When I opened Walter Isaacson’s new book, “Elon Musk,” these two quotes caught my eye and struck a chord in my heart.
“To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?”
—Elon Musk, Saturday Night Live, May 8, 2021
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
—Steve Jobs.
These few short sentences summed up the whole concept of the book – brilliant people are also crazy people – if you try to avoid one, you will avoid both, just like success and failure. You cannot have one without the other. If you try to avoid one, you will avoid both.
Isaacson explained that Elon developed a siege mentality that included an attraction, sometimes a craving, for storm and drama, both at work and in the romantic relationships he struggled and failed to maintain. He thrived on crises, deadlines, and wild surges of work. When he faced tortuous challenges, the strain would often keep him awake at night and make him vomit. But it also energized him.
When Isaacson was writing Steve Jobs’ biography, Jobs’ partner Steve Wozniak said that the big question to ask was, Did he have to be so mean? So rough and cruel? So drama-addicted? Woz said he would have been kinder if he had run Apple. He would have treated everyone there like family and not summarily fired people. Then he paused and added, “But if I had run Apple, we may never have made the Macintosh.” Thus, the question about Elon Musk: Could he have been more chill and normal and still be the one launching us toward Mars and an electric-vehicle future?
Crazy often means unreasonable, unrealistic, abnormal, or simply, “you are out of your mind.”
Here’s the problem: Ideas that make a significant impact often seem crazy, unrealistic, or impossible initially. If they were reasonable or realistic, someone else would have thought of them already.
Throughout history, every breakthrough, every discovery, and every new record seems impossible until someone is crazy enough to do it. Then, all of a sudden, it goes from impossible to inevitable.
From Impossible To Inevitable
70 years ago, on May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister became the first man ever to run a mile in four minutes, gaining sporting immortality in 3 and 59.4 seconds at the Iffley Road track in England.
The achievement, thought by many of the best minds in sport at the time to be impossible, had been dubbed running’s Everest for decades. Experts believed they knew the precise conditions under which the mark would fall. It would have to be in perfect weather — 68 degrees and no wind, on a particular kind of track — hard, dry clay — and in front of a huge, boisterous crowd urging the runner on to his best-ever performance. But Bannister did it on a cold day, on a wet track, at a small meet in Oxford, England, before a crowd of just a few thousand people.
Once Bannister’s rivals saw it could be done, they did it too. Just 46 days after Bannister’s feat, John Landy, an Australian runner, not only broke the barrier again, with a time of 3 minutes 58 seconds. Then, just a year later, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race. Over the last half-century, more than a thousand runners have conquered a barrier once considered hopelessly out of reach.
Bannister’s record suddenly opened a floodgate of possibilities for other runners because it broke their psychological barriers rather than the physical ones. And once they changed what they believed was possible, they changed what was possible!
I’ve learned that while you can give someone all the best knowledge and tools in the world, sometimes their life can still feel stuck. But if you can change what someone believes is possible, their life will never be the same.
Alex Banayan, author of “The Third Door: The Mindset of Success.”
Just one year before Bannister broke the one-mile-in-four-minute mark, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary had become the first people to summit the world’s highest peak – reached the 29,035-foot summit of Everest on May 29, 1953.
Since then, another floodgate opened up.
According to the Himalayan Database, since 1953, there has been 11,996 people have reached the summit of Mount Everest through January 2024. In 1983, only 158 people had reached the mountain’s summit; by 2022, that number had exploded to more than 10,000.
What seems impossible, becomes inevitable!
What seems insurmountable, becomes a benchmark!
So be careful what you aim for.
As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.”
The Power Of Obsession
We are all capable of so much more than we know. This is one of the critical lessons history has taught us. Each of us, right here, right now, contains the possibility of extraordinary. Yet, this extraordinary capability is an emergent property, one that only arises when we push ourselves toward the edge; that’s where we find out who we are and what we can be. In other words, the only real way to discover the impossible – whatever that is for you – is by attempting to pull off the impossible.
But how to pull off the impossible?
Obsession!
Be more than motivated. More than passionate. More than driven. Become literally obsessed to the point where people think you are fucking crazy.
No one who’s motivated or passionate has ever pulled off the impossible. No one who’s not all-in and work their ass off like there’s no tomorrow has ever pulled off the impossible.
Interest is just an excuse for doing a half-ass job.
Passion is short-lived.
Driven isn’t infectious.
Goal lacks energy.
Habit isn’t urgent.
The only thing that works is obsession.
When you obsess, you’re busting your ass day in and day out like you have nothing to lose but everything to gain.
When you obsess, you’re all in and putting everything on the line like there’s no tomorrow.
When you obsess, you literally brainwash yourself into believing everything is possible by channeling all your attention, intention, and energy to do whatever it takes to make the impossible possible.
When you obsess, you no longer fear failure. You actually welcome it. Because the more you fail, the faster you fail, the more and the quicker you learn and improve. You learn 10X more in failure than in success. That’s the power of obsession. This is how Elon Musk did it. This is how Steve Jobs did it. This is how all the great ones achieved the impossible.
Let me say it again: Become literally obsessed to the point where people think you are fucking crazy.
That’s how you can achieve GREATNESS!
The Crazy Ones Are Also The Great Ones
There are two most iconic and inspiring commercials from the two most innovative and admirable companies: Apple and Nike. Both redefined the meaning of “Crazy.”
Here’s to the crazy ones…
And the great ones.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules…
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things…
They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
– Apple’s “Think Different” commercial, Narrated by Steve Jobs, 1997.
“If people say your dreams are crazy.
If they laugh at what you think you can do.
Good.
Stay that way.
Because what non-believers fail to understand is that calling a dream crazy is not an insult,
It’s a compliment…
Don’t believe you have to be like anybody to be somebody…
Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything…
So don’t ask if your dreams are crazy. Ask if they’re crazy enough.”
– Nike’s ‘Dream Crazy’ Commercial, Narrated by Colin Kaepernick, 2018
Final Reflection
When you set these crazy, seemingly impossible goals, there’s a good chance you will fail. But what people don’t understand is when you set these massive, audacious goals, you’ll have to hit a whole bunch of small goals to get to that big goal, which will force you to work harder and go further than you normally would.
Even just thinking in this way sets you apart from 99% of the population because most people have this self-imposed limitation, which is why they never reach their full potential. So even if you don’t get there, you have nothing to be upset about because you’ve already won the battle.
Allow yourself to be a bit delusional or crazy. Because being realistic or rational will never get you extraordinary results.
The biggest compliment you will ever receive is being called “Crazy.”
It’s not an insult. It’s the biggest compliment anyone can ever get.
So when someone calls you crazy, say, “Thank you! I’m just not like you.”
Life is meant to live up to its maximum potential and continue pushing beyond what was once thought impossible.
Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.
Muhammad Ali
Have you ever done something that everyone thinks is crazy, something that everyone thinks is impossible?
If not. You’re not crazy enough!
I know I am not crazy enough!
Lessons For Life 