投資大師羅傑斯給寶貝女兒的12封信 - (一) -2

洪蘭原譯：過去，我在幾個重要的投資決策上曾經聽從別人的勸告而忽略自己內心的決定。奇怪的很，每一次這樣的投資都失敗，每一次都讓我損失慘重。P.5

於是我不再讓別人影響我，並根據自己所下的決定採取行動，直到年過三十，我終於了解這才是最佳的投資之道，但我同時也知道，我之所以會成功是因為自己遵照這個原則，而不去想會不會太遲了。

我記得小時候讀過一篇關於游泳健將唐娜、迪薇羅娜的報導，報導指出早期她是個不錯但不非頂尖的游泳選手。但是她後來卻在奧運中拿到二面金牌，究竟發生了什麼事了？她回答記者「以前我老是在意別的游泳選手，但是之後我就學會無視於他們，游我自己的泳。」


原文: Early on in my investment career, I made the mistake of basing a few important business decisions on colleagues’ opinions instead of conducting the research necessary to make an informed decision. It wasn’t due to laziness on my part; no one could ever accuse me of that. But, being new to Wall Street, I tended to assume that my more senior colleagues knew more than I did, and so I attributed too much significance to their opinions. You know what happened? Each of those investments ended in failure. Eventually I stopped allowing myself to be influenced by others and began doing the wok myself and making my own decisions. Talking about an epiphany. It took me until I was almost thirty years old to realize this – and also to see that it’s never too late for a person to change his approach both to business and to life.

I remember once reading a magazine interview with American swimmer Donna de Varona, winner of two gold medals at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The reporter pointed out that earlier in her career, she had been a good swimmer, but not a great one. Now the seventeen-year-old had just placed first in two four-hundred-meter events. What happened? She replied, “I always used to watch the other swimmers, but then I learned to ignore them and swim my own races.”