how much time do you actually spend practicing imagination is it a daily thing or is it a weekly thing or is it even when was the last time you even spent 5 minutes actually thinking about a future that you want um versus just waking up plugging into the phone and then going to work right one of the I think the really important components is the idea of impossible and and I think that it's a really useful construct to play with the idea of impossible usually as people we don't entertain things that we think are impossible simply because they're we think they're impossible so we don't even spend much imagining them let alone like trying to like strategize them think about it actually like let alone get committed to it [Music] right Dr Benjamin Hardy welcome to the show thank you for coming back second time here it's been a couple years though it back with you it has me back with you and and in um in a couple years you've done some work and the work is very interesting very uh personal and relevant to me and especially our audience today which is one of the things among many that I want to talk about uh that is a new book and the concept is that it's easier to 10x things your goals the life that you dream of rather than 2x which if that doesn't seduce The Listener right off the bat I don't know what will uh but before we get into the specifics of your most recent work maybe you could spend a second orienting us around who you are what you focus on in work and career and uh that'll help us get into the material absolutely yeah so um live here in Orlando Florida my wife and I have six kids which is you know a big thing uh we actually have a seventh living with us right now we don't know we don't know if this is permanent but we have a 15-year-old girl from Guatemala who is living with us it may be permanent may not be that was just kind of a h happen stance um wow but um I did a PhD in what's called organizational psychology organizational psychology is you know like leadership strategy um motivation stuff like that very much business psychology leadership psychology um and we you know we had our three foster kids while I was doing my PhD at Clemson that's when I was doing a lot of blogging on website called medium.com and that's really where I was able to kind of get my uh you know go through some riffs I guess you could say that was my I guess you could say my first professional 10x was essentially going from blogger to author and just getting really good at that um and so that was kind of my Clems in years from 2014 to 18 we adopted our three kids from the foster care system and then moved here to Orlando and yeah I think that just to give a little orientation um I've deep into um yeah originally when I was writing on medium it was more like pure self-development like pure uh with a lot of deep psychology behind it I then got really interested in entrepreneurship my Master's thesis was actually on uh the difference between entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs and I did a lot of Deep dive into that I I kind of went deep into a topic called the point of no return um and just kind of what that looks like like when you go through those identity shifts and make big commitments and that that that stuff on entrepreneurship did lead me to developing the collaboration I had with Dan Sullivan he's an 80-year-old guy who's freaking amazing been coaching World CL like top entrepreneurs for 50 years so we wrote three books together uh I've written a number of other books myself and um you know these days I'm just really interested in um you know fast growth learning transformation um just so that's kind of I guess where we're at yeah I know that's great well it's it to me given that the audience of listeners and Watchers here largely identify as creators or creative uh as entrepreneurs uh I think it's fascinating maybe we can try out a little of that uh your origin story that you shared there around entrepreneurs versus wannabe entrepreneurs what what what's the difference what did you find in the research and uh maybe you can articulate the difference there for us yeah I mean I'm sure that there's so many but like with my own study which was my Master's thesis and honestly anyone can look it up it's called like uh does it take courage to start a business um Benjamin Hardy you know it's at Clemson University you could click it read you anyone can read it's kind of probably not that fun to read a master but um the funny part about when you work with like when you go into a PhD program you're usually working with a specific uh adviser more than a program more of a program you go to work with a specific person to do research with them and so the person I was working with um she was one of the top researchers on the subject of Curry um different levels of courage and so I just was she had never done any research on entrepreneurs never actually even seen courage applied to that and so I just did that but uh the main thing that I went into was and it was very it was called qualitative data so I was very much just interviewing people I didn't I didn't really do any like surveys or anything like that and not a lot of stats there was some stats but mostly it was just interviewing a lot of people who identified as people who wanted to be entrepreneurs but but but weren't so that was like one of the categories is you had to want to start a business but that you had never actually done it and you were technically still uh an employee so we called those like the nent entrepreneurs or people who were wannabe you know like yep and so you know so we I interviewed a boatload of those people and interviewed a boatload of people who were actually already entrepreneurs at different levels people who had started huge companies people who had you know not so big and then was just kind of asking them the same questions and trying to figure out differences and one of the questions that I did ask was was that was that question of have you ever had a point of no return experience the follow-up question was what happened afterward if you had had one and the Intriguing part was is that many of the people who were kind of in the nent category they said no but they but a lot of them anticipated having a point of no return in the future so as an example like one of the people was like you know if I can get X contract then that will be my point of no return or something so a lot of them they they they viewed that idea of a point of no return being like a point when they actually like go for it or like you know let go of being a an employee or whatnot and so they anti a lot of them anticipated in the future but admitted most of them said that they never had that whereas all literally all the entrepreneurs I interviewed said yes um they had all had point of no returns and many had had multiple uh I even interviewed Seth Goden and you know just as a fun one and he said that you know he's had many points of no return um I actually think we all go through those um like from a psychological standpoint letting go of our past self in different ways but as it related to the entrepreneurs um just going through that phase of going to a some of it was making an investment bigger investment some of it was leaving something behind but just just that idea of making big decisions and moving forward with them versus overly holding on um was kind of one of the big differences what are the what what do you feel like it showed in the research as the primary thing that kept want to be entrepreneurs or nent in your words uh from actually taking the step clearly there is some aspect of fear courage because that was the topic of your thesis but what what were some of the most common or maybe the the most common I hate superlative so I want I want to let you off the hook here because someone says what's your favorite song of all time that kills me uh but what were some of the things that you saw um that were keys in keeping people from either from wanting to be an entrepreneur or rather not that they didn't want to but that they wanted to but didn't actually take action I mean admittedly I actually didn't even really study that as where as it sounds I mean I have I've got my own you know plenty of philosophies and theories on that nowadays but like you know that was back in 2016 and the mo the primary question was just um around that point of n return ify they ever had it have you know like what was their level of commitment to their future um I think commitment uh it was a huge one just that obviously they were more committed to not doing it than doing it um I think commitment is like a fun fundamental aspect of who we are as people just we are all what we're committed to um so yeah I didn't really dig too deep honestly into the wise why the hadn't done it yet that wasn't there's where might have probably been a great question but I didn't really ask them that that's all right I thought it might have come up in the research um so you've already mentioned a couple things uh that are hyper relevant to your new work and just to plug the title here 10x is easier than 2x what um like specifically identity uh you and I were speaking briefly before we started recording you have this concept of past self current self future self and I'm wondering if you can start our way into this new material of yours by you know what roles like Define each of those sort of terms for us and what roles do they play in our ability to pursue and or achieve the the dreams that we have whether these are you know entrepreneurial dreams or create creative Creator dreams like most of our audience who is listening today but just we'll just leave it at dreams past self future present self future self what you know what role does the identity play how we think and speak to ourselves what does that play in in our ability to actually live those dreams it's huge it's huge I I love what you're saying um so identity kind of when you ground it all down it's basically two things it's it's the you know narrative as you said story narrative uh that's driving who you're being um but it's also uh that what you're committed to as a person uh and so past self present self future self is huge because obviously we all have past selves uh we are in the present and we also have future selves but what's really uh crucial to understand when it comes to psychology is is that people people think about their past self present self and future selves the same way that they look at time and how people are trained to look at time is is that it's something that's outside of us and it's something that's sequential over time meaning like the past is behind us the present is now and the future's up ahead of us and that those three are independent spheres and that they're actually different from one another um the thing about psychology is is that that's not actually how it works um what what what we're kind of trained in Psych not everyone but like how I was trained in Psychology to think about it is that time is not sequential it's actually holistic and so what that means is that um who I'm being right now fundamentally is based on how I frame my past and also how I'm framing my future um like a really good example of that is Victor Franco Victor Franco man search for meaning very much talks about like when people lost hope in the future the present became toxic it became like honestly meaningless and hard to bear and there therefore um like you know those conditions man search for meaning being a discussion on the concentration camps like people without a connection to their future ultimately like died in the present because they're and so uh you know he he was just very adamant that you needed hope in the future you needed a future to be striving for in order to have uh meaning in the present but I just think a a fun a huge Insight that I think is a really big starting point and it kind of lays the foundation and we can go deep on the identity side even you know however far you want to go on that before we go into the difference between 10x and 2x but a a common approach and I think a trained approach that we have especially here in Western culture is to assume that the past is what's shaping the present and to take the past and use that as the explanation for the present um that I am who I am because of my past and and that seems intuitive but when it comes to psychology it's the opposite way um it's the present that shapes the meaning of the past and it and it always is that way even memory is a reconstruction it's not a retrieval you're not trying to retrieve files of hidden of past events you're literally reconstructing them in the present and so it's far more empowering but it's also far more accurate to say that the present is what shapes the meaning of the past and that you're always carrying the past with you and that that past is under constant revision or constant construction and the more you know that then the more you can let the present uh shape the past in useful ways so that the past is an asset rather than a liability so that's that's one it's just that you're always carrying the past but also then the opposite um that you well with that knowledge it's really important to realize you are not your past self no one listening to this is their past self 10 years ago I go as far as to say 10 10 days ago uh and the more you get use to realizing that you're not the same person you were in the past and and get better and better at recognizing that appreciating it and even defining it the more what we call flexible you become psychologically and that's crucial for identity because you don't want to overly be identified with your past self not that your past self is anyone wrong but just that here I am now I can actually recognize ways I'm different than who I was last week and that there are certain things that I absolutely would not say yes to today that I would have said yes to a week ago um but the same is true of future and I'll just lay this out and then wherever you want to go with identity great but just as just as um just as people typically take the past and use that to frame the present rather than the opposite way um we often take the present and we use that to frame the future what we what I'm saying is is what what people typically do and there's a lot of research on this Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert he did a lot of work on future self is that people take the present and they use that to to shape their view of their future self H the primary reason that they do that is that they lack the imagination to actually imagine a different future self which is actually accurate um if you use the past you recognize that you're not the same person you were in the past the same will beat you in the future your future s very different from who you are and so what you want to do psychologically given that time is IC psychologically that the past present and future are all happening right now is you want your future to be the dictator of who you are in the present that's letting your future self decide who you are and what you do um so you let the future determine the present and you always let the present determine the past and this allows a lot more psychological flexibility where um I'm not my past self but also pretty wildly and ridiculously I'm also not my present self who I am in the present moment as Daniel Gilbert would say is as fleeting as the present moment therefore I don't have to defend my current self or my past self um because I know that my future self will be different and so you can then start operating powerfully as your future self while at the same time continuously uh appreciating your present and your and your former self um so I I just think that that's a really more powerful approach and it starts to lay the foundation of 10x and 2x but where do you want to go with that when it comes to Identity no right now I'm envisioning like like let's say like 30% of our listeners like they just press pause and they went back and listened to you throughout these terms past self present self future self the relationship between them listening to that again right now and so my goal here is just let's just put a um put a bow on those and I'll try and do so through through the vehicle of a question to you so say what you said about time again but put it in a way that someone who fears time like time is fleeting I I'm I got to be in a hurry uh you know time is this thing that's running in the background talk to us just you know give us three sentences if you can on time like why is that construct not that helpful that view of time yeah the view of time like I I there's just like when I think of people who are listening right now they're judging themselves because they haven't become who they want to be or they're in a position right now where they ate donuts for the past nine months and oh gosh I wish I could undo the past and because future it's going to be hard because I now had you know 10 Donuts a day for a 100 days in a row there and and as you you know wisely said psychologically we root that that angst sort of in time and you know my understanding of how you look at it is that there's this a little bit of that that that's not accurate all of those things you know boil down to some basically to now how should they think about time the people who are listening right now who might be confused yeah and I I'm grateful for that and I know you love your audience and um I know that these are kind of heady ideas I think a a really useful thing is to firstly utilize your past as a tool I look at the past and future as tools for more fully operating in the present so as an example like if I if I have rigid views of my past and we've all gone through hard things even those nine months of eating Donuts right um like whatever like I I just think it's very powerful and very useful to realize that it's always you in the present that gets to determine not only what your past means but what you can do as a result you get to determine the present what you do as a result of those nine months of dnut eating you also get to determine what it means and you don't have to blame your past self you certainly don't have to over identify those nine months of donuts with your present self um because your present self is needing the donuts right now even if your past self did there's no there's not really any value in in in being mad at your past self certainly you can learn and make different decisions than your past self but it's very powerful to disconnect your present from your past self what I mean is is there's you yeah you aren't who you were right you're not by definition a doughnut eater because you ate Donuts every day for night this is hilarious example that we're pulling on here but you can you can imagine the same as I'm not a someone who's trying to quit smoking I'm not a smoker because I smoked for 20 years or I'm not a a bad student because I got bad grades when I was in eth grade for example yeah and I and I try to not overly pull on even those kind of common approaches to Identity such as saying like I'm not this I am that um I think that in in more simple terms um you can you can look at the past in different time frames and I think it's really powerful to do this where go back to 2013 right we're we're talking in 2023 and so go back to 2013 and just look at all the ways in which you're you're different from who you were back then um think about the things that you you valued back then even the people you spent the most time with think about how you defined success back then um think about the things that you've now done that your past self would have never even considered possibilities right and so but and so like that's 10 years ago you could also go back to 2020 like to 2020 go back to three years ago right and just think about the difference between who you are and what you're what you're doing and and and the easiest way to do this is to just think about like what are the things that you used to say yes to vers versus the things that you say yes to now and the things that you said yes to back then that you absolutely would say no to now um a really important aspect of identity is and I mentioned earlier uh that which you're most committed to and and and how I Define that as a person is is your identity is your is your standards standards and identity kind of fit together and and your minimum standard which is the floor represents the base of what you say yes to and everything below that floor you don't say yes to so as an example if I do eat donuts then that means that that's not below my floor that means that it's above my floor because I'm saying yes to it and so it's really powerful to look at where your minimum standard is as a person and and the things that you used to say yes to it could be ways you spent your time it could be people you said yes to it could be activities you said yes to and just recognizing that now there's certain things you utterly would never do not because your past self was a bad person but just because it no longer meets the standard of what what you you know what you would say yes to um so I think that that's a very useful way and then just simply you can do that on very smaller time scales as well like look back at 2020 or sorry 2023 go back to January think about who you were back then just think about the things you said yes to back then the things that you were focused on back then and then think about your own floor and think about what are some of the things at the beginning of the year that I was saying yes to regularly that now like no I've weeded those things out like those are and not that again not that my past st's bad person but that uh it just has no interest for me for various reasons um and so I just think it's very valuable to do that even on a weekly basis genuinely at the end of the week look back and just be like all right how am I different from who I was at the beginning of the week um what do I now know that I didn't know then like what what's now possible or what am I now committed to right because to the idea of you are what you're most committed to what how is my commitment different than what it was a week ago um you know what am I what was I saying yes to a week ago that now I would say no to stuff like that all right so if if I can make a punchline and this is a generalization that who you were yesterday doesn't in fact define who you are now or who you can be in the future you've talked about past self present self future self let's try and tie this to the concept of identity before we get into this what I'm fascinated with is obviously the title of the book being 10x is easier than 2X or the concept rather and what role does you know relate to me if you can the the I the the spectrum of time that we've been discussing and the role that identity shapes that identity plays in shaping who we are yeah so identity so it's very powerful to have your identity rooted in your future self the person you want to be uh and getting better and better at at not overly like like there's a lot of wiggle room when it comes to Future Self um what Daniel Gilbert talks about is that people falsely assume that who they are in the present is who they're going to be in the future so this is the idea of letting the present determine and shape the future rather than letting a future and maybe even a seemingly impossible future called a 10x future letting that future determine who you are in the present two totally different approaches to life two totally different approaches to time so from my view and Victor Franco's view the future is the most powerful anchor for who you are in the present uh in my mind the present think about all of us like the present is very flexible like the present circumstances the economy my mood there's so many things in the present that you don't want to base your reality on your present even your present self that would be a fixed mindset um but also your present circumstances which are very variable instead the future self that you that you want to be that um that's a far more powerful anchor for what you can be and what you can do and so from an identity piece uh certainly you don't want the identity of your past self and I AR argue you don't even want the identity of your present self instead it's your future self the person you want to be it's kind of like the idea of first be then do then have right um and so getting really connected to your future self and who that person is uh and who who they are and then letting that be the deciding factor in who you are today and what you want to do um and when it comes to your past self you don't need to I I I'm loudly saying don't identify as your past self you're not your past self um you certainly can and I invite everyone to have a positive view of their past self um even my dad as an example my dad was a drug addict I can have a positive view even of my dad's past self he's no longer a drug addict but I can have empathy and compassion for my father for where he was at uh and I don't have to frame him as a villain I don't have to frame my own past self and eating nine months worth of donuts as a villain I can I can say that I am not my past self they're amazing here are the ways my current self is different here's my future self and the person I want to be and I'm going to let that future self to determine the choices I make here and now and even in the present looking at my life and recognizing a lot of my present life is actually more a reflection of my past self not that future self and that the future self is actually what shines the light on that so I can actually make the decisions here and now which things go and which things I go deep on is it as simple as if we we buy into your prescription that the future self is the best way to Anchor an identity I am a person who uh you're telling yourself a story about what future self wants and is it as m is it as simple as pretending that you are already your future self My Future Self who is in shape eats well again these are very very benign topics but I'm hoping to make them benign so that you can apply them to things that are very individual in particular in your life but let's just keep with the donuts metaphor I'm my My Future Self is a person who is you know fit has a uh is living a very long and Rich healthy life and therefore my future self or sorry my my present self then understands intuitively that eating Donuts is not on the path is not a piece of the path or eating 10 Donuts a day rather is not eating is not uh sometimes you got to do that sometimes when I'm sometimes when I'm writing a book and I am so broken I'm going to grab those donuts I like yeah I want it to be clear like some donuts are good we're talking about 10 Donuts a day I really like the quote that it's better to be a meaningful specific than a Wandering generality and I think that often when people talk about identity they're speaking overly general for example using James clear's language I am a runner um I really don't like that way of talking about identity I don't think it's I think that an overly gen none of people are not General people are specific and so I think it's more powerful to have a specific future self than a general future self of I am a runner or I am a healthy person or I to me that's not how people actually identify I'm a very specific person I've got very specific interests uh I like this kind of music I like that kind of food those are the kind of and so I think that I think that the you know overly gener generalizing your identity even your future self I think is a robotic and a non human approach to Identity and so when I think about future self um it's very much uh like get specific in in what in who your future self is what what your future self is up to what really matters to your future self am I a I'm a 230 Miler or sorry a 230 marathoner if that's what you want if that's absolutely what you want yes when it comes to deliberate like the idea of Del practice the more specific the goal obviously the more specific the path yes and so yeah it's it it's very much more powerful to Anchor your future self on specifics if it is a 230 Miler or marathoner if that's like really a powerful experience you want to have as your future self that is a much more powerful view than I am a runner to like and and so that you have something to Anchor your process or your practice or your present to um and so yeah I think having specifics in your future and also just recognizing I think that people don't like to Anchor like anchor their future self to specific things like I wrote this book right or um like they don't but those things are actually really powerful um and it's not that those actually Define you those are just honestly Maps like they actually give you Direction they give you something to focus on um they give you something to work toward you never actually like no matter what even if I achieve that right even if I achiev that goal and now I actually hit the 230 marathon of course by the time I get there I will have a future self and so then that person will have a future self that then they can Orient towards um but I think just defining out who your future self is and what matters so that then you can actually be focused in the present um is very helpful when I wrote my last book which was called creative calling the there's a four-step creative process and the first one it's basically the idea I D EA imagine design execute amplify what I found in my um I would say research is and also uh qualitative over quantitative asking people what I saw what I what I experienced also myself was that the it is so strange and basically it's like hiding in in plain sight that one of the hardest things that we can do is the imagining part imagining what's possible mostly because we take cues from you know a lack of information or a lack of something that would light us up what role you talked about imagining you know this future self so you know did you see the same that I did that people really struggle to Define uh something that they want to be or become and what advice would you have for you know those people who want to get better at this practice the practice of imagining a future self a future state that we would like to to be yeah it is it is the it is very difficult for people um one of the things that I think is important to ask the listener or ourselves is how much time do you actually spend practicing imagination like how much time do you actually is it a daily thing or is it a weekly thing or is it even when was the last time you even spent five minutes actually thinking about a future that you want um versus just waking up plugging into the phone and then going to work right um like how much time do you actually spend doing it um in terms of practicing the skill um so I think that that's yes imagination takes time it takes skill uh it takes I I view it as a continuous process like there's never a point when like I I view very much the future stuff and even the past past and future as like a draft draft of a book right it's something that's under constant revision and so you don't need to like say okay got the future it's perfect now I got that perfect plan um constant Revision in a week from now you can probably have a little bit of a different perspective um and so I think just giving yourself the space I think giving yourself the space I really love journaling obviously and putting yourself in certain environments where you can like learn even listening to this chances are you can use this as background noise for actually like thinking about possibilities um one of the I think the really important components and I kind and this kind of a little bit starts to kind of inch into 10x is the idea of impossible and and I think that it's a really useful construct to play with the idea of impossible usually as people we don't entertain things that we think are impossible simply because they're we think they're impossible so we don't even spend much time imagining them let alone like trying to like strategize them think about it actually like let alone get committed to it right um and so but impossible as a concept is actually extremely useful and in terms of like really pra highly practical like there are two ways I look at future self that I think are really powerful tools one if I'm thinking about my next quote unquote 10x 10x doesn't have to be spec like when I say it doesn't have to be specific it literally does not have to be a quantitative 10x although it can be I could have a 10 times bigger net worth or sell 10 times more books or have a 10 times bigger podcast or if I want to do it that way or a different 10x right 10 times more free time right um You can do it that way um what I'm more talking about is you at a fundamentally next level like whatever that may be I I very much consider 10x qualitative similar to like a child going from crawling to walking like that is a 10x jump as I'm describing it where now as a walker that child has so many different possibilities honestly a different life than they did if they had remained a crawler so your 10x is that equivalent you're the crawler your future self is the walker in a totally different world um and so how I look at your 10x future self I honestly think that it it really it can take as long as you want but I I think it can be done every 3 to five years Max where in those three to five years your life your yourself it it's honestly incomparable so as an example if I went back to my life in 2020 there are certain things of course I'm still writing books but there are fundamentally huge aspects of my life myself that are on a different sphere um and so I like to look at it as call it three to five years you get clear on your next next level whatever that looks like and it should feel impossible you don't know how to get there you don't even know if there is a path there I'm telling you that's very useful it's a beautiful starting point be willing to think about that and another that I think is a useful thing to look at in Psych like in in in Psychology you've got achievement which is external accomplishment you also have what's called aspiration which is about internal development character development growth skills I believe like how I approach it at least and this isn't like the perfect science it's just more like I like as an approach that the next qu call it 10x whatever that is that over those three to five years and it doesn't have to be exactly that but I think I don't I I I think as a tool if you're going for for past that in time then it lacks the urgency to force you to start finding Pathways now if you push the future 10 years out it it's not a powerful enough tool to force you to start finding new Pathways and force you to start letting go of things yeah but but just as a quick thought that 10x in those three to five years or less you actually grow and accomplish more than everything in your life up to that point period so if I'm 35 years old and my next 10x is is at age 37 or 38 in those 2 to three years not only do I grow internally which involves developing skills and stuff but also letting go of a lot of stuff that's holding me back I grow internally and Achieve externally more in that three or so years than everything to this point combined and then from there you can use short-term call it 90-day goals and you use those you still go for impossible goals I have 90day goals that are freaking impossible and and we can go into why that's a useful tool but that's I think that just playing with these these things allows you to start getting clear and start opening yourself up so that then you can start strategizing it specifically you talked about I think that's very very helpful like envisioning imagining a world and whether this is 10x or possible I think on the time frame that you shared that's great one of the keys I heard in there are journaling what you know what specifically would you recommend for journaling to start to understand these possibilities is it just playing with these 10x concepts of the difference between the you that is a crawler Now versus the you that can be a walker in three to five years is that the topic that one ought to journal or would you have a different recommendation so one thing that's really important with all this that I think a lot of people they don't allow themselves to do and we actually talk about this in 10x versus 2x a lot of people they do things only because they think that they have to um often you get to a like even when even when people actually become call it financially externally successful they then have a hard time thinking about their future self call it they have a hard time finding a why because now they've kind of accomplished the things that they need to and they've never actually given themselves the space to do what they want to and this whole idea of 10x being something is is being something that you want to and and um honestly getting to the point where you're a lot more honest with yourself uh I love the quote all progress starts by telling the truth and getting to a place where you're stripping away doing things because you have to um or getting doing things out security because you think you need it and so it it takes a lot to actually start to imagine a future that you really really want um and and thinking about why you want that why it's so important um but to your question of the crawling to the walking self um back to the idea of meaningful specific wandering generality that next version of you the quote unquote walking version of you you know and using Victor Franco's language that future purpose that you're fulfilling um is you at you know is you at a fundamentally different level doing things that the current W crawling version of you cannot do but now the walking version of you absolutely is doing can do Etc uh in one in one way of looking at it it was me as a graduate student with zero blog seeing myself as a professional author having conversations with people like jce Jarvis right like that was my future self that admittedly as a graduate student with zero blog or never even tried to write a book that was not me but that was the future that I was thinking about the current version of me and this is why it's not quantitative it might not even be me doing books right like this is why it could be qualitative is my future self the next version of me may be completely out of this conversation where my future self three years from now isn't doing podcasts anymore because I'm off doing something that's very different as it relates to what that that version of me values which I also value which is why I'm going to orient my life towards that but it's not me now and that's then the 10x fature that I then go and transform into and so it's just powerful to have that future to then deliberately practice towards evolve towards make decisions towards um and it could be and often is very different from what you're doing now it could be a continuation I could very much just say I want to just 10 times better the books I'm writing and sell 10 times more and that's totally fine but sometimes it's if you really stretch it and really think about who you want to be and what you want to do sometimes it then takes you out of what you're now doing and that's a beautiful thing as well all right I'm going to put a pin in a couple of things and try and I'd like to shift our gear here shift into the 10x this the book specifically but it's really the concept around the book the book is fantastic by the way um the principle I'm going to in my own words that I think my audience who are listening and watching right now will understand but I then want you to take this judge it you can you know maybe put some window dressing on it or correct me where I make a mistake but I want to get to the the heart of how and why you think this is valuable so the concept is that most of us go around go through life thinking I want to get incrementally better I used to be able to do 20 push-ups I want to be able to do 25 because 25 is more than 20 and that shows that's me getting better this is a very popular historically a very popular idea like set goals that are achievable create momentum and you'll be on your way the concept that you're you know providing us with here in 10s is actually 10x is easier specific specifically because when your goals are incremental your mindset is also incremental you do not change the behaviors that are actually going to unlock past self and connect you to this future self for which you are imagining something great for yourself so in a sense we trap ourselves with this idea of getting incrementally better when we really ought to completely rewrite what's possible and you talked about even actually doing impossible things this is how impossible things become possible so clean up what I just said and then tell us like holy this sounds this sounds fictional and yet the research is very clear that it does actually change your behavior and it does unlock this 10x future self first off I just want to have to like seriously compliment you as a as a person to have conversations with I love how just like sharp and pointed you are and like points I just love I love I'm enjoying as a as a as a participant in the conversation and so I I I imagine that I I know why people enjoy this I'm just saying that I'm saying it's very fun to talk to you awes thank you very much so okay if you're I'm going to just explain the difference between 10x and 2x and then we're just going to continue forth on the beautiful questions you just asked so a 2X mindset is what we're calling a a linear linear which where you're honestly as I'm saying it you're taking the past and the present and you're using those as the basis for creating more of it in the future 2x as an idea is mostly just doing more of what you're now doing just more of it um and so and basically we used the 8020 Principle as the kind of core framework for defining the difference between 10x and 2x in a different way than the than the 8020 rule but it's kind of just that idea of if you want to go for 2x in anything what that means is that you can keep 80% of who you are now you can keep 80% of what you're doing you can keep the 80% you only have to get 20% better maybe 20% different product or something it's really very uh very much a continuation of the past I mean the present to the Future and that they honestly look very similar um that's why you can keep 80% and then 10x is very different and by the way I'll just say if you're going for 2X or going for any form of very like small progress one of the reasons why that's uh painful and difficult is that it's not a big enough difference to Define what's actually useful call it to to to define the 80 from the 20 when you make the future 10 times different 10 times bigger the reason that one of the reasons that's a very useful tool and one of the reasons it starts to make life a lot easier is that because that future is so big so different you actually have no clue how to get there it actually does seem impossible and I invite you to make it impossible genuinely one of the reasons why you want to make it impossible is is that now you don't know how to do it therefore now we're no longer operating from the past that's a beautiful place to be um but because that future is so big and is impossible the beautiful aspect of that is that almost everything you're doing right now won't work to get you there definitely not 80% like you are if you're going for 2x it is so far away so different so impossible that almost nothing you're doing right now will get you there and that's exactly where you want to be and so using the 8020 model what we kind of use as just kind of shorthand framework is is that if you're going to go for a 10x future 80% of what you're doing right now won't work 80% has to get weeded out has to get filtered out this is the idea of the future is a filter a 10x future is a really good filter because it forces you to look really intensely at almost every at everything you're doing and to realize almost all of it and this is kind of a hard truth but almost all of it is past self almost none of it is future self call it the 80% of everything in your life is what you're holding on to out of emotional security out of habit out of paycheck out of whatever it is you're holding on to it so Sol because it's it's an emotionally secure thing and we like security we like stability and so um what happens when you have called to 10x future first off beautiful filter you you know that almost nothing you're doing right now will get you there and so it just shines a light you don't have to let go the 80% but at least it now shows you what it is and then it forces you to go and find the much more effective Pathways people that might get you there and so it's it allows your brain to start looking for the new Pathways the new opportunities um that it wouldn't have been looking for or in Psychology we call it selective attention that you you honestly find what you're looking for but if you if if you're not even thinking about it of course you're not looking for it and so you can then start to go for find and look for that 20% of things that can take you there um I mean I I'm happy to go as practical as you want on this you ask whatever you want but I mean there are very new like very specific ways you can really apply this well I yeah again I want to put continue to sort of uh um anchor sort of with these sort of Milestones along the way through our conversation here there you said one thing that I would like to get clarity on and that is this is a beautiful place to start from and the the voice in my head as someone who believes this concept wholeheartedly I'm very passionate about this as we described before we started recording like I your book has done such a beautiful job of putting you know words and framing around a thought and a feeling that I've had in my life and so a I thank you that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you back on the show but the I'm trying to think of the Counterpoint which is like wait a minute Ben just said great you have to throw out 80% of your life and that's an excellent place to start from most people are saying holy that's a terrifying dangerous place to start from what in the world would make me grateful or excited to throw out 80% of everything that I've got now so the cool part is this and and I get that the cool part is is that you don't have to throw it away now it's a recognition because remember we're taking the future very seriously we're saying that the future is actually um the filter for how to look at the present we're not saying that that future self is here we're using that as the as kind of the way to look at the present and so it allows you to look at the present and say okay if that future self was true it might take three years might take five who knows that most of this stuff's not going to be there I don't have to get rid of it all now but over the process of becoming that future self call it over three years I know that 80% of this stuff's not going to be there anymore I'm not saying I have to get rid of it all now but I at least am now being honest with myself that a lot of the stuff I'm holding on to uh I wouldn't really keep if I didn't think I had to and I absolutely wouldn't keep if I was my 10x future self in fact it wouldn't have been there I would have had to let go of it in order to become that 10x future self let's I'm I'm going to throw something in there just so we have a something to grasp on to this let's just go I want to be a 230 Mar Marathon or that's the My Future Self and so the I've got to let go of 80% because that right now I'm say not even a runner and I'm going to be a 230 marathoner the things that I am now aware of and getting used to getting comfortable with letting go are that you know I may want to change how physically I show up in the world and I may want to have a different set of habits and practices I may want to change uh you know focus on things like V2 Max when right now I don't have any idea but I know that that would probably be near 20% that might be in the 20% of things that really matter to get really good at yeah yeah but but there the the point there is that and again I'm trying to be specific here so people can grasp these these what I think are really insightful but also counterintuitive Concepts that oh I now have to recognize that again this this 8020 principle is we're we're speaking sort of roughly here but just that that there are so many aspects of the vision that I have of myself as a runner that I I've got to let go one that I'm really not one one that my I may need to change my physical body composition may I too I may need to change my mental practices to start to visualize the possibilities like so I think about the 80% I think about the 80% very practically okay seriously I think about the 80% as activities there are things I'm doing so as an example maybe in the 80% I'm no longer uh you know doing X activities whatever it is PL you know spending five hours a day on social media that might be in my 80% right it could be habits right it could be things I'm doing eating the donuts right um it could be people I'm with right it could be and so activities could even include like a job right or a role that you play I think about them very much like their things like um things that I'm either doing so there are things I'm doing that I can stop doing there are people I'm with that I can stopping with or less with um and so there there things that literally you can truly let go of they can be ideas in your head certainly fear can be a part of the 80% I mean we don't ever overcome fear entirely but like holding on to people's opinions and stuff like that can be part of the things you've got to let go of um so yeah I'll let me give Let me Give an example that I think is easy for people to understand and then I'm actually honestly going to give my current self as an example the thing so like to the idea of the runner the example I use in the book that and I think it really helps people with is my son Caleb who's a tennis player this one really helps people get it is is that my son Caleb 15 years old an amazing tennis player he really wants to be a college tennis player like that's his future self that's that's the future that's in large part shaping the stuff he's doing in the present um and his coach when I was writing 10x is easier than 2x which is about a year ago he has now a different coach a better Coach but um you know the coach back then was just pushing him and just saying Caleb what's your goal uh just trying to understand the kid he's coaching so that he can coach him in a different way and Caleb just said I really want to play in college and and his coach pushed him his coach said well why isn't your goal to go pro just honestly just messing with him and Caleb said I don't know like he just honestly that was not part of his goal that's not part of his future self he's not that committed to tennis um but I just thought it was a useful idea and so I was I was asking Caleb the question Caleb you know when this is when we were driving home that night I just said Caleb what what do you think do you think that uh do you think you could go pro like I was just honestly messing with him and he's just like I have no idea you know this is the idea of if it's an impossible goal you usually don't entertain it you're definitely not committed to it you're definitely not strategizing it but I just asked him kale do you think that you're actually on a current track trajectory do you think you're on a path that's actually going to get you to college and he said I don't know I think so I said what about Pro like let's be honest is your path going to get you to Pro and he just he knew he said no absolutely not and so like here's kind of one of the really important points is is that um I live in Orlando and there are hundreds of coaches here in Orlando like there are there think about it in terms of Pathways there are infinite Pathways not infinite but there are there are large numbers of Pathways that could get him to his college goal he could possibly get there by playing on any High School in our city um like and there's a lot of good coaches there um but if he actually truly made the goal Pro which would be an equivalent of a 10x it would be an equivalent of an impossible goal to the idea of almost nothing would work work he couldn't play High School tennis if his goal was to go pro that would now officially become a part of the 80% he could not do that anymore because to play at that level this the standard is so high first off almost like there are very few call it Pathways to getting there almost all the coaches in Orlando wouldn't get him there he'd have to say no so remember it's a higher filter and so almost everything he's doing now wouldn't work and so we if we were actually to commit to that goal first off it make it a lot easier if we committed that goal to get him into college because it would force us to find the few people coaches Pathways things that really matter at that level are going to really matter at the college level but if we weren't filtering for that so that's just one of the main ideas is that Higher Goals less Pathways and that they will force you to find honestly the fewest paths that really matter if you're going for the college goal there's way too much variance I I there's too many potential options and it doesn't force you to 8020 the ones that really matter so like that that's one thing um I don't know if you want to like pin up and button up that but I would just keep going like where did and where did you land with Caleb because I I mean I think this is this is the example that to me you know I should have just grabbed this one from the book but this the level of concreteness that the listener or Watcher right now is experiencing is like aha I know that if just I I play at any High School I might have a chance of getting to college if I have a good coach it's probably that's the typical path but by realizing that oh my goodness if you deconstruct the life of Roger Federer or Serena Williams or any of the people who are the best in the world their path turns out was very different and the number of choices that they had in a field of what used to be a million are now a half dozen and you start to realize that oh I can actually now un see understand look smell taste what it would be like to be on one of those paths and sort of it's this glaring it's the contrast that provides the value and what you just said that the path of Serena Williams and them versus the average tennis player going for college it being very different that's what happens when you start going for 10x is that you have to find those different I call them nonlinear you have to find very different paths which most people are not looking for because most people are going for 2x right um and those paths are going to look very different from what you've been doing in the past and so but but those are the paths by the way with the biggest upside those are the paths that may work to getting you to The Impossible goal so obviously they're very useful the coaches that to actually work with one of those coaches who put could could you there that's gonna be a freaking amazing coach um and so that's like the 20% and and and looking for those um I'm going to give a different example that's more relevant to my own life but I think that um I think that in giving this example people will really start to to mess with this so I as I descri described the kind of kind of the holistic 10x the big picture 10x is call it three years getting to a fundamentally different level that could be 10x in your net worth 10x it could be you being the version of you walking for me it's going to be doing things that are honestly a little bit more like on on like the spiritual aspect of things that matter to me my next 10x um but um here's here's where like you've got the big picture 10x and that's informing a lot of your strategy Here and Now I then what I like to do and I think it's really useful is I really love 90-day time frames and that every 90 days I actually pursue impossible goals on 90-day time frames that are of course relevant to my big picture future stuff that I'm going for and so over a 90day period of time it's powerful to have impossible goals um for those 90 days and then to use those impossible goals as a filter for what you do here and now so let me give myself as an example quarter 4 of 2023 I set some goals that honestly I'm probably not going to get anywhere near hitting but me and my team are committed to them so committed that they're informing the choices we make and they're informing not only that but my calendar so as an example one of the things it's one of my impossible goals is to write the book that I'm writing but it's not just putting words on paper it's obviously writing it at the level I want to which I don't think I can do um that's why it's an impossible goal is I'm afraid to write this book I don't even know if I can but and then there's a few things practical trying to get 500,000 YouTube subscribers nowhere near that but a few goals that honestly I'm not going to hit I could there's there there is a way to do it but I probably won't even get ballpark on these things but we're using those we're committing to those and then we're using those as the filter for looking at our lives the person who works on my YouTube channel okay crap if we're really going to go for 500 we probably need a few more thumbnail people like actually using the impossible goal as the deciding factor for what we're doing now in terms of of my schedule I showed my assistant my my impossible goals and she then looked at my schedule and she said Ben you have 25 podcasts scheduled and there were other things you can't do those if you're going to write that book and if you're going to do these things literally we count to 2 25 of them like I we I really I love your podcast and so like you're no I'm serious I got through the filter well big time because I honestly like I love your podcast and I'm like oh we can go and Chase harvis like keep that so I told my assistant we can keep five but like what I'm saying is those podcasts those 25 podcast and this is just one example I would have I was stoked to do those but in light of my impossible goals I now couldn't because the filter became so high that there was no way I could do it if I was serious about the impossible goals which and here's something that's really important to think about doing those podcasts and I'm just using this as a practical example could have largely taken what I'm already at 2x but the things that I want to do that were impossible goals have the potential to take me 100x I'm not saying that they will writing that book has a shot to take me 100x um when I'm thinking about even 2024 there is something that I'm going to let go of call in my 80% that terrifies me it actually represents literally 70% of my income for 2023 70% of my 2023 income I'm not going to do in 2024 because I am so freaking stoked on the 20% that like one of them as an example I have this pretty high level coaching program that been doing for four or five years I was going to make an upgraded version of it and do it next year and it wasn't going to cost me that much time but I know it costs me a lot here and like I ultimately decided like my assistant forc you know I love her and by the way you can train your team to like filter you is this in the 80% is this in the 20% I think you train your environment right but um in the case of this this thing because the 80% isn't just situational it's not just my Donuts it's also my strategy the 80% is also my paths and the things that I'm investing myself into and as you know that could have been the podcast those are strategic right for my goals but some of those can get filtered out and in terms of um what I was going to do for 2024 I was and I'm kind of scared not to do it but I am getting more and more committed to the to the real 10x yeah is I was going to do this big podcast uh this big Mastermind group and it was going to make me a lot of money um but ultimately because I'm so getting more and more committed the idea of identity the idea of commitment the idea of minimum standard and floor because I'm getting more and more and by the way the idea of floor because the floor for those 90 days was so high most of those podcasts I would have said yes to but because the floor was so freaking High I actually had to say no to a lot of things that I wanted to say yes to yeah um but just to next year and I'll end it and I want you to go wherever you want with this but um like to say no to what I was going to do scares me a little bit not everyone should do it this way I I I I'll be fine in terms of finances but like it is a little scary like um but me saying no to it is so deep on the proving of the commitment to what I'm going to go for like in terms of writing certain books and stuff like that and really going for it that I now have cleared my 2024 of that and and the only reason I did that not because I just love throwing stuff out of my life that's awesome the only reason I'm doing it is because the future and the quote unquote impossible future is filtering it out it's not like I'm just doing this stuff because I'm a masochist and I like just seeing if I can overcome fears it's letting the future truly be the deciding factor and doing it wisely it's not like I like I thought about that for six eight months it's not like I just like threw it out and like threw my family with six kids under the bus no like I I am I am making risks but I am doing it thoughtfully and it's not like you let go of all the 80% at once but to let go of something that now I've cleared my 2024 and and I'm now like literally like saying I'm going for this thing that had 2x upside and I'm now going for something that has 100 well 10 but maybe even 100% upside if there's no guarantee with it but it has the 10x or 100x potential and I'm clearing away the things with two or three x potential um that's huge that's huge that's huge that is very very helpful thank you for using being willing to use yourself as an examp I'm I'm I'm sharing with you what I'm learning since writing the book I'm sharing with you the the Practical applications well and this is sort of what I want out of a out of a show right I we can all read the book but to to hear how the author himself are using it is is very is is very very valuable there's one last thing that I want to get before I let you go and that is the idea that this actually the concepts they exist for people already there are experiences that we've all had in our lives right uncovering your 10x past to use your framework it it is it helpful to see that's possible that you're doing it already can you explain that in you know in 90 seconds as a fantastic primer for people to understand that this is actually within their own experience not not even just like possible but they've actually done it already 100% anyone who's listening to this has already done it um done it many times if you can walk you've done it um but I think it's powerful to look back on when you committed to something at some point in time and that involved you letting go of a lot of who you then were and you went for it right you you had your own 80% whatever that looked like back then for me when I was a 19-year-old kid I played 15 hours of World of Warcraft every day right that became a part of my 80% that I had to let go of so I could go and do things that I felt were more valuable more important um certain friends even in high school that I had to stop hanging out with like but then even along the way uh to get into college right uh I barely graduated high school I had a really traumatic childhood and so like even to get into a college required me to like really go deep on that um and so I just think it's really important to look back on your life and to look at the stages on when you've gone from level to level and when you and you could even think about you know and we invite you to do that in the book what was the 20% you ultimately went all in on and what was the 80% along the way that you let go of at that chapter you know you could look at your life in various chapters and sequences and stages and say you know that was the 20% of that chapter that really helped me get to the next level and that was and and some of those things were the 80% that I had to let go of to get there um you know me as an example when I was that 18-year-old kid like I really wanted to go on a and serve a church mission and so obviously some of my 80% to let go of was playing World of Warcraft all day but some of the other 80% which was more internal was um letting go of like the resentment and anger I had toward my father my father was a like a drug addict when I was growing up meth addict just gone through all that stuff and I was very much like pushed him away and like part of me getting to a place where I could go serve that mission was honestly like letting that go like changing the narrative right um let you know forgiving him forgiving uh his you know my pelf and his pelf and whatnot and and um so a lot of that a lot of the stuff we let go of is just attachments things we're holding on to views that's part of reframing your past um it's just you know and even the story of you have of the story I had my dad he he had to stop being a villain he had to start being a hero um start being a friend um and so a lot of the 80% you let go of along the way is internal a lot of it is situational video games friends um could be a job could for me in this case be that Mastermind podcast whatever it is um you know the things you let go of along the way um you're letting go of for a bigger and a better future and um you know you it's just an invitation to do that there is one thing I feel like I have to say and that's that um that one of the reasons and there are many reasons why 10x is easier than 2x um one being it's a far more powerful filter for just honestly like choosing the few things with the matter versus uh the many things that we're holding on to like it's a better filter it leads you to the better paths that lead you to the better people one one of one of the better one of the fundamental reasons why it's easier is is that it and it's why it's effective for entrepreneurs is is over time it does force you to be a leader um if you're going for a really big future you really can't do it on your own and and so over time it really does invite you to get other people involved you know we wrote a book called who not how but it's just like it really does invite you to get other people involved and the higher up you go the better who's you have to get um like it's true Community is so critical yeah better who's in terms of people friends but like even like if you're an entrepreneur the people on your team like me as an editor as a book writer to write the book that I wanted to write this book 10x is easier than 2x I had to get a who an editor that was better than the one for my last book um because you know I just needed that level of like back and forth um and so as you have bigger and bigger Visions or goals or whatnot the the people along the way to help you are will get better with you because um you know you just need that that level of quality and depth it really is about depth and quality you go up and up and so it does invite you to be a leader that you can't do the 80% sometimes you have to pass that to someone else and let them do it or just get rid of it all together but you can't do it because you got to go deep in the few things that really matter so it really forces you uh into a really deep quality of not only what you do but who you do it with and when you're doing a few things really really well and doing them with people with higher and higher capability and skill um it just gets a lot easier than if you're grinding away doing a 100 things yourself or even um you know doing it with people who aren't aren't that great at what they do I can personally attest and vouch for that the the the best things that I have sort of accomplished the 10x versions of myself looking backwards were largely around who I you know held as examples and who I surrounded myself with and um I think that's an that's an amazing attribute of uh of you know being in community as well Dr Benjamin Hardy thank you so much for being uh a guest on the show again for a second time uh welcome back again and thank you for for being willing to show up here 10x is the opposite of what you've been told people uh check out the book 10x is easier than 2x um any other place you'd steer us besides getting this book I mean we know that this is how worldclass entrepreneurs achieve more by doing less but you've probably got a few places you want to point us before we let you go I honestly invite people to read the book or listen to it there are uh three hours of bonus interviews between me and Dan Sullivan um in the audio you actually yeah in the audio book um in all of our books uh I interview Dan um I will say that I'm not writing any more books with the end that became part of the 80% which is something that I uh you know it 10ex my life um but you know each stage takes you in different places um yeah the audio book if you want to hear some of the wisdom of Dan Sullivan which is phenomenal and very interesting um so yeah I think we'll just leave it at that check out the book awesome Dr Benjamin Hardy thank you so much for being a guest on the show from he and me and our uh lovely day that we find ourselves here in and fall of 2023 we both bid you ad du and I hope you have a great day week and 10 Xing yourself until next time