Hub World

I’m not exactly into “mindset” or “life strategy” books. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with them, just that I never really needed to read one. Surprisingly, that probably wasn’t entirely true. Sometimes the only reason you aren’t “lost” is because you simply don’t know where you’re going. Depending on the situation, that could be a really good thing, or a really bad thing. By the time I got around to reading this, it was probably the latter for me.

The 10X Rule by sales extraordinaire Grant Cardone is a “mindset success” book that’s probably geared more towards business owners or people in sales – neither of which I really am – but there’s stuff in here that’s arguably more important for those outside of that.

I know what you’re thinking, a “rah rah” book about chasing your dreams and stuff. Look, I get it. Like I said, these types of books aren’t really my walk. Which is why I took myself by surprise when I just kind of impulse bought it. Almost a subconscious purchase actually. I saw an excerpt on Twitter, found where it came from, and bought the book in the span of like 3 minutes. Funny how that works sometimes, next thing you know you have an Amazon cart being delivered to your door before you even know what happened.

In any case, the book came in and I got to reading it. It provided a nice break from the fantasy genre I tend to stick to, and as I got further and further into the book, something strange started to happen. It was almost like every day that I picked up the book, the chapter or section I was in was directed towards issues – internal and external – I was working on that day. I set a goal to read for 20 minutes on a timer every day, and hit those goals daily as I finished the book.

The core theme of the book, unsurprisingly, is the “10X” mindset. Again, I understand how easy it is to dismiss this as something silly. Which, yeah, you can go right ahead and do that. But I wondered, what if I actually played along? What if I embraced what is being said here, and did these things? Well, believe it or not, I started to have some fun in places I never had before.

The book talks a lot about things like setting expectations, workload ability, fears – all sorts of mental blocks people experience. The one that absolutely stuck the most with me was fear. Mainly, we should run “towards” what we fear, and not away from it. So how did I apply that to my life? Well, you wouldn’t be reading this right now if I hadn’t. Right around the reading of the book, I had the idea to start this site. I’ve had a trillion bog ideas over the years, almost none of which I had the balls to follow up on. Fortunately for Hub World, I just so happened to be reading my first ever motivational book, and like I mentioned earlier, it felt like the book was personally calling me out to follow through on things I was afraid to do.

Grant is very successful, but he’s not an author who writes in tongues, or vague, cryptic messages you need to read into to figure out. He is very blunt, very direct, and very to the point. Not to mention, intense. He literally has a chapter titled “Burn The Place Down,” in which he talks about doing so much, adding “so much wood to your fire,” that you literally burn so bright that your enemies will want to sit around for warmth. Huh? Who cares! There were times I got pretty fired up (no pun) reading. The frequent and personal feeling call outs literally drove me to pick things up and do something.

I mentioned earlier that Grant is a sales expert, and most of what he talks about is shaded in the context of sales. But for someone like me, just kind of floating along, letting the sun rise and fall, it really pushed a button that hasn’t been pressed in a while inside of me (pause). Maybe it could do the same for you. Like I said, I was fine where I was, content even. But is that really it? Just being content, fine, okay? Eventually I realized something important: someday, I’ll be dead and buried in the ground. If that’s tomorrow or in 70 years, I’d rather go out with myself and everyone around me knowing that I left it all on the field. There was no wasted potential or unrealized achievements, because at some point I decided to say fuck it, and do whatever it was I wanted to do.

And right now, I have this book to thank for a lot of things. I elevated my expectations and ran towards my fears. When I was building this site there were some days I was so nervous and scared I thought I was going to puke. In the beginning, every post, every step I took, there was so much doubt and fear. Now, I can look back and read 30+ blogs that I wrote, by myself, not caring who read it or said what about it. There’s a corny/cheesy level to everything I’m saying here, and maybe even in the book. But for some strange reason, if you embrace it, you just might see some good results.