????Game Theory Group公司首席執行官文森特?麥卡弗里經常幫助各家公司招聘學生運動員。他并不認識休斯姐妹，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。雇主希望招到那些能夠很好地采納建設性批評的年輕人。”

????全球服務公司EY對體育運動和高管層領導力的關系進行了研究。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，鍛煉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。

????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。

????艾米麗和薩拉認為是父親引領她們進入滑冰領域。她們的父親約翰?休斯出生于多倫多，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。

????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——薩拉很合群，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，作為孩子，她們都“以自己的方式競爭著”。

????當12歲的艾米麗站在鹽湖城的看臺上，為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：“在那之后，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。”

????艾米麗在大頸高中的化學和生物老師蘭迪?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。”

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

????那年她以第七名的成績結束冬奧會之旅，確實令人遺憾，但這個成績并沒有反映出艾米麗?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松對她或薩拉的要求，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，艾米麗堅持要選后者。

????艾米麗說：“我總是隨身帶著課本。每次參賽時，我都會背著這個雙肩書包，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。”

????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。

????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，我總是震驚于艾米麗的堅韌不屈。她不斷工作、工作、工作，簡直要把自己累死，但不知怎么搞的，她總能擠出一點時間來尋找樂趣。”

????薩拉補充道：“為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）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????審校：任文科

????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.”

????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.

????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.

????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.

????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.

????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.”

????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.”

????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.

????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.

????“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.”

????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.

????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.”

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