"Will You Tell Me One More Time?"

you're doing great Jul 23, 2026

Written By Bart Berkey | Founder of Most People Don't

A Stranger Texted Me

Thanksgiving morning when most people were preparing to celebrate and feast with family and friends, I received a unique and perhaps desperate request from a stranger.

The message was short.

The subject line read, "Will you tell me one more time?"
and that was it.

No context.
No sign-off.

Just one line from someone I did not know, on a holiday morning.

To understand why the subject line landed so hard, I have to tell you about Ben.

Three Words I Didn’t Know I Needed

A year earlier, I was driving to visit my ninety-year-old mother in Pittsburgh, and my family had gone quiet in the car.

I flipped through the radio and landed on a comedian telling people small, generous things: eat the gingerbread cookie, rest when you're tired. Then he said, "You're Doing Great."

Just those three words.

"You're Doing Great!"

I didn't think I needed to hear this, especially from a comedian on the radio, but I felt the words in a way I didn't expect.

“I Never Hear It at Home.”

The following month, I was speaking to five hundred high school students in Colorado.
I decided to try something, I asked them to look at the person sitting next to them and say "You're Doing Great!"

I thought it would last ten seconds.

It lasted fifteen minutes.

Kids got up and walked across the room to tell rival football players "You Are Doing Great!"

Before I left the stage, I provided my email info and mobile number, and I told them that if any of them needed to hear it again tomorrow, they should email or text me and I would remind them.

An hour later, driving to the airport, my phone dinged.

The subject line read, "Will you tell me one more time?"

That's it.

His name was Ben.

I pulled off the highway to write him back. "Ben, thanks for being vulnerable. You're Doing Great!"

After I sent this message, I got back on the road.

Almost immediately, another ding.

His reply was short.
"Thanks, Mr. Bart. I never hear it at home."

I pulled off the highway again.

The Messages Never Stopped

For the next six months, whenever my wife and I saw something small worth noticing, a sunset in Vegas or a dolphin in Naples, we would send the photo to Ben with the same message: "You're Doing Great."

Then I noticed that he stopped responding to my emails.

I got worried.

I even searched obituaries in his town.
Eventually I called his high school and got his guidance counselor on the phone.
I told her, "I know this may sound strange. I met a student named Ben when I was a keynote speaker at a recent conference. Is he okay?" She said, "We know exactly who Ben is, and we are doing everything we can to help him."

Thank goodness.

Since then, I have shared this story with close to a hundred thousand people.

At a variety of times in the day and times of the year, from strangers I have never met, messages still come in.

Sometimes Thanksgiving morning, sometimes two in the morning on a Tuesday.

Subject lines like, "I don't know if this is working, but could I hear it one more time?"

To be clear, I never know these people, I don't recognize their numbers and they don't share their name.

It does not matter.
I write them back every time.

Some Things Cannot Be Automated

This is a great example of what I mean when I say "some things cannot be automated."
Most People are using AI and automation more and more throughout their day.

I actually love automation.
I use an AI tool that helps me a lot with formerly time heavy tasks.

The tool calculated that it is saving me about twenty hours a month, which enables me to spend my new found free time, paying attention to more people, my time that Matters Most.

I've created a new working rule that I recently shared at a conference I was speaking at, that was focusing on AI in the workplace.

It's a simple color code.
GREEN, YELLOW, RED.

GREEN means the machine/tool can handle it. A report that needs to be created and sent, a simple polite reply, that I may have otherwise dashed off with a quick "Thx" because I was in a hurry.

YELLOW means AI holds the pen, but I sign my name. A client email or a proposal where the words matter. I need to carefully review AI's suggestions, but edit and revise with my personal thoughts and ideas.

RED means this communication and my time is critically important to my business relationships. Somebody asking me to tell them that "They Are Doing Great!", or a difficult conversation with someone who needs to be seen.

Red gets my heartbeat, my eyes, my ears, my expertise and perspective.

I Don’t Automate to Do Less, I Automate To Be More Available.

Every task a machine handles is a moment handed back to me, and I would rather spend these moments with people that matter, rather than spending time checking off tasks on my "to-do" list.

Two ways to put this to work this week.

First, pick one of your mundane recurring tasks and give it to AI. A first draft or a meeting summary is a good place to start. Notice what you do with the time you get back.

Second, when someone reaches out and you sense the moment matters, do not send an AI generated response. Send a response that you wrote, even if you are busy. "I see you. You're Doing Great!" Nothing automated.

This is where:

You make a difference that someone actually feels."
Real connection begins

So here is the question I am sitting with this week, and I will leave it with you:
Whose "Will you tell me one more time?" is sitting in your inbox right now, waiting for you to notice?

Most People Don't.
But YOU Do.

- Bart

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