Erika Jones, CFO, CCTAProfit First Professionals · Certified Fractional CFO and Profit First Professional

Elon Musk's Productivity Rule#4 Contradict Yourself #shorts

7 Feb 2023 · 1 min

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0:52

In this brief YouTube short, two speakers discuss a productivity principle attributed to Elon Musk: the willingness to contradict oneself when new information emerges. They stress that such reversals should be handled with tact—clearly stating a new revelation and acknowledging past errors. The conversation includes a personal anecdote about the "Profit First" methodology, where the speaker originally believed profit should be the bottom‑line consideration at year‑end, later realizing that approach was flawed and publicly revising the stance. The core message is that courage to admit mistakes and walk back decisions, as Musk does, is a valuable habit for continual improvement.

Chapters

Five. Don't be afraid to contradict yourself Musk isn't afraid to walk back a decision.
All right. So yeah, don't be afraid to contradict yourself now, yeah, of course contradict yourself. But. But with tact, meaning when you have a new revelation, it's okay to say I've had a new revelation and what I believe to be true in the past was wrong. Actually that's how Profit first came about. When I wrote Prophet first I said I believe that prophet should be the bottom line in the year end. It should be the last consideration but didn't work for me at a revelation that was wrong. And maybe I'll I'm sure I will have more revelations of things I'm doing now and actually just recently had one that maybe aren't right or at least not optimal and I have to contradict what I've said in the past. That's perhaps the biggest argument or value right there is when something we commit to is not working to have the courage to say oops, that was wrong.