Elon Musk Just Became The Richest Man In The World And This is Why
How These 10 Lessons Will Make You Successful
Elon Musk promised he will not be happy until we have escaped Earth and colonized Mars.
This is the nature of his thinking. Big business ideas. Audacious and maverick.
It seems there is nothing he can’t do. He wants to revolutionize the car industry and build super fast trains in human tunnels.
He wants to integrate artificial intelligence into human brains and overturn the solar power and battery industries.
All his projects started as futuristic fantasies. He acted, and the rest is history.
Today, he is the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Company and Co-founder of OpenAI and Neuralink.
Elon faced many failures in his entrepreneurial journey. In 2012, he sold his shares from Zip2 and PayPal and made $200m. He was just 30 years old.
He sank half of the money into business. It failed woefully. SpaceX failed the first three launches, and Tesla faced serious supply chain and design issues.
His winning mentality is to aspire, even if you don’t succeed. He says, “you don’t always improve but you can aspire to improve. You can aspire to be less wrong,”.
For a serial entrepreneur who believes that no investment is off limits, he is now the richest man in the world. It takes courage to win in business.
Elon’s 10 lessons tell us how to see opportunities in our fears.
Lesson 1: Never give up
“I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated to give up,”.
During his darkest moment in life, Elon Musk wanted to sell Tesla to Apple. He reached out to the Apple CEO. He refused to meet with him. These, and other failures, motivated him to keep trying.
An opportunity missed might present better opportunities ahead. According to Richard Branson, “business opportunities are like buses; there’s always another one coming around”.
Marcus Aurelius puts it succinctly, “the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way,”. The obstacle becomes the way.
We can turn trials into success stories.
Never give up.
Lesson 2: Really like what you do
“It’s really important to like what you do, if you don’t like it, life is too short,”.
Most of us think we have a thousand years to live. Do you ever imagine the number of ideas conceived and never upon? The worst mistake any entrepreneur does is to procrastinate over a brilliant idea.
If you really like what you do, never shy away from expressing your gifts or talents. Bring out the passion and enjoy the ride.
Your happiness should be your focus. Putting your happiness until you have more time or money is a mistake to avoid.
How to be a happier human being is to do the things that make you happy.
Tomorrow is a bonus, not a given.
Lesson 3: Don’t listen to the little man
“There’s nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker or smarter. Everything is within, everything exists, seek nothing outside of yourself,”- Miyamoto Musashi.
When you start a new project, avoid listening to the little man. Everyone advises you. Some will encourage you; others will discourage you.
Stephen King suffered rejections and denials for his famous book, Carrie. He got discouraged and tossed the manuscript in the garbage. His wife found out, retrieved the document and read through it. She convinced him to submit the work to the publisher.
It turned out an excellent work. Stephen King became rich and famous.
The billionaire’s number one maxim says that, ‘to create magic in the world, own the magic within yourself,’.
You need to listen more to yourself than the little man. The whispers push you to act.
Abishek Tiwari reminds us that, “your excuses are seducers, your fears are liars and your doubts are thieves,”.
Take that leap of faith.
Lesson 4: Take a risk
“Take risks now and do something bold, you won’t regret it,”.
To say that Elon Musk did something bold is an understatement. He belongs in another category.
The saying that failure inflates fearlessness had him in mind.
He never cared if people laughed at him or whether he failed. He never feared rejection. He believed, persevered, and continued.
JK Rowlings sums it aptly, “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all–in which case, you fail by default,”.
No risk, no gain.
Lesson 5: Do something important
“If something is important enough, try even if the probable outcome is a failure,”.
Vincent van Gogh was a legendary painter who created nine hundred paintings and over one thousand drawings during his lifetime.
He became a legend only after his death.
Art was important to him. He never bothered about the difficulties. His motivation was to do something different that outlived him.
Doing something important attracts mistakes along the way. This happens not because you do not know. It is because you are trying new things, learning and preparing to change the world.
If you live your life doing what truly matters, you will live a wonderful life.
Learn by trying new things.
Lesson 6: Focus on signal over noise
Do not be busy climbing the wrong mountain only to realize you were doing the wrong thing.
Put some focus around your daily goals. Organize your day starting with the most important tasks. Give people something to rally around and look forward to accomplishing.
Tesla focused on research and development, and manufacturing and design as part of its continuous innovation. They overcame the challenges to produce excellent products.
Lesson 7: Look for problem solvers
Talented people are givers, not takers; problem solvers and critical thinkers.
Look for intelligent, enterprising, healthy, productive and ethical people. Allow dreamers, adrenaline junks and perennial optimists into your organization.
When recruiting, look for problem-solvers and those with hands-on experience. Ask them to tell you how they solved a problem in the past. Focus on talents and skills.
It is those who do great things that win.
Lesson 8: Attract talented people
The people you interact with matter. We model the behavior of people around us.
The formula for innovation and progress is building a lifelong community of colleagues, acquaintances, friends and mentors.
The right people can help a company create a great product or service. Employ hardworking people with the right talent. If they focus in the right direction, the company succeeds.
Success in business starts with the right foundation. Recruit those who believe in the company vision and support the journey.
Avoid troublemakers, drama queens, and negativity kings.
Lesson 9: Have a great product
People buy products they trust.
Brand loyalty is because an organization offers something different to the customer.
Tesla gained new customers by maintaining a competitive advantage in the electric vehicle market. It achieved this through continuous innovation and improvements in manufacturing designs, vehicle and battery pack technology.
In the words of Harvey McKay, “there is a place in the world for any business that takes care of its customers–after the sale,”.
Have a great product. Your customers will spread the word.
Lesson 10: Work super hard
Work hard, get lucky.
Life is good to those who help themselves. Never fear failure. Never see yourself as a victim just because you failed.
You have the free will and power to make choices. Exercise them.
Elon’s formula for success is, “if someone is working 50 hours and you are working 100 hours, you will get twice as much done in the course of a year as the other company,”. Hard work pays. Achieve greatness in what you do.
Use the fullness of your talent.
The takeaways
Not everyone can be an entrepreneur.
It is those who build mental toughness when faced with rejection, adversity and failures that succeed. Those who remain focused, make daily improvements and take small steps win.
The lesson by Seneca is worth noting here, “no prize fighter can go with high spirits into the strife if he has never been beaten black and blue”. It is the man who has been down in body, but not in spirit, that rises to conquer.
One of Elon Musk’s best advice is to aspire. I couldn’t agree less with him.
If you aspire to succeed in any venture, learn to live by these rules:
· Seek improvement always.
· Resilience conquers frustration. Persistence is key.
· Fail faster, succeed sooner. Accept your mistakes. Learn the lessons and move on.
· Seek inspiration from successful people. Get a mentor. They have experience to share.
· You have greatness in you. Plant your seeds and watch them grow.
· Have a great attitude. It determines your altitude.
· Challenge yourself. Stretch your mind and act.
Mistakes are normal. You grow in anything you do. Success comes from the small steps you take.
The world is a moving classroom. Open your mind and learn.
Remember, relentless focus is the trademark of great entrepreneurs.
It takes passion, grit and relentless determination to succeed and be the richest man in the world.
Be like Elon Musk. Be special.
