Note: The written content is only a portion of the audio content in this episode.
When you are standing in front of an audience, do your words evoke feelings? Does your audience feel love, sympathy, excitement, fear? Is what you’re saying evoking feelings of compassion? … envy?... hate?... contempt?

We’ve been spending time together exploring the Eight Constant Factors for Platform Mastery, which are Engage, Persuade, Impact, Compel, Passion, Purpose, Posture, and Projection.

We are talking about the second constant factor of persuasion. A persuasive speaker will use a variety of tactics to achieve persuasion called ‘Rhetorical Appeals’ - and when used effectively, these tactics can be an influencing force in achieving ‘Persuasion’.

In the last two episodes, we have talked about ethos and logos and today, we will start to explore pathos, the emotional appeal.

American psychologist William James wrote: “The emotions aren’t always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.” Emotions are powerful motivators for your audience. An audience that is emotionally stimulated is more likely to accept your ‘logic’ and ‘Ethos’.
Here’s what I’ve learned in over 30 years of engaging audiences around the world. People will most often make a decision based on emotion and then justify with logic, provided they see you as credible and they like you.
If you utilise emotions well, your audience will feel the same emotions that you do. Your audience will feel the pain, the joy, the hope, and the fear of the characters in your stories. They will no longer be passive listeners… spectators. They will be motivated to act.

If you don’t utilise emotions well, then your audience will not be motivated. This leads to boredom, disengagement and this leads to… no persuasion. Instead, they will be more likely to find fault in your logical arguments (logos) and begin to doubt your credibility (ethos). They will not feel invested in your cause.

Emotions are not one dimensional. So, as a platform master, you know that one size does not fit all. There are at least seven ways you can engage and persuade your audience with emotional tactics and in the next episode, I’m going to tell you what they are and how to us them.
Today’s action point is a thinking point.
Think about your own experience as an audience member. And put the ethos, logos and pathos appeals to the test. You’ll find that what I’m saying is right.

There really is more to come.