If you have ever heard of Elon Musk, it’s possible you know him because he played a big part in starting the company, PayPal. He used all that money, even when everyone said he was going to fail to start a company, Space x. You may also know him for creating Tesla, an eco-friendly car company and naming that company after Nikola Tesla, instead of himself. These businesses failed so many times that after five years of failing he had almost no money left. “My proceeds from paypal were 180 million, i put 100 million into space x, 70 million into tesla and 10 million in solar city, i had to borrow money for rent” - Elon. Even though everyone was telling him for five years publicly on the news that he was wasting his money and anyone who buys his stalk is wasting money. He continued his dream. If you have ever heard of him you would probably know him for his crazy work ethic and determination. Now just how crazy? you might ask. Often he sleeps at his office and working much over 100 hours a week is typical. I started to wonder both what caused his work ethic and why he was so successful. Also how can his story help people like you and me. So first what caused his work ethic? When he was at school ( elementary and high school) he hated it. He was mostly seen as an average student. A former classmate said that he was a 'likable, quiet, unspectacular student’. Elon Musk said he would "rather play video games, write software and read books than try and get an A if there's no point in getting an A”. In college, he way outperformed everyone in his class, mostly because he knew the material better than anyone else often times before he even took the course. What I think this shows is that Elon loves learning and what most would call work, he loves doing. It was never about getting the grade, it was about learning and having fun while doing so. This explains his work ethic a little bit, he loves what he does. However, it does not completely explain why he works so much. Many people love what they do, but spending over one hundred hours a week on something just because you love it is rare. I think the reason for his productivity is number eight of Elon Musk Work Ethic: 10 Secrets for Insane Success, for this website. The reason is that he embraces stretch goals. Meaning that when something is important enough he does it even if the odds are not in his favour. He has shown this many times in the past. But what seems to be even more important than that, for him is having a dream with goals so unattainable that he has to work most hours of the day to achieve them or even come close at all. Now, why is he so successful? Now there are many factors to this but one of them is that he reads a lot, he is always learning. Of course his work ethic but also his goals, the ones that everyone doubted for five years before he made any progress and his persistence with those goals and that he risked millions of dollars to make those goals happen.
I think The most important factor of his success was his audacity to dream so big and to find steps to achieve those goals and go after them at the most intense rate possible is the reason for his successes today. Without his big dreams, risk, persistence, work ethic and accumulative knowledge. He would never have achieved what he has today. So what can you learn from Elon’s story? This is just one example of successes there are many more however what you can take away from Elon is: Dream, once you have that dream commit to it. Don’t be afraid to take risks or persist till you achieve that dream, repeat. Hayley C
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