Going off what wrote yesterday, I think anybody with decent health (mental and physical) is fully capable of becoming the next Elon Musk.
People give themselves much less than credit than they deserve.
If somebody tells you, “you could be the next Elon Musk,” 99.9% of people who hear that would instantly write the person off. They’d think to themselves, “no, there’s no way. That’s crazy.”
Why is it crazy?
Elon Musk wasn’t born with any of the knowledge he has right now. He was born, like all of us, completely helpless and lacking any intelligence.
How did this change? He didn’t, by way of nature, teach himself coding or aircraft engineering (directly). Do you know how Elon made it where he is today?
Ambition.
If you’re ambitious, you can do ANYTHING that ANYBODY IN THE WORLD has EVER DONE, EVER.
Using this ambition, he read many books and essays written by other people well-versed in those subjects, INDIRECTLY teaching himself those subjects. See, he didn’t teach himself anything. All he had was the ambition to thirst for knowledge, and he used that ambition to become well-read in a variety of topics.
Virtually anybody can do what Elon did, though it would take some sacrifice.
I’m being totally honest right now: if I wanted to earn a net worth of $50 billion, I could accomplish such a feat in 10 years. The only thing holding me back is a desire to do other things. Sure, I could make $50 billion in 10 years, but do I want to? Probably not. It’d be a real hassle, and I’d rather make less money doing what I want to do.
Think about it—though I know I could do this, it’d entail so much suffering in order to get there. I’d have to quit school and all my jobs. I would, without a doubt, go homeless within the first 3 months. Then, I’d be at the library from opening until closing every single day, surviving off nothing but water and peanut butter sandwiches. During the first 3 years, I’d learn as much as possible about whatever venture I deemed most appropriate. For the next 5 years, I’d begin developing business ideas that could become profitable. For the final 2 years, I’d distribute the developed ideas to maximize profits.
You see, I (and anybody) can do this. It’d take lots of suffering to get to where you want to be, but its possibility is not contingent on your mental capacity.
The only thing stopping you is yourself.
Until next time,
Michael J. Erickson, CEO & Co-Founder
