Chapter 96 must persist

When we learn anything new, like French, golf, or public speaking, progress is never steady.Our performance will be wave-like, it will stop suddenly after a period of climax, and it may even slide downhill sometimes, losing some positions that have been gained previously.This phenomenon of stagnation or decline is well understood by all psychologists.This period is also known as the "plateau in the learning curve".Students who learn to speak effectively are sometimes stuck on these plateaus for weeks on end.Maybe they worked hard for a long time, but they just couldn't move forward.The weak will give up in despair, but the brave will persevere.After surviving this stage, they will suddenly find that almost overnight, without knowing the reason, a miracle happened, and they can already leap thousands of miles.They take off from plateaus like airplanes, rise steeply into the air, and gain confidence in their speeches.

You may experience some fear, some shock, some mental tension when first confronting an audience, as I have said elsewhere in this book.Even great musicians who have done countless public performances feel the same way.When Paderewski was about to sit down in front of the piano, he was always fumbling with his cuffs nervously.But as soon as he started playing, all his fears disappeared like fog in an August sun. His experience can also be used as a reference for you when going through this situation.As long as you can persevere, soon all your worries will be wiped away.Including this initial fear, after you have said the first few sentences, you will completely control yourself, and after passing this level, you will speak with confidence and joy.

Once, a young man eager to study law wrote to Lincoln for advice.Lincoln replied: "If you have made up your mind to be a lawyer, you are more than half done... Always remember that your determination to believe that you will succeed is more important than anything else." Lincoln's books never left his body.Lincoln once said that he once walked 50 miles to borrow a book.In his cabin, a fire was always burning all night, and sometimes he would read by its light.There was a crack in the wood of the log cabin, and Lincoln would often stick a book in there.When it was dawn and he could read a book in the morning, he got up from the bed of leaves, rubbed his eyes, pulled out the book and started to "gobble it up".

He would walk twenty or thirty miles to hear a speech, and when he got home, he practiced it everywhere—in fields, in the woods, in front of crowds at the grocery store.He also joined the literary and debate societies of New Sharon and Springfield, where he practiced and commented on various topics of the day.He is very shy in front of women. When he pursues Mary, he always sits in the corridor, shy and silent, unable to find anything to say, and only listens to her singing a one-man show alone.And yet this was the man who, by studying at home and practicing everywhere, made himself a speaker, and was able to debate the century with Senator Douglas, the most eminent orator of his day.This is the man who gave the Gettysburg speech and went on to give the second inaugural speech the greatest of all time.

A fine portrait of Lincoln hangs on the wall of the Oval Office in the White House. "Oftentimes when I have something to decide," said Theodore Roosevelt, "something complex and intractable, some conflicting interest, I'll look up at Lincoln and pretend he's in my place absurd as it may sound, but really, it seems to make my problem much easier to solve."