Success does not come easy, Elon Musk is a highly gifted human being, and he knows exactly how to put his abilities into good use.
He has so many great qualities which is his key to success:
1- He reads. A lot. So much that he taught himself rocket science by reading books.
2- He is a man of action. When he sees a problem (read global warming) he does not just talk about it (like everybody else), he works on finding a solution and actually does something about it.
3- He does what needs to be done, not what is easy. He invested in some of the most difficult industries - Space and electric cars - because he believed in the causes.
“Did you hear the joke about the man who made a small fortune in the space industry? He started with a large one.” ~ Elon Musk
4- He is not afraid of failure. He believes that:
“if something is important enough you should try, even if the probable outcome is failure”. ~ Elon Musk
5- He doesn’t give up. He didn’t give up even after his first 3 rockets failed to launch and both of his companies (Tesla and SpaceX) was on the brink of bankruptcy.
“Both Tesla and SpaceX were very close to dying, SpaceX had our third launch failure. We just barely had enough resources to do a fourth.” ~ Elon Musk
“I don’t ever give up. I would have to be dead or completely incapacitated”. ~ Elon Musk