This is a strategic frame of mind. Simple really. If you think
of most situations – A business idea you have, a girl you see at a bar, an
athletic feat you wish to achieve, the concept is to gun for 10*. If you think
medioca you’re going to meet a hell of a lot of competition, there are
6.7billion people in the world and most people aim or keep on track for
mediocracy. There are a lot of reason for this; all I know is I do everything I
can to gun for 10. Hopefully I can share my story one day, in the mean time
here are a couple of stories I’ve used for motivation over the years and great
examples of gunning for 10.
Alex Tew ‘Earning a million before university’
I’ll kick things off with Alex Tew. I found out about his million
dollar home page almost as soon as it launched in 2005, the site could have
been created with the most basic HTML understanding and it completely relied on
the fact it was the first of its kind (which isn’t always a good thing). The
concept of selling one million pixels to fund his upcoming fees at the
University of Nottingham went on to earn $1,037,100, it was clearly no more
than a fad, as a 16year old I saw no real reason to get excited about it.
What I didn’t see when I read the original FAQs when the
first few had been sold to family and friends was that this kid was gunning for
10. He managed to generate some impressive PR and it went viral to generate
enough traffic to excite advertisers, not before too long I saw him on Richard
and Judy. If I remember rightly this was near the end of the auction session
and he was selling his last 1000 pixels in an auction that came to reach
$38,100. He set the objective of making a million before he went of to University;
he gunned for 10 until he achieved it.
I checked out some recent news articles before writing this
and it’s been mentioned more times than once that Alex Tew is one of the most annoying
men on the internet. The strategy of simplicity is annoying, but it’s the
complex way in which he implements his ideas that attracts investment and in
turn made him a million, he goes with an idea and guns for 10 successful or not.
Mystery ‘becoming the best pick up artist in the world’
Your probably more likely to know this guy if you’ve read The
Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists or watched The Pick-Up
Artist on VH1. A lot of the reasons why people’s PUA strategy flops at the
first hurdle are that they don’t gun for 10. Like business if you don’t believe
in your idea you haven’t got a chance, this will be the same in any set. Even
if you’re game is as simple as Alex Tew’s one million dollar home page, if you
give it your all with confidence and determination it will pay off.
Mystery aka Erik von Markovik was a guy that was a total
flop when it came to women, depressed he could never find any girls interested
in him. He therefore set a life time goal to become the best PUA in the world.
This was achieved by intense devotion to PUA studying social dynamics among
other psychological disciplines in order to use and learn in the field, gunning
for 10 every time. After being a student of Neil Strauss the author of The Game
he released his own book The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women into
Bed receiving great acclaim earning millions in the process, particularly
through his training boot camps, similar to the VH1 series.
He has scientifically broken down the art of the pick up and
trained many others in the process to prove his worth. This is through a hell
of a lot of work.
Both Alex Tew and Mystery are examples of setting a massively
outlandish goal from less than desirable circumstances, which assisted them to
push forward as hard as possible to achieve the outcome desired.
The strategic lesson from this is whenever implementing an
objective, gun for 10, never look back and you never know you just might pull
it off.
*Gun for 10 – To go for the best, the most ambitious feat
comprehendible at the time in order to avoid meritocracy.
Categories:
Strategy