The Lost Art of the Big Bet
How Elon Musk bet $50 Million and Won
The goals that I strive to achieve with each post is challenging you and your paradigm in ways designed to elevate your thinking, grow your might and accelerate your overall win rate.
This particular message provides a snapshot into the mind of a billionaire and serves as a powerful reminder of why you need to act boldly and play a bigger game.
Ready? Let’s do this.
You’ve got to give credit where credit is due…
Elon Musk made an all or nothing $50 million dollar bet that Tesla could build the world’s biggest battery in 100 days.
He won. With 40 days to spare.
Here’s the backstory…
It all went down in South Australia…September 2016.
An apocalyptic storm — involving 80,000 lightning strikes and at least two tornadoes — knocked down dozens of electricity pylons, causing cascading failures throughout the regional electricity grid and thrusting virtually the entire state of 1.7 million residents into darkness.
A fierce debate soon emerged over how to manage the grid…and Musk, ever the opportunist inserted himself into the conversation, saying on Twitter that he could deliver 100 megawatts of storage in 100 days or it would be free.
Australian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes took to Twitter to ask if he was serious.
Musk replied: “Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?”
Soon after, the South Australian government unveiled a $550 million energy plan meant to respond to the crisis and stabilize the grid going forward.
Tesla won competitive bidding for the entire energy-storage portion of the project.
LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN
The contract was signed on September 29, kicking off a 100 day all or nothing deadline.
On November 23…40 days shy of the deadline, the battery bank was finished.
Musk stepped up to the challenge and delivered on his big bet.
He later admitted that the cost of losing that bet would have been around $50 million dollars.
What big, bold and crazy ideas are you working on?
When you try to go 10% bigger, you have a ton of competition…and only focus on incremental goals.
But when you’re trying to go 10X BIGGER, you’re going it alone…and focus on transformational goals.
By doing so…you begin with a clean slate, a clean sheet of paper and approach the problem differently, radically, and methodically.
You don’t have a legacy that you are dragging into the present.
WITH BIG HAIRY GOALS…it’s hard to fail completely.
When you go after a moonshot, something that is 10X bigger…you’re out there on a limb challenging yourself.
You begin asking yourself different questions, such as…
Why can’t I accomplish my 10 year goal in 100 days?
Is there really anything stopping me…other than myself?
I’m here to tell you that the next 100 Days of your life can very well be the best 100 days of your life.
That’s why I’m calling you out right now…
Stand up, stop tweeting, dream bigger, and…be your own hero.
If you enjoyed this post…it would mean a lot to me if you could click on the “claps” icon…up to 50 claps allowed — Thank You!
Gary Ryan Blair is creator of the 100 Day Challenge…a radical approach to goal achievement that shows people how to achieve 10X size goals by applying the methods and best practices of growth hacking.
