During that time we discovered that inside this promise not to speak, this

simple three-faceted agreement to stop interrupting (to start giving attention, to stay interested and to ‘share the stage’), there is a lot going on. Inside this promise there appears to be a kind of ‘coding’ for removing blocks in thinking. It appears that the mind, when not interfered with, asks itself a range of catalytic, almost ‘innate’ questions when it gets stuck, breaking through blocks for itself, so it can be on its way again. All of that seems to happen when the promise of no interruption is in place and the mind is soaring.

We say things like, ‘You could … You should … I would propose that you … You’d do well to … If I were you, I would …’, ‘Do this, think that, get on with it just as I say.’

That ‘language of advice’ is itself an interruption of the person’s independent thinking. When we use that language, we are requiring the person to think like us, in essence to become us. So the person’s mind becomes defensive. People resist having to think just like someone else. This requirement is demeaning; it is diminishing of the self. And so, what is offered in the language of advice is usually only partially heard and often rejected, sometimes out of hand.

But if instead we use the language of experience – ‘I discovered that … In my experience, I have found that …’ – or the language of information – ‘the law says that … research is showing that … so far the facts here are that …’ – or even, ‘if I were in your situation, I would …’, the person engages readily, accepting bits, rejecting bits, questioning bits. They keep thinking for themselves. They keep their own mind. They have not been required to become us.

People want to think for themselves more than they want to think as someone else. Offering people ideas, only when they ask us, and only through the language of information and experience, keeps them thinking for themselves. And ironically that language increases the chances that our ideas will penetrate. The language of information and experience is not an interruption. The language of advice is.

We do need to accept that the power of persuasion at its worst lies in its design to interrupt. It is supposed to interrupt us, our independent, cogent, thinking selves. And it does.

We also have seen the power of repeating a question. And we know about the importance of using the thinker’s own words if we refer to their thinking. People think in their own specific words, not just in their own language.