????艾莉森?李維遠比外表看上去要強悍。不過，如果讓你從人堆里找出一個來挑戰所謂的“探險大滿貫”，你絕不會挑中身高5尺4英寸、體重110磅的艾莉森。探險大滿貫要登上全球七大洲的所有最高峰，還要滑雪前往北極和南極。奧斯卡提名影片《華爾街之狼》（The Wolf of Wall Street ）在大銀幕上描繪的華爾街生活光鮮亮麗，但事實上投資也遠比看上去更具挑戰。有意思的是，兩者的相似處之多可能也超乎你的想象。李維在新書《邊緣：高影響領導力藝術》(On The Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership)中列出了一系列登山經驗，這些經驗既可用于管理金錢，也可用于管理職業或人生。下面是她最為推崇、也是我最認同的五條經驗：

????了解你自己的風險承受力與疼痛臨界點。李維解釋說，登山時你必須要清楚自己愿意冒多大的風險，然后據此規劃線路。“登珠峰的過程中最危險的一段是孔布冰川。這段冰川總是在移動，隨時可能會被一大塊從天而落的冰砸扁，也隨時可能從梯子上掉下來。”很多人選擇從珠峰北面登山，避開了上面說的這條線路。而這條線李維走了兩次。同樣地，如果你清楚自己不能承受全部投入化為烏有，你可能希望回避那些波動特別大的投資。而拒絕承擔這些風險則意味著可能必須增加早期的儲蓄。

????恐懼不是問題。停步不前可能喪命。還是回到冰川。李維解釋說，身處冰川，心生恐懼是自然而然的事情。這是必然的。不可以有的是停步不前。如果停步不前，一大塊冰壓扁你的概率會大大增加。金融投資也是這樣。對于市場感到有些不安，這是非常正常的，市場本來就難以預料。但任由這種不安驅使你停步不前【比如，不參加401(k)，當市場大漲導致股票超配時不及時進行再平衡，等等】，結果就會喪失取得投資成功的機會，最糟甚至可能連衣服都會輸光。

????不需要等到一切都明了才向前邁步。李維第一次爬珠峰時距離登頂只有幾百英尺，一場暴風暴襲來。雪下得很大。能見度極低。她做了一個極其痛苦的決定——后撤。八年后當她身處同樣的位置時，同樣的事情又發生了。天氣惡化，她什么也看不見。這一次，她走出了帳篷，一腳挨著一腳向前，登上了峰頂。除了“了卻了2002年的一樁憾事，我對于自己的風險承受力以及疼痛臨界點有了更多的了解”，她還學到了就算看不清前方的路，自己也可以繼續前行。每一天，每位投資者或許都深有同感。關鍵是做好足夠的功課，有備而來。

????前進，并不意味著直線前行。為了登珠峰，你可能需要花上10個或11個晚上，才能到達大本營。到達大本營后的第二天，攀登至1號營地過夜。第三天，返回大本營。第四天，攀登至1號營地過夜，然后再攀登至2號營地。第五天，全程返回大本營。這樣日復一日的循環往復。上上下下。最后到達3號營地，4號營地，以及最后的登頂。這樣做的目的是為了“逐漸適應”。李維解釋稱：必須讓身體適應高海拔。如果不是這樣一個過程，而是用一架直升機將你放在珠峰山頂，你馬上就會丟了性命。當然，震蕩的市場不會要了你的命。但很重要的一點是，必須要意識到持續的投資習慣（不管是通過持續的薪資代扣計劃向養老金賬戶投資，還是每月向你的券商寄一張支票）就是保持前行。就算股市表現欠佳的年份，你仍然會買入更多公司的更多股票，這些股票可能會在未來值更多錢。過去五年就是一個很好的例子。

????Alison Levine is tougher than she looks. At 5'4", 110 lbs, she's not the person you'd pull out of a crowd if you were looking for someone who's tackled the so-called Adventure Grand Slam, which consists of climbing the highest peaks on all seven continents as well as skiing to both the North and South Poles. Investing -- despite the big-screen bacchanal portrayed in the Oscar-nominated The Wolf of Wall Street -- is also tougher than it looks.Interestingly, the two intersect in more ways than you might imagine. In Levine's new book, On The Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership, she lays out a series of lessons that apply to managing your money just as much as they do to managing your career, or your life. A few of her -- and my -- favorites:

????Know your risk tolerance and threshold for pain. On the mountain, Levine explains, you have to know how much risk you're willing to take and plan your route accordingly. "The riskiest part of Mt. Everest is the Khumbu Icefall. The Icefall is in constant motion and there is always a risk that you could be crushed by a giant piece of ice from overhead or fall off a ladder." Many people choose to climb from the north side of the mountain to avoid this route. Levine tackled it twice. By the same token, you may want to avoid particularly volatile investments if you know you can't stomach losing what you put in. Just recognize that you may have to save more on the front end to accommodate for risks not taken.

????Fear is okay. Complacency will kill you. Let's go back to that Icefall for a second. When you're on it, Levine explains, fear is natural. It's a given. What you can't be is complacent. If you stop moving, there is a much greater chance that one of those giant slabs of ice is going to crush you. The same is true of finance. It's perfectly normal to feel some sense of unease with markets, which are unpredictable by nature. But allowing that unease to drive you to a halt (whereby you're not participating in your 401(k), not rebalancing when a roaring market has you overweighted in stocks and so on) is a recipe for losing out on financial success at best, losing your shirt at worst.

????You don't need total clarity to put one foot in front of the other. The first time Levine climbed Everest, she was just hundreds of feet from the summit when a storm rolled in. Snow was coming down hard. Visibility was terrible. She made the painful decision to retreat. Eight years later, she found herself at the same place, and the same thing happened. The weather turned for the worse. She couldn't see a thing. This time, she got out of her tent, put one foot in front of the other and made it to the top. What she learned -- besides "that having had the snot kicked out of me in 2002, I knew more about my risk tolerance and my threshold for pain," was that she could continue to move forward without being able to see precisely where she was going. Every investor lives that truth every day. The key is to do enough homework that you are operating with as much of a net as possible.

????Making progress doesn't mean moving in a straight line. When you climb Everest, you spend 10 or 11 nights climbing before you even get to basecamp. The next day, you climb to camp one, spend the night. The next day, you're back to basecamp. The day after that, it's back to camp one, where you spend a night, before climbing to camp two. The following day, it's all the way back to basecamp. And so it continues, day after day. Up and down. Finally making it to camp three. Camp four. And the summit. The reason for this is called "acclimatization." Levine explains: Your body has to get used to the altitude. If a helicopter dropped you at the top of the mountain without having gone through this process you'd die. Granted, a rock-and-roll market isn't going to kill you. But recognizing that a habit of continuous investing -- whether you do it through a series of paycheck withdrawals into a work-based retirement plan, or by sending a monthly check to your brokerage firm -- is moving forward is an important thing to wrap your brain around. Even when stocks don't have a particularly strong year, you're still buying more shares of more companies that will likely be worth more in the future. The last five years are a primary example of this.