Definitive DIY course for public speaking
Dale Carnegie
- Developing Courage and Self-Confidence
- Self-Confidence Through Preparation
- How Famous Speakers Prepared Their Addresses
- The Improvement of Memory
- Keeping the Audience Awake
- Essential Elements in Successful Speaking
- The Secret of Good Delivery
- Platform Presence and Personality
- How to Open a Talk
- Capturing Your Audience at Once
- How to Close a Talk
- How to Make Your Meaning Clear
- How to Be Impressive and Convincing
- How to Interest Your Audience
- How to Get Action
- Improving Your Diction
- Appendix: Sample Speeches
- Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell
- A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard
- As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen
- Voice Exercises and Other Tips
Public Speaking for Success
Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie
1888-1955
Dale Carnegie was a pioneer in what is now referred to as the human potential movement. His teachings and writings have helped people all over the world become self-confident, personable, and influential individuals.
In 1912, Carnegie offered his first course in public speaking at a YMCA in New York City. As in most public speaking courses given at that time, Carnegie started the class with a theoretical lecture, but quickly noticed that the class members looked bored and restless. Something had to be done.
Dale stopped his lecture and calmly pointed to a man in the back row and asked him to get up and give an impromptu talk about his background. When the student finished, he asked another student to speak about himself, and so on until everybody in the class had given a brief talk. With the encouragement of their classmates and guidance from Carnegie, each of them overcame their fright and gave satisfactory talks. “Without knowing what I was doing,” Carnegie later reported, “I stumbled on the best method of conquering fear.”
His course became so popular that he was asked to give it in other cities. As the years went by, he kept improving the content of the course. He learned that the students were most interested in improving their interpersonal relations. This resulted in the emphasis of the course being shifted from public speaking to getting along better with others. The talks became the means to an end rather than the end itself.
In addition to what he learned from his students, Carnegie engaged in extensive research on the approach to life of successful men and women. He incorporated this into his classes. This led to the writing of his most famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
This book became an instant bestseller, and since its publication in 1936 (and its revised edition in 1981), over twenty million copies have been sold. It has been translated into thirty-six languages. In 2002, a business magazine named How to Win Friends and Influence People the number one Business Book of the 20th Century. His book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, written in 1948, have also sold millions of copies and has been translated into twenty-seven languages.
Dale Carnegie courses are given in most countries, and have influenced the lives of men and women at all levels of society, from factory workers to owners and managers of businesses to leaders of governments.
Dale Carnegie died on November 1, 1955. An obituary in a Washington newspaper summed up his contribution to society: “Dale Carnegie solved none of the profound mysteries of the universe. But, perhaps, more than anyone of his generation, he helped human beings learn how to get along together, which seems sometimes to be the greatest need of all.”
