Chapter 69 Leverage to win support

When someone who hates you wants to create embarrassment for you and make you unable to step down, you can use his topic to change the other person's words into words that are beneficial to you, and use extremely powerful words to fight back against the other party, causing the other party to fall into self-indulgence Contradictory or cocooning embarrassment, so that you can gain people's approval. In 1843, the U.S. state of Illinois ran for governor. After a competition, the candidate finally fell on the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln and the Democratic candidate Peter Cartwright.

Cartwright is a famous pastor. He is stingy, sanctimonious, jealous of others, and will do anything to achieve his own goals. He is a very annoying guy.In this competition, he used his favorable position to attack Lincoln for not admitting that Jesus was an "illegitimate child" and so on, which caused a storm in the city and caused Lincoln's prestige among voters to decline rapidly. Lincoln knew Cartwright very well, knew that Cartwright was speaking ill of him, and he knew better that Cartwright's purpose was to withdraw himself from the election and give him the governorship of Illinois.But Lincoln didn't think so, and he decided to go to church to meet Cartwright for a while.

One day, Lincoln learned that Cartwright was going to give a speech in a certain church again, so he walked into the church on time and sat in a conspicuous position piously, intending to let the pastor see. Cartwright thought the time had come to humiliate Lincoln, make him look bad in public, lower his prestige in the hearts of the people, and at the same time increase his own. Cartwright began to make a speech, and his speech was very beautiful. When the speech reached a climax, he suddenly said to the believers: "Those who are willing to dedicate their hearts to God and want to enter heaven stand up!" The believers all stood up. "Sit down, please!" Cartwright murmured a prayer next, and then said, "All who do not want to go to hell, stand up!" The believers stood up abruptly.

At this time, the pastor said in a particularly mysterious and serious tone: "I see that everyone is willing to dedicate their hearts to God and enter heaven, but I also see one exception. He does not believe in God and despises God. The only one The exception is the famous Mr. Lincoln, who did not respond twice. Mr. Lincoln, where are you going?" Lincoln knew that Cartwright deliberately put him in a difficult situation, but Lincoln had his own ideas. He decided to take this opportunity to promote himself among voters and prevent Cartwright's plot from succeeding.So Lincoln stood up calmly, turned to the voters and said calmly: "I came here as a respectful listener. I didn't expect that Brother Cartwright named me alone. It's a great honor. I think Cartwright The questions asked by the congregation are important, but I have my understanding. He asked me bluntly where I was going? I would answer with the same frankness: 'I'm going to Congress!'"

Lincoln turned to Cartwright and said, "Are you satisfied with my answer? Am I not right?" Flushed with embarrassment, Cartwright said angrily, "Lincoln, please note that this is a church, not an oratory." Lincoln went on to say: "Cartwright, thank you for giving me such a good opportunity to meet with you and talk to them about my thoughts." Lincoln bowed deeply to the audience and said: "Dear friends, It's a great honor to speak for you. I'm going to Congress, I'm going to run for Governor of Illinois, and I'm going to use my wisdom to serve everyone in the state and contribute every ounce to the country..."

Lincoln cleverly turned Cartwright's words to a topic that was beneficial to him, and made a generous statement, conquering all the audience with extremely humorous and witty words. They seemed to forget that they were in the church and applauded enthusiastically.Lincoln used this speech to get great support from the audience. The cunning Reverend Cartwright wanted to take advantage of his advantageous position as a pastor to embarrass Lincoln in his speech in order to weaken his prestige and make him withdraw from the election, but he did not expect to create an opportunity for Lincoln to communicate with people and make Lincoln He spoke fully about his ideals and aspirations, and won hearts and minds.Cartwright was very frustrated and left the church in a panic.

Lincoln won the hearts of the people with superb speeches, moved people with strict self-discipline and practical actions, and finally won the election and became the governor of Illinois. A (question) sentence has different interpretations (answers) in different language environments. If we can grasp this feature, incorporate it into our own context, and transform it into a discourse that is beneficial to us, then, in Any occasion we will sway freely. In this story, we can know that in the face of Cartwright's difficulties, Lincoln subtly changed his unfavorable state with a simple sentence on the basis of Cartwright's words, turned the situation around, and achieved success .