John needs to make a call to a client, a task that immediately causes him to feel anxiety. So rather than picking up the phone and making the call immediately, he gets a cup of coffee and thinks about what he is going to do. His lengthy contemplation only causes his fear to grow, as he imagines all the ways the call could go badly and all the potentially terrible things that could happen. If confronted, he’s likely to claim that he needs to ‘prepare’ before he makes the call. But preparation is merely an excuse for those who haven’t trained properly—and who use it as a reason to justify their last-minute reluctance. John needs to take a deep breath, pick up the phone, and just make the call. Last-minute preparation is just another way to feed the fear that will only get stronger as time is added. Nothing happens without action.
Fear doesn’t just tell you what to do; it also tells you when to do it. Ask yourself what time it is at any point in the day, and the answer is always the same: now. The time is always now—and when you experience fear, it’s a sign that the best time to take action is at that very moment. Most people will not follow through with their goals when enough time has passed from the inception of their idea to actually doing something about it; however, if you remove time from your process, you’ll be ready to go. There’s simply no other choice than to act. There’s no need to prepare. It’s too late for that once you’ve gotten this far.”
Have you noticed that fear feeds on time?!
That’s a REALLY powerful fact we want to pay attention to. Remember: Time is fear’s favorite food.
As Patricia Ryan Madson says in Improv Wisdom (see Notes), we need to quit preparing and just JUMP IN!
In fact, her first 3 maxims in her book are “Just say YES!” + “Don’t Prepare” + “Just Show Up.” Amen.
Here’s another way Grant puts it: “Rather than seeing fear as a sign to run—as most other people do—it must become an indicator to go.”
That’s EXACTLY what The Tools guys (see Notes) tell us in their great book.
They tell us that we need to see fear/pain as a signal that we’re about ready to grow. They remind us that our INFINITE POTENTIAL exists on the other side of our fears.
Knowing that, they tell us we *must* learn to “reverse our desire” and, instead of trying to avoid pain/fear/etc. we need to LEAN INTO it. We need to forcefully say to ourselves, “BRING IT ON!!!!” And then go do what needs to be done.
How about you. What are you afraid of?
Is now a good time to take a deep breath and just do it?
(Remember this the next time you find yourself “preparing” when you’re really just avoiding! Life changing stuff.)
The Tortoise vs. The Hare vs. Smokey
“We have all heard the fable of the tortoise and the hare. The implied lesson, of course, is that the tortoise wins because he plods along and takes his time, whereas the hare rushes, becomes tired, and misses his opportunity to win. We’re supposed to derive the meaning that we should be tortoises—individuals who approach our goals steadily and slowly. If there was a third player in the fable who had the speed of the hare and the steadfastness of the tortoise, it would smoke them both and have no competition. The fable would then be called Smoked. The suggestion here is to approach your goals like the tortoise and the hare—by attacking them ruthlessly from the beginning and also staying with them throughout the course of the ‘race.’”
HAH!
I love that.
We have the Tortoise. And the Hare. And, how about we call the little creature that has the speed of the hare and steadfastness of the tortoise Smokey in honor of the fact he’d smoke them both?
Yep. I like that.
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