The Seven Habits of Highly Effective 10Xers!

The Grant Cardone 10X movement is still in its early days but the power of the message and principles for entrepreneurship are transcendent. I came across Cardone via a podcast after his inaugural 10XGROWTHCON. His mindset was unique, massively disruptive and contrarian to everything society teaches. He realizes almost all Americans have bought into a middle class lie for a 30year cum mortgage American Dream. This contrarian message he offers will be on full display in Miami this weekend at the next 10XGROWTHCON event. Herein are the salient points that stuck out to me as an attendee last year. In the spirit of developing better transformative habits to reach your potential I categorized them into 7 things you can implement to achieve your best now. I hope these vignettes encourage you to attend or purchase the event, it will be worth every penny.

Habit One: The first habit to master or get clear on is your “WHY” or start by building a big enough ‘Why’ because without that you will not burn the boats. Also you should understand your customer’s why and how to meet them at that juncture. The shark Daymond John believes you need to boil your brand message down to a 2-5 word concept in order to capture limited attention. Tai Lopez agreed saying you need your idea refined down to one sentence and this simplicity will have 10X wings. The hidden cost of complacency can attack this space as well when brands do not continue to update their message. Remember, Its ok to take your Brand X and upgrade it until it becomes 10X! Andy Friscilla explained that to be truly great you must know what you stand for as a brand, define the space and own it. He also pointed out that how you do one thing speaks to how you will do everything. In short, realize excellence truly is a habit that must consider the small things. Your leadership and steward of your venture will bleed into the culture and shape the company ethos. Coach Burt asked the imperative question is your concept or brand strong enough to attract people? The only way it will be magnetic is for it to be clear, authentic and rooted in your WHY.

Habit Two: Its imperative for you to hate the status quo in your life. Hate is a strong word but if you accept the level of income you are at, the level of happiness, the level of commitment to excellence in your life…you have flat lined. Plateaus are necessary at times but our attitude about them, our complacency with them needs to change. How do you know if you have reached one of these rest areas? Tim Storey exclaimed that the real you will always make a demand on the you of right now! He believes many of us have gotten stuck in an almost life and you have become a discount version of yourself. If you feel the pull to break from the status quo realize breakthroughs come from breaking away from the norm. The norm is complacency and it means a gradual settling to mediocrity in the words of Coach Michael Burt. Everything in society is ordered to teach you the least common denominator, to be an outlier means the data is wrong. However, 10Xers know that we should be seeking to become outliers and pull the data herd with us. Don’t follow the herd…lead it. If you want to change the status quo you must be a change agent and seek discomfort. Brad Lea pointed out that comfort is killing the world because it is the enemy of growth. The highly effective 10Xer will seek to push their growth boundaries to uncomfortable levels and edges! Ask yourself do you want tomorrow to look like today? That answer should always be no in some form, maybe you want your kids to remain 8 or 9 but 10 is calling and 10X with it. Rock the boat, shake the world and be a history maker for your life by challenging your status quo. Always.

Habit Three: You must learn how to THINK BIGGER and DREAM BIGGER to quote Jordan Zimmerman! Unless your thoughts are organized, directed and expanded you will not have a clear target for massive achievement. Conventional thinking can bring some success but to really achieve one’s potential you must learn the power of exponential thinking. Russell Brunson described the story of Roger Bannister who was the first runner to break the 4-minute mile. After this mental barrier was broken countless others went on to believe it could be done and accomplished the feat. What is your 4-minute mile barrier in relation to your dreams? What do you think is impossible for you to achieve? Remember Muhammad Ali one of the greatest said impossible is nothing! In accordance with the desire to think and DREAM BIGGER you must search and destroy your limiting beliefs. Everyone has limiting beliefs that hold them back from becoming their higher self. Anik Singal asked the pertinent question when he rhetorically said how many people have the 10X software in their brains? Many highly effective like to fashion themselves as systems thinkers but the question remains what system? We need to unlearn some inherited bad habits and deactivate them from our brains. This realization means we should forsake small thinking and small actions because they devalue real worth. Roddy Chong put this theme to music and expounded his story with the Goethe quote to ‘BE BOLD and MIGHTY FORCES will come to your aid! Basically it takes massive action on your dreams to become massively successful according to Gary Cardone! The core of this habit is to develop an abundance mentality and unlimited mindset. Realize your dreams are really assignments from above and we should give them heavenly treatment and expect magic to happen. Finally, what would 10X goals look like for you? What would a 10X life be like…dream it, believe it and receive it.

Habit Four: MASTER THE SALES GAME. Grant Cardone talked about sales as an action, it’s about doing. If you are hurting in life or struggling with something take action and the healing will be in the work. You have to be unreasonable in this game. Never accept no as an answer and develop a relentless work ethic to accomplish your sales targets. Grant believes it is not about the law of attraction but more about the law of action where frequency is paramount. In short, volume always trumps quality in the beginning. Many of the speakers noted how much persistence is key when working the sales cycle. Coach Burt used the famous chart on the law of diffusion of innovation featured in Crossing the Chasm as a measuring stick for your sales curve. Essentially innovators and early adopters will buy your product on limited touches if they believe in the purpose or idea. The key is to find and connect to this audience because they will be your first and best customers. Many believe selling is partnering with those that believe the same thing as you and as Grant Cardone would add those who want to exchange value with you. To sum up find the innovators and early adopters and you got 16% of the market space with little effort. Master the sales game buy attending the event this week or one of the sales boot camps. You need to learn to earn and if you are at the C-Level and cannot C-Lose you just Lose…business and opportunities. So turn up the follow up an learn to call, learn to close, learn to pitch and learn to get rich!

Habit Five: One of the underrated abilities or experiential habits that 10xers must develop is DECISION MAKING PRIMACY. This means you understand who you are, your value and have decided or committed to change the world. Great entrepreneurs almost intuitively know that the only choice is between expansion or contraction. Will you shrink from work, opportunity and challenge or decide to rise (and grind). Realize that decisions are actions that create a culture that will follow you and your organization. Make the decision to deliver value because ‘who’s got my money’ often means who needs my value. When value is added and problems are solved money changes hands. This decision to bring value and produce gives others the ability to opt in and consume your content. Coach Burt would interject here to say do not let fear stop or pause your decision making progress for on the other side of fear is a deeper intimacy with your potential. Commit to becoming a master at marketing because you cannot have influence without outfluence. Expressed differently Grant constantly reinforces the singularity of income-really he knows you cannot control outcomes without income.  These work together in a Hegelian dialectic of entrepreneurship and 10Xers must decide or commit to producing over and over again.

Habit Six: SPEED is the de rigueur habit and you need escape velocity to get out of low orbit friends, ideas and bad places. Hence speed with a bias towards action is one of the inescapable entrepreneurial habits that can be practiced and improved upon. It takes imagination to go from 0 to 1 to quote Peter Theil but it requires speed to go from 1 to 10x and attempt your moonshot. It takes speed to go from effectiveness to greatness. Grant suggests cutting out steps to get to launch so that you can monetize fast. You need to quickly get out a minimum viable product MVP not a slow perfect P. If you are not embarrassed by your first release or your first attempt you fundamentally do not understand entrepreneurship. Go and iterate because you and your product should speedily get better with volume and repetition. Remember, SLOW is the new enemy of grow. Be quick to invest in yourself because you are your family’s greatest asset, commit to attend or watch every 10XGROWTHCON to upgrade your personal software. Seek to speed up your life, make changes and know that no matter what happens albeit failure, you can and will comeback stronger.

Habit Seven: Master the COMEBACK! Everyone faces challenges in life and moments of seeming defeat. When things knock you down, have the courage to get up and get back in the game. Realize that the trials you encounter are meant to test your resolve and show you how to solve…for 10X. Kipling encouraged everyone to meet both triumph and disaster in the same manner, understanding them for what they are as tests to fetter out what is inside you. Roddy Chong put challenges as a way to test IF you will give up on your dreams after a setback. Never quit on your dreams because they are assignments from heaven! Coach Burt explained the importance of having a coach to help you off the floor. When something knocks you down or a competitor disrupts your business you need an outside lens into the situation. You cannot see the picture because you are in the frame and the right coach can help you see the strategic landscape outside your immediate position. This will also help you chart your comeback knowing where to move directionally. Forbes Riley noted there are places to go and stages to be on that you have not even imagined. The power to move positions (from the cheap seats to the stage) is inherent in a comeback habit. You must know that sometimes the comeback is simply coming from a place you know you do not belong. Last Tai Lopez brought the comeback math with his presentation on his rule of 10s. If you are making 100,000 dollars add another zero as your goal and keep repeating. This follows 10X math in that no matter where you are, you can get up, work harder and achieve more.

Finally, know everything is on your side or to quote Ezra Firestone the boats will keep coming to bring you opportunity if you are in the arena. Be optimistic! The technology and capability you have now is greater that the President or richest person alive 30 years ago. So bring your best and dominate a space so you can show up and show how excellence is done 10X style. Finally, become the number 1 go to in your industry, treat every action as a sale and opportunity for influence, develop an obsession with excellence and 10X everything. Re-Read the bold and get in the Fold-Its time to 10X your life.

David Hursey