While nearly all men are poor at public speaking, women are even worse. This is partly because women cannot tell jokes, but also because we are better at self-awareness and therefore know that our speech is average and the audience would rather be doing something else – thoughts that do little to enhance performance.
尽管几乎所有的男性都很不擅长公开演讲，但女性在这方面表现更差。部分原因在于女性不会讲笑话，但另一个原因是我们更有自知之明，因此清楚我们的演讲很一般，听众宁愿做点其它事情——这种念头对提高演讲表现可没什么帮助。

To combat fear and innate hopelessness, I try quite hard to be better. Every time a book about public speaking arrives on my desk, I skim it for tips. Mostly they tell you to “relax” and to “be yourself” – which is downright irresponsible. This works only for the one in a billion who is born a brilliant speaker. For everyone else, being good means reaching such an elevated level of nervousness and artifice that you can present an entirely convincing picture of authenticity and relaxation.
为了克服恐惧和与生俱来的绝望情绪，我相当努力，争取表现得更好。每收到一本有关公开演讲的书，我都会浏览一遍，寻找窍门。它们多半会告诉你，要“放松”，“做你自己”——这是完全不负责任的说法。这只对那些亿万里挑一、天生具有演讲才华的人有用。对于普通人而言，当你的紧张程度和掩饰技巧达到一种很高的层次，令人完全相信你很真实也很放松时，那就是好的表现。

The most recent book, The Top 100, contains tips from the 100 best speakers of all time and tells us that Bill Clinton's secret weapon is to “inspire confidence” and Gandhi's was to “avoid ego”. This may be true but is not terribly helpful. It is like watching a video of Rudolf Nureyev being the black swan and then expecting to be able to twirl round the living room in a similar fashion yourself.
最新的一本书《The Top 100》囊括了有史以来100位最出色演讲者提供的小窍门。这本书告诉我们，比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)的秘密武器是“鼓舞信心”，而圣雄甘地(Gandhi)则是“避免自负”。这可能不错，但并没有太大帮助。这就像观看鲁道夫•纽瑞耶夫（Rudolf Nureyev，已故苏联芭蕾舞大师——译者注）扮演黑天鹅的视频，然后就期望自己也能以同样的方式在客厅旋转一样。

I have only come across two bits of helpful advice. The first is practise, practise, practise. This is a bore because it takes a lot of time, but there is no way round it. The second is to junk all aids. PowerPoint is a crutch. It is an ugly thing in itself and must be thrown away if you want to walk smoothly. Equally, you must never read a speech. Write it, learn it and then leave it at home, speaking with minimal notes.
我只遇到过两条有用的建议。第一条是：练习！练习！练习！这很容易让人厌烦，因为它会占用大量时间，但你是毫无捷径可走的。第二条是丢掉所有的辅助用具。PowerPoint就是一根拐杖，本身就很令人讨厌。如果你想顺当地走路，就必须丢掉拐杖。同样，你决不能照稿读。自己动手写，背熟，把稿子留在家里，演讲时仅带尽可能少的提示。

I supplement these with two further tips of my own, neither of which requires effort. The first is to make sure that the person speaking before you is really boring and has a laptop full of overcomplicated, PowerPoint slides. The second is to pick the right audience. Once, I gave an after dinner speech to middle managers in HR from the north of England. I had done a great deal of rehearsing and failed to sleep the night before and taken beta-blockers and so was all set and keyed up to the perfect pitch. The fact that the speech was catastrophic (not one laugh) made me feel bad for several weeks afterwards. But I now see it was the audience's fault. They were never going to like a snotty Londoner being superior about management fads anyway.
对此，我又补充了两点自己的建议，它们都不需费多大劲。第一条是确保在你之前发言的那个人很乏味，还带着一台笔记本电脑，里面装满过于复杂的幻灯片。第二条是选择正确的听众。有一次，我为来自英格兰北部的中层人力资源经理们做一个餐后演讲。我排练了许多遍，头一天晚上都没睡着觉，还服用了β-受体阻滞剂（一种降血压药——译者注），因此一切准备就绪，状态调整到最佳水平。而事实是，那次演讲是一场灾难，没有一个人笑，这让我在随后的好几周内都情绪低落。但现在我意识到，这是听众的错。这些人无论如何都不会喜欢一个自以为对管理技巧很懂行的傲慢伦敦人。