成功和竞争：帮人等于帮自己

Success Isn’t a Competition: Boosting Others Helps You in the Long Run

“The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.” - Bertrand Russell

合作是拯救人类的唯一道路。-伯特兰德·鲁塞尔

As a blogger who has found some success amongst the seemingly endless sea of blogs, I’ve had to confront some old and rusty ideas I used to have about success and competition.

作为一个小有成就的博客写手，我过去对于成功和竞争也有一些陈旧和过时的观念和看法。

I examined these long-held beliefs early on in my blogging career, and discovered that they were false.

我仔细审视了一下我在博客生涯早期所持有的这些固有观念，发现它们是错误的。

What I learned that has helped me tremendously, and these ideas can be applied to many fields of work and many areas of life:

我学到的这些道理对我帮助很大，它们适用于工作生活的很多方面。

1. Striving for success does not requre competition.
2. Boosting others actually helps you, in the long run.
3. Envy of others’ success and trying to tear others down helps NO ONE.

1、争取成功并不需要竞争

2、从长远看，帮助他人等于帮助自己

3、嫉妒别人的成功，试图弄倒别人害人害己

The last one probably sounds obvious, but is also the idea that’s least used in reality by many people. For some reason, many of us get jealous when others are successful, and we try to tear the person down. We belittle them for their success, we criticize unfairly, we bad-mouth people, we become obstacles to their further progress.

最后一条可能听起来显而易见，但在现实中很多人却很难做到。究其原因，一部分是因为我们之中的很多人在看到别人成功时会心生妒意，而且试图去拆别人的台。我们因为别人的成功去贬损他们，对他们进行不公正的评价，说他们的坏话，阻碍他们的进步。

It’s utterly illogical, and yet you can find it everywhere in life, in many different cultures and industries. How does someone else’s success become a bad thing for other people? This is a concept I’d like to explore a little today, and I’d also like to take a look at the converse: how boosting people actually helps you.

这些做法完全不合情理，但在现实生活中、在不同的文化和行业中却十分常见。一个人的成功为何会引起其他人的憎恨？今天我想对此做多一点探讨，我还想谈谈这个问题相反的一面：帮助他人等于帮自己。

Success Isn’t a Competition

Blogging, for example, is not a zero-sum game. If I gain readers, it doesn’t mean you’ll lose readers. In fact, if we as bloggers link to each other, we can help each other gain readers at the same time.

比如，写博客不是一个零博弈游戏。有人看我写的东西，并不代表就没有人去看你写的东西。事实上，如果我们在博客中互相加上友情链接，那我们各自的浏览量都能有所提升。

Helping other bloggers, in that sense, does nothing to hurt you as a blogger. You aren’t competing for readers, even if you’re both trying to get the same readers, because readers can read multiple blogs.

从这个例子可以看出，帮助其他博友丝毫不会影响到你自己。大家不是争夺读者，即便大家都想得到相同的读者，因为读者们可以看不同的博客。

Sure, you might say that readers can only read so many blogs, so we are competing for their limited attention. But that’s a very limited and limiting view. That’s assuming that there’s a very limited pool of readers with a small amount of attention. That isn’t true: there are lots of blog readers out there, and even more, there are MANY non-blog readers who will soon become blog readers, and that number is increasing all the time.

也许你会说，网友一天所看的博客也就那么多，所以我们要让他们多多关注自己的博客。这种观点非常狭隘。得出这个结论的假设前提是网友的数量是有限的，他们的注意力也是有限的。但事实并非如此：关注博客的网友们其实有很多，甚至更多，还有很多现在不怎么关注博客，但逐渐地将去关注这一领域的网友，这部分的网友数量一直在不断增加。

We aren’t competing for readers — we’re all trying to gain readership, but we can do that together, cooperatively if we like. Or we can compete and tear and claw at each other.

我们不去争夺读者——我们都在努力地去赢得读者关注，但我们可以一起来实现这个目标，不妨试试合作。要么就是争个你死我活，两败俱伤。

This concept can apply to many other industries. I’ve been a writer in the field of journalism, and while some journalists think it’s a competition — you want to beat others by getting the story first (a scoop!) or you’re competing for limited jobs — I never agreed. We were all striving for the same goal: to tell the truth, and to get useful information to our readers. In that light, journalists can cooperate, and some of them actually do cooperate. Sharing of information is good for everybody.

这个理论适用于其它很多领域。我曾在新闻领域干过，有些记者认为这一行竞争很激烈——你要去抢独家，要去竞争有限的工作机会——但我不同意这种看法。我们都在为同样的目标而努力：让大众知道事实真相，把有价值的信息传达给大众。从这个意义上来说，记者们也可以合作，而且有些人也的确是这样做的。共享信息利己利人。

Think about your field of work: while the mainstream view is probably that everybody’s competing with each other, is there a way to see it as just the opposite? That we can all be successful, and that helping each other is actually a good thing?

想想你自己从事的行业：尽管人们可能普遍认为人人都是竞争对手，但能不能试着从反面来看待这个问题？是否有一种做法可以让我们都能实现自己的目标？让帮助别人真正地变成一件好事？

I would bet that you can see it that way. Think of it in terms of personal success: do you really need to compete with your peers in order to be a success? Can’t you all be successes, but in different ways? Maybe one person makes a million dollars, another successfully starts a small business, another becomes famous for inventing something new, another becomes one of the most solid and hardest working people in his field. Those are all successes in different ways, and there are many, many more ways to be successful.

我敢说你能想通这一点。从个人成功的角度想一想：难道你的成功真的需要建立在与同行竞争的基础上吗？为什么大家不能一起取得成功，但是用不同的方式呢？可能有人赚了一百万，有人开了个小公司，有的人因为某个新发明而成名，有的人成了他所在的领域的佼佼者。这些都是成功之道，而且成功之道远不止这些。

There is a lot of use in this kind of view. Competition can be a motivator, and sometimes can be a lot of fun. But it can also be destructive, and become an obstacle to success. And if you see things as not a competition, that can lead to some really great things. Let’s take a look at that now.

有关这个道理有很多实例。竞争是一种激励，有时还很有意思。但竞争也具有破坏性，成为阻碍成功的绊脚石。如果你不把事事看作竞争，那么可能会收到意想不到的效果。我们一起来看看。

Boosting Others Helps You in the Long Run

帮助别人等于帮助自己

Let’s say, as a blogger, that I link to others and send them a lot of traffic so that they get new readers. Those other bloggers might, over time, become even bigger than me. Have I just lost a competition? Did I just shoot myself in the foot?<><>

就拿写博客来举例，我在博客中加上了别人博客的友情链接，给他们带来很多流量和读者。而这些博客的人气之后可能会超过我。那我是否只是失去了一场竞争？是否是搬起石头砸自己的脚？<><>

Not at all. If I help others to become successes, that’s a good thing. First, it feels good to make others happy and successful. Trust me — this is one of the greatest feelings. But second, if you want to look at things in more of a selfish way (and you don’t have to, at all), making others successful actually helps you in the long run.<><>

其实根本不是这样。我帮助别人获得了成功，这是件好事。首先，帮助别人获得成功，给别人带来快乐会让你有一种很好的感觉。相信我——这是世界最美妙的感觉之一。其次，如果你想自私一点来看待这个问题（其实没必要），帮助别人获得成功从长远看其实是在帮助你自己。<><>

Think of it like this: if I help five blogs become so successful that they each have 5 million readers a month (oh, we can dream!), they will probably be grateful for my help. They might remain close friends with me, even though they are now out of my league. They might even see me as a mentor. And as a result, they will probably send readers my way from time to time, when I have good posts their readers might like.<><>

你可以这样想：如果我带动了五个博客的人气，现在他们每个月有500万个读者（就算是做梦吧！），那么他们可能会对我心存感激。他们可能会把你视为益友，尽管现在你已经不能和他们相提并论了。他们甚至可能会把我当作良师。这样一来，他们可能就会投桃报李，我的一些不错的文章他们的读者也能看到。<><>

And wham! I now have five major blogs sending their readers to me, after I helped them grow by sending readers to them! I am rolling in traffic! Yee hoo haw!<><>

我之前为别的博客带去流量的做法现在获得了回报——现在有五个人气博客开始为我的博客带来流量了。我博客的人气大增！耶！

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Of course, there’s no need to see things in such a quid pro quo way, but you can see how this example illustrates the way that helping others can come back to help you in many different ways.<><>

当然，没必要用这种交换的方式来看问题。但从这个例子中我们可以看到，帮助别人能让你通过不同的方式得到回报。<><>

And this doesn’t just apply to blogging — it can apply to anything. Imagine if you had helped Bill Gates to create his first software company, and he went on to become bigger than you. It would be cool to be the guy who made Gates successful, would it not? He might even help your little company and invite you to party on his yacht sometimes. Sure, you lost a competition by helping a competitor — but you also gained a life-long friend who is now a billionaire and seems to be on good terms with Jerry Seinfeld. Hard to beat that!<><>

写博客仅仅是其中的一个例子——还有很多其他的例子。想象一下如果你帮助比尔·盖茨成立了他的第一个软件公司，而他的公司之后超过了你的公司。那么你就是那个帮助盖茨取得成功的“贵人”，这是多么酷的一件事！没准盖茨反过来还会帮助你的公司做点什么，或者邀请你去他的私人游艇参加派对叶说不定。没错，因为帮助竞争对手，你输掉了这场竞争，但同时你得到了一个一辈子的朋友，这个人现在是一个亿万富翁，和喜剧演员Jerry Seinfeld还有点交情。简直无法抗拒！<><>

By freeing yourself from the bounds of competition, you free yourself to help others, even if they might be competitors. And in doing so, you gain relationships, and those can be amazingly valuable — in terms of having great friends, and maybe gaining something in the long run. Friends, of course, are much, much more than what they might give you (and you shouldn’t make friends because they might give you something), but you can see the point: it certainly doesn’t hurt you to help others.

你把自己从竞争这个框框中解放了出来，你就能心无杂念地去帮助他人，即便他们可能是你的竞争对手。这样做的结果就是，你能得到朋友，你能交到一些很不错的朋友，从长远看可能还能从中得到一些东西，这些都是无价的。当然，朋友的意义远超过他们能给予你什么（交朋友不应该只是因为他们能给你什么），但道理是显而易见的：帮助他人并没有伤害到你自己。<><>

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Don’t Tear Others Down<><>

别给别人穿小鞋

So if boosting others can help you, what about the converse? What does tearing others down for u?

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do for you?<><>

如果帮助别人也是在帮自己，那么反过来呢？总想着给别人穿小鞋会怎么样？<><>

Well, tearing others down might make you feel better. I doubt it, but it might. It might also stop a competitor from succeeding, and maybe in the short term that’ll help you. I also doubt that, but it might.<><>

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可能这样做能让你感觉好受点。虽然我对此表示怀疑，但可能的确是这样。这样做可能在短期内能起到抑制竞争对手的作用。我仍然表示怀疑，但可能是这样。<><>

The truth is, no one likes a person who tears others down. If you are bad-mouthing someone, it might make you feel better, but others won’t like it. You will gain a bad reputation, and your bad-mouthing will come back to hurt you. If you are sabotaging others, that’s even worse. 事实是，没有人喜欢一个爱在别人背后搞鬼的人。如果你说别人的坏话，可能你会觉得心里舒坦，但别人不爱听。这样一来，你的名声就坏了，你之前所做的事情到头来会伤害到你自己。如果你还去诋毁别人，那会更糟糕。

If you become an obstacle to others’ success, they will despise you for it. They will try to get around you, and failing that, will try to go through you. Your energies and time will be spent trying to stop others, and defending yourself against their atacks.<><>

如果你成为阻碍别人成功的绊脚石，别人就会看不起你。别人会躲着你，或者天天在背后“研究”你。你的时间和精力都要花费在保护自己免遭别人攻击的事情上。<><>

What a waste of precious time and energy! Couldn’t you spend that better on building things yourself? On creating something beautiful and truly useful? On helping others to succeed? Of course you can!<><>

这是一件浪费时间浪费精力的事情。何不把它们用到一些有用的事情上去？比如一些建设性的、有用的事情，或者帮帮别人也行。你可以做到的！<><>

Tearing others down is destructive. It hurts other people, and in the long run, it’ll hurt you. Don’t waste your time and energy on it.

如果你成为阻碍别人成功的绊脚石，别人就会看不起你。别人会躲着你，或者天天在背后说你。你的时间和精力都要花费在保护自己免遭别人攻击的事情上。<><>

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诋毁别人害处多多。不仅会伤害别人，从长远来看，也会伤害到你自己。别把时间和精力浪费在这些事情上。

如果你成为阻碍别人成功的绊脚石，别人就会看不起你。别人会躲着你，或者天天在背后说你。你的时间和精力都要花费在保护自己免遭别人攻击的事情上。<><>

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Instead, build others up. Praise their success. Learn to be truly happy for the successes of others, rather than envious. Be a part of their success, rather than an obstacle. <><>

不如去夸奖称赞一下别人。学会真心地为别人的成功而感到高兴，而不是嫉妒。帮助他们获得成功，而不是阻碍别人。<><>

Participating in something great, including the successes of others, is a wonderful thing to have accomplished.<><>

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做一些有益于他人的好事堪称一个人的成就。