The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking

by Dale Carnegie

BE SURE TO STRESS ONE REASON-AND ONE ONLY

“Everything that can be thought at all,” said Ludwig Wittgenstein, “can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said, can be said clearly.”

If you belong to a profession the work of which is technical—if you are a lawyer, a physician, an engineer, or are in a highly specialized line of business— be doubly careful, when you talk to outsiders, to express yourself in plain terms and to give necessary details.

Aristotle gave some good advice on the subject: “Think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.”

If you use a chart or diagram, be sure it is large enough to see, and don’t overdo a good thing. A long succession of charts is usually boring. If you make the diagram as you go along, be careful to sketch roughly and swiftly on the blackboard or flip chart.

When you use exhibits, follow these suggestions and you will be assured of the rapt attention of your audience. Keep the exhibit out of sight until you are ready to use it. Use exhibits large enough to be seen from the very last row. Certainly your audience can’t learn from any exhibit unless they see it. Never pass an exhibit around among your listeners while you are speaking. Why invite competition? When you show an exhibit, hold it up where your listeners can see it. Remember, one exhibit that moves is worth ten that don’t. Demonstrate if practicable. Don’t stare at the exhibit as you talk—you are trying to communicate with the audience, not with the exhibit. When you have finished with the exhibit, get it out of sight if practicable. If the exhibit you are going to use lends itself to “mystery treatment,” have it placed on a table which will be at your side as you speak. Have it covered. As you talk, make references to it that will arouse curiosity—but don’t tell what it is. Then, when you are ready to unveil it, you have aroused curiosity, suspense, and real interest.

Two American presidents, both masters of the spoken word, have indicated that the ability to be clear is the result of training and discipline. As Lincoln said, we must have a passion for clarity.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense. – Joseph Conrad

When a person says “No” and really means it, he is doing far more than saying a word of two letters. His entire organism—glandular, nervous, muscular—gathers itself together into a condition of rejection. There is, usually in minute but sometimes in observable degree, a physical withdrawal, or readiness for withdrawal. The whole neuromuscular system, in short, sets itself on guard against acceptance. Where, on the contrary, a person says “Yes,” none of the withdrawing activities takes place. The organism is in a forward-moving, accepting, open attitude. Hence the more “Yesses” we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.

We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are wrong we resent the Imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem which is threatened... The little word my is the most important one in human affairs, and properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has the same force whether it is my dinner, my dog, and my house, or my faith, my country and my God.

When your aim is to convince, remember it is more productive to stir emotions than to arouse thoughts.

The Prince had learned in his own way in a distant land that you can’t project your personality in a talk to others by using reason alone: you have to reveal to them how deeply you yourself believe in what you say.

“The human personality demands love and it also demands respect,” Dr. Norman Vincent Peale said as a prelude to speaking of a professional comedian. “Every human being has an inner sense of worth, of importance, of dignity. Wound that and you have lost that person forever. So when you love and respect a person you build him up and, accordingly, he loves and esteems you.

Begin in a Friendly Way

Since pride is such a fundamentally explosive characteristic of human nature, wouldn’t it be the part of wisdom to get a man’s pride working for us, instead of against us? How? By showing, as Paley did, that the thing we propose is very similar to something that our opponent already believes.

When you are called on to speak without preparation usually you are expected to make some remarks about a subject upon which you can speak with authority. The problem here is to face up to the situation of talking and to decide what exactly you want to cover in the short time at your disposal. One of the best ways to become adept at this is to prepare yourself mentally for these situations. When you are at a meeting keep asking yourself what you would say now if you were called upon. What aspect of your subject would be most appropriate to cover at this time? How would you phrase your approval or rejection of the proposals now being put forth on the floor? So the first bit of advice I offer is this: condition yourself mentally to speak impromptu on all occasions.

Get into an Example Immediately Why? For three reasons: (1) You will free yourself at once of the necessity to think hard about your next sentence, for experiences are easily recounted even in an impromptu situation. (2) You will get into the swing of speaking, and your first-moment jitters will fly away, giving you the opportunity to warm up to your subject matter. (3) You will enlist the attention of your audience at once. As pointed out in Chapter Seven, the incident- example is a sure-fire method of capturing attention immediately.

There are three sources therefore from which you can draw ideas for an impromptu speech. First is the audience itself. Remember this, I pray you, for easy speaking. Talk about your listeners, who they are and what they are doing, especially what specific good they perform to the community or for humanity. Use a specific example. The second is the occasion. Surely you can dwell on the circumstances that brought the meeting about. Is it an anniversary, a testimonial, an annual meeting, a political or patriotic occasion? Lastly, if you have been an attentive listener, you might indicate your pleasure in something specific another speaker said before you and amplify that. The most successful impromptu talks are those that are really impromptu. They express things that the speaker feels in his heart about the audience and the occasion. They fit the situation like hand in glove. They are tailor-made for this occasion, and this occasion alone.

At a meeting you can do a little preliminary planning and you can keep yourself aware of the possibility of being called upon at any moment. If you think you may be asked to contribute your comments or suggestions, pay careful attention to the other speakers. Try to be ready to condense your ideas into a few words. When the time comes, say what you have in mind as plainly as you can. Your views have been sought. Give them briefly, and sit down.

The chief secret lies in making a start—giving one short talk— and then making another start, and another, and another. We will find that each successive talk comes more easily. Each talk will be better than its predecessors. We will realize in the end speaking impromptu to a group is merely an extension of the same thing we do when we speak impromptu to friends in our living room.