Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
There is ordinary thinking and there is 10X thinking. They have different results and implications.
Imagine a baker asking, “How can I sell a few more loaves tomorrow?”
Now change the question: “What would it take to serve 10 times as many customers, reliably and profitably?”
The second question invites a different conversation and strategy: production, distribution, quality, staffing and partnerships.
The ambition has moved beyond doing a little more of the same.
Greatness is movement. 10X leadership accelerates movement. A 10X mindset challenges you to enlarge your thinking and match it with purposeful action. Mr. Grant Cardone’s book, “The 10X Rule” and Mr David J. Schwartz’s “The Magic of Thinking Big” offer useful starting points for shifting thinking gears.
10X Big Thinking challenges complacency. It shifts mental maps.
Positive thinking does not remove every obstacle, but it does a lot to change how you look at a challenge.
Move the size of your ambition
Mr Cardone’s central challenge has two parts: set goals 10 times larger than you initially envisage, then take 10 times the action you believe necessary to achieve them. Do not merely attach another zero to an old target. Examine what a substantially bigger ambition would require you to change. For our baker, serving more customers means developing reliable distribution rather than standing longer behind the same counter.
For a community organisation, reaching more people might require training additional leaders rather than asking one volunteer to carry everything.
Ask: What important contribution have I dismissed because it exceeds my current capacity? Start small when necessary. Do not confuse your starting point with your final destination.
Though your beginning might be small, your latter end will be great.
Move from self-doubt to constructive belief
Schwartz distinguishes belief from wishful thinking. His view is that believing an achievement is possible encourages the search for ways to accomplish it.
Wishing alone does not deliver it. Wishes are not horses or planes.
Apply that distinction carefully. Replace “People like me cannot do this” with “What would I need to learn, build, or obtain?”
Stop the grasshopper-self-pity thinking and talking. Thinking big is not pretending the work will be easy. It is refusing to reject yourself before investigating the opportunity. Think you can. Do not let fear immobilise you.
Name the missing skill. Find the requirement. Seek advice. Practise. Let belief send you into preparation, not into boasting. Mindset shapes movement.
Your present resources deserve an honest assessment. They need not become a permanent definition of your possibilities. Stop parking your mind.
Let ideas start sparking.
Think beyond your current capacity. Build the capacity your thinking demands. When you change your thinking, your life changes.
Move from normal effort to purposeful action
Mr Cardone talks of four possible levels of action: doing nothing, retreating, taking normal action and taking massive action. His challenge is to move beyond ordinary effort when pursuing extraordinary goals. Lift the thinking gears. Translate that challenge into observable behaviour. Do not announce a bigger enterprise while leaving customer enquiries unanswered. Improve the offer. Reach suitable prospects. Follow up respectfully. Deliver what you promise. Review the response. An ambitious target should change your diary, not merely your vocabulary. This is the power of a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). It must move you to move differently. Do not multiply activity without examining its usefulness. Ten times the ineffective meetings will not redeem a poor strategy.
Sending more messages to people whose needs you have not understood will not win you a sale.
Choose the work that advances the big goal. Assign responsibility. Establish a rhythm. Measure results as well as effort. Act consistently enough to learn what works.
Move from personal effort to organisational capacity
Lead the bigger thinking mission.
Do not make yourself the only engine of growth. Ask what must become possible without your constant intervention.
Train people. Clarify decisions. Document repeatable work. Improve tools. Build partnerships. Remove steps that consume attention without protecting quality.
Treat 10X as a challenge. It is not a guarantee of tenfold results, but it surely moves you towards greatness.
Do not interpret 10X as an instruction to work 10 times the hours, abandon rest, or expose others to reckless commitments.
The aim of 10X is greater contribution, not greater exhaustion. Multiply capability, not merely pressure. Move beyond yourself, move beyond your limitations.
Mr Schwartz emphasises making others feel important and putting service first. This gives bigger thinking a purpose beyond personal satisfaction.
Do not park at asking, “How much larger can I become?” Ask, “How much more useful can we become?”
Do not build a large ego around a small contribution.
Schwartz also links persistence with experimentation and learning from setbacks. Keep that balance: stay committed to worthwhile goals while remaining willing to improve the method. This is being agile. When evidence challenges your plan, investigate. Adjust intelligently. Do not mistake stubborn repetition for courage.
Keep moving bigger and faster
Choose one meaningful ambition today. Explore what tenfold impact could look like. Identify the capabilities it would demand, then commit to a practical next step this week.
Think boldly. Prepare thoroughly. Act consistently. Learn honestly. Serve generously.
Do not wait until everything is possible before doing what is possible.
Move through a 10X mindset. Enlarge the vision. Strengthen your agency. Multiply purposeful action. Keep moving towards greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, and author of more than 15 books. He can be reached at: [email protected], WhatsApp: +263772422634.
