Attention Pays, with Neen James – Episode 238 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Author, speaker, and leadership strategist Neen James reveals the thing you touch 2,000 times a day, and breaks down concentric circles of attention, dedicating yourself in increments, the very real economic cost of distraction, and why YOU, the leader, might be the problem.

About Neen:

As a little girl growing up in Australia, Neen’s mom taught the lesson of everyday luxury. The little moments that can elevate a standard experience into something you never forget. Today, she helps executives and brands tap into their clients’ luxury mindsets so they can speak the luxury language of their clients, grow revenue, and own marketshare and mindshare.

Neen is a Keynote Speaker, and the author of Folding Time™ and Attention Pays™.

A trusted confidant to CEOs for legacy and luxury brands across various industries for over 20 years, Neen has helped design strategic plans for Fortune 500 companies, facilitated retreats, and worked with executives and their teams to share insights and strategies. Business leaders have her on speed dial to bounce ideas with, engage her in ideation processes, understand how to elevate everyday experiences and teach systems-based strategies that have resulted in her “Neenisims” being adopted across organizations. Her luxury leadership model of Communicate, Activate, and Elevate is popular with her luxury and legacy brand clients.

Neen has boundless energy, is quick-witted, and is a (tiny) force of nature. She has been named one of the Top 30 Leadership Speakers by Global Guru several years in a row because of her work with companies like Viacom, Comcast, and Virtuoso Travel, among others.

Learn more at NeenJames.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host
Neen James has a book called Attention Pays, How to Drive Profitability, Productivity and Accountability to Achieve Maximum Results. Neen, welcome to the show.

Neen James
What a delight to be able to serve your listeners.

Host
The thing I’m always interested in, especially in productivity. What is new? What do you think is the forward thinking element of this book? And how do you think this advances the conversation around productivity and results?

Neen James
When you think about time, time is going to happen, whether you like it or not, you and I, we get the same 1440 minutes in a day. We can’t control time. Time’s a great equalizer, and time is not prejudiced. And I don’t believe in time management. I think time management’s out the window. And in the world, we don’t have a time management crisis. We have an attention crisis. You can’t manage time, but you can manage your attention. We get a choice about what we want to gift our attention to, and I think we have developed this attention deficit society. And I’m not talking add that’s something very different, that’s medically diagnosed. I’m talking about an attention deficit society where people are wandering around to your point. They’re overwhelmed, they’re overstressed. We are attached to our devices. When I was researching the book attention pays, I named this overwhelmed, overstressed, overtired as the over trilogy. And we did all this research around the concerns people have. And I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but one of the things we uncovered in our research is just take a stab. How many times do you think we touch our cell phone in a day? Just like take a guess how many times? According to D Scout study last year, the average user touches their cell phone 2617 times a day, like that. Imagine touching anything or anyone that many times a day. But here’s what concerns me about that is, I think what’s happened in moving the conversation forward is we’ve made technology more important than people, and so what’s happening is we’re creating these behaviors and habits where, if the person’s not engaging us, we look to our device, or when, as leaders, when people come into our office, we don’t look up from our computer. We keep finishing that email. I watch people when they’re out on this hot date, and they’re both sitting there texting. It’s crazy, and I think devices have a place, and I’m not anti cell phones, and I love the way they help us stay connected in the world. However, I think what is really important as leaders to think about is, how do you truly want to get people focused on the results, whether it’s productivity, profitability, and holding that team accountable? And so the work when I was my body of work now, is really focused on advancing the conversation who deserves your attention? What deserves your attention? And how are you going to pay attention in the world? And that’s what we call the attention pace framework. So personally, professionally and globally, because we need to pay attention to those important relationships. And think about the way we show up in the world, with our spiritual lives, emotional lives, relational lives, our physical lives, like we have an educational life. There’s all these components to us. And when you think about the fact that, let’s just stay like some basics, if you don’t get the sleep you need, you don’t have the energy that you need, if you don’t take care of your body and you eat the right things if you’re not meditating or doing your quiet time or whatever that means it looks like for you. These components. What happens is we constantly respond to busy. And I think we live in a society where we try and out busy each other like it’s fascinating to me, especially in the US where we were busy like a badge of honor, like you go to a party or you go to a meeting, if someone says, Well, how are you? And you’re like, Oh, I’m busy. And then someone goes, Oh, my God, you think you’re busy. I’m so busy. And we’re like, wearing this, like it’s something we’re proud of. And what I want people to think about is we can have 100% choice about who gets our attention and where we’re spending our time and our energy. And so I think what’s happening is we’re just doing things. We’re crossing things off lists, and the wrong things are making it to our list. We’re going through our email, but we’re not diligently being strategic about what really requires our attention.

Host
So let’s talk about that specifically. How do you decide who deserves your attention? Yep, this does deserve attention, and. Nope. This does not.

Neen James
Think of it as like concentric circles. In the middle circle, you have those most intimate relationships. So obviously our attention is going to be to our intimate circle first, then it’s going to be maybe the immediate circle. These are people like your family, your extended, close relationships, and these are the people that we wear in our heart, that us, that have that place in our heart, that are super important. But then when you think about that, it then goes out beyond that, and we look at the colleagues that we work with, our team, members, that we serve, our leadership, that we serve, our clients we serve, and then ultimately, wider than that, is our community. Many of us have board positions volunteers in our church community temple. So if you think of it as concentric circles, and when you’re really pressed for time, you want to think about how close are these people to you. And so when you consider what priorities you have on your plate, the people that you care the most deeply about are often the reason you work as hard as you do, the reason people work so hard and get stressed and get tired is they’re trying to create a lifestyle for people they love. The challenge is that those people end up getting the leftovers because they’re working so hard, they don’t have the best of that individual. I just want leaders to start to consider how they’re prioritizing and scheduling their time so that that intimate and immediate circle become a priority in their calendar. You might have, as a leader, multiple meetings you get invited to, but you want to think about of those meetings, of those people, those relationships, who’s going to advance what meetings can you attend? What people can you invest in? What relationships do you need to improve to ultimately impact your results. And most leaders that I know have their own KPIs key performance indicators, that it could be profitability targets, it might be performance objectives, but there are things that are going to impact that. So we have to think about who in those circles is impacting those results, and that will help you make those decisions about who deserves your attention. And I think of my life in seasons. And so for example, there are certain seasons when you publish a new book, when you released your company, when you were building your team, when you had a new baby. We have these seasons in our life, and those seasons often dictate who becomes the focus of our attention. So when you write a new book, like attention pays it’s like having a baby. It’s maybe not as physically painful, but it’s emotionally ridiculous, right? So it’s going to be time consuming, thought consuming. It’s going to be the focus of my time and attention when we look at our calendar and the seasons in our life, there will always be choices. There will always be people who want your attention. There will be people that want you to serve churches, temples, associations, industries, there will be people on the team who want more of your attention than others, and one of the things that we have to think about is it’s not selfish to take self care. And so you may need to start with yourself and think about, Okay, today, what do I need to do? Who do I need to invest in? In order for me to advance my goals, my objectives, my relationships? Are you going to feel bad? Yeah. Are you going to disappoint people? Absolutely. Are you going to feel a little bad about those things? Definitely. And we have to, as leaders, come to terms with the fact that we can’t be everything to everyone. We can’t be at every meeting. We can’t be at every board meeting or Association event or conference we want to attend, we have to make very deliberate choices. And I really believe that our attention is a choice. Attention is all about connection. We get to choose who we want to connect with and how that’s going to connect us to the bigger objectives we have.

Host
Talk to me about what to lend your attention to. I think you describe this as professionally, right?

Neen James
Yeah, this is really, if you think about what deserves your attention, is how do you really get productive? It’s really about choosing what is going to deserve your attention. Now, for many of the leaders I work with, they have KPIs, K performance indicators, or they have objectives. And many of your listeners would have their own version of goals, whether it’s the personal or professional goals that they’ve set up. But what is all about prioritizing the time and attention you have to achieve the goals that you have in your life? So for many whether you’re an individual, whether you’re an entrepreneur, whether you’re a solopreneur, maybe you’re a speaker listening to this, maybe you are a service leader, a community leader, what you want to think about is one of the things that will actually advance what it is your working lunch. So for me, I’m going to call that productivity. One of the things I encourage people to think about is think about time in a different way. So if we’ll get that 1440 minutes in a day, and chances are these days, people don’t feel like they have an hour anymore, could you just look at time in 15 minute increments. I think 15 minutes is the key to productivity, and if you can have 15 dedicated minutes, it’s amazing what you can achieve. And so what I encourage all my leaders to do, let’s just start with a 15 minute strategic appointment with yourself every single day. Have one strategic appointment at the beginning. Of the day. And here’s what I encourage all my leaders to do. And it doesn’t matter whether they’re executives from Paramount Pictures, Comcast, J and J, all the leaders I work with, they have this 15 minute strategic appointment. And what they do is they identify their top three not negotiable activities. So before your head hits the pillow tonight, what’s your three? And I look my simplest way to do this. I’ve tried every app, spreadsheet, you name it. I’ve tried it, and I still come back to a super fancy little post it note. And on the post it note, I literally write today I will, and then I write my three things. It is truly the easiest thing, because that little 20 post it note becomes your decision filtering system, and you can carry that post it note with you everywhere. So it’s just one strategic appointment. It’s 15 minutes slow, and you identify your top three not negotiable activities. And every listener can do that just by investing 15 minutes. And they get hyper clear on what’s most essential for today. So the what is about identifying, what is your not negotiable activities that absolutely must get completed.

Host
One of the words that you introduce here, which I think is powerful, is globally. So can you talk about the concept of what you mean when you use the word globally?

Neen James
I do. I think that the way that we choose to show up in the world, this is the how, like, how are we really taking care of? Let’s look at the resources we have the planet that we live on. So globally, is not just the world in which we live and taking care to make sure we’re paying attention, to recycle and protect the species and just to be a better human, to make better, more responsible decisions. It’s also about the community in which you serve. And for many people, it could be that, if you’re listening to this, maybe you are involved in your school board, maybe you are involved in your church community, maybe you are involved in a community where you can then think about, how do I show up as the best version of myself? How do I take care of the resources that I have, the people that I serve? So global to me is obviously a planet in which we live and how we’re paying attention to that. But also, too, if you think about this as a business owner, and I know many of your listeners are business owners. As business owners, we have a responsibility to take care of the resources that we are given, and it could be as simple as implementing a recycling program in your organization. And so many organizations have done a brilliant job of engaging their employees and helping with this many of the clients I work with, some of my pharmaceutical clients, for example, they give their employees a day of service where they are at choice about where they want to serve in the community or something they’re passionate about, and they’re paid for this day because the company is so committed to that there are organizations. One of my favorites is an organization called City Year. It’s a partnership that Comcast, one of my clients, Dave Gon, is on their board, and so every year, they support City Year. And City Year is just a phenomenal organization, but what Comcast has done as a corporate citizen is support City Year. There are so many ways that as companies, we can do it. As leaders, we can look for opportunities to encourage our team to give their attention to things that they’re passionate about. Doc Kenley, Wine to Water. He saw a need for he was a bartender in Raleigh, North Carolina, and he realized the world needed more water, and there were places without it, and so he created these wells all over the world. There are so many ways we can pay attention to the planet we live on, and the community, the communities we serve in, and we just have to start directing our attention, because we may only have a small amount of time, but we definitely have resources and attention we can give to it.

Host
And so how do you just kind of reconcile that the conflict you know kind of coming back to your you know early on, where you have, like, your intimate circle, your immediate circle, and then you get out to the community. And now here, when you start singing globally, is that the same thing is kind of going, Okay, think about certain places we can use our attention. Are those the same two levels in that conversation? Or are they different? And how do you…

Neen James
I think they can intersect. I think they’re different. So for example, if you’re a leader listening to this, you have employees who work with you. There might be particular things they were really passionate about. As an organization, are you able to even implement something like a matching program that every dollar they donate to a particular organization, your organization matches it. That’s not actually going to take you a lot of time, but as an organization, you’re saying we stand for something. It might be as a leader that you have the opportunity to control sponsorship dollars for different events. Maybe that’s a way. So you may not have a lot of time on your hands, but you may have resources. It could be the opposite. It could be you don’t have a lot of finance. Resources to contribute, but you do have time where you could volunteer and you could help. So I think it is that outer concentric circle of community, but I do believe that each of us has a responsibility to truly take care of the community we serve in and the greater world now being Australian, Australians are very environmentally we’re a small country, we recycle everything like things are organic, just because they are and that’s sort of how I grew up. And then when I moved to the US, there was a really big disconnect. And so for me, I think there is a incredible personal passion too, but it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Imagine if people just started like recycling in their homes a little more diligently. Imagine if we just took more care about maybe there’s an opportunity to walk catch public transport, as opposed to constantly getting in our cars. Now this is my little bandwagon. This is my little soapbox, I guess. And I think each of us every day can make different decisions around what we’re putting our attention towards that have a greater impact on the world, at home, at work and in your community, it’s another set of circles, and I think for each of us, it doesn’t have to be something we’re spending time on every day. I just want to raise the awareness of how we’re investing our global attention.

Host
So I have one other question for you in just a second about leaders. But before I do that, where do you want people to go to connect with you? And Attention Pays again, is the name of the book. Where do you want people to go, Neen?

Neen James
I’m the only Neen James online. So if you Google Neen James, n, e, e n, j, A, M, E s.com, you will find me. So Neen James on Twitter and LinkedIn. If you want to see my adventures, go to Instagram, but you’ll be able to find everything you need about the book. If you just do a search by my name, there’s only one Neen James online.

Host
So our last little question for you. Neen, in the spirit of leadership, business owners and leaders measure every financial cost to a business, but almost nobody measures and tracks the amount of time that is wasted, or in your case, let’s say, the amount of attention that is wasted. But when you’re a leader, knowing that attention is a form of currency. Every second of attention that someone on your team is spending on something that is not in alignment with the vision or the objectives that you’re moving them, there is a real financial cost to that. So what is a leader would be the very first thing you would suggest that they take action on?

Neen James
The first thing I would suggest is eliminate distractions. In according to the information overload group, it costs us businesses 580 $8 billion every year because of constant interruptions. So think about how do we eliminate distractions? And just as a leader, one of the biggest distractions is you. You as the leader are often the problem, right? Because you’re constantly saying to your team, hey, you have a second. You have a minute to have a second, you have a minute. It’s never a second. It’s never a minute. And then you might say to someone, Hey, can you What do you think about this man? That person then takes that and says, Oh, my God, my boss wants me to go find out about this. And so they go on this path as a leader, you call meetings unnecessarily. You’ve always had an 830 Monday morning meeting, so you still have the 830 Monday morning meeting. And I’m suggesting maybe what you want to consider is every time you ask someone to spend their minutes with you, they never get them back. So as a leader, can you eliminate some of the distractions, including how you are a distraction to your team as well. I often consult to organizations, let’s just say, even on their environment, some of my clients have moved from offices to open plan productivity. And while open plan is collaborative and it’s fun and it’s energetic, it can also bring its own set of challenges. And so for many of my clients have had to be able to teach them. How do you pay attention in these fast moving, open plan environments? I want to encourage the leaders have a look at where you can eliminate distractions. Maybe encourage people to wear headphones if they’re trying to get work done. Book a meeting space if they’re trying to get very thoughtful, strategic work done. Allow some of your team members to work from home if they’re working on something strategic and important, start canceling meetings that are unnecessary. Stop sending emails late at night. Oh my gosh. So many leaders that I work with, I beg them to stop sending emails late at night, while it may be out of your brain and in someone else’s inbox, every time you send a team member an email late at night, you’re stealing minutes from their family. And I want you just to think about you can write the email, just don’t send it, save it as a draft and send it tomorrow. There are so many ways as a leader, we can help prevent this wasted money and time when we start focusing on how we can eliminate being a distraction.

Host
Wow, that’s a sobering thought, that as the leader, you are some of the cause of the distraction. Well, very good. Neen, thank you for sharing with us, and so we wish you all the best.

Neen James
Thank you. I appreciate being on here, and thank you so much for everything that you do.