祕訣: 成功人士堅守的6條財富守則
How'd Richard Branson, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett do so well?A survey research found seven key principles of work and wealth-building that super-successful people practice but ordinary people avoid.
爲什麼理查德·布萊森（英國億萬富翁）、比爾·蓋茨、沃倫·巴菲特可以做得那麼好？一項調查報告發現了7條關於工作和財富積累的原則。超級成功人士們踐行着這些原則，而平庸的人們卻總是對它們視而不見，繞道而行。Here are stories of six of the most successful--and wealthiest--people in the world to illustrate each of those six principles.
以下是6位堪稱世界上最成功最富有的人的故事，每一則都向我們解釋了其中的一條原則。1. Guy Laliberte, Cirque du Soleil Founder: Do What You Love, But Follow the Money
1.蓋·拉里伯特，太陽馬戲團創始人：做你喜歡做的事，但不能忘了逐利
Guy Laliberte was a high-school-educated circus clown from Quebec when he led a collective of performers to start Cirque du Soleil. Despite government subsidies, indulgent sponsors, and Laliberte's hard work, the circus barely survived for years while evolving its distinctive style. Laliberte's master stroke was to switch Cirque's status from non-profit to for-profit (with himself as one-third owner). Today he's worth $1.8 billion.
當蓋·拉里伯特召集了一幫子演員開始創建太陽馬戲團的時候，他還只是一個高中文化程度的馬戲團小丑。雖然有着政府的資助和贊助商的慷慨解囊以及拉里伯特勤奮的工作，但在最初形成其特立獨行的表演風格的那段時期，這家馬戲團也只能剛剛維持生計。拉里伯特的一着妙棋是將馬戲團的性質由非盈利性轉變爲了盈利性（他自己作爲1/3的所有者）。今天的他已經坐擁18億美元身家。2. Suze Orman, Financial Advisor: Save Less, Earn More
2.蘇茲·奧爾曼，美國第一女性理財大師：開源強於節流Suze Orman has made a fortune telling people to grow their wealth through frugality, despite having no personal experience in the matter. When Suze was in her mid-30s, she lived high, but was mired in debt. She didn't cut back on luxuries; instead she worked her way out. She did what she loved, followed financial opportunity, and today she is in a situation to spend $300, 000 a year traveling the world on private jets. In the end, your time is much better spent seizing opportunities than pinching pennies.
蘇茲·奧爾曼通過告訴人們如何靠着節儉來積累財富而賺了一大筆錢，儘管她本人並沒有這樣的經歷。在她30多歲時，她過着相當奢華的生活，但卻深陷債務泥潭。她並沒有爲此減少在奢侈品上的開銷，與此相反，她找到了自己的解決之道。她做了她喜歡的事，並且抓住了致富的機會。今天，她已經有能力每年花費30萬美元乘着私人飛機環遊世界。最終，你的時間花在抓住機遇上要遠遠好過花在省吃儉用上。3. Bill Gates, Microsoft Founder: Imitate, Don't Innovate
3.比爾·蓋茨，微軟創始人：模仿，不創新Bill Gates built one of the world's largest fortunes--$67 billion, according to Forbes--by licensing operating system software to IBM. In actuality, that software was wholly adapted from someone else's code. Gates' Microsoft lacked the innovative capacity to write it from scratch, so it dressed up some code from another company's software, which Microsoft had bought for $25, 000. When Gates delivered the second-hand software to IBM, it was on time, but it was so buggy that IBM engineers had to rewrite it completely. Thirty-three years later, no one remembers or cares. Innovation is seldom as important as timely execution of an adequate imitation.
比爾·蓋茨通過將操作系統授權給IBM創造了世界上最巨大的財富之一——據福布斯稱，達到了670億美元。事實上，這個軟件完全是改編自另一家公司的代碼。當時，蓋茨的微軟公司並沒有足夠的創新能力將它從草稿變爲成品，於是微軟以2萬5千美元從另一家公司購買了這些代碼併爲它做了一番包裝。當蓋茨把這個二手軟件交給IBM公司的時候，儘管來得非常及時，但還是存在着太多的漏洞。因此IBM的工程師不得不徹底地重新編寫了一次。33年後，沒有人記得也沒有人在意這些。好的模仿在關鍵時刻往往比創新更重要。4. Warren Buffett, Investor: Know-How Is Good, Know-Who Is Better
4.沃倫·巴菲特，投資家：有知識好，有人脈更好Warren Buffett arrived at his savvy investment philosophy when he was very young, but his know-how was nearly worthless because he personally lacked enough capital to make large market moves. Buffett didn't get rich until he overcame his shyness, recruited members for his investment partnerships, and led those partners in squeezing stock performance out of corporate managers. Case in point: No one gets rich alone.
沃倫·巴菲特很年輕的時候就悟出了他的投資哲學。但由於他缺少足夠的資金來推動整個龐大的市場，他那些對世事的洞察幾乎毫無用武之地。巴菲特成爲了有錢人是因爲他戰勝了自己膽小靦腆的毛病。他招募了一些投資夥伴，並且帶領着這些夥伴從公司管理者那兒榨取了股票業績。這個案例的重點是：沒有人能僅僅依靠自己獲得成功。5. Richard Branson, Virgin Founder: Spread the Work, Spread the Wealth
5.理查德·布蘭森，維珍品牌創始人：給別人工作，財富纔會滾滾來Sir Richard Branson suffers from severe dyslexia, but he's come to regard it as his greatest strength. Branson runs his Virgin Group as a venture capital fund that places bets on entrepreneurs with bright ideas that fit the Virgin brand strategy. He's never tempted to micro-manage any of the dozens of Virgin companies because he can't. "If I could read a balance sheet, " he once said, "I wouldn't have done anything in life." In sum, work your strengths and get others to work theirs.
理查德·布萊森爵士患有嚴重的失語症，但他卻把這當做自己的巨大優勢。布萊森將他的維珍集團運營爲一家風險投資基金，將賭注壓在了那些具有奇思妙想並且符合維珍品牌戰略的企業家身上。他從未考慮過對那些數量巨大的維珍旗下公司進行管理，因爲他沒法這麼幹。“假如我看一張資產負債表，”他曾說，“那我生活中什麼事兒都幹不了了。”總而言之，你要讓你的優勢發揮作用並且讓他人也能發揮他們的優勢。6. Steve Jobs, Apple Founder: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
6.史蒂夫·喬布斯，蘋果創始人：失敗乃成功之母Steve Jobs had a vision, back in the 1980s, for a three-dimensional imaging computer that would revolutionize the defense, oil, and medical industries. He was wrong about it, and he lost millions of his own dollars before shutting down production of the $125, 000 Pixar Imaging Computer in 1991. At the time, Pixar's only profitable unit was a tiny team of animators using Pixar software to make computer-generated TV commercials--a team that would later form the Pixar movie studio that made Toy Story. And when Jobs died in 2011, more than 70 percent of his $8.3 billion fortune came from his stake in Pixar Studios, in an industry he never had any intention of entering.
早在20世紀80年代，史蒂夫·喬布斯就預想了一種三維成像計算機，這種計算機將在國防、採油和冶金工業方面產生革命性的影響。他想錯了，在他於1991年停止生產價值12.5萬美元的皮克斯成像計算機前，他損失了數以百萬計的個人財產。當時，皮克斯唯一盈利的項目是一個使用皮克斯軟件製作電腦合成電視廣告的動畫團隊。正是這個團隊在之後組建了皮克斯電影工作室，他們創造了《玩具總動員》。更有甚者，當喬布斯於2011年去世時，他83億美元資產的70%來自於他所持有的皮克斯工作室的股份，而這是一個他從未想過涉及的領域。
