Forget the Corporate Ladder — Winners Take Risks | Molly Graham | TED · TED
Molly Graham分享如何通过承担风险实现职业和个人成长。她提出‘跳崖’理念，鼓励人们摆脱传统职业路径，尝试新领域。适合练习职场决策与风险意识。
There's a lot of pressure around what it takes to build a great career.
在如何打造一份出色的职业生涯这个问题上，人们面临着巨大的压力。
And it all comes back to this idea that you're supposed to know what you want to do.
归根结底，这一切都围绕着这样一个核心理念：你必须清楚自己想做什么。
It’s an idea that I like to call “the stairs.”
我喜欢把这个想法称为“楼梯”（即一个需要逐步实现、逐步推进的过程）。
Here's how the stairs go.
楼梯的布局是这样的。
You show up in college, and you're supposed to know what you want to major in.
当你进入大学时，你应该已经清楚自己想主修什么专业了。
That major is supposed to lead you to your first job, and then you get another job, and you get promoted and promoted and promoted forever.
这个专业本应为你找到第一份工作打下基础；之后你再找到第二份工作，接着不断获得晋升，永远如此循环下去。
The best part about the stairs is safety and security.
楼梯最棒的地方在于其安全性和可靠性。
It feels like you know what you need to do to get ahead.
你似乎很清楚自己需要做些什么才能取得成功。
The worst part of the stairs is that it's like a weird video game that you can get stuck inside of for years.
这楼梯最糟糕的地方在于：它就像一款奇怪的电子游戏，让人在里面“被困”多年无法逃脱。
The stairs will make you feel like your self-worth is tied to your title, or your last performance rating,
这些楼梯会让你觉得自己的自我价值与自己的职位头衔或上一次的工作表现评价紧密相连。
or your next promotion.
或者你下一次的晋升机会。
But the truth is that the stairs are an illusion.
但事实是，那些楼梯其实只是一种幻觉罢了。
These days, excellent careers are not built by excellent stair climbers.
如今，出色的职业生涯并非靠那些善于“攀爬阶梯”（即不断努力晋升的人）来创造的。
Said differently, one of the most important things you can get good at in your career is taking risks.
换句话说，在职业生涯中，你能掌握的最重要的技能之一就是敢于冒险。
Or, as I like to call it, jumping off cliffs.
或者，用我更喜欢的说法：从悬崖上跳下去。
Let me explain what I mean with a story.
让我通过一个故事来解释我的意思。
When I was 25, I got offered a crazy job.
我25岁的时候，得到了一份非常棒的工作机会。
I had spent a couple of years climbing the stairs in Human Resources at Facebook
我在 Facebook 的人力资源部门工作了几年，期间主要从事与员工晋升、职位调整等相关的工作（即需要“爬楼梯”才能实现职位晋升）。
when the leader of another department came to me and asked me to help him start a new project,
当另一个部门的负责人来找我，请求我帮助他启动一个新项目时……
doing something that I knew nothing about.
去做一些我完全不了解的事情。
It was a long-term project, it was risky, and a lot of people told me it would probably fail.
这是一个长期项目，风险很大；很多人都告诉我这个项目很可能会失败。
I was intrigued, but I was also scared.
我感到既好奇又害怕。
So I talked to a bunch of different people, and I have to admit, a lot of them told me not to take it.
所以我跟很多人聊了聊，不得不承认，他们中有很多人劝我不要接受这个机会。
But there was this little voice inside me that just kept saying, "I wonder.
但我内心有个小小的声音一直在说：“我想知道……
I wonder if I can be capable in this completely new environment."
我想知道，在这个全新的环境中，自己是否能够胜任各项工作。
So I took a risk and I took the job.
于是我冒险接受了这份工作。
Now I'd like to say that what happened next was that it was obviously a great decision and I was immediately successful.
接下来发生的事情证明，这确实是一个非常明智的决定；我很快就取得了成功。
But actually, the first nine months on this project felt a lot more like falling off of a very steep cliff.
但实际上，这个项目的前九个月更像是从一个极其陡峭的悬崖上坠落的过程。
I had gone from feeling competent and capable in HR to feeling like an absolute idiot all the time.
在人力资源（HR）领域，我曾经觉得自己能力很强、能够胜任各项工作；但现在却总是觉得自己像个十足的傻瓜。
I was sitting in rooms with brilliant people asking very dumb questions.
我曾和一些非常聪明的人坐在同一个房间里，却提出了些极其愚蠢的问题。
Six months into this job, I got the lowest performance rating of my entire life.
这份工作我已经做了六个月，却得到了我一生中最低的工作绩效评价。
I had so many moments when all I wanted to do was run back to the safety and security of the stairs.
有很多时刻，我唯一想做的就是跑回楼梯那里，寻求安全与庇护。
But about nine months in, something interesting happened.
然而，在大约九个月的时间里，发生了一件有趣的事情。
I had to lead a meeting.
我必须主持一场会议。
It sounds simple, but it was a big meeting.
听起来很简单，但实际上那是一次非常重要的会议。
It was a complicated debate about a nuanced part of this project.
这是一场关于该项目某个复杂细节的辩论。
I was successful, and I so vividly remember walking out of that meeting feeling like myself again.
我取得了成功，至今仍清楚地记得：从那次会议中走出来时，我重新找回了属于自己的“自我”。
I had gone from feeling like a beginner in this new environment to feeling confident and capable.
在这个新的环境中，我的心态从最初的自卑（觉得自己像个初学者）逐渐转变为自信和有能力去应对各种挑战。
I spent another three years on this project, learning and growing, and on the other side of it,
我又在这个项目上花了三年时间，不断学习、不断成长。
I was a completely different person.
我完全变成了另一个人。