Chapter 33 Give examples - those from real life

In your speech, describing an experience that has given you a revelation should take up the bulk of your speech and take up the most of your time.At this stage, you describe to your audience the event from which you learned something.Psychologists believe that there are two main ways in which we learn: one is to use the "law of exercise" (law of exercise), which is to use a series of similar events to cause a change in a certain behavior pattern; the other is to use the "law of exercise". ” (law of effect), that is, a single event that causes a change in behavior because of its surprising effect.Each of us should have had these unusual experiences, and it is not difficult to find many instances in the surface layer of our own memory.Our behavior is conditioned to be guided by these experiences, so we can reorganize them and use them to influence others.Because the average person responds to words in much the same way as they respond to what actually happens.In giving an example, you must make your own experience have a salutary effect, and thereby affect your listeners as much as it first affected you.In order to achieve this effect, you must describe your experience in great detail, highlight its characteristics, and produce a dramatic effect that will hold the audience's interest.Here are a few suggestions that hopefully will help you achieve these results.

When you use an example based on a single personal experience with dramatic effect, its power is astounding.This event, which may have occurred only a few seconds before and after, will provide you with a revelation that will last a lifetime.Not long ago, a student in a training class recounted a horrific experience in which he tried to swim to shore from an overturned boat.I believe that after hearing his narration, all the audience present must make up their minds—if they encounter a similar situation in the future, it is best to do what the speaker suggested: stay where they are and wait for rescue.

Get into the example phase right at the beginning of your speech so you can grab your audience's attention right away.Some speakers just can't get the audience's attention right from the start. They often like to quote clichés or trivial apologies that don't hold the audience's interest.Phrases like "I've never been used to speaking in public" are annoying.There are also many clichés that are not suitable as opening remarks, lest the audience lose interest.In addition, babbling about why you chose the topic, or saying that you are not prepared enough (the audience will soon find out this fact), or preaching your theme like a pastor, etc., should be avoided as much as possible. Way.

Here are some tips from the writers of leading newspapers and magazines: Start your example straight away and your audience will be hooked. Here are some opening lines that caught my attention: "In 1942, I found myself lying in a hospital bed..." "At breakfast yesterday, my wife was pouring coffee when..." "Last July, I Speeding down Route 42 in my sports car..." "The door to my office was flung open, and I saw our foreman, Charlie Fan, rushing in in a panic..." "I was fishing by the lake, When I looked up, I saw a motorboat speeding towards me..."

If your opening statement can answer one of the "five W's" and "one H", that is, "who", "when", "where", "what" )", "why", "how" You are using the oldest form of communication to get others' attention - it's like telling a story, "A long time ago...", which is the way to trigger children's imagination The magic word of spring.Using the same principle, you can use your story to capture the hearts of your audience from the very beginning of your speech. Details are not interesting in themselves, a room full of cluttered furniture or decorations is not attractive, and a painting filled with too many irrelevant details is not pleasing to the eye.Likewise, too much detail—trivial, unimportant details—in a speech can be overwhelming for an audience.The trick to describing the details is that you must choose a part that is related to the topic and can strengthen the reasons and viewpoints stated by the topic.If you want to tell the audience the concept of "checking the performance of the car in detail before taking a long trip", the detailed explanation at the example stage must focus on "because you forgot to check the performance of the car before the long trip, some kind of accident happened. " on this topic.If you go into details of how to enjoy the scenery along the way, or where you went when you arrived at your destination, you will only confuse or distract your audience.

Detailed descriptions related to the topic, in very specific and vivid terms, can bring your examples to life and make the audience feel like they are there.If you say that a car accident happened only because of "negligence," it must sound very flat and uninteresting, and it is unlikely to induce the audience to want to check the car.But if you vividly describe the process of a car accident and use sentences that can arouse multiple feelings to influence the audience, the effect must be different.The following is an example given by one of the participants in the training class.He vividly pointed out how careful driving in winter needs to be.

"In the winter of 1949, just before Christmas, I was driving north on Route 41 in Indiana with my wife and two young children. The car crawled for hours on mirror-like ice. , I held the steering wheel carefully, for fear that a small movement would cause the whole car to slide out of control. Only a few drivers dared to overtake off-line, and time was slowly sliding forward like the speed of a car. "Soon, the car came to a wider road, and the ice on the road was melted by the sun, so I stepped on the transmission, trying to catch some time. The rest of the cars also accelerated. For a moment, it seemed that everyone was in a hurry. Trying to get to Chicago quickly, the kids started singing in the backseat, little did they know that disaster was coming.

"Suddenly, the uphill part of the road stretched into a woodland. When the speeding car reached the top, I saw the low-lying place on the north side of the hillside, which was covered by trees and could not see the sun. It was still covered with ice and snow. At this moment, I thought It was too late to slow down. The two cars in front of me slid down the hill like crazy, and I slid down the hill uncontrollably. We slid over the shoulder of the road and stopped on a snow bank. Fortunately, the car body did not overturn. But followed The car that was sliding down after us, but it crashed right into the side of our car. It smashed the door, and the broken glass rained on us."

The illustration is so detailed that it makes it easy for the listener to get into the situation.In short, your goal is to make the audience see what you see, hear what you hear, and feel what you are feeling at the time.If you want to achieve this goal, you have to use a lot of rich vocabulary to describe the details.As we mentioned in the previous chapter, the homework of preparing a speech is to answer questions like: Who?when?where?how?Why?etc.You have to capture the audience's imagination with a rich vocabulary and a specific tone of voice. In addition to using informative and detailed descriptions, the speaker must also reproduce his own experience when describing events, so that it is possible to achieve the purpose of motivating others to take action.

The more action and motivation you use in your argument, the more impressive you will be to your audience.If the speaker lacks this kind of enthusiasm for re-creation, no matter how detailed the examples are described, they still cannot produce effective power.Do you want to describe a fire?Then think about how you and the crowd escape from the fire while our firefighters are fighting the flames.Do you want to tell us how you got into an argument with your neighbor?Then recreate the experience and emphasize certain features.Have you ever had the experience of escaping death in water?Then tell the audience how hopeless you felt in that horrible moment.You have to find a way to make the conversation special so that the audience will remember what you have said.Only by getting your audience to remember what you have said will you be able to get them to take action.We will remember the honesty of George Washington because of the story of the cherry tree felled by Wim in his biography of Washington. The "New Testament" is also full of examples of strengthening moral behavior, such as the "good Samaritan" and other stories.

In order for your examples to be imprinted in the minds of the audience, this kind of "example from actual experience" speech will be more interesting, persuasive, and easier to understand.The experience you have gained from life is now being absorbed by your audience and preparing to respond to what you want them to do; this is the second stage of the Magic Equation.