Hala Taha: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] Today's guest doesn't just talk about 10 x thinking, he embodies it. Dr. Benjamin Hardy is back on Yap. And if you've read, 10 x is easier than two x. Or caught any of his past appearances here on Young and Profiting. You already know that he's a master at helping people reimagine what's possible in life and business.
Since we last spoke, Ben's taken his own advice to heart. Launching scaling.com a bold science-backed platform built to help entrepreneurs unlock impossible growth. In this episode, we break down the signs of scaling the power of impossible goals and why raising your floor is the true mark of a high performing entrepreneur.
So buckle up because it's time to think bigger, move faster, and scale smarter
Now, I know you wanna get into this episode, but before you do that, if you're new to the show, don't forget to follow and subscribe to Young and Profiting so you never miss an episode Packed with Expert Insights like this one, Ben, welcome to Young and Profiting [00:02:00] podcast.
Happy to be back.
I'm so happy you're here. This is a fourth time you're on Young and Profiting podcast. You're one of my favorite guests to interview. I use your content all the time. I do these webinars now where I basically teach people about different things and they're always sponsored, and I'm always pulling up your episodes and like, what did Ben say about this and that, you know, so always using your stuff.
I'm so grateful for you. So first of all. Happy to do this in person for the first time.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: I know. First time. Yeah. It's fun.
Hala Taha: It is. So I've been talking to you since 2018 and I've really seen you transition in all these different phases, from psychologists to author, to co-author with Dan Sullivan, where you did so many different books with him.
And now you're the co-founder of scaling.com. So I'm wondering, you always talk about identity shifts and things like that, so what kind of identity shifts did you have to go through to say goodbye to this huge chapter with Dan Sullivan and then move on to do scaling.com?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So when I was writing 10 [00:03:00] x is easier than two x, I was deep in the process and falling in love with the book. I knew it was gonna be very special and Dan and I had already way past the goals that we had for that collaboration through my other books who know how the gap in the game. And I knew 10 X would be a special book.
And so we'd already achieved more than we thought that the collaboration was gonna do. And so when I was about halfway through that book, I knew that I personally wanted to go do something bigger. I loved working with Dan. I'm not the kind of person who needs to be front stage, frankly. I love digging into the ideas.
I'm happy to build up and support people. I'm not against being front stage, but I don't, I don't need it. And so I went to Dan and just said, I'm looking for something bigger. And I did try, honestly, to renegotiate the situation 'cause I had built that collaboration back when I was a PhD student. It was a great opportunity, it was a transformational opportunity, but it, it ended up being too small for where I was going.
And so we just. Shared came together and said, let's finish 10 x. They had already read early drafts. They're like, let's not pull the plug on this one. Mm-hmm. Let's finish this book. Let's launch it [00:04:00] gorgeously. Let's finish well, and then let's just both be in the game, as we say. And so that was where it ended.
And so I walked away from him and that situation, we launched 10 x gorgeously and then. It was about a year of really considering things, a year of opening up opportunities with some potential people to collaborate with. I was going really, really deep running thousands of people through my own program, really refining the framework that then became the science of scaling.
or the scaling framework that we called. So I was doing my own research, but I was also exploring big opportunities and none of 'em felt right until young man who's 10 years younger than me came up to me and just said, let's just. Own the world of scaling. And I, I mean, I had been studying it for a while, but I just never really thought to do that.
And it's, there's a great quote that says A big part of strategy is choosing the game you wanna play, and then knowing how to win that game. It just felt like a game that is obviously extremely noisy. But one that most people are saying the same thing, and so an easy one to very cleanly differentiate and kind of redefine.
So it was just a, a great opportunity to start fresh. And then we just started bringing on collaborators and it [00:05:00] became a lot bigger, pretty quick.
Hala Taha: So you're talking about your co-founder, Blake Erickson.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yeah.
Hala Taha: How do you guys work together? What kind of skills does he bring to the table for scaling versus ze?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yeah, and we ended up bringing on multiple partners since then, including Joseph Wynn, who I was talking about, who wrote, don't Believe Everything You Think, because he's a self-published author who's told millions of copies. But Blake came to me, he's, again, 10 years younger than me, very collaborative.
What he brings is I. Extreme grit, passion. He's been in the sales world, he's grown. Sales teams, loves growth, loves the deal, loves to train. And so he's gonna be the one who's over the training program. For me, one of the things that I learned in this world of coaching or training is often it's built around the individual.
Hala Taha: Yeah.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And so I never wanted to be built around Ben Hardy, 'cause that would be like a huge bottleneck. Having him be who it was built around would actually be smarter and better. And so that's why we put him on the book and he helped me further finish and develop the ideas. And he was like, okay, Blake's gonna be the guy.
I don't have to be built around me. I learned that from Stephen Covey. So when Stephen Covey wrote Seven Habits, he [00:06:00] never wanted it to be built around him. And so he initially had lots of trainers and then he was out doing his own thing. Whereas a lot of people, most people, they end up having the platform being built around them.
and so we just wanted to just go away from that immediately.
Hala Taha: So you mentioned that you left collaborating with Dan Sullivan, and you felt like if you were to stay there, you would be playing too small. Now, one of the things that you talk about and that we've talked about before is this idea of your future self.
you should know clearly what your future self is, and you should be acting in a way that aligns with your future self now so you can achieve your future self goals. So talk to us about how does it set you up for the future? What does your future self look like and why is scaling.com so important for your future self?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: One of the beautiful things about time anyways and time is. A psychology concept is, is that both the past and the future are just psychological tools. And then what's great is, is that the future is about 10 times more powerful of a tool than the past. Mm-hmm. The past is a huge tool.
The past shapes our present, but the future is way more dominant in shaping our present. And so whatever view [00:07:00] you have of the future is gonna shape your, present, your choices, and so. That's something that you can't escape. Obviously a lot of people, they don't think very beautifully or powerfully about their future, and I've had a, a view of my future self for quite a few years.
That shaped every choice I've made. I've known, I've wanted to focus on helping leaders, helping teams grow scale, and do that very fastly and efficiently. And I've just never seen any model or thought process that actually teaches. Rapid transformation, rapid growth, rapid strategy, and really simplifying and, and then the psychology behind it, which is when you go for, uh, an impossible goal, what that does, not only to your psychology, but what that does to like your business if you go for a huge impossible goal or an impossible future self, I.
Even what we wrote in 10 x, almost everything you're doing right now, you have to really face the truth that most of it's gotta go. Mm-hmm. And, and so the psychology behind that, how to let things go. And so my own future self is just someone who obviously loves God very much, and someone who's building leaders and showing them how to grow things that seem impossible.
Hala Taha: You just teased so many different [00:08:00] things. Guys, if you wanna check out my three past interviews with Ben Hardy, I'll put it in the show notes because we went over 10 x is easier than two x. We go over the gap of the gain and a lot of our different episodes, so those are amazing concepts. Just really quick though, let's talk about.
10 x is easier than two x. Because I think it's really important just to set the ground here, talk to us about why 10 x is easier than two x and maybe the Pareto principle and how that plays into that.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So the reason 10 X is easier than two x is 'cause. Going back to time, literally starting with time.
Most people and most business owners, they let their past determine their present and then their present to determine their future. So their past goes present and then future. That's very common way. Mm-hmm. Of looking at time, but that's linear time and that's a very bad way of doing business, and that's how most businesses operate.
They would say, you know, we did, I. 5 million revenue last year, so let's go for six or 7 million this year. They're literally letting their past shape their goals. And so when you're going for two x, the problem with it is, is that you're essentially just saying, let's keep doing what we're doing. Mm-hmm.
Right. So to the idea of the Pato principle, which is the 80 20 model, [00:09:00] while Dan and I were writing that book, we concluded that if you're going for two x growth, you can keep 80% of what you're doing. Mm-hmm. All you have to do is tweak 20%. Whereas if you're going for 10 x growth. Then you can only keep the best 20%
Hala Taha: and you burn yourself out too. 'cause you basically do double of what you're already doing now. So you're not more efficient, you just burn out.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yeah. So 10 x the beauty of it is, is it's a future that is so much bigger that by applying the bigger goal, whether it's a 10 x goal or a hundred x goal, and we don't talk about extreme deadlines in that book, but we do in the scaling book by having such an extreme future, 10 times bigger, and you take your timeline, say you're wanting to get somewhere in 10 years and you make it three.
Right? Make it way shorter. You're pretty much forced to grapple with, I can't do it the way I've been doing it. Mm-hmm. And so it forces you to find much better and more efficient pathways. Mm-hmm. And so the beauty of it is, is the bigger goal forces you to strip out a lot of your bad practice, a lot of your dead end paths, and it forces you to find the most efficient ones.
So those 20% things that create all the results. That goal becomes an incredible filter. It just strips out everything that can't work. that's [00:10:00] why it's so much easier, whereas this small goal, it just can't get you there.
Hala Taha: So it's like that famous quote, I think it's Marshall Goldsmith's, what got you here won't get you there,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And for 10 x what got you here? Absolutely can't get you there. The future is so much different, so much bigger that it forces you to go find a different model, a different path.
Hala Taha: Got it.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And that's the great part about it.
Hala Taha: So there's a quote that you told me I think the last time you came on the show that I always think about.
It was something along the lines of, if you wanna have a healthy mindset, I. You basically have to have a happy past and an exciting future. And part of all this in terms of having a good mental state to proceed with becoming your future self is actually reframing your past. And making sure that you reframe your past in a way that's happy, but then you also have an exciting future.
So talk to us a little bit about that as well.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So this just goes back to the idea that the past and future for us in our psychology, these are tools. And so the past is something that we own in the present. So it's really the present that owns the past. But often people say that the past owns the present.
The past made me do this. The past is the reason [00:11:00] why I am, and that creates, I. Obviously the victim mindset, but that's what's called an external locus of control, where you've taken the past and you've put it outside of you and you've said, this is causing me to be this way. Mm-hmm. And the main problem with that is, is that usually hard or painful experiences or failures, the reason those mess people up in the present is because they've taken some experience and they've devalued it.
They've said there's no value here. In fact, there's negative value. And so because this event happened, I'm just worse off and my future's gonna be worse off. And so how you reframe the past, in addition to gratitude, is you take what was a challenging experience, what whatever it was, and you increase its value.
You say, what are the reasons why there's benefits here? And you have to actually create that. Mm-hmm. It doesn't, it doesn't just come naturally like you have to proactively. Build value in. Yeah. It's almost like you're creating a canvas and you have to put that in there. You have to put the gold in there.
And so that has to be your choice. And so they talk about, in psychology, you have to have an internal locus of control. And it's you in the present that determines the meaning of your past. It's not the past that determines the present. It's always the present that determines the past. But you do need to do that.
Otherwise the past negatively [00:12:00] impacts your future. Mm-hmm. And that's, that's just what you don't want. You don't want a limiting past to diminish your future, because once you've diminished your future, then your present is screwed. And that's. Viktor Frankl 1 0 1. Mm-hmm. When he was writing Man's Search for Meaning, he talks all about how the only way to honestly handle the concentration camps, let alone thrive, is to have a future goal that gives your life meaning.
Mm-hmm. And so that's the real problem with having a non valuable past.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Is, is that it just shrinks your future. And then once you have a small future, then your present, it loses purpose, it loses power, it loses direction, and that's when you get in trouble.
Hala Taha: And I know a lot of our past conversations had to do with self-improvement, and now we're really talking about improving businesses with the science of scaling, which is a really cool twist.
And I'm sure a lot of the same principles float across from person to an organization. So one of the things that you talk in your book that seems like a core theme is that businesses can be trapped by their past success. So talk to us about what are some of the things that businesses think are good that actually might be [00:13:00] preventing them from actually scaling?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So what happens is if a business is doing well. The problem is, is that most businesses aren't scaling, even if they're quote unquote successful, they may be at 10, 20 million a year in revenue, even a hundred million, and they may be satisfied with 10, 20% growth, right? Mm-hmm. So like they're actually very linear, but because they're established, because they're doing well, it's very hard to walk away from that.
And so most of these companies, again, even small companies, but most companies don't actually have a true scale goal.
Hala Taha: Well, what do you define scaling as? 'cause to me, 20% growth year over year sounds pretty good. Like you're scaling, but you don't feel that way.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: No, there's a study by McKinsey and they talk about grow fast or die low.
Hala Taha: Okay.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And so for them, they define scaling as 60% growth or more. and if you're not growing at that clip or higher, your chances of getting to true scale are almost zero.
And so for me, scaling is. I'm not really worried about the year over year, I'm more worried about what's the actual goal, you know?
So if it's a small company doing like a million, like are they actually going for 10, 20, 50 million or are they [00:14:00] going for 2 million mm. Right. Because if they're at 1 million, they're going for two. That by nature is them using their past to shape their present and their future. And so if just say if a company's doing 1 million and they're going for two, if they were going for 10, they'd be making completely different decisions.
Hala Taha: Got it.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Again, if the company was like, all right, we're gonna go for 2 million this year, if I just hadn't known you're going for 10 million this year, how would you do it? Their 2 million path in plan, would it work?
Hala Taha: No,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: it wouldn't work. In Elon Musk's words, it would be optimizing things that shouldn't exist.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And so when you move the goal up, your current plan, it falls away. And so that's the beauty of it is now you have to actually solve for the goal. You have to say, okay, what's the business model that would gimme to 10? And so that's the problem with going for the smaller goals is, is that they don't force you to actually solve a bigger scale.
Hala Taha: Tell me what makes sense to go over first. Should we go over the three step framework frame floor focus, or do you feel like we need to define what an impossible goal is first?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Uh, let me just start with explaining what a frame is. Okay. So like in psychology we talk about, you see the world through a frame, [00:15:00]
And we even talked about reframe your past and so mm-hmm. The frame is just the way through which you see things. But the really important thing that is coming more and more out of psychology is that our frame, which determines what we see, right? So even people who see your podcast, they see it because there's some form of relevance to them, right?
And so there's just infinite data, infinite information. And so what determines which data or information we notice, let alone pay attention to? That's our frame. And what shapes our frame is our goals. this takes us just to, the idea that everything we're doing in the present is based on our goals.
Literally. And so to the idea of an impossible goal, it fits very closely with what we were just talking about. With 10 X, when you pursue impossible goals, almost all of your current pathways, almost everything in your current frame starts to become noise. Like it goes from signal to noise, and they become dead end pathways.
And so the beauty of going from impossible goals, and there's a lot of research on this, both in scale and in timeline, you really wanna use both. And when you do that, you actually create an extreme frame. But the purpose of it [00:16:00] is to, first off. Re-look at everything you're now doing. And often it is timeline.
Let me just give an example. There's a young man who I interviewed for this book. He's a great guy. He wants to own a European soccer team one day. He's 22 years old. And so for him, often one of the ways we make a huge goal, like I want to own a European soccer team, one of the ways we make that seem realistic is we give it an extreme deadline.
And by extreme I mean like way long. Okay. So in his case, I'm like, so you wanna own an European soccer team? You're 22 years old, that's great. When are you gonna do it? He's like, I'm gonna get there by age 55. Okay. That's reasonable, You got 33 years. I'm sure you could maybe figure that out.
I mean, it's still huge. You might need to be a billionaire. Like it's still gnarly. But I then said, what would happen if we move the timeline so that rather than 55, you got there by age 30. I said, how would that change your plan? 'cause you seem to have a 33 year plan, and this is where he started to get nervous.
Because he is like, well, there's a lot of things I feel I need to do. Before that to get there. One of them, he is like, I wanna get a PhD. He's like, I wanna [00:17:00] run a firm. He's like, I've got these things that I want to do. This fits very much with like a linear model where like if you think about public education, there's first grade, second grade, third grade.
Often we feel like we have these intermediary steps to the goal, but what happens when you make it impossible? Even in this case, just moving the deadline to a lot forward, most of his path couldn't work. He couldn't go get the PhD anymore. He couldn't go probably run the firm. Instead, he'd have to just start solving the goal.
Mm-hmm. Like he'd have to say. Mm-hmm. What's the most efficient way to get to my goal? And so one of the problems that happens when people have even tenure goals is that they're not actually solving the goal, they're solving their intermediary step. Got it. So in his case, he's not actually solving, how do I own a, a soccer team?
In his case, he's literally solving, how do I get into a PhD program? And there's no correlation between those goals. Just as another example, someone who I've worked with, he's a, a lawyer, he runs a law firm and they're doing. $2.5 million in revenue. They've got, you know, like seven offices. They're doing great.
They're in Minnesota, and he had actually had a big goal, again to the idea of a scale goal. He had a big goal, which to me is rare. He's like, I wanna get to a hundred million [00:18:00] revenue in my law practice. I'm like, okay, that's great. I haven't seen a lot of lawyers with that goal. Yeah, that's really cool.
When are you gonna do it? He said, I'm gonna get there in 10 years. Again, very common. And back to the idea that time is a psychological tool. If your goal is too far out, it's not gonna impact your present enough. Hmm. Like the whole purpose of the future is to shape and redirect your present. And so I just said in his case, Xavier, 10 years is a bad goal.
I'm sorry. You can have a long-term future self, but a goal that's 10 years away isn't going to impact your present. Because what happened was, even though he had a hundred million goal. Xavier wasn't solving for a hundred million. He was solving for his next intermediary step, which was let's get to 5 million.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: But what happened was, is when I said, let's move the 10 year goal to three, now it feels like an impossible goal, right? And so with it being an impossible goal, now he has to grapple with, I have no idea how to get to a hundred million. And I was never actually solving for a hundred million. I was solving for how do I get to five?
And solving for five is fundamentally different than solving for a hundred million. And so now that the timeline's forward, he has to actually say. How do I actually build a hundred million dollar company? I was never [00:19:00] even thinking about that, and he had to admit he probably would've never gotten there.
When you have a goal that's 10, 15, 20 years away, your odds of hitting it are almost zero because the decisions you're making today. Aren't related to that goal. You're solving some step that actually has no connection to the goal. Like the kid with the PhD.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And so Elon Musk, who has a really, you know, I know that a lot of people are turned off by his politics, but I really like his engineering thinking, his first principle's thinking, and he has what he calls his five step algorithm.
And the first step is just always question requirements. In the case of the young man, is the PhD really required for the goal, Or is it some false goal you've placed upon yourself? Is it some lesser goal? That's holding you back and so the beauty of the impossible goal, both in scale and timeline, is that it forces you to start reckoning with all of the false goals you've placed on yourself.
All the false requirements, all the false steps. Those are all the things going back to the framework that fall below the floor. Yeah. Like the more you honest, you become. That's the beauty of going for the impossible goals. It forces you to start looking at all the dead end paths. So you have all the false goals you've placed on [00:20:00] yourself, all the false requirements.
And if you're willing, that young man, if he's willing, let go of that lesser goal. Like strip it out. One of my favorite quotes, which I'm sure I've shared with you is we kept from our goal, not by obstacles, but we're kept from our goal because of a clear path to a lesser goal.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And so it's like we have these lesser goals, him with a PhD that the sooner he lets that go.
The sooner he can actually just start solving the real goal.
Hala Taha: So the key things there is tight, shorter deadlines.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Impossible deadlines.
Hala Taha: Impossible deadlines, yeah. Keep the same big goals. Because when you said, okay, shift it from 10 to three, I'm like, oh, well then wouldn't you wanna change the goal to be more realistic? But the whole thing is impossible. Goal, be unrealistic so that you can think differently
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: so that you can start solving the path. Because there often are pathways to the goal. They just are outside your base assumptions. They're not gonna be based on your, you know, to your. Marshall Goldsmith concept, they're not gonna be the current path.
They're not gonna be the current model. So just as one example, there's a, A lady we worked with, she has a technology company and she works in the credit industry. Mm-hmm. She helps people improve their credit, and so she had 10 people using her [00:21:00] software, and these are a bunch of credit repair companies, so there's like 50,000 credit repair companies in the United States.
And so she wanted these 50,000 companies to use her software.
Hala Taha: Okay.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And so her pathway to getting there was, I'm gonna call 'em one at a time. And so after like 90 days, she had 10 of them using her software. They all loved it. Every single one who heard the software, they're like, we want this. We don't use this for our clients.
And so I told her, Alisia, I want you to set an impossible goal because right now your current path is gonna take you too long. It's gonna take you a decade to have a sizable business. I want you to scale faster. And so she set an impossible goal. She said, I'm gonna get a hundred. Of these credit repair companies using my software in 90 days.
And I said, that's not an impossible goal. 190 days, you can just keep cold calling. You need a goal that's so big, it's gonna force you to stop doing your current path 'cause your current path won't work. And so she's like, Ben, I'm not. I'm scared. And so she's like, okay, I'll go for a thousand, I'm gonna go for a thousand.
And again, it took her like a long time to get even to 10. So I'm like, now you're gonna go for a thousand credit repair companies using your software in 90 days. And she had no clue how to do it. She sat down, she journaled, she pondered, she prayed. And then [00:22:00] while thinking about it, and this is called pathways thinking in psychology, uh, you always wanna think from the goal, never toward it, right?
Mm-hmm. You always want the future to shape the present. You don't want the present to shape the future. And so she was thinking from the future, she was thinking from this impossible goal. Once she had no clue how to solve, but if you actually just start trying to solve a goal, your brain's phenomenal.
But also you can go get the right information. So the thought came to her, which she had not considered before. What if I just partnered with other software companies that already serve? Tens of thousands of these companies. There's already a lot of other software companies in the credit space that serve these 50,000 companies.
Some of them serve thousands, some of them serve tens of thousands. What if I just partnered with them and got my technology, my software embedded into their software? And so that was just a better pathway that wasn't available to her from a small goal. And so less than a week later, she had actually partnered with a company called Credit Repair Junkies, and it turned out he had 8,000 of these people, these credit repair companies using a software.
Immediately he embedded her software in and boom, she went from 10 people using her software to 8,000 in a week.
Hala Taha: Wow.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: But that's finding a better path, which she would've never been able to filter and find without [00:23:00] trying to solve a goal that seemed impossible.
So that's the beauty of them is, is that there are pathways to get there, but they're gonna be very different from what's normal.
And even just as an another thought with strategy, Richard Remelt, who wrote a book called Good Strategy, bad Strategy, he said that good strategy is extremely surprising because of how rare it is. so like that's a really good strategy, but most people in her space wouldn't be thinking that way because they're trying to solve again.
Rather than getting to 10,000, she's trying to say, how do I get from 10 to 20? Right? Or how do I get from 10 to a hundred? Mm-hmm. And so that's just gonna produce really bad thinking, really bad strategy. Whereas you go for the much bigger goal, a thousand in 90 days, almost everything she's doing is it won't work.
And so she's gotta find these really, really unique strategies that are just gnarly. That's part of the beauty of it.
Hala Taha: I love it so much. You're giving me so many ideas. I'm like, oh God, I need to,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: like, I know you share some what, what's sticking out in your mind?
Hala Taha: We wanna be a hundred million dollar company.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Love that. Beautiful. And three years or less.
Hala Taha: We were thinking. Yeah, exactly. Like, I'm like, okay, I've gotta shorten that timeline.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: What was your current timeline on it?
Hala Taha: I think it was three years. We wanna be a hundred [00:24:00] million valuation. That's years. Okay. In three years. And one of the ways that we're gonna do that is we've gotta recruit huge podcasters.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: You do. you need the whales.
Hala Taha: We need the whales. Did I ever tell you that that's part of our core values?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: No.
Hala Taha: Oh. One of our core values is about whales that we need to like secure whales. That's so funny that you mentioned that. And we always use the whale emoji in slack.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Love, love it
Hala Taha: whenever we get somebody big, you know,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: I love it.
Hala Taha: But you know, I always need to think creatively, like how do I get more huge podcasters in our network? And I do think more incrementally, and this is making me think, I need to think, what do we look like as a hundred million dollar company
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: in three years?
Hala Taha: And who, yeah, and who's in our network and like. How did we do that? I guess talk to me more about how I can think about it from the goal itself rather than incrementally. Does that make sense?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yeah. So just so I understand, you want the company to be valued at a hundred million in three years?
Hala Taha: Yeah.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Do you know what that would take?
Hala Taha: Probably us making $30 million in revenue.
Okay. And we make, [00:25:00] we're on track to make 10 this year.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So here's a question. If you change the goal from valued just for fun. And this is a really important point because people get this messed up, they get stressed out about goals and so they don't set big ones or urgent ones because they think if I don't hit it, I'm a failure.
As I said, time is actually a psychological tool. Goals are simply tools. And so you can use a, a big goal and an urgent goal simply as a tool to re-look at your model. Look at your paths and to potentially think of new ones. And so just as an exercise, if rather than going for a hundred million valuation, you went for a hundred million revenue.
you're at around 10. So if you just 10 x the revenue in three. Exactly. I, it's a perfect examples perfectly. But what wouldn't work that you're doing right now to get to a hundred million revenue?
Hala Taha: Signing small podcasters.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy:
Hala Taha: I have a whole social media agency, so like, maybe that whole thing needs to go away.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Maybe, maybe,
Hala Taha: you know, um,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: would that get you to a hundred million in three years?
Hala Taha: No.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So see this brings up frame, floor focus that the big frame, and not that you have to do [00:26:00] that. Yeah. But the frame being in this case, and the frame, as I said, is based on a goal, And that shapes what you see and what you don't see in the present.
So if you just were to use the a hundred million revenue as a tool, then that would set a floor, which everything below the floor can't get you there. So that's a no, right? A big part of strategy is what you say no to. So again, you don't have to get rid of the agency. Again, this is all just a tool.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: But it's like, okay, if the agency won't get us there, at what point is that agency a dead end? At what point does it become something we're gonna have to get rid of anyways? Maybe it won't, maybe just keep it as a concept. But the beauty of just kind of thinking is it's like at some point that agency might become a dead end, and so it forces you grapple with that sooner.
and it forced you to say. What things that you're not thinking about right now, because right now you might be solving for 30 million to get to the a hundred million valuation, which is awesome, but what things are you not thinking about? And not that you have to have any pathways right now, but what pathways would likely or potentially get you to a hundred million revenue in three years?
Hala Taha: Some of the things that we're working on like building a creator house in studios. Yeah. So we can get more [00:27:00] podcasters in the door and have like more incentives, having more money to give guarantees like a record label does with advances to these really big podcasters.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Nice.
Hala Taha: That we're trying. So like there's certain things that we need to,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: but it does get you to a hundred million in three years
Hala Taha: maybe.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And I'm not saying you have to just remember, I'm just using this as a tool for Pathways. I wouldn't expect you to have the answer to this 'cause I just threw this at you. but it's like, what would it take, what would a single model be? To get you to a hundred million in three years.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Again, I don't know. I'm just saying what could it be? The cool part about if you tried to solve that is 30 million, then it becomes a cakewalk.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: You know, if you start thinking from that future.
Hala Taha: Well, let's back up and let's, let's give,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: sorry for throwing all that out.
Hala Taha: No, that's okay. It's great. I can't wait to do this with my business partner and like strategy. It's such great strategy advice. So let's talk about the framework. Let's go through frame floor focus. Sure. And just like walk us through at a high level, each one of those stages.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So, as I said, your frame is what you see. It's really all the pathways you see, and it's based on your goals.
And so when you [00:28:00] raise your frame or your goal to a seemingly impossible level, that then raises your floor. And your floor as a person or as an organization is defined by what you don't do. So when you raise your floor, that means you're actively stripping things out that you used to say yes to.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And in order to scale and grow, you have to raise your floor. You have to say no to the things that can't get you to the higher goal.
Hala Taha: So what's the floor like analogy, like help us understand that
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: in a company, a floor could be like, you know, in your case. I don't say yes to podcast below this floor or podcast.
Hala Taha: Got it. Such a requirements, basically.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yeah, it is like a requirement. That's one way of looking at, it's like, I don't accept things below this. And so you set some floor or We don't work with people below this. So as an example, like one of the companies I've worked with, he's an advertising agency and he helps people get into retail stores like Walmart and Walgreens, and he scales their products.
And so for him. He doesn't work with people who can't get their product into a big store and can't be doing like mm-hmm. 20, 40 million. So like he has a very high floor. If he goes below that, he's just gonna get muddled in all the competition of everyone else. And so he [00:29:00] has a very high floor.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: But your floor can also be spiritual and emotional.
Mm-hmm. Where it's like the floor is kind of your own internal integrity or accountability to your future if you're going for a big future. Right. Even your a hundred million goal. There's a lot of things that are below the floor that won't get you that goal that you're still saying yes to. And so whenever you say yes to things that are below the floor, you're actively lying to yourself and contradicting yourself.
And we do this all the time. We all go below the floor. We lie to ourselves actively and justified, or we do things that we know, you know, we hold onto things that are out of security or fomo or to not disappoint people. And so when you're below the floor, you're actively lying to yourself. You're not being honest with yourself or others.
You're not clear on who you are. This can even be true in relationships. My dad, just speaking personally, you know, is going through a, you know, a relationship challenge and like he said, I've not been clear on my floor and because I've not been clear on my floor in terms of who I am and the kind of life I wanna live, I've had relationships that are muddled because I wasn't really clear on what I wouldn't do, [00:30:00] you know?
So it's really important to define what's a no.
Hala Taha: So it's like your boundaries. What are your boundaries in business and in your personal life? What are you saying yes to? What are you saying no to? And everything you're saying yes to has to align to your impossible goal.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And when you raise the floor a lot, more and more things are nos.
One of the things I've worked with is professional athletes, and often when someone's going from college to pro, the floor goes up extremely. Mm-hmm. So like if you look at the difference between like a superstar, like a Steph Curry versus some other really good basketball player who we don't know his name.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: The difference, yes. Steph Seal is higher, he's the best shooter ever, but it's really his floor that distinguishes him. The floor is, is that consistently. He operates at, say he makes 25 points a game. That's his average. That's where he's always at. So he has an extremely high floor, whereas this other player maybe gets 25 once every 10 games.
The floor is really what divides the pros from the amateurs, There's a great quote that says that amateurs work until they get something right. Whereas pros work until they can't get it wrong. I've [00:31:00] seen in working with people that someone might have just incredible potential. If they go from college to pros, but they never succeed in the next level because they keep their floor low.
They keep hanging out with their old friends. Right. Or like eating the way they did in college. Right? And like, they don't raise their professionalism, they don't raise their floor in how they do everything. And so therefore, their performances is not to the level required.
Hala Taha: So practically for businesses, how can they implement some of the things that ensure that they have a floor and that their organization knows what their floor is?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And by the way, the floor protects you. If you go below it, you've not only muddled yourself, you've muddled your team, So the first thing is actually setting the goal. 'cause the goal always determines what it would be, the floor. And then once you've raised the floor. You can then focus on the pathway to the goal.
And so the first thing is actually really well defining the goal. 'cause the goal defines basically the floor. Once you've said, we are getting to a hundred million valuation or revenue, whatever you decide we're doing it in three years. And so what are all the things that [00:32:00] absolutely we're doing right now that can't get us there?
All of that stuff now is below the floor. If we keep doing it, we're not being honest with ourselves, we're not being honest with the goal, and so we have to start eliminating these things. The core element of any system is its accountability. And so if people keep going below the floor, the system's not holding them accountable to the goal.
And so then the system is contradicting itself and it's going into many different directions, and so it has to be established. Another way of looking at the floor is that it's the same thing as the culture, right? And so there's probably members of the team, if you're going for the higher goal.
They aren't gonna get you there. And it's like, well, if they're below the floor, you're sending the wrong message by either keeping them in their same role or keeping them on the team. And so it can be very difficult, painful sometimes to say, this is no longer a fit for where this company is going.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And so you have to be willing to make some of those uncomfortable moves of letting go of things, clients, even team members. Until you do that, you're not ready to scale. You're not ready to go for the growth that's required. You're still keeping. Things in the business that are amateurish when you're trying to go pro.
Hala Taha: This is so helpful and it just makes me realize like we are in this [00:33:00] transition period. I recently let go of employees that have been with me for a long time and it was really hard,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: but that's a huge signal that you're ready to grow though.
Hala Taha: and it was really tough, but. They were actually thankful and knew that they were struggling and that I kept trying to put them in different roles and just wasn't working.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: People know. Yeah, people know, especially if you tell them, we're gonna get to a hundred million valuation three years, this is the level that we need to get to. Some people will stretch into it massively. Like some people are gonna be super aligned with it, excited about it. One of my favorite quotes is that the system is designed to defend the system.
If you have team members that when you tell them the impossible goal or the massive new goal, if they're like. Defending the system, defending the SaaS quo, then like you know that. You don't want a future that you're trying to avoid or trying to like delay. So it's a very good signal that you're ready to grow when you start letting go of legacy team members or things like that, even though they're beautiful, you love them, you honor that they were vital to getting here.
Yeah, it's a, an important indicator. Again, back to the idea that good strategy is [00:34:00] rare, and it's surprising because most people don't do it. When you start letting go of people or team members, sometimes family members that are team members, like some people have a hard time doing that. Then you're like, okay, this person's serious.
Yeah. Like this person's raising the floor. And that's the hardest part about scaling, is raising the floor and beginning to strip out the stuff that has no bearing to the new goal.
Hala Taha: And as you grow a brand, the opportunities get better and better. So for example, I constantly get people who want production services from us, but production services from me and my business world, I have a 60 person team.
But what ends up happening is we wanna do such a good job. I wanna get involved. He wants to get involved. We don't wanna launch a show without all these different approvals and, and things like that.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Because you have a really high floor and standard.
Hala Taha: Yeah. And some of these deals could be 20 KA month and we're just like, we just can't do it. And so now, in order to help us make that decision, I made a business relationship with a guy that produces podcasts that I've known for years. My really good friend that I know is awesome and he's gonna like white label stuff for us and I trust him. And then we can [00:35:00] focus.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yep. Focus
Hala Taha: and take the demand.
Right. So let's move on to focus.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Focus is really about how do you solve the goal back to a hundred million or whatever the goal is. Focus is all about what's the model and what are the pathways to the goal. So back to Alicia, who went from 10 to 8,000 credit repair companies using your software in a week.
Her focus shifted. It shifted from I. How do I get these people one-on-one to get on the phone to, how do I get other software companies to partner with me? So our focus in the present is all about what are the pathways or the highest signal, right? Signal versus noise. And so our focus is really about what's the model and what's the pathways to our goal and who's gonna help us get there?
Mm-hmm. That's the focus. Focus is really about just how do you solve the goal? And if you are trying to do five or 10 or 15 different things. If your model is complex, meaning you've got like multiple competing goals and things like that, mm-hmm. Then you just have to admit you are not focused. And if you're not focused, what that means is that you're below the floor and you're saying yes to too many different things and you haven't started to strip out the lesser [00:36:00] goals or just the false requirements or just the shiny objects.
So. Focus is crucial to scaling, and it's not just about focusing, it's about where you focus, and it's about focusing on the right path and about getting the right people involved and with the right focus. Again, back to Alicia, you can 800 x in a week with the right focus if you're looking for those right paths, if you bring on the right, who's one of the books that I read after I wrote 10 x, which I wish I had read before?
That book was called The 80 20 Individual by Richard Kosh, and I might have even talked to you about it. He talks about super leveraged who's, you know, when I wrote Who, not how I thought about people who can get a job done. But what that book taught me was, is that one super leveraged person can create not just 10 x the results of an average person, but a hundred x or even a thousand X.
So like Bill Gates even has a very famous quote where he says, A great code writer isn't worth. 10 times an average code writer, it's worth 10,000 times. And so if you think about a podcast, there are some podcasts that get 10,000 x the [00:37:00] views of most podcasts. If you think about the s and p 500, there's seven main businesses in the s and p 500 that produce more revenue than.
Millions of businesses, that's what they call the power law. It's, you know, another way of looking at the 80 20 principle, but the 80 20 principle on extreme, there are certain people that can create 10 times or a hundred times, or even a thousand times the results of one. Back to your idea of whales.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And so when you think about focus, if you're trying to solve an impossible goal, a hundred million revenue in three years, your focus is gonna shift and you're gonna start looking for things you never would've been looking for. You are gonna start trying to solve what you weren't gonna be solving for the more linear goal.
Where you focus and what you're trying to solve and how you're trying to solve it and who you're finding and how you partner with those people. That's how you start making days that are worth months or years because now you're focusing on just such a, a more powerful path.
Hala Taha: As you're talking about super leverage, something that me and he's mentioning my business partner Jason on, he sounds awesome.
Good for him. Jason is great. We're always talking about [00:38:00] man, like what me and you can get done in a day would take the team. Months. And sometimes if I just have a problem, like I'll just do something and it'll be like, that would've taken the team a month to do and multiple people. I guess how can you find these super leverage and it's just, is it more about putting people in the right place with the right experiences or I guess, how do you think about that or how, how do we find those people?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: first off, you need a goal that demands one. The thing is, is you don't need 10 super, whos right, but what I will say is, is as you go for the higher goal. That floor goes up where the performance expectation just naturally goes to a more higher performing. So you might end up having half the team, but they're all the super performers.
But in terms of these s whos that I'm talking about that create 10,000 times the results of a Norman, of a, of a normal person,
Hala Taha: Norman, I like that word.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: You know what's funny is we actually literally just watched City Slickers yesterday, which is like an old movie and like Norman's the cow that he saves.
Oh, got it. And so that was like a [00:39:00] total Freudian split. Um, but uh. Anyways, if you don't have a goal that requires a super who, back to the idea of focus, you won't find one. But if you do, what's cool about Pathways thinking is, is that the super whos bring the pathways with them? Right? It's kinda the idea of who, not how.
Mm-hmm. But again, on steroids. So for us, with our [email protected], we want 5,000 members scaling and scaling.com. And the best and easiest way to get there is through that book, the Science of Scaling, which I wrote. But then it's like, okay, I've sold millions of books, but there's people out there who are better at selling books than me.
And so that's what got us thinking about this guy named Joseph Wynn, who. He wrote the book, don't Believe Everything You Think, and it was self-published and he's just a marketing genius. He's 26 years old and like when we identified Joseph, we're like, okay, this guy's a super who this guy if on our team not only almost ensures we're gonna hit our goal, which feels impossible.
We're basically, basically going from startup to, the goal is to get to like 120 million revenue in two years.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: But knowing that in our case, the book is the crux to solving that goal and knowing that Joseph. [00:40:00] Is one of the best book marketers in the world. Once we identified him, we're like, this guy transforms our company.
Not only does he maybe half the timeline of the goal, which was already like an impossible goal.
Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And almost ensure success. But by bringing him on our company is now fundamentally different.
And so that's a super who, and so how do you find them? You first off just have to have a goal.
That requires it. You won't find it, by the way, if you keep your floor low. Hmm. Because if your floor is low, that means you're saying yes to those $20,000 opportunities. Right? Yeah. I know you've already offloaded that and you've white labeled that, but if you're down below the floor and you're focused and you're saying yes to all these things.
Then you're not solving the goal. So you'll never see those super who's Because again, your frame determines what you see. Mm. And that frame is based on the goal. And so those pathways or those high signal opportunities, they just won't be available to you 'cause you're not filtering for them.
Yeah. Like our goal shapes how we filter our experience. And so when you start filtering for how do I get to a hundred million in three years, You're gonna start to ask yourself those questions. Like, Alisia found that superhero, She went from 10 to 8,000 bang. [00:41:00] Right? And so you'll start looking for those.
They might not be exactly what you think, One example is often I've worked with people who, they've taken a company and they've scaled it. Mm-hmm. Like they've gone 10 x, right? Maybe they went from one to 10 million, or they went from 10 to a hundred million and they go 10 x. Again, they just have to acknowledge, maybe it's someone who's the ceo mm-hmm.
That to go 10 x and to do it fast. They can't be the CEO anymore. Yep. Right. So they actually have to step out and they need to bring someone in who can do it better. And when you have a big goal, sometimes you don't become the centerpiece. You can still have a huge role. That's what I love about what you've built.
You have a phenomenal show, but you're building this network where you don't have to be the center. you've built a concept that's bigger than you, that's a really good signal. And if your goal is so small that you have to be the center, then you're not gonna find super who's, Those super who's are not gonna see you.
They're not gonna be compelled by your goal or your vision. And I see that too much is where someone, it has to be them.They can't let someone outshine them. They can't create a space where. People can be more successful than them.
And so that's what I wanted to set up.
It's scaling.com was, you know, to the idea of [00:42:00] Blake Erickson coming in, he's 10 years younger than me, Joseph Wynn is 10 years younger than me. I would love to create a space where I'm not the center. It doesn't have to be about Ben Hardy. How can I make these guys 10 times more successful than me? I start then writing their coattails.
Hala Taha: And then elevating your success in the process too.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: A million percent. it's like that's when you can start finding super who's.
Hala Taha: So let's talk about complex systems and why complex systems prevent us from scaling and how can we tell if our systems are too complex?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So a complex system by nature can't scale. Because it's going in too many different directions, There's too many competing goals.
Often the goals aren't well defined. Steve Jobs said you have to work really hard to take something that's complex and to make it simple. So when he went back to Apple after he'd been fired and he went on his hiatus and he was at Pixar, he came back and Apple was very undefined. They had 350 different products, and he is like, which one of these really defines Apple?
Mm-hmm. And they had no answer. And so he's like, we don't even know who we are. We have no definition, we have no clarity. And so a complex system is almost impossible to define because like, there's [00:43:00] so many goals. It's like, who are we? What do we do? Well, we do this, we do that, we do this, we do that. And so in order to scale, you have to take something that's complex and you have to make it simple.
Mm. And and the easiest way to do that is to have a goal that forces you to start stripping out all those other goals. Like, the young man who I was telling you about with trying. To become a professional soccer team. He had a complex system to get there because according to his system, well, in order to get to soccer team, I gotta first get a PhD, then I gotta run a firm, then I gotta do this.
Mm-hmm. So this is like a complex system or pathway to get to his goal. It's like, what if we just again, move the goal forward and said, what's the most direct path to the goal? Forget all the other stuff for a minute. I know you've been attached to that idea of the PhD or whatever, but like, let's just let that go for a minute.
What's the most direct path to the goal? Let's just start solving that and then let's start to create a simple direct focus path to that. Let's just solve that one thing. Let's not solve five or 50. Let's solve one. And so a simple system is something that is very thoughtfully crafted, and it's something that can scale.
And so you have to ask yourself, what is my current system? How many different [00:44:00] directions is it really going? Could it really get to a hundred million in three years,And you have to be honest that some of this stuff we have to strip out 'cause it's overly complex. It's making us out overly diluted.
We need to get ourselves focused again. We need to have a simple model that is going one direction.
Hala Taha: And then how do you think about offers? Is it possible to achieve a big goal and have multiple offers?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: I think it's possible. But I think that people often have too many offers,
And those offers. He says that the most common mistake of a smart engineer is to optimize something that shouldn't exist. And so a lot of those offers. Would fall below the floor if they had a better goal, if you have like three or four competing offers, or 12 or 15, the question is how many of those are optimizing things that shouldn't exist?
How many of those are dead end paths that if you just went for a higher goal and did a shorter timeline, you just have to admit that offer's gotta go, that's cannibalizing this, right? And so, no, you don't have to have just one offer, but. Again, just back to good strategy is rare. How many [00:45:00] people do just have one offer? Right.
Hala Taha: Lewis House is a great example of this. I think you wrote about it in the book, and he's been on the podcast. Do you wanna share that story?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yeah. So I learned this from Rory, who's one of his friends. Oh,
Hala Taha: Rory Vaden. Yeah.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yeah. so this is a story that I learned from Rory's book, and I think some of the interviews that they had together that, Lewis had a complex system,
That's. To your point, one of the hard parts about becoming successful is, is that there's a lot of easy pathways to success. Yeah. Or easy pathways to things that would've been impossible to your past self,
Hala Taha: especially as a creator, entrepreneur. Yes. Like Lewis, you could just keep selling all these different things to your audience.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Yeah. So from what I understood about the situation, he had 12 to 15 to 20 different offers, right? Mm-hmm. He had a mastermind, he had courses, he had this, he had that, and his podcast was very marginal in his mind. And in having that strategy conversation with Rory, it was like. What if you just went all in on that one path?
You had a simple system, right? You actually focused on that. At the time, I think you had like 30 million downloads, And so he's like. Maybe I will create a simple model. Maybe I'll get rid of this and that. And he got rid of a bunch of things and [00:46:00] just totally focused on his podcast. And the byproduct was two years later, he was one of the biggest podcasts in the entire world.
Right. He went from like 30 million downloads to 500 million plus. And you can do incredible things with a focused, simple system. Mm-hmm. And a focused, simple model. And you have to work hard to keep it simple.
Hala Taha: Talk to us about that. So we can start off with simple model, but then day to day, so many team members touching it, it can end up becoming complex over time. So how do we. Maintain a simple model over time.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So you have to keep the goal front of mind. You have to keep the floor very low. You have to be very honest when you're going below the floor. Honesty and transparency are vital, and so it's good to have team members openly acknowledging like, this stuff is probably a distraction.
Mm-hmm. So like you've, with your partner, I think it's good for you guys to have rigorous conversations with each other where it's like, this is good, but. Is this really gonna get us to the a hundred million valuation in three years? And when you can have that level of rigor and [00:47:00] honesty and continuousness and just because great opportunities come and they do really good ones come, you have to say, is this.
Even if it seems incredible, is this below the floor. And the more honesty you can have about that and start saying no or being honest about the things you gotta get rid of. And sometimes the goal can shift. Of course. Sometimes it's like, you know what? This thing just changes the game. but just continuous honesty.
Continuous. Mm-hmm. Transparency. The floor is the level of accountability you have to, the goal, the floor is the level of accountability you have in your system and it's very rigorous. Mm. And so just continuously checking it and then being honest as things creep in. 'cause they always will. To say these things are below the floor, we have to strip these things back out.
Yeah. And so for me, on like a very practical level, literally like every week I get back with my assistant and we're like, let's re-look at the schedule for the year. What are these things? Did it made sense last month, but now it doesn't? It's below the floor. Like my past self was lying to themselves, or they weren't as clear as I'm now.
So like just continuously looking at your agenda, continuously looking at what you're doing, what you're saying yes [00:48:00] to, what you're up to for the week or for the month or for the rest of the year, and just saying. How much of this stuff is really below the floor? How much of this stuff have I just uncommitted to?
And they might, be business stuff, it might be relationships, it might be other commitments you've made to yourself. Hidden commitments, false commitments, and just saying, if I said no to this, that'd be a massive signal right to my future self. That'd be a massive signal to the goal that I'm serious.
And it would surprise people and it would disappoint people and it would frustrate people, but it, it's me being honest, it's being more transparent to who I'm really wanting to be.
Hala Taha: We started up this conversation talking about identities and even companies can have these identities that are preventing them from scaling.
You talk about a lady named Stephanie, who's the CEO of a family business, and she basically had to let go of a legacy identity to scale. Can you share that story with us?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So Stephanie was part of a family business. It's been around for 50 years. Her father was an inventor, patented these incredible products that were very valuable in the marketplace that they were in.
Very like high-end, very niche products. But her father passed away like over a decade ago. Their company's been known for [00:49:00] these legacy products and his inventions and his patents and stuff. Mm-hmm. But they've been around for 50 years. They do like 25 million in revenue. And again, always just using a different frame to look at the things.
Her goals normally like 10 to 20% growth a year. Right. And they've been growing stagnantly, but growing consistently for decades. And I just said. I just said, what is your goal for the year? And this is at the beginning of 2024. Yeah. And she said, my goal is to get to 30 million. And I said, what if you just doubled that and went to 60?
And she said, there's no way we can get there. She said, we couldn't get our current products and services that we have to 60 million revenue in a decade. She's just like, it's just not there. And she's like, the only way I could get to 60 million is I would have to go this other direction rather than going products.
I'd have to go like these services, which I've honestly been thinking about for a decade, but I've never pulled the trigger on it. She's like, there's even companies that have. Teams and these products that have these services that we could buy that I've been wanting to buy and having conversations, but I've just been thinking about it for a decade.
And I said, well, what if you just committed to the 60 [00:50:00] million and you? And so she started to think about that, but then I just said, Stephanie, let's think a little bit bigger, rather than just thinking to the end of this year, what if we just 10 x your company? What does your company look like? You know, 'cause you're currently at 25 million.
What does it look like in three years? If you're doing 220 or 250 million? She's like, we would have to be like one of the best service based businesses. She's like, it's totally there. I said, I, I, that's the funny part is like, I often ask like, is there a pathway there? Mm-hmm. And, and often the answer is like, yeah, but it would have to be this way.
And so I said, well, what does that do to your father's legacy products? If you wanted to go this way? She's like, well, I've actually been working on this and like, I'm just gonna put it away and ignore it. And I'm like, well, what would happen if you just sold it? What if you just let that go, that part of your identity go and just sold it?
And she's like, literally audibly was like, she got audibly gasped because like she's just like, I've never considered that. And I was like, well, what would happen if you sold it? She's like, honestly, we have someone who we've worked with for 40 years that would love to buy us and like buy us at a huge price.
He was just like. It's just so hard to let go. 'cause that's who we've always been. [00:51:00] Right. If we sell that and we go on in the services, we would have to redefine ourselves. And what's really interesting about the research on Impossible goals is, is that the bigger goal forces you to redefine yourself.
Hala Taha: Yeah.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: It forces you to redefine who you are, what you do, who you do it for. Uh, it forces you to let go of the old identity, the old models, the old way of doing things. Right. So to your point, like even to your questions with me before. It's great 'cause I have a PhD in organizational psychology, which is business psychology.
But I did do more like broad, like just general future self. And so when it was like when I moved the goal really high, it forced me to remodel to like, let's just figure out how to apply this to business scaling. Right. And so like it forced me to remodel or redefine. Who I am, what I talk about, and what I do.
And so that's just a very common thing. When you elevate the future self to very high levels, it forces you to think in terms of a redefinition, a remodel, and most people are too afraid to own the new definition. I.
Hala Taha: I loved this conversation. I wanna be respectful of your time. We just have a few minutes left. Sure. So first, tell us about scaling.com. What kind of tools are available there? How can people [00:52:00] leverage what they're learning in this book, the Science of Scaling, and then go on that platform and put into practice?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So one thing that came with Joseph Wynn and just his incredible strategy, like I said, he's one of the top. Self-published authors in the world right now. We actually went to my publisher Hay House, and they are allowing us to give the science of scaling Audiobook away for free. Nice. So if you went to scaling.com/audiobook, you can get the Science of Scaling audiobook for free, which I've never had that option available to me, but that's part of Pathways thinking with Super.
Whos right? Yep. So. scaling.com/audiobook. Free full book, the Science of Scaling, [email protected]. One of the things that frustrated me, me being in some of the biggest coaching programs in the world for entrepreneurs is that, first off, none of them are goal-based. You don't go in and have a goal and then be held accountable to that goal and like strategize on that goal.
Instead, you just. Go through tools and prompts and I mean, they're very valuable, but, and so I wanted to create something that was like, no, you're going for a 10 x goal or more. Mm-hmm. And you're gonna do it in three years or less, or you can't come. We're going for [00:53:00] extreme scale here. And so we're gonna apply this framework, which even people like Tony Robbins said, this changes the game of business strategy and scaling.
We're gonna help you apply this framework to your business, and we're gonna help you scale 10 x more and achieve an impossible goal in three years. And actually, if you don't have an impossible goal, our framework doesn't work. Because it's based on everything we've been talking about is what I call strategic psychology.
So if you're not willing to go for an impossible goal, our framework doesn't work for you because then you're gonna be operating from your past. Mm-hmm. And, and then you're not gonna be able to raise your floor and strip everything out and build a new model. And so we wanted to create a performance-based program where people actually come in and we're scaling is the norm.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Rather than it being like some rarity, right? Yeah. Like where here in some room, and most people are growing at 10, 20% and. There's that one person who's flying, we just said, we're just gonna cap the environment. Our floor is, is that everyone's scaling and so the only people we let in are people who are willing to commit to something that massive and then go through the process and there's one-on-one strategizing and things like that.
And there actually is accountability. Like we're like now that's below the floor. You have to do the [00:54:00] weekly reports, you get your monthly report. So I just wanna create something that I felt was reflective of true scaling. And I wanted to, create an environment where. That was the norm.
Hala Taha: So basically, companies are applying to be in your program and they go through your framework and they're held accountable to hit these goals. Do you get like a percentage of their revenue or something like this?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: We don't, no. You know, we've had many people say we should, especially as we're scaling companies. 10 x. Yeah. Which we, we do. No. We have a flat fee. It's $2,000 a month, right? You go to spend.com, you apply. If you're at a certain threshold, you have to. We, for us, the threshold is $500,000 per year revenue. So you have to have at least 500,000 revenue. A lot of the companies in ours are doing tens of millions, even hundreds of millions.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: But we want you to have at least a threshold of 500,000, and you have to be like the entrepreneur or a decision maker because the framework. By its nature transforms your company. Yeah. And so you have to be the one to implement it.
Hala Taha:
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: And you've gotta be committed to an impossible goal. Cool. Like if you're not committed to an impossible goal, then you're just in the wrong room.
And that's okay. There's lots of great business thought out there. So this would [00:55:00] be a bad room for you.
Hala Taha: this is just so interesting. I, I wish I had more time to talk to you about it,
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: but I'll come back anytime. I love talking to you. You're one of the most, most like high floor like professional, like you are incredible what you do.
Hala Taha: Oh, thank you.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Every time I've had a conversation with you, it's, this is the gold standard period.
Hala Taha: Oh, thank you.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: It's just true.
Hala Taha: So as you know, we end our show with two questions. That I ask all my guests since you come on so often, maybe answer from the frame of this conversation, whatever. What is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: You have to have an impossible goal. If you already have some big 10 or 20 year dream, bring it to three years or less because that will force you to start solving it now. It'll force you to let go of all your false requirements, your dead end paths. Obviously an easy one is go get the free audio book, you know?
Mm-hmm. And just listen to it, but, or listen to this in our other conversations, but have an impossible goal if you don't have that. By virtue you're operating from your past self.
Hala Taha: I'm gonna go now and just try to think about our [00:56:00] goal and, and how I can shorten the deadline and make it bigger.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: So re look at your system.
See where it's, where there's some bits that are a little complex.
Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. And increase my focus. There's so many next steps. What is your secret to profiting in life?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: first one for me is always God. God is my core relationship from there, my family. And then from there, choosing really big goals that stretch me and give my life purpose and force me to become better, force me to become more humble. So, starting at the core. And another one that really helps me profit is that. Kind of like I already said it, with Blake and Joseph and, and, and even our other partners.
I genuinely am happy to make other people more successful than me. Mm-hmm. Like, it doesn't need to be about me. And I'm happy to set up games and systems where other people, and hopefully superheros can be enormously more successful than me. Mm-hmm. to me that's very profitable, but it's also very enjoyable.
Hala Taha: so everybody can go to scaling.com to learn more about that. Get the free audiobook, the signs of scaling. [00:57:00] Where can everybody learn more about you more generally?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Benjamin har.com. It's just my regular website, but I think that honestly the easiest way to learn it about Current Me and Future me is just that audiobook.
Hala Taha: Thank you, Ben. It was such a pleasure.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy: It's always a pleasure.
Hala Taha: Fam, Dr. Benjamin Hardy never disappoints. Whenever he comes on the show, he delivers such powerful insights, and today was certainly no exception.. And one of the most powerful ideas we explored today was the signs of scaling. As been explained, most entrepreneurs are stuck solving the wrong problems because they're chasing linear, incremental goals.
But 10 x growth requires a complete reframe. It's not about doing more. It's about doing differently. Real scaling happens when you simplify focus and build something that can grow without breaking under its own complexity. We also dove deep into the idea of impossible goals, not just big goals, but impossible ones.
Because when you set a goal that feels out of reach and give [00:58:00] it a tight deadline, you activate a different level of thinking. This is called pathway thinking. I. You start shedding false steps, exposing your real challenges and aligning your actions with what actually matters. Time in that sense becomes a psychological lever, and when you stop solving the wrong problems you can start scaling for real.
You think more creatively and you can align better to your goals. And another game changing concept Ben talked about is raising your floor. That's what separates professionals from amateurs. It's not how high you can reach, it's how solid your baseline is. Once your impossible goal is set, the pathway becomes clearer.
That means identifying the right model, aligning with the right people, and cutting the noise. Because complex systems don't scale, focus does, and the more you can filter down to the essential few, the faster you can grow. So, yeah. Bam. I want you to ask yourself, are you solving the right problems? Are you setting impossible goals that stretch and scare you in the best way?
And have you raised your floor high enough that [00:59:00] excellence now becomes your new normal? Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting. If you listen, learned and profited from this powerful conversation with Dr. Benjamin Hardy, then send it to somebody who you know is ready to think bigger, move faster, and scale smarter.
And hey, if this episode helped shift your mindset, do us a solid and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. It's one of the best ways to support the show and help more people discover this podcast. And if you prefer to watch this podcast instead, you've got a couple of options.
Of course, you can head over to YouTube. We've got. Almost 60,000 subscribers on YouTube now, which is exciting. And we're also recently now on Spotify video. At least all of my in-person content will be on Spotify video if you're a premium user. So if you like watching your podcast on video, you've got those options.
You can also connect with me on Instagram at Yahoo with Holla or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha. And of course, special thanks to my YAP production team. I love everybody in my Yap Media [01:00:00] family. Thank you so much for all your hard work. This is your host, Hala Taha, AKA, the podcast Princess signing off