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

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.

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."

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. She held this title until Martha Stewart made the cover at 81 the following year.

Musk wrote in her memoir that she stopped bleaching her hair when she was nearing 60, after feeling down. As her white roots grew in, she cut her hair short and found she loved the new look.

Her agent, however, was not impressed. When she saw Musk's new hair and photos, she warned that she would "never work again," Musk wrote.

Instead, Musk realized her contract allowed her to send her new photos to agencies outside New York City. Fifteen signed her and booked her for work across Europe and the US. She also caught the eye of a Time magazine casting director, who noticed Musk walking her dog every morning, leading to a photo feature inside the magazine.

Elsewhere in the memoir, Musk recounts her initial hesitation over appearing in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue, because her agents had long told her she did not have a "swimsuit body."