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The 10X Rule Book Review

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This book was excellent!! I was so excited to start writing a book review for ya’ll before I even finished the book. This book is called The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure. This audiobook was 7hr 30 min long, and it captured my interest the WHOLE time, and left me wanting more from this author Grant Cardone. I continue to watch his videos on his YouTube channel.

What is the 10X Rule?

The 10X Rule is about taking massive action (10X action) in order to achieve success in life, business, any area of your life. Grant says that if you want to achieve a certain goal, it’s going to take 10X the amount of effort AND time that you think it will take.

He says that oftentimes, people underestimate how long or how much effort it’ll take to finish something. So then when they put forth a little effort and don’t get the results they were hoping for, they give up. But he says, DO NOT GIVE UP. And keep funneling in massive energy and time towards it (and money if you have it). Because you have to commit and invest in something, in order for it to happen. You can’t just invest pennies and be cautious with small risks and expect a big return.

Who Is He?

Grant Cardone has built a sales training empire and a huge real estate portfolio – he’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. His wife Elena Cardone is his business partner, and she describes him as a beast. At first, I didn’t know much about him, but after going through this book, wow Grant Cardone is a beast. He has this fire within and intense focus and ability to go after what he wants, no matter who or what is standing in his way. The way he reads this audiobook is with the same fervor he attacks life – he is very passionate and has a very urgent tone of voice that convinces you to act now. I actually listened to the audiobook when I was running on the treadmill and it really motivated me to push harder on the treadmill, haha!

Four Types of People

He talks about how there are 4 different types of people when it comes to taking action.

  • People who don’t act, and won’t be convinced to act. They like making excuses.
  • People who retreat and do what’s safe, perhaps because they tried it before and they saw that it didn’t work out.
  • People who do an average amount of action and convince themselves they’re doing enough.
  • People who take 10X massive action and are very successful in what they set out to do.

He says that the biggest trap is the third group of people – people who do normal amounts of action and convince themselves they’re doing enough. They’re in denial basically. But they haven’t created enough momentum. They haven’t committed enough. They haven’t gone all in. They’re still stoppable if some big obstacle happens, or they don’t act with the urgency they need and opportunities slip away.

Count Results, Not Effort

He says don’t pat yourself on the back for trying or for putting forward some effort. He says to focus on the result. For example, he says if you called someone 40 times and still haven’t closed the deal, it’s basically as if you didn’t call at all – in terms of results. So he emphasizes results. Sure, there are other benefits to growing and learning from putting forth effort, but he says that you need to push yourself to get the result you want.

10X Goals

The 10X rule is about putting forth 10X effort AND also having 10X goals and dreams. He pushes you to think bigger than your wildest dreams. He doesn’t want you to dumb down your dreams to make them more reasonable / achievable. He wants you to 10X your biggest dreams. Now that was a way of thinking that I haven’t been pushed to do in a long time! Isn’t it weird that we live in a world where we’re not challenged to think of the biggest, wildest possibilities for ourselves? Instead we’re encouraged to think small? Hmm that’s not cool.

His Own TV Show

Grant gives an example of how he wanted to have his own TV show. But he started with no connections in the TV industry. He details the steps that he took to get his foot in the door and land his TV show. It wasn’t like the opportunity just came to him and fell in his lap. This guy had to HUSTLE and show up at people’s offices to ask for appointments and had to invest his time and money to move things forward (even fly out for trips without a guaranteed meeting). He had to take a gamble on things hoping for the chance that it may work out. He didn’t wait for the TV networks to move forward with his show, he convinced the guys in charge that he was the one for the job and moved the timeline forward. I was amazed at his story because it took guts and such a strong belief in himself to practically create space for himself in this industry.

The Early Days

Grant also talks about his early days when he had nothing and was starting off. He was 25 and had just gotten out of a drug rehab program. He had gotten fired from a bunch of jobs, and got his start by cold calling and knocking on doors to gain customers. None of these people knew him and he kept showing up and calling them – even at nighttime and even on weekends. People started to be impressed with how persistent and how hardworking he was. And he built up his businesses from there. He still does things like that – picking up the phone and calling. So you can’t say that Grant inherited lots of privilege and that’s why he was successful. This guy literally built it all up from scratch and a lot of hard work.

The basic gist is that whatever is too much trouble for other people, he’s willing to do that and go above and beyond for his clients and for his business. He doesn’t shy away from hard work. He knows that taking incredible amounts of action is the only way to move towards your goal.

Obscurity

Another interesting point he made was that a new entrepreneur’s biggest challenge is obscurity. Just not being known by enough people. That’s why marketing is so important. Potential customers can’t buy from you if they don’t know who you are or what you’re offering!

In those early days, he didn’t have any money to spend on advertising, so he had to keep making phone calls and going to people’s offices to become known. Now he uses social media, his YouTube channel, talks, books, partnerships and more to broaden his network.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I thought this was a really good book to light some fire under me to get me to take more action. And it really depends what you need in your life right now. If you want someone who will soothe you and encourage you and tell you that you are enough as you are, then I would check out other authors / resources like Louise Hay. If you want someone who is more blunt and will tell you to start hauling a** and work harder, then Grant Cardone may be your guy. There’s a time and place for both types of methods to motivate yourself. 🙂

One Word on Massive Action

I leave you with one more thought from Grant. He said something interesting about the 3 types of people listed above who aren’t really taking much action: If you look more closely at their life, they are probably taking massive action on some other area of their life – maybe video games, or shopping, or a TV show, or some other area of their life. I can vouch for this theory. In the past, if I wasn’t taking massive action in my business, I was probably obsessing over something else that wasn’t important. Or just being extremely distracted by it and sinking a lot of time into it. SO if you’re going to take massive action on something in your life anyways, make it be on the thing that will make the most difference in your life. Make it count!!

If you’re ready to 10X your life, here’s the book. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure.

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

No B.S. Time Management

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If you like advice straight and blunt, Dan Kennedy will give to you. In his book, No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, Dan does not hold back from laying down the law when it comes down to how to manage time effectively. He is such a stickler for time, and while you may scoff at his unconventional methods (i.e. using a fax machine), his numerous achievements at running multiple businesses and writing numerous books is no joke. He protects his time and gets sh*t done.

It’s a sizable book at 240 pages, I read the eBook version and found it was quite gripping. I couldn’t wait to read more. It got a little bit dry in one section – Chapter 14 where it became a rant about taming technology, but I stuck through it, finished it, and thought it was overall a worthwhile read!

If you are protective about guarding your money, you should be even more protective about your time! I am guilty of letting time slip by innocuously as I endlessly scroll through my phone, sigh.

How He Manages Time

Anyhow, he emphasizes understanding the worth of your time – even calculating how much each hour and minute of your life is worth. He talks about setting firm boundaries and not allowing “time vampires” to suck away your time. Example of a time vampire: someone who often drops by your office just to ask you something that ends up taking a lot of your time.

Even though he is running multiple businesses and has many private clients, he only has 1 staff person – his assistant who works on the other side of the country. He works from home and contacts her every once in awhile. The reason she is not in the same physical space as him is because then he would get interrupted a lot more. By being in different offices, they limit communication to the specific methods – faxing, FedEx documents back and forth, short check-ins. He used to have a staff of over 40+ people and go into the office on a regular basis. However, he found that when you’re too available to your employees/team, then they ask you for things that they could have figured out themselves. So he finds it best to work at home (no commute and less interruptions) with just one staff person on the other side of the country.

He also guards against interruptions by not having a cell phone. Yes, that’s right, he doesn’t have a cell phone. He did try having one once, but got so frustrated with it after 2 weeks that he threw it out his car window and never had one again. He also doesn’t have email. Yes, pretty crazy! He does his work through fax, FedEx packages, phone call appointments, and in-person consultations. It took me awhile to wrap my head around this that he wasn’t actually kidding.

He even has these strict communication rules with his clients, where they need to setup appointments ahead of time. His phone appointments are 20 minutes long, so that he can squeeze in 3 meetings into an hour. And once a month, he has these phone call days, to take care of all these calls. If there’s an emergency, the clients contact his assistant who will triage it appropriately. He requires his clients come to where he’s located, so he can save time by reducing air travel time and fatigue.

While I found some of his methods very strict, I do see the value in having those firm boundaries so that he can have as much uninterrupted time to do deep focused work. He describes the benefit to his clients in this way: when they’re meeting (on the phone or in-person), they have his FULL ATTENTION. Whereas if he was available 24/7 by phone, then they would only receive his partial attention because he could be in the midst of doing something else.

I have to admit, Dan Kennedy has seriously thought about the costs of everything – the cost of travel, interruption, context switching, etc.. By being intentional about how his time is used, he is able to have more time to relax at the racetrack in the evenings or spend time with family.

Similar to what I had learned in the last book I wrote about on The Power of Full Engagement, being extremely efficient with your time DOES NOT mean working all the time.

Dan Kennedy has budgeted time for the projects and clients that are important to him and budgeted time to enjoy life as well. That sounds like a good deal to me.

Quotes From the Book

Here are some of the quotes I wrote down:

“If anything, the passing of time has stiffened my resolve about safeguarding it, wisely investing it, enjoying it, and bringing upon any who would steal it, waste, or abuse it.”

“Is what I am doing, this minute, moving me measurably closer to my goals?”

“Just as the person who cannot tell you where his money goes is forever destined to be poor, the person who cannot tell you where his time goes is forever destined to be unproductive- and, often, poor.”

“One of the most significant things that you can control to a great extent, is association- your choices of whom you permit into your world, whom you give time or invest time with, and whom you look to for ideas, information, and education.”

“To get anywhere with an idea, you must concentrate ALL your thoughts on ONE task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until they are brought into focus.” -Alexander Graham Bell

“There is only one success- to be able to spend your life in your own way.” – Christopher Morley

My Takeaways

One suggestion he made is to have clocks in every room of your house. Then you won’t lose track of hours passing by. You’ll always be conscious of what time it is, so you can know if you’re on track or need to move onto the next thing. I usually use the clock on my phone, so my action item is to buy more clocks for my place!!

I’ve also decided to use timers more often for my work. If I take an afternoon break or a lunch break, sometimes I’ll set a timer so that I don’t get too carried away. In addition, I’ve gone back to using Toggl and even downloaded the app on my phone too for when I’m not doing laptop work. (See earlier blogpost where I talk about Toggl.)

If you’re feeling frantic / pressed for time, here’s the book if you want to adopt some new time management techniques: No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs

For more thoughts on productivity and priorities, check out some of the episodes on my podcast What Kat Found Out, also available on all major podcast players.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

Managing Energy Not Time – The Power of Full Engagement Book Review

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I really enjoyed this book by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz called “The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal.” What a mouthful to say the whole title!

I listened to it as an audiobook – about 4.5 hrs long. Here is the biggest takeaway I got from the book.

Renewing Yourself in Short Periods of Time

When the authors studied high performance athletes, they noticed that the really good basketball players had a routine of resetting themselves in between shots. Then they were able to get their energy back up again and go out and play hard. This made me realize – it’s not about the time length that you take to do self-care and go meditate / do yoga. It’s what you do in the SECONDS or MINUTES of downtime that can help you reset your mind.

They gave some examples of how one woman was able to adjust her work routine so that she could eat lunch outside at a local park to renew herself. I like that idea!

As for how I can apply that to my life, I think listening to my favorite music puts me in a good headspace. So if I needed to do an activity in a small period of time, I think listening to a couple songs can get me relaxed and also ready to get revved up again.

The authors argue that we can’t just keep going and working hard nonstop at all hours of the day, for days and months on end (cough cough Silicon Valley). They talk about ways to renew our energy and that it’s a cycle. Having more balance gets us to a good flow where we can have time for all the things that are important for us (health, family, activities we enjoy) instead of being overwhelmed and drained by everything we have to do.

So to get more done, we need to recover more often and more quickly.

Healthier Habits that Boost Energy

They also talk about other practical techniques and the other factors that are involved in managing our energy. They highlight activities that may feel good in the immediate moment (not exercising, smoking, indulging in an unhealthy meal), but can wreak havoc on your energy levels in the longer term. It helped me become more conscious about habits that I have that either drain or boost my energy.

Their case studies of people are also really interesting – one guy is overworked, his marriage is not doing so well, and he rarely has energy for his kids. Sounds like a common narrative. By working with him on building new habits, they help him transform his life so he can have quality time with his wife over breakfast, go to work, exercise, and also come home early to be with his kids and be present with them.

I like how the authors are realistic. They acknowledge that people just don’t have time these days. They’re not prescribing a ton more activities for you to add onto your TODO list. Instead, they make a convincing argument that it’s about finding activities that create more energy, not finding more time.

Check it out if you’re interested in managing your energy better.
The Power of Full Engagement

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

The Miracle Morning 30-Day Challenge

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I had heard great things about the book The Miracle Morning, so I finally got around to reading it and it was awesome!! I liked that it was short and to-the-point. No one needs another self-help book that goes on and on lol.

The author Hal Erod says that many people may do 1 or 2 great habits in the morning, but rarely do people combine all 6 habits, which he advocates for. By doing all 6 of these practices each morning, you can have lots of energy and motivation to focus on your goals and be your best self (as evidenced by all the people who’s lives have been transformed by this routine. ) Hal came up with a handy acronym to make it easier to remember: SAVERS. Or he calls them lifesavers, a cute name!

S – silence
A – affirmations
V – visualization
E – exercise
R – reading
S – scribing (also known as writing or journaling)

He emphasizes flexibility and customization to each person’s lifestyle. He says you can do this in an hour (10 minutes for each practice) or even in 6 minutes!! 1 minute each! See his 6-minute miracle morning guide here. I like how 6 minutes seems a lot more accessible than a new routine that could take hours.

I’ve been struggling with finding a good morning routine. I realized that I was primarily doing journaling, spending a heck of a lot of time on that, and I still felt off balance. So I realized that by adding silence, visualization, etc.. that it gave me a lot more balance and energy in the morning. Literally after I tried the whole routine for the first time, it felt like rocket fuel for my brain! I was so alert and energized!

By the way, affirmations felt awkward for me at first. To say affirmations out loud just felt weird. But I found a one page list of affirmations online that I can just read from, so I don’t have to worry about coming up with any on my own. And the more I practice verbally saying these affirmations, the more the words feel true to me.

Snapshot from my journal – tracking that I did each practice!

I’m still trying to find a good rhythm for the miracle morning routine, exercise is still my weak spot. But I want to commit to the 30-day challenge and do it every day for the month of March! I haven’t done it every day so far (oops), but I’m committed and hopeful to do so for the remaining days. I’ll update you on my progress afterwards. That’ll also give me incentive to stay accountable. (Last year, my publicly announced 30-day podcast challenge gave me lots of motivation and momentum.)

What does your morning routine look like? Share in a comment below!

If you’re interested in reading more about the Miracle Morning routine, you can check it out here:

The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.