Average is a cheap vice - an excuse to live small, wrapped in socially-accepted delusions of hard work. Heavy thought to start with, but it is what it is. You've been aiming for mediocrity without even realizing it. Look back and see for yourself. You've read all the motivational books. You've tried every productivity hack. You've made vision boards and written out your goals. And yet, you're still not achieving the level of success you want. Why? Because you haven't discovered the 10X Rule!
No, no, we’re not starting another motivational manifesto. The 10X Rule is a mindset discipline! To our author, Grant Cardone, taking 10 times more action is the only way to guarantee success, no matter your skill set, connections, or circumstances. 10X demands you rethink everything when it comes to setting targets and putting in the effort required to make them reality. That you commit to levels of thinking and effort 10 times greater than you currently operate at. That you obliterate the fears, doubts, and assumptions that cripple most people's ambitions. And it promises UNIMAGINABLE success! Worth a shot, don’t you think?
The 10X Explained
So you want "success" huh? That ambiguous term people toss around like an M&M. The reality? Success is something else! The goals you’ve currently set for yourself and the level of effort you are putting in to to achieve them are both laughably insignificant. What do you currently define as wildly successful? $1 million in the bank? A beach house? Being debt-free? Your "ambitions" are the most basic checkpoints on the 10X superhighway to grandeur. Targets that have capped your potential without you realizing it. The 10X Rule hits these mediocre finish lines with crazy ambition. Want an extra $1,000 per month? Then aim for $10,000. Got $20K saved? Reset your sights on $1 million. Running a $1 million business? Develop a compulsion for $100 million. Always aim for 10x more than what others would be. Even if you fail to achieve that, you’ll still have achieved a lot more than you’d otherwise have with your mediocre targets.
Also, chances are you've underestimated the actions, resources, and energy necessary by...you guessed it...10X. Cardone looked at 10X more properties than he could purchase to guarantee acquiring the best real estate assets. His sales team slayed the marketplace with 10X more calls and meetings than the competition. Relentless 10X! THAT’S how you get success. So if you think mastering a software will take 10 hours perhaps you should be putting 100!
Still, the 10X Rule isn't just about competitive hustle - it's a full-scale occupation strategy, with both 10X higher goals and 10X higher effort, that engulfs any sudden obstacles, market conditions, self-limiting doubts or even excuses. More on it next!
Success Is Embracing the Unexpected
Here’s the deal. No matter how well you plan, no matter how superior your product or service, unexpected events will ALWAYS arise and disrupt your path to success. Economic shifts, legal battles, market resistance, competition, technology changes, people problems - these are just some of the potential grenades that'll get lobbed at you. And we’re not telling you this to scare you, but to prepare you for where the biggest opportunities lie! 10X thinking is the only ammo that'll get you through these problems unscathed. Money alone won't cut it. You need relentless 10X actions backed by 10X resolve to power through any obstacle. Underestimate the effort required, and you'll quit at the first sight of disappointment - making up excuse after excuse about bad timing, ignorant customers, or your own shortcomings. Cardone’s actually been there and it's a soul-crushing downward spiral. He had prepared for just a 3-month period to get his income level back to his previous job. But it took him nearly 3 years - 12 times longer than expected. After just 3 months, he was distraught and ready to quit. Thank God for 10X, huh?So, crank up your efforts 10X, and everything changes immediately! Assume every endeavor will demand 10X more time, money, energy, and people than you imagine. Multiply your expectations by 10X and you might finally hit the mark. If not, still not bad - better to be pleasantly surprised than crushed by disappointment. Now, one of the biggest mental traps that prevents people from operating at 10X is buying into the myth that success is limited. Just don't give us that "there's only so much success to go around" nonsense. Success isn't a finite pie, contrary to what the media and politics sell. It's something created from pure ingenuity and hustle - the two things this universe has in endless supply. Warren Buffett's fortune didn't prevent Zuckerberg from crafting Facebook. Microsoft's dominance was no obstacle to Apple. What does that tell you? That one’s success does not restrain the possibilities for others!! So, instead of getting jealous or threatened or disappointed by others' successes, look at them as inspiration proving that insane accomplishments are doable. When new records get shattered - whether it's a game-changing tech, a business going stratospheric, or an athlete redefining their sport - it doesn't just show off their success. It expands the scope of what's possible for everybody....
Create Problems Through Massive Action
So, you want to know how much action is truly required to blow up your success? The answer is - MASSIVE action!!! Like far beyond what you think is reasonable. Levels of action that seem borderline crazy to others.This is particularly important when faced with a crisis or decision moment. Most people on this planet play it safe in one of the first three degrees of action: doing nothing, retreating, or just taking "normal" amounts of action. The do-nothings have basically given up, acting lethargic with no purpose in life. The retreaters are paralyzed by fears, making excuses to avoid more failure. And then you've got the most dangerous group - the "normal" action takers. This is the crowd putting in just enough effort to be average, to create a middle-class existence. They'll never do quite enough to spark anything exceptional, just aiming for a typical career, marriage, finances. As long as mundane works for them, they're fine settling. But average is simply not enough insurance against potential disasters. One market shift, one crisis, and bam - that average existence can plummet to straight up broke. Screw being average! You didn't come here to learn how to tolerate a humdrum existence.You have to ascend to the fourth degree of action - massive action! Do anything and everything to get what you want. You're a struggling entrepreneur, drowning in debt, and your business is on life support. What do you do? You go nuclear on your problems, that's what! You're not just making calls; you're launching an all-out assault on every potential client in a 100-mile radius. Your competition is sending out cute little emails? Ha! You're showing up at their doorstep with a 50-page presentation and enough energy to power a small city! That's what Cardone means by MASSIVE action. This is your natural state, that unstoppable energy you had as a kid; the one you lost after the constant "be careful" from the world. Money, attention, power - it all flows to those brave enough to touch the fourth degree. Another thing. When you start massive action, you'll inevitably create problems. But please, don't play victim! No one likes a whiner. Like when the electricity goes out - instead of blaming the company, Cardone looks at what they could do differently next time, like getting a generator. Take responsibility and find a solution. That’s how you disrupt the norm...
Get Obsessed and Go ALL IN!
Look, we've all been brainwashed into thinking "obsession" is some kind of disease. The dictionary defines "obsessed" as being completely dominated by a single idea or desire. And you know what? That's exactly the mindset required to dominate your goals and ambitions. It's the fire you need to keep going. Need proof? Steve Jobs. Serena Williams. Picasso. Edison. All obsessive sickos fixated on their craft 24/7. Kids naturally have that beautiful obsessive nature before society beats it out of them. Cardone’s dream is that his daughter blissfully obsesses over her biggest ambitions her whole life! And you know what? That's exactly what you need to do too! You need to stop playing it safe and dream big for a change. Obsess over your goals morning, noon and night. Make them the ONLY thing filling your mind. If your grand visions aren't constantly preoccupying your thoughts, how can you expect to preoccupy anyone else's? Now, the awesome thing is, obsession is the catalyst to go ALL IN every single time!! Quit just dipping your toes, you need to give all your effort, energy and resources! Don't let fear of failure trick you into casually "testing the waters." That's loser mentality. You've got unlimited energy, creativity and persistence to deploy - so use it! Overcommit and overpromise shamelessly. If you're putting on a big Broadway show, you don't advertise an "average" cast then try to wow people later. You go BIG with the promises and commitment from the start! That’s Cardone’s rule. He always over-commits and overpromises to his clients because it forces him to over-deliver! The bigger his claims upfront, the more he pours himself into blowing those promises out of the water. When people see that wild obsession burning in your eyes, they won't just follow you - they'll be begging to join your crazy ride to the top! Your relentless fixation on those insanely huge goals will magnetize an army of true believers!!Give it a try! The worst that can happen is you flop. Big deal! Dust yourself off, learn from that failure, and reload to go ALL IN again. Also, remember, to go all in, you’ve to have goals in the first place that give you the motivation to be able to go all in. So as we’ve mentioned before set super high or 10X goalsNow, we’ve been talking a lot about fear. Let’s explore the story there.
Embrace Fear
One of the great myths is that successful people are fearless. But the truth is, they’re not fearless; they are brave to face their fears. And you’re definitely gonna face ‘em! The more you achieve, the more new fears will constantly arise. Naturally, most people avoid fear or try to manage it away. But you need to deliberately seek out and trigger new fears - those prickly anxiety sensations are simply signals that you're entering new realms of opportunity requiring audacious 10X levels of effort. No fear means you've stopped challenging yourself at the intensity required for nonstop expansion. Now, what exactly do you fear?Fear of putting yourself out there? That's a signal for you to embrace overexposure rather than obscurity! Cardone was once told by his PR firms that he was “overexposing” himself. The idea is that an overexposed person or product will somehow lose its value. You think Coca-Cola will lose its value because too many people are hearing about and using it? See how stupid that whole concept is? That obsessive exposure is what makes remarkable success. Other titans like McDonald's, or Apple - they don't hide from mainstream saturation, they go all-in on putting their brand absolutely everywhere! Fear of not getting it all done? We have a tip on that. Three simple words: Control Your Time!! Let’s get one thing clear first. Time management does NOT mean trade-offs. That’s a scarcity mindset. We’re not asking you to skip some things, and focus on a select few. Don't think in terms of balancing different areas - the aim should be having it all in abundance across family, finances, health, spirituality and every other dimension that matters to you. People obsess over "not having enough time", but the reality is we all have the same 168 hours in a week - it's about bending that time further through 10X effort, not tinkering schedules. No one is going to save you or make things work out. You have to radically compress more 10X productivity into each moment. Rather than trying to "manage" time, multiply it, squeeze every second. Decide what true "success" means for you across all areas, write it down, and then ruthlessly allocate your 168 hours accordingly. This’ll also clear up how much time you waste; with Xbox, and Instagram, what not!For instance, Cardone made a schedule that would allow him bonding time with his family,...
Dominate Without Apology
Know the difference between winners and runner-ups? Winners obsessively dominate their field, while others just “compete”. You want to be the dominator, not just another player in an overcrowded game. Set your targets not on simply beating your rivals, but on utterly overshadowing them at levels they can't comprehend.
Take Cardone's sales training company - their goal isn't to compete with others for clients and revenue. No, the target is to make every human being equate "Grant Cardone" with "sales training." Change the whole game with sheer domination until your brand is the only name that matters. Like how "Xerox" became the verb for photocopying, or "Google" for online searches. That's the power of absolute sector dominance. An extreme example for sure, but that's how you calibrate 10X domination efforts.
Dominating a space also means hitting borderline "unreasonable" actions that your competition can't even fathom. You have to do what the competition refuses to do. Find their weaknesses and overload those areas with 10X action. For example, most companies refuse to de-prioritize customer satisfaction. But they utterly ignore all the potential "non-customers" they're not acquiring in the first place! The real path to dominance is ruthlessly expanding the base through extreme acquisition tactics first. Can't satisfy those who don't use your product, y’know!
Of course, that level of hustle will bring out the critics. But you can't dominate a field by pleasing everyone - criticism will inevitably come from those threatened by your ambition. Once again, this should be seen as a marker that you're making an impact.
With that, you've got all the lessons on 10X living. And finally, it’s time to get started! So what's your first move? Easy - make a master list of all your biggest, craziest goals right now. Don't overthink it, just start scribbling down every audacious, wildly ambitious desire you've got tucked away. No filter, no limits - if you can dream it, put it on the list. Next, pick off the first goal and start doing ANYTHING you can to move towards it, immediately. Make calls, send emails, hit the streets - whatever it takes to make progress right NOW, not tomorrow. Don't waste time figuring out the perfect plan. Just start hustling in the general direction. Course-correct later, when needed. For now, create unstoppable momentum!
Chapter 9
Details coming soon.
Summary
The path to extraordinary success requires ruthless commitment to the 10X mindset – in both your goals, and efforts. While the concepts may seem radical, the only way to truly unleash your potential is to take that terrifying leap into the unknown. The choice is, as always, yours - continue down the path of complacency and acceptable mediocrity, or muster the courage to 10X your life in every way imaginable. The journey won't be easy, but those daring enough to fully embody the 10X philosophy will redefine what's possible.
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About the Author
Grant Cardone has been a sales training consultant for over 25 years working with a wide range of organizations including Google, Morgan Stanley, Toyota, GM, Nissan, Infiniti, Reinhardt, Carrier, and the U.S. Army. He is also a New York Times best-selling author, executive producer of the reality TV business show, Turnaround King, and the host of The Cardone Zone. In 2012, Cardone was named Number-One Sales Expert and Top 10 Business Coaches to follow on Twitter. He is a regular contributor to a wide variety of publications including The Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, and Business Insider. Also the author of Sell or Be Sold, The Closer's Survival Guide, If You're Not First You're Last, and The 10X Rule, he lives in Miami Beach, FL.
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