千文网小编为你整理了多篇相关的《ted中英文演讲稿(范文五篇)》，但愿对你工作学习有帮助，当然你在千文网还可以找到更多《ted中英文演讲稿(范文五篇)》。
第一篇：ted演讲稿永不放弃
生活中，难免被挫折苦难击倒，但在被击倒的同时能够永不言弃，这才是真男儿，真正的生命本色。
人活在世间应该不是为躯体而生，应该不是为追逐名利而活。而应该为自己的信念而生，应该为自己的灵魂而活。在人世间只要你的精神不倒，你便有希望。永不言败在精神，它如巍巍的高山，滔滔的大海，灼灼的阳光，习习的春风。它与天地同岁，与日月争辉。不要轻言失败，否则你的生命之花将会枯萎。
古往今来，彪炳史册的杰出人物都曾作出非同寻常的努力，都有着超常人的精神。因而在生命的旅途中创造出了辉煌的业绩。试想如果没有司马迁行万里路阅万卷书，如果没有他一生如一日的搜集整理，笔耕不息，没有他忍受着常人难以忍受的痛苦，哪里会有史学巨着《史记》的诞生;如果没有李时珍的跋山涉水，尝遍百草，没有他数十年如一日的整理修改，孜孜不倦的探讨，哪里会有药学宝典《本草纲目》的问世。
人世间，没有波涛澎湃的大海，怎会有沙滩的光洁与柔软;没有磨刀石的磨砺，怎会有宝剑耀眼的光辉;没有风吹和雨打，怎会有古树强壮的筋骨。古人云：“故天将降大任于斯人也，必先苦其心志，劳其筋骨，饿其体肤，空乏其身，行拂乱其所为。”唯有经过苦难的洗礼，才能铸就不凡的业绩。于是有了“千淘万漉虽辛苦，吹尽狂沙始得金”的至理;于是有了“不经一番寒彻骨，那得梅花扑鼻香”的绝唱。面对生命中的挫折，你只有将它打败才能实现你的价值，你的生命才会有意义。
在生活中，多经历些挫折苦难，只要怀着永不言弃的精神，努力向前，去追寻外面的阳光，让生命之蛹化作华丽的彩蝶在美丽的花下曼妙的起舞。
第二篇：ted演讲稿
拥抱他人，拥抱自己
embracing otherness. when i first heard this theme, i thought, well,embracing otherness is embracing myself. and the journey to that place ofunderstanding and acceptance has been an interesting one for me, and it's givenme an insight into the whole notion of self, which i think is worth sharing withyou today.
拥抱他类。当我第一次听说这个主题时，我心想，拥抱他类不就是拥抱自己吗。我个人懂得理解和接受他类的经历很有趣，让我对于“自己”这个词也有了新的认识，我想今天在这里和你们分享下我的心得体会。
we each have a self, but i don't think that we're born with one. you knowhow newborn babies believe they're part of everything; they're not separate?well that fundamental sense of oneness is lost on us very quickly. it's likethat initial stage is over -- oneness: infancy, unformed, primitive. it's nolonger valid or real. what is real is separateness, and at some point in earlybabyhood, the idea of self starts to form. our little portion of oneness isgiven a name, is told all kinds of things about itself, and these details,opinions and ideas become facts, which go towards building ourselves, ouridentity. and that self becomes the vehicle for navigating our social world. butthe self is a projection based on other people's projections. is it who wereally are? or who we really want to be, or should be?
我们每个人都有个自我，但并不是生来就如此的。你知道新生的宝宝们觉得他们是任何东西的一部分，而不是分裂的个体。这种本源上的“天人合一”感在我们出生后很快就不见了，就好像我们人生的第一个篇章--和谐统一：婴儿，未成形，原始--结束了。它们似幻似影，而现实的世界是孤独彼此分离的。而在孩童期的某段时间，我们开始形成自我这个观点。宇宙中的小小个体有了自己的名字，有了自己的过去等等各种信息。这些关于自己的细节，看法和观点慢慢变成事实，成为我们身份的一部分。而那个自我，也变成我们人生路上前行的导航仪。然后，这个所谓的自我，是他人自我的映射，还是我们真实的自己呢?我们究竟想成为什么样，应该成为什么样的呢?
so this whole interaction with self and identity was a very difficult onefor me growing up. the self that i attempted to take out into the world wasrejected over and over again. and my panic at not having a self that fit, andthe confusion that came from my self being rejected, created an_iety, shame andhopelessness, which kind of defined me for a long time. but in retrospect, thedestruction of my self was so repetitive that i started to see a pattern. theself changed, got affected, broken, destroyed, but another one would evolve --sometimes stronger, sometimes hateful, sometimes not wanting to be there at all.the self was not constant. and how many times would my self have to die before irealized that it was never alive in the first place?
这个和自我打交道，寻找自己身份的过程在我的成长记忆中一点都不容易。我想成为的那些“自我”不断被否定再否定，而我害怕自己无法融入周遭的环境，因被否定而引起的困惑让我变得更加忧虑，感到羞耻和无望，在很长一段时间就是我存在状态。然而回头看，对自我的解构是那么频繁，以至于我发现了这样一种规律。自我是变化的，受他人影响，分裂或被打败，而另一个自我会产生，这个自我可能更坚强，可能更可憎，有时你也不想变成那样。所谓自我不是固定不变的。而我需要经历多少次自我的破碎重生才会明白其实自我从来没有存在过?
i grew up on the coast of england in the '70s. my dad is white fromcornwall, and my mom is black from zimbabwe. even the idea of us as a family waschallenging to most people. but nature had its wicked way, and brown babies wereborn. but from about the age of five, i was aware that i didn't fit. i was theblack atheist kid in the all-white catholic school run by nuns. i was ananomaly, and my self was rooting around for definition and trying to plug in.because the self likes to fit, to see itself replicated, to belong. thatconfirms its e_istence and its importance. and it is important. it has ane_tremely important function. without it, we literally can't interface withothers. we can't hatch plans and climb that stairway of popularity, of success.but my skin color wasn't right. my hair wasn't right. my history wasn't right.my self became defined by otherness, which meant that, in that social world, ididn't really e_ist. and i was "other" before being anything else -- even beforebeing a girl. i was a noticeable nobody.
我在70年代英格兰海边长大，我的父亲是康沃尔的白人，母亲是津巴布韦的黑人。而想象我和父母是一家人对于其他人来说总是不太自然。自然有它自己的魔术，棕色皮肤的宝宝诞生了。但从我五岁开始，我就有种感觉我不是这个群体的。我是一个全白人天主教会学校里面黑皮肤无神论小孩。我与他人是不同的，而那个热衷于归属的自我却到处寻找方式寻找归属感。这种认同感让自我感受到存在感和重要性，因此十分重要。这点是如此重要，如果没有自我，我们根本无法与他人沟通。没有它，我们无所适从，无法获取成功或变得受人欢迎。但我的肤色不对，我的头发不对，我的过去不对，我的一切都是另类定义的，在这个社会里，我其实并不真实存在。我首先是个异类，其次才是个女孩。我是可见却毫无意义的人。
another world was opening up around this time: performance and dancing.that nagging dread of self-hood didn't e_ist when i was dancing. i'd literallylose myself. and i was a really good dancer. i would put all my emotionale_pression into my dancing. i could be in the movement in a way that i wasn'table to be in my real life, in myself.
这时候，另一个世界向我敞开了大门：舞蹈表演。那种关于自我的唠叨恐惧在舞蹈时消失了，我放开四肢，也成为了一位不错的舞者。我将所有的情绪都融入到舞蹈的动作中去，我可以在舞蹈中与自己相溶，尽管在现实生活中却无法做到。
and at 16, i stumbled across another opportunity, and i earned my firstacting role in a film. i can hardly find the words to describe the peace i feltwhen i was acting. my dysfunctional self could actually plug in to another self,not my own, and it felt so good. it was the first time that i e_isted inside afully-functioning self -- one that i controlled, that i steered, that i gavelife to. but the shooting day would end, and i'd return to my gnarly, awkwardself.
16岁的时候，我遇到了另一个机会，第一部参演的电影。我无法用语言来表达在演戏的时候我所感受到的平和，我无处着落的自我可以与那个角色融为一体，而不是我自己。那感觉真棒。这是第一次我感觉到我拥有一个自我，我可以驾驭，令其富有盛名的自我。然而当拍摄结束，我又会回到自己粗糙不明，笨拙的自我。
by 19, i was a fully-fledged movie actor, but still searching fordefinition. i applied to read anthropology at university. dr. phyllis lee gaveme my interview, and she asked me, "how would you define race?" well, i thoughti had the answer to that one, and i said, "skin color." "so biology, genetics?"she said. "because, thandie, that's not accurate. because there's actually moregenetic difference between a black kenyan and a black ugandan than there isbetween a black kenyan and, say, a white norwegian. because we all stem fromafrica. so in africa, there's been more time to create genetic diversity." inother words, race has no basis in biological or scientific fact. on the onehand, result. right? on the other hand, my definition of self just lost a hugechunk of its credibility. but what was credible, what is biological andscientific fact, is that we all stem from africa -- in fact, from a woman calledmitochondrial eve who lived 160,000 years ago. and race is an illegitimateconcept which our selves have created based on fear and ignorance.
19岁的时候，我已经是富有经验的专业电影演员，而我还是在寻找自我的定义。我申请了大学的人类学专业。phyllislee博士面试了我，她问我：“你怎么定义种族?”我觉得我很了解这个话题，我说：“肤色。”“那么生物上来说呢，例如遗传基因?”她说，“thandie肤色并不全面，其实一个肯尼亚黑人和乌干达黑人之间基因差异比一个肯尼亚黑人和挪威白人之间差异要更多。因为我们都是从非洲来的，所以在非洲，基因变异演化的时间是最久的。”换句话说，种族在生物学或任何科学上都没有事实根据。另一方面，我对于自我的定义瞬时失去了一大片基础。但那就是生物学事实，我们都是非洲后裔，一位在160 0__年前的伟大女性mitochondrialeve的后人。而种族这个无效的概念是我们基于恐惧和无知自己捏造出来的。
strangely, these revelations didn't cure my low self-esteem, that feelingof otherness. my desire to disappear was still very powerful. i had a degreefrom cambridge; i had a thriving career, but my self was a car crash, and iwound up with bulimia and on a therapist's couch. and of course i did. i stillbelieved my self was all i was. i still valued self-worth above all other worth,and what was there to suggest otherwise? we've created entire value systems anda physical reality to support the worth of self. look at the industry forself-image and the jobs it creates, the revenue it turns over. we'd be right inassuming that the self is an actual living thing. but it's not. it's aprojection which our clever brains create in order to cheat ourselves from thereality of death.
奇怪的是，这个发现并没有治好我的自卑，那种被排挤的感觉。我还是那么强烈地想要离开消失。我从剑桥拿到了学位，我有份充满发展的工作，然而我的自我还是一团糟，我得了催吐病不得不接受治疗师的帮助。我还是相信自我是我的全部。我还是坚信“自我”的价值甚过一切。而且我们身处的世界就是如此，我们的整个价值系统和现实环境都是在服务“自我”的价值。看看不同行业里面对于自我的塑造，看看它们创造的那些工作，产出的那些利润。我们甚至必须相信自我是真实存在的。但它们不是，自我不过是我们聪明的脑袋假想出来骗自己不去思考死亡这个话题的幌子。
but there is something that can give the self ultimate and infiniteconnection -- and that thing is oneness, our essence. the self's struggle forauthenticity and definition will never end unless it's connected to its creator-- to you and to me. and that can happen with awareness -- awareness of thereality of oneness and the projection of self-hood. for a start, we can thinkabout all the times when we do lose ourselves. it happens when i dance, when i'macting. i'm earthed in my essence, and my self is suspended. in those moments,i'm connected to everything -- the ground, the air, the sounds, the energy fromthe audience. all my senses are alert and alive in much the same way as aninfant might feel -- that feeling of oneness.
但其实我们的终极自我其实是我们的本源，合一。挣扎自我是否真实，究竟是什么永远没有终结，除非它和赋予它意义的创造者合一，就是你和我。而这点当我们意识到现实是你中有我，我中有你，和谐统一，而自我是种假象时就会体会到了。我们可以想想，什么时候我们是身心统一的，例如说我跳舞，表演的时候，我和我的本源连结，而我的自我被抛在一边。那时，我和身边的一切--空气，大地，声音，观众的反馈都连结在一起。我的知觉是敏锐和鲜活的，就像初生的婴儿那样，合一。
and when i'm acting a role, i inhabit another self, and i give it life forawhile, because when the self is suspended so is divisiveness and judgment. andi've played everything from a vengeful ghost in the time of slavery to secretaryof state in __. and no matter how other these selves might be, they're allrelated in me. and i honestly believe the key to my success as an actor and myprogress as a person has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel soan_ious and insecure. i always wondered why i could feel others' pain so deeply,why i could recognize the somebody in the nobody. it's because i didn't have aself to get in the way. i thought i lacked substance, and the fact that i couldfeel others' meant that i had nothing of myself to feel. the thing that was asource of shame was actually a source of enlightenment.
当我在演戏的时候，我让另一个自我住在我体内，我代表它行动。当我的自我被抛开，紧随的分歧和主观判断也消失了。我曾经扮演过奴隶时代的复仇鬼魂，也扮演过__年的国务卿。不管他们这些自我是怎样的，他们都在那时与我相连。而我也深信作为演员，我的成功，或是作为个体，我的成长都是源于我缺乏“自我”，那种缺乏曾经让我非常忧虑和不安。我总是不明白为什么我会那么深地感受到他人的痛苦，为什么我可以从不知名的人身上看出他人的印痕。是因为我没有所谓的自我来左右我感受的信息吧。我以为我缺少些什么，我以为我对他人的理解是因为我缺乏自我。那个曾经是我深感羞耻的东西其实是种启示。
and when i realized and really understood that my self is a projection andthat it has a function, a funny thing happened. i stopped giving it so muchauthority. i give it its due. i take it to therapy. i've become very familiarwith its dysfunctional behavior. but i'm not ashamed of my self. in fact, irespect my self and its function. and over time and with practice, i've tried tolive more and more from my essence. and if you can do that, incredible thingshappen.
当我真的理解我的自我不过是种映射，是种工具，一件奇怪的事情发生了。我不再让它过多控制我的生活。我学习管理它，像把它带去看医生一样，我很熟悉那些因自我而失调的举动。我不因自我而羞耻，事实上，我很尊敬我的自我和它的功能。而随着时间过去，我的技术也更加熟练，我可以更多的和我的本源共存。如果你愿意尝试，不可以思议的事情也会发生在你身上。
i was in congo in february, dancing and celebrating with women who'vesurvived the destruction of their selves in literally unthinkable ways --destroyed because other brutalized, psychopathic selves all over that beautifulland are fueling our selves' addiction to ipods, pads, and bling, which furtherdisconnect ourselves from ever feeling their pain, their suffering, their death.because, hey, if we're all living in ourselves and mistaking it for life, thenwe're devaluing and desensitizing life. and in that disconnected state, yeah, wecan build factory farms with no windows, destroy marine life and use rape as aweapon of war. so here's a note to self: the cracks have started to show in ourconstructed world, and oceans will continue to surge through the cracks, and oiland blood, rivers of it.
今年二月，我在刚果和一群女性一起跳舞和庆祝，她们都是经历过各种无法想象事情“自我”遍体鳞伤的人们，那些备受摧残，心理变态的自我充斥在这片美丽的土地，而我们仍痴迷地追逐着ipod，pad等各种闪亮的东西，将我们与他们的痛苦，死亡隔得更远。如果我们各自生活在自我中，并无以为这就是生活，那么我们是在贬低和远离生命的意义。在这种脱节的状态中，我们是可以建设没有窗户的工厂，破坏海洋生态，将__作为战争的工具。为我们的自我做个解释：这是看似完善的世界里的裂痕，海洋，河流，石油和鲜血正不断地从缝中涌出。
crucially, we haven't been figuring out how to live in oneness with theearth and every other living thing. we've just been insanely trying to figureout how to live with each other -- billions of each other. only we're not livingwith each other; our crazy selves are living with each other and perpetuating anepidemic of disconnection.
关键的是，我们还没有明白如何和自然以及其他所有生物和谐地共处。我们只是疯狂地想和其他人沟通，几十亿其他人。只有当我们不在和世界合一的时候，我们疯狂的自我却互相怜惜，并永远继续这场相互隔绝的疫症。
let's live with each other and take it a breath at a time. if we can getunder that heavy self, light a torch of awareness, and find our essence, ourconnection to the infinite and every other living thing. we knew it from the daywe were born. let's not be freaked out by our bountiful nothingness. it's more areality than the ones our selves have created. imagine what kind of e_istence wecan have if we honor inevitable death of self, appreciate the privilege of lifeand marvel at what comes ne_t. simple awareness is where it begins.
让我们共生共荣，并不要太过激进着急。试着放下沉重的自我，点亮知觉的火把，寻找我们的本源，我们与万事万物之间的联系。我们初生时就懂得这个道理的。不要被我们内心丰富的空白吓到，这比我们虚构的自我要真实。想象如果你能接受自我并不存在，你想要如何生活，感恩生命的可贵和未来的惊奇。简单的觉醒就是开始。
thank you for listening.
(applause) 谢谢。
第三篇：ted演讲稿2022
少年pi的全名叫：派西尼。莫利托。帕特尔，方便起见，就叫他派好了。
派是一个从小生活在动物园的孩子，一次，为了搬去加拿大，派一家与动物们登上了开往大洋彼岸的货船“齐姆楚姆号”。
天有不测风云，在一个风雨交加的早晨，船沉了。睡梦中的人们还不知道发生了什么，就沉入了这蔚蓝色的海洋。只有派与一只斑马，一只红猩猩，一只鬣狗，还有一只名叫理查德。帕克的成年孟加拉虎乘上了救生艇，
弱肉强食的生存法则毫不意外地在这里被印证。
一艘小小的救生艇自然无法满足他们的生存需求，所以自然而然的，鬣狗吃掉了斑马与红猩猩，有被老虎吃掉。只剩下派与理查德。帕克了。
我本以为派也会被老虎吃掉，之后老虎死于缺水，在之后全剧终。可看着剩下200多页纸的厚度，我便打消了这可笑的念头。
不出所料，奇迹发生了。
派与这只孟加拉虎，在这条长仅26英尺的小艇上和谐共存了几个月，直至获救。
看到这里，我不得不对派肃然起敬。他是如此的勇敢，坚强。换做是我，或许早就因老虎的利爪或缺水而死了，但他却能用自己仅有的一切，与一只老虎在一望无边的太平洋上共存，这需要多么强烈的求生意志，多么强大的自信心啊!
在对比一下自己，整日无所事事，得过且过，无抱负无追求，为什么派可以超越自己的极限?我想，是压力的缘故吧。
派的压力来自于死亡，为了生存下来，他可以发挥出自己的全部潜质，是死亡的压力拯救了他。
而我的压力主要来自父母和老师。只要成绩有些进步，就可以说失去了压力，一个失去压力的人一定不会有什么大成就，因为压力就像燃油，是我们前进时不可缺少的动力。没有了动力，我们只能停下，倒退，最终被淘汰。
有压力是好事，但也要适度。就像汽车超速了会被罚款，压力过大了，也会使我们不负重担。只有适当的压力加上灿烂的微笑，美好的未来才会向我们挥手。
所以，朋友们，让我们用双手去拥抱这可爱的压力吧。
无压力，不动力!
第四篇：ted演讲稿永不放弃
亲爱的老师，同学们：
大家好!
挫折常常挡在我们的面前，使我们难以前行，但如果努力去克服，打破它，就能继续一路前行。挫折时常有，但让我刻骨铭心的还是那次——
那是一个风和日丽的天，我和小伙伴们在欢快的玩游戏。玩了一会儿，便觉得枯燥无味了，没有新意了。一个小伙伴们一语点破，说去爬山，我们一致赞同。
我们便马不停蹄地来到一座山丘下。把头缓缓抬上，只见全都是茂盛的树木，最顶端却是那么的可望而不可及。
一开始，路是平稳的，一点儿也不陡峭，我们就迅速地跑上去，顺利的到达了整座山丘的五分之一处，离山顶却还有六十米。我们朝前望去，看到了一处虽然只有三米高却是垂直在地面上的悬崖，我想退缩了。小伙伴们马上跑过去抓住那藤条，靠手和脚的力量一举跳了上去。我看的目瞪口呆了，我慢吞吞地走到悬崖前，却迟迟不肯上去。我哥哥见到我的迟疑样，便马上鼓励我：“弟弟，你要相信——退缩就代表失败，坚持就代表成功。”我只好也抓住那粗壮的藤条，先拔了拔，确定好不会断掉后，一只脚提上去落在唯一一处落脚点。另一只手按向峭壁，另一只脚用力向地面按去，奋力一跳，终于艰难的跳到了上面，我的害怕一下子荡然无存，取代的只有轻松和快乐。
我们又向山顶跑去，过了一段时间，离山顶只有十米了。但呈现在我们面前的尽然是有十米之高的陡峭悬崖，连大一点的小伙伴都有些惊慌了，我心中更是没了底，只想着怎么样才能说服小伙伴不爬了，回去吧。
他们却鼓起勇气，踏着仅有的几块凹凸地方一个接着一个往上爬，只有我一个人傻傻地站在原地一动不动。我靠着一棵树哆哆嗦嗦，情不自禁地睡着了，醒来时却发现他们都在山顶了，正等着我攀上去。我犹豫不决，心中却闪过一句话：只要努力，就能成功。
我马上踏着峭壁的凹凸的地方，紧紧抓住峭壁的藤条，缓缓爬到了离山顶还有五米处;我拉住上面的藤条，脚在向上踩，发现竟然没有向内凹进去的地方，我顿时慌了，狠命拉住救命的藤条，环顾四周，好不容易才发现一处空地，就马上踏了上去。我的手磨破了，整只手像鲜血一样红。我继续向上爬，四米，三米，两米，一米!我终于爬上了山丘的巅峰。
挫折就像一块巨大的基石，铺就我们人生的道路。只要带着挫折上路，人生的道路就一定会很平坦。
我的演讲完毕。
谢谢大家!
第五篇：ted演讲稿
when i was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we wereplaying on top of a bunk bed. i was two years older than my sister at the time-- i mean, i'm two years older than her now -- but at the time it meant she hadto do everything that i wanted to do, and i wanted to play war. so we were up ontop of our bunk beds. and on one side of the bunk bed, i had put out all of myg.i. joe soldiers and weaponry. and on the other side were all my sister's mylittle ponies ready for a cavalry charge.
there are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon, butsince my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story --(laughter) -- which is my sister's a little bit on the clumsy side. somehow,without any help or push from her older brother at all, suddenly amy disappearedoff of the top of the bunk bed and landed with this crash on the floor. now inervously peered over the side of the bed to see what had befallen my fallensister and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees on all fourson the ground.
i was nervous because my parents had charged me with making sure that mysister and i played as safely and as quietly as possible. and seeing as how ihad accidentally broken amy's arm just one week before ... (laughter) ...heroically pushing her out of the way of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet,(laughter) for which i have yet to be thanked, i was trying as hard as i could-- she didn't even see it coming -- i was trying as hard as i could to be on mybest behavior.
and i saw my sister's face, this wail of pain and suffering and surprisethreatening to erupt from her mouth and threatening to wake my parents from thelong winter's nap for which they had settled. so i did the only thing my littlefrantic seven year-old brain could think to do to avert this tragedy. and if youhave children, you've seen this hundreds of times before. i said, "amy, amy,wait. don't cry. don't cry. did you see how you landed? no human lands on allfours like that. amy, i think this means you're a unicorn."
(laughter)
now that was cheating, because there was nothing in the world my sisterwould want more than not to be amy the hurt five year-old little sister, but amythe special unicorn. of course, this was an option that was open to her brain atno point in the past. and you could see how my poor, manipulated sister facedconflict, as her little brain attempted to devote resources to feeling the painand suffering and surprise she just e_perienced, or contemplating her new-foundidentity as a unicorn. and the latter won out. instead of crying, instead ofceasing our play, instead of waking my parents, with all the negativeconsequences that would have ensued for me, instead a smile spread across herface and she scrambled right back up onto the bunk bed with all the grace of ababy unicorn ... (laughter) ... with one broken leg.
what we stumbled across at this tender age of just five and seven -- we hadno idea at the time -- was something that was going be at the vanguard of ascientific revolution occurring two decades later in the way that we look at thehuman brain. what we had stumbled across is something called positivepsychology, which is the reason that i'm here today and the reason that i wakeup every morning.
when i first started talking about this research outside of academia, outwith companies and schools, the very first thing they said to never do is tostart your talk with a graph. the very first thing i want to do is start my talkwith a graph. this graph looks boring, but this graph is the reason i gete_cited and wake up every morning. and this graph doesn't even mean anything;it's fake data. what we found is --
(laughter)
if i got this data back studying you here in the room, i would be thrilled,because there's very clearly a trend that's going on there, and that means thati can get published, which is all that really matters. the fact that there's oneweird red dot that's up above the curve, there's one weirdo in the room -- iknow who you are, i saw you earlier -- that's no problem. that's no problem, asmost of you know, because i can just delete that dot. i can delete that dotbecause that's clearly a measurement error. and we know that's a measurementerror because it's messing up my data.
so one of the very first things we teach people in economics and statisticsand business and psychology courses is how, in a statistically valid way, do weeliminate the weirdos. how do we eliminate the outliers so we can find the lineof best fit? which is fantastic if i'm trying to find out how many advil theaverage person should be taking -- two. but if i'm interested in potential, ifi'm interested in your potential, or for happiness or productivity or energy orcreativity, what we're doing is we're creating the cult of the average withscience.
if i asked a question like, "how fast can a child learn how to read in aclassroom?" scientists change the answer to "how fast does the average childlearn how to read in that classroom?" and then we tailor the class right towardsthe average. now if you fall below the average on this curve, then psychologistsget thrilled, because that means you're either depressed or you have a disorder,or hopefully both. we're hoping for both because our business model is, if youcome into a therapy session with one problem, we want to make sure you leaveknowing you have 10, so you keep coming back over and over again. we'll go backinto your childhood if necessary, but eventually what we want to do is make younormal again. but normal is merely average.
and what i posit and what positive psychology posits is that if we studywhat is merely average, we will remain merely average. then instead of deletingthose positive outliers, what i intentionally do is come into a population likethis one and say, why? why is it that some of you are so high above the curve interms of your intellectual ability, athletic ability, musical ability,creativity, energy levels, your resiliency in the face of challenge, your senseof humor? whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what i want to do is studyyou. because maybe we can glean information -- not just how to move people up tothe average, but how we can move the entire average up in our companies andschools worldwide.
the reason this graph is important to me is, when i turn on the news, itseems like the majority of the information is not positive, in fact it'snegative. most of it's about murder, corruption, diseases, natural disasters.and very quickly, my brain starts to think that's the accurate ratio of negativeto positive in the world. what that's doing is creating something called themedical school syndrome -- which, if you know people who've been to medicalschool, during the first year of medical training, as you read through a list ofall the symptoms and diseases that could happen, suddenly you realize you haveall of them.
i have a brother in-law named bobo -- which is a whole other story. bobomarried amy the unicorn. bobo called me on the phone from yale medical school,and bobo said, "shawn, i have leprosy." (laughter) which, even at yale, ise_traordinarily rare. but i had no idea how to console poor bobo because he hadjust gotten over an entire week of menopause.
(laughter)
see what we're finding is it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us,but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.and if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we canchange every single educational and business outcome at the same time.
when i applied to harvard, i applied on a dare. i didn't e_pect to get in,and my family had no money for college. when i got a military scholarship twoweeks later, they allowed me to go. suddenly, something that wasn't even apossibility became a reality. when i went there, i assumed everyone else wouldsee it as a privilege as well, that they'd be e_cited to be there. even ifyou're in a classroom full of people smarter than you, you'd be happy just to bein that classroom, which is what i felt. but what i found there is, while somepeople e_perience that, when i graduated after my four years and then spent thene_t eight years living in the dorms with the students -- harvard asked me to; iwasn't that guy. (laughter) i was an officer of harvard to counsel studentsthrough the difficult four years. and what i found in my research and myteaching is that these students, no matter how happy they were with theiroriginal success of getting into the school, two weeks later their brains werefocused, not on the privilege of being there, nor on their philosophy or theirphysics. their brain was focused on the competition, the workload, the hassles,the stresses, the complaints.
when i first went in there, i walked into the freshmen dining hall, whichis where my friends from waco, te_as, which is where i grew up -- i know some ofyou have heard of it. when they'd come to visit me, they'd look around, they'dsay, "this freshman dining hall looks like something out of hogwart's from themovie "harry potter," which it does. this is hogwart's from the movie "harrypotter" and that's harvard. and when they see this, they say, "shawn, why do youwaste your time studying happiness at harvard? seriously, what does a harvardstudent possibly have to be unhappy about?"
embedded within that question is the key to understanding the science ofhappiness. because what that question assumes is that our e_ternal world ispredictive of our happiness levels, when in reality, if i know everything aboutyour e_ternal world, i can only predict 10 percent of your long-term happiness.90 percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the e_ternal world,but by the way your brain processes the world. and if we change it, if we changeour formula for happiness and success, what we can do is change the way that wecan then affect reality. what we found is that only 25 percent of job successesare predicted by i.q. 75 percent of job successes are predicted by your optimismlevels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challengeinstead of as a threat.
i talked to a boarding school up in new england, probably the mostprestigious boarding school, and they said, "we already know that. so everyyear, instead of just teaching our students, we also have a wellness week. andwe're so e_cited. monday night we have the world's leading e_pert coming in tospeak about adolescent depression. tuesday night it's school violence andbullying. wednesday night is eating disorders. thursday night is elicit druguse. and friday night we're trying to decide between risky se_ or happiness."(laughter) i said, "that's most people's friday nights." (laughter) (applause)which i'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all. silence on thephone. and into the silence, i said, "i'd be happy to speak at your school, butjust so you know, that's not a wellness week, that's a sickness week. whatyou've done is you've outlined all the negative things that can happen, but nottalked about the positive."
the absence of disease is not health. here's how we get to health: we needto reverse the formula for happiness and success. in the last three years, i'vetraveled to 45 different countries, working with schools and companies in themidst of an economic downturn. and what i found is that most companies andschools follow a formula for success, which is this: if i work harder, i'll bemore successful. and if i'm more successful, then i'll be happier. thatundergirds most of our parenting styles, our managing styles, the way that wemotivate our behavior.
and the problem is it's scientifically broken and backwards for tworeasons. first, every time your brain has a success, you just changed thegoalpost of what success looked like. you got good grades, now you have to getbetter grades, you got into a good school and after you get into a betterschool, you got a good job, now you have to get a better job, you hit your salestarget, we're going to change your sales target. and if happiness is on theopposite side of success, your brain never gets there. what we've done is we'vepushed happiness over the cognitive horizon as a society. and that's because wethink we have to be successful, then we'll be happier.
but the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order. if you canraise somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their braine_periences what we now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain atpositive performs significantly better than it does at negative, neutral orstressed. your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levelsrise. in fact, what we've found is that every single business outcome improves.your brain at positive is 31 percent more productive than your brain atnegative, neutral or stressed. you're 37 percent better at sales. doctors are 19percent faster, more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis whenpositive instead of negative, neutral or stressed. which means we can reversethe formula. if we can find a way of becoming positive in the present, then ourbrains work even more successfully as we're able to work harder, faster and moreintelligently.
what we need to be able to do is to reverse this formula so we can start tosee what our brains are actually capable of. because dopamine, which floods intoyour system when you're positive, has two functions. not only does it make youhappier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain allowing you toadapt to the world in a different way.
we've found that there are ways that you can train your brain to be able tobecome more positive. in just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in arow, we can actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually workmore optimistically and more successfully. we've done these things in researchnow in every single company that i've worked with, getting them to write downthree new things that they're grateful for for 21 days in a row, three newthings each day. and at the end of that, their brain starts to retain a patternof scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.
journaling about one positive e_perience you've had over the past 24 hoursallows your brain to relive it. e_ercise teaches your brain that your behaviormatters. we find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural adhdthat we've been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows ourbrains to focus on the task at hand. and finally, random acts of kindness areconscious acts of kindness. we get people, when they open up their inbo_, towrite one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their social supportnetwork.
and by doing these activities and by training your brain just like we trainour bodies, what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness andsuccess, and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity, but create areal revolution.
thank you very much.
(applause)