A priority is something that you need to do more of, and you need to do sooner than later. According to Alfredo Pareto (Pareto Principle) -focusing attention on the top 20% of your priorities will get an 80% return on your effort. Your priority is your most important task and the top of mind that needs to be taken care of before any other activity.
Here are some great quotes on priorities:
This masterclass session is delivered by Dr. Matthew Walker, the influential British neuroscientist and author of the international bestseller Why We Sleep. As a specialist in the study of slumber and the founder-director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, he has examined how sleep affects the brain and body. He’s analyzed everything from its role in Alzheimer’s and depression to the ways it can facilitate learning and, potentially, extend our life expectancy. (Indeed, the center is a world leader in studying the effects of sleep on the mind and body.)
In his book, Entrepreneur Revolution Author and Entrepreneur, Daniel Priestley shared a very great concept he called CAOS (Concept, Audience, Offer, and Sales). The CAOS challenge objective is to conduct a low-risk launch of a new product or service. You test the commercial response to a product or service by simply conducting sales meetings armed with little more than a brochure and a sign-up form.
The CAOS challenge can be used even if you have a business already, conduct a low-risk launch of a new product or service. I love formula/acrostics as a teaching mechanism, the books I remember the most are the ones with mnemonics; books like:
In order to launch a product or service, you will need four things:
Concept.
You need an answer for the basic questions people will ask: What’s this product or service about? What problem does it solve? Why should people listen to you?
To complete this step, put together a slide presentation on Keynote or PowerPoint so that you can present your concept to people in a presentation. Deliver this presentation to several close friends or associates in order to get feedback and criticism to improve it. Remember that the concept has to be something you are passionate about, something you can add value to and something people are willing to pay for.
Audience.
Who is this product or service for? Who do you need to get in front of in order to sell it?
Devise a questionnaire or survey that you can get 50 people to complete in order to discover insights into the drivers behind what kind of people are interested in your offer and what makes it appealing or what turns them off the idea.
Offer.
What’s the deal? What do people get for their money? What are the terms and conditions?
Construct a four to eight-page brochure that outlines exactly what you are offering people, include the features and benefits of the offer and as much information as you can that will entice someone to buy. Accompany it with a sign-up form people can complete if they want to buy and a form that has the relevant terms and conditions on it.
Sales.
Can you present and sell this concept? Can you handle questions, concerns and objections? Can you get payments or deposits? What is you conversion ratio from presentation to sale?
“When you sit with people and present your offer, be brave and ask them if they would like to put down a deposit or full payment in order to become one of the first clients for your business at a special rate. If they object, ask them why share any insights that might clarify the value you offer and see if you can find a way that they would comfortably make the purchase. Either way, record the main objections and your responses so that you can improve the way you and your offer address people’s concerns.”
“When you have these four areas covered, make face-to-face appointments with people to deliver a sales presentation, ask them to buy the product on the spot and see what they say in response. Your initial objective isn’t necessarily to make sales but to get feedback, and it’s hard to get real feedback unless you actually ask people to part with money for the product. Keep detailed records of every sales meeting to uncover the common objections and to determine the ratio of presentations to sales.”
The CAOS challenge isn’t designed to build a business on, it’s designed to quickly and cheaply test an idea in a commercial environment. If you go out and meet with 20–50 people and you make £10k+ in sales, there’s a good chance you have the makings of a business. Don’t worry too much yet about how it will scale or how it will run without you. At this stage, just see if you can get people to buy something.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
Entrepreneur Daniel Priestley in his great book, “Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business that Works” shared seven hard truths of entrepreneurship and I found them to be very true and helpful. He writes:
Seven hard truths of Entrepreneurship
TRUTH 1: IT’S HARD AND IT GETS HARDER
Entrepreneurship isn’t easy: you’re taking on people’s problems. You are taking on problems for your customers, for your staff, for your family and ultimately yourself. This responsibility is something that your family and your staff won’t or can’t grasp (and nor should you try to make them – it’s your journey not theirs). Entrepreneurship is so hard at times, it’s not even worth mentioning how hard it is. Rather than hoping for the day it’s effortless, you need to embrace the challenge. Realise that you aren’t digging ditches or scavenging for food and water.
Entrepreneurship is so hard at times, it’s not even worth mentioning how hard it is.
Your problems are entirely of your own making and you are engaged in a meaningful struggle to bring your vision out into the world. Stop looking for reprieve and start making things happen – accept that it’s hard, but you’re living in the most exciting time in history and it’s hard because you’ve chosen a new path.”
TRUTH 2: NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU
There’s no entrepreneur coming to ‘take you to the next level’ – they are already building their own businesses. There’s no world-class manager who’s coming to join your team and fix every issue – they already work for Google and they would want crazy money to leave. They certainly wouldn’t want to work for someone who needs saving.
In every way, you are in the driver’s seat and everyone is looking to you for leadership. Great people on your team will be great because you made them great – you trained them, developed them and believed in their potential, even while they made mistake after mistake.
Removing the hope that someone is coming to save you leaves you with the realisation that this business is in your hands, and your hands only. Stop searching for the White Knight and start showing up with bravery and leaning in to your challenges.
TRUTH 3: IN ORDER TO DO THE WORK YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO WIN THE WORK
Here’s the problem, in order to do the work, you need to win the work. You have to get a client to transfer the money, sign the cheque or enter their PIN. Until that happens, it doesn’t matter how cool your ideas are or how good you are at delivering value to a client.
There’s no easy sales system that generates clients passively. Great companies with billion-dollar brands still need excellent sales professionals to secure new business. No amount of content generates automatic sales, beautiful branding won’t do it either, and great sales people will only perform on your team if they can see how you sell first.”
“Sales skills can be learned. You can craft brilliant presentations, get better at listening and work on your communication skills.
Eventually, you can inspire a team of people who help win business – but only if you can find your groove when selling first. Lean in to the sales process and never take your foot off the accelerator.
TRUTH 4: THINGS DON’T WORK FOR LONG
There’s no foolproof system, there’s no magic bullet and there are no people who just work hard without leadership. Every system will need to be refined, every cutting-edge strategy will become commonplace, every hot product will cool off, every ace team member will need training and every asset will need developing.
Business requires you to juggle and there’s no such thing as a ball that just stays in the air, there are only people who get good at juggling. As soon as you give up on the expectation that things will just work, you suddenly embrace the challenge of dealing with more and more complexity. You discover a rhythm of pre-empting what needs your attention, and you begin to fix things just as they begin to break rather than waiting for them to get completely destroyed. Expect people and things to break down over time and lean in to the process of reinvention.
TRUTH 5: YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL
Despite your best thinking and most diligent planning, most of what you do won’t work. Your best advertising will be ignored by most people. Your best sales presentation will be rejected by a huge portion of people you present to. Your foolproof solution will fall apart at a crucial time. You’re going to lose a battle you should have won. You’re going to be at a low point and then another thing is going to come along and crush you. You’ll have days that you just can’t get yourself fired up no matter how hard you try.
Some of the best entrepreneurs have had complete business failures and gone bankrupt. Even when the worst things happen, the sun comes up the next day and you have another opportunity to try something else.
Let yourself off the hook for being perfect – it’s not even a possibility. Get on with doing the best you can and expect delays. Lean in to failure because it’s a great teacher and it’s part of the process.”
TRUTH 6: IT’S UNFAIR
Sometimes people don’t keep their word, some deals go badly and situations unfold that everyone agrees is wrong. Even when this happens, don’t become jaded or bitter. Don’t complain how unfair things are – accept it and move forward.
Keep the perspective that life in general isn’t fair and there’s a good chance you’ve been on the right side of the unfairness before. You were probably born in a country that gave you an unfair advantage, you probably had lucky breaks, you probably had an education millions of people dream of. You probably have an unfair amount of health and good looks. If you have running water and healthy food available, many people would consider those basics of life aren’t fairly distributed. As an entrepreneur, you must never complain about how unfair things are for you, instead champion the causes of others less fortunate than yourself and solve problems others won’t solve for themselves. Then you will be fine. Lean in to the unfairness and be grateful that you have the opportunity to overcome your unique set of challenges.
TRUTH 7: YOU’RE NOT ENTITLED TO REWARDS
You’re not on this planet to be the recipient of riches and great rewards. You’re not entitled to travel, to have a big house or to enjoy endless holidays.”
“You’re here to solve problems for others. Your most rewarding work will be in the service of others, doing meaningful but challenging work. You might not get recognised for this work, the credit might go to someone else, or the people you help might not be grateful at times.”
“It just so happens you’ve already won the human lottery. By virtue of the fact you’re alive at this moment, you’re educated, have access to technology, medicine and information, you’ve already got the rewards. You’re luckier than 99.9% of every human being that has walked the earth. Now it’s time to bring your A-game for helping others.
As soon as you give up on the idea that you’re doing this business for a payoff, and you just serve others as best you can and as sustainably as you can, you’ll start to gain huge satisfaction from the work itself. Everything on top of the opportunity to serve will be a bonus. Additionally, without any sense of entitlement to rewards, you will be the one who chooses to reward yourself as and when you want to rather than expecting the rewards to magically arrive. Lean in to serving others and accept the rewards you choose.”
Business is tough, but it’s great. It’s a challenge that forces you to perform at your best and it won’t tolerate anything less. The main thing that makes business miserable is juvenile expectations that it should always be fun, fair, easy and rewarding by default. If you want it to be easy, it gets damn hard. Paradoxically, if you embrace the struggle, it’s a lot more fun and you start to realise just how lucky you are.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
We often exaggerate yesterday, overestimate tomorrow and underestimate today.
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In Today Matters, John C. Maxwell shares 12 decisions and disciplines – he calls the daily dozen that can be learned and mastered by anyone to achieve success. A lot of us exaggerate yesterday, overestimate tomorrow, and we underestimate today. According to John, Today Matters, and it is the most important day you will ever experience. The Secret of your success is determined by what you daily.
Here are my favourite takeaways from reading, Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success.
Today is the only time you have. It’s too late for yesterday. And you can’t depend on tomorrow. That’s why today matters.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was right when he said “We are what repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act but a habit.” You do not have to be great to start but you have to start to be great. A journey of a thousand mile, begins with a single step. One of the ways have been able to keep grounded during trying times such as getting laid off or losing my mum is the power of routines. It has worked for me thus far and I think it can work for anyone. Here is my typical daily routine.
When a really great dream shows up, grab it!
Google co-founder and University of Michigan alumnus Larry Page delivered the spring 2009 commencement address at the University of Michigan to the graduating students.
Larry Page’s 2009 University of Michigan Commencement Speech Transcript:
A long time ago, in the cold September of 1962, there was a Steven’s co-op at this very university. That co-op had a kitchen with a ceiling that had been cleaned by student volunteers every decade or so. Picture a college girl named Gloria, climbing up high on a ladder, struggling to clean that filthy ceiling. Standing on the floor, a young boarder named Carl was admiring the view. And that’s how they met. They were my parents, so I suppose you could say I’m a direct result of that kitchen chemistry experiment, right here at Michigan. My Mom is here with us today, and we should probably go find the spot and put a plaque up on the ceiling that says: “Thanks Mom and Dad!”
Everyone in my family went to school here at Michigan: me, my brother, my Mom and Dad — all of us. My Dad actually got the quantity discount: all three and a half of his degrees are from here. His Ph.D. was in Communication Science because they thought Computers were just a passing fad. He earned it 44 years ago. He and Mom made a big sacrifice for that. They argued at times over pennies, while raising my newborn brother. Mom typed my Dad’s dissertation by hand. This velvet hood I’m wearing, this was my Dad’s. And this diploma, just like the one you’re are about to get, that was my Dad’s. And my underwear, that was… oh never mind.
My father’s father worked in the Chevy plant in Flint, Michigan. He was an assembly line worker. He drove his two children here to Ann Arbor, and told them: That is where you’re going to go to college. Both his kids did graduate from Michigan. That was the American dream. His daughter, Beverly, is with us today. My Grandpa used to carry an “Alley Oop” hammer — a heavy iron pipe with a hunk of lead melted on the end. The workers made them during the sit-down strikes to protect themselves. When I was growing up, we used that hammer whenever we needed to pound a stake or something into the ground. It is wonderful that most people don’t need to carry a heavy blunt object for protection anymore. But just in case, I have it here.
My Dad became a professor at uh… Michigan State, and I was an incredibly lucky boy. A professor’s life is pretty flexible, and he was able to spend oodles of time raising me. Could there be a better upbringing than university brat?
What I’m trying to tell you is that this is WAY more than just a homecoming for me. It’s not easy for me to express how proud I am to be here, with my Mom, my brother and my wife Lucy, and with all of you, at this amazing institution that is responsible for my very existence. I am thrilled for all of you, and I’m thrilled for your families and friends, as all of us join the great, big Michigan family I feel I’ve been a part of all of my life.
What I’m also trying to tell you is that I know exactly what it feels like to be sitting in your seat, listening to some old gasbag give a long-winded commencement speech. Don’t worry. I’ll be brief.
I have a story about following dreams. Or maybe more accurately, it’s a story about finding a path to make those dreams real.
You know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know how, if you don’t have a pencil and pad by the bed to write it down, it will be completely gone the next morning?
Well, I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up, I was thinking: what if we could download the whole web, and just keep the links and… I grabbed a pen and started writing! Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. I spent the middle of that night scribbling out the details and convincing myself it would work. Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks to download the web — he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough to not tell me. The optimism of youth is often underrated! Amazingly, I had no thought of building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later we happened upon a better way of ranking webpages to make a really great search engine, and Google was born. When a really great dream shows up, grab it!
When a really great dream shows up, grab it!
When I was here at Michigan, I had actually been taught how to make dreams real! I know it sounds funny, but that is what I learned in a summer camp converted into a training program called Leadershape. Their slogan is to have a “healthy disregard for the impossible”. That program encouraged me to pursue a crazy idea at the time: I wanted to build a personal rapid transit system on campus to replace the buses. It was a futuristic way of solving our transportation problem. I still think a lot about transportation — you never lose a dream, it just incubates as a hobby. Many things that people labor hard to do now, like cooking, cleaning, and driving will require much less human time in the future. That is, if we “have a healthy disregard for the impossible” and actually build new solutions.
I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. I know that sounds completely nuts. But, since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition. There are so few people this crazy that I feel like I know them all by first name. They all travel as if they are pack dogs and stick to each other like glue. The best people want to work the big challenges. That is what happened with Google. Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. How can that not get you excited? But we almost didn’t start Google because my co-founder Sergey and I were too worried about dropping out of our Ph.D. program. You are probably on the right track if you feel like a sidewalk worm during a rainstorm! That is about how we felt after we maxed out three credit cards buying hard disks off the back of a truck. That was the first hardware for Google. Parents and friends: more credit cards always help. What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!
Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!
As a Ph.D. student, I actually had three projects I wanted to work on. Thank goodness my advisor said, “why don’t you work on the web for a while”. He gave me some seriously good advice because the web was really growing with people and activity, even in 1995! Technology and especially the internet can really help you be lazy. Lazy? What I mean is a group of three people can write software that millions can use and enjoy. Can three people answer the phone a million times a day? Find the leverage in the world, so you can be more lazy!
Find the leverage in the world, so you can be more lazy!
Overall, I know it seems like the world is crumbling out there, but it is actually a great time in your life to get a little crazy, follow your curiosity, and be ambitious about it. Don’t give up on your dreams. The world needs you all!
So here’s my final story:
On a day like today, you might feel exhilarated — like you’ve just been shot out of a cannon at the circus — and even invincible. Don’t ever forget that incredible feeling. But also: always remember that the moments we have with friends and family, the chances we have to do things that might make a big difference in the world, or even to make a small difference to someone you love — all those wonderful chances that life gives us, life also takes away. It can happen fast, and a whole lot sooner than you think.
In late March 1996, soon after I had moved to Stanford for grad school, my Dad had difficulty breathing and drove to the hospital. Two months later, he died. And that was it. I was completely devastated. Many years later, after a startup, after falling in love, and after so many of life’s adventures, I found myself thinking about my Dad. Lucy and I were far away in a steaming hot village walking through narrow streets. There were wonderful friendly people everywhere, but it was a desperately poor place — people used the bathroom inside and it flowed out into the open gutter and straight into the river. We touched a boy with a limp leg, the result of paralysis from polio. Lucy and I were in rural India — one of the few places where Polio still exists. Polio is transmitted fecal to oral, usually through filthy water. Well, my Dad had Polio. He went on a trip to Tennessee in the first grade and caught it. He was hospitalized for two months and had to be transported by military DC-3 back home — his first flight. My Dad wrote, “Then, I had to stay in bed for over a year, before I started back to school”. That is actually a quote from his fifth grade autobiography. My Dad had difficulty breathing his whole life, and the complications of Polio are what took him from us too soon. He would have been very upset that Polio still persists even though we have a vaccine. He would have been equally upset that back in India we had polio virus on our shoes from walking through the contaminated gutters that spread the disease. We were spreading the virus with every footstep, right under beautiful kids playing everywhere. The world is on the verge of eliminating polio, with 328 people infected so far this year. Let’s get it done soon. Perhaps one of you will do that.
My Dad was valedictorian of Flint Mandeville High School 1956 class of about 90 kids. I happened across his graduating speech recently, and it blew me away. 53 years ago at his graduation my Dad said: “…we are entering a changing world, one of automation and employment change where education is an economic necessity. We will have increased periods of time to do as we wish, as our work week and retirement age continue to decline. … We shall take part in, or witness, developments in science, medicine, and industry that we can not dream of today. … It is said that the future of any nation can be determined by the care and preparation given to its youth. If all the youths of America were as fortunate in securing an education as we have been, then the future of the United States would be even more bright than it is today.”
If my Dad was alive today, the thing I think he would be most happy about is that Lucy and I have a baby in the hopper. I think he would have been annoyed that I hadn’t gotten my Ph.D. yet (thanks, Michigan!). Dad was so full of insights, of excitement about new things, that to this day, I often wonder what he would think about some new development. If he were here today — well, it would be one of the best days of his life.
He’d be like a kid in a candy store. For a day, he’d be young again.
Many of us are fortunate enough to be here with family. Some of us have dear friends and family to go home to. And who knows, perhaps some of you, like Lucy and I, are dreaming about future families of your own. Just like me, your families brought you here, and you brought them here. Please keep them close and remember: they are what really matters in life.
Thanks, Mom; Thanks, Lucy.
And thank you, all, very much.
Source: University of Michighan
I am presently learning python programming language, and it has not been easy grasping the language; just like any new skill set, I am taking it a step at a time, trusting the process and learning/practicing day in day out. I recently came across the “Zen of Python” written by software developer Tim Peters as a python design philosophy.
The Zen of Python is a collection of 19 “guiding principles” for writing computer programs that influence the Python programming language design. Software engineer Tim Peters wrote this set of principles and posted it on the Python mailing list in 1999.
To view the zen of python on your python interpreter type “import this.”
Writing elegant and beautiful code is an art form, as every programmer solves problems differently. The goal should not be to write perfect code; the goal is to write code that works and solves the problem you intend to solve.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
If you strike a thorn or rose,
Keep a-goin’!
If it hails or if it snows,
Keep a-goin’!
‘Taint no use to sit an’ whine
When the fish ain’t on your line;
Bait your hook an’ keep a-tryin’–
Keep a-goin’!
When the weather kills your crop,
Keep a-goin’!
Though ’tis work to reach the top,
Keep a-goin’!
The past always appears more certain than it was, and that makes the future feel more uncertain—and therefore frightening—than ever.
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From terror attacks to collapsing economies, from painkiller epidemics to mass gun violence and poisonous toys from China, our list of fears seems to be exploding. Yet we are the safest and healthiest humans in history. Why are we so worried?
The Science of Fear is an introduction to the new brain science of risk, dissecting the fears that misguide and manipulate us every day. Award-winning journalist Dan Gardner demonstrates how irrational fear springs from the ways humans miscalculate risks based on our hunter-gatherer brains
Here are my favourite take-aways from reading, The Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain by Daniel Gardner.
Your attitude determines your altitude, how far you go in life is determined by your outlook in life. Attitude (noun): a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behavior. The word Attitude is equal to 100, A + T + T + I + T + U + D + E (1 + 20 + 20 + 9 + 20 + 21 + 4 + 5 = 100%) Attitude is everything.
Author John C.Maxwell, in his book Today Matters writes:
A mother and her adult daughter were out shopping one day, trying to make the most of a big sale weekend before Christmas. As they went from store to store in the mall, the older woman complained about everything: the crowds, the poor quality of the merchandise, the prices, and her sore feet. After the mother experienced a particularly difficult interaction with a clerk in one department store, she turned to her daughter and said, “I’m never going back to that store again. Did you see that dirty look she gave me?
The daughter answered, “She didn’t give it to you, Mom. You had it when you went in!”
When we interact with others, our attitudes often set the tone for how we treat one another. Smile at people when you meet them, and they often smile back. Act combative, and they are likely to snap back at you. If you want to enjoy mostly pleasant interaction with people as you go through your day, treat others well. It works more often than not.
“Your attitude is a choice. If you desire to make your day a masterpiece, then you need to have a great attitude. If it’s not good now, you need to change it. Make the decision. ”
Here are some great quote on Attitude:
Elon Musk was born (June 28, 1971) to a Canadian mother and South African father and raised in Pretoria, South Africa. He briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada when he was 17 to attend Queen’s University. He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he received dual bachelor’s degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to begin a Ph.D. in applied physics and material sciences at Stanford University, but dropped out after two days to pursue a business career.
He co-founded Zip2, a web software company, which was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999. Musk then founded X.com, an online bank. It merged with Confinity in 2000, which had launched PayPalthe previous year and was subsequently bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002.
In May 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, of which he is CEO and lead designer. He joined Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.), an electric vehicle manufacturer, in 2004, the year after it was founded, becoming its product architect that year and its CEO in 2008. In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy services company (now a subsidiary of Tesla). In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company that aims to promote friendly artificial intelligence.
In July 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain-computer interfaces. In December 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel construction company focused on tunnels optimized for electric vehicles. In addition to his primary business pursuits, he envisioned an open-source high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop based on the concept of a vactrain.
Elon is the founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. Also that year, he was ranked 25th on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People and was ranked joint-first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. A centi-billionaire, Musk became the richest person in the world in January 2021.
Business Career
At the age of 10, he developed an interest in computing while using the Commodore VIC-20. He learned computer programming using a manual and, by age 12, sold the code of a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500.
Zip2
In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded web software company Zip2 with funds from a group of angel investors. The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow pages.
Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999. Musk received $22 million for his 7 percent share from the sale.
X.com – Confinity – Psypal
In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with $10 million from the sale of Zip2. One year later, the company merged with Confinity, which had a money-transfer service called PayPal
Musk was ousted in October 2000 from his role as CEO (although he remained on the board) due to disagreements with other company executives over his desire to move PayPal’s Unix-based infrastructure to a Microsoft one.
In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received $165 million. Before its sale, Musk, who was the company’s largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal’s shares.
PayPal Mafia
The “PayPal Mafia” is a group of former PayPal, ‘
employees and founders who have since founded and developed additional technology companies such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer. Most of the members attended Stanford University or University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign at some point in their studies.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp.(SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars
In May 2020, SpaceX launched its first manned flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to both place a person into orbit and dock a crewed space-craft with the ISS. Furthermore, it marked the first time an American astronaut was launched from American soil on an American rocket since the end of the Space Shuttle program.
Tesla
Founded in July 2003 as Tesla Motors, the company’s name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. Elon Musk, who contributed most of the funding in the early days, has served as CEO since 2008.
As of 2019, Elon Musk is the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally. As of December 31, 2019, Musk owns 38,658,670 shares or 20.8% of all Tesla shares.
SolarCity
Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive co-founded in 2006. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.
Neuralink
In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology start-up company to integrate the human brain with AI. The company is centered on creating devices that can be implanted in the human brain, with the eventual purpose of helping human beings merge with software and keep pace with advancements in artificial intelligence.
The Boring Company
On December 17, 2016, while stuck in traffic, Musk tweeted “[I] am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging …” He then founded ‘The Boring Company’ (TBC).
Hyperloop
The Hyperloop is a proposed mode of passenger and freight transportation, first used to describe an open-source vactrain design released by a joint team from Tesla and SpaceX, although the vactrain concept was first proposed by Robert H. Goddard in 1904.
OpenAI
In December 2015, Musk announced the creation of OpenAI, a not-for-profit AI research company. OpenAI aims to develop artificial general intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial to humanity
It’s not the companies’ responsibility to make you happy. It’s your job to find and create career happiness for yourself.
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Author and Career Coach, Kanika Tolver shares innovative ways to brand, market, and sell yourself into jobs that promote work-life balance, fair compensation, and continuous career development. Career Rehab focuses on assisting career transformations for students, professionals, and retirees. In Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Personal Brand and Rethink the Way You Work, Kanika shares various research, success stories, interviews, and case studies on personal branding and re-invention.
Here are my favourite takeaways from reading: Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Personal Brand and Rethink the Way You Work.
In his very great book, Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business that Works, best-selling author and Entrepreneur Daniel Priestley observed that there are three key part of an ‘Entrepreneur Brain'”: The reptile, The monkey and The Entrepreneur (Visionary).
DON’T LET THE REPTILE RUN YOUR LIFE
The reptile – fight, flight freeze (emotional often in a bad way – aggression, fear, panic, etc).
If you operate from the primitive, survival part of your brain, you can expect to live like a reptile. Reptiles don’t achieve very much, they eat scraps, they crawl all over each other, they don’t evolve and they feel the cold when the winters of life come around. Reptiles are either fighting for scraps, mating or conserving energy while watching anything that moves to see if it’s good for food or sex.
Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do. – Pele
Author Earl Nightingale defined success as the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. This means that any person who knows what they are doing and where they are going is a success. Any person with a goal towards which they are working is a successful person. Success is personal and subjective hence what I think to be successful might not mean success to you but no matter what your definition of success is, you still need to aim for something. Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of success in life is just showing up. It is the writer who sits down every day to write, the entrepreneur who is always growing his business, the salesman who is always pitching, the artist who is always rehearsing, the sportsman who is always at the gym training, the student at the library studying.
You are either Preparing or Repairing.