Neen James: Attention Pays

Transcript

[0:00:34] Charlie Hoehn: You’re listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. I’m Charlie Hoehn. Today’s episode is with Neen James, author of Attention Pays. If we want extraordinary lives, we need to unplug from the constant barrage of disruptions. In an on demand 24/7 society, where distractions cost us millions in lost productivity, profitability, relationships and peace. Neen believes that the best thing we can do is learn to pay attention to what matters most. The effects are profound. For instance, do you know the one second action you can take to make people feel cared for in meetings and hint, it’s not putting away your phone. Neen also gives some amazing advice at the end on how to transition as an author into a successful speaking career, as she speaks 50 times a year to companies like Cisco, Marriott, Via Com and Pfizer. Pay attention because in this episode, attention pays and now, here is our conversation with Neen James.

[0:02:05] Neen James: You know, I’ve spent my life being obsessed with productivity. Meaning, how do we get things done, how do we get it done better, quicker, faster, easier, cheaper? I’ve always did it in my corporate career and when I went out on my own as a keynote speaker, this was what I was passionate about, was really, productivity. What I realized was, it was so much more than time and I don’t believe in time management. Charlie, I think time management’s out the window and I realized when I was talking to my clients and I personally was getting frustrated because we all get 1,440 minutes and then I was thinking, “Okay great. Once they’re spent, then what?” I was in a conversation with a dear friend and I had flown out to Denver Colorado to spend some time with Mark Sandborn. Mark and I were talking about the evolution of my business, we were talking about some of my frustrations with kind of where I was at in my career and my brand and I said, “It’s more than productivity.” He said to me, “Neen, what do you really want?” I was like, “I just want the world to pay attention” and I was so frustrated and he was like, “Yeah, of course you do, because that is what you’re about. He said, you’re always so good at paying attention to other people and it makes you crazy when people are disrespectful to others.” “It makes you crazy when people are rude to others in service because you are about attention but not in a bad way.” It was like this light bulb went on for me and I was like, “My gosh, he’s so right” and so we started to play with the whole idea of attention and payment, right? Instead of paying attention which makes us crazy when someone tells us to do something like pay attention. Our parents told us to pay attention, our teachers told us to pay attention, it’s really quite annoying. They only started to think about “Okay, does attention pay? What would that look like?” In that moment Charlie, I had this lightbulb like, “My god, imagine what would happen if we could get the world to pay attention.” Companies might make more money, people that have better relationships, hey, we might even take care of the planet that we live on, right? That was the realization for me was this phenomenal conversation with Mark Sandborn really challenged me. Sometimes we need someone to do that for us because things are sometimes so close to us, we don’t see it ourselves.

[0:04:16] Charlie Hoehn: Let’s define what paying attention means in this case because I’d imagine it means different things for different people. What I sort of heard what you were describing is people listening, being actively engaged with what’s going on. Am I on point or is it deeper than that?

[0:04:35] Neen James: I think that’s the start of it Charlie, my little friend Donovan, he’s five and I remember having this huge argument with him one day. I mean, if you’ve ever debated with a five year old, you know exactly what I’m talking about. He kept like inserting himself into the conversation, I was simply trying to have a cup of coffee with his mom and he kept tossing me these questions and I’d answer and he got so frustrated Charlie, he jumped up to meet me and grabbed my face in his tiny little hands and he said to me, “Neen, listen with your eyes.” Man. Talk about being schooled by a five year old, right? I think it is listening Charlie but I think it’s listening with our eyes. You know, Donovan made me realize, we don’t listen with our ears, we listen with our eyes, we listen with our heart, we listen with our soul. Paying attention to me and really flipping that to attention pays is about listening for sure. It’s also about eliminating distractions, it’s about getting rid of devices when there’s someone, a human in front of us that needs our attention. It’s about being able to ask questions to show you’re engaged in the conversation and to solicit more information. It’s about watching people and reacting to them and understanding that what they’re saying is supported by their body language, by their tone of voice. It’s so much more than just listening but gee, that’s a great place to start.

[0:05:54] Charlie Hoehn: You’re saying the book that attention is yoga for your mind.

[0:05:59] Neen James: Yes.

[0:05:59] Charlie Hoehn: What do you mean by that?

[0:06:00] Neen James: Well, if anyone is listening and they’ve done yoga, chances are that they have heard their instructor commonly say, “Yoga is a practice, it’s a daily practice” and when you think about that. I think attention is like a daily practice. It’s not like you master it, I believe like yoga, like golf, like running, like so many activities where we’re always wanting to be better at it, attention is the same and it takes discipline, it takes the focus of being able to be right here, right now. It means carving time out of our calendar to really pay attention to who matters, what matters and how we’re going to pay attention in the world. For me, I think of yoga as this daily practice, this ability to take care of our body and our soul and our mind and our breath and attention is just like that.

[0:06:53] Charlie Hoehn: How do we know when we’re being inattentive, how can we rank ourselves in how good we are at attention and what is it costing us to be inattentive?

[0:07:04] Neen James: Well let’s just talk about the cost first, Charlie. Think about the fact that in the US, we lose 588 billion dollars every year because we’re not paying attention. Nine people die, isn’t it crazy? It’s crazy, right?

[0:07:17] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, is that just attention or is that also the fact that people are bored or frustrated at work?

[0:07:24] Neen James: It’s because we’re constantly interrupting people. You know, this is just the cost of interruptions according to the information overload group. I mean, that’s crazy to me. Then, think about it Charlie, nine people die every day because of distracted driving. I mean, it breaks my heart that people have made it more important to update their Facebook status or like a post on Insta instead of paying attention to the road. There are real costs of not paying attention. The people we share our lives with, the people who have divorce rates, who don’t take care of their health, who suffer from all kinds of illnesses because they’re not paying attention to themselves. It costs us with our customers, if we aren’t paying attention to our customers, they leave and they go and get someone else who will pay attention to them. If we don’t pay attention to our talents, we can’t retain them and then they leave and go and work for another company. If we don’t pay attention to our vendors, then we don’t get the best deals that we really need. Not paying attention costs us personally, our health, our relationships, our own sanity, professionally, it costs us in team, in talent, in clients and globally, I think it costs us too because we don’t take care of the planet we have and we have species that are becoming extinct, we have the beautiful Barrier Reef in Australia which is now bleached. You know, it’s amazing to me what the cost of not paying attention are and I think we don’t stop and think about it ourselves.

[0:08:51] Charlie Hoehn: With all the things that you just listed, couldn’t somebody argue, “Hey, we’re paying too much attention to everything that we’re spreading our attention all over the place rather than just on what’s in front of us?”

[0:09:05] Neen James: Have you ever heard that stupid marketing phrase that we have the attention span of a goldfish, have you ever heard that Charlie?

[0:09:11] Charlie Hoehn: I haven’t, no.

[0:09:13] Neen James: It’s crazy. There are people out there, speakers included who are saying we have the attention span of a goldfish. Now, I don’t know about you but I certainly don’t want my intelligence measured by that of a goldfish. And I don’t even know how they measured the goldfish swimming around the bowl. I mean, who does this? There’s no evidence to support this crazy marketing theory. I don’t believe that we have really short attention spans. I believe our attention is split. We get to choose who gets our attention, what gets our attention and how we’re going to pay attention in the world. I think Charlie, we think we’re paying attention but we’re not. But we’re paying out this attention so we feel like we feel like we have an attention there to reference what you're saying. I’m giving everything my attention but I’m still not getting anything done and I think that’s because, we’re not paying attention to the right people, the right things, the right way and so we feel exhausted. In the book, we talk about this whole idea of what we call The Over Trilogy being overwhelmed, overstressed and over tired. I think that’s what some of your listeners are suffering from is they feel like they’re paying attention but all of these things are just becoming too much and so they are not sure where to focus first.

[0:10:22] Charlie Hoehn: Let’s say I’m a leader at a company and I’m listening to this and say, “Yeah, I agree with Neen and my team certainly agrees with Neen. We’ve heard this before though and things just don’t seem to change for us. We tried stuff, right? What’s different with Attention Pays, how can we stick with this?”

[0:10:43] Neen James: I think it’s about doing it in really small increments, right? I think these tiny little impacts, these tiny little things we do make a massive impact, let me give you an example. If you are a leader and people are in and out of your office or your cubicle all the time, one of the things you can do is when someone comes in and needs your attention is close your laptop instead of finishing their email and look them in the eye. That’s a really easy thing to do. In your personal life, if you are in a conversation with someone, you might be on a hot date with someone, how about putting your devices away and leaving them so you can look someone in the eye. I think we have to start small, it’s my belief Charlie that people want to be seen and heard and as leaders, we have a responsibility to make the most of the moments we have, one reminder I would give leaders is, we all do get those 1,440 minutes in a day but once they’re spent, that’s it, they’re gone. I think we have to start with those moments. Take it minute by minute if you have to. Maybe an easy way to do it would be professionally invest 15 minutes every single day and in that 15 minutes, have a strategic appointment with yourself. In your strategic appointment, as a leader, write down your three not negotiable activities. So before your head hits the pillow tonight, what are three things you must get done? Now, this helps you to focus your attention on what’s going to move your goals forward. How can you support your team? What are the things that are really going to make an impact to the business and work really hard on those three. We’ve got to start small Charlie. So that we feel the massive impact. Our team love it when we look them in the eye. They love it when we reply to their emails, they love it when we acknowledge them in the team meeting. Team members love it when you honor your one on one appointment with them and not cancel all the time. You know what they do love? Team members love it when you cancel unnecessary meetings, a really quick easy thing every leader listening to this could do is, cancel those silly meetings that nobody really wants to pay attention anyway. They’re not serving a purpose, that would be a fantastic easy way to start paying attention to what your team wants.

[0:12:45] Charlie Hoehn: I Love it. Yeah, I wrote down actually two things that you just said because it’s funny, because I’m intentional about putting my phone down and putting it away when I’m with somebody or having a meal but closing the laptop when somebody is talking to me at the office or something is something I tend to forget to do because I’m still in the middle of this task, closing the laptop in every meeting with somebody is so good. That’s such an easy thing to do and so I’m going to do that and then having an appointment with yourself every day for 15 minutes. I try and do some variation of that but not – I like the idea of just allocating the time in your schedule and saying like, look, this is 15 minutes. That’s a good stretch of time. It really helps you set your day and your intentions. That’s fantastic.

[0:13:43] Neen James: You know, Charlie, I think no one has an hour anymore, would you agree? When we want an hour of someone’s time, it’s such a huge investment.

[0:13:49] Charlie Hoehn: We don’t, I mean, that’s what this show is called. No, I agree with you. I’m actually thinking of renaming this show for that very reason.

[0:14:02] Neen James: I need to set it for your benefit but here’s –

[0:14:03] Charlie Hoehn: Author 15 Minutes.

[0:14:07] Neen James: But when you think about it, when you really think about the concept of 60 minutes, right? All I’m asking people to do is take 15 of those minutes. When you think about time differently as a leader, you become more diligent and intentional with your attention. 15 minutes of strategic planning will give you so much more time back. Maybe the listeners would agree that we waste time, we have this awful phrase in our language where we want to “Kill time.” I don’t know what time ever did to people, it’s crazy.

[0:14:42] Charlie Hoehn: Other countries which by the way are not as stressed out say the phrase, “Passing time” because it’s not something you get to kill or waste.

[0:14:52] Neen James: Yeah, it makes me, my gosh, it makes me crazy. I think we have to think about the way we talk about time as leaders and the language we use. If we say to someone, “I’m too busy,” what you’re really saying is, “I’m too busy for you.” If you say to someone, “I don’t have time,” you’re a big liar because you do have time, you want to get the same amount of time, time is the great equalizer, time is not prejudiced. But if you say to someone, “I don’t have time.” What you’re actually saying is “I don’t have time for you.” As leaders, I want to invite people to remove some of these negative words from their language so they can be seen to be more attentive. Don’t say “I’m too busy,” don’t say “I don’t have time.” You might replace it, you might say something like, you know, “I’m at capacity right now,” that’s honest, right? That’s, in my world, with my team, that is code for I am literally drowning. I’m never going to say that out loud, that would be crazy. One of the things that’s so powerful about your podcast is when you bring guests on. You are constantly looking to make the most of that hour that you have with them because you value their attention. You value the investment they’ve made and for some listeners, they might be working out, they might be driving their car, they might have this on the background. The gift of someone’s attention, we can never take that for granted.

[0:16:11] Charlie Hoehn: Agreed. Now, you talk about listening with your eyes. Is this just holding eye contact or is it something different?

[0:16:22] Neen James: I think it’s deeper than that too, the conversation we have a little earlier. Listening with your eyes is being fully present in the moment that you’re being gifted at that particular point in time. Listening with your eyes is absolutely looking at someone but it’s also being engaged, it’s showing them with your physicality that you’re involved in the conversation. It’s asking great questions to validate your understanding of the conversation, or even to paraphrase things you’ve learned up until that point. Listening with your eyes is also reassuring someone that there is nowhere else I’d rather be. I would much rather be just here with you right now. When you think about like you and I getting to hang out today, nothing else is happening around me, it is just you and I having this chat. I don’t have emails going off, my social media is all turned off, I’d even turn off the printer so there’s not even a possibility of an interruption. I think that’s what that intentional listening, that intent, really thinking, “How can I be even more engaged in this moment?” The distractions that we’ve allowed ourselves into our lives Charlie is overwhelming for so many. I think we are from blame our devices, but technology is not the enemy of our attention, we are.

[0:17:40] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, a poor workman blames his tools and tech is our tools. The problem though is a lot of our tools have built in addictiveness, right? Do you have any suggestions on how to circumvent some of the addictive qualities of our tools. I mean, do you still struggle with this stuff?

[0:18:03] Neen James: Yeah, absolutely. Just so that everyone knows, I am a work in progress, like everybody else. You know, Harvard published a study that said we are obsessed with our devices and I disagree with Harvard. I believe we are addicted to our devices –

[0:18:16] Charlie Hoehn: Disagree with Harvard?

[0:18:18] Neen James: I do. I know, go figure.

[0:18:20] Charlie Hoehn: How dare you.

[0:18:22] Neen James: I bet listeners agree with me that we have an addiction and it’s going to be stated as an addiction in our future, just like there were addictions in our past we didn’t know about until fast forward future years and we learned about the health disadvantages of some of the things we’ve done. I believe devices will be the same. To manage this addiction, what I’ve realized in my own life is I have to be so much more diligent and I have to be smarter than my smart phone, which means I have a cover on my phone like a cover that literally wraps around my phone, so I don’t’ even see it. I’ve turned off every notification available, it is permanently on silent and the reason it’s permanently on silent in my world.

[0:19:03] Charlie Hoehn: It’s just a block, there’s no screen?

[0:19:07] Neen James: It is just something I use, that’s right, because I think what happens is, we allow these interruptions and so if we see a notification or an update or a text message or we hear the noises, it interrupts our thought process. What I’ve diligently done is where possible, I have minimized all of those things. The other thing I love about the new iOS update is that at the time of recording, they have added a functionality that if you are driving, it will automatically send a text message back to the person to say “I’m driving right now, I can’t reply.” I love that we’re realizing now, cars are being designed to allow you to do hands free more often so that we can protect people’s lives on the road. I think our devices are going to get smarter and smarter, especially as we use more voice activated technology and things to that effect. I also have to be really diligent about this when I’m socially out and about. Obviously because I talk on attention, I guess I’m under the radar a little bit more so that kind of puts a different set of pressures on me. I have this great game I play with dear friends and that is whenever we go to a restaurant or we’re hanging out together, we make an agreement and all cellphones go in the center of the table. What that means is, the first person to touch their cellphone picks up the check. Yeah, we call it cellphone stack. It’s a really fun way to keep everyone in the conversation. You know what I think happens Charlie? If you and I are in conversation, I say “Hey, I’m heading to DC this afternoon, can’t wait to speak for J and J… I don’t know what the weather is going to be?” Now, because you’re a great friend and you’re a great guy and you want to help me out. You will often pull up the weather app and say, “Let’s see what the weather is in DC.” Because you can’t help yourself, because you’re a good human, right? I think we have to stop because there was a time when we couldn’t access all this information and share it. I think it’s not that the people aren’t well intentioned, it’s just that their intentions are in the wrong place. I think we have to be more diligent of enjoying the moment with that individual, that team, that particular client, that vendor, or the people we share our lives with.

[0:22:06] Charlie Hoehn: Do think it’s the intention’s in the wrong place or the fact that we’ve just sort of progressively become more reflexive in making these decisions. I’ll you an example. With how convenient and expedient things have gotten, Amazon’s one click purchase for instance. I don’t have to go to the store, I don’t have to get in my car. I can just literally get the transaction done in 10 seconds from thought to sale. For somebody like me who buys a lot of books like I really have to check myself sometimes. Books are cheap obviously and not a big expense. But the fact that that behavior can also be applied to bigger expenses like – I kind of have to check myself and my wife and I have to say, you know, “Let’s try and do basically a fasting day of Amazon each week” where it’s like, “All right, we’re just not going to buy things” because our attention gets eroded overtime because it’s so easy to do these things and it’s the same with everything that we’re talking about, right? The erosion of our attention has been so steady.

[0:23:28] Neen James: Yes. I think what’s happened, you know, I love and hate One Click because it’s so easy on my phone, unlike you, if someone mentions a great book to me, I automatically order it. Because I’m like, “Oh that sounds great.” I have hundreds of books to read but I think that we have gone to technology as a default. Let me explain what I mean by that. If we’re sitting in a meeting and we’re listening to something and we think, “This doesn’t really relate to me,” so we go check our email and clear it, right? If we’re on a teleconference, we’ think, “Well, it’s not my time to speak,” so then we go clear our email. Even if we’re with someone that we love and they’re driving and you’re a passenger and you’re like, “Well, I know where we’re going,” then we’re on social media. I think what’s happened is we’ve gone to our devices as a default instead of trusting ourselves to be fully in this moment or even potentially goodness, maybe alone with our thoughts. I mean, that’s what’s also fascinating to me is we often are not able to think things through clearly because we allow ourselves to split our attention. And what I realized with some of the executives I work with and I get to work with some really big companies. So many of them, we’ve been talking recently about the impact of my book and what it’s having on them and they’ve being saying, “You know, I didn’t realize, I don’t remember last time I had a complete thought.” Because we are constantly –

[0:24:48] Charlie Hoehn: Do you tell them just now, as you completed that sentence.

[0:24:51] Neen James: It’s like well, let’s stop this, right? But when you think about that level of honesty and the fact they were willing to be that vulnerable is volumes to me. They’re not alone, it’s just they have the intelligence to articulate it. When was the last time for the listener you had a complete thought that you could work a whole project through or a new creative strategy or for the authors who are listening, you could really formulate not only the skeleton of your book but the actual chapters. When was the last time you refined a story because you gave it the energy it needed all the way through. I think this challenge to the listeners is really around having complete thoughts, having complete moments, being so intentional that you feel great as a result.

[0:25:39] Charlie Hoehn: Even complete feelings of we don’t allow ourselves to feel things that could be too painful, right? We split the attention so that feeling gets pressed down.

[0:25:52] Neen James: I think some people leave their attentions online now. When you think about the challenges, attention as a word has got a bad rap. I think attention, you know, attention is something we crave.

[0:26:03] Charlie Hoehn: I’ll be honest with you Neen, sorry to interrupt but I’ll be honest with you, when I saw the title of your book, I was like uh-oh, I don’t know what this is going to be about, if it’s going to be attention seeking. You know, you just never know. Yeah, I agree with you, the word has bad rap.

[0:26:22] Neen James: It does have a bad rap and when you really consider attention, where Harvard is right, Harvard I read this great study where it said that when you think about attention. Attention is something we crave, meaning from babies, we cry our parents pick us up, it’s a learned skill and what Harvard went on to say is that it’s the brain’s functionality, it’s emotional learning. We learn about attention from babies, but I think what’s happened is that because we have like the real housewives of swamped people or we have a condition, or we have like whatever. What’s happened is we are looking at attention in a different way because we’re saying, “Ooh she just wants attention.” When in actual fact, we all crave attention, we don’t even need a lot of attention, right?

[0:27:07] Charlie Hoehn: Right, it’s like saying, “She wants love, what a self-centered jerk.” Yeah.

[0:27:14] Neen James: Yes. You and I have a great friend, Scott Strand, he’s the publisher of so many great books on marketing, on selling, on branding, the guy’s brilliant and he and I were chatting about this whole idea of vanity metrics and he was telling me that you know, for example, he has beautiful teenage kids and the kids were telling him that if they post a photo on Instagram and it doesn’t get enough likes within a short period of time, they will take the photo down.

[0:27:38] Charlie Hoehn: There’s nothing more humbling than a no hit picture, Tweet or whatever.

[0:27:44] Neen James: Right? Don’t you think that that’s sad? But that’s not just kids, it’s adults, we’re craving this recognition, this attention online. I think that if we were giving the attention to people we love around us all the time. If we were giving the attention to our team, our vendors, our leaders, our board, they wouldn’t be craving it elsewhere. They would feel very fulfilled which goes back to your question about the feeling side of it. I think we can very much contribute in both worlds. So I do what’s called a social media drive by every morning. What that means is I have my coffee or my smoothie and I sit there and I go across every platform. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, I like, I retweet, I post, I acknowledge, I comment and then it’s 15 minutes, right? It doesn’t take me long to say to people, “Hey I saw you, I love this. This is great” and it’s just a short drive by in the morning. Now I love social media as a way to connect, being an Australian living in the US, all my family is still in Australia. I love seeing their life online, but I think we have to get much more diligent about where we decide to invest our attention and it comes back to who matters, what matters and how we’re going to show up in the world.

[0:28:55] Charlie Hoehn: So again, if I am a leader at the company I am thinking, again all of these is great, tell me how this actually pays like what is the bottom line difference here? Do you even have some transformations or success stories that you’ve personally seen?

[0:29:10] Neen James: Yeah, absolutely. So remember all the costs we outlined at the beginning of the call? Now flip them. One of my leadership teams in Seattle is in the advertising sales company and I challenged their executive leadership team and I said, “You know what? You guys need to spend 15 minutes every day working out what are your most strategic activities.” This team unfortunately were not achieving their sales. Their team wasn’t engaged. They didn’t have a good onboarding program so people are leaving. Their morale was low, the leaders weren’t trusting each other and so I worked with them and I ask them to simply invest 15 minutes of their attention every day in a strategic appointment with themselves. I asked them to be more diligent when their team came in. I asked them to form a committee to put together an onboarding program. Well what is fascinating about this team is that they were able to do some remarkable things. This team became the highest performing team in their region, their talent was phenomenal, their onboarding program was brilliant and they were then held up as a bench mark for the rest of the company and their leadership claim was because they were investing their attention differently. When we pay attention, our customers feel like we see them, therefore they have a relationship with us. It’s not transactional, it’s intentional. When we take care of our team, we can attract and retain that really top talent that we want and we make them feel special and we want to become that employer of choice and that’s one of the ways that attention pays. In our personal relationships, we are staying with our partner. They feel like they are valued at home, when was the last time that we took home flowers or said “Thank you” or wrote a note to someone we cared about? When we pay attention it pays it back to us so many times and I think we need to move Charlie from this attention deficit society that we are living in. Not ADD, I am not talking about that but we need to move from an attention deficit society and use attention as a currency and I’d like to make this intentional attention in our currency so that we move to an attention surplus economy, where people feel like they are seen and heard every day.

[0:31:22] Charlie Hoehn: So can you give an example of a company, whether it’s one you work with or not of what they would look like if they changed to an attention surplus currency basically, or they really focused on attention much more than they do now?

[0:31:42] Neen James: You know a great example of a company that’s paying attention is Peloton. Peloton is a bike that goes nowhere. So I don’t know if people are aware of this but Peloton is a home fitness equipment. It was founded by the CEO John Foley and what I find really fascinating about this brand, besides the fact that I am obsessed with my own Peloton, that when I bought my own Peloton the experience was mind blowing. It is a very personal level of service anytime you are even on the website someone is there to chat and whether it is a robot or not, I really don’t care. Someone is there and available. What was fascinating to me though is how John Foley has selected his instructors. His instructors perform classes in their New York studio which you can take on demand or you can ride live with an instructor in your home. On the tablet attached to the bike is what they call the leaderboard. You can see the instructor, you can hear them but you can see who else is riding with you. Here is where John has been very clever. He gets the instructors to give shout outs to people’s leaderboard names. Now I am in my 40’s and I get so excited when I hear my name, I mean that is crazy to me but what’s amazing is John is constantly looking for opportunities for personal touch points. Not only that, once a year they invite all of the home riders to come to New York and get to meet the instructors. Do classes live, they put on cocktail events, they open the boutique and it’s really interesting how John has created not just that intimacy from the instructor to the person riding at home but also how those people then advocate for this brand. They wear the gear, they talk about the instructors, they follow them on social media. Not only that what I’ve noticed is they have a Facebook group now which is crazy, like 70,000 people on one of their Facebook groups. But if they see someone going through a hard time, a surgery, a new baby, getting ready for a wedding, they send hand written notes to that individual. I mean I am astounded at how he has created what I call systemized thoughtfulness throughout all of his company policy and procedure. It is a great case study in intentional attention and they are growing faster than Facebook. They have an incredible brand loyalty and they’re about to launch a treadmill for the house. So they will take over the home fitness equipment I am sure of it.

[0:34:03] Charlie Hoehn: How do you say, Peloton?

[0:34:05] Neen James: Peloton, like if you ride in a Peloton if you are a real rider which by the way I am not but if you ride outside and you hear it in the news, when they are doing some of those fantastic races you hear about the Peloton which is a group of riders that ride together. Peloton as a brand is a home fitness piece of equipment. It’s basically a stationary bike with a tablet on it and brilliant technology. John will tell you it’s a technology company before it’s a home fitness equipment. It is really quite interesting to me, so he was one of the case studies in my book.

[0:34:37] Charlie Hoehn: Very cool, yeah I am checking out their site. That’s awesome.

[0:34:41] Neen James: Yeah it is, it’s really cool. I rode in the studio this week in New York and see that’s what’s also so crazy about this is I am grown up and I even know these phenomenal marketing strategies and I know what they are doing and I am still addicted. I still lined up and got on the bike and rode live and I was so excited but that’s because of what he’s creating with the way he pays attention through his instructors, through his personal emails, through hand written notes, through the way that they listen to the community, how they make changes to the technology based on the feedback from the community, it’s astounding to me.

[0:35:14] Charlie Hoehn: Wow, I’m just looking at their site and I would recommend listeners check it out because it is pretty remarkable at what this is actually. I am pretty darn impressed. It’s onepeloton.com, they’ve got a great site too.

[0:35:36] Neen James: It’s a gorgeous site and you know what’s also interesting, even though I know what I know about sales and marketing and I am obviously obsessed with attention, I have been very immersed in this topic for years but there was one instructor who stood out to me. Her name was Jennifer Jacobs, it still is Jennifer Jacobs and I call her J.J. for short and she was my favorite instructor. She’s gorgeous, she has abs that are not even human I’m pretty sure. But what was fascinating was I started to dig into her background a little bit and realized she also took on private clients and so then I looked at her private client opportunity and she and I trained by Facetime every week. Now isn’t this remarkable that even personal training has changed and she can literary through watching me workout under her instruction tell me to adjust my arm, a muscle, a stance, it’s astounding to me. So attention pays not only from Peloton but John also has chosen his instructors so well that if you wanted to you can work potentially with some of them one on one. So Jennifer Jacobs is my favorite instructor. She is also my personal trainer and she’s a really cool human in real life and that was interesting to me. The consistency of attention throughout everything that they stand for.

[0:36:47] Charlie Hoehn: I love it. So Neen as we’re wrapping up I would be remised if I did not ask you about your speaker business and we have a lot of authors who listen to the show and I would say, I don’t know, I have talked to about a 150 plus authors at this point and one of the most common things I hear from them is “I want to be a speaker. I want to do more speaking gigs.” Can you break down what your speaking business is like? How many speaking gigs do you do? Is it 80% of your revenue that sort of thing?

[0:37:23] Neen James: Yeah, absolutely. I’d be delighted and for those of you who are authors, anyone who speak to it, just do it. Get out there and it is the best marketing distribution for your book. It’s a really great way to test your theories, it’s a wonderful way to hear what the audience thinks about your ideas. So do it, get out there and do it. I speak between 50 to 70 times a year and ideally it’s more on that 55 to 60 times. So basically, if you think about the fact that I live on planes, trains and automobiles. And that is my choice, I love it. I am always on a hotel, a convention center or an airport and when I have the privilege of catching the train, it’s my favorite and so for me the way that my practice has been established is it’s me and I have a virtual team. I have chosen a practice model not a business model. So my distinction Charlie is I will never sell Neen James. It’s just me, I’m the brand, I’m the talent that’s it. I’m not trying to license it, I am not building an empire. I love running a practice and I have a virtual team that I adore and they support me and I could never do what I do without the amazing team that I work with. It is 80% of my revenue and so the way that my profit centers is set up in my practice is that speaking is predominantly where I make the bulk of my money but I also run an executive mentoring program and the reason I work one on one with executives is that it’s really great for me to give them that individual attention they need. But I am a confidential source of information who is outside the organization who speaks very directly and very honestly and so as an Australian, I have an advantage. I don’t sugar coat things and a lot of executives are surrounded by people who would tell them what they want to hear, whereas I don’t and so I love that because it also allows me to speak to their teams because they always invite me to speak to their leadership teams. And it also makes me stay current and relevant with some of the things I am thinking about. It’s the same thing I say to the authors, test your theories. Speaking is such a privilege to me. I still get so excited every time I step on the platform. It could be a team of 10 or a room of a thousand, I still get excited about it and I love it. I mean I was the kid who was kicked out of class constantly for talking. Every report card said, “You know Neen is a good student but she talks too much.” I mean my gosh, if my teachers could see me now.

[0:39:42] Charlie Hoehn: I love it, yeah. So what would you tell an author who’s one, either just getting started, what do they need to focus on to kick start their career? Two, what would you tell an author who has done some speaking over the years but they only do a handful each year and they do it when it comes in and they’re trying to make it their business but they can’t just seem to figure it out? Those are the two big categories I see a lot.

[0:40:13] Neen James: Sure, well let’s start with a couple of great resources. The National Speakers Association is the professional industry body for speakers. Check it out, go to their annual events as a starting place, have a look at their conference because you’ll see so many different styles of speaker, you’ll see hundreds of different business models and that’s where I got to connect with our mutual friend Charlie, Erin Gargan. Her book, Digital Persuasion, is phenomenal and so we got to connect at NSA. So check out the National Speakers Association as one of the resources.

[0:40:46] Charlie Hoehn: So what do people get at the NSA and do you know how much that costs?

[0:40:51] Neen James: You know that’s a great question. I’m sorry you’d have to take a look on the website but I would suggest a couple of things. If you are just starting out and maybe you can’t afford to attend the annual conference, have a look at the webinars that they offer. Have a look at the pages and blogs that they publish. Have a look at their magazine and their podcast that they do. They are called “Voices of Experience” and if you go to neenjames.com and you type into the search functionality like “Professional speaker,” there’s also lots of articles you can download for free. And they will have some free resources in them. I would also recommend if you are starting out, one of my favorite books for people to read is a book called Steal the Show by Michael Port and it talks about – whether you’re doing a sales pitch or a speech – he has some really great information. So check out the National Speakers Association, have a look on my website, read Michael Port’s book. But when you’re starting out, there’s two things you need to think about. One is content and one is performance. You need to have something unique to say and the way that you write as an author is different about the way that you speak and I’ve even realized this in my profession. I am a keynote speaker, I get paid, that’s my living and I realized I can’t even tell the stories the way that I wrote them because the way you write and the way that you speak in front of an audience can be different and so the first thing to focus on is what’s your content. What’s that core message you want the world to know and then use your original very unique intellectual property. Don’t be quoting everyone else. Talk about what your beliefs are in the world and show up as the best version of yourself. That’s what audiences want. They want you to just hang out with them and have a conversation and the second thing I mentioned it performance. Get yourself some coaching, go watch the brilliant speakers. Watch their TED Talks, go on to websites of speakers you admire. Look at their show reels, sit in the audience and look at the techniques that they are using. You don’t have to be an introvert or an extrovert to be a great speaker, you’ve got to be the best version of yourself. So work on the performance as well. Do not get up on stage without doing some form of rehearsal. Don’t just stand up there and think you can go through all those PowerPoint slides. Nobody cares. Make sure you have content that is engaging and relevant to the audience and then spend time on performance. My performance coach is Michael and Amy Port and I love what they are doing with their community. They have a community called Heroic Public Speaking and they are really great at helping people capture their ideas and then share them in the world. There’s so many resources available to people. I would encourage you to get good at speaking because the world needs your message.

[0:43:29] Charlie Hoehn: Beautifully said. Now what about the latter group that they have been doing some speaking for years, they have a handful of gigs kind of fall into their laps or they feel like they get lucky but they can’t propel themselves to the level that you’ve gotten yourself to, where you are doing 50 speaking opportunities a year.

[0:43:50] Neen James: I was given the same advice, I still get coaching every single month from my performance coaches. I still read books constantly, I am still listening to podcasts constantly and so I think we have to strive to be better. I leverage the resources of the National Speakers Association. I still listen to their podcast every month and read their magazine. I am engaged in the community. I would encourage people who want to get better to volunteer. Start to volunteer where you see exceptional speakers, whether it is helping the meeting planner, whether it is going to the National Speakers Association or Heroic Public Speaking. If you want to get better at this surround yourself with people who are better than you. So I am very fortunate to be involved in a Facebook group which is predominantly very successful speakers and we often, everyday we’re talking about how we can get better or we’re sharing challenges we face. Or we are sharing experiences we want advice on, get yourself involved in a community or create a Mastermind group where you can start to bounce ideas around how to get better. When I started running, I hired a running coach and I started running and I ran a marathon in less than five months which to listeners is stupid. Don’t do that. I am not advocating for that but I loved it but I used to get frustrated and I would run with my running coach. I’d say, “How am I going to get faster? How am I possibly going to do this?” And he would say to me, “Neen, it’s time on your feet” speaking I exactly the same. You need time on your feet, if you want more stages you need to speak more. The more you speak, the more you speak because every time you do a great job chances are there is someone in that audience, maybe two people who say to you, “Can you come and do this for my organization?” Can you come and speak at my company? Can you come and speak in my non-profit? The more you speak, the more you speak. Don’t be scared of speaking for free. I still speak for free for the right opportunity and I love it. So always, always be working on your craft. If you really want to get good at speaking: The more you speak, the more you speak.

[0:45:49] Charlie Hoehn: Beautifully said. How about to the listener who’s maybe thinking, “Gosh that sounds like the chicken and the egg type of thing where it’s like I am trying to get on stage but I can’t get on stage and Neen seems so personable.” I’d imagine you get a lot of your speaking opportunities presented to you the moment you get off stage basically where they’re like, “You would be great for our organization. Can you come speak to us?” So it’s in the room sales right?

[0:46:17] Neen James: Yeah wouldn’t that be amazing if that were true all the time but I got to hustle honey. I got to hustle just like everyone else. Remember, I came to this country from Australia. I sound like I’m five, I had no clients, I had no money to buy shoes and champagne, I mean what’s a girl got to do? So you better believe I hustle like a lunatic. I spoke at the local Chamber of Commerce. I spoke at Women’s Networking Events. I spoke at my Chamber of Commerce. I spoke at the Philadelphia one, you name it I did it and by the way, I still do it and so please don’t misunderstand that because I have that maybe perceived level of success now that I’ve stopped hustling. I still make sales calls every day. I still send thank you notes every day. I still blog every week. I still shoot videos every week. I still am on social every day. I am hustling like all of your listeners. I don’t think you ever make it in this business. I am not like some of those amazing big names like Scott Stratton and Scott McCain and some of these people who are kind of on a pedestal who are constantly always working because they have this beautiful body of work and they have been in the game for a long time. Please understand I have to work at this, I have coaches who help me. I have accountability partners who make sure I do what I say I am going to do. Just like the listeners, I am working this business. Please don’t think I have made it, I am working just like you.

[0:47:41] Charlie Hoehn: Awesome, I love that. I’m so glad you said that because that’s one of those things that it messes with everyone’s head when they see all the work. They only see where you are currently which is years and years and years of hustling and hard work. I love that you said this. It may be my favorite thing that you said is I don’t think that anyone ever makes it in this business but I think that applies to everything, right? There’s this great quote by Hour Glass that my friend and I were talking about yesterday because I do video. I’ve done video for 15 years. I’ve been an editor, I love editing, it’s my thing that I love most but the problem is I’ve always felt like my taste and what I want the video to look like never matches my skill level and only until very recently did I feel like that gap was starting to close. My friend and I were talking about it because we were like, “Oh we’re not the only ones who feel like insecure.” Feeling like we are never going to reach the level that we want to reach and so I just love that you said you’d never make it in this business because I think that applies to everything. You are always a work in progress, you’re always moving forward or you’re standing still and it’s just up to you.

[0:49:00] Neen James: It’s true, oh my gosh so true but imagine writing a book right? Think about it Charlie, we write the book, that’s the easiest part. The hustle, it’s the marketing, it’s the selling, you know I have been on TV, I’ve been flying all around the country for this book because I believe in this message. That’s the hustle, the writing on the book, honey that’s not the easiest part. The selling of the book, that’s where the work is. So I think that if you think someone has made it, just try and live a day in their life and you will realize they have to put the trash out just like you do. They have tired days just like you. It’s just unfortunately you’re seeing the Instagram version of their life. You are not seeing all the hard stuff. Now if you follow me on Insta, you get to see me with eye patches on. You are going to see me looking super tired and unglamorous. You can see me working out, it’s the ugly side but it is my life, right? And that’s the thing I think people are filtering too much. They are only putting the best versions of things online and so that’s what they believe to be their truths. I think we need to be more authentic and more honest. You know Erin Gargan and I have the most fun experience. We jumped on Facebook together, we were just going to have a virtual champagne and she was like, “We should record this” and I was like, “Okay” and then she streamed it live which was hysterical. Because we both forgot that we were doing a Facebook Live basically and we had the time of our lives. So many friends of ours were like, “You guys are hilarious,” but we were just having fun. There’s something missing in our social media world for that authenticity, that real connection, please do not think that I have made it. I am working and hustling just like you who are listening.

[0:50:30] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I agree. People really crave authenticity, vulnerability, honesty because we’ve been do deprived of it for so long because it’s sold and now, people are just – they’ve been dehydrated of real for so long that they crave it but to the point of your speaking business advice, what I really took from that and I think all listeners should take from it is if you want to speak 50 times a year, speak 50 times a year. Stop waiting for the secret. Stop waiting for the American Idol moment where suddenly you have a team around you that is handling all of these sales calls and everything, like go make it happen even if it is not perfect, even if you are not getting paid $20,000 a gig. Go speak 50 times a year if you want to be that person. So, I thought that was really valuable, great advice. So this has all been excellent so thank you so much Neen. The book is Attention Pays. Where is the best place for people to get in touch with you, contact you and then actually before you answer that, let’s do this real quick, what is a challenge something that our listeners can do today from Attention Pays that will make a positive impact on their life?

[0:51:53] Neen James: Listen with your eyes and if you are willing to do that, you might also be willing to take up this attention challenge that we’re putting out into the world. So an easy way to do that is take out Five Step Attention Challenge. The easiest way to do that is grab your cellphone and simply text this number: 44222 and in the message, you simply write the word “attention”. So the number is 44222, type in the word “attention” in the message and you can sign up for our five step attention challenge and that makes you part of our attention revolution.

[0:52:30] Charlie Hoehn: 44 – I am turning my phone back on now so I can do this, 44222 and “attention”?

[0:52:38] Neen James: Yeah, that’s all you need to write. It doesn’t matter if it’s uppercase, lowercase, you just write the word “attention.”

[0:52:43] Charlie Hoehn: Okay, cool and it even greets with an Australian greeting “good day,” yehey, we’re connected.

[0:52:50] Neen James: Yehey.

[0:52:51] Charlie Hoehn: Cool, I wanted to mention that parts of this conversation reminded me, you’ve seen The Big Lebowski right?

[0:52:57] Neen James: I’m so embarrassed to say that I have not.

[0:53:01] Charlie Hoehn: Oh man.

[0:53:02] Neen James: I know I’m like the worst.

[0:53:03] Charlie Hoehn: You call yourself the “attention” referral –

[0:53:03] Neen James: My best friend is – I know, my best friend is like, “You have to watch this” I’m like, “I know, I know, I know” and I am thinking to myself, “One day I am going to be asked about this film”. Okay I’ll tell you what, my commitment to you is I will watch that in the next two weeks.

[0:53:16] Charlie Hoehn: Well you don’t have to watch the whole thing if you don’t want. A lot of people love that movie for a good reason and it’s hilarious but what is the best way, apart from the number, what if somebody wants to bring you in or have copies of your book for their team and have you speak, what’s the best way to get in touch?

[0:53:37] Neen James: Well fortunately for me, there’s only one Neen James online. So if you go to neenjames.com, Neen James, you can follow me on social media. You can connect with me on my website and you can get the book anywhere that books are sold. You can get that on Amazon or your local Barnes & Noble or you can find it at neenjames.com.

[0:53:56] Charlie Hoehn: Excellent. The book is Attention Pays. Thank you so much Neen, this was fantastic.

[0:54:02] Neen James: What a privilege to serve your listeners. Thank you for everything that you do in the world Charlie, this is such a vital podcast for people and I love listening to it.

[0:54:10] Charlie Hoehn: My pleasure, thank you. Many thanks to Neen James for being on the show. You can buy her book, Attention Pays, on amazon.com. Thanks again for listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. We’ll see you next time.