There are only 24 hours in every day, and you can’t squeeze out an extra second. Yet some people manage to be so productive and innovative they become billionaires at an age when most of us are still struggling to make ends meet. But, What habits set him apart from his peers?
Like Buffett, who claims to read around 500 pages a day, Musk is the definition of a bookworm. When he was in grade school, he was reading ten hours a day, devouring everything in his library and the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, and completed a six-month BASIC course in just three days.
2. He doggedly pursues his own interests.
If his healthy reading habits weren’t already a giveaway, Musk is a true believer in self-guided learning. At the age of 12, he used his BASIC skills to program Blastar, a self-made video game which he sold to PC and Office Technology for $500. Musk also doubled majored in physics and economics, then interned for both ultracapacitor research and video game companies.
3. He is tirelessly, unflaggingly optimistic.
While the first two traits are true for most successful businesspeople, Musk also has an ace up his sleeve — he has a strong glass-half-full mentality. His Forbes profile sums this up best by describing two of his companies as “moonshot tech companies.” Except Musk doesn’t think of them as moonshots at all.
4. Yet he still believes failure is an option.
Countless people — some of them very qualified experts — told Musk his ideas were ridiculous and bound to fail. Yet Musk managed to ignore them all and do things the way he wanted. Musk said, “Failure is an option here. If you’re not failing, you’re not innovating enough.”
5. And he really, really knows how to party.
Businessweek writer Ashlee Vance wrote a book about Musk titled Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and The Quest for a Fantastic Future that revealed some interesting insights into Elon’s private life — especially how much of a party animal he is.
