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:

你有没有想过为什么成功的人那么少?我想，大概在一万个人里有一个人能获得成功就很好了。但是为什么会这样呢?我们大多数人都渴望成功，不是吗?那为什么成功的人还是屈指可数呢?原因如下：

Most people do not pay the price of greatness.

大多数人没有为成功付出代价。

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

这个答案显而易见。那么，就引出了下一个问题：为什么有那么多人想要成功，而只有很少数的人愿意为成功付出代价呢?这个问题的答案就能把0.01%真正获得成功的人和几乎是100%想要获得成功的人给区分开来。

The reason why very few people actually pay the price is this: The road to greatness is continuously² painful for long time.

极少数人愿意为成功付出代价的真正原因在于：成功之路须要长期痛苦的坚持。

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 continuous¹. Very few people can endure³ 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 unnatural⁴ to choose pain over pleasure, let alone doing it continuously for long time.

成功须要牺牲，而所有的牺牲都伴随着痛苦。获得成功所需要的牺牲是长期的、痛苦的。如果你的目标是优秀，那可能只是“短痛”而已，很多人还是可以承受得住的。但是，想要成功，那么所需要承受得就是“长痛”了。大多数人会选择能给自己带来快乐的事物，这是自然的选择。很少有人会抛开快乐去选择痛苦，更不用说是长期的痛苦了。

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

但是正是上述原因让我相信，成功的秘密就在于：选择痛苦而不是快乐，并能够长期坚持承受痛苦。