Home
Login
Register
Learning Content
Loading...
How I Set Myself Free | Keke Palmer | TED - Video học tiếng Anh
Practice Listening
Practice Listening
/
Video
/
TED Talk
/
How I Set Myself Free | Keke Palmer | TED
How I Set Myself Free | Keke Palmer | TED
Select learning mode:
View subtitles
Pick word
Rewrite word
Highlight:
3000 Oxford Words
4000 IELTS Words
5000 Oxford Words
3000 Common Words
1000 TOEIC Words
5000 TOEFL Words
Subtitles (249)
0:05
What’s up, everybody?
0:08
I'm Keke Palmer.
0:10
You might know me from the spelling bee movie
0:12
"Akeelah and the Bee,"
0:14
my Nickelodeon TV show "True Jackson VP."
0:19
Jordan Peele's "Nope."
0:21
(Cheers)
0:22
Maybe my viral meme where I was “Sorry to that man.”
0:26
(Laughter)
0:28
Or more recently, my new TV show, "The Burbs,"
0:32
streaming now on Peacock.
0:34
(Laughter)
0:36
I've been working in front of the camera for over 20 years now.
0:40
But today, I'm going to share my story with you.
0:44
Not as a survivor soliloquy, but to expose a pattern,
0:49
because survival can be so effective,
0:51
you don't realize when it's no longer serving you.
0:55
I grew up in Robbins, Illinois.
0:58
And Robbins, by definition, is a food desert.
1:01
The liquor store is often where I picked up my lunches before school --
1:05
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and a pop --
1:07
a meal the teachers over at my Catholic school often criticized.
1:11
Even still, my family had love.
1:15
We was cash-poor but rich in culture and pride.
1:19
My mother was a substitute teacher for disabled children.
1:22
She sang for churches and did backup singing for extra cash.
1:26
My father worked in the factory at a polyurethane company.
1:29
He had Carhartt before it was fashionable, OK?
1:32
(Laughter)
1:34
But they fell in love doing speech interp and theater --
1:38
things circumstance slowly made no space for.
1:41
The love was there.
1:43
The joy was there.
1:45
But even with both of my parents working multiple jobs,
1:47
it wasn't enough.
1:49
When I was eight, we moved somewhere a little nicer
1:51
and qualified for Section 8 -- which is a subsidized housing program.
1:57
I remember being told not to mention my father when the assessor came by,
2:01
because it would reduce the support we needed.
2:05
I didn't understand the system, but I understood the stakes.
2:09
Stability was fragile,
2:11
survival was urgent --
2:12
and in that urgency,
2:13
I learned that protecting the whole
2:15
sometimes meant shrinking parts of ourselves.
2:19
Growing up in a place where access is limited,
2:22
hamming it up became my pastime.
2:24
A dream passed down.
2:27
(Laughter)
2:28
Then suddenly,
2:29
performing was a gift that granted my family more access.
2:34
See, only a child could fit through the gatekeeper’s gates --
2:37
especially a child like me that was so eager to please.
2:40
So when I started auditioning and booking,
2:43
it became clear I was the one who could do it.
2:46
I could do something I enjoyed and lift some weight off my parents.
2:52
So we did it.
2:53
We moved to LA for my career.
2:57
We drove four days and three nights from Illinois to California.
3:01
My dad withdrew his pension,
3:03
the church and extended family gave us what they could, and we was off.
3:07
And right away, it seemed to be the right decision.
3:10
In the first year, I starred in a movie alongside William H. Macy
3:14
and got a SAG nomination.
3:17
Then -- go ahead, clap.
3:19
(Applause and cheers)
3:24
Then I got a self-titled Disney Channel pilot,
3:27
and I starred in my own movie.
3:31
Suddenly, we had access to a life that didn't require constant vigilance.
3:36
Each opportunity gave way to a world we never knew was possible.
3:40
We no longer shared rooms,
3:42
we had a car that worked,
3:44
my parents weren't stressed about bills
3:46
or their ability to get the best education for me and my three siblings.
3:50
It got to the point where my career became the center of our orbit,
3:54
and not because we chased success,
3:56
but because it bought us freedom.
4:01
That's when performing stopped being something I did for fun
4:05
and something we relied on.
4:08
Messing that up wouldn’t have just cost me --
4:10
it would have put our freedom at risk.
4:12
And we already knew what it was like to live without it.
4:15
So I adapted.
4:19
Not all at once, but over the years.
4:21
By the time I landed my own TV show, I was undoubtedly the breadwinner,
4:25
and my job was just that.
4:27
There was no time for outside activities,
4:30
no time for vacation, no time for pause.
4:33
And as the pressure got greater,
4:36
stage became my home.
4:38
Performing was the safest way for me to be free.
4:42
In my roles,
4:43
I could embody joy -- even briefly.
4:46
I could be “True Jackson, VP,”
4:48
“Working at a grown-up job never really knew I could work this hard.”
4:52
(Cheers)
4:54
At the time, it was just a theme song I wrote.
4:56
I didn't know how I was transmuting.
4:59
In my roles, I could be sad.
5:02
I was allowed to be frustrated --
5:03
although often disguised as humor.
5:07
Performing was safe because it didn't make people feel guilty
5:10
about watching me carry the weight of adulthood far too early.
5:15
As the years flew by, I didn’t just perform on stage --
5:19
I started performing off it, too.
5:23
I began designing a character to survive my life.
5:27
That character is Keke Palmer --
5:31
approachable, capable, funny --
5:35
a small container my full range could exist inside of
5:38
without overwhelming anyone.
5:43
And it worked.
5:44
That character has carried me through 23 years in this industry,
5:49
through childhood fame, the transition into adulthood,
5:52
through success I could have never imagined.
5:55
I even wrote a "New York Times" best selling book about how I did it,
5:59
how I became a "Master of Me."
6:01
(Laughter)
6:03
By every external measure,
6:05
I made the system work for me.
6:08
And then I had a son.
6:12
His name is Leodis,
6:13
and every year, my son and I
6:15
do these elaborate Halloween costumes.
6:17
And listen, he's really good.
6:20
Like, he commits.
6:21
(Laughter)
6:23
He knows how to perform --
6:24
they've become full-on productions,
6:26
and it's a cool way to share what I do with him.
6:29
We have a lot of fun.
6:32
But this past year after it was over, I noticed something.
6:36
He was exhausted.
6:38
And not the kind where you just fall asleep --
6:40
the kind where you keep running and running and yelling and screaming.
6:45
I thought once we got into the car he'd fall asleep, but he didn't.
6:48
He couldn’t, and that scared me.
6:51
So I pulled over,
6:53
took him out of his seat and held him real tight.
6:55
And he was fighting me.
6:57
I kept saying, "It's OK to rest,
6:59
you can rest. I’ve got you.”
7:01
After one last slap to my face, he fell asleep.
7:04
(Laughter)
7:06
When we got home,
7:07
I still had work to do, but I had one hour free.
7:11
So I laid down, closed my eyes,
7:14
and before I knew it, the hour was gone.
7:17
I hadn't slept one bit.
7:19
My mind kept running.
7:20
Then my mom walks in saying it’s time to go,
7:23
and I get angry with her.
7:24
She has no clue what’s going on --
7:26
now I'm crying,
7:27
feeling this delayed sense of grief,
7:29
realizing I'm acting like my son
7:31
and expecting my mother to do what she never could.
7:35
Not because she didn’t love me,
7:38
but because survival taught her to value propulsion.
7:43
Moving forward mattered more than being healed.
7:47
My mother was terrified I wouldn't survive,
7:50
so she gave me what she knew:
7:52
survival skills.
7:55
And sure, when I was younger, she'd say,
7:57
"We can go back to Chicago,"
7:59
but going back didn’t feel like rest --
8:01
it felt like erasure.
8:04
Stopping was always on the table
8:06
alongside going back to how we were living before.
8:12
So stopping never felt like a choice --
8:15
just an ultimatum.
8:18
I wasn't trying to be exceptional.
8:21
I was trying to be reliable.
8:24
I carried the load, not because I had to,
8:27
but because I couldn’t un-know what was at stake.
8:32
Once you've seen life on the other side of poverty,
8:34
you can't unsee the contrast.
8:37
I couldn't live with the fact that we had a shot and I didn't take it,
8:40
so I didn't fail.
8:46
I just didn't know when it was complete.
8:52
Somewhere along the way,
8:53
I started believing I was a thing that saved us.
8:57
I was Keke Palmer.
9:01
I built an entire way of moving through the world around staying alert,
9:05
staying useful, staying on.
9:08
I was reflexively disembodied,
9:11
constantly juggling everything thrown at me.
9:14
I got so good at letting my body run on autopilot [that]
9:17
I would have these huge gaps in my life
9:20
where I lacked recall.
9:23
I remember one time I was doing "Cinderella" on Broadway,
9:25
and I couldn’t remember how I got to the stage while on stage.
9:30
It's clear that system didn't know how to stop.
9:33
It’s like a computer --
9:34
it works great so you never turn it off.
9:37
You don’t even let it restart for updates,
9:39
so you never know just how much better it could be.
9:43
That was me:
9:45
a billboard for hyper-functioning -- with style, of course.
9:49
(Laughter)
9:51
But the pattern finally broke.
9:54
When I held my son and told him to rest,
10:00
that was a small moment, but it ended something old,
10:05
something that had been running for generations.
10:10
When adaptive intelligence outlives the conditions it was built for,
10:15
it turns into compulsion --
10:18
productivity without presence.
10:23
What I want to share with you
10:25
is that survival can be so effective,
10:27
you don't realize when it's no longer needed in your life.
10:32
You might think you need to earn more,
10:35
prove more, secure one more opportunity,
10:38
collect one more accolade,
10:40
or just keep moving long enough until you finally feel safe.
10:46
When in reality,
10:48
you don't need another achievement.
10:51
You need a break.
10:54
OK?
10:55
(Laughter)
10:57
(Applause)
11:01
You need a break long enough to look around, take stock
11:06
and feel gratitude for what you've already built.
11:11
It's important we check the systems we're still running on.
11:14
Some of the functions that saved you
11:17
may be keeping you from the very you you were always trying to save.
11:22
My parents survived inside of systems that never fully saw them.
11:27
Learning how to live instead of just surviving
11:31
became my way of returning some of that visibility.
11:37
I went to Bali this past year
11:40
and finally spent some one-on-one time with that little girl
11:43
who left Robbins, Illinois all those years ago.
11:47
So please allow me to reintroduce myself.
11:53
My name is Lauren Keyana Palmer,
11:58
and I’m the CEO of the Keke Palmer Company --
12:02
a company I created out of nothing
12:05
with my mother, my father
12:08
and my three siblings.
12:10
(Applause and cheers)
12:17
I'm just a girl that wanted herself and her family out of poverty,
12:22
and once we was out,
12:24
I forgot to let myself free.
12:27
Yet I'm here today,
12:29
grateful to say
12:31
my parents showed me how to survive.
12:34
I showed them how to dream,
12:37
and my son is showing me
12:41
how to live.
12:43
(Cheers and applause)
12:45
Thank you.
12:47
(Cheers and applause)
