The Stupidly Simple Formula to Get 10X-Bigger Results Fast

If you want to take your current life and grow 10 times bigger or better there is a way you absolutely can do it. In this article I'm going to share with you five principles that if you apply them will help you grow 10 times. And it's going to be a lot easier than you think. Let's jump straight into the five concepts.?

Step one

To grow 10X is clarifying your purpose. This may be simplistic but it's one of the things that Victor Frankl wrote in the book Man’s Search For Meaning. What man needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal. Victor was a Jewish man living in the concentration camps during World War II. He saw that people fell apart when they lost a clear sense of purpose towards their future. Without purpose people perish. As the bible said, without a clear sense of purpose, without a WHY to live for, you cannot bear any how.?

Without a why to live for, your life loses meaning. You also lose happiness. You can't be happy without a purpose to live for. This is a really interesting insight because most people believe that you should actually forget about the past, forget about the future. But as psychological beings, you can't do that. Time is not sequential from a psychological standpoint. Instead time is holistic. Who you are right now is a combination of your view - your past and your view of your future in your present.

The future creates the present against the background of the past. - Dr. Lee Pulos

In fact in order to make your present better you actually have to make your future bigger. We are actually driven by our views of the future. In psychology that concept is called prospection. As humans we think about the future from time to time. We can plan for the future and we can actually make decisions intelligently and intentionally towards the future we want.

So, step one of going 10X is actually clarifying your purpose. Who is your future self? What's the most important thing you can accomplish? Without that sense of purpose and mission, you really can't have direction. You're going to waste your time.

Your present self is going to be caught up by all sorts of short-term distractions or dopamine hits. So step one is clarify your contextual purpose. And this is not clarifying your life purpose. It's clarifying what's the most important thing you can accomplish at this stage in your life at this point right now based on who you are right now based on where you want to be in the next three to five years. What's the absolute most important thing you can do right now?

Clarifying your purpose is easier when you actually define three priorities. One of the things that Jim Collins talks about in the book Good To Great is that if you have more than three priorities, you have none. That means, clarifying your purposes is really about defining your three priorities in life.

As an entrepreneur and also as a father of three kids and as growth coach my three priorities right now are family, coaching programs and money. These are my three areas of focus that I want to invest massively into so that in three to five years my future self is 10X in these areas.

My older two kids are 12 and 14, so they're? my number one priority. I want to put all sorts of energy and effort into them. But in five years or so if you talk to me chances are my priorities would shift a little bit. I'm definitely sure that my family will still be number one priority at that point, but maybe coaching and money are not a top priority to my future self.?

This actually brings up a really interesting point that your future self is a different person than you expect they're going to be. They're going to have a different position, different priorities. But the key step right now is to take step number one and clarify and define your contextual purpose.

What is the thing that's most important for you to accomplish right now? What’s the purpose that gives your life meaning? The purpose that allows you to bear your suffering. As Frankl would say, clarify your purpose with three priorities.

Step 2

This step is about 10Xing your vision. If you wanted to increase your profits by 10 what would you do? In theory research there is a concept called the theory of constraints. The theory of constraints is all about utilizing resources to get massive progress. Research shows that It's actually a bad question to ask yourself “how do you grow by ten percent?” The reason is because you can almost do anything.

You could do all sorts of things to grow by ten percent. It doesn't actually clarify what you should be doing. Rather, if you changed the goal from growing by ten percent to growing by ten times, that would simplify your process. It would force you to realize that almost nothing you can do would help you grow by 10 times. Maybe there's a few things you could do but almost everything is a distraction to 10X.?

So it's actually easier to have a 10 times bigger vision than a two times bigger vision because two times is a distraction. There's all sorts of competition. There's all sorts of potential. You could be doing most of what you're currently doing and not be very optimized and grow by two two times. But if you want to grow by 10 times it forces a lot more self-honesty. Almost everything you're doing right now is a distraction to 10 times your business. You can't just grow by 10 times and keep being spread thin as you are. Only a few things will help you to grow 10 times. So 10 times actually clarifies the path and the process.

This is a really interesting aspect of hope. By the way, hope is a lot more powerful than most people think. Hope is different from optimism. A lot of people generally think that hope and optimism are the same thing, but optimism is more of a general sense that the future will be better. That's what most people think hope is. That's not what hope is. In psychology hope is three things.

First you have to have a very clear and specific goal to have hope. Then you have to have a concept called pathways thinking which is where you're very flexible at finding new and better pathways to getting where you want to go. If you fail along your way you use that failure as feedback to find new and better pathways or strategies to getting where you want to go.

You're very flexible in the process yet committed to a specific goal. The third aspect of hope is a concept called agency thinking which is basically an internal locus of control where you believe you have choice - that you can take actions, that you can impact your future and that you can impact your results.?

And so one of the reasons why 10X is easier than 2x is that once you clarify a 10X vision in a specific direction it forces you to find really unique pathways of getting there. It actually streamlines the pathway a lot more directly. You will realize that almost nothing will get you to 10X and so it forces you to find the few pathways that will get you there, and then ultimately to eliminate everything else.

Step 3

To grow 10X you need to identify the singularity. In the theory of constraints there's a concept called the singularity which is the same as the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the place in a system that if not focused on and if not identified is going to stop you from growing. You could put a lot of energy and effort into 10 different places and you're not going to go very far.

You need to ultimately focus on the bottleneck and unblock it. What's the one thing that if addressed would change the whole system? The singularity is the one thing that if you address it and if you put most of your energy and resources into it then by virtue of focusing on and solving that singularity 10X actually becomes very easy.?

For most people the bottleneck is themselves. It's that they're too spread thin. In fact the ultimate bottleneck of human beings is our attention. Our attention is the most limited resource we have and most of our attention is focused on things that ultimately don't matter. If you think about the 80/20 principle, 80% of things going on are ultimately a waste of time. It's only 20% of things that creates 80% of the results.?

From a resources perspective, if you just think about your attention like a resource, most of your resources are probably spread too thin, which according to the theory of constraints is not how you get progress. According to the theory of constraints you identify the singularity or the bottleneck and you put as much resources towards that as possible and that's how you start to get 10X progress very easily.?

Having 10 things you're trying to accomplish means you're only going to make microscopic progress. So you want to identify the singularity. What is the one thing that if solved or if accomplished would change everything else you're doing? There really are only a few things that if you solve it will change everything and the singularity is the one thing. Singularity for most people is identifying or clarifying your unique ability.

What's the one thing that if you focused on it and developed it, if you put a lot of energy into that thing then 10X becomes easy? Unique ability is the thing that you do uniquely well that if you put energy and effort into you get outsized rewards and results.

For me that's actually curating solutions and systems to solve complex problems.? If I removed 80% of what I'm doing and I focused on the singularity which is doing deep work and deliberate practice on the thing that I'm doing. If I became a craftsman, if I really tried to get better and this is true for you as well, that if you clarified the singularity, if you clarified your unique ability and you said I'm going to invest most of my energy into growing and scaling and you're going to get really good at it. Not only do you simplify your life, you delegate, you outsource everything else and you just focus on that singularity. You do deep work.

Cal Newport has a great book called Deep Work. There's an enormous amount of research on deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is how you systematically develop expertise and craftsmanship at what you do you do to get 10 times better, to grow 10 times bigger. But it's about getting better at the right thing. It's about focusing your energy and resources on the thing that's going to make the biggest bang for your buck. So you need to do deep work and deliberate practice on the essential, on the singularity.

There's another great aspect of constraint theory. It’s the idea that the design is perfect once there's nothing left to take away. Most people are focused on quantity not quality. If you start removing almost everything you're doing and just focus on the one thing that matters, and then obviously if you have clear priorities about your future self and you invest most of your resources and energy into that singularity, you're going to get 10 times the results.

This goes straight back to the 80/20 which states that 80% of results comes from 20% of what you do. If you eliminate the 80% percent then ultimately focus on the few things that matter only. 20% of your life and business and relationships will scale to 10X. This goes back to the idea that if you make the 10X vision it shows you immediately.?

If you're honest, most of what you're wasting your time on is a waste of time and that if you just focused on the singularity, the few things that mattered, the few relationships that mattered, 10X becomes really easy. The problem is that because most people are living out of fear and insecurity, they have all sorts of contingency plans. They distract themselves with lesser goals, which now takes me to step four of going 10X.

Step 4

This step is about how to remove everything that is not 10X. Remove everything that's not 10X. One of the best quotes on GROWTH is that “we're kept from our goals not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” 80% of success is about what you stop doing - about saying no and stop spreading out your energy,? your attention, your resources and stopping those things immediately. You've got to stop doing most of what you're doing and focus purely on the essential perfection when there's nothing left to take away.

I love the idea of music being the space between the notes, about the? white space. It's really about simplifying, simplifying, simplifying. You have to simplify before you multiply. You simplify things down and then you can multiply your simplification. You clarify the 20% that matters, you clarify the singularity and then you put all of your energy and resources into that and you scale that up.?

You can't scale your whole life up. You can't scale 100% up. You've got to eliminate 80%. Focus on the 20%, focus on the singularity and you scale up to 10X.? You only focus on the few things that actually can scale up. You've got to start saying no to a lot more. Simplify your life. This is another reason why 10X is easier than 2x because 10X requires simplicity, it requires focus on the few things that matter and it also invites you to become a craftsperson.

There's another great book by Cal Newport called So Good They Can't Ignore You and I believe if you simplify everything down, if you take lots of time for recovery rest (in fact there's a lot of research that proves you have to psychologically detach more, you have to recover, rest and get good sleep so that you can actually fully engage and be in flow.?

When you're at work and engage in powerful flow-based work and you just have a very simple focus and it's on the singularity, it's on your unique ability, it's on the thing that's going to get you 10X, then you have powerful skills and you become so good you can't be ignored and that's really the goal. That you're actually deliberately practicing, you're doing deep work on the essential and only focusing on the few things that matter.

You're getting so good that your work can't be ignored and you're putting the time and effort in when most people are spread thin - most people are caught up in lesser goals, most people have their allocation of resources totally spread thin which is not how you make 10X progress.? You have to put all your resources towards the singularity.

When you look at Michelangelo's the David, notice that he started with a big piece of marble and he said that the David was there. He just was taking away everything that was not the David. You really want to strip away everything that's not the David , everything that's not your unique ability, everything that's not the singularity. You strip out and then you put all your time and effort into that and 10X becomes very easy.

Step 5

This step is about mastering your dopamine. There is a battle between your present and your future self. We live in a world where you need to get connected to your future self. This actually connects right back to step one which is clarifying your purpose. You need to get committed to your purpose first. If you're not connected to your future self which can be difficult to do, then the present self wins. There's actually an unequal battle between your present and the future self.?

A lot of this has to do with dopamine because present rewards are here and now, they're immediate , and we live in a world of seeking instant gratification. If your dopamine gets all out of whack what that means is that you're constantly seeking more and more instant cheap rewards which are artificial.

Getting up and scrolling social media or checking email, overeating junk food, stimulants etc. Basically,? needing more and more rewards to pull you back up the baseline. Dopamine is best used as the fuel to get bigger and better more positive rewards rather than just the seeking of instant gratification which is fake rewards.?

The best way to master your dopamine and apply all these principles is to master your evening and morning routines. Mastering evening and morning routines helps get you on a track and if you can get really good at this particularly the hour before bed in the three hours after you wake up.

Then you're pretty much mastering the battle between your present and your future self which means you're ultimately mastering the battle of your dopamine. Dr. Hubermann who's basically the top neuroscientist on this subject says that the first three hours are fundamental.

If you can master your evening and morning routines you will begin to master your dopamine. You'll be living more according to the important not the urgent, you'll be making progress powerfully towards your future self and you'll be building a lot of confidence and progress along the way. You want to bookend your day. When you bookend your day by projecting your intentions into the future and reflecting on your successes, life gives you what you need.

Evening and morning routines are quite simple. The evening routine is about putting your phone on airplane mode. At the end of the day, most people go into an extreme consumption mode because their energy levels are low. They can start consuming short-term dopamine whether that's binge eating or scrolling. If you can just put your phone on airplane mode and journal a little bit.?

One of the things that I teach is that at the end of the day just write down the progress you made that day. Write down three wins and then write down the three wins you want for tomorrow. No more than three wins for the next day because you want to focus on the 80/20. A lot of people have a to-do list of ten items. That’s too many. Focus on the few things that are going to make the biggest impact and then rest, recover and ultimately go to bed earlier so that you can wake up with a purpose.?

If you've journaled and by the way journaling at night is really powerful for a few reasons. First,? your brain is really analytical at night and it's also really good at planning strategically. So you can analyze your day, you can reflect and then also you can make a nice plan for the next day so that when you wake up you wake up with a purpose rather than trying to drag yourself out of bed with willpower you have a more power, you have a purpose to pull you out of bed which is really powerful.?

It's better to be pulled than pushed in terms of motivation. Push motivation is basically the extreme act of willpower. Once you go to bed, then you wake up and you just jump straight into your big three. You jump into your future self and you put the important before the urgent. You eat the frog as they would say. Put your future self before your present self rather than just jumping on social media or seeking instant rewards.?

You start making progress towards your goals during those first three hours of the day. Maybe journal about your future self and reflect on what that would look like. You have a vision, you can write in a gratitude journal. Ultimately you make progress towards your future self so that by 9 a.m you've already made massive progress towards your future self.

How you start something usually creates a momentum or a trend for how the rest of the day is going and if you can wake up and start winning, you start getting positive momentum, you start building the right types of dopamine, then the rest of the day will usually take care of itself.

If you apply these five principles you can grow 10X from wherever you're at right now and it can be a lot easier than you think. It can be a lot simpler than you think. You can simplify, you can be clear on your purpose so that your life has meaning. You can have direction, you can win the battle between your present and your future self, you can have routines so that you're mastering your dopamine, you can focus on the singularity, you can continuously strip out everything that's not the David. 10X is doable and you can do it!

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