The Achievement Habit By Bernard Roth

One element of the author’s style that I noticed and enjoyed about this novel is how the author properly characterizes each member of the story interestingly, and successfully manages to make the story more appealing due to his use of multiple literary elements. One opening property in this novel is the use of characterization. Aristotle, the protagonist and narrator of this story, is considered a dynamic character. Through the beginning of this novel, Aristotle was very shy, and had a limited amount of friends; moreover, he portrayed himself as timid, antisocial, and basic compared to other of his “peers.” This all changed, however, shortly into the novel, when Aristotle stumbled into a new individual. The book continues by letting the reader understand that Aristotle likes feeling sorry for himself. A passage in the book to support this claim goes as follows,”Feeling sorry for myself was an art. I think a part of me liked doing that.” (Saenz, 13) We also discover that Aristotle’s dad seems far away to him regardless of living in the same house. Moreover, we get some small backstory of Aristotle’s father, and we understand that his father feels distant to him because of the Vietnam war; a war in which Aristotle’s dad was a part of. A line

example of pathos because it plays with peoples emotions and they can more relate to this and

Meanwhile, ethos allow the reader to view the author as a trustworthy source and builds the author's credibility. An author can do this in a number of different ways, such as using other credible sources to their advantage or by building common ground with the reader. It is especially important for Gladwell’s audience to trust him, as he is trying to convince them that what they believe about success is wrong.

He uses logic to prove that reasons are bull shit when making a decision because even though each decision takes you through a different route they still lead you to the same place. Bernard Roth also uses logic to prove that you don’t have to listen to your elders or those who have a higher degree or education than you because maybe you might actually when a thousand dollars doing a survey or whatever even when your parents or whoever told you it would be a bad idea. He uses these examples and others to prove that “we’re better off without reasons” Bernard Roth. The majority of reasons are bull shit but are some reasons legitimate.

In chapter two of the book, The Achievement Habit, author Bernard Roth discusses the idea that reasons are hogwash. Roth feels that reasons are unnecessary and can be considered poisonous to people that use them. The second chapter describes how Roth developed this idea through his own experiences and those of others. A biography of Roth is claims that his main goal as a professor and author is to assist people to have a more successful lifestyle (“Bernard Roth”). Roth reveals stories to guide the audience in turning around their own lives. Roth’s development of ethos, pathos and logos is utilized to support his argument that reasons are bull.

The author of the book The Achievement Habit, Dr. Bernard Roth, presents a well structured argument about the ability to achieve, and how the world is perceived differently by everyone, which means it is a conscious decision to react negatively to conflict, or on the contrary, look at the situation with a different mindset and not see it as conflict at all. While being the author of this very popular book, Dr. Roth has been a Stanford Professor for over fifty years; at Stanford, he teaches a class on achieving which pertains to a lot of his stories in the book. Roth portrays his book as a series of events that occurred to him personally and establishes pathos, logos, and ethos in the first two chapters of his book as he describes how the events relate to his theories.

While watching “The Puzzle of Motivation” by Dan Pink, I was very intrigued. Throughout the entire talk, there were several interesting points that were made. It really interested me when Pink talked about the group that was rewarded. Pink stated that if the contestants were in the top 25% of the fastest times, they would be rewarded five dollars. With this incentive, most would hope to do well, if not better than the person that would not be rewarded. Pink then goes on to point out the results. How much faster did the group that was offered a reward actually do? On average, it took them three and a half minutes longer. This really stood out to me because when offered a reward for a task, normally a person would be more motivated and thus do better. What amazed me even more was that this isn’t just a one time thing. This is has been replicated over and over for nearly 40 years. As Pink says around 04:33, “These contingent motivators -- if you do this, then you get that -- work in some circumstances. But for a lot of tasks, they actually either don 't work or, often, they do harm.” These rewards that are being offered are being used to attempt to sharpen thinking and accelerate creativity, but instead it’s proving to do the opposite. It’s proving to dull thinking and block creativity.

Mr. Roth effectively has ethos in his book. Bernard Roth the Author of the book, The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, And Take Command of Your Life, had multiple different example of how he is a creditable source. Roth helped design the d.school, one of the hottest graduate

On a cold bitter morning standing in a yard watching people move about. The wind stirring fallen leafs on the ground. People hurrying to where they need to be. A thought pops in the head of the people watching the yard, why did I chose this career. This is a question that everyone thinks about as they examine the career choices. In Roth’s book The Achievement Habits, we read that the road is not always straight but curves and turns intersect it. Of all the different problems in corrections in the state of Colorado. People believe that wages are the biggest problem; I see that the biggest problem is staff shortages.

Routines, patterns, dependency, fixation, or even compulsion are all derived out of a habit. Habit patterns are hard to break, but knowing how to properly break a bad habit my end up making you healthier, wealthier and can make and impulse behavior nonexistent. Some habits are good, while others are bad. My bad habit is using chewing tobacco. I have used it on and off since 2004, for me I used it to pass time and now it has just become an oral fixation with no reward.

After reading the article by Robert Puff, there are examples of both cognitive behavioral theory and conflict management. First, cognitive behavioral theory is the idea that cognition, emotion, and behavior all interface with each other which is displayed in the article through a patient named Felicia. One night, Felicia’s husband made a wounding comment regarding her weight. After, her husband immediately apologized feeling extremely culpable for his damaging words towards his wife. Consequently, Felicia self esteem was severely damaged. Sadly, Felicia continued to allow the comment to linger in her mind for a decade without overcoming it for herself. In result, the comment affected how Felicia thought, felt, and acted which related back to

Mr. Roth effectively has ethos in his book. Bernard Roth the Author of the book, The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, And Take Command of Your Life, had multiple different example of how he is a creditable source. Mr. Roth has been a professor and Standford for 52 years. While being a professor, in 1996 he helped to design "Designer in Society" also known as d.school. The hope for the program is to get students to think differently about how they can reach their goals in life. The program is a pretty big deal, Wall Street Journal once called it "the hottest graduate program." Bernard Roth got his PhD in Mechanical engineering at Columbia, so he knows his stuff. Lastly, the final thing that make him a creditable source is Roth was awarded the Honorary PhD from the University of Paris. The University of Paris only award these Honorary PhD's to people who makes a contribution to a specific field or to a society in general. Bernard Roth has ethos because he has many degrees and achievements to back him up.

When it comes to the topic of addiction, most of us will readily agree that it is a miserable trait to possess. An addiction is a physical and psychological state of being that if not treated correctly could result into harmful wrongdoing. In The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, he recounts a story in which a fatigued housewife named Angie Bachmann lost all of her family’s assets, amounting to a million dollars due to a gambling addiction. Every habit has three components: a cue or a trigger of an automatic behavior to start, a routine the behavior itself, and a reward which is how our brain learns to remember this pattern for the future. According to Duhigg, “you cannot extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it” (63). Duhigg

The Achievement Habit book written by Bernard Roth states in the first chapter that nothing has meaning. Where in all reality we have a lot that has meaning to us we just have to find the things that have true meaning to us. Roth mentions in his book ,“Nothing is what you think it is, you give everything it 's meaning.” (Roth 18)

Bernard Roth begins the first line of the first chapter “Nothing Is What You Think It Is” of his book, The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life, with the phrase, “Your life has no meaning” (Roth 15). In the second paragraph, he goes on to explain what he means by the statement. Roth is trying to get you to change your perspective on life, your behavior, success, and happiness (15). Throughout the rest of the chapter, Roth uses this basis to explain that everything is within your control; people can control their actions and reactions to situations. Being a professor at Stanford alone could give Bernard Roth plenty of credibility on its own. However, it definitely helps that he has 216 publications in various journals and books, has a mechanical engineering doctorate degree from Columbia, and is also one of the founders of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (“Bernard”). Roth does extremely in getting this idea to come through in his text with various use of ethical appeals (ethos), logical appeals (logos), and emotional appeals (pathos).