I have a problem with the concept of going "10x." It's fueled by motivation and hype, a pace that's often unsustainable without compromising your health and overall enjoyment of life. But it doesn't stop there.
This kind of exponential growth doesn't prepare you to manage the success that 10x can bring. While you might achieve great things rapidly, I prefer the idea of improving by just 0.01% every day. With 10x growth, you miss out on the chance to develop the discipline and patience required for long-term success.
Building discipline over time is the most effective path to enduring achievement. It's how you demonstrate that you have the patience and stamina to handle whatever success comes your way, proving that you're in it for the long haul. Sure, you might experience rapid success with a 10x approach, but there's a significant risk that you won't be equipped to sustain it.
This explains why many lottery winners and professional athletes end up bankrupt (or worse). They scaled quickly but lacked the disciplines, systems, and support networks necessary to manage such a windfall.
Take my experience as a case in point. I currently have 26 rental units, a portfolio I've incrementally built over the past few years. This gradual growth allows me to learn how to manage these units effectively, adapting my system along the way. If I add two more units and find that my system can't handle it, I have the opportunity to reflect, revise, and improve.
In contrast, if I were to push relentlessly, neglecting my family and other responsibilities to amass 260 rental units within a year, I would be setting myself up for stress and failure. I'm not yet equipped to handle that kind of scale, and I'd be missing out on precious moments with my kids.
That's not the life I want. Maybe someday I'll reach that number, but if I do, it will be through gradual growth, carefully building my systems and assembling a team I can trust.
Improving by 0.01% every day—compared to your current self—will enable you to double your productivity in approximately 2.75 years (or become 100% better). This approach offers you the chance to cultivate the patience and discipline needed for real, lasting success—without the risk of crashing and burning from flying too close to the sun.
Compound Growth
If you're aiming to improve by one-tenth of one percent each day (which would be a growth factor of 1.001), and you want to double your performance, skills, or whatever metric you're using, you would use the formula for compound growth to find out how many days it would take:
t=1n(2)/1n(1.001)
Using this formula, you'd find days to double your current level with that daily growth rate of 0.1%. That's roughly 1.9 years.
You could see this as yet another example of the power and patience needed for compound growth. It's not a sprint; it's a marathon with exponential rewards. So, even though you're making what seems like tiny improvements each day, they build upon each other in such a way that you'd be twice as good, effective, or impactful in under two years.
People can hype up the 10x model all they want - I like slow, steady, patient, and disciplined.
So, as we wrap this up, remember that it's the compound effect that quietly but relentlessly drives true progress. While the allure of skyrocketing to 10x levels of success can be intoxicating, it's often the humble 1.001x improvements that stack up day after day, influencing every facet of your life—from your well-being to your wallet. As enticing as it may be to dream of becoming 1000x better, the truth is that sustainable growth is usually more of a marathon than a sprint. Small, consistent steps may not make headlines, but they build the kind of lasting success that stories—and lives—are truly made of.
