这正是康威尔博士的方法。他习惯在自己的讲演里加入许多当地人经常谈论的东西和他们了解的实例。听众对他感兴趣，只是因为他的谈话内容与他们有关，与他们的兴趣有关，与他们的问题有关。这种与听众本身及其兴趣相关联的联系，能够将听众的注意力牢牢地抓住，从而保证沟通顺利。艾力克·钟斯顿是前美国商会会长，现为电影协会会长，几乎在他每一场讲演中都应用了这种技巧。下面，我们来看看他在俄克拉荷马州立大学的毕业典礼上是怎样机智地使用这个方法的：That is exactly what Dr. Conwell did. He made a point of working into his lecture plenty of local allusions and examples. His audiences were interested because his talk concerned them, their interests, their problems. This linkage with what your hearers are most interested in, namely, themselves, will insure attention and guarantee that the lines of communication will remain open. Eric Johuston, former head of the United States Chamber of Commerce and now president of the Motion Picture Association, uses this technique in almost every talk he gives. Note how resourcefully he employed local interests in a commencement address at the University of Oklahoma:
“各位俄克拉荷马人，对于习惯于危言耸听的贩子们应是再熟悉不过的了。各位稍稍回想一下便会想起来，他们一向将俄克拉荷马州列于书本之外，以为它是永远绝望的冒险。You Oklahomans are well acquainted with goose-pimple peddlers. You don't have to think back too far to remember when they were writing Oklahoma off the books as a hopeless risk forever.
“噢，30年代，所有望而却步的乌鸦都告诉其他的乌鸦们说，最好避开俄克拉荷马，除非自己携带干粮。Why, in the 1930's, all the ravens of despair were telling the crows to bypass Oklahoma unless they could pack along their own rations.
“他们把俄克拉荷马的将来，划入新美洲沙漠永远不可以改变的一部分。‘这里永远再不会有东西会开花的。’他们这样形容。但是到了1940年，俄克拉荷马却成了花园，百老汇也要举杯为它祝福。因为那儿‘当雨后风儿吹来，便有小麦波浪起伏、散放清香’。They consigned Oklahoma to an everlasting future as part of a new American desert. Nothing would ever bloom again - they said. But in the 1940's Oklahoma was a garden spot - and the toast of Broadway. For, once again, there was "waving wheat that sure smells sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain.”
“再过短短的十年后，这个干旱肆虐的地带，呈现在眼前的是大地覆盖玉米秆，高到象眼的地方。In one short decade, the dustbowl was smothered with cornstalk as high as the elephant's eye.
“这是信仰的结果——也是有计划的冒险的结果……Here was a pay-off for faith-and calculated risk...
“因此，我们观望自己的时代的时候，应该总是看到美好的远景，而不是停留在昨天的背景中。But it is always possible to see our own times in better perspective against the backdrop of yesterday.
“当准备访问这里的时候，我去寻找档案里的《俄克拉荷马日报》，看看1901年的春天是什么样的。我想体会50年前本地的生活滋味。So I looked up the files of the Daily Oklahoman for the spring of 1901 in preparation for my visit here. I wanted to sample the flavor of life in the territory fifty years ago.
“结果我发现了什么？And what did I discover?
“噢，我发现了它描述的全是俄克拉荷马的未来，他们把重心都放在希望上啦。”Why I found the big accent was all on Oklahoma's future. The big stress was on hope.
根据听众所关注的事情和兴趣来演讲，这是个极好的例子。艾力克·钟斯顿采用的有计划的冒险事例，来自听众在后院的谈话。他让听众觉得，他的讲演不是油印出来的一份拷贝文件——而是特地为他们准备的。讲演者根据听众所关注的事情和兴趣而讲，听众就禁不住要去注意了。Here is an excellent example of talking in terms of audience interest. Eric Johnston used instances of calculated risk right out of his listeners' back yards. He made them feel that his talk was no mimeographed copy-it was freshly created for them. No audience can withhold attention from a speaker who talks in its interests.
先问问自己：你的讲演能够帮助听众解决什么样的问题，怎样达到他们的目标？然后开始讲给他们听，就会获得他们的全神贯注。如果你是个会计师，你的开场白就可以这样：我现在要教你们如何预立遗嘱。你就可以有一群兴致勃勃的听众。事实上，每个人的知识积累中，必然会有某个题目真能对听众有所帮助。Ask yourself how knowledge of your subject will help the members of your audience solve their problems and achieve their goals. Then proceed to show them that, and you will have their complete attention. If you are an accountant and you start your talk by saying something like this, "I am going to show you how to save from fifty to a hundred dollars on your tax return." or you are a lawyer and you tell your listeners how to go about making a will, you will be certain to have an interested audience. Surely, there is some topic in your special fund of knowledge that can be of real help to members of your audience.
有人问英国报业巨子诺斯克利夫爵士，什么能够激起人们的兴趣？他回答说：“人们自己。”他就根据这一单纯的事实，建起了报业王国。When asked what interests people, Lord Northcliffe, the William Randolph Hearst of British journalism, replied, "Themselves." He built a newspaper empire on that single truth.
詹姆士·哈威·罗宾生在《思想的酝酿》一书里，形容幻想是“出于自然而最受欢迎的一种思想”。他接下去说，在幻想中，我们允许自己的想法沿着它们各自的方向前进，而它的方向以人们的希望或恐惧来确定；以我们自然个体的成功或幻灭来确定；以我们的喜、恶、爱、恨、憎、怨来确定。世上再没有比我们自己更令我们感兴趣的事了。In Mind in the Making, James Harvey Robinson describes reverie as "a spontaneous and favourite kind of thinking." He goes on to say that, in reverie, we allow our ideas to take their own course, and this course is determined by our hopes and fears, our spontaneous desires, their fulfillment or frustration; by our likes and dislikes, our loves, hates, and resentments. There is nothing so interesting to ourselves as ourselves.
来自费城的哈罗德·杜怀特，在上课时举行的宴会上进行了一场非常成功的演讲。他依次谈到围坐在餐桌旁的每个人。说刚开始的时候，自己是怎样的不会讲话，而现在他进步多了。回忆起同学们所作过的讲演，讨论过的题目，他夸张地模仿其中一些人，逗得大家开怀大笑。这样的材料，是不可能让他失败的，是谈话很理想的题材。杜怀特先生真是通晓人性，你想想还有什么题目更能使大家感兴趣的呢？Harold Dwight, of Philadelphia, made an extraordinarily successful talk at a banquet which marked the final session of our course. He talked about each person in turn around the entire table, how he had spoken when the course started, how he had improved; he recalled the talks various members had made, the subjects they had discussed; he mimicked some of them, exaggerated their peculiarities, had everyone laughing, had everyone pleased. With such material, he could not possibly have failed. It was absolutely ideal No other topic under the blue dome of heaven would have so interested that group. Mr. Dwight knew how to handle human nature.
现在的《美国》杂志，发展速度极为惊人。它的销售量剧增，引起出版界一片惊讶。它的诀窍是什么呢？诀窍就在已故的西德达和他的理念上。记得刚认识西德达时，他正主持杂志的《有趣人物》专栏。我替他写过几篇文章。有一天他坐下来和我长谈：Some years ago I wrote a series of articles for the American Magazine, and I had the opportunity of talking with John Siddall, who was then in charge of the Interesting People Department.
“人都是自私的，”他说，“他们只对自己感兴趣。他们并不十分关心政府是否应该把铁路收归国有，但他们却希望知道如何获得晋升，如何得到更多的薪水，如何保持健康。如果我是这家杂志的总编辑，我将告诉读者如何照顾牙齿，如何洗澡，如何在夏天时保持清凉，如何找到工作，如何应付所雇用的员工，如何购买房子，如何增强记忆力，如何避免文法错误，等等。另外，人们也总是对旁人的生平故事感兴趣，所以我会邀请一些大富翁，让他们谈谈他是如何在房地产事业上赚进上百万的美元。我还要找一些著名的银行家及各大公司的总裁们，让他们谈一谈自己是如何从低层奋斗到有权有势的地位的。”People are selfish, he said. "they are interested chiefly in themselves. They are not very much concerned about whether the government should own the railroads; but they do want to know how to get ahead, how to draw more salary, how to keep healthy. If I were editor of this magazine," he went on, "I would tell them how to take care of their teeth, how to take baths, how to keep cool in summer, how to get a position, how to handle employees, how to buy homes, how to remember, how to avoid grammatical error, and so on. People are always interested in human interest stories, so I would have some rich man tell how he made a million in real estate. I would get prominent bankers and presidents of various corporations to tell the stories of how they battled their ways up from the ranks to power and wealth."
不久，西德达真的当上了总编辑。当时杂志的销路很小，是相当失败的一本杂志。西德达立即按照他自己的构想开展工作。效果怎样？刚才我们已经谈到了，杂志的销售量急速上升，达到20万份、30万份甚至更多。因为它的内容是一般民众所希望阅读的，没多久，该杂志的月销售量就达到100万份，但销售量并没有就此停住，而是持续地上升。西德达满足了读者们自私的兴趣，也就获得了杂志的成功。Shortly after that, Siddall was made editor. The magazine then had a small circulation. Siddall did just what he said he would do. The response? It was over whelming. The circulation figures climbed up to two hundred thousand, three, four, haft a million. Here was something the public wanted. Soon a million people a month were buying it, then a million and a half, finally two million. It did not stop there, but continued to grow for many years. Siddall appealed to the selfinterests of his readers.
当你面对听众时，假想他们很希望听到你的演讲——只要它能对他们有用。讲演者如果不考虑听众自我中心的必然倾向，很容易发现自己面对的是烦躁不安的听众。他们会局促不安、表现腻烦，不时抬起手看手表，并且渴望着离开。The next time you face an audience, visualize them as eager to hear what you have to say-as long as it applies to them. Speakers who fail to take this essential egocentricity of their listeners into account are apt to find themselves facing a restless audience, one squirming in boredom, glancing at wristwatches, and looking hopefully toward the exit doors.
