Elon Musk - The Game Changer

One of my previous line managers gifted a book on Elon Musk to me a few years back. The book was called 'Elon Musk - How the Billionaire CEO of SPACEX and TESLA is shaping our Future' by Ashlee Vance.

Although the title and the topic seemed very interesting, but yet for some reason, I was not able to come around and read this book until now. I am so glad that I was finally able to get the time to finish reading this book. It is a great #biography on a man who is on a mission. A mission to change the world, to do what has not been done till now, to challenge the status quo and to ultimately make lives better for humans – directly and indirectly.

This book is a great insight into the person and the personality that Elon Musk is. Not everything is good and wonderful about him. It is clear that he is not an easy person to work with or work for. However, what you tend to appreciate is his genius mind, his thinking ability, his challenging mindset and his clarity of goals. The way he sees interconnections between the work on rockets, cars and solar energy and how he and his team apply learnings from one industry to another is quite fascinating!

I have always enjoyed watching some of the #TED talks and TED interviews of Elon Musk as well as his key team members. In fact, for the past many years, I have been in awe of the kind of work that #Musk and his companies are doing, but when you go deeper into their journey, their obstacles and their plans, you tend to understand and appreciate it much better. I would hope to see these companies churn out more path breaking initiatives in the years ahead and change the world for the better.

Finally, a big thumbs up from my side to this book as Ashlee Vance has written it quite well, getting interviews, opinions and anecdotes from people who have interacted with Elon Musk and been in some part of his life, either in a good way or bad way.

Open that Jam Bottle to enjoy its Sweet Taste

Have you ever been in a situation where you were keen to enjoy the taste of jam from a jam bottle that you were trying to open, but somehow you were not able to enjoy its sweet taste once the bottle was opened? 

Source: https://www.graphicsfuel.com/2016/01/jam-bottle-mockup-psd/

Now before you start imagining what I am trying to say, let me give you two scenarios: 

Scenario 1: You have guests over at your place and at the breakfast table, you decide to open a new bottle of jam. Imagine that you are using all your strength in twisting the lid of that jam bottle. You are huffing and puffing, your arm has started to pain and yet that lid does not open. You look around and hand over the bottle to the person sitting next to you, requesting her or him to open the bottle. She/he now applies a similar tactic like yours and Voila! Within a few seconds, the lid opens; there is a smug smile on the face of the person who opened the bottle. Everyone around applauds the effort of that person and looks at you sympathetically with a presumption that you do not have the strength that is needed to open a jam bottle. What you nor does anyone else know, is the fact that with all your efforts, the lid had started loosening from the neck and if you had persisted, you would have been able to open the lid within another a few seconds. 

Scenario 2: You are busy applying your strength to open the jam bottle and someone comes and offers help. You gladly hand over the bottle. As expected, the bottle opens soon. The person who helped you now starts telling the entire world that it was he or she who opened the bottle and not you, even though it was your job to open the bottle. They take the entire credit without bashing an eyelid. 

Does this sound familiar to you? Has it ever happened with you? 

In life as well as in organizations, this common situation happens to many people. Some people learn fast and avoid such situations while there are others who keep falling in the same situation repeatedly. 

Here are a few simple tips and suggestions that can help you to open that jam bottle and enjoy its benefits completely: 

1. Do not give up: This one is easier said than done. I do understand that there would be situations and times when you think that you have tried all possible solutions and yet you are not able to move forward. That is exactly the time when you need to draw your utmost inner strength and continue finding ways to achieve a task or overcome a problem. Remember, there are chances that the lid has started loosening from the neck. You do not want to miss the great tasting jam at this stage. 

2. Be careful of who you seek help from: If you have been a victim of your jam bottle credit being taken by someone else, then you should know who are the people who will happily open the botte and give it back to you without even mentioning it to anyone. These are the ones who deserve genuine thank you. You would also know the ones who would love to help in a situation, but would then let the entire world know. You should not be asking for help from them at all. 

3. Give enough visibility of your project milestones: If your project has high stakes which means, that if delivered it can help the company move forward in a significant way, then there are chances that people will come forward to help and soon they will be talking as if they are the ones leading the project. To avoid such situations, it is extremely important to share key milestone achievements of the project with various stakeholders at different stages of the project so everyone knows who the commander of the ship is and how you are steering the ship forward even though the other person might claim credit to the project. 

4. Confront the person: If a person is repeatedly doing this to your projects, it is best to sit down and confront the person. Understand the reason of their behavior, their concerns with you and let them know your discomfort. You will be surprised that sometimes they may not even realize what they are doing and how it is affecting you and just bringing it to their notice can work. 

What I have mentioned above is quite simple and obvious but sometimes it is the simple and the obvious that gets missed out in the chase of the complex and difficult. I hope that these suggestions help you to enjoy the sweet taste of your jam more often. This is not an exhaustive list, and depending on your circumstances, you would discover other ways and means of enjoying your jam and I would be happy to know some of the suggestions that you may want to offer.

2018 is ready for you. Are you ready for it?

Another year is behind us. Another year is ahead of us. It is a matter of how you look at things, how you look at life. As some say ‘The glass if half full’ whereas some others say ‘The glass is half empty’. None of the two statements is wrong, but it is a matter of perspective, and perspectives, dear readers, can change for you depending on the context, your frame of mind, your situation in life. Who says that if you see the glass as half full today does not mean that you cannot see the glass as half empty tomorrow? Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. 

Coming back to where I began….another year is behind us and another year is ahead of us. The question is whether you want to look back and reminisce in nostalgia or look forward and see the frontiers that lie ahead. In my opinion, reflecting on the past is not wrong, but the past should be like that rear-view mirror in the car that you would look at every now and then to avoid any mistake. Rear-view mirror is there to guide you and let you know about the cars behind you and the pace at which they are coming, to ensure that you are not blocking someone’s way and to enable you to change lanes without harming yourself or someone else. However, you cannot drive a car and move ahead by just looking at the rear view mirror, but rather by looking ahead at the road, the signals, the signboards, the speedometer, the lanes…

2018 is that road ahead. Every day, every week and every month are those signals, those signboards and those lanes that you need to traverse to keep moving forward. There will be traffic in the form of distractions, things that will take away a lot of your time and slow you down but are not the ones helping you to move ahead. You will have to navigate through them, be patient yet firm with them, be willing to avoid them through alternative routes yet always remember that you cannot let go of them completely. 

What is important is that on 31st Dec, 2018, when you look back from where you started and where you have come, that is the time you should reflect on your journey, feel proud of the distance you have traveled, the road blocks that you have overcome and once again say and say it proudly ‘Another year is behind us’. 

Cheers to a great 2018. Let the road ahead lead to many milestones that you cross - slowly but surely.