The 10x rule ffirs indd I 3/14/11 10: 22: 47 AM ffirs indd II 3/14/11 10: 22: 47 am the 10x rule The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Grant Cardone John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Quit Lying to Yourself
It is fairly common for people who don’t get what they want 
to provide justifi cations—and even lie to themselves—by 
minimizing how valuable success is to them. It’s easy to spot 
this trend in our society today within entire demographics 
and population segments. You can read it in books, hear it in 
church, and see it promoted in schools. For example, children 
who can’t get what they want will fi ght for a little while, cry 
for a bit, and then convince themselves that they never wanted 
it in the fi rst place. It is entirely okay to admit that you wanted 
something that didn’t come to fruition. In fact, this is the only 
thing that will help you eventually reach that goal—despite 
the obstacles you’ll encounter along the way.
Even the most fortunate and well-connected people 
among us must do something to put themselves in the right 
places at the right times in front of the right people. As I men-
tioned at the end of a previous chapter, luck is just one of the 
byproducts of those who take the most action. The reason 
why successful people seem lucky is because success naturally 
allows for more success. People create magical momentum by 
reaching their goals, which compels them to set—and even-
tually reach—even loftier goals. Unless you are privy to the 
action, you don’t see or hear about the number of times the 
successful went for it and failed; after all, the world pays atten-
tion only when they’re winning. Colonel Sanders, who made 
Kentucky Fried Chicken famous, pitched his idea more than 
80 times before anyone bought the concept. It took Stallone 
only three days to write the script for Rocky, and the movie 
grossed $200 million, but when he wrote it, he had no money 
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Success Is Your Duty 
29
to his name, couldn’t afford to heat his apartment, and even 
had to sell his dog for $50 just to be able to buy food. Walt 
Disney was laughed at for his idea of an amusement park, and 
yet now people all over the world spend $100 a ticket and save 
up their whole lives just to have a family vacation at Disney 
World. Don’t be confused by what looks like luck to you. 
Lucky people don’t make successful people; people who com-
pletely commit themselves to success seem to get lucky in life. 
Someone once said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
We can even take this one step further: If you are able 
to repeatedly attain success, it becomes less of a “success” and 
more of a habit—almost everyday life for some people. Suc-
cessful people have even been described as having a certain 
magnetism—some “x factor” or magical charm that seems to 
surround and follow them. Why? Because successful individu-
als approach success as a duty, obligation, and responsibil-
ity—and even a right! Let’s say that there’s an opportunity for 
success in the vicinity of two people. Do you think it will end 
up with the person who believes success is his or her duty—
who reaches out and grabs it—or the one who approaches 
it with a “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude? I think you know the 
answer.
And despite the oft-used phrase, there is no such thing 
as an “overnight success.” Success always comes as a result of 
earlier actions—no matter how seemingly insignifi cant they 
are or how long ago they were taken. Anyone who refers to 
a business, product, actor, or band as an overnight success 
neglects to understand the mental stakes that certain individu-
als have made in order to forge this path. They don’t see the 
countless actions taken before these people actually created 
and acquired their much-deserved victory. 
Success comes about as a result of mental and spiritual 
claims to own it, followed by taking necessary actions over 
time until it is acquired. If you approach it with any less gusto 
than your ethical and moral duty, obligation, and respon-
sibility to your family, your company, and your future, you 
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30
THE 10X RULE
will most likely not create it—and have even more diffi culty 
keeping it.
I guarantee that when you, your family, and your com-
pany begin to consider success to be a responsibility and an 
ethical issue, then everything else will immediately start to 
shift. Although ethics are certainly a personal issue, most peo-
ple would agree that being ethical is not necessarily limited to 
telling the truth or not stealing money. Our defi nition of ethics 
can certainly be expanded from that—perhaps even to include 
the notion that we are required to live up to the potential with 
which we’ve each been blessed. I even suggest that failing to 
insist upon abundant amounts of success is somewhat unethi-
cal. To the degree that electing to do our personal best each 
and every day is ethical, then failing to do so is a violation of 
ethics.
You must constantly demand success as your duty, obliga-
tion, and responsibility. I am going to show you how to guaran-
tee that this happens—in any business or industry, at any time, 
despite all obstacles, and in whatever volumes you desire!
Success must be approached from an ethical viewpoint. Success 
is your duty, obligation, and responsibility!
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Success Is Your Duty