The Rhetorician Issue #24 The Doorway to Influence The Meeting That Changed the Room Monday morning. The team gathers—laptops open, coffee steaming. The manager rises to announce a new project. The first speaks: "We need to push harder this quarter. Targets are high. I expect everyone's best. Let's not fall behind." Silence. Nods. No fire. The second manager. Same project. Same targets. Different words: "These numbers look daunting. Last year, facing similar odds, this team exceeded every...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
The Rhetorician Issue #23 No, Rhetoric isn't just "Glorified Sales" ft. House of the Dragon and Lorenzo de Medici And How to Argue Without Subordinating Yourself Jacaerys Targaryan and Cregan Stark, HotD Season 2 Here’s a question that’s probably crossed your mind: Isn’t rhetoric just fancy sales? After all, they share the same toolkit. The strategic hook. Objection handling. Emotional appeals. Building credibility. Even the pacing and tonality look identical. I get it. The similarities are...
3 months ago • 11 min read
The Rhetorician Issue #17 Why Your Mind Freezes Under Pressure (And how to fix it) There’s a particular kind of professional nightmare that haunts even the most capable among us. Your VP asks what you think about the new roadmap. A client questions your recommendation mid-presentation. A stakeholder challenges your technical approach in front of the team. And suddenly — nothing. Your mind goes blank. I fear if I cannot think again, if my mind suddenly goes blank. It will be embarrassing. -...
3 months ago • 6 min read
The Rhetorician Issue #x The Lost Art of Rhetoric: How Rhetoric Shaped the West First things first... I'm considering moving fully to Substack. The aesthetics seem better. What are your thoughts? Write back to me and let me know. Now read on! Imagine standing in the Athenian agora, 5th century BC. A crowd gathers as Pericles rises to speak. No microphone, no teleprompter—just the power of carefully chosen words, rhythmic cadence, and the ability to move hearts and minds. This was rhetoric at...
4 months ago • 8 min read
The Rhetorician Issue #19 Ethos (4/5) : The Day a Monster Became a Leader credits : Pinterest Picture this: A world war is about to begin. Five nations that have spent generations slaughtering each other must suddenly fight as allies against an existential threat. Hatred runs deeper than memory. Trust is a foreign concept. The coalition is doomed before it starts. Then a 19-year-old king steps forward to address the largest military gathering in history. He was once a living weapon—a boy...
5 months ago • 3 min read
The Rhetorician Issue #18 Ethos (3/5) : When Ethos Shifts the Crowd AI generated image of Mark Antony giving his best known Shakesperean speech : "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, there’s a scene almost every literature student remembers: Mark Antony standing over Caesar’s body, addressing a restless Roman crowd. Antony wasn’t just anyone in Rome. He was Caesar’s closest ally, a decorated general, and a man whose loyalty to Caesar was well...
5 months ago • 3 min read
The Rhetorician Issue #17 Ethos (2/5): When Dad Tries to Teach Discipline Picture a dinner table on a regular weekday evening. The family is gathered — plates of food in front, phones half tucked away, a typical scene. A family having dinner The father clears his throat. He wants to remind his teenage kids about the importance of routine: waking up on time, finishing homework, sticking to commitments. So he dives in. “Routine is everything. If you don’t wake up on time, you’ll fall behind in...
5 months ago • 3 min read
The Rhetorician Issue #16 Ethos (1/5): Why We Trust the Speaker Before the Speech You’re watching a YouTube video titled “How I Built My Startup at 22”. The thumbnail has a young guy in a hoodie, sitting in a modern office, laptop open, a casual smile. Within the first thirty seconds, you’re pulled in. You’re nodding along, half-convinced he knows what he’s talking about before he’s actually explained a single detail. I remember watching a video like that and catching myself nodding before...
5 months ago • 3 min read
The Rhetorician Issue #15 Black Superman: The Art of Shifting Grounds to Win Arguments img src: https://thedirect.com/article/michael-b-jordan-black-superman-casting-rumors Occasionally, reports surface of a Black actor being cast as Superman—and the internet predictably erupts. Twitter wars rage, comment sections become battlefields, and everyone picks a side. But buried beneath this familiar cultural skirmish lies a fascinating example of a rhetorical maneuver that shapes far more of our...
6 months ago • 4 min read
