In his office in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, Warren Buffett displays only one certificate of his education. It isn’t for his bachelors degree from the University of Nebraska, or his master of science in economics from Columbia Business School. It is for completing the “Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking, Leadership Training, and the Art of Winning Friends and Influencing people”, dated January 23 1952.
在沃伦?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)位于内布拉斯加州奥马哈(Omaha, Nebraska)市中心的办公室里，他只展示了一份学历证书。不是他在内布拉斯加大学(University of Nebraska)获得的学士学位，也不是他在哥伦比亚商学院(Columbia Business School)获得的经济学硕士学位。这份证书表明，他在1952年1月23日完成了“戴尔?卡内基(Dale Carnegie)有效演讲、领导力培训、赢得朋友及影响他人的艺术的课程”。The instructors on the course “made you do all these crazy things to get out of ourselves”, Mr Buffett says in the new HBO documentary Becoming Warren Buffett
课程的教员们“让你做一切疯狂的事情来突破自身”，巴菲特在HBO频道的新纪录片《成为沃伦?巴菲特》(Becoming Warren Buffett)中说。但是“如果我没有那样做，我的整个人生都会不同”。. But “if I hadn’t had done that, my whole life would have been different”.
美国商界热爱圈内的传奇人物，而巴菲特的地位就相当于亚瑟王。《成为沃伦?巴菲特》只会加强这一点。片中，一望无际的内布拉斯加田野风光与巴菲特眯着眼睛看着满是灰尘的旧公司记录的画面相互交切，以引人入胜的方式让观众走近这位非凡的财富创造者和他的手法。
American business adores its legends and Mr Buffett holds Arthurian status. Becoming Warren Buffett will only amplify it. With lingering shots of rolling Nebraskan farmland intercut with Mr Buffett squinting at dusty old company records, it is a fascinating look at an extraordinary fortune-builder and his methods.
巴菲特承认，卡内基的影响是深远的。据我所知，没有哪所商学院的课程包含卡内基最著名的著作《如何赢得朋友及影响他人》。但这些商学院应该这样做。Carnegie’s influence, as Mr Buffett admits, was profound. No business school, to my knowledge, includes Carnegie’s most famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, on its curriculum. But they should.
这本书分为4个部分：“与人相处的基本技巧”；“六种讨人喜欢的方法”；“如何让他人认可你的思考方式”；以及“成为领袖：如何在不冒犯或激怒他人的情况下改变他人”。阅读这本书，你就不必花费大量时间观看泛泛而谈的Ted演讲，或者阅读组织行为学教授大量显而易见的高见。The book is divided into four sections: “Fundamental Techniques in Handling People”; “Six Ways to Make People Like You”; “How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking”; and “Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offence or Arousing Resentment.” Reading it, you can spare yourself hours of flaccid Ted talks and reams of self-evident claims from professors in organisational behaviour.
卡内基在1912年开发了他的有效演讲课程，此前他怀抱着在百老汇开始演艺生涯的梦想，从密苏里州来到纽约。然而，他没能遂愿，只能试图推销Packard卡车，住在纽约市曼哈顿岛西岸一个被称为“地狱厨房”的贫民区一间肮脏的廉租公寓里。卡内基后来写道，他“在墙上挂了一束领带；当我早上伸手拿一条干净的领带时，蟑螂会四处逃窜”。Carnegie developed his course on effective speaking in 1912, after coming to New York from Missouri in the hope of a career on Broadway. Instead, he found himself trying to sell Packard trucks and living in a filthy tenement in Hell’s Kitchen. As he later wrote, he had a “bunch of neckties hanging on the walls; and when I reached out of a morning to get a fresh necktie, the cockroaches scattered in all directions”.
为了挣点钱，卡内基根据自己接受的演员培训和身为一个穷推销员的体验，设计了一套课程，将课程重点设定为如何克服忧虑。在被几个比较权威的机构拒绝后，卡内基开始在位于哈莱姆区125街的基督教青年会(YMCA)的一个房间里教授这门课程。从那时到现在，这门课的关键一直是让人们能够自如地站起来说话，通过讨论他们最熟悉的事情帮助他们克服恐惧。To earn some money, he devised a course based on his training as an actor and his experience as a rather poor salesman, and focused it on how to conquer worry. Having been turned down by several more august institutions, he began teaching it in a room at the YMCA on 125th Street in Harlem. The key to Carnegie’s classes was, and remains, getting people comfortable on their feet and talking, conquering their fears by discussing things that are most familiar to them.
课程的目的不是把参加者培养成千人一面的慷慨激昂的传道士和东拉西扯的宴会司仪，而是让他们成为自身的“升级版”，在更大程度上实现自我价值。这正是巴菲特通过这门课程做到的事情。It is not intended to turn them all into identical tub-thumpers and rambling toastmasters, but to make them more realised versions of themselves. And that is precisely what it achieved with Mr Buffett.
纪录片中最有启发意义的时刻之一是讲述巴菲特在所罗门兄弟(Salomon Brothers)的投资。在1987年市场危机期间，他买下了这家投行的一笔股份。纪录片展示了那个时代的华尔街画面，其中有许多穿着清一色黑西服、看上去志得意满的年轻人。巴菲特不信任投资银行家，但看到了所罗门兄弟蕴藏的机会。他做了一笔好买卖，拿到的可转换优先股每年支付9%的利息，还能在3年后转换为更高价格的普通股，或者在5年后赎回。One of the most instructive moments in the documentary describes Mr Buffett’s investment in Salomon Brothers. During the market crisis of 1987, he bought a stake in the investment bank. The documentary shows footage from that era of Wall Street, with lots of identical young men in dark suits looking extremely pleased with themselves. Mr Buffett mistrusted investment bankers but saw an opportunity in Salomon. He snagged a good deal, an option that paid 9 per cent a year and could be converted into common stock at a higher price after three years or redeemed over five.
但是4年后，所罗门卷入了一桩债券交易丑闻，濒临破产。巴菲特从投资者变为该行的董事长，不得不与美国财政部谈判以免其破产。作为一位道德高尚而且负责任的商人，他的声誉让他赢得了解决问题所需的信任和时间。引人注目的是他在大鳄云集的华尔街展现出的天赋。他没有受到那群野蛮人的影响，依然是来自城外的头发乱糟糟的天才，能够在混乱局面中压住阵脚，施加秩序和理性。But four years later, Salomon was swept up in a bond trading scandal and verging on bankruptcy. Mr Buffett went from investor to chairman and had to negotiate with the US Treasury to keep the firm in business. His reputation as an ethical and responsible businessman earned him the trust and time to fix things. What is striking is his facility in the shark tank of Wall Street. He was uncorrupted by the yahoos and remained the wild-haired genius from out of town able to impose order and reason on chaos.
在宣布美国财政部支持所罗门的记者会上，巴菲特冷静地回答了两个多小时的问题。当有人问到，他将如何同时应对奥马哈和纽约两地的业务时，他反击道：“我母亲已把我的名字缝在我的内衣上，因此不会有什么问题。”卡内基如果在世，将会以他的门徒为荣。At the press conference announcing the Treasury’s support for Salomon, Mr Buffett coolly took more than two hours of questions. When someone asked him how he would handle his business in both Omaha and New York, he shot back: “My mother has sewn my name in my underwear, so it’ll be OK.” Carnegie would have been proud of his pupil.
纪录片讲述了很大程度上由其外向的首任妻子苏珊带给他的变化。他们在1952年结婚，但苏珊在1977年离开了巴菲特，前往旧金山居住，尽管他们依然保持密切关系。这是一种非常规的关系，但巴菲特赞扬苏珊让他领悟到人类关系的重要性。The documentary tracks the change in Mr Buffett wrought largely by his extrovert first wife, Susan. They married in 1952, but she left him in 1977 to live in San Francisco, though they remained close. It was an unconventional relationship, but Mr Buffett credits Susan with awakening him to the importance of human relationships.
巴菲特承认，他是一个“不平衡的人”，而苏珊“让我完整”。随着时间的推移，他认识到，尽管他沉醉于找到最复杂金融问题的解决方案，但是“人的问题才是最棘手的”。正是这种自我改善的过程，让巴菲特复合增长的财富故事和同样复合发展的性格历程如此引人入胜。