Most of the time, independent thought and first-person analysis are worth more than blind faith in any “expert” opinion, and that’s the case in every area of life. In our experience, the keys to success in any endeavor, whether we are talking about trading or quitting your job and untying your dock lines to sail across vast oceans—or whatever—it all boils down to this:
We aren’t satisfied risking X in hopes of making a fraction of X. Instead we want to risk X for the potential of receiving 2X or 5X or 10X. We want to leverage our assets to increase our reward disproportionately to the risks we are taking. Every dollar and every cent can be used in one of two ways:
Wealthy people use a small percentage of their net worth to live on. Living on less changes everything My philosophy is that when life puts a fork in the road the riskier choice is most often the most rewarding. To reach where you want to be in life, it's highly unlikely that a series of simple risk-free choices will lead you where you want to go. When you owe money to someone, whether a bank, corporation, or an individual, they own you and the rights to the fruits of your labor (your production) until that debt is repaid. If you’re in that small minority who owns their house outright, doesn’t carry any debt and has cash in the bank—we know what you’re saying to yourself right now: I don’t owe anything to anyone, so I’m free. Sure you are. What about income tax? Sales tax? Property tax? You will still owe those, no matter what. If you choose not to pay the IRS for long enough, they’ll take that house and haul you off to jail. There is also inflation to consider. The Federal Reserve puts more and more money into circulation every year, making your cash worth less and less all the time. That means that unless your assets appreciate faster than the rate of inflation, they are worth less and less all the time, too. So you can see that no matter what your net worth is and no matter how little debt you have, you are continually swimming upstream as debt, tax obligation, and inflation eat away at your assets. The most important and pervasive reason the American Dream has become more dream and less reality is a fundamental lack of real value creation. Live on the Margin Be Disciplined
Remember: We are not just talking about money here. This refers to being successful in all areas of life—and to do so, you will not be able to compromise this thing called discipline. Discipline is an orderly, prescribed conduct that will get you what you want—and it's a requirement for 10X players. Unfortunately, most peoples' disciplines look more like bad habits instead of the—admittedly uncomfortable—10X actions they should be taking over and over again. Discipline is what you use to complete any activity until the activity—regardless of how uncomfortable—becomes your normal operating procedure. In order to ever attain and keep success, you must determine which habits are constructive—and discipline both yourself and your group (see point 28) to do those things over and over again. If you find you do not have all of the previously mentioned success traits and habits—or you see yourself having most or some of them most of the time but occasionally fall off a bit—no worries. I would expect that most of the people reading this don't consistently display every single one of these qualities all the time. Become aware of what the list is, keep it close to you, and make a new commitment to making these techniques part of who you are rather than merely something you “do.” Although I don't personally operate in the success column 100 percent of the time, I do make efforts to ensure that I spend most of my time doing what successful people do. None of the things on this list is a superhuman quality. Every single one is attainable. Don't use just one or two of the techniques. Start thinking and operating with them, and they will become a part of you. Use them all. Now means now—not a minute from now. Start with first things first; make your initial list of goals, then a list of actions that will propel you in that direction. Then—without overthinking it—start taking those actions. A few things to keep in mind as you start: 1. Do not reduce your goals as you write them. 2. Do not get lost in the details of how to accomplish them at this point. 3. Ask yourself, “What actions can I take today to move me toward these goals?” 4. Take whatever actions you come up with—regardless of what they are or how you feel. 5. Do not prematurely value the outcome of your actions. 6. Go back each day and review the list. Remember: Successful people embrace fear and discomfort! The goal has to be more valuable than the risk—or you have determined the wrong target. Successful people commit first and figure the rest out later The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure The right mindset can take you everywhere and anywhere. The trouble is, people have a hard time letting go of what they ‘should’ be doing, based on what society dictates. In general, society thinks you should have the fancy office, the house, the car and the mortgage and payments to go along with these things. You should spend all your time working your ass off to earn money so that you can spend it on getting more things. The truth is, we don’t need to live in a material world. Sorry Madonna, we just don’t. The burden of being weighed down by the debt you’ve incurred from buying the material possessions you really don’t need is a heavy one and something you can do without.
The solution? Own less crap. Having a minimalist outlook on life is one of the most freeing things ever and it’s great for your wallet. Becoming Minimalist “After a conversation with my neighbor on Memorial Day 2008, my family and I decided to become minimalist and intentionally live with fewer possessions. We immediately cleared the clutter from our home and life. As a result, we found a valuable new way to life, centered on our most important values. It has been a journey of discovering that abundant life is actually found in owning less. And it still ranks as one of the best decisions we’ve ever made with our life.” ~ Joshua Becker, excerpt from Becoming Minimalist. The Suitcase Entrepreneur: Create freedom in business and adventure in life A goal is some desirable objective—typically something yet to be achieved—that a person or company needs in order to move forward. Successful people are highly goal-oriented and always pay more attention to the target than the problem. They are seemingly able to bend bullets because of their commitment and focus on the goal.
If you don't stay focused on your goals, you will spend your life achieving the objectives of other people—particularly those who are goal-oriented. Goals are incredibly important to me. I begin and finish each day by writing them down and reviewing them. Any time I encounter failure or a challenge, I take out a legal pad and write my goals down again. This helps keep my attention on where I desire to go and the goals I want to achieve—instead of letting me dwell on the difficulty of the moment. The ability to remain focused on the goal and keep your orientation on that goal's achievement is vital to success. Although I try to stay focused on the present, I want to keep most of my attention on the bigger picture of my goals rather than on just the task I'm accomplishing at that moment. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Life furnishes us the opportunity to improve. But whether we do it or not depends upon how near we live up to what is expected of us. The first of each month, a person should sit down and examine the progress he has made. If he has not come up to "expectations" he should discover the reason, and by extra exertion measure up to what is demanded next time. Every time that we fall behind what we planned to do, we lose just so much for that time is gone forever. We may find a reason for doing it, but most excuses are poor substitutes for action. Most things are possible.
The price is not in money, but in effort. The first essential quality for success is the desire to do—to be something. The next thing is to learn how to do it; the next to carry it into execution. achieves success. The secret of success is to try always to improve yourself no matter where you are or what your position. Learn all you can. Don't see how little you can do, but how much you can do. That is the only secret of why some succeed and others fail. The successful man gets used to seeing things accomplished and always feels sure of success. The man that is a failure gets used to seeing failure, expects it and attracts it to him. When a man loses his grip today, he must win his redemption by his own will. He will get little encouragement or advice of an inspiring nature. He must usually regain the right road alone. He must stop dissipating his energies and turn his attention to building a useful career. Today we must conquer our weakening tendencies alone. Don't expect anyone to help you. Just take one big brace, make firm resolutions, and resolve to conquer your weaknesses and vices. Really none can do this for you. They can encourage you; that is all. There is only one way to accomplish anything and that is to go ahead and do it. The Power of Concentration The highly successful take unbelievable amounts of action. Regardless of what that action looks like, these people rarely do nothing—even when they are on vacation (just ask their spouses or families!). Whether it is by way of getting others to take action for them, getting attention for their products or ideas, or just grinding it out day and night, the successful have been consistently taking high levels of action—before anyone ever heard their names. The unsuccessful talk about a plan for action but never quite get around to doing what they claim they're going to do—at least enough to ever get what they want. Successful people assume that their future achievements rely on investing in actions that may not pay off today but that when taken consistently and persistently over time will sooner or later bear fruit.
Your ability to take action will be a major factor in determining your potential success—and is a discipline that you should spend time on daily. It's not a gift or trait I was “lucky” enough to receive or inherit; it's a habit that must be developed. Laziness and lack of action are ethical issues for me. I don't think it's right or acceptable for me to be lazy. It is not a “character flaw” that's caused by some invented disease, any more than a highly active person is somehow “blessed.” No one is born to sprint or run a marathon any more than some people are born to take more action than others. Action is necessary in order to create success and can be the single defining quality that will enable you to make the list of successful people. No matter who you are or what you've done in life so far, you can develop this habit in order to enhance your success. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Derek Sivers, coach and author: “Abraham Maslow had a great quote that he said something like, ‘Life presents us constantly with a choice between safety and risk’ and he said, ‘Make the growth choice a thousand times a day.’ Reading something like that when I was 17 and just knowing him and his pyramid of self-actualization I kind of went all right. “Again, that’s like a rule of thumb or recipe for what to do and how to make your decisions in life. Make the growth choice a thousand times a day, okay, got it. I guess I kind of just run all of my daily decisions through that kind of filter.
Frank McKinney, who does ultramarathons, talks about exercising risk like a muscle. It’s something that can be strengthened. Your comfort zone can grow. You start to build up a tolerance and then it starts to become comfortable. I see this over and over again. That’s why it’s easier for serial entrepreneurs, even if there is big risk involved in the new companies. They have done it before. They have more confidence and more skill managing risks. That doesn’t mean there isn’t fear, but they mitigate that as well. The key difference between them and others though is just like I said earlier: They don’t let that stop them! They continue to grow and get better. You need to make sure you can rely on yourself and your own powers. The way to do that is to keep relying on yourself over and over again so you start to trust yourself. Once that trust builds, your confidence builds. It takes practice. The more practice you get in, the more times you step up to the plate, the more times you’ll have to look back on to show yourself that you did it. That also means that practicing that sales call or practicing that presentation makes a difference, too. Another piece that tends to play a part in confidence is how much you value the opinions of others. If you take others’ opinions of you to heart, then either you will be too worried about what they think to even try, or you will be so focused on what others think that you can’t be confident in what you think. If this seems to resonate with you, then this is a piece that needs to be worked on! An opinion is not fact. Everyone has his or her own perception of reality. Just like asking eye witnesses to recount an accident, there will be differences based on their feelings toward the event. You will never be able to please everyone! Don’t let the opinion of others get in the way of you creating the business you want. As you grow as a business owner you’ll rely more and more on yourself and care less about the opinions of others. Whatever scares you, go do it, because then it won’t scare you anymore. With almost anything, once you do it, it’s not as scary as you thought it was. —Derek Sivers The Eventual Millionaire: How Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur and Successfully Grow Their Startup Fear isn't bad or something to avoid; conversely, it's something you want to seek and embrace. Fear is actually a sign that you are doing what's needed to move in the right direction.
It's been said that FEAR stands for False Events Appearing Real, which aptly implies that most of what you're afraid of doesn't ever come to pass. Fear, for the most part, is provoked by emotions, not rational thinking. You must reframe your understanding of fear and use it as a reason to move forward rather than as an excuse to stop or retreat. If you're afraid to call on a client, then it's a sign that you should call that client. Fear of speaking with the boss is an indication that you should march into his office and ask for a moment of his time. Fear of requesting the client's business means that you must ask for the business—and then keep asking. The 10X Rule compels you to separate yourself from everyone else in the market. And you do that by—as I emphasized earlier—doing what others refuse to do. Only in this way will you distinguish yourself and dominate your sector. Everyone experiences fear on some level, and because the marketplace is composed of people interacting with both products and one another, the market will face fear in the same way that you and your peers do. But rather than seeing fear as a sign to run—as most other people in the market will do—it must become your indicator to go. I handle this dilemma myself by omitting time from the equation—since time is what drives fear. The more time you devote to the object of your apprehension, the stronger it becomes. So starve the fear of its favorite food by removing time from its menu. Fear doesn't just tell you what to do; it also tells you when to do it. Ask yourself what time it is at any point in the day, and the answer is always the same: now. The time is always now—and when you experience fear, it's a sign that the best time to take action is at that very moment. Most people will not follow through with their goals when enough time has passed from the inception of their idea to actually doing something about it; however, if you remove time from your process, you'll be ready to go. There's simply no other choice than to act. There's no need to prepare. It's too late for that once you've gotten this far. All the excuses in the world won't change one simple fact: that fear is a sign to do whatever it is you fear—and do it quickly. Eat your fears; don't feed them by backing off or giving them time to grow. Learn to look for and use fear so that you know exactly what you need to do to overcome it and advance your life. Every successful person I know of has used fear as an indicator to determine which actions will provide the greatest return. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure I’ve outlined a step-by-step process to help you move past your fear, along with specific tools you can use to help harness it. The first step is to recognize the fear. Goal number one of your new plan about getting uncomfortable every day, recognize the fear. Number two is harness that fear. Number three is step out with active actions and number four is assess and expand your comfort zone. Let’s step into those.
Step 1: Recognize the Fear We tend to avoid things that we don’t like and procrastinate whatever it is. If, every time you think of public speaking or deciding on a business decision, you start to feel anxiety or that queasy stomach or worry “What if?”, then you are starting to deal with fear. Nobody thinks the feeling of fear is fun. We need to know though that it’s there and we need to give it a name because then it can start to get smaller. Fear is an idea in your head. Step 2: Harness the Fear We have nothing to fear but fear itself. —Theodore Roosevelt There is a benefit to fear. Millionaires talk about harnessing it. Just like harnessing the wind or water for electricity, we channel fear into something greater. Fear is an indicator as to whether there might be a threat or risk. So use fear as your guidepost. You probably don’t look at that picture because that’s probably not a good guidepost right now. It looks like it’s going to fall apart. But that’s where fear is the asset. Just like Chris said, “It might be your gut telling you to stop moving forward because there’s potential disaster ahead. You do that check in, and then you do your due diligence. You use it for what it is and then ignore, if it’s not true.” The other way that you can harness the fear is to use fear to get over stuff, to move things faster. Use it like you would caffeine. Pretend fear is like your morning coffee getting you buzzed and ready to go for action. The more situations you are in that are fear-inducing (not paralyzing fear where you can’t move, but regulated fear) the more you are stepping out of your comfort zone and the more you are going to be able to create the life you want. It’s a good thing, not a bad thing. The Eventual Millionaire: How Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur and Successfully Grow Their Startup To get where you want to go in life, you must adopt the view that whatever is going on in your world—good, bad, or nothing—is something caused by you. I assume control over everything that happens to me, even for those things that I appear to have no control over. Whether I am in control or not, I still elect to claim responsibility and control so that I can do something to improve my situation going forward.
When I assume and increase my responsibility for this situation, I will probably come up with a solution going forward. Assume control and increase responsibility by adopting the position that you make all things happen, even those things you have previously considered to not be under your control. Never take the position that things just happen to you; rather, they happen because of something you did or did not do. If you are willing to take credit when you win, you have to take credit when you don't! Increasing your responsibility level will inherently enhance your ability to find solutions and create more success for yourself. Assuming control will cause you to start to look at what you can do to make sure negative events don't take place so that you can improve the quality of your life and reduce the occurrence of seemingly random unfortunate events. Once you start to approach every situation as someone who is acting—not being acted upon—you will start to have more control over your life. Having (or failing to have) success, I believe, is a direct result of everything you are doing and thinking yourself. You are the source, the generator, the origin, and the reason for everything—both positive and negative. This is not meant to simplify the concept of success, of course, but until you decide you are responsible for everything, you likely will not take the action necessary to get you above the game. However, if you want to have it all, then of course you have to assume responsibility for everything. It was only until I truly started to believe that nothing happens to me; it happens because of me that I was able to start operating at 10X levels. Someone once said, “No matter where I go, there I am.” This little saying suggested to me that I am both the problem and the solution. Disciplined, consistent, and persistent actions are more of a determining factor in the creation of success than any other combination of things. Understanding how to calculate and then take the right amount of action is more important than your concept, idea, invention, or business plan. Most people fail only because they are operating at the wrong degree of action. To simplify action, we are going to break down your choices into four simple categories or degrees of action. Your four choices are: 1. Do nothing. 2. Retreat. 3. Take normal levels of action. 4. Take massive action. You have to approach each day as though your life and your future depend on your ability to take massive action. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure |
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