The Art of Manliness - Aristotle’s Art of Self-Persuasion — How to Use Ancient Rhetoric to Change Your Life

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.140 the ancient art of rhetoric has shaped political policies influenced social movements structured

00:00:16.060 legal arguments and molded cultural narratives throughout history it's been used for 3 000

00:00:20.680 years to persuade other people to change their lives what if you could use it to persuade

00:00:24.960 yourself my guest today says you can j heinrichs is the author of aristotle's guide to self-persuasion

00:00:31.220 and he explains how the same rhetorical techniques that great leaders and orators have used for

00:00:35.740 millennia can be turned inward to help you change your life we discuss how to identify your soul

00:00:40.140 like your internal audience use the concept of kairos to turn chaos into opportunity create

00:00:44.660 hyperbolic moonshot goals that inspire action even if you fall short and employ ethos pathos and logos

00:00:50.400 to achieve the habits and goals you aspire to along the way we talk about how jay used these

00:00:55.300 self-leadership tools to go from barely being able to walk to the tempting athletic feat physiologists

00:01:00.020 told him was impossible after the show is over check out our show notes at awim.is self-persuasion

00:01:05.460 all right j heinrichs welcome back to the show well thanks brett it's nice to be back so we had you

00:01:25.420 on the show way back in 2020 to talk about your book thank you for arguing which is all about reviving

00:01:31.480 the lost art of classical rhetoric to persuade others you got a new book out but this time it's

00:01:38.160 about using aristotelian rhetoric to persuade ourselves to be better people and you talk about

00:01:43.880 at the beginning of the book that it was sort of a midlife rut that kick-started you exploring whether

00:01:50.520 you could use classical rhetoric to improve your life and become a happier person tell us about what was

00:01:57.560 going on there back in my late 50s i was suffering from this illness that should be familiar to

00:02:04.800 a lot of men our age middle age and older i was depressed and i was feeling very sorry for myself

00:02:14.340 in part because i had this physical problem it's called snapping hip syndrome it's disgusting the

00:02:22.700 iliotibial band which is this tendon that stretches from the knee to the hip was catching on my hip bone

00:02:31.360 on both sides and what happens when that happens is you fall down you literally can't move and and the

00:02:39.500 reason for this tends to be when you get a really tight butt like your gluteal muscles are contracted all

00:02:48.740 the time and stress can cause that sitting down too much can cause it all kinds of things can but

00:02:55.880 basically what was causing it was that i was just tight like you know all wound up and so doctors

00:03:03.800 had we talked about surgery and they said maybe i'd be able to walk again afterwards so that was out

00:03:09.740 and i tried pills i tried everything nothing was working until one day my doctor said she'd found

00:03:17.240 somebody who would understand me because i didn't want to just be able to walk normally again i was

00:03:23.200 able to walk with a limp but then my hips would catch and i'd fall down again and not be able to walk at

00:03:29.020 all this guy had a new procedure who might be able to fix me but i thought that wasn't enough

00:03:34.340 because in order to do the incredibly painful physical therapy i wanted to do something more than just

00:03:42.700 being able to walk and i had been a trail runner back through my 30s and 40s not a great athlete but

00:03:49.300 an enthusiastic one and so i thought how can i possibly talk myself into doing all that it would

00:03:55.720 take and my wife came up with this idea which was to persuade myself she had mentioned the work i'd

00:04:03.700 been doing with clients i'd work with nasa with harvard fundraisers and she said have you thought

00:04:10.460 about persuading yourself for once i hadn't but my wife is really smart i do everything she says

00:04:16.980 and so i gave it a shot i made that attempt okay so you're gonna get a treatment for your snapping

00:04:22.500 hip syndrome and this treatment it involves getting a lot of painful injections it's very unpleasant and

00:04:30.600 then you have to do some arduous physical therapy on top of that and you decide if i'm going to be

00:04:36.540 doing all that i want to push myself not only to walk again but to run again so you've got this big

00:04:42.940 challenge ahead of you and to convince yourself to take it on and stick with it you decide to persuade

00:04:49.280 yourself to do it and at the beginning of the book you say this bold statement that if you're going to

00:04:55.180 improve yourself you know get a little bit better in your life whether you want to accomplish some goal you

00:05:00.060 have or overcome some obstacle the master key is self-persuasion why do you think self-persuasion

00:05:09.040 is the master key for us to make changes in our lives well you think about it in order to make a

00:05:15.360 change you have to do something and usually that means changing your habits right getting rid of

00:05:21.680 the bad ones and acquiring new ones and aristotle was the philosopher of habit his books almost

00:05:30.000 all of them talk about habits and how to do that why because habits put you on autopilot you don't

00:05:36.640 have to make choices whether or not to exercise if you simply do it every day i mean you think about it

00:05:42.840 if you floss every day that's a lot easier than deciding whether you want to floss in one particular day

00:05:49.220 which is you when you think about it kind of disgusting right and tedious you know going in 0.52

00:05:55.220 between every two teeth the same thing works with diet or exercise or practicing a new instrument

00:06:03.420 or learning a new language all these things that make a change in your life for the better require

00:06:10.400 a lot of discipline a lot of motivation and where do you get the discipline and motivation unless you can

00:06:18.140 talk yourself into doing it and that's where persuasion comes in so the idea my wife had was 0.99

00:06:24.220 what if i could use those tools of persuasion on audiences in general or markets all the work i'd

00:06:32.020 been doing over the decades and applying them toward myself to gain these habits that would allow me to

00:06:38.940 make the change i wanted that's what this is all about yeah i've noticed in my own life any change

00:06:44.460 i've made it's because i i actually wanted it like i convinced myself this is what i need to do

00:06:49.640 and we can convince ourselves with the tools of rhetoric that people like aristotle wrote about

00:06:54.740 2 000 years ago so let's talk about some of this stuff so typically when we think of rhetoric it's

00:06:59.400 about persuading an audience when we're persuading ourselves we're the audience but what exactly does

00:07:05.560 that mean like what part of ourselves is doing the persuading what part of ourselves is the audience

00:07:10.900 yeah what is the audience when you're the person doing the manipulation and at the same time the

00:07:19.420 one being manipulated so i this was a big problem i mean when my wife said why don't you persuade

00:07:26.100 yourself i the first my first reaction was well how can i be the you know the rhetorician and the

00:07:33.180 audience at the same time so i i did a deep dive in aristotle reading books i really hadn't gone

00:07:40.260 into in the past and i came across this really weird little book titled on the soul and so the

00:07:48.060 way aristotle describes it your soul is this ideal version of yourself it's the person you wish you saw

00:07:56.320 in the mirror so you think of what's an ideal boy scout and i was a pretty unsuccessful boy scout

00:08:02.460 myself but i still remember what a boy scout is supposed to be see if i can just from the top of my head

00:08:08.960 the scout law right is that what it is so a boy scout is trustworthy loyal helpful friendly courteous

00:08:16.980 kind obedient cheerful thrifty brave clean and reverent that almost duplicates what aristotle wrote

00:08:26.100 about as the ideal soul it's like the ideal boy scout it's not who you are but it's the soul that

00:08:33.720 represents your best self as opposed to your daily self that you know eats dunkin donuts or whatever

00:08:39.880 so the question is how do you find that soul you know where is it one philosopher claimed to locate

00:08:47.040 the soul he said it's in your pituitary gland but a better way to do it a more useful way to find your

00:08:53.400 own soul is to separate your wants from your truest needs separate your wants from your needs this is

00:09:00.860 what aristotle told us to do so our daily self wants things but those things make us fatter or less

00:09:06.820 healthy or simply you know flatters our ego we take a job because we think it's prestigious and even

00:09:13.380 though we know it will make us miserable your soul is telling you no don't do that whereas your daily

00:09:19.320 self is saying i'm going to take this because then you know people will respect me your soul because it can

00:09:26.920 be such a nag you know if you really pay attention to it thinking what do i really need what is it 1.00

00:09:32.460 that's important to me that could be pretty annoying i mean when i was working on my own soul or 0.99

00:09:38.800 discovering it i kind of wished my soul would do something stupid and embarrass itself in front of

00:09:44.180 strangers you know the way i do but my soul is my audience and my job is to convince myself that i'm

00:09:51.840 worthy of that audience like i'll show it i i really can live up to it and i found that to be

00:09:58.960 a really powerful tool because it allowed me to use all the other tools of rhetoric sort of thinking of

00:10:05.980 my soul as an extension of me or maybe something that's deeply internal to me but something that's

00:10:12.060 a little different from my daily self and and that way i had an audience i could persuade okay so

00:10:18.100 just make sure i understand this the the daily self is the audience and your soul is the persuader

00:10:24.320 or is it the opposite it's the opposite so your daily self is the one every day that tries to prove

00:10:30.520 you're worthy of your soul okay so you know if if you're about to skip a workout say you say to

00:10:38.400 yourself what's my soul gonna think because i need to convince it that i have the kind of character

00:10:43.920 that's worthy of it and at the same time there are other things you can do to sort of manipulate the

00:10:49.020 soul and i'm hoping we can get into that and those are the tools of ethos pathos and logos i love that

00:10:54.420 so you're looking for a way to help yourself admire yourself in a way exactly and you're when you're

00:11:01.420 helping yourself admire yourself that admiring self is your soul it's your better you it's it's like

00:11:08.040 they're really the coolest most awesome impressive part of you the deep down it's who you truly are

00:11:16.320 okay so your soul is the best part of yourself that's your audience and your day-to-day self

00:11:21.380 is the persuader and you want to use your day-to-day self to persuade your soul that you're worthy of it

00:11:29.780 and one rhetorical tactic that's inspired by the ancient greeks that can help us persuade ourselves

00:11:36.480 is this idea of kairos it's k-a-i-r-o-s what's kairos kairos is so cool and it's funny that so few

00:11:45.720 people study it i kind of hope they'll start so kairos is what helps you determine what your goals are

00:11:53.780 and what your big achievements are going to be so kairos is the art of opportunity and it's a way of

00:12:02.280 interpreting the most chaotic moments in their lives now i think we're going through as the world

00:12:08.040 and a nation in particular we're going through a very chaotic time we don't know what's going to

00:12:13.240 happen things are very confusing it pure chaos now what's interesting is the ancient greeks and romans

00:12:20.640 actually saw chaos as an opening so a kairotic moment is this time of crisis this chaotic moment

00:12:28.840 those who can keep their heads can push through this opening this gap and in fact the original

00:12:36.900 chaos in greek where we get chaos from means gap it doesn't mean you know horror it means something

00:12:45.120 that just is something you need to go through and if you look at great moments in history or great

00:12:51.220 inventions in technology they tend to happen at the most chaotic times and in rhetoric that's called

00:12:58.620 the kairotic times it's the best time to take action so now where aristotle comes in on all this

00:13:06.440 is in his theory of rhetoric so one way to understand kairos is to think in terms of the tenses so

00:13:13.520 and aristotle described the rhetoric of each tense past present and future so the past tense if you're

00:13:20.040 thinking about chaos and kairotic times like the time we're in right now we tend to think about

00:13:26.160 going back to the past and somehow restoring you know the better days but the past tense also has

00:13:32.580 to do with crime and punishment like who made this happen and they should be punished what went wrong

00:13:39.380 who's to blame now that's can be useful it's not entirely something to ignore but then also people

00:13:45.680 use the present tense which is all about values what's right and wrong who's good and who's bad

00:13:50.820 so we tend to attack people who were the bad people who caused all the things the bad things we think

00:13:58.380 are happening today and aristotle actually said if you want to make a change in your own life as well as

00:14:06.540 in the world you need to focus on the future and aristotle called this kind of rhetoric that focuses on

00:14:12.540 the future deliberative rhetoric so you've got the past the present the future which is going to

00:14:18.480 actually fix things that's what you need to focus on and so i'd tell a story in my previous book thank

00:14:25.360 you for arguing about how my son george when he was 15 used up all the toothpaste in the bathroom and

00:14:30.640 when i blamed him he was making fun of me because he had heard me lecture about rhetoric at the dinner

00:14:36.460 table for years but he said when i yelled at him saying who used up all the toothpaste he said

00:14:42.600 that's not the point is it dad the point is how are we going to keep this from happening again

00:14:48.580 now see what he was doing he was switching the tense from the past tense crime and punishment

00:14:53.760 to the future tense how are we going to fix things and by the way if you're ever in trouble for something

00:14:59.560 or someone blames you for something or calls you a name or whatever you can say call me whatever you

00:15:05.000 want or i may or may not have screwed up but how are we going to fix things that's deliberative

00:15:10.400 rhetoric and in a time of chaos these chaotic moments when we have a tendency to panic return

00:15:16.120 to the old days or get angry at people deliberative rhetoric lets us say how are we going to fix things

00:15:20.960 how can i use this time to make things better or to get better myself and so back in my own

00:15:28.600 chaotic moment when i was having this late midlife crisis my aging body and this depression i was in

00:15:35.820 i found very confusing this doesn't seem to be me deliberative rhetoric and this idea of kairos

00:15:43.480 made me reframe the situation i thought i'm not drowning in a whirlpool maybe i'm looking at a gap

00:15:50.100 and the question is how do i get through to the other side of that gap i love that so yeah instead of

00:15:56.500 thinking about oh if i could only just go back to when i was 30 or 40 or what happened you know what

00:16:02.020 could i have done differently using that past tense in this chaotic moment you had you thought

00:16:07.020 you focus on the future what can i do now what can i do to make things better exactly and it's a great

00:16:12.900 way to understand what the situation really is without getting all panicky and negative about it

00:16:18.060 and yeah if i wanted to go back and be a not so awesome 30 year old it's in a way thinking about

00:16:25.660 this kairotically in terms of navigating some gap you know the gap was between my youth and old age

00:16:34.120 and what gets me through that is being an awesome old guy and so anyone can use this so let's say

00:16:41.380 you're a guy and you're in a job that's just making you miserable you can see this instead of like it's

00:16:46.160 just terrible it's like well this is this is a moment of kairos this is an opportunity to exercise

00:16:51.460 exercise my ability to harness the future like exercise my ability to improvise and take action

00:16:57.460 right and one way to do that is if you're thinking in terms of gaps what exactly are the gaps what

00:17:03.340 first of all what's making you most unhappy at work can you fix that while remaining in the same job

00:17:08.500 and if you can't what are the solutions and the other thing is what's blocking you what's blocking

00:17:13.520 you from getting another job what's blocking you from fixing the things that make you unhappy at work

00:17:18.280 so you think in terms of obstacles the obstacles don't necessarily prevent you because there's

00:17:24.220 always some space between them that's what chaos is all about and kairos allows you not just to

00:17:32.660 choose where the gaps are but when's the best time to act so another rhetorical tool you talk about that

00:17:39.980 we can use to persuade others but we can maybe use to persuade ourselves are tropes i want to talk

00:17:45.260 about a specific trope here in a bit hyperbole but just generally what is a rhetorical trope a trope

00:17:51.880 is anything that plays pretend i mean if you see it that way it pretends something is not exactly what

00:17:57.660 it is so a metaphor is the most common trope if i say the moon is a balloon you know the moon is not

00:18:04.600 some inflatable bit of rubber but it's like one and so if i say it is one you start seeing the moon a

00:18:11.640 little bit differently you think about it floating there's a lot of unconscious you know brain work

00:18:16.240 that goes on if somebody uses a metaphor then there is other metaphors like irony where you

00:18:22.300 pretend to be serious when you're saying something else i mean every teenager uses irony when somebody

00:18:28.200 drops a tray in the cafeteria and they yell nice you know as if they're complimenting the person

00:18:33.340 and in the southerner southerners especially southern women will say bless her heart oh yeah you know 0.99

00:18:39.440 not exactly praising so those are what tropes do they pretend one thing while actually meaning another

00:18:46.520 and they can actually change people's whole views of reality okay so one trope that you used is

00:18:52.680 hyperbole before we talk about how you use it on yourself hyperbole on yourself what are some

00:18:57.540 examples of great rhetoricians using hyperbole in their speeches oh my gosh so hyperbole is the

00:19:05.580 trope of exaggeration right where you say something is is bigger or more important or tinier for that

00:19:12.360 matter than what it really is in real life and then pretends that that that that exaggeration is a true

00:19:19.460 thing so if you look at every great successful revolution of every kind they start with a hyperbole i mean

00:19:27.400 you think about well the american revolution this gaggle of you know british colonies not all of whom got

00:19:35.920 along all that well with each other decided that they were going to push off the greatest military

00:19:42.300 power in the world the united kingdom and at the same time create a brand new political system that

00:19:49.880 everybody around the world will someday imitate that is totally hyperbolic so when you think about it

00:19:56.000 all the great visionaries were hyperbolists you know i think apple computer that arose out of this

00:20:02.100 crazy hyperbole that people would have their own personal computers at a time when massive mainframes

00:20:08.200 you know and terminals maybe in everybody's home was the vision of the day so you know you think about

00:20:14.660 that if you ever want to do something amazingly great first you have to sort of believe in the

00:20:20.080 impossible and that by definition is a hyperbole if you can get people to believe it that's a trope

00:20:25.680 yeah another famous hyperbole jfk's moonshots speech we choose to go to the moon in this decade

00:20:31.700 you know because we had just put someone into space and the idea we're gonna get someone on the moon

00:20:37.220 like that was that's big in a decade yeah that is like and we didn't even have the technology

00:20:44.840 to do that yeah i mean that's brilliant it's a good and you know part of that speech that's really

00:20:50.020 interesting is he said we're gonna do this and do the other hard things he said what's really

00:20:56.140 interesting about that is one way i started thinking about the hyperbole is if you have this

00:21:02.760 grand moonshot goal it actually helps you think about all the other hard things it makes you believe

00:21:08.760 you can do the other hard things as well even if you're failing at that one goal i mean imagine

00:21:13.660 if we didn't reach the moon in 1970 but it took a few years more even then we would have been so

00:21:21.080 far ahead in technology and you know beating the pants off the soviet union and all that good stuff

00:21:26.820 that it would make us believe we could do other things and the fact is we did achieve it and it made

00:21:31.760 us believe in all the other things as well that we could do the hard things in general so how did you

00:21:36.800 use hyperbole in your quest to maybe overcome your snapping hip syndrome the etymology of hyperbole

00:21:45.320 comes from two greek words hyper which means above or beyond and bully which means to throw so bully is

00:21:53.940 actually where we get the english word ball so hyperbole literally translated means to throw

00:22:01.140 beyond a hyperbole throws beyond actuality which is kind of this amazing work in the imagination but

00:22:09.180 it's more than that and i thought personally in my case what if i created my own like capital h

00:22:16.120 hyperbole i would create an image of myself as this record-breaking athlete now i never was a great

00:22:24.720 athlete i was an enthusiastic outdoorsman at best but i would prove you know even though i couldn't

00:22:31.860 walk well and it looked like my condition may worsen to the point where i'd be in a wheelchair

00:22:37.220 i would prove my hyperbole by being the first person over 50 to run his age up this classic mountain here

00:22:46.480 where i live in new hampshire olympic skiers have been using it for years to test their fitness

00:22:50.960 only a dozen people had ever run their age which means reaching the top of this mountain in fewer

00:22:57.800 minutes than they're old in years and i'd be the first old person to do it the first over 50

00:23:03.400 never mind the fact that doctors had told me i'd never run again and two physiologists told me that

00:23:10.280 even if i were a good you know old athlete they thought it was physically impossible to do because of

00:23:17.980 the amount of oxygenation you need to have in order to run up this very steep difficult mountain

00:23:23.980 in fewer minutes than i was old in years and that was to be my hyperbole this was what was going to

00:23:30.040 get me to do all the painful training over that time but so just to make this clear that was my

00:23:37.540 hyperbole but what i suggest to readers of the book is that this isn't a fitness book it's about

00:23:43.260 creating your own hyperbole to create something exciting some crazy big goal with the idea that

00:23:49.520 even if you fail to achieve it you're still way ahead it's this great motivational technique so

00:23:55.980 you know imagine giving a speech in a foreign language instead of just learning the language

00:24:00.980 you know going someplace and delivering this scary talk or learning to play the guitar and then busking

00:24:07.920 you know performing on the streets of manhattan or learning to cook and not just cooking a decent

00:24:13.680 meal but serving haute cuisine to a whole bunch of snobs you know to raise money for a good cause 0.99

00:24:19.340 or something those are all hyperbole and my book actually offers kind of a technique to come up with

00:24:24.720 your own i love that idea of creating a moonshot for yourself because it can be inspiring and you

00:24:30.820 might reach it that you reach it great but i think the benefit is it'll get you to do those things

00:24:36.260 that are good for you like that along the way you'll be better for even just attempting that

00:24:41.120 big moonshot hyperbole goal exactly yeah i think that's a cool tactic we're gonna take a quick break

00:24:47.880 for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show so let's talk about another way you used

00:24:55.860 aristotle's ideas of rhetoric on yourself i think we talked about this last time in your last uh our last

00:25:01.880 conversation about rhetoric it's the three means of persuasion uh we got ethos pathos and logos let's

00:25:09.940 talk about ethos first because aristotle thought that was the most powerful most important one recap

00:25:14.700 what is ethos and then talk about how did you use that means of persuasion on yourself so aristotle's

00:25:22.280 ethos is your projected character it's what people think of you or it's your brand it's whether

00:25:28.620 your audience likes and trusts you and this is why aristotle thought was most powerful because

00:25:34.340 you know if if you like and totally trust somebody you're really likely to basically do what they say

00:25:41.420 you know that's the your leader so now the ideal ethos aristotle says three characteristics and of

00:25:48.300 course he said them in greek but i translated them from the greek and simplified them as what i call

00:25:53.620 craft caring and cause so first comes craft you want your audience to think you know what you're

00:25:59.720 doing you have the knowledge and the experience to solve whatever problem there is at hand that's

00:26:05.560 craft the caring part of it means your audience thinks you have only their best interest at heart

00:26:12.060 you're selfless you're totally not selfish it's all about them then there's cause which has to do with

00:26:18.680 values with your audience believing you share those same values and that you live up to them you're a

00:26:24.360 good person right you have a good soul now when it comes to how i persuaded myself that audience as

00:26:31.540 we talked about earlier is my very own aristotelian soul and my job was to convince that soul that i have

00:26:38.300 an ethos that's worthy of it that i have the craft that i i knew how to get in shape and knew how to

00:26:45.980 develop the habits that i was selfless about it like this wasn't about what i wanted from day to

00:26:52.020 day i i wanted to you know read books with a cat in my lap that's what i really you know wanted but my

00:26:58.360 need was deeper i wanted to be able to run my age and then came the cause part you know what i deeply

00:27:04.500 valued and that's what connected me most closely with my soul and that was the biggest secret of all

00:27:11.220 this idea that i was projecting a worthy ethos to my soul that allowed me not just to create these

00:27:18.440 habits and believe in them that they could actually work but to stick to them from day to day yeah one

00:27:24.120 of the tools you use to do that is decorum correct yeah so decorum is how you make your audience

00:27:31.980 think you're one of them and you know i actually several days a week during the school year i talk

00:27:38.920 to um high school and college class and law school classes and i talk to students whose classes have

00:27:45.840 adopted my books now the problem i have is that my children are like older than these teachers now

00:27:52.520 and and so how do i make people believe i'm one of them and you know so there are certain

00:27:58.360 techniques you can do one is to understand their language not necessarily use every word of it but

00:28:04.940 the most important thing i tell people is say before you talk to any kind of audience i'm going to love

00:28:11.000 these people and projecting love believe it or not you know which honors your audience and makes you

00:28:17.940 thrilled to be with them makes you appear thrilled to be with them actually works so now how do you do that

00:28:24.320 with your own soul i decided that the most important thing was to try to love my soul as much as i could

00:28:32.640 and i know this is getting a little squirrely here but really what it comes down to is another

00:28:37.520 tool of rhetoric that aristide describes in many of his books which is this idea of phylos and phylos

00:28:46.180 is this idea of ultimate friendship of being willing to do whatever it takes for the other person

00:28:52.860 and you know that's partly what caring is but it's also about what decorum is so decorum is this idea

00:28:58.500 that you're one of them you're very close to them and you'll do anything for them so if you think of

00:29:04.380 your soul as like your very best friend and you'll do anything for it and you know at the same time

00:29:10.120 your soul will back you up at any time and forgive you for these temporary lapses which are inevitable

00:29:15.320 then that's decorum that's you know acting as if you're part of the tribe with you and your soul

00:29:22.080 the only members and it sounds like one thing that you might need to do if your day-to-day self isn't

00:29:29.260 there to where your soul self is at yet is fake it like if you want to be healthy think of yourself

00:29:35.360 as an athlete but you're not there right now just do athlete things and then your soul be like oh hey

00:29:41.440 this guy this guy's trying like he's trying to be me here and i'm gonna like this guy oh yeah so

00:29:47.360 weightlifters describe this phenomenon it's a joke but they call it invisible lat syndrome

00:29:53.340 so your your back muscles from a whole lot of pull-ups get a little bit bigger so you walk

00:30:00.300 around as if they're 10 times the size they are you know with your arms out as if you're a well-armed

00:30:05.220 policeman or something so walking around like that actually can convince you and one of the things

00:30:11.100 that i found myself doing this is you know faking until you make it but it's also a kind of decorous

00:30:16.380 act it's pretending i'm so close to my soul i'm already there and that was i i would when i still

00:30:24.460 found it a little bit difficult walking after this procedure this doctor gave me which was weeks long

00:30:31.340 and involved a lot of very painful shots to flood the zone of my nervous system so that my gluteal muscles

00:30:37.980 will stop contracting i still was walking with kind of a limp so i turned it into a sort of swagger

00:30:43.580 so i walked around as if i was like this really cool athlete instead of this old guy with a limp

00:30:50.520 and eventually as i overcame the limp itself in the meantime my brain had changed and i really kind

00:30:57.320 of believed that i was capable of being more of an athlete than i was in reality so that's faking until

00:31:03.200 you make it but it's also getting close to my soul like what my soul really wanted to think of myself

00:31:09.560 as you know i think did this earnest hemingway so i'm watching that ken burns documentary on hemingway

00:31:15.580 and one thing i'm watching about right now is how hemingway there's like this myth around hemingway

00:31:22.060 but he created that myth like he had this idea of like ideal hemingway and then i think he tried to do

00:31:28.600 the things that ideal hemingway would do and i think it got him into trouble but i think that's

00:31:34.140 what he was doing he had this ideal of himself his best self and he tried to do those things whether

00:31:38.280 that was hunting in africa you know boxing just doing all those manly urs hemingway things that is

00:31:45.100 such a great example and so in rhetoric there's this term called octio which is latin for acting and

00:31:54.140 it means acting in both senses of the word it means playing pretend like you're acting a part

00:31:59.980 but also means action so to project a certain character before you take an action allows yourself

00:32:07.740 to sort of play a role that then you try to take on in real life and hemingway is a brilliant example

00:32:13.600 of that okay so we talked about ethos let's talk about the next means of persuasion which is pathos

00:32:19.100 what is pathos and then how did you use it on yourself so pathos has to do with emotion and

00:32:25.680 in rhetoric it has to do with your ability to change your audience's mood so there are lots of

00:32:31.780 tools doing that and one that worked really well for me so but by the way to change my mood from

00:32:37.860 you know depressed loser to like aspiring athlete and optimist one of the things that i i found that

00:32:46.680 really worked was self-deprecating humor and instead of telling myself what a loser i was every time i

00:32:53.360 failed at something or made a mistake i learned to laugh at those mistakes and and sort of force myself

00:32:59.480 to do it until i i did it naturally and i actually this is still working for me the other day i was asked

00:33:06.980 to do a favor for a friend i i live on 150 acres and i cut a lot of my own firewood so i'm pretty good

00:33:13.980 with a chainsaw and so this guy asked me if i would cut down a cherry tree it is condo development

00:33:19.720 so cherry trees are awful to cut down they lean in all directions and you never know which way the

00:33:26.200 damn thing's gonna fall and here it is this tree fell the wrong way it would crash through a stranger's

00:33:32.360 glass door on the ground floor so and of course i'm cutting this thing i i made a big mistake in 0.99

00:33:40.420 the angle i was cutting and my chainsaw got stuck and i'd forgotten to bring my axe and you know the

00:33:46.600 other tools you need like wedges to get your chainsaw unstuck anyway so the chainsaw is simply

00:33:52.660 stuck i i lived 40 minutes away i didn't have time to go back and get the other tools so i drove home

00:33:59.700 leaving the chainsaw embarrassingly in the tree so this everybody in this condo development could see 0.98

00:34:05.340 some idiot had left a chainsaw in a tree that was partly cut that night it got windy and the tree 0.96

00:34:14.820 fell missing this glass door by like two inches i mean it was right there with the chainsaw still 0.99

00:34:22.900 you know sticking out of it in the worst possible way so everybody could see it i came back the next

00:34:28.800 day you know with my axe my wedges and got the chainsaw out and cut the tree up and everything was

00:34:34.280 fine now before i started practicing rhetoric on myself i would have said you can never face these

00:34:41.940 people again just leave the chainsaw there and buy a new one and instead i thought this is just a sort 0.96

00:34:47.980 of idiotic thing you do jay and the great thing is you always fix it so i laughed i went back and fixed 0.81

00:34:55.420 it and i kind of felt better for it and nobody in the condo they were very kind people they watched 0.98

00:35:01.400 me as i cut up the tree and nobody was laughing at me god bless them all another example of a famous

00:35:08.000 person who i maybe they were using pathos on themselves they just didn't know it fdr franklin

00:35:14.320 roosevelt so we all know he had polio he couldn't walk he's in a wheelchair and i remember reading

00:35:20.400 a biography about him and you know when he was in his braces he would often fall down especially on like

00:35:26.300 slick marble floor because the metal would just scrape and he would just fall down and instead 0.72

00:35:30.720 of engaging in self-pity and just like oh i'm such an idiot oh i'm so like he just acted like it wasn't 0.97

00:35:36.540 a big deal and he kind of kept that smile on his face and he'd say hey can someone help me up here 0.93

00:35:42.900 like people knew that he couldn't walk but he just had that big grin and just exuded levity and

00:35:49.400 confidence yeah and so you know it's interesting you see the same thing in toddlers where you know

00:35:56.580 a two-year-old falls down which happens often and you know scrapes her knee or whatever and you always

00:36:04.340 see this moment where the toddler looks around at the adults especially you know the parent and sees

00:36:11.380 their reaction first and if the parent looks horrified or rushes oh my gosh my baby is hurt

00:36:17.280 the kid will cry and when i'm not sure this shows good parenting on my part but when my

00:36:25.440 two children were toddlers when they fell down and there'd be that moment a kind of chirotic moment when

00:36:31.420 you think about it like what's what's the action to take here i would quick look at the concrete or

00:36:38.900 the floor or the ground whatever and i check and see if it was okay which would make the kid angry

00:36:46.520 more often than not but much less rarely cry their mother would come rushing to them and they would

00:36:53.240 always cry and you know there's something about doing that to yourself where are you going to be

00:36:59.280 the one who sort of jokingly checks the floor or are you going to be the one who immediately thinks

00:37:06.180 this is awful and that's a way to change your mood now there's another tool i have to talk about which

00:37:12.240 is actually more effective which is repeating the same things over and over again to have an expression

00:37:17.980 when you're in a bad mood that improves your mood and this is where those cheesy affirmations you

00:37:24.300 know the stuff they used to sell like eight track tapes for to play in your car like stewart smallie

00:37:29.020 i'm good enough i'm smart enough and gosh darn it people like me yeah and you know what i mean

00:37:33.960 there are ways to do that and i'm hoping we can talk about a way to use a particular rhythm to do

00:37:39.820 that which rhetoricians invented many many years ago but the big thing is repeating them and there's

00:37:46.460 something that neurobiologists and neurologists have discovered which is there's a part of your brain

00:37:52.300 let's see if i remember the term that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that's a part of your brain

00:37:59.360 that actually controls our view of reality and it also is very responsive to repetition

00:38:06.520 so if you repeat things often enough or if you see things often enough on social media even if they're

00:38:12.380 untrue you start to believe them it becomes your reality and it's that part of your brain the

00:38:19.200 ventromedial prefrontal cortex that actually starts changing the world for you and actually repeating 1.00

00:38:26.820 these stupid affirmations to yourself stops making them seem stupid if you repeat them often enough 0.97

00:38:32.720 and it becomes your idea of reality and you can do it in very specific ways that actually change the way 1.00

00:38:39.580 you see things happening around you and see the way you're actually behaving now so beyond that and

00:38:47.200 what we call affirmations today in the old days they called charms which were expressions that actually

00:38:53.580 made magic happen and so to this day you can find people dig up all the time these lead in objects

00:39:01.460 with expressions written on them that would cure people or curse people whatever these were charms but

00:39:08.720 they were really repeated things you were supposed to say them over and over again and so that's how

00:39:14.180 you made magic happen you repeated things often enough that would change reality and rhetoric does the

00:39:19.240 same thing by changing your brain now there's another factor here in terms of pathos and that is you can

00:39:27.000 actually make yourself into a kind of charm and aristotle wrote about this the perfect ethos actually has

00:39:34.120 a magical effect on an audience which is charisma and the word charisma comes from the greek word for charm

00:39:43.900 so a charming person originally meant someone who had sort of a magical effect on people and you see

00:39:50.760 that with some hollywood actors or you know when politicians like jfk or martin luther king they were

00:39:57.900 seen often enough and a perfect kind of character at least according to their followers enough that

00:40:05.820 people change the way they saw them and saw reality as a result that's that's what those are the most

00:40:11.520 powerful tools of pathos have to do with charms and repetition so you mentioned there's a specific

00:40:17.060 way you can formulate those mantras or charms that make them more effective what is that way well

00:40:23.480 there's something called the paen a p-a-e-n which originally was a god that would protect soldiers from

00:40:31.800 harm in ancient times so when they would run in a battle they would pray to the goddess paen so that

00:40:39.380 became they realized that if you do this with a certain rhythm and actually marcus tellia cicero this

00:40:47.240 ancient orator and one of the great rhetoricians wrote about this if you repeat it with a series of

00:40:54.060 short and long syllables that becomes that much more effective it's more convincing there's something in

00:41:01.500 the brain that's not fully understood yet i think someday it will be that um allows you to do this

00:41:07.940 so in homer he used pns a lot like golden haired far shooter son of zeus and you repeat that often

00:41:16.380 enough you really believe that this was a real character now you can see that in basketball games

00:41:22.860 in the ivy league people will be chanting repel them repel them make them relinquish the ball which

00:41:28.760 is silly but on the other hand it has this particular rhythm that actually works so these charms that people

00:41:35.400 dig up actually had these same rhythms on it these pian rhythms so i use them myself and i repeat them

00:41:42.600 over and over again and these rhythms become memorable and so my own posture tends to be terrible so i tell

00:41:50.080 myself all the time head on a swivel not in my lap as short and long rhythms with this you know

00:41:56.660 kind of convincing way when i was running up this mountain this mount musalak in new hampshire

00:42:02.160 to try to run my age in training for that i repeat things to myself like my legs love rocks i flow up

00:42:08.860 rocks and stupid as that was my brain changed to the point where my legs were loving rocks which are 0.96

00:42:17.700 the most horrible thing in the world i mean these were boulders i was running up and i actually was 0.99

00:42:22.620 convincing myself that i wasn't kind of hopping in a weird unrhythmic way i was flowing up those rocks

00:42:29.420 that's where the pn comes in all right so come up with your own charm by using a pn

00:42:33.600 and so it's probably like a long sentence in the short sentence that's like the rhythm you want

00:42:37.760 or a long and short phrase and syllables it's short syllables and long syllables you don't have to be too

00:42:43.980 precise about it but you know marketers have used this all the time i mean the new york times came up

00:42:51.860 with the first great pn logos all the news that's fit to print that long and short syllables that

00:42:58.540 convinced people that this was the newspaper of record and lays potato chips but you can't eat

00:43:04.100 just one the quicker picker upper for bonty towels i could go on no okay i love it convinced people it

00:43:11.180 made billions for marketers and companies yeah so find one for yourself and repeat it to yourself even

00:43:16.740 though it might seem silly it can work yeah and part of this is talking about mood do it ironically 0.94

00:43:23.620 in the beginning like like smile while you do it because it's going to be stupid and then repeat it 0.68

00:43:28.780 often enough that it's not stupid i mean another thing about irony we're talking about irony is another 0.92

00:43:33.080 trope whenever i completed these horrible work as i had to do i was working out four to six hours a day

00:43:39.220 in order to get myself into condition where i could run my edge up this mountain my wife bless her would 1.00

00:43:46.020 always ask me how it went and instead of saying it sucked what do you think i would say refreshing

00:43:52.080 you know ironically and you know after a while i never truly believed my workouts i still don't

00:43:58.820 are refreshing part of me kind of thought they're not so bad like like you know they actually make me

00:44:05.360 feel better in the long run okay so we talked about pathos let's talk about logos that's logic

00:44:10.060 so what is aristotelian logos because it's not it's not how we think it is i think typically we

00:44:16.320 think of logos it's got to be these iron clad arguments no fallacies aristotle didn't think

00:44:22.540 that when it comes to logos no not when it comes to rhetorical logos which isn't pure logic in fact it

00:44:30.180 can be the opposite you know fallacies can actually convince people but you know even his formal logic

00:44:35.940 has confused people for centuries oh man there's a period i went through aristotle's like works you

00:44:41.060 know nick and mckin ethics is great uh metaphysics interesting and then i get to his book about

00:44:46.220 syllogisms i'm like oh just started snoring this was not not fun god topics even worse yeah you know

00:44:53.080 and even sherlock holmes gets it wrong gets aristotelian logic wrong he talks all the time about using

00:44:59.720 deduction to solve crimes when he's actually using induction which is a kind of logic that gathers facts

00:45:05.120 and uses them to make a conclusion and actually i talk about formal logic that way because actually

00:45:10.760 aristotelian logic can let us deal with this fire hose of information and fake news that comes to us

00:45:18.560 through our devices aristotle taught us how to interpret facts and determine their value and reach

00:45:24.040 conclusions without getting all emotional about it and that can actually help in terms of you know

00:45:29.240 improving your mood and not think that everything in the world is going entirely wrong

00:45:33.740 but using ill logic to convince yourself to do you know the habits if your soul tells you you need

00:45:42.860 to do can work even better so some fallacies i found were great on me one of the best was the

00:45:50.500 fallacy of antecedent which has to do with you know if something has always been done this way it

00:45:56.160 always will be or if something went well it always will be or if something has always gone wrong it always

00:46:01.700 will so i happen to be an absolute master i know i don't mean to brag but nobody's better at least in

00:46:09.420 my household of two people at loading the dishwasher i am brilliant at it my wife is terrible i swear she 1.00

00:46:16.460 stands back and throws dishes into the thing it's hurt our marriage slightly but now i'm the dishwasher

00:46:22.660 loader and she's allowed me to do it but here's the thing this leads to a second fallacy which is the

00:46:27.640 false analogy so i'm good at loading the dishwasher therefore i'm brilliant at organization and problem

00:46:34.440 solving because i can load the dishwasher i could probably run a corporation right same thing so it's

00:46:41.040 the fallacy but that same kind of combination of things i'm really good at this one thing now think

00:46:47.480 of an analogy however far away from that that lets you overcome imposter syndrome or convince yourself

00:46:54.040 you're qualified to apply for a job that might otherwise seem above your station so this these

00:46:59.500 fallacies can really work again if you repeat them often enough that you actually believe in them okay

00:47:05.300 so with logos we're going to use logical fallacies for a positive end and convincing ourselves that we

00:47:10.800 can do something that our moonshot goal that we have exactly and so that's the thing that moonshot goal

00:47:16.720 if you do it if you set it up right it's impossible so it's fallacious logic or illogic

00:47:23.180 that convinces you that you can even do it because you know if it is literally impossible you won't be

00:47:29.640 able to do it yeah but to to believe that's impossible and then to believe you can do it

00:47:35.160 that's the greatest kind of fallacy so we've talked about some of the rhetorical tools in your book

00:47:40.780 there's a lot more but i'm curious how did your experiment go and using rhetoric and self-persuasion

00:47:45.800 in overcoming this snapping hip syndrome you had well so i decided i would make the actual attempt

00:47:52.880 on one day my 58th birthday august 27th that's kairos that's kairos very good that was my one

00:48:00.320 opportunity i was going to do it or i was going to fail and i deliberately to test the tool this whole

00:48:05.340 experiment was to test the tools to see if they would work what would work what didn't and i thought

00:48:10.860 putting as much pressure on myself as possible would be one way to test the tools and so one day

00:48:16.200 my birthday besides when i turned 58 that gave me an additional minute to run my age which meant you

00:48:23.720 know running it in less than 58 minutes so i'd have another minute and for every minute less than 58

00:48:30.060 that it took me to make it to the summit i would declare myself that much younger in years which

00:48:35.160 when you think about it makes as much sense as declaring your age in terms of number of years

00:48:39.280 so to prepare for that day i had spent nine months in training four to six hours a day after this

00:48:46.120 horrible procedure with this orthopedist who injected me with these hundreds of shots of dextrose sugar

00:48:51.720 water to flood my nerves with pain so i did everything i could with all these things of rhetoric and then on

00:48:58.900 that one day at six o'clock in the morning i was at the trailhead of this mountain 3.7 miles 2800 feet

00:49:08.180 of elevation up these very slick rocks with a river running in waterfalls down beside it very difficult

00:49:16.220 kind of run and the conditions were bad it was way too warm and humid and you know the older you get

00:49:23.340 the harder it is for your body to deal with heat and to allow yourself to oxygenate so and the whole

00:49:30.960 way up i didn't look at my watch the entire time when i got to the summit and i hit the button on my

00:49:36.440 watch i didn't even look then i just realized it didn't matter so much what my time was whether i'd

00:49:43.940 gotten younger by running my age or not i discovered and this is absolutely true i know this sounds self-help

00:49:50.300 but it's true i was happier than i'd been in years and that effect has lasted ever since and this is

00:49:57.360 years later it's taken me a long time to do the research to complete this book but the rhetoric

00:50:02.240 itself had worked and when i looked at my watch i then discovered well i won't tell you it's going

00:50:08.520 to be a mystery you have to read the book this is awesome so it sounds like you can use aristotle's

00:50:13.040 rhetoric to persuade yourself so we encourage people to go check out your book so where can people go to

00:50:17.000 learn more about the book in your work well i have a substack newsletter if you look up my name

00:50:21.160 you'll find it it tells all about the tools of rhetoric and self-persuasion but i also have a

00:50:25.620 website called argue lab all one word argue lab.com fantastic well j heinrichs next time it's been a

00:50:31.340 pleasure brett this is a real pleasure thank you my guest it was j heinrichs he's the author of the

00:50:37.340 book aristotle's guide to self-persuasion it's available on amazon.com the bookstores everywhere

00:50:41.140 you can find more information about his work at his website j heinrichs.com also check out

00:50:45.320 our show notes at aom.is slash self-persuasion where you find links to resources we delve deeper

00:50:49.560 into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our

00:51:01.320 website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles

00:51:05.320 that we've written over the years about pretty much anything you think of and if you haven't done

00:51:08.820 so already i'd appreciate it if you take one minute to use your normal podcast or spotify it helps

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00:51:16.180 or family member you think with something out of it as always thank you for the continued support

00:51:20.160 until next time this is brett mckay remind you to listen to the aom podcast but put what you've heard

00:51:24.480 into action

00:51:25.180 you

The Art of Manliness - August 19, 2025

Aristotle’s Art of Self-Persuasion — How to Use Ancient Rhetoric to Change Your Life

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