史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）通过iPhone成为电子设备教父，不过他很久之前就开始了高科技事业，做的是盗用本地通话线路从而实现免费远程通话。

　　Bob Dylan’s band, the Golden Chords, lost a high-school talent competition to a tap dancing act.

　　鲍勃·迪伦（Bob Dylan）成为金牌音乐家之前，在高中达人秀比赛中输给了一个踢踏舞表演。

　　Behind every success story is an embarrassing first effort, a stumble, a setback or a radical change of direction. It’s these first clumsy steps on the road to fame and fortune that fascinate writer Seth Fiegerman, who edits the blog OpeningLines.org, a collection of case studies on the origins of famous careers.

　　探究每个成功故事，你总能看到起步时的窘迫，蹒跚前进，被失败打击，或是突然决定转向。这些通往名利财富路上的笨拙的起步吸引了作家塞斯·菲格曼（Seth Fiegerman），她收集了关于成功事业起点的众多案例，并编写了博客OpeningLines.org（起步线）。

　　“When you see someone who’s very successful, you almost imagine that it was a foregone conclusion, that they’re a genius, that they were destined for great things, ” says Fiegerman, who began the blog in 2009, after an early setback in his own career. “I think the big takeaway is failure and setbacks, far from being uncommon, are in many ways essential.”

　　2009年，菲格曼在事业受挫后选择开博。”当你看到某些成功人士时，你总会想象他们的成功是必然的，他们都是天才，注定建立丰功伟业，“她说：”我认为 最重要 的是经历失败与挫折，不甘于平庸。“

　　After Fiegerman, now 26, graduated from New York University in 2008, he landed a coveted first job as a research editor at Playboy magazine. But he had worked there for just half a year when management announced that most of the staff would soon be laid off.

　　今年26岁的菲格曼于2008年毕业于纽约大学。大学毕业后，他拥有了一个令人艳羡的工作——《花花公子》杂志的研究编辑。但他仅仅在这个工位上工作了半年，公司就开始大规模裁人。

　　As unemployment loomed, Fiegerman felt adrift. He began to explore the Playboy archives, discovering a trove of interviews with celebrities ranging from Marlon Brando to Malcolm X. Many of these successful people shared tales of their less promising early days, and Fiegerman quickly became obsessed with these origin stories.

　　面对裁员的危机，菲格曼感到茫然无措。他开始研究《花花公子》杂志档案，并发行了一系列珍贵的名人访问，包括马龙白兰度（Marlon Brando，美国最棒的男演员），马尔科姆·X（Malcolm X，非裔美国人权利提倡者）等等。这些成功人士都经历了看似前途渺茫的开端，这些成功起源的故事很快吸引了菲格曼。

　　“It kind of paired well with this feeling that I had of, ‘Oh my God, what do I do?’” Fiegerman says. “And I found solace, in some ways, reading about the obstacles that famous figures had to overcome.”

　　”这些故事与我彼时心情契合，我总在想‘老天，我该怎么办？’“菲格曼说：”在某些方面，通过阅读那些名人克服困难的故事，我找到了安慰。“

　　He began devouring biographies and soliciting interviews with writers and musicians he admired, using the blog to document the fits and starts that began the careers of the famous and the infamous. Success, he learned, was less a matter of innate talent and more the product of perseverance, a willingness to stumble and stand up again and again.

　　他开始大量阅读传记，并恳请自己欣赏的作家和音乐家接受采访，这些人有成名的也有事业低迷的，菲格曼把他们的事业开端的起起伏伏记录进博客。在调查中他发现，成功更多是源于坚持而非天赋。要有勇气屡败屡战。

　　“You kind of assume that great geniuses are like Mozart, ” Fiegerman says. But few successful people were child prodigies, and prodigies don’t necessarily find success. “Most people don’t stick to it.”

　　”你可能觉得天才都是像莫扎特那样的，“菲格曼说。但事实是几乎没什么成功人士是神童，神童未必成功。”大多数人不喜欢坚持一件事。“

　　Author Jennifer Egan stuck with it. She told Fiegerman that her first novel was so bad even her mother hated it. But Egan kept writing, and her writing got better—in 2011, she won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel about growing old in the digital age, A Visit From the Goon Squad.

　　作家詹妮弗·伊根（Jennifer Egan）做到了坚持。她告诉菲格曼他的第一部小说糟到连她母亲都厌恶。但伊根并未放弃写作，而且有了进步。2011年她的一篇描绘在数字时代老去的小说《打手队的来访》（A Visit From the Goon Squad）赢得了普利策奖（Pulitzer Price，美国新闻界最高荣誉）。

　　Knowing about a hero’s early flops and foibles might disillusion some fans, but Fiegerman finds comfort in rough beginnings. “The only thing that would have disappointed me is if I’d researched all these guys and women and found out that they got it right on the first try, because, OK, I did not, ” Fiegerman says with a laugh.

　　了解一个英雄人物早期的失败和缺点也许会使某些粉丝的幻想破灭，但菲格曼却从中得到慰藉。”如果发现这些人首次尝试就成功我倒要失望了，因为我自己的起步并不是如此。“菲格曼笑着说。

　　Like his subjects, Fieger-man found that his own early setback wasn’t permanent. He landed a new job in journalism, and today he works at the tech news website Mashable, covering, appropriately enough, start-up businesses. While he has less time for the blog, he hopes his collection of origin stories will help other young people realize it’s OK to fail.

　　正如他的受访者，菲格曼发现起初的失败并不是永久的。他开始尝试记者工作，如今他在科技新闻网站Mashable工作，可以说还包含很多起步阶段的业务。虽然写博客的时间少了，他希望自己收集的这些成功故事的起源可以帮助其他年轻人，告诉他们要允许失败。

　　“I hope some of them benefit from it, ” he says. “But if nothing else, I feel like I benefited from it a little bit.”

　　”我希望有人能从中受益，“他说：”但就算没什么效果，我觉得自己已经获益良多了。“