She was just shy of her 17th birthday. I was a year younger. It was my first time, but she was like a pro. When she started, my back stiffened and even my knuckles started to sweat. You see, my classmate and I were giving a presentation to our entire school. I was so nervous I had to clamp my hands to the lectern to steady my shaking body. My only saving grace was so that no one heard the guttural sounds of fear groaning out of my mouth, because I was shaking so far from the microphone. Afterward, I was so embarrassed that I set myself a new goal. I would overcome my fear and become a proficient public speaker. I took a course in speaking, trained hard and even spoke in competitions at local Rotary clubs.
她還不到17歲。我比她小一歲。我是第一次，但她像個專家。她開始時，我的背變得僵硬，我的關(guān)節(jié)都開始流汗。你看，我和同學(xué)要面向全校師生演講了。我緊張得要命，雙手緊緊抓住演講臺，好讓自己顫抖的身體站穩(wěn)。唯一可取之處是沒人聽到我因恐懼而發(fā)出的喉音，因為我離話筒很遠。這之后，我尷尬之極，于是就為自己定了一個新目標。我要克服恐懼，成為演講能手。我上了講話課程，刻苦訓(xùn)練，還參加了地方演講俱樂部的比賽。
Now I travel the world to do several dozen paid speaking engagements a year. Public speaking is an invaluable skill no matter what your job is, whether you are in sales, need to talk to investors or just want to be better at getting buy-in from your colleagues. Considering how important a skill it is and how it scares so many people, it is amazing how few schools make it a course requirement. I assure you, though: If I could overcome my fears and get better at it, then you can, too. Here are three rules for successful public speaking that helped me:
如今，我一年都要到世界各地做幾十場收費演講。無論你從事什么工作，無論你是要銷售產(chǎn)品，還是同投資者談話，或者只是想更好地得到同事的認可，公眾演講都是一種寶貴的技能。公眾演講是一種那么重要的能力，但同時又令那么多人害怕，然而令人驚訝的是，將其作為一門必修課的學(xué)校少之又少。但是我向你保證：我都能克服恐懼，變得更會演講，你也同樣能做到。下面是幫助我演講成功的三條準則：
The first rule is to ask a lot of questions. I usually engage the audience by asking questions, just as your professors asked you them in seminars. Asking questions helps get the audience really thinking about the issues you're raising and your solutions. Now, if I'm speaking to an audience of 3,000, it can't always be interactive. But I can still ask questions like, 'When you are buying a car, why do you choose a Ford over a Toyota?' 'What marketing campaigns do you think have failed, and why?' Those rhetorical questions help engage audiences and keep them away from their text messages and e-mails. 更多信息請訪問：http://www.24en.com/
首先是要多問。我經(jīng)常通過提問來吸引聽眾，就像教授在討論會上問你一樣。提問能讓聽眾真正思考你提出的問題和解決方案?，F(xiàn)在，如果我對3000人進行演講，不可能總是互動的。但是我可以問這樣的問題：“你買汽車時，為什么選福特，而不選豐田？”“你認為哪些營銷活動失敗了，為什么？”這些口頭問題能吸引聽眾，讓他們不去發(fā)短信或者寫電子郵件。
Similarly, try not to talk too much about yourself or your company at the beginning of a speech. Get right to what will matter to the audience. The first 30 seconds of a presentation are critical. That's when the audience decides whether to listen to you or surf for last night's box scores on its iPhones. No one wants to hear about how big your company is or where you went to school. The key: Don't talk at the audience. Talk with it.
同樣地，不要在演講開始時過多談?wù)撃阕约汉湍愕墓?。直接說對聽眾有用的內(nèi)容。演講前30秒至關(guān)重要。這期間聽眾會決定是聽你講話，還是拿出iPhone手機找昨晚的游戲成績。沒人愿意聽你的公司有多大，或者你是在哪里上的學(xué)。關(guān)鍵是：不要對著聽眾講話。而要和聽眾一起講。
The second rule of successful public speaking is to tell stories to illustrate your points. Don't just tell people what you think; show them, with specific examples and tales. I recently gave a speech about China's Internet to corporate executives who had flown to Hong Kong from around the world. Most of them had never been to Asia before. Based on what they had read and heard about Google in China, they thought Chinese people had little access to the Internet, and what little they had was like a black hole. Nothing could be further from the truth.
公眾演講成功的第二條準則是通過講故事來闡述你的觀點。不要僅僅告訴人們你的想法，要通過實例和故事向他們展示。最近，我在香港向一些世界各地來的公司管理人員做了一場關(guān)于中國因特網(wǎng)的演講。他們大多數(shù)人之前從未去過亞洲。他們根據(jù)所讀和所聽到的谷歌在中國的故事，認為中國人很少能接觸互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，接觸的那么一丁點兒也像是黑洞。這與事實相差十萬八千里。
Instead of just telling the audience that China's Internet is robust, I showed them, by talking about Lily, a 21-year-old student in Chengdu my firm had interviewed about her Internet and mobile phone habits. Lily spends nearly five hours a day online, uses Twitter-like microblogging services on Sina and buys cosmetics and clothes online. She also actively uses her mobile phone to browse the Internet and play games. With that simple illustration, Chinese Internet users went from being a nebulous abstraction in the audience's minds to something tangible and even understandable.
我沒有簡單地告訴聽眾互聯(lián)網(wǎng)在中國蓬勃發(fā)展，而是通過講述莉莉的故事，展示給他們。莉莉是一名21歲的成都學(xué)生，我們曾經(jīng)就其上網(wǎng)和使用手機的習(xí)慣采訪過她。莉莉每天有5個小時泡在網(wǎng)上，使用類似Twitter的新浪微博，在網(wǎng)上購買化妝品和衣服。她還經(jīng)常用手機上網(wǎng)，打游戲。通過這個簡單的例子，中國網(wǎng)民在聽眾腦子里從一個模糊的抽象概念，變成了實實在在的，甚至可以理解的形象。
The third rule is to go easy on the PowerPoint. I generally don't even use PowerPoint when I give a speech. It can be a useful tool for showing graphs or visual aids to complement important points, but too many people make it the focus of their presentations, in place of themselves and their actual message. Most audience members' minds go numb when they see too many slides or they're too densely packed with information.
第三條準則是少用幻燈片。我做演講時通常不用幻燈片?；脽羝趫D表展示或視覺輔助方面十分好用，可以對重點起到補充作用。但很多人使幻燈片成了演講的中心，而非演講者本人和傳遞的信息。大多數(shù)聽眾在看到過多幻燈片或者信息量過多時，腦子會變得麻木。
How can you make PowerPoint effective? Be simple. Use short words and phrases to make large conceptual points, and never go longer than 10 slides. Get the audience to focus on you and your words, not the slides. Giving a speech is pointless if no one is paying attention. You need to grab your audience from the beginning by asking questions, telling stories and relying on your own speaking rather than a bunch of boring slides. If you can do those three things, then your battle is already half-won.
如何使幻燈片產(chǎn)生效果呢？一定要簡單。用簡潔的詞匯和短語來闡述大的概念，而幻燈片的數(shù)量不要超過10張。讓聽眾關(guān)注你和你的話語，而非幻燈片。如果沒人聽，演講就失去了意義。你一開始就要通過提問來抓住聽眾的注意力，講故事，并且要靠自己講，不要靠一堆無聊的幻燈片。如果你能做到這三點，你就取得了一半的成功。
