This isn’t a post about success or failure.
It’s a post about growth.
When Elon Musk’s third rocket almost failed to launch, the company was headed toward bankruptcy and the only thing that stopped that from happening was the successful launch of the fourth rocket and a billion-dollar contract with NASA.
If SpaceX had failed then, and if they did not have an opportunity to continue, we wouldn’t be working on sending a manned mission to Mars.
But there’s something else that would have been missed even more: The level of advancement SpaceX has given us.
Elon Musk isn’t here to become the richest man in the world. He’s here to put every single penny and every ounce of energy into advancing humanity in various ways.
What are Elon Musk’s goals for the world?
With SpaceX, he wants to make humans a multi-planetary species and make humans land on Mars in twenty years.
With Tesla, he wants humanity to not rely on fossil fuels for their energy needs.
These are not simple goals. They are very complex.
But they are complex not only because they’ve never been done before, but because most of the technology doesn’t even exist!
Sometimes even with all the resources in hand, we aren’t able to achieve our goals, and here is Elon Musk who says,”I will build all the technology necessary to reach the goal.”
This is a truly noble pursuit.
What has Musk managed to accomplish?
Most notably, Tesla has been able to create an affordable electric car.
This is a car that runs on electricity!
This means that even though you pay a premium when you purchase the car, the cost of fuel is almost non-existent and you get paid back ten times over.
Not only that, they have almost reached the point where they aren’t making cars only for the affluent; they are progressing toward budget cars that can be bought by everyday, working-class people.
SpaceX has achieved the impossible. They have created rockets that are 1/3rd the cost of normal rockets, and they’ve created reusable rockets- a rocket that goes up to the International Space Station, drops its payload, and comes back.
How ridiculous is that? Because of these reusable rockets, the cost of space travel has plummeted.
What if Elon Musk doesn’t achieve his goal?
Musk’s audacious goals are built to failfrom the get go.
There are too many parts in his plans that can go totally wrong. And he has to achieve these lofty goals with constant pressure from his investors, and the public, and the government, and the industries that know his innovations will eat at their profits.
All of this is combined with his tumultuous personal life.
If Elon Musk doesn’t achieve his goal, it’s a massive loss to humanity.
But there is a silver lining: As long as he keeps going, he will keep advancing different facets of the world that we take for granted.
The craziness of his ambition has led him to achieve so much, and nobody has ever seen such growth.
Another example of crazy ambition:
Facebook had the audacious goal of getting a billion people to use their site, and with that goal in mind, they created a growth team which brought about many new innovations that eventually led to that goal.
With audacious ambition, we can all see explosive growth. We can come up with innovations and strategies that have never even been thought of before.
This is why it’s important to have great ambition. You have an end destination, you have a time period, and you persist until you reach that goal.
What Lessons Can We Learn From Elon Musk’s Ambition?
Elon Musk keeps his goals in his sights, literally…
From Ashlee Vance’s book, you get insight into Elon Musk’s mind: “In the front of his office, Elon has two pictures on either side of the door. On the left side is a picture of mars in its present state. Dry, uninhabitable and no sign of life. The picture on the right is the Mars of the future. Humans having landed there, inhabiting the planet, created domes with plants growing and people living inside them.”
Mars today:
Mars of the present. (For illustrative purposes only.)
Elon Musk’s Mars:
Mars of the future. (For illustrative purposes only.)
Even if Musk doesn’t achieve his goals, he would have accomplished in a few years what many companies take decades to achieve. If you want to read more about Elon Musk, you should get this book “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future”.
If you also want to achieve massive growth, then you also need to aim high.
It doesn’t matter if you fail, your lofty goals will get you to heights you didn’t know were possible.
True achievement comes from true ambition.
Don’t be afraid to aim high and shoot for the stars… sometimes literally.
Whose success story do you resonate with the most? Do you like Elon Musk’s ambition? Or do you think he shoots too high? What about your own ambitions? What are some of your personal goals? Let me hear your thoughts in the comments below!