Ethos
Why should they listen to you?
Earn the room's trust in the first thirty seconds — before you ask it to believe anything.
The idea
For Aristotle, ethos is the persuasion that comes from the speaker's character as the audience perceives it: competence, good intentions and goodwill towards them. It isn't your CV. It's the evidence, shown live, that you know what you're talking about and that you're on their side.
How to do it
- Name your link to the topic in one concrete sentence — something you did, saw or paid for, not a title.
- Show goodwill: say what the audience gets out of the next few minutes.
- Admit one limit honestly. A small concession makes the rest more credible.
The drill
60-second introductions: each person presents a topic they know well, opening with a single ethos line. The group calls out which line made them lean in.
Your homework
In your next meeting, replace 'I think' with the reason you have standing to think it: 'Having run this twice…'.
Did I believe them before they made their main point? What gave it away?
Source: Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I, ch. 2 and Book II, ch. 1.