How does someone like Elon Musk succeed where others have failed?

像埃隆-馬斯克這樣的人是如何在別人失敗的地方取得成功的？

We're often told that success is directly correlated with hard work, that we won't get anywhere without putting in 10,000 hours or by working 100 hour weeks. But what if that wasn't the case? What if those who succeeded simply had an unfair advantage over their competitors? And what if we find out that we've all got our own set of unfair advantages that we can use to succeed in our lives as well? Hey friends, welcome back to the channel and to the very first episode of Book Club, a new series where I am going to be summarizing key insights from books and today we're talking about the unfair advantage, how you already have what it takes to succeed. It's written by these two entrepreneurs and investors Ash Ali and

我們經常被告知，成功與努力工作直接相關，不付出 10,000 小時或每週工作 100 小時，就不會有任何成就。但如果事實並非如此呢？如果那些成功者只是比他們的競爭對手擁有不公平的優勢呢？如果我們發現，我們每個人都有自己的不公平優勢，我們也可以利用這些優勢在生活中取得成功呢？嘿，朋友們，歡迎回到我們的頻道，回到 "讀書俱樂部 "的第一集，這是一個新的系列，我將總結書中的重要觀點。這本書的作者是兩位創業者和投資人艾希-阿里（Ash Ali）和艾希-阿里（Ash Ali）。

Hassan Kuba and it starts with the thesis that life is fundamentally unfair. When we're looking at successful people they normally didn't just get there with hard work, there was normally other stuff that played a strong role like luck, circumstances, privilege, that sort of thing. And the equation that came to mind when I was reading through the book was that success, however we want to define it, is some sort of combination of fair play and unfair advantages. Fair play means factors that we would look at and think, all right mate, fair play. Like let's say there's a startup founder who gets up at three o'clock every morning and then goes for a two-hour run and then kind of hustles on his or her laptop all day and just like works really really hard. That would be a fair advantage we would say, all right mate, fair play to that. In a way it's something that any of us could replicate if we wanted to and therefore it is fair. But that same startup founder, let's say his or her parents were super rich and invested half a million dollars into their company from day one, that would be an unfair advantage. It's an advantage that really helps the business but something that the rest of us can't easily replicate. The unfair advantage is about distilling kind of one of the root causes of success that isn't spoken about and that's essentially that life isn't a level playing field. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses inherently, that's number one anyway, but number two, circumstances are different. So people have access to a network, to finance, or the right location, the right timing. As Hasan explained, unfair advantages aren't just about our strengths, they're also about our circumstances. Basically something that gives us a competitive edge, something that someone else can't easily replicate. And one of the main ideas of the book, which is why the subtitle is how you already have what it takes to succeed, these unfair advantages aren't just for people who are rich and famous, they're for everyone. We all have our own unfair advantages in our own ways. How do we find out what our unfair advantages are? Well, we can use the MILES framework.

哈桑-庫巴（Hassan Kuba） 這本書的出發點是人生從根本上就是不公平的。當我們觀察成功人士時，他們通常不僅僅是通過努力工作取得成功的，通常還有其他因素在起著重要作用，比如運氣、環境、特權，諸如此類。當我通讀這本書時，我想到了一個等式：無論我們如何定義成功，它都是公平競爭和不公平優勢的某種結合。公平競爭指的是，我們看到這些因素時會想，好吧，夥計，公平競爭。比方說，有一個初創企業的創始人每天凌晨三點起床，然後跑兩個小時的步，然後整天對著筆記本電腦，非常非常努力地工作。我們會說，這是一個公平的優勢，好吧

Where did the MILES framework come from? Is that something that you guys came up with? Yeah, something Ash actually initially came up with is the MILES framework, just breaking down into money, intelligence, and insight, location, and luck, education, expertise, and status. So we developed into that and then we thought, okay, where does mindset fit in? And then we thought, okay, this is all on a foundation of mindset. If you don't have the right mindset, you're just not going to get anywhere. Let's start with M, which stands for

MILES 框架從何而來？是你們想出來的嗎？是的，艾希最初提出的是 "MILES "框架，分為金錢、智慧、洞察力、地理位置、運氣、教育、專業知識和地位。是以，我們對其進行了開發，然後我們想，好吧，心態在哪裡適合呢？然後我們想，好吧，這一切都建立在心態的基礎之上。如果你沒有正確的心態，你將一事無成。讓我們從 M 開始，它代表

Let's take Evan Spiegel, the billionaire co-founder of Snapchat, who became the world's youngest self-made billionaire at just age 24.

以 Snapchat 的億萬富翁聯合創始人埃文-斯皮格爾（Evan Spiegel）為例，他年僅 24 歲就成為世界上最年輕的白手起家的億萬富翁。

He grew up in a multi-million dollar house in Los Angeles, attended expensive private schools, and had parents who were powerful and well-connected lawyers. This put him in unique circles and gave him access to tech entrepreneurs and CEOs that most people could never dream of accessing. Clearly he had to put in the work and the ideas, but his example shows how money, prestige, and power can be a big unfair advantage.

他在洛杉磯一棟價值數百萬美元的房子里長大，就讀於昂貴的私立學校，父母都是有權有勢、人脈廣泛的律師。這使他進入了一個獨特的圈子，並有機會接觸到大多數人做夢也想不到的科技企業家和首席執行官。顯然，他必須付出努力和想法，但他的例子說明了金錢、聲望和權力是如何成為一個巨大的不公平優勢的。

Secondly, the I stands for intelligence and insight.

其次，"I "代表智慧和洞察力。

So let's take the Collison brothers, for example. They co-founded Stripe, which became a multi-billion dollar payments processing company before either of them had turned 22. Patrick Collison sort of invented his own computer programming language when he was 16, and he left school a year early to enroll at MIT. His brother John finished with the highest ever score on his leaving certificate, sort of the Irish equivalent of A-levels, and he'd been accepted into Harvard before he'd even done his exams. And yes, of course, loads of hard work and effort went into it, but I think it's reasonably fair to say that the

以科裡森兄弟為例。他們共同創辦了 Stripe 公司，在他們 22 歲之前，Stripe 就已經成為一家市值數十億美元的支付處理公司。帕特里克-科裡森（Patrick Collison）16 歲時就發明了自己的計算機編程語言，並提前一年離開學校，進入麻省理工學院學習。他的弟弟約翰在畢業證書（相當於愛爾蘭的聯考）上取得了有史以來的最高分，還沒考試就被哈佛大學錄取了。當然，這其中付出了大量的艱辛和努力，但我認為可以合理地說

Collison brothers' intelligence was some sort of unfair advantage.

科裡森兄弟的智慧是某種不公平的優勢。

Thirdly, we've got L, which stands for location and luck.

第三是 L，代表位置和運氣。

And as Ray Kroc, the pioneer of McDonald's once said, the two most important requirements for major success are first, being in the right place at the right time, and secondly, doing something about it. Location is clearly important. For instance, businesses cluster as they do in Silicon Valley, and the right location can be key to unlocking opportunities, making connections, and accessing a target market. Luck is even more interesting, and I'd probably argue that luck isn't really an unfair advantage.

正如麥當勞的先驅雷-克洛克（Ray Kroc）曾經說過的，要想取得巨大成功，最重要的兩個條件是：第一，在正確的時間出現在正確的地點；第二，要有所作為。位置顯然很重要。例如，企業在硅谷集聚，正確的位置可能是開啟機遇、建立聯繫和進入目標市場的關鍵。運氣則更為有趣，我可能會說，運氣並不是一種不公平的優勢。

I'd probably put it into the fair play section instead.

我可能會把它放到 "公平競賽 "部分。

Yeah, there are going to be some lucky breaks that are, as Professor McGonagall says, sheer dumb luck, but a lot of the time we can sort of manufacture our own luck by just exposing ourselves in a non-weird way to more things. Ash and Hassan talk about this in the book as well.

是的，總會有一些幸運，就像麥格教授說的那樣，純粹是愚蠢的運氣，但很多時候，我們可以自己製造運氣，只要以一種非怪異的方式讓自己接觸更多的事物。艾希和哈桑在書中也談到了這一點。

Take more action. Do more things. Meet more people.

採取更多行動。做更多的事。見更多的人

Go to more events. Blog about your startup. Produce things and publish them.

參加更多活動。在博客上介紹你的初創公司。製作並發表文章。

Get feedback. Put more stuff out into the world.

獲取反饋。把更多的東西推向世界。

And the idea is that as we expose ourselves to more of these opportunities, we get a lot more luck coming our way.

我們的想法是，當我們接觸到更多這樣的機會時，我們就會得到更多的運氣。

So in a way, the more of this stuff we do, the more of a surface area we have for serendipity, the more we allow luck to appear, and then we can take advantage of it. So I think that's more a sort of fair advantage rather than an unfair advantage. Moving on, the E stands for education and expertise. Right, let's be honest, having a fancy degree from a fancy university probably is an unfair advantage depending on what you're going for. Like let's say hypothetically you wanted to start a YouTube channel aimed initially at medical students.

是以，在某種程度上，我們做的這些事情越多，我們擁有的偶然性的表面積就越大，我們允許運氣出現的機會就越多，然後我們就可以利用它。是以，我認為這是一種公平的優勢，而不是不公平的優勢。接下來，E 代表教育和專業知識。老實說，擁有名牌大學的高學歷可能是一種不公平的優勢，這取決於你的目標是什麼。比方說，假設你想開設一個 YouTube 頻道，最初的目標閱聽人是醫科學生。

If you happen to be a medical student at Cambridge University, which is famously a good university, you'd probably want to plug that wherever you could. Because yeah, that's your unfair advantage. It's something that other people in that space can't replicate very easily, and therefore it becomes more interesting, more brandable. Beyond that, in the book, Ash and Hasan say that there are basically three benefits to a good education. Knowledge, network, and signalling.

如果你碰巧是劍橋大學的醫科學生，而劍橋大學又是一所著名的好大學，你可能就會想方設法把這一點宣傳出去。因為是的，這是你不公平的優勢。這是該領域其他人無法輕易複製的，是以它變得更有趣、更有品牌價值。除此之外，阿什和哈桑在書中提到，好的教育基本上有三個好處。知識、網絡和信號。

But to be honest, for me and most of my friends, the majority of our medical knowledge comes from books and the internet, not from our fancy university degrees. When it comes to network, yeah fair enough, being at university unlocks a certain type of network.

但老實說，對我和我的大多數朋友來說，我們的大部分醫學知識都來自書本和網絡，而不是我們的大學文憑。說到人際關係網，是的，很公平，在大學裡可以建立某種類型的人際關係網。

But when it comes to signalling, like increasingly, especially in the startup world, people are caring less and less about where you went to university, and much more about what you've been doing on the sides, or what skills you can bring to the table.

但說到 "信號"，尤其是在初創企業的世界裡，人們越來越不關心你在哪裡上的大學，而更關心你在幕後做了什麼，或者你能給人們帶來什麼技能。

Our value, you know, the unfair advantage doesn't necessarily come from the specific qualification that we've got, although it can, but more often than not these days it's coming more from our expertise, and that is something that we can build on our own by learning in our own time. And education, it's not just something that's done to us until the age of 22. It's a lifelong endeavour that you can, you know, take online classes and stuff. In fact, if you want, you can even check out my own online class on how to edit videos if you want to become a YouTuber and stuff on Skillshare, link in the video description, not sponsored.

我們的價值，你知道，不公平的優勢並不一定來自於我們所獲得的特定資格，儘管它可以，但如今更多的時候是來自於我們的專業知識，而這是我們可以通過在自己的時間裡學習來建立起來的。教育，不僅僅是我們在 22 歲之前要做的事情。這是一項終身的事業，你可以，你知道，參加在線課程什麼的。事實上，如果你願意，你甚至可以在Skillshare上查看我自己的在線課程，學習如何編輯視頻，如果你想成為YouTuber之類的，鏈接在視頻描述中，非贊助商。

Finally, we have S for status, and of course status can be an unfair advantage.

最後，我們還有代表地位的 S，當然，地位可能是一種不公平的優勢。

Elon Musk's status in the world is so high right now that if he starts any new company it's guaranteed to be successful in some way, or at least everyone's going to hear about it, regardless of how ridiculous the name is.

埃隆-馬斯克現在在世界上的地位如此之高，以至於如果他創辦任何一家新公司，不管名字有多荒唐，都一定會在某種程度上取得成功，或者至少每個人都會聽說。

In the book, Ash and Hassan talk about how we can develop inner status, so things like confidence and self-esteem, and how this can help us if we don't have the outward status of people like Elon Musk.

在書中，阿什和哈桑談到了我們如何培養內在的地位，比如自信和自尊，以及如果我們沒有像埃隆-馬斯克那樣的外在地位，這對我們有什麼幫助。

And to be honest, I fully agree with the thesis that, you know, it's really important to develop confidence and self-esteem and all that stuff in ourselves. I just think it's a little bit contrived to put that under the status segment because, I don't know, I think it's more of a fair advantage. Like, anyone could gain more confidence and self-esteem and stuff if they put the effort into it, therefore I see that more as a fair advantage, rather than as an unfair advantage that some people are just gonna have. So the idea behind this Miles framework is that we can use the categories to help us figure out what our own unfair advantages are, but this stuff isn't just for people wanting to start a business or to be entrepreneurs. Going back to sort of our audience, our hypothetical audience of a first-year university student, what is the value in them understanding this idea of unfair advantages?

老實說，我完全同意這樣的論點，你知道，培養自信和自尊以及所有這些東西對我們自己來說真的很重要。我只是覺得，把這一點放在 "地位 "部分有點矯情，因為，我不知道，我覺得這更像是一種公平的優勢。任何人只要付出努力，都能獲得更多的自信和自尊，是以我認為這是一種公平的優勢，而不是某些人的不公平優勢。是以，萬里行框架背後的理念是，我們可以利用這些類別來幫助我們找出自己的不公平優勢，但這些東西並不只是為想要創業或成為企業家的人準備的。回到我們的閱聽人，我們假設的閱聽人是大學一年級的學生，他們瞭解不公平優勢這個概念有什

Well, yeah, any career path that you want to take, you want to know what you're good at, naturally. So there's this concept which is double down on your strengths. Don't try and bring up, necessarily, from a career point of view or a business point of view, bring up your weaknesses. Focus on your strengths, but in your personal life, focus on your weaknesses, of where you can bring up your weaknesses. You need to know what is going to be the path that's least resistance for you. So to determine the path of least resistance, you kind of have to know where do you have an unfair advantage.

是的，無論你想走哪條職業道路，自然都想知道自己擅長什麼。所以有這樣一個概念，那就是加倍發揮你的長處。從職業角度或商業角度來看，不要試圖一定要提出你的弱點。專注於你的長處，但在你的個人生活中，專注於你的短處，你可以在哪些方面揚長避短。你需要知道什麼對你來說是阻力最小的道路。是以，要確定阻力最小的路徑，你必須知道你在哪些方面擁有不公平的優勢。

What would you say to people who say that they don't have any unfair advantages? Everybody has unfair advantages.

如果有人說他們沒有任何不公平的優勢，你會怎麼說？每個人都有不公平的優勢。

What might seem like a disadvantage, you can actually turn into an advantage.

看似劣勢，其實可以轉化為優勢。

So one example is having little money, which a lot of us starting off in business might have little money with very, very tight budgets or hardly anything to invest. That's how I started off, just hardly anything. I had saved up some student loan, maintenance grant and loans and stuff, and I just kind of saved them up and been a bit frugal with them, which really helped. But having little money makes you more creative.

比如說，我們很多剛開始創業的人可能都沒什麼錢，預算非常非常緊張，或者幾乎沒什麼可投資的。我就是這樣起步的，幾乎一無所有。我攢了一些學生貸款、生活補助金和貸款之類的東西，我只是把它們攢起來，省吃儉用，這真的幫了我大忙。但錢少會讓你更有創造力。

The necessity is the mother of invention, kind of thing. I've had a lot of startup founders kind of pitch us, and when they've had money behind them, their path to growth is like, yeah, Google ads and Facebook ads, but there's no creativity there. You're just burning money and it's going to be very difficult to sustain that, especially in the early days before you know that the market, the customers really like your product. You don't want to be doing that. Having less money and less status, let's say socioeconomic status, can give you more of a fire in your belly to succeed. I knew some really well-off kids in university and they just were playing World of Warcraft, had no motivation whatsoever to get a job. So that can be a downside. So not necessarily being born rich is a good thing. Being in the wrong location, just to give one more example, you can be in a great location like

必要性是發明之母。我遇到過很多初創企業的創始人，當他們有資金支持時，他們的發展之路就像谷歌廣告和 Facebook 廣告一樣，但卻毫無創意可言。你只是在燒錢，很難維持下去，尤其是在你還不知道市場、客戶真的喜歡你的產品的早期。你不想這樣做。沒有那麼多錢，也沒有那麼高的地位，比方說社會經濟地位，會給你帶來更多成功的動力。我在大學裡認識一些非常有錢的孩子，他們只知道玩魔獸世界，根本沒有找工作的動力。所以這也是一個弊端。所以說，並不一定天生富有就是好事。再舉一個例子，你可以在一個很好的地方，比如

London or, I don't know, the Bay Area in San Francisco, but rents are going to be higher and everybody's going to be fighting over the same talent. Your runway in terms of how much you have to spend on living and the cost of living basically is going to be super high. Whereas if you live out in the middle of nowhere where costs are cheap, a lot of people go to Southeast Asia for that reason actually. There's pros and cons, it's a double-edged sword. The final idea from the book that I want to talk about is related to mindset.

倫敦或者舊金山灣區，但租金會更高，每個人都在爭奪同樣的人才。你必須在生活和生活成本上花多少錢，你的跑道就會超高。而如果你住在偏僻的地方，生活成本就會很低，很多人去東南亞就是這個原因。有利有弊，這是一把雙刃劍。我想談的書中最後一個觀點與心態有關。

You might have come across Carol Dweck's idea of the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. It's based on research that she's done when they got a class of 10 year olds and they gave them a challenge that was a little bit too hard for them.

你可能聽說過卡羅爾-德韋克（Carol Dweck）關於 "成長型思維模式 "和 "固定型思維模式 "的觀點。這是她在對一個 10 歲班級的學生進行研究後得出的結論，她給這些學生提出了一個對他們來說有點太難的挑戰。

Some of them reacted in a shockingly positive way.

其中一些人的積極反應令人震驚。

They said things like, I love a challenge, or I was hoping this would be informative.

他們說："我喜歡挑戰，或者我希望這能給我帶來資訊。

They understood that their abilities could grow through their hard work. They had what I call a growth mindset. But other children, for them it was tragic, catastrophic. From their more fixed mindset perspective, their core intelligence had been tested. I've been preaching about this growth mindset stuff for years to my friends and family and anyone who listens. Basically like, you know, this idea that our abilities aren't fixed, we can grow, everything is learning experience.

他們明白，通過自己的努力，能力是可以增長的。他們擁有我所說的成長心態。但對其他孩子來說，這是悲劇，是災難。從他們更固定的思維角度來看，他們的核心智力受到了考驗。多年來，我一直在向我的朋友和家人以及任何願意傾聽的人宣揚 "成長型思維模式"。基本上就像，你知道，我們的能力不是固定的，我們可以成長，一切都是學習經驗。

And that's why I have like less than zero qualms about putting my hand up to ask a question in class or in a lecture or looking like an idiot because I recognize that it's all it's all a work in progress. It's all part of the process of improving. It's all part of the growth mindset. But one of the issues with the growth mindset, in fairness, is that you can kind of take it too literally. So taking this sort of thing into account,

這就是為什麼我在課堂上或講座上舉手提問或看起來像個白痴時，都不會有任何顧慮，因為我認識到，這一切都是在不斷進步的過程中。這都是進步過程的一部分。這都是成長型思維的一部分。但平心而論，成長型思維模式的一個問題是，你可能會把它想得太簡單。所以要考慮到這一點、

Ash and Hassan in the book talk about an evolution of the growth mindset that they call the reality growth mindset. This mindset encourages us to try to strike a balance between self-awareness and self-belief. As they say in the book, the reality growth mindset is about having your feet rooted on the ground with your head in the clouds.

阿什和哈桑在書中談到了成長型思維模式的一種演變，他們稱之為現實成長型思維模式。這種心態鼓勵我們努力在自我意識和自我信念之間取得平衡。正如他們在書中所說，現實成長型思維模式就是腳踏實地，頭頂雲端。

So again, this is one of those paradoxical things, which is like, we're all humans, we're all cut from the same cloth. Whatever somebody else can achieve, I can achieve. Versus like don't kill yourself trying to achieve and feel bad and get depressed about it.

所以，這又是一個悖論，就好像我們都是人類，我們都是從同一塊布上剪下來的。別人能做到的，我也能做到。與之相反的是，不要為了實現目標而自尋煩惱，併為此感到沮喪。

Because not everybody's born with the same opportunities and the same talents.

因為並不是每個人生來就擁有同樣的機會和天賦。

But what can we learn from them anyway? So it's having that balanced outlook rather than just pedestalizing them and going, wow, they're amazing.

但無論如何，我們能從他們身上學到什麼呢？所以，我們要有這種平衡的觀點，而不是一味地把他們捧上天，認為他們很了不起。

Nobody's like them. Elon Musk is an alien robot. But then versus saying anybody could do it. When we think about success, we can think about all the things that we don't have going for us.

沒有人像他們一樣。埃隆-馬斯克就是個外星機器人。但與之相比，任何人都可以做到。當我們思考成功的時候，我們可以思考所有我們不具備的東西。

We can fixate on the privileges that we don't have, but when we do that, we blind ourselves to the unfair advantages, the competitive edge that we do have.

我們可以專注於我們沒有的特權，但當我們這樣做的時候，我們就會對我們所擁有的不公平優勢和競爭優勢視而不見。

We often don't appreciate that wherever we are, whatever stage of life we're in, we've got so much to be grateful for. As Ash and Hassan talk about in their book, it's not about focusing on the negatives. It's about knowing the realities and leveraging the unfair advantages that we do have to help us live our best lives. Thank you for watching.

我們常常不知道，無論我們身在何處，無論我們處於哪個人生階段，我們都有許多值得感恩的地方。正如阿什和哈桑在他們的書中所談到的，這並不是說要把注意力集中在負面因素上。而是要了解現實，利用我們所擁有的不公平優勢，幫助我們活出最精彩的人生。感謝您的收看。