Carnegie Language Breakthroughs and the Art of Communication

Chapter 32 The Challenge of Effective Speaking (4)
If an entertainer fails like this a few times in front of a paying audience, they're bound to pop open the soda and yell, "Get him off the stage." But the audience listening to the speeches is generally sympathetic Yes, so, out of sheer compassion, they'll usually try to laugh, but at the same time, deep down, they're pitying your failure to deliver a quasi-humorous speech.Although they themselves insisted on listening, they felt very uncomfortable.Haven't you often witnessed such utter failures of speeches?
In the extremely difficult field of public speaking, what is more difficult and rarer than the ability to make an audience laugh?Humor is a "trigger" thing that has a lot to do with a person's personality and characteristics.

Remember, a story is rarely interesting in itself, it is the way the storyteller tells it that makes it interesting for the listener.Then there are 100 out of 99 people who will fail miserably when trying to tell the same story that made Mark Twain famous.Lincoln was a master storyteller. He told many stories to people in the hotel of the Eighth Judicial District of Illinois, and people even had to travel several miles to hear his stories.People listened to his stories all night without getting tired.According to some audience members who witnessed the scene, his stories sometimes made the local people scream with excitement, and some even jumped out of their chairs involuntarily.Here is a story that Lincoln often told, and every time he told it, he always made the audience laugh.Why don't you try it?You can read these stories aloud to your family and see if you can bring a smile to their faces.However, just to be on the safe side, please try it in private, not in front of an audience.

A belated traveler, walking on the muddy road in the Illinois prairie, hurried home, but unfortunately encountered a storm.The night was black as ink, the rain poured down like a dam in heaven, and the thunder roared like a bomb went off.Lightning knocked down several large trees.The thunder was deafening.At last the poor traveler fell on his knees and prayed to Heaven when there was a dreadful thunderclap which he had never heard in his life.His prayer at this time was also very different from usual. He gasped and said, "Oh, God, if it doesn't make any difference to you, please give me a little more light and less thunder."

You may be the lucky one with an incredible sense of humor.If this is the case, you should definitely cultivate it with all your might.No matter where you speak, you will be popular for it.But if your talents are in other areas, you should not pretend to be humorous.

If you study the speeches of people like Lincoln, you will be surprised to find that they rarely put humorous jokes in their speeches, especially in the opening remarks.The famous speaker Cattell has confessed to me that he never tells funny stories purely for the sake of humor.A humorous little story told by a famous speaker must be enlightening and have its point of view.Humor should be just the icing on the cake, just the chocolate between the layers, not the cake itself.Gu Lilan, one of the greatest humorous speakers in contemporary America, has a rule: "Never tell a joke in the first 3 minutes of the speech." Now that he has proved that this rule is very effective, I think you and I probably won't object.

So, then, does the opening have to be very dignified and terribly serious?Not quite.If you have the means, you can make some local jokes to make the audience laugh, you can say something about the situation, or you can say a few words about the other speaker's point of view.You can catch something that people think is wrong and exaggerate it.This kind of joke is more effective than normal jokes.

Perhaps the easiest and most effective way to create a cheerful atmosphere is to use yourself as the subject of a joke.Describe some ridiculous and embarrassing situations you have encountered yourself.This is the true essence of humor.

Jack Benny has been using this technique for years, and he was one of the first important people on the radio to "trick" himself.Jack Benny made himself a laughing stock, making fun of his violin skills, his pettiness, and his age.His witty remarks, both solemn and humorous, kept the ratings high year after year.Audiences will naturally open their hearts to those speakers who can be thoughtful, not arrogant, but also humorous and open about their own flaws and failures.On the contrary, those speakers who pretend to be omniscient experts who "swell their faces and pretend to be fat" will only cause indifference and rejection from the audience.

Just about anyone can draw unrelated things together to make audiences laugh, like a newspaper columnist who said he hated "children, tripe, and Democrats."

When the famous writer Rudyard Kipling gave a speech to a British political group, he told a joke in the opening remarks, which caused the audience to laugh out loud.I will now quote this opening speech below, so that you can see how clever he is to make people laugh.He was recounting not some old anecdote, but some of his own experience, and jokingly emphasized some of the ailments in it:

Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, when I was young, I worked as a reporter in India, covering crime news for a newspaper.It was an interesting job, because it introduced me to con men, swindlers, murderers, and some very enterprising and honest men. (Audience laughs) Sometimes, after reporting on their trials, I go to the prison to see these old friends who are serving sentences. (Audience laughs) I remember a man who was sentenced to life in prison for murder.He was a smart, soft-spoken, organized guy who gave me what he called his "lessons for life."He said, "Take me as an example. Once a person has done something dishonest, he can't help himself. He keeps doing one dishonest thing after another. Until finally, he will find that he has to get rid of someone." Only by losing can you restore your integrity. (Audience laughs) Ha, this is exactly the situation in the current cabinet.” (Audience laughs and cheers).

President Taft also used this method to create a lot of jokes at the annual executive reception of the MetLife Insurance Company.The most amazing thing is that he not only made everyone laugh, but also praised his audience greatly:
Mr. President and Gentlemen of MetLife:

About 9 months ago, I went back to my hometown for vacation.There I heard a speech given by a gentleman after dinner.The gentleman said he felt a little apprehensive about giving such a speech.So I went to a friend who had a lot of experience giving speeches after dinner.The friend suggested to him that the best audience for an after-dinner speaker is one that is highly intelligent, well-educated, and half-drunk. (Laughter and applause.) Now, all I can say is that I have the best audience I've ever seen.The kind of audience the speaker speaks of sits with us! (Applause.) I must also say that this is the spirit of MetLife. (The applause lasted for a long time)

B. Don't start with an apology

The second common mistake a beginner speaker makes in his opening remarks is that he habitually apologizes to his audience. "I'm not a speaker... I'm not going to give a speech... I don't have anything to talk about."

no!Absolutely not!The opening line of a poem by Kipling is: "It is useless to go on." That is what the audience feels about a speaker who begins with an apology.

After all, if you don't prepare, some of us will soon find out that you don't need to be reminded.Others might not notice, so why bother calling their attention?Why insult your audience?For by saying so you are suggesting to them that you do not think them worth your preparation, and that some material which you overhear by the fireside will suffice for them.No, no, we don't want to hear you say sorry.We come together to hear new news and opinions, and to pique our interest, and you especially need to remember the latter.

As soon as you came before the audience, it was natural and inevitable that our attention be drawn to you.It is not difficult to maintain our attention on you for the next 5 seconds, but it is very difficult to maintain this attention for the next 5 minutes.Once you lose your audience's attention, it's doubly difficult to win it back.Therefore, in the first sentence, you need to say something that grabs the audience's interest.Not the second sentence, much less the third sentence.It's the first sentence, the first sentence!
5. Support the main idea
In a longer speech that resonates with the audience, there may be several points, but as few as possible, with supporting material for each point.Earlier we discussed a way to support the point of a speech, which is to use stories, or to illustrate from your own life experience, to make the audience do what the speaker asks.This type of example is popular because it hits people's taste, that is, "everyone loves a story."Events or accidents are the most common examples used by the average speaker, but they are not the only way to support a point.In addition, you can also use statistics, such as diagrams summarized in a scientific way, expert testimony, analogy, demonstration or proof, etc., all of which can have the same effect.

A. Usage statistics
Statistics are used to show the processed and generalized results of a certain situation. They can also be impressive and convincing, especially because they have a function of evidence that isolated cases cannot achieve.Shaq's polio vaccine was considered effective because it was based on statistics from across the country.Of course, there are some ineffective cases, but that can only be used as an exception. Arguments based on this exception cannot convince parents that the Shaq vaccine cannot protect their children.

But numbers, which are tiresome by their very nature, should be used judiciously and judiciously, and when used with their dynamic language, to give them a burst of color.

Here is an example to illustrate the effect of strengthening impressions by comparing statistics with things with which we are familiar.One executive thought that New Yorkers were too lazy, and they were in the habit of not answering the phone right away, which caused a lot of lost time.In support of his argument, he said:

Seven out of every 100 calls showed a delay of more than a minute before the person answering the call answered.A total of 7 minutes are lost in this way every day.For a period of six months, this delay in time in New York is nearly equal to the hours of business that have passed since the discovery of America by Columbus.

Mentioning only numbers, quantities in themselves, will not leave any impression on people, they must be accompanied by examples.We must also speak, if possible, from our own experience.I remember listening to a tour guide's explanation in a large power generation room under the dam reservoir.He could have given us the square footage figure for this room, but that would be far less convincing than the method he uses below!He told us that the room was wide enough to accommodate 1 people watching a football game on a planned field, and there was room on each side for several tennis courts.

Years ago, a student in my public speaking class at the Young Christian Association in Central Brooklyn gave a speech about the number of homes that had been destroyed by fire the previous year.He didn't tell us how many were destroyed, but he used a metaphor that if these burned buildings were placed side by side, a long line would be formed from New York to Chicago, and if the people who died in the fire Put one half a mile away, and the miserable line can flow from Chicago back to Brooklyn.

I almost forget the numbers he listed, but after so many years, I still have lingering fears as if I saw the long row of burning buildings stretching all the way from Manhattan Island to Cook County, Illinois.

B. Use of expert testimony
The use of expert testimony in speeches can often effectively support the views you want to express.However, before using it, it is advisable to answer the following questions as a test:
Are the correct citations to be used?

Is it taken from within the person's area of ​​expertise?For example, when discussing economics and quoting Joe Louie, you are obviously borrowing his surname, not his expertise.

Is the subject of the quote well known and respected by the audience?
Is the quote really based on first-hand information rather than personal interest or bias?
Years ago, a member of my class at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce began his discussion of the need for specialization by quoting Andrew Carnegie.Was his choice wise?Indeed, he is respected by his audience because his quotes are correct and the people he quotes are qualified to talk about business success.The language he quoted is still worth repeating today:

I believe that the road to success in any line of work is to make yourself a master at that line of work.I'm not a believer in strategies to spread out one's talents, and in my experience, I've rarely, if ever, met someone who has multiple distractions and still excels at making money—and I'm even more so in manufacturing. sure no.Those who can succeed are those who choose a line and stick to it.

C. Using analogies
An analogy, according to Webster's dictionary, is "a relation of resemblance between two things .

Using analogies to support a main argument is a good technique.The following is an excerpt from a speech entitled "The Need for Greater Electricity," delivered by C. Girard Davidson when he was Assistant Secretary of the Interior.Notice how he uses analogies for comparison to support his argument:
A thriving economy must keep moving forward or be thrown into disarray.It's like when an airplane rests on the ground, it's just a bunch of useless screws and nuts.But once it moves forward in the air, it will feel like a fish in water and play its effective function.In order to stay aloft, it has to keep going.If it does not move forward, it will sink, because it cannot go backward.

Here's another analogy, and it's probably the greatest analogy in the history of speech.It was used by Lincoln to answer his critics during the difficult Civil War:
Gentlemen, I would like you to make a hypothesis.Suppose all your property is gold, and you deliver it to Borodin, the famous rope walker, to take it by rope to Niagara Falls.Would you shake the rope, or keep calling out to him as he passed over the waterfall, "Borodine, get lower! Go faster!" No, I'm sure you wouldn't.Instead, you hold your breath and stand aside until he walks by safely.Now the government is in the same position as them.It is currently carrying a huge weight to cross the turbulent sea, and countless treasures are in its hands.It's working as hard as it can.Do not disturb it!As long as you stay calm, it will carry you through.

Displays can be used with or without displays.When the director of a steel boiler company was lecturing his distributors, they needed a way to dramatically illustrate that the fuel should be added from the bottom of the furnace, not the top.So they came up with this simple yet powerful presentation method.The speaker lit a candle first, then he said:

See how bright the flame burns, how high it rises!Since all the fuel is actually converted into heat, the flame does not smoke.

The fuel for the candle is supplied from below, just as the steel boiler is fueled from the bottom of the furnace.

Assuming the candle was supplied with fuel from the top, the flame would be like that of a hand-drawn stove.At this point the speaker turns the candle upside down, notice how the flame dies out, smell the smoke, hear it crackle.See how red the flame is from its incomplete combustion.Until finally, due to lack of fuel from the top, the flames were also extinguished.

A few years ago, Henry Robinson wrote an interesting article for Your Life magazine, "How Lawyers Can Win." It described a man named Abel Humo, who was an insurance company lawyer.He used theatrical display to great effect in an injury lawsuit.The plaintiff, Mr. Post, complained that he was thrown from the elevator passage, causing his shoulder to be so badly injured that he was unable to raise his right arm.

Hu Mo looked extremely concerned. "Mr. Post," he said confidently, "please show the jury how high you can raise your arms." Post carefully raised his arms to ear level. "Now let's see how high you can lift your arm before you get hurt," Humo urged him. "As high as this," the plaintiff said, throwing his arms outstretched, over his shoulders.

One can imagine how the jury reacted to Mr. Plaintiff's display.

(End of this chapter)