A Coaching Session with Elon
Another fly-on-the-wall session: this time with Mr Musk.
Coach: So how are you, really?
Elon: Honestly? Drained. Too many projects, not enough focus. It’s like my brain is a browser with a thousand tabs open and five of them are playing music — all AC/DC and zero Grimes.
Coach: Let’s close some tabs. What’s one thing you want to make real this week?
Elon: I need to finalize the design for the Mars habitat. But also I promised the Dogecoin subreddit I’d livestream a Neuralink monkey composing a sonata.
Coach: One thing.
Elon: Fine. Mars habitat.
Coach: Great. Let’s bring that back to Earth. What’s the very first step?
Elon: Review the latest structural integrity reports. We had a hiccup with the polymer— apparently, it cracks in extreme cold.
Coach: Not ideal for Mars.
Elon: Unless we brand it as a feature.
Coach: Hmm. Not sure about that. Meantime, I’m also sensing you’re not making time for yourself.
Elon: A bit of a challenge when you’re running 5 companies and the President of the United States is your bestie.
Coach: But you’re stepping back from DC, no?
Elon: We shall see.
Coach: Well, be that as it may, are you creating any space for yourself?
Elon: In an inner-galactic sense?
Coach: No, I mean like an hour in your calendar.
Elon: Oh, like “me time?”
Coach: Exactly.
Elon: Not really.
Coach: Here’s a thought. Put an hour on your calendar that says, “Mtg with MMI.” That’s code for “Me, Myself and I.”
Elon: That’s dope. Did you Grok that?
Coach: No. And think about this blocked time.
Elon: Yeah, ok, I mean…what do I do with this aberration in my 24-hour space-time continuum?
Coach: Just carve out an hour a week to focus on you: De-escalate. De-compress. Maybe even meditate. No tweets, no memes, no sudden decisions about creating a Tesla Leaf Blower.
Elon: Too late. That’s already in beta.
Coach: Of course it is.
Elon: Alright. I’ll do it at 3 p.m. on Thursday. I’ll even put my phone in airplane mode— like an actual plane, not a flying Tesla.
Coach: Good. You’re still the pilot here, Elon. But even pilots need to land sometimes.
Elon: You know, I do forget that. I’m always launching something. Sometimes I forget to land myself.
Coach: Maybe your next big move is stillness.
Elon: Stillness? Is that in the product roadmap?
Coach: It is now.