Table of Contents

The Book in Three Sentences

In this summary, you’ll learn that 10x is easier than 2x. The idea sounds confusing because most think 10x growth requires ten times more effort. In reality, 10x growth is about expanding what the author calls your most important freedoms: time, money, relationships, and purpose.

Buy the Book

10x Is Easier than 2x Summary

Introduction: 10x Is the Opposite of What You’ve Been Told

To become a master at something, you must do things that your competitors aren’t willing to. The process is risky and you will make mistakes, but as a result, you’ll create something noteworthy. This is what the author calls the 10x process. This involves doing something innovative and non-linear. You’ll learn unique knowledge and you’ll be a different person as a result. You’ll also acquire new skills and more confidence and your reputation will precede you.

This breakthrough is possible due to psychological flexibility which refers to the ability to deal with obstacles. This is emotionally difficult, but you mustn’t let your emotions interfere. Notice your thoughts and emotions, but don’t let them define you.

Every time you do a 10x jump, you acquire confidence and skills that help you on your next 10x jump. As you work on new projects, their quality, depth, and impact will increase too. Committing to a 10x project is scary because it requires you to give up your identity and leave your comfort zone. The 2x mindset, on the other hand, encourages you to maintain what you’re already doing. This is linear because you expect to double your outcomes by doubling your effort. The problem with this mindset is that it’s exhausting and unsustainable.

The 10x mindset seems impossible because you can’t work 10x harder. Nevertheless, 10x growth is about doing less. You narrow down your focus to the point that you’re only doing what’s essential. 10x is also about quality, not quantity. The most important resource we have is our attention. If you can harness it and point it toward a singular thing, it will have a lasting impact. Lastly, 10x is process-focused, not outcome-focused.

Erich Fromm recognized two types of freedom. Surface-level freedom is “freedom from” which is external and measurable. Higher-level freedom is “freedom to” which is internal and qualitative. The ultimate goal of 10x is freedom.

Dan Sullivan recognizes four freedoms that 10x people look for: freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationships, and freedom of purpose. As you complete new projects, your freedoms will expand. 10x means you play the infinite game which has no rules or competitors and the goal is to keep playing as long as possible. 2x means you play the finite game where you compete with other players and there are strict rules you can’t escape.

10x demands that you give up everything you don’t want in your life. Once you do, your journey will be easier. Many people refuse to take this first step because it’s scary, but you can’t skip it.

Part 1: 10x Principles

Chapter 1: The Surprising Simplicity of 10x Growth

To create 10x growth, you need to focus on a few things. This is about harnessing your most important resource, your attention, to achieve goals that seem impossible. Before you do anything else, make your goal impossible because once you do, you’ll entertain new ideas that might take you to the solution you need.

As the author puts it, “The goal determines the process.” Once you define your goal, you must stop everything you are doing and choose one of the few paths that will get you there. In psychology, there’s a trait called pathways thinking where people highly committed to certain goals constantly learn the skills needed to achieve them. This is where ambitious goals come into play. Since they’re so ambitious, the paths that will get you where you want to be are few. The goal works as a filtration tool that separates the signal from the noise. Having low standards gives you infinite options which is not what you want. Most things in life are a distraction and your job is to ignore them.

To do more, you need to focus on fewer things. A concept that illustrates this is the 80/20 rule. The Pareto principle, as it’s also known, says that 80 percent of the outcomes come from 20 percent of the causes. So you must recognize the 20 percent that matters so that you can ignore the 80 percent that doesn’t. You’ll be able to identify that 20 percent as soon as you’ve defined your goal. 10x growth is hard because it requires you to do the opposite of what you’ve been doing. Don’t forget that what got you here won’t get you there.

10x growth is transformative. It will change you, your vision, and your thinking. This is possible because 10x is all about quality, not quantity. The best position you can be in is to do things differently and better, not to do more. This might involve reaching the point of no return where you’re so committed to a goal that the only way out is to succeed. You don’t want to experience decision fatigue, which happens when you make too many decisions or constantly switch tasks. The way to do this is by outsourcing the 80 percent of work you don’t enjoy so that you can focus on the 20 percent that you do.

Chapter 2: 10x the Quality of Everything that You Do

When you attempt 10x growth, you have to put in a lot of time and effort and you won’t see results for a long time. By the time you see results, they will be exponential. Soon, you’ll have access to new opportunities, but achieving 10x growth again will require you to niche down. Once you do, you must start from scratch and focus on quality.

10x demands that you simplify by ignoring everything that doesn’t matter. As a result, you’ll achieve more by doing less. The 10x process is available to anyone who chooses freedom over security. As a result, you’ll improve both internally and externally. Doing so requires you to let go of your old identity to embrace a new one. You’ll have to let go of busyness, pleasing everyone, or always being available. To evolve your identity, you must set high standards. For this purpose, Dan Sullivan created The 4C’s Formula.

Commitment
Courage
Capability
Confidence

Committing to high standards pushes you outside your comfort zone which demands courage. Soon, you’ll experience failures you can use to learn more things. When you do this, you develop new skills and capabilities. This is how you achieve mastery which gives you confidence.

Letting go of your identity is scary and difficult. Humans are scared of loss aversion. This means we avoid loss more than we pursue gain. We often see this in three forms:

Sunk cost bias: we invest in something unprofitable because that was the norm.
Endowment effect: we overvalue things because we perceive them as ours.
Consistency principle: we continue a behavior to display consistency.

10x growth is all about freedom which means you choose the standards you want, not the ones you once liked or the ones that will make you look good. When you do, you’ll eventually reach acceptance and feel comfortable with the new standards you set for yourself.

To get 10x results, you can’t think linearly. To get 10x results, you must think exponentially. This involves quality, not quantity. In other words, it’s not about volume and effort but about becoming extremely good at one thing and ignoring everything else. The effort itself isn’t that important, where you direct that effort is. Feel free to iterate, but only when it’s aimed toward a 10x upgrade. A massive goal is easier to achieve than an average goal.

Interestingly, you can shift your 20 percent focus toward your standards. The moment your 2x identity isn’t serving you anymore, you can drop it and prepare for a 10x jump. As part of this process, you’ll need a higher degree of mastery. This often means hiring the right people for the 80 percent you no longer want to focus on. Also, going 10x requires letting go of distractions. Your attention becomes your most precious resource since going into deep work is a must. Becoming the best involves mastering the art of quitting. You must renounce everything that isn’t essential to focus on what is. Quitting the wrong stuff is hard but you need to do it to achieve 10x transformation.

Chapter 3: 10x Embraces Abundance and Rejects Scarcity

When you feel you need certain things because of scarcity and loss aversion, your life falls apart. Going from a place of “need” to a place of “want” can change your life. Don’t try to rationalize what you want, simply accept it. Also, don’t worry about other people’s opinions. 10x achievements are personal and you intrinsically want them to happen.

There are two core ideas that you must consider when it comes to wanting. First, wanting is about abundance. Second, wanting doesn’t require justification. What most people want is wealth which is available in unlimited supply and represents freedom. You can create wealth by giving value to people in the form of a physical commodity, a service, or information. When you embrace this idea, you’re playing the infinite game rather than competing for scarce money.

Dan Sullivan identifies four differences between those who want and those who need.

Needing is extrinsically motivated. Wanting is intrinsically motivated.
Needing is security-driven. Wanting is freedom-driven.
Needing is scarcity-minded. Wanting is abundance-minded.
Needing is reactive. Wanting is creative.

The ultimate goal is to achieve freedom. The author recognizes two types of freedom. Freedom from involves escaping from the things you don’t want. Freedom to is committing to the thing you want the most. While freedom from is external and avoidance-motivated, freedom to is internal and approach-motivated. To be free, you must be honest with yourself and admit what you want.

The author turns his attention to your Unique Ability. This includes all the activities and places that energize you and everything that doesn’t. Once you have a clear Unique Ability, other people’s opinions become irrelevant and you can be free. Having a Unique Ability also helps you create value and wealth. Since this is how you express yourself, no one can compete with you. Your Unique Ability is your vision, purpose, and “why” (start with why). It helps you achieve a state of flow and leave your comfort zone. Your main goal is to develop mastery and express your Unique Ability.

To develop your Unique Ability:

Be honest about what you want to do
Think exponentially
Clarify your ideal future self
Clarify the 20 percent that will get you there
Let go of the 80 percent that won’t

When you define your Unique ability, bear in mind that it’s broader than any specific skill or ability. It’s more related to how you behave when you’re being the best version of yourself. A Unique Ability manifests itself when you play, go down rabbit holes, and change boundaries in a given domain. When you’re playing your own game, you have no competition. This gives you confidence and lets you be selective.

This leads us to the next concept, what Sullivan calls Always Be the Buyer. Buyers have clear standards for themselves and know what they want. Sellers are desperate and uncommitted to anything because they have no standards. The main difference between buyers and sellers is that buyers can leave whenever they want. They don’t care about being rejected because they know what they bring to the table.

Part 2: 10x Applications

Chapter 4: Uncover Your 10x Past to Clarify Your 10x Future

If you want a 10x jump in your life, you can’t use the same model you’ve been using so far. To go 10x, you must change 80 percent of your life. One way to do this is by embracing the idea of the gap and the gain. In his previous book, The Gap and the Gain, Sullivan encouraged people to focus on the gains rather than the gap. This involved looking at the things you’ve already obtained rather than the ones you haven’t.

Even if you have achieved a lot, you can devalue the process by focusing on negative emotions. When this happens, you’re in the gap. Essentially, you’re measuring yourself against where you think you should be rather than appreciating what you have. By comparing yourself against an arbitrary ideal, you’re preventing yourself from being happy now. When you’re in the gap, you’re devaluing your past to the point that you can’t create a better future. Ideals are always changing which means you can never reach them. The antidote to the gap is something called the gain.

When you’re in the gain, you’re not measuring yourself against something external. You’re measuring yourself against your past backward, not forward. This gives you the confidence and momentum you need to go 10x. Sometimes it feels like you’re not making progress, even if you are. Reflecting on your progress lightens the weight of 10x and pushes you forward.

To practice a gain mindset, write three “wins” at the end of the day. This is what you learned on a given day and represents the progress you made related to your goals. Focusing on your gains shows that you’re always making progress. Even your losses can be turned into gains if you see them as lessons to be learned.

When you look closely at your past, you probably notice that you have made 10x jumps before. If you’ve done it before, you can certainly do it again. 10x jumps imply a commitment to doing something you wanted and a transformation that happened as a result. Learning how to read, socializing, and becoming an entrepreneur are all examples of going 10x. When you go 10x, you change your identity and mental models. You expand your Unique Ability. Reviewing your previous 10x jumps will help you clarify a better future. This is how you stay in the gain.

To clarify your next 10x jump, the author uses two concepts. The first is fitness function which is a way to decide what you’re optimizing for. Once you’ve determined that, the developmental path that will get you there will be clearer. In other words, fitness function are your goals and standards and they are unique to you. You use all that to filter what’s important and what’s a distraction.

The second concept is dream check where you come up with an imaginary check you’d like to receive in the future and develop your Unique Ability to make that sum a reality. The idea is that you get paid for something that feels like play, not work. Without your Unique Ability, you can’t create wealth and value. With all of this in mind, think about the value you’d have to provide to receive that amount of money and you try to get it.

Chapter 5: Take 150+ “Free Days” Per Year

One of the best parts about becoming an entrepreneur is that you can escape the traditional corporate model of exchanging time for money. Going 10x involves seeing time qualitatively instead of quantitatively. Learning to approach time qualitatively is a must because it gives you freedom.

The first thing you should do as an entrepreneur is to create limits. Otherwise, you’ll work all the time and everything around you will suffer. The author suggests you divide days into three: performance days, practice days, and rejuvenation days. Performance days are for doing your most important tasks, practice days are for honing your craft, and rejuvenation days are for resting.

Since this framework was borrowed from entertainment, the author reframed it as free days (rejuvenation days), focus days (performance days), and buffer days (preparation days). Free Days take up 180 days of the calendar year and are non-negotiable. To operate at your best, recovery must be your top priority. In other words, unplugging from work will let you achieve higher performance when you do work. The opposite of Free Days is busyness. You need to unplug to come up with creative solutions to work-related problems. As counterintuitive as it sounds, not working can help you deal with work-related problems in creative and innovative ways. When you detach from work and have the freedom to mentally relax, you explore. When your mind wanders and finds new opportunities creatively you exploit them. Exploring happens on Free Days and exploiting happens on focus days.

Going away also strengthens your team and systems. That’s the moment you realize how good they are. To create a Self-Managing Company, step away momentarily and see what happens. You want to structure focus days so that similar activities happen on the same day. Scattering different activities throughout the week is ineffective, so avoid it. Then create big blocks of unstructured time for deep work and don’t have more than three objectives per day. To go into a flow state, you need clear goals, immediate feedback, and a challenge. When you’re done, unplug and recover.

Chapter 6: Build a Self-Managing Company

To achieve 10x results in your company, you must follow four steps: stabilize, optimize, grow, and transform. Stabilizing is about making the business work. Optimizing is about standardizing the most important processes and diversifying sources of income. Growing is about building relationships with other parties. Transforming is about going 10x. When you achieve that final step, you’ve created a self-managing company which means your team and systems work for you.

As an entrepreneur, you go through four levels:

Level 1 to 2 Entrepreneurship: as a solopreneur/micromanager, you do everything yourself. This is how you go from a rugged individual to a transformational leader. At first, you don’t know what you’re doing, but you invest so much in yourself that you expand your sense of purpose. This is also where you hire your first team members. The very first team member should take care of administrative tasks. An assistant of some sort that frees up 80 percent of your time and organizes everything for you.
Level 2 to 3 Entrepreneurship: you replace yourself with people who run the company for you. You apply Who Not How. To let your time manage itself, you teach them the right principles and they’ll soon manage themselves. Before you can do this, you need a clear vision. When the “why” is strong, people will take care of any “how”. People achieve high levels of intrinsic motivation by having autonomy, mastery, and relatedness.
Level 3 to 4 Entrepreneurship: Every team member refines their role to focus on their 20 percent. Your job is to let each team member find their Unique Ability. You hire people with the skills and talents you lack so that each part of the business is covered. To become great, there’s a risk. You’re helping people become so good they’re irreplaceable.

Conclusion

To grow more than you thought possible, you need commitment and courage. This is how you develop your Unique Ability and live a life of freedom. This is doing what you want and encouraging those around you to do the same. The more you grow, the less you have to do. Once you figure out your focal point (your Unique Ability), you’ll be rewarded immensely. So go ahead, let go of the 80 percent that’s not essential, and put your energy, time, and attention into the 20 percent that is. When you do, the results will be transformative. This is why 10x is easier than 2x.

Book Summary: 10x Is Easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan