3 big takeaways on aging, beauty, and work from Maye Musk’s new memoir

Maye Musk shares her insights on aging, beauty, and work in her latest memoir, "Timeless." Shea Kastriner/USTA via Getty Images Maye Musk reflects on starting over and late-career milestones in her new memoir, "Timeless." In it, she wrote that embracing her gray hair opened doors she never expected.

At 78, she sees aging as an expansion of possibility, not a narrowing of it.

Maye Musk may be best known as the mother of Elon Musk , the world's richest person.

But at 78, she has also built a career of her own as a dietitian, model, author, and public speaker.

In her latest memoir, "Timeless," released September 15, Musk looks back on her childhood, divorce, and years as a working single mother of three, as well as the career breakthroughs she found later in life.

Here are three lessons from the book on getting older, beauty standards, and why Musk sees no reason to slow down.

Some of life's best chapters can come later Maye Musk said most of her career achievements came later in life.

PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images In the memoir, Musk wrote that she admired people who thrived from a very young age, and considered herself a late bloomer.

"Maybe that's an understatement.

I bloomed so late that most of the things I'm known for didn't happen until after I turned fifty," she wrote.

Musk wrote that she didn't walk runways in New York, Paris, or Milan until after 50, and her Times Square billboards came when "most people my age were considering retirement." Her later years brought a string of new opportunities.

In 2017, Musk became CoverGirl's oldest spokesperson at 69.

Two years later, at 71, she published her first memoir, "A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success." "And at seventy-four — white hair, wrinkles, life experience, and all —I became the oldest cover model in Sports Illustrated history.

I still smile thinking about it," Musk wrote.