Success without humility leads to bloated ego and eventual downfall.Manage success or popularity through simultaneously nurturing humility.

没有谦恭的成功会导致自我膨胀和最终的失败。成功和成名的同时要不断地培养谦恭的修养。

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:

你是否想到过成功人士数量很少的原因？我认为成为伟大人物的几率最多为万分之一，或者比这比例更少。原因是什么？很多人想成为伟大人物，不是吗？为什们极少数人梦想成真？如因如下：

Most people do not pay the price of greatness.

大多数人没有为伟大付出代价。

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 the question explains the difference between the almost 100% people who want to be great and the much less than 0.01% who actually be so.

我认为这个原因显而易见。那么，问题是，为什么想成功的人士没有付出代价？假设有那么多人想成就伟大，为什么事实上只有极少的人付出代价？问题的答案的解释是，在100%想成就伟大的人群中，只有不到 0.01%真正付出代价。

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

为什么如此之少的人付出代价的原因是，通往伟大之路充满绵延不断的痛苦。

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.

成就伟大需要牺牲，没有牺牲和痛苦不能成就伟大。这种与伟大相伴相随的牺牲是长期同痛苦共生的过程。如果你想做得优秀，痛苦只是偶尔袭扰你，而且很多人可以承受。但成就伟大，确是完全不同的境况。这时的痛苦“深邃”而“绵长”。很少人能够忍受这种痛苦，而且这才是为什么极少数人成就伟大的原因。大多数人自然选择给他们带来快乐的事物。将痛苦置于快乐之上是异乎寻常的抉择，更不用说长期与痛苦为伴了。

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

这是我认为的成就伟大的秘籍：伟大来自对痛苦的长期持续的选择，而不是对快乐的持续追求。