10x is Easier Than 2x — How to Achieve Exponential Growth

Mindset

10 Jul

Key learnings from Dan Sullivan’s book and how to unlock exponential growth in your business.

10x is easier than 2x. Exponential growth

Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy have teamed up to write another masterful business book. Here's my take on some of the key learnings to help you grow your business:

Like most people, the idea that achieving 10X growth can be exponentially easier than striving for 2X growth confused me at first. My first imagination was doing 10x more work, however, being a 10X entrepreneur is nothing like what most people think.

10X is not the outcome, as Sullivan argues, rather, it's a counterintuitive process that you can apply whenever you want exponential growth in your business or your life. 10x is about quality not quantity.

The Surprising Simplicity of 10x Growth

Many of us are locked into the belief that progress is a slow, linear process. However, successful entrepreneurs have proven there's an alternative and more rewarding path to success: exponential growth. Instead of trying to doubling your results, why not increase them tenfold? This seems daunting at first, until you understand the mechanics behind it.

Sullivan starts the book with challenging how most of us set and approach goals. Most small business owners (myself included) are comfortable with setting 2x goals, because 2x growth allows us maintain much of our existing business models and mindets. We can keep a large percentage of our clients, preserve our roles, and hold onto established norms. Sullivan’s 10x growth philosophy challenges this convention.

Using the 80/20 rule (The Pareto Principle), Dan reveals that going for 10X growth requires eliminating the 80% of whatever is holding you back. That could include clients, roles, behaviours and mindsets.

In other words, to go 10x, you simplify your focus by continually letting go of everything that doesn’t meet your 10x filter. Each time you go 10x, the filter gets finer and finer, letting less pass through.

This is what makes it so transformative, and why 10X can be easier, simpler and require less effort than 2X growth.

Abundance over Scarcity

This book got me thinking... Why do so few entrepreneur's adopt the 10x growth mindset? Is it because they don't believe it will work for them? Is it because it requires a re-evaluation of the entire business model? Is it because we're inherently resistant to change?

It's likely a mix of all these things, but at a deeper level I believe it's a scarcity mindset around success. We believe that success is finite (only few can succeed), instead of infinite (everyone can succeed).

Working in finance, I noticed that many Australians have a scarcity mindset. This plays well into our 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' — the societal pressure to cut down individuals who stand out or achieve highly. It's a deceptive idea that suggests exceptional success is somehow detrimental to others. It's just another form of scarcity mindset.

Sullivan challenges this idea in the book and invites entrepreneurs into an abundance mindset. A mindset where we stop justifying our want to succeed to others (a waste of time and energy) and instead, get clear on our own purpose and commit to mastering our unique ability.

When we do, our value and our quality of life increases 10 fold. We have more of an impact on others and in return, we experience more fulfilment and satisfaction. Again, 10x is about increasing the quality of our efforts and introducing transformational change.

I appreciate Sullivan for hitting this topic of scarcity in his book. I believe that entrepreneurs have so much potential for creating positive impact in the world, and oftentimes they just need some encouragement to overcome the scarcity mindset and go for 10x.

Working Smarter, Not Harder

Another key learning from Sullivan's book is to focus on your high-value activities. I'm currently writing a book on this topic myself, and it was encouraging to find I share Sullivan's thoughts on this. Using the 80/20 Rule, entrepreneurs can 10x their productivity focusing on the "20%" that will get them towards their 10x goal in the fastest way.

Similar to another book I've been reading called 'Rest: Why You Get More Done Doing Less', Sullivan presents a counterintuitive truth that the more time away from your business you can take, the more successful you can be.

Innovation and mastery require you to be rested, creative and exploring ideas outside your domain. Taking days away from your business (Sullivan calls them 'Free Days') forces you to let go of the low-value "80%" of activities that chew up your time and energy. It also gifts your team to do the work themselves and become more self-sufficient.

They key idea here is that if we're working all of the time, juggling all of the roles, we won't have the space and energy to effectively break through to 10x.

To maximise our results from our existing efforts, we should identify the crucial 20% of tasks yielding 80% of results, focus on those areas with excellence, and delegate the rest. This steers us away from simply 'doing more' towards 'doing better', improving the quality of our output, and fostering transformation and innovation within our team.

Again, 10X is fundamentally about quality vs quantity, and the quality of your freedoms determines the results you achieve.

I could go on, and on — there's so much in this book worth talking about, and it's encouraged me in writing my book 'OFFLOAD - Grow Your Small Business Without The Burnout' (Coming September 2023).

I suggest you go pick up Dan Sullivan's book and read it for yourself.

If you're looking for someone to help you implement the key learnings from this book, and install a proven growth plan for your small business - book a call today to start a Coaching relationship with us.

Written by Lachlan Nicolson,

Director, Leader Guide.