Anyone who isn’t dead or in prison has heard of Elon Musk.
He is best known for autonomous cars (Tesla) and building spaceships (SpaceX).
Now he wants to hack the human mind so we can finally live inside the Matrix (Neuralink).
Elon Musk is only 49 years old. And yet he’s already achieved more success than a million average people combined together.
How is this possible? No easy answer. Mostly it’s due to his superhuman levels of willpower. But these success habits will help, too.
Elon Musk encourages an open flow of information.
Most corporations move at a glacial pace.
This is by design. The chain of command is too complicated.
Every manager has a manager with another manager who reports to yet another manager.
An issue raised by an employee might have to get through ten different conversations before anything happens.
Elon Musk’s communication strategy throws this prehistoric rule out of the window. As he said in an email to Tesla employees:
“Instead of a problem getting solved quickly, where a person in one dept. talks to a person in another dept. and makes the right thing happen, people are forced to talk to their manager who talks to their manager who talks to the manager in the other dept.
who talks to someone on his team. Then the info has to flow back the other way again. This is incredibly dumb. Any manager who allows this to happen, let alone encourages it, will soon find themselves working at another company. No kidding.”
Elon Musk uses boundaries to protect his time and energy.
If you don’t work at a company owned by Elon Musk, good luck reaching him.
He uses obscure email addresses that are impossible to guess. This results in hyper focus.
Then he pours all of his time and energy into businesses that change the world as we know it.
Elon Musk is also famous for 100 hour workweeks. Combine this with a hatred for meetings and the impact is huge.
Sound excessive? For most people, it is. None of my goals are as ambitious as building a habitable colony on Mars for humanity.
I’d be happy to build a website for a local small business and call it day. But impossible goals require inhuman levels of relentless effort. Here’s a quote to help you understand Elon Musk’s mindset:
“We’re going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I’m hell-bent on making it work.”
Elon Musk understands the concept of mindful multitasking.
Multitasking is bad.
Your mind can only focus on one thing at a time.
If you try to write an email during a phone call, you’re make typos and miss important details.
In other words, you will perform both duties poorly. It’s usually better to concentrate on a single task.
But there are exceptions. Mindful multitasking allows you to break this rule. And it unlocks your productive power.
For example, I love to meditate. It’s one of the best things I ever did for my mental health and ability to understand reality.
A lot of people think meditation requires you to sit on the floor with your eyes closed and not move your body for an hour or more.
Wrong. Any seeker of truth and enlightenment can meditate in an active way. I like to meditate while taking a peaceful stroll in the woods.
This qualifies as “mindful multitasking,” because I’m completing two activities simultaneously. And without harming the desired outcome.
How so? Walking is easy. I do it automatically. There’s no thought process involved. You just put one foot in front of the other. End of story.
Elon Musk has children. They’re at a young age and don’t require his undivided attention. Read: they aren’t pro’s at having conversations yet.
Thus, Musk answers emails while he spends time with the kids. Some people judge him for it. And I can empathize their reaction. But think about how most young children are wired.
They probably don’t talk about serious matters related to studies or relationships. They’re mostly concerned with video games, comic books, and the crazy stuff that happened at recess today.
A man with the mental capacity of Elon Musk can surely process this information, participate in the conversation, and answer work-related emails at the same time. I doubt his kids care. They probably don’t even notice. I’ll let Musk explain in his own words:
“But what I find is I’m able to be with [my kids] and still be on email. I can be with them and still be working at the same time… If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to get my job done.”
How to Apply Elon Musk’s Principles in Your Own Life
If you’re the leader of a big company, rethink your communication process. Eliminate needless red tape to speed up the flow of dialogue.
The same point applies to people who want to network with major players in their industry. Don’t use the contact form everybody else uses. Email the CEO directly.
If you’re buried in more emails and DM’s than you can possibly answer, rethink your boundaries. Protect time and attention, because they’re the most precious resources at your disposal.
You could apply this reasoning by creating several email addresses for different purposes. For example, I have an email account that’s used to sign up for newsletters. No communication occurs there. And I have yet another email for community outreach.
To practice mindful multitasking, identify tasks that don’t require any mental involvement. Walking is the most obvious example. You could combine cardio with meditation. Alternatively, take a daily walk and actively brainstorm business or content ideas as you go.
I hope this article helps you learn to think like Elon Musk so you can achieve more success in your life. If you found it useful, please share on your favorite social media platform.
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