Quotes from Justine Musk

Extreme success is not like other kinds of success; what has worked for someone else probably won't work for you.

Extreme success results from an extreme personality and comes at the cost of many other things.

We are born into a particular place and time with a particular set of gifts and limitations. The challenge isn't to pluck the best career out of the air, but to learn yourself from the inside out: to know your gifts and accept your limitations and shape your life accordingly.

In the late spring of 2008, my wealthy entrepreneurial husband, Elon Musk, the father of my five young sons, filed for divorce. Six weeks later, he texted me to say he was engaged to a gorgeous British actress in her early 20s who had moved to Los Angeles to be with him.

Fear is a powerful beast. But we can learn to ride it.

Why strive to be 'elite'? Because it infuses your life with purpose and meaning that does not depend on anyone or anything that can ever be taken away from you.

I have struggled with self-esteem issues since my teens, but it's clear in my first long-ago diary that I didn't start out that way. I acquired my low self-esteem. I learned it.

I've noticed that women who pursue recognition rather than attention have a different relationship with aging. They're not dropping tens of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery. When they have to choose between looking older - or looking odd - they'll go with older.

Don't pursue something because you 'want to be great.' Pursue something because it fascinates you, because the pursuit itself engages and compels you.

One of the many qualities that separate self-made billionaires from the rest of us is their ability to ask the right questions.

We live in a culture that celebrates determination and hard work, but understand, these are the qualities that keep you in the game after most everybody else has left - or until somebody bigger and stronger picks you up and hurls you back out to sea.

Hope is much more than wishful thinking. Hope is a way of moving through the world.

We live in a culture that does not encourage women to be epic heroes of their own Big Stories but the mothers and lovers and wives and mistresses and muses and personal assistants, the femme fatales and fantasies and manic pixie dream girls, in someone else's Big Story, and this someone else is usually a dude.

People who become 'elite' at what they do aren't striving to be 'elite' just to join some special club. They take great joy and satisfaction in the pursuit of mastery, and they compete against themselves, not others.

'Obsession' has a bad rap.

Artemis women often have difficult childhoods. She's the kid who seeks comfort in the woods, or animals, or books. If trapped in an authoritarian family, she blends in to get by - but keeps a fierce autonomy inside her head and heart, looking to the day she breaks free.

Extreme people combine brilliance and talent with an insane work ethic.

Recognition happens when you see yourself from the inside-out: as someone who can make an impact on the world instead of navigating the impact the world has on you.

The world doesn't throw a billion dollars at a person because the person wants it or works so hard they feel they deserve it.

From childhood on, both males and females learn to do whatever we need to do to get the attention we need to survive. We fashion ourselves accordingly. And then, should that attention ever go away, it's only natural to do the same things we've always done, rely on what we've always relied on, in order to make it come back.

I don't believe that we - and this holds true for both genders - have as many choices as we seem to like to think.

Sometimes it is a way of controlling others, including family members, because you don't know how to connect to them in any other way. Money can also serve as a scorecard to indicate how well you are doing, the impact you are having, if you are winning.

Passion is not what gives you bliss or makes you happy 24/7, but what you're willing to suffer for, what you genuinely believe to be worth the sacrifice.

Keep your body sharp to keep your mind sharp. It pays off.