How to be an effective communicator by being brief. Own Your Awkward Podcast with Rebecca P Murray

And I never call it improv because that scares a lot of people. It's, it's, they do improv by just using their creativity and calming themselves down and just being their true selves, stepping into their, their own creative minds. But if I can set the stage for, hey, it is totally okay to be silly, right? Then, then they're like, oh, okay, she just gave me license to be silly. I'll do it. I feel safe doing it.

Welcome back to the Own Your Awkward Podcast. I'm your host, Andy Vargo, and every episode we get into what has made our guests vulnerable and how they've learned how to own their awkward in order to live their best life. Stay tuned so you can hear every awkward moment in today's show.

Hey friends, this is Really Awkward. Today's conversation of the Own Your Awkward Podcast. First of all, welcome back. But we're going to be short and sweet because today I have the amazing Rebecca Murray, and she helps people say things with brevity. So we're going to practice keeping our talk to— what did we say, 20 minutes today?

Yeah, yeah, that's what we're going to shoot for, 20 minutes.

I love that. Well, Rebecca, welcome. Edutainer, tell us, who are you? What do you do?

Well, basically I make learning fun. I'm in the communication space, much like you are, to help people own their awkward, in your words, basically show up as their best selves and as excellent communicators, whether they're speaking to a group of people a one-on-one conversation, or even maybe with their dog.

I love that. I love that you call out even the dog, because we're communicating in different ways all the time, right?

That's right.

Excellent. Well, I, I always like to just know before we get into all the awkward stuff, what's something really amazing you see going on right now in the world?

Oh, wow. Nothing like an easy question right off the bat.

Exactly.

Really awesome. Well, I think of technology. I'm a technology nerd. I don't necessarily use everything that I learn, but I do love learning about it and seeing possibilities. Before we started today, for example, you were sharing with me how you manage this podcast and the different tools that you use in a very efficient and cost-effective way. So I, I loved learning that from you, Andy. Thank you so much.

Well, you're welcome. Thank you. I, and I also, it's great that you bring up technology because I think so often it gets a bad rap. And yet, it can do so much good.

Exactly. Last week, I had a conversation with somebody who said these exact words. I hate artificial intelligence. I hate artificial intelligence. I picked up my phone. I said, do you have one of these? Like, do you ever use voice to text?

Right.

Anything like spell check is artificial intelligence. We have been using artificial intelligence and not calling it that for decades, have we not?

Exactly.

So how can we hate it?

Yeah, I've had that same thought. Even when you use a search engine to Google something, you're not going to the phone book and flipping through something. You're relying on the internet or something computer-generated to give you information.

Exactly. And I think maybe his point was that some writers and in social media, people, some people rely on it a lot and you can always spot them. I'm not sure that that's the case, but as I have been learning more about what AI can do and some of the tips and tricks of how to summarize information, for example, after a workshop, I'll ask attendees, participants to take a survey. And I have learned that I can export that from my survey account into a CSV, upload it to ChatGPT, and ask ChatGPT just to summarize so that I can present that to my client. They can see very easily, succinctly on one page what was the value received? And for me, that was gold. I had no idea you could upload a CSV file or an Excel file to ChatGPT and have it make sense of it all. I mean, last year, I would have had to hire somebody to do that for me.

And the difference, I think, in AI where we cross the line, at least for myself, is when we are using it to generate things that we claim to be original versus taking original things and saying, help us make sense of this.

Oh, 100%. 100%. Yeah, say this with fewer words, for example, in my upbeat, friendly voice.

Yeah, exactly. Please put the Rebecca spin on it.

Yes, put the Rebecca spin on it, because that's a thing. Brevity can be abrupt. It can feel abrupt if somebody doesn't add enough of those warm words around it. And yet there's a time and a place where we do not even need the warm words, such as this: call 911.

Right?

You, you call 911. You're like, well, could you say that, um, just in a bit warmer? Could you You know, make me feel a little bit—

He didn't ask nice enough.

Right, exactly.

That's such a good example because I know I've had times where someone is direct with me with an ask or a request, and I sometimes have walked away thinking, man, did that— maybe wasn't jarring, but just was different. And so it it kind of woke me up a little bit.

Uh-huh.

But then I walk away and I think, well, they weren't rude, they were to the point, they were direct.

Yes.

And maybe there's something for me to learn there because I tend to over-add the fluff.

Oh, I see the over-fluffy, like the marshmallow, right? Well, it is a fine line, I think, in finding and adding just enough fluff, or also knowing when you can cut it out altogether. When I receive an email, this is— I'm one of those people who would be like, I'll write an email, and then I think, okay, this is a little too direct. Even if I'm asking a question, it might feel like more of a— it might— I might phrase it like an ask, but like you just mentioned, it might feel more like I'm telling you what to do. And I'm manipulating you by masquerading it as an ask. Is that what you were—

Yeah, sometimes. And I, I've— and I don't know why I've always felt like I've needed to over-explain or justify the request. And I know that for my— I know for myself, I had a lot of confidence issues in the past, so I always felt like there needed to be an explanation of worth. Like, this is why this is needed. This is why this is important. And that just exudes a lack of confidence where you're like, oh my, would you mind? It would really mean the world to me if you could. And this is why, versus just saying, hey, can you do this thing? It would mean the world to me.

Oh, I love that example. And your voice, your character voice that you added in, because that is kind of like the the voice that I don't ever want to sound like.

Right.

And it's a struggle too, because especially if it's a sales email, you're asking someone for their time, an appointment. Maybe they don't know you and, you know, you, and you don't know what kind of person they are. You know, maybe they're the type of person who would really love it if you would just be so direct. And yet being so direct sometimes feels harsh. Or maybe they're the type of person that loves the fluff, right? And I think it's like from coast to coast and also culture to culture, the amount of fluff that you add, there's like an acceptable amount, correct?

Yeah. One thing that I've learned is to value the time I'm taking from the person by the words that I'm putting in. So by, by being more direct, I'm not wasting their time.

Yes.

And a lot of people really value that, where it's like, why did I have to read 3 paragraphs when at the end you just said, can you forward me that file.

Exactly. Yeah. Yes. To put the— well, let's, let's talk maybe a little bit about email here and the brevity and what I've learned.

I love—

I would love to share these little things. I have a numerical— just a few numbers to keep in mind. And the first one is how much our brain loves brevity.

Yes.

And that we have this thing called working memory that's constantly shifting our focus. So that F If we are reading something or listening to something, to someone speak, our brain in the background is constantly alert to its surroundings, other, um, you know, what we, what we hear in the other room, maybe our phone buzzing. But even aside from that, every 20, 15 to 20 seconds or so, 4 to 5 chunks of information are being shifted around in our brain, whether we like it or not. And so I've just chosen the 26 seconds. If we can get to the point in 26 seconds of speaking, or the average person can read about 140 words in 26 seconds, if we can we can get our most important points across in that first 140 words or less and then put the fluff at the end, right? That gives every— that gives a person what they need right now, and then, then they can go deeper if they choose. And maybe they, maybe they just, um, uh, skip over the fluff, and that's fine.

I love that. And, and you kind of appeal to both, right? Because you— here's the direct ask or message or information you need, but if you need to go deeper, all the stuff is right below.

Yes, yes. So the first number is the 26 seconds. That's just easy for me to remember. In fact, this morning I left a salesy voicemail for someone. Hey, I would love to get together and catch up, blah blah blah. I looked at the number of seconds that I spoke. You know how your phone can tell you how long, right? And it was a minute. And I was like, oh, man, I could have done that in 30 seconds. It's that kind of just awareness that if we get to the point as soon as possible so the person can get with what— it's not about what we want to say. It's more about crafting it so that you can read it, grasp it, understand it, and know if you need to do something or learn something, whatever that is, in as few words as possible right up front. So 26 seconds, thinking, you know, remembering that, keeping that in mind. Then the other thing is that they've done these studies on— we're talking just about email right here— the ideal subject line is somewhere between 3 and 6 words.

Okay.

So if 3 words is enough, that's fine. But very often we decide whether we're going to open an email based on the subject line alone. And if you just said something like Friday lunch, but in your email you also had 2 things that you wanted me to do or 2 questions that you were asking me, I might go, yeah, yeah, Friday lunch. I know I'm meeting you Friday lunch. I just need to, you know, I don't maybe—

Yeah, I don't even need to read the email.

I don't even need to read it. Yeah, because I know we're on for lunch, right?

Sure.

But in your email, you asked two specific things. Can you bring this and can we discuss that? And then I get to Friday lunch and you're like, we're going to talk about this thing. And I'm like, oh, I didn't even read the email. So maybe in your subject line, you put Friday lunch plus two questions.

Right.

And that alerts me to there's something in there that I need to look at. So subject line is one thing, 3 to 6 words. Then the other that they've studied, all the frustrations that go along with email. Number one is I send an email to you with 3 questions. You respond back answering one.

Mm-hmm.

I get frustrated now. I have to email you back and ask you again. Now I'm thinking, why aren't you reading my email? Well, largely it's because I'm not formatting my email properly. I didn't call your attention using the subject line. And maybe you know me as being overly verbose, sending you 300-word emails, 600-word emails, and you're like, oh, I don't have time to read your email.

Right.

So the best practice then is going back to the subject line, 3 to 6 words, make it specific, add context, then get to the point early on, not at the last, not at the very end. 8 sentences, 8 short sentences, less than 140 words to get the point across, then add then you can add the go-deeper links or whatever at the, at the end. So it's 3 to 6 word subject line, 8 sentences, less than 140 words.

I love that. Now, um, speaking of brevity, is brevity your awkward? Is there something else you want to share as your awkward? Because, because we're keeping it brief today, I don't want to run out of time to find that out.

Yeah, I wouldn't say brevity is my awkward. It became my focus because as a communications trainer, looking at— I record almost everything I do and watch it back right after, which for some people is nauseating, would be nauseating.

Sure.

And sometimes it is nauseating, and other times I'm like, oh, you know, Rebecca, you're so good at this. Ha ha ha. You're so funny. You know, this is the way I talk to myself. This is the way I like to talk to myself. But when I find myself groaning while watching myself, it is usually because I'm using way too many words. Many more words than I need to. And I feel like if I cut out a third of my words, added in more silence, spoke a little more slowly and clearly so that even I can understand, I mean, let alone somebody who's in the audience who English is a second language or English is not their native language. You need to speak slowly and clearly so that they can understand. Of course, adding voice inflection, understanding the brain's limitation in terms of focus. So adding vocal variety, as you demonstrated earlier in this call, fun visual effects perhaps, you know, getting other voices in the room, using the chat, all of these things to keep the brain engaged. But Carving out more time for silence so that a point can sink in and it just doesn't bounce off the surface level like in an arid desert when the rain comes down where it just floods everything, you know.

That's such a good visual and, and something that I have practiced as a speaker as well as it's very uncomfortable to sit there in silence after you make a point.

Yes, it is.

At any point, even if you're trying to think of your next point, because we have this expectation, at least for myself, the thought is they're paying me to speak. You better speak like you can't be silent.

Yes.

And yet they're actually not. They're paying you to be effective.

Correct. See, we just demonstrated some silence.

But this is the thing. I was like, I won't say anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this is the interesting thing about silence. And number one, you know, we know the human brain is wired to think of silence as a danger signal. I mean, this goes way back to the cavemen, cavewomen days, right? Where you're walking in the forest and the birds are tweeting and all of a sudden there's no more bird sounds and you're thinking, okay, a monster is on its way to eat me. But it also is interesting to note that in the American, like in America, we are only comfortable with a pause that is about quarter, maybe to a half of a second. I mean, a heartbeat, essentially. That's what we think is long enough to keep blah, blah, blahing. Yet in Asian cultures, it's 4 to 8 seconds. It's perfectly natural.

Yeah, I heard a statistic, particularly relating to when you're speaking on stage and you're asking for feedback or for volunteers, that it takes people about 7 seconds to process an answer to your question or to think through what they're going to say. So if you say, who can share this? You know, we're ready for an answer right away, but we have to actually give them 7 seconds. I've actually stopped on stage and said, I heard this fact that it takes 7 seconds, so I'm waiting.

I love that so much.

Just to break that weird, awkward space. And inevitably, people start to kind of, oh, wait, now I know what I want to say.

Oh, my gosh, that's so good. And you look at online or where we're asking somebody to use the chat, let's say.

Right.

It even takes a little bit of time there. And sometimes I feel just as you've described, this is really good information for me because I'll ask a question. Would you mind letting your fingers do the talking in the chat and tell me? And then I'll ask them to give me some feedback. And then I'll wait. I'll be looking at the chat like, come on.

Nothing's coming up. And people are still trying to find the chat.

And even to the point where I'm starting to play Jeopardy music.

Right.

But then this whole flood comes in. So people are thinking, open, like finding the chat, as you say, starting to type in, and I'm already impatient. Like, how come I don't see anything in the chat? Aren't you guys, you know, with me here?

Well, and it's hard to not take that as a reflection of, are they not engaged in what I'm doing? Or am I not? Am I not? I must not be a good host because no one— they're getting caught and they have their cameras turned off.

Oh, it's all about me, of course.

Right?

Yeah.

Now, I hate to say it, but we are right now at 20 minutes.

Okay. I know.

Okay. And I feel like there's more to say. And I do too. Good example of how hard it is to— even when we start out intentionally being brief and to the point.

Yes.

We go down these rabbit holes. So if you have a couple more minutes, I'd love to keep the conversation going.

Okay. Let's do. Let's extend. We choose to extend our agenda.

So how do we stay on track and avoid these rabbit holes? And what are some pointers? And is there anything more you want to say before we do that about you're awkward? Because we're getting so much good information here that we could probably have 4 sessions about all this.

Well, I think this is great for people who have to facilitate meetings, which I work largely with people who are learning to facilitate. Learning to speak in front of others. And then, of course, this extends to one-on-one conversations as well, is having some sort of roadmap for yourself. If you're in a meeting where you, like we did at the beginning of this meeting, we have this much time. We were free-flowing on our agenda, though. Typically, in a real-life situation meeting, we're going to have items listed on the agenda by time. Like, I know how long we will be discussing this before we need to move on to the next point so we can start on time, end on time, and summarize our next steps.

That's a really good point because even when I've been at events, one of the things that you learn to ask is if you're starting late, to ask the host, is it more important to you that I keep your meeting on track or that I speak for the full hour? If I'm 15 minutes late, Do you want me to hit the end at 2 o'clock time, or do you want me to be here for an hour? Because different people are disappointed for different reasons, right?

Right. And especially if the person ahead of you went over, perhaps for good reason.

Yeah, or lovely-bean.

Very often speakers are not— many speakers are not prepared to end on time, right? But that's an excellent point. If somebody used too many words before you, should I use fewer words in my session so I can get you back on time?

Yeah. And sometimes— go ahead.

No, you go ahead.

Oh, no. And depending on your meeting planner, some of them, one person may be disappointed that you continued to make the meeting go over by talking for your full hour, and someone else may feel like you shorted them because it's like we paid her to be here an hour and she talked for 45 minutes and I feel like I didn't get my value. So it's an important question to ask before you get on that stage.

Yes. And this is great improv as well. Yes. And perhaps sharing that with the audience at the beginning. My goal is to get you out of here on time for your lunch. Which means that instead of speaking for an hour, I'll speak for 45 minutes. So let's get going. And maybe even put their mind at ease. But never fear, you will— I always say that I can cut out a quarter of what I say and you'll still get the same value. So that's exactly what I plan to do today.

I love that. And to where you were talking about where in meetings we'd have agendas, we can do that same thing of, well, we talked about this item for 7 minutes, so we need to briefly go through the next talking point or table something because we can see that we're stacking up to be over by the time we're done.

Yes, exactly. I feel like if I'm at the helm of a meeting, there is no more anxiety-producing feeling than feeling like the— I do not want the meeting to go over unless everybody in the room agrees, like you and I just did.

Right.

Let's extend by another 5 minutes because this is important. That's fine. But there needs to be that agreement. Otherwise, there's bound to be some disgruntled feelings. And also, it's a poor reflection on you as the meeting facilitator that, like, yeah, she just goes over every time. And so I need to add an extra 15 minutes anytime I see Rebecca. Is facilitating a meeting, right? Right. That's a bad—

you don't want to be that person.

No, no, no.

Well, you are giving us so many good tidbits. I, I know that we could go to school on you on how to communicate, and this is what you do. I love that you call yourself an edutainer because education is important, but if you're not entertained, you're, you're not going to retain it. I think that's such clever title.

Yes, yes, yes. And as an edutainer, I feel like it's my job also to help my participants in this, my sessions, be part of the entertainment. I mean, they entertain themselves. I'm merely a facilitator of entertainment. Yes, I bring my own entertainment value as a singer, dancer, comedian, character actress, all those things, you know. I'll weave some things in, especially when it comes to improv, because I feel like in order for people to— and I never call it improv because that scares a lot of people. It's— they do improv by just using their creativity and calming themselves down and just being their true selves, stepping into their own creative minds. But if I can set the stage for, hey, it is totally okay to be silly, Right. Then, then they're like, oh, okay, she just gave me license to be silly. I'll, I'll do it. I feel safe doing it. And I feel like those are the best, the best sessions because everybody's creating the fun together.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not about just hearing you talk and share all the points.

Yes.

It's the experience.

The experience. Yes. Like you do. You, you're an, you're an edutainer as well. I know you are. I've never, I've never seen you. In action. But I know that is what you bring, and that is what you help people step into when you say, um, own your awkward. It's basically we do similar work but packaged in slightly different ways.

Very true. And that's one thing before I got on the call I was actually thinking about. I love that we have people like us who are doing similar work, and it in no way feels competitive. Or, you know, we could, we could in other industries be out there going, man, I'm going after that gig and she got that gig and I'm, oh darn it, now I don't like Rebecca. But that's not at all how it is. It's, it's very collaborative and it's, we're just here to help people and we each put our own spin on it and different things affect different people differently. And I just love that because there's never this sense of I can't, I can't share a secret with Rebecca because then she'll one-up me over here. And that's, that's the circles that we run in, I think, in general. And I think it's, it's a beautiful thing.

Yeah, it is a beautiful thing. It is. Yeah.

So speaking of that, how do people support you? How do they find you? How do they get more of Rebecca and, and do all the things? Where should we go? What should we do?

I have a website, Rebecca P. P as in Pierce. That's my maiden name. RebeccaPMurray.com. I had to distinguish myself from all the millions of Rebeccas. There's a Rebecca Murray out there who is an Olympian.

Okay.

Paraolympian. Very, very famous. Many, many famous Rebecca Murrays. So Rebecca P. Murray or at showcaseyourshine.com. And then also on LinkedIn, that's where I hang out in terms of my professional social media, @RebeccaPMurray.

Perfect. And don't worry if you're listening to this while you're driving down the road, don't get in a wreck trying to write those down. All the links are in the details, so you can click those once you're done listening to the show. It'll take you straight to the website or LinkedIn. That's excellent. Before we go, Rebecca, I feel like a failure in the brief department because there's just so many things where it's like, man, I want to ask this and talk about that. And I feel like we could talk for hours.

Oh, I know we could.

It is such a strong lesson to actually be aware of, of time and of words. What would be that? You know, you talked about 140 character or words or characters and talk about, you know, 26 seconds. What's kind of one summary piece of advice you'd leave people with on how they can just be aware and communicate better?

Yes, that's great. Great question. When I think about this, the two words that come to mind are voice equity. Voice equity. Voice equity is to say it— go ahead and pause, think about what you want to say first. Pausing is fine. Articulate your message as clearly, clearly as you can, as briefly as you can, then stop.

Okay.

Allowing the other person like the desert, so the water can actually permeate down through the soil to hear you and respond and give them that time to let your message soak in and respond. Don't feel like, oh my gosh, there's silence. I need to keep talking. Voice equity is about creating room for both of our brains to understand each other. Embrace voice equity.

I love that. And it really makes it— just those, just those two words automatically instill an idea of being collaborative, being aware, and of listening. We think so much about speaking, and yet so much of communicating is listening.

Yes, exactly. When I was trying to come up with this concept in as few words as possible, those are the two words that just flew together in my brain. And of course, we talk about equity now all the time in different contexts, right?

Yeah.

And so I thought, voice equity. I've never heard that before. But it really, like, as you say, it brings the whole picture to mind.

Yeah, I absolutely love that. I haven't heard that either. And I just— even without the explanation, it tells you exactly where you're going. Talk about brevity. Amazing.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, before we go, is there anything else we need to share that you want to make sure we get out there?

No, I, I think that's it. I think I've used up my words for the day, or at least for the podcast.

Excellent. Well, Rebecca, thank you. Thank you so very much. I appreciate you opening up and sharing. Appreciate all you're doing. It's— I, I continue to learn from you. I was just typing out an email a couple days ago, and I was thinking about our conversation from a couple weeks ago, and I was like, is this, is this brief? Is it to the point? Am I living in words? So you're, you're helping everybody more than you know.

Awesome, awesome. I love hearing that so much.

All right, everybody else, be sure you go follow Rebecca. Find her on social media, on LinkedIn, check out her websites, and be brief, and then own your awkward.

Bravo.

Thank you so much for listening in for today's show. Be sure to visit awkwardcareer.com to continue your journey, and And of course, please like, subscribe, and share with your friends so they can find their awkward side and learn how to own it.