巴菲特的这次演讲是我最喜欢的演讲之一，讲的大道理不多，但确是至理名言，仅仅通过一个智力测试就把人生中最重要的道理通俗易懂地表达出来，值得深思。以下片段只是巴菲特此次演讲的一个节选，在长达一个半钟头的演讲中，他的重点还是与观众的提问环节上，而真正的演讲内容也仅仅是下面的一小部分。

Warren Buffett Lecture at the University of Florida School of Business

October 15, 1998

I would like to talk for just one minute to the students about your future when you leave here. Because you will learn a tremendous amount about investments, you all have the ability to do well; you all have the IQ to do well. You all have the energy and initiative to do well or you wouldn’t be here. Most of you will succeed in meeting your aspirations. But in determining whether you succeed there is more to it than intellect and energy. I would like to talk just a second about that. In fact, there was a guy, Pete Kiewit in Omaha, who used to say, he looked for three things in hiring people: integrity, intelligence and energy. And he said if the person did not have the first two, the later two would kill him, because if they don’t have integrity, you want them dumb and lazy.

We want to talk about the first two because we know you have the last two. You are all second-year MBA students, so you have gotten to know your classmates. Think for a moment that I granted you the right–you can buy 10% of one of your classmate’s earnings for the rest of their lifetime. You can’t pick someone with a rich father; you have to pick someone who is going to do it on his or her own merit. And I gave you an hour to think about it.

Will you give them an IQ test and pick the one with the highest IQ? I doubt it. Will you pick the one with the best grades? The most energetic? You will start looking for qualitative factors, in addition to (the quantitative) because everyone has enough brains and energy. You would probably pick the one you responded the best to, the one who has the leadership qualities, the one who is able to get other people to carry out their interests. That would be the person who is generous, honest and who gave credit to other people for their own ideas. All types of qualities. Whomever you admire the most in the class. Then I would throw in a hooker. In addition to this person you had to go short one of your classmates.

That is more fun. Who do I want to go short? You wouldn’t pick the person with the lowest IQ, you would think about the person who turned you off, the person who is egotistical, who is greedy, who cuts corners, who is slightly dishonest.

As you look at those qualities on the left and right hand side, there is one interesting thing about them, it is not the ability to throw a football 60 yards, it is not the ability the run the 100 yard dash in 9.3 seconds, it is not being the best looking person in the class, they are all qualities that if you really want to have the ones on the left hand side, you can have them.

They are qualities of behavior, temperament, character that are achievable, they are not forbidden to anybody in this group. And if you look at the qualities on the right hand side the ones that turn you off in other people, there is not a quality there that you have to have. You can get rid of it. You can get rid of it a lot easier at your age than at my age, because most behaviors are habitual. The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. There is no question about it. I see people with these self-destructive behavior patterns at my age or even twenty years younger and they really are entrapped by them.

They go around and do things that turn off other people right and left. They don’t need to be that way but by a certain point they get so they can hardly change it. But at your age you can have any habits, any patterns of behavior that you wish. It is simply a question of which you decide.

If you did this…

Ben Graham looked around at the people he admired and Ben Franklin did this before him. Ben Graham did this in his low teens and he looked around at the people he admired and he said, “I want to be admired, so why don’t I behave like them?” And he found out that there was nothing impossible about behaving like them. Similarly he did the same thing on the reverse side in terms of getting rid of those qualities. I would suggest is that if you write those qualities down and think about them a while and make them habitual, you will be the one you want to buy 10% of when you are all through. And the beauty of it is that you already own 100% of yourself and you are stuck with it. So you might as well be that person, that somebody else.

沃伦·巴菲特在佛罗里达大学商学院上的演讲

1998年10月15日

关于你们走出校门后的前程，我在这里只想讲一分钟。你们在这里已经学了很多关于投资方面的知识，你们学会如何做好事情，你们有足够的IQ能做好，你们也有动力和精力来做好，否则你们就不会在这里了。你们中的许多人都将最终实现你们的理想。但是在智能和能量之外，还有更多的东西来决定你是否成功，我想谈谈那些东西。实际上，在我们Omaha（注：Berkshire Hathaway公司的总部所在地）有一位先生说，当他雇人时，他会看三个方面：诚信，智能和精力。雇一个只有智能和精力，却没有诚信的人会毁了雇者。一个没有诚信的人，你只能希望他愚蠢和懒惰，而不是聪明和精力充沛。我想谈的是第一点，因为我知道你们都具备后两点。在考虑这个问题时，请你们和我一起玩玩这个游戏。你们现在都是在读MBA的第二年，所以你们对自己的同学也应该都了解了。

现在我给你们一个来买进10%的你的一个同学的权利，一直到他的生命结束。你不能选那些有着富有老爸的同学，每个人的成果都要靠他自己的努力。我给你一个小时来想这个问题，你愿意买进哪一个同学余生的10%。你会给他们做一个IQ测试吗，选那个IQ值最高的？我很怀疑。你会挑那个学习成绩最好的吗，我也怀疑。你也不一定会选那个最精力充沛的，因为你自己本身就已经动力十足了。你可能会去寻找那些质化的因素，因为这里的每个人都是很有脑筋的。你想了一个小时之后，当你下赌注时，可能会选择那个你最有认同感的人，那个最有领导才能的人，那个能实现他人利益的人，那个慷慨，诚实，即使是他自己的主意，也会把功劳分予他人的人。所有这些素质，你可以把这些你所钦佩的素质都写下来。

（你会选择）那个你最钦佩的人。然后，我这里再给你们下个跘儿。在你买进10%你的同学时，你还要卖出10%的另外一个人。这不是很有趣吗？你会想我到底卖谁呢？你可能还是不会找IQ最低的。你可能会选那个让你厌恶的同学，以及那些令你讨厌的品质。那个你不愿打交道的人，其他人也不愿意与之打交道的人。是什么品质导致了那一点呢？你能想出一堆来，比如不够诚实，爱占小便宜等等这些，你可以把它们写在纸的右栏。当你端详纸的左栏和右栏时，会发现有意思的一点。能否将橄榄球扔出60码之外并不重要，是否能在9秒3之内跑100码也不重要，是否是班上最好看的也无关大局。真正重要的是那些在纸上左栏里的品质。如果你愿意的话，你可以拥有所有那些品质。那些行动，脾气，和性格的品质，都是可以做到的。它们不是我们在座的每一位力所不能及的。

再看看那些右栏里那些让你厌恶的品质，没有一项是你不得不要的。如果你有的话，你也可以改掉。在你们这个年纪，改起来比在我这个年纪容易得多，因为大多数这些行为都是逐渐固定下来的。人们都说习惯的枷锁开始轻得让人感受不到，一旦你感觉到的时候，已经是沉重得无法去掉了。我认为说得很对。我见过很多我这个年纪或者比我还年轻10岁、20岁的人，有着自我破坏性习惯而又难以自拔，他们走到哪里都招人厌恶。他们不需要那样，但是他们已经无可救药。但是，在你们这个年纪，任何习惯和行为模式都可以有，只要你们愿意，就只是一个选择的问题。就象本杰明·格雷厄姆一样，在他还是十几岁的少年时，他四顾看看那些令人尊敬的人，他想我也要做一个被人尊敬的人，为什么我不象那些人一样行事呢？他发现那样去做并不是不可能的。他对那些令人讨厌的品质采取了与此相反的方式而加以摒弃。所以我说，如果你把那些品质都写下来，好好思量一下，择善而从，你自己可能就是那个你愿意买入10%的人！更好的是你自己本就100%的拥有你自己了。这就是我今天要讲的。

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