It seems I’ll never be as successful as I could be. And I’m ok with that.
I just finished the book on Elon Musk (Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future) and I highly recommend it. You talk about a person that truly wants to change the world, that’s the guy. So now I’ve read a biography on Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and several on Steve Jobs.
All of them have (at least) two major things in common that propelled them to extraordinary levels of success:
- A desire so strong to bring their dreams to reality that they are willing to essentially live at the office, sacrificing EVERYTHING else in their lives
- An ability to push their teams to achieve things they never thought they could
Or, restating those two attributes:
- A willingness to alienate their families and loved ones in order to give every drop of their effort to accomplishing their vision and achieving the seemingly impossible
- An ability to be unapologizingly brutal and crushing to their employees, partners, and adversaries
Those two things, I cannot do.
I work hard, there’s no doubt. But I put a priority on spending as much time as possible with my family. The reason I get up at 4:50am to get started working is so that I can be home by 5:00 or 5:30pm every night to be with my family. I do the same thing on the weekends so I can get work done and out of the way as much as possible before the family wakes up.
It’s also incredibly important for me to have a company where people love to work. I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye if I knew people were regretting having to come to work at Dragon Army.
Because of those two perspectives, plus a significant nod to the fact that they’re all, like, geniuses and I’m, like, not so much ;), I’ll never reach their level of success. At least, the way they measure success. I have a feeling I measure success a bit differently than they do.
Hey Jeff! I’ve been lurking on your blog posts for a while, so I decided to leave a comment! This one resonated with me a lot. It is such a challenge to balance all of the things we want in life, especially when one of those things is a family. I think its possible, maybe short term, to make some sacrifices. But in the long term, if you truly value and enjoy spending time with your family, it is really hard to do as you mentioned. When my 6 week old, is on a better sleep schedule, I am going to try to institute your early wake up idea. Great post! And I am going to pickup Musks book. (well the audiobook)
Rashidi! Great to hear from you man. And great perspective, thanks for sharing. Hope you like the Musk book. I think if I had read it (vs. audio) it might have been hard at times, but listening let’s the boring parts go by quickly. He’s a very interesting dude!
Been spending the last year, or so, just getting used to family life being back here in Atlanta, and the new job. Downloading it this evening, and will start listening on my commutes this week. :-)
Great post, Jeff. Personally, I think your definition of success is MUCH better than perhaps those attributed to great guys like Musk, Gates, Jobs etc. It’s all personal but I”m certainly in your camp and you are a HUGE success, not just in my book but in so many others. Especially to that beautiful family of yours… :-)
Aw, Mona…. ;)
Got through Elon Musk book last week. Good stuff. It then led me to download “Zero to One”, by Peter Theil. So I am getting through that now.
Dude, you’re killing it! Elon Musk is a freaking big thinker isn’t it?
Yes, most definitely. I didn’t realize how integral he is to everything. Like really understanding everything from rocket fuel chemical ratios, auto supply chains, computer science. I knew he was the founder (and co-founder), but did not realize the breadth and depth of knowledge that he has. I did not know he could go that deep. Very inspiring.
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