Say it in 26 Seconds: Your Path to Conversational Influence | Rebecca P. Murray at NWES 2025

And this is it. Voilà! We are officially starting the final session of the day. That means if you want to move forward to one of these tables to an open seat, uh, you have agency. You can do that. So here we are. We are met at the Grow, Network, and Learn stage. I am very happy to be here with you. My name is Sasha Summer Cousineau. I use she/her pronouns. I'm a fundraising emcee and auctioneer around town. I also have the pleasure of thanking our production sponsor for this stage right there in the back of the room. That's a member of the staff from Own the Night. They are a full-scale production company. So what do you need? You need lights, you need sound, you need projection? They got you. Now we are here because we took interest in the title of a conversation called "Say It in 26 Seconds: Your Path to Conversational Influence." So, we as event professionals, we know the stakes of unclear communication, we know what it leads to. It can lead to confusion, or missed deadlines, or, oh my God, to me and our tech guys' chagrin, a mismatched playlist. We don't want that, do we? No, we don't want that. So, you know, in this interactive session, you're going to learn practical techniques to craft concise, impactful messages, whether that be in emails, conversations, or team meetings. So you're going to discover how mastering brevity, something I clearly am not good at, can boost your conversational influence, streamline planning, and ensure your events go off without a hitch, or at the very least, fewer surprises. So here to guide us through this conversation is a dynamic presentation engagement expert with a rich background in applied behavior science, technology, and theater, an audiophile and a vocal expert. She empowers clients to find their authentic voice to deliver memorable, meaningful messages that resonate with any audience. Please put your hands together and welcome our speaker, Rebecca Peterson. Rebecca P. Murray.

Thank you. And that was magical. It was a couple of years ago after this session that a young, tall, dark gentleman— we'll call him Sam because that was his name— Sam walks up to me and he says, Rebecca, I'm one of those people you were talking about. One of those people that can't seem to stop myself from over-talking. My boss has mentioned it to me. My wife has mentioned it to me. The only person that hasn't mentioned it to me is my dog. And you know, the thing is, I know when I'm doing it. I can feel it. I see it in somebody's face, their eyes, they start looking around like for somebody to come rescue them. I said, "Sam, when you're feeling it and noticing it, does an alarm go off in your head?" He says, "Yeah, and I press the snooze button." And then I said, "You mind if I use that?" And I've been using it ever since. So that is the one side of this equation that we'll be talking about today. At times, we all can use an overabundance of words, can we not? And then there's the folks who use extreme brevity, who might say something like, "It's over there on the table." And then you think, "Are they mad at me? Did I do something wrong?" Because they sound like they could be mad. You know what? They're just being efficient. They're just giving you direction. They don't mean for it to come across that way, although we can interpret it that way. So the two sides of brevity, the ultra-brief, the ultra-long-winded, but there is a third side of brevity. And for this, we invite our friends from "The Office." Now raise your hand if you've ever watched an episode of "The Office." In this little snippet, Kevin is trying out an extreme form of brevity. And just so that you know, there are captions on here, but he says, Me do now. That is his first sentence. So let's go ahead and cue that up. This was very timely when I showed it to a group right before the election. All right. Let us move on to our session overview. We are going to explore 5 things today. What is this 26 seconds all about? We will explore common communication frustrations, craft reader-balanced emails. We'll take a look at emails, brevity in writing, clarity in writing, and then also a tactic to achieve balanced conversations. I call them beach ball conversations. Then ultimately, in this quest for brevity and communication clarity, It's all about achieving the all-elusive voice equity, making room for all voices in the room. Voice equity, you love that phrase? Yes, I think it warms a lot of hearts. Working memory, raise your hand if you've ever heard this term, working memory. Okay, lots of hands going up. And essentially, working memory is the bridge between long-term memory, what's stored back here, and what we are focusing on in the here and now. Working memory is fragile and fleeting. There are 3 to 5 chunks of information that our brain can hold at any one time, and all it takes is one other little chunk to fly in, and the other flies out the other end. So, example would be: I go to my mailbox, I bring in the mail. I start to open it, realize I don't have my glasses on. Where did I leave my glasses? Oh, I think I left them in the closet on the dresser. Okay, so I have to walk through the living room to get to the bedroom, but by the time I get to the bedroom, why am I here? Why am I here? Ah, must be nothing. Okay, go back to the mail. Ah, my glasses, right? That is working memory. That's how fragile and fleeting it is. And essentially, we have 26 seconds 26 seconds that we can focus on these 3 to 5 chunks before something leaves and something else comes in. That is just how all our brains work automatically. So that's the 26 seconds. Now you might be saying to yourself, Rebecca, how is it that you know so much about the brain? Did you watch a lot of Bill Nye back in the day? No, but I used to date him. And this is how long back in the day it was. Those are rabbit ears, and that is a 1980-something spider plant. There we go. And Bill is still a good friend, and I'm so— this was right after he became the Science Guy. I actually knew him when he was a struggling comedian. He would drive around town, the East Side, and do these warm-up acts for comedians. He was still working at Boeing then, and then he got his big break, which was very, very exciting. When we talk about brevity and communication style, there are a lot of things that play into this and your conversational style. So raise your hand if you're from the East Coast. OK. What do we know about East Coasters in terms of communication style? What's that? Yes, very direct. How about speed? Fast, direct and fast, exactly. And over here on the West Coast, we take a little more time to warm things up, you know, between people. Generational, we were talking about this earlier today. Gen Z, I think most of them would be happy, like, hey, if you can say in one emoji, What you could say in 10 words, I'd be good with that, right? And who has started using more emojis in the last 5 to 10 years? Yeah, they're awesome, aren't they? They say so much with so little. It's brevity, it's brevity. So familial differences, gender differences, many cultural differences, we could go on forever. Let's do a little bit of finger polling right now, and just to help us demonstrate, I have, is it Jason, Jason, would you help me demonstrate this? Okay, I'm going to show you a, I'm gonna give you 3 options to a question, so 3 options for your answer, and if you like option 1, Jason, would you demonstrate how many fingers you will hold in the air? Yes, okay, no further explanation needed. Here's the first question. There was a poll conducted by Slack 2 years ago. This poll was of many people like us asking, how much time do you spend in your inbox? Turns out, 30% of our week, 11.47 hours a week, typical to spend in an inbox. What is your top complaint when it comes to emails? This is where your 1, 2, and 3 choice. Number 1, sigh. "Some of my questions go unanswered." Number 2, "I'm asked a question I just answered." Number 3, "I get no reply and have to ask again." Fingers in the air, what most frustrates you? Lots of 2s and 3s, I see. Many, many 3s. "I get no reply and have to ask again." Okay, let's see what the— poll turned up was actually, some of my questions go unanswered. These are all frustrations, let's face it, right? But number 1, slightly edging out number 3, is some of my questions go unanswered. So what do we do about this? We're going to use an example of Rebecca's. A couple of years ago, I sent this very simple email to a client we were heading into an all-staff day. Now it's very— OK, we're all improving on our communication skills every day, right? And I'm happy that I can at least say this was 2 years ago. Simple email, subject line, last-minute prep. Hi, Nancy. I'm looking forward to Friday, and I have 2 quick questions. We'll need tables numbered blah, blah, blah, 6 people each. Can we do this at the break? That's question number 1. Do you still need me to help MC? If so, I need a rough script. And here was the reply. Okay. But this is on me. When I received that reply, wouldn't you think, "I could have been clearer. Couldn't I have been clearer?" Yes. You're going to help me make this clearer. So what would you do if I came to you and I said, Help me. Help me make this clearer. What would you suggest to me? Number the questions. Brilliant, right? Why didn't I think of that? Now, I will say this one thing when it comes to generations. This is one, something that I learned just recently, is that Gen Z would rather have us not number questions. We should use bullet points.

Why?

Because numbering questions can seem overly authoritative, even this word, aggressive. Okay, so just something to keep in mind. I know, that's what I did too. I was like, really, are you kidding? Like, you can do them in any order that you want. But no, this is true data. This is something just to keep in mind. So yes, numbering. Is there anything else? What about the subject line? Subject line, you can say something like, request, dash, 2 items. Yes, request, and then 2 items. Yeah, exactly. So like, 2 questions for Friday. I did this session for a New York firm. Now we're on the East Coast, right? They came back with this suggestion right here. Subject line, 2 questions for Friday. Hi Nancy, these are my 2 questions. And then Rebecca. Now, I show this to some audiences. Is there anybody in here who might take offense to this email? I usually get somebody in every audience. Manuel was one, and he's an international manufacturer. He said, Rebecca, if you sent that to my people in Mexico, you would not even get a reply. That is rude. That is rude. So his suggestion: add formality and fluff. These are the two Fs, the F factor. We get the core message, and then we add formality and fluff depending on who it is, our relationship with them, all of that. So, "Good day, Nancy. I'm looking forward to seeing you Friday morning." You could put an emoji there. I have two last questions, and so forth and so on. So formality and fluff, but let's get to the core. So let's talk about that core. These are the four things that all of the email experts say, that if we hit these notes, we are good. We're doing our job as a communicator. We are crafting reader-focused emails. It's not about everything I want to get off my to-do list. Cramming it into an email, pressing send, now I'm done. Now it's on you. And if you don't reply because it's too many words, or you don't reply to all of my questions, then, ah. No, no, this is on us to craft reader-focused emails. So number 1, what is it about? Where would that information come from? The subject line. Yeah, I know that's what you were thinking. And then these 3 questions, how does it concern me? What do I need to know or do? And does this matter right now, if not now, when? So the know or do, before we send an email, we think about this. How many emails have you received where you're like, what does this have to do with me? What does it have to do with me? What do you do with those? You ignore them. You don't reply. OK, so here we go. Breaking news, subject line, and just to Jason's point, Context and specificity. The science of emails says 6-word subject line is optimal. 6 words gives you enough words to add context and specificity. Last-minute prep plus 2 questions, or 2 questions plus last-minute prep, and that cues the person, oh, there's 2 questions in there I'm going to need to answer. 4 words, I think it's fine too, depending on where you are at with the person. Okay, so usually before I do this for a company, I send out a survey. It's a very brief survey, 8 questions, and some of these questions are those questions from that Slack survey. So here's your second 1, 2, or 3 with fingers in the air. 57% of employees say, if an email "Email is too long, I won't read it." In your mind, how long is too long? Is it 1, 5 sentences, 2, 8 sentences, or 3, 12 or more sentences? Put your fingers in the air, what do you think? Again, 2s and 3s, lots of 3s. The answer is, Anything above 8 sentences is too long for that core content. Not that we can't add attachments and all that stuff, go deeper, all of those things, but for the core message, for our eyes, for that to get it across so that person will answer. Okay, so there's one. Let's go back here. What was the first number that I shared with you related to the subject line? How many words? 6. That is the first number you remember. There's only 3 numbers for this whole email thing that you need to remember. 6 is the first one. What's the second one? 8. 6-8. The third number, 140. Any guesses as to, okay, maybe I put a clue up there. 140 words, why? What do you think? Because otherwise it's too long. We, most of us can read 140 words in how many seconds? 26 seconds. Most of us can read, you know, that fleeting, fragile working memory of ours, we can grasp a concept, 8 sentences, 140 words. But there's one other thing. So there we are, that goes to brain science, okay? So 6, 8, 140. Can you say that with me? 6, 8, 140. Yo. 6, 8, 140. Uh. It's like a cheer, only a bad one. OK. Then we can add attachments, hyperlinks, headings, all those kind of things to add more information after our core message. So the bolding, the bullets, we've already covered that. Bullets versus numbers. So if you're sending it to me, please feel free to use numbers. If you're sending it to my grandchildren, then you're going to use bullets. Okay, white space, short sentences. Now this is an email that I received 18 or so months ago. I still have not read it to this day. At the very end of this email, do you see the blue? It says, click here to register. How many people, if they were reading this on their phone, would have even got there, right? Yeah. Okay, according to the scientists, when we see blocks of text like this showing up for us to read, we have a feeling that goes on inside. What is that feeling? Overwhelmed, what else? Anxious, yes. Anything positive? No. And at the core of all of these emotions, there is one. It is this: we feel sad. This is what the scientists say. On the core of the frustration, and when you think of like only 6 core emotions, when it all boils down to it, we want to cry. That's what we do. So we put these tactics in place to help our people that we're sending emails to feel happy that they received an email from us. Now, that New York firm that I worked with, he suggested this. I'm setting a new auto-reply for emails over 250 words. Hey, the length of your email made me sad. And you know what? He's on LinkedIn, so you can tell him— You can give him credit for this if you love it, and as soon as he engineers this, I will share that information with you and we can all do this. All right. Also, AI. Who uses AI for emails? Makes us look smarter. That's what I love about it. Shortens things up. Instead of, were you able to access the video and get it uploaded? Why not just say upload it? It's just brilliant. Okay, here's where you come in. One volunteer to— is that mic on in the center of the room? Oh, oh, John has the mic, okay. So you're going to help me summarize the key concepts so far. We're going to transition into using our conversational skills here in a second. So you see the man at the computer and you see these numbers. Who would be willing to put all of this in a sentence of what you see, like what this means? Yes? Okay, Kai has her hand raised. Thank you. Give Kai a big hand.

When writing an email, make the subject line 6 words or less, make the content 8 sentences or less, and overall under 140 words, or you will make people sad.

Yes! Wonderful. I wish I had a book to give you, but I haven't written one, so. I can read more than 140 words.

It's okay.

Rebecca, you need a book.

All right.

We are transitioning from writing to speaking. I'm going to play a bell from the listening broadcasting test system.

You—

and then I will ask— I'll have you hear, listen to it. It's going to trail away. When you no longer hear it, just put one finger in the air, then I'll ask you 3 questions. Okay. Okay, very good. You all passed the test. How long was that bell? And it's not 26 seconds. How long do you think? 18 seconds. Great. Thank you, Ethan. Anyone else? 12 seconds? Okay. Anyone else? Longer? Shorter? 30 seconds. Okay. That's a great guess. Any other great guesses? So we've got anywhere from 18 to 30. I've had some people even say they they thought it was 45. The answer is, you're the winner, Amanda Mae Gray, 30 seconds. So we can see first off that any period of time can sound different to all of us, right? I'm up here, I've been speaking for approximately 25 minutes. Hopefully you're thinking, oh, it's really, it's really felt like 18 seconds, Rebecca. Versus like, oh, when is she gonna stop talking, 45 minutes. Okay, so that was the first question to get to the time. Second, did you feel yourself as that was, the bell was trailing away, did you feel yourself yearning, like leaning in, like I don't want to, leaning, did you feel that? That's the feeling of a good listener. When we want to understand, when I'm having a hard time concentrating, on something that someone's saying because of all these things going on in my head, I tap into that, like, that feeling right there of leaning in. It just helps bring my brain back online. So the third thing was, if you started hearing your own voice talking in your head at any point during that bell, would you raise your hand? Like, I hope I get this right. I, I hope I hear the end of it. I hope I'm not the last one with my hand up. What's for dinner? What about that Salish thing? You know, I hope they have good seafood. Yeah, our voice is the number one voice in our head. It takes precedence over any other voice, and we just have to train it to, you know, button it up sometimes, right? But here's the thing: the longer we are talking in a conversation, the longer that we have words coming out of our mouth and we're expecting someone to listen, the more opportunity there is for their own voice to start talking in their head, right? Isn't that true? And whose voice, if you had a choice, your voice or someone else's voice, is going to take precedence? It's probably going to be the sweetest voice. What's that?

I said it depends on the person. Depends on the person, but usually my own.

Yes, yes, it's usually ours. And at least it'll pull us off topic because we can't listen listen to two people at the same time, right? Okay. You all did very well on the test. There we go. Back to working memory, our fragile, fleeting working memory. So let's talk about these people who love to talk, and sometimes that's us when we're passionate about a topic. Someone asks us about our favorite topic in the world, and I don't know about you, but I'm always thinking about this stuff now. Like, I hope I'm not over— talking, maybe I should just stop talking so someone else can have an opportunity, this voice equity. Here's the thing, when we are speaking, the average person speaks at 125 words per minute, but our brain chatter can go at 800 words per minute. So there's this constant vacuum pulling in our own words, isn't there? The shorter we speak, if we train ourselves To speak in shorter bursts doesn't mean you can't keep talking, but to pause, see if someone wants to step in. And if they don't, they give us the cue to keep going, then we speak for another burst, then we speak for another burst. And this is called a pleasant conversation. Because we all have an opportunity to contribute. We never want to be the person who is the human fire hose. I was at a conference where the MC said, "Okay, you break into groups of 4. You have 10 minutes. I want you to introduce yourself and answer this one question." So I get together with this group of 3 other ladies. I look at my watch, I go, "Okay, 10 minutes, there's 4 of us, that's like 2.5 minutes each." "Who wants to go first?" This woman says— we'll call her Donna, I actually can't remember her name— she takes the whole 10 minutes, dives deep into her personal history, all the challenges she's had in her life, and some of them were heart-wrenching. I've just— we just met each other. And nobody felt comfortable interrupting or redirecting the conversation because it just got a little, you know, uncomfortable. So, did I seek her out for the rest of the conference? No, I did not. Because I didn't want another interaction like that. So I avoided her. And that's what happens. The thing is that most people who overtalk in those situations, most people, like the fellow who I mentioned in the beginning, they're aware of it. They're aware of it. And if you had a way to interrupt and distill with finesse, they would be grateful for it because they know they do it. They're like, "Oh, thank you. Now I have a way to stop talking. Thank you for helping me, and now you can contribute." So that's one of the things that we're going to be taking a look at today is how to interrupt, redirect, distill, or move on with finesse. Have you ever practiced interrupting in a session? No. We don't inter— most of us feel very uncomfortable about this. So this is a question from that survey that I typically give a client. When meeting someone for the first time who dominates the conversation, I think they are— and I let clients pick as many of these as they want. But typically, This is how it looks with almost every client. This wheel never changes. Self-absorbed, yes, that's a big piece of the pie. And passionate. Now passionate can be great, but still, if somebody's passionate, we can still get the wrong impression, right, if we're not allowed to speak. So a full 50% of what we think when someone dominates a conversation that we meet for the first time is probably negative. It's probably negative. When someone gives a long-winded answer to a simple question, I often will interrupt them. That's number one. What's interesting is that I ask this question next: I know exactly what to say when I'm interrupting a long-winded speaker.

No.

I interrupt them, but I don't know exactly what to say because I feel uncomfortable saying it. I'm going to give you 3 ways to interrupt with finesse, and you're going to love these. Number 1: Interrupt and distill. Help somebody distill their message, always starting with their name because that gets their attention. It's the prairie dog effect, right? "Oh, Rebecca!" "Who said my name?" Starting with the name, "Sorry to interrupt, but here's what I think you're saying." Distill it for them. They will be so grateful. And you know what? It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, because they will correct you if you're wrong. You've done this in a beautiful way, and the conversation continues. The conversation continues, and you have a chance to talk. How about interrupt and redirect? You know, a speaker who maybe gets off topic. This can happen in meetings. Pull the meeting off course, right? Name: Rebecca. I want to hear more, but before I lose my train of thought— and then redirect. And this last one, you will love this one, and this is really great in situations like this at a trade show because we're meeting and greeting, meeting and greeting, meeting and greeting. We're here to meet and greet a lot of people, right? And to find those perfect clients, make those perfect connections. So this one, I love this, and I got this from— this was a gift to me, this woman who used this name. I wish— we say that out loud— I wish, I wish I had more time. Don't you love that? I wish I had time to hear the rest, but I have an appointment I'm running to. It's so elegant. I wish I had more time. So here's what we're going to do in the last 10 minutes, actually 6 minutes. On your table, you have a card. Now I'm going to let you choose. We're either going to do this, we're going to practice interrupting each other, interrupting with finesse, and that would be choice number 1. You get to answer a really fun question. Or number 2, we get to practice mirroring, which is pulling gold out of someone who's maybe ultra-brief. This is an FBI tactic that they use, hostage negotiators use. So the role of the hostage negotiator, right, is not to over-talk, it's to get the person on the inside of the bank or wherever to do the talking. You calm them down, You keep asking questions. And mirroring just is this. John, who has the microphone? You have the microphone, okay. John, John, tell me one fun thing that you did today so far.

We drank whiskey.

Okay, oh, whiskey.

It's an amazing cold brew whiskey.

Brew whiskey?

It's made with coffee and it makes the perfect chocolate or coffee martini.

Coffee martini. See, I could go on and on and on. I don't have to think up questions. I don't have to do anything. All I have to do is repeat with interest the last 1 to 3 words and John or whoever it is will keep talking if you don't start first. This tactic is great In negotiations, where you don't want to be the one doing all the talking. It's great in sales, where you want to find out more about your client, and all you have to do is have this interested look on your face, repeat the last 1 to 3 words. It's so easy. Or those times where you're sitting next to somebody at a dinner thing, and you just don't even really feel like talking. You could apply this tactic. It takes all the pressure off of you, And do you know what it feels like to be the other person? Marvelous! Someone is interested in me. It's fabulous. So would you rather try out interrupting with finesse or mirroring? Put a 1, 1 finger in the air interrupting with finesse, number 2 mirroring. Ooh, okay, wow, this is going to be tough. I think though, I think the ones have it. We're going to practice interrupting because whoever does that— alright, let's go back, let's go back. You'll break into pairs. The person whose birthday— you don't have to say the year— but whose birthday date is closest to today, on either side of today, you will go first. We're going to switch at 3 minutes, not 5 minutes, for the sake of time. And this is the question that you will ask. Find out the person's name. You will ask this question, and it's on your card too: Describe the best vacation or outing you've ever had. And for you who are answering the question, leave out no detail. And you know what's gonna happen is the person who's interrupting, and you can choose either of these 3 tactics to try, you're going to feel very uncomfortable doing this. Partly because you're going to be so engrossed in the story and you're going to want to find out more. But this is why we practice this. It should feel uncomfortable because it is uncomfortable. Okay? So can we break into 2s? And I will say this, if you're uncomfortable doing this, if you don't want to do that, that's fine.

Fine too.

But for those of you who want to practice interrupting with finesse, this is your chance. And on your card, you have those 3 ways, these 3 ways on the card. So let's just do a very quick, a very quick, um, John, would you just sort of patter off? John, tell me about the best vacation you've ever had.

The best vacation I've ever had was I went on this cruise where they played pickleball on the top deck. It was Unbelievable. And then we saw every show every single night. We had the front rows.

John, I wish I had more time because I love pickleball, but I've actually got to close this session in 8 minutes.

Rebecca!

Rebecca! Very good, John Chen. Very good. Very good. So who would like to try it? Put your hand in the air if you would like to try interrupting another person. And then, or could we have a demonstration on stage? I— yes, and yes, yes. Oh yes, look at this brave people coming on stage. Please, and your name please?

Jonathan.

Jonathan, what's your last name, Jonathan?

Amundsen.

Amundsen. And this is Kai.

Yes, it is. I have my own mic.

All right, Kai with the mic. Okay, you're going to be— you're going to ask Jonathan this question. Jonathan, I'm going to give you my microphone. You'll answer in great detail, and then as soon as you ask that question, I'll go to this slide so you can pick which one you want to do.

Okay, thank you. Here you go. Jonathan, can you tell me about the best trip or outing you've had?

Oh, so many good ones. I guess the trip to the Bahamas was really a nice one. There was a business meeting, of course, but I packed a couple extra days so I could go scuba diving. And there was a shark feeding adventure that you could go on. That was really cool. And I don't know if you've ever done scuba diving, but they make you sign a very long waiver before they get you in the water. And then they find out that you've elected for the shark adventure, and they take away that waiver and give you a longer waiver.

Jonathan, I want to hear more, but I am deadly afraid of sharks, and I will probably faint dead if I hear more. But can we talk about your next trip at the next time we meet.

Love to.

Wow, very good.

I'll give Jonathan his mic back.

Give Jonathan and Kai a big hand. Well done, well done. Okay, we are rounding the corner to the end. You know, you might wanna take a picture of this. These are the questions that are really good to ask at events like this where you want to find out something about somebody's work life, but you don't wanna do it like, Hey, so where do you work? What do you do? That's our typical one. These are great questions that build rapport and make the conversation so much more interesting. Okay, I'll keep that up there for you.

Try these on the expo floor. Try them.

Try them on the expo floor, exactly.

So much better than, hey, what do you do?

Mining for gold. Mining for gold using that mirroring tactic. Try that tonight too. Try mirroring. Now you know what you're doing. The other person will love what you're doing. You know, you might feel manipulated. Well, this is kind of— this is like a tactic. Yes, it is. And it feels excellent to be on the other end of it. Okay. Oh yes, here we go. These are the 5 things that we covered: 26 seconds, conversational influence, balanced conversations, voice equity. What is one thing— this is my dog. I used to— I was a dog trainer for 12 years. This is the dog that prompted me to become a dog trainer. He was such a bad puppy. I learned I needed to become a better leader. That's what he taught me. And he loved balls. So what is one thing, just one thing that you will take from today that hopefully you can use right away? Would you be willing to shout it out and I will repeat it? Yes, Heather. Better emails. Better emails. And you will get better responses, I guarantee it. Yes. Yes, Kai.

The alarm bell in your head, stop talking.

Yes, the alarm bell, stop talking. Press— don't press snooze, press stop. Yes. What else? Yes. He'll never write an hour-long email again. Very good. Have you done this in the past? Last week. Last week, okay. Hoorah! Excellent. Congratulations. Congratulations. Yes. Next time you— next— can—

Am I losing my mind? Am I getting Alzheimer's? It's going to be like, no, Adam, it's okay. Everybody does this.

Yes, working memory.

Right?

My working— like we all have bad working memory, and that actually gave me a lot of relief. I've been doing that all my life, so I mean, even as a kid I was like, why did I walk in here?

Yes, and like, cut yourself some slack.

Right?

It is out of your control. It's just something—

So thank you for giving me that.

You're welcome.

I appreciate that, Rebecca.

Oh my gosh, that makes me feel great. And then you, sir, you had a comment as well. I would just say 68140. 68140. Yo, yes. Well, it has been my absolute pleasure to converse with you this afternoon. And thank you so much for gifting me your most valuable non-renewable resource, your time. Back to you.

Let's give a huge round of applause to Rebecca P. Murray.

Thank you.