Do not use your energy to worry. Life is too short to worry about stupid things. Have fun. Fall in love. Regret nothing and do not let people bring you down.
Study, think, create and grow. Teach yourself and teach others.
—Professor Richard Feynman
Elon Musk flew to Russia to buy a rocket and the Russians laughed in his face and spat on his shoes.
In 2001 Musk had a simple plan. Buy a refurbished intercontinental ballistic missile from Russia, strip out the warhead, and use it to send a small greenhouse to Mars. He thought it would cost about $20 million.
He flew to Moscow with Adeo Ressi and Mike Griffin. They sat in a meeting with Russian rocket engineers and military officials. Musk explained what he wanted. The Russians looked at each other and started laughing. One of them literally spat on the ground near his feet. They thought he was a joke. A tech millionaire playing astronaut.
They eventually offered to sell him one rocket for $8 million. Musk tried to negotiate. They raised the price to $10 million per rocket out of disrespect. They wanted to humiliate him into leaving.
On the flight home from Moscow, while his friends slept, Musk opened his laptop and started building a spreadsheet. He calculated the raw material cost of building a rocket from scratch. Aluminum. Carbon fiber. Fuel. Electronics. He realized the materials cost roughly three percent of what aerospace companies charged.
He closed the laptop and said to Adeo "I think we can build this ourselves."
SpaceX was born on that flight. Not in a garage. Not in a lab. On a plane ride home from being humiliated by Russians who thought he was a fool.
Most people experience rejection and go home. Musk experienced rejection and opened a spreadsheet. The entire commercial space industry exists because some Russian engineers decided to be disrespectful to a 30 year old with a laptop.
"You're going to die. It's all going to zero. What's there to stress about?"
— Naval Ravikant
Sounds dark.
But it's actually one of the most freeing ideas you'll ever hear.
Most stress isn't caused by work.
It's caused by conflict.
You want success, but you want comfort.
You want attention, but you fear judgment.
You want change, but you want everything to stay predictable.
That's where stress comes from.
And when enough unresolved problems pile up, stress turns into anxiety.
The mind becomes crowded.
Not with one big problem.
But with hundreds of small unfinished ones.
Naval's solution is surprisingly simple:
Zoom out.
The thing keeping you awake tonight?
There's a good chance you won't even remember it a few years from now.
Most worries expire.
Most fears never happen.
Most pressure is self-created.
The real tragedy isn't that life ends.
It's that so many people spend their lives trapped in tomorrow.
Missing the only thing that's actually real:
This moment.
Elon Musk's children don't go to normal school. And the reason why will change how you think about education.
He pulled his kids out of one of the most prestigious schools in Los Angeles. Parents were furious. Media called him arrogant. The school had a waitlist of thousands.
His response: "They're teaching kids to solve problems that already have answers. I need them to solve problems nobody's thought of yet."
So he built a school. Inside SpaceX. Called it Ad Astra. No grades. No tests. No subjects in the traditional sense.
A nine year old could take apart a rocket engine and present their findings to actual SpaceX engineers. Students didn't study history. They debated whether they'd make different decisions than historical leaders using the same information available at the time.
The school had no grade levels. A seven year old could work alongside a thirteen year old if they were interested in the same problem.
When asked why he structured it this way, Elon said something that stuck with me:
"I don't care if they know the answer. I care if they know which questions are worth asking."
Most people spend their entire education learning how to be right. Elon teaches his children how to be curious.
The system rewards answers. Life rewards questions.