Bill Gates’s father once asked his son and Warren Buffett to write down the word that explained their success. As Buffett later told the basketball player LeBron James, both men chose the same word: “Focus.” Jeff Benedict, who recounts the story in his recent biography of James, writes: “Gates [junior] believed that the thing you did obsessively between ages 13 and 18 was the thing you had the most chance of being world-class at.” For the teenaged Gates — and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk — that thing was writing software. For Buffett, it was investing, albeit that he started well before 13: at seven, he had asked Father Christmas for a book on bonds. For Martha Argerich, from age three, it was the piano. James’s thing was basketball.
比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)的父亲有一次让儿子和沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)用一个词来解释他们的成功。巴菲特后来告诉篮球队员勒布朗•詹姆斯(LeBron James)，两个人写了同一个词：“专注”(Focus)。杰夫•本尼迪克特(Jeff Benedict)在近期出版的詹姆斯传记中讲述了这件事，他写道：“（小）盖茨认为，如果你在13至18岁之间痴迷于做某件事情，你在这件事情上成为世界一流高手的可能性最大。”对少年时期的盖茨——以及马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)和埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)——来说，这件事情就是写软件。对巴菲特来说，是投资，只不过他开始感兴趣的时间比13岁早得多：7岁时，他向圣诞老人要一本关于债券的书。玛塔•阿格里奇(Martha Argerich)是从3岁就开始对钢琴感兴趣。而詹姆斯爱好篮球。