:高盛CEO讲述穷困经历：要与野心人为伍

　　我的父亲在邮局整理邮件。他选择夜班工作只是因为报酬比白班多了10%，我的母亲是一个防盗警报公司的接待员——这也是我所在社区为数不多的增长行业之一。我在林登小区长大，你们当中的很多都知道，这是纽约东区的一个住宅项目。

　　It was and is a tough neighborhood, though it produced some accomplished people who, despite or because of their background, did well. I attended Thomas Jefferson high school, which has since shut down as a high school and operates different training programs for various skills. Up until high school, I shared a small apartment with my extended family, which included my grandmother, my sister and my nephew.

　　它一直都是一个贫穷的社区，但是也产生了一些有成就的人，有些是因为这一背景而成功，有些是因为克服了这一背景而做出了成绩。我在托马斯-杰斐逊高中毕业，学校在之后关闭了高中部，仅仅提供多种技能培训项目。直到高中毕业，我一直和我庞大的家庭分享一间小小的公寓，包括了我的奶奶，我的妹妹和我的侄儿。

　　But looking back, I grew up in a world of unlimited opportunity. Each night I would read, and reading opened up the world to me. I love reading history and especially biography. In biographies, you are almost always reading about people who started out unimportant but ended up having a significant life.

　　但是回过头看看，我是在一个有着无限机遇的世界长大的。我每天晚上都会读书，阅读向我展开了整个世界。我喜欢读历史，尤其是传记。在传记里面，你总是能看到一个似乎是无足轻重的人，最终如何拥有与众不同的人生。

　　What I liked most about biographies then and now is that the person you are reading about is in his or her early life on page 50, doesn’t know about the success he or she will achieve on page 300. They couldn’t see the greatness that lay ahead.

　　不管是过去还是现在，传记最吸引我的一点是，书中的人物在自己生命的初期，也就是前五十页当中，是不会知道他或者是她会在第三百页的时候取得的成功。他们并不知道将会出现在自己面前的伟大。

　　If you think about it, that’s a great justification for the optimism that you should have for the life ahead of you. All of you are only on about page 50 of your biography, with hundreds of pages to go.

　　仔细想想这点吧，这是对你们自己未来的生活保持乐观的一个极好理由。你们所有人都仅仅在自己那本传记的前五十页，还有几百页的路要走。

　　Growing up, my biggest goal was just to get out of East New York. I took the college entrance exam and committed myself to getting into college. I did. The day I left for college was one of the first trips I made out of New York City.