Have you ever thought why there are very few great people? I think there is probably only one great person out of 10,000 at best, and most probably much less than that. But why? Most people want to be great, right? Why are there only very few of them? Here is the reason:

你有沒有想過為什么成功的人那么少?我想，大概在一萬個人里有一個人能獲得成功就很好了。但是為什么會這樣呢?我們大多數人都渴望成功，不是嗎?那為什么成功的人還是屈指可數呢?原因如下：

Most people do not pay the price of greatness.

大多數人沒有為成功付出代價。

I think this one is quite obvious. Now, the next question is: why not? If there are so many people who want to be great, why only very few of them actually pay the price? The answer to these questions explains the difference between the almost 100% people who want to be great and the much less than 0.01% who actually be so.

這個答案顯而易見。那么，就引出了下一個問題：為什么有那么多人想要成功，而只有很少數的人愿意為成功付出代價呢?這個問題的答案就能把0.01%真正獲得成功的人和幾乎是100%想要獲得成功的人給區分開來。

The reason why very few people actually pay the price is this: The road to greatness is continuously painful for long time.

極少數人愿意為成功付出代價的真正原因在于：成功之路須要長期痛苦的堅持。

Greatness requires sacrifices and there is no sacrifice without pain. The kind of sacrifices required for greatness is the ones that make the process continuously painful for long time. If you want to be good it will be painful only every now and then, and many people can still handle it. But being great is a totally different level. The pain is much deeper and it is continuous. Very few people can endure this kind of pain and that’s why there are very few great people. Most people naturally choose things that bring pleasures to them. It’s unnatural to choose pain over pleasure, let alone doing it continuously for long time.

成功須要犧牲，而所有的犧牲都伴隨著痛苦。獲得成功所需要的犧牲是長期的、痛苦的。如果你的目標是優秀，那可能只是“短痛”而已，很多人還是可以承受得住的。但是，想要成功，那么所需要承受得就是“長痛”了。大多數人會選擇能給自己帶來快樂的事物，這是自然的選擇。很少有人會拋開快樂去選擇痛苦，更不用說是長期的痛苦了。

But that’s what I believe is the secret to greatness: The secret to greatness is choosing pain over pleasures continuously for long time.

但是正是上述原因讓我相信，成功的秘密就在于：選擇痛苦而不是快樂，并能夠長期堅持承受痛苦。