Justine Musk recounts a personal anecdote from when she was married to Elon Musk: he told a friend (but not her) that he'd sacrifice his entire fortune and live in "Justine's parents' basement" to get a rocket into orbit. She uses this to illustrate Elon's extreme commitment to his vision and then summarizes his advice: go beyond rote learning to deeply understand principles and trace problems to their root causes. She adds her own counsel: be brave, bold, and even "insane" enough to perceive and persist where others look away; visionaries risk everything, may have poor social habits, but they open "windows into another, deeper reality" and bring transformative, awe-inspiring change.
Chapters
I recently read a profile on Elon, and he is quoted as saying something to a friend. And this happened during the time we were still married together. And he said something to this friend that he never said to me. And he was saying that he was prepared to sacrifice everything, his entire fortune, to get a rocket into orbit. And he said, I don't care if Justine and the kids and I end up living in Justine's parents basement. I'm going to make this happen. And so I read this and I kind of wanted to go back in time and go up to him and take him by the shoulders and look him very seriously in the eyes and say, have you seen my parents basement? So I'd like to wrap up by getting to Elon's advice, which is to always go beyond memorizing formulas, passing tests, to always go deep into the underlying principles of a subject, to track any problem down to the root cause buried in the dirt and the dark. And I would add to that and say, be brave enough, be bold enough, and be insane enough to see things more completely, more vividly, more fully than everybody else around you. And refuse to look away from what you see and what you know, even if people want to burn you at the stake. Because visionaries take all that passion and their badass personalities and their mad skills and the mastery of their chosen subject matter, and they use it to put themselves on the line unlike anybody else you'll ever meet. And it's this that allows them to open up windows into another, deeper reality in which transformation is possible. And things of awe happen on a regular basis. Because in the beginning, we don't trust them because we think they're crazy. But by the end, we trust them because we know they're crazy. They're crazy enough to accomplish anything and risk it all in order to bring us something new to believe in. They might make lousy husbands and terrible wives. They might be the friend who never sends you a birthday present and forgets to show up for coffee. But they bring light to the dark. And they show us the universe. Keep the channel open. Thank you.