Why I attempt the world's most dangerous stunts - Michelle Khare

我为何尝试世界上最危险的特技——米歇尔·卡雷

You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host Elise Hugh. Daredevil and YouTube creator Michelle Khare is known for testing human limits through extreme physical and mental feats. She has trained as a chess grandmaster, escaped Harry Houdini's deadliest magic trick and, as you'll see from the talk, many, many other challenges. She shares how she learned to embrace fear and why working for the challenge itself rather than the perfect destination can turn the impossible into possible.

欢迎收听TED Talks Daily，我们每天为您带来激发好奇的新思想。我是主持人Elise Hugh。特技冒险家和YouTube创作者米歇尔·卡雷以通过极端的身心壮举测试人类极限而闻名。她曾接受训练成为国际象棋大师，逃脱了哈里·胡迪尼最致命的魔术戏法，正如您在演讲中将看到的，还有许多许多其他挑战。她分享了自己如何学会拥抱恐惧，以及为何为挑战本身而非完美的终点而努力，能将不可能变为可能。

This is me, about to perform one of the most dangerous stunts in cinematic history: hanging on the side of a C-130 as it's taking off. No goggles, no helmets, no parachutes. This stunt has only ever been performed by one other person on the planet: Tom Cruise. So I think it's fair to say that this is the first time this stunt has ever been attempted by a mere mortal.

这就是我，即将表演电影史上最危险的特技之一：在一架C-130运输机起飞时悬挂在机身侧面。没有护目镜，没有头盔，没有降落伞。这个特技在地球上只有另一个人表演过：汤姆·克鲁斯。所以我认为可以公平地说，这是凡人首次尝试这个特技。

My name is Michelle Khare, and I created a show on YouTube called "Challenge Accepted," where I attempt the world's toughest stunts and professions. But despite my job title, I was not born a daredevil. I was born a child of immigrants who sacrificed everything to give me a safe, secure and a chance at a successful life. They gave up so much for me just to exist, so why would I ever risk that? So growing up I only saw fear as a stop sign.

我叫米歇尔·卡雷，我在YouTube上创办了一个名为“接受挑战”的节目，尝试世界上最艰难的特技和职业。但尽管头衔如此，我并非天生就是冒险家。我是移民的孩子，他们牺牲一切，给我一个安全、稳定和成功生活的机会。他们为我的生存付出了那么多，我为何要冒险？所以在成长过程中，我只把恐惧视为一个停止标志。

In seventh grade, I was the kid who quit the cheer team when someone else got hurt. And my biggest rebellion in high school was choosing to use the font Gill Sans instead of Times New Roman at the International Science and Engineering Fair. And while this mindset definitely set me up for success, it also left me incredibly lonely as an adult. So I decided to take my first big risk and sign up for something that had absolutely nothing to do with my career: a cycling club. And I was terrible. But I kept coming back, because I had something I had never had before: the freedom to fail without consequence.

七年级时，我是那个在别人受伤后退出啦啦队的孩子。而我高中时期最大的反叛是在国际科学与工程博览会上选择使用 Gill Sans 字体而非 Times New Roman。虽然这种心态无疑为我奠定了成功的基础，但也让我成年后感到无比孤独。所以我决定冒第一个大险，报名参加与我的职业毫无关系的事情：一个自行车俱乐部。我骑得很差。但我坚持去了，因为我拥有了以前从未有过的东西：可以自由失败而无需承担后果。

Now, most of our learning journeys look something like this. In the beginning, learning something new is really, really fun, and our brain floods with dopamine at any sign of progress. Some people call this beginner's luck, but I think it's much more than that. Amateurs often see progress faster than professionals. In this rapid adaptation phase, we have the willingness to ask questions, to look silly, to take risks. So it's not luck. I think it's an amateur's mindset, knowing there's only room for improvement.

如今，我们大多数人的学习旅程大致如此。起初，学习新事物真的非常有趣，任何进步的迹象都会让大脑充满多巴胺。有些人称之为新手运气，但我认为远不止于此。业余爱好者往往比专业人士进步更快。在这个快速适应阶段，我们愿意提问、不怕出丑、敢于冒险。所以这不是运气。我认为这是一种业余者的心态，知道只有提升的空间。

And this feels great until we hit a plateau. Learning starts to feel like work. We have a little bit of experience. We start self-judging as we try, and many of us give up here. But if we could find a way to stay in that amateur mindset, how much further could we go? With cycling, I had somehow found a way to stay in that headspace even as I got better. And if you fast forward two years later, I decided to go to nationals on a whim for fun as an average-ranked racer.

这种感觉很棒，直到我们遇到瓶颈。学习开始感觉像工作。我们有了一点经验。我们在尝试时开始自我评判，我们中的许多人就在这里放弃了。但如果我们能找到一种方法保持那种业余心态，我们能走多远？通过骑行，我不知怎地找到了方法，即使在我变得更好时也能保持那种心态。快进到两年后，我一时兴起，决定以普通排名的赛车手身份去参加全国锦标赛玩玩。

During the final event I decided to take a big risk and sprint ahead of the group, but because nobody was threatened by me, they assumed I would burn out and fall back in with everyone else. But twenty minutes later, to everyone's surprise, including my own, I ended up winning. And it was the first time I had seen success or won something by genuinely just having fun. So I thought to myself, how much of life had I been missing out on because of fear? Could a daredevil be developed?

在决赛中，我决定冒个大险，冲刺到队伍前面，但因为没人觉得我构成威胁，他们认为我会筋疲力尽，然后掉队。但二十分钟后，出乎所有人（包括我自己）的意料，我竟然赢了。这是我第一次仅凭纯粹的乐趣就获得成功或赢得某样东西。于是我心想，因为恐惧，我错过了多少生活？冒险家可以被培养出来吗？

So I wrote out all of my fears on a whiteboard and connected each to a unique circumstance that would force me to address it. I started posting my adventures online as a way to hold myself accountable. To face my fear of being perceived as unintelligent, I studied with chess masters until I hit a thousand ELO. It took me ten months. To face my fear of confrontation, I trained with an Olympian to box in front of 12,000 screaming fans. I bloodied my teeth. I broke my nose, but I won the match. And to face my fear of being perceived as unfunny, I joined a professional clowning troupe. And, I'll be honest, there's nothing scarier than standing in front of a group of strangers trying to make them laugh while looking like this.

于是我把所有恐惧写在白板上，并将每一个与一个独特的情境联系起来，迫使我面对它。我开始在网上发布我的冒险经历，以此督促自己。为了面对害怕被认为不聪明的恐惧，我跟随国际象棋大师学习，直到达到1000 ELO等级分。我花了十个月。为了面对害怕对抗的恐惧，我与一位奥运选手训练，在12000名尖叫的粉丝面前打拳击。我的牙齿流血了，鼻子也断了，但我赢了比赛。为了面对害怕被认为无趣的恐惧，我加入了一个专业小丑剧团。说实话，没有什么比这样站在一群陌生人面前试图逗笑他们更可怕的了。

And people really responded. The show has amassed 850 million views. Now, fear exists for a good reason. It's to protect us from danger. Sometimes fear means, hey, if you do this, you will die. But oftentimes I have found we take that way too far. Fear doesn't always mean stop. Sometimes it means go.

人们确实有回应。节目已积累了8.5亿次观看。恐惧的存在是有充分理由的。它是为了保护我们免受危险。有时恐惧意味着，嘿，如果你这样做，你会死。但我常常发现我们把它推得太远了。恐惧并不总是意味着停止。有时它意味着前进。

Here's an example. A couple years ago, I became obsessed with Harry Houdini and his deadliest trick, the water torture cell. Bound in chains, locked upside down in a glass box filled to the brim with water, Houdini would escape with a single breath. How could anyone be this brave? So it became my mission to attempt this act to confront my fear of drowning.

举个例子。几年前，我迷上了哈里·胡迪尼和他最致命的戏法——水刑牢房。被锁链捆绑，倒锁在一个装满水的玻璃箱中，胡迪尼能一口气逃脱。怎么会有人如此勇敢？于是尝试这个表演以面对我对溺水的恐惧成了我的使命。

Now the average person can hold their breath for thirty to sixty seconds, but for this stunt I needed a breath hold of three minutes. It may sound crazy, but under the right training and supervision, it is possible. But to get there, you have to push through the struggle phase. This is when, as carbon dioxide builds in your bloodstream, your brain thinks you're suffocating and sends signals to your diaphragm to cause violent contractions to force you to breathe.

普通人能屏住呼吸30到60秒，但为了这个特技，我需要屏住呼吸三分钟。这听起来可能很疯狂，但在正确的训练和监督下，这是可能的。但要达到这个程度，你必须挺过挣扎阶段。此时，随着二氧化碳在血液中积聚，大脑认为你正在窒息，并向横膈膜发送信号，引起剧烈收缩，迫使你呼吸。

Now, for weeks I failed at this edge and my breath-hold times were progressively getting worse. Until my coach told me, "Hey, you can't muscle through. You have to surrender." And when I finally surrendered to the pain, I started noticing all these details I hadn't before. I noticed I was shivering, which meant I was burning valuable oxygen just trying to stay warm. My wetsuit felt a little too tight, so I actually wasn't able to get a full inhale. I started noticing all of these little changes that we began to make and address. And it made all the difference.

几周来，我都在这个边缘失败，我的屏气时间逐渐变差。直到我的教练告诉我：“嘿，你不能硬撑过去。你必须屈服。”当我最终屈服于痛苦时，我开始注意到所有以前没注意到的细节。我注意到我在发抖，这意味着我在燃烧宝贵的氧气只是为了保暖。我的潜水服感觉有点太紧，以至于我无法充分吸气。我开始注意到我们开始做出并解决的所有这些小调整。这让一切都变得不同。

Stripped of the emotional component, fear is simply information. It tells us exactly what we need to know in order to progress. And when we addressed all of these things, everything changed. Six weeks later, I escaped Houdini's trick in two minutes and forty seconds.

剥离情绪成分，恐惧仅仅是信息。它准确地告诉我们为了进步需要知道什么。当我们解决了所有这些问题后，一切都变了。六周后，我在两分四十秒内逃脱了胡迪尼的戏法。

This is me in front of a panel of twenty martial arts legends about to fail spectacularly in front of all of them. A black belt in Taekwondo typically takes three to five years to earn, but I wanted to see if it would be possible in only ninety days. Everybody thought it was crazy, and many people rightfully questioned if it was even appropriate to do something like this, so I knew I could only progress with the blessing of a respected master. Enter the legendary Grand Master Simon Rhee.

这是我在二十位武术传奇人物组成的评审团面前，即将在他们所有人面前惨败。跆拳道黑带通常需要三到五年才能获得，但我想看看是否可能在仅仅九十天内完成。每个人都认为这很疯狂，许多人理所当然地质疑这样做是否合适，所以我知道我只有在一位受人尊敬的大师许可下才能进步。于是，传奇的西蒙·李大师出场了。

To call this man the best of the best actually is not an exaggeration, because he literally starred in the movie "The Best of the Best," and together we did what nobody thought was possible. In just ninety days, Master Rhee led me to pass every single belt test: yellow, green, blue, red, and I was granted permission to test for the black belt.

称此人为精英中的精英毫不夸张，因为他确实在电影《精英中的精英》中出演，我们一起做到了没人认为可能的事。仅仅九十天内，李大师带领我通过了每一次带色考试：黄带、绿带、蓝带、红带，并且我被授予参加黑带考试的许可。

Now, a black belt test is a multi-hour gauntlet. You have to perform hundreds of forms. You have to spar three black belts at once, but for the final step, you have to break a brick with your hand. And after many hours of sweat, I made it here to this final step, the final inch to the finish line for the black belt. And this is what happened. Permission granted. I struck... and nothing happened, not even a crack. And I failed the entire belt test because of it.

黑带考试是一场长达数小时的严酷考验。你必须演练数百个套路。你必须同时与三位黑带对打，但最后一步，你必须用手劈开一块砖。经过数小时的汗水，我来到了这最后一步，距离黑带终点线仅一步之遥。然后发生了这样的事。获得许可。我击打……什么都没发生，连条裂缝都没有。因此，我整个带色考试都失败了。

But Master Rhee had taken a chance on me. He put his reputation on the line to see if this would be possible. And I realized that giving up on this challenge would be worse than giving up on myself. It would be giving up on him. So I kept training for months after this video released on YouTube. And on day 264, this happened.

但李大师在我身上冒了险。他赌上自己的声誉来验证这是否可能。我意识到，放弃这个挑战比放弃自己更糟糕。那将是放弃他。所以在这段视频在YouTube发布后，我又训练了数月。在第264天，这件事发生了。

Failure is as painful as it is a necessary part of the process. And when we feel disappointment and failure, it's a privilege because it means we care. Which brings us back here: moments before I attempted the most dangerous stunt of my career, a ten-minute flight pattern with me tethered to the side of this military aircraft. This was the greatest logistical challenge our team had ever faced, and an amateur's mindset was crucial. We had to be unafraid to ask questions, to make mistakes along the way and be willing to ask for help.

失败是痛苦的，但它也是过程中必要的一部分。当我们感到失望和失败时，这是一种特权，因为这意味着我们在乎。这让我们回到这里：就在我尝试职业生涯中最危险的特技之前，我被拴在这架军用飞机侧面进行十分钟的飞行。这是我们团队面临过的最大的后勤挑战，而业余者的心态至关重要。我们必须不怕提问，不怕沿途犯错，并愿意寻求帮助。

On set we had a "fear is welcome" policy. This meant that at any moment anyone on the crew could raise a concern and it would be addressed in front of the whole group. This strategy allowed us to fine-tune every single detail, from the custom contact lenses I wore to protect my eyes, to the tightness of the harness, to even the FAA approval paperwork. It was the only way we could ensure without a doubt we were ready for the impossible.

在片场，我们实行“恐惧欢迎”政策。这意味着任何时候，任何工作人员都可以提出顾虑，并会在全体人员面前得到解决。这个策略让我们能够微调每一个细节，从我佩戴的保护眼睛的定制隐形眼镜，到安全带的松紧度，甚至到美国联邦航空局的批准文件。这是我们能毫无疑问地确保我们已准备好应对不可能之事的唯一方法。

And with the support of this team, weeks later, it happened. When I set out to make "Challenge Accepted," I assumed there would be a magical moment where I'd finally feel like a daredevil, a woman without fear. But that moment, for better or for worse, actually has never come. But that is exactly why I do these things. Not because I am unafraid, but actually because I am. Thank you.

在这个团队的支持下，几周后，成功了。当我开始制作“接受挑战”时，我以为会有一个神奇的时刻，让我最终感觉自己像个无所畏惧的冒险家。但那个时刻，无论好坏，实际上从未到来。但这正是我做这些事情的原因。不是因为我无所畏惧，而恰恰是因为我（会感到恐惧）。谢谢。

That was Michelle Khare at TED Next 2025.

以上是米歇尔·卡雷在TED Next 2025的演讲。