Kevin: What if the single biggest mistake you're making isn't that you're failing, but that you're not aiming high enough to begin with? What if the advice to be "realistic" is the very thing holding you back from the life you want? Michael: It’s a provocative thought, isn't it? We’re taught to set achievable goals, to be practical. But what if that practicality is just a comfortable cage we build for ourselves? Kevin: Exactly. Today, we're diving into Grant Cardone's "The 10X Rule," a book that's less of a gentle guide and more of a full-blown manifesto for radical success. It argues that the only difference between success and failure is a willingness to think and act at levels 10 times greater than anyone else believes is possible. Michael: And Cardone is an unapologetically intense figure. His philosophy isn't for the faint of heart. It’s about a complete rewiring of how you see the world, your potential, and your responsibilities. This isn't about small tweaks; it's about a total system overhaul. Kevin: Today we'll dive deep into this from three perspectives. First, we'll explore the foundational 10X Mindset, where success becomes a non-negotiable duty. Michael: Then, we'll discuss the Four Degrees of Action and reveal why only 'massive action' truly works, and why the most common level of effort is actually the most dangerous. Kevin: And finally, we'll tackle the provocative idea of dominating your field instead of just competing in it. Get ready, because this conversation is designed to challenge everything you thought you knew about setting and achieving goals.

Kevin: So let's start with that core mindset shift, Michael. Cardone argues that most of us fail because we treat success like an option, not an obligation. It’s something that would be ‘nice to have,’ not something we ‘must have.’ Michael: It’s a subtle but profound distinction. It’s the difference between wanting to go to the gym and knowing your health depends on it. One is a preference; the other is a duty. Cardone’s whole philosophy hinges on making success your duty. Kevin: He illustrates this with a raw, personal story from when he was 25. He describes himself as completely lost. For ten years, from 15 to 25, he was using drugs daily, had no money, no direction, and as he puts it, he hated himself. He was aimless. Michael: And this wasn't some romanticized "hero's journey" where he hit rock bottom and found enlightenment. He's very clear that it was a complete waste of a decade. The turning point wasn't some magical event; it was a cold, hard realization. Kevin: Exactly. He realized he was essentially 'dying' at a young age due to a total lack of purpose. His mother finally told him, "Don't come back here," willing to sever the relationship to save him. That was the wake-up call. He committed to a career in sales—a job he initially hated—and decided to approach it not as a job, but as a do-or-die mission. He made success his ethical responsibility. Michael: And that reframes everything. Suddenly, the long hours, the rejection, the difficulty—it all serves a higher purpose. It's not just about making a commission; it's about fulfilling a duty to himself, to his future, to his family. He’s arguing that without that level of commitment, you’ll always find an excuse to quit. Kevin: This also ties into his rejection of what he calls the "shortage myth." This is the idea that success is a limited pie, that for someone to win, another has to lose. He tells a great little story about his neighbor suggesting a famous movie star who lives next door should pay to fix the potholes on their street because he makes $20 million a movie. Michael: That’s such a perfect example of that scarcity mindset. It’s the belief that if someone has a lot, they must have taken it from a communal pot, and therefore owe something back. Cardone’s view is the opposite: success is created, not taken. The movie star’s success doesn’t prevent anyone else from creating their own. There is no shortage of success. Kevin: And this all comes back to taking absolute control. He argues you have to assume responsibility for everything in your life, good and bad. He uses the example of a power outage. The average person blames the city. Cardone says the person to blame is himself, for not having a backup generator. It’s an extreme form of ownership. Michael: It is extreme, but the logic is sound. Blaming the city gives you no power. Taking responsibility, however extreme, immediately puts you in a position to find a solution. You can't control the grid, but you can control whether you have a generator. It's about shifting your focus from what happened to you to what you can do about it. It’s a mindset that eliminates victimhood entirely. Kevin: And once you believe success is your duty and you are in complete control, there's only one thing left to do: act. But as we're about to see, not all action is created equal.

Michael: And that idea of total control is the perfect bridge to our second point, because control isn't passive. It's all about action. Cardone breaks this down into four distinct levels, and he argues that most of us, even the so-called 'hard workers,' are operating on the most dangerous level. Kevin: Right. The four degrees are simple. First, Doing Nothing. Second, Retreating, which is taking action in reverse to avoid failure. Third, taking Normal Levels of Action. And fourth, taking Massive Action. Michael: Let’s pause on ‘Normal Action,’ because he calls this the most dangerous degree. Why? Because society accepts it. It’s the person who makes a reasonable number of sales calls, sends a few emails, goes to the gym a couple of times a week. It looks like you're doing the right things. Kevin: But it’s a trap. Normal action, he says, will only ever get you an average life, and an average life is incredibly vulnerable. You're susceptible to market changes, economic downturns, unexpected competition. You have no buffer. He tells this incredible story from his first business venture. He’d saved up some money and expected to match his old salary in about three months. Michael: A very ‘normal’ and ‘realistic’ projection. Kevin: Totally. But it took him almost three years. After three months of hitting a wall of resistance, he was distraught, destroyed, and ready to quit. He’d compiled a whole list of reasons why his business wouldn't work. He was operating at what he thought was a normal level of effort, and it was leading him straight to failure. Michael: So what changed? Kevin: He had a realization. He wasn't failing because his idea was bad; he was failing because he had massively underestimated the effort required. He was making maybe 2-3 sales calls a day. So, he decided to apply the 10X rule. He started making 20-30 calls a day. He took massive, unreasonable levels of action. Michael: And the results? Kevin: He says everything changed almost immediately. By putting in 10 times the effort, he started getting four times the results. It wasn't a linear relationship. The sheer volume of his activity started creating its own gravity, its own momentum. The market started responding to his persistence. Michael: It’s a fantastic analogy for this concept. Normal action is like treading water in the middle of the ocean. You're expending energy, you feel busy, you can tell everyone you're 'swimming,' but you're not actually going anywhere. And when the storm comes—a recession, a market shift—you're the first to go under. Kevin: That’s a perfect way to put it. Michael: Massive action, on the other hand, is like trying to build a speedboat while you're treading water. It looks insane to everyone else. It's unreasonable, it's exhausting, but it's the only thing that actually gets you to shore. It’s the only level of action that can break you out of obscurity. Kevin: And he says that massive action has a very specific side effect: it creates new problems. If you're not creating new problems—like having too many customers to handle or too many opportunities to vet—you're not taking enough action. Unsuccessful people run from problems; successful people's biggest challenge is choosing which problem to solve next. Michael: It’s a high-quality problem to have. It’s the difference between the problem of ‘I have no money’ and the problem of ‘how do I best invest this money?’ One is a problem of stagnation, the other is a problem of growth. Kevin: And that growth mindset, that relentless push, leads directly to his most controversial idea.

Kevin: Speaking of creating new problems, that leads to his most controversial idea: that competition is for sissies. Once you're taking massive action, the goal isn't to play the game better; it's to change the game entirely. Michael: This is where he really goes against the grain of every business book that praises healthy competition. He sees competition as a limiting mindset. If you're competing, you're always looking at what the other guy is doing, which means you're always a follower. Domination is about creating a new category where you're the leader. Kevin: He has a brilliant story about this from the early days of social media. He started posting on his platforms maybe twice a day and sending out a monthly email. He immediately got complaints. People unsubscribed, told him he was being annoying, that he was posting too much. His own colleagues told him to back off. Michael: Which is the ‘normal’ reaction. The conventional wisdom is, ‘Listen to your audience. If they’re complaining, you’re doing something wrong.’ Kevin: But Cardone’s goal wasn’t to be liked; it was to be known. His goal was omnipresence. So what did he do? He didn't just ignore the advice; he did the absolute opposite. He increased his activity to a level he calls "unreasonable." He went from posting twice a day to 48 times a day on Twitter. He started sending emails twice a week instead of once a month. Michael: That is truly massive action. He’s essentially flooding the zone. Kevin: Completely. And a funny thing happened. The complaints were soon drowned out by a new wave of feedback. People started admiring his work ethic, his persistence. He became impossible to ignore. He dominated the conversation in his niche, not by having the most clever posts, but by having the most presence. Michael: It's the Apple strategy, isn't it? They didn't try to build a better Dell or a better IBM. They created a completely different ecosystem that made the old competition irrelevant. Cardone is applying that same 'domination' mindset to personal branding. He argues that your biggest problem isn't being disliked; it's being unknown. Obscurity is the real enemy. Kevin: Exactly. And this is where he reframes criticism. He says criticism is a sign of success. If nobody is criticizing you, nobody is paying attention to you. He says when you start getting criticized, it’s a clear signal that you’re making waves. Michael: So in his world, criticism is just free marketing from people who are threatened by your level of action. And fear is the same. He says fear is a green light. The things you are most afraid to do are almost always the things you must do to move forward. Making that scary phone call, launching that imperfect product, asking for the big deal. Fear is a compass pointing directly toward growth. Kevin: It’s a powerful way to re-engineer your own psychology. Instead of seeing criticism and fear as stop signs, you see them as mile markers on the road to success. You start seeking them out. Michael: It’s a complete inversion of how most of us operate. We seek comfort and approval. He seeks discomfort and attention, knowing that’s where the real results are.

Kevin: So, when you boil it all down, it's a surprisingly simple, if incredibly demanding, philosophy. It’s a three-step ladder: First, adopt the mindset that success is your duty, your ethical obligation. Get rid of average thinking. Michael: Second, apply massive, 10X levels of action to that duty. Not normal action, not just ‘working hard,’ but an unreasonable, all-in level of effort that creates its own momentum. Kevin: And third, use that massive action to dominate your space, not just compete in it. Your goal is to become omnipresent, to be the first name people think of, and to use the inevitable criticism and fear as fuel for your fire. Michael: It's an extreme philosophy, and it's certainly not for everyone. But it’s a powerful antidote to the complacency and ‘realistic’ thinking that can trap us in mediocrity. It challenges you to stop making excuses and start taking ownership. Kevin: Cardone's approach is definitely intense, but it forces a powerful question we can all take away: What is the one goal in your life—in your career, your health, your relationships—that you've been treating as an 'option'? Michael: And what would happen if, starting today, you started treating it as your absolute, non-negotiable duty? What one 'massive action' could you take right now, this very minute, before fear has time to talk you out of it? That’s the 10X challenge.