卡耐基演讲·四、持之以恒

学习任何新事物，譬如法文、高尔夫球和当众演讲，从来不会稳定保持直线进步的。这个过程更像一波一波的浪潮，突起突止，一动一静，有时候甚至进一步，退两步，以至于丧失了许多已经取得的成绩。这种停滞甚至衰退的现象，为心理学家所认知和了解，被称之为“学习曲线中的高原地带”。那些学习如何有效讲演的学员，也同样会在这个“高原”上受阻，时间从数周到数月。有时候费尽心机也无法跨越，意志薄弱者往往绝望而最终放弃。那些富有胆识的勇敢者会坚持不懈，他们持之以恒地努力训练，直到有一天他们忽然发现，几乎在一夜之间，奇迹发生了，他们的说话技巧一日千里，如同飞机从高原起飞了，充满了力量和信心。When we learn any new thing, like French or golf or speaking in public, we never advance steadily. We do not improve gradually. We do it by waves, by abrupt starts and sudden stops. Then we remain stationary a time, or we may even slip back and lose some of the ground we have previously gained. These periods of stagnation, or retrogression, are well known by all psychologists: they have been named "plateaus in the curve of learning". Students of effective speaking will sometimes be stalled, perhaps for weeks, on one of these plateaus. Work as hard as they may, they cannot seem to get off it. The weak ones give up in despair. Those with grit persist, and they find that suddenly, almost overnight, without knowing how or why it has happened, they have made great progress. They have lifted from the plateau like an airplane. Abruptly they have acquired naturalness, force, and confidence in their speaking.

也许你会如同本书所描述的那样，最初面对听众时，常常会感到一些心理上的恐惧，一些头脑上的冲击，一些精神上的紧张。即使经历过无数次公开演出的大音乐家，也会有相同的感觉。著名音乐家帕德列夫斯基每当坐在钢琴前时，总是紧张地摸弄着袖口。而一旦开始弹奏，所有的恐惧则如八月阳光里的迷雾，瞬间就消逝得无影无踪了。You may always, as has been stated elsewhere in these pages, experience some fleeting fear, some shock, some nervous anxiety, the first few moments you face an audience. Even the greatest musicians have felt it in spite of their innumerable public appearances. Paderewski always fidgeted nervously with his cuffs immediately before he sat down at the piano. But as soon as he began to play, all of his audience fear vanished quickly like a mist in August sunshine.

你也会经历同样的经验，但只要你能坚韧不拔，过不了多久，包括初期的恐惧在内的种种问题就都会一扫而光。在开始了最初的几句话后，你就能完全控制住自己的情绪，就会自信而愉快地面对听众讲下去。His experience will be yours. If you will but persevere, you will soon eradicate everything, including this initial fear; and that will be initial fear, and nothing more. After the first few sentences, you will have control of yourself. You will be speaking with positive pleasure.

有一次，一位希望学习法律的年轻人写信向林肯求教。林肯回答他说：“如果你已下定决心想成为一名律师，事情已成功了一半……但要时时刻刻记住，自己必胜的决心，比任何事情都重要。”One time a young man who aspired to study law wrote to Lincoln for advice. Lincoln replied, "If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already... Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other thing."

林肯是过来人，深深体味个中道理。终其一生，他所受过的正规教育，总共不超过一年时间。至于书本，林肯有一次说，他曾步行至50英里以外去借书读！在他的小木屋里，柴火总是燃烧到天亮，他通常是就着火光来勤奋读书的。小木屋的木头间有裂缝，林肯常常将书塞在那里，清晨天一亮，他一骨碌从树叶床上爬起来，揉着眼睛，取出书开始狼吞虎咽地读起来。Lincoln knew. He had gone through it all. He had never, in his entire life, had more than a total of one year's schooling. And books? Lincoln once said he had walked and borrowed every book within fifty miles of his home. A log fife was usually kept going all night in the cabin. Sometimes he read by the light of that fife, There were cracks between the logs in the cabin, and Lincoln often kept a book sticking there. As soon as it was light enough to read in the morning, he rolled over on his bed of leaves, rubbed his eyes, pulled out the book and began devouring it.

有时候，他会走上二三十英里去听人演讲，回到家里，他就到处练习演讲——在田间，在树林里，在杂货店聚集的人群前，他加入新沙龙和春田的辩论学会，讨论当时的种种时政问题。但是他却在女性面前表现得很害羞，当他追求玛丽·陶德时，总是坐在走廊上沉默寡言，静静地看着她一个人表演。然而就是这个人，穷读不休，勤练不辍，努力将自己塑造成一名演讲家，进而与当时最杰出的雄辩家道格拉斯参议员进行辩论，一决雌雄；也就是这个人，在盖茨堡，在第二次总统就职演讲中崇论宏议，冠绝古今。He walked twenty and thirty miles to hear a speaker and, returning home, he practiced his talks everywhere in the fields, in the woods, before the crowds gathered at Jones' grocery at Gentryville; he joined literary and debating societies in New Salem and Springfield, and practiced speaking on the topics of the day. He was shy in the presence of women; when he courted Mary Todd he used to sit in the parlor, bashful and silent, unable to find words, listening while she did the talking. Yet that was the man who, by faithful practice and home study, made himself into the speaker who debated with the most accomplished orator of his day, Senator Douglas. This was the man who, at Gettysburg, and again in his second inaugural address, rose to heights of eloquence that have rarely been attained in all the annals of mankind.

想想自己曾经历过的种种艰难挫折与令人心酸的奋斗历程，与林肯相比，不过是九牛一毛，但是林肯却说：“如果你已下定决心想成为一名律师，事情已经成功了一半……”Small wonder that, in view of his own terrific handicaps and pitiful struggle, Lincoln wrote, "If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer out of yourself, the thing is more than half done already."

白宫总统办公室墙上悬挂着一幅林肯的画像。“每当我要做出决定时，”罗斯福总统说，“尤其是那些复杂的一时难以处理的事情，譬如一些利益相冲突的事情，我会抬头看着林肯，假想他在相同的情况之下处于我的位置时会采取什么行动。这听来也许很荒唐，但却是千真万确的，这样做使我的问题变得容易解决多了。”An excellent picture of Abraham Lincoln hangs in the President's office in the White House. "Often when I had some matter to decide," said Theodore Roosevelt, "something involved and difficult to dispose of, something where there were conflicting rights and interest, I would look up at Lincoln, try to imagine him in my place, try to figure out what he would do in the same circumstances. It may sound odd to you, but, frankly, it seemed to make my troubles easier of solution."

为什么不试试罗斯福的方法呢？如果你消沉沮丧，想放弃成为一名成功的演讲者的努力时，问问自己，他在这样的情形下会怎么办？你是知道他会怎么做的。在竞选参议院席位败于史蒂芬·道格拉斯之手以后，他依然殷切地告诫自己的拥护者们，不可以“在一百次挫折之后即告放弃”。Why not try Roosevelt's plan? Why not, if you are discouraged and feeling like giving up the fight to make a more effective speaker of yourself, why not ask yourself what he would do under the circumstances? You know what he would do. You know what he did do. After he had been beaten by Stephen A Douglas in the race for the U.S. Senate, he admonished his followers not to "give up after one or one hundred defeats."