While millions of young people look to Elon Musk’s career as a roadmap to groundbreaking success, Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, offers a surprising piece of advice. Instead of focusing on the pursuit of wealth or power, his counsel centers around a simple yet powerful concept: usefulness.

In a recent interview, Musk shared profound advice for high school and college students, and young people who want to make a big positive impact on the world. His lessons are not merely career strategies but a comprehensive life philosophy, rooted in physics-based thinking and a rejection of the outdated “zero-sum” model.

The Ultimate Goal: To Be Useful

When asked for advice for those looking to “do something big” and have a “big positive impact,” Musk replied with three words: “Try to be useful.”

This is the ethical core of his advice. “You do things that are useful to your fellow human beings, to the world,” Musk emphasized. “It’s very hard [to be useful].”

He posed a sharp question regarding the quality of life: “Are you contributing more than you consume?”

According to Musk, everyone’s goal should be to have a “positive net contribution to society.” A useful life, he asserts, is a “good life,” a life “worth having lived.” This advice dismisses superficial goals like seeking fame or power. In fact, he noted: “A lot of times, the people you want as leaders are the people who don’t want to be leaders.”

Musk’s philosophy points toward a form of servant leadership, where success is defined by the actual value you bring, rather than your position on the hierarchy of power.

The “Physics” Thinking Method

To achieve usefulness, Musk encourages young people to apply the “mental tools of physics” broadly in life. This refers to First Principles Thinking – the method of breaking down complex problems into their most fundamental elements to reconstruct solutions creatively, rather than relying solely on analogy or tradition.

However, the foundation for applying this mindset is broad knowledge.

“I encourage people to read a lot of books,” Musk said. “Just read, like, basically try to ingest as much information as you can and try to also just develop a good general knowledge.”

He stressed that reading widely helps create a “rough map of the knowledge landscape,” allowing a person to do “peripheral exploration” to find out what they are truly interested in. Musk revealed that as a child, he read through the entire encyclopedia, a process that vastly expanded the scope of things he didn’t even know existed.

The core advice here is to find the overlap between two factors:

What you are good at (inherent talent).

What you like doing (interest).

If you are good at something but don’t like doing it, you won’t maintain motivation long-term. Reading broadly is a “super fast shortcut” to discovering that overlap, finding where you can both enjoy the work and make a positive impact.

Countering the “Zero-Sum” Mindset

A crucial part of Musk’s advice is a warning against the “zero-sum mindset.”

Musk argues that many people, even very smart ones, hold this mindset at an axiomatic level without realizing it. A zero-sum mindset assumes the “pie” (resources) is fixed; therefore, the only way to get ahead is to “take things from others.” This encourages morally questionable behavior.

“But this is false,” Musk asserted. “Obviously the economic pie has grown dramatically over time.”

He encourages adopting the “grow the pie” mindset. Instead of trying to outcompete others or scramble for scarce resources, people should focus on creating new value — creating more than they consume.

Musk advocates for a collaborative environment where people do not create “constant competition.” He gave the example of celebrating and promoting others’ ideas (like Joe Rogan does), which actually helps increase the overall resources for that field, whether it’s business, science, or academia. Collaboration and knowledge sharing create a richer ecosystem where “everybody wins.”

The Promise of a Life Worth Living

In summary, Elon Musk’s advice is not philosophically complex, but a pragmatic guide rooted in principles of performance and ethics.

For the younger generation, the path to sustained success and meaning is not about becoming the wealthiest, but about becoming the most useful. This requires continuous learning, innovative thinking, and rejecting the antiquated notion that life is a game of taking.

Living a useful life, applying physics-based thinking to real-world problems, and constantly working to expand the “pie” of wealth and knowledge – that is the legacy Musk hopes the next generation will pursue. A life defined by a positive net contribution is the ultimate success.