Elon Musk has definitely positioned himself at the top of different industries. The South African-born Canadian-American business magnate is the founder of SpaceX as well as co-founded Tesla Motors and SolarCity. He also founded X.com which later merged with PayPal of Confinity.
As of June this year, he has an estimated net worth of $12.7 billion. This makes him the 83rd wealthiest person in the world. He is deemed as a real-life "Iron Man."
Inc. shared eight career lessons from Elon Musk. These lessons were taken from question-and-answer site Quora, where one user asked the question, "What can we learn from Elon Musk?" Blogger James Altucher listened to every interview with the SpaceX founder and compiled his most inspirational quotes.
1. "Focus on the impact of your dreams, not the odds."
While a lot of our dreams may seem impossible, no one could possibly beat Musk with his hope of colonizing Mars. Do you want to build a business? Learn to take risks.
2. "No one does amazing things for the money."
In all his companies, Musk never started from the perspective of how he could make a lot of money off it. "Going from PayPal, I thought: 'Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?'" he said.
3. "Reason from first principles."
Another important factor in Musk's success is his mindset. Altucher described it as boiling things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there. Look at the world with a new perspective through objective data as well as clear-headed observation.
4. "Persistence pays."
Like every successful person out there, Musk did not reach his goals overnight. He shared a bit of conventional wisdom when he said, "Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up."
5. "In hiring, talent beats numbers."
A lot of business owners think that throwing in a lot of brains on a difficult problem will solve it. Elon Musk revealed that many people make this mistake, without knowing that the right talent can actually save your company's time, effort and resources.
6. "Talent can't compensate for a lousy personality."
Nonetheless, talent cannot ever make up for not being a team-player. Musk admitted that he made the mistake of "weighing too much on someone's talent and not someone's personality."
7. "Constantly question yourself."
Musk revealed that he always strives to improve himself. "Constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself," he advised.
8. "Finding the right questions is most of the battle."
The SpaceX founder revealed that his favorite book as a teenager was "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." He learned that the tough part is actually figuring out what questions you need to ask. However, once that's done, the rest becomes easy.
