0 (2s):
Boom. Shake the room. Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals with great shows like No Straight Path. Today we'll be breaking down. Why 10x is easier than 2x to drop these value bombs, I brought Benjamin Hardy into EOFire Studios. Dr. Benjamin is an organizational psychologist, an author of eight books, including three with the legendary entrepreneurial coach Dan Sullivan. As a PhD student, he was the number one blogger on medium.com from 2015 to 18. And over that time, his blogs read over a hundred million times. Wherein, he grew an email list of hundreds of thousands of people.

0 (42s):
Also during his PhD, he and his wife Lauren went from zero to five kids in one year. That was 2018, 3 of whom were adopted from the foster system. They now have six kids living in Orlando because Lauren is a Disney buff. And today for our nation will talk about what to do if we want to 10x our current self, increasing quality, decreasing quantity of our actions. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about experiencing 10x, the vision, creativity, and innovation that we're currently experiencing, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring Today's episode goes to Benjamin and our sponsors Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals, business made simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like How to Get Out of the Day-to-Day Operations Without Crashing Your Business.

0 (1m 30s):
Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. did you know that most leaders waste up to 70% of their time on tasks they shouldn't be doing in the first place? It's time to delegate those routine tasks to a Belay VA. Learn how to make the most of your time and maximize your results today. Text FIRE, that's F I R E to 55123 to download your free guide to a productive work week. Benjamin, say What's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (2m 5s):
What's up? Fire Nation? Happy to be with you, happy to be with JLD. What do I believe about success that most people don't believe? It's good to always be seeking a future and to never feel satisfied. I I, I've heard that a lot and I frankly don't believe in it like that does. Not to say that I don't have massive future self and exciting meanings to fulfill, but this whole idea of, of like that there's this massive gap to fulfill to me that that devalues the past. I'm always learning from and massively grateful for my past self, my future self's a different person who I'm learning from and, and, and growing into. But I get nothing out of devaluing my past or my presence to get me where I wanna go.

0 (2m 41s):
Fire Nation, we're talking about Y 10 X is easier than two x and I wanna start with a bang Benjamin, I wanna talk about the fact that most people are scared. They're scared of what they consider impossible goals. So share why striving for impossible goals is actually easier than going for the smaller ones.

1 (3m 2s):
I'm gonna give my son Caleb as an example. My son Caleb is a 15 year old tennis player. He loves tennis plays like four or five times a week. So his goal, which is a realistic goal, there's a difference between a realistic and an impossible goal. His realistic goal, which he believes is realistic at least, is that he can play college tennis and that's his goal. That's what he's shooting for, that's what he's going for. Well, recently his coach asked him, why don't you change the goal and why aren't you going for pro? And he just never really even thought about it. And so afterward I was sitting, we, we drove home and I asked Caleb, I said, Caleb, I don't care if your goal is to go pro, if your goal is to go college, whatever, I don't even whatever you wanna do, it's your choice. But I said, I have a question for you. I said, do you think your current trajectory, your current path would get you to college?

1 (3m 46s):
He said, I think so. I'm pretty sure. I said, what about pro? Do you think your current trajectory would get you to pro? And he said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. And so this is where it kind of goes into the idea that bigger seemingly impossible goals, and there's a lot of research behind this even in a, a decision-making theory called constraint theory, but bigger goals simplify the process enormously. So in the case of where we live, Orlando, Florida, it's a co, it's a mecca for tennis. Realistically, there are probably hundreds of coaches and academies that Caleb could turn to to get to his goal of going to college. There's a lot of opportunity, there's a lot of potential. There's also a lot of margin for error that he doesn't really have to even deal with or think about if he wants to go for college.

1 (4m 31s):
But JLD, what do you think? Do you think that there's more coaches that could get him to the pro level in Orlando or less,

0 (4m 37s):
More?

1 (4m 38s):
There's actually less. There's way less like, I'm sorry, it was kind, it was a poorly worded question.

0 (4m 44s):
I'm still confused, but go ahead. Yeah,

1 (4m 46s):
Yeah, yeah. The question is, are there more coaches that could get him to the pro level or are there more coaches that could get him to the college level?

0 (4m 53s):
The college level? Yeah,

1 (4m 54s):
A hundred percent. And that was a terrible question. I'm so sorry. That's the, that's actually the key point is there are enormous, there's so many options to get to the college level. There are very few to get to the pro level. And that's actually what makes it very useful is, is that if he really wanted to go for pro, it would dramatically simplify his process because almost every option would not get him there. And so it's actually a true filter. It's like almost all the coaches are, are not actually good coaches. And so it immediately eliminates all the decision fatigue, it eliminates all the waste and it also highlights all the aspects of his current path and process that are slowing him down or stopping him.

1 (5m 35s):
So like having higher goals, it, it highlights the few options or paths that are actually useful. So him going for pro would actually be the most effective way to get to college because he would then have to go for better coaches, you'd have a much better tighter process. It's just so much easier and simpler to go for higher goals.

0 (5m 51s):
One thing that I know Fire Nation is, is action takers. We love taking action. We love putting one foot in front of the other. I think we really understand what you're saying when striving for impossible goals is actually easier than a lot of us believe it is because of something that you just shared. But what do we need to start doing today if we're action takers and we wanna become 10 x our current self?

1 (6m 15s):
Beautiful question. One of the major differences between 10 x versus two x. So if you're gonna go for two x growth in anything as an example, like I've got, you know, my books have sold, you know, X amount of copies, so if I wanna double that right then most of my strategy can stay the same because to go for double, I don't really have to change that much. And so if I'm going for two x, what that means is that I'm pretty much operating from my past and I'm using my past to dictate my strategy for the future. And it's not gonna be that different because I'm not really going for that much of a change. It's a marginal change. So kind of looking at it from the 80 20 perspective, if you wanna go for two x growth, you can actually keep the 80% of your life, you can keep 80% of what you're doing right now and who you are if you wanna go for two x, there's not that much change.

1 (6m 57s):
Whereas 10 x is fundamentally different, 10 X is not based on the past, it's actually based on a seemingly impossible but really compelling and exciting future that you want. And if, and and 10 x is so big, it's a much higher filter that in order to go 10 x, and this goes straight back to my story with my son Caleb, only the best 20% of what you're now doing can stay 80% of your current life situation habits are are irrelevant at 10 x. So 10 x weeds, 80% out. And and so I think a really useful thing, number one is, is to define what's the 10 x you most want. And it doesn't always have to be quantitative, it can actually be qualitative, meaning like maybe you wanna shift your focus and do something different, something that's more meaningful, but you let the future not the past.

1 (7m 41s):
You let the future become the filter for what you do in the present. And because the future's so big, it's a much higher filter, meaning there's a lot less options. And so how I look at it is, is the 80% of your life right now, there is 80% of everyone who's listening to this life right now that is irrelevant to their 10 x goal. And so the more honest you are about that, the more you can start letting go of that 80% and that 80% is your past self, it's also your security blanket. The 20% is what you wanna go deep on. And if you go deep on that 20% and get 10 times better at that, then 10 times bigger takes care of itself. So it's like what's the, what's the 10 x you wanna go for and what's the 20% that if you went all in on, which is freedom, you could actually start, like you could start being who you wanna be in creating that, but it's gonna allow, it's gonna require that you let go of the 80%.

1 (8m 26s):
And so for everyone here, what is that 80%, that's your past self but not your future self. And how can you start peeling away some of that? It's letting go of some of that.

0 (8m 33s):
See I love this Fire Nation because I frankly couldn't do everything. When I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire back in 2012, I wanted to be the first daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs that caused so much focus, so much dedication, it was all consuming until I was able to build the team and the process and the systems, then I was able to branch out and do other things. But that was the key that I drilled in on, which many people called impossible. And again, this was my coach, my mastermind leader, they said it's impossible. But guess what? I was able to do it with a ton of hard work and focus and over time build up the exact team processes energy that I want to give to this business that I'm talking to you about right now.

0 (9m 14s):
Now, one thing that I really want to get into is the fact that you believe in increasing quality and decreasing the quantity of our actions. This is what we've been kind of talking about already with the focus. But let's really get into what you mean by increasing quality and decreasing quantity. How can we actually do that day to day?

1 (9m 37s):
A lot of it has to do with your attention. So as an example, if someone's caught up in the 80%, whatever that means, like they're caught up in distractions, et cetera. Most people's attention is quite surface level these days. A lot of that has to do with the distractions we have, but also a lot of it has to do with just that we're doing too many things. We're, we're focused on quantity in today's world over quality. And so if you want to go 10 x, you really do wanna focus on quality first, which is getting 10 times better at something. Like, I'll, I'll give an example. So Steve Jobs, when he innovated the iPod and he innovated music, right? So back in the day, back in the nineties, like music was on CDs and you had to go to the store and buy a cd. You only wanted one song, right? But you bought the whole cd cuz that was the only way to get it.

1 (10m 19s):
You had to take it home. You now have this big bag of CDs and 80% of the music on those CDs you didn't even want, right? And so he actually focused on quality, a qualitative change. It wasn't that he, he focused on quantity, let's find a way to help people get 10 times more CDs. No, it's, let's focus on how to make it 10 times easier to get the music you want. And so it was a qualitative change and anything that's truly good and valuable was a, is really about quality. And so, but, but in order to reach that level of quality, you've gotta just, as you were saying, you gotta go to that level of focus. And so it's, it's mostly about attention. We have a massive quantity of attention, but a, a really low quality of attention in order to get 10 times better at something to become a master at something to develop mastery, you've gotta, you've gotta actually go deep into something.

1 (11m 2s):
And so it's really, I would invite people to really think about when it comes to quality over quantity, mostly about attention. Where's all your attention and how can you give more quality attention to the things that actually matter? The things in those 20% could be relationships, it could be activities, it could be skills you wanna develop. It should be related though to the 10 x you want. So it's really about attention

0 (11m 20s):
Fire Nation, are you focused on attention? Are you focused on increasing quality? Are you focused on decreasing the quantity of your actions? So many people are “busy every day.”, all day, but who's really being productive? Who's really focusing on what really matters? We have a lot to talk about. Unique ability, 10x ing, vision, creativity, innovation, and more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, we all want the same things for our business. More leads, faster sales and better insights so we can serve our customers at the highest level. One thing we all don't want to waste time and money trying to figure these things out. So, what's the solution? A CRM that's easy to set up and customize sounds too good to be true, right?

0 (12m 2s):
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0 (12m 42s):
Get started for free at hubspot.com. That's hubspot.com. Did you know that most leaders waste up to 70% of their time on tasks they shouldn't be doing in the first place? You know, like managing routine details, scheduling meetings, replying to emails and processing reports. If this sounds familiar, then I have the solution for you. It's time to delegate those routine tasks to a Belay VA. It's time to take back your time and spend your days casting vision, growing revenue, and scaling your business instead. Belay has been helping entrepreneurs scale and succeed for over a decade through fractional, highly vetted US-based virtual assistance bookkeepers and social media managers. It's time to give away the administrative tasks so you can start accomplishing more and juggling less with belay.

0 (13m 28s):
And to help you get started, belay is offering Fire Nation their resource, your personal guide to a productive work week for free. Learn how to make the most of your time and maximize your results today. Just text fire, that's f i r e to 55123 to download your free guide to a productive work week. Benjamin, we're back and I teased before the break. Unique ability. You believe that we need to clarify our own unique ability, which will help us increase the money that we're paid for this ability. Tell us more about this.

1 (14m 4s):
So this is a classic Dan Sullivan concept. Dan Sullivan, obviously the founder of Strategic Coach. He's been coaching entrepreneurs for 50 years. Unique ability is one of the core kind of ideas that he has to help entrepreneurs peel away the layers, right? So we've already been talking about getting outta the 80%, getting into the 20%. Well what is that 20%? Who's your 10 x feature self? A good way of looking at unique ability is it's kind of peeling away the layers of the onion. And it's that which you most want. It's that which you have most intrinsic motivation towards, and that which you have the ability to develop mastery in, but also the desire to develop mastery in. And so part of peeling away the layers kind of like, and the analogy that we kind of used in the book and just the analogy I think of when I think of 10 x or taking a big leap, is the David.

1 (14m 47s):
So this is Michelangelo. When he was asked by the Pope, how did you, how did you create the big 17 foot statue, David? He said, well, I just stripped away everything that was not the David. And so unique ability, at least as I understand it is, is about stripping away everything that you think you need or everything you think other people think you need and, and solely focusing on what you most want. That which is most intrinsically motivating, that which is most exciting, that which you think has infinite upside, right? If something doesn't have massive potential of growth and opportunity and progression, then it's probably not unique ability. One thing I will say though is this unique ability isn't just one activity. Like as an example, I, I, I certainly like love writing books and stuff like that.

1 (15m 27s):
My unique ability isn't writing books, although it can be applied to writing books. It's really about how I approach what I do in the way that makes it unique. This is why I look at it more like mastery and mastery is, is not just doing something well. There's a difference between being a master and being an expert. A lot of people are experts, meaning they can do something well, being a master means you do something uniquely well. It means you do something that no one else can replicate, they can only learn from. So if you think about someone like the Beatles or like Vincent Van Gogh or even like Elon Musk, these people are masters because they're being really be, they're like being really a, like true to themselves. They're being really unique. They're doing it in their own best way and in their own best flow. So it's really about stripping all that away and being in your own rhythm and doing things the best way you can in the most unique way you can.

1 (16m 12s):
And doing it in the way that you want to, not in the way you think you have to, or in the way other people do it. You stop replicating others when you start focusing on mastery.

0 (16m 19s):
I love that word mastery and I love when people focus on that word Fire Nation because there's so much behind that. And one thing that we did also talk about re-break is 10 xing, the vision, the creativity, and the innovation that we're currently experiencing. If we wanna do these things, Benjamin, what are our next steps?

1 (16m 38s):
Obviously a first step is taking the vision and making it bigger. Like that's, that, that goes to like, again, back to the example of my, my son Caleb. If he actually wants to become a better tennis player, it would help to have a much higher goal that would obviously force him down a different path. He'd have to get different mentors, different teachers in psychology, kind of the development of mastery is a concept called deliberate practice. And deliberate practice is really the idea of purposeful practice towards a goal. It's about, it's not about quantity of practice, it's not about quantity of reps, it's about the quality of those reps based on a goal or a standard that you're working towards. And so you could do something a thousand times and literally get no better at it.

1 (17m 20s):
Like, and this is what, this is kinda the difference between how Malcolm Gladwell talked about Malcolm Gladwell talked about doing something for 10,000 hours. We all do things for a, a huge accumulated time and get worse at it. Like take driving as an example. We could, you could drive for 30 or 40 years and actually get worse at it. And so it's not about accumulation of experience or reps, it's about the quality of your experience in reps towards a specific goal. So if my son, as an example, was striving for a level of mastery at the college level, his practice on a daily basis, and his process is gonna look very different than if he was going for a much higher goal. That higher goal would require a much different daily process and practice.

1 (18m 1s):
The goal is always what determines the process and the quality and the direction of that practice. And so this is why I think it's really important. I I actually prefer the concept of standards over goals, but choosing the standard that you wanna live at and standard is a big part of your identity, but just choosing what matters to you, the level you wanna do it, the standard at which you wanna do it, and then ultimately, you know, shaping your daily process and practice so that you're actually getting better. That's how I look at it.

0 (18m 27s):
I love that looking at Fire Nation, the way that you're gonna actually go through this process is very critical. And one thing that you have Benjamin, that I'm very interested in learning more about is self-managing company. What is a self-managing company and why does Fire Nation need to think about creating one?

1 (18m 47s):
This is again, another Dan concept and it fits a lot with, you know, a lot of the research on transformational leadership theory. Transformational leadership theory is like one of the core leadership models, but a self-managing company or self-managing team is, is a really epic way to build a company. And I don't think most entrepreneurs look at it this way. Most entrepreneurs, they're building a company and they still see themselves as the core leader of it. And even most of them get bottlenecked as the manager of it. And if you're the man, and, and honestly even people who are running big companies, they're still in the business not working on the business and because they're in it, they're, they're caught, caught up in that 80%. They're, they're aware of so many things going on in the business.

1 (19m 28s):
They're, there's so many, like they're the touchpoint on so many different things that they haven't actually freed themselves up. And so part of becoming a transformational leader in building a self-managing team or self-managing company is, is that you've gotta actually trust yourself first. And, and leadership is really about two things. It's firstly about trust, secondly about transformation. But you have to trust yourself enough to free yourself into that 20% so that you're no longer even aware back to attention. You're no longer even aware of 90% or more of the things happening in the business. Like you've actually built a team you can trust to manage that so that your, your mind, your attention can go deep into getting 10 times better, more innovative in what you wanna do best.

1 (20m 10s):
We'll call it your unique ability and in the level of master you want. And so in order to do that, not only do you have to trust yourself and free yourself, you also have to have a team that you trust and you empower them to be leaders. So in psychology there's a, a theory called self-determination theory. It's like one of the core motivation theories, but a core aspect of motivation for people is number one, they have to feel competent, they have to feel capable, but secondly, they have to feel autonomous. They have to feel like they have choice and that they're not just being hovered over, but that they have responsibility. And so what happens is, is when a leader trusts themselves enough to free themselves and they trust leaders or a team enough to handle things and even to make mistakes and to make decisions and to move things forward, then the team starts to trust themselves more and starts to take more initiative and they also start to then trust the leader more.

1 (20m 57s):
And once that happens and everyone starts becoming, you know, starts transforming together. And so I I just think that most leaders don't even set out to have a company that manages itself. Like it's never even an an intention that I wanna create a company that honestly the day-to-day manages itself. Like yes, I'm involved. I I'm connecting with the, you know, whether it's a a, a core assistant or a, or a leader, a c e O of some sort. Like yes, I, I'm regularly communicating with them and regularly collaborating, but I'm not in their space. I'm not in their zone, like they're in their zone. This is what they're leading, this is what they're managing and it manages itself very effectively. In fact, it manages itself enormously better than if I was there because I would be bottlenecking it instead, I'm actually in my space and they're in their space

0 (21m 39s):
Fire Nation. There's so many things I love about what Benjamin just shared. One thing I wrote down was this, so please listen up. You have to trust yourself to free yourself. Ask yourself this question, Fire Nation, do you trust yourself, Benjamin value bombs galore. Give us a final takeaway, give us a call to action about how we can consume more of your contents. Then we'll say goodbye.

1 (22m 6s):
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean obviously just benjaminhurry.com I would invite readers to check out the introduction of 10x is Easier Than 2x. The story of Michelangelo and all of his 10x is and how he stripped away his former self, the 80% and reached insane levels of mastery. Obviously, we wouldn't know who he was if he had just done a million things. It's that it's the utter ridiculous quality of what he did. And there's a lot of research obviously on future self and even growth mindset showing that, and I'm just saying this to anyone listening, you can actually get 10 times better at what you want to do than you are now. Just as probably if you were to honestly look back on your past self, there was a point in time of course when you were 1/10 as either skilled or knowledgeable or as wealthy or whatever, had as many page views as you now have.

1 (22m 55s):
So of course you've gone many times in the past. But the key thing here is, is that you can become 10 times better and more valuable, more useful than you are now. And it's an invitation to do that. And so I would just challenge any, any listener, read the intro. If it doesn't blow your mind, literally throw it away.

0 (23m 13s):
I love that cause Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with BH and JLD. So keep up that heat, head over to eofire.com type Benjamin in the search bar, the show us page will pop right up. One more time. Benjamin, give us that call to action.

1 (23m 30s):
Read the introduction of 10x is Easier Than 2x. If it doesn't blow you away, throw it away.

0 (23m 35s):
If it doesn't blow you away, Fire Nation, throw it away. Benjamin, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. I

1 (23m 47s):
Salute you, my friend.

0 (23m 48s):
Hey Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors for sponsoring today's episode in Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and I've created a revolutionary 17 step roadmap to your financial freedom and success. Personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The common path to uncommon success is the step-by-step guidance you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit uncommonsuccessbook.com, order your copy and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals business made simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like How to Get Out of the Day-to-Day Operations Without Crashing Your Business.

0 (24m 35s):
Listen to business Made simple wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know that most leaders waste up to 70% of their time on tasks they shouldn't be doing in the first place? It's time to delegate those routine tasks to a Belay VA. Learn how to make the most of your time and maximize your results today. Text FIRE, that's FIRE to 55123 to download your free guide to a productive work week