Coaching Session with Elon Musk

I just finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk — it’s a must-read for any entrepreneur. It’s a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐ pick — perhaps better than The Hard Thing about Hard Things, which is often referenced as the best business book for a founder/CEO to read.

However, don't read it if you’re an Elon detractor/hater.

I was in the anti-Elon camp before (due to his insensitive Twitter vitriol), but now I’ve turned 180 degrees. I want Elon to succeed and am a fan of what he’s doing but not HOW.

As I listened to the audiobook, I was looking for the mental bugs in Elon’s system that leads him, in his words, to:

“stab myself in the thigh with a fork…shoot my own feet and stab myself in the eye.”

After all, as an executive coach to CEOs, I’m on the lookout for this in my work with clients at all times.

So, I offer my comments below from a coaching POV with the intention that if he were to in fact take them to heart, he would do less unnecessary damage as he pursues his vision.

I also offer them as I know so many founders will read this book and perhaps emulate Elon’s management approach of full “hardcore”. That would be a big mistake and detriment to their companies and our society.

Three Coaching Recommendations for Elon Musk:

1. 🍴See the fork. With the Twitter deal — what was the fork you picked up? This is the fork you plunged into your thigh. Once you see the fork, you can decide whether or not to inflict pain on yourself with it or simply to put it down. If you’d put this one down, you would not have offered to, and then been forced to buy Twitter. You then suffer all the cascading effects as you “choke down this hairball.” See the folk. See the plunge. Stop doing it!
2. 🧮Calculate the consequences. Further to this thigh stabbing — calculate as many costs as possible for these potential self-inflicted woundings. As a masterful mental chess player, see all the subsequent moves, and the permutations of the probabilities and determine whether the costs outweigh the gains. You seem to operate on “it feels good in this moment” when you Tweet some bullshit that hurts people or fire faster than a person’s tongue can move. Instead, note the impulse, play out the scenarios, calculate the cost, and then act. This can take you less than 10 seconds and will save you DAYS, if not WEEKS, of pain and distraction. Your shitty tweet can cost you MILLIONS in lost productivity. It can cost humanity getting to Mars. LET THAT SINK IN.
3. 👹Fully process Demon Mode. You have a process with a deep bug that will be your downfall if you don’t fully understand it and untangle it from your modus operandi. This is your demon mode. This part of you seems like a manifestation of your father Erol Musk. You are pulling his legacy forward into your business and your family unconsciously. Debug Demon Mode for the sake of you, your businesses, your family, and our whole world. This is the version of YOU that YOU must save all of civilization from. Perhaps you should have drank that ayahuasca Kimbal Musk offered you.

That’s it for now buddy boy. When you’re ready for a session, Elon, you can grab an intro call here.