We often allow others to define our own personal success. Is success the nice car, the work-life balance, or the loft in the city? Sometimes, even cultural definitions of success can lead to personal failure if we let others guide us. Knowing what you really crave from life is the first step toward personal success.
And once you’ve defined your success—your own, personal, one-in-a-million dream—why settle for that minimum? Why not work for extreme success?
Grant Cardone’s The 10X Rule starts before the beginning. That is, prior to guiding you to achieve success, Cardone helps you discover what success means to you personally—and not only as an individual. Over time, your goals change, and that’s normal. Cardone recognizes that “success in your early 20s might mean something entirely different than in your 40s or 60s.
At every stage, why not make that success extreme? After all, the hard part is done. You already know what you want. Why not achieve what you want but more—10x more.
Success is your duty.
“One of the greatest turning points in my life occurred when I stopped casually waiting for success and instead started to approach it as a duty, obligation, and responsibility,” Cardone writes.
So what stops you? The culprits are common but debilitating:
- Procrastination
- Insecurity
- Lack of willingness to believe in yourself
If you don’t believe in yourself, why should others believe in you?
The 10X Rule doesn’t encourage you to be average, or even to win. Rather, the goal is to dominate.
“Competition is for Sissies,” leads one chapter. “Burn the Place Down,” begins another. Going 10X isn’t just a slogan. Cardone provides inspiration and direction like drill sergeant to help you break out of your box. Only then, he proposes, can you succeed in anything you want and need to do in your life.
Have you set your goals for success? Good. Set them higher.
“I believe that one of the major reasons why people don’t stick to their goals and fail to accomplish them is because they fail to set them high enough from the beginning,” Cardone writes.
Self-doubt and fear have no place in the realm of The 10X Rule. In fact, the slings and arrows of others shouldn’t slow you down, either. The philosophy is one of personal empowerment and—yes—of conquest.
But it’s also one of taking responsibility for your actions. Cardone never encourages the reader with pure bravado. The 10X Rule does not inspire the reader with a “charge blindly and consequences be damned” approach.
Rather, Cardone approaches success with the understanding that each of us is unique. We each have novel conceptions of success. The idea is to set aside personal doubts and fears. And give little credence to the naysayer. Only then will you work hard at your personal ambitions.
In fact, you will go for your dreams 10X as hard.
Criticism precedes admiration.
“Sooner or later, the very same people who were putting you down will be admiring you for what you have done,” Cardone writes.
You’ve probably said to yourself, I was right all along. I wish I’d stuck with my plan. Self-doubt, fear, and uncertainty limit our ability to take the actions we know are right. And when others question our actions, it’s even more debilitating.
As much as uncertainty and fear hold you back, the concerns of others can be worse. You know that friends, family and colleagues have your best interests in mind. When they tell you, “You can’t,” it cuts deep.
Stop holding yourself back by focusing on weaknesses seen by yourself and others. Instead, explore your strengths. And exploit them to their fullest potential.
When you dig in by embracing massive opportunities—taking risks and going for 10X—you will have success. Maybe not every time, but you will have success sometimes. And the failures will grow smaller as the successes grow larger. And it won’t be long before those who said “You can’t” will be those saying, “I believed in you all along.”
Success: You will figure it out.
Lean into success. Yes, The 10X Rule teaches you to reduce fear of failure and set higher goals. But beyond that is the rule itself: “Do what you have to think and do to get to a point 10 times more gratifying than you have ever imagined.”
That means seeking new opportunities and embracing new challenges. And it also means taking risks and persisting through failure until you are successful.
To do so, Cardone offers solutions for success that may sound strange to a conservative business personality. That is, he actually guides the reader to be unreasonable and even dangerous. Says Cardone, “Being careful requires you to take actions cautiously—and there is no way that you will ever hit 10X activity levels by being cautious.”
Is The 10X Rule for me?
Is The 10X Rule a pep talk? In part, yes. But it’s a good one from an expert.
But beyond platitudes, Cardone guides you to think of opportunities—and of your own abilities—in a new way. He offers practical advice for avoiding pitfalls. For instance, don’t underestimate the cost in terms of both money and effort that success requires. Going for 10X the achievement means putting in the effort.
Each chapter includes exercises to help you get into the right mindset. These exercises help you on the road to self-discovery. They help you see what holds you back and invite you to engage the book’s content more actively. You can also opt to purchase The 10X Rule Workbook for even deeper engagement with the primary text.
In short, yes. The book is likely for you.
If you have ever admired an entrepreneur, political leader, athlete, inventor or other successful person, you may have thought they were fundamentally different from you. They are not. Each of us has limits, but we rarely test them. We rarely do what it takes to achieve 10X more. This book can help get you started down the right path.
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