In the months leading up to the launch of my book, The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning, I’ve talked a lot about winning—but I’ve talked a lot about failing, too. Learning how to fail productively—to “Fail Up”—is one of the greatest secrets to full-on success.
在我还有几个月就要出版的新书：《胜利的7个原则》（The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning）中，我谈了很多有关成功——以及失败——的内容。学会如何有成果地失败——“失败是成功之母”——这是取得最大成功的最重要秘诀之一。
And in that vein, I was impressed with a recent article by business author Bernard Marr. He pointed out that there is one single thing that all “radically successful” people have in common: They have a ferocious drive and hunger for success that makes them never give up.
在这个方面，我对商业作者伯纳德·马尔（Bernard Marr）最近发表的一篇文章印象深刻。他指出，所有“取得了巨大成功”的人士都拥有一个共同的特征。他们都有着强大的动力，对成功的渴望让他们永不放弃。
There are many varieties of success. Jobs and careers are one area, but success in family life, personal relationships, community and church work, philanthropy and sports or treasured hobbies are important success priorities as well.
成功有很多种。工作及职业是一个领域，但家庭生活、人际关系、社区和教堂的志愿工作、慈善事业及体育运动，或者宝贵的业余爱好，这些都比成功更重要。
One thing is certain: There is no clear and definitive path to success for anyone. The most successful people in any endeavor will tell you many stories of failure within their life journeys. Many (if not all) have experienced major failures, multiple times. But they never gave up.
有一件事是确定的：对任何人来说，并不存在清晰确定的成功之路。任何一个领域里的最成功人士都会告诉你，在他们的人生旅程中，他们遭受了很多失败。很多人（如果不是全部的话）都经历过重大挫折，而且是很多次。但他们从不放弃。
As I have said many times, the greatest secret to success is learning how to “Fail Up.” It would even be fair to say that failure is the driver that makes truly successful people even more hungry and determined to achieve their success.
我说过很多回，成功最大的秘诀就在于学会如何“从失败中吸取有益的经验教训，为日后的成功打下基础。”甚至可以公平地说，失败是真正成功人士的推动力，会让他们更加渴望成功和坚定不移。
In his article, Marr presented a list of nine famous successful people whose failures helped to spur their success. I would like to share them with you, along with some of my own thoughts on each:
在马尔的文章中，他举了9个著名成功人士的例子，在这些人的情况中，失败激励他们取得了成功。我希望和你分享这些故事，同时我也对每位成功人士发表了一些我个人的看法：
1. Henry Ford stands tall as a pioneer of modern business, yet this founder of the Ford Motor Company failed many times on his route to success. His first business attempt at building a motor car was shuttered after just a year and a half when stockholders lost confidence in his ability to succeed. He gathered more cash and re-started his effort, but a year later was forced out of his own company yet again. The entire motor industry had lost faith in Henry Ford, but he was not deterred. He found another investor to start the Ford Motor Company, and the rest is history.
1. 亨利·福特（Henry Ford）是现代企业的先驱，成就非凡，而这位福特汽车公司的创始人在通往成功的道路上失败了多次。他的首家汽车制造公司在仅仅运营一年半后就关闭了，当时的股东们都对他取得成功的能力失去了信心。他筹集了更多资金，重新开始，但一年后他再次被迫退出自己的公司。整个汽车行业都不看好亨利·福特，但他并未停下脚步。他找到了另一位投资者，创立了福特汽车公司，其余的事情众所周知，就不赘言了。
2. Walt Disney – The creator of the global Disney empire of film studios, theme parks, and consumer merchandise travelled a long and winding road to success. Amazingly, Walt Disney was fired from an early job at the Kansas City Star Newspaper because he was “not creative enough.” In 1922 he launched a Kansas-based company called Laugh-O-Gram with a mission to produce cartoons and short advertising films. One year later, in 1923, the business went broke. He didn’t give up, though. He moved from Kansas to Hollywood to begin another venture, and The Walt Disney Company was born.
2. 华特·迪士尼（Walt Disney）——由制片公司、主题公园和消费品组成的迪士尼帝国的缔造者，他的成功之路非常漫长曲折。令人意想不到的是，华特·迪士尼早年曾被《堪萨斯城明星报》（Kansas City Star Newspaper）解雇，因为他“不够具有创造力”。1922年，他在堪萨斯创立了Laugh-O-Gram公司，制作动画片和短篇广告。一年后，也就是1923年，公司破产，但他没有放弃。他从堪萨斯搬到好莱坞，开始了另一次冒险，华特·迪士尼公司诞生了。
3. Richard Branson – A personal favorite of mine, Richard Branson is a highly successful entrepreneur. In fact, in a prior article, I named him one of the Top 10 Living Business Leaders Today. Branson’s successful ventures include Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Music, and Virgin Active. At age 16, however, Branson was a high school dropout with hopes of starting a student magazine. It didn’t succeed. He went on to establish a mail-order record business that did so well it led to the creation of the record shop he called Virgin. Today we know him as one of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs, but on his path to success he endured many more failures, including Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Clothes, Virgin Vie, and Virgin Cards. Thank heavens he never gave up.
3. 理查德·布兰森（Richard Branson）——我个人最喜欢的一位成功人士，理查德·布兰森是一位取得了辉煌成就的企业家。事实上，在我之前的一篇文章中，我称他为当今在世的10位最伟大商业领袖之一。布兰森的成功包括创建了维珍航空（Virgin Atlantic）、维珍唱片（Virgin Music）和维珍活力（Virgin Active）。布兰森在16岁时从高中辍学，希望能创办一份学生杂志。但这次尝试没有成功，他并未气馁，又创建了一家邮购唱片公司。这家公司的生意非常好，他也因此建立起一家唱片商店，取名维珍。今天，他作为全球最伟大的企业家之一闻名于世，但在他的成功之路上，他品尝的失败比成功要多，包括维珍可乐（Virgin Cola）、维珍伏特加（Virgin Vodka）、维珍服饰（Virgin Clothes）、维珍维（Virgin Vie）和维珍卡（Virgin Cards）。感谢老天他从来没有放弃。
4. Oprah Winfrey has just returned to the No. 1 position on the Forbes celebrity list after two years in second place and a drop in income of $88 million since last year. She is broadly acclaimed as the queen of entertainment, and has enjoyed an amazing career as a talk show host, media proprietor, actress, and producer. However, Oprah began her life in poverty, and in her earlier career she endured numerous setbacks, such as getting fired from her job as a reporter because she was ”unfit for television, ” and fired as the co-anchor of weekday news on WJZ-TV, which resulted in her being demoted to morning TV. Clearly those organizations didn’t recognize the incredible talent they were squandering.
4. 奥普拉·温弗瑞（Oprah Winfrey）在福布斯名人榜上重返第一名的位置，此前两年她位居第二，去年收入减少了8,800万美元。她被公认为是娱乐业的女王，她同时还是脱口秀节目的主持人、媒体经营者、演员和制片人，成绩斐然。然而，温弗瑞从小在贫困家庭中长大，在她职业生涯的早期，她承受了数不清的挫折，例如她在做记者的时候被解雇，原因是她“不适于上电视”，后来她在WJZ电视台与同事共同主持工作日新闻节目，但又惨遭解职，降级去了一档早间电视节目。显然，这些机构都没意识到他们白白浪费了一个极为出色的人才。
5. J.K. Rowling – The iconic writer of the Harry Potter series, which has resulted in the sale of more than 400 million books, is also responsible for the most successful and lucrative book-based film series in history. However, early in her career as an author, Rowling received endless rejections from publishers. Even her famous Harry Potter manuscript was rejected outright for reasons, such as, ”It is far too long for a children’s book” or, ”Children books never make any money.” Her story is even more inspiring when you realize that she was a divorced single mother who was living on welfare when her career as a writer began.
5. J.K.罗琳（J.K. Rowling）——《哈利·波特》系列小说的传奇作者，该部小说在全球销售了超过4亿册，同时催生了历史上基于小说改编的最成功、最受欢迎的电影系列。然而，在罗琳作者生涯的早期，她被出版商无数次地拒绝。甚至她闻名全球的《哈利·波特》原稿在最初也因多个原因被出版商拒之门外，例如，“对于一本儿童读物来说，这实在太长了。”或者，“儿童读物从来不挣钱。”在你意识到她当时是一位离了婚的单身母亲，在开始写作的时候，她依靠失业救济过日子后，她的故事甚至更加励志。
6. Bill Gates –The famous co-founder and chairman of Microsoft dropped out of Harvard to set up a business called Traf-O-Data. The partnership between Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Paul Gilbert was based on a good idea to read data from roadway traffic counters and create automated reports on traffic flows. But the business model was flawed and the company had few customers and resulted in losses from 1974 to 1980 before it was closed. But Bill and his partner Paul Allen put the lessons they’d learned to good use when they created Microsoft.
6. 比尔·盖茨（Bill Gates）——微软著名的联合创始人兼董事长，他从哈佛大学辍学，与保罗·艾伦（Paul Allen）和保罗·吉尔伯特（Paul Gilbert）合作创立了一家名为Traf-O-Data的公司。他们的想法很好：读取道路交通计数器的数据，自动生成关于交通流量的报告。但业务模式有缺陷，公司基本没有客户，从1974年一直到1980年不断亏损，最后倒闭。但比尔和他的合作伙伴保罗·艾伦在创建微软时，充分借鉴了他们学到的经验教训。
7. Milton Hershey failed in his first two attempts to set up a confectionary business. But is there any of us who doesn’t know and love Hershey confections and chocolate today?
7. 米尔顿·何塞（Milton Hershey）在创办糖果企业的努力中，前两次都失败了，但今天，我们当中有谁不知道和不喜欢好时（Hershey）的糖果及巧克力的吗？
8. H.J. Heinz began his career with a company that produced horseradish. It went bankrupt. Thankfully, he was persistent and he had some other ideas in mind. His food products left his competitors far behind trying to catch up.
8. H.J.海因茨（H.J. Heinz）开始创业的时候，建立了一家生产山葵调味品的公司，这家公司破产了。幸亏他坚持不懈，想出了其他点子。他的亨氏食品公司将努力追赶的竞争对手远远抛在了后面。
9. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, joining a long list of brilliant leaders who have been removed from the companies they founded. He returned several years later to turn Apple into one of the most successful technology and consumer organizations in the world.
9. 史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）曾被苹果公司解雇，成为众多被自己一手创建的公司开除的伟大领导人中的一位。他在几年后重返苹果，将其打造为全球最成功的科技和消费电子公司之一。
Thanks again to Bernard Marr for this inspiring compilation. And I’m sure many of you could add a few more names, both famous and unknown, to the list. All of them share the same successful characteristic: They never gave up, no matter how many times they had to get back up and dust themselves off before they could fully succeed. What about you?
再次感谢伯纳德·马尔提供了这些鼓舞人心的资料。我确定，你们中的很多人都能在这个名单上再添上几个名字，包括有名的和没名的。他们所有人都拥有一个共同的特征：从不放弃，不论他们在完全取得成功前需要再次站起来并重新振作多少次。那么你呢？
Amazon named David Williams’ book, The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning, one of its Top 10 Business Books for July.
亚马逊将大卫·威廉姆斯（David William）的著作《成功的7个不容妥协定律》列为7月份该网站的10大商务畅销书之一。
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