You’re about to send an email. Maybe it’s to a client, a hiring manager, or a colleague you haven’t spoken to in a while. Reflexively, you start typing, “Hope you’re well.”

While you may genuinely mean it, it doesn’t give the recipient a reason to keep reading — and in some cases, it might even prompt them to skip your message entirely.

As a keynote speaker, LinkedIn Learning instructor, and bestselling author of “Unforgettable Presence,” I help professionals improve how they communicate in high-stakes moments. If your opener doesn’t stand out, the rest of your message might never get read.

Your opening isn’t filler, it’s the first impression, so you should give it as much thought as the rest of your email.

The problem isn’t that this phrase is rude — it’s just forgettable.

“Hope you’re well” has become the email equivalent of boring, autopilot small talk. It’s so common that most people are probably skimming over that line. In some cases, it can even feel impersonal or lazy, especially if you’re emailing someone you haven’t spoken to in a while.

In addition to “hope you’re well,” you should also avoid:

• Autopilot language: If your opener could be copied and pasted into 100 other emails without changing anything, it’s probably too generic.
• Abrupt asks: Jumping straight into a request — especially without a relationship — can feel transactional.
• Empty enthusiasm: “Happy Monday!” or “Hope your week is off to a great start!” often feels like filler, unless there’s a real tie-in. If you do want to use one of these, add something personal to give it weight, like: “Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. I tried [X activity] for the first time and had so much fun.”

A strong opener feels human, specific, and intentional. Because whether you’re following up, making an introduction, or kicking off a project, how you start will influence what comes next.

Here are a few simple but powerful ways to move beyond “hope you’re well” and craft a message that actually gets attention and builds relationships:

1. Reference a shared touchpoint

If you’ve connected before — even briefly — use that. Reminding someone where you left off gives your message instant context.

Try this:

• “Great chatting a few months back at the [X conference or event].”
• “I appreciated your insights during yesterday’s strategy meeting.”

2. Show energy

When you can prime people to think positively using positive words and phrases, it’s a win-win for everyone. This kind of opener is especially effective when you want to feel warm and action-oriented.

Try this:

• “Looking forward to collaborating on this project, and wanted to share a quick update.”
• “I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversation and am excited to share an idea with you.”

3. Acknowledge timing (when it’s relevant)

You don’t have to ignore the fact that you’re reaching out during a busy stretch or after some time has passed. But skip the default pleasantries and be more intentional.

Try this:

• “I know it’s a busy season for you; I wanted to make sure this opportunity didn’t get missed.”
• “Reaching out ahead of next month’s deadlines to make sure we’re aligned.”

4. Make it about them

This works especially well in networking or outreach emails.

Try this:

• “Congrats on the recent launch! If it’s helpful, I’d be happy to share what I thought worked really well so you can replicate it for future launches.”
• “I saw your post on [X topic] and it really stuck with me, so I wanted to say thank you.”

Lorraine K. Lee is an award-winning keynote speaker and CEO of RISE Learning Solutions. She’s also the best-selling author of “Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influence, and Catapult Your Career,” which was named a must-read by the Next Big Idea Club. She teaches popular courses with LinkedIn Learning and Stanford Continuing Studies. Past clients include Zoom, Cisco, LinkedIn, ASICS, McKinsey & Company, and many others.

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Five years ago, I quit my unfulfilling 9-to-5 job as a higher education administrator and began selling digital products on Etsy. 

Today, I make an average of $14,000 per month in passive income from seven income streams, including my Etsy store, my blog, real estate investments and stock appreciation. I also recently became a self-made millionaire.

It wasn’t an easy road, and I definitely had a few missteps along the way. But I learned how to find my niche, run a business and build the life I want doing what I love.

Here’s my best advice for starting a successful side hustle:

One common mistake people make is trying to juggle so many income streams that they start to lose focus. But most people I know who’ve built a profitable business didn’t start out creating their income streams all at the same time.

I’ve met many new side hustlers who start dabbling in stocks, launch a Shopify store and then look at real estate — all at the same time. This usually results in burnout, overwhelm and even debt. 

Instead, build one solid stream, master it, then move to the next. 

I started my side hustle in 2010. I made a few bucks here and there, but nothing to write home about.

It wasn’t until nine months after my launch that my Etsy store started making thousands of dollars a month and eventually allowed me to quit my full-time job. 

Success doesn’t happen in a single viral post or overnight launch. It comes from showing up, adjusting and staying in the game long enough to see your knowledge and efforts compound.

When I started learning about business, I tried to DIY everything myself. I would watch free content on YouTube and Instagram, and read books from the library. But after I bought a course about how to sell on Etsy, things started to shift. 

Looking back and knowing myself more, I think “learning the hard way” took too long. I would try to learn, struggle alone, not see any progress, then lose motivation. I didn’t want to keep learning because I wasn’t seeing any results. 

But when I invested a small amount of money into a course and a community of people working on the same thing, I was able to learn, struggle, get help and achieve small wins. My motivation would go up, and I would want to repeat the cycle. 

I’ve met many business owners who have a lot of money, but they don’t have time. It’s important to be strategic in creating the life you want. 

For example, you can sell goods at local farmers’ markets on the weekends. But before setting up that side hustle, it’s important to figure out when those markets are open and ask yourself if you’re willing to give up weekends to sell your products. 

Of course, you can hire employees to help you eventually. But that will also cut into your profits, and might not be possible in the beginning.

The most successful people I know have a growth mindset. They believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. 

Because of this foundational belief, they aren’t afraid to step into unknown territories and learn. On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset don’t believe in their ability to grow and learn, so they never try, which leaves them feeling stuck. 

Building multiple income streams and becoming a millionaire isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s about staying focused, learning as you go, and not giving up. 

You’ll make mistakes (I’ve made plenty), but with the right mindset, each mistake teaches you something that gets you closer to your goals. Keep going, tweak what’s not working, celebrate the wins, even the small ones, and remember: Progress beats perfection every time.

Rachel Jimenez is an entrepreneur, professor and mom of two. She has a passion for helping others achieve their personal, professional and passive income goals. She runs an Etsy store and a blog, Money Hacking Mama, where she shares financial wisdom and practical advice for women navigating their careers, businesses and life.

Are you ready to buy a house? Take Smarter by CNBC Make It’s new online course How to Buy Your First Home. Expert instructors will help you weigh the cost of renting vs. buying, financially prepare, and confidently navigate every step of the process—from mortgage basics to closing the deal. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through July 15, 2025.

Coffee, and whether or not it’s good for you, has been a research focus for decades. A regular cup or two has been linked to better heart health, a longer life, and most recently, a study led by a Harvard researcher, Dr. Sara Mahdavi found that drinking coffee may even aid healthy aging in women.

“The findings suggest that caffeinated coffee—not tea or decaf—may uniquely support aging trajectories that preserve both mental and physical function,” said Mahdavi, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The paper, which was presented at the American Society of Nutrition’s annual meeting, has not yet been published or peer-reviewed. But the findings are robust.

Researchers followed 47,513 women over the course of decades, starting in 1984, and analyzed their health data and coffee-drinking habits.

By 2016, only 3,706 participants were considered healthy agers. Factors that the researchers considered to define healthy aging were:

• Being 70 or older
• Not having 11 chronic diseases, including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and cancer
• Reporting positive mental health
• Being able to maintain physical function
• Not having memory issues or cognitive impairment

The researchers considered additional lifestyle factors like smoking, exercise frequency and diet, and adjusted for their contribution to health outcomes.

Participants were also asked to share how often they drank coffee, tea and either Coca-Cola or Pepsi, which can all be sources of caffeine. Women who had at least one cup of coffee daily were more likely to be among the healthy agers, the study found.

Of the healthy agers, each extra cup of coffee they had each day was associated with a 2% to 5% increased chance of aging well, peaking at about five small cups a day.

Drinking tea or decaffeinated coffee didn’t have a clear connection to healthy aging in the study, and drinking cola drastically lowered chances of positive health outcomes.

How much coffee per day leads to healthy aging is debatable. Mahdavi says drinking up to seven small cups of coffee daily was associated with healthy aging in the study, but whether or not that amount is healthy can shift depending on the person.

Other recent studies have pointed to the potential health benefits of drinking coffee. A recent study of nearly 50,000 U.S. adults published this May found that having one to three cups of coffee a day could lower a person’s chances of dying by around 15% within the following nine to 11 years, in comparison to those who didn’t consume the drink.

“Moderate coffee intake may offer some protective benefits when combined with other healthy behaviors such as regular exercise, a healthy diet and avoiding smoking,” Mahdavi said in a press release.

“While this study adds to prior evidence suggesting coffee intake may be linked with healthy aging, the benefits from coffee are relatively modest compared to the impact of overall healthy lifestyle habits and warrant further investigation.”

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According to Columbia Business School professor Michael Chad Hoeppner, the popular idea that you have 7 seconds to make a first impression may be a tad too strict.

“I’m not going to give people quite that amount of scarcity, but the beginning really matters a lot,” he says.

During a job interview, Hoeppner says, you have approximately 90 seconds to engage your interviewer’s attention — and how you speak is key.

Clear communication isn’t just about what you say, but how you say it, as Hoeppner attests in his latest book “Don’t Say Um: How to Communicate Effectively to Live a Better Life.”

The way someone delivers information “has a lot to do with how we hear each other, and whose ideas we take seriously or not seriously,” he says.

Here are Hoeppner’s tips to make the best first impression at job interviews.

Hoeppner, who also coaches political candidates, compares the beginning of an interview to the start of a presidential debate. Some debaters make the mistake of treating the first question as a “warm-up,” but Hoeppner cautions that viewers often tune out after the first few minutes.

“People’s attention spans are worse than they’ve ever been. They’ve been hijacked entirely, and so we tend to have less time to actually make an impression,” he says.

The same goes for job interviews: “You may only get one answer at all that anyone actually pays attention to, so you have to make sure that one answer counts.”

Even simple, open-ended prompts like “Tell me about yourself” provide crucial opportunities to make your case as a candidate.

“You have a tremendous amount of latitude with those questions, and you often can take them anywhere that you want to,” he says.

Hoeppner recommends starting your responses with specific, vivid stories and anecdotes so that interviewers “remember what the heck you say and actually understand what you mean.”

During interviews, Hoeppner notes that nervous job candidates often alter their natural tone and manner of speaking in an effort to seem professional.

Instead, they end up coming off as a robotic, “less interesting version” of themselves: “They speak in a more monotonous voice, they restrain their hand gestures and they anchor eye contact unblinkingly forward the entire time.”

Hoeppner recommends relaxing your posture and body language, making meaningful (but not constant) eye contact, and speaking clearly and confidently.

These communication skills are crucial in all areas of work, Hoeppner says.

In the office, your communication skills can be just as important as the quality of your work. Even brilliant employees’ careers can end up stagnating because they can’t communicate their ideas in a dynamic way.

“What happens is then they don’t get promotions to be in client-facing roles or in leadership roles,” Hoeppner says.

The only way to get better at speaking is to practice, Hoeppner says.

To get ready for an interview, Hoeppner recommends a method he calls “loud drafting”: giving yourself an open-ended prompt and repeatedly answering it out loud.

“The first time you do it, it will be bad,” he says. “That’s fine. Do it again, do it again, do it again.”

The point of this exercise is to practice answering questions in a natural way, he says. Some job candidates prepare for interviews by jotting down prepared statements, but they frequently sound stiff and unnatural when said out loud.

“The way in which we speak is different than how we write,” he says. “Often, people open their mouths in interviews and a bunch of polysyllabic pablum comes pouring out of their mouth.”

In general, Hoeppner recommends “flexing your talking muscles” by chatting casually with people you meet and switching your phone calls to FaceTime.

According to Hoeppner, in-person communication skills will become increasingly important with the rise of AI technology. With almost-limitless access to information, Hoeppner asks, “what determines whose ideas get paid more attention?

His answer: “Very likely how you say them.”

Are you ready to buy a house? Take Smarter by CNBC Make It’s new online course How to Buy Your First Home. Expert instructors will help you weigh the cost of renting vs. buying, financially prepare, and confidently navigate every step of the process—from mortgage basics to closing the deal. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through July 15, 2025.

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Rude people are, sadly, all around us. We deal with them at work, in stores and restaurants, on airplanes and public transit, even at home. They get in our faces and yell. They blame us for things they’ve done. They make everything unpleasant.

Luckily, handling rudeness is not hard as you might think. There are several tactics: addressing the rudeness; setting clear boundaries of what you will and won’t put up with; shifting the conversation away from the negative; and, probably most important, staying calm and cool.

As language and communication experts, here are the phrases that calmly demand respect and put rude people in their place.

This is a classic redirection tactic. You’re centering the conversation on the other person, not you.

Sometimes people just need a little reminder that they’re actually acting out about something completely different than the matter at hand. And often, getting the opportunity to reflect upon this or talk about it changes the entire situation.

Similar phrases: 

• “Are you going through something right now that’s affecting you like this?”
• “Are you having a problem? Do you want to talk about it?”
• “Have I done something to upset you?”

Addressing someone’s rudeness head on is a key component to dealing effectively with incivility. By using this phrase, you’re telling the speaker that what they’re saying is unacceptable, and that perhaps they need to reassess their words. 

Research studies discovered that reminding someone that they’re being rude can make them realize they need to correct their behavior.

Similar phrases:

• “Are you listening to yourself here?”
• “Do you realize what you’re saying, and how you’re saying it?”
• “Are you aware that you’re coming across as harsh and abrasive?”

This is similar to the previous phrase, except you’re not saying it straight out — you’re implying that you don’t like what they just said.

Phrases like this stop the conversation in its tracks and force the speaker to rethink what they’re saying, while also making it clear that you won’t allow it to continue.

Similar phrases:

• “Why are you using those words [or that tone] with me?”
• “How you’re talking [or what you’re saying] isn’t very helpful.”
• “Can you lower your voice [or change your attitude]?”

This is an example of setting boundaries, a main aspect of coping with rudeness. You’re calmly letting the person know you refuse to continue with the current situation, and you’re redirecting the negative energy onto a positive path.

Similar phrases:

• “Can we address this more productively?”
• “Let’s stop with the negativity and focus on finding a solution.”
• “Why don’t we continue this when we can be respectful of one another?”

Saying that you understand what someone is saying in spite of the manner in which they’re saying it defuses the situation by acknowledging them.

Often a big cause of rudeness, especially in the workplace, is the fear of not being noticed or paid attention to. The simple “I see your point” gets past that obstacle.

Similar phrases:

• “I’m glad you’re sharing your perspective with me.”
• “That’s definitely a way of looking at it.”
• “I hear you.”

Here’s another “I acknowledge you” statement, with an added “stay cool.” You’re inviting the person to continue speaking, but (and this is important) stressing that the conversation can’t continue the way it began. It’s boundary-setting and defusing at the same time.

Similar phrases:

• “Let’s reset the tone a bit so I can really focus on what you’re saying, not on how you’re saying it.”
• “I know you’re frustrated, but we can work through this if you dial it down a notch.”
• “It’s clear this is important to you, but let’s step back and take it slowly.”

This very simple request can stop rude behavior or conversation in its tracks. The key, though, is saying it quietly and politely. Matching rudeness with rudeness only escalates things.

Similar phrases:

• “Don’t say [or do] that, please.”
• “Could you quiet down?”
• “Please give me a chance to speak.”

That’s right. Saying nothing at all, and just looking at the other person in silence, can sometimes be the most effective method of shutting down aggressiveness or rudeness. It’s difficult for someone to amp up the situation when there’s nothing to fight back against. 

Finally, if you feel your anger rising and can tell that you’re about to fight fire with fire, it’s best to physically remove yourself. This way, instead of escalating the situation, you’re giving yourself — and possibly the other person — the time and space to cool down.

Kathy and Ross Petras are the brother-and-sister co-authors of the New York Times bestseller You’re Saying It Wrong, along with other popular language books, and co-hosts of the award-winning NPR syndicated radio show and podcast ”You’re Saying It Wrong.” They’ve also been featured in media outlets including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and Harvard Business Review. Follow them on Bluesky.

Are you ready to buy a house? Take Smarter by CNBC Make It’s new online course How to Buy Your First Home. Expert instructors will help you weigh the cost of renting vs. buying, financially prepare, and confidently navigate every step of the process—from mortgage basics to closing the deal. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through July 15, 2025.

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