Chapter 27 Don't give up after a hundred setbacks

Only those courageous and courageous will persevere. They will continue to train hard until one day they suddenly find that a miracle happened almost overnight. Learning anything new, like French, golf, and public speaking, is never a steady, linear progression.This process is more like a wave after another, starting and stopping suddenly, moving and stilling, sometimes even one step forward, two steps back, so that many achievements that have been achieved are lost.This phenomenon of stagnation or even decline is known and understood by psychologists as "the plateau in the learning curve."Those who learn how to speak effectively are also stuck on this "plateau" for weeks to months.Sometimes it is impossible to cross even after all the efforts, and the weak-willed often give up in despair.Only those courageous and courageous will persevere. They will persevere in training hard until one day they suddenly find that a miracle happened almost overnight. confidence.

Perhaps you, like the one described in this book, often feel some psychological fear, some shock in the head, and some mental tension when facing the audience at first.Even great musicians who have performed countless times in public feel the same way.The famous musician Paderewski always touched his cuffs nervously when he sat in front of the piano.And once you start playing, all fears disappear in an instant like a fog in the August sun. You will go through the same dilemma, but as long as you can persevere, it will not take long for all problems, including initial fears, to disappear.After the first few sentences, you'll be in complete control of your emotions, and you'll be speaking confidently and cheerfully to your audience.

Once, a young man who wished to study law wrote to Lincoln for advice.Lincoln replied, "If you've made up your mind to be a lawyer, you're halfway there...but always remember that your determination to win is more important than anything else." Lincoln is a person who has experienced it, and he deeply understands the truth.Throughout his life, he received no more than one year of formal education in total.As for books, Lincoln once said that he once walked fifty miles away to borrow books to read. In his cabin, the firewood always burned until dawn, and he usually read diligently by the fire.Lincoln often stuffed books in the cracks between the logs of the cabin. At dawn in the morning, he got up from the bed of leaves, rubbed his eyes, took out the book and continued to read voraciously.

Sometimes, he would walk twenty or thirty miles to listen to speeches.Back home, he practiced speeches everywhere—in the fields, in the woods, before crowds at the grocery store, and he joined the New Salon and the Debating Society in Springfield to discuss the political issues of the day.But he was very shy in front of women. When he courted Mary Todd, he always sat in the corridor silently and watched her perform alone.However, it was this person who read endlessly and practiced diligently, trying to shape himself into a speaker, and then debated with Senator Douglas, the most outstanding orator at the time, in a showdown; that is, this person, in Gates Fort, in his second inaugural address, he advocated the most grand arguments, the most in the past and the present.

Think of your own difficult setbacks and heart-rending struggles, which are but a drop in the bucket compared to Lincoln, who said, "If you have made up your mind to be a lawyer, you are already halfway there... " A portrait of Lincoln hangs on the wall of the Oval Office in the White House. "Whenever I have to make a decision," President Roosevelt said, "especially something complicated and difficult to deal with, such as some conflict of interest, I will look up at Lincoln and pretend that I am in such a situation. It may sound absurd, but it's true, and it makes my problem a lot easier to solve."

Why not try Roosevelt's method?If you're depressed and want to give up trying to be a successful speaker, why not ask yourself what Lincoln would have done in that situation?You know what he's going to do.After losing the Senate seat to Stephen Douglas, he still earnestly warned his supporters not to "give up after a hundred setbacks."