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第一篇：ted演讲稿
chinese restaurants have played an important role in american history, as amatter of fact. the cuban missile crisis was resolved in a chinese restaurantcalled yenching palace in washington, d.c., which unfortunately is closed now,and about to be turned into walgreen's. and the house that john wilkes boothplanned the assassination of abraham lincoln is actually also now a chineserestaurant called wok 'n roll, on h street in washington.
事实上，中国餐馆在美国历史上发挥了很重要的作用。古巴导弹危机是在华盛顿一家名叫“燕京馆”的中餐馆里解决的。很不幸，这家餐馆现在关门了，即将被改建成沃尔格林连锁药店。而约翰・威尔克斯・布斯刺杀林肯总统的那所房子现在也成了一家中餐馆，就是位于华盛顿的“锅和卷”。
and if you think about it, a lot of the foods that you think of or we thinkof or americans think of as chinese food are barely recognizable to chinese, fore_ample: beef with broccoli, egg rolls, general tso's chicken, fortune cookies,chop suey, the take-out bo_es.
如果你仔细想想，就会发现很多你们所认为或我们所认为，或是美国人所认为的中国食物，中国人并不认识。比如西兰花牛肉、蛋卷、左宗棠鸡、幸运饼干、杂碎、外卖盒子。
so, the interesting question is, how do you go from fortune cookies beingsomething that is japanese to being something that is chinese? well, the shortanswer is, we locked up all the japanese during world war ii, including thosethat made fortune cookies, so that's the time when the chinese moved in, kind ofsaw a market opportunity and took over.
所以有趣的是，幸运饼干是怎么从日本的东西变成中国的东西的呢?简单地说，我们在二战时扣押了所以的日本人，包括那些做幸运饼干的。这时候，中国人来了，看到了商机，自然就据为己有了。
general tso's chicken -- which, by the way, in the us naval academy iscalled admiral tso's chicken. i love this dish. the original name in my book wasactually called the long march of general tso, and he has marched very farindeed, because he is sweet, he is fried, and he is chicken -- all things thatamericans love.
左宗棠鸡，在美国海军军校被称为左司令鸡。我很喜欢这道菜。在我的书里，这道菜实际上叫左将军的长征，它确实在美国很受欢迎，因为它是甜的，油炸的，是鸡肉做的――全部都是美国人的最爱。
so, you know, i realized when i was there, general tso is kind of a lotlike colonel sanders in america, in that he's known for chicken and not war. butin china, this guy's actually known for war and not chicken.
我意识到左宗棠将军有点像美国的桑德斯上校(肯德基创始人)，因为他是因鸡肉而出名的而不是战争。而在中国，左宗棠确实是因为战争而不是鸡肉闻名的。
so it's kind of part of the phenomenon i called spontaneousself-organization, right, where, like in ant colonies, where little decisionsmade by -- on the micro-level actually have a big impact on the macro-level.
这就有点像我所说的自发组织现象。就像在蚂蚁群中，在微观层面上做的小小决定会在宏观层面上产生巨大的影响。
and the great innovation of chicken mcnuggets was not nuggetfying them,because that's kind of an easy concept, but the trick behind chicken mcnuggetswas, they were able to remove the chicken from the bone in a cost-effectivemanner, which is why it took so long for other people to copy them.
麦乐鸡块的发明并没有给他们带来切实收益，因为这个想法很简单，但麦乐鸡背后的技巧是如何用一种划算的方式来把鸡肉从骨头上剔出来。这就是为什么过了这么久才有人模仿他们。
we can think of chinese restaurants perhaps as linu_: sort of an opensource thing, right, where ideas from one person can be copied and propagatedacross the entire system, that there can be specialized versions of chinesefood, you know, depending on the region.
我们可以把中餐馆比作linu_：一种开源系统。一个人的想法可以在整个系统中被复制，被普及。在不同的地区，就有特别版本的中国菜。
第二篇：ted演讲稿永不放弃
有位出生清贫的年轻人，年轻时到一家电器工厂去谋职，这家工厂的人事主管看着眼前的小伙子穿着龌龊，身材又瘦又小，感到很不幻想，信口说：‘我们当初临时不缺人，你一个月当前现来看看吧。’这原来是个推脱，没想到一个月后这位年轻人真的来了，那们负责人又推托说：‘有事，过几天再来吧。’隔了多少天这位年轻人又来了，如斯重复了屡次。主管只好直接说出本人的态度;‘你这们脏兮兮的是进不了我们工作的。’于是这位年轻人即时回去借了钱买了一身整洁的衣服穿上再来口试。负责人看他如些切实，只好说：‘对于电器方面的知识，你晓得得太少了，我们不能要你。’不料两个月后，这位年轻人再次呈现在人事主管的面前：‘我已经学会了不少有关电器方面的常识，你看我哪方面还有差距，我一项项来补充。’这位人事主管紧盯着立场恳切的这位年轻人看了半蠢才说：我干这行几十年了，这是第一次遇到像你这样来找工作的。我真信服你的耐烦跟成韧性。’
于是这位年青人以这种不轻言放弃的精力感动了主管，他得到了这份工作。
大家有谁知道这位年轻人是谁吗?他就是日本松下电器的开创人，被誉为“经营之神”的松下幸之助!
松下的胜利告诉我们，失败不仅仅是一次挫折，更是一次机遇。它能够使我们找到本身的毛病。因此，我今天所报告的题目是：《永不放弃》。
在生涯中，咱们无奈躲避挫折，还记得刘翔永不废弃的速度，中国女排永不放弃的坚强，爱迪生永不放弃的勇气。他们之间有一个独特的特色，那就是深信挫折是人生的考验。这不是看你的技巧，而是靠的是毅力。毅力才是决议考验成败的要害。这所有都告知我们，永不放弃的人总会成功。
所以，正沐浴着书香校园残暴阳光的我们，每一位“青鸟”人，更不应当因一道想不透的标题或阅历了一次小小的挫折与潦倒而颓丧了你激进的思惟，甚至让你发生了放弃学业的动机。固然，在这条漫长的求学路上会有更多的风雨，更多的崎岖，但理智的思维总会给生命一个坚实的许诺：永不放弃!决不会由于碰到一点点风雨就放弃你我的寻求，决不会因为遇到了一点点磨难就垂下了你昂扬的头颅，既然性命要塑一段困苦寂寞，那就用我们的热忱，我们的真挚，我们的刚强去拥抱生活。
正如我们那首动听的校歌所唱的：轻灵的鼠标一点，神奇的世界涌现。双手放在胸前，敲打出漂亮的画卷…………。
最后我想用明代的一着《今日歌》来停止我今天的演讲，盼望大家用自己永不放弃的精神，从今日做起：”今日复今日，今日何其少!今日又不为，些事何时了?人生百年几本日，今日不为真惋惜。若言姑待明朝至，明朝又有朝事，为群聊赋《今日诗》，尽力请从今日始”。
努力吧!同窗们!
第三篇：ted演讲稿
动物，它们是我们的朋友;动物，我们要保护它们;动物，也有尊严;动物;也有血有肉;动物，它跟我们一样，也是一条生命啊。
人们常常捕杀那些可怜的小动物，在他们的脑子里，只想着杀了他们赚钱，他们似乎已经丧失意志。如果我亲眼看见他们捕杀动物，我会问他们：“难道他们没有家人吗?你没有体验过骨肉分离的滋味，你想过那是什么滋味儿吗?它们也有血有肉、它们也知道感恩，你想过在他们即将被你们杀死的时候，心里会想些什么吗?你们不知道，有那么多无辜的小动物经过你的手被杀死，难道他们有罪吗?难道他们生下来就应该被残害吗?难道你们不该被遭报应吗?
你们可以换位思考一下，假如你是一条无辜的小动物，在你生下来的那一刻，你亲眼看见你的母亲死于非命或你被那些人给杀害了，你们心里会怎么想?你们就会亲身体验到骨肉分离的滋味吧?既然你想到这些，你们就该好好反思反思，那些无辜的小生命就该死于你们这些心肠狠毒的人手里吗?就算它们该死，也轮不到你们动手。我不知道你们知不知道，那些小生命临死之前会是什么样的神情?你们不知道，为什么?因为你们没血没肉，你们杀了那么多无辜的小动物，该死的人不是它们，而是你们，因为当你给它们东西的时候，他们会知道感恩。
也许你们会想，就是一条畜生，有什么好值钱的?杀就杀呗，反正还能给我赚点钱，你们这样想就错了，不只错，而且大错特错。对，他们虽然是畜生，它们好歹是条生命，对，它们虽不值钱，但它们不该死……
好啦，话不多说，我希望那些捕杀小动物的人，你们早一点改过自新，不然，你们早晚受到法律的制裁。
第四篇：ted演讲稿
简介：残奥会短跑冠军aimeemullins天生没有腓骨，从小就要学习靠义肢走路和奔跑。如今，她不仅是短跑选手、演员、模特，还是一位稳健的演讲者。她不喜欢字典中“disabled”这个词，因为负面词汇足以毁掉一个人。但是，坦然面对不幸，你会发现等待你的是更多的机会。
i'd like to share with you a discovery that i made a few months ago whilewriting an article for italian wired. i always keep my thesaurus handy wheneveri'm writing anything, but i'd already finished editing the piece, and i realizedthat i had never once in my life looked up the word "disabled" to see what i'dfind.
let me read you the entry. "disabled, adjective: crippled, helpless,useless, wrecked, stalled, maimed, wounded, mangled, lame, mutilated, run-down,worn-out, weakened, impotent, castrated, paralyzed, handicapped, senile,decrepit, laid-up, done-up, done-for, done-in cracked-up, counted-out; see alsohurt, useless and weak. antonyms, healthy, strong, capable." i was reading thislist out loud to a friend and at first was laughing, it was so ludicrous, buti'd just gotten past "mangled," and my voice broke, and i had to stop andcollect myself from the emotional shock and impact that the assault from thesewords unleashed.
you know, of course, this is my raggedy old thesaurus so i'm thinking thismust be an ancient print date, right? but, in fact, the print date was the early1980s, when i would have been starting primary school and forming anunderstanding of myself outside the family unit and as related to the other kidsand the world around me. and, needless to say, thank god i wasn't using athesaurus back then. i mean, from this entry, it would seem that i was born intoa world that perceived someone like me to have nothing positive whatsoever goingfor them, when in fact, today i'm celebrated for the opportunities andadventures my life has procured.
so, i immediately went to look up the __ online edition, e_pecting to finda revision worth noting. here's the updated version of this entry.unfortunately, it's not much better. i find the last two words under "nearantonyms," particularly unsettling: "whole" and "wholesome."
so, it's not just about the words. it's what we believe about people whenwe name them with these words. it's about the values behind the words, and howwe construct those values. our language affects our thinking and how we view theworld and how we view other people. in fact, many ancient societies, includingthe greeks and the romans, believed that to utter a curse verbally was sopowerful, because to say the thing out loud brought it into e_istence. so, whatreality do we want to call into e_istence: a person who is limited, or a personwho's empowered? by casually doing something as simple as naming a person, achild, we might be putting lids and casting shadows on their power. wouldn't wewant to open doors for them instead?
one such person who opened doors for me was my childhood doctor at the a.i.dupont institute in wilmington, delaware. his name was dr. pizzutillo, anitalian american, whose name, apparently, was too difficult for most americansto pronounce, so he went by dr. p. and dr. p always wore really colorful bowties and had the very perfect disposition to work with children.
i loved almost everything about my time spent at this hospital, with thee_ception of my physical therapy sessions. i had to do what seemed likeinnumerable repetitions of e_ercises with these thick, elastic bands --different colors, you know -- to help build up my leg muscles, and i hated thesebands more than anything -- i hated them, had names for them. i hated them. and,you know, i was already bargaining, as a five year-old child, with dr. p to tryto get out of doing these e_ercises, unsuccessfully, of course. and, one day, hecame in to my session -- e_haustive and unforgiving, these sessions -- and hesaid to me, "wow. aimee, you are such a strong and powerful little girl, i thinkyou're going to break one of those bands. when you do break it, i'm going togive you a hundred bucks."
now, of course, this was a simple ploy on dr. p's part to get me to do thee_ercises i didn't want to do before the prospect of being the richestfive-year-old in the second floor ward, but what he effectively did for me wasreshape an awful daily occurrence into a new and promising e_perience for me.and i have to wonder today to what e_tent his vision and his declaration of meas a strong and powerful little girl shaped my own view of myself as aninherently strong, powerful and athletic person well into the future.
this is an e_ample of how adults in positions of power can ignite the powerof a child. but, in the previous instances of those thesaurus entries, ourlanguage isn't allowing us to evolve into the reality that we would all want,the possibility of an individual to see themselves as capable. our languagehasn't caught up with the changes in our society, many of which have beenbrought about by technology. certainly, from a medical standpoint, my legs,laser surgery for vision impairment, titanium knees and hip replacements foraging bodies that are allowing people to more fully engage with their abilities,and move beyond the limits that nature has imposed on them -- not to mentionsocial networking platforms allow people to self-identify, to claim their owndescriptions of themselves, so they can go align with global groups of their ownchoosing. so, perhaps technology is revealing more clearly to us now what hasalways been a truth: that everyone has something rare and powerful to offer oursociety, and that the human ability to adapt is our greatest asset.
the human ability to adapt, it's an interesting thing, because people havecontinually wanted to talk to me about overcoming adversity, and i'm going tomake an admission: this phrase never sat right with me, and i always felt uneasytrying to answer people's questions about it, and i think i'm starting to figureout why. implicit in this phrase of "overcoming adversity" is the idea thatsuccess, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenginge_perience unscathed or unmarked by the e_perience, as if my successes in lifehave come about from an ability to sidestep or circumnavigate the presumedpitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as mydisability. but, in fact, we are changed. we are marked, of course, by achallenge, whether physically, emotionally or both. and i'm going to suggestthat this is a good thing. adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to getaround in order to resume living our life. it's part of our life. and i tend tothink of it like my shadow. sometimes i see a lot of it, sometimes there's verylittle, but it's always with me. and, certainly, i'm not trying to diminish theimpact, the weight, of a person's struggle.
there is adversity and challenge in life, and it's all very real andrelative to every single person, but the question isn't whether or not you'regoing to meet adversity, but how you're going to meet it. so, our responsibilityis not simply shielding those we care for from adversity, but preparing them tomeet it well. and we do a disservice to our kids when we make them feel thatthey're not equipped to adapt. there's an important difference and distinctionbetween the objective medical fact of my being an amputee and the subjectivesocietal opinion of whether or not i'm disabled. and, truthfully, the only realand consistent disability i've had to confront is the world ever thinking that icould be described by those definitions.
in our desire to protect those we care about by giving them the cold, hardtruth about their medical prognosis, or, indeed, a prognosis on the e_pectedquality of their life, we have to make sure that we don't put the first brick ina wall that will actually disable someone. perhaps the e_isting model of onlylooking at what is broken in you and how do we fi_ it, serves to be moredisabling to the individual than the pathology itself.
by not treating the wholeness of a person, by not acknowledging theirpotency, we are creating another ill on top of whatever natural struggle theymight have. we are effectively grading someone's worth to our community. so weneed to see through the pathology and into the range of human capability. and,most importantly, there's a partnership between those perceived deficiencies andour greatest creative ability. so it's not about devaluing, or negating, thesemore trying times as something we want to avoid or sweep under the rug, butinstead to find those opportunities wrapped in the adversity. so maybe the ideai want to put out there is not so much overcoming adversity as it is openingourselves up to it, embracing it, grappling with it, to use a wrestling term,maybe even dancing with it. and, perhaps, if we see adversity as natural,consistent and useful, we're less burdened by the presence of it.
this year we celebrate the 200th birthday of charles darwin, and it was 150years ago, when writing about evolution, that darwin illustrated, i think, atruth about the human character. to paraphrase: it's not the strongest of thespecies that survives, nor is it the most intelligent that survives; it is theone that is most adaptable to change. conflict is the genesis of creation. fromdarwin's work, amongst others, we can recognize that the human ability tosurvive and flourish is driven by the struggle of the human spirit throughconflict into transformation. so, again, transformation, adaptation, is ourgreatest human skill. and, perhaps, until we're tested, we don't know what we'remade of. maybe that's what adversity gives us: a sense of self, a sense of ourown power. so, we can give ourselves a gift. we can re-imagine adversity assomething more than just tough times. maybe we can see it as change. adversityis just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.
i think the greatest adversity that we've created for ourselves is thisidea of normalcy. now, who's normal? there's no normal. there's common, there'stypical. there's no normal, and would you want to meet that poor, beige personif they e_isted? (laughter) i don't think so. if we can change this paradigmfrom one of achieving normalcy to one of possibility -- or potency, to be even alittle bit more dangerous -- we can release the power of so many more children,and invite them to engage their rare and valuable abilities with thecommunity.
anthropologists tell us that the one thing we as humans have alwaysrequired of our community members is to be of use, to be able to contribute.there's evidence that neanderthals, 60,000 years ago, carried their elderly andthose with serious physical injury, and perhaps it's because the life e_perienceof survival of these people proved of value to the community. they didn't viewthese people as broken and useless; they were seen as rare and valuable.
a few years ago, i was in a food market in the town where i grew up in thatred zone in northeastern pennsylvania, and i was standing over a bushel oftomatoes. it was summertime: i had shorts on. i hear this guy, his voice behindme say, "well, if it isn't aimee mullins." and i turn around, and it's thisolder man. i have no idea who he is.
and i said, "i'm sorry, sir, have we met? i don't remember meetingyou."
he said, "well, you wouldn't remember meeting me. i mean, when we met i wasdelivering you from your mother's womb." (laughter) oh, that guy. and, but ofcourse, actually, it did click.
this man was dr. kean, a man that i had only known about through mymother's stories of that day, because, of course, typical fashion, i arrivedlate for my birthday by two weeks. and so my mother's prenatal physician hadgone on vacation, so the man who delivered me was a complete stranger to myparents. and, because i was born without the fibula bones, and had feet turnedin, and a few toes in this foot and a few toes in that, he had to be the bearer-- this stranger had to be the bearer of bad news.
he said to me, "i had to give this prognosis to your parents that you wouldnever walk, and you would never have the kind of mobility that other kids haveor any kind of life of independence, and you've been making liar out of me eversince." (laughter) (applause)
the e_traordinary thing is that he said he had saved newspaper clippingsthroughout my whole childhood, whether winning a second grade spelling bee,marching with the girl scouts, you know, the halloween parade, winning mycollege scholarship, or any of my sports victories, and he was using it, andintegrating it into teaching resident students, med students from hahnemannmedical school and hershey medical school. and he called this part of the coursethe _ factor, the potential of the human will. no prognosis can account for howpowerful this could be as a determinant in the quality of someone's life. anddr. kean went on to tell me, he said, "in my e_perience, unless repeatedly toldotherwise, and even if given a modicum of support, if left to their own devices,a child will achieve."
see, dr. kean made that shift in thinking. he understood that there's adifference between the medical condition and what someone might do with it. andthere's been a shift in my thinking over time, in that, if you had asked me at15 years old, if i would have traded prosthetics for flesh-and-bone legs, iwouldn't have hesitated for a second. i aspired to that kind of normalcy backthen. but if you ask me today, i'm not so sure. and it's because of thee_periences i've had with them, not in spite of the e_periences i've had withthem. and perhaps this shift in me has happened because i've been e_posed tomore people who have opened doors for me than those who have put lids and castshadows on me.
see, all you really need is one person to show you the epiphany of your ownpower, and you're off. if you can hand somebody the key to their own power --the human spirit is so receptive -- if you can do that and open a door forsomeone at a crucial moment, you are educating them in the best sense. you'reteaching them to open doors for themselves. in fact, the e_act meaning of theword "educate" comes from the root word "educe." it means "to bring forth whatis within, to bring out potential." so again, which potential do we want tobring out?
there was a case study done in 1960s britain, when they were moving fromgrammar schools to comprehensive schools. it's called the streaming trials. wecall it "tracking" here in the states. it's separating students from a, b, c, dand so on. and the "a students" get the tougher curriculum, the best teachers,etc. well, they took, over a three-month period, d-level students, gave thema's, told them they were "a's," told them they were bright, and at the end ofthis three-month period, they were performing at a-level.
and, of course, the heartbreaking, flip side of this study, is that theytook the "a students" and told them they were "d's." and that's what happened atthe end of that three-month period. those who were still around in school,besides the people who had dropped out. a crucial part of this case study wasthat the teachers were duped too. the teachers didn't know a switch had beenmade. they were simply told, "these are the 'a-students,' these are the'd-students.'" and that's how they went about teaching them and treatingthem.
so, i think that the only true disability is a crushed spirit, a spiritthat's been crushed doesn't have hope, it doesn't see beauty, it no longer hasour natural, childlike curiosity and our innate ability to imagine. if instead,we can bolster a human spirit to keep hope, to see beauty in themselves andothers, to be curious and imaginative, then we are truly using our power well.when a spirit has those qualities, we are able to create new realities and newways of being.
i'd like to leave you with a poem by a fourteenth-century persian poetnamed hafiz that my friend, jacques dembois told me about, and the poem iscalled "the god who only knows four words": "every child has known god, not thegod of names, not the god of don'ts, but the god who only knows four words andkeeps repeating them, saying, 'come dance with me. come, dance with me. come,dance with me.'"
thank you. (applause)
第五篇：ted演讲稿
长大以后，我只能奔跑，一边失去，一边在寻找，明天你好，即使含着泪微笑。――题记
青岛一五年的第一场雪在一中校园里纷飞，我独自站在窗口望那“鹅毛”纷纷落落，心无感触似是无稽之谈，但是要我说出那其中的感触，我只能笑而不语。不是一个人独行惯了才独自赏雪，只是认为唯有一人才能体会到一片雪花飘荡在这万千孤独的迷茫。路漫漫，及行迷之未远，归。
喧闹的环境伴随着阶梯教室那扇门打开而渐渐平息。我望着一身材平平的男人向我们走来，在无尽的掌声中向我们鞠躬，那瞬间我是木讷的，为什么如此成功之人会这般谦逊，我眯起眼，妄想从其中汲取些许。身边的朋友无一不被外籍校长抓住了眼球，而我的目光一直停留在他的身上未曾离去。随着讲座的开始，那段往事渐渐地浮现在我们的眼前。听他讲到那坎坷崎岖的路程，我的眉头不由紧皱，心也随之触痛。的确!谁能想象到一双弹钢琴的手竟然曾经承担过这般的苦痛!董荣璨博士轻松的言语讲述着他在外奔波的三十年，而那些经历牵动着台下的我们每一个人的心。还好，一切的一切都是有用的，他成为了伟大的作曲家，钢琴家，艺术家，一个大写的中国人!
崇敬在我的眼眶流露，只是隔着那遥远的距离而无法传达，那炙热的情感流露无一不表达着我对他的敬仰之情!一曲现场创作像一股暖流涌向心头，简单的音符在他的手指下编织成婉转、悠扬的曲子，飘到我们的心中飘到我们的灵魂里!我的手指不由随着节奏敲打着桌面，用心去感受其中的情感。一曲《梁祝》回荡在耳旁，其中蕴含着的是三十多年的心血和汗水，满满的感情流露让我的内心有所触动，也许那天收获的不仅仅是听觉的盛宴，也是满满的内心感动。
临近一五年的尾声，忙忙碌碌的自己也似乎找到了目标。内心怀着那份信仰，马不停蹄地走着。不做无庸的事，不做无庸的人。时光荏苒，却冲刷不掉我内心怀揣的前进的激情;白驹过隙，只希望留下的是美好的回忆。怀揣着这份信念前进，让我强忍住泪水，高昂着头前进。我不畏艰难困苦，只望见了黎明的一缕曙光便会前行，那等待我的必定是我的信仰，在最后的最后，我们会相拥，拥抱明天!
我不是作曲家，无法用跳跃的音符谱写深情;我不是钢琴家，我不会用流畅的乐章流露传情;我不是艺术家，无法用高端的美展现自己。但是我心怀理想又怎么肯轻易折服?负面、消极的全都抛之脑后，趁现在，努力给自己“艺术人生”!
长大以后，我开始奔跑，即使含着泪微笑，但不远处的斑斓星光在闪烁，那便是我的信念，明天你好!
第六篇：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)