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- 📈 How to Make a 10x Quantum Leap
10x isn’t about more. It’s about less.
Michelangelo understood this clearly.
When the Pope asked about the secret of his genius, particularly in regard to the statue of David, Michelangelo explained, “It’s simple. I just remove everything that is not David.”
10x is Easier Than 2x is a profound book that’s relevant for every founder/creator.
It draws on principles similar to The Magic of Thinking Big — but with a more modern and practical/prescriptive perspective, with case studies like MrBeast.
From my vantage point, it’s fundamentally a book about periodic evolution & mastery — how do I:
Define my north star, in its most core essence
Periodically make quantum leaps of evolution as a being, with my north star in mind
Assess and ruthlessly burn away anything that isn’t the evolution I’m currently stepping into
I’ve distilled the essences here, along with how I’m putting it into practice.
Principle 1: Aim Higher
Choose a goal that, at first glance, appears to be impossible. 10x your current output, or quality.
Something that you’d say “this would be impossible, unless xyz happened.”
This forces you to look at what xyz is — xyz is a list of the highest leverage things you can do. Even if you don’t reach 10x, you’ll be worlds away from your current approach to goals/growth.
This, by nature, forces you to think differently, innovate, and let go of anything that isn’t in support of your highest evolution.
It forces you to distill down what the highest leverage actions are, and double down on them.
Your goal shapes your process.
Everything we do as people is driven by our goals or standards. You become whatever you’re striving for. Your goal shapes your process. Your goal also shapes your personal development and evolution.
A 10x goal shifts your process towards extremely high quality, over quantity.
Increase quality, decrease quantity.
“To go 10x requires committing fully to the 20 percent you most resonate with and eliminate everything that can’t or won’t go 10x with you.
10x requires you to become uniquely masterful in a narrowing 20 percent wherein you produce something innovative, valuable, and of rare quality.
You can no longer just put in reps and accept incremental progress, because that won’t get you to 10x. That will just get you to incremental gains, staying in the same paradigm you’re in.
It forces you to apply a depth of quality, attention, and innovation to your every creation, because it’s oriented to something that will have a 10x effect of where you’re at.
‘If you wanted to grow your profits by ten times, how would you do it?’ that would be a much better question because there are likely to be very FEW, maybe even only ONE way to create 10x growth.
Indeed, almost nothing you’re currently doing would get you there.
To separate the signal from the noise, you need to make the goal big enough to weed-out most paths or strategies. Impossible goals help you identify the ONE or FEW conditions that have the highest possible upside.
Those are the areas to focus your scarcest resource - your limited attention on.”
Most people choose goals that are within reach. That means that there’s much more competition for mediocrity. There’s much less competition for greatness.
My 10x goals for this evolution —
5,000 Subscribers for Yin Sleep in 2024
This is a lofty growth goal for a startup. It would be impossible, unless I focus all my attention on the highest leverage actions.
I know that this product truly pushes the needle on sleep quality, and that retention & referral rates will be high once people start. So, the goal is to just get people to try the product.
And, in a meta sense, Sleep is the highest leverage thing to optimize for mental health, productivity, creativity, energy.
People know this — and this is the best product to optimize and insure quality sleep every night despite external factors.
10MM Streams on Spotify in 2024
Art is a little more squiggly when it comes to re-orienting + upleveling. The focus is definitely a lot more on quality and process.
My goal is to make resonant music that I love, that moves people.
A barometer I’ve used is to judge a track (outside of whether I love it) is whether a friend would want to add it to their playlist.
Is this just a unique expression for me, or does this move someone with good taste, to want to listen to it again? Does it have playability and timelessness?
Streams are a decent barometer of that — if my tracks get 10MM streams in 2024, it means music I’ve made is resonant and has been added to playlists and shared.
Principle 2: Assess & Reorient
What are all the things you’re doing right now towards your goal?
What are the highest leverage of these? What will get you to 10x? What will keep you in the same paradigm?
When you make 10x your target, 80 percent of your current clients and relationships become impediments. Also, 80 percent of your current activities, habits, and mindsets become impediments.
Letting go of the 80 percent isn’t easy, because the 80 percent is your comfort zone. To go 2x, you can keep 80 percent of your comfort zone.
You only need to make minor and subtle tip-toe adjustments along the way to go 2x. Letting go of the 80 percent may feel as extreme as literally killing something you love.
Identify the 20% high leverage, and 80% low leverage pulling you away from your deepest work.
Who do you need to be, what mindset and standards do you need to have to reach the 10x?
Mine:
5,000 Subscribers for Yin Sleep
20% Highest Leverage Actions I’m Focusing On:
Affiliate Partnerships w/ thought leaders/platforms
Optimizing for trial packs in people’s hands, so people can see the benefit of the product
Optimizing referral program
High upside sponsorship/advertising opportunities
Growing newsletter community, by writing really valuable content that excites me and I’d want to read
80% I’m trimming:
Delegating operational work — supply chain, bookkeeping, customer service
Delegating d2d marketing work
Not Investing in Native Social Media — long-term / low leverage / slow growth
Anything that has an outsize amount of effort just to get a few subscribers — random partnerships, giveaways, etc
10 Million Streams on Spotify in 2024
Create more unique, resonant music by diving into production + collaboration.
20% Highest Leverage Actions I’m Focusing On
Focus on writing 1 good song per month
Use my morning practice on producing + guitar, to develop the skills of production
Work with a producer to write songs from scratch — a more unique expression
Create beautiful video content to go along with the song for release
80% I’m trimming
Writing large quantities of songs to get reps in, the path of least friction
Writing over pre-made instrumentals from Youtube, Beatstars, etc
Principle 4: Grow with the Pains
Evolving yourself to the level of a higher minimum standard requires commitment and courage, which eventually leads to the development of new capabilities and confidence (Dan’s 4C’s formula).
When you commit to a new evolution, you’re creating new standards of who you are as a being. It may take some time for your reality to catch up.
There may be some growing pains, rejection, and learnings to be had at this new identity you’re stepping in to.
Adopt a learning / growth mindset in order to cement this new identity and standard of way of being.
You embrace rejection and learning at the new standard until you reach a place of capability and confidence at the new standard.
For instance, if you’re a professional speaker and your current speaking fee is $25,000, raise your minimum fee to $50,000 and see what happens.
Over the next few months, you may get a dozen speaking inquiries, and all of them but one reject your new fee of $50,000. Thus, you got 1/12 at the new standard.
Getting this one yes at $50,000 is 10x more valuable to your identity and confidence than getting 12/12 yeses at the $25,000 level, even though in the short-run you’d be leaving a nice chunk of money on the table.
Over time, you’ll normalize your new standard—first emotionally within, but then externally as your reputation, positioning, and level of mastery.
As you do this, you re-train the outside world to see you in a new light. Your standards are the inner-filter through which you operate, but also by which aligned people can know how to operate and collaborate with you.
Principle 5: Define Your Unique Ability
The authors discuss the concept of Unique Ability in the book. I’ve gleaned this as — your zone of genius distilled down to its core essence. Then distilled again.
It’s always taking you to the core of who you are and your highest purpose—the David.
This gives you the intersection of the value you create, what you’re excited by, and what you love to do.
The value of this is comes especially when you complete one quantum leap of evolution and you’re ready for the next - you can then use your Unique Ability as the north star.
With that use case in mind, it’s best to trim down specificity, to make it more universal and core.
The author’s refining process shines a light on this:
Take 1:
For example, I could say, “My Unique Ability is to learn, understand, and distill complex ideas in a compelling, simple, and useful manner.” However, I could be even more specific than this,
Take 2:
“My Unique Ability is to clarify and conceptualize highly complex ideas in the form of compelling, story-driven, and science-based books.”
Take 3:
“Connecting with truth, internalizing and being transformed by it, and teaching it in such a way that it transforms those who hear it.”
Mine:
Deeply engaging with all aspects of the human condition; transmuting it into works of art that are life-affirming. Helping myself & others more deeply understand/engage with life & the human experience.
Clarifying which tools & concepts are most impactful to self-actualization and a life well-lived, and simplifying the ways to seamlessly apply them.
Principle 6: Revisit Your Past 10x Leaps
You’ve already made 10x leaps in your past.
Set aside the time to document them — split them up into phases of your life where a leap was occuring. Identify what 80% you burned away from your life, and what 20% you focused on.
This helps clarify your path forward, and shows you what you’re capable of.
Research shows that confidence is the byproduct of past successes, more than the cause of future success.
It also helps makes sense of the narrative of your life, and helps you to appreciate the wins, lessons, and experiences you’re having, every day/week/month/year.
Principle 7: Restructure Your Weeks
Hardy describes how high performing athletes and artists structure their days, and how to implement this into your life.
Athletes and artists have narrow zones of focus to provide the highest quality of work over a burst of time — this is the 20% in action.
Split your days into Free Days (Recovery: massage, sleep, sauna, cold plunge, hiking; Explore: art galleries, inspiration, new books, things to gather to pull into Focus, space to think through complex problems and challenges), Buffer Days (meetings, admin, preparation), and Focus days (20% high leverage work only).
I’m doing:
M / W / F
Focus Days — Deep Work & Creativity
Writing / Vision / Strategy
Tu / Th
Buffer Days
Project Management / Meetings / Life Admin / Music Practice
Sat / Sun
Explore & Recovery
Hike, Art Galleries, Hobbies, Films, Intrinsically Joyful Reads
Reading Newsletters, Exploring new topics in art, AI, business
One other nugget:
In every social situation, you’re either being a Buyer or a Seller. The difference between a Buyer and a Seller is the Buyer can walk away. The Buyer is not desperate to be there.
I distilled this down for those that want to implement these things ASAP. But, I highly recommend reading the whole book. I burned through it in 5 days.
- Ali
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