Elon Musk Dishes Out His 5 Keys to Success — What Are They?
Written by
Dawn Allcot
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Cory Dudak
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On Dec. 28, 2021, Elon Musk, billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, appeared on an episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast. In the 2-hour, 30-minute broadcast, the two discussed many topics, including Musk’s tips for young people seeking to achieve success. What were they?
1. Do Things That Are Useful for the World
Musk, who is working to reduce or reverse climate change through the widespread development and use of electric vehicles and solar roofs, advised young people to “do things that are useful to your fellow human beings, to the world.”
He noted that it’s hard to be useful. Finding a need in society and developing the skills to address that need is one way to not just carve out a strong financial future, but to create, as Musk said, “a life worth having lived.”
2. Contribute to Society
In line with finding ways to be useful to the world, Musk encouraged young people to make a “positive net contribution to society.” He urged people to look for ways to contribute more than they consume and emphasized that he respects people who put in an honest day’s work.
He added that those who are still unsure about what field to pursue should “try to find an area where there’s an overlap of your talents and what you’re interested in. You want to try to find a thing that’s a good combination of the things you’re inherently good at but you also like doing.”
3. Read a Lot
Although Musk has a bachelor’s degree in physics, Musk was not a rocket engineer when he started SpaceX. In 2021, the company’s Falcon 9 rockets launched a record 31 times — including a few manned flights — and SpaceX landed a rocket for the 100th time. When people ask Musk how he learned how to build rockets, he has famously replied, “I read books.”
He reiterated this advice on Fridman’s podcast, elaborating, “try to ingest as much information as you can.”
He suggested skimming through the encyclopedia to learn about what topics may pique your interest.
4. Talk to People
The other key to Musk’s successful space company, he has said, was speaking to others who understood rockets and engineering more than he did.
That’s why it’s not surprising that his next piece of advice was: “Talk to people from different walks of life and different industries and professions and skills and occupations.”
5. Try To Learn a Little About a Lot of Things
Young people often don’t know what profession they want to pursue or how they can best make a contribution to society. That’s where reading and talking to people in a variety of fields comes in. Musk suggested to “try to develop a good general knowledge.” He asked, “How would you know what you’re really interested in if you aren’t doing at least doing a peripheral exploration broadly of the knowledge landscape?”
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