In 2001, Elon Musk wanted to spend some of the wealth he accumulated from the sale of Zip2 and X.Com (later PayPal) to start an agricultural project on Mars. What did he know about sending cargo into space? Not much. Never be afraid to rely on the expertise of others, Musk called cold former NASA aerospace consultant Jim Cantrell for help. They ended up flying to Moscow to buy refurbished ballistic missiles because the cost of missiles was high in the US.

The negotiations did not go well. One of the top designers at the Russian National Space Agency staged a coup when he allegedly spat on their shoes.

It says a lot about Musk's mindset that the first thing he did on the plane back was run the numbers and sketch out a plan to build his rockets. He realized that rocket prices were massively inflated over material costs. Today, Musk's SpaceX dominates the commercial launch market, counting 525 of 626 spacecraft sent during the first quarter of 2024. Take no for an answer? Instead of being deterred by a seemingly insurmountable problem, Musk takes it as a dare.

I know something about turning the “impossible” into reality. I once started a small bakery in Glendale, California that grew into a 500,000 square foot wholesale operation with 1,300 employees. The dream just kept growing.

While building multiple businesses, studying visionaries like Musk has been part of my journey. Here are some of the principles he models as a leader who defies all expectations.

Related: 5 habits that made Elon Musk an innovator

1. Align your goal with the change

Two years ago, Elon Musk gave Jay Leno a tour of the SpaceX factory surrounded by 10.2-meter-tall rocket engines called Raptors that stand like statues of Easter Island. According to Musk, they were the most advanced engines ever made.

“How fast can you get one of these out,” Leno asks in a clip of the visit.

“About one a day,” Elon replies.

The effort it would take to get to that level of production is amazing. And he doesn't even say it jokingly.

But what comes next is even more remarkable. Asked if he is patenting the rocket design, Musk says “Patents are for the weak” and are usually used as a “blocking technique” to stop creativity. Anyone is free to copy Musk's intellectual property as long as they can do it better and faster. Its goal is not to block technology, but to transform the industry.

When it comes to his other big interest – renewable energy – Musk is equally confident that Tesla will be the first to create a sustainable system anyway. This takes some courage, though the visionaries take the lead and move on. The broader point is that your goals and objectives are well defined so that you can align the staff and companies you create to be truly transformative and successful.

Related: Elon Musk defines extremely hard work when building a company

2. Embrace unconventional thinking

Yes, Elon is different. Like Cantrell said of his attitude on what would become SpaceX: “He didn't just throw some money at games. He put in his heart, soul and mind.” I try to keep a similar attitude to my various interests, especially regenerative agriculture.

I am driven by the fact that the US spends almost double spends more on health care than other developed countries – 17.8% of GDP – yet has the worst health outcomes of any high-income country.

By investing in this area, I see an opportunity to help make significant changes in the quality of the food we eat, giving us healthier bodies to avoid disease. But getting back into farming correctly will require unconventional thinking and a problem-solving mindset.

When the Russians treated Musk like a neophyte, he turned around and said, “I can hire the best rocket engineers and we can make our own rockets.” When everyone assumed the rockets had to be spent, burn up in the atmosphere or crash into the ocean, he got boosters to survive reentry and landed them straight.

Musk's conviction to run a business on his own terms shows us that when conventional wisdom says “impossible,” it's a chance to innovate. So where others see barriers, look for lost opportunity.

Related: What skills does Elon Musk have and why is he so successful?

3. Fail fast, learn faster

You've probably heard of fast failure. It's a concept that originated in the software industry that suggests learning from failure can save a lot of money in the long run, as long as executives don't double down on the mistake. With a background in this strategy with Zip2 and X.com, Musk adapted the approach to SpaceX, though the stakes at least seemed higher.

After Musk was asked how his night had been following his SN1 prototype explodes during a pressure test in 2020, he tweeted: “It's cool, we'll just delete it.” The mission was part of a series of launches designed to test the reusable rocket system intended for missions to the Moon and Mars. The reality was every Starship flight achieved more than the last:

The first barely got off the ground, the second reached “on the hot scene90 miles up, the third made it halfway around Earth before disintegrating. On the fourth flight, they landed the massive booster in the ocean and took the spacecraft to survive re-entry. It exemplifies SpaceX's mantra of “fail fast, learn faster.”

Replay has never looked like this. I've seen CEOs burned out by previous experience shut down innovative ideas. But with Musk, he always finds a solution.

At times during my business career, I was pushed to the point of losing everything – but I used those experiences to fix our problems and keep the company on the path to success. These issues made us stronger and eventually do more than we thought possible. So my final advice is to be motivated by the challenge, and if you're doing it right, there will always be a new one on the horizon.