Changing the World – Elon Musk

On Tuesday, I posted a video of Elon Musk on my Facebook page. If you haven’t seen it yet you view it on the bottom of this post.

The video is about 53 minutes long, but worth the time investment (You can skip the first 5 minutes as well to save you a bit more time).

If 53 minutes seems like too much time for you then you could do what I did and listen to it on your smart phone while you prepare and eat your breakfast (A habit I suggest doing in a past post I wrote that you can find here).

I’ll let you know a couple of things in this post starting out with who Elon Musk is and then telling you some interesting takeaways from the video.

Who is Elon Musk?

• He is the CEO of Tesla Motors (He is the lead investor as well) and SpaceX (Which is a space transport company).
• He trademarked the following for his Tesla cars: The Model S, E, X, and Y. Yup, that does spell sexy – he’s kind of a cool guy.
• He was the inspiration for the film depiction of Tony Stark from the Iron Man movies.
• He is changing the world through his companies – I’ll elaborate more on this for you coming up.

Elon Musk is doing some big things to positively impact that world and I admire him greatly for that. By no means are these things easy, and he has not only invested his money, but also his time:

For a while there I was just doing constant 100 hour weeks. And that’s definitely wearing. Now I’m kind of in the 80-90 which is much more manageable.

Now that is some serious commitment! Just to give you an idea of how much time that is, those 100 hour work weeks average out to more than 14 hours per day, 7 days per week – he isn’t slacking by any means.

2 Important Takeaways

You can really learn a great deal from watching this video about Elon Musk, but a few things specifically stuck out in my mind.

1. Those 100 hour work weeks. That is just INSANE to me how much he works, but I can understand that if you are passionate about changing the world and you run two companies that are doing just that, it is going to take some serious time commitment. Does this mean that I think everyone who wants to change the world needs to work 100 hours each week? No, not at all. However, it should really give you an idea of the amount of work it may take to help a great idea to change the world actually happen. If you have some idea to change the world think about this question: Will it be worth it in the end?
2. Elon’s greater sense of purpose for Tesla. Why is Tesla even around? Quite simply, Musk thought that there needed to be a fully electric car built and nobody else was doing it the way it should be done. By showing that a fully electric car could indeed be built Tesla has inspired other companies to do the same. Check out this quote from the video:

Tesla’s affect has been much greater than the cars we have made internally because when we announced the Tesla Roadster, then Bob Lutz, who was partial owner of GM at the time, saw our press release and said that if a small company in California can do it then so can GM. He took it to his engineers who told him you couldn’t build an electric car and he told them you need to get going. That is what got the Volt going and that in turn got Nissan to do the Leaf…and ultimately, it is what we induce other companies to do that will have a greater impact than the cars we make ourselves.

Tesla’s affect on the world is way beyond simply the cars they build. They know this and understand how they are an integral part of the future of transportation.

I think this says a great deal about Elon and his company. I also think we can learn a great from this as well.

As a personal trainer, for example, if I help one person lose weight or get stronger or just be healthier overall that can have a huge impact on many more than just that one person.

Maybe their friend notices how good of shape they are in and starts working out.

Maybe their family member notices and begins to eat a bit healthier.

Maybe both of those people inspire others to get fit and so on – the affect can be huge and it all starts with affecting the life of one person.

For you, regardless of what you may want to do to change the world realize that how you influence others to change will play a big part.

I highly suggest watching the video and I have posted it below.

How will you change the world?

Justin