美国名校毕业演说集萃(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)


发布时间:2020-06-25 10:29:53

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作者:许轶

出版社:群言出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

美国名校毕业演说集萃

美国名校毕业演说集萃试读:

声明

本书引用的部分材料和图片摘自有关书刊、网站,由于我们无法与原作者一一取得联系,所以衷心希望有关作者在看到本书后及时与我们联系,我们将按照国家著作权法的有关规定支付稿酬。

特此声明。群言出版社2008年3月

我坚信让我一往无前的惟一力量就是我热爱我所做的一切。一定要去寻找自己所爱的东西,选择爱人时如此,选择工作时亦如此。

写在前面

乏味的演说都是一样的,而精彩的演说则各有各的精彩……

本书收录了最新美国名校的毕业演说(也收录了一篇精彩的开学典礼演说)。这些站在美国顶级名校毕业典礼讲台上的演说者们,来自政界、商界、学术界、娱乐界……他们在这里“齐聚一堂”,侃侃而谈,以他们的视角、经历和感悟来传道、授业、解惑。的确,也许你们素未谋面,也从未闻其声,但这“遥远”的交流却是如此的真实和真诚。

正如很多演说者们在演说开始时提到的,毕业典礼致辞是一项艰巨的任务。演说者面对的是全球的天之骄子,他们叛逆而好学,务实而上进,聪慧而勤奋。那么就让我们静下心来一起聆听智者的声音吧,这是他们的肺腑之言,真知灼见。

笔者惊奇地发现,虽然他们的背景迥然不同,但他们提及的一些要点却是如此相似,比如……还是先卖个关子,让大家自己去体会,品出各自不同的味道吧!

Commencement是个很有意思的英文单词。它一词多解,既有“开始”的意思,亦可作“毕业典礼”讲。其实,细细一想,毕业典礼是对学业上取得成就的综述和总结,但更多的则是作为明天继续远航的坐标起点。如果你与这些带着高高的学位帽、意气风发、朝气蓬勃的莘莘学子有着共同的经历,那么就与他们共勉吧;如果你尚在感叹自己为何与名校无缘,或正抱怨自己风华已逝,你也可以,做一天和尚撞一天钟。但是,你真的愿意安于现状么?其实一切都是借口。你甘心么?其实随时都有转机。其实每天都是新的开始。

看看这些已经有所作为的演说者,其实可能现在的你是他们曾经的影子,现在的他们就是将来的你!Chapter 1书本外的功夫:领导力与自我成长Steve Jobs

也许你没有听说过史蒂夫·乔布斯,但是你一定听说过苹果电脑(Apple),见过iPod,看过动画片《超人特工队》、《玩具总动员》和《马达加斯加》。这些都是一位传奇人物——史蒂夫·乔布斯的杰作。早在20世纪70年代人才辈出的美国硅谷,他就已名声远扬。乔布斯于1955年2月24日出生于旧金山,1972年进入波特兰的里德学院(Reed College),但很快便主动退学,去印度参禅修行。1974年返回美国,不久在阿塔利公司(Atari Inc.)找到了工作。1976年4月1日他和沃兹尼克(Steven Wozniak)在乔布斯养父的车库里创立了苹果电脑公司(Apple Computer Inc.)。当时他们将公司命名为Apple的原因之一是Apple在电话黄页中的排序在Atari公司之前。乔布斯与苹果公司的大事记:1976年4月乔布斯、沃兹尼克和韦恩(Ron Wayne)共同创建了1日苹果电脑公司。1977年1月苹果电脑公司正式注册成立。1980年12苹果公司股票在华尔街上市,大获成功,不到一年其月股票增值17倍。1983年发布Lisa数据库,苹果成为历史上成长最快的电脑公司。在乔布斯的劝说下,约翰·斯卡利(John Sculley,百事公司Pepsi Co.的前总裁)加入苹果公司任总裁兼CEO。1984年第一台麦金塔电脑(Macintosh,俗称Mac机)面世,Macintosh成为计算机工业发展史上的一座里程碑。1985年乔布斯和斯卡利之间出现摩擦,并愈演愈烈,最终导致乔布斯被迫离开苹果公司。1986年乔布斯创建NeXT公司,收购Pixar电脑动画工作室。1993年乔布斯撤掉了NeXT公司的硬件部,宣布NeXT电脑公司从此致力于操作系统开发。斯卡利离开苹果公司,成为Spectrum公司的董事长兼CEO。1995年迪斯尼上映Pixar的第一部电影《玩具总动员》。1996年苹果以4.3亿美元收购NeXT电脑公司,乔布斯担任顾问。1997年乔布斯成为苹果公司的临时CEO。1998年推出iMac台式机,成为美国最畅销的个人电脑品牌。1999年苹果公司推出iBook、超级计算机Power Macintosh G4(500MHz G4处理器,每秒可运行超过10亿次浮点运算,它也因此而被美国政府列为禁运武器类技术)和iMacDV。2000年苹果公司再次出现季度亏损,股价大跌。2001年3月苹果公司以价值6200万的股票收购了PowerSchool公司——一家专为学校提供数据管理软件的公司。由此,苹果有能力为学校提供完整的系统集成。2001年5月苹果宣布开设第一批苹果零售店。苹果公司推出新款iBook,并宣布苹果产品要成为数字化生活的核心。2001年10苹果公司推出第一款MP3播放器iPod。月2003年苹果推出最早的64位个人电脑Apple PowerMac G5。2007年1月苹果公司推出第一款手机iPhone。

早在70年代精英云集的硅谷,谁也没有想到“无才无德”的乔布斯如同程咬金一般,半路杀了出来,开始在众人面前谱写神话。人们也万万没想到,喜怒无常、骄傲粗鲁的乔布斯在1985年初权力争斗失败,十年之后,仍能东山再起。当众人都在为苹果敲响丧钟时,这位当年的创始人又使苹果迸发出新的火花。不管你是他的崇拜者还是倒戈者,乔布斯的领袖魅力不容置疑。

1999年,美国《洛杉矶时报》评选出了“本世纪经济领域50名最有影响力人物”,史蒂夫·乔布斯与另一名苹果公司创办人——沃兹尼克并列第五名,他们的贡献主要是“创办苹果电脑,Apple I和Apple II的出现带动了全球个人电脑普及应用浪潮,并迫使IBM PC于1981年面世”。另外,乔布斯也是跻身《洛杉矶时报》排行榜前十名中惟一一位仍然活跃在商业经济第一线的企业家。

乔布斯重新入主苹果公司以后,每年年薪1美金,成为吉尼斯世界纪录记载的工资最低的CEO。

本文是他在斯坦福大学2005年6月12日毕业典礼上的演说。我生命中的三个故事

今天我很荣幸可以和你们一起,参加世界上最好的大学之一——斯坦福大学的毕业典礼。我从未从大学毕业。说实话,今天也许是我这一生最为靠近大学毕业的一天。我想向你们讲述我生活中的三个故事。不是什么大不了的事情,只是三个故事而已。我的第一个故事是关于如何把生命中的点点滴滴串连起来

我在里德学院读了六个月后就退学了。此后在学校里旁听过了大约18个月,我彻底离开了。那么,我为什么要退学呢?

故事要从我出生之前讲起。我的生母是一个年轻的未婚大学毕业生。她决定将我送给别人收养。她非常想让我被大学毕业生收养,所以她把一切都安排好了,我一出生就交给一对律师夫妇收养。没想到我落地的霎那间,那对夫妇却决定收养一个女孩。就这样,我的养父母——当时他们还在登记册上排队等着呢——在半夜接到一个电话:“现在我们这儿有一个没人要的男婴,你们想要他吗?”他们回答:“当然要!”但是后来我的生母发现我的养母大学没有毕业,而我的养父甚至中学都没有毕业。她拒绝在最后的收养文件上签字。不过几个月以后她就心软了,因为我的养父母承诺将来一定送我上大学。

17年后,我真的上了大学。但我天真地选择了一所学费几乎和斯坦福大学一样昂贵的学校。当工人的养父母倾其所有的积蓄为我支付了学费。而半年后,我却已经看不出这昂贵学费的价值所在。我不知道自己这一生想做什么,也不知道大学能帮我找到怎样的答案。但这时,我就要花光父母一辈子节省下来的钱了。于是我决定要退学,并且坚信日后会证明我这样做是对的。当时作出决定来时我非常害怕,但现在回想起来,那的确是我一生中所作出的最好的决定之一。从退学那一刻起,我就可以不再选那些自己不感兴趣的课程,开始旁听一些看上去有意思的课程。

那些日子一点儿都不浪漫:我没有宿舍,所以只能睡在朋友房间的地板上;我退还可乐瓶,用五美分的押金来买吃的;每个星期天的晚上,我都要走上七英里的路程,到城那头的黑尔科里施纳礼拜堂去,吃每周才能享用一次的美餐。我喜欢这样的生活。我凭着好奇心和直觉所做的这些事情,有很多后来被证明是无价之宝。我给大家举一个例子吧:

那时里德学院的书法课大概是全国最好的。校园里的每一个公告栏和每一个抽屉标签上的的字都写得非常漂亮。当时我已经退学,不用正常上课,于是我决定选一门书法课,去学习怎样写出漂亮的字。我学习写带衬线和不带衬线的印刷字体,根据不同的字母组合改变其间距,以及怎样把版式调整得好上加好。这门课太棒了,既有历史价值,又有艺术造诣,这是科学所无法精确衡量的,我觉得它妙不可言。

当时看来,书法对我以后的生活不会有什么实用价值。但十年之后,我们在设计第一台Macintosh计算机时,它一下子浮现在我眼前。我们把这些东西全都设计进了Mac机里,那是第一台有这么漂亮的文字版式的计算机。要不是我当初在大学里偶然选了这么一门课,Mac计算机就不会有这么多种印刷字体以及间距安排合理的字型。由于微软的Windows系统只是照搬了Mac机的字体,(要不是我当时学了这些艺术字,)有可能个人电脑就不会有这些字体。当然,我在大学里不可能从这一点上看到它与将来的关系。十年之后再回头看,两者之间的关系就非常非常清楚了。

你们同样不可能从现在这个点上看到将来,只有在回顾过去时才能将点点滴滴联系在一起,所以要相信这些点迟早会连接到一起。你们必须相信某些东西:直觉、命运、生命和业力。这样做从来没有让我的希望落空过,并且彻底改变了我的生活。我的第二个故事是关于好恶与得失

幸运的是,我在很小的时候就发现自己喜欢做什么。我在20岁时和沃兹(译注:Wozniak,苹果公司创始人之一)在我父母的车库里只有办起了苹果公司。我们干得很卖力,十年后,苹果公司就从车库里只有我们两个人发展成为一个拥有20亿美元资产和4000多名员工的大企业。那时,我们刚刚推出了我们最好的产品——Macintosh电脑——那是在第9年,我也刚满30岁。可后来,我被解雇了。你怎么会被自己创办的公司解雇呢?是这样的,随著苹果公司越做越大,我们聘了一位我认为非常有才华的人与我一道管理公司。在开始的一年多里,一切都很顺利。可是,随后我们俩对公司前景的看法开始出现分歧,最后我们俩闹翻了。这时,董事会站在了他那一边,所以在30岁那年,我离开了公司,而且这件事闹得满城风雨。我成年阶段的整个生活重心都没有了,这使我心力交瘁。

一连几个月,我真的不知道应该怎么办。我感到自己使老一辈的创业者很失望——因为我丢掉了传到自己手里的接力棒。我去见了戴维·帕卡德(译注:惠普公司创始人之一)和鲍勃·诺伊斯(译注:英特尔公司创始人之一),想为把事情搞得这么糟糕说声道歉。这次失败弄得沸沸扬扬的,我甚至想过逃离硅谷。但是,我渐渐地开始有了一个想法——我仍然热爱我过去所从事的行业。在苹果公司发生的这些风波丝毫没有改变这一点。我虽然被拒之门外,但我仍然深爱着我的事业。于是我决定从头再来。

虽然当时我并没有意识到,但事实证明,被苹果公司炒鱿鱼是我一生中碰到的最好的事情。尽管前景未卜,但从头开始的轻松感取代了保持成功的沉重感。这使我进入了一生中最富有创造力的时期之一。

在此后的五年里,我开了一家名叫NeXT的公司和一家叫Pixar的公司。我还爱上一位了不起的女人,后来娶了她。Pixar公司推出了世界上第一部用电脑制作的动画片《玩具总动员》,它现在是全球最成功的动画制作室。峰回路转,苹果公司买下NeXT后,我又回到了苹果公司,而我们在NeXT公司开发的技术成了苹果公司重新崛起的核心。我和劳伦娜也建立了美满的家庭。

我确信,如果不是被苹果公司解雇,这一切绝不可能发生。这是一剂苦药,可我认为苦药利于病。有时生活会当头给你一棒,但不要灰心。我坚信让我一往无前的惟一力量就是我热爱我所做的一切。一定要去寻找自己所爱的东西,选择爱人时如此,选择工作时亦如此。工作将会占据你生命的一大部分,让自己真正满意的惟一办法,是做自己认为是有意义的工作;做有意义的工作的惟一办法,是热爱自己的工作。你们如果还没有发现自己热爱什么,那就不断地去寻找,不要急于作出决定。就像一切要凭着感觉去做的事情一样,一旦找到了自己热爱的东西,感觉就会告诉你。就像任何一种真挚的感情一样,只会随着岁月的流逝越来越好。所以,要不断地寻找,直到找到自己热爱的东西。不要半途而废。我的第三个故事是关于死亡的

17岁那年,我读到过这样一段话,大意是:“如果把每一天都当作生命的最后一天来度过的话,总有一天你会如愿以偿。”我记住了这句话,从那时起,33年过去了,我每天早晨都对着镜子自问:“假如今天是生命的最后一天,我还会去做今天要做的事吗?”如果一连许多天我的回答都是“不”,我知道自己应该有所改变了。

让我能够作出人生重大抉择的最主要办法是,记住生命随时都有可能结束。因为几乎所有的东西——所有对自身之外的希求、所有的尊严、所有对困窘和失败的恐惧——这一切在死亡来临时都将不复存在,只剩下真正重要的东西。记住自己随时都会死去,这是我所知道的防止患得患失的最好方法。你已经一无所有了,还有什么理由不遵从自己最真实的感受呢?

大约一年前,我被诊断患了癌症。那天早上七点半,我做了一次扫描检查,结果清楚地表明我的胰腺上长了一个瘤子,可那时我连胰腺是什么还不知道呢!医生告诉我说,几乎可以确诊这是一种无法治愈的恶性肿瘤,我最多还能活三到六个月。医生建议我回去把一切都安排好,其实这是在暗示“准备后事”。这就意味着,把今后十年要跟孩子们说的事情在这几个月内嘱咐完;这就意味着,把一切都安排妥当,以使家人尽可能轻松地生活;这就意味着,要跟大家诀别了。

那一整天里,我的脑海中一直都在想着这个诊断。那天晚上,我做了一次活体切片检查,他们把一个内窥镜通过喉咙穿过我的胃进入肠子,用针头在胰腺的瘤子上取了一些细胞。当时我用了麻醉剂,陪在一旁的妻子后来告诉我,医生在显微镜里看了细胞之后叫了起来,原来这是一种少见的可以通过外科手术治愈的癌症。我做了手术,现在痊愈了。

这是我和死神离得最近的一次,我希望也是今后几十年里离死神最近的一次。有了这次经历之后,现在我可以更加实在地和你们谈论死亡,而不是纯粹纸上谈兵,那就是:

谁都不愿意死。就是那些想进天堂的人也不愿意通过死亡到达天堂。然而,死亡是我们共同的归宿,从来没有人能够逃脱。我们注定会死,因为死亡很可能是生命最好的一项发明。它推进生命的更迭,除旧布新。现在你们是新生的力量,但在不久的将来,你们也会逐渐变老,然后被淘汰。很抱歉,话说得有些过分了,不过这千真万确。

你们的时间有限,所以不要浪费时间活在别人的生活里。不要囿于成见,那意味着你只是活在他人的想法中。不要让别人观点的聒噪声淹没自己内心的真实声音。最主要的是,要有勇气遵从你的直觉和心灵的指引——它们早就知道你到底想成为什么样的人。其他的都是次要的。

我年轻时有一本非常好的刊物,叫做《全球目录》,堪称我们那一代人的宝典。它是由一个叫斯图尔特·布兰德的人创办的,他就住在离这儿不远的门洛帕克市。他用诗一般的语言把刊物办得很生动。那是20世纪60年代末,还没有个人电脑和桌面出版系统,全是由打字机、剪刀和宝丽莱照相机制作的。它有点像图书版的Google,却比Google早问世了35年。这份刊物非常完美,查阅手段齐备,构思不凡。

斯图尔特和他的团队出版了好几期《全球目录》,当刊物完成使命时,他们出版了最后一期。那是20世纪70年代中期,当时我和你们现在一般大。最后一期的封底上是一张清晨乡间小路的照片,就是那种爱冒险的人等在那儿搭便车的那种小路。照片下面写着:“求知若饥,虚心若愚。”那是他们停刊前的告别辞。求知若饥,虚心若愚,这也是我一直想做到的。现在,在你们即将毕业开始新的生活旅程之时,我同样愿大家:

求知若饥,虚心若愚。

谢谢大家。Three Stories from My Life

I am honored to be with you today at your commencementfrom one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots

I dropped outof Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-infor another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biologicalmother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking:“We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?”They said,“Of course.”My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relenteda few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naivelychose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scaryat the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent depositsto buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphyinstruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-seriftypefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typo- graphygreat. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtlein a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionallyspaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.My second story is about love and loss

I was lucky—I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garagewhen I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billioncompany with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation—the Macintosh—a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to divergeand eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previousgeneration of entrepreneursdown—that I had dropped the batonas it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing upso badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn onme—I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animationstudio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awfultasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convincedthat the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.My third story is about death

When I was 17, I read a quotethat went something like:“If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.”It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself:“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”And whenever the answer has been“No”for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encounteredto help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything— all externalexpectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassmentor failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosedwith cancer. I had a scanat 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumoron my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscopedown my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscopethe doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectualconcept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazingpublication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitch-hikingon if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words:“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”It was their farewellmessage as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Fredrick G. Steingraber

可登陆http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTEwMDE2MTI=.html观看演说视频。Fredrick G. Steingraber

弗雷德里克·斯坦格莱伯是科尔尼管理咨询公司(A.T.Kearney)前首席执行官。

本文是他2002年6月9日在芝加哥大学商学院毕业典礼上的演说。领导力:缺失还是重拾?

今天是充满了伟大成就的一天。同时,对六百名毕业班的同学,以及你们的家人、朋友、父母和所关爱的人来说,也是值得庆贺的一天。作为一个从芝加哥大学商学院毕业的MBA,在面临诸如创建更多的商学院、追赶最新的管理热潮、创造越来越多含金量不高的学位等整体学术趋势时,你们已经拥有达到了黄金——不,是铂金——级别的学位。你们所拥有的芝加哥大学商学院MBA的文凭意味着持久的价值:它表明你们已掌握了经济学、会计学、金融学和管理战略这些基础商业课程。

在这里,我想讲一个故事——可能你们曾经听过——是关于一位教授第一天上课的故事。那位教授走进教室后说道:“好,在上课之前,我们先做个小测验。”说完拿出一个容积为一加仑的广口玻璃罐,放在他面前的桌上。接着取出一打拳头般大小的岩石,小心地把它们放进罐子里。当那罐子装满到再多一块石块都塞不进去的时候,他问下面的学生:“罐子满了吗?”大家异口同声地回答:“满了。”接着他又问:“真的是这样吗?”他把手伸到桌下取出一桶砾石,然后把一些倒进那个罐子后摇晃了一下,使砾石填充到岩石间的缝隙中。接着教授又发问了:“现在罐子满了吗?”这回,大家都识破了他的意图,其中一个学生回答道:“可能没有吧。”“好样的!”教授说。他从桌下取出了一桶沙子灌入罐中,沙子填补了岩石与砾石间的空隙。他再一次问同样的问题:“罐子满了吗?”“没有!”大家齐声回答。“好样的”,教授再次赞许道。之后他从桌下取出一壶水往罐子里倒,直到水满得将要溢出。然后他看着全班同学问:“那么,我做这个实验的意义是什么呢?”一个学生迫不及待地举起了手说:“你想要证明的观点是,无论一个人的时间有多紧张,只要努力去挤就可以挤出时间做更多的事。”“不对,”教授说,“这不是重点。我是想说明这样一个事实:如果你不首先把大石块放进去,那么你可能永远都不会再有机会把它们放进去。”

这样的事情就发生在你们就读的芝加哥大学商学院。你们的教授和你们的研究把“大石块”——基础的管理技能,甚至直觉装进你们的头脑中,你们的整个职业生涯都会受益于它们。当然,时间在变,技术和其他东西也会变,没有一个人能准确地预测未来10年、15年或20年的商业环境。但是不管环境如何改变,你这两年得到的——学习的课程,掌握的学科,以及你今天得到的学位——都将对你有莫大的帮助。

E.B. 怀特(译注:E.B.White,美国当代著名散文家、评论家。)曾经说过:“未来和现在不会有什么不同,除了环境会有所改变。”这句箴言给了我们很好的启示:环境会改变,技术会发展,地球会在不断的惊喜中持续运转。但是在如此多的变素之中,商业上成就卓越的基本规则不会变:你需要掌握解决问题所必需的分析方法和知识构架;你需要知道实验研究、数据和分析远比那些道听途说得来的印象更重要;你需要同时具备思维的灵活性和智力的敏锐性来接受并甄别新的思想。这些就是你们这两年所学到的——也是芝加哥大学商学院教育的持久价值所在。

所以说,今天是值得庆贺的一天,同时也是展望未来的一天。对毕业典礼上的致辞人来说,为你们这些即将告别校园、迈进社会的未来领导者表达一定的期望,是必不可少的。

当今世界已大不一样了!和两年前你们入学时相比,真是今非昔比。呼啸的网络热潮现在怎样了?大繁荣——之后是大萧条。新经济又怎样了呢?一旦所有新经济的拥护者发现了现金流转的重要性后,我们就又回到了传统经济时代。是所谓的“商业循环的枯竭”吗?那些关于循环终结的报道还尚不成熟。

首要的一点是,“9·11”造成的那些久不能愈的创伤。是的,现在这个世界是如此的不同。我只能很遗憾地说,它比以前更加冷酷无情。即使对你们这些有才干的MBA来说,就业市场也不容乐观。所以在这个充满竞争的时代,我们当中很多人把精力集中于突破这些巨大的阻碍就不足为奇了。

但是我想给你们——作为个人,同时也作为将来的公司领导者一点建议。不要对困境感到忧虑,困境早晚会过去的。身处困境时,我们都会集中精力为如何摆脱困境而努力。真正需要我们警惕的是顺境,因为那时更容易犯错,而且往往事后才察觉。

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