Chapter 18 To speak well, there must be a good ending

The closing is really the most strategic point of a speech.When a speaker leaves, the last few words he uttered ring in your ears—these are the words that will be remembered longest. I chatted with the industrialist and humanitarian George F. Jensen for a few minutes as I stopped by.He was the president of Big Andy Co-Jensen.But what interests me more is that he is a speaker who can make his audience laugh, sometimes cry, and keep his words in their hearts. He does not have a private office, he only occupies a small corner of the spacious and busy factory, and his demeanor is like an old wooden desk, sincere and not hypocritical. "You've come just in time," he said, standing up to meet me. "I have a special errand to do! I've just jotted down the end of my address to the workers tonight." It's really a relief to have a clue." I said. "Oh, they're not fully formed in my head," he said, "just general concepts and the particular way I want to end them."

He was not a professional orator, and he never considered sonorous words or exquisite words.However, he did learn from experience one of the secrets of successful communication and success.He knew that in order to speak well, it must have a good ending.He understands that in order to impress his audience, the content of the speech must be logically advanced and concluded. Do you know which parts of a speech can most clearly tell the difference between an inexperienced novice or a speaking expert?Is it clumsy or extremely skillful?That's the beginning and the end.There's an old saying in the theater which, of course, has to do with actors: "You can tell if a actor is a good actor just by how they appear and exit."

Start and end!For almost any kind of activity, it is the most difficult part to perform well.For example, in a social occasion, isn’t it the most skillful performance to enter and exit gracefully?In a formal meeting, isn't the most difficult job to win the other party's trust at the beginning and successfully end the meeting? The closing is really the most strategic point of a speech.When a speaker leaves, the last few words he uttered ring in your ears—these are the words that will be remembered longest.However, the average novice public speaker seldom notices the importance of this fact.Their endings are often disappointing.

What is the most common mistake they make?Let's dig into it and find out how to remedy it. First, there are people who always end by saying, "That's about all I can say about this. So, I guess it's time for the end of the talk." Such speakers often cast a smokescreen, guiltily Saying "thank you" is trying to cover up my inability to end satisfactorily.This is not the end.This is a mistake.This will give away that you are a novice.If you've said all you have to say, why not just end your speech and sit down immediately instead of saying "I'm done" or something?If you do this, there will be a lingering lingering sound, and the audience will know that you have said all you had to say.

Then there are the speakers who, after saying everything they have to say, don't know how to end it.Joswin Bilingsi suggested that when people catch cattle, they should grasp the tail instead of the horns, so that it is easier to succeed.But the speaker mentioned here is holding the bull head-on.He desperately wanted to be separated from the cow, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't separate from the cow and escaped to the fence or tree.Therefore, he can only go around in circles, saying and saying what he said, leaving a bad impression in the minds of the audience. So what should we do?First of all the ending has to be planned in advance.isn't it?It's not stupid if you try to plan your closing remarks after you've faced the audience, when you're under the stress and nervousness of speaking and your mind has to be focused on what you've said ?So wouldn't it be smarter if you could calmly and quietly plan your closing remarks beforehand?

Even well-known speakers such as Webster, Brett, and Graystone, who are extremely accomplished and have admirable English skills, think that it is necessary to write all the endings and then memorize them verbatim. If beginners can follow their example, they will no longer feel upset about it.The beginner must be very clear that he repeats the same words at the end, but express your thoughts clearly in words. If it is an impromptu speech, then it is often necessary to change a lot of material during the speech, cut some paragraphs to match the unforeseen situation, and achieve harmony with the audience's response.Therefore, it is wise to plan two or three closing remarks in advance.If one doesn't work, maybe another will work.

Some speakers never finish.During the journey, they began to talk quickly and without meaning, as if the engine would be banged and stopped frequently when the gas was running out.After a few desperate sprints forward, it fell completely silent and broke down.Of course, they required more preparation, more practice -- and more gas in the tank. Many novices end their speeches too abruptly, their closing method is uneven and lacking in decoration.To be precise, they don't end, they just stop abruptly.The effect of this approach is very unpleasant, and it also shows that the speaker is a complete layman.It's like having a social conversation when the other person suddenly stops talking and dashes out of the room, forgetting to say a polite goodbye.

A speaker as great as Lincoln made the same mistake in the draft of his first inaugural address.At that time, when the situation was tense, dark clouds and storms of conflict and hatred were hovering and brewing overhead.In the weeks that followed, a storm of blood and destruction erupted across the United States.In his inaugural address to the people of the South, Lincoln had intended to conclude with the following words: "My disgruntled fellow citizens, the great question of civil war is in your hands, not mine. The government will not scold you. There will be no conflict unless you are the aggressors yourself. You have no I have taken an oath to destroy the government, but I have a most solemn oath to maintain, protect and fight for this government; you can avoid attacks on this government, but I cannot escape my responsibility to protect it. .'Peace or war?' The solemn question is on you, not on me."

He showed the speech to Secretary of State Xihua for review.Xihua pointed out very accurately that the ending was too straightforward and reckless.Therefore, Xihua tried to modify this ending and wrote two kinds.Lincoln accepted one of these, and, after minor revisions, replaced the last three sentences of the original speech.In this way, his first inaugural speech lost the original recklessness, and presented a friendly climax, showing a state of pure beauty and poetic eloquence: "I hate conflict. We are not enemies, we are friends. We must never become enemies. Strong emotions may create tension, but they must never destroy our emotions and friendships. Mysterious emotions in memory, from every battlefield and The graves of the patriots, reaching out to every living heart and every family of this vast land, will add to the united voice of the United States. When the time comes, we will, and must, by our truer nature Treat this country."

How can a novice get an accurate feel for the end of a speech?According to mechanical rules? No.Like culture, this stuff is extremely delicate.It's a sensory thing, almost an intuition.How can a speaker be expected to do this unless he can "feel" what it takes to perform harmoniously and with great skill? However, this "feeling" can be cultivated, and this experience can also be summed up.You can study the methods of becoming a famous speaker.Here’s an example, from the closing words of the Prince of Wales’ speech at the Empire Club in Toronto: "Guys, I'm worried. I've lost control of myself and talked too much about myself. But I want to tell you that you are the largest audience I've ever spoken in Canada. I must say, How I feel about my own position, and how I feel about the responsibilities that come with it—I can only assure you that I will always fulfill these great responsibilities and do my best to live up to the trust you have placed in me."

Even the most ignorant audience will "feel" that this is the closing line.It is not like an untied rope dangling in mid-air; nor is it left here and there untouched.It is well manicured, tidied up and should be finished. On the Sunday after the Sixth Congress of the League of Nations, the eminent Dr. Hostik delivered a speech at the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre in Geneva.The title he chose was: "He who bears the sword shall die by the sword." Here is the conclusion of his speech, and notice how beautiful, noble, and powerful he expresses in the end: "We must not confuse Jesus Christ with war - that is the crux of the matter. This is the challenge we face today, and it should stir the conscience of Christ. War is the greatest and most destructive social evil ever committed by mankind; It stands for everything Jesus never said, nor for anything Jesus ever said. It very clearly denies every single Christian teaching about God and man, far more than any atheist on earth can imagine To the extent that the Christian Church could be seen to claim responsibility for the greatest moral questions of our time, and to see it set forth, as in our fathers' days, a clear moral standard against the paganism of our present time Is it not of great value to reject heresy, to refuse to subjugate conscience to some belligerent nation, to place the Kingdom of God above nationalism, and to call the world to peace? "Here and now, as an American, under this lofty and friendly roof, I cannot speak for my government, but as an American and as a Christian, I speak for millions of my fellow citizens Speak up and bless you on your great tasks - great tasks in which we trust you. We pray for it and will regret it if it cannot be done - many in our efforts but one in purpose - a quest for peace world organization. There is no better goal worth striving for. Without this goal, mankind will face the most terrible disaster in history. Like the law of gravity in physics, the law of God in the moral field has no race. Boundary with the country: 'Whoever holds the sword will die by the sword.'” But the end of our recorded speech would not be complete without the sublime finish, solemn tone, and piano-like melody of Lincoln's second inaugural address.The late Earl Cuzzon, former chancellor of Oxford University, once declared that Lincoln's closing words "are enough to represent the glory of mankind and to be forever treasured... the purest gold of human eloquence, no, it should be regarded as almost sacred eloquence". "We gladly hope, we pray fervently, that the scourge of this war will soon be a thing of the past. However, if it is God's will that this war be continued for two hundred and fifty years by unpaid The wealth accumulated by the slaves is completely exhausted, and every drop of blood shed by the whip will be compensated by the blood shed by the sword. Then, we must also say the same words as three thousand years ago: 'God's judgment is true and just.' "Be hostile to no one; be merciful to all, stand on the side of the righteous, God guides us to see what is right, and let us do what we are doing now; heal the wounds of this nation; care for the soldiers who died in their service them, to take care of their widows and loneliness—to do all our duty to achieve a just and everlasting peace among us, and to extend to the nations of the world." In my opinion, this is the most beautiful ending to a passage that has ever been uttered from a human mouth... Do you agree with me?In the field of speech literature, where can you find a more human, loving, compassionate passage than this one? William Barton said in The Life of Abraham Lincoln: "The Gettysburg Speech is already very noble, but this speech is raised to a higher level... This is the greatest speech of Abraham, and he brought his wisdom and spiritual power to the highest level." "It was like a hymn," wrote Carl Szez. "Never before has an American president spoken such words to the American people. And never has a president of the United States found such a moving message in his heart." discourse." Of course, you don't speak in Washington as president, or in Ottawa or Canberra as prime minister.Perhaps your question is simply how to end a simple conversation in front of a group of social workers: what should you do?Let's dig a little and see if we can unearth some useful suggestions.suggestions below: Even in a short talk of five minutes or so, the average speaker unknowingly expands the scope of the topic so widely that, by the end of the day, the audience is still confused about the key point he was trying to make.Only a small number of speakers will notice this, though.They have the erroneous idea that since these ideas are crystal clear in their own minds, they should be equally clear to their listeners.This is not the case, although the speaker has thought about his point for quite some time.But his ideas are new to the audience, and they are thrown at them like a handful of marbles.Some may fall on the audience, but the vast majority fall messily on the ground.The listener may "remember a whole bunch of things, none of which are clear." Below is an excellent example.The speaker was a traffic manager for a Chicago railroad company: "Everyone: In short, based on our experience of operating this signal system in our own backyard, based on our experience of using this machine in the East, West, and North-it is easy to operate, the effect is accurate, and within a year it The success in preventing multiple crashes and the resulting savings has led me to recommend, with the utmost urgency, the immediate adoption of this machine in our southern branch." Have you seen his success?You can feel that without hearing the rest of his speech.In just a few sentences, he summed up the whole point of his speech. Don't you think summaries like this work well?If you feel the same way, then use this technique. The ending quoted above is also a great example of ending a speech with a "request for action."The speaker wants to make a move by installing a signal control system on the southern branch of the railway company he works for.He asked the company's executives to take this action mainly because this equipment can save the company money and prevent crashes.This is not a practice speech.The speech was a recommendation to the board of directors of the railway company, asking the company to agree to install the signaling equipment it had requested. In the final words of a speech for action, the time to demand action has come, so ask!Ask your audience to donate, vote, write letters, make phone calls, buy, boycott, join the military, investigate, or whatever you want them to do.However, please follow these guidelines: — ask them to do specific things.Don't say, "Please help the Red Cross." That's too general.Say, "The admission fee is one dollar tonight to the American Red Cross at 125 Smith Street in this city." — Ask the audience to respond within their capabilities.Don't say, "Let's vote against 'drunk'." That's impossible, we're not voting on "drunk" right now.However, they can be asked to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or to donate to organizations whose purpose is to promote prohibition. — Try to enable the audience to act immediately on request.Don't say, "Please write to your senator to vote against this bill." Ninety-nine percent of the audience wouldn't do that, they didn't have such a strong interest; or it was too much trouble, or they forgot .Therefore, it is necessary to make the audience feel relaxed and happy to do it.How to do it?Write yourself a letter to the senator saying, "We collectively urge you to vote against Bill 74321." And pass the letter and pencils among the audience so you may get a lot of signatures -- and I'm afraid the pens won't go anywhere . "The great state of Pennsylvania should lead the charge to hasten the coming of the new era: Pennsylvania is a great producer of steel, mother of the largest railroads in the world, the third largest agricultural state in the United States - Pennsylvania is the center of American commerce. She Her future is limitless, and her opportunities as a leader are bright." These are the words of Szweber at the end of his speech at the Pennsylvania Association of New York.After his speech, the audience was happy, happy, and full of optimism for the future.It's an admirable way to end.However, in order to be fully effective, the attitude of the speaker must be sincere.No flattery, no exaggeration.This way of ending, if not very sincere, will appear hypocritical, and very hypocritical.The result is like a counterfeit coin, no one will accept it. George Khan said, "When you say goodbye, put a smile on their face." If you have the ability and the subject matter, that's great, but how? ?Hamlet said: That is a question.Each must behave in its own unique way. Lloyd George once gave a speech at a Methodist Church gathering to the believers on the maintenance of the cemetery of the famous missionary Wesley (the founder of the Methodist Church).The subject was so serious that no one could think of anything funny about it.Yet he managed to do so, and with great success.At the same time, please notice how smoothly and beautifully his speech ended. "I'm glad you guys are starting to renovate his cemetery. It's a tomb that should be respected. He hated anything that was untidy or unclean. I think of something he said, 'Let no one see it.' A Methodist in rags'. And because of his efforts, you will never see a Methodist like this. (Laughter) It would be extreme to let his graveyard be filthy Irreverent. Everyone will remember that once when he was passing through Derbyshire, a lady ran to the door and called out to him: 'God bless you, Mr. Wesley.' He replied: 'Miss, if your face A little cleaner hole and apron, and your blessing will be more effective.' (Laughter) That's how he feels about uncleanness, so please don't make his cemetery look messy. In case he passes by occasionally, it's better than any Things are making him sad. You must take good care of this cemetery. It is a sacred cemetery to remember. It is a place for your faith! (Cheers)” Of all the closing methods, the ones most likely to be accepted by the audience are humor or verse.In fact, it's almost ideal if you can find the right short sentence or verse to end yours with.It will produce the most suitable style and harmonious atmosphere; it will reveal your unique style; it will produce beauty. Sir Harry Lauder, President of Rotary Clubs of the World, addressed the delegation of Rotary Clubs of America at the Assiborg Annual Meeting, and concluded his speech in this way: "Some of you will send me a postcard when you go back to your country. If you don't send it to me, I will send you one. You can tell at a glance that it is from me because there is no stamp on it. (Laughter) But I'll write something on it: This short poem fits Harry Lauder's personality well, and certainly the mood of his speech.Therefore, this ending is very suitable for him.If a member of the Rotary Club, who is always serious and restrained, applies it at the end of a serious speech, it will not only seem a bit abrupt, but even feel a bit absurd.The longer I taught speech, the clearer it became that it was almost impossible to come up with general rules that would apply to all situations.Because, in most cases, it depends on the topic, time, place and speaker of the speech.As St. Paul said: "Each man must work on his own to save himself." I was the guest of honor at a farewell party for a professional in New York City, and a dozen speakers each took the stage to praise their departing friend and wish him success in his new job.A dozen people took the stage to speak, but only one ended his speech in memorable fashion.He also ends with a quote from a short poem.The speaker turned to the departing guest and said to him in an emotional voice: Mr. Albert, vice president of Brooklyn LAD Motor Company, gave a speech on "Loyalty and Cooperation" to his company's employees.He concluded his speech with a melodious short poem from Kipling's "Second Jungle Canto": "This is the 'Law of the Jungle' - old and true as the sky; the wolf who obeys it shall reproduce, but the wolf who breaks it must die. "Clinging like a vine to a tree trunk, this law is everywhere—for the strength of unity is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is unity." You are lucky if you can quote a passage from the Bible to support the thesis of your speech.Quotations from the Bible often have great effect.The famous financial expert Frank Vanderlip used this method to end his speech on "The Debt of the Allies to the United States": "If we insist on paying our debts under the terms, we may never get those loans back. If we selfishly insist on doing that, we'll get back hate, not cash. If we're generous and smart about generous, then these foreign debts may be fully recovered, and our benefits to them will allow us to obtain more material benefits.' Whoever saves his life will also lose his life; whoever loses his life for me and the gospel will also lose his life Get saved.'" It is the most common way to achieve the end through orgasm.But it's hard to control, and for all speakers and all topics, it's not really the end.This approach is pretty good if done right.It gradually develops upwards, and the power of the sentence becomes stronger and stronger, reaching a peak.You can find an excellent example of this method of ending with a climax in the award-winning speech on Philadelphia. Lincoln used this method in a speech about Niagara Falls.Please note that each of his metaphors is stronger than the previous one. He compares his era with the era of Columbus, Christ, Moses, Adam, etc., so as to obtain a strong effect of layering and superimposing. "It reminds us of the past. When Columbus first discovered the continent - when Christ suffered on the cross - when Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea - no, even when Adam was first born from the hands of the Creator, then, and As it is now, Niagara Falls has roared here. Extinct species, but their bones are stuffed with giants of Indian Stone, who once gazed at Niagara Falls with their eyes, just as we are today. Niagara Falls and the distant ancestors of human beings Contemporaneous, but older than the first human. It is as imposing and fresh today as it was ten thousand years ago. The long-dead prehistoric mammoths and mastodons, whose presence in this world can be proven only from bone fragments, are also I've seen Niagara Falls—never stood still for a minute, never dried up, never froze, never closed my eyes, never rested, in all that eons of time." Wendell Phillips used the same method in her speech about Tosan Robecho, the founding father of the Haitian Republic.His speech is often cited repeatedly in speech textbooks.I now quote the end of it below.It's full of energy, it's alive, and although it has become a little too rhetorical in this practical age, it's still interesting to close.This speech was written half a century ago. Wouldn't it be nice if you could notice, fifty years later, when the facts were revealed, that Wendell Phillips was terribly wrong in judging the historical importance of John Brown and Torshan Robert Qiu? Isn't it extremely interesting?Obviously, predicting the trend of historical development is as difficult as predicting the stock market or the price of lard next year.Here is the text of that passage: "I want to call him Napoleon, but Napoleon built his empire by self-destructing oaths and killing countless people. This man never self-destructed promises. 'No revenge' was his motto and the rule of his life. The last words he said to his son in France were these: 'Son, you're going back to Santo Domingo one day and forget that France murdered your father.' I'd like to call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was just a soldier and the country he founded collapsed with his death. I want to call him Washington, but Washington, the great man of Virginia, also kept slaves. This man would rather risk his life The danger of the slavery is not allowed, and the situation of buying and selling slaves is not allowed to appear in the most remote villages in the country. "You probably think I'm a madman tonight, because you read history not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But after 50 years, when the truth is revealed, the goddess of history will attribute Phocion to Greece, Brutus to Rome, Hampden to England, Lafayette to France, chose Washington as a bright and supreme flower of our early civilization, John Brown as the ripe fruit of our age. Then , she dipped her pen in the sunlight, and wrote over them all in bright colors the name of the soldier, statesman, and martyr—Tosan Robert Qiu." Find, research, practice until you get a good ending and a good opening.Then, bring them together. Speakers who do not know how to trim their words to fit this fast-food age will be disliked, and sometimes repelled, by their audiences. Even a saint—Saul of Tarsus (a disciple of the Apostle Paul)—made this mistake.He preached so much, until at last one of the lads in the audience—a young man named Jew Juss—fell asleep and fell out of a window and broke his neck.Even then, Saul probably didn't stop preaching.Does anyone know?I remember a speaker, a doctor, speaking at the Brooklyn College Club one night.That rally dragged on for a long time, and many people had already spoken on stage.It was one o'clock in the morning when it was his turn to speak.If he had been a little more witty, or a little more considerate, he should have gone on stage, said a dozen words, and let us go home.But he didn't.He launched a forty-five-minute long speech against vivisection.He hadn't even been halfway through, and the audience was beginning to wish that he, like Jew Juss, had fallen out of the window and broken something, any arm, leg, foot, or anything that would shut him up. When Rorimer was editor of The Saturday Evening Post, he told me that he always stopped a series of articles when they were the most popular.Readers often write in asking for a little more.So why stop them?Why stop at that time? "Because," said Mr. Rorimer, "satisfaction comes soon after the peak of popularity." The same wisdom applies to speaking, and even more so.When the audience is desperate for you to continue, stop quickly. The greatest speech of Jesus Christ—the Sermon on the Mount—could be repeated in five minutes.Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" is only ten sentences. The entire story of God's creation in the Bible's Genesis takes less time than it takes you to read a story about a murder in the morning paper. ...be sure to be concise! Dr. Jensen, Vicar of Nyasharam, has written a book on the primitive peoples of Africa.He lived with them and observed them for 49 years.He said that if a speaker spoke too long at a meeting at the entrance of the village, the audience would ask him to shut up and shout "Imetosia!" "Imetosia!"—"Enough!" "Enough!" Already!" Another tribe, it is said, stipulated that a speaker should stand on only one foot, and that he must end his talk when the toe of the raised foot failed to support the ground. The average audience, though more polite and more restrained, has the same distaste for long speeches. Therefore, pay attention to the audience's reaction. I know you don't look the other way, learn to approach the speech from their standpoint.