The most courageous act

Elon Musk, inner work, and how to live

Hey Friend,

I just finished reading Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk. Elon’s a complicated character, and his story brought up a lot of reflections about how to live.

First of all, there’s a lot that I aspire to emulate, such as the way he views work and money, which largely resembles what legendary investor and entrepreneur Paul Graham advocates for in his famous essay How to Do What You Love. I also want to emulate Elon’s limitless mindset, surrounding myself with people who always look for (or create) a reason it can work, as opposed to finding all the reasons it won’t.

But while he’s inspiring in many ways, it is also clear that he suffers immensely and emotionally abuses those around him due to his lack of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. This leads us to our next question: what is the value of inner work as compared to altruistic external achievements?

At one end of the extreme, you have someone like Elon who is so obsessed with (largely) altruistic action that he rarely takes time to dive into his own psyche. At the other end, you have the self-help junkie who spends all of his time attending seminars, workshops, and retreats that he rarely impacts the world beyond (hopefully positive) one-on-one interactions.

I imagine the ideal is to do both. But what’s the right split? 50/50? 90/10? Where are the diminishing marginal returns on inner work?

Perhaps fear can be the compass. If starting a business is the most difficult thing I can imagine, then I should probably do that. Alternatively, if I’m a serial entrepreneur, but the idea of confronting a painful childhood memory is paralyzing, then maybe the business can wait.

Seek the most courageous act.

Granted, this still has a bias towards personal growth as the most valuable reward, but what can I say, I’m a (recovering) self-help junkie.

I still believe that everybody has some demons that are worth confronting and working through, and that these will almost certainly make us better at whatever we do. That said, I also think it’s easy to become consumed by self-development and neglect doing things in the world for other people (me five years ago).

Maybe the best split for the world is to spend something like 90% of your time on other people and 10% on yourself. Maybe the true ideal is that these two coincide and what you do for others nourishes your soul, too.

I don’t know.

I struggle sometimes with questioning the value of something like men’s work to the value of making life multi-planetary in an attempt to safeguard human consciousness from existential risk, but I know that’s not the right approach.

I’m not sure what the right one is and I’d welcome your thoughts as always.

In the meantime, I’ll continue striving to take the most courageous act. To examine my life and face my fears and self-limiting beliefs head-on, trusting that at the very least, it will be one heck of a ride.

Until next week.

Take care,
Ryan