Looking back over my career to date, I can identify at least three clear influences that forever altered my career path. In retrospect, it's interesting to see how different the context was for each: parental advice, a passage in a book, and a persistent boss. Despite the contrasts, all three share one thing in common -- reinforcing the importance of knowing what it is you ultimately want to accomplish, and being open to allowing outside forces to help clarify, reinforce and facilitate the path to making it happen.
回顾我的工作履历，我可以很肯定的说至少有三个影响彻底的改变了我的职业生涯。追忆往事，可以饶有兴趣的发现这些事情的背景之间有多么大的差异：父母的建议，一本书中描述的旅程，以及一个坚持不懈的老板。无论它们之间有多么大的差异，所有这三件事情所共有的一点是：要不断的强化自己对终极理想的认识，明确自己最终想要的是什么，敞开胸怀让外界的力量帮助你明确方向，不断增强意识，并扫除道路上的障碍，使梦想成真。
Here are the three pieces of advice that helped shape my career:
以下就是帮助我形成职业生涯的三条建议：
1. You can do anything you set your mind to
1.你可以实现任何你想做的事
As a child, I can't recall a day that went by without my dad telling me I could do anything I set my mind to. He said it so often, I stopped hearing it. Along with lines like "eat your vegetables, " I just assumed it was one of those bromides that parents repeated endlessly to their kids. It wasn't until decades later that I fully appreciated the importance of those words and the impact they had on me.
小的时候，在我的印象中，父亲没有一天不会对我说：”你可以实现任何你想要做的事情“。他说的太频繁了，我都听不下去了。我觉得他的话不过是那些陈词滥调中的一种，跟父母不断唠叨的“把你的青菜吃掉”没有什么不同。直到数十年后，我才终于彻底地领悟到这些话的重要性，以及它们带给我的影响。
Today, the question I'm asked most often by students and interns is how best to achieve their career goals. As simple as it sounds, the short version of my response is that you have to know what it is you ultimately want to accomplish (optimizing for both passion and skill, and not one at the exclusion of the other). As soon as you do, you'll begin manifesting it in both explicit and implicit ways.
今天，我最常被学生或者实习生问到的问题就是如何最好的实现他们的职业目标。听起来很简单，我回答的简短版本就是你必须清楚你最终想要实现什么（要兼顾爱好与技能的进行优化，不能只顾于一头而舍弃另一方面）。你越早的认识到自己想要的，你就能更早的从外在和内在两个方面来实现目标。
Without question, this first principle has been the most consistent driver of my own career path over the last 20 years. (For a more comprehensive summary of this advice, you can check out the final Q&A exchange included in this "Corner Office" interview.)
毫无疑问，这条首要原则是我过去二十年职业生涯中最为重要的动力源泉。
2. Everything that can be converted from an atom to a bit, will be
2.任何把物质数字化的改变都会有价值
In August, 1994, I signed up for an Aol account. I'll never forget my first "a-ha!" moment online which occurred soon thereafter. It came through witnessing the power of collective intelligence on a Motley Fool message board. There, a community of engineers, logistics experts, and individual investors from all over the country had joined together to reverse engineer the cost basis to manufacture what would eventually emerge as a hit computer peripheral product. I remember thinking to myself, "This is going to change everything."
1994年8月，我注册了一个Aol（美国服务在线公司）的账号。从那一刻起，我再也忘不了我第一次登陆网络在线时的那种惊喜。它见证了那种傻瓜式留言板收集创意的能力。很快，全国各地的工程师、逻辑专家以及私人投资者就联合组成了一个探讨制造成本的社区，并最终极大的影响了电脑外设产品。我记得当时不断的对自己说：“这将要改变一切。”
About a month later, I was reading "Being Digital" by Nicolas Negroponte after seeing a rave review in Wired Magazine (for historical context, it was the print version). In the opening chapter of his book, Negroponte posited that by virtue of the ensuing digital revolution, everything that could be converted from an atom to a bit would be. Having just started as an analyst in the Corporate Development group at Warner Bros, it didn't take much to realize this coming transition would have material implications on the studio and the entertainment industry in general.
大概过了一个月，在看过无线电杂志（那个时候仍是印刷版）的一篇评论后，我读了Nicolas Negroponte写的 "Being Digital"（数字生活）。在开篇的第一章里，Negroponte就设想了通过数字革命，任何能够将物质转化为数字的改变都会有价值。那个时候我刚刚开始在华纳兄弟开发部做分析员，我很快意识到这种即将到来的转变将对剧院和娱乐产业产生本质上的影响。
In light of those experiences, when the opportunity arose to write the first online business plan for Warner Bros, I quickly volunteered; this despite the fact that at the time, most if not all of the investment focus was on CD-ROM. The first draft of that online plan was completed in December, 1994. It would ultimately be approved several months later and thus began my nearly two-decades-long career in digital media.
由于有了这些经验，当出现为华纳兄弟起草第一份网上商务计划的机会出现时，我立刻做了自愿者。要知道，在那个时候即使不是全部也可以说是几乎所有的投资都是集中在CD上的。第一份网上企划案于1994年12月起草完成。这份企划数月后被通过执行，我也从此开启了20余年的数字媒体生涯。
3. Do you want to push paper around or do you want to build products that change people's lives?
3.你是想分发文件还是去开发那些改变人们生活的产品？
I started at Yahoo in May, 2001, as co-head of the Corporate Development team. By virtue of the breadth of the role and the company's operations, and Yahoo's influential position within the digital ecosystem, the job provided me a front row seat to a period of extraordinary transformation within the consumer web industry.
2001年5月我开始在雅虎担任开发部的联席主管。由于职权的范围较广，公司的一些经营政策，以及当时雅虎在整个数字领域的影响力，这份工作使我能够始终处于行业前沿，亲身感受消费者对互联网产业认识的惊人转变。
Roughly a year after I started, Dan Rosensweig joined as Yahoo's new COO. In addition to being an experienced web operator, Dan is one of the most effective sales people I know. I learned this firsthand after he tried recruiting me to an operating role on his team literally every time I saw him over the first year of his tenure. Though I'd politely decline each time -- telling him I was happy having the opportunity to work directly with the CEO, founder, and other executives in a strategic capacity -- he never stopped persisting.
差不多在我工作一年以后，Dan Rosensweig 加入雅虎并担任COO一职。除了是一名资深的网络经营者外，Dan还是我所知道的最有成效的销售人员。很快我便亲身感受到了这一点。在他任期的第一年里，几乎每次碰到我，他都会试图说服我加入他的部门。虽然我每次都礼貌的拒绝了，并且告诉他我很满意当时的工作状态。能够同CEO、创始人、以及其它部门的经理们从经营策略的大局出发，一起工作，让我感到很快乐。但是，他从来没有停止过对我的劝说。
Then, almost a year to the day he started, Dan said, "Jeff, you've always told me that your lifelong ambition is ultimately to reform the education system in the U.S. Let me ask you something: Do you think you are going to be better prepared to make that a reality by pushing paper around, working on strategy, and doing deals; or by moving in to operations and building teams, inspiring people, and developing great products that change people's lives?"
于是，到了差不多劝说了一年的时候，Dan对我说：“Jeff，你总是告诉我你一生的理想抱负就是要最终改革美国的教育体系。那么让我问你一些问题：你认为哪种方式可以让你更加接近你的梦想？是分发文件，研究策略，做些小交易？还是切身投入运营，组建团队，鼓舞人心，开发那些能够改变人们生活的产品？”
Suffice it to say, I accepted on the spot and haven't looked back since.
我想只要告诉你们故事的结果就足够了，我当场接受了他的邀请，从此再也没有回头。
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