Recently finished The Book of Elon, and feeling very confident recommending it to everyone interested in building complex businesses and striving to achieve high performance.
The 'lessons' here are in no order of importance, but rather maxims and rules I'd like to implement into my approach to professional life as soon as possible. Some of them are quite a good fit for your personal endeavours as well.
My favourite and easiest format: quotation (suits the book, which is basically Elon's own words taken from different interviews or writings) plus a word or two of my own.
(1) Be useful
'Try to be useful. Do useful things for your fellow human beings and the world. It's hard to be useful, to contribute more than you consume. Can you have a positive net contribution to society? Aim for that.'
To me this mirror's Bible's (actually, Jesus') words quite spectacularly: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’
A marvellous advice. If we follow it, we make ourselves better, and we make others feel better, and we quite possibly make, indeed, the world at least a bit better.
(2) Be obsessed with truth
'I am obsessed with truth. Obsessed. If you're going to come up with a good solution, the truth is really, really important.'
Everyone can understand and use this one a bit differently, which is fine as long as we pay attention to how important the truth is — whether we are talking about life-determining decisions and it is THE TRUTH, or we are talking about daily or regular decisions that would be better off if your approach them with honesty and integrity.
(3) Learn, and use the best tools for learning effectively
'Most people self-limit their ability to learn. It’s pretty straightforward — just read books and talk to people.'
(4) Don't try to be liked
'I think it’s a real weakness to want to be liked. A real weakness. I do not have that.'
This might sound controversial (and quite intriguing!), but I would approach it as this: advice to not rely on the opinion or expected reception of the crowds when making a decision, but rather on your own inner feeling of what is right and what is useful (point 1, again). The right people will respect you for that, and there will always be people who dislike you or your products, decisions, etc.
(5) Move fast, do things with the sense of urgency
'The one thing you cannot replace is time.'
Elon places a huge importance onto doing / trying / implementing things and decisions exceptionally fast. Can be very useful when you build a business, but also a great rule to live by in general. Time is, indeed, something that is irreplaceable — and we always forget about it.
The 'lessons' here are in no order of importance, but rather maxims and rules I'd like to implement into my approach to professional life as soon as possible. Some of them are quite a good fit for your personal endeavours as well.
My favourite and easiest format: quotation (suits the book, which is basically Elon's own words taken from different interviews or writings) plus a word or two of my own.
(1) Be useful
'Try to be useful. Do useful things for your fellow human beings and the world. It's hard to be useful, to contribute more than you consume. Can you have a positive net contribution to society? Aim for that.'
To me this mirror's Bible's (actually, Jesus') words quite spectacularly: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’
A marvellous advice. If we follow it, we make ourselves better, and we make others feel better, and we quite possibly make, indeed, the world at least a bit better.
(2) Be obsessed with truth
'I am obsessed with truth. Obsessed. If you're going to come up with a good solution, the truth is really, really important.'
Everyone can understand and use this one a bit differently, which is fine as long as we pay attention to how important the truth is — whether we are talking about life-determining decisions and it is THE TRUTH, or we are talking about daily or regular decisions that would be better off if your approach them with honesty and integrity.
(3) Learn, and use the best tools for learning effectively
'Most people self-limit their ability to learn. It’s pretty straightforward — just read books and talk to people.'
(4) Don't try to be liked
'I think it’s a real weakness to want to be liked. A real weakness. I do not have that.'
This might sound controversial (and quite intriguing!), but I would approach it as this: advice to not rely on the opinion or expected reception of the crowds when making a decision, but rather on your own inner feeling of what is right and what is useful (point 1, again). The right people will respect you for that, and there will always be people who dislike you or your products, decisions, etc.
(5) Move fast, do things with the sense of urgency
'The one thing you cannot replace is time.'
Elon places a huge importance onto doing / trying / implementing things and decisions exceptionally fast. Can be very useful when you build a business, but also a great rule to live by in general. Time is, indeed, something that is irreplaceable — and we always forget about it.