Make 10x Growth Your New Normal

Dan Sullivan
3 min readAug 26, 2021

For true entrepreneurs, life is about continual growth. They see no stopping point where they’ll be satisfied with their level of growth, content with the status quo, and ready to pack it in.

For these growth-focused entrepreneurs, there’s no such thing as “enough.” And anything less than 10x growth is not worth pursuing.

Lifestyle vs. growth.

Growth is a creative process with no end point. There is no reason to ever stop, no future goal so big that there won’t be one beyond it.

There are business owners whose true goal and measure of success is status. These are “lifestyle entrepreneurs” who are focused on growth as a means to an end: the right house, the right car, and so on.

But for “growth entrepreneurs,” accelerating growth is its own reward. And there’s no limit to how much they can grow.

A goal of 10x growth might seem impossible to some. But I believe 10x growth is totally possible for every person who thinks it’s possible.

Courage is required.

This level of growth requires courage. It requires a leap of faith. You have to envision a future result you’re not yet experiencing and make an emotional and intellectual commitment to achieve it. You have to be willing to go through an uncomfortable period of uncertainty and change.

It’s only by moving forward before you have the capability or confidence to pull it off that a big goal like 10x growth is possible. Once you commit to courageously forge ahead, the capabilities you need to achieve the goal will develop. You can’t gain those capabilities by staying still.

You’re only an entrepreneur if you’re growing.

Staying still is simply not an option. I believe that if you’re not growing, you’re not an entrepreneur. You have to be willing to always be growing, to always be increasing your resources, opportunities, and capabilities.

Some people worry that always aiming for greater growth appears greedy. But this implies that by gaining, someone else is losing. This is zero-sum thinking. The truth is that, as you grow, you increase your contribution through innovation that benefits others. You’re adding to the world, not taking.

Accelerating exponential change.

In our rapidly changing world, aiming for anything less than 10x growth means you’ll be bypassed. The rate of change is speeding up, and you won’t survive if you don’t make the switch from linear to exponential thinking. 10x is the only way forward in a world of accelerating exponential change. The moment an entrepreneur is simply happy with what they have, they risk losing it.

Being a successful entrepreneur means you never stop growing. Being still, being satisfied with the status quo, is no longer the norm. Always growing is the new norm. In today’s world, constant growth is possible — and necessary. And 10x thinking guarantees that you’re always growing.

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I hope this article triggered some new ideas, projects, initiatives, and thinking for you and your business.

Thanks for reading,

Dan

Make sure to check out more of my latest articles because little things keep becoming bigger and better when you think about them in new and different ways.

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Dan Sullivan
Dan Sullivan

Written by Dan Sullivan

World’s foremost expert on entrepreneurship in action. Co-founder and President of The Strategic Coach Inc. Find out more: https://www.strategiccoach.com