elonology.com

Tag: Leading by Example

  • Have Fun With Your Business

    Have Fun With Your Business

    The “Joy” Engine: Powering Your Startup with Play

    Flame throwers, Teslaquila, Short shorts.

    These are three of the many fun products Elon and his companies have created.

    Elon is not afraid to have fun with the products he sells, and how he promotes them.

    Elon often has fun with his Twitter bio, for example.  His Twitter bio has said “Meme necromancer” and “Former CEO of Dogecoin” before.

    He’s also co-hosted a Meme review show on YouTube and often posts savage memes on Twitter.

    One video of Elon has him standing on top of a giant SpaceX ball of liquid oxygen saying: “Here we are on top of a giant ball of liquid oxygen.  They say SpaceX has big balls and it’s true.”

    Elon has a great sense of humor and is great at integrating fun into the products his companies sell.

    With Tesla a couple examples include the customizable horn, which can choose between a standard horn sound, or you can choose: Farts, goat, snake, applause, and more.  The more option enables you to upload whatever sound you want to use for the horn.

    Other fun Tesla options include: Romance Mode, which will display a video of wood logs on a fire and plays romantic music.

    Build fun into your products and you can’t go wrong.

    Party/Camper mode is also coming soon.

    Elon said in a tweet: “We’re adding a “party & camper mode” soon to S/3/X, so your car can maintain air flow, temp, selective lights, music & power devices for 48 hours or more while parked. Big batteries rock…”

    Wikipedia: An Easter egg is a term used to describe a message, image, or feature hidden in a video game, film, or other, usually in electronics, medium.

    Tesla has a number of fun Easter eggs integrated into their products.

    To be specific Wikipedia currently has a page dedicated to them and lists 17 unique and fun easter eggs.

    Some of these Easter eggs get the car to play music and do a light show, featuring the Falcon wing doors on the Model X.

    Others take inspiration from Back to The Future, Rick and Morty, Mario Kart, James Bond, or Monty Python.

    One of the latest features enables Tesla owners to choose from a variety of horn sounds, and includes the ability to add a custom horn sound if you wish.

    All of these features have one awesome thing in common: Fun.

    Make your business fun and more people will talk about it.

    There are many ways to make your business more fun so feel free to be creative with what you do.

    My Dad, Peter, built a Plinko style game his HVAC business uses at trade shows to give prizes to customers.  This works well as an ice breaker and helps the sales team to generate new leads.

    At the xAi Christmas party in 2025 they had robots in a cage match boxing each other.

    Having fun and being part of a fun promotion is a great way to get people interested in your company and promoting it with word of mouth marketing for free.

    Fun and Tesla Games

    Tesla vehicles come with a number of games built into their infotainment system.

    With full self-driving autonomy on the verge of widespread adoption Elon says entertainment will become increasingly important once more cars become fully self-driving.

    This will keep passengers entertained during long trips when the mental task of driving the vehicle is no longer required.

    Elon has described a Tesla as “A computer with wheels” and as time goes on they are looking more and more like a gaming computer on wheels, which is good news for all of the gamers out there.

    • The Mobile Arcade: Tesla’s infotainment system is already a gamer’s paradise, but this is just the beginning.
    • The FSD Shift: As autonomy frees us from the steering wheel, Elon predicts entertainment will become the primary cabin experience.
    • Engineering Joy: From custom horn sounds to hidden Easter eggs, Teslas are designed to prioritize “Fun” as a core metric.
    • The Bottom Line: Expect the future of Tesla to look less like a vehicle and more like a rolling entertainment suite.

    Elon even joked about being “The king of car farts” since the horn on a Tesla can be customized for any sound you want, like a whoopie cushion.

    Tesla’s are engineered to be super fun machines so in the future expect many fun Tesla innovations to come.

  • Build a Fantastic Future

    Build a Fantastic Future

    The New Frontier: Why We Must Dream Big to Save Humanity

    If you look at each of Elon’s businesses they solve huge problems in emerging markets where there is little competition.

    When Elon helped build PayPal they were the only email money transferring solution in the world.

    SpaceX is the first private company to send a spacecraft (Dragon) to the ISS, and the first company to create reusable rockets.

    Tesla is the world’s leading and first highly successful electric car company.  And as of 2020 Tesla is the most valuable car company in the world.

    In his USC commencement speech Elon recommends “Don’t just follow the trend” and his actions have certainly followed this advice.

    To reap the greatest rewards, focus on innovation.  Be fuelled by competition but focus on innovation.

    Strive to innovate to such a degree that there are no competitors.  

    Elon’s Billionaire business associate Peter Thiel writes on this topic in his book Zero to One.

    If you want to create and capture lasting value, seek to innovate and create a monopoly.

    Monopolies by definition transcend competition and are how the greatest business profits can be achieved.

  • Relentlessly Improve Your Products

    Relentlessly Improve Your Products

    elon-musk-in-factory-grok

    Incremental Gains, Monumental Success.

    In a 2020 video interview with the Wall Street Journal Elon shares advice geared towards other CEO’s: 

    Elon recommends CEO’s “Spend less time with finance and in conference rooms and on powerpoint and spend more time trying to make your product as amazing as possible.” 

    “Make your product better.  That is what really matters.”

    Step 1: “Have You Tried?  Like really tried.”

    Step 2: “Try Harder”

    This reminds me of one of my favorite Elon quotes of all time, which he shared with a bunch of high schoolers who he did a Hack Club ask me anything video chat with.  Elon said: 

    “You’ve got to try.  Believe in yourself and try.  People can do way more than they think.”

    Be an absolute perfectionist about the product you produce or the service you provide.

    As I write this I just put down my phone and stopped a doom scroll on Christmas to shift my attention to Elonology.  Because I’m taking Elon’s advice to Try Harder and do what is necessary to make this book great.

    The company that invests the most effort and produces the most beneficial innovations is likely to win long term.

  • Elon’s Edge: The Power of Radical Obsession

    Elon’s Edge: The Power of Radical Obsession

    The Musk Mindset: Why Average Is Not an Option

    Elon has been known to spend so much time working he will actually sleep in the Tesla and SpaceX factories.

    And it’s not as if he has a plush bedroom in a factory loft or something.  In one Interview Elon showed the plain couch in a Tesla conference room he slept on, and said it was so uncomfortable he ended up sleeping on the floor.

    Sleeping in his factories and at his business locations is something Elon does to this day, even as one of the richest humans alive.

    In a recent interview (Dec 2020) when Elon was accepting the Axel Springer award in Germany the interviewer asked Elon where he was spending the night.

    Elon replied: In the German Tesla factory.  The interviewer asked where in the factory?  Elon replied in the conference room.

    That’s right, the world’s second wealthiest man chooses to spend the night in the conference room of a factory rather than a fancy hotel.

    When asked about this on a Clubhouse audio chat he admitted that not only has he slept in the conference room, he has also slept outside of it, in a sleeping bag on the concrete factory floor.

    That’s the level of obsession that is required for Elon’s kind of success.

  • Be Extremely Tenacious

    Be Extremely Tenacious

    The Power of Extreme Persistence: Lessons from Elon Musk’s Near-Bankruptcies

    Here is a definition for the word Tenacious: 

    Adjective Not readily relinquishing a position, principle, or course of action; determined.

    The determination to keep going when the going gets tough is what saved SpaceX and Tesla when both were on the verge of bankruptcy.

    Elon poured all of his money from the sale of PayPal into these companies so they could survive and his tenacity in doing so saved them from insolvency.

    The perseverance and hard work Elon has shown in making every company he has worked with a success reminds me of this quote from Steve Jobs:

    I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

    Elon met Steve Jobs once and said Steve was a jerk to him after Google co-founder Larry Page introduced him…but nonetheless Elon has praised Steve and uses Apple products like the iPhone (in combination with PC’s) to this day.

    Despite the snubbing from Steve Jobs Elon seems to respect him for his tenacity and craftsmanship. Elon shared this video below where Jobs shares a Rock Tumbler metaphor. I recommend you check it out:

  • Make People Wait (Timing is Everything)

    Make People Wait (Timing is Everything)

    The Power of Strategic Delays

    Elon is notorious for running late.

    When he was a kid his brother Kimbal would tell him the actual time was ahead of time so Elon would make it to the bus on time for school.

    These days Elon claims to still have a problem with punctuality but people are definitely willing to wait.

    Waiting builds anticipation…

    The Tesla Plaid event was one of many great examples of this.  Rather than launching exactly on time the June 2021 event was scheduled for…

    It started 21 minutes late.

    The Tesla 2021 Q2 earning call (which blew everyone away with Tesla netting over a billion in profit) started a few minutes late as well.

    The reason for these delays I believe is a strategic one.

    Elon has said “Timing is everything” in the past and he certainly is not ignorant of the importance of time.

    A smart sales strategy is to spend as much time with your prospect as possible.

    Long form webinars often have a superior conversion rate to short webinars for high priced products, for example.

    This is because people value their time and when more time is invested there is more pressure for people to take action so they can realize a positive ROI for their time spent.

    Another example of this is the “sideways sales letter” product launch formula pioneered by Jeff Walker.

    This formula has produced over a billion in launches and leverages anticipation built by a series of videos over a week or so launch sequence to maximize profit on launch day.

    Make people wait and – so long as you don’t piss them off and make them leave – you get more power in the situation.

    Anticipation amplifies enjoyment when the product/service waited for finally comes through.

    How Musk’s Timing Works

    • Timeboxing/Time-Blocking: He divides his day into tiny, fixed blocks (often 5 minutes) for specific tasks (engineering, emails, family).
    • Task Batching: Grouping similar tasks together to handle them efficiently.
    • Prioritization: Focusing on core engineering and manufacturing problems, spending most time there.
    • Eliminating Decisions: Pre-planning prevents wasting time deciding what to do next. 

    The Core Philosophy

    • Work Expands to Fill Time: He uses strict blocks to prevent tasks from taking longer than they should (Parkinson’s Law).
    • Feedback Loops: He constantly refines his schedule using feedback to improve efficiency.
  • Never Give Up

    Never Give Up

    elon-musk-never-give-up

    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.

  • Do Your Chores

    Do Your Chores

    Choose to do your chores.

    If your chores stack up too high your stress will mount and your success will dwindle…

    So don’t let that be you.

    Make sure you do what you need to do to ensure healthy operation of the enterprise you are operating.

    “I’d love to just do innovation and just do engineering but alot of life in general and any job you have to do your chores…

    I think to be successful at almost anything you have to do the tough stuff as well as the enjoyable stuff.  You have to do the boring stuff as well as the non-boring stuff.   And if you don’t do your chores then bad things will happen…

    Like it’s more fun to cook the meal than to clean the dishes, but you need to clean the dishes.  You need to do both.”

    Do what is absolutely necessary and in doing so you will afford yourself the ability to enjoy the arbitrary.

  • Beyond Money: How Noble Missions Turn Profit into More Power (Elon Musk’s Way)

    Beyond Money: How Noble Missions Turn Profit into More Power (Elon Musk’s Way)

    Elon Musk on Profit: It’s Proof You’re Adding Real Value

    In his Kahn academy interview with Sal Kahn Elon said:

    “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with profit, in fact profit just means that people are paying you more for whatever you are doing than you are spending to create it…

    And that’s a good thing.  If that’s not the case then you would be out of business and rightfully so because you’re not adding enough value.”

    So add more value.  Stack on bonuses.  Strengthen your offer by finding ways to improve your product.

    Elon explains by investing in his own companies it becomes easier to ask others to do the same.

    In a Milken Institute Interview Elon was asked: “You put a lot of your eggs in one basket.  Would you advise entrepreneurs to roll the bones quite the way you did?”

    Elon: “Yeah absolutely! I think it’s worth investing your own capital in what you do.  I don’t believe in the sort of other people’s money thing…

    I think if you’re not willing to put your own assets at stake then you shouldn’t ask other people to do that.”

    Elon is all in with having skin in the game.

    By investing more of his own money into growing his businesses Elon has more invested, and more reasons to stay focused on fully optimizing the businesses he is invested in.

    When you are willing to invest everything into your businesses you have every reason to make it work.

    Find a noble reason beyond profit to make your business work – and this will likely boost your profitability.

    SpaceX is currently the most profitable rocket company but at one point they had never sent a rocket to orbit and were running deep in the red.

    But they pulled through and made it to orbit with the fourth launch!

    So why take the risk? Elon explains his bigger than money motive:

    “Now is the first time in the history of Earth the windows has opened where it is possible for us to extend life to another planet…the wise move is to make life multiplanetary while we can.” (AGU)

    It’s not about the odds of success as much as it is about the importance of the mission: “If something is important enough, then you should do it anyway.”

    Having a super human mission is the superhuman effort realized to help achieve it.

  • Be Willing to Sacrifice

    Be Willing to Sacrifice

    “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…

    Write it down…

    And do it!