Fear is a Choice: Mastering the Psychology of Risk
Fearlessness is not the answer.
If it was, fear would not exist.
Instead of shrinking from fearful situations, feel the fear and do it anyway.
Conquering your fears is powerful.
In an interview with Y Combinator about How to Build the Future Elon discusses fear and the importance of not letting it stop you on your mission:
“I actually think I feel fear quite strongly. So it’s not as though I have the absence of fear, I feel it quite strongly…
But there are times when something is important enough and you believe in it enough that you do it in spite of fear…
Like people shouldn’t think ‘Well I feel fear about this and therefore I shouldn’t do it.’ It’s normal to feel fear. There’d have to be something mentally wrong if you didn’t feel fear.”
The powerful difference Elon has realized is in his ability to not listen to the naysayers and instead to work hard and boldly create positive solutions, in spite of fear.
Elon also shared “Something that can be quite helpful is fatalism, to some degree. If you just accept the probabilities, then that diminishes fear.”
Don’t Fear Failure
In an interview Musk has stated that he originally thought Tesla would fail.
When asked why he would start a company that he didn’t think would be successful his answer was:
“If something is important enough you should try even if the probable outcome is failure.”
Elon wanted to get rid of the perception that electric cars are ugly and slow.
Although entirely changing the way the public perceives a product class is no easy task Elon and the Tesla team made it happen.
The Tesla Model S sedan topped Consumer Reports’ annual customer satisfaction ratings two years in a row.
8 years later the Plaid version of the Model S became the fastest car in the world and the first production car ever to go 0-60 in under two seconds.