of an incredible entrepreneur. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you have to learn

from Elon Musk. He's one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. One of the cofounders of PayPal

moving on to doing Space Ex and Tesla and Solar City. He has just been a phenomenal

entrepreneur in so many different industries. So what did I learn what did we learn from

this book from Elon Musk's biography? And I'm sure there will be more biographies written

of him he's still a young guy there's still a lot he will be accomplishing in this life.But

one of the greatest lessons you can learn from Elon is believing in the cause rather

than the strategy to achieve to get their outcome. Believing in why you want to do something.

Believing in the cause so passionately that it doesn't matter whether you're going to

succeed at it or not you're just going to keep on going after it. So when after he made

around $250 million from the acquisition of PayPal he started investigating he started

building a rocket company and his friends thought he was crazy they really thought he

was crazy to just throw away his money his hard earned money into something crazy like

a rocket company doing a private enterprise doing Rockets or trying to launch rockets

but Elon was not to be deterred. Some people have often asked him why did you go down this

endeavor this crazy endeavor of launching rockets into space did you think you're going

to be successful at it and he said no I did not Think that we were going to be successful

but she said and I quote him he said I really believe that if something really important

you must really go after it even if the likely outcome is failure. Very powerful very profound

it's almost understanding that when you have a very strong why it doesn't matter how you're

going to accomplish it you're just going to figure it out. If you know you're why the

how will come and that is what Elon was trying to tell us that if it's important enough the

probability of the outcome doesn't matter you have to keep on going after it because

it's just so important. Another story from his life I love to talk about his stories

because they teach us a lot. Another story of his life his personal life when he was

wooing his wife Justine they were in college and he was he had just met her and asked her

out on a date and she agreed but then when he showed up to pick her up she basically

flaked on her she did not show up for the date. But Elon was so persistent he went and

searched her best girlfriend asked her what her favorite flavor of ice cream and ask her

where she was going to be on this day at this time and he showed up at the library with

two cones of chocolate chip ice cream just because he knew she wanted it she liked that.

So he was not to be deterred if he wanted her he was going to get her that's what Justine

said as well Elon was going to call her he keep on calling and calling and calling until

she answered the phone and he was so persistent he just could not take no for an answer. She

said he's like a terminator once he sees that he wants you he'll just log on you locks and

on he says you shall be mine or this thing shall be mine. So that is the amazing thing

about Elon he Believe in the cause more than the strategy that he took the possible outcome

in that moment because he was just going to keep on trying and one of the things he said

in 2008 he was about to lose both Tesla and space X almost on the verge of bankruptcy

he said the thing that bothered him the most was the idea that people would stop believing

in space exploration and people would stop believing in electric cars. he wasn't just

rattled with the idea that he would lose all his Wealth, he was much more worried about

the fact that the cause which was electric cars and space exploration so he did not want

people to lose Faith in something as important as that and that is really really important

to understand the difference between the why of doing something and the how of doing something

the cause versus the strategy of getting to that cause.The other thing that really stands

out about Elon is his willingness to just bet it all, to die for it. He has a very high

tolerance for pain and he would go all in he is relentless. The thing about Elon is

that he’s willing to stake it all. He’s willing to go all in and that is why his rate

of success is very high. It sounds counterintuitive but a lot of things in life are counterintuitive

that way. So he is like that, when he was starting his own company and when he was seeking

funding too, the venture capitalist after they talk to him they would invest and he

wanted to understand or when they tried to figure out or when he was trying to seek funding

they would ask him questions one of the things he would say is like I am a samurai. I am

willing to die. I am staking my existence on this company so that is the way I operate

this business. I will do whatever it takes to make it work and that is what kept the

venture capitalist coming at him. One of the greatest stories of his life, greatest now

in retrospect of back then when it was one of the most painful times of his life. In

2008 he had divorced Justine, his first wife, and he had 5 kids from his first marriage.

Not only that, he was both Space X and Tesla was about to go bankrupt and this is in December

near Christmas time and they’re both about to go bankrupt and Elon is wondering if he

should split his money between the two companies or splitting wouldn’t work go with one way

or the other but he couldn’t just do that either because he wanted both of them to survive.

So he got to the brink of it almost the brink that he wouldn’t be able to make payroll

the next day and some of the venture capitalist on his test line assessment, they started

to feel like they could get a lot more. They wanted ownership of the company by figuring

out because they figured out that if they could twist his arm they could make some quick

money but Elon didn’t want to do that so he refused he kept on persisting trying to

figure out a way to make money almost to the point 23rd of December 2008 he still didn’t

have the money the companies were going to go shut down in a week’s time and he was

living on his friend’s couch since his personal fortune was down to a few hundred thousand

dollars and he was maxed out but he kept on hustling and in 2008 December 24th or 23rd,

NASA came calling and they awarded him a $1.6 billion dollar contract and then he was able

to fund around Tesla because he was able to tell his investors that he was going to take

a loan and so on and so forth. But the main thing is that he went so close to failure,

he went so close to being all out of everything but he kept on going he did not give up on

the dream, he did not give up on the cause and that is the amazing thing about this guy.

He is willing to take it to the death and if that is the conviction you have for your

startup, for your business then you could see why you’d be successful.

The other thing to learn about Elon is this hardcore work ethic and he is famous for saying

if you work for 50 hours a week and I work 100 hours a week, I will do in 5 years what

you take 10 years to do. So I will work hundred hours a week. More than that he works every

day of the week. In fact, there are stories that he will setup his desk in the middle

of the factory on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays just to emphasize that he’s working

and he expects everyone else to be working hard as well. When he was starting, there’s

another story, they did not even rent an apartment. They said they were just going to use the

office. They’re going to sleep in the office, they’re going to shower at the YMCA, and

they’re going to work all day long on the startup and that’s what they did and Elon

would sleep under his desk in the night times after doing coordinating all night long whoever

was the first one to came in the office he would just wake him up and get back on the

computer and start again. That was the maniac obsession he had with hard work with doing

it no matter what. And even when he was dating this and he had a girlfriend, the girl would

come over and would actually sleep at the office because that was the only option she

had and she was okay with it. This guy was on a mission so he was not going to be stopped.

He was going to keep working hard. The other thing that really stands out is

his thirst for knowledge and reading. So when he was 12 years old he was reading 10 hours

a day. He would read like 2 books a day and in 4th grade he ran out of books to read in

his school library. He ran out of all the books to read in his school library. So he

went on to read Encyclopedia Britannica and he read all the Encyclopedia Britannicas.

That is his thirst for knowledge and it shows because he’s one of the most knowledgeable

man out there when it comes to all these different perspectives. Physics, Astronomy, Electric

cars, rocket science, or biographies of famous people, science fiction. His favorite book

was Hitchhikers of the Galaxy. He loved to read, he loves to read, he loves to understand

and there’s a famous story where all his friends were partying it up in Las Vegas after

they had made their hundreds and hundreds of dollars in Paypal, and Elon had also made

$250 million dollars. While people were partying at the pool, Elon was sitting in a corner

reading some obscure rocket science manuals and books and his friends were just surprised

at how intense this guy is when it comes to seeking knowledge and figuring it out and

his companies and he did not have the knowledge to build electric cars, he did not have the

knowledge to build a rocket company but he figured it out. He read it, he went to the

experts, he seeked out knowledge and that’s always been a constant theme in his life.

So really powerful ideas from one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. I highly recommend

you look into learning from Elon, great guy.