Musk’s indisputable work ethic was forged in Canada?

Musk started doing some work on his cousin’s farm. He grew vegetables and shoveled out grain bins. Musk celebrated his eighteenth birthday there, sharing a cake with the family. Throughout the rest of the year, Musk hopped from city to city, working odd jobs. At one point, for example, he learned to cut logs with a chainsaw in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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Musk also took on hazardous jobs for better pay. Reminds me of Richard Linklater’s years on oil rigs off the Texas coast…

Musk found some of his jobs by going to the local employment offices where companies posted requests for work. He was told that the best-paying job–because of the hazards involved–was cleaning boilers at a lumber mill, so he decided to try that. “You have to put on this hazmat suit and then shimmy through this little tunnel that you can barely fit in,” Musk said. “Then you have a shovel and you take the sand and goop and other residue, which is still steaming hot, and you have to shovel it through the same hole you came through. There is no escape. Someone else on the other side has to shovel it into a wheelbarrow. If you stay in there for more than thirty minutes, you get too hot and die.” Thirty people started out at the beginning of the week to give the job a try. By the end of the week, it was just Musk and two other men doing the work.

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This is not TIME Person of the Year Elon Musk, and yet somehow it still is.

Picture books are underrated, but I’m learning children’s books are underrated. This adapted version of Ashlee’s Vance Elon Musk biography has been inspiring so far.

Blazing through it.

Also see John Meacham’s adapted version of his Thomas Jefferson biography: Thomas Jefferson President and Philosopher

Vance, Ashlee. Elon Musk and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Young Readers’ Edition. United States, HarperCollins, 2017.