Achieve 10X More Than Everyone Else! | Shawn Stevenson & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

And you want that filter to come from your future self. That’s when the real work happens; when you start raising the floor and start saying no to the things you used to say yes to. That’s that’s the deep emotional work. It takes a lot of commitment and courage to do that. Are you letting the future dictate the present, or are you letting the present dictate your future?

Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and author of eight books, which have sold nearly 1 million copies. His work focuses on the psychology of exponential growth and transformation; future self science, really looking at understanding how our identity is impacting all of our decisions and, of course, our outcomes. This is a fascinating and powerful conversation with the incredible Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

First thing I want to talk about is identity, all right, because obviously our identity is a key driver of our choices in life, whether it’s choices with our health, whether it’s choices with the work that we’re doing. Let’s talk about identity and why this is really the place we want to focus if we’re wanting to make change in our life.

You said it. I mean, identity drives actions and behaviors, and identity fits very much with time. So I really get identity as two two core things: it’s it’s your story, which is the story of your past self, present self, and future self. In psychology, time is holistic, meaning who I am right now is based on how I frame my past and my future, and that’s what’s shaping how I’m talking to you today. So it’s the story, but it’s also your standards. So standards in psychology is that which you’re most committed to. And so the story side is your past, present, and future, and your standards are your floor and your ceiling as a person. An emphasis on the floor: it’s your minimum standard; it’s what you say yes to. So you can know what your standards are by what you say yes to. And so I I look at those two things: story being the way you frame things, and then standards are the way you filter things. And so, yeah, I mean, they’re they’re just everything. Um, and there’s there’s obviously effective ways to have identity. People get really caught up in their past identity; they have got very little connection to their future identity. Um, so yeah, I mean, what questions you have about it, let’s go into it.

Wow, yeah, this is so fascinating. Even the floor and ceiling concept; raising the floor is a fundamental aspect of changing your identity. Yeah, and starting to say no to a much higher filter, whether that’s in your business, whether that’s with your friends, whether that’s with the information you consume, the food you consume; raising the floor and having a higher filter. And you want that filter to come from your future self. Um, that’s when the real work happens, when you start raising the floor and start saying no to the things you used to say yes to. That’s that’s the deep emotional work; it takes a lot of commitment and courage to do that.

Yeah, I was shocked reading your book and how much are having having this like desire to up level, but thinking too small in a sense because of our identity. And I was just, first of all, of course, a very skeptical; 10x is better than 2x, easier, even more skeptical. And I was like, okay, when we’re wanting to progress, maybe it’s in business, for example, we’re trying to to improve incrementally, yes. And for you to come in with this radical idea that 10xing it is going to be easier, it was alluring, but also like I was very skeptical. But as soon as you laid out why, I was like, this is so obvious. We create so much suffering for us for ourselves because we’re thinking so small because of our identity. Big, big.

Yeah, so I’ll give an analogy. I look at 10xing like going to your next level. So that would be like going from crawling to walking, right? That’s how I would call it a 10x. And now that you’re a walker, like you can do so many things at the crawler version of you couldn’t do. So 2xing would be like, I want to crawl faster. And so you’re like trying to like optimize for crawling as fast as you can. It’s like, no, no, no, like let’s let’s start walking. What’s the walking version of whatever it is you’re doing, right? And so that’s that’s operating from a different place. And so back with time, um, going to x or going for linear growth in anything means you’re mostly operating from your past and you’re present, and you’re letting the present dictate what you’ll do in the future. So if you’re going for 2x, it means you’re just going to do more of what you’ve already done; you’re so you’re letting the future literally dictate what you do, or sorry, you’re letting the present dictate what you do in the future. And so 10x is is an opposite approach; you you let imagination be the starting place. Imagination is more important than knowledge, as Einstein would say. And that’s even Daniel Gilbert; Daniel Gilbert’s a Harvard psychologist; he studied the idea of past off present self and future self for 20 years, and he says most people think that their future self is the same person they are today, because we let our present self dictate how we see the future rather than letting our future self dictate who we are in the present. And so that’s 10x is you want to have an imagine future, and even we can go into it if you want, but you want to take it, scale it up to the place where you actually think it’s impossible. You want to make it so big, and there’s a lot of reasons why it really simplifies things; it cuts out the noise. But when you make it the that high of a filter, almost nothing will get you to 10x; almost every you know almost everything you’re doing right now could get you to 2x. I don’t have to change much to get to 2x, but if I want to go 10x, almost nothing’s going to work. And so it forces me to be a lot more honest; most of what I’m doing fits in that category of 80 of things that are producing almost none of my results. So it’s a lot more of an honesty filter, but that’s really the key: are you letting the future dictate the present, or are you letting the present dictate your future?

This is one of the things I want to ask you about actually: is what does the science say about quote impossible goals versus the more practical possible goals?

Yeah, so I mean, obviously there’s a huge amount of research on smart goals; those are kind of the cliche approach, but I don’t think that a lot of I think finally a lot of psychologists are connecting goals with identity, goals with process. I like looking at different places of the research and different types of researchers and and who they’re working with. One thing I just want to say flat out, like being a psychologist, I take all research with a huge grain of salt, especially in the social sciences, because most of that research, first off, they cut out the outliers; they’re focused on the bell curve; they’re focused on people in the middle. And so if you if you take a lot of psychological research seriously, you’re comparing the results of of the Common Man, often college students, because those are the types of people that the studies are done on. Obviously some research is different, but when it comes to decision making, one of my favorite guys, his name is Dr. Alan Bernard; he’s who I reference; his research is who I reference in the book, but he has been studying impossible goals for 15 20 years. He studies a concept called constraint theory, and it’s a it’s a theory of of business, but he has been studying this idea of impossible goals for a long time, and he finds that there’s two really important things that happen when you start pursuing a goal that you believe to be impossible. So he works with businesses, and he’ll ask them what’s your goal, because we all have a goal, and the goal is what is going to determine what he calls the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the thing that needs to be solved to achieve the goal, right? There’s always a bottleneck. So if you want to like if you want to get healthy, you know like what’s the what’s the bottleneck; what are you what’s like what’s stopping you; what do we need to solve? So he’ll ask people what’s your goal, and and they’ll say it, you know, an entrepreneur, I want to make 100 grand, right? All right, do you think that’s possible? Yeah, I do. All right, well, what about a million, like in the same time frame? Do you think that’s possible? Maybe. What about 10 million? Do you think that’s possible? Heck no. Okay, let’s start there then. He asks the question: it would be impossible unless what? And then the reason you want to do that is only by asking that question, unless what, what would make it possible, then you can start to find the few things that actually have huge upside, you know, called the 80 20 principle, the few things and that 20 that have huge upside. If you’re not doing that, then most of what you if the goal is not high enough, you really can’t discern the signal from the noise; you can’t discern what are all the things you’re doing that are honestly like either taking you backwards or not moving you forward. But also, once you make the goal impossible, genuinely impossible, and this is super practical, you can apply this like I applied it even last month; you and I are filming this uh in September; we I actually set two impossible goals for my team, and one of them we achieved; like we had a goal that we wanted to accomplish before the end of the year, and I just said, nope, we’re going to just do it in August. And I had another, and we actually did achieve that one, and um, so this this spring, and then the other one we we like literally made we nothing; we got nowhere near it, but the cool part is not being attached to it, but what it does is if I’m going for something that’s possible or in my mind possible, what that means is I think I know how to do it, and if I think I know how to do it, what that means is I’m operating from my past assumptions; I think I know how to do it, therefore I’m not going to ask new questions; I’m not going to look outside the box; I’m not going to try new things. And so once you get it to that higher place, then finally you can start asking new questions, maybe seeking new solutions that are totally outside your current reference frame.

This is fascinating, and like I said, after you laid it out in the book, it just started to make more and more sense, and it’s just like, why don’t we do this in the first place? What’s of course there’s a cultural aspect to this, but it just seems I think we’re really operating from logic, like the logical step is to go from crawling to crawling faster, but there are situations where, and this is true story, all right, when I was born, my feet had to be broken and set in place.

Oh, yeah, all right. And so I had those little special shoes, and my mom actually got them like bronzed, I think it was called, and like put into there’s like a picture, and this was something they did in the 80s, all right. So I had these these special shoes, and the prognosis from the doctor’s like, I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to, you know, walk normally, run normally, all those things. And according to legend, because you know I was a baby, but my my uncle had went down this particular hill, and he was like my superhero, and I just went from crawling, I got up and ran down; I had no choice because of gravity, and I ran down the hill after him. So I didn’t take first steps walking; I ran first, right? And so there are people whose story does not fit into that common scenario; not only that, I became a star track athlete, by the way, and the list goes on and on and on, totally. So learning from that and what’s possible can be so much more viable and even helpful than that logical progression.

Well, even take yourself for example; here’s a question I have for you seriously, and anyone who’s listening, put yourself so one crucial component of identity, one crucial component of all of this is, and this fits with passive present cell future stuff, is is that one of the things that Daniel Gilbert said is he said the person you are today is as fleeting as the present moment. So like I’m not the and tomorrow I’m going to be a little different, um, but also I’m not the same person I was yesterday or a week ago or five years ago, right? And I can if I take the time to look at it, I can recognize that, and I especially if I frame for it; you look you find what you filter for. And so if I’m looking for the ways in which I’m different from who I was a week ago, maybe I now know things that I didn’t know; what do I know? Um, and so this is now the question for you, but also for for anyone listening, is go back to the version of you back on January 1st of this year, eight months ago or something like that; has anything happened or have you achieved anything or had it have you experienced anything right now that that version of you, January 1st, would have thought would have been impossible?

Absolutely, that’s so crazy. You would like I never even thought about that. Absolutely, yes. I guarantee it.

Yeah, yeah. It’s like if you go back to who you were and what you were framing for, what you were filtering for, if you thought about who you know what you were going for, just go back eight months to the January first version of you and think about your goals, your objectives, what you what was in your frame of reference and what you even your goals, um, and then you just fast forward here. I’m guessing a lot of things have happened that you would have never even considered, and also the things you’re not pursuing would have been outside of even the imagination of call it your past self, even eight months ago.

I’ll just you want me to share, dude?

All right, please do.

All right, so I, you know, we were just talking about this before the show; I’ve had several book related injuries, all right, post book related injuries. As you know, writing a book, whether it’s a health book or not, it’s not a very healthy process, and so certain things can get neglected; it’s a stressor, even if you enjoy the process. And so prior to heading to Mexico, where I was obligated to speak in an event that I had signed in to do this thing for; it been a year and really good friends and all the things, and I tore my calf muscle just days before that event. I had to speak on stage; no way could I conceive of literally my leg was not firing properly to me getting on that stage, and people coming up afterwards, they but I put into the talk that I had this injury, they would like I would have never known, right, because of the way that I had shown up in that moment. And then my father passed away, and then you know the next thing and the next thing and leading right into doing all of these interviews and media that I was about to travel, you know, all over for to to do for this new cookbook and all of that, because in my mind I’m like, oh, I’m gonna do this; this is going to be a lot easier this time because I’ve been through it before, and so I’m gonna map these things out now, but life had other plans for me, and I was able to rise to the occasion at level that I didn’t even know was in me, but it was obviously in me.

Yeah, so that’s crazy man. So you’ve had a huge year. Yeah, to say that it’s not done yet. How’s your how’s your calf?

Oh, man, I was just even yesterday I was who I was balling out of control, you know, I was hooping and um, you know, it’s just the small things, and even it’s funny there’s uh there’s a certain star athlete out there that recently had an Achilles injury; I’m not going to say any names, but their team just reached out to me yesterday; I was like, actually, I got some pretty close experience with Achilles and calf stuff, and my my prognosis, my recovery was about 30 faster; I was like, I can definitely help out. So I’m not gonna drop any names; superstar football athlete. I know who it is; you know, I’m gonna be watching that team soon this weekend. But you see how life will qualify you to do certain things, right? Because I’m bringing a certain a different knowledge base into this scenario for something again very high level that my childhood self or even myself five years ago wouldn’t have saw a connection there, no, right? So yeah, man, you’re talking that real stuff, dude; that’s pretty awesome. Plus you’re you’re taking something that could have been perceived as a trauma, right, or something that was at least difficult, and your your turn, no, you’re you’re deciding very much you’re doing amazing things with it, and that’s a that’s a crucial component of identity as well as well as time is just that, and this is a like a straight up uh psychological concept and quotas is it’s more accurate to say that the present shapes the meaning of the past than that the past shapes the meaning of the present. Another way of saying it is it’s the present that defines the past, not the past that defines the present, um, and so I just like that no matter what happened in the present, you’re doing all sorts of good things with even what could have been seen as a crappy situation; like you’re getting so much good stuff out of it. So yeah, I just think that that’s powerful.

Awesome man, this is, you know, one of the things, so this is something that I came upon previously, but talking with you it’s really fleshed out, which is how our identity is really determining our choices in life and our potential. So the question is truly like, let’s dig in and how do we change our identity?

Yeah, so a big concept in psychology is called psychological flexibility; think about that, psychological flexibility. This this is cognitive and emotional flexibility. So I’ve been bringing up the past a lot because often people’s identity is rooted in their past; the whole idea of a fixed mindset is is that who you are or who you were and who you are is who you are, right? And so people with a fixed mindset have a very rooted identity in their past and present, and then what they do is is that they push that off onto their future self, and that they imagine that their future self is going to be the same person in the future. So I’ll explain to you how to how to honestly build massive psychological flexibility, which then allows you to be a lot more flexible with both your past self as well as well and your presence health and your future self. But just I gave you a thought of experiment earlier, so I’m going to give you a different thought experiment, and this is for other people as well, um, so go back 10 years, literally 10 back to 2013. Are you the same person you were back then as you are today?

I barely know that guy.

So think about that guy though; go back to 2013; we’re in September; think about try as close as you can to get to not that guy’s headspace, because you actually can’t get back there, but think about where you were in as much as you can; think about what you were thinking about; think about what you’re focused on; your habits; think about your tastes and music; the five people you spent the most time with back then, right? Think about your expectations for life. So you go back 10 years; obviously massive difference, right? Um, one one thing that’s really important here is is that although you’re not that same guy, nothing but massive respect for that guy, like love for that guy, but you most people they you know they regularly don’t reference their past self, um, but you can get really good at where you’re referencing your past self, even at the beginning of this year; you know, you’ve achieved things that that version of you thought were impossible. Let’s go back to one week; go back to a week ago; go back to last week, or even just go back to sometime mid-August, right, a month ago; are you that same person, or are there things that you now know that that person didn’t know? Are there things you’re now aware of and things that are now possible and things that you’re now pursuing that that guy a month ago or even a few weeks ago didn’t know? So this is really important because this allows you to continuously

Recognize and reference that you're not your past self. Right, you're actually different. And by recognizing and appreciating that, and even by writing it down—I actually do this on a daily basis. At the end of my day, I say, "What do I now know that I didn't know 24 hours ago? What's now possible? Uh, what have I done that my past self didn't even think was possible?" Right? So by doing that, I recognize that I am not my past self. So that's a huge step to developing psychological flexibility. Right? But I'm also very, uh, happy with my past self. I've got complete empathy and compassion towards my past self. Like, from a positive psychology standpoint, what you want for a past self, like a very effective present me being chill with you. I'm talking a lot about past and present, or past and future, but it's solely so that I have a powerful and effective lens and experience in the present.

A lot of people, their present is really messed up because they have a lot of unresolved stuff, or it's really just, uh, ineffective framing. Right? It's psychological rigidity towards their past. Um, but also they're either overly tied to their past or mad at their past, or mad at someone else back there. So you want to have a past that you—you're continuing, you know, you want your past to be an asset, not a liability. It's an asset, just like your calf experience is a huge asset, and it's creating a lot of benefits to you right now. Right? Um, you could have easily had that be a liability where it was defining you versus you defining it. But the reason I bring up this psychological flexibility goes the other way as well. Just like I know that I'm not my past self even 24 hours ago, and I recognize that, I also know that I'm not my current self. That goes straight back to what Daniel Gilbert said. He said, "The person you are right now is as fleeting as the present moment." But also, again, back to the common approach, and there's a lot of research on this, most people—and this is the 2x approach by the way—the linear approaches they take their past and present, and then they push that off into the future. They, you know, they say, "Well, here's where I'm at, so let's do more of it. You know, let's let's crawl faster." Right? That's 2x whatever that is for you. Um, and so they take the present and they use that to define the future, and most people do that with their identity. Most people, they, as Daniel Gilbert would say, they underpredict who their future self will be and who their future self could be. And so a big aspect of flexibility, as well as transforming your identity, is, you know, go to imagining your future self. Who is it that you want to be? Who is the person you want to be?

Uh, and a big part of flexibility, and also even mastering this skill of thinking back on the past, is that you know, all progress starts by telling the truth. And so I don't need to worry about your opinion of my relationship with my past stuff, but also I don't need to worry about your opinion about what I most want for my future self. This is between me and me, and it's intrinsic motivation. All progress starts by telling the truth. But as I start to—and there's a lot of research on this, like the idea of—first off, you have to imagine your future self, but also developing an emotional connection to your future self. Um, you go from thinking to feeling to knowing. You think about it, you clarify it, you emotionally connect to it, you start to operate from your future self. Even in this interview, you could do it. You could think about, you know, who is my future self, and just operate from your future self, the way you want to show up, and it's just honestly living with intention. But the more you can let the future be the filter and the frame for what you do now, especially if it's like a really imagined exciting future, you're totally going to act differently, or non-linearly, from your past self. If the future is really different and I'm using the future as my frame and filter for what I do right now, of course I'm going to be different than who I was yesterday, but also I'm recognizing and appreciating how different I am from who I was yesterday. So there's just a massive way to develop flexibility. Um, but also you want to—you want to—you want to operate from the identity of your future self. Wow.

So there's even practical exercises, like what you do every day is, "What have I learned over this 24 hours? How am I different from my past self? How am I different from who I was yesterday?" Yeah, you could also say like, "What have I experienced?" You know, so one super practical way looking backwards is—and I actually have—I five—I have five questions I stick in the front of every Journal I write. First one is, "Where am I right now?" Five bullets, just writing down my current context, you know, writing a book, blah blah. What are the wins from my last 90 days? Just write down whatever I see as wins. Could be honestly just had a freaking great—great day with my son. Right? Whatever I define as a win is up to me. What are my wins for my next 90 days? Who's my future self in 12 months? And who's my future self in 36 months? With the last two, I would stick with just three bullets. So who's my future self in 12 months? Only three—three bullets. There's a really great quote from, um, Jim Collins who wrote *Good to Great*. He said, "If you have more than three priorities, you have zero." So like, for me, when I'm thinking about my future self in 12 months, only three priorities—what are the three areas of focus and priority that reflect who that person's gonna be? Uh, 36 months, same thing. They might be slightly different priorities because they're such different time frames. But yeah, I mean, you can—you can—time is a really powerful tool if you learn how to use it. It's—you know, I know you're a writer, and so the past and the future are also like the draft. I feel like it's a draft of a chapter. Like how I frame my past will be different tomorrow than how I'm framing it today. So I don't have to be psychologically rigid or dogmatic about my current view of my past. That's actually a huge component of psychological flexibility is the ability to change your mind, which is a big part of reframing. So it's like I can—I don't have to say that—that's—that's exactly what happened. That's the story. My dad was a drug addict, he was a bad guy. It's like, maybe there's a different story, maybe there's a different angle that I'm not aware of, maybe I—maybe I'm not quite as right as I need to be. Um, instead, I can be more curious. And so that's just a big part of—his willingness to change your mind, willingness to see new angles, willingness to reframe and let go of the emotional attachment to that story. Wow. And I—the first step into that, I think, is just even giving yourself a little bit of permission to do that.

Why do we become so attached to those stories and create that rigidity where we can't reframe it or see it differently? I mean, life can throw you curveballs, you know what I mean? Like it doesn't even have to be two reasons. One, life can throw you curveballs, you can get hurt. Right? Something can happen. Um, you know, like I said, my dad was a drug addict when I was a high school student. Like that was a curveball. And so when something happens to you, you can easily let that be defining, you know, you can let that—you know, you really don't want the past to dictate the present. You want the present to dictate the past. Um, but that takes—that takes responsibility, that takes agency, that takes choice, that takes—that takes like—take making a decision that I'm gonna—I'm gonna actually approach this rather than avoid it. Like in psychology, motivation is often broken up into approach and avoid. Either you're avoiding something you don't want to deal with, or approaching—you're avoiding something you don't want to happen, or you're approaching it. And when it comes to, um, you know, not wanting to deal with some of that stuff, we often just avoid it. We push under the rug, and then we don't realize it's driving us, and we're still saying, "Yeah, my present is this way because the past made it this way," rather than saying, "No, I'm the one who defines what it means." So that's one of the reasons is just that, you know, life happens, and we—we're emotionally avoiding dealing with it. The second one, though, is honestly more common, um, on the day-to-day, and it's just that we don't think about it. So like, as an example, like there's a lot of research on the whole idea of gratitude at the end of the day. Right? The reason—rather than inputting—rather than scrolling and just doing what we all do, which is just surfing the web before we go to bed—the reason for gratitude at the end of the day is because if you just sit down and think about it and say, "What are three things that I'm grateful for today?" It's—it's, you know, you—you find what you're filtering for. Right? And so like, if I'm filtering for it, if I'm thinking about it—usually most people don't think that time to even just think about it. Right? They just go to bed or surf there. But if you look at it and you think about it, you will find what you're looking for. It's like, "Oh, you know, there actually was way more than three things I could be grateful for." So that's that second piece is—is that people don't actually look for a new angle. They don't look for the ways that they're different from who they were a week ago. They don't look for the wins that have happened. They're so focused on what other people think, or on their own future self, that they're not looking back and saying, "Actually, holy cow! A lot happened just today, or a lot happened this week that I wouldn't even thought about or that I was downplaying." So they honestly aren't even just taking the time or framing it in a way that they can see it and learn from it. That's so powerful. You're changing your filter. Everything is a filter. We do that for our house and our air conditioning unit, you know, and it gets nasty like if you don't change your filter. Dusty it is—it is dusty, and you're—of course you're not getting the coolest air and all the things. Like it's—it's going to reduce—think about water filter—it's going to reduce your—your outcomes. Same thing. Right? Water filter your car—we got to change those filters, guys. Dude, the filter is the frame, and—and that's your identity is your frame and your filter. That's how you're seeing the world, thus, of course, how could it not shape your behavior? Right? Everything's coming through the filter, and so the filter is your identity, and it's—it's how you frame it, it's how you filter, and so that's what pushing out your—your behavior.

Yeah, one of the things I'm—I'm inquiring about, because I know it's a complex thing to identify, because we're all, you know, very different, but also similar in many ways—why do we get so attached to those filters and seeing things the way that we are currently seeing them? And I know that there's a modicum of like—we—we crave certainty. Right? Safety, all those things, even though certain things can be hurting us, we still kind of get attached to them. Why do we do that? I mean, I think you said it—it's—it's—it's even addiction. Like addiction is something that over time becomes something that is secure, it's stable, it's predictable. Right? And our brain is that prediction machine. Right? And so it's—it's easier to just kind of operate in the known, even if it's—unknown that you know is not useful, not effective. Whereas if you're going to go back and reframe things, change the story, um, you know, and by change the story, I don't mean like you're creating a fiction, but in a lot of ways it is—it was a fiction from the beginning. Like it's a—it's a—again, it's a frame. So yeah, I think a lot of times it's just—it's easier for people to feel like they know the answer. I—I like the—I like the quote from Brené Brown. She said, "Rather than trying to be right, it's better to try to get it right," or sorry, rather than trying to be right, it's like, "Try to get it right," you know, and you're always learning. And so I—I think it's—it's a lot more—uh—it takes time to kind of build that initial muscle, but eventually you just realize it's a lot more freeing to have the space to continually like think and rethink and—and see things from new angles, get new value out of old experiences. Um, but I think kind of like anything, doing it the first time is hard. You know, like jumping into that—into a book is hard, but once you get into it, you start getting flow, you start rolling. And so I think it's just that people—they're not used to the idea that actually that's just an angle, like that's just a story, that's not actually what the past has to mean. The time in psychology doesn't have to go this way. It doesn't have to be linear. Actually, you can go back and time—actually, in psychology, should be going backwards. The future should be transforming the present, and the present should be transforming the past. Um, but we just don't have these filters, you know, we don't have these angles, and—and so I think it's common—it's very common to have to view time linearly in psychology, which is like, "Of course my past is determining my present. Of course—of course who I am is because of what happened," and rather than realizing, "No, actually, it's in the present right now that you have complete power over your past." This is the most *Back to the Future* conversation I've ever had. Welcome to *Back to the Future*, man. You know, you're Michael. Let's go—let's go. All right. So one of the very simple things that we all can do is pay attention to that gate—that gap or that transformation. Because when you gave me the example, like beginning of the year to now, it opened up a valve, but you doing this daily of like looking back, like, "What do I know now that I didn't know—necessarily, you know, 24 hours ago?"

Yeah, I mean, I find it's really beautiful on the weekly basis, too. Like weekly basis, you'll be shocked at how much you did. So anyways, and it's literally—it's opening the valve to be able to see things differently. We're talking about again 10xing our identity, and one of the things that I don't know how we stumble into it, but every year when we're working on our goals for the year, my wife and I, the first thing we do is go back and look at the past year and all the things that we accomplished. That's the most excellent starting point. It makes sense. It's opening that vow—that vowel of like, "We can do things—miraculous things—totally remarkable things—we didn't even know that we can do." Let's open up that level of thinking as we go into these new goals. Couldn't agree more. I mean, that's—that's uh—capability and confidence are—are in the past. You know, you've—you know, by—by all the things you've accomplished, that builds a lot of like confidence, because, "Look at what you did!" But at the same time, commitment encourages in the future. And so just because of what you've done in the past, ultimately you want to commit to things you've never done before. You want to commit to things you don't know if you can do or if you could do. But by reflecting back on what you have done, it does build massive confidence. Confidence is key. All right, I feel like DJ Khaled when I said that. Confidence is key. Um, why—why does confidence um play a role in this? Because again, I think—I think a lot of the reasons why we don't do certain things is we feel like we can't do them, or we—we lack the confidence to say, "I can 10x this thing," because even again, reading—when I saw the cover of the book, I'm like, "I don't know about this," and then as soon as you start to lay it out on how it works, it became obvious that this was the way to go, but initially I didn't feel the confidence that this was possible. Yeah. Um, I mean, confidence—confidence comes obviously over time, you know, but it comes by looking back. I mean, confidence comes from looking back on what you've done, and then it's the willingness to try stuff that might not work, you know, it's the willingness to try something and figure it out even if you don't know if you can. So I mean, a confident person is going to commit and try things that they don't know how to do—they don't know if they could do it. Um, so I mean, yeah, confidence is a big component for sure. Um, but what—real quick with identity, too. And I talked to—I've talked to some psychologists on this—someone who's confident is way less likely to be stuck on their past identity. They're more—they're more likely to try and—you know, and then you—in confidence is a muscle you can grow. I mean, very much even just by recognizing you're not your past self, by actually seeing the things you've done—that—that builds confidence. And so if—if you're not building that confidence muscle, if you're not appreciating the differences in your past self, then you are more likely to have psychological rigidity. It's like someone with confidence is going to try new things. You know, even in psychology, they say that your personality is likely to like solidify by age 30. That's not actually true. I don't actually believe that. But the reason is—is because usually in your 30s you stop trying new things, you stop having first-time experiences, you stop trying things that might completely flop. And so that's part of confidence, that's part of being, you know, trying the new thing. So could this be why we underpredict? Is it due to confidence? I mean, I think that's a huge part of it. Yeah. I mean, you've got that default future. That's what they say is we all have a default future, and it's based on our framing, it's based on our language. And so people have that future that's most predictable, it's the one that they most expect, and they're not taking the Albert Einstein secret and imagining the new future and committing and trying the new future because they lack the confidence to try.

Yeah, now you mentioned this, and I do not want to pass this up, and essentially, of course, you—you referenced this earlier—when you have more than three objectives, you have none. Can you talk a little bit more about that, because this really gets into why 10x is easier than 2x, is because we're getting more focused on specific things versus this broad range of things? So why is it that if we have more than three, we have none? Yeah, I mean, 2x is complex, 10x is easy. 10x is simple. That may sound weird. Um, and so let me give an example. So an example I share with my son and—uh—this one makes it a little easier for people to understand, and then I'll get to—I'll get to the three. But my son is a tennis player. We live in Orlando, Florida, and his goal is to play college tennis. And his coach basically asked him like, you know, "What's your goal?" And he said, "I want to play in college." And the coach said, "Well, why not pro?" So like, to me, that's like a 10x. That's like from crawling to walking. And Caleb—it was never even on his frame. You know, I mean, like a lot of things you've done this year weren't on your past self's frame—that just wasn't even on his frame. But I basically asked Caleb, I said, "Caleb, do you think you can—do you think you can actually go to college? Like, do you think that you're even on a path to that goal?" And he's like, "Honestly, I don't know." He's like, "Maybe. I think so." Maybe. I said, "What about Pro? Do you think that you're on a path to Pro? Do you think you could be on a path?" Right? He said, "I'm not on a path to Pro right now." He knew it. Um, but here's where it gets into complex versus simple, and like one thing versus 50 things, is—is that if he wanted to go college in Orlando, there are literally hundreds of different paths that he could do to get there. Tons of coaches, tons of academies, tons of programs. There are hundreds of potential pathways.

Teachers, mentors, even high school teachers that could get him to college, but to go pro, there's almost none. Seriously, there's maybe like two coaches that could even potentially get him there. And so when you make it that big, almost nothing will work. It's like if you wanna, if you want to grow your business by 10%, there's like a thousand different ways you could do it. That's pretty complex; that creates a lot of decision fatigue. Um, but if you want to go 10x, almost nothing you're going to do right now is working; nothing right now is working. And so that's part of why having really big goals is a simplifier, because you can't 10x 50 things, you know what I mean? You can only really 10x like one or two. So it forces you to focus on quality, not quantity; it forces you to. Even Steve Jobs did this. When Steve Jobs, like, was kicked out of Apple, when he came back, they were doing like 50 different products, and like all of them were failing. He's like, he asked them, he's like, "Which one of these products should I suggest to my friends?" And they couldn't give him a straight answer. So he cut literally 70 of the products, and they focused on three—literally three. And it goes straight back to the 80/20 rule: like, just a few things you're doing are creating all the upside, a few things, whereas almost everything else is distraction; everything else is a waste of time. And so you want to strip that out; that's your security blanket; those are your, um, those are just the things you're doing to distract yourself from going deep on the few things. And so it's really just about actually deciding, "What am I serious about?" Like, it's kind of like success is 20 steps in one direction, not one step in 20, but most people would rather just stay busy rather than just, "I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do it really well, and I'm committed; I'm gonna move forward on this." So it's really about quality, not quantity.

Yeah, so in the context with your son, for example, when it's almost impossible, what are those things to focus on for quality versus quantity and trying all these different things? So the goal shapes the process, right? Yeah. And so the impossible goal in his case, and one of the ways, like, there's a, there's like a technical term for what they call a fitness function. Fitness function is like whatever the standard is that you're optimizing for. So like, you know, an author, like, just using an author as an example, or an athlete, right? One athlete might be like, their fitness function might be like strength, right? Where's another one at speed, right? And so the speed goal, and it would probably get really granular, very specific, which would shape a very different process or path than a specific strength goal, right? And so you don't want to get that guy's advice if this is your goal, right? And so the bigger goal is going to shape a very different process, um, and it's gonna, it's gonna force him to get really good at things that he wouldn't even have to be aware of, you know, but it clarifies the idea of that 20%. So like, it clarifies the few things that you got to get really good at, that you have to really master, uh, in order, like, it, you know, you, you don't have as much margin for error, so you don't have as much time to waste on the stuff that has no upside.

Um, so this is like, this fits with the framework that Dr. Bernard talks about, actually. He's the guy who, you know, talked about impossible goals. He talks about how there's four ways that people waste time. The first one is is that they continue to do the wrong things; the wrong things being anything that doesn't have huge upside towards the goal. There's still not 80% of stuff that's making no impact. The second one is that they're not doing the right things, so they're not doing the few things that actually are the quality that they need to get really good at. Um, and then the, the third one is that they're doing the right things, but in the wrong way. They're multitasking; they're still, like, it's just one of the many things that they're doing rather than doing deep work, rather than getting really good at it, rather than developing a unique quality; they're scraping the surface; they're not getting that great at it, and like they're just too split-focused. The fourth thing is is that they're not learning from their experience, and so they continue to repeat errors one, two, and three over and over and over, week after week after week. They're not actually letting go of those things that don't have the big upside. And so like with myself, I mean, obviously his 20%, his few things that have the big upside are gonna be different than mine, you know, but it's always the goal that shapes the filter, uh, and if it's a higher goal, it's a much harder, it's like a much tighter filter. 10x goals filter out almost everything; nothing, almost nothing you're doing right now works, and so you got to stop doing it. That's all your past self. Wow, I love this. The big takeaway, one of the big takeaways, is to change your filter, because you want the filter to be an impossible goal, because then almost everything you're doing you can stop, because almost everything you're doing won't get to that filter, and it forces you to find a few things with the huge upside.

This reminds me in the context of athletics and what we marvel at as far as like performance, legendary performance, like Tom Brady, for example. We had his mentor sitting right there, and and this was just a couple weeks ago, Greg Hardin, and Tom was a third, fourth-string quarterback at Michigan, ready to quit football; he was about to quit, all right? And one of the things that he helped him with, as well as Desmond Howard, who, you know, Heisman Trophy winner, Super Bowl, all the things, and when you talk with Tom, but in particular, let me tell you about when he talked with Desmond, who was same story, looking to go to another school; he wasn't getting the attention that he wanted. Greg, now talking to you, I know what it was at its core: it got him to change his filter. He told him to stop training for football, stop training like a football athlete and doing what your teammates are doing. "I need you to train like an Olympic athlete. This is your full-time job," much higher standard. Much higher standard; standard and filter are pretty, pretty similar, by the way. And so by him changing that, that standard and switching the way that he was perceiving himself in the context of football, now he's not just a football player; he's the greatest athlete overall—different identity. And so now, but also his performance is so elevated because he's literally running circles around people; he has a different level of endurance, a different level of speed, a different level of accuracy in his mindset, right? And so seeing this play out as you're sharing is just like, "Oh, it's even making more sense." And by the way, Greg is such a cool guy. He was about to go on Good Morning America, um, for his book release; was the day that his book came out, and Greg is just, his legendary character, and he called me, and I usually have my ringer off in the morning, but I just finished meditating; I look over my phone, I see Greg Hardin calling, and I'm just like, "What the—" So I pick it up; I'm like, "Hello." He's like, "Sean, I'm about to go on Good Morning America, but I've got a special person right here with you, and I want, want you to meet him." He put him on the phone; it's Desmond Howard. And I told him, as when he was sitting here, I was like, "You know me, being a football player, returning kicks and punts, I was fast, but I didn't really understand; I was watching Desmond Howard games, too, and I really start to model how I was playing after him." It was good, and he logged that in his mind, and he made that special moment for me, you know? And it's just like, again, changing my filter, even in my relationships and how to show up and me creating those special moments for other people.

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that, by the way, freaking cool story, crazy, right? Yeah, so awesome. Uh, like one of the things I said at the beginning with filter is his minimum standard; floor and filter are very similar. And so when you raise the floor, meaning you raise the, you know, you tighten the filter, then when you raise the floor, now you're not—and this is true in business; it's true in life; it's true and everything—like this is an example yesterday, and this is more of an entrepreneurial example, but I was doing a training with a company that is an investment firm, and we were talking about their impossible goal and talking about their, you know, the, the if they actually did that, what the floor would have to be like on their team immediately. When they said, "Oh, if that's our goal," they actually literally said, like, "We already can identify like 20 people on our team that like we'd have to be honest, like they're not a good fit," like these are like low performers, but like, but also like on what they said yes to, uh, and like, you know. And so I think it's really powerful to just think about what is your floor like in the key areas of your life, because that represents your filter, um, that represents, you know. And so I just think, you know, raising the floor is how you, how you transform yourself at the subconscious level, and it, and uh, you can know if you're making massive progress by, by really raising the floor. But also one thing you can do, and this just fits again with looking back, is how has your floor changed? My guess is if you really look at it, look at where you're at right now in some of the key areas that matter to you, and look at where your floor is that you've now normalized versus where you were at before, it could be the quality of, of, you know, your interviews, or it could be like your health, or it could be certain things that you're focusing on, like the floor that you've normalized now is like way beyond probably the ceiling that you used to be shooting for. And so it's just, it's a powerful thing. But I'll give another example, like, um, you know, you know, as a speaker or something like that, like I might raise the floor, like, on my price, you know, for example, for speaking. And the hard part is is that when you're getting opportunities that are at the old floor, right, the old op, you know, and and you, you're over time you start like weeding out better and better things; it's it's very similar to like the book Good to Great, and back to Collins, he's the one who said, if you have more than three zeros, but like you have to eventually let go of being good. Now you can stay good, man, no, like, really, this is a big part of quality versus quantity. If you wanna go 10x, like 2x, you can be good; you're competing with other people, whereas 10x, if the filter is this high, like you can't, you can't be just good to go 10x; like you have to really go deep, not shallow. Um, and uh, one of the best books I read, um, while I was researching that book is called Catching the Big Fish, and he just talks about how like if you're, if you're, um, like he mentions your consciousness and your, your creativity, but he says if you're up at the surface, meaning you're doing a hundred different things, your consciousness is like up at the surface, and as all you can see is small fish; it's like an ocean. The only way to catch big fish, and I'm talking like big fish meaning big ideas, big opportunities, ideas that you think are impossible, is you have to go really deep, which means you have to let go of all that 80%; you have to let it filter out; you can't even, it can't be on your mind anymore, whether you delete it or delegate it, your attention, which is like the most finite resource, has to go so deep. But when you do, you can get great; you can, that's what's cool, as your future self can be 10 times better, more skilled, more knowledgeable than you are right now, but you have to let go of the good, even the good. The filter has to become that tight, or like, even the good stuff—no, going great. That hit me different, man; that's powerful.

You know, he let's use that example of being a speaker and your speaking fee, and you're re, you're having this revelation, and where your, your identity, your future self, by the way, to the old stuff; that's exactly, that's exactly what I was going to point to, which is now I'm, I'm 10xing this, and now maybe even more offers start coming in at my old thing. 100k can be seductive; it's just like, "Oh, man, remember that's security." Yeah, but when you say no to those things, when you actually, because you have to uncommit to the old standard, yeah, which is the old frame, the old filter, the old identity; you got to start saying no to those things. And, um, you know, like from an economic standpoint, say that, you know, just in general terms, say your fee is 10 grand, right, to speak; you raise it to 20. And all of a sudden, over the next three months, you get tons of opportunities to speak, and all of them stand up, the fee is 10 grand, you know, I'm just throwing this out very arbitrarily, and you have, and you say no to all of them, you know, you just missed, call it, you know, 10 speeches; you just missed 100 grand, right? Saying no to all of those for your identity was way worth way more than that, seriously, like you, you know, and then maybe you get one at the new fee, right? That one just changed your confidence, because you just watched yourself do something that you, you know, getting that one 20 grand is worth a thousand 10s, because now you just watched yourself do something that psychologically was at a new level, you know? And you could, you could, uh, but also by saying no over and over and over to the old standard, like now, now you're not desperate, like, and you're watching yourself say no, and so like that is just profound for your identity to say no to the old standard, even when it's like something great and something you're like, "Man, I really want to do it." It's like when you say no to that, boom, you've just like sent a new signal, like, to yourself and to the outside world.

Yeah, yeah, it's big. What you're saying is so, this is so true, you know? And again, this crazy thing is because of our, our, our operating from our past self and getting comfortable and doing what we've been doing; we don't often acknowledge the potential that we have. And for me, even in this example with the speaking, I was speaking at an event with the greatest speaker in the world, uh, Eric Thomas, and he was speaking on stage; this was after I did my talk, and he said, as he was doing his talk, he started talking about me; he was like, "See, Sean could charge blank," boom, because—and when he said, I'm like, "That's where, what, that's way more than I would charge," you know? Like, "Oh, don't tell the event coordinator; they're paying me one-fifth of that." And then when he said that number, that was the name that became, that was their next number; that's the new floor that I was able to receive, but also again for me it was, uh, it wasn't about value; it wasn't about the value, because the value that I'm delivering was already at that level; it's just my, my mind about what I deserve was they were out of alignment. Yeah. And so when you're saying this stuff, like I've literally experienced it, is so true. And so it's getting ourselves to, to really understand and embrace that 10x is easier than 2x; it's because it forces you to do less, but better and deeper. Um, I mean, it forces you to filter harder; it forces you to say no to a lot of things you're still saying yes to, because again with 10x, almost nothing will get you there; only a few things extremely well, not a lot of things mediocre. You can do a lot of things mediocre, go up to 2x, um, and it's letting the future dictate. Plus, when you go for 10x, every time you do it over and over again, you will become more of a leader. Like, I see it as three things; I see 10x as identity, time, and leadership. It's, it's, it's 10xing your identity, which is operating from your future self; it's 10x in the quality of your attention, which is going deep on a few things; and then 10xing your leadership; it's, it's a, it's a, it's getting more and more people involved every time you, you keep making these leaps. You can't do it all, you know, you have, because you're going deep on fewer things; you need to be a leader; you need more people who are helping support you rather than doing it all by yourself. So yeah, I mean, it changes your life.

One thing I'll say, do you care if I just share a quick story? Please do. Yeah, I'll share a quick story on this because I think it's, it's helpful, and uh, maybe I'll even ask you a question to hopefully get your mind rattling. Um, so a guy read this book back in March; he got an early copy, you know, you'd know, galley copy, and um, he's a guy named Greg; he's 56 years old, lives in Columbus, Ohio. And the main thing is is that, you know, for five years, back, back in 2018, he started a real estate company; basically, he bought, you know, he built a huge commercial building in a creative care facility for people with dementia. And then so he basically, the company was, he wanted to build multiple of these, tons of, well, not tons, but he wanted to build multiple buildings, um, care facilities for people with dementia. So he built this first one after a year, started in 2018, and then COVID-19, yeah, COVID happened, and um, so he couldn't build because like supply chain and all that stuff. So you fast forward to 2023, and he's still in the same spot; he's got the one building, and he's ultimately like, "I don't know if I, like, how long I can do this," you know? And so he makes his 10-year plan, you know, basically, "I'm gonna have, I'm gonna get three, three buildings by the time I'm 65." So in 10, in 10 years, I'm gonna have three buildings, and I'm just gonna sell them. And so then he reads this book, and and basically he's like, "What am I doing? Like, why am I going for three buildings in 10 years? I'm gonna, I'm gonna shift it; I'm gonna go for 10 buildings in three, 10 buildings in three." And there's a concept in psychology called pathways thinking. Pathways thinking is a big part of hope, that like when the why is strong enough, you'll find the how, and often you'll find the who; like you'll find the how through the who. But basically, the thing is is that he changed his goal to, rather than having three buildings in ten years, "I'm gonna have 10 buildings in three," and that forced him to find new pathways; that forced him to do things that again were outside the reference room of his past; he had to find new ways, and often that comes through a person. So he called his friend, and he ultimately found that there were two perfect buildings sitting right there, available and ready, and his friend would have bought him, who's in real estate, but his friend didn't have the funding, and the seller said had this insane demand that they had to be sold in 45 days or else, um, like, basically, it was a no deal. And there's a concept in psychology that it's actually demand that creates the supply, so it's like, think about it; it's like when the why is strong enough, you'll find the how, right? So like, when the demand is high enough, you will find the supply; you'll create the supply because you start filtering for it. So anyways, and in really short, like, to super make this long story short, he didn't have the funding; he found the funding; he got the funding, and he ended up, like his, he ended up going from 100 employees to 300 in those 45 days, and he ended up getting them. So 45 days after he read that book, he had three buildings, fully staffed—believable. That was his goal though for 10 years out, but then I met him, so this is where it gets interesting, and this is where I want to push it on you and on your audience. So basically, before, you know, at the beginning of 2023, his 10-year goal was, "I'm gonna have..."

Three properties now, all of a sudden he has three properties, fully staffed, and he grew so much into it. And then that's when I met him, and he told me the story. He's like, "Ben, you won't believe this. You know, now my goal is to have 10 buildings, and three—and I already have three buildings. You know, I got two." And I said, "Well, Greg, I said that's freaking awesome." If I said, "What's your impossible goal before the end of the year?" I met him just a month ago. I said, "What's your impossible goal before the end of 2023?" He said, "What are you talking about?" He's like, "My goal is to have 10 buildings in three years." I said, "That's awesome, but what's your impossible goal before the end of this year?" I said, "What is the thing that's going to get you out of your current frame right and help you find those new things with huge upside?"

So he sat on it, and he called me a week later, and he had thought about it, and he wrote it down, and he laminated it. And he said, "I don't—he—he wrote the goal, and he said, 'I have no idea how I'm gonna do this.'" It scared him to even write it, to tell his wife. He said, "I'm gonna get three more buildings this year." And um, anyways, literally the next day, his uh, his like co-founder or whatnot said, "Hey Greg, just throwing this out to you, what would you pay for these three buildings?" And Greg's like, "What are you talking about?" He hadn't even told his friend, his partner, that he wanted to get three more buildings. His friend said, "I was just called, and I was told that these three buildings are available, and what—what offer would you make on them?" So anyways, he made an offer on those, and then also another crazy—remember you get what you filter for, but also supply creates—all right—demand creates supply. And so he ended up putting an offer and finding these most ridiculous deals, which he would have never been filtering for had he not been going for the impossible. And so now he's going to end this year uh, with seven buildings, 700 employees, and um, at the beginning of this year—talk about achieving things his past self would have thought were impossible—at the beginning of this year he was on a 10-year trajectory to have three buildings; now he's going to finish this year with seven and all sorts of new leadership skills, new capabilities.

And so the reason I share all this is I like—want you to think about—before—and yeah, I'm telling you this is something you can totally apply, and this is why I think 10x is easier than 2x in so many ways. Is first off, you're operating from the filter of your future, and you can do it on short-term time frames. Also, you don't need to be attached—like I'm not—I'm not attached to these outcomes—expect everything, attached to nothing, no matter what happens. Remember in the present, I get to filter what the past means; I get to learn from it. It's my—my past is mine; you get no access to it, dude. Like I get to decide what I do with my past; I get to decide and frame what it means. And so I'm not going to be upset at myself if I don't hit it, but immediately if you're going for something that's—that you believe to be impossible, it just accelerates everything; it immediately forces you to find the few things that will really matter. So anyways, to you—well, I don't have to say it, but I want you to think about it. You know, think about it. I want him—yeah—what would be like something freaking impossible—literally like something that you believe right now your future self will say, "Ah, I got that," but like I want you to think about it. I'm inviting your audiences; they're just listening to this and rattling through their minds like, "If you're not going for something impossible, then that means you're operating from the assumptions of your past." Wow, that's so powerful, man.

You know, as you were sharing that, and I was going into that uh, that thing for me, I first went to something that was—it already changed everything, and it started to change my thinking. It was bigger than what I was targeting, but I still felt like, "Oh, I could figure that out." There you were maybe trying to crawl faster then I 10xed it—then is near the end of when you were—when you were speaking—and that's when it got like, I don't know how to do that—good—that—that's where you want to—that's where we want to be, because now your mind can start exploring the—it's impossible unless—it's impossible unless—now you can start exploring things that are not based on the assumptions of your past. And this is one of the things that Elon Musk talks about as he's—and he talked about someone who's constantly going for the impossible, but you know he has his algorithm that he always has, and one of the—the first step of the algorithm is to question your assumptions. Um, he even says, "If you have—if you're going for things that are—are—if you're—if you're going for things that are impossible, then conventional thinking won't work," you know. And so first one is question your assumptions. That's why going for the impossible is powerful is because it forces you to question the assumptions of your past; that's what happened to Greg. So like one of the reasons why his goal was 10 years to get those three buildings is because he assumed he had to be the one to build them, because he had all sorts of dogmatic beliefs that—like he believed he was the only person who knew how to make these kind of environments for these people—to mention all those—all those assumptions got like—they were straw man, you know, I mean like people knocked them down; they're like, "No, you can buy buildings from other people," like, you know. So there's—we all have assumptions that we've created which are changing the filter, are limiting our beliefs; they're limiting what we think is possible. And so when you have a goal that's impossible, it forces you to figure out new assumptions; it forces you to find new solutions; it forces you to ask new questions, and you know—and—and so it's a much bigger filter, a much better filter for the present.

One of the most remarkable things to take away from this, and this might be something that doesn't match up with our current paradigm, you said, "Often the how comes through the who, dude." So it's often through a person. So how does—usually it is—when you—especially when you're going for the impossible—so how does that play into all this—like relationships, you know, the people that are connected to—and also changing our filter as well, and how we're perceiving people that we might know and also being open to seeing—inviting in new people. Yeah, so the first book Dan Sullivan and I wrote was called "Who Not How," who not how, right? And so there's a—another different book which I recently read—what—it's just called "The 80/20 Individual"; it's by a guy named Richard Koch—freaking brilliant guy—but he talks about how um, in any situation—like um, you know, he talks about Bill Gates as an example—Bill Gates—Microsoft—Microsoft has 130,000 employees, but Bill Gates said, "If you—if you took away our top 20 people—just 20 out of 130,000—you took away our top 20 people, this company would like become irrelevant." And so like in any situation, you know, you even look at—well, yeah—in any situation there's a few people that can have the biggest upside, right? And so when you start going for the impossible, you don't know how to do it, but you're gonna need help from other people; there's other people who probably do know how to do it or who can at least help you get there. And so it forces you to stop asking how and start asking who—who can help me get there? Who knows how to do this? And so then you start—you know—and they're the ones—I mean, when you start going for who instead of how, the results just—I mean, of course the impossible becomes possible, because like they're not dealing with your same constraints or your same beliefs, and they also have capabilities and skills you don't have, right? So it's like if you want to go for the impossible, one of the—one of the things you would ask is like, "It's impossible unless—" But you could also ask like, "If I was partnered with someone, or if I was working with someone, or if I could get help from someone who could make it possible," there are certain people who could make—of course they can make it possible—then you start reaching out to those people. So I mean it's very much along the lines of what you said like with uh, the Tom Brady one—like because of his who, right? He started training as an Olympian. If he didn't have that who, he wouldn't have had that filter. And so you know—so whoever—other people have different filters, all right? So why—why don't we do that? Why don't we just—for—for most of us—think about those people? It's the same—it's the same thing we do with trying to crawl faster; it's the—it's the common approach to—to operate from the past and present and push that into the future, right? That's 2x. So like that's just a common way to do it; that's just how we're trained to do it. We're trained to just take our situation and go for a little bit more—no transformation. The same thing is—is that we're trained to just do it ourselves—ask, "How do I accomplish this?" rather than asking, "Who can do this? Or who can help me?" You know, like who is so much faster than how. And so we—we just don't—honestly, we're just not trying to do it. The initial response when you're trying to accomplish something is, "How do I do this?" Then we put all the pressure on ourselves, and then we feel like we've got to solve it. It's like, "No, get someone else to solve it, or have someone else help you solve it, or let you know." And so we're just not trained on it; it's just like we're not trained to reframe the past; we're not trained to recognize. And so they're just—they're skills that you know are—are very—like things you can get good at if you just have to practice at it—like crawling and falling a hundred times before you walk—you just gotta practice; you got to practice getting a who—finding a who so that you can go deep on your own few things or partnering—like actually becoming a leader, having teamwork—like just something you got to practice. And the more and more you start going for the impossible, or the more and more you start going for things that are just even just 10x, the more you'll—you'll have to have who's—the more you'll have to work with other people, because it's just too big without. So I just—it's something that you gotta do; I mean, it's just—if you want to go for the big deal, you'll have to get better and better at finding amazing people.

I mean, I'll give one last example on this book, 10x. I reached a place—talk about filters—where it reached the level of my last book in terms of quality, and I knew it could be way better. Um, my last book was a solo book, but this was my third book with Dan Sullivan, um, and it was with the same publisher, and I got the book to a certain level, and the publisher was stoked; Dan was stoked; they're all like, "This is—it's done, Ben." And that was—I looked at it, and I'm like—I was frustrated because I knew that I—I like—I knew inside me that like my own standard was way higher. I was operating for my future self, not my past stuff. I'm like, "No, this book's not as good as I want it to be," but I also knew that my current team couldn't get me there; I didn't have the editor—like I didn't have—I didn't have—and so I'm like, "All right, everyone around me thinks this book's like an eight or a nine, maybe a ten," you know, but I'm like, "I want to go work with someone who can get me to the level I wanted to." And so like it's kind of like my son with a pro—going for pro—like if he's going for pro, he's gonna have to find a much different coach than if he's going for college. And there's only a few coaches in Orlando that can get him pro, whereas there's a thousand coaches that could get him to college, right? So that was kind of my idea was like, "If I want to get this book to this level, I know that there's only a few people that can get me there," um, and so that became my filter. And so ultimately I did find this amazing editor, and when she looked at the book from her filter, she said, "This book's a five." From the filter of everyone around me, it was a ten, right? And so she's like—our—and so that's what I was looking for; I'm like, "This is what I want." So I needed a who with a different frame of reference, a different filter, a different, you know, ability to help me. And so yeah, I mean that's just—y'all—you'll need more and more who's and better who's—those 80/20 who's—along the way if uh, if you want to keep doing this incredible—let's put this 10x concept in the context of health; let's do it in our fitness. So how can we apply this if we're wanting to—we'll just say, you know, what—what the biggest goal for most people in our society today is to lose weight, all right? Let's—let's put this in that context; how would this apply there?

Yeah, I mean, one is—is identity of your past self right versus present self versus future self. So take your future self—most people, especially with health, and I think a challenge with health is—is that—that even that goal—"I want to be healthy"—is such a non-clear filter, right? Like it's not tight enough for me to actually—like—like part of the reason why you want to get connected to your future self is—is that it gives you clarity on what to say yes and no to, and there's a lot of research on it. And even as I said, "Lose weight," it was very—it didn't feel right, because I know that it is so vague still. Oh yeah, and it's also an avoid orientation rather than an approach; you're talking about what you don't want, which is fine. Um, testing it—and everyone's got their own priorities—but take your future self, use that as the filter for what you say yes and no to, and then play with imagination—like what would be the 10x version? It can be focused on quality; it doesn't have to be quantity. What's the 10x quality version of your future self when it comes to your health, right? It could be sleep, right? You might have a lot—heart—you know, tighter filters for your sleep or for your health. And so I would just say like really define it about where you want your future self to be specifically, and—and then you want like a really tight filter for what you say yes and no to. So I'll give an example for myself: I have a health coach—first time I've ever actually hired one—never done that before—and he helped me do all sorts of blood work, you know what I mean? Like all—all sorts of stuff that probably the average man doesn't really do, you know. I know that if you're in the health world and if you're listening to this podcast, you'd probably do a lot of things that I don't do, um, but you wanna—you wanna work with people who have a higher bar for you—like I—in this—and so like in my case, I'm now filtering for a lot of things—like I'm even—literally taking pictures of everything I eat, right? And so I'm filtering more; I'm becoming a lot more aware. And so yeah, I just think like—and you might be able to help me with this actually, because health is something that I think is hard for me to define like a really like 10x future self—maybe you could help me with that; I don't know—but like it might be honestly like just that your performance is better, or that your sleep's better, that your energy's better, you know? And you want to obviously quantify it—like maybe it's like the ability to like run a marathon or do it in a certain speed, right? Like give yourself an impossible fitness goal, right? Um, or that you're sleeping like deep eight hours, you know? I think you should make it quantifiable. Um, I don't know—what's your take? I'm trying to—because health is your world—I'm trying to like—how would you apply an impossible goal to health?

Yeah, this is such a—a great question actually; this is something—I'm not going to say that 10x did, but I definitely thought differently and bigger than I ever had as a result of that injury, right? And so I had all these stories about why I wasn't doing certain things, you know? I needed to do this first or that first; a lot of us do this in the context of fitness and health—like we try to put things in place so we can do a thing—instead—commit first and then figure out what's right—exactly—and I—I flipped a switch in my mind, and instead of making it so hyper complex, I just started doing sprints multiple times a week, which is something that, you know, I would do sprints once a week back in Missouri when I was, you know, one of the fittest levels I've ever been, but even kind of pulling away and not doing that since I moved and all the things. And of course like I lift heavy and I walk and all this stuff, but I wasn't doing something—and actually probably of all the different types of exercise—I wasn't doing the thing I enjoy the most. So even yesterday, you know, when it was a kind of a quote off day, I just went outside, did some sprint drills and did a bunch of sprints, all right? So I'm like not letting a day go by without doing something that is beneficial to—not just with the calf, you know, making sure that—which is crazy is I'm stronger and faster now than I was before in just a matter of months, by the way—and it's up-leveled my—my fitness overall—but with that I had to couple with, "What am I doing for my recovery? What am I doing for," you know, I wrote a book on sleep, so you know—but what—what are some of the things that I can do? Because within that there are simultaneously—I'm doing all this different media and things like that—I've got a book coming out—where have I been cutting corners for my sleep quality in my recovery because of my whatever—and how can I structure things? So I started to—I literally changed my calendar so that I can put things in place so that my recovery and my wellness was first, even during—during the season of intensity—I'm first. And so that's one thing—putting in place—and here's another thing—um, giving yourself permission to have fun—like you want to do all this stuff with your fitness—why—what do you actually enjoy doing that's physical? What do you want to have this health and fitness for? Why do you want to lose weight? Like what do you want to do with your body, right? And so giving myself a healthy allotment of what that is, right? And so like I just mentioned, even playing basketball yesterday with my sons, and um, it wasn't that long ago when I played my first game since the injury, and I was like, "Okay, I'll just—you know, some guys asked me to hoop, and I'm just like, 'Nah,' you know, I'm not really—" And I was just like, "I'll just play—I'll—I'll play with 75—my 75 percent—was destroying—this was destroying them—and if it was cool, you know, it was—it was cool, then it was rewarding and fun. But my son—while he was practicing with his coach on another basketball court—and he saw me do one of the most incredible moves he had ever seen, right? It was about—you know, it was a behind-the-back layup kind of thing—and he caught me just at that moment—that was the most special part about it—because he went on telling my—my wife and you know my son about the story, and it's like creating this core memory for him that my dad went through this thing and now he's better than he was before, right? And so now it's elevating with the fitness piece; it's not just about me; it's about my family.

It's about the other people that I can influence, right? So those are a couple of things that just come to mind. I mean, when you're talking, it helps me so much. Um, one of them is your future self is not you. You know, when I was talking about good to great, um, we tend with our future self to take our past and our present as the reference point. It's like, well, maybe I've never been athletic enough to do basketball, right? Um, or maybe I got that calf injury, so there's no way, you know. But if you take your future self as as as kind of the filter and you know that your future self could be, I mean, maybe I'm not that great at basketball, maybe my future self could be awesome, right? Uh, one of the things, so so one I think is just super important to realize what what is what you think is impossible for your future self, that's not impossible from their perspective, right? And so I think that being willing to pursue things. But you also said something else which was really awesome, which is uh intrinsic motivation, doing something you actually want, the thing of fun, doing what you want, doing what you enjoy. Uh, I think that's super important, is doing something that you actually want to do, even if it's not what other people do. So maybe you want to get really freaking good at basketball, right? Maybe my goal is to run an ultra-marathon, or maybe Michael, you know. So, but I think having a high filter, recognizing that your future self doesn't have to be the same as your past and your current self, your future self could be super fit, right? And if, but I do suggest a very high standard, because that will force you to raise the floor on especially those fundamentals, your sleep, your nutrition, and and um, and then it will for you with a really high standard uh in it in whatever direction you want, right? Something that's intrinsically exciting and motivating to you, often it will lead you to who not how, it'll lead you to getting people to support you, who can help you get to that level, to really dial it so. Yeah, go ahead.

All right, so last piece with this is I would also take that physical, yeah, goal, like goat, head to toe, right? And literally think about how your your best version of yourself, how does that person look, right? How does that person perform? How does that person live? But we're just going to take a superficial version of this, dude, I want to hear this, right? Good. So literally going head to toe, you know, your jawline, there's stuff you could chew on and make your, you know, your your jawline better, whatever. There's all these different things that you can implement, but you know, most importantly, as you're getting crystal clear on what that vision looks like and as you're sharing is just like putting in some things each day to help us to kind of, you know, get get to that in destination. So just go visualize yourself from head to toe, keep going. And this reminds me, and it ties into the beautiful story that you shared about Michelangelo in the beginning of the book and how he 10x things again and again and again. One of the things that is jumping out now is understanding how the health is truly coming from the inside out, and so that's one of the things that you share in the book. I don't want to give the story away too much, it's all right, but he got into cadavers and really looking at what creates the outer expression of the body, right? And so as you're visualizing yourself from head to toe, understand that if the bones are good, right, shout out to Marin Morris, but within that as you're having holding that vision, knowing that this is going to be built from the inside out and what it's going to take for you to have that outer manifestation.

Now, here's leading to my point and also a question, in that process, because you're not acclimated to that 10x life yet, you're going to face obstacles, and it's very likely for me, you know, my my vision at the beginning of the year, it didn't include tearing a calf muscle, but because of that, it took me to an entirely different level, and what I'm what I'm approaching right now is a level of health and performance that I, it's not that I didn't know was possible, it's just that I didn't know that I can have this right now, why all of this stuff is going on in the outer world, right? And so let's talk about that aspect, when we're up-leveling and the obstacles that we are likely going to face, how does that play into all of this? Is that a means? Is that is that obstacle telling us that we need to go back to 2X? Let's talk about that part. So I'm going to share with you one of my favorite quotes of all time. This is a quote from Robert Brault. Robert Brault, he said, "We're kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal." So I'm gonna say it again, "We're kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by a clear path to some lesser goal." That's true on a daily basis, but it's true in your life, you know, like on a daily basis, my my true goal might be I want to freaking write that chapter, the lesser goal might be all the many distractions, the dopamine hits that I want, right? And so there's gonna of course be obstacles, there's gonna be of course things that are going to hit you, smack you in the face, and so I want you to like make sure you follow up and you know, let's let's really clarify your thing, but I think that the obstacles that we face, unexpected or just because the goal is huge, right? Where you're trying to up-level the standard, and so it's gonna it's gonna test you, and then you can choose to go through the tests or to um, you know, I love the quote, "Lessons are repeated until they're learned," right? And so that that goes back to the four things, right, the way we waste our time. So I think that I think that overcoming the obstacles or or passing through them and then transforming them into lessons is a huge part of raising the floor, so I don't know, I mean, I I love your, you know, your follow-up, and if we want to drill down further, clarify, but uh, there's the obstacles are what stop you, man, like those are the things that transform you, you know? And for me, I mean, I I always, you know, take everything and transform it into into benefits, into learning, into lessons, and so I don't know, that's my take.

Yeah, yeah. So would you say, and I know this is getting into some sketchy territory, dude, be sketchy, bro. All right, sketchy neighborhood, we're deep enough, if someone's still listening to this, they're they're deep into sketch. So you know, with that 10x vision, should we, and this is the word that's a little sketchy, should we expect that we're going to face some obstacles that we would deem to be like impossible? Give an example, like giving, again, you're you're focused on being the fittest person that you can possibly be, and then you're hit with a devastating injury, right? You know, this particular football player having this this is a prime-time moment, Hercules, huge contract, all the things, writing a new story, a TV show is following you now, and the list goes on and on, and then this devastating injury that can write people off at the age bracket that he's in. Yeah, so this guy, it has two choices, and they're freaking huge choices, right? Either this defines him or he defines it. I mean, that's always the case with life, um, and and so this can either be, you know, and he ultimately gets to decide his direction, right? It's his future self, he can flip it into something really interesting, um, but yeah, I mean, I don't think it always has to be an injury like that, but you will be tested, you will be massively tested if you're going for big things, because you're trying something way beyond anything you've ever done, right? And you want to go through those tests, um, because those things will show you that you could you like you said, you're way better than you think you can be. Um, I want to know more what you're thinking genuinely when you're thinking about if you're going for something like that about, you know, the obstacles of the test. I want to know more about it, what you're thinking about when you're asking this question. Well, this is why people need to get 10x is easier than 2x, so they can get this road map in this blueprint and understand their potential better, number one, but also being able to, especially right now, I think that a book like this is so advantageous because so many people recently have become so small or made themselves smaller and started to see life through, and you talk about this a little bit as well, through scarcity, through the lens of scarcity, and so it's opening up, cracking open this new vision of abundance, and you know, it's really a special book and a special project, and so more so than anything, I'm kicking it back to you. I gotta tell you, man, you're kicking you're kicking a lot of inspiration my way right now. I just had a thought for you. Go ahead and share your daughter, you should you should.

All right, so this is what I was thinking with the test, the test, you know, I was talking about good to great, the test is are you going to keep operating from the past and choose to be good, or are you gonna, you know, we you brought up Michelangelo, Michelangelo, he went through several levels, right? But when he made the David statue, he took four years to make that statue, change the world, and um, you know, it opened up the opportunity where the pope wanted him to make his tomb, and so the pope brings him down and, you know, loves Michelangelo's work so much, he asks him to do the Sistine Chapel and stuff like that, but he asks Dave he asks Michelangelo like what's the secret, you know, how'd you make that David, and you know, the the famous line of, "I just took away everything that's not David." I think that the biggest tests, certainly we have tests like, you know, injuries or obstacles and stuff like that, but I really think that the biggest test is, you know, when we're raising the floor, it's kind of like that example of, you know, saying yes to the old fee, right? Like as an example, like I was tested so hard, and it goes back to the idea of "lessons are repeated until they're learned," like every level's got a test, it also fits with the hero's journey, right? That there's like a test at every level, um, and once you if you don't pass the test, you have to repeat the level. But when I was writing this book, a test hit me freaking hard, and I almost failed the test, and what hit me really hard was my, so I started this collaboration with Dan when I was a still a PhD student, we started in 2018. I was at a conference, he presented on this who not how idea and um, blew my mind, and I literally afterward I said, "Dan, if you ever want that," and he was one of my heroes, like I loved his ideas and stuff, and so I said, "If you ever want that to be a major book, I'll do it," create a dream opportunity for me. Well, while I was writing this book, I went so deep, you know, to the idea of deep, when you go deep you catch big fish, and I was so deep into this book, talk about like Michelangelo, my life changed on quantum levels, where all of a sudden my view of my future self like scaled 10x or 100x, and I was like, and so my filter changed dramatically, and I realized I can't keep writing these books with Dan if things are the same, and so my test, I avoided it for months, talking to him, you know, and ultimately I didn't I I, you know, it's okay if you're sloppy on the test, you know, like, you know, at least you're going for it, but part of my test was even letting go of this writing books at the end, which he was one of my hero, still is, um, and walking away from that. I had people, many people, mentors and otherwise say, "You don't don't don't don't ruin this opportunity, like this is a life-changing opportunity," and I said, "No, my future self is the filter, even if my past self was amazing." But even since then there's been other huge tests of um, you know, in my past self would have quickly jumped into something next, and um, instead you create that space, and so the tests, you know, back to the idea of it's not our it's not the it's we're kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal, that lesser goal is often the thing you're right now doing, it's the thing that is good, but it's what got you here and it won't get you there, and that's not always true, I mean, like sometimes it is just to keep going, right? Sometimes it's to keep going deep, but you know, you want to let the future be the filter, and and sometimes that that test will be that you've got to let go of something super good if you want to be great, and uh, those tests are tough, man, and sometimes we we we we don't pass a test, therefore we got to keep doing that thing, whatever it is, stay at that level for a long time because we don't trust our future self.

I can tell you firsthand, I have this book right here in my hands literally, and the way that it was written from the beginning, the story with Michelangelo, it was so enthralling and beautiful, and just like I'm not reading a book on personal development, I'm reading a work of art, truly, and that's because of your 10x vision, and I want everybody to pick up a copy, "10x is easier than 2x," right now everywhere that books are sold, and where else can people dive more into your universe? First off, just thanks for letting me chill with you and for uh having a few revelatory moments with me, man, this has been fun. Uh, yeah, so benjaminhardy.com is my website, benjaminhardy.com, definitely uh if you like audiobooks, there's three hours of bonus interviews between me and Dan Sullivan on the audiobook, which is pretty cool, and then YouTube Doc, you know, just YouTube Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Hey, if you like this video, make sure to check out this video right here. That means our children are not allowed to be in that pure essence, they're not allowed to say what they feel if it's going to hurt mom or dad, and that's really dysfunctional, that's why we grow up do not know who we truly are.