The secret lesson from Elon Musk
This is the reason for his genius
The descriptions of Elon Musk range from a dangerous nutcase to a genius and everything in between. I had to laugh a bit at Leon de Winter who recently wrote this in his column in De Telegraaf: “Musk bounced with enthusiasm across the stage. Without a doubt, Musk is a genius, but when it comes to intense emotions, he can go wild like an eight-year-old who has just received his favorite toy.”
How many billion?
You can find all sorts of things about Elon Musk, but we can agree that we are dealing with a genius here, right? He is 53 and has a fortune of 330 billion. That is about as much money as 70 % of all Dutch households -including houses and Hermès bags- combined. Immediately after his two studies (he first delved into Physics and then continued with Economics at the University of Pennsylvania), he started with startups that are all intensely different, but they all share the common denominator of looking at the world just a little differently. A selection of companies that came from his mind.
Zip2: An online city guide
X.com: An online payment service that would later merge into PayPal.
SpaceX: Founded in 2002 with the goal of revolutionizing space travel.
Tesla, Inc.: Where he has played a key role in the development of electric vehicles since 2004.
Neuralink: A company focused on the development of brain-computer interfaces.
The Boring Company: Focused on innovative tunnel construction technologies.
xAI: An artificial intelligence startup.
Now I was so curious about what distinguishes him as an entrepreneur from others. What makes his genius? Well, I found it, and it is striking.
Sleeping at the office
Besides reading -Elon Musk can completely immerse himself in a subject and devour every letter written about it- and working very hard -Musk calmly rolls out a mat on the work floor so he can perform for at least 18 hours a day- he has a very special secret.
Failing as a success formula
If Elon Musk were to witness College Tour by Twan Huys and was asked what he would like to pass on to other entrepreneurs, his answer would be; Fail! If you don’t fail, you haven’t tried something new. You have to go off-piste to do something different than what others have already done. In Musk's view, it’s not about doing things better, faster, or more effectively within the beaten paths. He wants to do it differently. And to achieve that, you have to bite into something, work hard, dare, but see failure as proof that you have gone to the limit. And you learn from failure.
Thus, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink have all gone through periods of failure, but Musk has turned the lows into highs again.
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
So if you feel stuck in a process, remember that you are at the bottom of the letter U and that the top follows after that. Gather the pieces and build something new from there.
Sources: People.com RTL.nl
