尊敬的用户您好,这是来自FT中文网的温馨提示:如您对更多FT中文网的内容感兴趣,请在苹果应用商店或谷歌应用市场搜索“FT中文网”,下载FT中文网的官方应用。
In less than one week’s time, Britain may be led by a man with a capacity for work that his friends say is phenomenal, ferocious and slightly exhausting to watch.
在不到一周的时间里,英国可能会由一个工作能力很强的人领导,他的朋友们说,他的工作能力是非凡的、凶猛的,他工作的时候,甚至能让旁观者感到目不暇接。
I discovered this last week after reading one of the many biographies of Keir Starmer, or as I have come to think of him, Keir Starmina.
上周,在阅读了基尔•斯塔默(Keir Starmer)的众多传记中的一本后,我发现了这一点,我现在觉得他应该被称为基尔•斯塔米纳(Keir Starmina)。(因为Starmina在英文中意思是精力。)
The Labour leader, who polls suggest will be the British prime minister after the July 4 election, can work and work with “ridiculously small amounts of sleep”, according to one of his ex-girlfriends, the barrister Phillippa Kaufmann.
据他的一位前女友、大律师菲利帕•考夫曼(Phillippa Kaufmann)说,这位民调显示将在7月4日大选后成为英国首相的工党领袖能够在“睡眠时间少得离谱”的情况下工作。
“Keir’s ability to work is absolutely phenomenal,” she told biographer Tom Baldwin. “I’ve never known anyone like him.”
“基尔的工作能力绝对是惊人的,”她告诉传记作家汤姆•鲍德温(Tom Baldwin),“我从未见过像他这样的人。”
Starmer’s Stakhanovite tendencies were evident early on. “I’ve never seen anyone be able to study like him,” reported a school friend who remembered him being “at his desk for hour, after hour, after hour”.
斯塔默的斯达汉诺夫倾向很早就显现出来。“我从未见过有人能像他那样学习,”一位学校的朋友回忆说,他“一小时又一小时地坐在书桌前”。
A person who knew him at university was quoted saying that, when everyone else was lying around shattered after a big night out, “Keir would always be up at six the next morning, getting on with his studies”.
一位在大学里认识他的人曾说过,当其他人在疲惫不堪地躺在床上度过熬夜之后,“基尔总是在第二天早上六点起床,继续他的学习”。
And one of his oldest friends said Starmer’s discipline and drive were so vast that “sometimes, it makes me feel weary just thinking about the life he leads”.
斯塔默的一位老朋友说,他的纪律和动力之强大,有时候“光是想到他的生活方式,我就感到疲惫不堪”。
Reading all this reminded me of an uncomfortable truth about modern working life and the profusion of goal-setting, time-managing, email-batching productivity “hacks” we are constantly told will speed us to career success. None are any match for the inbuilt stamina of a Starmer.
阅读这些内容让我想起了现代工作生活中一个不舒服的真相,以及我们不断被告知的关于目标设定、时间管理、电子邮件批量处理等提升生产力的“技巧”,这些都被认为能加速我们的职业成功。然而,这些都无法与斯塔默天生的耐力相比。
This ought to be obvious. But I don’t think it is in a world where publishers are churning out as many as three books a day on how to be more productive at work, and sites such as TikTok burst with advice on how to do more faster.
这应该是显而易见的。但在一个出版商每天能推出多达三本关于如何提高工作效率的书籍,以及像TikTok这样的网站上充斥着如何更快完成更多工作的建议的世界里,我认为这并不明显。
The upshot of this industrial-strength guidance is the belief that productivity soars once one latches on to the right habits and work practices. Alas, it is not quite that simple.
这种工业级别的指导导致了一种信念:一旦人们养成了正确的习惯和工作方式,生产力就会大幅提升。然而,事情并没有那么简单。
I first began to grasp the importance of physical durability in my twenties when I bowled up to a famous older female reporter and asked her for the secret to success in journalism.
在我二十多岁的时候,我开始意识到身体的耐力对于成功的重要性,当时我去找一位著名的年长女记者请教她在新闻界取得成功的秘诀。
I had expected to hear her talk about the art of extracting information from sources; or being well-informed, or writing well. Instead, she gave an abrupt one-word answer: “stamina”.
我本以为她会谈论从信息源中提取信息的艺术,或者是博学多识,或者是写作能力。然而,她却给出了一个突然的单词回答:“毅力”。
I thought this odd but as time went on I kept seeing evidence of her point. A lot of persistently successful people keep working when lesser physical beings wilt with exhaustion, the flu or a general failure to function. That journalist herself is, at the time of writing, still a prolific commentator, researcher and writer — just days away from her 80th birthday.
起初我觉得这很奇怪,但随着时间的推移,我不断看到她观点的证据。许多持续成功的人在其他人因疲劳、流感或无法正常工作而疲软时仍在努力工作。在撰写本文时,这位记者本人仍然是一位多产的评论员、研究员和作家--距离她的80岁生日只有几天了。
Mental stamina, like physical staying power, is a gift, although it does have downsides.
精神耐力,如同身体耐力一样,是一种天赋,但它也有其缺点。
Starmer was once so engrossed at his desk in a London flat he was sharing that he failed to notice two burglars were inside knocking off the TV and video recorder.
斯塔默曾经在他共享的伦敦公寓里专注于他的书桌工作,以至于没有注意到两名入室盗窃的人正在拿走电视和录像机。
Life with a remorseless worker can also take its toll on family and work colleagues.
与一个无情的工作狂一起生活也会对家庭和工作同事产生影响。
“Bed, woman!” Denis Thatcher would sometimes tell his wife Margaret, the late former British prime minister, who was said to get by on just four hours sleep a night.
"睡觉吧,女人!" 丹尼斯•撒切尔(Denis Thatcher)有时会这样对他的妻子玛格丽特说,这位已故的英国前首相据说每晚只睡四个小时。
Opinions differ about how well Baroness Thatcher functioned on this much sleep, which is comforting to those of us who prefer at least seven good hours of shuteye.
关于撒切尔夫人(Baroness Thatcher)只睡这么多时间的工作效果,人们的观点不一,这对我们这些喜欢至少七个小时良好睡眠的人来说是一种安慰。
Thankfully, being in the sleep elite is far less fashionable now that work-life balance is treated seriously. It is also worth remembering that stamina does not guarantee success.
值得庆幸的是,随着工作与生活平衡被认真对待,成为睡眠精英已不再流行。同时也要记住,耐力并不一定能保证成功。
The business world has long been full of executives bragging about how little sleep they need but very few reach the heights of a chief executive such as Apple’s Tim Cook, who has said he likes to wake up before 4am and do an hour of emailing and a workout before heading to work.
商界长期以来充斥着高管们吹嘘自己需要的睡眠很少,但很少有人能达到像苹果(Apple)公司首席执行官蒂姆•库克(Tim Cook)这样的高度。他曾表示,他喜欢在凌晨4点前醒来,先花一个小时处理电子邮件和锻炼,然后再去上班。
Then there is the current British prime minister, Rishi Sunak. He reportedly works around the clock — and on weekends. His generally diligent approach to work has never been in doubt. Yet the polls suggest he is about to lead his party to a defeat of dire proportions.
然后是现任英国首相里希•苏纳克(Rishi Sunak)。据报道,他日以继夜地工作,甚至在周末也不例外。他一贯勤奋的工作态度从未受到质疑。然而,民意调查显示,他即将带领他的党派遭受严重的失败。
Ultimately, he is a reminder that a capacity for hard yards will take you a long way in life, but it won’t always be enough to achieve enduring success.
归根结底,他提醒我们,勤奋工作的能力可以让你在人生道路上走得更远,但这并不总是足以实现持久的成功。