TED演讲｜15岁辍学创造世界第一：不要成为自己人生的旁观者

Stop being a bystander in your own life

能够在海上领航是全世界独一无二的非凡天赋。没有什么比离开港口，并知道我可以让我的团队和船安全地从一个港口到达相距数千英里的另一个港口，更能让我感到满足。

Being at sea, for me, is ... it's total freedom, and it is the ultimate opportunity to be you, because you can't be anything else. You are naked in front of your peers on a boat. It is a small area. Maiden is 58 feet long. There's 12 women in a 58-foot boat. I mean, you are literally up against each other, and so you have to be you.

对我来说，在海上意味着完全的自由，这是让你成为你自己的终极机遇，因为你只能是你自己。你在船员面前无处可藏。这是一个很小的区域。Maiden 船身长度只有为 58 英尺。船上有 12 名女性船员。也就是说，你们每天朝夕相处，因此你必须展现真实的自己。

The greatest moment for me when I'm sailing is the moment that the land disappears. It's an indescribable moment of --

对我而言，航行期间最重要的时刻就是陆地消失的那一霎那。这是一段难以形容的时刻

adventure and no turning back, and just you and the boat and the elements. I wish everyone could experience this at least once in their lives. The further you get away from land, the more you kind of fit into yourself.

冒险，勇往直前，只有你和船上的一切。我希望每个人一生中至少可以经历一次。你离陆地越远，越能适应真实的自己。

It is you, how do we get to the next place, how do we stay alive, how do we look after each other and what do we do to get to the other side.

是你来决定我们如何到达下一个地方，我们如何活着，我们如何互相照顾，以及我们如何才能成功到达彼岸。

So the question I get asked the most when I go and do talks is "How do you become an ocean-racing sailor?" And that's a really good question. And I've always wanted to say "I had a vision, which became a dream, which became an obsession,"

每当我做演讲的时候，最常被问到的问题就是：“你是怎样成为一名海上赛艇水手的？”这是一个非常好的问题。我总是想说“我有一个愿景，它变成了一个梦想，之后又变成了一种迷恋”，

but, of course, life's not like that, and one thing I'm really anxious for people to know about me is that my life hasn't gone from A to B -- because how many people can say their lives just go from A to B; they think, "I'm going to do this," and they go and do it? So I tell the truth.

但是当然，生活不是那样的，我真的很想让人们了解我的一点就是，我的生活并不是从 A 变到 B——有多少人可以说他们的生活就是从 A 变到 B，心里想着“我要去做”，然后就去做了？所以我说了实话。

And the truth is that I was expelled from school when I was 15 years old, and my long-suffering headmaster sent a long-suffering note to my long-suffering mother, basically saying that if Tracy darkens these doors of the school again, then we will call the police.

事实是，我 15 岁那年被学校开除了，我那忍无可忍的校长给我饱受苦难的母亲寄了一张言辞激烈的便条，主要的意思是，如果 Tracy 再次把学校的这些门都弄黑了，我们就会报警。

And my mum took me and she said, "Darling, education is not for everyone." And then she gave me the best piece of advice anyone has ever given me. She said, "Every single one of us is good at something, you just have to go and find what that is." And at the age of 16, she let me go backpacking off to Greece.

我妈妈把我带回了家，对我说：“亲爱的，教育并不适合所有人。”然后她给了我这辈子收到的最好的建议。她说：“我们每个人都擅长某件事，你只需要去发现那是什么。”于是在 16 岁那年，她让我背着背包去了希腊。

I ended up working on boats, which was OK -- 17 years old, didn't really know what I wanted to do, kind of going with the flow. And then on my second transatlantic, my skipper said to me, "Can you navigate?" And I said, "Of course I can't navigate, I was expelled before long division."

我最终在船上找到了份工作，感觉还不错—— 17 岁的我当时真的不知道我想做什么，于是决定顺其自然。然后在我的第二次跨大西洋的航行前，船长对我说：“你可以领航吗？”我说：“我当然不懂，我很早就辍学了。”

And he said, "Don't you think you should be able to navigate? What happens if I fall over the side? Stop being a bystander in your own life, stop looking at what you're doing and start taking part."

他说：“难道你不认为你应该学着怎么领航吗？如果我落水了怎么办？不要对自己的人生袖手旁观，别再观察自己在做什么了，要主动参与。”

This day, for me, was the day that my whole life started. I learned to navigate in two days -- and this is someone who hates numbers and sees them as hieroglyphics. It opened up avenues and opportunities to me that I could never have imagined.

对我来说，这一天是我一生真正的开始。我在两天内学会了导航——而我可是一个讨厌数字，纯粹把它们当作外星符号的人。而这一改变为我提供了难以想象的途径和机会。

I actually managed to get a ride on a Whitbread Round the World Race boat. It was with 17 South African men and me. I was 21 years old, and it was the longest nine months of my life.

实际上，我还有幸参与了 Whitbread 环球帆船赛。全程只有我和17 个南非男人。我当时 21 岁，那是我一生中最漫长的 9 个月。

But I went as a cook, I managed to survive until the end, and when I got to end of this race, I realized that there were 230 crew in this race, and three women, and I was one of them. And I'm a lousy cook. I'm a really good navigator.

不过我担任了船上的厨师，并成功生存到了最后。当我结束这场比赛时，我发现这场比赛的 230 名工作人员中，其中只有三名女性，我就是其中的一个。我是个糟糕的厨师，但却是一个非常好的领航员。

I think the second most profound thought in my entire life was: "No man is ever going to allow me to be a navigator on their boat, ever." And that is still the case today.

我认为我一生中第二个最深刻的想法是：“永远不会有人允许我为他们的船领航。”今天仍然如此。

In 35 years of the Whitbread, there's only been two female navigators that haven't been on an all-female cruise, and that's how Maiden was born. That was the moment I thought, "I've got something to fight for." And I had no idea that I wanted to have this fight, and it was something that I took to like a duck to water.

在 Whitbread 35 年的赛史中，只有两名女性领航员没有参与过全女性航海， Maiden 就是在这种情况下诞生的。我当时的想法就是，“我有了奋斗目标。”而且我当时并不知道自己要面对的抗争竟然让我感到如鱼得水。

I discovered things about myself that I had no idea existed. I discovered I had a fighting spirit, I discovered I was competitive -- never knew that before -- and I discovered my second passion, which was equality. I couldn't let this one lie.

我发现了原本以为自己并不具备的特质。我发现自己斗志昂扬，我发现自己很有竞争精神——我以前从不知道这一点——我还发现了另一件让我充满热情的事，那就是平等。我不能对现状熟视无睹。

And it became not just about me wanting to navigate on a boat and having to put my own crew together and my own team, raise my own money, find my own boat, so that I could be navigator. This was about women everywhere. And this was when I realized that this was probably what I was going to spend the rest of my life doing.

我不仅想在船上领航，还想组建自己的航海团队，招募我自己的队员，筹集我自己的资金，找到我自己的船，这样我才能成为领航员。这事关世界各地的女性。那时我才意识到，这可能就是我余生的梦想。

It took ages for us to find the money to do the 1989 Whitbread Round the World Race. And as we looked at all the big, multimillion pound, all-male projects around us, with their brand-new shiny boats designed for the race, we realized this was not going to be us. We had to make this up as we went along.

我们花了很长时间才筹到钱，得以参加了 1989 年的 Whitbread 环球帆船赛。当我们看着周围所有大型、耗资数百万英镑的全男性项目为比赛设计的炫酷的船只时，我们意识到，我们必须积极应对。我们必须不断完善。

No one had enough faith in us to give us this kind of money. So I mortgaged my house, and we found an old wreck with a pedigree, an old Whitbread boat -- it had already been around the world twice -- in South Africa. We somehow persuaded some guy to put it on a ship and bring it back to the UK for us.

没人看好我们，也没人乐意投资。所以我抵押了我的房子，我们找到了一艘旧的 Whitbread 船——它进行过两次环球航行——它当时位于南非。我们想办法找人把它装到船上，运到了英国。

The girls were horrified at the state of the boat. We got a free place in a yard. We got her up on the hard and we redesigned her, we ripped her apart, we did all the work ourselves. It was the first time that anyone had ever seen women in a shipyard, so that was quite entertaining.

女孩们都被船的状态吓坏了。我们在造船厂找到了一块免费的空间，把船架起来，对船身重新进行了设计，拆卸后又重新拼起来。我们自己完成了所有工作。这是第一次有人在造船厂看到女性，这很有趣。

Every morning when we would walk in, everyone would just gawk at us. But it also had its advantages, because everyone was so helpful. We were such a novelty. You know, we got given a generator, an engine -- "Do you want this old rope?" "Yep." "Old sails?" "Yep, we'll have those." So we really made it up as we went along.

每天早晨，当我们走进去时，每个人都会凝视着我们。而这种优势就在于，每个人都积极的帮助我们。我们的出现史无前例。于是我们得到了发电机、发动机——“你想要这条旧绳索吗？”“好的。”“旧船帆？”“好啊，我们收下了。”于是我们真的就这么把船装备起来了。

And I think, actually, one of the huge advantages we had was, you know, there was no preconceived idea about how an all-female crew would sail around the world. So whatever we did was OK. And what it also did was it drew people to it.

而且我认为我们所拥有的巨大优势之一就是，并没有一个关于全女性船员如何进行环球航行的先入为主的想法。所以我们所做的一切都还不错。而且它还吸引了很多人的注意。

Not just women -- men, anyone who'd ever been told, "You can't do something because you're not good enough" -- the right gender or right race or right color, or whatever. Maiden became a passion. And it was hard to raise the money -- hundreds of companies wouldn't sponsor us.

不只是女性——还有男人，还有那些曾经被告知过，“你不能做某事，因为你不够好”——或者你的性别、种族、肤色不适合做什么，等等。Maiden 成为了一种激情。当时筹集资金确实是个大难题——数百家公司拒绝了我们。

They told us that we couldn't do it, people thought we were going to die ... You know, guys would literally come up to me and say, "You're going to die." I'd think, "Well, OK, that's my business, it's not yours." In the end, King Hussein of Jordan sponsored Maiden, and that was an amazing thing -- way ahead of his time, all about equality.

他们告诉我们，我们做不到，而且很可能无法活着到达目的地。那些男人真的会来找我说，“你会死的。”然而我心想，“那又如何？那是我的事，跟你无关。”最后，约旦国王侯赛因赞助了 Maiden，这简直太了不起了——这种尊重性别平等的行为远远超越了他的时代。

We sailed around the world with a message of peace and equality. We were the only boat in the race with a message of any kind. We won two legs of the Whitbread -- two of the most difficult legs -- and we came second overall. And that is still the best result for a British boat since 1977. It annoyed a lot of people.

我们带着和平与平等的信息开启了环游世界的航行。我们是比赛中唯一一艘携带着信息的船只。我们赢得了 Whitbread 中的两个航段——最困难的两个——并且总排名第二。这一结果目前仍然是自 1977 年以来英国船只取得的最佳成绩。这一结果惹恼了很多人。

And I think what it did at the time -- we didn't realize. You know, we crossed the finishing line, this incredible finish -- 600 boats sailing up the Solent with us; 50,000 people in Ocean Village chanting "Maiden, Maiden" as we sailed in. And so we knew we'd done something that we wanted to do and we hoped we'd achieved something good, but we had no idea at the time how many women's lives we changed.

我认为当时的情况——我们并没有意识到。我们越过了这个令人难以置信的终点—— 600 条船与我们一起在索伦特海峡上航行；当我们驶进海洋村时，五万人高喊着“Maiden，Maiden”。当时，我们知道我们已经实现了自己想做的事情，我们希望能够取得好成绩，但是当时我们还不知道我们改变了多少女性的生活。

The Southern Ocean is my favorite ocean. Each ocean has a character. So the North Atlantic is a yomping ocean. It's a jolly, go-for-it, heave-ho type of -- have-fun type of ocean. The Southern Ocean is a deadly serious ocean.

南大洋是我最喜欢的一片海域。每片海域都有自己的个性。北大西洋是一片令人敬畏的海洋，一片欢乐、自由、疯狂——充满挑战和乐趣的海洋。南大洋的环境则非常恶劣和凶险。

And you know the moment when you cross into the Southern Ocean -- the latitude and longitude -- you know when you're there, the waves have been building, they start getting big whitecaps on the top, it becomes really gray, you start to get sensory deprivation. It is very focused on who you are and what you are with this massive wilderness around you.

当你进入南大洋的那一刻——可以通过纬度和经度来判断——你到达之后就会发现那里风高浪急，巨浪的顶部不断涌起白色的浪花，你的眼前只有灰蒙蒙的一片，你的感官开始失灵。这种野蛮、荒凉的环境对你的意志力和信心是极大的考验。

It is empty. It is so big and so empty. You see albatrosses swirling around the boat. It takes about four days to sail through their territory, so you have the same albatross for four days. And they find us quite a novelty, so they literally windsurf off the wind that comes off the mainsail and they hang behind the boat, and you feel this presence behind you, and you turn around, and it's this albatross just looking at you.

它是如此空旷，一望无际。你会看到信天翁在船上盘旋。航行经过它们的领地大约需要四天，因此你在四天内都能看到同一只信天翁。它们对我们感到非常好奇，于是就借着主帆的风滑翔，栖息在了船的后面。你会感到身后有东西，转过身就会发现有只信天翁正盯着你看。

We sold Maiden at the end of the race -- we still had no money. And five years ago, we found her, at the same time as a film director decided he wanted to make a documentary about Maiden.

我们在比赛结束后就卖掉了Maiden——当时的我们依然囊中羞涩。五年前，我们找到了她，与此同时，一位电影导演决定制作一部关于 Maiden 的纪录片。

We found Maiden, she burst back into my life and reminded me a lot of things I had forgotten, actually, over the years, about following my heart and my gut and really being part of the universe. And everything I find important in life, Maiden has given back to me.

我们找到了 Maiden，她重新进入了我的生活，让我想起了多年来我早已淡忘的事情，关于跟随自己的内心和直觉，成为宇宙的一部分。Maiden 把我生命中所有重要的一切都还给了我。

Again, we rescued her -- we did a Crowdfunder -- we rescued her from the Seychelles. Princess Haya, King Hussein's daughter, funded the shipping back to the UK and then the restoration. All the original crew were involved. We put the original team back together. And then we decided, what are we going to do with Maiden?

我们再一次拯救了她——我们举办了一场众筹活动——从塞舌尔解救了她。侯赛因国王的女儿哈亚公主出资将船运回英国，进行了修复。参与那次航行的原班人马又因此而重聚了。然后我们就要决定怎么处理 Maiden。

And this, for me, really was the moment of my life where I looked back on every single thing that I'd done -- every project, every feeling, every passion, every battle, every fight -- and I decided that I wanted Maiden to continue that fight for the next generation.

对我来说，这确实是我一生中的重要时刻，我回首了过去所做的每一件事——每一个项目，每一种感觉，每一次激情，每一次战斗，每一次抗争——我决定让 Maiden 继续为下一代而战斗。

Maiden is sailing around the world on a five-year world tour. We are engaging with thousands of girls all over the world. We are supporting community programs that get girls into education. Education doesn't just mean sitting in a classroom.

Maiden开启了为期五年的世界巡航。我们与世界各地成千上万的女孩见面。我们正在支持帮助女孩接受教育的社区计划。教育不仅意味着坐在教室里。

This, for me, is about teaching girls you don't have to look a certain way, you don't have to feel a certain way, you don't have to behave a certain way. You can be successful, you can follow your dreams and you can fight for them.

对我来说，这是关于教育女孩：你不一定非要看起来怎样，不一定非要有某种感觉，不一定非要表现出某种行为。你依然可以成功，依然可以实现梦想，依然可以为梦想而战。

Life doesn't go from A to B. It's messy. My life has been a mess from beginning to end, but somehow I've got to where we're going.

生活不会直接从 A 变到 B。而是充满曲折。我的生活从头到尾都是一团糟，但是最终我到达了梦想中的目的地。

The future for us and Maiden looks amazing. And for me, it is all about closing the circle. It's about closing the circle with Maiden and using her to tell girls that if just one person believes in you, you can do anything.

对我们和 Maiden 来说，未来非常美好。对我来说，这一切都是关于实现一个梦想，与 Maiden 一起实现一个梦想，并通过她来告诉女孩们，哪怕只有一个人相信你，你也可以做任何事情。