Handy Tips: How to Think Like Elon Musk

In Handy Tips, we find ways that can improve your life and make it easier and explain why these tips work. Today, we will tell you why you do not always need to rely on ready-made answers, but rather look for them yourself.

We are used to the fact that someone has already come up with a solution for most of our everyday problems, and all we need to do is choose the right solution from the ready-made ones and then use it.

But, for instance, the famous Elon Musk disagrees with this approach. He believes that in order to find the optimal solution, you yourself need to get to the root cause, and not follow the pattern like everyone else. When Musk and his colleagues started developing the SpaceX business plan and began calculating the cost of the rocket, they could just look at the spacecraft designed by other private companies. But instead, they determined what basic components are needed for the rocket, and wondered how to reduce the cost of their production.

This is how SpaceX created a rocket that cost 50 times cheaper than its analogs on the market. Although, it would seem that there were already ready-made examples that could be followed, so why bother?

This is the same thing you need to do with the rest of the things – look for answers to questions yourself, and do not rely on ready-made options.

Aristotle spoke of the fact that you need to seek the root cause in everything because it determines the subject's definiteness. Of course, it is not that simple and requires a lot of effort, but it is worth it. By looking at the problem from a different angle, you can reach qualitatively different and, in a good way, unpredictable conclusion.