The 10X Rule : The Only Difference Between Success And Failure - Grant Cardone

The 10X Rule : The Only Difference Between Success And Failure

The 10X is the underlying factor behind all extraordinary feats

You probably picked this wondering what the 10X rule is and if it can truly help you accomplish all your dreams and more.

Let's begin with a little background story. The author is a successful real estate investor. Over the years, he has built many successful companies; and people always asked him what one thing was the secret to his massive success.

The question always took him back. After pondering it, he discovered that he succeeded because he obeyed the 10X rule. He always went the extra mile in all that he did. According to him, he constantly saw to it that he put in 10 times more effort than the average person would.

That's what the 10X rule is about: it takes you at least 10 times more action and thinking to move beyond your current level of success.

Many people set lofty goals but underestimate the amount of action or mindset shift required to achieve that success. This is the reason we often fall short of our goals. You'll understand this if you've happily set goals on New Year's day, and push your way through to December 31st, without actualizing more than 50% of them.

Some people take the right massive actions, but still, find themselves underperforming. This could be because they didn't have the right mindset shift. The author was a victim of this. He succeeded in business, but he never was a financial giant, because he limited his financial goals.

You see, the 10X rule strongly emphasizes 10X goals. At best, you're only as successful as the goals you set. Both aspects of the rule work hand in hand. You need to have lofty, extraordinary goals, and you must put in the right amount of effort to make them a reality.

Don't be afraid to think big, because when you begin limiting the amount of success you desire, you start to cut down on the amount of action needed, and this will make success far from you.

Success is the progressive actualization of a worthy goal. It can be called success only if you achieve, maintain, and repeat. If you only achieve, but never maintain the results, much less repeat them in greater measures, then you can't be considered successful.

For example, you won't expect to be called physically fit, if you set a target to lose 10 pounds and succeed at it, only to regain 12 pounds after a few weeks. True success is maintained. It is also progressive. Success never ends; after fulfilling one target, you move onto the next with an even greater mindset and action.

Many people don't see success as progressive, so they achieve some goals this year and relax. It's the reason you see people wealthy in their early years who still die broke.

That's a terrible fate. Nobody wants that. The 10X rule will teach you how to avoid it, and not just that, it will arm you to dominate your field through massive action and thinking. You'll learn how to make this happen subsequently.

“Any target attacked with the right actions in the right amounts with persistence is attainable.” ~ Grant Cardone

What exactly is Success? 3 things you need to know about it

We've defined success before — the progressive actualization of a worthy goal.

But that's a generic definition. When we get down to the nitty-gritty of it, we'll find that success largely depends on who you ask.

As a kid, success probably meant going to school with candy or staying up past your bedtime.

The parameters change as you grow. To a teenager, success is making good grades in school, getting a high school lover and earning some bucks for himself.

A grown up will have different success parameters. They could be: getting married, raising kids, or building a successful company. Bottom line is, success is one and the same thing, but we use different parameters to measure it.

However, irrespective of your success parameter, there are a few things you need to know about success to succeed and repeat. They are: 

1. Success is important.

2. Success is your duty.

3. There is no shortage of success.

We'll consider them one after the other, beginning with the first — success is important.

Your life will be hard if you don't succeed in your endeavors. You won't last long in your career, you'll struggle financially, spiritually, and relationally. Simply, you'll live an unhappy life.

There's potential locked up within you, and your life will be frustrated if you continue the habit of living below your potential. The process of achieving success will teach you that your life is truly unlimited; that you can get all you want out of life. This will help you utilize your inherent potentials, which will result in powerful confidence and personal gratification.

But success won't come to you unless you work towards it. Nobody folds their arms and wait for success to meet them in their living room. You have to go all out for it. Be intentional about success in life, career, business, and family. Basically, you're automatically reducing your chances at success, if you don't plan and work toward it.

To do this, consider success as an obligation. A duty. An ethic. When you start seeing success as ethical, your mindset toward it begins to shift.

The last thing you need to know about success is that it's not in limited supply. Success is not like the gas in your car that can become empty or like an oil well that will eventually run dry. No, success is unlimited.

There's no limit to the amount of success you can achieve; and the success of one cannot in any way prevent your success — most times, the success of others create the right setting for you to be successful. For example, many people are making a living off creating Facebook ads. This would never have happened if Facebook wasn't created in the first place. The founder of Facebook is successful, and the guy creating Facebook ads for a living is also successful. So you see, success begets success.

The idea that another person's success will limit yours is a limiting belief; it breeds envy, jealousy, and hatred while preventing success ingredients like ingenuity, creativity, and innovation.

Success is not something you achieve, it's something you attract

Things don't just happen to you, they happen because of you. You attract success because of who you are — failure, too.

You need to get it into your subconscious that nothing just happens, and that you're directly or indirectly responsible for the things that happen in your life.

The 10X mindset doesn't blame people or circumstances for the result it sees, rather, it takes full responsibility for all that happens.

Playing victim won't help you in the journey to greatness. It will inhibit your progress. Your life will begin to take a dramatic shift when you cultivate the habit of taking responsibility for the outcome of your life.

It's easy to take responsibility when you're directly involved, but it becomes difficult when you don't seem to have control over the situation. For instance, if you're having a speaking engagement, and your audience suddenly becomes uninterested such that they prefer chit chatting to listening to you, it's easy to put the blame on the organizers for giving you a boring topic, or for not paying attention to the aesthetics of the venue. But a 10X performer will think differently. She'll search herself to find how she could have fueled the disinterest and to determine what steps she can take to prevent it next time.

Four levels of action and the various result they produce

So far, we've established that our thoughts and actions are the greatest drivers of success in our lives.

You won't attain great heights if your thinking is limited; likewise, you may have the greatest mind in the world, but your mind would not be able to bail you out of mediocrity if you aren't committed to taking necessary actions.

It'll be outrageous to say those unhappy with their results aren't taking actions. They are — we all take actions on a daily basis, only that the majority of us don't take the number of actions necessary to birth the kind of life we desire.

It goes to say that, you can change the quality of your life by changing your actions. But you'll be frustrated trying to do this when you don't know what activity level you're currently in nor how to move onto the level required for your success. The author classifies our action levels into four. We shall consider them in chronological order, starting with level one — No action.

The people in this group have given up on their dreams. They no longer take action toward the things they once desired. They're complacent when it comes to seeking knowledge, networking or doing things that are supposed to help them enjoy life. This sort of people spends time explaining to everyone who cared listen to why things aren't working for them.

It's easy to believe people in this group aren't expending energy and other resources, but this is not so. Every action group is busy channeling their time, money and potential into something.

The no-action group is in the habit of devoting themselves to things that won't matter in the long run.

Next degree of action is Retreat.

People in this category have, at some point, taken actions that didn't deliver as expected. The sense of failure makes them retreat — concluding that the situation is a hopeless one. But it usually isn't the case. More often than not, what we consider failure or success is simply nothing but a thought pattern.

You may think you've failed in business after failing to reach your goals twice, but if you strike again, you might just find that things work out well. Retreaters should learn to critically examine situations before jumping into conclusions.

For example, it doesn't make much sense to refuse to prepare for an exam simply because you failed several short guns in that particular course, and therefore assumed there was no way you could possibly pass the course. A right action to take would be to attend a good tutorial class prior to writing the exam.

The third is the normal level of action.

This level of action is the most prevalent in our society today. And it's the most socially acceptable. The person who takes normal actions never aims to be extraordinary. He doesn't even think of standing out of the crowd, rather, he moves with the bandwagon.

He consciously or unconsciously aims for the normal life: average education, average car, average family, average career. Average. Average. Average. He's scared of falling below average, but he never longs for the above average life.

He's stuck in the middle class. And he's comfortable because the middle class is what society advocates: the uninitiated will quickly start questioning your actions if you dare to start acting beyond the “norm”.

Normal levels of action lead to a normal (average) life, and living an average life is dangerous because anything can happen. You can easily go broke if the economy begins to shake. Your company won't regret laying you off, because they can easily find a thousand other average people to replace you.

The progressively successful and happy people always take the last category of action: massive action.

This realm of action is considered borderline insanity by many people because it transcends the societal understanding of hard work or progressive success.

However, if you look closely at nature, you'll find that massive action is in the fiber of creation. Think about bees and ants. They're always working, taking massive actions to secure their future. Did you know that there's nonstop activity going on beneath the earth you're sitting right now?

Or is it how the entire planetary bodies never stop revolving around the sun? Would you also consider how the ocean never stops to move?

Nature is consistently and persistently working. It's the reason why you can plant a seed, go to sleep and wake up 7 days later to find that it has germinated. Everything around us is in constant motion, why should we be any different?

Massive action is all about relentlessly engaging in activities that move you, your company or family forward. There's no retreat, normal action or inaction. It's simply consistent and massive action.

Only this type of attitude can make someone like the author rise from obscurity to becoming a global force. Massive action is the key to actualizing your dreams and ambitions.

It will attract criticism from mediocre people, but in the end, the results your life produces will speak for themselves.

Refuse to be in the first three categories. Resolve now to be a massive action taker!

Setting high goals doesn't make you unrealistic. In fact, it's the only way to maximize your potentials

Many people have heard that they're truly unlimited — that limitations exist only in the mind, yet they still settle for average (or “realistic”) goals.

The structure of society makes us believe some things are realistic, while others aren't. This is simply not true.

For the extraordinary person, there's no such thing as unrealistic goals — there only exist goals that require massive amounts of action compared to others.

Don't be afraid to set big goals, because only such goals can bring happiness and fulfillment meant your life. There's an exciting sense of accomplishment you feel when you do things normal people consider impossible.

You get a chance to prove to them that impossibility only exists the mind.

In the stone age, for example, wouldn't it be considered crazy to think you can sit in one place and have a chat with someone 250KM away? But how possible is that in the 21st century?

If no one ever set a goal to make communication better for humanity, it would never have happened. Check the lives of the test inventors and business people, and you'll find one thing in common: they had big goals.

Lofty goals provide the momentum to keep you going even in the face of resistance or setbacks. But it's easy to let go of small goals in such circumstances.

As a rule of thumb, you should cultivate the habit of reviewing your goals every single day. This will help you stay on course and committed to bringing them to pass.

Remember the 10X rule is about thinking and acting 10X more than the average person. Don't compete with others, but set lofty goals that will both challenge your thinking and move you to take massive, 10X actions.

Conclusion

Life is a gift that's meant to be enjoyed, not endured. Many people go through life unhappy and wishing the world would end the next day because their lives don't produce the results they desire. The key to lasting happiness and impactful living is going the extra mile to think and do 10 times more than the normal people.

Refuse to think or act small. Resolve today to fulfill your innate potentials. Take success as an ethical obligation, and your life will be headed in the right direction.

Try this:
Take an inventory of your life. Are you satisfied with the house you're living in, your financial status, your overall personal achievement?

No?

Then the 10X rule is for you. Pick up a pen and paper and begin writing your dream life. Don't think of how you'll actualize it. Your assignment is to write it all down. Pen the exact life you want to live. When you're done, close your eyes and begin imagining yourself living that life.

How do you feel?

Great, right?

Right.

Those are your goals for the next 12 months. Repeat the process every single day: in the morning and at night, but this time, allow your mind to come up with 10X strategies and actions required to deliver your goals.