Speechcraft is a toolkit for ethical influence: the subtle art of changing minds.
There, your words shape a client’s Edited Reality. If Stay in Accord keeps communication open, Speechcraft escorts your message exactly where it needs to land.
The core Speechcraft tools are:
- Cause and Effect
- Resistance Breakers and Embedded Commands
- Tag Questions
- Assumption
We’ll explore each, then see how Speechcraft helped Eddard save the lives of Jacqui and her children.
Cause and Effect
Cause and Effec links two ideas so the second seems to follow naturally from the first. Because the link feels logical, it often bypasses conscious scrutiny. It’s usually voiced in two parts: one distracts, the othert carries a suggestion.
When the listener accepts the link, they unknowingly accept the suggestion.
- Because
“You can learn The 7 Skills to impress™ quickly and easily because…”
Unthinkingly, the System 1 mind searches for what comes next. While focused there, it offers no resistance to the first part of the sentence.
The second half doesn’t need to be dazzlingly persuasive, just credible. Cause and Effect is a distraction technique: it captures attention and shifts focus away from the hidden message.
If the second phrase holds attention, the command lands.
“… because it’s a simple approach.”
This helps someone believe they can learn The 7 Skills to impress™ quickly.
- Verifiable Truth
This time, the order is reversed. It begins with a verifiable truth, something the listener readily accepts, which opens the door to the suggestion that follows.
“You finished your essay on time because…you can apply yourself when you want to.”
- Verifiable Truth (Distraction) = Essay finished on time.
- Suggestion = You can apply yourself when you want to.
It’s empowering for a student to believe this. The first phrase, a verifiable truth, removes resistance and allows the suggestion to take hold.
- Which Means
“You got a warm response to your presentation, which means…you are a popular speaker.”
- Distraction = Warm response to a presentation.
- Suggestion = You’re a popular speaker.
This helps clients see themselves more positively. Their System 1 starts scanning for evidence of popularity; a self-fulfilling cycle.
- Before you…
“And before you relax, notice how comfortable the chair is.”
- Distraction = Noticing the comfort of the chair.
- Suggestion = To relax.
The chair comment sets direction for relaxation. As the client notices comfort, they accept the suggestion without resistance.
- If you … then you’ll
“If you … look at how you solved this problem… then you’ll … see the strengths you have to drive your success in the future.”
A powerful line when inspiring someone with the Elevate Formula.
Back to Eddard’s Cause and Effect
Now let’s look again at the Cause and Effect in Eddard’s brilliant line to Jacqui:
“Yes, I know you’re going to put the phone down, and before you do, I’d like to ask you one question.”
He paused just after “…before you do…,” letting the silence hang in the air. Jacqui’s System 1 filled the silence, asking itself,
“…before I put the phone down, what’s going to happen?”
That pause sparked curiosity in her System 1 mind. The words
“I’d like to ask you one question”
met no resistance; they slipped in quietly and shaped her Edited Reality. Staying on the phone now felt natural to Jacqui.
Resistance Breakers and Embedded Commands
Now that you’ve seen how Cause and Effect works, let’s look at another way Speechcraft skips meaning beneath surface awareness, the Embedded Command.
Eddard immediately set a new Outcome: find out where Jacqui was so he could send help.
“I don’t know if you can… imagine this now… feeding the ducks with your kids next week in the park.
I wonder if… you remember how much you and the kids love that, do you?… although I’m not asking you to… think about that now…
I’m just curious… what advice you would give yourself from that moment by the pond with the kids… which means… you can tell me where you are now… so I can help you.”
An Embedded Command is a verbal Trojan Horse, a direct instruction hidden within indirect language.
Direct speech can sound pushy or aggressive, triggering resistance. Eddard softened his commands with Resistance Breakers (RBs):
“I don’t know if you can…”
“I wonder if…”
“Although I’m not asking you to…”
“I’m just curious …”
Each RB lowers resistance and cues System 1 to take notice. A brief pause and tonal shift then mark out the command for the subconscious.
Without these RBs, the phrases would sound forceful and invite pushback:
Imagine feeding the ducks…remember how much you love that…think about that now…tell me where you are so I can help you.
Find a list of Resistance Breakers here…
Thinking about Ducks
The idea of the ducks just came to Eddard. System 2 dredged it out of the conversation he had with Jacqui earlier. And he often used what he called the ‘time distortion’ effect of the Elevate Formula. It all came together in the passage above.
By inviting Jacqui to picture a happy future, he shifted her Edited Reality.
In her imagination, the crisis was already behind her. The unthinkable became possible.
This was his pivotal strategy: to move her from despair to hope through guided imagery.
The second paragraph doubled down on this strategy. Eddard wanted Jacqui to process it vividly in her mind. This time, the Embedded Commands are in bold:
“I wonder if you… remember how much you and the kids love that, do you?… although I’m not asking you to… think about that now…”
Tag Questions
Did you notice the “… do you…” in that passage? That’s a Tag Question, a small phrase that turns a statement into an invitation to agree.
Short tags like do you, will you, won’t you, and isn’t it, create reflexive agreement, don’t they?
Eddard used them to build momentum toward cooperation, and it worked, didn’t it?
Assumptions
Then came his final move:
“I’m just curious… what advice can you give yourself, from that moment by the pond with the kids… which means you can tell me where you are now so I can help you.”
This was more than a Resistance Breaker. It was an Assumption.
By answering the question, Jacqui accepted the implied premise that she would tell him where she was.
It’s the same principle a parent uses when saying:
“Do you want to go to bed now or in ten minutes?”
Whichever the child chooses, they’ve already agreed to go to bed.
Did you notice that Eddard gave the ploy a bit more momentum with Cause and Effect, ‘which means’?
When Jacqui began to answer, she accepted the Assumption. Then she broke down and cried, and finally, she told Eddard where she was: the same park where she so often fed the ducks with her children.
A fast response vehicle was sent straight to the park. Eddard stayed on the line until help arrived. They were safe.
Here’s the Final Summary
Here is Eddard’s process in Jacqui’s Story:
- On arrival, he was briefed. A very slim outline, time was short, and lives were at stake. There was no time to go into great detail.
- Eddard begins breathing, 7-11 style. He knows this will keep his brain switched on if the pressure becomes intense.
- He thinks through his Outcome while still being briefed:
- To save Jacqui and her children.
He used a Realisation to aid this Outcome. He imagined a post-incident interview with Jacqui. He envisioned a comfortable, relaxed and friendly meeting with a grateful Jacqui. In his mind’s eye, they were in a safe place, and the children were happily playing around them.
- To get a fast response vehicle to her location and protect her and her children.
- To get Jacqui to tell him where they were, so he could send the fast response vehicle.
- To build Rapport with Jacqui so she would tell him where she was.
- He rang Jacqui and began to build Rapport.
- During Rapport, he learned how her System 1 & 2 relationship worked as best as he could with Reveal Persuasion Pathways and assessed her language against the Elevate Formula.
- When Jacqui threatened to put the phone down, he used 7-11 Breathing and Realisation to gain his composure quickly.
- He switched his Outcome to keeping Jacqui on the phone and used Pacing, Flow Words from Skill 6, Stay in Accord and Cause and Effect from Skill 7, Speechcraft. This seemed to come naturally as his System 1 & 2 worked together, given direction by the Outcome.
- Having achieved that Outcome, he set a new one to find her location. He delivered a Speechcraft passage with Pacing, Embedded Commands, Assumptions, Tag Questions and Cause and Effect.
- His Speechcraft had the effect of shifting Jacqui’s Edited Reality to imagine the possibility of a happy future. Jacqui broke down and told him where she was.
Eddard was the first to use the system as a complete unit. Since then, the 7 Skills to impress™ have been road-tested, from elite sport to business, education, and crisis negotiation.
Simple enough for tough times. Robust enough to drive extraordinary turnarounds.
Ready to build your own? The Speechcraft Builder in the app walks you through each tool step by step.
Open the Speechcraft Builder in the Library section of the 7 Skills app
How to Apply the 7 Skills to impress™: A Case Study and Guide
In Part 3, I reveal how I used the 7 Skills to restore a rugby team’s belief and fuel a record-breaking unbeaten run, and how, at the same time, those same Skills helped me break through my own performance ceiling.
I’ll share my step-by-step template for crafting an authentic, inspiring speech you can use for yourself.
Speechcraft is more than a collection of clever words. It is a way of changing what people believe is possible.
Coming Next: Part 3