100x is more biblical than 10x
I’m hesitant to write this article because some of these insights and invitations have been profoundly personal. In the wrong hands, these ideas, like many leadership principles and paradigms, could be used for unhealthy purposes. I do believe, however, that in the right hands, they could play a meaningful role in bringing beauty from brokenness in many contexts around the world.
10x
One of the most helpful books I’ve read in the past decade is 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Benjamin Hardy. The core premise is that aiming for 10x growth is often easier than aiming for 2x because it forces you to simplify, narrow your focus, and think in terms of “who, not how.”
Most 2x growth happens through grinding harder and making incremental improvements over time. But 10x thinking requires a different framework. It pushes you to trim the fat, bring catalytic people around you, and think further into the future. I personally know leaders who have used these principles to scale things 10x in just a few years.
If you lead anything you hope to grow, whether in ministry or the marketplace, I highly recommend the book.
100x
Months after reading it, as some of these concepts were beginning to take shape in our church plant, I settled into our prayer room one evening. I had been exhausted from a long day and honestly didn’t want to fully engage corporately, so I simply asked the Lord what He wanted me to pray for.
What followed felt like a gentle but clear challenge to my 10x thinking.
I sensed the Lord saying that 10x isn’t a biblical number, but 100x is.
Jesus teaches the 100x principle in the Parable of the Sower: “30, 60, or 100 times what was sown.” He also speaks of the hundredfold return for those who sacrifice for the Kingdom in Mark 10:30.
This kind of prayerful, visionary invitation is deeply life-giving to me. My interior world came alive as I began dreaming not merely for 10x, but for 100x.
1000x
The next morning, my annual reading plan brought me to the feeding of the five thousand.
Immediately, my mind started spinning again. What if this was another invitation from God to dream even bigger about what could be possible?
What’s beautiful about that story is that the child who supplied the resources to be multiplied didn’t have much to offer. He simply gave what he had to the One who could multiply it exponentially for the good of thousands.
What if God could take the little you have and scale it 1000x for the good of many?
Like the well-known experiment where flies in a clear container refuse to fly above the level of the lid even after it’s removed, we can become trapped in linear thinking that limits the vision available to us.
I hope this expands your paradigm the way it has expanded mine.
The Levels of Thinking
2x
2x can likely happen in your own strength.
The approach is simple: work harder, improve systems, and make small gains over time. It’s mostly linear.
10x
10x can likely happen through your organization.
This kind of growth comes through simplification, focus, and surrounding yourself with the right people. It’s the shift from “how” to “who.”
100x
100x can likely happen in your lifetime.
This moves beyond scaling your own thing into helping start similar multiplying works in other contexts, with 100x or even 1000x thinking baked into their DNA from the beginning.
1000x
1000x can only happen through miracle and through creating things that outlive you.
The three primary practices of 1000x thinking are prayer, writing, and institution-building.
Prayer is the miracle component. Writing and institutions are two of the primary ways impact can outlive a single lifetime.
Take a few minutes and honestly assess where you are in whatever you are leading. Look at the key metrics and imagine what 10x would look like.
If that’s as far as you ever get, you’re already doing something remarkable.
But there are a few wild ones who not only have the capacity to build something that grows 2x, and the leadership instincts to create a team that leads to 10x, but who also carry a desire to become catalysts for multiplying new works in other contexts through 100x thinking, while living with a vision beyond themselves for 1000x impact.
I’m reminded of God’s covenant conversation with Abraham:
“Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them… Your offspring will be that numerous.”
What might God be inviting you into?