一心想成功会让我们输掉什么？(陈愉)

Back in business school, macho kids like me studied finance. In the competition of life, money equaled winning, or so we thought, so those who managed the money would become the winners. Didn't matter that I was a woman - I was as competitive as any guy you'd ever met.

以前在商学院读书时，像我这样自以为是的孩子都读金融专业。在生活的竞争中，赚到钱等同于成功，或者说，我们是这么认为的，那些掌控金钱的人将成为胜者。我是女性，这一点并没有关系──我和你遇到过的任何一名男性一样有竞争力。

In our imagined hierarchy of the universe, finance-related majors reigned supreme, while Marketing and HR were 'for the girls,' or those lacking the IQ for math. We brandished our HP 12c financial calculators like little badges of honor.

在我们想象的世界层级结构中，金融相关专业位居最高层，而市场营销和人力资源专业是为女孩子或者缺乏数学智商的人准备的。我们炫耀着自己的惠普12C财务计算器，仿佛它们就是一枚枚小小的荣誉徽章。

It's taken me a lot of years, a lot of living, and a lot of metabolizing of that living, to realize that my view of the world was upside down. The reality is: finance is for wimps.

过了很多年，历经很多生活磨炼以及众多变化之后，我才意识到我的世界观是颠倒的。现实是──金融是给呆瓜们读的。

Finance is the easy part. It's much harder to deal with people. ※Deal,§ as in: interact with, negotiate with, lead, love, have any kind of real human interaction with.

金融是容易的部分，而与人打交道要难得多，比如说与人交流、谈判、领导、爱以及任何一种实际的人类交流所涉及的“交往。

The winners in society are the people who understand how to relate to other people.

社会上的胜者是那些懂得如何与他人沟通交流的人。

I always was focused on the race to win

我以前总是专注于在竞争中成功

In my 20s, I worked really really hard. I attended name-brand schools and piled on the degrees. I was focused on my climb to the top as a successful real-estate developer. I worked full-time as I was studying, because I was in a hurry.

在我20多岁的时候，我非常非常努力地工作。我上的是名校，获得了几个学位。我专注于爬上顶峰成为一名成功的房地产开发商。我在读书时也是全职工作，因为我太着急了。

Then when I was 31, I got to the top in a way that I never imagined possible. I was appointed Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles. In that role, I collaborated with leaders from all sectors of society as I spearheaded education and economic development initiatives to move our city forward.

当我到31岁时，我以一种我从未想象过的方式登上顶峰──我被任命为洛杉矶的副市长。在我发起教育与经济发展计划以推进我们的城市向前发展的过程中，我与来自社会各行各业的领导者协同合作。

When our four-year term came to a close, I moved to another world of power and money, as a headhunter for CEOs and other top talent for the world's biggest companies.

当我的四年任期届满时，我转入另一个权力与金钱的世界，成为了一名为大型跨国企业物色CEO和其他顶尖人才的猎头。

As a result of all these experiences, I've had the chance to meet, befriend, and work with leaders from all sectors in countries throughout the world.

由于这些经历，我有机会遇到来自世界各国的各行各业的领导者，并与他们交朋友和合作。

And here's what I've learned: the leaders are not the highest IQ people in any organization. They didn't get the highest grades, they didn't score the highest exam scores. They got to the top because they have the ability to attract the best people to work for them. And at the root of that power of attraction is empathy.

我所学到的是，这些领导者并不是其所在机构中智商最高的人，他们没有获得最高的名次，也没有在考试中获得最高分。他们之所以能够登上顶峰，是因为他们具备吸引最优秀的人才为他们工作的能力，而这种吸引力的根源便是“同理心（empathy）。

Empathy is the ability to truly connect with other human beings. It's life's hardest but most important skill. And it's the #1 skill required for leadership in a changing world.

同理心是真正与其他人建立起联系的能力，它是人生当中最难也是最重要的技能。在一个千变万化的世界中，同理心是最重要的领导能力。

It's all about relationships

人与人的关系最为重要

Nothing important ever has been accomplished by one person alone. The far greater value-add is in the relationships between people. That's why it's only through learning how to relate effectively to others that we achieve success in career and life.

从来没有什么重大的事情是由一个人单独完成的，人与人之间的关系会创造更大的附加值。因此，只有通过学会如何有效地与他人交流，我们才能在事业和生活上获得成功。

An organization is shaped like a pyramid. At the bottom are a large number of worker bees. Above them are the people who manage the worker bees. Next are the people who manage them. And further on up, until you get to the CEO.

一家企业的结构是金字塔形的，处于最底层的是一大群工蜂，往上一层就是管理这些工蜂的管理人才，再往上是更高一级的管理人才，再继续往上走的话，最终就是CEO的位置。

The reason why many people never rise above worker-bee status is that their skills are worker-bee skills. They know how to work really hard, all by themselves. That's what they've been trained to do.

很多人从来没有升到过高于工蜂的位置，因为他们的技能只是工蜂的技能。他们知道如何非常努力地自己埋头苦干，这正是他们一直接受的教育。

Our society pits us one against the other

这个社会让我们互相疏远

We grow up in a society in which we're overly defined by our achievements. Our entire academic system focuses exclusively on the individual. From the moment we start school, we are trained to see all the people around us as names and numbers ranked from high to low. As students, our 'job' is to beat everyone else.

我们在一种过度地以成就来界定彼此的文化中长大，我们的教育体制只关注个人。从我们上学的那一刻起，我们受到的教导就是把身边的人看作名字和从高到低排列的数字。作为学生，我们的“任务就是打败其他所有人。

Our parents, sincere in their rush to help us excel, exhort us to work first and play later. As a result, we learn tothink, academically at least, but not tofeel. We never learn to express ourselves. We take away the message that how well we perform is more important than who we are. We never learn to really connect with ourselves, much less to others.

我们的父母，真心实意地急于帮助我们做得比别人更优秀，总是劝导我们要以学习为重。其结果便是，我们学会了如何“思考──至少从学术上而言──但是没有学会如何“感受。我们从未学会表达自我。我们只记住了一点──我们的表现比我们是谁更重要。我们从未学习如何与自我保持联系，更不用说与他人保持联系了。

And so, as children, many of us grow emotionally numb, strangers to our own selves. It's no surprise, then, that as adults, we have a harder time with empathy than people who grow up in cultures emphasizing lifelong emotional development.

于是，从孩提时代开始，我们很多人就成长为情感麻木、对自我视而不见的人。毫不奇怪，当我们长大以后，我们会比那些在重视终生情感培养的文化环境中长大的孩子们，更难懂得和学会同理心。

When in the drive to excel we all become disconnected from others, the inevitable result is a society where everyone views everyone else as a competitor and an obstacle to our own success.And the inevitable result of that is a society where today we feel like we can't trust anyone, a world where we're all tired, we're all trapped and scared of what might come next. A world where five innocent children can die in a dumpster just trying to stay warm.Sina WeiboA screenshot shows an image, posted on Sina Weibo, of the trash bin where five children were found dead.

在追求竞争和超越的过程中，我们都变得与他人疏远了，不可避免的后果就是社会上每个人都把其他所有人当作竞争对手和自己获得成功的障碍。这又不可避免地导致了现在的社会状况，我们觉得无法相信任何人，我们每个人都觉得疲惫不堪、陷入困境并且害怕未来可能发生的事情。正是在这样的世界中，五个天真无辜的孩子仅仅为了取暖而在垃圾箱中丧命。

The social power of true human connections

人类交流的社会力量

Given the cold and often brutal world we live in, empathy matters even more.

考虑到我们生活在这个冷冰冰甚至经常是残酷的世界，同理心显得更加重要。

Empathy will lead to success in all aspects of our lives, because everyone is tired, everyone is scared. Taking the initiative to truly connect with the human beings around us is an incredibly powerful first step.

同理心会让我们在生活的方方面面获得成功，因为每个人都感到疲倦，每个人都心有恐惧。主动与我们身边的人真正地交流是非常重要的第一步。

At a deeper level, empathy is the start of filling our lives with the love and trust and true human connection that's missing in our world today.

在更深层次上，同理心是使我们的生活充满爱、信任以及当今世界所缺乏的真正的人类交流的起点。

Joy Chen is a Chinese-American former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles and author of the best-seller 'Do Not Marry Before Age 30.' She also is a wife and mother of two young daughters. Visit her at www.joychenyu.com.The opinion is her own.

本文作者陈愉是前洛杉矶华裔副市长、畅销书作家，著有《30岁前别结婚》。她与丈夫及两个女儿生活在洛杉矶。您可以通过 www.joychenyu.com 与她交流。文中所述仅代表她的个人观点。