His friends warned him to avoid starting.
One even forced him to sit down and watch videos of rockets exploding.
They cautioned he would lose all of his money from starting a rocket company.
But Elon Musk already knew this as he said, “I thought the odds of success were less than 10%. And I just accepted that I would just lose everything.”
He’d already accepted failure so he could focus on rocketing!
Mission matters
You never know how people really thought about things, do you?
In hindsight it’s more appropriate to sound all humble but did Elon Musk really believe failure was his likely outcome or with extraordinary vision and efforts he would find a way to win?
Who could know? What you do know is on Christmas Eve 2008 SpaceX and Tesla were on the brink of bankruptcy and this week SpaceX achieved an extraordinary outcome.
It says a lot about what is possible when you dream it up and just keep doing. Also about going after things whether other people believe they are possible or not.
As Musk said, “When something is important enough you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”
Go for it!
Success or failure are often seen as two binary outcomes, aren’t they?
It’s how your brain often looks at things like a binary computer seeing things one way or the other when your outcomes are way more probabilistic in nature.
If SpaceX had failed, would it have really been outright failure? What about the failure of having never started? As Musk said, “Even if we died, maybe some other company could pick up the baton and keep moving it forward. So that we still do some good.”
This is the mission, the defensive reason for SpaceX, as Musk put it, “Protecting the future of humanity, ensuring that the light of consciousness is not extinguished.”
But it’s just one why for him going after extraordinary missions.
To the stars!
If you’ve watched a lot of Elon Musk talk about building companies as I did in building this method for Rocket To The Top Like Musk and Bezos you see this common theme.
He is a visionary with strong mission-based why for doing things like the vision for Tesla of a sustainable energy future and for SpaceX of humanity being a multi-planetary species.
And then there’s something more fun! Like the thrill of the chase. The build. Going after things because they matter sure but also going after things because they are there to be gone after!
Like he said in an interview, “What gets me more excited is the fact that this would be an incredible adventure. Maybe like the greatest adventure ever. And it will be exciting and inspiring. And there needs to be things that excite and inspire people.”
What is exciting and inspiring for you?
Exciting? Inspiring?
Looking out to your future what do you see?
Do you see you’re at the end of your game? Do you see limits for yourself and perhaps for your kids? Or do you dream of incredible possibilities? Because whatever you believe is true for you, isn’t it?
And also keep in mind these words “exciting” and “inspiring.” Whatever you believe has a feeling to it as well, doesn’t it? Do the ways you’re looking at the future have you excited? Inspired?
Do they get you fired up about what is possible in our world and possible for you? Do they activate in you your best thoughts and actions? Get you sitting back or cracking the whip on making things happen?
In my head people like Elon Musk are symbols for achieving your dreams!
If you can dream it!
I’ve never been a fan.
Since a kid I’ve never been a spectator and having invested decades going deep into the human condition and into people’s brains I’ve learned to never put any of us humans on a pedestal.
As I wrote about here we’re all living in glass houses. None of us are perfect and in fact each of us is far from perfect so I never make heroes of any people or think because they can achieve they are the bees knees.
But I do absolutely love, and here I mean ABSOLUTELY LOVE people who dream it up and go for it. It’s just in my bones to be drawn to people thinking about and talking about what is possible, going after things that truly matter, doing everything you can unleashing all your potential unlocking all that’s possible.
That’s what got me started researching Elon Musk then Jeff Bezos.
World of negativity
It was the worst of times during covid. Of course it was a horrible time for our species.
Millions of people lost their lives and loved ones. Billions of people lost their freedom. Still today there’s zero truth about where this bio-weapon came from and why our world was flooded with debilitating fear and control.
Back then the world was filled with negativity and I needed to find better signal to tune into my brain. Then one day on a call with a client’s son in early 2021 was the day SpaceX launched Starship SN09. I’d never paid attention to Elon Musk or SpaceX but he’d been in awe watching Musk’s rocket to the heavens and then almost stick the vertical landing before toppling over and exploding.
It lit a fuse in me. It struck me as kind of strange with my obsession for going for it I’d never paid attention to Musk but I’d seen him more like P.T. Barnum and now I became curious what he was about.
Then I added Jeff Bezos to the mix and this became my covid vaccine.
World of possibilities
If one person can do something any person can do it.
This is a presupposition of my favorite school of study, a craft I’ve been deeply immersed in for some 16+ years now, NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
Do you know about NLP? Have you used this in your own brain and life? It’s funny because for 11+ years reading self-help books I had come across NLP but I was never compelled to go deep into studying.
But, then, when stuff got real hard in my own brain and I realized all the stuff I thought I knew was about as valuable as listening to podcasts or watching TV I was “forced” to go deep into human programming and ultimately this is what most transformed me.
A reason I share this is because NLP and the broader craft of human excellence I’m obsessed with has got nothing to do with theory or talking about these things but how one person and all people can unlock a world of possibilities!
How “exactly?”
When I first started watching videos of Elon Musk and reading books and other things I was quite surprised.
Because even after decades of this work I just hadn’t heard people speak like him. It wasn’t just his extreme belief in what is possible and going after difficult missions but also his humility in talking about doing hard things.
If you’ve read a bunch of self-help or heard all types of entrepreneurs talking about building companies you can be led to believe it’s this most wonderful fun adventure we should all be doing!
But then listen to Musk talk about starting companies and you hear the opposite. It’s like you hear him say in the clip at the top of this page when asked why aren’t other people doing these things?
“What’s your pain threshold? Hope it’s real high.”
Be Hardcore
That’s a clip from Principle 8. Be Hardcore in our method for Rocket To The Top Like Musk and Bezos.
It should go without saying Musk is hardcore. And I’ll say in my career I’ve only ever been around people who are hardcore in investment banking working around the clock for decades and on the buy-side and working with leaders of startups and big companies to what I’ve done now for 16+ years advising people achieving hard things.
But. And. Then there is something different in Musk’s definition of hardcore that you see so rarely in this world. It’s way beyond stuff he’s talked a lot about working around the clock like he said here, “You just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week… If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks then even if you’re doing the same thing you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve.”
Yeah, there’s lots of hardcore to this and just about everything the guy talks about on achieving.
But that’s just table stakes, just one small part of how he achieves world-changing missions.
Dreaming and doing!
See, my fascination in going deep into Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ winning methods was I just wanted to know.
Again, yeah, it was during covid and nearly everyone was as depressing as news and I wanted to be surrounded by people talking about dreaming and doing but also I just wanted to know how did they do these things?
I care way less about where Amazon and SpaceX are now. What I wanted to know was how did they make it through the hardest years? How did they dream up and build these things?
What enabled these two random people to take on and achieve world-changing things? How exactly did they dream it up and achieve their dreams?
And most importantly, what can we all learn from them so you can achieve your dreams!?
I dream!
I dream of a better world.
If I’m totally honest with you and if you know me well you know some of this dreaming has been beaten out of me!
Because I look out at some of the insanity of our species like covid and these wars and Epstein and all the ways we’re divided and yelling at each other even in this greatest country the world has seen and I’m like what the heck are we doing as a species?
We are better than this! We are more than this! Yes we are infected by the human condition limiting us but also we are a most incredible species. We are dreamers. Doers. We have perhaps elevated ourselves all the way from a fish walking out of the sea and certainly from the dark ages to this rocketing space-faring species.
And I just look at us like what isn’t possible for humanity? What is everything we can possibly be? And you know this just comes back to each of us like you and me.
1 person
This was a huge reminder for me studying Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
They are symbols of just how much impact one person can have. And also they never do it alone.
Like Jeff Bezos said, “It’s been the very rare idea that can be done by a single individual, almost everything that is going to change the world, solve a problem, improve something, these are usually big efforts. And they require a team working together to really get something important done.”
This is Principle 11. Recruit and Drive The Best in our method for Rocket To The Top Like Musk and Bezos because you know us humans achieve extraordinary things together when we are led by visionary leaders who unite people towards a grand vision.
What about for you and perhaps your kids? What do you see is possible? What do you believe one person can achieve? What can you and others do as a team?
The one!
You know I’m avoiding making a reference here to The Matrix or maybe I just did!
Because it’s like marriage I never believe there is just one but you do know the power of just one person to make an extraordinary difference and you are the one, aren’t you?
Doesn’t matter how many billions of people there are in this world you can only do you. Only you can choose what you are doing! Choose who you are being!
Can know have you really done what you set out to do? Are you really tapping all your uniqueness? Your full potential? Unlocking all that’s possible?
As one, I have not! I have done my best in ways but I so much want to do more, be more, unleash more potential, unlock more possibilities.
How you keep rocketing
This is why I keep watching on repeat our program for Rocket To The Top Like Musk and Bezos.
Because you see doing extraordinary things unleashing all your capabilities takes a deep method. It’s not like just waking up and putting one foot in front of the other going to work every day. Extraordinary achieving takes extraordinary means.
And you see the key here is you’ve gotta do it coz you love it, coz it’s your nature. Because like Elon’s friends tried to caution him the likely result of world changing missions is failure and you must have a deeper why. It’s like Musk said, “I don’t think everyone needs to try to solve some big world changing problem. We should just think are we doing something that’s useful?”
With a big enough why you can do even the biggest what. And what matters most is why you do what you do and why you take on things no matter what your odds of success because these things deeply matter to you.
This type of rocket fuel is how he keeps rocketing and you do too!