Jan Koum and Brian Acton are the founders of WhatsApp, the world’s most famous messaging app. Its mission is to “empower people through technology and communication, no matter who they are, or where they live.”

Their remarkable journey is a hallmark of courage, willpower, and relentless determination. In a Guardian newspaper interview, Acton describes the relationship as “yin and yang.” He says, “I’m the naïve optimist, he’s more paranoid. I pay attention to bills and taxes, he [Koum] pays attention to our product.”

Koum was born in a rural village outside of Kiev, Ukraine. At the age of sixteen, during much political strife and instability, his family made the agonizing decision to flee their country and move to Mountain View, California. Koum’s father could not join them and was left behind. Koum told one interviewer, “I grew up in a society where everything you did was eavesdropped on, recorded, snitched on.” Koum’s difficult childhood experience under Soviet surveillance inspired the WhatsApp messaging service.

Koum and Acton are no strangers to failure and rejection. In summer 2009, Acton was looking for a job. For more than eleven years, the Stanford computer science graduate had been working at Yahoo, the social networking business, in various engineering roles.

He used Twitter to share his news.

7:06 PM, 20 MAY 2009

Networking with recruiters, venture capitalists, playing ultimate Frisbee.

8:39 PM, 23 May 2009

Got denied by Twitter HQ. That’s OK. Would have been a long commute.

8:14 PM, 3 Aug 2009

Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life’s next adventure.

Whatever you choose to believe, life is anything but predictable. Just five years later, in a miraculous twist of fate, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion.

To put the deal in perspective, at the time of purchase, the hotel chain Marriott International had over 120,000 staff, a twenty-two-year history, and a market cap of over $15.4 billion. WhatsApp has only fifty-five employees, although I hear they are hiring.

How did this unlikely pair become two of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet? The answer: They had harnessed the leader’s mindset.

10X Thinking

Astro Teller is a British entrepreneur, scientist, and thinker who is widely credited as one of the pioneers of 10X thinking (10X). He heads up Google X, a futuristic lab responsible for hyper-ambitious projects such as Google Glass, balloon-powered Wi-Fi networks, and the infamous Google self-driving car. According to legend, his business card describes him as “Captain of Moon Shots.”

His story inspired me to embark on a journey to unlock the anatomy of a leader’s mindset at many of the world’s most exciting organizations, from young startups to global giants.

Along the way, I uncovered some surprising insights about how the smartest leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs think and what they do to inspire change and move forward. In an interview with Wired magazine, Teller explains the power of 10X thinking: “There are tests that you can apply to see if you’re thinking big enough. The easiest one, the mantra that we use at Google X, is ten times rather than ten percent better, you tend to work from where you are: if I ask you to make a car that goes 50 miles a gallon, you can just retool the engine you already have. But if I tell you it has to run on a gallon of gas for 500 miles, you’re going to have to start over. That causes you to approach the problem so differently that weirdly, counter-intuitively, it’s often easier to make something ten times better--because perspective-shifting is just that much more powerful than hard work and resources being thrown at problems via traditional, well-tried paths.”

Imagine leading your organization up to ten times better than you do today or increasing your team’s success tenfold. 10X thinking is the golden thread that links all great leaders and is at the core of the leader’s mindset.

My challenge had been set. I wanted to answer the question, “What if any anyone could apply the principles of 10X to their mindset, their team and their leadership?”