I was 15, and I lived with my dad and my stepmom, and I lied about my mom.

到了 15 歲時，我與父親和繼母同住，然後我撒了一個關於媽媽的謊。

I lied about her because she was a waitress, and she lived in a tiny apartment, and because she was a recovering drug addict.

我撒謊是因為她是個服務生、住在一間狹小的公寓，然後她是個正在康復中的吸毒成癮者。

I lied about her because I was too ashamed to tell the truth.

我撒了關於她的謊，是因我覺得說實話太丟臉。

I was 17, and I was down on my knees on a bathroom floor, and I was forcing myself to throw up everything that I'd eaten that morning.

我 17 歲時，跪在浴室的地板上，強迫自己把早上吃的所有東西都吐出來。

I was desperate to be thin; I was trying so hard to be perfect.

我很渴望瘦下來，我用盡一切努力想讓自己變完美。

I was 21, and I didn't even realize what I was doing

在我 21 歲時，我甚至沒意識到自己在做什麼。

but I was droning on and on to my friend Julie.

但我一直跟我朋友 Julie 喋喋不休地講話。

Telling her about all the people we knew and how great they were, and how amazing their lives were, and how much I wanted to be like them, how jealous I was.

說著我們認識的朋友有多棒、他們的生活多精彩、我多想跟他們一樣、我有多羨慕他們。

And my dear friend Julie, she stopped me, and she said, "Niko, you need to meet yourself."

我親愛的朋友 Julie 打斷了我並說：「Niko，你需要認識你自己。」

And when she said that to me, it was like something changed.

當她對我說了這句話後，好像有某件事情改變了。

It was like she held a mirror up for me, and what she was showing me was so different from what I'd ever seen before.

那就像是她為我舉起了一面鏡子，而她向我展示的樣貌與我以前見過的截然不同。

She said, "Niko, you should be jealous of yourself."

她說：「Niko，妳應該嫉妒妳自己。」

You're gutsy, you're hard-working, you're resilient.

妳很勇敢、妳很努力、妳的適應力很強。

If you could meet yourself, you might really like her.

如果妳可以認識自己，妳可能會很喜歡她的。

But as quickly as she painted that image of me, it was gone!

但如同她很快地描繪出我樣貌，那個樣貌也很快就消失了！

And I was totally confused because I... I see myself as embarrassing, unlovable, awkward.

我變得非常困惑，因為我自認為自己很丟臉、不討喜、且令人尷尬。

But I loved that image that she created, and I wanted it back.

但我愛極了她為我描繪的那個形象，我想把它找回來。

So I set out on this journey to find it and to try to make it stick.

所以我開始了一段追尋的旅程並試圖堅持下去。

So eventually, I landed myself a job, working with young women.

於是最後，我找到了一份與年輕女性共事的工作。

My job was to create a program for them, to help them increase their self-esteem, which, of course, was kind of laughable because I had no self-esteem myself.

我的工作是打造一個協助她們提升自尊的計劃。這當然有點可笑，因為我自己都沒有自尊心了。

But I started to wonder... I started to wonder, could we create our own self-esteem?

但我開始思考... 我開始思考，我們能否創造自己的自信心？

Could we build it ourselves?

我們能自己打造嗎？

And I did a little research, and it turns out that self-esteem, it's just based on our own thoughts of ourselves.

然後我做了一個小研究，結果證明自尊心其實只是基於我們對自己的想法。

And I knew that we could control our own thoughts, so I thought, "Yeah, maybe we could actually start to build our own self-esteem, and I was willing to try."

我也知道我們是可以控制自己想法的，所以我想：是啊，或許我們可以真的開始建立我們的自信心，我也願意嘗試。

So the first session I had with these girls, I had no idea what to do.

第一次和這些女孩碰面時，我完全不知道該做什麼。

I mean, I've never done this before, so I was totally making it up.

我是說，我從來沒做過這種工作，所以我完全是在編故事。

So I decided I was going to have them each say one thing that they were proud of about themselves.

所以我決定讓她們每個人都說一件為自己感到驕傲的事。

Right? We were going to test out this idea of starting to build more positive thoughts about ourselves.

沒錯吧？我們想測試建立關於自己正面思想的方法可不可行。

It didn't go so well.

過程並不太理想。

These girls, they couldn't say one single thing about themselves that they were proud of.

這些女孩說不出任何一件自己感到驕傲的特點。

And I understood because I totally related, I mean, I felt the same way.

而我能夠理解，因為我完全可以體會，畢竟我也有同感。

So, I decided to create an exercise for them, for all of us to do.

於是，我決定為她們設計一個活動，讓我們一起進行。ˊ

So the idea was that every time we had a positive thought about ourselves, we would imagine turning up the volume, like literally turning up the volume on that thinking.

計劃的基本想法是，我們每一次產生對自己的正面想法時，

And every time we had a negative thought about ourselves, we were going to press "delete," just press "delete" in our brain, let it magically disappear.

每當我們對自己有負面想法時，我們就按「刪除」，在腦中按下「刪除」，讓它神奇地消失。

And it worked! It worked!

然後它奏效了！它真的有效！

This idea of kind of stepping outside of ourselves so that we could see ourselves better.

這種「遠觀」的概念能讓我們能更加看清自己。

Little by little, we each came up with little things about ourselves that we liked.

一點一點地，我們每個人都想出了我們喜歡自己的一點小事。

But for me, for every little thing that I came up with that I liked, it was like there were ten things that I didn't like, ten things that I felt critical about.

但是以我而言，對於我想出的每一件小事，卻同時都有十件我不喜歡的事情、十件讓我想批評自己的事。

So I checked it out with the girls. They said, yeah, they felt the same way.

所以我問問這些女孩。她們說，對啊，她們也有相同的感覺。

So, we decided that at the end of each class that we had together, we would have one of us stand in the middle, and the rest of us would stand around the others.

因此我們決定在每堂課結束時，

And we would each tell the girl that was standing in the middle one thing that we admired about her, one thing that we really liked.

我們每個人都會告訴站在中間的女孩我們欣賞她的一件事，我們真正喜歡的一件事。

And it was so hard to stand in the middle.

而站在中間真的好難。

It was like we didn't want to let it in.

就好像我們不想接受這些讚美。

We wanted to just keep those compliments out.

我們只想把這些讚美杜絕在外。

And so we made up a rule.

因此我們制定了一個規定。

And the rule was that when someone gave us a compliment, we would simply say, "Thank you."

這個規定是當有人稱讚我們時，我們只能簡單地說「謝謝」。

At the end of every session that we spent together, we all wrote down one thing about ourselves that we admired.

每堂課程結束時，我們都要寫下我們欣賞自己的一件事情。

We forced ourselves to sort of build this list, to get our thinking going about the things that were important about ourselves.

我們強迫自己去建構這個清單，讓我們思考關於自己重要的事情。

And I want to read to you just a couple of things.

然後我想讀一點給你們聽。

So these were the things we wrote on the very first day, I kept the list.

這是我們第一天寫的東西，我把這個清單保存下來。

On the first day I wrote: "I'm proud of my work with these girls."

第一天我寫道：「與這些女孩一起工作，我感到自豪。」

And the girls wrote: "I'm proud that I stood up for the girl who was bullying my best friend."

那些女孩寫道：「我為我最好的朋友挺身而出面對霸凌她的女生，我感到很自豪。」

"I think I'm smart."

「我覺得我很聰明。」

"I like that I'm different."

「我喜歡我的獨特。」

"I'm a really fast sprinter."

「我是個短跑健將。」

And "I'm a good artist."

還有「我是很棒的藝術家。」

At the end of that year, these girls started to change.

年終的時候，這些女孩開始有了轉變。

It was like they were walking a little taller.

她們走起路來越來越抬頭挺胸了。

They were kinder to themselves, they were kinder to each other, and I, I started to change, too.

她們對於他人、對於彼此更加友善了，而我也跟著改變。

It was like they showed me that I could rewrite my story.

好像她們告訴我我也可以重寫我的故事。

And I realized, I realized that we weren't the only ones struggling with that story.

然後我才明白，我明白我們並不是獨自掙扎。

Boys were struggling too.

男孩們也為此而掙扎。

Teenagers, even adults were having a tough time coming up with one or two things to say about themselves that they felt good about.

青少年，甚至是成年人都很難想出一兩件為自己驕傲的事情。

And this negative self-image that we were holding on to, it was showing up in our culture in alarming ways.

而這種深固在我們心中的負面自我形象，以令人擔憂的形式出現在我們的文化中。

It turns out that teen suicide, it's the third leading cause of death amongst young people.

青少年自殺就是它存在的證明，這是年輕人的第三大死因。

One out of four girls says they have sex for the first time to be more liked, to be more popular.

四分之一的女孩說他們第一次發生性行為是想被喜愛、想更受歡迎。

And boys and girls alike, they're joining gangs, and the number one reason is not to feel safer, it's to feel more important.

而年輕男女加入幫派的首要原因並不是想獲得安全感，而是想更被重視。

But here is the good news. The good news is that we can counteract this.

但還是有好消息的，好消息就是我們可以降低這種情況的發生。

The work that I did with those girls and the work I've done for the last 15 years.

我和這些女孩們一起做了 15 年的工作。

We've come up with ways for us to feel good about ourselves right now, today, and I want to share some of those things with you, OK?

我們已經想出了一些能夠對自己感到自豪的方式，今天，我想跟你們分享一點，好嗎？

So, the first thing that we can do to feel good about ourselves is we can spend time with people who make us feel good.

我們能做的第一件讓自己自豪的事就是與能夠讓我們感到開心的人相處。

This is me and Julie when I very first met her.

這是我和 Julie，我們第一次見面的時候。

Find your "Julie" and spend time with her or him.

找到屬於你自己的「Julie」，然後多多與她或他相處。

The second thing is that we can turn up the volume on our positive thinking.

第二件事就是我們可以擴大正面思考的音量。

We can build up those thoughts about ourselves that are good, and we can delete the negative thoughts, just press "delete."

我們可以建立對於自我良好的想法，並刪除負面想法，只要按「刪除」即可。

The third thing, start to tell the people around you, maybe the people around you today, start to tell them what you see about them that you like.

第三件事，

Help them jumpstart their own positive thinking.

幫助他們啟動他們自己的正向思考。

And the last thing is, when you receive a compliment, when we receive compliments, let's stand our ground.

最後就是當你得到讚美時、當我們都得到讚美時，我們站穩步伐。

Let's look them in the eye, and let's just say, "Thank you."

我們看著他們的眼睛，簡單地說句：「謝謝。」

Let's create a new culture, a culture where we all get to grow up feeling good about ourselves.

我們來開創一個新的文化：一種我們都能夠覺得自己很棒的文化。

A culture where we can rewrite our histories, we can create new stories about ourselves.

一種我們可以重寫自己歷史的文化，我們可以創造自己的新故事。

I will start.

我來開始吧。

I'm 11, and I like these legs because someday they're going to help me run marathons.

我 11 歲，我喜歡我的雙腿因為有天它們會帶著我跑馬拉松。

I'm 15, and I'm proud of my mom for getting herself sober and for making a better life for us.

我 15 歲，我為我媽媽感到驕傲因為她終於清醒並試著帶我們過上好日子。

I'm 17, and I know that nobody is perfect.

我 17 歲，我知道沒有人是完美的。

I'm 21, and I think I'm just as successful as my friends.

我 21 歲，我覺得我和我的朋友一樣成功。

I'm 37, and now, this is my story.

我 37 歲，現在，這是我的故事。

I invite you today. I invite you to do two things with me.

我今天邀請你們。我邀請你們跟我做兩件事情。

First, be "Julie" for someone, invite him or her to meet themselves.

第一，當某個人的「Julie」，帶領他或她看見最真實的自己。

Because it might change their lives.

因為這可能改變他們的人生。

And second, I want you to get out a piece of paper, and I want you to write down ten things about yourself that you admire.

然後第二，我想要你們拿起一張紙，並寫下 10 件你們為自己感到自豪的事。

The ten things about yourself that if you were someone else, you might even be jealous of.

寫下 10 件如果你們是別人也會羨慕自己的事情。

And I want that to be the beginning of your story today.

我希望那是你們今天故事的開始。

I'll help get you started, OK?

我會幫助你們開始，好嗎？

So, I just met you a couple hours ago, literally, just a couple hours ago.

我前幾個小時才見到你們，真的只是幾個小時前。

And I can already say that you are gutsy, you are hardworking, you are unique, you are resilient, you are talented, you are gentle, you are calm.

但我已經可以說你們很勇敢、你們很認真、你們很特別、你們適應力超群、你們很有才華、你們很溫柔、你們很冷靜。

You are all amazing!

你們全都很棒！

Thank you.

謝謝。