Korzybski advised that we engage in a "semantic pause" when confronted with a novel stimulus, a sort of neurocognitive Time Out. In June , Robert A. Heinlein, and his second wife Leslyn, attended a lecture by Korzybski at a local chapter of the Institute of General Semantics in Los Angeles. In the system of General Semantics, Heinlein found not only a usable account of how language related to empirical reality, but also a personal methodology for self-improvement.