The Reason Elon Musk Could Start a Business Without Fear

“I was an alien. I couldn’t understand how earthlings lived, so I read books like crazy.”

We call him ‘Iron Man’. A genius who dreams of Mars and changed the world with electric cars. But his beginning was not a glamorous hero, but a desperately lonely and geeky boy.

A child who was beaten every day at school and suffered from his father’s verbal abuse at home. How did that child escape reality and build his own universe? Today, we listen to the voice of Elon Musk in his darkest days.

📍 Spot 1. Corner Room in Pretoria: How to Block Pain

Location: Pretoria, South Africa (Childhood)

As a kid, my nickname was ‘Idiot’. I wouldn’t answer when people talked to me. Actually, it wasn’t that I didn’t hear them. I just went into the room of thoughts inside my head. When reality was too loud and painful, I ran away into my head.

At school, gangs pushed me down the stairs and beat me until I passed out. At home, my father would preach for hours about how “useless” I was. Enemies were everywhere.

So I read books. 10 hours a day. I memorized the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and hid inside sci-fi novels. The real me was bloody, but the me in the book was a hero saving the galaxy.

I learned then. The only way to endure pain is to immerse yourself in a ‘Mission’ bigger than the pain.

📍 Spot 2. Old Apartment in Kingston: The $1 Experiment

Location: Kingston, Ontario (College Days)

At 17, I ran away to Canada. I didn’t have a penny in my pocket. I moved from relative to relative, carrying vegetables at farms and cleaning boilers. People said, “You’ll starve to death.”

So I did an experiment. ‘How much does a human need to survive?’

I bought hot dogs and oranges in bulk at the mart. I calculated that $1 a day kept me from starving.

I felt immense freedom then.

“Ah, $1 a day keeps me alive. Then I’m not afraid of going broke.”

That $1 experiment set me free. Later, when I was about to lose my entire fortune while starting a business, I wasn’t scared. In the worst case, I could just eat hot dogs.

📍 Spot 3. Office in Palo Alto: Shower at the YMCA

Location: Palo Alto, California (Zip2 Era)

Convinced that the internet would change the world, I founded ‘Zip2’ with my brother. Sounds grand? The reality was a beggar’s den. We didn’t have money to rent an office, so we worked in a warehouse-like place during the day and slept on beanbags at night.

Shower? I secretly used the nearby YMCA gym.

We had no employees, so I wrote the code myself. During the day, I ran around for sales, and at night, I coded. I’ve been awake all week.

People ask. “Why did you go that far?”

It wasn’t because I wanted to succeed. I just couldn’t stand watching the huge wave called the internet coming without doing anything. If I didn’t grab a surfboard and jump in, I felt I would regret it for the rest of my life.

The next episode covers Elon Musk’s insane execution and the story of PayPal.

Epilogue: What Is Your ‘Lack’?

The boy suffering from domestic violence dreamed of space because he hated reality.

The young man with no money erased fear by eating hot dogs.

The founder with no office wrote code while sleeping on beanbags.

Elon Musk’s greatness is not his IQ.

His greatness is the ability to burn ‘lack’ as ‘fuel’.

Is something bothering you right now?

Poverty, loneliness, disregard, failure.

Do not throw them away.

They will become the most powerful fuel that will shoot you up like a rocket later.

Micro-Mission

“Converting My Lack into Energy”

1. What is the biggest lack or wound I have right now?
2. What is an action or thought I would never have done if I didn’t have this lack?
3. Redefine that action as my own strength.

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