10x Is Easier Than 2x

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. 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. 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.

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.

According to constraint theory, the greatest human bottleneck is attention. Our attention is our most finite resource, even more finite and valuable than our time. Indeed, the quality and depth of our attention determines the quality of our time. Most people’s attention is scattered, tugged, and seemingly never right here and right now.

There are two levels of freedom—surface-level freedom and higher-level freedom. Surface-level freedom is external and more measurable. This is “freedom from”—where you’re freed from ignorance, poverty, and slavery. But there is a more abundant kind of freedom that is internal and qualitative. This is “freedom to”—which is where you take full ownership over your life.

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.

2x is working in the business. 10x is working on yourself and working on the business.

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?

This is a core Who Not How obstacle that causes many people to stumble, whether in real estate or any form of entrepreneurship—believing others can’t do your job for you. Also, believing your clients need you and only you to be the one manually performing the job. This is a myth born of fear and ignorance. When you test it, and let your Who take over and fully own the how, you re-train both yourself and your customers to see you and your work differently, and better. It becomes less about Whos doing it and more about the end result.

Seemingly impossible goals are more practical than possible goals because impossible goals force you outside your current level of knowledge and assumptions.

10x goals enable you to clearly identity the 20 percent of things and people in your life that are producing most of your results, and the 80 percent of things and people in your life that are holding you back.

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.

Continually freeing himself from his 80 percent enables him to focus on his highest form of contribution—helping his clients elevate their vision and commitment, and supporting them when they began to falter from that commitment.

According to Prospect Theory, humans have an enormous aversion to loss.6 We fear and avoid loss far more than we seek gain. Loss aversion primarily manifests itself in three specific forms—1) continuing to invest in something unprofitable simply because you’ve already invested in it (i.e., sunk cost bias),7,8 2) overvaluing something you own, believe, or have created simply because it’s yours (i.e., endowment effect),9,10,11 and 3) continuing to do something you’ve previously done in order to be viewed by yourself and others as consistent (i.e., consistency principle).12,13,14

“The difference between good and great is often an extra round of revision. The person who looks things over a second time will appear smarter or more talented, but actually is just polishing things a bit more. Take the time to get it right. Revise it one extra time.”

People make the leap of hiring far too late. By hiring even a personal or digital assistant, as Clear did, you can immediately free up space for your 20 percent, which work is higher value and higher leverage than the 80 percent busy tasks. The longer you wait to get a Who, the slower your progress will be because you’ll be mired in the 80 percent. This not only keeps you split focused, but slows your mastery of the 20 percent.

There are two core types of freedom: Freedom from—which is externally escaping from what you don’t want, and is avoidance-motivated. Freedom to—which is internally committing to and courageously choosing what you most want, and is approach-motivated.

As Viktor Frankl said in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

What is your Unique Ability? What is the unique value you provide to others, which no one else can? What is the 10x jump that excites you most, which requires you go all-in on your Unique Ability to realize? What’s the 80 percent of your life keeping you busy but unproductive, because it’s keeping you outside your Unique Ability?

Ideals are like the horizon in the desert. No matter how many steps you take toward the horizon, it continues extending out ahead of you. When you’re measuring yourself against ideals, it’s like measuring yourself against the moving horizon and then being mad at yourself for not being at the horizon.

“The only way to measure the distance you’ve traveled is by measuring from where you are back to the point where you started, not from where you are toward the horizon.”

No matter where you’re currently at in your 10x process, you’re making gains. You’re making more gains than you actually realize.

Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment. Kairos is what many philosophers and mystics would refer to as “deep time” or “alive time.” In kairos-time, the world seems to stop entirely. It can be measured in long exhales, a shared laugh, a colorful sunset, a courageous moment. It is qualitative time where you move forward in the present, untethered by any moving clock or calendar.

Your ability to turn 100 percent “on” and work in a flow state is in equal proportion to your ability to turn 100 percent “off” and fully release and let go.

Research shows that there are three essential preconditions of being in a flow state: Clear and specific goals. Immediate feedback. The challenge and/or risk of the activity is beyond your current skill or knowledge level.

As he explains in Power versus Force: “The average advance in the level of consciousness throughout the global population is little more than five points during a lifetime. Apparently, from untold millions of individual experiences in one’s life, usually, only a few lessons are ever learned. The attainment of wisdom is slow and painful, and few are willing to relinquish familiar, even if inaccurate, views; resistance to change or growth is considerable. It would seem that most people are willing to die rather than alter those belief systems which confine them to lower levels of consciousness.”

According to Dr. Hawkins’ research, over 80 percent of the global population operate between 100 (fear) and 150 (anger) in terms of their individual level of consciousness and emotional development. Given that most people only grow by five points on this scale in their entire lifetimes, most people never make it beyond being driven by fear or anger.