Antonio Garcia
Professor Garcia
English 5
2 October 2023
Rhetorical Analysis
In the TED Talk “Why you should stop setting goals (yes, really)”, Emmanuel Acho interprets the meaning of setting a goal as a significant possibility of failure. He tells a story about his goal of being drafted in the first three rounds of the NFL. After working so hard for his goal, he found himself even further from his goal after suffering an injury at the NFL combine. Not only suffering physical injuries but mental injuries as well. He goes on to explain that goals are only limits to what someone can achieve. Acho utilizes ethos, logos, and pathos to obtain the attention of the audience convincing them that goals lead to failure.
Emmanuel Acho is an ex-NFL football player who claims that setting a goal will certainly lead you to fail. While in college Acho sent his resume to the NFL in hopes of being drafted. After receiving a negative response from the NFL saying he would not be drafted in the first three rounds, that became his goal: to be drafted in the first three rounds. After suffering an injury during the NFL combine Acho was not drafted in the first three rounds. His Ted Talk gives a perspective on goals through his experience. He talks about the mental effects someone can face in setting a goal and not achieving it. In addition, he highlights that a person sets goals for achievement, a guide for a path, and feedback. Finally, he ends with “The goal that you achieve, it's the penalty that you receive for having set that goal in the first place.” (Acho 11:40)
At the beginning of the TED Talk, Emmanuel Acho utilizes ethos and pathos to unfold his argument that goal setting leads one to ultimate failure. The first strategy he used to convince his audience of his claim was by using ethos. He includes his personal story about his journey to becoming a professional football player and explains that his main goal was to get drafted in the first three rounds. He explains that during the 40-yard dash, he tore his quad muscle off of his bone, ultimately ending his football career and the goal he set for himself. This persuades the audience because they can conclude that he did go to the NFL Combine, he did have a goal but did not reach it. Acho also uses pathos to create an emotional state of mind to better persuade the audience of his claim. He talks about his missed opportunity of going to the NFL all because of his ambition towards his goal and uses that attention to give goal setting a bad connotation. With the usage of ethos and pathos, he leads the audience to determine he is credible and uses the audience's emotions to target goal setting.
As the TED Talk continues Acho uses more ethos and enhances with logos to explain to the audience what the definition of a goal is and how it could be misleading. defines a goal which is “ The end towards which effort is aimed” (Acho 5:40). This sets up a window where Acho explains his expertise on this topic, and explains his thesis for a paper on his road toward his master's in sports psychology. With the use of ethos here, he convinces his audience of his knowledge about the topic leading them to believe and trust his claim. He better supports his claim by including credibility and combining it with a logical claim meaning logos. His example is introducing a study proving someone is more likely to reach their goal by simply writing it. Acho states “the person who writes their goals down and commits them to memory, they will earn twice as much money as the person who doesn't.”(Acho 6:11) He debunks this argument by asking his audience that the difference between 100,000 dollars and 50,000 dollars is dependent on whether or not someone wrote it down. Given the example of money, Acho presents it to allow the audience to assume that writing their goal will not give them two times the money they will earn. It simply is not logical and the speaker integrates this to get his audience to be skeptical about the idea of goal setting. Overall Acho integrates his paper for his sports psychology class to show the evidence he has knowledge on the topic and uses a simple example to debunk a study that people believe to be true.
Toward the end of the TED Talk, the speaker's strategy is to use logos and pathos, to first establish logic and then to close it off with a story that encourages the audience to support his claim. The speaker gives an example of how exactly goals limit you, at this stage he is trying to reinforce his claim he states “You'll work towards a 10-million dollar business. But what if it could have been more?” (Acho 9:23). This whole example is being used so that the audience can assume or come to a conclusion inside their head that goals limit you. At this point, the audience should be convinced or close to being convinced so this is why he integrates this last story. He talks about a rock musician who became very successful, even winning a couple of Grammys. The person the speaker is mentioning is Kirk Hammett, the speaker tells the audience that the rockstar did not have a goal to win the Grammys. Instead, Acho tells the audience that Kirk just wants to get better at playing his guitar every day. Acho uses this to make his point “See, because with that, there is no end. A goal, by its definition, is focused on an ending, which means inherently a goal is limiting.”(Acho 10:01). He explains and gives this example to show the audience that someone without a goal, essentially is aiming for their full potential. In a way, this motivates the audience and allows them to paint a picture and try to implement that into their lives. To sum up, the speaker uses ethos and pathos to essentially make an effort to hook the audience with the argument he is making.
Finally, the speaker embraces logos to allow the audience to make their judgments, leading their minds to grasp the concept that people should stop setting goals. In starting with his personal story and his experience with goal setting he sets up an emotional mindset for the audience and also ensures credibility. He then gives background information about his master's in sports psychology to enforce more credibility and uses that to give the audience a logical example to support his claim that goals do not ensure success. In the last half of the TED Talk, the speaker gives examples suggesting that goals limit a person's outcome. Posing the question “ What if there could have been more?” suggests the unknown that comes with, when you reach your goal. Once establishing this topic he uses the example of Kirk Hammett, showing the audience what someone could achieve without setting a goal.
Works Cited
“Why You Should Stop Setting Goals (Yes, Really).” Performance by Emmanuel Acho, Emmanuel Acho: Why You Should Stop Setting Goals (Yes, Really) | TED Talk, TED Conferences, 23 Apr. 2023, www.ted.com/talks/emmanuel_acho_why_you_should_stop_setting_goals_yes_really.