Being Right Isn’t Enough. Learn Why They Ignore You

Negotiate Anything

American Negotiation Institute

Education, Careers, Business

4.8 • 659 Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You’ve been there—armed with facts, logic, and the truth. And still, they shut down. They argue. They walk away. Why? In this episode, Kwame Christian speaks with Carlos Alvarenga, a persuasion expert who spent years decoding what Aristotle really meant when he said we’re persuaded by character, logic, and emotion. But this isn’t just theory. Carlos unveils a revolutionary way of understanding persuasion—as a kind of chemistry—with 21 elements you can actually use. You’ll learn why most people rely too heavily on logic, why that fails, and what to do instead if you want people to actually listen, believe, and say yes. If you’ve ever felt frustrated that no one listens—this episode will change how you communicate forever. Connect with Carlos ⁠Follow Carlos on LinkedIn⁠ ⁠Read Carlos' new book: The Rules of Persuasion: How the World’s Greatest Communicators Convince, Inspire, Lead—and, Sometimes, Deceive⁠ ⁠https://www.carlosalvarenga.com/ Contact ANI ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Request A Customized Workshop For Your Company⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Kwame Christian on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠negotiateanything.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to buy your copy of Finding Confidence in Conflict: How to Negotiate Anything and Live Your Best Life!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Carlos, thanks for joining us today.
0:03.6	Kwame, thank you for me.
0:04.4	It's a pleasure to be on your show with you and your listeners. Yes, it is a pleasure to have you, my friend. So how would you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do? Yeah, sure. So I'm Carlos Svarenga. I'm based just out of D.C. and Maryland. And I am a couple of things. I'm an independent researcher and writer. And by that I mean that I've researched and write, but not for an institution.
0:03.5	I'm also couple of things. I'm an independent researcher and writer. And by that, I mean that I
0:21.0	research and write, but not for an institution. I'm also a doctoral student right now at the
0:25.3	University of Maryland doing my PhD in language and rhetoric. And I came to this after a long career
0:30.6	as a management consultant, partner and executive advisor for over 20 years. So I business for 20 years,
0:37.0	decided it was time to wrap it up
0:38.7	and to do what I was going to do with just research and write, which is what I do today.
0:41.9	Incredible. So you're living the dream. I'm living a dream. I like it. Well, Carlos, this is
0:48.2	great because listeners, we are going to talk about persuasion. And this is a term thrown around
0:53.8	all the time, but we have an expert
0:55.9	in this topic now. So how about we just start off with a definition of persuasion? We'll start
1:01.4	off with what it is and then how to do it will be the rest of the conversation. So let's start
1:06.0	with the definition. Sure. And it's great that you start there because it's the very first question I
1:09.7	ask whenever I coach anyone. And I always say, finish the sentence, persuasion is dot, dot, dot. And I tell you, I've never
1:16.5	hating who can answer the question with confidence. And I say to them, the reason I ask the question is that
1:22.4	it's very hard to be good at something that you can't define with confidence, right? And so it has to
1:27.4	start there. So
1:28.3	persuasion for me is the definition that I built on in my book, which goes back to Aristotle,
1:33.7	the philosopher. And he says in his treatise on persuasion, persuasion is a demonstration that
1:39.3	something is true, parentheses, or appears to be true. That's it. So this is a very interesting statement because it has
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