How Was Elon Musk So Energetic In His 20s

There’s an unexpected reason to the madness

Steve Jurvetson Flickr

I recently read Ashlee’s Vance’s biography on Elon Musk, and Like Alexander Hamilton must have grabbed Lin Manuel Miranda, Elon’s life hit home with me.

But when I compare my twenties to Elon’s, I can’t help but feel envious. Not because he sold his first company and purchased a McLaren at age 27, but because I never had his energy, passion, or grit for work.

“He had boundless energy,” said Bruce Leak, a former lead engineer at Apple who hired Musk as an intern. “Kids these days have no idea about hardware or how stuff works, but he had a PC hacker background and was not afraid to just go and figure things out.”

As a post-graduate, Elon operated a company while simultaneously running code for its website. He worked 18-hour days, slept at the office, and showered at the local YMCA on the weekends.

I don’t know about you, but I spent my early twenties staring at a computer clock waiting for it to strike five while simultaneously texting weekend plans to my friends under my desk. Where was my energy?

Acclaimed academic and author of Grit, Angela Duckworth, says the mature passions of gritty people depend on two sources: interests and purpose.

Interests: Something that captures your imagination and attention.

Purpose: A calling to act towards the benefit of others.

I wanted to explore Elon’s twenties and try to understand how he worked so many uncomfortable hours and persisted with machine-like pain tolerance.

What did he find interesting? What was his purpose? What lessons can we take away from Musk’s 20s that we can incorporate into our own lives?

Let’s start with college.

A college experience straight from Animal House

Elon transitioned smoothly into the college lifestyle at the University of Pennsylvania. It was an improvement from a grim childhood. He grew up in South Africa during the apartheid and attended a school that typified the country’s white alpha male culture; Elon, a geeky kid interested in space and computer games, was often bullied. To make matters worse, he came…