一名退役奧運選手的精彩後半場 從哈佛到谷歌

Emily Hughes may not have placed first at the Olympics like her big sis Sarah, but she’s quickly on the rise in Silicon Valley.

艾米麗o休斯也許不能像她姐姐薩拉一樣在奧運會上奪得冠軍，但她在硅谷的事業正蒸蒸日上。

Nine years ago, Emily Hughes was at the 2006 Olympic games in Turin, Italy, skating before millions of TV viewers. Today, Hughes is in the trenches at Google GOOG -0.73% working on Google Fiber, the company’s ambitious ultra-high-speed Internet initiative.

9年前，在意大利都靈的2006年冬奧會上，艾米麗o休斯曾在數百萬電視觀衆面前表演花樣滑冰。而如今，她已是一位谷歌人，供職於該公司超高速因特網創新項目Google Fiber。

This 25-year-old former Olympian joined Google as a business analyst in November, and it was her love of competition – and an extraordinary tolerance for risk-taking and failure – that helped her land the job.

這位25歲的前奧運選手在去年11月加入谷歌，成爲一位商業分析師，而她正是憑藉自己樂於競爭的個性，以及對冒險和失敗的極強忍受力，獲得了這份工作。

“I think in sports in general, there’s a lot of transferable skills that you can bring to the workplace,” says Hughes, who moved from Great Neck, N.Y., to San Francisco to begin her new gig at Google’s Mountain View offices. “In skating, every day, you fall and you have to get up. And falling is a pretty obvious failure. I’ve definitely learned from everything I’ve failed at.”

艾米麗表示：“我認爲體育項目中學到的許多技能都能應用於工作場合。”她已經從紐約州大頸鎮搬到了舊金山，在谷歌總部山景城的辦公室內開始了她的新事業。“在滑冰時，你每天都會摔倒，你必須爬起來。摔倒就是十分明顯的失敗。每次失敗，我都能從中吸取教訓。”

As you may recall from the 2002 Winter Olympics, Emily Hughes is the younger sister of Sarah Hughes, the world champion skater who copped the Gold in 2002.

也許你能回憶起2002年的冬奧會，艾米麗o休斯就是當時獲得花樣滑冰金牌的薩拉o休斯的妹妹。

“I remember, I was 12 or 13 when Sarah won,” Emily says. “Every day, I saw her go to the rink, I saw her train and I thought, ‘I think I could do that too.’”

艾米麗說：“我還記得，薩拉奪冠時我才12或13歲。每天我都看她去滑冰場，我看着她訓練，然後想：‘我覺得我也能做到她那樣。’”

But the road to fame was a lot harder for Emily than it was for her older sister. In 2001, at age 12, she competed in the U.S. Figure Skating Championship, but then a couple of years later, Emily failed to make the U.S. team. In 2006, she was the first alternate to the Winter Olympics, and after Michelle Kwan withdrew due to a groin injury, she was named to the team. But she finished seventh overall.

不過艾米麗的成名之路要比她姐姐的坎坷得多。2001年，年僅12歲的艾米麗參加了美國花樣滑冰錦標賽，但之後幾年她都未能進入美國國家隊。2006年，她成爲冬奧會花樣滑冰隊的第一替補，在關穎珊因腹股溝傷勢退出後，她遞補入隊，但最後只取得了第七名的成績。

Amidst injuries and illnesses, her ambition never waned. Hughes went on to Harvard, and in her junior year, she decided to take a semester off to train for the 2010 Olympics. She failed to qualify.

儘管遭遇傷病，但艾米麗的野心從未減弱。她進入了哈佛大學。在大三時，她決定花一個學期時間來爲2010年冬奧會訓練，但最終仍未進入國家隊。

“When I didn’t make the Olympic team, yes, that was a failure in a sense, but there were so many other things that I’ve accomplished because of it,” she says. For example, she had more time to join organizations such as Harvard’s “Women in Business” club and take on leadership positions on campus.

她說：“沒錯，當我未能入選奧運國家隊時，有一種挫敗感。但因爲它，我又做成了許多其他事情。”比如，她有了更多時間來加入哈佛“商界女性”俱樂部等組織，並在校園中擔任多個社團的領導者。

Her setbacks, she admits, also forced her to think to herself: “What is the bigger picture?”

艾米麗承認，她遭遇的挫折也迫使她反思：“更大的願景是什麼？”

After Harvard, Hughes worked at Deloitte Consulting and the International Olympic Committee, but she never found her true calling. Then last year, a friend who worked at Google told her about life at the Internet giant, and Hughes was intrigued. Google Fiber delivers broadband service at 100 times what Internet users are accustomed to. The service first launched in Kansas City, Mo., in 2012 and now operates in Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, as well.

從哈佛畢業後，艾米麗先後任職於德勤諮詢公司和國際奧委會，但她始終沒有找到自己真正的職業興趣。然後在去年，一名在谷歌工作的朋友跟她講述了自己在這家互聯網巨頭的生活，這讓她十分感興趣。Google Fiber提供的寬帶業務速度是互聯網用戶習慣速度的100倍。這項業務首先於2012年在密蘇里州的堪薩斯城試點，如今業務範圍還拓展到了德克薩斯州奧斯汀市和猶他州普洛佛市。

“Every time I talked to her, she just raved about Google’s culture and her work,” Emily says, referring to her friend. “Before that, I hadn’t really thought about working at Google. I used Google every day, but it wasn’t something that I ever thought, ‘Oh I could go work there.’”

艾米麗談起這位朋友時說：“我每次和她聊天，她都熱情地描述谷歌的文化和她的工作。而在那之前，我並沒有認真考慮過在谷歌工作的情形。我每天都用谷歌，但從來沒有想過‘噢，我或許可以去那裏工作。’”

Her friend passed on some information about Google Fiber, and she applied. Clearing a first-round interview, Hughes went through six hours of on-site back-to-back interviews, with only a lunch break– not unlike the times she used to scramble to find time for lunch in a jam-packed training day.

這位朋友給她傳來了Google Fiber的相關信息，然後她提交了求職申請。在通過第一輪面試後，艾米麗進行了連續六個小時的現場面試，只是在用午餐時休息了一會——這跟她曾經在緊鑼密鼓的訓練日裏擠出午餐時間沒有什麼不同。

Certainly, Hughes possesses the most critical quality that Google seeks in its employees. “The No. 1 thing that you look for is passion,” says Jonathan Rosenberg, who wrote the best-selling How Google Works with Google chairman Eric Schmidt. “You want the kind of person who is constantly learning.” Google’s career website notes that the company looks for people who can show they’ve “flexed different muscles in different situations in order to mobilize a team.”

顯然，艾米麗擁有谷歌最看重的員工品質。喬納森o羅森伯格曾經與谷歌董事長埃裏克o施密特合作撰寫了暢銷書《谷歌如何運作》（How Google Works）。他表示：“你首先要尋找的就是激情。你想要那種不斷學習的人。”谷歌的招聘網站也提到，公司尋找那些能夠證明自己“在不同情況下能採用不同方式調動團隊”的人。

Flexing different muscles — well, Hughes is a pro at that. “With skating, constantly being corrected and told how to do something differently has helped me take constructive feedback better,” she says.

採用不同方式——好吧，艾米麗是這方面的專家。“在滑冰時，我經常被糾正，被告知要用不同方式來完成動作。這使得我能更好地接受建設性的反饋。”

Hughes is simply the latest in a lineup of former Olympians working at Google. The company claims to employ at least 10. Athletes, in general, appeal to the Googlers who do the hiring because a sports background teaches you to handle criticism and adapt.

艾米麗只是正在谷歌工作的前奧運選手團隊中的最新成員。谷歌公司已經招聘了至少10名有過奧運會經歷的員工。運動員通常能引起谷歌招聘者的興趣，因爲運動背景能教會人們應對批評，提高人們的適應力。

Game Theory Group CEO Vincent McCaffrey, who helps companies recruit student-athletes, doesn’t know the Hughes sisters, but he theorizes: “I would imagine Emily and Sarah have probably received a ton of feedback in their life — some of it very direct and even harsh. Employers want to hire young people who are able to take constructive criticism well.”

Game Theory Group公司首席執行官文森特o麥卡弗裏經常幫助各家公司招聘學生運動員。他並不認識休斯姐妹，但他從理論上推測道：“我可以想象艾米麗和薩拉在她們的運動生涯中可能已經接受過無數反饋意見——有一些非常直接，甚至很傷人。僱主希望招到那些能夠很好地採納建設性批評的年輕人。”

Global services firm EY has studied the link between sports and leadership in the C-suite. In a 2014 global survey of 400 female executives, EY found that 52% played sports at the university level. Those women, like Emily and Sarah Hughes, honed their time management skills while juggling schoolwork and training — an excellent path to consistent overachievement.

全球服務公司EY對體育運動和高管層領導力的關係進行了研究。2014年，EY對全球400名女性高管進行了調查，發現52%的人曾經參加過大學級別的體育運動。這些女性與艾米麗和薩拉一樣，在課業和訓練之間掙扎的過程中，鍛鍊了她們管理時間的能力——這是不斷取得超預期成就的絕好途徑。

Indeed, growing up in Great Neck, Emily and her five siblings (Rebecca, David, Matthew, Sarah and the youngest girl, Taylor) were all overachievers. All six participated in figure skating or ice hockey.

確實，在大頸鎮長大的艾米麗和她的五個兄弟姐妹（瑞貝卡、大衛、馬修、薩拉和最年幼的妹妹泰勒）都取得了超出預期的成就。而所有六個孩子都參加過花樣滑冰或冰球運動。

Emily and Sarah credit their father for getting them into skating. John Hughes is a Toronto-born lawyer who played hockey for Cornell University and was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

艾米麗和薩拉認爲是父親引領她們進入滑冰領域。她們的父親約翰o休斯出生於多倫多，是一名律師，他曾經是康奈爾大學冰球隊的隊員，還曾經被多倫多楓葉隊選中。

Emily recalls her mom, Amy, lining up all six kids in age order (Emily is second-youngest) and tying their skates at the community ice rink. Emily and Sarah, who started skating when they were about three years old, are different in personality — Sarah is gregarious with a big presence, while Emily is reserved and quietly personable — but as children, they were both “competitive in our own way,” as Emily puts it.

艾米麗還記得，她的母親艾米按照年齡順序（艾米麗是第二小的），讓所有六個孩子在社區的滑冰場上站成一排，她給孩子們一個個系滑冰鞋的情景。艾米麗和薩拉在三歲左右時就開始滑冰了，她們性格很不一樣——薩拉很合羣，存在感很強，而艾米麗比較內向安靜，非常迷人——但如艾米麗所說，作爲孩子，她們都“以自己的方式競爭着”。

When 12-year-old Emily stood in the stands and cheered on her big sister for a Gold medal in Salt Lake City, she knew she wanted her own shot to skate on Olympic ice. “After that, I was like, ‘I want to be an Olympian too,” she recalls, adding, “A little bit easier said than done.”

當12歲的艾米麗站在鹽湖城的看臺上，爲取得金牌的姐姐歡呼時，她知道自己也想在奧林匹克賽場的冰面上滑行。她回憶道：“在那之後，我表現得就像是‘我也要當奧運選手。’”她又補充道：“說起來容易，做起來難。”

Randy Appell, her chemistry and biology teacher at Great Neck High School, recalls teenage Emily dealing with her high-stress position. “The fact that her older sister had already won the Olympic Gold must’ve put an extreme amount of pressure on her. She may have felt it, but she never let it show.”

艾米麗在大頸高中的化學和生物老師蘭迪o阿佩爾回憶起青年時期的艾米麗應對高壓的辦法：“她的姐姐已經贏得冬奧會金牌，這件事想必對她造成了極大的壓力。她也許感覺到了，但她從來不表現出來。”

Sarah’s Olympic stardom landed her on the cover of TIME Magazine, and when Emily was heading to Turin four years later, she was cast as America’s great hope —another Hughes champion-in-the-making.

薩拉冬奧會冠軍的身份使得她登上了《時代》週刊封面。四年後，前往都靈的艾米麗同樣肩負着美國的厚望——休斯家的另一位運動員即將奪冠。

Her seventh-place finish at the Olympics that year was disappointing, but it was not the thing that would define Emily Hughes. She had other assets — her brain and her passion to succeed — to fall back on. She remembers her dad always emphasizing that she is a “student-athlete” and that “student” always comes first. Her parents never gave her or Sarah breaks on studying, even when they were training five hours a day. And given the choice to enroll in the regular chemistry class or an honors course, Appell recalls, Emily insisted she take the advanced class.

那年她以第七名的成績結束冬奧會之旅，確實令人遺憾，但這個成績並沒有反映出艾米麗o休斯的強項。她擁有其他可以倚仗的資本——她的頭腦和她對成功的激情。她記起父親總強調她是個“學生運動員”，“學生”永遠是第一位的。在學業方面，艾米麗的父母從來不會放鬆對她或薩拉的要求，即便她們每天要訓練五個小時。阿佩爾回憶道，被要求在常規的化學課或程度較難的課程之間做出選擇時，艾米麗堅持要選後者。

“I always brought my books everywhere,” she says. “I was going to every competition lugging this backpack around, or you know, doing homework in the car on the way to the rink. It was always important to keep my grades up.”

艾米麗說：“我總是隨身帶着課本。每次參賽時，我都會揹着這個雙肩書包，在前往滑冰場的車上寫作業，你知道的。促使學業成績持續上升，總是非常重要的。”

As for Sarah, who is now 29, she found a new path from the Olympics too. She’s executive vice president of business development at the Kingsbridge Ice Center, a $350 million project to build the world’s largest ice skating complex in the Bronx.

如今已經29歲的姐姐薩拉，也從奧運會中找到了一條新的道路。她現在是Kingsbridge Ice Center負責商業開發的執行副總裁，這是一個3.5億美元的項目，計劃在紐約布朗克斯區建立全球最大的綜合滑冰場館。

Both sisters refuse to have one-dimensional careers.“I was always impressed by how tough Emily was when we were younger,” Sarah says. “She would kill herself working, working, working, but somehow, she always found some time to have fun.”

兩姐妹都拒絕接受單向的職業生涯。薩拉說：“當我們小的時候，我總是震驚於艾米麗的堅韌不屈。她不斷工作、工作、工作，簡直要把自己累死，但不知怎麼搞的，她總能擠出一點時間來尋找樂趣。”

“To accomplish big meaningful things,” Sarah adds, “you need to be focused but allow enough distractions to make it a fun and worthwhile journey.”

薩拉補充道：“爲了實現有意義的大事，你得保持專注，但也要分出足夠的精力，讓追逐目標的過程充滿樂趣和價值。”（財富中文網）