卡耐基演講·三、培養(yǎng)良好的演講態(tài)度

我舉個例子，來說明一般人的談話態(tài)度。我在瑞士阿爾卑斯山的避暑勝地穆倫停留，住在一家倫敦公司經營的旅館里。一般來說，這家旅館每周都會從英國邀請兩位演講家向賓客發(fā)表演講，其中一位是著名的英國小說家，她講“小說的前途”。這個題目不是她自己選的，更糟糕的是，她覺得沒有話可說，她并不是真的關心這個題目，因此就顧不得是不是講得精彩了。小說家匆忙準備了一些提要，站在聽眾跟前，無視他們的存在，正眼也不瞧他們一下——她有時抬頭望著前方，有時低頭看著自己的筆記，有時又望著地板。她空洞地按照筆記逐條地念著，眼中霧一般的迷茫，聲音飄忽，一個個詞都飄到了無盡的太虛中。Let me give you an illustration that is typical of the fashion in which thousands of persons talk. I happened on one occasion to be stopping in Murren, a summer resort in the Swiss Alps. I was living at a hotel operated by a London company; and they usually sent out from England a couple of lecturers each week to talk to the guests. One of them was a wellknown English novelist. Her topic was "The Future of the Novel". She admitted that she had not selected the subject herself; and the long and short of it was that she had nothing she cared to say about it to mate it worthwhile expressing. She had hurriedly made some rambling notes; and she stood before the audience, ignoring her hearers, not even looking at them, staring sometimes over their heads, sometimes at her notes, sometimes at the floor. She unreeled words into the primeval void with a far-away look in her eyes and a far-away ring in her voice.

這算什么表達？是“獨白”吧——沒有任何一點溝通。而好的演講，其首要條件就是溝通。一定要讓聽眾感覺到，有一股信息從演講者的腦海和心中直接傳達到他們的腦海和心中。這位小說家的演講，也許適合在荒涼的戈壁大沙漠里舉行。事實上，這種演講聽起來就像講給大沙漠聽的，而不是對人們發(fā)表的演講。That isn't delivering a talk at all. It is a soliloquy. It has no sense of communication. And that is the first essential of good talking: a sense of communication. The audience must feel that there is a message being delivered straight from the mind and heart of the speaker to their minds and their hearts. The kind of talk I have just described might as well have been spoken out in the sandy, waterless wastes of the Gobi desert. In fact, it sounded as if it were being delivered in some such spot rather than to a group of living human beings.

關于演講的技巧，已經有很多人寫過很多荒謬拙劣的評論，倒讓它籠罩在各種規(guī)則、儀式與人為的神秘中了。陳舊的“演講術”一向被人們討厭，也常常把演講弄得極為荒謬。一些想學會演講技巧的生意人到圖書館或書店找資料時，往往找到一些叫什么“演講術”的“巨著”，但一點用都沒有。有些學生盡管已經有了長足的進步，可仍然被迫去練習及背誦韋伯斯特和英格索的“演講術”——多么落伍！這違背了我們現(xiàn)在時代的精神，就跟把英格索夫人和韋伯斯特夫人所戴的帽子戴在今天女孩子的頭上一樣。An enormous amount of nonsense and twaddle has been written about delivery. It has been shrouded in rules and rites and made mysterious. Old - fashioned "elocution" has often made it ridiculous. The businessman, going to the library or book shop, has found volumes on "oratory" that were utterly useless. In spite of progress in other directions, in almost every state in the Union today, schoolboys are still being forced to recite the ornate "oratory of ' orators' "a thing that is as useless as a squirrel-headed tire pump, as out-of-date as a quill pen.

自從內戰(zhàn)結束以來，出現(xiàn)了嶄新的演講理論。為了趕上時代精神，新式的演講就像電報一樣直截了當。曾經流行的華麗文風，不再被現(xiàn)代的聽眾接受。An entirely new school of speaking has sprung up since the twenties. In keeping with the spirit of the times, it is as modern and as practical as the automobile, direct as a telegram, businesslike as a telling advertisement. The verbal fireworks that were once the vogue would no longer be tolerated by an audience today.

如今，不管是十五人的商業(yè)聚會，或上千人齊聚一堂，聽眾都希望演講者像私底下聊天時那樣直截了當?shù)卣f出主旨，態(tài)度也要像和聽眾中的某一個人私下交談那樣親切。態(tài)度可以相同，但力量可不能相同，否則大部分聽眾可就聽不見你的聲音了。向40個人講話，必須花比向一個人談話時更多的力氣，就如同建筑物屋上的雕像必須很大，人們從地上看的時候，才會覺得雕像似乎和真人大小一樣。A modern audience, regardless of whether it is fifteen people at a business conference or a thousand people under a tent, wants the speaker to talk just as directly as he would in a chat, and in the same general manner he would employ in speaking to one of them in conversation, in the same manner, but with greater force or energy. In order to appear natural, he has to use much more energy in talking to forty people than he does in talking to one, just as a statue on top of a building has to be of heroic size in order to make it appear of lifelike proportions to an observer on the ground.

有一次，馬克·吐溫在內華達州的礦場發(fā)表演講。演講后，一名年老的探礦員走上前來問：“這就是你平常說話的語調嗎？”At the close of one of Mark Twain's lectures in a Nevada mining camp, an old prospector approached him and inquired: "Be them your natural tones of eloquence?"

這正是聽眾們所希望的“你平常說話的語調”稍微提高一點。That is what the audience wants: "Your natural tones of eloquence" enlarged a bit.

唯一能夠學會這種自然技巧的方法是練習。練習時如果發(fā)現(xiàn)自己說起話來扭扭捏捏，就停下來，對自己說：“呀！哪里不對？清醒一下！要有人性，要自然一點。”哪怕說得再刻薄一點都可以。假想聽眾找出一個人——也許是坐在最后面的人，也許是最不專心的人——和他聊聊閑話，想像他問你一個問題，而你正在回答，而且只有你能回答。如果他是站起來問你，而你又回答他的話，這個過程就能立即讓你的講演更加自然、直截，更像平常的談話。The only way to acquire the knack of this enlarged naturalness is by practice. And, as you practice, if you find yourself talking in a stilted manner, pause and say sharply to yourself mentally: "Here! What is wrong? Wake up! Be human." Then mentally pick out a person in the audience, someone in the back or the least attentive person you can find, and talk to this person. Forget there is anyone else present at all. Converse with this person. Imagine that he has asked you a question and that you are answering it, and that you are the only one who can answer it. If he were to stand up and talk to you, and you were to talk back to him, that process would immediately and inevitably make your speaking more conversational, more natural, more direct. So, imagine that is precisely what is taking place.

你也許進展得很順利，最后你也實際地提出問題并向聽眾解答了這個問題。比如在你的談話當中，你說：“你們各位是不是有這樣的疑問：你這樣說，有沒有什么證據？當然，我掌握了充分的證據，我現(xiàn)在說明如下……”然后，你接下來回答你提出來的這個象出來中的問題。這樣就顯得十分自然，可以打破一個人唱獨角戲的單調局面，你的演講會顯得直截、愉快，更像和朋友閑話家常。You may go so far as actually to ask questions and answer them. For example, in the midst of your talk, you may say, "and you ask what proof have I for this assertion? I have adequate proof and here it is... "Then proceed to answer the question. That sort of thing can be done very naturally. It will break up the monotony of one's delivery; it will make it direct and pleasant and conversational.

向社區(qū)委員會發(fā)表談話的態(tài)度，應該和跟老朋友約翰、亨利、史密斯聊天一樣。社區(qū)委員會是什么樣的聚會呢？還不就是一大群的約翰、亨利、史密斯聚在一起嗎？能和其中一個聊天，難道和他們全體聊天有什么不同嗎？Speak to the Chamber of Commerce just as you would to John Henry Smith. What is a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, after all, but a collection of John Henry Smiths? Won't the same methods that are successful with those men individually be successful with them collectively?

在這之前，我們曾敘述過一位小說家的講演方式。在她之后，也在那個大舞廳，我們有幸聆聽了奧立佛·羅基爵士的講演。他用曾經貢獻出半個世紀的時間思考、研究、試驗與探查的成果，作為他的題目——《原子與世界》。這些幾乎已經成了他靈魂、思想與生命的一部分，有一些他覺得非說不可的東西，他根本不擔心什么，早忘了是在演講。奧立佛·羅基爵士只關心要告訴聽眾有關原子的事情，滿腔熱誠，一心要我們看到他所看到的、感受到的，他的演講明確、流暢而且感情豐富。Earlier in this chapter was described the delivery of a certain novelist. In the same ballroom in which she had spoken, we had the pleasure, a few nights later, of hearing Sir Oliver Lodge. His subject was "Atoms and Worlds". He had devoted to this subject more than half a century of thought and study and experiment and investigation. He had something that was essentially a part of his heart and mind and life, something that he wanted very much to say. He forgot that he was trying to make a "speech". That was the least of his worries. He was concerned only with telling the audience about atoms, telling us accurately, lucidly, and feelingly. He was earnestly trying to get us to see what he saw and to feel what he felt.

結果他作了一場超凡脫俗的講演，魅力四射，深深吸引了聽眾，給他們留下了深刻的印象。他真是全情投入地講著，然而，我相信他自己沒有這樣想，聽過他演講的人也沒有把他當做是“公眾演講家”。And what was the result? He delivered a remarkable talk. It had both charm and power. It made a deep impression. He was a speaker of unusual ability. Yet I am sure he didn't regard himself in that light. I am sure that few people who heard him over thought of him as a "public speaker" at all.

如果你公開演講后，聽眾都懷疑你受過當眾演講的訓練，那你可不是在給你的老師爭面子，尤其不是給我訓練班的老師爭面子。我們要求你用自然、輕松的態(tài)度講話，讓聽眾做夢也想不到你竟受過“正式”的訓練。一扇好窗戶，它本身不會引人注目，它只默默地放入光線。好的演講家正是這樣，他自然而無遮掩，聽眾沒有留意他的神態(tài)，只感知他論述的題材。If you speak in public so that people hearing you will suspect that you have had training in public speaking, you will not be a credit to your instructor, especially an instructor in one of my courses. He desires you to speak with such intensified naturalness that your audience will never dream that you have been "formally" trained. A good window does not call attention to itself. It merely lets in the light. A good speaker is like that. He is so disarmingly natural that his hearers never notice his manner of speaking: they are conscious only of his matter.