How did Elon Musk achieve his remarkable success?

(Examining Elon Musk's success through the lenses of energy and wisdom)

Elon Musk is considered one of the greatest entrepreneurs and innovators. He has founded and co-founded several groundbreaking companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, the Boring Company, Neuralink, and Open AI.

Elon Musk has dramatically reshaped several industries, even without having previous experience in those fields. This is exemplified by his leadership at Tesla, where he turned the company into a dominant force in the electric vehicle market. Similarly, with SpaceX, he has pioneered advancements in space travel, fundamentally altering the industry. These examples underscore how Musk's innovative approach and vision have allowed him to revolutionize sectors traditionally dominated by incumbents with extensive experience.

What “magic” happened to Elon Musk? Let's explore Musk's achievements by examining how his motivation, vision, and action reflect his remarkable energy and wisdom.

Firstly, Elon Musk derives extraordinary energy and wisdom from his motivation: Doing things he loves that have positively impacts on society.

Doing the things he loves helps him find joy in doing. You don't have to work when the source of happiness is in your work. You want to work!

Musk said: “It’s very important that you really like what you’re doing. You think about it even when you’re not working, something that your mind is drawn to. If you don’t like it, you just can’t make it work, I think.”

Elon Musk’s motivation is not for himself but for humanity. He claimed: “I really do not have any other motivation for personally accumulating assets except to be able to make the biggest contribution I can to making life multi-planetary.”

This motivation gave birth to SpaceX, the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. This profound motivation not only fuels Musk's remarkable energy but also activates his most exceptional qualities, including inspiration, patience, and intelligence. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt notes that such elevated motivations and their behavioral manifestations can be viewed as outcomes of eudaimonia. Aristotle conceptualized eudaimonia as the “pursuit of virtue, excellence, and the realization of the best within us”.

Musk’s intense drive is one element that makes up his great success. (You may want to read “Your motivation is your true treasure” in Chapter 5)

Secondly, Elon Musk’s extraordinary energy and wisdom came from his Vision: He undertakes crucial endeavors that fulfill global needs and focuses on the ultimate goal.

Musk aimed at doing essential things to humanity that very few people attempted to do. Musk’s relentless pursuit of making humanity a multi-planetary species with SpaceX, revolutionizing the automotive industry with Tesla’s electric vehicles, and advancing brain-machine interfaces with Neuralink demonstrated his willingness to tackle the most significant challenges of our time. 

How did this vision fuel such extraordinary energy in Musk? Becoming a hero in times of global need instills a profound sense of purpose. Discovering that one's talents can meet these needs brings deep satisfaction, even from the process alone. This profound sense of meaning and purpose in the work process generates an endless wellspring of inspiration and energy, enabling Musk to work tirelessly. As Viktor E. Frankl wrote in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how.'”

When you engage in something nourishing, love infuses every action you take. Your vision and what you do become your source of energy. (The essence of love is energy). You’re pulled by the energy of your vision, of your mission. Rumi, a Sufi mystic, said: “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

Having a clear vision is akin to sculpting a precise mold for your energy, allowing it to materialize into concrete form. Psychological theories on self-identity and behavior state that a clear vision of identity provides a framework for our behavior, guiding our choices and actions toward desired outcomes.

Dr. John Demartini, a leading authority on human behavior and personal development, said: When you set up a goal, you will spot things in the environment that people overlook. You have more information to make decision quickly. To make your goal become reality quickly, he advised: “Become one with the images of your pursuits, not imagination in the future.”

“But if you spread out your attention, you don’t see opportunities, you don’t make decision quickly. You’ll procrastinate and feel frustrated.” – Dr. Demartini said.

Not only did he have a clear vision, but Musk also held on to the image of the end goal. That’s the most important element in the Law of Magic. He focused on the possibility of success, even if it’s small, and envisions a future that brings him a sense of fulfillment. He put his attention into the right place, that’s when the magic happened. You only go where you set your sights.

Walter Isaacson, the author of “Elon Musk”, described how Musk thinks from the end result: “One of the weird things is watching him think incredibly long term. One of the meetings every week was Mars colonizer. We did a two-hour meeting about what would the governance structure be on Mars. What would people wear? How would the robots work? Would there be democracy, or should there be a different form of governance? I’m sitting there saying what are they doing? What are they talking about? While trying to build rocket ships, they are worrying about governance structure on Mars!”

But thinking about the final outcome as it already exists is how Musk generates energy and enthusiasm for the work. “The thing that drives me is that I want to be able to think about the future and feel good about that,” Musk said.

Maintaining a clear vision and steadfastly holding onto the ultimate goal enabled Musk to stay focused regardless of any challenges that arose. This significantly enhanced his odds of success.

Thirdly, Elon Musk harnesses extraordinary energy and wisdom from his decisive actions: Working based on truth and just-do-it.

By grounding his work in truth, or the First Principle, he gains the trust and strength needed to advance. What is the first principle? Muck described approaching an issue with the First Principle: “Boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say, ‘Ok, what are we sure is true, or as sure as possible is true?’ And then reason up from there.”

Here's how Elon Musk, by applying First Principle thinking, constructed rockets using raw, cost-effective materials. He asked himself: “What is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. What is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the typical price.”

He broke down a rocket into its fundamental components and then reassembled it more efficiently. This innovative approach marked the beginning of SpaceX.

Musk said the First-principle approach is “a very, very powerful way to do something new”. Why is that so? By grasping the root (or the First Principle) of an issue, you can more effortlessly address all related problems. It is with this deep understanding that you can innovate and create new solutions based on the principles you've uncovered.

Steve Jobs, an innovator who revolutionized personal computers and multiple other industries, also mentioned the first principle in a different way: “Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” –  Tim Cook remembered what he considered Steve Jobs’s best guideline –  “But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Elon Musk did move mountains. His ability to blend knowledge from various disciplines enabled him to devise innovative and significantly more efficient solutions. This interdisciplinary approach sheds light on his capacity to revolutionize multiple industries, even without prior experience in them.

Musk is very action oriented. “Just showing up is half of the battle” – He said. He believes that action leads to clarity and inaction leads to doubt. He likes to act as quickly as possible on the plans. He understands that solutions lie within the realm of reality, and it is through action that one can engage with reality in a tangible manner.

The mindset of just-do-it, supported by the First Principle thinking, helps Musk move into the unknown to try new things and welcome failures. Musk believed that failing is a crucial part of the process. “If you’re not failing occasionally, you’re not pushing the envelope.” Musk said. “The biggest risk is not taking any risk.”

Musk's perspective on failure as a form of achievement significantly bolstered his resilience. It eliminated all the negative energy caused by a “failure” and encouraged him to continue experimenting until achieving excellence in his products.

Jim Cantrell, one of the founding team members of SpaceX, talked about the most important personal attribute for Musk’s success: “It’s not intelligence. It’s not being educated. It’s not even experience. It’s simply a determination to never give up. That is the most important element of success: Dogged determination.”

Jim added: “When he came to me in 2001, he knew nothing of rockets or space exploration, but he was deeply passionate about them.”

What is the result of Elon Musk’s passion for space exploration?

·      2006: SpaceX’s first rocket launch: Explosion.

·      2007: SpaceX’s second rocket launch: Explosion.

·      2008: SpaceX’s third rocket launch: Explosion.

(At the same time, Tesla, the electric car company founded by Musk, was a few days from bankruptcy.)

·      The fourth rocket launch in the same year, 2008: Success!

Musk is considered to have a superhuman work ethic. He is capable of staying focused for a very long period. That’sthe way to have high-quality work, as Musk shared on Twitter in 2018: “I definitely don’t do this 5-minute thing. Need to have long uninterrupted times to think. Can’t be creative otherwise.”

Musk mentioned that he takes only two or three days off per year, works seven days a week. “I haven’t counted exactly, but I would just sort of sleep for a few hours, work, sleep for a few hours, and work again.” Musk said. “Work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in 80 to 100 hours every week. This improves the odds of success.” He even worked 120 hours per week when he became the owner of Twitter in October 2022.

If you're referring to Elon Musk and his acquisition of Twitter, while it's well-documented that Musk has a reputation for working long hours across his various companies, specific claims about the number of hours worked, especially such an extreme figure as 120 hours per week, should be supported by a reliable source.

Musk's unwavering perseverance deepened his connection with reality, enabling him to uncover more solutions and achieve more successes.

How to be doggedly persevered when pursuing a goal? With his experience in helping people improve their lives in 192 countries, Dr. John Demartini claimed: “The first principle is to pursue a goal that is your highest value, the most meaningful goal, you are automatically in the state of most resilient.”

He further explained: Getting into the highest value wakes up the executive function, governing the impulses and instincts, which are the distractions that keep you from being present focused and diligent towards the pursue of a purpose.

When you’re functioning from lower value, your blood glucose and oxygen goes into amygdala and you subjectively interpret to survive, and you have to go and seek it, or have to avoid it. So, you’re extrinsically affected by reward and punishment. But if you set goals that are aligned with the highest values, blood glucose and oxygen go into the executive center, where you actually embrace the pleasures and pains equally; and you pursue a true objective, which is balance and neutral.

“Anytime you’re living by the highest part of yourself, your self-worth goes up, your creativity goes up, your genius goes up, your solution orientation goes up, your brain functions at its maximum; your desire is to contribute and solve problems; and your reflective awareness and your ability to have synchronicity all go up.” –  Said Dr. John Demartini.

Thus, Elon Musk's journey teaches us to pursue what we perceive as impossible by focusing on the goals that hold the deepest meaning for us.