MBA2356 Must Read: 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show, business insights you can count on with practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. I'm also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started back in 2014. And today's episode is a must-read episode. On our must-read episodes, I share with you a book that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights, and why you should read it too. Today's must-read is 10x is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan. Some books are filled with tactics and strategies. Some books are inspirational, telling the story of an entrepreneur's struggles and then eventual success.

0:47And some books, like this one, explores a big idea. This idea is, what if it was easier to 10x your business than to try to just double it 2x? In this book, Dan Sullivan challenges the conventional mindset of gradual progress is easier than exponential growth, 10x growth. He also provides actionable insights and strategies to shift your thinking. This is a real mind-shifting book. And I gotta tell you, it's challenging. It challenges the way you think about business and how businesses grow. It's confronting in a lot of ways. But at the end, you will be better for reading it. I'll explain why in today's lesson.

1:27So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. In Dan Sullivan's book, 10X is Easier Than 2X, he attempts to revolutionize the way we think as entrepreneurs about growth in our own businesses. The book's core idea, it centers around the fact that achieving a tenfold growth in your business is significantly more achievable and it's easier because it's more motivating than trying to just double your growth. He encourages you to set ambitious goals, embrace creative problem-solving skills to achieve these goals, and change your mindset that results are equal to the efforts. This is a big one. What this means is that you're going to put in the hours, you're going to put in the time, you're going to work hard regardless.

2:12But by setting out to 10x your business, you're actually going to achieve a lot more with the same amount of hard work, if not less. This is really hard to swallow for a lot of people like me, because I grew up in a family that preached hard work pays off, and the harder you work, the more you achieve. But that's simply not always the case, especially in business. You might be thinking, Omar, this sounds great, but how? How is this possible? How am I going to 10x my growth when I can barely, you know, double my growth or even less? Maybe I'm struggling and just growing at 10%, 5%. Well, Dan Sullivan emphasizes the importance of focusing on unique capabilities and strengths.

2:49We all have our own special talents, the things that we're really good at in our business. Most of us don't spend most or all our time on those things. We spend maybe a very small portion of our time on those things and the rest on things that don't really move the needle. He says leveraging these strengths, these special capabilities, helps you identify opportunities and make transformational change in your business that will bring in the big bucks. I have to say, in my own personal experience, I've seen this to be true. The more I focus on my secret sauce, in my case, teaching, helping business owners make breakthroughs, whether it's through the podcast or my coaching or my webinars, whenever I do this, whenever I leverage my best strength, it really pushes our business forward.

3:35And when I steer away from that or when I stop doing that or I may even just forget to do that from time to time, this is when we struggle. So this part of the book really resonated with me and made me think, this is all I should be doing, really. Everything else I should be giving it to somebody else or stop doing altogether. This episode is brought to you by The Jordan Harbinger Show. This is a podcast you need to add to your rotation. It's smart, it's interesting, and it's by far, in my opinion, the best interview podcast out there. It's hosted by my buddy, Jordan Harbinger. I've known him for years.

4:11And in a lot of ways, I look up to Jordan. He's one of the best podcasters I know because he does his research. His episodes are really well done. He asks his guests questions that other shows just don't ask. It's almost like he's predicting what I want to hear from the guest and what I would ask him if I was in front of him. The Jordan Harbinger Show won Best of Apple in 2018, and it's for good reason. Let me give you some of my favorite episodes to get started with. I absolutely love his interview with T-Pain, the rapper. It's more than meets the eye. It's hilarious and such an education on how to live life.

4:43His interview with Matthew McConaughey was incredible, as well as his chat with Terry Cruz. I also love his Sunday episodes. They're called Skeptical Sundays. The one he did on 5G was so, so good. I'm a huge fan of The Jordan Harbinger Show and Jordan himself. You can't go wrong by adding Jordan Harbinger Show to your rotation. It's incredibly interesting. It's never dull. search The Jordan Harmager Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, I mentioned that this book is really challenging. It challenges your mindset, challenges what you think about growth in your business.

5:20And Dan Sullivan really drills these points home over and over and over. But what I want to do for the rest of this episode is share with you my key takeaways, the things that really stood out. I mentioned some of these, but I'm going to go into depth with them as well as some new ones. The first is shifting your mindset from whatever growth number you have, whether it's growing at 50%, 100%, 2x, to 10x. When you start thinking, how can I 10x my business? And don't really think about the timeline right now. Don't think of like 10x in the next six months or a year. Just if I had to 10x my business, what would I do?

5:56It starts making you think creatively. How do I achieve this? How do I get my business to that number? It opens up all kinds of possibilities. You start brainstorming ideas you just never thought of because you never thought about 10xing your business. It becomes like a fun game, a puzzle to be solved. And you start realizing that because I simply didn't ask myself this question, I've been holding myself back. Another great takeaway is this idea of audacious goals. Dan in the book really encourages you to set audacious goals, set ambitious, challenging goals, he said, that require stretching you beyond your comfort zone.

6:30Ambitious goals motivate you and the people around you, your team. They make them think big. And people want to achieve extraordinary things, not mediocre things. For example, people that work at SpaceX, they have a huge mission to colonize Mars. I mean, this is something that movies are made out of, right? What an ambitious goal. But the big goals really get people to get up in the morning and work hard. And like they say, if you shoot for the moon, the worst case scenario is you miss and land among the stars. Meaning, even if you don't hit that audacious goal at some point, in the process, you're going to achieve some amazing things because you're really stretching yourself.

7:10Next, I mentioned this before, but let's reemphasize it. Leveraging your strengths. You need to sit down and identify and leverage your unique strengths and capabilities and make it the foundation of what you do every day in your business. This is how you're going to achieve your goals. You're going to make it the pillar of achieving your goals. Everybody's different. I mentioned mine being teaching and coaching. That's kind of my thing. I've been doing it all my life. I was a teacher for 13 years before I was a full-time entrepreneur. Yours might be something different. It might be marketing.

7:43It might be speaking on stage. You might be building things, whether it's software or products. This is what you should be doing 80, 90, 95 % of the time. Next takeaway, creative problem solving. He says, embrace creative problem solving to five. He says, embrace creative problem solving. Be in love with being a problem solver. By doing this, you'll find unconventional solutions that lead to exponential improvements. Rather than just putting a band-aid on a problem or just kind of having a temporary fix, there's a high that you get by solving a problem really well, where you leave your business better off than it was before the problem.

8:25It's like it's got a whole new identity. I always say if you're an entrepreneur, you're in the problem-solving business, whether you're solving problems for your customers, your business, your teammates, that's what you do. you get up in the morning and solve problems. So just get used to it and embrace it. Here's the big one. Collaboration over competition. Dan Sullivan really pushes the idea of fostering partnerships and collaborations that amplify collective strengths. Meaning you should find somebody you can partner with that has a similar audience that can help you grow 10x. As long as that partnership isn't mutually beneficial, you're going to be all right.

9:00It's a win-win for both of you. And listen, I'm always a big believer in making your competition, your friend, right? Making them your collaborator. Why? Because maybe one day they'll buy your business, they'll acquire you and you already have a built in relationship. And there's so, so many more amazing takeaways from this book, but I want to leave you with one that I really think is special and is really useful for those, especially those who are in their first few years of business. and that's have a long-term vision. Develop a clear and compelling vision for the future that aligns with a 10X growth strategy or trajectory.

9:37All your decisions and strategies should be based around this idea of how can I 10X my business? How can I 10X my service, my ability to serve my customers, my customer satisfaction, my profitability? Understand that you're not in this for the temporary. You're here for the long run. How do I build something that's going to last a lifetime? Not only my lifetime, but years to come after I'm dead and gone. Having a long-term vision is kind of hard to have, especially in the beginning, because you're just trying to make your business work. You're trying to survive. You're trying to make it profitable.

10:12I get it, but you have to kind of hold that thought along with understanding that you're not going to be in this situation forever. You've got to make sure that whatever you do today fits in your long-term vision. One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to see some amazing architectural sites that took centuries to build. Some of these cathedrals in Italy took literally 100, 200 years to build. Meaning, the person who designed it, the architect, built it knowing they won't get to live to see its completion. And they're okay with it. Hey, I'm going to set this off. I'm going to build this great thing.

10:49And I'm going to hand it over to whoever comes after me. but I know that one day it's going to look beautiful. It doesn't matter if I'm here or not. My long-term vision is more important than my own ego. I love that. And we should all embrace that vision, that long-term vision in our own businesses. I can't recommend this book enough. 10X is Easier Than 2X by Dan Sullivan. Great takeaways. It really challenges you, like I mentioned. You kind of struggle with the book a little bit, but it's a good struggle. It gets you to change. It gets you to think differently. It gets you to adopt a new way of thinking about your business.

11:23Thank you so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe, hit follow on your favorite podcast app right now, whether it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Overcast or whatever it might be. Hit follow right now so that you get our next episode automatically and you tell the algorithm, hey, this show is pretty good so that we can get even more listeners to join our community. Thank you in advance for showing your support. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I have always said that business, being an entrepreneur, building a business, creating a business is one of the best personal development programs you can ever have.

11:56It forces you to get better every day. And books like this highlight this. Hey, think again. You can get better. You can change the way you think about things. You can improve the way you set yourself up for success for the future. Thanks so much for listening. I'll check you in the next episode, Q &A Wednesday, where I answer the question, what are the pros and cons of hiring in the Philippines? See you then. Take care.

12:22Thank you.