Elon Musk isn’t the only billionaire who regrets not enjoying life more when he was younger.
On September 30, Tesla held the AI Day 2022 event in California. Here, billionaire Elon Musk made some notable statements. Among them, there was a question unrelated to the technology field that confused the Tesla CEO.
Specifically, an attendee asked the 51-year-old billionaire what message he would give to his younger self. Instead of answering right away, the world’s richest man stood silently thinking for a moment.
Musk initially advised his younger self to surround himself with smart people and read books, but he quickly realized that he was already doing this. He later said that not working himself to the point of exhaustion was something he should have done when he was younger.
Elon Musk when he was young (Photo: Internet).
“I would tell my 20-year-old self: Stop every once in a while and smell the roses. That might be a good idea,” Musk said.
Years ago, while developing an early version of SpaceX’s rocket on a scenic island, Musk revealed that he never stopped to enjoy the view. “I would have had a drink on that beach. It would have been a good mood lift,” he said.
In fact, Musk isn’t the only billionaire who has regretted not having had more fun in his youth. During a 2018 talk with Harvard students, a student asked Bill Gates an interesting question: “What do you regret doing or not doing while you were at Harvard?”
“I wish I had been more social,” the billionaire replied. “I wish I had gone to more parties and studied less. In fact, I missed out on a lot. I never went to a football game or a basketball game or any other sport when I was at Harvard.”
Bill Gates’ answer surprised the entire audience and made them laugh. Gates even told a story about how former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer “forced” him to join the Fox Club – a “fraternity” at Harvard.
“Back then, I didn’t participate in social activities or groups, I didn’t even know they existed. However, Steve Ballmer decided that I needed to be more sociable, such as attending events and drinking with people more,” Gates recalled.
Ballmer attended Harvard at the same time as Gates, but unlike his friend, Ballmer proved to be a fairly active student: a member of the Fox Club, manager of the football team, and author of two school publications.
“I wish I had more friends,” Gates said. “All I did at Harvard was study and take as many classes as I could.”
Bill Gates is not the only extremely successful person who believes that experiencing more activities and meeting more people will bring more benefits in the future than just focusing on studying and researching.
Amy Bohutinsky, CEO of online real estate brokerage Zillow, once said she wished she had realized in college that trying to be the person you want to be is not as important as learning through real-life experiences. According to Amy, you will have to hesitate before many choices and sometimes even experience failure to have better opportunities in your future career.
