爱思英语编者按：本文作者在少年时期经历过一次失败的演讲后，经过自己的努力，成为了演讲高手。他认为，演讲对任何人都有帮助，并给出了三条成功演讲的准则。

She was just shy of her 17th birthday. I was a year younger. It was my first time, but she was like a pro. When she started, my back stiffened and even my knuckles started to sweat. You see, my classmate and I were giving a presentation to our entire school. I was so nervous I had to clamp my hands to the lectern to steady my shaking body. My only saving grace was so that no one heard the guttural sounds of fear groaning out of my mouth, because I was shaking so far from the microphone. Afterward, I was so embarrassed that I set myself a new goal. I would overcome my fear and become a proficient public speaker. I took a course in speaking, trained hard and even spoke in competitions at local Rotary clubs.

她还不到17岁。我比她小一岁。我是第一次，但她像个专家。她开始时，我的背变得僵硬，我的关节都开始流汗。你看，我和同学要面向全校师生演讲了。我紧张得要命，双手紧紧抓住演讲台，好让自己颤抖的身体站稳。唯一可取之处是没人听到我因恐惧而发出的喉音，因为我离话筒很远。这之后，我尴尬之极，于是就为自己定了一个新目标。我要克服恐惧，成为演讲能手。我上了讲话课程，刻苦训练，还参加了地方演讲俱乐部的比赛。

Now I travel the world to do several dozen paid speaking engagements a year. Public speaking is an invaluable skill no matter what your job is, whether you are in sales, need to talk to investors or just want to be better at getting buy-in from your colleagues. Considering how important a skill it is and how it scares so many people, it is amazing how few schools make it a course requirement. I assure you, though: If I could overcome my fears and get better at it, then you can, too. Here are three rules for successful public speaking that helped me:

如今，我一年都要到世界各地做几十场收费演讲。无论你从事什么工作，无论你是要销售产品，还是同投资者谈话，或者只是想更好地得到同事的认可，公众演讲都是一种宝贵的技能。公众演讲是一种那么重要的能力，但同时又令那么多人害怕，然而令人惊讶的是，将其作为一门必修课的学校少之又少。但是我向你保证：我都能克服恐惧，变得更会演讲，你也同样能做到。下面是帮助我演讲成功的三条准则：

The first rule is to ask a lot of questions. I usually engage the audience by asking questions, just as your professors asked you them in seminars. Asking questions helps get the audience really thinking about the issues you're raising and your solutions. Now, if I'm speaking to an audience of 3,000, it can't always be interactive. But I can still ask questions like, 'When you are buying a car, why do you choose a Ford over a Toyota?' 'What marketing campaigns do you think have failed, and why?' Those rhetorical questions help engage audiences and keep them away from their text messages and e-mails. 更多信息请访问：http://www.engbus.cn/

首先是要多问。我经常通过提问来吸引听众，就像教授在讨论会上问你一样。提问能让听众真正思考你提出的问题和解决方案。现在，如果我对3000人进行演讲，不可能总是互动的。但是我可以问这样的问题：“你买汽车时，为什么选福特，而不选丰田？”“你认为哪些营销活动失败了，为什么？”这些口头问题能吸引听众，让他们不去发短信或者写电子邮件。

Similarly, try not to talk too much about yourself or your company at the beginning of a speech. Get right to what will matter to the audience. The first 30 seconds of a presentation are critical. That's when the audience decides whether to listen to you or surf for last night's box scores on its iPhones. No one wants to hear about how big your company is or where you went to school. The key: Don't talk at the audience. Talk with it.

同样地，不要在演讲开始时过多谈论你自己和你的公司。直接说对听众有用的内容。演讲前30秒至关重要。这期间听众会决定是听你讲话，还是拿出iPhone手机找昨晚的游戏成绩。没人愿意听你的公司有多大，或者你是在哪里上的学。关键是：不要对着听众讲话。而要和听众一起讲。

The second rule of successful public speaking is to tell stories to illustrate your points. Don't just tell people what you think; show them, with specific examples and tales. I recently gave a speech about China's Internet to corporate executives who had flown to Hong Kong from around the world. Most of them had never been to Asia before. Based on what they had read and heard about Google in China, they thought Chinese people had little access to the Internet, and what little they had was like a black hole. Nothing could be further from the truth.

公众演讲成功的第二条准则是通过讲故事来阐述你的观点。不要仅仅告诉人们你的想法，要通过实例和故事向他们展示。最近，我在香港向一些世界各地来的公司管理人员做了一场关于中国因特网的演讲。他们大多数人之前从未去过亚洲。他们根据所读和所听到的谷歌在中国的故事，认为中国人很少能接触互联网，接触的那么一丁点儿也像是黑洞。这与事实相差十万八千里。

Instead of just telling the audience that China's Internet is robust, I showed them, by talking about Lily, a 21-year-old student in Chengdu my firm had interviewed about her Internet and mobile phone habits. Lily spends nearly five hours a day online, uses Twitter-like microblogging services on Sina and buys cosmetics and clothes online. She also actively uses her mobile phone to browse the Internet and play games. With that simple illustration, Chinese Internet users went from being a nebulous abstraction in the audience's minds to something tangible and even understandable.

我没有简单地告诉听众互联网在中国蓬勃发展，而是通过讲述莉莉的故事，展示给他们。莉莉是一名21岁的成都学生，我们曾经就其上网和使用手机的习惯采访过她。莉莉每天有5个小时泡在网上，使用类似Twitter的新浪微博，在网上购买化妆品和衣服。她还经常用手机上网，打游戏。通过这个简单的例子，中国网民在听众脑子里从一个模糊的抽象概念，变成了实实在在的，甚至可以理解的形象。

The third rule is to go easy on the PowerPoint. I generally don't even use PowerPoint when I give a speech. It can be a useful tool for showing graphs or visual aids to complement important points, but too many people make it the focus of their presentations, in place of themselves and their actual message. Most audience members' minds go numb when they see too many slides or they're too densely packed with information.

第三条准则是少用幻灯片。我做演讲时通常不用幻灯片。幻灯片在图表展示或视觉辅助方面十分好用，可以对重点起到补充作用。但很多人使幻灯片成了演讲的中心，而非演讲者本人和传递的信息。大多数听众在看到过多幻灯片或者信息量过多时，脑子会变得麻木。

How can you make PowerPoint effective? Be simple. Use short words and phrases to make large conceptual points, and never go longer than 10 slides. Get the audience to focus on you and your words, not the slides. Giving a speech is pointless if no one is paying attention. You need to grab your audience from the beginning by asking questions, telling stories and relying on your own speaking rather than a bunch of boring slides. If you can do those three things, then your battle is already half-won.

如何使幻灯片产生效果呢？一定要简单。用简洁的词汇和短语来阐述大的概念，而幻灯片的数量不要超过10张。让听众关注你和你的话语，而非幻灯片。如果没人听，演讲就失去了意义。你一开始就要通过提问来抓住听众的注意力，讲故事，并且要靠自己讲，不要靠一堆无聊的幻灯片。如果你能做到这三点，你就取得了一半的成功。