Aristotle's Rhetorical Triangle (And Why It Still Works)

For over 2,400 years, one persuasion framework has shaped the way we speak, influence, and win people over. From Aristotle to modern politicians, this system is still being used in the biggest moments today. In this episode, I break it down—and show you how to use it to win the room.

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0:00

If you want to be a better speaker, if you want to win the room with your communication, if you want to connect to the people in your life better than ever before and make the impact you hope to make, then you need to think about two things.

The first is what you say, and the second is how you say it.

This seems very simple, but these two questions have haunted mankind ever since we've had the ability to communicate.

0:21

And if we go back on that timeline, the timeline of humanity trying to figure out how to make the most of the moment, what we'll find is 2400 years ago, there was a brilliant framework that was birthed to us that we can bring up to 2026 and use today.

0:39

And what I've realized is many people are using this and some of the biggest moments yet, we're just not talking about it.

So this episode is going to be exactly that.

It's going to be uncovering the biggest rhetorical framework of all time and sharing with you how you can use ancient Greek principles to affect your business, to affect your relationships, to make your life better.

1:01

My name is Chris Miller and welcome to the Talk to People podcast.

The rhetorical triangle is Aristotle's baby.

It is a summary of the effective means of persuasion.

1:17

So historically, rhetoric, if you were to define rhetoric, it's essentially how someone motivates, informs, persuades an audience.

And Aristotle defined rhetoric as being able to assess and utilize the effective means of persuasion at any given time.

1:34

And within that definition that Aristotle gives, what you'll see is that it's very relative and it's variable.

It changes all the time, which makes communication so difficult.

It makes miscommunication a lot more probable, and it makes the moments where you really swing for the fences and hit a Grand Slam a lot less frequent because you have to be able to read the moment and know what the most effective mean of persuasion is at that given time.

1:57

So let's start.

So for starters, when we think about the triangle, the first point of the rhetorical triangle that I'd like to talk to you about is ethos.

Ethos is about persuading your audience or getting your audience to believe that you are a credible person, you are worthy of their trust.

2:17

There's a reason why you're the one talking and there's a reason why they should listen to you.

This is a huge obstacle to tackle and if you can overcome it, then you can connect with your audience better.

There will be less scrutiny, they will be more willing to accept the ideas or the opinions that you have, and overall, it's going to be a better experience.

2:40

Let me share with you an example.

Alex Hermozi.

Maybe you've heard of him.

He's very active online.

But what I did was I noticed a theme with Alex Hermozi in his videos where he hammers ethos really hard at the beginning of every video.

Let me show you an example.

2:57

So I'm going to play for you the 1st 1015 seconds of three different videos.

So the first video I'm going to show you, the 1st 15 seconds is a video titled How to Actually Get Rich in Your 20s.

Listen to this intro.

This is brutally honest advice for men to win in their 20s.

3:13

I made my first million at 26.

I crossed 100 million in net worth at age 31.

And this is my road map for things that I learned along the way.

Here's how he starts.

This is brutally honest advice for men to win in their 20s.

I made my first million at 26, crossed 100 million in net worth at age 31.

3:28

And this is my road map.

So that's his credibility.

He gives it to you within the 1st 15 seconds.

Then he doesn't need to worry about, hey, whether or not you trust me, I have 100 million net worth by 31 and I made my first million at 26.

A lot of people listening will hear that and go, whoa, I want to listen to that person.

3:45

They've been there before.

Let me show you another video.

This one's titled 13 Years of Marketing Advice in 85 Minutes.

Listen to how it starts.

I've been marketing for 13 years.

I built and sold nine companies.

I sold my last company for $46.2 million to American Pacific Group.

4:00

I've also written two books on marketing that have sold over 1,000,000 copies.

Here's 13 years of marketing advice that will make you more money.

All right, within the 1st 15 seconds of the video, Bills is credibility.

People hear that?

Wow, I want to listen to that person.

There you have it and then lastly, this video titled How to grow your Business in 2026.

4:19

O fast it feels illegal.

Nice, now listen to the first 15 seconds.

The last three companies I founded and sold grew so fast it felt illegal.

Use Allen got to $1.2 million per month at the end of the first year, Prestige Labs got to $1.5 million per month by the end of the first year, and Gym Launch got over $2,000,000 per month by the end of the first year.

4:41

I'm going to show you the strongest growth levers I used to get these results so that you can too.

Let me show you the opposite of ethos, and that would be whenever you attack someone's credibility rather than building up credibility.

If if you wanted someone to not be listened to, if you wanted your audience not to put stock in what someone's saying, then you would want to attack their credibility.

5:02

There's someone who we all know who's very popular, and sometimes he uses this rhetorical tool.

Let me give you an example, Mr. President.

Mr. President, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files?

Why not just do it now?

It's not the question that I mind, it's your attitude.

5:19

I think you are a terrible reporter.

It's the way you ask these questions.

You start off with a man who's highly respected asking him a horrible, uh, insubordinate and, and just a terrible question.

And you could even ask that same exact question nicely.

5:37

You're all psyched up.

Somebody sucks you over at ABC, they're going to psych.

You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter.

So the President's asked about the Epstein files and rather than immediately answering the question, he goes after the reporter saying you are a terrible reporter.

5:56

This is intentional.

If you can attack the reporter's credibility, than the question holds less weight, right?

So there's different ways to look at ethos.

There's ways for you to build it as the speaker, but then there's also ways for you to attack credibility.

But whenever you give presentations, whenever you're pitching, whenever you're having big conversations, you want to be able to answer this question early on.

6:18

And that's here's why to trust me, here's why this matters.

Over time, ethos is built.

I'd say that's more of a global ethos.

Consistency really matters.

That's whenever integrity comes in, that's whenever loyalty comes in.

Reliability, I think that's most important.

6:35

But in singular moments, you need to be thinking, how can I quickly cover ethos fast?

All right, I gave you an example.

I gave you an application and I gave you how to get better at it.

I hope that structure is good for you because Next up, I want to talk to you specifically why I structured it like that.

6:54

It is the second point of the rhetorical triangle.

If you haven't already, be sure to like the Talk to People podcast.

Comment below. 1 instance of credibility that you've seen work really well.

The second point of the rhetorical triangle is logos.

7:10

Whenever you hear the word logos, what are you thinking of?

Are you thinking of a logo like a Nike logo or Adidas logo?

Or are you thinking of logic?

Because I think of logic when I hear logos.

Logic is the second part of the rhetorical triangle.

7:28

It's called logos.

But really it's how to get people thinking the way you want them to think, how to get people to a certain place you want them to be.

I think logos is crucial for pitches.

Whenever you're giving a pitch to someone, whenever you want them to buy into something, yes, you definitely need to have credibility.

7:46

They want to hear from you.

But I think most important, the linchpin's going to be how well you can get them to cross the bridge from.

I'm not invested.

I don't know about these people.

I don't want to invest all the way over to.

It's a no brainer.

8:02

I need to invest.

I'm missing out.

How can I sign up right now?

That's the brilliance of logos.

And there's a lot of different ways to do this.

All of these have very intentional structure, very intentional reasoning, statistics, stories.

8:18

It all is put together to create the logic of what's happening to get you to cross the bridge from A to B.

I'm going to share with you an example of this.

I want you to stick around.

Listen to this example because it is one of the most powerful examples in the past year of A public address.

8:35

So Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave this address at Davos.

Uses a metaphor.

And a metaphor is a great way to be able to get people to think a certain way.

A metaphor compares 2 things that you wouldn't think about, and by comparing 2 things you that surprise you that are unexpected, In between those two things, you have a lot of thinking, you deduce a lot, you do the reasoning and it brings new things in your head.

9:06

You're like, oh wow, I haven't thought about it that way, but now that I think about it that way, it makes a lot more sense.

And I've actually changed my mind.

Or now that I think about it that way, I actually feel even more passionate about how I felt because that metaphor was perfect.

So he gives this metaphor.

I'm going to play a quick clip that way you can listen to it.

9:24

And then I'm going to show you how throughout a few different times throughout his speech, he goes back to this metaphor.

Listen to this real quick.

In 1978, the Czech dissident Vaslav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless, and in it he asked a simple question.

9:43

How did the communist system sustain itself?

And his answer began with the greengrocer.

Every morning the shopkeeper places a sign in his window.

Workers of the world unite.

He doesn't believe it.

No one does, but he places the sign any way to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along.

10:07

And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this living within a lie.

10:25

The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source.

When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.

10:45

Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.

So he talks about this time under Soviet rule where a shopkeeper puts a sign up in his window despite it being something the one he disagrees with and something that's actually hurting his neighbors.

11:05

It's complicit to what's going on.

And ultimately, the shopkeeper chooses to take the sign out of his window and not be complicit in what's happening because he realizes that it's hurting everybody, that he needs to take a stand despite there potentially being consequences.

11:23

Now, this is a metaphor for what Mark Carney views as the superpowers, US, China, and their relationship to what he calls middle powers, AKA Canada, France, Brazil, a lot of different countries.

11:41

And throughout the speech, he basically posits the superpowers are taking advantage of the middle powers and ultimately the middle powers.

They need to stand up to this complicit system that's hurting all of us, because if we all try and play this game and try and beat each other down to be buddies with the superpowers, it's going to hurt us.

12:00

So what we need to do is we need to take our signs down from the window like the shopkeeper.

It's a really creative way to actually say some pretty divisive stuff, but do it really smartly, really rhetorically pleasing, as I said earlier, with a great metaphor.

12:17

Now he does callbacks.

And this is the beauty of a metaphor.

Once you set up the metaphor, then you can use callbacks throughout your speech.

Here's a couple callbacks that he does.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

12:40

So we placed the sign in the window.

But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons.

Tariffs is leverage.

Financial infrastructure is coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration.

13:01

When integration becomes the source of your subordination, it means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals.

When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from One Direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.

13:21

Which brings me back to Havel.

What does it mean for middle powers to live the truth?

Well, first it means naming reality.

Stop invoking rules based international order as though it still functions as advertised.

We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation.

13:40

It calls for honesty about the world as it is.

We are taking the sign out of the window.

We know the old order is not coming back.

We shouldn't mourn it.

Nostalgia is not a strategy.

What you'll.

Notice in those is he uses the same phrases of we're going to take the sign out of our window or what is living the truth because the shopkeeper wasn't living the truth.

14:06

Throughout his speech, he does callbacks to this metaphor, to this metaphor, to this metaphor, and then the very end of his speech, which was very powerful, but it was we are taking our sign down.

We are no longer going to be a part of the system and we are inviting other people to remove the signs from their windows.

14:22

Very powerful, very effective.

So how do you get better at logos?

How can you use this?

How can you make logos a friend and not a foe?

And I think the most important thing is really to assess and analyze your audience and to analyze your mission.

Whenever you are talking to someone who's very financially invested and that's how they reason the world, then you want to use a lot of numbers and a lot of equations.

14:47

Whenever you're fundraising, you want to be able to talk about the future and share a story or a narrative.

Whenever things are complicated, you want to be able to use a metaphor to compare the complex to something simple so that they can begin to understand the complex through the lens of the simple.

15:06

There are different ways to use logos, but ultimately you need to assess how are the people thinking and what's the gap between where they are and where they need to be.

Be able to assess your audience and be able to understand where they're at, how they're thinking, and what the language is you need to speak.

15:23

Then you will be able to make logos a friend and not a foe.

OK, we have two points of the rhetorical triangle.

First, we talked about credibility and how important it is to overcome the hurdle of establishing credibility at the beginning of your speech.

Then we talked about the importance of logos and logic and being able to build a structure around the information you're presenting and a strategy for exactly why you're doing it.

15:50

And last, we are going to talk about what I find to be the most ubiquitous and pervasive.

That's emotion pathos.

Emotion is the root of essentially all the decisions that we make.

And if you can control and regulate the emotion of what's happening in this moment, in whatever situation you're in, then you are going to be a lot better off.

16:14

I want to give you a fun example of this in 20/14/2013 to 2014, the NBA season of 2013 to 2014.

Whenever I was graduating, I graduated.

And I remember Kevin Durant won the MVP and NBA.

So he won.

16:30

He won the NB as Most Valuable Player.

Shout out to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

And we're about to have another Oklahoma City Thunder player, SGA, win the MVP as well.

So that's pretty interesting.

But I remember that Kevin Durant gave his MVP speech and I think it's the most renowned MVP speech since then, I think.

16:53

And it wasn't because of how he structured it, and it wasn't because of the credibility that he established.

The NB AM VP doesn't need credibility, right?

He doesn't need to show up to his speech and convince you why you should be listening to him as the MVP.

17:12

His play did that.

So that's an example of a moment where you don't really need to worry about credibility.

Rather, it was how he made his audience feel.

You can go on YouTube and you can watch this and people are commenting on it still to this day about what he said.

He was audience, specifically what he said to his mom.

17:28

Do you remember it?

Do you remember specifically what he said?

Because I'm going to show you real quick.

One of the best memories I had is when we moved into our, our first apartment.

No, no bed, no furniture, and we just all sat in, in the living room and just hugged each other because we, that's what we, we thought we made it.

17:53

And when you, when something good happens to you, I don't know about you guys, but I tend to look back to what brought me here and you wake me up in the middle of the night in the summertime's making me run up the hill, making me do push ups, screaming at me from the sideline of my games at 8 or 9 years old.

18:17

We wasn't supposed to be here.

You made us believe.

You kept us off the street.

We put clothes on our backs, food on the table.

When you didn't eat, you made sure we ate.

You went to sleep hungry.

You sacrificed for us.

18:37

You the real MVP.

So he's in front of the world.

He's talking to everybody.

And he says specifically about his mom, all of the sacrifices she has made to bring him here, the food she didn't eat, the sleep she didn't get, the challenges she had to face.

18:59

And what does he tell her?

He says you're the real MVP.

That line went everywhere.

I remember it days and weeks after that speech.

You're the real MVP.

I remember talking to other people like, hey, you're the real MVP, right?

19:15

It ain't me, it's you.

That's pathos, that's emotion.

Being able to share with their, with his audience, everything he's gone through.

And then that feeling inside of mom.

It's not me, it's you.

We all resounded with that.

19:31

I resounded with that.

My mom is the MVP.

She was the MVPI.

Don't know how that works.

She recently passed away, so I'm still figuring out those verbs.

Right.

But I I feel that way.

And he made us all feel that way.

And it was a moment where he leaned into emotion.

19:49

It was story.

It was a narrative, one of the most powerful ways to share emotion.

So how do you make Hathos a friend and not a foe?

It's answering the question, how do you want your audience to feel after the speech?

How do you want them to feel during the speech?

20:06

And what are the emotional 2?

Two things here.

There's the emotional buttons, the certain buttons that you pick, the emotions you want them to feel, and then the knob.

How much of it do you want them to feel?

Do you want to put it on heavy?

Do you want to put it on light?

We put it all together and it makes the moment, as Aristotle says, says, as Aristotle says, it's utilizing the effective means of persuasion in the moment.

20:31

So now that you know what they are and how to use them, now you just got to go read the moment, read the room and read yourself.

There's a lot more I can get into.

Like some people listening to this will be a lot better at other things than other people.

So you should lean into things you're already good at.

Like if you're a good storyteller, lean into those specifically whenever you're talking about the logos and the pathos.

20:51

Some people aren't good storytellers, but they really know stats will lean into that.

Think about yourself too.

All right, I'm getting us into the weeds and really I need to land the plane.

So remember, ethos, pathos, logos, the rhetorical triangle, 400 BC, 2400 years ago, we can use it today.

21:07

All of these people are still using it to come up with timeless moments and you can use it too.

Remember, life is better when you talk to people.

Be sure to like and subscribe to the Talk to People podcast and I will see you next time.