Persistence is how you overcome resistance. An interviewer asked Elon what he thought about the challenges with launching an orbital rocket in the early days of SpaceX.
Interviewer: After that third rocket failure did you think about giving up?
Elon:Never. I don’t ever give up. I mean (if I was going to give up) I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated.
Try, try harder, and try again.
And believe in yourself. You can only achieve great success when you keep trying and truly believe you can.
To achieve a goal it helps to believe you can achieve it.
After Elon’s first big success (Selling Zip2 to Compaq) he was featured in a CNN video about dot com millionaires.
The video shows a young Elon (In his late 20’s) accepting delivery of his one million dollar McLaren F1, one of only 62 in the world.
The best part about the video is the ending of the video where 28 year old Elon says: “I’d like to be on the cover of the Rolling Stone. That’d be cool.”
Oh, and by the way, Elon Has made it to the cover of Rolling Stone multiple times…
He’s also made it onto Time Magazine as man of the year and on numerous other magazine covers as well.
He cut his own hair for the image that made it to the cover of Time.
Elon’s dreams remind me of the Goethe quote: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
— “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”
When contemplating the meaning of life Elon found answers that resonated with him within one of his favorite books of all time: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.
In the book Douglas points out: “One of the really tough things is figuring out what questions to ask.”
Elon used this insight as a stepping stone to answer the question “What is the meaning of life?” He said:
“I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.“
Certainly striving for greater enlightenment is an excellent answer.
In Douglas Adams’ book the answer 42 is the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything.
Questioning the current state of things and how they can be improved is the starting point of all innovation.
Change is the most enduring constant so in order to have consistently relevant answers the questions we ask must change over time as well.
Better questions lead to better answers, so never stop questioning how to make the world around you better.
Also be sure to ask yourself on an ongoing basis: “What are the best actions I can execute on to make progress and improve my life?”
Having a monthly system of measurable objectives and key results is a great way to make progress on an ongoing basis.
“If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want will be the sacrifice.” ~Elon Musk
Tesla faced a severe threat of death during the Model Three production round.
“The company was bleeding money like crazy and if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period of time we would die.
It was extremely difficult to solve them…
So I started working seven days a week, sleeping in the factory. I worked in the paint shop, general assembly, body shop…
Interviewer: Do you ever worry about yourself imploding because it’s too much?
Elon: “Yeah, absolutely. Noone should put this many hours into work. This is not good. They should not do this. This is very painful…
It hurts my brain and my heart. It hurts. This is not recommended for anyone. I just did it because if I didn’t there was a good chance Tesla would die.”
Elon is committed to the success of Tesla and SpaceX above all else it seems, and this gives him a competitive edge.
While Elons competitors are spending time with their families, watching TV, or spending time in one of a million other ways, Elon is grinding. And the grind creates greatness.
Sometimes getting the win means losing out and sacrificing other areas of your life.
If you choose to work 90 hours a week your personal life will suffer.
And the harder you try to win the more sacrifices you will need to make in other areas of life.
Priorities are everything. Priorities dictate how you allocate your time.
The thing about priorities is they are a continuum…so you need to remind yourself on a regular basis what matters to you. Reminders are powerful.
This is why every single day you should write down your priorities.
Winners win because winners take the actions needed to win. So figure out what you need to do…
Elon has personally been involved in the interviews of the first 3,000 SpaceX employees. Certainly he’s learned a thing or two in the process.
At the World Government Summit Elon was asked “How do you choose your team?”
Elon replied: “I suppose honestly it tends to be gut feel more than anything else…
So when I interview somebody my interview questions are always the same. I say: ‘Tell me the story of your life’
And the decisions you made along the way and why you made them.
Also: ‘Tell me about some of the most difficult problems you worked on and how you solved them’ and that question I think is very important because the people that really solved the problem they know exactly how they solved it.
They know the little details. And the people who pretended to know how to solve the problem can maybe go one level and then they get stuck.”
Nonetheless small and strong is often superior to large and clunky.
Or as Elon would say: “A small group of very technically strong people will always beat a large group of moderately strong people.”
Only by striving for perfection can you hope to come close to achieving it.
Elon is constantly striving for perfection with his companies.
At STCP Future Fest he said:
“Aspirationally, we’re in pursuit of the platonic ideal of the perfect car. Who knows what that looks like actually, but you want to try to make every element of the car as flawless as possible…
There will always be some degree of imperfection, but we try to minimize that and create a car that is just delightful in every way.”
Perfection might be an impossible ideal but by striving for it you can get closer to achieving the idea.
Why would Elon Musk choose to sleep on the factory floor you might ask?
Because while he was asking Tesla employees to work around the clock to achieve company goals he was right there with them.
Elon leads by example.
Leading by example is a powerful way to lead.
When Elon needs to stay at a factory to get something done he stays and will get the work done.
On a Clubhouse app audio recording Elon shared how he slept on the factory floor, with the smell of iron filings in the air, because he wanted Tesla employees to see him there giving it his all for Tesla and the team…
Those who have seen Elon sleeping on a factory floor have witnessed Elon’s level of work ethos.
Seeing is believing.
But if you see something online you should be more careful with thinking what you see happened in real life. Image in this post is made by Elon’s Ai company Grok.
From Oranges to Starships: A Strategy From Elon’s Startup
When Elon was first starting out in business in the USA, he lived on $1 per day to alleviate some of the financial worry that comes with having a new business that is in the pre-profitability stage.
He ate a lot of oranges and hot dogs during those days, he claims.
“I figured if I could live off a dollar a day then, at least from a food stand point, it’s pretty easy to earn $30 a month.”
Elon didn’t do it because he was poor. He did it to see if he had what it takes to lead life as an entrepreneur.
Since he was successful with this experiment he knew that money wouldn’t be an issue if he could keep his budget tight.
By experimenting with what it actually felt to be poor Elon realized he could do it if he had to.
And this helped give him extra confidence so he could go all in and win.
Note about the pic: Elon and Kanye are friends. Ye posted “When you go to your boys house and you’re both wearing orange.“
Fun Fact: Elon owned etymology.com also features the Orange emoji.
Alleviate Stress and Focus on Success
By not having to worry about the cost of food Elon was able to pour more energy into his business without the burden of stress.
In an interview with Engineering dot com Elon said:
“It’s relatively easy to start a company, you just need to get a few like minded people with you and then focus on creating a prototype,a compelling prototype, as soon as possible…
And then there’s a strong venture capital industry in this country that will give you funding to take things to the next level and that’s all there is to it…
You may or may not succeed but sometimes I think people fear starting a company too much. You have to say really what’s the worst that could go wrong?
You’re not going to starve to death, you’re not going to die of exposure, what’s the worst that could go wrong?“
Business is not usually anywhere as risky as jumping out of a plane.
Having a budget and tracking your inflow and outflow of capital will help you eliminate potential financial stressors and gain greater clarity around the important tasks you need to complete for your business to succeed.
By evaluating the worst that could go wrong you can plan for the worst and find motivation to do the hard work needed to help ensure your outcome is positive.
Elon interviewed the first ~3,000 people who work for SpaceX personally.
He says a mistake he has made in the past is hiring people for their brain and not taking their heart into consideration.
A practical way to apply this strategy to your business is to think bigger with your hiring.
If you can hire a location independent position, meaning your employee could work from anywhere, then you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t source talent outside of your local area.
Cast a wider net when you hire and you will give yourself a better chance of connecting with someone great.
Look for evidence of exceptional ability and you will give yourself a better chance of working with exceptional people.
Elon says to ask detailed questions about challenging problems the interviewee had to overcome. If they were involved in the problem solving they will be able to describe the nuance needed to prevail above the problem. This is how you can identify problem solvers and get them on your team.
