How to achieve outstanding success?

And the answer was found. Moreover, from a person who, perhaps, more than many can tell about how outstanding successes are achieved. It was given by the writer Justine Musk, who from 2000 to 2008 was married to Elon Musk (1). Here is her response, which gained immense popularity in a matter of days and has already been reprinted by many online media outlets.

“Outstanding success comes to outstanding people and comes at a heavy cost. You need to understand that truly great success is very different from conventional success. And you don’t have to be Elon or Richard to be wealthy, accomplished, and lead a beautiful life. Moreover, your life will most likely be much happier as well. But if you yourself do not fit into the general framework, then remain yourself: simply by recognizing that happiness is not entirely about you. Outstanding people are eccentrics and white crows who find it more difficult than others to find a common language with the world. But it is necessary to survive. And if they survive, then, as adults, they use their ability to overcome enormous difficulties to achieve enormous success. They don’t think like most people, and most people think they’re almost crazy. But it is precisely before them that the paths to success are opened, which the rest will never see.

Be obsessed.

Be obsessed.

Be obsessed.

Be – and if not, quit what you are doing and look for a business that will finally absorb you completely! And one that would serve something greater than your greatness and your success. Yes, self-importance is useful, but it will definitely not be enough to attract people whose help you will need (and you will definitely need it, and don’t try to be mistaken about this). Only this “something more” will save you from complacency when everyone around will begin to extol you and your successes in every way. The goal should enchant and hypnotize you every second, forcing you to continue the pursuit of it, the pursuit, which itself becomes the main source of pleasure and the meaning of life. Personal success will never be such a goal. Outstanding people combine talent with an insane obsession with work. And if you are not able to work like that, then you will soon slide to the sidelines. Or you will be pushed there by truly obsessed competitors.

So follow your obsession until the Problem begins to grow in front of you. That same, unsolvable, huge, concerning a huge number of people (the more – the better!) The problem about which you will immediately understand: you need to either solve it or die trying. Solving it will be your outstanding success, but remember that it can take years to find it alone. You have to go through many areas of knowledge just to find all the pieces of this puzzle, which then will need to be added again.

Superhuman energy and stamina won’t hurt much. And if nature has not endowed you with the genes of immortal gods, you should take care to keep your body in great shape. You will be tired from endless flights and fruitless negotiations, vain efforts and excessively violent parties, family scandals and problems with the closest people await you, loneliness, failures and bouts of despair await you. You will have to get used to the fact that people annoy you and drive you into depression, get used to sleeping less than you need to sleep, and then sleep even less than you got used to. And only a strong spirit without a strong body will not cope with all this. Learn to deal with levels of stress that would break most people.

Read more:

• The formula for success

Don’t try to follow the beaten path or imitate established models. The outstanding success is not to step on the same path, but further than all others, but to step in the other direction. All who achieve it are people with their own and each time unique set of personal virtues, and the recipes of the other simply do not fit for one of them. One of the reasons great entrepreneurs achieve their greatness is because they don’t fit into any existing framework and rules of corporate life. These are hard people. They can suffer from attention disorders, be dyslexic and even autistic, they irritate others like a sticking nail in the seat of a chair, they constantly argue, rock the boat and spit on countless volumes of paper calculations and evidence. Yet they transform their weaknesses into means to an end. And do not hesitate to seek the help of those who surpass them in talents in the field that currently occupies them.

They are not afraid of failure. Or maybe they are afraid, but they do not show it and continue to fill their bumps. They certainly endure truly epic, breathtaking, public and humiliating defeats that never fall to the lot of ordinary people. But the lessons they learn from these defeats will never be learned by ordinary people. And outstanding people teach them – until defeat becomes a milestone on the path to victory. The hardness and fortitude that is needed for this is simply incredible.

Also, highly successful people are unlikely to read advice like the one I’m trying to give you. (This is not a stone in the garden of readers, I myself love to read such advice!) They are outstanding, much more likely to turn to primary sources. And if they are interested in greatness, they will read the biography of Alexander the Great, Catherine the Great – or whoever else they consider great. Surfing the Web looking for something interesting or useful to them is a waste of time. And they know its price very well – even at the beginning of the journey or at moments of failure, when, formally speaking, their time is worth nothing at all.

I could say a lot more – I am very partial to this topic – but I think you understood the main thing. Therefore, I just wish that you never run out of strength and good luck. And something else strong – a glass or two sometimes doesn’t hurt much either. ”