INSIDER: 10x is Easier Than 2x
While navigating business, one may find it easy to settle into a steady routine of slow growth. Steadily increasing the quantity of your leads or work hours may seem like a good way to improve results. After all, working harder must always lead to better results, right? Dr. Benjamin Hardy, author of 10x is Easier Than 2x with Dan Sullivan, posits that this is actually the exact opposite of what is going to tap into your greatest potential. According to Sullivan and Hardy, it’s significantly easier to reach for lofty goals than simple and seemingly more achievable ones. In their book, they systematically break down several reasons for this and offer strategies that can help achieve those lofty goals.
THINK POINT #1: The Surprising Simplicity of 10x Growth
The most basic truth associated with pursuing “10x” goals is that seemingly impossible goals force you to think and behave outside of your current comfort zone and skill level. Achievable-feeling goals, on the other hand, allow you to remain complacent with what you already know and are capable of, which rarely ever results in real growth. Additionally, it’s clear that there are very few ways to accomplish 10x growth within your business, finances, or personal life. This forces you to follow only those paths which can help you to achieve significant growth.
Hardy and Sullivan back up this idea with the 80-20 principle from economic thought, which states that in most cases, 20 percent of causes are responsible for 80% of outcomes. This can be 20% of clients accounting for 80% of sales, 20% of your time accomplishing 80% of your productivity, or 80% of deals accounting for only 20% of revenue; the principle works both ways. Therefore, in order to go 10x, you need to focus on your most impactful 20% personally and professionally. This will allow you to grow exponentially, which is one of the keys to 10x growth according to the authors. They frequently remind the reader that linear growth is 2x growth, quantitative and repetitive in nature.
THINK POINT #2: 10x the Quality of Everything You Do
The difference between 10x and 2x is the difference between quality and quantity. The authors embrace the idea that how you do anything is how you do everything, and that you should therefore focus on 10x goals in every facet of your life. This means doing things better, not just doing more of the same things. Truly improving the quality of your work involves taking a deep look at how you’re doing things and making fundamental process changes. This mindset of constant improvement will yield much better results than simply attacking problems the same way over and over. Citing examples of this process, the authors demonstrate how even a 10-20 percent increase in quality can result in a 10x increase in quantity, because it puts you that much farther ahead of the competition. After all, more people are fighting for achievable ‘2x’ goals than are fighting for truly transformational ‘10x’ ones.
THINK POINT #3: 10x Embraces Abundance and Rejects Scarcity
If you’ve ever taken an intro-level economics class, you’ve likely heard of ‘the pie getting bigger’. This is a common mindset, especially in free market economics, that as people work and produce value, they don’t actually use up a limited amount of resources that could go to something else, but create surplus that benefits everyone involved in the exchange. Using this concept, the authors explain that a tripping point for many entrepreneurs is that they feel guilty for wanting something, because they feel that to achieve, one must necessarily hurt someone else. After all, this is often the prevailing narrative surrounding wealth. The authors’ recommendation therefore is that in order to have a 10x mindset and see explosive growth in your business and personal life, you should stop feeling that you need to justify wanting success. Instead, you should learn to be comfortable simply wanting it, and that being justification enough.
THINK POINT #4: Uncover Your 10x Past to Clarify Your 10x Future
Strategizing for 10x jumps can seem difficult and require excessive time, effort, and total dedication to making them happen. But, most people aren’t aware that they’ve certainly made several 10x jumps in their own lives already. The authors suggest that you look back and recognize that “any time you’ve committed to something you wanted and, transformed through that commitment, you went 10x.” They cite learning to speak, read, make friends, and drive a car as key moments in most everyone’s life that reflect transformational changes.
A key framework to be able to appreciate these previous 10x jumps is what the authors dub “the gap and the gain.” The gap is a mindset that many people fall into which entails being ungrateful for something if it wasn’t exactly what you expected and, second, always comparing where you are currently to where you think you should be. The gain, on the other hand, is a more positive mindset, measuring what you have against the alternative—that you could have nothing. The gain is realizing how far you’ve come in the past and realizing that you can do the same again in the future.
THINK POINT #5: Take 150+ “Free Days” Per Year
Like many of their other assertions, this one may seem counterintuitive, but the authors actually suggest that the more time you spend resting, the more you’ll be able to accomplish. Rather than embracing the traditional grinding lifestyle, Sullivan and Hardy look to athletes and performers to get an idea of how people live at the top of their craft. What they found is that most often those individuals have distinct types of days, including dedicated performance, rest and recharging, and preparation days.
Another aspect of this solution is that the days when you are working should be wholly focused and dedicated to one activity as much as possible. Breaking up every day between meetings, emails, other menial tasks, and trying to do the actually creative work that you enjoy is a great way to make sure that you’re never really able to get in a groove with your work.
THINK POINT #6: Build a Self-Managing Company
A central idea of this book and Sullivan’s philosophy when it comes to entrepreneurship and success is “Who not How.” This entails finding the right people to take work off your plate, rather than trying to figure out how to do it yourself. This is a major step in eliminating the 80 percent of your work that is only producing 20 percent of your results. Finding the right ‘who’ will mean tapping into their own 20 percent, their “unique ability,” as the authors call it. By enabling individuals within your organization to tap into their greatest potential, you can help the firm to function like a well-oiled machine and have people constantly unlocking their 20 percent while you focus on bringing in more people to take on the 80 percent and excel at it. Once you’ve gone through this process a few times, you will have developed a ‘self-managing company’ and may find that you’re barely needed, other than to steer the ship at the highest level. This will free you up to keep going 10x in other pursuits and to provide only the highest value activities to your company.
Real Estate Implications
While this book is geared towards entrepreneurs and self-starters, it can absolutely be applied to a real estate context. The best example of this actually comes from within Keller Williams Realty and the story of Linda McKissack, who the authors cite as a great role model of someone who has continually gone 10x throughout her own career. Starting at another real estate company with no previous experience, Linda quickly became their top agent in her area, which allowed her to focus her energy on selling properties (her 20 percent) more than helping people buy them. From there, she made the transition to Keller Williams, where she continued to excel and refine her skill set, making the jump to management and eventually to opening and managing an entire region. Linda’s story is one example of how the 10x process and mindset can be applied to real estate, but it is far from the only way. When looking to apply the insights from this book to yourself, think about what your unique ability is, what the 20 percent of your time that accomplishes most of your results looks like, and how you can leverage a “gain” mindset to transform the way to approach the world around you.
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Recommended Reading
Sullivan, Dan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy (2023), 10x is Easier Than 2x, Hay House Inc: Carlsbad, California.
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About the Author
Andrew McElroy, BBA
Baylor University
Andrew McElroy is a Project Manager for Epic Systems in Madison, Wisconsin. He is a graduate of Baylor University’s Baylor Business Fellows program with majors in Management, Marketing, and Economics, a minor in History, and a concentration in Consulting. During his time at Baylor, Andrew served in various research and ambassador positions across campus.
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