How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 175

• Influence is who you are and how you, as a person, will impact the
message. This includes whether you are viewed as trustworthy and
credible, for example.
• Power increases your ability to persuade and influence. This power can
be seen with people who possess knowledge, have authority, or use
coercion during a persuasion process.
• Motivation is the ability to incite others to act in accordance with the
suggestions and ideals you have posed. Motivation is your "call to action,"
or what you want your audience to do.
Persuasion and Rhetoric
One's ability to persuade meant great social prestige in the ancient Greek
world. Homer regarded the rhetorical skills of Nestor and Odysseus as
tremendous inborn gifts. It was Aristotle who first introduced persuasion
as a skill that could be learned. At that time, rhetorical training became
the craze for the citizens of Athens, especially the politically elite. The
first book ever written on persuasion was Aristotle's The Art of Rhetoric.
The book's basic principles established a foundation for persuasion that
still holds true today.[3]
Aristotle taught that rhetoric was an art form that could be approached
systematically by a formula for all persuasive attempts. Aristotle's most
famous contribution to persuasion was his three means of persuasion:
ethos, pathos, and logos. He argued that the most effective persuasive
attempts contain all three concepts, setting an unshakable foundation for
success. Let's briefly review Aristotle's three basic means of persuasion.
Ethos
Ethos refers to the personal character of the speaker. Aristotle believed
that audiences could be persuaded if they perceived a speaker as credible.
In his own estimation: "We believe good men more fully and readily than
others." Aristotle also stated that "ethos is not a thing or a quality but an
interpretation that is the product of the speaker-audience interaction."[4]
Ethos includes such things as body type, height, movement, dress,
grooming, reputation, vocal quality, word choice, eye contact, sincerity,
trust, expertise, charisma. . . well, you get the idea. It is the audience's
perception of the credibility of the speaker.
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