Errol Musk is a tough crowd

When I asked whether it surprised him in any way that his son Elon had not only become the world’s richest man, but had also reached, quite literally, stratospheric heights, he told me how smart his other son’s children are. Apparently they achieved a lot of distinctions in matric. 

When I probed about the secret ingredient that made Elon who he is, he explained, in so many words, that the man was hardly the world’s greatest conversationalist. 

And I thought I had it tough. 

The discussion fascinated me. Not because it was obvious that the relationship between Elon and his father is complicated. Whose isn’t? We all have our stories, dynamics, and unresolved versions of reality. What struck me was something else. It reminded me that every family has its own measure of success. 

To the outside world, Elon Musk is a once-in-a-generation figure. He has changed industries, built companies that most people struggle to explain, let alone create, become the wealthiest person on earth, and somehow found time to influence politics, communication, transportation, and space exploration. 

But to his father, he is also the guy who could probably work on his communication skills. Which is remarkable when you consider that he owns X. 

And the more I thought about it, the more I realised that this is not really an Elon Musk story at all. It is a family story. One that every parent knows. 

Our child can become a surgeon, a judge, a chief executive, or an astronaut. They can win awards, build businesses, run marathons, or appear on television. And yet, somewhere in the back of our minds, they remain the child who couldn’t find their school shoes. Let alone tie them. 

Or the teenager who left wet towels on the floor. Or the young adult who insisted they knew everything before discovering that they did not. 

Families have a wonderful ability to ignore the achievements in the headlines. The world might see the public figure. But families remember the private one. 

Perhaps that is why success is such a strange thing. Most of us spend our lives chasing recognition. We want to be respected. We want to be admired. We want somebody, somewhere, to notice what we have accomplished. We all too often measure our success in the reflection we see in the eyes of strangers. 

And then we go home. Where nobody cares that you closed the deal, gave the speech, won the award, or appeared on the front page. At home, the only question that matters is whether you remembered to take out the rubbish. Or feed the dog. 

There is something wonderfully healthy about that. Because if the people closest to us become too impressed by our achievements, we risk becoming impressed with ourselves. 

Which means that families are often the last line of defence against our own mythology. Siblings remind us that however important we think we are, we still always lose at Monopoly. And cricket. Spouses remind us that we can’t parallel park and that we get lost on the way to the kitchen, and our children, through rolled eyes and shared glances, let us know that we really aren’t cool. And that we shouldn’t go around thinking we are. 

And thank goodness for that. Because success has a way of convincing us that we are the person everyone else sees. Families remind us that we are also the person they see. Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts a family can give us. Not admiration. Perspective. 

In Elon Musk’s case, apparently, that perspective is that he should work on his conversational skills. Which I suspect is exactly the sort of feedback that only a father could give.