The Wild Psychology of Elon Musk - Eric Jorgenson - #1082

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
How many copies of the Navalman Act have you sold now?

**Eric Jorgenson** (0:02)
It's tough to know, but I think we're coming up on 2 million.

**Chris Williamson** (0:06)
How's that feel?

**Eric Jorgenson** (0:07)
I'm still, the word I like to use is gobsmacked. I really thought I was doing fan service for a few thousand Naval nerds. And the fact that it's like 40 languages and millions of people, and we've given away a few million more, right? Like I don't even really know.

**Chris Williamson** (0:21)
So that's how many were sold, because it was available for free through the website.

**Eric Jorgenson** (0:24)
Yeah, which is another like 5 million plus, really hard to track.

**Chris Williamson** (0:29)
I think it's my most suggested book when people say, where should I start with personal development? Essentialism by Greg McEwen or The Naval Maniac.

**Eric Jorgenson** (0:37)
That's incredible.
I had no idea how many people were going to resonate with it, and recommend it, and I think the highest compliment a gift, the highest compliment a book can receive is to be gifted. So much of what we read comes from what's recommended. How often you see an ad for a book and buy it, almost never. Yeah, the bar is just too high.

**Chris Williamson** (0:56)
Yeah, and the subtitle of this new one is A Guide to Purpose and Success, about Elon. Why pick that? Why purpose specifically?

**Eric Jorgenson** (1:07)
It's emergent. When I write these books, I start with millions and millions of words of source material, everything they've ever shared publicly, and I try to figure out what is the essence of the person, what is the thing that is most special about them, that anybody can learn from. And we all know that Elon is massively productive.
I feel like the question everybody's asking is kind of like, how the hell did this happen? Like, how does he get so much done? But what I didn't realize until way into the process is that purpose was the other pillar. So I knew I wanted to know, like, how does he win? But I didn't know to the extent that purpose was a big part of why he wins. And that is actually, he has some really incredible answers for what do I do? What's important? How do I choose what's important?

**Chris Williamson** (1:51)
Yeah, I think everyone looks and just assumes tactics raw tactics, but if there's something bigger driving that. Teal says about Elon, he seems to know something about risk that the rest of us do not. What do you think that thing is?

**Eric Jorgenson** (2:06)
Yeah, I mean, I think Elon is risk on. Like he takes risks that he shouldn't take. He's inherently biased towards risk. But the number of times that that pays off, I think reveals and puts in Teal's context, like Teal is a risk manager and Elon is a risk taker. And when you combine that with purpose, the fact that Elon is on these missions, he's trying to accomplish something and he almost doesn't care how much risk it takes. He'll just keep taking chances and keep taking chances until he breaks through. And he's got this amazing quote, failure is irrelevant unless it's catastrophic. And I think that's a really good way to sort of explain that attitude towards risk of like, I just don't care how low my chances are, I don't care how long the odds are, I'm just going to keep going until I die because this is important enough to keep working on.

**Chris Williamson** (2:54)
And that explains why the purpose piece is crucial because that's what would keep you pushing through.

**Eric Jorgenson** (2:59)
Yes, there's so many times that he has done things that seem insane from like a financial motivation point of view or I'm trying to build a business or it is because he's driven by these massive purposes and he has this risk tolerance and the combination of those things I think is what, you know, pushes him like these two opportunities, Tesla and SpaceX being the biggest word, were on nobody's radar. He looked absurd when he undertook them and he put hundreds of millions of dollars on the line to achieve these things because he was purpose driven even though the odds were long and the risk was high.

**Chris Williamson** (3:32)
Is he that singular of an individual? Obviously, SpaceX impressive, Tesla impressive, Doge kind of cool, being on stage, Trump campaign, Twitter, X, rah, rah. You know, just how impressive is he or how singular is he as an individual?

**Eric Jorgenson** (3:50)
I think he's pretty singular. Like, do you not?