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Elon Musk is more than a tech genius! I mean, how possible is it to build four successful companies in your mid-40s all in four different fields. (Energy, Software transportation, and aerospace)? While others have linked his achievements to the fact that he works 85-hours/week, but I know a lot of my firends who read twice that but found it difficult to get 3/1o in test.
So what makes Elon Musk different?
A post by Inc.com shed some light on the activities/principles Elon Musk engages in, here are the top 5:
Conventionally speaking, to be successful, you should focus on one field. However, Musk broke that rule. According to his brother, Musk would read two books per day in various disciplines to help spark his imagination and creative thinking. Let’s apply that; where you were struggling to read one book a month, Musk reads 60 books, all in different disciplines. As a matter of fact, when asked how he learned to build rockets, he reportedly answers, “I read books.”
So, what kind of books do you rad when you’re Elon Musk? Definitely not Mills and Boons!
Musk’s reading pattern first spanned across science fiction, philosophy, religion, programming, to name a few. As he got older, he diversified his interests into physics, engineering, product design, business, technology, and energy. You can check some of his favorite books here.
2. LEARNING TRANSFER
What is the point of reading when you don’t apply the knowledge?! That is what Learning transfer is all about, taking what we learn in one context and applying it to another, a principle that Musk practices. To achieve this, Musk deconstructs knowledge into fundamental principles, then reconstructs the foundational principles he’s learned in artificial intelligence, technology, physics, and engineering into separate fields:
3. FOCUS
For people like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, to name a few, the ability to focus is crucial. According to family members, Musk at a young age would sometimes drift off into a trance-like state while reading.
This habit helps him to focus on a current task and quickly shift to the next task with the same level of concentration.
4. MULTITASKING.
Musk, who divides his week between SpaceX and Tesla Motors, has also perfected the art of multitasking: he sends emails while scanning invoices, holds meetings and takes care of business on his phone at the same time, and even texts with his children on his lap (an admission that gathered no small amount of criticism from the public). While he officially clocks in no more than 15 hours at the office, he has said that he doesn’t ever stop working. With these round-the-clock responsibilities, it seems understandable that the most efficient way to save time is by doing everything at once. (Source: Entrepreneur).
5. HE LOVES SHARING WIDELY AMBITIOUS PLANS
Compared to other techies that love playing it safe, Musk has a futuristic outlook to life and the good part about this principle is that he lives up to his ambitions.
If you can imagine reading up to 60 books, a month, then applying the knowledge gleaned to real-life issues, then maybe you can be on your way to becoming the type of man Elon Musk is, maybe.
Feature Image: Elon Musk Photo: Art Streiber/August Image