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Aristotle's Guide to Self-Persuasion

How Ancient Rhetoric, Taylor Swift, and Your Own Soul Can Help You Change Your Life

Author Jay Heinrichs
Hardcover
$29.00 US
Crown
6-1/8"W x 9-1/4"H
On sale Jul 15, 2025 | 288 Pages | 9780593735275
Grades 9-12 + AP/IB
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Show yourself who's in charge using the original art of persuasion, backed by contemporary pop culture examples that make transforming your habits and achieving goals easy, even fun—from the New York Times bestselling author of Thank You for Arguing

Rhetoric once sat at the center of elite education. Alexander the Great, Shakespeare, and Martin Luther King, Jr., used it to build empires, write deathless literature, and inspire democracies. Now it will help you to take leadership over yourself; not through pop psychology or empty inspiration, but with persuasive tools that have been tested for more than three thousand years. In Aristotle's Guide to Self-Persuasion, Heinrichs helps readers persuade their most difficult audiences—themselves—by using techniques invented by the likes of Aristotle and Cicero and deployed by our culture’s most persuasive characters. With their help, rhetoric can convert the most negative situations into positive ones. 

Heinrichs brings in examples from history and pop culture—Winston Churchill, Iron Man, Dolly Parton, and the woman who serendipitously invented the chocolate chip cookie—to illustrate the concepts. But the core of the book tests the tools of self-persuasion and asks: Can the same techniques that seduce lovers, sell diet books, and overturn governments help us achieve our most desired goals?

Filled with entertaining and scientific studies that showcase the power of what language can do for you, Aristotle's Guide to Self-Persuasion will teach you how to be the most successful person you can be, just by talking to yourself.
© Rob Strong Photography
Jay Heinrichs is the New York Times bestselling author of Thank You for Arguing. He spent twenty-six years as a writer, editor, and magazine publishing executive before becoming a full-time advocate for the lost art of rhetoric. He now lectures widely on the subject, to audiences ranging from Ivy League students and NASA scientists to Southwest Airlines executives, and runs the language blog figarospeech. He lives with his wife in New Hampshire. View titles by Jay Heinrichs
“I thought that there could never be another book about effective communication that could come close to Jay Heinrichs’s Thank You for Arguing. And then came this new book. I again gasped with new insight, but this time I was called to a more difficult challenge: how to persuade myself to live my best life. And Heinrichs, a teacher for the ages, gave me the tools. Astounding.”—Peter Heller, bestselling author of The Dog Stars and Burn

“Jay Heinrichs is a witty guide to the lost art of self-persuasion, using the power of words to become our best selves. This book is a treasure.”—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix and Heartbreak

“I’ve never read a smart book that was this funny or a funny book that was this smart.”—Regina Barreca, author of They Used to Call Me Snow White . . . But I Drifted

“Jay Heinrichs turns the self-help genre upside down with Aristotle’s Guide to Self-Persuasion. From coping with shame to navigating through change, love, and ego, this thought-provoking book probes into every aspect of our modern lives and is relatable to every one of us, on every page.”—Diana Nyad, author of Find a Way

About

Show yourself who's in charge using the original art of persuasion, backed by contemporary pop culture examples that make transforming your habits and achieving goals easy, even fun—from the New York Times bestselling author of Thank You for Arguing

Rhetoric once sat at the center of elite education. Alexander the Great, Shakespeare, and Martin Luther King, Jr., used it to build empires, write deathless literature, and inspire democracies. Now it will help you to take leadership over yourself; not through pop psychology or empty inspiration, but with persuasive tools that have been tested for more than three thousand years. In Aristotle's Guide to Self-Persuasion, Heinrichs helps readers persuade their most difficult audiences—themselves—by using techniques invented by the likes of Aristotle and Cicero and deployed by our culture’s most persuasive characters. With their help, rhetoric can convert the most negative situations into positive ones. 

Heinrichs brings in examples from history and pop culture—Winston Churchill, Iron Man, Dolly Parton, and the woman who serendipitously invented the chocolate chip cookie—to illustrate the concepts. But the core of the book tests the tools of self-persuasion and asks: Can the same techniques that seduce lovers, sell diet books, and overturn governments help us achieve our most desired goals?

Filled with entertaining and scientific studies that showcase the power of what language can do for you, Aristotle's Guide to Self-Persuasion will teach you how to be the most successful person you can be, just by talking to yourself.

Author

© Rob Strong Photography
Jay Heinrichs is the New York Times bestselling author of Thank You for Arguing. He spent twenty-six years as a writer, editor, and magazine publishing executive before becoming a full-time advocate for the lost art of rhetoric. He now lectures widely on the subject, to audiences ranging from Ivy League students and NASA scientists to Southwest Airlines executives, and runs the language blog figarospeech. He lives with his wife in New Hampshire. View titles by Jay Heinrichs

Praise

“I thought that there could never be another book about effective communication that could come close to Jay Heinrichs’s Thank You for Arguing. And then came this new book. I again gasped with new insight, but this time I was called to a more difficult challenge: how to persuade myself to live my best life. And Heinrichs, a teacher for the ages, gave me the tools. Astounding.”—Peter Heller, bestselling author of The Dog Stars and Burn

“Jay Heinrichs is a witty guide to the lost art of self-persuasion, using the power of words to become our best selves. This book is a treasure.”—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix and Heartbreak

“I’ve never read a smart book that was this funny or a funny book that was this smart.”—Regina Barreca, author of They Used to Call Me Snow White . . . But I Drifted

“Jay Heinrichs turns the self-help genre upside down with Aristotle’s Guide to Self-Persuasion. From coping with shame to navigating through change, love, and ego, this thought-provoking book probes into every aspect of our modern lives and is relatable to every one of us, on every page.”—Diana Nyad, author of Find a Way

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