“Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming. It’s easier to raise $1,000,000 than it is $100,000. It’s easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.” -Tim Ferriss
1: Darwin Smith knew he had to make a choice.
The year was 1971. Darwin had just been named CEO of Kimberly-Clark Corporation.
At the time, “the vast majority of revenue came from the traditional coated-paper mills,” Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy write in 10x Is Easier Than 2x, referencing Jim Collins‘s book Good to Great, where this story was initially told.
“These produced paper for magazines and writing pads and had been the core business of the company for over 100 years,” Dan and Ben note.
But Darwin and his team believed the right path forward was to re-focus the company on consumer-based products, where Kimberly Clark had exhibited “a best-in-the-world capability” in building the Kleenex brand.
“If Kimberly-Clark remained principally a paper-mill business, it would retain a secure position as a good company,” Jim Collins observed.
“But its only shot at becoming a great company was to become the best paper-based consumer company—if it could take on such companies as Procter & Gamble and Scott Paper Co. and beat them. That meant it would have to ‘stop doing’ paper mills.
“So, in what one director called ‘the gutsiest decision I’ve ever seen a CEO make,’ Darwin Smith sold the mills. He even sold the mill in Kimberly, Wisconsin. Then he threw all the money into a war chest for an epic battle with Procter & Gamble and Scott Paper.
“Wall Street analysts derided the move, and the business press called it stupid. But Darwin did not waver,” Jim writes.
“Twenty-five years later, Kimberly-Clark emerged from the fray as the number-one paper-based consumer-products company in the world, beating P&G in six of eight categories and owning its former archrival Scott Paper outright.
“For the shareholder, Kimberly-Clark under Darwin Smith beat the market by four times,” Jim notes, “easily outperforming such great companies as Coca-Cola, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, and 3M.”
Wowza.
2: To experience 10x growth in our lives, we, too, must make choices.
The 80-20 rule tells us that 80 percent of our results come from 20 percent of our efforts.
Step one is to identify the critical 20 percent.
Step two is to abandon the remaining 80 percent and go “all-in” on the essential 20 percent.
Which is what Darwin Smith did: “The paper mills, which had been Kimberly-Clark’s bread and butter for more than 100 years, was now the 80 precent,” Dan and Ben write. “In order to become great, we must go all-in on the 20 percent and commit to greatness.”
We eliminate everything, even the best of what got us where here. Author Seth Godin calls this mindset “the art of quitting.”
Because the benefits of being the best in the world aren’t linear. They are exponential. “The rewards are heavily skewed,” he writes in his book The Dip, “so much so that it’s typical for #1 to get ten times the benefit of #10, and a hundred times the benefit of #100.”
One crucial insight: To achieve 10x results, we don’t have to be 10x better. Kimberly Clark wasn’t 10x better than Proctor & Gamble or Scott Paper. Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, the #1 YouTuber in the world with over 320 million subscribers, isn’t 10x better than everyone else.
Jimmy says his videos only “need be 10 or 20 percent better, and importantly, different, to get 4-10x the results of even the ‘best stuff,'” Dan and Ben write.
“Atomic Habits isn’t 10x better than other similar self-help books,” they note, “but it is 10-20 percent better and different than the best self-help books. It’s a clear qualitative improvement. Consequently, it gets 10x or 100x the results.”
3: Is it easy or comfortable to let go of the non-essential 80 percent that only generates 20 percent of results?
Of course not! “It’s scary letting go of the 80 percent because the 80 percent is our comfort zone. It’s our security blanket,” Dan and Ben observe. “It’s what we’ve already mastered and can basically do on autopilot. It’s our paycheck. It’s our identity and how we’re known. It’s our story and our habits.”
The longer we stay with our 80 percent, the slower our transformation will be to our 10x selves. “The faster we let go of the 80 percent out of commitment and courage, the faster our 10x transformation will occur,” Dan and Ben write.
To achieve 10x results, we continually elevate our vision and standards of what is possible. We focus on quality, not quantity. We must be both different and better. “10x means an evolution has occurred, and what we’re now doing is actually incomparable to what others are doing, or what we were previously doing,” Dan and Ben write.
Doing so transforms who we are and how we show up. The really good news? “The competition is lowest, the excitement is highest, and the pathway forward becomes simple and non-linear. We stop following the crowd. We shift toward quality rather than quantity and stop competing with anyone.”
More tomorrow.
__________________________
Reflection: How can I apply the lessons from Darwin Smith’s story to my life?
Action: Discuss with a colleague or my team.
What did you think of this post?
