Chapter 50 Emotion is better than reason

Your goal is to convince others, and remember that emotion works better than reason.To stir up emotions, you must first be passionate. When a speaker presents his ideas with emotion and contagious enthusiasm, the audience seldom has opposing ideas.I say "contagious" is enthusiasm, which will put aside all contrary ideas.Your goal is to convince others, and remember that emotion works better than reason.To stir up emotions, you must first be passionate.Even if a man can invent subtle phrases, how many examples he can gather, how harmonious his voice is, how graceful his gestures, if he can't speak sincerely, these become empty and dazzling decorations.To impress the audience, you should first impress yourself.Your spirit shines from your eyes, echoes from your voice, expresses itself through your attitude, and communicates to its hearers.

In every speech, especially when the object is persuasion, your actions determine the audience's attitude.You are cold, so are they. "While the audience is falling asleep," wrote Henry Ward Bee, "there is only one thing to do: Give the usher a sharp stick to stab the preacher." Once, at Columbia University, I was one of the judges who were called to the stage to present the Curtiss Medal.There are six graduates, carefully trained and eager to express themselves.But they labored so hard only to win medals, and with one exception, had little or no desire to persuade. Their only criterion for choosing topics is that they are easy to talk about in lectures.They have no interest in their own arguments, and their series of lectures are merely exercises in the art of expression.

The only exception was a Zulu prince.The topic he chose was "Africa's Contribution to Modern Civilization".His every word is filled with strong emotion.His speeches were not exercises, but declarations of conviction and passion.He made himself the representative of his people, the representative of that continent.Deep in science, high in character, and full of goodwill—his message to us speaks of the hope of his people.It also brings requests, eager for our understanding. Although he may not have been better at speech than two or three other contenders, we gave him the medal anyway.What we see is his burning fire of sincerity, shining the light of truth.Except for him, the rest of the speakers have just learned a lesson in their own way: use your intellect alone, and don't put your own personality in a speech, there is no powerful speech; you must show the sincerity of your beliefs.

Lincoln said: "The way I start and win an argument is to first find a common point of agreement." This is one of the secrets of persuasive speeches. Once, a group of men and women found themselves in the passage of a storm.In fact, it is not a real storm, but it can be compared to some extent.To be clear, the storm was a man named Maurice Gaubly.They describe it like this: “We were sitting around a lunch table in Chicago. We had heard the name of this guy, he was a thunderous speaker. When he stood up to speak, everyone was staring at him. "He began to speak serenely - a neat, refined middle-aged man - and he thanked us for the invitation. He said he wanted to talk about a serious matter and he asked our pardon if he interrupted us.

"Then he hit like a tornado. He leaned forward, his eyes fixed on us. He didn't raise his voice, but it seemed to me that he burst like a gong. "'Look around you,' he said, 'and look at each other. Do you know how many people sitting in this room are going to die of cancer? One in four people over the age of 55 .one in four!' "He pauses, but his face glows. 'It's the normal but harsh truth, but it won't be that way for long,'" he said. reason.' "He looked at us gravely, moving his eyes from one to the other around the table. 'Would you like to help with the effort?'

"Is there any other answer here than 'Yes!' in our minds? 'Yes!' I thought. I found out in hindsight that other people were like me. "In less than a minute, Maurice Gaublait has won our hearts. He has drawn each of us into his discourse, and put us on his side in the movement for human happiness. "Gaining approval, whenever and wherever, is the goal of every speaker. Mr. Cooper has very good reasons for us to respond in this way. He and his brother Nathan built a chain of department stores with bare hands. business, with an annual income of more than 100 million U.S. dollars. After years of hardships, they finally achieved fabulous success, but Nathan died of cancer in a short period of time. After that, Maurice specially arranged for Goldberg to The Lay Foundation donated its first $1 million to cancer research at the University of Chicago and dedicated his time -- he has since retired from malls -- to raising awareness about cancer efforts.

"These facts, combined with Gaublait's personality, won our hearts. Sincerity, concern, passion - it was the fiery determination that made him, in a few minutes, for years and years, dedicated to this great purpose." All the factors swept over us to create a feeling of agreement with the speaker, a friendship for him and a willingness to be cared for, to be moved." Quintilian (Note: Roman rhetorician in the 1st century AD) called the orator "a good man who is good at speaking".He was referring to sincerity and confidence.Nothing that has been said and will be said in this book can take the place of this necessary condition.Erpon Morgan said that confidence is the best way to gain trust, and it is also the best way to gain the confidence of your audience.

"The sincerity with which a man speaks," said Alexander Woockert, "gives to his voice a brilliance of truth which no false man can pretend." If our purpose is to persuade others, we especially need to proclaim our ideas from an inner radiance of sincerity and confidence.We ourselves are persuaded before we try to persuade others. Walter Dill Scott, former president of Northwestern University, said: "Any opinion, concept or conclusion that enters the mind will be considered true unless there is an opposite idea hindering it, that is another matter." In fact, he said Stick to ideas that your audience agrees with.My good friend Professor Harry Overstraw articulated the psychological background of this concept in a lecture given at the New School for Social Research in New York:

"A skillful speaker gets many favorable responses at the beginning. He then paves the way for the audience to move in the direction of approval. It is like a marble in a pool game. After pushing it in one direction, if It takes some effort to turn it around, and even more effort to push it in the opposite direction." Human psychology is evident in this respect.When a person says "no" and really does, he is doing more than just a word made up of dots.His whole body—glands, nerves, muscles—wrapped itself into a kind of resistance.Often, there will be a slight physical withdrawal, or readiness to retreat, and sometimes it will be very obvious.That is to say, the whole nervous and muscular system is on alert to resist acceptance.In contrast, when a person says "yes," there is no retreat.The whole body is in an attitude of progress, acceptance, and openness.So, the more "yes" we can get from the start, the more likely we will succeed in grabbing the audience's attention and paving the way for our eventual proposal.

Gaining a "yes" attitude is a very simple skill, but it is overlooked.People often think that if they don't take a hostile posture at the beginning, they don't seem to be enough to show their importance, so when radical and conservative brethren meet, it doesn't take a moment for everyone to become angry.Honestly, what good does that do?It's understandable if he's doing it just for fun, but he'd be foolish if he hoped to achieve something. Getting students, customers, children, husbands or wives to say "no" in the first place, and then trying to turn that unabated negative into affirmations can take godlike wisdom and patience.

How to get the desired "approval response" as soon as you open your mouth?very simple.Look at the secret that Lincoln said: "The way I start and win an argument is to first find a common ground of agreement." He was able to find this common ground of agreement even when discussing the high tension issue of slavery.A neutral newspaper, Der Spiegel, reported on one of his speeches: "For the first half hour, his opponents would agree with almost every word he said. Bit by bit, it seemed to have led them all into his pen at last." Isn't this an obvious fact?Arguments between the speaker and the audience only arouse their obstinacy and make them defensive, with little possibility of changing their minds.You say, "I'm going to prove the wisdom of this." The audience will take that as a provocation and silently say, "Let's see!" Wouldn't it be a lot more beneficial to start emphasizing something that both the audience and you believe in, and then asking a suitable question that the audience will want to hear?At this time, take the audience to find the answer together.In this process, lay before them the facts that you know very well, and they will be led by you to accept your conclusions.This kind of fact that they discovered by themselves will give them more confidence. "The discussion that seems to be a relief is the first discussion." In all kinds of controversies, no matter how big and sharp the differences are, there will always be some common points of agreement that the speaker can resonate with everyone.Example: On February 3, 1960, Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of Great Britain, addressed both houses of the Federal Parliament of South Africa.At that time, the South African authorities adopted a policy of apartheid, and he had to face the legislative body to express the view that Britain was free from racial discrimination.Did he address this disagreement at the outset?No.He started by emphasizing South Africa's remarkable economic achievements and its significant contribution to the world.Only then is the question of divergent views raised deftly and tactfully.Even at this point, he pointed out that he was well aware that these differences were based on their sincere beliefs.The whole speech was very good, compared with Lincoln's gentle but firm words in front of Fort Sumter. "As a member of the Commonwealth of Great Britain," said the Prime Minister, "we sincerely hope to give South Africa our support and encouragement, but I hope you will not mind me stating that in our lands we are trying to give free men a political future. This is our We have firm beliefs, so we cannot support and encourage you without violating our own beliefs. I think we should be like friends, no matter who is right or wrong, let’s face the fact that there are still differences between us today. Disagreement." No matter how determined a man may be to confront a speaker, a statement like this will convince him of his fair and honest heart. What would happen if Prime Minister MacMillan began by emphasizing the differences in policy between the two sides, rather than offering common points of agreement?In his thought-provoking book, The Breeding of Thoughts, Professor James Harvey Robinson answers this question: "Sometimes we find ourselves changing our minds without resistance or emotion. But if people say we're wrong, we hate the accusation and disagree. In the process of forming our beliefs We don't pay attention to it, but when anyone expresses a disagreement with us, we have a somewhat obsessive love for what we believe in. Obviously, what we cherish is not the idea itself, but the threat self-respect... This little 'I' is the most important word in human beings, and it is great wisdom to consider it properly. Whether it's my dinner, my dog, my home, my beliefs, my The nation, or my God, has the same power. We don't just hate the theory of Martian canals, or the pronunciation of 'EPICTEUS', the medicinal value of willow bark, or the concept of the age of King Sargon I Needs to be corrected. We like to continue to believe that what we are accustomed to accept is the truth, and once any of our assumptions are questioned, the anger aroused will lead us to find all excuses to cling to it. Thus, most of what we call 'reasoning' is to find Make a lot of arguments to make yourself continue to believe what you already believe."