Elon Musk, a man constantly making waves at the forefront of innovation. Driven by his boundless curiosity, the key trait he utilised to establish industry-leading companies like SpaceX, Tesla, PayPal and many more within a scant few years.
So what is the secret behind Elon’s genius? You may have wondered how this man can seem so smart, well here are 6 steps you can take to follow his way of thought.
1. Open up to new perspectives
Many think that specialising and becoming an expert in a particular field is the way to success and the forefront of development, Elon Musk begs to differ. Rather than becoming an expert in a single field, Elon Musk is an ‘expert generalist’ with deep knowledge in multiple fields of different disciplines.
Here are some of the things you should do to be as knowledgeable as him:
Look for a subject that interests you and don’t be afraid of the difficulty in learning it
Challenge the established status quo. Look for new opportunities rather than ones people are already fighting for.
Elon Musk is living proof that going above and beyond to chase what others consider a pipe dream and succeeding is possible. Becoming the sole pioneer and leading expert in an undiscovered industry is possible if you follow the same principles.
2. Start from the basics
If you want to speak English well, you need to learn the alphabet before you start with sentences. This simple rule applies to everything, building up your basics before doing anything complex prevents you from making dumb and basic mistakes. To innovate, you need to know what isn’t known or what isn’t being used.
Elon Musk once said, “It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, for instance, the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
In practice, you can apply the ‘semantic tree’ concept in these ways:
Obtaining a complete understanding of the fundamentals before moving onto more advanced topics
Pay attention to the details, even if they seem insignificant to others
Compress and organise all your notes neatly, make them easy to understand for yourself
3. Focus on what you learned and know
It took Elon Musk just 2 years to pick up rocket science and learn enough to launch SpaceX as a leading pioneer in space transportation, the most successful private enterprise for space exploration and transportation ever made.
So how do you follow in Elon’s footsteps? Start by learning from many other people as much as you can, so you can have an idea of what you are getting into before you dive in.
It can be said that knowing how to get reliable and true knowledge is one of the most important steps on this path. Being able to filter out false information is something many people overlook despite their education.
4. Link each field of study together
Once Elon Musk has his basics covered on multiple subjects, he utilises the knowledge of different subjects to support and launch creative ideas. Making use of multiple fields of knowledge to achieve a goal while making it less academic and more realistic.
Here are some of the benefits of doing this:
You will be able to put knowledge to practical use much easier and more frequently
You can come up with new and creative ideas, thinking out of the box will be much easier when you are not limited to a box that is a single field or subject
5. Branch out your knowledge
This man believed that knowing just one thing is not enough. The more we learn, the more we see the world from a broader perspective. By gaining more knowledge in different fields, you can spot more possible connections and interactions that have not been explored or documented in depth before.
6. Putting knowledge to practical use
Action is the key to success. If you don’t come up with a way to take the knowledge you gained and apply it to practical use, then you’ve wasted your time studying. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, failure is the best teacher you will ever have. The lessons you learn from the pain of failing can be used to improve your next attempt, it helps develop your ability better than any other way.
Anyone can be a smart thinker like Elon Musk
If you’ve read up to this point, then you’ll understand why Elon Musk’s way of thinking has allowed him to achieve worldwide success and become a renowned person. We can all apply his philosophy to ourselves and be able to not only improve our creativity but also be unafraid of challenging the established norm.
