Elon Musk is brilliant, and we all know that. He is a thinker, creator and changer of industries. Let's learn more about him and why he is so successful. And some of these learnings can be great differentiators for MBA students.
Lesson 1: Importance of Reading
When Elon was young, he would read 10 hours a day. He would go into a trans-state, where nobody could bother him. The only thing that'd be in front of him was a book. So, Elon read every single book in his school in a local library and ended up even reading Encyclopedia and Britannica. That's how much he loved reading. All of this built the foundation for who he became. The ability to make the thought processes and philosophies, learning about psychology and reading about anything under the sun gives the ability to expand their horizons. You can build on the truths of the people who can be there for you and expand on that. That's such a cool concept. Most of these brilliant thinkers out there are voracious readers.
Lesson 2: Never Give up
Now, that's a cliched lesson. But when you compare your failures to Elon Musk's failures and understand what he went through to be successful, hopefully, you will get a different perspective of the term "never give up". Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX, the aerospace superpower. But it wasn't always like that. It took over six years, five hundred employees and three failed rocket launches that made it successfully launch a rocket into space. They said that if Elon's fourth rocket didn't make into space, SpaceX would cease to exist. Imagine the magnitude of the failure he must have gone through. Newspapers, TV channels, social media - everyone looking down on him for spending so many resources to make his dream happen. So, It is when you don't give and have the grit, the massive success is yours.
Lesson 3: To dream Big
Elon's sole purpose is to colonize Mars. To send a large group of people to March by 2025 and make it a habitable place. That's crazy planing. But he firmly believes that it's going to happen. It's his sole purpose, and everything that's happening is a byproduct of that. So, dream big. You can do amazing things. Even if you fail, you fail above everybody's successes.
Lesson 4: Importance of Execution
Elon Musk not only dreams big, but he also hustles harder. He works harder and executes harder than anybody out there. It seems that any company that Elon gets involved will achieve massive success — beginning with zip2, X.com, Paypal and al the way up to Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, The boring company and Hyperloop. Anything that Elon Musk enters redefines and changes industries. That's amazing. For this, he worked hard day in and day out, year after year after he built the foundation as a child and continued working harder. He seriously redefined the word - execution.
Lesson 5: Think outside the Box
Elon was once asked in an interview, "Do you think you are living in a false reality?". He answered, "No, I don't think we are living in a false reality. Because the technology where it came from and where it is heading - only forty years ago a video game was considered as a single joystick and one or two buttons with a pixelated screen. Now, we have virtual reality sets that are indistinguishable from reality. In another forty years from now, human beings will not be able to determine whether they are in a video game or not". Elon is so open to considering ideas like that when most of our perspectives are thoughts are in a closed box.