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延長職業生涯的刺猬策略

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（英文文章在中文文章之后）

由于醫學的進步，我們可以活得比我們年輕時想象的更長。我們的工作能力也延長了幾年。因此，知道如何延長自己的職業生涯已經成為許多人的重要話題，因為人們需要更多的金錢來支持他們更長的壽命，有一些人會想繼續體驗工作帶來的滿足感。

古希臘抒情詩人阿奇洛丘斯（Archilochus）寫了一只刺猬知道一件大事（如何保護自己）和一只狐貍知道很多事情（如何在野外茁壯成長）。盧西亞諾·帕瓦羅蒂和普拉西多·多明戈是歌劇界的著名人物，帕瓦羅蒂就像一只刺猬，他專注于保護自己的聲音，而多明戈就像一只狐貍，因為他與時俱進，擴張自己專長以延長自己的職業生涯

盧西亞諾?帕瓦羅蒂是意大利歌劇男高音，是有史以來最受贊譽和喜愛的男高音之一。為了延長他的職業生涯，帕瓦羅蒂在年老時采取了各種措施來保護他的聲音。

首先，帕瓦羅蒂每月只演出四到五次，通常在紐約大都會歌劇院演出，這減少了旅行需求。帕瓦羅蒂也非常謹慎，他選擇的歌劇。他只表演他非常熟悉的歌劇，如拉波希姆、托斯卡、圖蘭多和蝴蝶夫人。帕瓦羅蒂有信心，他可以很好地確實無誤表演這些歌劇，而沒有任何錯誤。

年紀大后，為了保護喉嚨，帕瓦羅蒂從未扮演過「需要過分用力的角色」，就是那些需要費力地使用喉嚨的角色，他都拒絕了。

此外，如果他患了感冒，他會立即取消了演出。他不在乎這些取消是否會違反合約，或者劇院是否已經售出了門票。他說；「如果你的身體不適合演唱，你會一直用力，這些都會傷害你的喉嚨，最后就是毀了你的聲音。」

他通過取消演出以延長職業生涯。但也因為經常取消演出，他得到了「取消之王」的綽號。 例如，1989年，芝加哥抒情歌劇院結束了與帕瓦羅蒂代理公司長達15年的合作，因為帕瓦羅蒂取消了41場原定在歌詞演出中的26場。

在歌劇中，帕瓦羅蒂除了在表演中唱歌外，還應該表演一些動作，但他在發胖后，就經常拒絕這樣做。例如，杜蘭朵的一個場景要求表演者打鼓，但帕瓦羅蒂只做了一個象征擊鼓手勢，并沒有真的打鼓。這不是他懶惰，或不尊重他的角色。相反，他需要保護自己，他知道，他的表演最重要的事情是唱歌。他知道觀眾更關心他的歌聲，而不是他的動作。

2006年2月，帕瓦羅蒂應邀在意大利都靈冬奧委會開幕式上表演了《內森·多瑪》。這是他一生中的最后一場演出。在這次演出中，他受到了國際觀眾最長時間、最響亮的掌聲。然而，指揮家萊昂?馬吉拉在2008年的回憶錄中透露了整個故事。馬吉拉說，這場演出實際是幾周前錄制好的。但在現場表演中；「管弦樂隊假裝為觀眾演奏，我假裝指揮，盧西亞諾假裝唱歌。效果是美妙極了」。帕瓦羅蒂早些時候曾多次拒絕這次的邀請，因為二月份在都靈的零度以下條件下，晚上不可能唱歌。所以預錄是一個妥協的作法。

關于這次預錄，帕瓦羅蒂說：「我是個完美主義者，即使它已經很好了，我還是認為我可以做得比我過去做得更好」。但他不愿意這樣做，如果它要危及他的生財工具。因此，帕瓦羅蒂盡了一切可能保護他的喉嚨，以延長他的職業生涯。損壞的聲帶只會傷害他，剝奪他的歌迷聽他表演。他的策略奏效了，使他得以一直堅持到去世前一年。

我們可以從帕瓦羅蒂身上學到的教訓是；我們需要確定我們的核心能力，并專注于核心能力，以延長我們的職業生涯。我們應該盡一切可能保護這個核心能力免受各種威脅。這可能意味著你將不得不放棄一些你喜歡的責任，這樣你才能專注于你的核心能力。

你之所以能走到現在這個地步，主要是因為你的核心能力，而不是因為那些其他的東西，不管它們是什么。過去，你也許能夠做到這一切，但隨著年齡的增長，你往往不得不將責任與那些與核心能力直接相關的責任配對。當你盡可能最大化你的核心能力時，你擁有的任何弱點都會顯得微不足道，這樣，你就能擴展你的事業，同時增加你的享受。

Focusing on One Professional Skill to Protect One’s Career

Due to medical advancements, we can live longer than we imagined that we could when we were younger. And our capacity to work has also been extended by several years. As a result, knowing how to extend one’s career has become an important topic for many individuals, because people will need more money to support their longer lifespans, and because many people will want to experience the satisfaction that work brings as long as they can.

Archilochus, an ancient Greek lyric poet, wrote about a hedgehog that knew one big thing (how to protect itself) and a fox that knew many things (for thriving in the wild). Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo are famous names in the opera world, wherein Pavarotti was like a hedgehog, in that he focused on protecting his voice, and Domingo is like a fox, in that he uses many ways to survive.

Luciano Pavarotti was an Italian operatic tenor, one of the most acclaimed and loved tenors of all time. In order to extend his career, Pavarotti took various steps to protect his voice when he was getting old.

To begin with, Pavarotti only performed four or five times per month, and usually did so at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, which reduced the need for travel. Pavarotti was also very cautious about the operas that he selected. He only performed operas with which he was very familiar, such as Labohème, Tosca, Turando and Madama Butterfly. Pavarotti had confidence that he could perform those operas very well with no mistakes.

In order to protect his throat when he was older, Pavarotti never performed the “heavy roles,” meaning those roles that required strenuous use of the throat.

Moreover, if he was suffering from a cold, he immediately canceled his performances. He didn’t care about whether these cancellations would violate agreements, or whether the theaters had already sold tickets. He said, “If your body is not in shape to sing [from the diaphragm] you will push and push but keep falling back on your throat to make the sound. This will ruin your voice.”

Such cancellations helped him to extend his career. However, due to frequently backing out of performances, he received the nickname “The King of Cancellations.” For example, in 1989, Lyric Opera of Chicago ended its fifteen-year cooperation with Pavarotti’s agent company because Pavarotti had canceled 26 out of 41 scheduled appearances at the Lyric.

Although Pavarotti was supposed to perform various actions in addition to singing during his performances, he often declined to do so after getting fat. For example, one scene in Turando calls for the performer to play the drums, but Pavarotti only made a drumming gesture. It’s not that he was lazy or didn’t respect his role. Rather, he needed to protect himself and he knew that the most important thing for his performance was to sing. He knew that the audience cared more about his singing than his movements.

In February of 2006, Pavarotti was invited to perform Nessun Dorma at the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. This turned out to be the final performance of his life. In this performance, he received the longest and loudest ovation of the night from the international crowd. However, the conductor, Leone Magiera, revealed the whole story in his 2008 memoirs. Magiera said that the performance had been recorded weeks earlier. But in the live performance, “The orchestra pretended to play for the audience, I pretended to conduct and Luciano pretended to sing. The effect was wonderful.” Pavarotti had earlier turned down the invitation several times due to the fact that it would have been impossible to sing at night under the sub-zero conditions of Turin in February. So this was a compromise.

Pavarotti said, “I’m a perfectionist, and I always think that I can do better than what I have done, even if it’s good.” But he wasn’t willing to do so if it was going to jeopardize his instrument (Pavarotti's vocal chords). As such, Pavarotti did everything that he could to protect his throat to extend his career. Damaged vocal cords would only hurt him and deprive his fans from hearing him perform. And his strategy worked and allowed him to keep performing up until the year before his death.

The lesson that we can learn from Pavarotti is that each of us should identify our core competence and focus on that in order to extend our career. We should do everything possible to protect it from various threats. That might mean that you will have to give up some of the responsibilities that you enjoy so that you can focus on your core competence.

The main reason that you are where you are is because of your core competence, not because of those other things, whatever they are. You might have been able to do it all in the past, but as you get older, you often have to pair down your responsibilities to those that are directly related to your core competence. When you maximize your core competence as much as possible, any weaknesses that you have will appear insignificant in comparison. In this way, you should be able to extend your career and also increase your enjoyment along the way.