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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.
为什么理查德·布莱森（英国亿万富翁）、比尔·盖茨、沃伦·巴菲特可以做得那么好？一项调查报告发现了7条关于工作和财富积累的原则。超级成功人士们践行着这些原则，而平庸的人们却总是对它们视而不见，绕道而行。
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位堪称世界上最成功最富有的人的故事，每一则都向我们解释了其中的一条原则。
1. Guy Laliberte, Cirque du Soleil Founder: Do What You Love, But Follow the Money
1.盖·拉里伯特，太阳马戏团创始人：做你喜欢做的事，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.
当盖·拉里伯特召集了一帮子演员开始创建太阳马戏团的时候，他还只是一个高中文化程度的马戏团小丑。虽然有着政府的资助和赞助商的慷慨解囊以及拉里伯特勤奋的工作，但在最初形成其特立独行的表演风格的那段时期，这家马戏团也只能刚刚维持生计。拉里伯特的一着妙棋是将马戏团的性质由非盈利性转变为了盈利性（他自己作为1/3的所有者）。今天的他已经坐拥18亿美元身家。
2. Suze Orman, Financial Advisor: Save Less, Earn More
2.苏兹·奥尔曼，美国第一女性理财大师：开源强于节流
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.
苏兹·奥尔曼通过告诉人们如何靠着节俭来积累财富而赚了一大笔钱，尽管她本人并没有这样的经历。在她30多岁时，她过着相当奢华的生活，但却深陷债务泥潭。她并没有为此减少在奢侈品上的开销，与此相反，她找到了自己的解决之道。她做了她喜欢的事，并且抓住了致富的机会。今天，她已经有能力每年花费30万美元乘着私人飞机环游世界。最终，你的时间花在抓住机遇上要远远好过花在省吃俭用上。
3. Bill Gates, Microsoft Founder: Imitate, Don't Innovate
3.比尔·盖茨，微软创始人：模仿，不创新
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.
比尔·盖茨通过将操作系统授权给IBM创造了世界上最巨大的财富之一——据福布斯称，达到了670亿美元。事实上，这个软件完全是改编自另一家公司的代码。当时，盖茨的微软公司并没有足够的创新能力将它从草稿变为成品，于是微软以2万5千美元从另一家公司购买了这些代码并为它做了一番包装。当盖茨把这个二手软件交给IBM公司的时候，尽管来得非常及时，但还是存在着太多的漏洞。因此IBM的工程师不得不彻底地重新编写了一次。33年后，没有人记得也没有人在意这些。好的模仿在关键时刻往往比创新更重要。
4. Warren Buffett, Investor: Know-How Is Good, Know-Who Is Better
4.沃伦·巴菲特，投资家：有知识好，有人脉更好
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.
沃伦·巴菲特很年轻的时候就悟出了他的投资哲学。但由于他缺少足够的资金来推动整个庞大的市场，他那些对世事的洞察几乎毫无用武之地。巴菲特成为了有钱人是因为他战胜了自己胆小腼腆的毛病。他招募了一些投资伙伴，并且带领着这些伙伴从公司管理者那儿榨取了股票业绩。这个案例的重点是：没有人能仅仅依靠自己获得成功。
5. Richard Branson, Virgin Founder: Spread the Work, Spread the Wealth
5.理查德·布兰森，维珍品牌创始人：给别人工作，财富才会滚滚来
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·布莱森爵士患有严重的失语症，但他却把这当做自己的巨大优势。布莱森将他的维珍集团运营为一家风险投资基金，将赌注压在了那些具有奇思妙想并且符合维珍品牌战略的企业家身上。他从未考虑过对那些数量巨大的维珍旗下公司进行管理，因为他没法这么干。“假如我看一张资产负债表，”他曾说，“那我生活中什么事儿都干不了了。”总而言之，你要让你的优势发挥作用并且让他人也能发挥他们的优势。
6. Steve Jobs, Apple Founder: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
6.史蒂夫·乔布斯，苹果创始人：失败乃成功之母
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世纪80年代，史蒂夫·乔布斯就预想了一种三维成像计算机，这种计算机将在国防、采油和冶金工业方面产生革命性的影响。他想错了，在他于1991年停止生产价值12.5万美元的皮克斯成像计算机前，他损失了数以百万计的个人财产。当时，皮克斯唯一盈利的项目是一个使用皮克斯软件制作电脑合成电视广告的动画团队。正是这个团队在之后组建了皮克斯电影工作室，他们创造了《玩具总动员》。更有甚者，当乔布斯于2011年去世时，他83亿美元资产的70%来自于他所持有的皮克斯工作室的股份，而这是一个他从未想过涉及的领域。
