卡耐基演讲·二、诚心诚意地赞赏听众

听众由单个的人组成，所以听众的反应也跟个人的反应一样。如果你敢公然地批评听众，必然导致愤懑。如果你对他们做的值得称赞的事表示赞美，你就赢得了通往他们心灵的钥匙。但这也需要你认真地研究一下，因为如果你的赞美是一些夸张、肉麻的词句，比如“各位是我曾面对过的最有智慧的听众”，也会被大多数的听众认为是空洞的谄媚而感到厌恶。Audiences are composed of individuals, and they react like individuals. Openly criticize an audience and they resent it. Show your appreciation for something they have done that is worthy of praise, and you win a passport into their hearts. This often requires some research on your part. Such fulsome phrases as "this is the most intelligent audience I have ever addressed," are resented as hollow flattery by most audiences.

引用大演讲家姜西·M.德普说的话：你得“告诉他们一些有关他们的事，并且是他们没想到你可能会知道的事”。举例说，有个人最近要在巴尔的摩基瓦尼俱乐部演讲，却找不到有关该俱乐部的特殊资料，只知道在会员里曾有一位出任国际会长，一位出任国际董事。这些对俱乐部里的人来说并不是新闻。他想来点新鲜的东西，于是这样开场：“巴尔的摩基瓦尼俱乐部是101898个基瓦尼俱乐部中的一个！”会员们感到有些奇怪：这个演讲人根本就错了——因为全球只有2897个基瓦尼俱乐部。然后讲演者接着说：In the words of a great speaker, Chauncey M. Depew, you have to "tell them something about themselves that they didn't think you could possibly know." For example, a man who spoke before the Baltimore Kiwanis Club recently could find nothing unusual about that club except that it had in its membership a past international president and an international trustee. This was no news to the members of the club. So he tried to give it a new twist. He started his talk with this sentence: "The Baltimore Kiwanis Club is one club in 101 ,898 !" The members listened. This speaker was certainly wrong-because there were only 2,897 Kiwanis Clubs in the world. The speaker then went on:

“可是，就算各位不相信吧，它仍然是个事实，至少在数学方面是这样。各位的俱乐部是101898个当中的一个，不是100 000或200 000个当中的一个，而确实是101898个当中的一个。Yes, even if you don't believe it, it is still a fact that your club, mathematically at least, is one in 101,898. Not one club in 100,000 or one in 200,000, but just exactly one in 101,898.

“我是怎样算出来的呢？全球的基瓦尼俱乐部只有2897个。这样的话，巴尔的摩俱乐部过去曾出过一位国际会长和一位国际董事。从数学的观点看，任何一个基瓦尼俱乐部想同时出个国际会长和董事的几率是1：101898——我有钟斯、霍普金斯数学博士学位，可以证明我计算出来的数字的准确性。”于是，他得到了大家的注意。How do I figure that out? Kiwanis International has only 2,897 member clubs. Well, the Baltimore club has a past president of Kiwanis International and an international trustee. Mathematically, the chances that any Kiwanis club will have both a past president and an international trustee at the same time are one in 101,898-and the reason I know it's right is that I got a Johns Hopkins Ph.D. in mathematics to figure it out for me.

在你表示赞美的时候，要确实百分之百的真诚。如果没有诚意的话，偶尔可以骗过个人，却永远骗不了听众。什么“这样高度智慧的听众……”“这来自霍霍柯斯、新泽西……的美女和侠士的特别聚会”，“我真高兴在这儿，因为我爱你们每一位”……哎呀！千万不要这样！如果表示不出真心的赞赏，那一点也别表示还好一些。Be exactly one hundred per cent sincere. An insincere statement may occasionally fool an individual, but it never fools an audience. "This highly intelligent audience..." "This exceptional gathering of the beauty and chivalry of Honour, New Jersey..." "I'm glad to be here because I love each one of you." No, no, no! If you can't show sincere appreciation, don't show any!