Why you should get rich or die tryin'

50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ wasn’t just the name of his hit album, it was its creator’s life philosophy.

50 Cent once explained how literal the meaning behind the album’s title is:

“Either I’m going to get rich, or I’m going to die in the process. And then if I die in the process, it was doing what I wanted to do.”

Not everyone’s goal is to get rich, so they don’t always word it exactly how 50 Cent did. But the general rule remains the same:

If your goal is to be the best of the best, you need to be relentless.

Here are a few stories that support that rule.

Elon Musk

When Paypal sold to eBay and Elon Musk got his big paycheck, he decided on space travel for his next venture. The only problem was he didn’t have any formal education in astronautics.

But Musk didn’t let that stop him. He studied every book on the subject, talked to experts, and built the best team he could, which included former NASA veterans and the best engineers in the world.

Still, no one believed that his new company, Space X, could build its own rockets. Musk himself even doubted whether or not it was possible at first.

But like all great men, Elon Musk’s goal was rooted in something bigger than himself. He believed that mankind’s future survival is dependent on whether or not we are a multi-planetary species.

Musk’s real trial in the Space X saga came when the first 3 launch attempts failed. Rocket launches aren’t cheap, and Space X was out of money. So Musk used his capital and financed a 4th launch, this one being “do or die” for the company’s survival.

In a 2012 interview, Musk was asked whether he considered quitting after the 3rd rocket’s failure.

Musk responded without hesitation: “NEVER… I don’t ever give up. I’d have to be DEAD OR COMPLETELY INCAPACITATED.”

Musk was willing to make Space X work or die in the process.

Luckily for him, it didn’t come to that. The 4th launch was successful and led to an eventual $5 billion contract with NASA, ensuring the company’s future.

JD Martinez

Baseball legend Pete Rose has some famous advice for players in a slump:

“Never change your swing. Your swing got you into the big leagues.”

Thankfully JD Martinez didn’t heed this advice.

Martinez rose through the minor leagues quickly, but when he reached the MLB, he struggled. Suddenly what had gotten him to the big leagues wasn’t working.

It was only after getting hurt and studying the swings of his more successful peers that he had an epiphany: his swing was nothing like theirs.

Although the change felt like a no-brainer, it is easier said than done to change something that helped him reach the highest level of baseball. It is why many players agree with Pete Rose’s advice: undoing a lifetime of practice can do more harm than good.

But he weighed his options and chose to overhaul his swing. And it paid off more than anyone could imagine.

He eventually became one of the game’s best players, but it was still some time after he made the initial swing changes. This is important because big changes can take time to manifest themselves. The team didn’t know it, but all Martinez needed was some more game reps with his new swing to reach his full potential.

“Did you think of quitting?” Alex Rodriguez asked him in an interview years after, referring to the Houston Astros decision to let him go in 2014.

“I NEVER thought about quitting,” replied Martinez without hesitation.

Sound familiar?

JD Martinez’s goal was to reach his full potential or die trying.

Steve Jobs

In 1985, Steve Jobs was pushed out of Apple, the company he founded.

But Steve Jobs is relentless, so instead of admitting defeat, he sought to prove to everyone with his next business that he was still a genius.

One of the companies he took over was Pixar (known as Graphics Group at the time). For a while, the company struggled. Reminiscent of Musk’s early Space X days, Jobs sunk $50 million of his own money into Pixar just to keep it alive!

He was willing to go broke before he let another company fail as he did with Apple.

Luckily, Jobs bought Pixar enough time to make their first film — Toy Story.

And in his typical dramatic fashion, Jobs set Pixar’s IPO date to exactly 1 week after Toy Story’s opening weekend. In other words, Jobs was tying Pixar’s success as a publicly traded company to Toy Story’s box office.

Toy Story made $30 million in its opening weekend and held the #1 spot for a couple more weekends. The film’s success led to a big IPO and excitement surrounding Pixar. All these factors led to Pixar’s eventual sale to Disney for $7.8 billion many years later.

Steve Jobs, like 50 Cent, was willing to die in pursuit of his ultimate goal.

Something he said in his 2005 commencement speech at Standard captures this “Get rich or die tryin” mentality:

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

After a health scare caused him to face his mortality, Jobs realized that if we will all one day die, we may as well do it in pursuit of some meaningful goal.

In other words, if you are going to die anyway, you may as well “get rich or die tryin’”.

This post pulled from a lot of my favorite videos. I hyperlinked them in the post, but I’ll link a couple of them below again because I really want you to check them out. I listen to each one of them multiple times per year:

Elon Musk on 60 Minutes - If you dislike Elon Musk, watch this video and I’d be surprised if your opinion doesn’t change. It outlines all the struggles Space X had early on in greater detail than I did, and there are many moments where Musk is on the verge of tears.

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech - The greatest speech I’ve ever heard in my life. Truly life-changing.

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