I am sitting at the table in my favorite Boston bookstore-café, laptop open, writing. Ten minutes ago I ordered coffee. The server—a young, dark-haired woman with a broad smile and glasses—stopped and quietly said, “I just want to tell you how much your TED talk meant to me, you helped me find out what I really wanted to do with my life—go to medical school—and then you helped me do what I needed to do to get there. Thank you.”
Tears in my eyes, I asked, “What’s your name?”
“Fetaine,” she said. Then we talked for the next ten minutes about Fetaine’s challenges in the past and new-found excitement about her future.
Everyone who communicates with me is special and memorable, but this kind of communication happens far more often than I’d ever have expected: a stranger warmly greets me, shares a personal story about how they successfully dealt with difficulties, and then simply thanks me for my part in it. They are women and men, old and young, poor and wealthy. But something connects them: all have felt powerless in the face of great pressure and anxiety(焦虑), and all discovered a quite simple way to free themselves from that feeling of powerlessness.
For most writers, the book comes first, then the responses. For me, it was the other way around. First, I performed experiments that led to a talk I gave at the TEDGlobal conference in 2012. In that talk, I discussed some interesting findings about how we can quickly increase our confidence and decrease(减轻) our anxiety in challenging situations. I also shared my own troubles and how I learned to become more confident. Soon after the twenty-one-minute video of the talk was posted on the Internet, I began hearing from people who had seen it.
Of course, watching my talk didn’t magically give Fetaine the knowledge she needed to do well on Medical College Admission Test. But it may have helped her get out of the fear that could have prevented her from expressing the things she knew.
4. What happened in the Boston bookstore-café?
A.The writer waited ten minutes for her coffee. |
B.The writer came across a friend of hers. |
C.A waitress expressed her thanks to the writer. |
D.A waitress encouraged the writer to give a TED talk. |
5. What do those people who communicate with the writer have in common?
A.They once faced problems and felt helpless. |
B.They shared personal stories about strangers. |
C.They were famous but under great pressure. |
D.They were afraid to communicate with others. |
6. What may be the theme of the writer’s talk in 2012?
A.How to increase confidence. | B.How to perform meaningful experiments. |
C.How to overcome anxiety in a talk. | D.How to find interesting things in life. |
7. How did the writer influence Fetaine in the writer’s eyes?
A.She gave Fetaine power to look to the future. |
B.She helped Fetaine with her knowledge. |
C.She advised Fetaine to go to medical school. |
D.She helped Fetaine to get a good job. |