Reading Reflection No.3

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

For my third reading reflection I chose to read Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. I chose this book because I have always been a fan of Elon Musk and what he does, he goes against the grain and does what he wants. 

The thing that surprised me the most was that he was bullied in school. I see that being smart and an introvert pushed him against the other children. As you can see he faced those troubling times, but pushed through because he understood that his work was much more important than a couple kids calling his name. He never allowed this to stray hi away from what he wanted.           

 The thing that I most admire about Elon Musk is that he questions everything. If there's anything I learned from the most successful people is that they do not do what the normal 97% of society does. Doing this would lead them to the same lifestyle, so that's why they're in the position they're in right now. They had the power to fight every normality and one of these was Elon Musk. Without this mentality he would not be paving the way for science innovation as he is today. 

The thing I least admire about Musk is when he went off on an employee who was there to show their support at the birth of his child instead of attending a work event. He could have handled the situation differently, especially since they were there to support him and his wife. 

            

Musk encountered a lot of adversity in his childhood with bullying at school and the separation of his parents. He overcame this by becoming a great entrepreneur and starting two very successful tech companies that he used to finance his other passions in life, helping make the world a better place.

           

 Musk had many competencies about him from what I read. From his photographic memory to his desire to see things differently and ask questions that weren’t being asked to help solve his problems. One of, if not his biggest competencies is his desire to change the world. One of my favorite quotes was “if the rules are such that you can’t make progress, then you have to fight the rules.” 

            

One part of the book that was confusing to me was his mindset about putting all of your projects under one roof to make a lasting impact on the world. I feel as though there are other ways to make a lasting impact and that they can wear many different hats and live under many different roofs.

            

If I could ask two questions they would be: What impact on your professional and personal life has smoking weed with Joe Rogan on the Joe Rogan Experience had? And What are other little projects like the flame thrower are you working on or can we expect in the future? I would ask these because I know a lot of other information is out there on him because he is so famous, and I think it would be cool to get to know him and see what other cool ideas that aren’t going to save the world he has.

            

I think Musk’s opinion of hard work is that it is the most important thing. He has created so many successful things and those don’t come without hard work. I share Musk’s opinion or at least what I think his opinion is on hard work, I feel it has helped me get to where I am today.