I have a bit of a thing for Elon Musk.

His mission is to save the human race. It’s good to have a goal, something to get out of bed for. One day I want to be able to speak Spanish. One day Elon Musk wants to save humanity by relocating us to Mars.

And the thing is he’s having a serious crack at it.

My favourite thing about his whole enterprise is that he’s worked out how to save the planet and make money at the same time. I think perhaps that’s the only mechanism that is going to get us out of the mess we’re in.

Right now climate change is the biggest threat to our species. And pretty much every scientist in the world agrees that we need to burn less fossil fuels to turn things around.

Through Tesla, Elon has made electric cars fast, sexy and attractive. And he’s made the technology available to anyone else who wants to make electric cars.

He’s pinpointed better batteries as the key to making solar power cheaper than burning coal, and has another company, Solar City, that is making batteries (yes, batteries) cool. Which means soon we won’t be using solar power because we’re greenies, but because it's cheaper.

And lastly, he has a back up plan to colonise Mars. Google it – it’s actually a thing. Within the next decade we’ll have a colony on Mars.

The main thing we can learn from Elon Musk for running a thought leader's practice is we don’t have to choose between making money and making a difference.

Often the best way we can make a contribution is to work out how to make money from doing so.