The language of influence…
With this post I’m beginning a four-part series. I remind my readers that the purpose of this blog is to address Life and Style interests for men. For midlife men in particular. I intend to cover a range of topics over time. Many blogs or YouTube® channels on men’s style focus mainly on fashion, and generally for younger men. My interest is not in fashion as such, but in overall style and the way we present ourselves. This includes all aspects of our inner and outer selves.
I plan a rather long arc to developing my approach to these things, beginning with some foundational perspectives. I want to think through the ways we exert influence, and bring what we each uniquely offer into the lives of others. My first several posts were not random (although perhaps it seemed so!), but rather designed to think about our lives in the overall context of time. Comparing our lives to the seasons of a year is a helpful metaphor for this.
A philosophy for how we present ourselves
My next several posts in this short series will develop a philosophical approach to the way we choose to present ourselves, and to exert our influence. This goes far beyond just dressing well, and maintaining health and fitness as we move through the seasons of our lives. It has to do with the overall Ethos we present to those around us.
Perhaps you’ve heard of (or read) the modern classic by Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Published in 1936, Carnegie’s book has sold over 30 million copies and has created a paradigm for generations of self-help books to follow.
But Dale Carnegie was not the first to offer principles for how to influence people. One of the early and most influential works on influencing people–on the art of persuasion–was Aristotle’s treatise on Rhetoric. Ancient students and teachers of rhetoric knew the importance of influence, much like today’s self-help and leadership experts. Throughout history people have recognized that the ability to effectively influence and persuade is an important life skill. It is part of leadership.
The art of persuasion
We find ourselves needing to be persuasive all the time. Job interviews, sales presentations, asking someone for a favor, teaching a class or preaching a sermon, even negotiating family or marital conflict–we’re regularly influencing or persuading people. It is how we become a person of influence. We can do it intentionally and well, or we can do it poorly, but we all are regularly persuading or influencing those around us. If we’re going to do it, let’s learn to do it well.
This is where we can learn from the classical masters of rhetoric. People tend to think of “rhetoric” as simply polished and persuasive speech. But there is more to it than that. True rhetoric involves more of the whole person. I’ll spend each of my next three posts giving my own spin on the three different elements of Aristotelian rhetoric: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos and how these can serve us today.
But first…
Let’s think about what we actually contribute to others with our influence and persuasion. Influence isn’t just an end in itself. Each of us has something unique to offer, the things that we create and do that will enrich the lives of others and help us reach our own goals as well.
This is where I’d like to talk about Play-Doh®. Yes, of course this is an amusing word-play to go with Aristotle (sorry, I couldn’t resist!), but I assure you, Play-Doh® is a helpful metaphor for what I’m talking about. It represents our personal creativity, the raw material of what we have to offer the world.
My friend Rob Westervelt likes to tell the story of how Play-Doh® was created by kindergarten teacher Kay Zufall in the 1950s. She used a putty that was developed in the 1930s to clean wallpaper as modeling compound for her students. They added colors to the compound, gave it a name, and behold, Play-Doh®!
All of us have played with Play-Doh® at one time or another. Perhaps we still should. The great thing about Play-Doh® is that it invites our creativity. The user needs to make something of it, otherwise it is just a lump. No one is more creative than children. They imagine something, and their imagination soon gives shape to something from this lump of putty. Then they proudly show us their creation of a car, or an animal, or a castle. They have used their own imagination and creativity to bring about something new. They play, and something new happens.
Leonard Sweet makes a similar point in his book, The Well-Played Life: why pleasing God doesn’t have to be such hard work. No one “works” a violin, for example, Sweet has pointed out. Rather, they “play” it, bringing creativity to bless others. Creativity and new things are more likely to happen when we’re playing than when we’re working.
As you’ve gotten older, have you continued to create new things? What are you doing that is unique, that reflects what you have to offer others? What sort of Play-Doh® do you have in your own life that represents your own uniqueness, your own areas of influence? How will you deliver that to others, to be a person of influence and persuasion?
From Play-Doh®… to Aristotle?
My next several posts will explore the ways we can exercise our influence, to communicate what we have to offer, from the standpoint of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In his treatise, Aristotle proposed that we persuade and influence people in three ways:
- The appeal of the words we use (Logos)
- The appeal to emotion and passions (Pathos)
- Our own character and credibility (Ethos)
We’ll consider the power of each of these three modes of persuasion, and ways they can be interpreted and applied to fit today’s world. I’ll rearrange the usual order to explore Ethos last, as this is the main metaphor I’ll use to interpret how our personal style can enhance our leadership and influence with others.
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