Words that Win: Jay Heinrichs' Secrets to Persuasion and Self-Transformation

In this thought-provoking episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we delve into the fascinating world of persuasion with Jay Heinrichs, a magazine executive, author, and journalist with over 25 years of experience. Jay shares his journey of discovering the power of rhetoric and how it has shaped his career and personal life. From his early fascination with words to his groundbreaking book, *Thank You for Arguing*, Jay provides insights into the art of persuasion that are essential for navigating today’s complex communication landscape. He discusses his work with various clients, including NASA, and reveals the strategies he employs to help organizations effectively persuade their audiences. Jay also introduces his latest book, *Aristotle's Guide to Self Persuasion*, which outlines techniques for aligning oneself with personal goals through the lens of ancient philosophy. Tune in to learn how to harness the power of words, avoid manipulation, and cultivate a mindset that fosters both personal and collective growth. Plus, hear about Jay's unique concept of "J Light Savings" and how he applies rhythmic language to motivate himself. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that will inspire you to think critically and communicate effectively.
For more information on Jay Heinrich and his work, visit jayheinrichs.com.
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Transcript

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today, we're going to be talking about the, art of Persuasion, as I am joined by magazine executive author and journalist Jay Heinrich. Jay has been doing what he does for 25 years, and he fell in love with the forgotten secret of, rhetoric and the art of persuasion. So he has a book even called thank youk For Arguing. You know, he has several books on this topic. So we're going to be talking to Jay about his books and the art of persuasion and everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. So, Jay, thank you for joining me.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 1:08

Well, it's a pleasure.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 1:09

Curtis, why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

>> Jay Heinrichs: 1:15

Well, I, I first fell in love with this art of persuasion really early in life. I've always been a big reader, and, you know, tell you the truth, I wasn't a great student in school. Instead, I just hung out at the library, pulling books down at random and reading them. But all along, I thought words did more than sit around looking pretty. you know, words have power. People sacrifice their lives to the power of words. People get married by that power, do things they regret. Next morning, you with the same power of words. And I wanted to know what that power was. And, you know, all through school, I kept looking for it. Now, rhetoric, which teaches the power of words, wasn't studied anywhere I went. I went to a good college. I ended up going to grad school briefly before I dropped out. and all along I didn't know really what rhetoric was. And then one day I was working as an administrator at Dartmouth, college, here in New Hampshire, where I live, when I found doing my old habit of pulling books down at random and just opening them, reading them, I found a book by John Quincy Adams, who was not yet President of the United States. He was a US Senator when he wrote this book, and it was signed by him. And I'm kind of a history buff, so I thought it was pretty cool that I'm holding a book I just pulled at random by a future President of the United States. And in that book, the first page I read was his first lecture to students at Harvard, where he was a temporary professor of rhetoric. And he told these students, who were all pretty much teenagers back then, this is in 1810, to catch from the relics of ancient oratory, those Unresisted powers which mold the mind of man to the will of the speaker and yield the guidance of the nation to the dominion of the voice. So in other words, he was telling these, these kids, all boys back then, about the power of words. And I thought, that's it. So the rest of the lectures told me what to read. So I did that. Drove my family crazy for the next 20 years. And so I ended up quitting my job as a magazine executive and, dedicating my life to teaching the powers of persuasion, which are very important because democracy is based on that power. And whether we save our democracy or not depends on our understanding of that power.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 3:46

Well, your power of persuasion has, got you to advise a lot of clients. So talk about, the clients that you have, ah, advised throughout the years.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 3:55

Well, I've had a bunch. So I advise nonprofits, government agencies, corporations, everything from airlines to my favorite client of all time, which was NASA. I helped them figure out how to persuade the Pentagon into giving up two MX missiles, ballistic missiles, to send up climate change measuring satellites. you know, it's one of those few times when you really know you've won an argument. A lot of times, you know, people say they agree when they don't in the long run. But you can give a, you can get two rockets out of the Pentagon, you've won an argument. I also have, continuing conversations and, consultancies with nonprofit groups who are trying to gather people to make change in a good way. So again, I mean, the thing about argument is, which is my specialty within the art of persuasion, is it has to do with people disagreeing and then finding a way to agree. And that leads to better things for both parties.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 5:08

Well, I know you've also created your own time zone J Light savings. Kind of tell us about that. I bet it's better than daylight savings.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 5:16

it depends who you're talking to and whether you like any kind of nightlife. So my most recent book is Aristotle's Guide to Self Persuasion, which uses the philosopher's principles a lot, having to do with this crazy book he wrote called on the Soul in order to make, yourself aligned with your better self, as he puts it, which is what he considers your soul to be. And so as part of this, I had this, I decided I would try to find this crazy, stupid, pointless goal and see if I could apply the principles of persuasion, of rhetoric, to talk myself into it and then actually do what it took to try to achieve it. And so the Goal I ended up choosing was running my age up this classic mountain in New Hampshire where athletes test their fitness because it's the perfect length and elevation gain, to test your vo, your ability, your body's ability to process oxygen. But I never was that great an athlete. and to run your age means running up to the top of the mountain in fewer minutes than you're old in years. Now, I had one advantage in that I was going to attempt this when I turned 58 years old. No one over 30 had ever run their age, so I'd be the first ever to do it. The problem was two physiologists had told me they probably, they thought this was probably impossible because the, the combination of strength and power, and sort of leaping ability pretty much goes away after a certain age. And I never was that good to start with. So I spent a year, we lost all kinds of income because I just really dedicated myself to this, doing everything I could to try to train for this while talking myself into doing all those things. Now the first thing I did was I decided I needed to carve the time out. And one way to do that was to find, okay, what's the most useless time of the day? For most of us, it's usually the last hour when we're just sort of zoning out, watching streaming videos, watching tv, whatever. And so I decided I would give up that time and give it to me first thing in the morning. And then I decided I was going to take another hour and do the same thing. So here's a trick that actually you can use if you're willing, and that is to wait until you gain the extra hour. You know, we just lost one. With daylight savings in the fall, we gain an hour and instead of just sort of sleeping that extra hour, get up as though it's still daylight savings, which is actually an hour early. And that's what I did. So I got up. I'm a fairly early riser because I married, an early bird. I'm not by nature. And I was getting up at six this time when standard time came around. I got up at 5 o' clock and I did the same thing shortly after that, just killing myself for that extra hour. and now to this day, I get up at 4 o' clock in the morning every morning. Now instead of telling people I get up at 4 o' clock in the morning, which sounds crazy even to me, I declared my own time zone. I call it Jlight savings. So I just get up at a normal time. It Just happens to be everybody else's. Four o' clock in the morning. Now if that sounds completely insane, you have to consider, like, if you fly to a different time zone, you don't resent the time zone or just stay in the time zone you're in. You adapt. And that's what I decided I was going to do. It's as if, you know, I moved like to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where the time zone is two hours earlier. and I called it Jlight Savings because my name's Jay. And why not? Now the only problem with that is I mentioned nightlife. You know, you're not going to be a very interesting person after 8 o', clock, which is when I go to bed. I generally take a book with me. I'll read for half an hour and fall asleep and then nap during the day for half an hour. It's the only way I survived this. But it did help me because I would start working out at 4 o' clock in the morning. Now I start work, I start writing at 4 in the morning, which, which is a time, by the way, when I'm drinking coffee and not feeling sorry that I'm not playing outside. Like, what else am I going to do but sit in a chair and write?

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 9:44

Well, how can someone persuade themselves to do something like lose weight or gain a healthy habit or something like that?

>> Jay Heinrichs: 9:51

That's a great question. There are a bunch of tools that actually came originally from Aristotle, who wrote the first book on rhetoric that survived, and really kind of invented the whole idea of persuasion and self persuasion. Aristotle was also the original, and I think best philosopher of habits. And one of the things that he had a bunch of principles that I sort of boiled down into what I call the lure and the ramp. And the lure is giving yourself a really attractive goal. And it doesn't even have to be one. You think, is that doable? A lot of the problems with our, say, losing weight is that we set a kind of too modest a goal. Like I'm going to lose a pound or two without, you know, being vague or whatever. Maybe setting too few metrics, like maybe you should look at your, how well your pants are fitting instead of, you know, what the scale is telling you, that sort of thing. That's the. So the lure is the idea that not just you're going to lose a couple of pounds, but you're going to be able to, you know, climb stairs without gasping or, you know, look great in a bathing suit. you know, your version of great whatever that might be. now the ramp part of it is even more important, which is instead of saying I'm going to lose weight in time for this wedding so I can fit into this particular dress or suit or whatever, in the next two weeks, instead, say, give yourself a year, like a whole year, and try to reset what you're eating. And that involves a different rhetorical principle, which is, this idea of reframing. So you have to change what you're eating to make it disgusting. Like, you know, with eating it. One of the things I, I love donuts. I love donuts as much as anything in the world. But, you know, what I do is I think of how those donuts are created and you think of how the machines create them and it's disgusting. You think about what makes it, what makes a donut, and you focus on that. It's a way of reframing that. There are a bunch of other tools I use for myself all the time in doing this. Now all that leads up to this. Habits start slowly. I call this the tortoise method. The slower you start a habit, the better. When I started working out to, in order to, you know, achieve my goal of running my age up this mountain, I didn't even work out at first. I spent a couple weeks reading books about physiology, which at first seemed really interesting. And after a while I got really bored reading them to the point where an easy 20 minute exercise, you know, mostly like stretching and doing mild aerobics in front of a, you know, computer monitor, you know, with a workout dvd, actually seemed better than reading these physiology books. And gradually I just built up five minutes more every day, more and more intense exercise. I went outside then and started running and the rest is history. it actually works because I spent a year, if I tried to do this in a month, I would have killed myself. Now doctors will do the exact opposite. And I don't blame them because most people really don't change their habits because it's really hard and discouraging. But what doctors will say I think is even more discouraging, oftentimes where they'll say, you know, just walk 10 minutes a day. Won't achieve much, but it's better than nothing. And you know, people get discouraged with that because they don't see the kinds of results that you might get. On the other hand, if you set this really wild goal like running up a mountain, the chances are you're going to fail, but you're really going to fail up. You'll still be fitter than you've ever been in your life because of what you did to put into that. And if you get the right kind of attitude, you don't see yourself as a failure. You realize you've done something pretty awesome, which is to gain the habits that you hope will, you'll maintain the rest of your life. Which I have to say. And don't take this as bragging. I credit Aristotle. I still do the exercise and I'm still in better shape now. And I'm now 70 years old and I'm in better shape than I was when I was 40.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 14:00

Well, give us some best practice tips on what we can do to avoid being manipulated by slick persuaders.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 14:09

So one of the things that Aristotle, I always go back to Aristotle, he's my man. and one of the things that, that he insisted on was the definitions of things. And this is true of Plato as well. The Greeks were big on the power of words. And the power of words comes to from with how you define them. So look for things that especially on social media or speeches by politicians that use pronouns without any antecedents. And by that I mean when a politician says they and you're not quite sure who they mean, or when someone says people say, that's not defining who they're talking about. The other thing is when people use terms like weaponize, that's a term you hear all the time and it really has very vague meaning. Some, some really nice sounding words like kindness and empathy often are very manipulative because they're not well defined. So that's one thing to look about that, you know, the best thing you can say to yourself or asking other people if they're arguing with you is what do you mean by that? What do you mean by that word? And then really get them to drill down. That's one thing. The other thing is to look at what the sources are of the information and really query that. A lot of the stuff we see on M online, especially now, you know, with all this AI slop that's happening in social media, ask yourself, where's this coming from? Now a famous rhetoric and orator, Marcus Tillius Cicero in ancient Rome used this expression, cui bono, which means who benefits? So it's the other thing to think about when, when someone is, is giving a speech or arguing with you or trying to talk you into something, you ask who's going to benefit from this? Is it just you? So why should I trust you? There are a bunch of other Things you can do. But, you know, looking at the source, defining the words and asking who benefits? Are three of the most important things you can do to avoid manipulation. And we haven't even gotten into logic, which is a lot more complicated. Those are the simpler ways to do this.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 17:41

Well, I know that you say framing is the most important part of persuasion, so explain what framing is.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 17:48

So framing is really fun. If you want to manipulate people, this is dark art. So you have to, you hope that, you're a good person using it, or I hope everybody who does this will use it for good instead of evil. But to reframe things, I'll give you an example. I often give, these video chats for high school classes that adopt my book. They're mostly AP classes. And one time this young, woman, said that she had come home the day before and her big sister was sitting at the kitchen table. And so the girl was asking the question, went to the cabinet and took down some peanut butter and got out some bread and started making herself a sandwich. And big sister says, you are so selfish, you're using up all the peanut butter. I can't believe you're doing that. You've always been like this. You're so selfish. She said, what, what should I have said? Because she had just the, the girl just frozen, you know, not knowing what to say and trying not to cry, just being picked on by big sister. And she asked me what to do and I said, you know, if you really feel like you want to get back at your sister, look really sympathetic instead of yelling or looking angry or crying. See if you can do this. Say, what's this really about? And this is reframing. This is the question you ask and reframe. What's this really about? Is this about peanut butter? Or is this about that horrible boyfriend of yours? Are you guys having a problem? You know, and look really sympathetic, make sure there's a table between you, because this could lead to violence. But on the other hand, you know, if you really want to actually reframe things and take it entirely away from peanut butter and direct it back at big sister, that's one way to do it. Now, framing or reframing has been used in absolutely brilliant ways. back in the day, in the early 1960s, this woman, Rachel Carson, who was a scientist, wrote an article for New Yorker magazine that became a best selling book called Silent Spring. And she was talking about pesticides that were, you know, thinning the eggs of eagles and hawks and other raptors. DDT in particular was doing this. Okay, so that's pretty tactical, right? It's pretty specific. But it was a bad thing. It was, it was killing, even killing owls. And that, that sort of, you know, bird species was the term. Silent Spring reframed everything to broaden the whole issue. So she was really writing about what chemicals were doing to the environment. But while spec talking about her area research, which was thinning bird eggs. Now you picture this, and this is back in the 60s where you had, you know, Harriet the Housewife hanging up her laundry and listening for bird calls and not hearing anything. And that's really tragic. Well, this directly led to the environmental movement and the passage of all this legislation that cleaned up water, cleaned the air. later on, a very famous and now controversial ad showed this man Iron, Eyes Cody, he called himself, who was an actor, and I don't know if you remember this, Curtis, but this was a TV ad that ran repeatedly, as a public service announcement. And it showed this classic Indian, even though Iron Eyes Cody actually wasn't in India, I think it was an Italian American. Anyway, he showed an Indian with his moccasins, you know, standing by shores of water of a, of a, like a lake or a river. And a car goes by and somebody throws litter out and it lands at his feet. And the camera shifts to show all this trash filled water and a single tear is going down this man's stoical face. and it was an anti littering, ad, but again, that triggered all kinds of legislation, even though, you know, people now push back, and I don't blame on this stereotype of like the stoical Indian, with a single tear. but that was a kind of reframing too, because, you know, go back to the peanut butter. What's this really about? Is this about people just tossing something out of cars? Or is it about, you know, our indifference toward nature and how important it is to us? And that is. So reframing starts with saying, what's this really about? Then there are other techniques we don't have to go into because that's the main thing when you're in an argument, you want to reframe things, say it's not about this, it's about that, and then. And reset the frame so that it benefits your point of view.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 22:50

Okay, well, I know in your latest book you talk about how the ancients invented a special rhythm that advertisers have used to sell junk food. So why would you want to use this, rhythm on yourself?

>> Jay Heinrichs: 23:03

You Know, this is, this is the craziest part because I didn't believe, I didn't believe it could possibly work. And it did. And to this day I still use these things. So let me go back to the very beginning in ancient times when, when warriors were going in a battle, they would chant a prayer to the God of healing, who is called P.N. p, A, E, N, P, N. And they would chant it with a rhythm. And there was a belief that is really carried on almost to this day over thousands of years that if you say a magical spell with a kind of rhythm, it has more power and works better that way. So basically these warriors were going to battle yelling, please pin, don't let me die, don't let me get hurt. And that turned into a war chant that we call today a, ah, slogan. Now the two were related pins and slogans. And so it became from, you know, peeing, please don't let me die, it was like into like, let's kill the enemy. Now fast forward a few thousand years and marketers understand that rhythmic speech can really stick in people's heads better. It's, it's stickier language. And so, the snack food industry came up with all kinds of, you know, rhythmic pins they call slogans. Bet you can't eat just one. You know, the quicker picker upper if we're talking about bounty towels. New, York Times even got into it with all the news that's fit to print. Now ancient rhetoricians sort of described how this rhythm works, which, even though, you know, ancient Greek and Latin, works a lot differently in terms of rhythm, from our modern English. But still the principle applies if you combine short syllables with long syllables. La la la, and sort of crisp, consonants like p or t with softer consonants like er or n, you'll, you'll realize if, if you look at all kinds of advertising expressions called slogans, you'll see the short and long and crisp and soft, word sounds coming together in ways that sound like almost poetry. Now you can see this in hip hop today. A lot of, the lyrics of hip hop songs play a lot with that kind of rhythm and the short and long syllables because it's really stickier. So I came up with my own, when I was trying to run up a mountain. And and often a good peeing also ends on the same words or begins on the same words or both. So I, I would shout to myself in my head because I, I was breathing so hard I couldn't say it aloud. My legs love rocks. I flow up rocks. and to this day, when I wake up first thing in the morning, I give myself a pee in and I say, make this a glorious day. That says combination of short and long syllables and different kinds of word sounds. Make this a glorious day. And I, I do say that aloud as I roll out of bed. Drives my wife crazy, but it actually, it makes me think it's possible to have a glorious day regardless of what's going on.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 26:40

Well, you had breakfast with the Dalai Lama, so, what you learned in that experience.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 26:46

Thanks, for that, Curtis. I don't look good at this story. but I did write it back when I was in college. I was the editor of my college paper, newspaper. And, I got invited, I think, because I was the editor, to have breakfast with the head of the religion department, this Buddhist monk and an interpreter. And, I, I couldn't even pronounce the monk's name. It was a Dalai, you know, llama. And so I showed this to my news editor, who is much smarter than me, a super smart guy. He's a leading geneticist today. and Stan said, that's the Dalai Lama. You have to go. And I said, why? And he said, oh, he's this really famous monk. Now. He wasn't, I have to my not too much discredit. He wasn't that famous at the time. The CIA had only recently extracted him from Nepal, where, you know, the Chinese were taking over Nepal. And, a lot of his followers were being persecuted. And so he had pretty much just escaped and was doing a national tour to raise money for the Nepalese, and his followers. so, I, Stan said I had to go. So I went. And at breakfast I met this guy. He had these, you know, was wearing the robes and these really nerdy looking, glasses. And, he giggled the whole time. Now he was, he may have been laughing at me, this clueless kid who had no idea why he was there. And, but on the other hand, since then, I've talked to people who understand Buddhism much more than I do. And they said, you know, monks often do laugh a lot. They have that attitude toward life. You know, they are, they are able to achieve happiness in the worst of times. And you think of what this guy had gone through and what he was seeing, and still being able to laugh at breakfast with this idiot editor from, you know, a college newspaper. Since then, I've realized that the guy, you know, there's a reason why we kind of revere the guy. Anyway, Stan had said the reason I went to breakfast is that some people think he's a God. And I wanted to see what a God would eat for breakfast. It was like. I don't remember meeting anything. Actually. I don't blame him. The food was terrible back then, but. But years later, I was, Before I kind of realized who he was, I just completely forgot about the guy. I wrote in the paper after breakfast, like, one paragraph saying, monk, Monk visits our college. Well, I was working in Washington, D.C. as a journalist and magazine editor, and a member of the staff said excitedly, hey, the Dalai Lama is coming to Washington. You gonna go? this woman said to someone else on staff. And I overheard this, and I said without thinking, oh, I had breakfast with that guy. Dead silence. Like, everybody turns to me, and I got nothing. Like I had. I couldn't even remember what the guy said at breakfast. One of my more embarrassing moments out of many. And so. And from then on, I've thought more about the dalama, only because, you know, I had these two moments of idiocy that I felt I had to correct for. And, you know, the interesting about this in terms of my own wheelhouse here, which is rhetoric and, you know, particularly the ancient Greek philosophers, there is a Greek, Western philosophy that's really closely aligned with Buddhism. And, you know, Buddhism, as you know, is really hot right now among Americans for a lot of really good reasons. Well, there was a branch of Greek, philosophy called Epicureanism, which doesn't have to do with eating great meals, by the way. It's really been misnamed, but Epicureans believed, unlike their rivals at the same time, the Stoics, that the purpose of life is happiness, and there are ways to achieve happiness that are really closely related to what Buddhists follow. In other words, you can be an Epicurean and still laugh at breakfast. And, So I consider myself now an Epicurean because I've closely, you know, read what the Epicureans talked about. And I try to practice this, you know, myself, which basically has to do with living the kind of life that you're going to regret as little as possible with the idea that, if you can live well, you can be happy and help make other people happier as well. So it, you know, it doesn't conflict with Stoicism, exactly. But stoicism is all about living the virtuous life and sort of, dismissing the bad things that you can control your thoughts over. Epicureans are a Little different. It's more like how you live and moment by moment, how you can live as happily as possible. And that led to ah, m. All kinds of followers among the American founders, including Thomas Jefferson, who called himself an Epicurean and believed that great leaders in a, in a Republican would create the most happiness for the most people over the longest time, which I think Buddhists would probably agree with and Epicureans definitely do. So I think that any good self help book should have a bit of stoicism in it and a lot of epicureanism because people read books in order to be happier.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 32:31

Speaking of books, talk to the listeners about your books. tell us what we can expect when we read them and where we can get them.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 32:37

Well, I mean it depends on how you want to begin and what you want. So if you want to learn rhetoric, if you want to learn the power of words, there are two ways to do that. There's an easy way and there's the best selling way. In other words, I've had one book that's a bestseller and other books that have been bestsellers in other countries, but not here. So the easy way is a book, called how to Argue with a Cat, which has to do with all the ways to persuade that don't specifically have to do with words because cats have a limited vocabulary. Now why cats? First of all, I'm a cat lover. I grew up with dogs and love them too. But dogs are rhetorically uninteresting in the sense that they already want to do what you want them to do, like they just want to serve. Whereas cats are like, what's in it for me? And that makes them rhetorically interesting because you have to persuade a cat. Cats, on the other hand, are also very highly persuasive themselves. And the way they do that, you can learn a lot. So that's why I wrote a book with hilarious, illustrations by, by a friend, who's a great artist, of cats. The More complicated Way, which is my best selling book is called, thank you for arguing. You mentioned that. Thank you. and that is kind of like a fun course in rhetoric, that leads through the ways that you can be more persuasive in your life. I also wrote a book called Word Hero, which tells how to be wittier, using these, figures of speech and tropes and things like that. And then finally my most recent book is Aristotle's Guide to Self Persuasion, which applies all the stuff from my previous books into persuading yourself. But you know, all through this, what ties all these together is these are all about the power of words and how you can use them for good, including for your own good.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 34:33

Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 34:39

Well, I'm now experimenting on, this book about how to think like an editor. So I've spent a career as an editor, but I also. One of my great heroes who I think is not appreciated enough in these times is Benjamin Franklin. And you know, people remember Franklin, if they remember him at all, as a scientist. You know, the guy who discovered electricity, though he didn't. I mean, he sort of showed how to capture it. he was this great diplomat who brought France into the revolution, which is how we ended up getting independence. and he did a bunch of interesting things and he wrote all these, you know, sayings that we still use. But really at heart, he was an editor and he thought as an editor. And so he became this hugely successful businessman right in the beginning. And then he ended up founding the first lending library, created the first volunteer fire department. He, he, he edited all our major American documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He edited them, he didn't write them. So he also remade foreign policy. But throughout it all, he did it the way an editor would, which has to do with revision and not completely starting over and the idea that there's always a deadline for everything. So now what does this have to do with my, my beat rhetoric? I think it has a lot to do with it because again, editing is mastering the power of words, applying a kind of grammar, a set of rules, to your own life. And if you can think like Benjamin Franklin, maybe we can achieve some portion of what that great man was able to achieve. And by the way, he was one of the happiest people ever lived. I mean, he, he was a true epicurean. In other words, living the, living the good life and accomplishing great things and as a happy person.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 36:42

So watch your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 36:47

I'm on the usual find social media places that people hate to go to now. But I'm also, I have a substack newsletter. whether you're into that or not, you can simply look up my name, Jay Heinrichs, on substack, and I do a weekly newsletter about the power of words. That's probably the easiest way to find me. I also have websites if you go to JJ A. Yheinrichs.com you'll find posts and that sort of thing, but go to substack, that's probably the easiest way

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 37:17

all Ah, right. Close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on M or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 37:25

Oh, thanks for asking Curtis. One thing that just a tip that people tell me works. Can I give you two? These are two final thoughts. One is if somebody, if you're uncomfortable in an argument, think what tense they're in. And this is true of people. If you hear politicians or whatever, you know, if you feel uncomfortable with what you're hearing, ask what tense it is. Is it in a past tense, which is all about blame or things that went wrong in the past? Is about the present tense where name calling takes place. Present tense, as Aristotle said, is all about values. What's good and bad, who's good and who's bad, who's in tribe, who's against it. Or is it in the future tense where problems haven't where problems can be solved like nothing bad has happened in the future. We shouldn't dread the future, we should make some choices to affect it. So that's the first, you know, final, final thing. The second is before you talk to anybody, tell yourself you're going to love them. I, I, I feel this to be more and more important. This isn't about empathy, it's really about which is hard to do. It's really about telling yourself you're going to find ways to love people. And the older I got, I'm a, I'm a privileged 70 year old white guy, that my clients are younger than my children. I speak to more and more diverse crowds in high schools and colleges. How am I possibly going to think that I'm one of them? Well, I don't try anymore. I simply say I'm going to love them. And I generally do. I mean the more I do this, the better. I actually tell clients when they go into meetings, especially if they're trying to win venture capital, I say send love beams out of your eyes. And most of them think I've just been chewing some interesting gummy or something. And the few who actually listen come back and say, this was amazing, we got the love right back. And I don't mean to make this as like the great moral to the story, but I'll tell you what, you know, feeling the love and expressing it actually works.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 39:33

Ladies and gentlemen, for more information on everything that Jay's up to visit jhinricks.com check out his books and you know, definitely learn the art of persuasion and keep sending those love themes. They definitely help. Please be sure to follow Rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. Go to www.craveball337.com for more information on the show. Share the website and the show to everybody you know. If you haven't done so, sign up for the newsletter and please drop us a line and leave us a review. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Jay, thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me.

>> Jay Heinrichs: 40:15

Curtis, thank you. You do such good work. It's an honor to be here.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 40:19

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com until next time, keep living the dream. Hm.