Elon Musk On Fear

TL;DR

Elon Musk states he feels fear strongly but acts in spite of it when something is important enough. He recommends fatalism – accepting probabilities – as a way to diminish fear. He illustrates with SpaceX (<10% perceived success odds) and Tesla (extremely low car company success odds), where he accepted likely total loss but hoped to advance the goal.

Key insights

• Feeling fear is normal; not feeling it would indicate something mentally wrong.
• The key is to let the importance of a goal drive action despite fear.
• Fatalism – fully accepting the probabilities, including the worst-case outcome – reduces fear.