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Rhetorical Analysis

Shawn Achor gives a Ted Talk called "The Happy Secret to Better Work" where he argues that happiness leads to success, not the other way around. He uses ethos by sharing a personal story, pathos to discuss negative news, and logos with research findings. Achor states that 90% of long-term happiness comes from how our brain processes the world, not external factors. Only 25% of job success is predicted by IQ, while the rest comes from optimism, relationships, and seeing obstacles as opportunities. He concludes we must focus on happiness to perform our best, and suggests journaling, exercise, meditation, and kindness to improve mood.

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440 views

Rhetorical Analysis

Shawn Achor gives a Ted Talk called "The Happy Secret to Better Work" where he argues that happiness leads to success, not the other way around. He uses ethos by sharing a personal story, pathos to discuss negative news, and logos with research findings. Achor states that 90% of long-term happiness comes from how our brain processes the world, not external factors. Only 25% of job success is predicted by IQ, while the rest comes from optimism, relationships, and seeing obstacles as opportunities. He concludes we must focus on happiness to perform our best, and suggests journaling, exercise, meditation, and kindness to improve mood.

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api-512399185
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Jack Santini

Rhetorical analysis

Professor Ferrara

3/19/20

The Happy Secret to Better Work

“If you try to find success in fame or in things you, will fail. If you find happiness is the

process you will be a success.” ― Debasish Mridha. People in society define “success”

subjectively through their own beliefs. Upbringing and schooling certainly have involvement in

success, but what many don’t realize is that success comes from happiness. Shawn Achor’s Ted

Talk, the happy secret to better work, expands upon this belief with the use of analogy and

percentages through experimentation. In order to attract the audience Achor uses Pathos,

Ethos, and Logos to elaborate on his thoughts. After analyzing his speech I have learned a lot

about Achor’s methods and message that he has put out for people that are struggling across

the country.

The Ted Talk opens up with Achor using the first persuasion method, ethos. Shawn

develops a story about his sister and himself bringing laughter to the audience. By doing so,

Shawn is using his own belief that increasing happiness improves work ability and success. In

this situation the audience’s purpose is to react and pay attention and by using his own method

Achor brilliantly grasps the audience’s attention. The memory he is elaborating upon explains

how his sister got hurt in the middle of the night and he did not want to wake his parents and

get in trouble so he turned the negative into a positive. This caused his sister to have a positive

outlook and he never up getting into trouble. Clearly this event is not the main purpose of his
study, it is merely an analogy of the fact that opening individuals minds towards a positive

outlook in which they enjoy certainly will increase their own success. Achor’s method of using

himself in his own analogy which describes his entire presentation is something so fascinating

that I have never seen before. His brilliance gives me, the reader, a certain trust in him, which

opens my mind up to everything he has to say. Transitioning from his analogy to his real life

message Achor invokes pathos.

Achor distills, “…On the news, the majority of the information is not positive. In fact it is

negative. Most of it is about murder, corruption, diseases, and natural disasters…” Dealing this

information to the audience keeps them from the edge of their seats and actually pushes them

back into their seat changing the mood. Shawn was very jovial pleading his story about his

sister and comes back to reality, moving towards a negative outlook if no one does anything

about the situation. Before everyone can get their hopes down, Shawn comes back with some

comedy to even out the mood. His ability to keep the audience entertained while changing the

mood of his speech is incredible. Shawn then goes on to tell his successful career and how he

valued education highly above other things. After varying the audience’s mood, Shawn

continues by including facts from his research.

Shawn fascinatingly expands upon ethos and pathos to introduce logos. Laying out

everything before the audience sees the facts gives the author a trust, which is the most

valuable ideal in persuasion. Shawn exclaims, “90% of your long-term happiness is predicted

not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world.” Continuing on his

path of logos, in one of Achor’s slides he says, only 25% of job success is predicted by IQ, the

remaining 75% comes from optimism, social relationships, and how you should see obstacles as
an opportunity and not a challenge. This data leads him to invoke his theme that we will never

achieve happiness if success is our main focus and happiness is on the other side of the

spectrum. He explains that in order to reverse the issue we need our brains to be working when

they are positive and happy because data shows they perform significantly better. Finally,

Shawn gets to his solution which are the following: journaling, exercise, meditation, and

random acts of kindness. Through facts and evidence, Achor conveys his logical reasons to

support his message.

From my own perspective, as I mentioned before, Shawn Achor is a brilliant individual

and public speaker. He touched upon the three persuasion mechanisms: ethos, pathos, and

logos in order through a smooth conductive manner. His style is clearly formal, but he puts a

enjoyable twist to his speech through comedy. There was not one moment in his presentation

where I felt bored and analyzing the audience it seemed everyone there felt the same. I also

felt as if any audience regardless of your inherent nature would sit and enjoy this presentation.

Everyone on earth tries to achieve a balance of happiness and success, so who would not enjoy

this speech? However, I could see it negatively affecting someone who has already lived their

entire life neglecting happiness and that person may realize they could have had a better life.

Otherwise, majority of people would greatly appreciate what Shawn Achor has to say.

Analyzing and understanding how Shawn Achor persuaded his audience in his the happy

secret to better work Ted Talk certainly taught me a great deal on rhetoric and communication.

The most valuable ideal that I learned is that in order to convince your audience and gain their

trust is through the persuasion triangle: pathos, ethos, and logos. However anyone can do that,

so in order to stand out amongst others is to stand out by using your own personal traits and
experiences in your speech. Shawn Achor used valuable tools such as anology and comedy.

Happiness while presenting would also lead to success because that’s what it comes first.
Works cited:

1. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/success-and-happiness
2. https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work/up-next?
language=en#t-129835

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