Welcome to this week’s blog on discipline. My review this week is over the book The 10X Rule:The Only Difference Between Success and Failure, by Grant Cardone. It was written in 2011 and has 23 chapters.
Starting with Chapter 1, titled what is The 10X Rule (Seems like a good place to start). You must set targets that are ten times what you think you want and then do ten times what you think it will take to accomplish those targets. Massive thoughts must be followed by massive actions. Grant is stating here that it will take ten times the amount of time and effort to achieve these goals than we think, or at least ten times the thoughts and actions of other people. The 10X Rule is about domination mentality. Grant doesn’t want his readers to compete, he wants them to dominate. He writes, “You never do what others do, you must be willing to do what they won’t do.” Even take actions that might seem unreasonable, or that others think are unreasonable. The following are the most common mistakes made when people set out to complete goals.
- Miss targeting by setting objectives that are too low and don’t allow for enough motivation.
- Severely underestimating what it will take in terms of actions, resources, money, and energy to accomplish the goal.
- Spending too much time competing and not enough time dominating their sector.
- Underestimating the amount of adversity they will need to overcome in order to actually attain their desired goal.
Chapter 2: Why the 10X Rule is vital. Grant writes, “For every project, I’ve ever been involved in when I have underestimated the time, energy, money, and the effort necessary to bring your project to the point of success.” Have you ever been there? I certainly have. Any client or new sector of business which Grant entered took ten times more calls, emails, mail, and contacts than he originally projected, regardless of how superior the products or service or proposition, there is always something unexpected. He states, “If there is going to be work, it would depend on me increasing my efforts, not my excuses.” The marketplace will sense by your actions that you are a force to be reckoned with and you are not going away, and it will respond accordingly. For some reason, Grant believes, people develop an idea about something they want to bring to the market tend to embrace a sense of optimism that frequently causes them to grossly misjudge what it will take to complete their project. I know you’ve probably heard this before, but success does not merely happen, it is the result of relentless proper actions taken over time.
Chapter 3: What is success. However, wherever you find it, the most crucial things to know about success and how to keep it are:
- Success is important
- Success is your duty
- There is no shortage of success
Chapter 4: Success is your duty. Grants stated he literally began to see success as an ethical issue, a duty to his company, family, and future, rather than something that may or may not happen to him. If you don’t consider it your duty to live up to your potential than you simply won’t.
Chapter 5: There’s no shortage of success. It’s kind of like that unlimited pie kind of thing. People say that if you take a little of the pie, then there is only so much left for the rest. What Grant says here is that unlike a product manufactured and inventoried, there’s no limit to how much success can be created. You can have as much as you want, so can I. Your personal achievement does not prevent or limit my ability to achieve. Success is not a zero-sum game, there are many winners. Success is not a commodity or resource, it’s unlimited. Grant has found that most if not all shortages are simply manufactured notions.
Chapter 6: Assume control for everything. Success is not something that happens to you, it’s something that happens because of you and because of your actions. The 10X Rule refers to massive amounts of action taken persistently over time. In order to make good things happen more often, you cannot afford to think or act like a victim. Good things don’t happen to victims. A victim’s mentality is usually negative. It is a myth and a falsehood to think that success just happens, or just happens to some people. Grant knows that the approach he is suggesting works, “Because it is the one I have used to accumulate my own success.” Grant was not born with all the necessary tools. He took massive amounts of action, assumed control and took responsibility for every outcome. That is something that is missing a lot of times from today is taking responsibility for our actions.
Chapter 7: 4 degrees of action. Discipline, consistent, and persistent actions are a more determining factor in success than any other combination of things. Most people fail only because they are operating on the wrong degree of action. Here are the four degrees broken down:
- Do nothing
- Retreat
- Take normal levels of action
- Take massive action
Grant, of course, recommends number 4.
Chapter 8: Average is a failing formula. The addiction to average, Grant writes, can kill the possibility of making your dreams a reality. Consider the following statistics. The average worker reads on average less than one book a year and works 37 hours a week. This same person makes 319 times less money than top CEOs, who claim to read 60 books a year. So the difference between being average or well above average is 60 books a year.
Chapter 9: 10X Goals. As far as Grant is concerned, nothing worth doing is done only once or twice a year. The things on which your life depends the most are based on actions you take daily. This is why I make sure to write down my goals every day and choose objectives that are just out of my reach. This opens me up to my full potential. The 10X Rule was created for those few who are obsessed with living an exceptional life and who want to be in charge of the process. He recommends doing the following: set 10X targets, align them with your purposes, write them down every day when you wake up and when you go to sleep.
Chapter 10: competition is for sissies. Forward thinkers don’t copy. They don’t compete, they create. They also don’t do what others have done. Never make it your goal to just compete. Instead, do everything you can do to dominate your sector in order to avoid spending your time chasing someone else.
Chapter 12: Obsession isn’t a disease, it’s a gift. Most people make only enough effort for it to feel ‘like work’. Whereas the most successful follow every action with an obsession to see it through to reward.
Chapter 14: Expand never contract. The idea of constant never wavering expansion is counterintuitive, even unpopular. However, if you separate from the pack more than any other, the act of expanding while everyone else is contracting should not be reduced to some simplistic construct.
Chapter 15: Burn the place down. Don’t rest and don’t stop. Ever.
Chapter 16: Fear is the great indicator. Sooner or later you experience fear when you are taking new actions at new levels. Everybody will experience fear. In fact, if you are not, you are probably not doing enough. Grant defines fear as an acronym False Events Appearing Real (or False Evidence Appearing Real).
Chapter 17: The myth of time management. Successful people think in terms of all, whereas unsuccessful people tend to place limits on themselves. It’s that abundance mentality of the success mindset.
Chapter 18: Criticism is a sign of success. Although getting criticised is not the best feeling in the world, receiving criticism is a surefire sign that you are well on your way. Criticism is not something you want to avoid. Rather, it’s what you must expect to come your way when you’re starting something big. People generally don’t like other’s success.
Chapter 19: Customer satisfaction is the wrong target, increase in customers is the right target. This doesn’t mean that customer satisfaction isn’t important. Grant writes, “Let me explain. Customer satisfaction doesn’t concern me very much. Why? Because I know when we over-deliver to our clients and provide customer service that is well beyond satisfactory, we over deliver to every client and we never say no until we absolutely have to.” It becomes more of an expectation of that delivery than worrying about it. To be clear, you certainly want to deliver and success on your promises, however, if you focus on delivering exceptional 10X service prior to acquisition, this part will come naturally after acquisition.
Chapter 20: Omnipresence. The word omnipresence coveys the idea of being everywhere in all places at all times. Grant did something to create this. He recorded over 200 videos, wrote 150 blogs, did over 700 radio interviews in a period of 18 months. He attained national TV exposure because of that. During all of this, he personally wrote over 2000 posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. Of course, he was still working at his office during this time too. People were beginning to see his name everywhere. He was completely focused on expanding his footprint and making himself known to the rest of the world.
Chapter 21: Excuses. An excuse is justification for doing or not doing something. Nothing happens to you, it happens because of you.
Chapter 22: Successful or unsuccessful. Successful people talk, think, and approach situations and challenges different than other people. They think about money differently too. Here’s a list of 32 attributes found in successful people.
- Have a can-do attitude
- Belief that they’ll figure it out
- Focus on opportunity
- Love challenges
- Seek to solve problems
- Persist until successful
- Take risks
- Be unreasonable
- Be dangerous
- Create wealth
- Readily take action
- Always say yes
- Habitually commit
- Go all the way
- Focus on now
- Demonstrate courage
- Embrace change
- Determine and take the right approach
- Break the traditional ideas
- Be goal oriented
- Be on a mission
- Have a high level of motivation
- Be interested in results
- Have big goals and dreams
- Create your own reality
- Commit first – figure it out later
- The highly ethical
- Be interested in the group
- Be dedicated to continuous learning
- Be uncomfortable
- Reach up in relationships
- Be disciplined
Chapter 23: Getting started with 10X. There are a few things you need to keep in mind as you get started
- Do not reduce your goals as you write them down
- Don’t get lost in the details of accomplishment
- Ask, “what actions can I take today to move me towards these goals?”
- Take whatever actions you can come up with no matter how they make you feel
- Do not prematurely value the outcome of your actions
- Go back each day and review the list
So, coming to the end of this book let’s review what the 10X Rule is. It is a concept based on understanding the correct estimation of how much effort and thought are required to get anything done successfully. Where others perform one action the 10X Rule says to do ten actions that target ten times higher than you first imagined.
This is a great book especially for entrepreneurs and business people. I recommend you obtain a copy as soon as possible to be on your way to a more successful you. For coaching opportunities reach out to me at coachjeffgarrett@gmail.com or through my website. Tune in to the Coach Jeff Garrett Show, found on your favorite podcast directory, on Fridays for more helpful hints and interview. Be Great!