聽特斯拉老闆的前妻講成功之道

For advice on how to be a mogul, take it from someone who has been married to one.

想得到怎麼才能成爲大人物的建議，問問和他們結過婚的人吧。

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

前不久，一名Quora用戶提出了一個問題：“我怎麼才能像比爾·蓋茨(Bill Gates)、史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)、埃隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)、理查德·布蘭森(Richard Branson)那麼牛？”

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

一個令人難以想象的人回答了這個問題，悄悄給出了一些能揭示真相的見解。這番話產生的影響，不僅限於那些熟知大亨掌故的人當中。

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

這個人就是埃隆的前妻賈斯汀·馬斯克(Justine Musk)。她與特斯拉(Tesla)和Space X公司的老闆埃隆·馬斯克的婚姻開始於2000年，結束於2008年。

Having lived with the real-life Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), Ms. Musk, an author, had a ringside view of one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and businessmen — and his network of similarly booming pals.

與現實版的託尼·斯塔克(Tony Stark)——又名鋼鐵俠(Iron Man)——共同生活過的賈斯汀是一位作家。她近距離觀察過自己那個名列全世界最成功商人和企業家之中的前夫，以及他結交的那些名頭同樣響亮的好友。

It is a world with tightly closed ranks. And honest insights about what makes the most successful tick are hard to come by. Usually a parade of academics and other writers comment on the qualities of successful people, trying to speculate about and divine what led to their achievements. Or the moguls themselves wax on with less-than-introspective platitudes about themselves. But Ms. Musk has a unique perspective.

那是一個很難進入的世界。要想如實地瞭解如何取得成功，並沒有那麼容易。通常，會有一衆學者和其他作家，對成功人士的品質發表評論，試圖推測並預言是什麼促使他們取得了已有的成就。或者大人物們自己，用實在稱不上是反省的陳詞濫調談論自己。但賈斯汀卻有一個獨特的視角。

That’s why it was so unusual to see her name pop up in response to the Quora user’s question. Ms. Musk said by phone on Monday that she sat down at her computer one night this month and came across the question. “I was procrastinating,” she said. But the question “tapped into something I was musing about for a while.” She said she had read a lot about success but wanted to share “things people weren’t saying.” What followed were several posts over the last few weeks.

也正因爲如此，看到她的名字跳出來，回答那名Quora用戶的問題，就顯得極爲不同尋常。賈斯汀週一在電話上說，本月的一天晚上，她坐在電腦前，無意中看到了這個問題。“我拖拉了一段時間，”她說。但那個問題“牽扯到了我自己思索過一陣子的事情”。她表示自己讀過大量有關成功的東西，但想分享一些“人們沒有說到的東西”。於是，在過去幾周裏，她發表了幾篇帖子。

“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.”

“極度的成功源自極端的個性，並且是以其他很多東西爲代價的，”賈斯汀寫道。“極度的成功和你所認爲的‘成功’有所不同。這些人往往是怪胎，與社會格格不入，曾被迫以一種特別具有挑戰性的方式體驗這個世界，”她接着說，“其他人會認爲他們有些發瘋了。”

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

她將極度的成功歸結爲一個因素：“執着。執着。執着。”

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.”

但賈斯汀並不是在批評。“極端的人會將才華和天賦與一種*瘋狂的*工作熱情結合起來，”她寫道。“所以如果工作本身不能給你動力，你就會感到精疲力盡或中途放棄，或是讓極端的競爭對手將你壓倒，讓你哭泣。”

She seems to suggest that the most successful businesspeople did not start out looking to become billionaires but did so simply as 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.”

她似乎在說，最成功的那些商人，開始起步時並沒期望成爲億萬富翁，成爲鉅富只是他們瘋狂專注的副產品。“把注意力從你想要的東西（比如10億美元）上轉移開，對這個世界想要什麼、需要什麼保持深深的、強烈的好奇心，”賈斯汀寫道。“這有助於讓你自信起來，但要想鼓動那些你需要的人來幫助你，就必須服務於更偉大的東西。”

In another post, however, 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).”

但在另一篇帖子中，她的確談到了錢，億萬富翁對錢的看法。“絕大多數時候錢不僅僅是錢，”她寫道。“有時候，它代表着愛、自尊、自由或對自己命運的掌控感（特別是你的童年缺少這些東西時）。”

“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.”

“有時候它是一種控制其他人，包括家人的方式，因爲你除此之外，再也不知道該以怎樣的方式同他們聯繫起來，”她接着寫道。“錢也可以充當記分牌，顯示你過得有多好、有多大的影響力，是不是贏了。有時候，重要的倒不是錢，獲勝纔是一切，特別是當你全身心投入到自己的使命中去的時候。”

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. Of course, most readers following Ms. Musk’s musings have been looking for hints about Mr. Musk himself.

賈斯汀表示，她的帖子引發的反應令人吃驚：“我不知道會引起這麼大反應。”她收到了數百條評論，還有很多電子郵件。當然，關注賈斯汀的帖子的大部分讀者，一直在尋找有關埃隆的線索。

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“我不是特指埃隆”，並表示想到人們可能會對自己的話做過多解讀，就會感到“不安”。但她說，“埃隆是一個令人着迷的人。”

Ms. Musk called herself a “watcher,” not an “insider,” saying, “I’ve been on the edge of it for a long time.” She said she had been inundated with emails about her answers and about Mr. Musk. One asked, “Does Elon have any hobbies?” No, she said. His job is his hobby. “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.”

賈斯汀自稱“觀察者”，而非“局內人”，她說“我近距離觀察了很長時間”。她說自己被關於那些回答，以及埃隆本人的電子郵件淹沒了。一個人問，“埃隆有什麼愛好嗎？”她說沒有。工作就是他的愛好。“這些東西的本質非常令人着迷。除非那麼近距離地看到過，否則難以理解，”她接着說，“不過‘執迷’這個詞給人負面印象。”

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.

那麼埃隆怎麼看前妻的想法呢？據賈斯汀說，她收到了埃隆的一封電子郵件。他在裏面寫道：“說得好。”