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But also I know the mission that I'm trying to do in life and it's not getting humanity to Mars, it's not the grandest of all missions.
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know yourself and what you value than the
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happiness follows. And what
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is your mission? My
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that there's certain things that inspire us, that make us aim higher and make us
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And as a journalist, as a writer, and now as a biographer and
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historian, I like to tell the stories about
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moved us, who rippled the
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surface of history. And from those lessons,
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we all in a smaller way
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a journey that's not
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just about ourselves. When I
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speak to my college students, there's always
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get graduation speakers, let's say follow your passion. And I say
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no, it's not about your stupid little passion. It's
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about connecting your passion to something higher than yourself.
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So figure out what that mission is for you.
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And I do it through storytelling.
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Now storytelling
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isn't as elevated as rocket building or
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auto making, but it is the
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oldest, most venerable, valuable
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way we have of passing on values is telling stories. Whether it's around the
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first campfire ever built, or
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whether it's Homer doing
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it in the Odyssey,
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with a great opening sentence in the beginning, comma,
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telling us these stories.
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I think there's a role in society for
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storytellers that try to make us better.
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Well, you have very much taken on that role in a remarkable way. I very rarely pre-order or pre-save books ever. But based on the books you've written previously, this was one of the books that I bought on both audiobook and both physically. And it far exceeded my expectations because of the depth and detail you go into these people. This is not a surface level from a distance, audit or analysis or deconstruction of these individuals. It is as if you are living in their mind and writing from the place of their mind. And for someone like me who I think of myself at the start of my career that wants to do great things, knowing everything about these individuals that you've covered allows me to pick and choose elements that will get me closer towards my own version of happiness and success. And I think know thyself is such an important thing when you read these books because you have to assemble the parts of an Elon or Steve Jobs or a Jennifer and take from them to complete your own little jigsaw piece. And we're all our own individual shapes. They'll probably never be a book ever that comes close to the detail in depth of insight and understanding and storytelling, which is so unbelievably captivating as this one that's written on Elon Musk. So it's a must read for everybody regardless of what discipline will pursue your and I think it's just an absolute fascinating read about trauma, about humanity, about humans and about what it takes to reach the very top. So Walter, thank you for the service to humanity that you've done by the work that you do. It's a huge honor to get to meet you today.