When I was seven years old, and my sister was just five years old, we were playing 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...at the time that meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do, and I wanted to play war. So we were up on top of our bunk beds. And on one side of the bunk bed, I...put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry. And on the other side were all my sister's My Little Ponies, ready for a cavalry charge.
當我七歲的時候，而我妹妹才五歲，我們在雙層床上玩。我那時大她兩歲，我是說，我現在也大她兩歲，但在...在當時那表示她必須要做所有我想做的事，而我想要玩戰爭遊戲。所以我們在雙層床上層。而在雙層床的一端，我...擺出我所有的美國大兵玩具和武器。而床的另一端全是我妹妹的彩虹小馬，準備好騎兵衝鋒陷陣。
There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon, but since my sister is not here with us today, hmm...let me tell you the true story, 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 disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed and landed with this crash on the floor. Now I nervously peered over the side of the bed to see what had befallen my fallen sister and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees on all fours on the ground.
那天下午實際發生的事有不同的解釋，但既然我妹妹今天沒有在這裡和我們一起，嗯...讓我告訴你們真正的故事，那就是我妹妹有點笨拙。不知怎的，在根本沒有她哥哥的任何幫助或是推力之下，Amy就突然從床的上層消失，隨著這轟然巨響摔落到地上。我緊張兮兮地越過床沿盯著，看看跌下去的妹妹發生什麼事，然後看到她痛苦的用雙手和雙膝、四肢著地之姿摔落地上。
I was nervous because my parents had charged me with making sure that my sister and I played as safely and as quietly as possible. And seeing as how I had accidentally broken Amy's arm just one week before...heroically pushing her out of the way of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet, 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 my best behavior.
我很緊張，因為我爸媽已經囑咐過我務必要和妹妹玩得盡可能地安全、安靜。有鑑於我在一個禮拜之前才不小心弄斷Amy的手臂...英雄般地推開她閃過一顆迎面而來想像中的狙擊子彈，還沒人為此感激我。我盡了全力。她甚至沒看到子彈過來!我竭盡所能地做出最好表現。
And I saw my sister's face, this wail of pain and suffering and surprise, threatening to erupt from her mouth and threatening to wake my parents from the long winter's nap for which they had settled. So I did the only thing my little frantic seven year-old brain could think to do to avert this tragedy. And if you have 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 all fours like that. Amy, I think this means you're a unicorn."
然後我看到妹妹的臉，痛苦、受難、驚嚇的哀號，預警著要從她的嘴裡迸出，並且預警著要將爸媽從冬天長長的深沉午覺中給吵醒。所以我做了這顆慌亂的七歲小腦袋能想到唯一的一件事，來避免這場悲劇。如果你有小孩，你過去看這已看過上百次了。我說：「Amy，Amy，等等。不要哭。別哭。妳有看到妳怎麼著地的嗎？沒有人類能像那樣四肢著地。Amy，我想這表示妳是一隻獨角獸。」
Now that was cheating, because there was nothing in the world my sister would want more than not to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister, but Amy the special unicorn. Of course, this was an option that was open to her brain at no point in the past. And you could see how my poor, manipulated sister faced conflict, as her little brain attempted to devote resources to feeling the pain and suffering and surprise she just experienced, or contemplating her new-found identity as a unicorn. And the latter won out. Instead of crying, instead of ceasing our play, instead of waking my parents, with all the negative consequences that would have ensued for me, instead a smile spread across her face, and she scrambled right back up onto the bunk bed with all the grace of a baby unicorn...with one broken leg.
那是在作弊，因為在這世界上我妹妹最想當的不過就是一隻特殊的獨角獸，而不是受傷的五歲小妹妹Amy。當然，這是個過去從未在她腦袋裡開放的一個選項。而你可以看到我那可憐、被耍的妹妹面臨兩難衝突，因為她的小腦袋試著要將資源用在感受她剛剛才經歷的痛楚、苦難和驚嚇上，或是用在仔細思量著她新發現的獨角獸身分。而後者勝出了。沒有哭泣、沒有停下遊戲、沒有吵醒爸媽，帶來一切接踵而來對我不利的結果，而是笑容掛滿她的臉，然後她馬上爬回雙層床上，帶著所有獨角獸寶寶的喜悅...還有一隻受傷的腿。
What we stumbled across...at this tender age of just five and seven, we had no idea at the time, was something that was going be at the vanguard of a scientific revolution occurring two decades later in the way that we look at the human brain. What we had stumbled across is something called positive psychology, which is the reason that I'm here today and the reason that I wake up every morning.
我們當時碰巧發現的是...在那只有五歲和七歲的稚嫩年紀，我們那時毫無概念，那是某種東西，即將成為發生在二十年後我們觀察人類大腦的方法的科學革命先鋒。我們偶然發現的是一個叫做積極心理學的東西，這就是我今天在這裡的原因，也是我每天早上起床的原因。
When I first started talking about this research outside of academia, out with companies and schools, the very first thing they said to never do is to start your talk with a graph. The very first thing I want to do is start my talk with a graph. This graph looks boring, but this graph is the reason I get excited and wake up every morning. And this graph doesn't even mean anything. It's fake data. What we found is:
當我第一次在學術圈以外的地方談論這個研究，在外面公司和學校裡，他們說千萬不要做的第一件事，是以圖表開始你的演說。我想要做的第一件事就是以圖表開始我的演講。這個圖表看起來很無聊，但這個圖表是我每天早上開心起床的原因。這個圖表甚至不代表任何事。它是假數據。我們發現的是：
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 that I can get published, which is all that really matters. The fact that there's one weird red dot that's up above the curve: there's one weirdo in the room, you know who you are, I saw you earlier, that's no problem. That's no problem, as most of you know, because I can just delete that dot. I can delete that dot because that's clearly a measurement error. And we know that's a measurement error, because it's messing up my data.
如果我是回去研究這房間裡的你們而得到這份數據的，我會感到興奮，因為很明顯在那兒有個進行中的趨勢，而那代表著我的研究可以出版，那就是所有真正重要的。有顆奇怪的紅點高高地在曲線之上的事實：有個怪胎在這間房裡，你知道你是誰，我之前就看到你了，那沒有關係。那沒關係，如同你們大多數人所知道的，因為我可以就刪除掉那個點。我可以刪除掉那個點，因為它很明顯是個測量上的錯誤。而我們都知道那是測量錯誤，因為它正搞砸我的數據。
So one of the very first things we teach people in economics and statistics and business and psychology courses is how, in a statistically valid way, do we eliminate the weirdos. How do we eliminate the outliers so that we can find the line of best fit? Which is fantastic if I'm trying to find out how many Advil the average person should be taking: two. But if I'm interested in potential, if I'm interested in your potential, or for happiness or productivity or energy or creativity, what we're doing is we're creating the cult of the average with science.
我們在經濟學、統計學、商學和心理學課程上所教給人們的第一件事是，如何用一個統計上有效的方法，刪去那些怪胎。我們如何刪去異常值，以讓我們能找到最吻合的線？這非常棒，如果我試著要查出一般人應服用多少顆Advil(美國知名止痛藥品牌)：兩顆。但如果我對潛力感興趣，如果我對你的潛力，或幸福、生產力、能量、創造力感興趣，我們所在做的是用科學創造出對均值的狂熱。
If I asked a question like, "How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?" scientists change the answer to "How fast does the average child learn how to read in that classroom?" and then we tailor the class right towards the average. Now if you fall below the average on this curve, then psychologists get 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 you come into a therapy session with one problem, we want to make sure you leave knowing you have ten, so you keep coming back over and over again. We'll go back into your childhood if necessary, but eventually, what we want to do is make you normal again. But normal is merely average.
如果我問了一個問題，像「一個孩子在教室裡可以多快學會閱讀？」科學家會把答案改成「一般的孩子在那個教室裡可以多快學會閱讀？」然後接著我們將這個班級朝平均值去量身打造。現在如果你落在這個曲線上的平均值之下，那麼心理學家就會很興奮，因為這表示你要不就是憂鬱，要不就是你有個毛病，或但願兩者皆是。我們希望兩者都有，因為我們的商業模式是，如果你帶著一個問題來到一次治療療程，我們要確保你離開時了解到你有十個問題，所以你會一次又一次地繼續回來。如果需要的話，我們會追朔回到你的童年，但最後，我們想做的還是讓你能再次變正常。但正常僅僅就是平均值而已。
And what I posit and what positive psychology posits is that if we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average. Then instead of deleting those positive outliers, what I intentionally do is come into a population like this one, and say, why? Why is it that some of you are so high above the curve in terms of your intellectual ability, athletic ability, musical ability, creativity, energy levels, your resiliency in the face of challenge, your sense of humor?
而我的假設，還有積極心理學假設的是，如果我們研究什麼是「僅僅就是平均值」，那麼我們仍會「僅僅就是平均值」而已。然後不要刪除掉那些正面的異常值，我有意去做的就是，來到像你們這樣的一個人群中，然後問，為什麼？為什麼你們之中某些人就你們的的智能、運動能力、音樂能力、創造力、活力水平，以及你在面臨挑戰時的彈性方面、你的幽默感方面，會高出曲線這麼多呢？
Whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what I want to do is study you, because maybe we can glean information, not just how to move people up to the average, but how we can move the entire average up in our companies and schools worldwide.
不論是什麼，我要做的不是把你刪掉，而是研究你，因為也許我們可以蒐集資訊，不只是如何將人們提升到平均值，而還有我們如何在我們的公司裡，和世界各地的學校中將整個水平向上提升。
The reason this graph is important to me is, when I turn on the news, it seems like the majority of the information is not positive, in fact it's negative. Most of it is about murder, corruption, diseases, natural disasters, and very quickly, my brain starts to think that's the accurate ratio of negative to positive in the world. What that's doing is creating something called the medical school syndrome, which, if you know people who've been to medical school, during the first year of medical training, as you read through a list of all the symptoms and diseases that could happen, suddenly you realize you have all of them.
這個圖表對我很重要的原因是，當我轉開新聞，好像大多數的資訊都不是正面的，事實上是負面的。大多數都是有關謀殺、貪汙、疾病、天災，很快地，我的腦袋開始認為那就是世界上負面與正面的準確比例。那正在做的是產生一種叫做醫學院症狀的東西，那就是，如果你認識曾就讀於醫學院的人，在醫療訓練的第一年，當你讀過一份所有可能發生的症狀和疾病的列表，突然你了解所有症狀你通通都有。
I have a brother in-law named Bobo, which is a whole (n)other story. Bobo married Amy the unicorn. Bobo called me on the phone from Yale Medical School, and Bobo said, "Shawn, I have leprosy," which, even at Yale, is extraordinarily rare. But I had no idea how to console poor Bobo, because he had just gotten over an entire week of menopause.
我有個妹夫叫做Bobo，那完全是另一個故事了。Bobo娶了獨角獸Amy。Bobo從耶魯醫學院打電話給我，然後Bobo說：「Shawn，我得了痲瘋病」，那即便在耶魯，都是異常罕見的。但我不知道如何安撫可憐的Bobo ，因為他才剛熬過了一整個禮拜的男性更年期。
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 can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.
瞧我們發現的是，不一定是現實形塑了我們，而是那片你的頭腦用來看世界的鏡片形塑了你的現實。而如果我們可以替換鏡片，我們不只可以改變你的幸福，也可以同時改變每個教育和商業的結果。
When I applied to Harvard, I applied on a dare. I didn't expect to get in, and my family had no money for college. When I got a military scholarship two weeks later, they allowed me to go. Suddenly, something that wasn't even a possibility became a reality. When I went there, I assumed everyone else would see it as a privilege as well that they'd be excited to be there. Even if you're in a classroom full of people smarter than you, you'd be happy just to be in that classroom, which is what I felt. But what I found there is, while some people experience that, when I graduated after my four years and then spent the next eight years living in the dorms with the students, Harvard asked me to, I wasn't that guy. But what happened...I was an officer of Harvard to counsel students through the difficult four years. And what I found in my research and my teaching is that these students, no matter how happy they were with their original success of getting into the school, two weeks later their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there, nor on their philosophy or their physics. Their brain was focused on the competition, the workload, the hassles, the stresses, the complaints.
我申請哈佛時，是禁不起激將法而申請的。我並不期待會申請上，而且我家也沒錢讓我上大學。兩週後當我拿到軍事獎學金，他們允許我去了。突然之間，一件甚至不可能發生的事成真了。我到那裡後，我以為所有其他人也會認為這是一份殊榮，他們到那裡會感到非常興奮。甚至假使你身處一間充滿比你聰明的人的教室裡，你光是身處在那間教室裡就會感到開心，那就是我的感受。但我在那裡發現的是，儘管有些人也有那樣的體驗，當我在四年後畢業，然後花了接下來的八年和學生住在宿舍裡，哈佛要求我的，我可不是那樣的人。但發生的事情是...我是個哈佛的高級職員，輔導學生渡過那難熬的四年。而在研究和教學中我發現的是這些學生，不管他們一開始成功申請到這間學校有多麼開心，兩週後他們的腦袋專注的不是身在那裡的殊榮，也不是在他們的哲學或是物理學上。他們的腦袋專注的是競賽、工作量、困難、壓力、怨言。
When I first went in there, I walked into the freshmen dining hall, which is where my friends from Waco, Texas, which is where I grew up. I know some of you have heard of it. Hmm...when I...when they come to visit me, they look around, and they say, "This freshman dining hall looks like something out of Hogwart's from the movie Harry Potter." Which it does. This is Hogwart's from the movie Harry Potter, and that's Harvard. And when they see this, they say, "Shawn, why do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard? Seriously... What does a Harvard student possibly have to be unhappy about?"
當我第一次進去那裡的時候，我走進大一新鮮人的餐廳，在那裡我從德州Waco來的朋友，那是我成長的地方。我知道你們某些人聽說過。嗯...當我...當他們來探望我，他們看看四周，並說：「這個大一生的餐廳看起來好像從電影哈利波特裡的霍格華茲出來的一樣。」它的確是。這是電影哈利波特裡的霍格華茲，那是哈佛。當他們看到這個，他們說：「Shawn，為什麼你要浪費時間在哈佛研究幸福？說真的...哈佛學生怎會有可能對什麼事感到不開心？」
Embedded within that question is the key to understanding the science of happiness, because what that question assumes is that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels. When in reality, if I know everything about your external world, I can only predict ten percent of your long-term happiness. Ninety percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world. And if we change it...if we change our formula for happiness and success, what we can do is change the way that we can then affect reality. What we found is that only twenty-five percent of job successes are predicted by IQ. Seventy-five percent of job successes are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.
深嵌在那問題中的是了解幸福科學的關鍵，因為那問題假定的是，我們的外在世界可以預示出我們的幸福等級。在現實生活中，如果我知道你外在世界的一切，我只能預測你百分之十的長期幸福。你百分之九十的長期幸福不是由外在世界所預測，而是由你腦袋處理世界的方式去預測。如果我們改變它...如果我們改變幸福和成功的方程式，我們可以做的，是改變我們接著能夠影響現實的方式。我們發現的是只有百分之二十五在工作上的成功是用智商預測的。百分之七十五在工作上的成功是由你的樂觀等級、你的社會支持，以及你將壓力看成挑戰而非威脅的能力所預測的。
I talked to a boarding school up in New England, probably the most prestigious boarding school, and they said, "We already know that. So every year, instead of just teaching our students, we also have a wellness week. And we're so excited. Monday night we have the world's leading expert coming in to speak about adolescent depression. Tuesday night it's school violence and bullying. Wednesday night...Wednesday night is eating disorders. Thursday night is illicit drug use. And Friday night we're trying to decide between risky sex or happiness." I said, "That's most people's Friday nights." Which I'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all. Silence on the phone. And into the silence, I said, "I'd be happy to speak at your school, but just so you know, that's not a wellness week. That's a sickness week. What you've done is you've outlined all the negative things that can happen, but not talked about the positive."
我和新英格蘭的一所寄宿學校談過話，也許是最有名望的一所寄宿學校，他們說：「我們已經知道了。所以每年我們不只是教導我們的學生，還舉辦健康週。而且我們很興奮。週一晚上有世界頂尖的專家來談青少年的憂鬱症。週二晚上則是有關校園暴力和霸凌。週三晚上...週三晚上是飲食失調。週四晚上是非法藥物使用。而週五晚上我們試著在危險性關係或幸福之間做出選擇。」我說：「那也是大部分人的週五夜晚。」我很高興你們喜歡這個，但他們一點都不喜歡。電話那端一陣沉默。在寂靜中，我說：「我很高興來到你的學校演講，但只是想讓你知道，那並不是個健康週。那是病態週。你所做的是你列出了所有會發生的負面事情，而不是談談正面的事。」
The absence of disease is not health. Here's how we get to health: we need to reverse the formula for happiness and success. In the last three years, I've traveled to forty-five different countries, working with schools and companies in the midst of an economic downturn. And what I found is that most companies and schools follow a formula for success, which is this: If I work harder, I'll be more successful. And if I'm more successful, then I'll be happier. That undergirds most of our parenting styles, our managing styles, the way that we motivate our behavior. And the problem is it's scientifically broken and backwards for two reasons.
沒有疾病不代表健康。這是我們如何變得健康的方式：我們需要推翻幸福和成功的公式。在過去三年，我到四十五個不同的國家旅行，在經濟衰退時期中和學校及公司合作。我發現的是大部分的公司和學校都遵循一個成功方程式，即是這個：如果我更努力工作，我會更成功。而如果我更成功，那麼我會更開心。這支持了大部分我們的父母教導風格、我們的管理風格，激勵我們行為的方式。而問題是，這在科學上是有毛病而且反向後倒退的，有兩個原因。
First, every time your brain has a success, you just changed the goalpost of what success looked like. You got good grades, now you have to get better grades; you got into a good school, and after you get into a better school; you got a good job, now you have to get a better job; you hit your sales target, we're gonna change your sales target. And if happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there. What we've done is we've pushed happiness over the cognitive horizon as a society. And that's because we think we have to be successful, then we'll be happier.
首先，每次你的腦袋獲得成功，你就改變成功外貌的標竿。你得到好成績，現在你必須要得到更高的成績；你進入好學校，而之後你進了更好的學校；你得到一份好工作，現在你必須要得到更好的工作；你達到你的銷售目標，我們要改變你的銷售目標。然而如果幸福是在成功相反的那邊，你的頭腦永遠也到達不了。我們這社會所做的是將幸福推出了所認知的範疇。那是因為我們認為我們必須要成功，然後才會更快樂。
But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order. If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive, performs significantly better than it does at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, what we've found is that every single business' outcome improves. Your brain at positive is thirty-one percent more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed. You're thirty-seven percent better at sales. Doctors are nineteen percent faster and more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed, which means we can reverse the formula. If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present, then our brains work even more successfully as we're able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.
但真正的問題是，我們的腦袋是以相反的順序運作。如果你能提升某人現在的積極性程度，那麼他們的腦袋會體驗到我們現在所稱的幸福優勢，就是說你的腦袋處在積極狀態，表現得明顯地比在負面、中性或有壓力時更好。你的智能提升、創造力提升、活力水平提升。事實上，我們發現的是每一個企業的結果都進步了。你的腦袋處在正面積極狀態時的生產力比在負面、中性或有壓力狀態時高出百分之三十一。你在銷售上高出了百分之三十七。醫生們在積極正面，而不是負面、中性或有壓力狀態時，是百分之十九更快且更準確地作出正確的診斷，這表示我們能徹底改變那公式。如果在當下我們能找到一種變得更正面積極的方法，那麼我們的腦袋就會更成功地運作，因為我們能夠更努力、更快速且更聰明地工作。
What we need to be able to do is to reverse this formula, so we can start to see what our brains are actually capable of, because dopamine, which floods into your system when you're positive, has two functions. Not only does it make you happier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain, allowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.
我們需要有能力去做的是徹底改變這個方程式，所以我們可以開始看看我們的腦袋實際上能夠做些什麼，因為當你在正面積極時會湧入身體系統的多巴胺有兩種功能。它不只讓你更開心，還能打開腦中的所有學習中樞，允許你以不同方式適應這世界。
We've found that there are ways that you can train your brain to be able to become more positive in just a two-minute span of time, done for twenty-one days in a row. We can actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and more successfully. We've done these things in research now in every single company that I've worked with, getting them to write down three new things that they're grateful for for twenty-one days in a row, three new things each day. And at the end of that, their brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.
我們發現有方法讓你可訓練你的腦袋能夠在僅僅兩分鐘之內變得更積極正面，連續做二十一天便完成。我們實際上可以重組你的腦袋線路，讓你的腦袋實際上更樂觀且更成功地運作。我們在每一家曾合作過的公司中的研究中已經完成了這些事情，讓他們連續二十一天寫下三件新的他們所感謝的事，每天三件新的事情。最後，他們的腦袋開始記住一個審視世界的模式，不是負面，而是積極正面優先。
Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past twenty-four hours allows your brain to relive it. Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters. We find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand. And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness. We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their social support network.
紀錄一件關於過去二十四小時內你有過的正面經驗，允許你的腦袋再次體驗它。鍛鍊會告誡你的腦袋，你的行為很重要。我們發現冥想讓你的腦袋克服文化造成的注意力不足過動症(註一)，那是我們一直以來因為嘗試著要一心多用所造成，冥想還允許我們的腦袋專注於手邊的事。最後，隨意的善意行為都是有意識的善意行為。我們有些人，當他們打開收件匣，寫下一封正面的郵件來讚揚或感謝在他們社交支持網絡的某人。
And by doing these activities and by training your brain just like we train our bodies, what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and success, and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity, but create a real revolution.
藉由做這些活動，以及像我們健身一樣地訓練你的腦袋，我們發現的是我們可以徹底改變幸福和成功的方程式，而這麼做，不只會創造出正面積極性的漣漪，而且還會創造出真正的革命。
Thank you very much.
非常謝謝你們。
註一：ADHD為Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(注意力不足過動症)的縮寫。
