7 Motivational Life Lessons From Elon Musk
Originally published at lmt-lss.com on February 9, 2016.
A true genius, Elon Musk has a lot to teach us. Let’s get down to cracking his code of success.
CEO of Tesla Motors, CTO of SpaceX and chairman of SolarCity, Elon Musk is one of most successful and influential businessmen, leaders and innovators today. Here are 10 lessons we can learn from him.
1. Don’t go easy on your work.
Elon Musk works 100 hours a week. The man built giant companies like Tesla Motors and SpaceX not out of sheer play of luck or business influence. He worked hours together to attain the amount of success he has today.
2. Solve human problems.
Every idea that Elon Musk has implemented is from a desire to solve human problems. He introduced Powerwall — a solar powered battery — to eliminate mankind’s dependency on exhaustible resources for electricity.
3. Imagine without boundaries.
Our education systems currently are not supportive of experimenting with or expanding our imagination. They teach students to think within certain limits. Musk abhors such an insubstantial system of thinking. He believes in thinking and imagining without boundaries. How else could he come up with the idea of Hypeloop Rail System?
4. Hire super-talented people from around the world.
Elon Musk admits that the biggest challenge for any organisation is in getting super-talented people. So he makes it a priority to scout for the best thinkers and dreamers from around the world to work for him. His major investment goes in finding the best ones out there.
5. Don’t stick to past achievements.
Musk has run a number of successful businesses: PayPal, ZipZ, Tesla Motors, to name a few. He has earned enough money to live lavishly for the rest of his life. He can spend his time talking about all his successes in interviews and keynote speeches. But instead of doing that he works every day. He believes in moving forward instead of always talking about his past achievements.
6. Know your product well.
Elon Musk often spends a good amount of his time knowing about his products. For instance, he often takes a 3200 miles ride in Tesla S Model along with his kids to get a good first-hand experience of his own product. This allows him to gain more insights to develop a better model in the future.
7. Embrace failure.
Elon Musk appears like a businessman who’s been lucky with success. Everything he’s every started is booming with fortune today. But if we scratch a little beneath the surface we’ll come to know about the number of failures he’s experienced in his life. Tesla Motors and SpaceX were not overnight sensations. Both companies were bankrupt in 2008. Musk had to borrow money from friends to cover expenses. Yet, none of these failures bogged him down.
