Top 3 Lessons From Elon Musk That Can Change Your Life Immediately
Elon Musk is the richest person in the world right. At the age of 12, Elon musk coded and publish a game called “Blastar” and which was later sold for $500 to trade publication PC and Office Technology magazine. He is the founder of SpaceX that is the first private company to successfully launch and return a spacecraft from Earth orbit and the first to launch a crewed spacecraft and dock it with the International Space Station (ISS). He is CEO of Tesla which you probably know about. He works more than 100 hours a week. He gave a long list of things that can inspire you. Let’s come to the main point, I recently read his biography by Ashlee Vance and listened to a couple of interviews with him. I found these 3 lessons very useful to me so I think to share them with you also. If you just implement only one lesson completely in your life. I guarantee you that you also become insane as much as Elon is. So let’s just started:
1.) First Principles — The thinking method used by Elon Musk for Solving Problems
“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.” — Elon Musk
Elon musk always uses the first-principles thinking method (Reasoning with “The First Principles” or many people also called this Reverse Engineering) when they want to solve problems.
There are only two ways to thinking — the first is reasoning by analogy and the second is by first-principles. In reasoning by analogy, you solve problems through your existing ideas and beliefs that you have, or in simpler terms, you solve problems by your prior knowledge. But in reasoning with the first-principles method, you solve problems by breaking them down into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up.
If you don’t understand — No worries! Just let’s take an example of real life. You procrastinate a lot, Now you have two methods to solve this problem.
Firstly by analogy, in which you think of the Pomodoro technique or 5-minute method any other cheap methods like that. You simply need a search on google for this thing (how to stop procrastination and you find thousands of ways to stop procrastination shared by so-called “self-help gurus”). The output is you solve the problem only for sometimes not permanent. Conclusion — In analogy, you just solve the problem by simple ideas that already exist in your mind or you know little about it or by other people's ideas that you find attractive. There is no problem with this method but you do not go into the root cause of the action “Why you are Procrastinating?”.
But by using reasoning by the first-principles method. You ask questions to yourself again and again until you get the fundamentals truths. As the first question is “In which work I’m procrastinating?”(You can’t simply tell me that I’m procrastinating all day that is not true ex. You don’t procrastinate for entertainment that also takes the attention or focus as same as your work does). You got the answer of studies then you ask “What includes doing studying?”. The answer is reading the chapter, making notes, revising the notes, and solving questions. And then you ask “Is I don’t like all the tasks or specify tasks?”. If the answer is I don’t like all the tasks or I don’t like specific tasks let’s take making notes so then you ask “Why I don’t like” and the question is itself say that I don’t like so you also want to know “What means to like something” (Liking is not a natural behavior that your body already have it’s by your past experiences that make your belief about a particular thing ex. My sister doesn’t like cheese now but she liked it in childhood). So now if you don’t like to studies or any work eg. coding? That means it’s because of your belief that is made by past experiences. So now you ask “Is the task is necessary enough to do for that I change my perspective about it ? Or my beliefs are wrong about that thing”. Ex. Making notes is not important for students who can just remember things by underlying the text inside the book and then you skip that tasks but if the answer is yes the tasks are important to do and then your beliefs or perspective about is wrong then change your beliefs or perspective about it. Of course, you already change your beliefs about it automatically when you know that your old beliefs are wrong. That’s it you solve your problem root cause.
Asking The Right Questions
After reading the example you just got confused that how can I can know what questions to ask?-Simple answer is by experiences. The example that I give you is from my experience and questions that I think are necessary for asking that problem. You just write your problem on paper and then break down that problem into basic elements and then start asking the question. If you think you are not finding the solution to your problem then research it. The purpose of the research is to take new ideas about a problem and then testing them not following blindly other people's advice.
Now you think that reasoning by first-principles is very difficult to do! — Ya it is but the beauty is when you solve a particular problem from this method now you solve it forever. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of research but the method is working and give you a lot of results in long term. If you practice enough thinking by this method then it will become a lot easier for you to solve other problems of your life by it.
2.)Learn Quickly and Build Quickly — 2 Rules Of Elon Musk For Learning Something
Frankly, though, I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying. — Elon Musk On Reddit
You already know the benefits of learning something new always if not you can easily see that nowadays after covid-19. Elon musk founded or co-founded companies in four different fields (software, energy, transportation, and aerospace). So how he do it? I read a bunch of blogs, watch a couple of youtube videos and after reading the biography I found 2 rules of Elon Musk for learning something.
Rule 0 — Know Your Why?
And I think if you can explain “WHY” of things, then that makes a huge difference to people’s motivation. Then they understand Purpose. So I think that’s pretty important , … — Elon Musk On Khan Academy
Know your inner drive, why you learning that thing. Only knowing you're why makes the learning process entertaining.
Rule 1 — Master the Fundamentals
“One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.” — Elon Musk on Reddit
As Elon’s said think of knowledge as a semantic tree-master the roots, fruits automatically grow up. Pick up any field only try your best to learn the basics of that. For this process, you can simply search on google to find a complete list of topics that you should cover for the advance part.
Elon Musk loves to learn from books. But nowadays, you can also pick up a great course on sites like udemy. From there you should cover your basics then try to apply that. One mistake that beginner makes that they access all 3–4 resources and try to learn from all of that. This is a completely foolish way. You should only pick one resource (book or course-what you want) at one time and then try to learn from that. Yah! if you don’t understand some terms or topics from that resource then you can search that from other resources. It only takes 20–50 hours to learn the basics then the journey starts to hit and try.
Also, remember “to do your hands dirty” try some projects or apply your learning by questions(if it’s the theory). Elon Musk doesn’t afraid to get’s his hands dirty since his childhood. He builds pc, tries coding, etc…
Rule 2 — Surrounding Yourself With Smart People(Who are expert in the field that you want to learn)
Elon Musk moved Silicon Valley to Los Angeles because it brings Elon closer to the space industry. In L.A., there are all organizations related to space and also have a lot of experts that can Elon talk to. Musk joined mars society whose goal to settle on Mars. Through the society, Elon also gets the option of talking to lots of scientists. One of the goals to hire the best people in his company from scratch because they can learn from them. One of SpaceX's employees said that “Elon Musk would quiz you until he had learned 90% of what you knew”. You can also use this rule. You can join communities that are the same as your interest in learning.
If you don’t have money for that although some societies and communities are free to join. But you can also join Facebook groups, quora spaces, follow LinkedIn accounts that experts in your field. You should surround yourself with a community of people of the same interest. This will surely make a dramatic change in your learning.
Bonus Tip — Learning Transfer
Elon Musk burst the myth of jack of all trades(It means you should master only one field-Jack of all trades! master none). Musk at childhood only read fiction then he started to read philosophy and he also read Encyclopedia Britannica at the age of 9. He builds companies in three different fields. So how he do it? Because he uses the learning transfer. In simple terms, learning transfer means learning about one field and then applying that learning to completely different fields. Ex. you know about biology, after that, you learn how to create apps then you can come up with an idea that solves biology problems with technology. Of course, this type of thing is difficult at first but it will help you understand more about both fields. But remember, you should master the fundamentals before jumping into another field.
3.)Looking For The Next Big Thing (Become Future Visionary)
The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision. — Helen Keller
Let me clear first, vision is not something people born with like Steve Jobs doesn’t bear to make technology — It’s not like that. In my opinion, it means you dare to take actions that humanity needs. In Jobs or Musk terms, have the capability of thinking things that customer did not even know they wanted that. Elon Musk started SpaceX not for making money they started it because he thinks it is important to make humans multi-planetary. He is not born with that vision. He gets that vision from reading and understands the earth and the universe, etc…
My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars — this is very important — so you don’t have to carry the return fuel when you go there. — Elon Musk
Vision Vs Goal
The goal is something that has complete planning of doing a certain thing with a deadline. While a vision is something that doesn’t have much planning but you know what you are doing and where to do you want to go. But you don’t know much about how. Vision beings with innovation while goals begin with the path that you know about it. Of course, after making a vision you need goals to fulfill that vision.
How I Can Make My Vision
Most vision's main purpose is to serve humanity. But how can I make my own vision ?-Simple answer is don’t make it. After you find a certain problem that you can give your all life to solve that without no regret you get that vision. Isn’t necessary to have a vision at your earlier age it automatically comes with solving problems and looking for the next big thing or in simple terms-with experience.
But after you got a vision, you don’t need motivation for your work. You have automatically driven with that.
End this lesson with a beautiful quote from Joel A. Barker
Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world
I skip lessons like use- your time wisely, do or die but never give up, failure is the only option, productivity tips from Elon Musk routine, etc... Because in my thinking, people already know this kind of lessons(If you don’t - read Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance) it is more important to learn those lessons that you can apply immediately in life see the change.
Hope you like it, Don’t forget to give feedback about this blog. Thanks for reading!
