The following is adapted from The Book of Elon by Eric Jorgenson.
What does it mean to live a successful life? For Elon Musk, the answer isn't fame, wealth, or recognition. It's something far more grounded: usefulness.
The measure of success, by his own account, comes down to one question: "How many useful things can I get done?" Each morning starts with a simple intention—how can I be useful today? Not how can I impress, not how can I get ahead, but how can I genuinely contribute?
That mindset is harder to sustain than it sounds. Being truly useful, contributing more than you consume, is one of the more difficult things a person can aim for. But it's worth aiming for. The goal isn't perfection. It's making the set of choices most likely to move things in a positive direction, and course-correcting when you get it wrong.
There's deep respect in this philosophy for people who simply put in an honest day's work. Whether someone is farming, building software, writing, or entertaining, if they're making a positive contribution to the people around them, that counts. Utility doesn't require a spotlight.
So how do you actually know if you're helping? Think about it mathematically. Multiply how many people you've helped by how much you helped each one. That product is your total impact. It's similar to the physics definition of work, and the framing matters: a product that changes the lives of a small group of people dramatically is just as valuable as one that nudges a massive audience in a small but positive direction. The math works out roughly the same.
That lens applies to any product, project, or career path. Ask yourself: compared to what already exists, how much better is what I'm offering, and how many people will feel that difference? A simple app doesn't need to reinvent civilization. If it's making even a modest number of people's lives genuinely easier, that's good work. Not every contribution has to change the world. It just has to add something real to it.
This is the same advice passed on to the next generation: follow what genuinely interests and fulfills you, work hard at it, and find a way to add more than you take. Engineering, writing, building, creating—whatever the path, the measure is whether it leaves something useful behind.
A useful life, in the end, is a life worth having lived.
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For more advice on living with purpose and maximizing your impact, you can find The Book of Elon on Amazon.
Eric Jorgenson curates the most useful ideas from our greatest thinkers and doers—and preserves them in our most permanent format: books.
He’s the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (2M+ copies sold) and The Anthology of Balaji. He’s CEO of Scribe Media, where authors retain full financial and creative control of their books.
Eric lives in Kansas City with his wife and son in a house that’s slowly becoming a library. He invests in obsessive geniuses building utopian technology.
(Royalty free image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-typing-on-apple-magic-keyboard-in-front-of-imac-7372/, Credit: Startup Stock Photos)