On my recent trip back from the US to India, we transited through Hong Kong. I decided to spend a day with a friend of mine and he came to pick us up at the airport. He is a wonderful person and we walked to his car as he was going to take us back to his house. I realized that we were walking towards this beautiful sleek Tesla Model S. I was intrigued not having seen one before at close quarters. It was such a sleek model. As we walked towards it, all of a sudden, the handles lit up and extended out. Prior to that, they were totally flush with the car. When we got in, they retracted again. As we began to drive into the city, there wasn't a sound in the car. I started asking him questions about the model and he said that it gave about 270 miles range on a full charge. It had a 17" high-definition touch screen right there in the front with a built-in web browser, Wi-Fi and Internet connection and even more. He said, "Would you like to see where all the Tesla cars in the world are?" He pulled up a screen and there they were; all the Teslas. You could just go to a particular city and see where every Tesla car was. And beyond that, to see where the charging stations were. Just a wonderful experience! We went into a mall later and were able to charge the car.
As I walked away from this experience, I thought about Elon Musk and the way in which he has revolutionized thinking, 'out of the box' thinking, in a short span of time. Look at him – University of Pennsylvania, Wharton's School of Business, then went to Stanford to do his PhD and lasted all of 2 days. He left there to pursue the dreams that he had. He has built an empire. Today, his net worth is $17.4 billion, at the age of 46. An enormous fortune, incredible wealth – just the ideas that have come from him have been mind-blowing.
But, as I began to think about Elon Musk and read up about him, I realized that one of his main strategies, or his gifts, is to be able to think linear – to see the things that are around him and then be able to look at them and say, "How can I match what's on this side and on that side, and bring the two together to create a third component?" That's so different from the way in which we think about creativity. We always think that creativity comes out of a vacuum, that an idea comes suddenly and then we fashion everything and build it. Creativity does come like that as well. But the key to Elon Musk's thinking was that he is able to look at resources that are already there, and then say, "If I match them together, what can come of it?"
I was reading an article by Joshua Gans published about a year ago when the second installment of Tesla's Master Plan was introduced. The first was written in 2006, and it outlines Tesla's automotive strategy. But in the second plan, Joshua Gans says, "The plan was to move beyond the original car market, with a plan to reconfigure our cities, energy systems, and our impact on the environment." So, it was to move even beyond the cars.
When you look at the electric car model, it still leaves a carbon footprint. While it doesn't have any exhaust pollution, it still relies on fossil fuel for its energy. But, looking at the second plan of the Tesla Master Plan that came out last year, he wants to link it with another company that he has, called SolarCity. And SolarCity today, is the second largest provider of solar systems in the US. His idea: to have cars that are linked with Solar and have solar panels on houses so that the charging happens inside itself, and then to be able to move this whole area into the Solar area. So he looks at his two companies, and says, "If I link them together, then I produce a third option for the automotive industry, and goes beyond the automotive industry into energy systems, cities, and the environment.
This is brilliant! Yet, it is something that anybody can do and think about. You really don't need to be Elon Musk to think like that. I think that he thinks 'North, East, West, South'. His North is just looking at the future and saying, "What are the options there? What are the openings there that need to be filled?" Then he looks at the East and the West, which are the resources that he has in his hand, and then he says "Here's how I can mix and match them to be able to meet those resources." Then, his South always tells him about his history and how he learns from history to be able to move forward powerfully into the future.
That is something all of us can do in our own spheres of work – to look at the future and say, "How can I best optimize the things that I have to be able to create a niche for myself in the future?" Then, also be sure to look at the past and say, "What are things that I have learnt that I can use in optimizing the resources that I have, to be able to make a mark in the future. You don't have to be Elon Musk to do it. Just be who you are, and yet, be able to leave, not a carbon footprint, but a wonderful footprint in the sands of time, that will have people remember you and me for what we left behind.
Here's the thing! We don't need to do it alone. While working on this talk, I was reminded of the Bible, in Exodus 4, God was sending Moses on a charge to go and free the children of Israel. Moses is trying to find excuses. The only question that God asks him is, "Moses, what do you have in your hand?" and Moses looks at his hand and says, "I have a rod." God asks him to throw it down and it immediately turns into a snake. Then God tells him to pick it up and it turns back into a rod. The wonderful principle from this is that it is all that God expects us to use – the things that we have. Then, under His wisdom and guidance, we can do amazing things.
That was challenging for me, and I hope it is challenging for you.
May I pray with you? Almighty God, to you we turn to show us the things that we have all around us, our East and West, the resources that You have placed within us and around us. Help us to think creatively about these things. Help us to look into the future and see those places that we can make a difference. Then help us Lord, to move forward, ever mindful of the lessons that we have learnt in our past. On each one, I pray a blessing of amazing creativity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
• Elon Musk biographical information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
• Joshua Gans, "Why Elon Musk's New Strategy Makes Sense." https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-elon-musks-new-strategy-makes-sense
• Model S Top Features: https://teslatap.com/features/model-s-top-features/
• Biblical Reference: Exodus Ch.4
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