How to Develop Self-Confidence & Influence People by Public Speaking LOOK FOR THE LEADER IN YOU How to Win Friends, Influence People, and Succeed in a Changing World By DALE CARNEGIE & ASSOCIATES, INC. Levine, CEO, & Michael A. Crom, VP AND DON'T MISS THESE BESTSELLERS BY DALE CARNEGIE: • HOW TO DEVELOP SELF- CONFIDENCE AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE BY PUBLIC SPEAKING • HOW TO ENJOY YOUR LIFE AND YOUR JOB • HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND START LIVING • HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE (Revised Edition) THE QUICK AND EASY WAY TO EFFECTIVE SPEAKING ~_·~o ALL AVAILABLE FROM POCKET BOOKS """ ~=~---;;"" [0> EAN Your life can be easier. more rewarding! "Is there the faintest shadow of a reason why you should not be able to think as well in a perpendic- ular position before an audience a3 you can when sitting down'? Surely, you know there is not.
In fact, you ought to think better when facing a group. Their presence ought to stir and lift you. A great many speakers will tell you that the presence of an audience is a 3t~mulus, an in- 3piratl0n, that drives their brains to function mon~ clearly, more keenly." -Dale Camc~ie Here is a book for men and women who want to gel ahead. As the author dernonstrdt~:R or.
(~v('ry page, l~a" techniques that can pu.t you over ""ith an audience can help you in every phase of y<. Books by Dale Carnegie How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job (Revised Edition) How to Stop Worrying and Start Living How to Win Friends and Influence People (Revised Edition) The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking By Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc. The Leader in You Published by POCKET BOOKS For infonnation regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or business@simonandschuster.com How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking by DALE CARNEGIE Selected and condensed by Dorothy Carnegie from PYBUC SPEAKING AND INFLUENCING MEN IN BUSINESS by Dale Carnegie POCKET BOOKS New York London Toronto Sydney The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book." POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Copyright 1926, 1937, © 1955, 1956 by the National Board of Young Men's Christian Associations All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this hook or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address the National Board of Young Men's Christian Associations. 291 Broadway, New York, NY 10005 ISBN 13: 978-0-671-74607-0 ISBN 10: 0-671-74607-3 First Pocket Books printing December 1956 71 70 69 68 67 66 65 64 63 62 POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed in the U.
Introduction For many years, Dale Carnegie's name has been synonymous with winning friends and influencing people. How to Win Friends and influence People is one of the best sellers of all time in nonfiction and has brought him interna- tional popularity. But How to Win Friends and influence People was not the first book written by Dale Carnegie. In 1926, Dale Carnegie wrole a book entitled Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business.
This was a text- book on public speaking, and, up to the present date, has been one of the official textbooks of the world-famous Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking and Human Rela- tions. II has also served as a textbook for Y. public- speaking classes. Tills book has sold 600,000 copies in the last ten years alone, and the total sale of the hard-cover edition is now over 1,000,000 copies.
It has been published in some twenty languages and thousands of copies have been sold in these foreign eclitions. It has not, however, been a book of which the majority of the reading public has been aware. Some time ago, the publisher, Association Press, ap- proached me with the idea that this earliest of my late husband's books might have popular appeal if edited and published as a Pocket Book. They felt, as I do, that this book contained many valuable ideas for everyday living.
The Dale Carnegie Course has now spread its pilllosophy throughout the world and has reached a total of over 1,000,000 graduates. The course helps people to achieve a more courageous, happier and more fruitful life, by bringing out the latent qualities they possess. This Pocket Book, How to Develop Self-Confidence and influence People by Public Speaking, has been edited to ap- peal to the "reading" public. It contains many of the words vi INTRODUCTION of wisdom that have helped our students to achieve their goals.
In re-reading the book carefully in the past few months, I realize how many wise rules it contains for over- coming fear and gaining self-confidence. Practical tech- niques and suggestions are added to those rules that will help everyone to meet people as individuals or as groups, and to talk with them effectively. I do hope new readers will gain as much from this book as have the students of the Dale Carnegie Course in the past thirty years. -DoROTHY CARNEGIE Contents Chapter Page 1.
Developing Courage and Self-Confidence 1 2. Self-Confidence Through Preparation 17 3. How Famous Speakers Prepared Their Addresses 37 4. The Improvement of Memory 57 5.
Essential Elements in Successful Speaking 79 6. The Secret of Good Delivery 91 7. Platform Presence and Personality 109 8. How to Open a Talk 129 9.
How to Close a Talk 149 10. How to Make Your Meaning Clear 165 11. How to Interest Your Audience 183 12. Improving Your Diction 199 Appendix: Speech Building with Exercises 221 How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking CHAPTER ONE Developing Courage and Self-Confidence More than five hundred thousand men and women, since 1912, have been members of public speaking courses using my methods.
Many of them have written statements telling why they enrolled for this training and what they hoped to obtain from it. Naurally, the phraseology varied; but the central desire in these letters, the basic want in the vast majority, remained surprisingly the same: "When 1 am called upon to stand up and speak," person after person wrote, "1 become so self-conscious, so fright- ened, that I can't think clearly, can't concentrate, can't re- member what 1 had intended to say. I want to gain self- confidence, poise, and the ability to think on my feet. I want to get my thoughts together in logical order and I want to be able to say my say clearly and convincingly before a business or club group or audience." Thousands of their confessions sounded about like that.
To cite a concrete case: Years ago, a gentleman here called Mr. Ghent, joined my public speaking course in Philadelphia. Shortly after the opening session, he in- vited me to lunch with him in the Manufacturers' Club. 2 HOW TO DEVELOP SELF-CONFIDENCE He was a man of middle age and had always led an active life; was head of his own manufacturing establishment, a leader in church work and civic activities.
While we were having lunch that day, he leaned across the table and said: "1 have been asked many times to talk before various gatherings, but I have never been able to do so. I get so fussed, my mind becomes an uttcr blank: so I have side- stepped it all my life. But I am chairman now of a board of college trustees. 1 must preside at their meetings.
I simply have to do some talking. 00 you think it will be pos- sible for me to learn to speak at this late date in my life?" "Do 1 think, Mr. "It is not a question of my thinking. I know you can, and J know you will if you will only practice and follow the directions and instruc- tions." He wanted to believe that, but it seemed too rosy, too optimistic.
"1 am afraid you are just being kind," he answered, "that you are merely trying to encourage me." After he had completed his training, we lost touch with each other for a while. Later, we met and lunched together again at the Manufacturers' Club. We sat in the same corner and occupied the same table that we had had on the first occasion. Reminding him of our former conversation, J asked him if I had been too sanguine then.
He took a little red-backed notebook out of his pocket and showed me a list of talks and dates for which he was booked. "And the ability to make these," he confessed, "the pleasure I get in doing it, the additional service I can render to the com- munity-these are among the most gratifying things in my life." An important disarmament conference had been held in Washington shortly before that. When it was known that the British Prime Minister was planning to attend it, the Baptists of Philadelphia cabled, inviting him to speak at a great mass meeting to be held in their city. Ghent informed me that he himself had been chosen, from among all the Baptists of that city, to introduce England's premier to the audience.
And this was the man who had sat at that same table less Developing Courage and Self-Confidence 3 than three years before and solemnly asked me if I thought he would ever be able to talk in publicl Was the rapidity with which he forged ahead in his speaking ability unusual? Not at alL There have been hundreds of similar cases.e--to quote one more specific instance-years ago~ a Brooklyn physician, whom we will call Dr. spent the winter in Florida near the training grounds of the Giants. Being an enthusiastic base- ball fan, he often went to see them practice. In time~ he became quite friendly with the te~ and was invited to attend a banquet given in their honor.
After the coffee and nuts were serve~ several prominent guests were called upon to "say a few words." Suddenly, with the abruptness and unexpectedness of an explosion~ he heard the toastmaster remark: "We have a physician with us to-night, and I am going to ask Dr. Curtis to talk on a Base- b-al1 Players Health." Was he prepared? Of course. He had had the best prep- aration in the world: he had been studying hygiene and practicing medicine for almost a third of a century. He could have sat in his chair and talked about this subject all night to the man seated on his right or left.
But to get up and say the same things to even a small audience-that was another matter. That was a paralyzing matter. His heart doubled its pace and skipped beats at the very contempla- tion of it. He had never made a public speech in his life, and every thought that he had had now took wings.
What was he to do? The audience was applauding. Everyone was looking at him. He shook his head. But that served only to heighten the applause, to increase the de- maad.
The cries of "Dr. Curtisl Speechl Speechl" grew louder and more insistent. He was in positive misery. He knew that if he got up he would fail, that he would be unable to utter half a dozen sentences.
So he arose, and, without saying a word, turned his back on his friends and walked silently out of the room, a deeply embarrassed and humiliated man. Small wonder that one of the first things he did after get- ting back to Brooklyn was to enroll in my course in Public 4 HOW TO DEVELOP SELF-CONFIDENCE Speaking.