LESSONS FROM ELON MUSK
Elon Musk is one of the trailblazing entrepreneurs of our times. By age 46, he built companies that disrupted three industries – PayPal (Financial Services), Tesla Motors (Automobiles) and SpaceX (Aerospace).
Here are six lessons from the genius that is Musk which we can apply in our lives.
1. Dream Big
In 1999, Elon Musk’s company Zip2 got acquired by Compaq Computers in 1999 for $307 million. In 2002, Musk alone made $180 million when eBay acquired PayPal.
But rather than sitting back and turning into an investor, Elon went on to challenge seemingly un-disruptable industries like automobiles, oil, aerospace, energy utilities and more which traditionally favored incumbents.
Each of Elon’s current (and future) ventures is about making a positive impact on society more than making profits.
First principles thinking enables you to spot opportunities early and identify what’s possible in the present rather than fixating on things that were possible around two decades ago. By staying updated with the facts of the world as they change real-time, you’re not just able to dream big but also take action to pursue them.
When Steve Wonder visited the Tesla HQ, he placed his hand on a car and said, “You’re going to enable people like me to drive someday.” That’s a big dream, a dent in the universe.
What are your big dreams? And how will you work towards fulfilling them?
2. Never Fear Failure
Just five months after Elon Musk started X.com, his co-founder initiated a coup and poached engineers from the company. At PayPal, Musk got relegated from CEO to an advisor to the company. The team at SpaceX suffered one crushing failure after another.
But through all this, Musk kept going. His friends credit this to his ability to stay focused in the midst of a crisis by becoming “hyperrational” rather than buckling under pressure and making bad decisions.
Setbacks are part of the journey. Learn from them. Use them as fuel to pursue what you want, discover your unique skills, and ensure that they reach an audience who needs what you offer.
3. Follow Your Interest
Elon Musk is interested in a wide variety of things, and he has shamelessly followed those interests. His main field of interest is technology, but he’s used this interest to delve into the realms of space travel, the internet, sustainable energy and transportation. And with each of Elon’s interests, his empire has expanded, and even more importantly, he developed further his skill set.
Too often we’re told to specialize, to narrow our field of study until we find the one thing that we can bring to the world. And we’re never told that we don’t have to do that. Learning new things teaches us new skills, new ways to interact with the world. And as Elon Musk’s success shows, this can be of great benefit both to our own lives and to the future of the planet itself.
What are you interested in? What interests have you left behind because you’re too busy or they’re not profitable enough? You never know when something might suddenly bear fruit, so make room in your life for the things you enjoy. You can do this by setting good habits to make sure this actually gets done. Consciously following your interests like this will make you a far more interesting and well-rounded person than you would be if you just worked all the time.
4. Work ''Super Hard''
Elon is a hardcore Workaholic: he has been working 100 hours a week since a lot many years. According to him, if other people are putting in 40 hours in a week, and you’re putting in 100, you will achieve in four months, what it takes them a year to achieve. That’s the kind of work ethic an entrepreneur needs to have.
He Works Harder than humanly possible but even if you are an average guy working 150% more than others, it still gives you the edge.
5. Never Stop Learning
Musk is a ferocious reader and always has been. According to his brother Kimbal, young Elon would often read for ten hours a day. And when asked how he built the knowledge on rocket science required to start SpaceX, Musk said he did so by reading all the relevant books on the topic.
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LESSONS FROM ELON MUSK
By TradeFlo
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