Dan Sullivan: Two Words That Create A Bigger Future: “Ten Times”

I’ve been thinking about multipliers for some time now, trying to find better and better ways to communicate this idea. The trick was how to transmit the idea so that others could instantly understand it and put it to use.

I could give countless examples of multipliers from history or from the remarkable things I’ve seen my clients do, yet people are ultimately most interested in their own story, their own future.

Then I got it: Ten times.

“What if this was 10x better?”

That question has an immediate effect on your mind. Say you ask it about your business. You might respond with excitement, or your brain might come back with a bunch of objections like:

• But my clients wouldn’t pay that much!
• But I don’t want to be ten times busier!
• But I don’t have the support structures for that!

All these responses are extremely useful, because they highlight what stands between you and that 10x, which allows us to start asking further questions like:

• Imagining your income is 10x greater, what kind of people are you dealing with?
• You’re now 10x freer and 10x more focused on what you do best in your business. Which activities did you give up?
• If you’re 10x more productive, what kind of team members do you have around you?

So “10x” is about much more than just money — it can mean whatever’s most important to you. Maybe you’d like to:

• Reach 10x more people with your business and create value for them.
• Make 10x the contribution in your community.
• Have 10x more free time to spend with your family and on your other interests.

Why ten times? Why not five or even two?

The reason is that we’re pretty smart rats, and as smart rats, we say, “I bet I don’t have to change too much to get double the result.” You keep doing a lot of old stuff—just more of it—and it gets you into trouble. The knowledge, attitudes, skills, and habits that got you here aren’t the same ones you’ll be operating with at 10x.

Plus, small multipliers simply aren’t exciting enough. Ten times—now that’s a reason to wake up in the morning! It also gives you a standard for looking at your world: Once you get into that frame of mind, you find yourself asking, “Why am I still doing this? Does it contribute to 10x?”

Ten times is on the outer reaches of imagination, where your thinking goes “POP!”—from incremental change to a quantum leap. It’s an entirely new, unfettered perspective. And it’s actually the safest way to think about the future, because it will introduce you to all the growth you need in order to deal with a rapidly changing world.