“I Too Was a Series of Failures. Top 8 Moments of Pain in Musk’s Journey”

“My pain threshold is very high.”

This is what Elon Musk often says.

We look at his ‘present’ as a billionaire.

We only see the glamorous image of him launching rockets and becoming the richest man in the world.

But behind that glamour, there was an unimaginable ‘price of pain’.

Today, in the finale of the Elon Musk series, we look into his most desperate nights.

📍 The Archive of Pain

His journey was like an experiment in volunteering for ‘extreme pain’.

1. Hellish School Days (School Bullying)

His school days in South Africa were a series of horrific violence.

Chased by a gang of bullies, he was pushed down a concrete staircase and lost consciousness.

He was beaten so badly his nose was broken and his face swollen beyond recognition, forcing him into a hospital.

But wiping the blood off his face, he escaped into encyclopedias and sci-fi novels for 10 hours a day, enduring the pain by imagining the greater world of space.

2. The $1 a Day Table ($1 a Day Experiment)

During college, he tested himself to see if he could endure the thorny path of entrepreneurship.

Deciding to spend only ‘$1 a day’ for a month, he bought cheap hotdogs and oranges in bulk at the supermarket.

He barely survived the month eating oranges to avoid scurvy.

After the experiment, he concluded: “If I don’t starve to death with just a computer and $1 a day for food, then there is nothing to fear.”

3. YMCA Showers (Zip2 Era)

In his early 20s, during his first startup. Unable to afford both an office and an apartment, he put a single computer in a small rented room.

He ran the servers and coded the website by day, and slept hunched on a worn-out beanbag next to the computer by night.

He showered and used the restroom at the local YMCA a few blocks away.

Pouring all his energy into work, he survived his rock-bottom days on fast food.

4. Spit and Humiliation (Humiliation in Russia)

In 2001, to procure cheap decommissioned ICBMs for his early space business, he went to Russia.

Vodka-drunk Russian officials mocked him as a novice, and the chief designer even subjected him to the humiliation of spitting on his shoes.

But he swallowed the disgrace instead of anger. Opening an Excel spreadsheet on the flight back while reading a textbook on rocket propulsion, he declared after completing his calculations:

“I will build the rockets myself.”

5. Near-Death Honeymoon (PayPal Era)

While flying to his honeymoon, he was ousted as CEO from the very company he built, PayPal.

Amidst extreme betrayal, he changed his destination to Brazil and Africa.

To make matters worse, he contracted fatal tropical malaria there and literally came close to dying.

After narrowly escaping a painful six-month ordeal where he lost 45 pounds, he bitterly joked: “Vacations will kill you.”

6. Chewing Glass in the Dark (2008 Crisis)

In December 2008 right before Christmas, SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket had exploded 3 times in a row, and Tesla was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy due to severe financial distress.

Compounded by a divorce, his personal assets had hit bottom.

A rational CEO would have saved at least one company reaching orbit, but he split his entire remaining wealth to transfuse both.

He woke up screaming in cold sweats every night from stress.

Later, he defined entrepreneurship as “eating glass and staring into the abyss.”

7. Sleeping on the Factory Floor (2018 Model 3 Hell)

Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy yet again in what was called ‘Production Hell’.

When the automated lines collapsed and cars couldn’t be built, he abandoned the CEO’s office to sleep on the factory sofa, and sometimes under a desk.

His reasoning was that a leader couldn’t rest comfortably while the employees were going through extreme pain.

Smelling of metal shavings and sweat, he worked 3 days straight without changing clothes, ultimately saving the company by hand-assembling cars inside a temporary tent in the parking lot.

8. Everyday Explosions (Starship)

At the Boca Chica launch site, Starship prototypes (SN8, 9, 10) repeatedly soared into the sky only to explode relentlessly.

Whenever tens of millions of dollars turned to ashes before their eyes, the world laughed and called it a failure, but he was different.

He used the immense financial and psychological pain of explosions as fertilizer to test limits and immediately gather data.

To him, an explosion wasn’t a failure; it was an essential ‘friction’ and ‘toll’ to correct the orbit.

Epilogue: Pain is the Toll for Success

People ask.

“Why do you put yourself through so much suffering?”

Because greatness is only born outside the comfort zone.

Just as you have to overcome gravity to go to space,

To enter the orbit of success, you must pay the toll called ‘pain’.

He didn’t endure simply because he was a genius.

His pain threshold was just absurdly higher than others.

If you are currently suffering while trying something new,

You are not failing.

Your vessel is simply expanding.

Do not avoid it.

Voluntarily walk into the center of pain.

Abandon safe excuses and start a new challenge.

Is that a piece of glass chewing in your mouth right now?

Congratulations.

You are becoming great.

Micro-Mission

”Raising My Pain Threshold”

Find just one “new challenge you’ve been putting off because it feels hard and scary.”

Imagine if you would regret not starting it 10 years from now.

If you think you’d regret it, it doesn’t need to be grandiose. Just take a small step of execution toward completing that challenge.

”Leaving your comfort zone is scary and painful, but growth and comfort cannot coexist.” — Elon Musk

Author Likedin