Life Advice From Elon Musk

People have changed the world in the past. People remember these people for their important work in science, politics, culture, and other fields.

They stand out from the crowd because of the astounding inventiveness of their work. In this context, we are referring to things such as Darwin, Einstein, and now :

Elon Musk

Some individuals have extraordinary intelligence; it is a gift from God. Some people have what it takes to break through the achievement barrier because they are hard workers with a lot of attitude and passion. Because I watch a lot of sports, the first comparison that comes to mind is Lionel Messi vs. Cristiano Ronaldo.

Messi is a talisman and an artist, and he is capable of doing everything he wants with football. He is one of the finest works that God has ever created. On the other hand, Ronaldo has an unrivaled level of resolve and an unbreakable spirit, which enables him to go into battle by himself and emerge victorious.

I’ll offer you a use case. You are about to go on a quest that is very important. If you want to be successful in the task, you are going to have to choose one of the two possibilities.

— A bright talent

— A tenacious and persevering character with a steely disposition

Who do you think you should pick?

If I had to pick, I’d go with the latter option, which is more like Elon Musk.

Elon Musk’s life has been a dramatic roller coaster trip, the kind that would have you on the edge of your seat the whole time you watched it. His unwavering commitment serves as a model and a lesson for anybody who aspires to achieve success in all aspects of their lives.

Failures are the building blocks upon which success is built.

Failure and success are two things that are a part of every person’s life and can’t be separated. The way in which we fall short and the way in which we recover from those shortcomings are what determine who we are. It is not enough to just fail; rather, we must make an effort to improve based on our past mistakes.

It is imperative that we do not continue to make the same error. Edison did not succeed the first 10,000 times he tried to make a light bulb; but, he did learn 10,000 times how not to build the light bulb. Another essential factor that must be taken into consideration is to avoid making the same errors again. If Edison had continued to make the same errors, he probably wouldn’t have discovered as many other methods to not construct the bulb… right?

The life of Elon Musk has been filled with a multitude of failures, yet he has transformed each failure into a success in his own right.

In 1995, Elon Musk sent his resume to Netscape, one of the most prominent online companies at the time (Netscape created the first web browser, Netscape Navigator). Not only did his application not get a response, but he was also not given any attention by anybody at the firm when he went there in person. He waited in the lobby of Netscape but was unable to engage in conversation with anybody because of his extreme shyness. He departed.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t attempt to create a firm; instead, I would apply for a position at Netscape,”

Regardless, in the year 1996, Musk started Zip2, a web software firm that he would later sell to Compaq for a total of $220 million in the year 1999.

Musk launched Zip2, a web-based business that offers customizable city guides, by selling the service door-to-door to firms in Silicon Valley. Zip2 is a free resource. Musk was demoted by the company he started because the board of directors didn’t trust his ability to lead as CEO, even though he was able to get enough investors to back the company.

Compaq’s purchase of Zip2 in 1999 resulted in Elon Musk receiving a windfall of $22 million while he was just 28 years old.

In 2008, Tesla came perilously close to going out of business. His three businesses—Tesla, Solar City, and SpaceX—were all operating at a financial loss. He supported himself with money from personal debts. However, he did not give up trying. To ensure the continued success of Tesla, he put his own personal fortune of $40 million into the company. He said that the last year was one of the most difficult of his whole life.

At the end of the year 2008, his perseverance, faith, and belief paid off. Both SpaceX and Tesla were successful in attracting investors. SpaceX was awarded a contract by NASA. What happened after that, as the saying goes, is history.

The ability to pick yourself up and try again is what really matters, not whether or not you succeed in the end. Sir Winston Spencer Churchill

Deconstruct the issue into its component parts.

When seen in their entirety, most issues seem insurmountable; what differentiates geniuses from the rest of us is how they tackle these challenges. Untangling a complex issue is analogous to putting together the pieces of a jigsaw. You have a more comprehensive image in your head, but in order to get where you’re going, you have to piece together many more manageable components. When putting together a project with several smaller parts, one has to have an open mind. The correct parts have to be assembled in the right places.

When we have a preference for one answer over another, it might cloud our vision and prevent us from seeing the other options. We shouldn’t begin with the solution, and we shouldn’t begin our investigation of the issue by coming up with our conclusions. Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, is credited with coining the phrase “first principles” and held the belief that the most effective method for gaining an understanding of a topic is to reduce it to its most essential aspects.

This ‘basic principles’ notion is one that Elon Musk has a strong commitment to. When he was faced with the problem of expensive battery packs, he used the idea of “first principles” to break the problem down into its parts. It was a widely held idea that the cost of battery packs would never go down. However, Musk had different thoughts. He devoted a great deal of his effort to study the components that made up the battery.

It is made up of cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, a sealed container, and some polymers that help keep things separate.

He came to the conclusion that it would be more cost-effective to purchase the raw materials from the London Metal Exchange, which is the global hub for the trade of industrial metals, and then he spent some time thinking of a novel method to mix them. That is the tale of how Elon Musk was able to get inexpensive batteries.

“The greatest challenge facing humanity might have been overcome while it was still in its infancy.” — Witter Bynner, a Poet and Author from the United States

There is no easy way to achieve success.

Without putting up the effort, no desire can ever be realized. The more ambitious one’s goals, the more work will be required to achieve them. To get ready for a tasty victory, we will need to be persistent and work hard at putting together the things we need.

Elon Musk elevated laborious efforts to a whole new level. During the time that he was working on Zip2, he would often sleep on the sofa in their cramped apartment. In the past, he had been known to shower at a local organization (YMCA).

To quote him directly:

“Make the most of every waking minute. If you do the easy math and assume that someone else is working 50 hours [a week] and that you are working 100, then you will get twice [as much] done in the course of a year as the other firm.

He continues to put in between 80 and 100 hours of labor each week, and he never breaks his routine of sleeping on the sofa at Tesla.

No one that I know of has achieved success without putting in a lot of effort. That is the method to follow. It is not guaranteed to take you all the way to the top, but it should bring you fairly close — Theresa Margaret Thatcher

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