What determines your success

　　Make them habitual, you will be the one you want to buy 10% of when you are allthrough. And the beauty of it is that you already own 100% of yourself and you are stuckwith it.

　　——Warren Buffett

　　择善而从，你自己可能就是那个你愿意买入10％的人！更好的是你自己本就100％的拥有你自己了。

　　——沃伦·巴菲特

　　背景资料

　　沃伦·巴菲特（Warren Buffett，1930年8月30日—），全球著名的投资商，生于美国内布拉斯加州的奥马哈市。在2008年的《福布斯》排行榜上财富超过比尔盖茨，成为世界首富。2013年福布斯财富榜以530亿美元排名第四位。2010年7月，沃伦·巴菲特再次向5家慈善机构捐赠股票，依当前市值计算相当于19.3亿美元。这是巴菲特2006年开始捐出99％资产以来，金额第三高的捐款。

　　该文节选自1998年巴菲特在佛罗里达大学给MBA学生做的一次演讲，巴菲特其实口才非常不错，并不是说他能讲出多少“硬货”，而是他能够把最重要的投资哲理用非常通俗易懂的比喻来告诉大家，即使是对财务分析、市盈率等行话一窍不通的人。所以读巴菲特写的东西一点都不累。半瓶子才能晃出声响，真正大师的话是非常简单却富有哲理的。在这篇演讲稿里，不但讲了投资理念，还包括如何面对工作及做人的态度，耐心读完的朋友，相信一定收获颇丰。

　　What determines your success

　　——Warren Buffett

　　Buffett: (holds mike) Testing: One million $, two million $…three million $. I would like tosay a few words primarily and then the highlight for me will be getting your questions. I want totalk about what is on your mind.

　　I urge you to throw hard balls, it's more fun for me if you follow speed and speeches come inend. You can ask about anything except football game last week in A&M, that's out of limits . Wehave come here for some from Sun Trust, I have just attended the top meeting and I sat next to JimWilliams who runs Sun Trust for many years and he wanted to be sure that I wear this Sun Trustshirt down here.

　　I tried to get the sponsorship from the Senior Golf and I was sluggish and now on the backof the store I am doing much better. He said I get 1% of increase in deposit, profits, so all I gets forSun Trust, yell for Sun Trust.

　　Your Future

　　I would like to talk for just one minute to the students about your future when you leave here.

　　Because you will learn a tremendous amount about investments , you all have the ability to dowell; you all have the IQ to do well. You all have the energy and initiative to do well or youwouldn't be here. Most of you will succeed in meeting your aspirations . But in determiningwhether you succeed there is more to it than intellect and energy. I would like to talk just a secondabout that. In fact, there was a guy, Pete Kiewit in Omaha, who used to say, he looked for threethings in hiring people: integrity , intelligence and energy. And he said if the person did not havethe first one, the later two would kill him, because if they don't have integrity, you want themdumb and lazy. We want to talk about the first one because we know you have the last two. Youare all second-year MBA students, so you have gotten to know your classmates. Think for amoment that I granted you the right-you can buy 10% of one of your classmate's earnings for therest of their lifetime. You can't pick someone with a rich father; you have to pick someone who isgoing to do it on his or her own merit . And I gave you an hour to think about it.

　　Will you give them an IQ test and pick the one with the highest IQ? I doubt it. Will you pickthe one with the best grades? The most energetic? You will start looking for qualitative factors, inaddition to (the quantitative) because everyone has enough brains and energy. You wouldprobably pick the one you responded the best to, the one who has the leadership qualities, the onewho is able to get other people to carry out their interests. That would be the person who isgenerous , honest and who gives credit to other people for their own ideas. All types of qualities. Whomever you admire the most in the class. Then I would throw in a hooker. In addition to thisperson you had to go short one of your classmates.

　　That is more fun. Who do I want to go short? You wouldn't pick the person with the lowestIQ, you would think about the person who turned you off, the person who is egotistical, who isgreedy, who cuts corners, who is slightly dishonest. As you look at those qualities on the left andright hand side, there is one interesting thing about them, it is not the ability to throw a football 60yards, it is not the ability to run the 100 yard dash in 9.3 seconds, it is not being the best lookingperson in the class, they are all qualities that if you really want to have the ones on the left handside, you can have them.

　　They are qualities of behavior , temperament , character that are achievable , they are notforbidden to anybody in this group. And if you look at the qualities on the right hand side, the onesthat turn you off in other people, there is not a quality there that you have to have. You can get ridof it. You can get rid of it a lot easier at your age than at my age, because most behaviors arehabitual . The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. There isno question about it. I see people with these self-destructive behavior patterns at my age or eventwenty years younger and they really are entrapped by them.

　　They go around and do things that turn off other people right and left. They don't need to bethat way but by a certain point they get so, they can hardly change it. But at your age you can haveany habits, any patterns of behavior that you wish. It is simply a question of which you decide.

　　If you did this… Ben Graham looked around at the people he admired and Ben Franklin didthis before him. Ben Graham did this in his low teens and he looked around at the people headmired and he said, "I want to be admired, so why don't I behave like them?" And he found outthat there was nothing impossible about behaving like them. Similarly he did the same thing on thereverse side in terms of getting rid of those qualities. I would suggest that if you write thosequalities down and think about them a while and make them habitual, you will be the one youwant to buy 10% of when you are all through. And the beauty of it is that you already own 100%of yourself and you are stuck with it. So you might as well be that person, that somebody else.

　　参考译文

　　决定你成功的因素

　　——沃伦·巴菲特

　　巴菲特：话筒测试，100万美元，200万美元……300万美元。我想先讲几分钟的套话，然后我就主要来接受你们的提问。我想谈的是你们的所思所想。

　　我希望你们扔些高难度的球，如果你们的投球带些速度的话，我回答起来会更有兴致。你们几乎可以问任何问题，除了上个礼拜的Texas A & M的大学橄榄球赛，那超出我所能接受的极限了。我们这里来了几个Sun Trust（译者注：美国一家大型商业银行）的人。

　　我刚刚参加完Coca Cola的股东大会（译者注：Warren Buffet的投资公司是Coca Cola的长期大股东之一），我坐在吉米·威廉姆斯边上。吉米领导了Sun Trust多年。吉米一定让我穿上这件Sun Trust的T恤到这来。

　　我一直试着让老年高尔夫联盟给我赞助，但是都无功而返。没想到我在Sun Trust这却做得不错。吉米说，基于Sun Trust存款的增长，我会得到1％的酬劳。所以我为Sun Trust鼓劲。（译者注：巴菲特在开玩笑）

　　你的未来

　　关于你们走出校门后的前程，我在这里只想讲一分钟。你们在这里已经学了很多关于投资方面的知识，你们学会如何做好事情，你们有足够的IQ能做好，你们也有动力和精力来做好，否则你们就不会在这里了。你们中的许多人都将最终实现你们的理想。但是在智力和精力之外，还有更多的东西来决定你是否成功，我想谈谈那些东西。实际上，在我们Omaha（译者注：Berkshire Hathaway公司的总部所在地）有一位先生说，当他雇人时，他会看三个方面：诚信，智力和精力。雇一个只有智力和精力，却没有诚信的人会毁了雇者。一个没有诚信的人，你只能希望他愚蠢和懒惰，而不是聪明和精力充沛。我想谈的是第一点，因为我知道你们都具备后两点。在考虑这个问题时，请你们和我一起玩玩这个游戏。你们现在都是在MBA的第二年，所以你们对自己的同学也应该都了解了。现在我给你们一个权利，来买进你的一个同学的10％的收益，一直到他的生命结束。你不能选那些有着富有老爸的同学，每个人的成果都要靠他自己的努力。我给你一个小时来想这个问题，你愿意买进哪一个同学余生的10％。

　　你会给他们做一个IQ测试吗，选那个IQ值最高的？我很怀疑。你会挑那个学习成绩最好的吗？你会挑选那个最精力充沛的吗？你可能会去寻找那些质化的因素，因为这里的每个人都是很有头脑和动力的。你想了一个小时之后，当你下赌注时，可能会选择那个你最有认同感的人，那个最有领导才能的人，那个能实现他人利益的人，那个慷慨、诚实，即使是他自己的主意，也会把功劳分予他人的人。所有这些素质，你可以把这些你所钦佩的素质都写下来，（你会选择）那个你最钦佩的人。然后，我这里再给你们下个跘儿。在你买进10％你的同学时，你还要卖出另外一个人。

　　这更有趣。你会想我到底卖谁呢？你可能还是不会找IQ最低的。你可能会选那个让你厌恶的同学，以及那些令你讨厌的品质。那个你不愿打交道的人，其他人也不愿意与之打交道的人。是什么品质导致了那一点呢？你能想出一堆来，比如不够诚实，爱占小便宜等等这些，当你左右端详他们的品质时，会发现有意思的一点。能否将橄榄球扔出60码之外并不重要，是否能在9秒3之内跑100码也不重要，是否是班上最好看的也无关大局。真正重要的是之前的那些积极的品质。如果你愿意的话，你可以拥有所有那些品质。

　　那些行为、脾气和性格的品质，都是可以做到的。它们不是我们在座的每一位力所不能及的。再看看那些保守的让你厌恶的品质，没有一项是你不得不要的。如果你有的话，你也可以改掉。在你们这个年纪，改起来比在我这个年纪容易得多，因为大多数这些行为都是逐渐固定下来的。人们都说习惯的枷锁开始轻得让人感受不到，一旦你感觉到的时候，已经是沉重得无法去掉了。我认为说得很对。我见过很多我这个年纪或者比我还年轻10岁、20岁的人，有着自我破坏性习惯而又难以自拔。

　　他们走到哪里都招人厌恶。他们不需要那样，但是他们已经无可救药。但是，在你们这个年纪，任何习惯和行为模式都可以有，只要你们愿意，就只是一个选择的问题。

　　就像本杰明·格拉姆（上个世纪中叶著名的金融投资家）一样，在他还是十几岁的少年时，他四顾看看那些令人尊敬的人，他想我也要做一个被人尊敬的人，为什么我不像那些人一样行事呢？他发现那样做并不是不可能的。他对那些令人讨厌的品质采取了与此相反的方式而加以摒弃。所以我说，如果你把那些品质都写下来，好好思量一下，择善而从，你自己可能就是那个你愿意买入10％的人！更好的是你自己本来就100％的拥有你自己了。

　　你也可以成为那样的人，或是其他的人。