Elon Musk is one of the most influential people in the world, but his success is a result of deliberately subverting norms and challenging expectations.Though financial resources differ greatly among entrepreneurs, a calculated media strategy is something every entrepreneur can add to their toolkit. Let's unpack Musk's rise to fame, from his publicly celebrated business successes to his Twitter game, to see how any entrepreneur can take a note from Musk's playbook.

How Elon Musk Breaks The Rules

In the heat of the dot-com boom, Musk invited the cameras to get a first-hand look at his success.Although it was difficult for the public to understand the inner workings of Silicon Valley and VC money, Musk created an instantly recognizable icon in his sports car.

Strategy 1: Pour Gasoline on The Fire

<ul><li>In his early ventures, Musk lost control of his own companies</li><li>With Zip2, his investors appointed a more experienced leader, Richard Sorkin, to position the company for an acquisition</li><li>After his second company, X.com, became PayPal, he was again fired from his role as CEO while he was away from the office</li></ul>

Strategy 2: Make Your Business Personal

Rather than focusing on a clear path to profitability, Musk declares impossible feats to the world, such as getting humanity to Mars before he dies. People love rooting for success against all odds. As one of the richest and most powerful people in the world, Musk positions his companies as "Davids" by creating seemingly unbeatable "Goliaths."As an entrepreneur, your goals are more than financial and operational. Set goals with the power to motivate your workforce, attract an investor or engage your customers.

Strategy 3: Set Unrealistic Goals

Entrepreneurs know that the key to success is to stay laser-focused on their goals and objectives. Yet while Musk is so busy that he sleeps on an uncomfortable couch at the office, he always has time for the spotlight.With the exception of Bill Nye, most scientists aren't drawn to the big screen. Except Musk, who can be spotted in Iron Man 2 rubbing shoulders with Tony Stark, on South Park and The Simpsons, and hanging out with Howard on The Big Bang Theory. For someone focused on advancing mankind, Musk spends a calculated amount of time crafting his image.

Strategy 4: Ignore Your Lane

As an entrepreneur, remember that everything you post is a reflection of you and your business. When Musk posts nerdy memes, he's affirming that he's a part of a subculture that many of his customers associate with. When he offers emergency assistance to Ukraine, he's demonstrating the viability of his business goals. When he posts updates about his business, he's signalling to the world and his employees that he's in charge.What appears random is all a part of the bigger media strategy. Think about the image and signals you want to convey, and engage accordingly.

Strategy 5: Say What's on Your Mind

You are where you are because you challenged a convention, did something in an unexpected way or created something new. Know your end goal, and craft your image around it. From there, you can determine which rules were made to be broken, and how you will bend them in your favour.

Break The Rules

Bend and break those rules, Elon Musk style.

Five business strategies you can steal from this groundbreaking entrepreneur's playbook.

Stashed ideas

The Richest Person on Earth Breaks Every Rule, And You Should Too

Remembering things differently from how they actually happened.Example: You insist that the Monopoly man has a monocle.

We think nostalgically about the past and see the world going downhill from there.Example: “Back then, we never even thought about locking our doors!”

Declinism

Collective beliefs grow stronger the more people parrot them.Example: A study linking vaccines to autism (despite being disproved) compels many to avoid them altogether.

Availability Cascade

We take comfort in consistency and see any disruption as a burden.Example: Despite being in a toxic relationship, Jack doesn’t want to go through the trouble of breaking up (and going on first dates again).

Status Quo Bias

We’re reluctant to pivot from a strategy in which we’ve already invested so much time and energy.Example: You keep watching the movie or reading the book even though it sucks.

Sunk-Cost Fallacy (aka Escalation of Commitment)

Believing a random event is more or less likely to happen based on preceding events. Example: The roulette ball landed on black the last four times, so you decide to put everything on red.

Gambler’s Fallacy

We would rather nip small risks in the bud even when another strategy would mitigate overall risk.Example: You opt for that sugar-free soda, not realizing the artificial sweeteners it contains might actually be worse for you.

Zero-Risk Bias

The tendency to interpret the same information differently depending on context.Example: You perceive wine as better tasting when it’s served in a crystal glass versus a plastic cup.

Framing Effect

We fall back on surface-level beliefs about a group instead of looking at individuals within that group.Example: “That guy with the tie-dye T-shirt must be a pothead.”

Stereotyping

We view our ingroups as diverse and outgroups as all the same.Example: Brad doesn’t own a gun and assumes anyone who does has violent tendencies.

Outgroup Homogeneity Bias

The tendency to put our faith in authority figures.Example: “The President said it, so it must be true!”

Authority Bias

The power of the mind to bring about the desired effect from an ineffective treatment.Example: In a clinical trial, 80% of those who took a sugar pill reported signs of improvement.

Placebo Effect

Focusing on successes and ignoring failures.Example: You assume entrepreneurship is easy because all you see are successful founders in magazines.

Survivorship Bias

We perceive time differently when under stress or trauma.Example: “When the robber pulled a gun on me, everything seemed to stop.”

Tachypsychia

We spend inordinate amounts of time and effort on trivial issues while ignoring the ones that matter.Example: The mayor devotes an entire committee to keeping the sidewalk clean but does nothing to help the homeless.

Law of Triviality

We tend to recall interrupted tasks more than completed ones.Example: Despite earning perfect marks in his annual company review, Bill fixates on that one project he dropped the ball on and feels guilty every time he comes to work.

Zeigarnik Effect

We tend to value things more when we have a part in their creation.Example: “Isn’t this a beautiful coffee table? I put it together myself!”

IKEA Effect

Doing a favor for someone else makes us more likely to do more versus returning a favor they did for us.Example: You didn’t like Brad at first, but after he asked for your advice, you've been looking for more ways to help him.

Ben Franklin Effect

We are less likely to intervene in a bad situation when there are more people around.Example: Everyone just watched instead of calling 911 when the bar fight turned ugly.

Bystander Effect

When your self-perception changes in response to a leading question.Example: You call in sick from work, and your boss asks, “How did you get COVID?”

Suggestibility

Our tendency to see patterns in randomness.Example: “That cloud looks like a rider on horseback.”

Clustering Illusion

The overestimation that only bad things will happen.Example: “It can only get worse from here!”

Pessimism Bias

The overestimation that only good things will happen.Example: “It can only get better from here!”

Insisting that real memories are just figments of your imagination.Example: Bill thinks he’s created the perfect slogan, forgetting that he heard it on TV.

We call others out for biases while insisting we have none.Example: “I’m not biased; you are.”

Blind Spot Bias

This is the second part of 50 cognitive biases, as tweeted by Elon Musk. These are a must read for understanding human behaviour, including our own.

25 More Cognitive Biases, As Tweeted By Elon Musk

A quick note about cognitive biases. What are they? Why is knowing about them crucial? All humans make systematic errors in thinking—hurting our judgment. Being aware of cognitive biases will make you less susceptible to them.

Cognitive Biases

We judge everyone else on character but blame our shortcomings on the situation.Example: If Jane is late for work, she’s lazy. If you’re late for work, it’s because of traffic.

Fundamental Attribution Error

We chalk failures up to the situation while taking all the credit for our successes. Example: You earned that A through hard work & skill. Meanwhile, you got a poor grade because of external factors: bad professor, team assignment, etc.

Self-Serving Bias

We privilege those in our ingroup over those in an outgroup. Example: Jackie works in your division, so you value her more than John, who works over in accounting.

Ingroup Favoritism

Concepts, trends, and beliefs catch on as more people validate them.Example: Jill believes buying an LV bag will make her look chic. Janet does, too.

Bandwagon Effect

We make irrational decisions just to avoid conflict.Example: Jackie wants to go bowling. Joe wants to buy a cake for a dinner party. You suggest getting a cake in the shape of a bowling ball.

Groupthink

Focusing on one trait (positive or negative) as being indicative of the whole.Example: “Brad must be a great entrepreneur; he’s amazing at golf!”

Halo Effect

Equating moral superiority with a positive outcome and moral inferiority with a negative outcome.Example: He won the election because he was morally superior to the loser.

Moral Luck

We assume others agree with us by default.Example: “Everybody knows that!”

False Consensus

We believe that everyone knows the same things we do.Example: Jane gets frustrated with her son for not understanding multiplication right away.

Curse of Knowledge

We think people are paying far more attention to us than they are.Example: Josh is worried everyone at work will notice he needs new shoes.

Spotlight Effect

We make snap judgments based on the most recent information.Example: When an airline reports a crash, ticket sales go down until people forget about the incident.

Availability Heuristic

The tendency to blame others for your mistakes out of self-protection.Example: Brad scapegoats Jill for submitting a bad company report even though he did all the research.

Defensive Attribution

Believing the world to be inherently just, we interpret injustice as bad karma.Example: Jackie broke her ankle because she made fun of Jill’s medical condition.

Just-World Hypothesis

We privilege our “objective” view of reality over all others.Example: “I see things for what they are—everyone else is misinformed.”

Naïve Realism

The assumption that others act only out of self-interest.Example: “The only reason the boss gave us a bonus is to squeeze extra work out of us.”

Naïve Cynicism

We see ourselves reflected in things that could apply to many.Example: “Today’s horoscope was spot-on!”

Forer Effect (aka Barnum Effect)

The overestimation of ability when one has little experience.Example: The market firm’s new hire was confident he’d designed the perfect ad campaign, but it ended up losing money.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

We make decisions based on first impressions.Example: “The label says gluten-free. It must be good for me!”

Anchoring

We put too much trust in automated systems to fix our mistakes.Example: “Grammarly suggested it; therefore, it’s correct.”

Automation Bias

We don’t store information in our brains that’s conveniently found online.Example: “Who was that actor in the latest Marvel film? I’ve Googled it like ten times...”

Google Effect (aka Digital Amnesia)

We go against orders, especially when we see them as an assault on our freedoms.Example: “I don’t care if your sign says masks are required. I can do whatever I want.”

Reactance

We seek out (and retain) information that confirms what we already believe.Example: Flat Earthers base their beliefs on a feeling, ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

Confirmation Bias

We see ourselves as more immune to media than others.Example: “See how brainwashed you’ve become?!”

Third-Person Effect

We tend to accept the outcome of an argument only if it matches what we believe. Example: All fish can swim, and whales can swim; therefore, whales are fish.

Belief Bias

You interpret evidence that disproves your belief as a confirmation of it.Example: You insist the world is flat because NASA faked all those photographs of Earth.

Backfire Effect

This is the first part of 50 cognitive biases, as tweeted in an infographic by Elon Musk. 

25 Cognitive Biases, As Tweeted By Elon Musk

<ul><li>Although Elon musk obtained not one but two degrees he is not someone who credits his college education to his success. In fact, he feels just the opposite. He has been very vocal about his criticisms of the modern education system.</li><li>Musk attended the University of Pennsylvania and received his bachelor's degree in both economics and physics; he intended to obtain his Ph.D. from Stanford but left soon after to co-found the web software company Zip2 along with his brother.</li><li>He decided to take his education into his own hands turning instead to textbooks and individuals with specialized knowledge.</li></ul>

Taking Education Into Your Own Hands

<ul><li>One of the earliest people Elon Musk reached out to is Jim Cantrell, who worked for the French Space Agency or CNES from 1990 to 1992 and then came back to the US  where he began consulting for aerospace agencies. </li><li>Musk called him out of the blue in 2001 and asked about the possibility of sending a spacecraft to mars + building the rockets himself. </li><li>Cantrell lent him some of his textbooks about rocket propulsion fundamentals of astrodynamics and the international reference guide to space launch systems.</li><li>After reading them, Musk developed the plans for the rocket that would eventually be used by S<warningtag>paceX.</warningtag></li></ul>

Reaching Out To The Right People

Another principle that Elon Musk follows in his quest for self-education is surrounding himself with the best and the brightest people. He would strike up conversations with people who were the best in their field, acquire their knowledge and expertise through discussions, and then try to replicate that knowledge when he applied it to his endeavors.It is for this reason that he keeps a close network of industry experts some of whom he even employs. In fact, Jim Cantrell actually worked with Musk at SpaceX for a time before moving on to his own ventures.

Surrounding Yourself With The Brightest People

Elon Musk admitted in an interview that he was raised by books and then his parents. His reading history is impressive: when he was just nine years old he reportedly read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, then moved on to almost exclusively reading science fiction novels for about 10 hours per day. Although the average person probably doesn't have 10 hours a day to dedicate to reading, some of the richest and most talented people will tell you that one of the secrets to their success is that they read constantly: take the example of  Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Mark Cuban.

Reading Habits of Successful People

What separates Musk from people who just read books is that he applies the knowledge he acquires.Musk has stated that he has two basic principles for knowledge acquisition and application: <ol><li>the first is that he reviews knowledge in his words as sort of a semantic tree; he encourages people to make sure they understand the fundamental principles.</li><li>the second principle is that it is nearly impossible to remember what you can't connect. The correct function of our brains and acquiring knowledge is not just to store random facts in order to learn. We have to practice putting that information to use.</li></ol>

Applying What You Read

How Elon Musk was able to accomplish so many things. Because Elon Musk has special methods, that's how he learned rocket science. That's how he learned anything he wanted. This is a very educational video, so don't miss it. SUBSCRIBE AND THEN IF YOU WON'T LIKE IT, OKAY YOU CAN UNSUBSCRIBE ╔═╦╗╔╦╗╔═╦═╦╦╦╦╗╔═╗ ║╚╣║║║╚╣╚╣╔╣╔╣║╚╣═╣ ╠╗║╚╝║║╠╗║╚╣║║║║║═╣ ╚═╩══╩═╩═╩═╩╝╚╩═╩═╝ Elon Musk Destroys Apple https://youtu.be/MXIswmG5xyE Elon Musk: I Will Tell You All about The Aliens: https://youtu.be/d8RBC3F2kC8 Elon Musk"Stop Blaming President for Everything" https://youtu.be/LqI_JoXdCZk Why Elon Musk Fires people https://youtu.be/Q47kZwvrrdo Elon Musk - "Delete Your Facebook" https://youtu.be/HA7bhpDaQ3Q Connect with us on Social Media: Connect on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DBBusinessPage Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dbbusinessofficial Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DBBusiness About Business Inquiries: dbbusinessytdep@gmail.com For my channel optimization I use TubeBoddy: http://bitly.ws/9mtn For Music I use Epidemicsound: http://bitly.ws/anbV ****** For any issues, this is our email: dbbusinessytdep@gmail.com DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide, I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting this channel, so I can continue to provide you with free content each week! Copyright © DB Business 2021 #ElonMusk #Musk #howtolearnanything

How To Learn Anything, Anywhere - Elon Musk

Elon Musk is the entrepreneur behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk’s mission with each of these companies was to save humanity.
Elon has always dreamed big. Plus, he eventually achieved many dreams people claimed he never could. From throwing massive parties to pay his way through his education at the University of Pennsylvania, to plans to create one of the first online banks. Elon has always been an innovator.

Elon Musk: An Introduction

Elon Musk’s motivations do not lie with money. He cares for humanity more than he cares about money.
<ul>
<li>These characteristics have allowed Elon to create two separate sustainable technology companies, Tesla Motors and SolarCity, that are each worth billions of dollars. Sustainability is a highly competitive industry, and without Elon’s internal drive, he probably would have failed.</li>
<li>He also has more elaborate plans for saving humanity. He states that his main goal in life is to save the human race. He wants to provide people with the opportunity to relocate to Mars before Earth is destroyed by climate change and asteroids.</li>
</ul>

Driven by the Idea of Saving Humanity

Elon Musk does not let worries consume him but instead uses them as motivation to get things done. However, this motivation can sometimes be overwhelming.
<ul>
<li>He has also become well known for setting unrealistic goals for his companies and unrealistic expectations of his employees. Subsequently, several previous employees have provided examples of the unbearable workloads and his verbal abuse.</li>
<li>Despite this, he is still respected by his employees. His clear sense of mission helps motivate them to follow his lead. They see he is successful in almost all his pursuits. He also demands unrealistic expectations of himself.</li>
</ul>

Paranoid-Like Focus

<ul>
<li>Growing up in South Africa, Elon had very few friends.</li>
<li>After his parents separated, Elon decided to live with his father. However, this decision led to a problematic young life for Elon. The Musk family has been unwilling to elaborate on how he behaved. Still, they are willing to describe him as an unpleasant man to be around.</li>
<li>As well to a difficult life at home, Elon was also bullied by his classmates because he was more intelligent than most of them. On some occasions, Elon would receive such a severe beating from the bullies that he couldn’t attend school for a week.</li>
</ul>

A Difficult Childhood

<ul>
<li>To escape from his complicated relationship with his father and the turmoils of school, Elon retreated into reading and studying. </li>
<li>Elon had the remarkable ability to memorize information photographically. Hence, he was able to read two encyclopedias and remember everything. </li>
<li>However, out of all books, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was the one that had the most significant impact on him. Specifically, the book taught him that answering a question is easy, but asking the right question is much more challenging.</li>
</ul>

Saved By Books

This ethos of looking to ask the right questions led to Elon Musk considering how he could expand and improve human civilization from a young age.
For example, by high school, he already had strong opinions on solar power, moving to other planets, paperless banking, and space rockets. On top of this, during this time, Elon started to learn more about entrepreneurship. He created his own video game, Blastar, which he sold for $500 when he was just 12 years old.

Asking The Right Questions

<ul>
<li>In the 1980s, when Elon Musk was reaching college age, military service was mandatory in South Africa. However, Elon had no interest in the military. So, he decided to leave the country.</li>
<li>The US was his dream destination, but he instead opted for Canada as a starting point.</li>
<li>Elon’s first year in Canada did not go exactly to plan. He struggled for money, as he drifted between odd jobs, and he struggled to find a real home. Instead, he was moving from relative to relative for short periods at a time.</li>
</ul>

The 80s: South Africa To Canada

Elon created his first company in 1995, straight out of college. He and his brother founded the Global Link Information Network. This company would later be renamed Zip2.
<ul>
<li>The USP of this company was that they guided businesses that are struggling to understand how to set up and use the internet. Although this idea would eventually make Elon and his brother millions of dollars, they were not immediately successful. As the internet was a completely new concept, several businesses did not yet understand the value of putting their business online.</li>
<li>Elon and his brother struggled to gain traction with their new startup until a venture capital firm was impressed by Elon’s energy and drive. Mohr Davidow Ventures decided to invest in the start-up after meeting Elon. They hired Rich Sorkin as CEO of the company, moving Elon further down the business.</li>
</ul>

Musk’s First Start-Up

<ul>
<li>Zip2 saw a considerable growth opportunity when, in February 1999, PC-maker Compaq Computer offered $307 million in cash for the company. </li>
<li>Elon did not even have to think about selling his share. He already had several other projects in mind, and this money would help make those dreams a reality. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, Elon wanted to become a CEO who was heavily involved in the company’s decision making.</li>
</ul>

The Compaq Takeover

<ul>
<li>After selling Zip2, Elon Musk had started to develop a strong reputation. Hence, he was able to partner with Barclays for his next business venture, X.com. At this time, people were still very wary of the internet. People were not even willing to buy books online, as they worried about using their bank details on the internet.</li>
<li>However, Elon opened one of the first online banks, X.com, and managed to increase people’s confidence in online banking through his innovative approach.</li>
<li>X.com’s executives asked the company board if they could demote Musk as CEO. The executives succeeded, and Musk became an advisor. </li>
<li>In July 2002, the company was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion. From this, Musk received $250 million. </li>
</ul>

X.COM

Elon Musk has always had a passion for space travel. Just before PayPal was sold, Elon moved from near Silicon Valley to Los Angeles. He was fed up with Silicon Valley and wanted a new adventure.
This adventure was space travel. He moved just around the corner from the US space industry hub, where they were considering the possibility of putting life on Mars. To investigate this possibility, the Mars Society was sending mice into orbit. Although Elon was interested in this idea, he believed they could go one step further. He preferred the idea of just sending the mice straight to Mars.

Investigating Life on Mars

Before Tesla, electric cars were available but were not mainstream. Wealthy individuals would always opt for a Jaguar or Ferrari over buying an electric car. However, Tesla changed the game. They provided powerful and stylish electric cars. Elon Musk made electric cars cool.
Tesla had slow growth at first but has now become one of the world’s most successful companies. Tesla’s Model S is the most influential of Tesla’s cars, with its release in 2012 changing the way we interact with cars.

Tesla Inspired an Electric Car Future

Elon Musk unveiled the Hyperloop in 2013. The Hyperloop is a large scale pneumatic tube. These are the same tubes used to send mail around offices. However, Elon has taken this idea and applied it on a grand scale. Large versions of these tubes will be used to transport people and their cars within pods.
The innovative approach that Hyperloop adopts allows the pods to travel as fast as 800 miles per hour. If adopted on a large scale, people will travel from LA to San Francisco in just 30 minutes.

The Hyperloop

South African born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey Junior. The personal tale of Musk's life comes with all the trappings one associates with a great, drama-filled story. He was a freakishly bright kid who was bullied brutally at school, and abused by his father. In the midst of these rough conditions, and the violence of apartheid South Africa, Musk still thrived academically and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he paid his own way through school by turning his house into a club and throwing massive parties. He started a pair of huge dot-com successes, including PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk was forced out as CEO and so began his lost years in which he decided to go it alone and baffled friends by investing his fortune in rockets and electric cars. Meanwhile Musk's marriage disintegrated as his technological obsessions took over his life ... Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of the present and the future, and for the past twelve months, he has been shadowed by tech reporter, Ashlee Vance. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the real-life Iron Man.

The Richest Person on Earth Breaks Every Rule, And You Should Too

25 More Cognitive Biases, As Tweeted By Elon Musk

25 Cognitive Biases, As Tweeted By Elon Musk

How To Learn Anything, Anywhere - Elon Musk

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

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