This Is Elon Musk’s Best Advice for Success

Image Source: Getty Images

Elon Musk says these three things will help you become successful.

Important points

• Musk believes that people should focus on being useful and making a positive net contribution to society.
• Reading a lot of books is a shortcut to finding out what subjects you enjoy and what you are good at.
• Having a growth mindset, rather than a fixed one, means everyone wins.

What is Elon Musk’s best advice for young people? Musk was recently a guest on artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman’s podcast. He talked for more than two hours about the colonization of Mars, the future of Tesla, cryptocurrency, and even stand-up comedy and his cameo on Rick and Morty. As the richest man in the world, Musk also shared his best advice for success, specifically for young people. Here are the three things he says you should focus on.

1. Try to be helpful

“Try to be useful, do things that are useful to your fellow man, to the world … Do you contribute more than you consume? Try to have a positive net contribution to society.”

Musk admits this is not easy to do. He uses the example that you should not try to be a leader just so you can have the title or prestige. Musk has found that the best leaders are often those who do not want to be one at all and are focused on leading a useful life and figuring out how they can have the most positive impact.

2. Read many books

“I encourage people to read a lot of books, just read, basically try to take in as much information as you can, and also try to just develop a good general knowledge … And talk to people from different levels of life and different industries, and occupations, and skills, and occupations, as just trying. Learn as much as possible. “

Musk has always focused on expanding his knowledge from an early age. By the age of 8, Musk was reading 10 hours a day. He did not have books to read at the library, so he decided to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. According to Musk, reading the encyclopedia is a “super-fast shortcut” to figuring out which subjects you enjoy. You will never know what you are interested in unless you know those subjects exist. After reading a few paragraphs on a topic, you can only move on if you are not interested. Reading a wide range of topics can help you find areas where there is “an overlap of your talents and in which you are interested”.

3. Has a “grow the pie” attitude

“… if you have a zero-sum attitude, then the only way to get ahead is to take things from others … But that’s false … It’s much better to work to keep up add to the economic cake. Like I said, create more than you consume. “

Musk says there is a lot of “pie” to go around. People with a fixed pie mindset focus more on taking things from others. Unfortunately, many people work from a zero-sum perspective without knowing it. Based on Musk’s experience, the people he’s seen doing morally questionable things are the ones who generally have this perspective.

To have a “grow the pie” mindset, you need to celebrate the success of others. It is not necessary to always be in competition with others while believing that resources are scarce. Musk says that promoting others makes the pie grow. Using academia as an example, many people see research funding as a zero-sum game. But by celebrating each other’s victories, you can get more people excited “about AI, about physics, about math,” and as a result, there will be more funding available to everyone. Everyone wins if you help each other.

Elon’s best advice for success focuses on investing in yourself and helping others in their successes. He emphasizes that people should do things that are useful to others and to contribute more than they consume. Based on his personal experience, Musk notes that the more you read, learn, and talk to different types of people, the more your mind will open.