How does Elon Musk think? — First Principle and other Mental Models!
Elonism 🚀
Big News: Elon Musk aka real Ironman has overtaken Bill Gates to become the world’s second-richest person.
Meanwhile Jeff Bezos:
Just to get a gist of his curiosity and determination -
This was the elevator pitch of Elon Musk in 2001 when he wanted to learn about rockets and space technology.
We all are aware of his success story through Social Media, YouTube, and many other sources. But, I have always wondered “How he thinks and make difficult decisions?” and that thought led me to this story.
During a one-on-one interview with TED Curator, Chris Anderson, Musk revealed how he thinks and take decisions. He uses a mental model — “First Principles.”
Musk: Well, I do think there’s a good framework for thinking. It is physics. You know, the sort of first principles reasoning. Generally, I think there are — what I mean by that is, boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy.
Through most of our life, we get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations.
In simple terms, the first principle of thinking is questioning every assumption you think you know about the given problem or event. The idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then creating new knowledge and solution from the scratch. It is easy to read and understand but hard to train your mind to use this mental model while solving problems.
Elon Musk broke down the problem — Space Rockets. He challenged each assumption and the pre-conceived notion that emerged in the process. He tried to question assumptions like — rockets cost a lot of money, you cannot make them lighter, you cannot have boosters that come back. And came up with cheaper parts, a lighter body, and reusable boosters.
He combined the new parts to make something never imagined before and created Falcon Heavy. Here is the video of Elon Musk explaining the “First Principle” mental model and how he put it into practice. Absolute Gold!
In summary — Break it down to its fundamentals and combine it with completely new things or combine old elements in such a way that has never been done before.
So, how to put it into practice?
Socratic Questioning: To put the first principle in practice, use the Socratic questioning playbook -
- Clarifying your thinking and explaining the origins of your ideas (Why do I think this? What exactly do I think?)
- Challenging assumptions (How do I know this is true? What if I thought the opposite?)
- Looking for evidence (How can I back this up? What are the sources?)
- Considering alternative perspectives (What might others think? How do I know I am correct?)
- Examining consequences and implications (What if I am wrong? What are the consequences if I am?)
- Questioning the original questions (Why did I think that? Was I correct? What conclusions can I draw from the reasoning process?)
Mental models to make difficult decisions!
Mental models are frameworks for thinking. It helps simplify complex problems in the world. We can’t keep all the details of the world in our brains, mental models help our thinking to understand complex problems. There are plenty of mental models to help you make difficult decisions. We are going to look at two mental models I have come across which I found super interesting and helpful -
- Regret Minimization — To maximize your long-term happiness, prioritize the projects you’d most regret not having pursued by the time you’re old and looking back at your life. Choose the option you’ll most regret not having done when looking back at the end of your life.
Our brains aren’t wired to prioritize for our future selves, so we need mental models to help us out. Jeff Bezos used this mental model when he wanted to start an internet company then selling books and now everything under the sun — Amazon
Here you can watch the video of Jeff Bezos explaining how he used Regret Minimization to make the most important decision of his life -
Well, if you are pumped up after watching this video, Take That Decision! 😎
……….
The second mental model I came across when I was watching CRED Curious session on YouTube. In that session when Zerodha’s founder Nithin Kamath was asked about “How do you make difficult decisions in your life?”, his answer was very interesting -
Always think about the worst possible situation when trying to make a difficult decision — If you can make a peace with it — Go ahead — If you can’t then don’t take that decision.
For example, let’s say you have this great idea and now you want to start a startup. But, you are confused and afraid of taking that difficult decision. Now, imagine the worst possible situation, what worst could happen? — The startup will fail!
Can you make a peace with it? Are you ready to fail?
If the answer to those questions is YES. Go ahead take the decision. Because now the fear of failure has gone which is the biggest obstacle in taking a difficult decision.
USE THESE MENTAL MODELS WHILE TAKING DIFFICULT DECISIONS IN LIFE.
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Now you know the secret sauce, put it into practice. All the best!
