每日跟讀#597: In a Close-Up View, The Making of a Mogul

A user of Quora, a question-and-answer website, recently posed the question: “How can I be as great as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Richard Branson?”

問答網站Quora一名用戶最近提問：「我如何才能像比爾．蓋茲、史帝夫．賈伯斯、伊隆．馬斯克和理查．布蘭森一樣偉大？」

An unlikely individual responded, quietly offering some telling insights that have created a bit of a stir among the mogul-cognoscenti and beyond.

一個意想不到的人回答了，靜靜提供一些有用的見解，在大人物間激起一些騷動。

The individual is Mr. Musk’s former wife, Justine Musk, who was married to the Tesla and Space X chief from 2000 to 2008.

這個人是馬斯克的前妻，嘉斯汀．馬斯克，她和這位特斯拉及Space X老闆2000至2008年間有婚姻關係。

Ms. Musk, an author, had a ringside view of one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and businessmen.

馬斯克女士是位作家，對這位全世界最成功的創業家及生意人之一，有近距離的觀察。

“Extreme success results from an extreme personality and comes at the cost of many other things,” Ms. Musk wrote. “Extreme success is different from what I suppose you could just consider ‘success.’ These people tend to be freaks and misfits who were forced to experience the world in an unusually challenging way,” she added, noting, “Other people consider them to be somewhat insane.”

馬斯克女士寫道：「極度的成功來自一種極端的個性，且要在許多方面付出代價。極度的成功和我覺得你以為的一般『成功』不同。這些人往往是怪胎且不適應社會，被迫以一種極具挑戰性的方式探索這個世界。」她補充說：「其他人認為他們在某種程度上是瘋了。」

She boiled down the one ingredient for extreme success: “Be obsessed. Be obsessed. Be obsessed.”

她歸結出極度成功的唯一元素：「沉迷，沉迷，沉迷。」

But Ms. Musk wasn’t being critical. “Extreme people combine brilliance and talent with an *insane* work ethic,” she wrote, “so if the work itself doesn’t drive you, you will burn out or fall by the wayside or your extreme competitors will crush you and make you cry.”

但馬斯克女士言下之意不在批評。她寫道：「極端之人集才能與天資於一身，加上瘋狂的工作精神，所以假使工作無法讓你有動力，你將會燃燒殆盡或倒在路旁，或是你的極端競爭者將擊垮你，讓你哭泣。」

Money is not the first aim, but a byproduct of their maniacal focus. “Shift your focus away from what you want (a billion dollars) and get deeply, intensely curious about what the world wants and needs,” Ms. Musk wrote. “It helps to have an ego, but you must be in service to something bigger if you are to inspire the people you need to help you.”

金錢不是首要目標，而是他們瘋狂專注的副產品。馬斯克女士寫道：「把你的焦點從你想要的（十億美元）移開，對這個世界想要的和需要的感到深切及強烈的好奇。自我感會有幫助，但若想喚起需要的人來幫你，你必須為更大的目標服務。」

In another post, she did address how money – billionaire money – is thought about. “Money is rarely just money,” she wrote. “Sometimes it stands in for love or self-esteem or freedom or a sense of control over your destiny (especially if you lacked these things in childhood).”

在另一篇發文中，她確實說明了金錢－億萬富翁的錢－被如何看待。她說：「錢不只是錢，有時它代表愛或自尊或自由或掌握自己命運的感覺（特別是對童年缺乏這些的人）。」

“Sometimes it is a way of controlling others, including family members, because you don’t know how to connect to them in any other way,” she added. “Money can also serve as a scorecard to indicate how well you are doing, the impact you are having, if you are winning. Sometimes it’s not so much the money that matters, but the win is everything – particularly when you are invested heart and soul in your mission.”

「有時這是種控制人的方法，包括家人，因為你不知如何用其他方法和他們產生聯繫。」她補充道：「錢也可以當成計分板，顯示你過得多好，多有影響力，你是不是贏家。有時錢並沒有那麼重要，但贏就是一切－特別是當你全力投注在你的使命上時。」

Ms. Musk said the reaction to her posting was a surprise: “I had no idea it would blow up the way it did.” She has received hundreds of comments and many emails.

馬斯克女士說，貼文引起的回應令她驚訝，「我不知道它會引發這麼大的迴響。」她收到數以百計的回應和許多電子郵件。

She insisted that “I wasn’t specifically talking about Elon” and said she was “uneasy” that people might be reading too much into her words. Still, she said that “Elon is a fascinating character.”

她堅稱「我沒有特別針對伊隆」，且表示對人們或許過度解讀她的文字「感到不安」。不過她仍然說：「伊隆是個迷人的人。」

Ms. Musk called herself a “watcher,” not an “insider,” saying, “I’ve been on the edge of it for a long time.”

馬斯克女士自稱是「觀察者」而非「局內人」，她說：「我曾長期處於邊緣地帶。」

One email she received asked, “Does Elon have any hobbies?”

有封電郵問她：「伊隆有任何嗜好嗎？」

No, she said. His job is his hobby.

她說沒有。工作就是他的嗜好。

“The nature of these things is so all consuming. Unless you see that up close it is hard to understand,” she said, adding that “ ‘obsession’ has a bad rap.”

她說：「這些事的本質皆如此耗神，除非你能靠得夠近觀看，否則很難了解。」她補充說：「沉迷是個折磨人的壞毛病。」

And what does Mr. Musk think about his former wife’s reflections? According to Ms. Musk, she got an email from him: “Well said,” he wrote.

馬斯克先生如何看待前妻的反思？馬斯克女士說，她收到他寄來的一封電郵，寫道：「說得很好。」

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/278632/web/