Book Club 14 - 10x is Easier than 2x

The following was originally published for Patrons on January 12th, 2024. Get caught up at your own pace by joining at the "Post Parisian" level or above!

Not gonna lie, this book has a lot of extra padding. However, half of that padding is comprised of some pretty fun and inspiring stories mixed with some very helpful mindset messages. Given that combo, I think it’s passable. There’s also an argument that can be made for fluffing up a book like this, as it takes time and repetition for the core ideas to sink in.

10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dr. Benjamin Hard and Dan Sullivan, is based on a fairly simple yet counterintuitive premise - working towards goals that are ten times beyond you today is actually easier than trying to double where you are.

The padding has made this a slower read for me (as have two nights spent awake cleaning doggy disasters and some insanely packed days to follow), but here are some ideas that stand out:

10x goals lead to clarity of action.

2x thinking, as the book puts it, is doubling down on what you’re already doing and trying to earn more or build faster by working harder. The benefit of choosing an outrageous goal that feels borderline if not totally impossible is that it lends immediate clarity.

If I want to stroll up Montmartre, there are dozens of ways I can make that happen. If I want to climb Mount Everest, there’s realistically only one. Choosing that goal immediately prunes options that will not help me get closer to the summit. Diet, training, resources, and the risks involved all become glaringly clear. Giving in to distraction is likely to leave me a frozen corpse halfway up the slope. And setting my lifestyle to accommodate those goals will lead to real transformation even if I never end up summiting.

Similarly, if I continue to double down on the dozen things I’ve been doing to grow my career in the creative space, I’m unlikely to make much real advancement on any of them. If, however, I can choose one singular, outlandish goal and set everything I have on attaining it, I’m liable to get there. And even if I don’t, unlike Mount Everest, there are a lot of wonderful unforeseen places I could land along the way instead. And again, all the hard work transforming myself into who I need to be to attain those goals will not be a waste.

Want not need.

Among the mentality shifts, one that stands out to me is operating on want, not need. When we act in need, we’re justified in what we pursue because we have to have it to survive. But once we’ve attained a stable survival status, we can no longer justify wanting more for need (and if we try, it’s easy to get shot down by those around us who would keep us where we are).

Operating out of want is an approach that takes an abundance mindset, a view of the world where there is plenty of room to grow and build wealth. It doesn’t have to be a zero sum game - you don’t have to put others down to lift yourself up. Sullivan (the oft-quoted-yet-pretty-sure-wrote-none-of-this-book co-author) has a practice of “want journaling,” where he writes down what he wants at the beginning of every day. It’s how he unlearned his reluctance to know and go after what he wanted - something I certainly struggle with - and a practice I plan to implement myself.

And of course the final lesson here is to learn to stop justifying why you want anything beyond the fact that you do. Much like “No” is a complete sentence, you are permitted to want. You don’t have to justify it to anyone else (much like I’ve learned not to justify my choices in the comment section on YouTube 😂). What holds us back, and what keeps others from letting us go free, is very often fear. And as they quote in the book, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

2x Isn’t Inclusive.

You don’t build something inclusive for others if you don’t hand over the work you shouldn’t be doing. Not even ‘shouldn’t,’ but work that could be better done by someone else (who will also enjoy it more than you do). This is one that hits home as I’ve worked on developing my own team this year. I could continue answering every email, scheduling every meeting, and hunting down every question I’m forced to resolve in the midst of French bureaucracy. But why?

Hanging on to the status quo of your daily life, whether from a sense of personal obligation to responsibilities or, again, fear of letting others in, keeps you stuck where you are. Keeps you grinding it out. Handing 80% of this year’s tasks over to someone else so as to make way for expanding the 20% in which you excel, in which you create the most value for the world and for yourself, is the starting point for enabling massive development and growth. (Also I’d like to take an aside to recognize that the 80/20 or ‘Pareto principle’ is over-referenced and misleading but they use it heavily in this book so it had to make its way into this report at some point - and in this instance, I think it does apply)

If our dreams are dreams we can accomplish without anyone else, I think there’s an argument to be made that they’re dreams that are both too small and unworthy of us. We’re social creatures after all. Even in solo projects like writing books, which I used to try and tackle as alone as possible, I robbed myself of deeper connection by not trusting my editors, illustrators, designers, and readers with more of myself. More of the process. More ownership in the end product. Which robbed us all of better books.

And now, with something far more public and involved - yet still wildly solo (makes me laugh when people ask if I have a camera person) - I still wonder: how do I let others in? I’m figuring that out much better these days, but I do believe that the only way to what I’m dreaming of is through collaboration with people I trust and love. And maybe a few wild cards along the way.

This Week’s Haul

Again, too little sleep and too many meetings this week. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some gold out there in the world of YouTube.

Did someone say GOLD? One of my all-time favorite video essayists, Folding Ideas, just came out with a decisive tear down of Idris Elba’s recent ‘documentary’ on the prospector’s special. It’s a fascinating dive into a world of corporate propaganda that doesn’t even pretend not to be, and the natural shortcomings of trying to produce a ‘documentary’ while serving explicit interests.

Matpat is retiring?! I knew there was another wave of YouTuber retirements going on at the moment (Tom Scott, Matti Haapoja, and way more than I realized before this week), but this one comes as a genuine surprise to me. Not because I don’t understand where Matpat’s coming from, the life he describes in his goodbye video does sound borderline miserable, but because it feels like if he wanted to keep going he was on his way to achieving that goal. Linus of Linus Tech Tips had a similar breakdown back when he crossed the 10M subscriber mark which left me deeply concerned for his health, but also the future of his channels. Thankfully he was able to navigate a restructuring of his business that put him back in the creator seat, and left operations and executive decisions largely if not completely out of his hands. I hope Matt finds some rest and wild success at whatever he ends up doing next.

And finally, for the podcast lovers, a deep-dive into business flywheels that Jeff sent me this week and I think will be really helpful as we navigate our own futures on this side of the pond.

How was your week? Read or watch anything interesting?