Neen James is a speaker, entrepreneur, and the author of Attention Pays. Neen’s client list has included companies like Viacom, Comcast, Paramount Pictures, Johnson & Johnson, and more! However, Neen also loves working directly with thought-leaders who want to share their ideas with the world in a unique way.

In this episode, Neen discusses how she decided to center her message around the concept of paying attention, how she got the word out initially about her message, the three we pay attention, why you need to own your uniqueness, how to maintain momentum when you’ve been sharing the same message for a while, how to leverage your book long after it’s been launched, what a habit loop is and how you can break it, and more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Neen James’ Website
• Neen James’ Books
• Neen James on Twitter
• Neen James on Facebook
• Neen James on Instagram
• Neen James on YouTube
• The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary by Mark Sanborn
• Michael and Amy Port
• Elizabeth Marshall
• Clay Hebert

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I have with me Neen James.  Neen is a speaker and entrepreneur who works in the corporate space and does some amazing things with her speaking and her writing.  She just came out with a book, Attention Pays.  So I’m really looking forward to diving into this book with Neen and just discussing your leadership in this area, Neen.  I’m so thrilled to have you.

Neen James:  G’day!  What a treat to be on your show.  I was so looking forward to have time together today.

Andrea:  Me too.  OK, so Neen, can you start by just giving the audiences a little bit more of a clue as to what you do on a day-to-day basis or for your career?

Neen James:  So I grew up in a corporate business in Australia.  So I worked in retail banking telecommunications in the oil industry.  You got to imagine, Andrea, I worked in Australia, right?  So I have this fabulous corporate background, but as an expert, I’m obsessed with getting the world to pay attention.  I think that when we pay attention, Andrea, companies make more money and we have better relationships.

I have the privilege of working with really cool clients whether it’s media companies, like Comcast, Viacom, Paramount Pictures, or maybe pharmaceutical, you know, Johnson & Johnson.  There are so many cool corporate people that I get to work with but occasionally I have the privilege of working with thought leaders.  I want to take their ideas and share them with the world in a very unique way.  I know that you have a lot of listeners like that.

So I love this opportunity to be able to solve some of the challenges.  For example, people that are in positions of leadership, they may have a message but they’re just not a 100% sure on how to articulate that to be able to grab someone’s attention and then keep it.  Or maybe they have people in their team who wants getting everything done before focusing on the most important things.  Or maybe, there are people that are out who want to be able to create attention-grabbing strategies for their company, their product or services and I fix that.

So generally I’m hired as the keynote speaker for a large corporate events or sometimes I go and work with leadership teams and do their retreats.

The reason I do what I do, Andrea, is I just want the world to pay attention because I think when we do that, we create this significant moments that matter.  So there is no day in the life of Neen James, not one day is similar.  It could be me still sitting here and my work out gear after I have worked with my personal trainer by FaceTime or me on a stage in front of a thousand people in some fabulous hotel and then everything in between.  It’s those late nights at the airport.  It’s trying to do business in a cab in Uber or a lift.  That is what so fascinating about this career that I’ve chosen, Andrea, there’s no day in the life of Neen James, not one day is the same anyway.

Andrea:  So do you love that variety?

Neen James:  Oh my gosh, I crave that variety.  I am not a person who’s good with routine and I learned that very quickly in career.  My ideation productivity is crazy.  But I’m a fantastic person to have in a brainstorming meeting but when it comes to the execution of all those ideas, I love handing them over to someone else.

So one thing I learned is I was a really great project manager to a point.  So I could brainstorm the projects, scope it out, create the budget, get consensus from everyone, you name it and I could do it.  But when it came to having to do like weekly reports or the routine of the projects, I had to have people in my team who are brilliant at it.

Even to this day, I have surrounded myself who are brilliant, people are brilliant at detail and execution and so that allows me the freedom to have a routine thing.  I’m a kind of personality that needs to be constantly challenged, constantly looking for something new, change, evolution and transforming something.  And there are people who are brilliant at execution, logistics.  So I have some really brilliant people around me like that.  I have some clients who do that kind of work.  So I think you just got to find what you’re good at.

Andrea:  Yeah, that’s really encouraging to people like me who are like you.

Neen James:  Yeah.

Andrea:  Yes, it is.  It is fun to be able to…if you’re an activator, you like to start things but you’re not great at following up.  It’s wonderful and it’s so encouraging to know that there are people who do that and who can take it all the way to the finish line.

Neen James:  You also need to make sure that you’ve realized not a single thing, like when I ran my first marathon, I realized…and by the way, I’ve never ran in my life so that was like stupid thing to do.  I started running and then I did my first marathon within like five months.  It was crazy but here’s what I love, running a marathon is not an individual sport.  It’s a team sport, right?

So what I realized was while I’m maybe being a person who actually steps to cross the finish line to use your analogy, it was really a team of people that got me there.  My running mate, my sister, my husband, my physiotherapist, and my doctor; you know like there were gazillion of people, not to mention that there were clients waiting at the finish line.  That’s crazy to me but what it showed me was, we don’t do these things on our own.  I always believed that success comes when there is a really cool group of people around you and that has always been my experience.

Andrea:  OK, so I want to start talking about this message, Attention Pays, because one of the things that fascinates is how people decide on the message.  I know that this is something that you’re brilliant at but this message and throughout the book, you touched on a number of different sub points, like leadership, personal branding, productivity, and even the environment.

Neen James:  Uh-hmmm, yeah.

Andrea:  So how did you decide that it’s really the attention piece that you wanted to focus on as sort of the front runner of these messages or the umbrella message?

Neen James:  Yeah, I was always known for my work and productivity.  So Andrea, I had a reputation in corporate.  I was the person who could be given a project that might be like…one of my projects. it was like 10 months behind.  It has to be delivered in two months.  I had to raise $10 million and I literally had two months to do it and it was just me.

I remember, I have always been given these projects where I could get things done.  It was something I had a reputation for.  I didn’t even really understand that was important until I decided to leave the corporate world and then people were always asking me “How did you do that?  How did you get things done?”

And I thought “Oh my goodness, surely people get this.”  I think what happened, Andrea, is when things are intuitive to you, you just take for granted that you’re really good, like with your singing, right?  You kind of almost assumed that because singing comes naturally to you, you don’t think other people know how to sing too because it’s a gift you have.  So productivity was definitely a gift that I had.

I realized the world needed to be able to get more done.  My big learning came when I realized you can’t manage time but you can manage your attention.  That’s what led me down this path to really explore.  If it’s not about time management, we don’t really have a time management crisis, we have an attention crisis.  So then I set about to try and solve “How do we get people to start to truly pay attention?”

I mean, think about it, Andrea, our parents tell us to pay attention, our teachers tell us to pay attention.  It’s so annoying when people tell us to pay attention.  We hear it all the time and yet, we don’t always pay attention to the right people, the right things, or even the right way.  That’s really what made me pursue this so it was interesting to me.

I don’t know if you know a fabulous speaker by the name of Mark Sanborn, but Mark Sanborn is a dear friend and a phenomenal speaker.  He has written gazillions of books including the Fred Factor, which is a fantastic book.  But Mark and I were sitting in his office and I was getting very frustrated with where I was in my career.  I had hired him for some advice and so I got to spend some time with him.  He has a brilliant program for speakers who want to really elevate what they’re doing.

And so I was sitting in his boardroom and he said “Look, what is this really about?”  I was so frustrated, Andrea.  I was like “Arrgghh, I just want the world to pay attention.”  He said “I know it, because that’s what you’re all about.”  And I was like “Oh man.”  So it was that conversation with Mark where we really came up with this whole clever framing of Attention Pays, instead of Pay Attention.  I will always remember sitting at that table with him.  He’s been a huge influence in my career and he’s a very dear friend.

Thought leaders are notorious for this, if you want to be a thought leader or if you are a thought leader, often, you’re so close to your own content that sometimes it’s hard for us to see it ourselves, right?  So think about your hair stylist. She can’t color her own hair as well as she might be able to call someone who’s sitting in her chair.  I think for me, I needed someone brilliant like Mark Sanborn to see the big picture for me and really force me to think about what was the most important to me.

What I had realized too through my whole career, I knew I how to get attention.  I knew how to give attention and I think those two things are very different but they’re vital.  So as a thought leader, you need attention for the message that you have for the world and so you need clever ways to not just get attention but to keep people’s attention in a time where everyone is so distracted.

Andrea:  Yes, absolutely!  You chose this concept, Attention Pays, which is really clever, then how did you figure out how to communicate this message in a way to decision makers so that they understood that they needed to have you come speak about it or to come help their teams with it?

Neen James:  My brain is this freakish place.  It’s kind of like crazy town up there and one of the things that happened to me is when I start listening to a thought leader or an information expert about the intellectual property, I see a contextual model in my brain.  I’ve always done it.  I don’t know why it is and that’s a little scary.  So I start to draw shapes in my mind and I think to myself “How would I sort that in different way so that people could remember it more.

So I’m a huge advocate for contextual models and I believe if you can have a great contextual model that demonstrates your intellectual property.  It commercializes your intellectual property so much greater because it helps other people see the value of yout ideas in a way that makes commercial sense.

Now, having grown up in corporate, I totally understand that corporates are about making money, full stop, period, end of story, that’s it.  So if you have a great idea, it doesn’t matter how great your idea is, if a company cannot understand how that’s going to contribute to their bottom line then all you have is a really great idea.

So what I’ve learned was in order for me to commercialize attention, I have to be able to tie back to how companies would make greater profits if they started paying attention to their existing clients so that they could get the upsale if they could pay attention to new clients, so they could attract the kind of clients they want.  So from a customer service and experience’s view, it makes commercial sense.

But I took it further to say, it’s not just about _____, it’s about to the team.  If you really want to attract attention in an organization, you’ve got to be able to grab their attention and keep them so that they want to be able to work with you.  So it’s about talent retention as well.  And then I also realized, because I’m Australian, I don’t know if this is just an Aussie thing or it’s a “me” thing, but Australians are very environmental way.  And because we have a small country, we protect our planet, we recycle, we do all these things that I just assumed everyone did until I moved to the US.

You know, when I walk into the grocery store and everything was like triple wrapped in plastic and at that point, Australia banned plastic bags, we’re talking like 15 years ago now.   So I think that for me, it’s also about paying attention to the planet.  The way that I’ve sorted the books is I really think we pay attention in three ways, Andrea.

I think it’s personally that’s one way to pay attention and personal attention is all about who deserves your attention, right?  So that’s being very thoughtful.  Professionally, it’s about what deserves your attention.  That’s about being productive.  That’s about getting the right things done.  And then globally, it’s about how you pay attention in the world and that’s very much about being responsible and being a contributor in our planet.

So if you think about attention personal, professional, and global and obviously I have a contextual model for that that’s really where I started.  I started with the contextual model and then I started to unpack my intellectual property under those guidelines.  What that does is makes it super easy for the reader to understand it.  So there’s the visual of the contextual model and there’s also the strategies for the person who wants to have the application and execution.

So I think thought leaders need to consider, do they have a contextual model for their intellectual property because if they do, they’ll definitely make more money from that.  But if it’s just great idea you have in your head or that you’re sharing a speech, blog, or a podcast, until you can make it easy for people to process, it’s just sometimes, because people’s attention is very split, you’re not going to be able to keep their attention, right?  So unless you have a really cool way to grab that person who wants to see it in one page, that makes a big difference.

Andrea:  I love contextual model as well and I’ve read up on some of the things that you published about them and enjoyed that section in your book as well.  I know that contextual models help people not just…they help people process it because it hits on so many different areas of the brain.

Neen James:  Uh-hmm that’s exactly, right.  Yeah.

Andrea:  So it really reaches people at a deeper level in a quicker level and they’re able to apply it more quickly.  But I’m curious, on a practical level when it comes to somebody who has a contextual model, how do you decide what to share from stage either for free or in a big setting versus how much to share in your book or with clients?

Neen James:  So I have an abundance mentality and I think you know that about me.  I give steps away and people are going to rip you up.  That’s going to happen.  Let me give you an example, one of my books is called Folding Time:  How to Achieve Twice As Much in Half the Time.  That book was published way back in, I want to say, like 2014 or 2015.  One of the things that I have in this book is, obviously, a contextual model.

So in the book it makes sense to be like a PDF that also it could go on a slide deck which is animated which could go on the website, which could also be unpacked because every chapter is just basically on text model.  When I’m on stage, I draw the model with my body using my hand gestures and then what I do is then I reveal the animated model or I do it at the same time.

So you can use models in very clever ways.  You can use them and draw them with your body as you’re explaining a really key concept to your audience.  You could use it in a blog and then you could unpack what that means in the blog.  You could describe it in a podcast.  You could even say to people, “What I’d like you to do is draw a Venn diagram with three circles.  Now, in the first circle, I’d like you to write the word, Time, and in the second circle, the word Attention, do you know what I mean?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Neen James:  So you can actually share with people how do you want them to use the model as well.  Something I’m widely known for is I always ask for a big pad of paper to be on stage.  Now, that could be in front of thousand people and every time the meeting planner assists me, no one will see it.  I’d say, “I know, that’s not for your benefit, it’s for mine.”  So because I pull people from the audience all the time that’s another thing I’ve become very known for, it’s because I want to create this facilitated experience with my audience.

So I’ll pull someone like you out at the audience.  I’ll ask you some questions or play it on the stage and then I’d be like “Is this your contextual model?”  And then the audience goes crazy and it’s the only magic trick I have.  But because my brain thinks that way, it’s easy for me to do it in public.  It’s easy for me to do it in private when I work with people on their message.

I have a call coming up where a founder of a brand created by agency is about to a launch and they’ve hired me to be able to create a contextual model that would be very essential in their messaging and essential on their website.  And here’s the other thing that’s really powerful, Andrea, is in every proposal I ever have to submit, if I’m submitting a speaker proposal or someone wants to ask about my services, my model is always included in my proposal.

Here’s one of the things that’s important for thought leaders to consider is because you are the only person who can articulate that model the best way, but it shows you have _____ of intellectual property.  It shows that you have really thought about the offering you have for the world.  So I cannot rave enough of how important the contextual model is.

Andrea:  That’s so good.  OK, so you don’t believe that there is a point at which you could share too much on the front end so that people don’t end up hiring you because you sort of giving it away.

Neen James:  Oh honey, there will always be like DIY, right?  So there’s always going to be DIY people, do-it-yourself, and that’s great.  Give them the tools.  Let them go for it, right?  And then there’s going to be people who would never be able to replace your energy.  So for example, all the meeting planners call me that energizer bunny – you know, the Duracell pink bunny, that’s so me and that’s what they’re paying for.  They’re hiring me to bring in energy to the environment, to the conference where I kick it off and create this really fun environment where everyone feels like “OK, I can do this,” right?

While I look little and I sound like I’m 5, then I can show them stuff like contextual models and go “Oh, and by the way, I’m kinda smart.”  And I think that that’s a lovely contrast when you consider what you’re doing for your audience is my only job is to stand in service at that audience.  So for me, I will do whatever they need at that moment in time.  If they need me to give them the model, you bet I will.  If they want take further on my slides.  I don’t care if they want a PDF from me, I’ll happily give it to them.

I think we need to have this place of abundance.  You will never be replaced if they want that life in person experience or they want your brain to coach them or mentor them.  No one will ever be able to do that, not a PDFs is going to ever do that for you; however, the PDF will show the value and I do believe not everyone is always in a financial place where they can afford someone like me, and so I’ll give them as much as they can to do it themselves.

If they get stuck and then they want my help then that’s another conversation to be had.  But I think as a thought leader, we have to have a role value and we have to deliver enormous value so that people literally want to just hire you and it doesn’t matter what your price is.

Andrea:  OK, so have you always felt this confident about your message and about yourself on stage and the value that you’re offering?  I love to ask this question of my guest, but where does your confidence come from?

Neen James:  Oh good Lord, no.  I have not always felt this confident and _____ they have, oh for goodness sake that’s so not true.  Seriously, like I still have like self-doubt, I’m like “What on earth am I doing?”  I remember when I sent a manuscript off to the publisher.  I pressed the send button and I was like “Oh man, what if they don’t like it.”  Oh honey, I think everyone has that.  Look, I’m as human if not more so, than everyone else.

But here’s what I do believe in.  I do believe that each of us as thought leader has a calling that is on your life.  You can call it something that doesn’t sound as woo-woo if that’s important to you, but for me, a big reason why I do this work is because the feedback I get, when people read the book and say “I had to put it down because I wanted to pay attention to my wife.”  Or “I had to put it down because I decided that I need to spend more time with my team.”

All the things they’re telling me that they’re doing as a result of listening to me in a speech or maybe they have read the book or maybe they listen to a podcast like this, that to me means that I’ve stepped in into my calling.  I’m doing what I mean to do on this planet.

So I think for me, that’s where my confidence comes from and you know, I once heard and I wish I know the author of it, but I heard someone say once, “You can’t be nervous when you stand in service.”  So my job has always been…I’ve always had that belief that my only job is to stand in service.  You know, I have this amazing performance coaches.  I work with Michael and Amy Port, and every month, I invest time with them.  They’re helping me to be better speaker on stage, because they come from an acting background so they’re brilliant people.  They’re great people, very accomplished as you know but they are truly the best in the in the business I’ve ever seen.

So I worked with them and what I realized was Neen James does not work with the script.  I can’t work with the script.  My brain is not wired to work with the script.  We have tried to work with the script and it just didn’t work and I was losing my confidence and Michael explained that I was looking to like…it was too sweet.  He could tell when I would step into the part of my brain that I was like “Oh no, I’m supposed to say this.”

But what we’re able to was what I’m really brilliant at is creating an environment for the people in the room, facilitating that experience.  So we decided to elevate all of that, Andrea, and what that does is I’m stepping into stuff that’s so easy for me.  It was so much fun and they’re still learning at the same time but it’s not a traditional way that other speakers might work.

When you think about the fact that you’re trying to encourage people to find their voice in their life, as you say, then this was the way that we find my voice.  My voice is not changing for them.  So I’m still going to sound like a Minion but it still works, right?

Andrea:  Oh come on.

Neen James:  So that’s another thing that you’re probably aware of.  As soon as I step on stage, I talk about my height, my voice, my accent.  We get it out.  It’s in the first two minutes to move on.  So I think too that sometimes the confidence comes from owning those things about you that are very unique.  So for me, I don’t apologize at all because they’re part of who I am and that’s one of the things that the meeting planners remembered.  It’s one of the things that the audience loves and treasures.

So for thought leaders, you know, I really want to encourage you, don’t be like anyone else.  Find the uniqueness that is truly yours and leverage that because that’s help people to remember the experience of you and you’ll be more confident when you step into that place.

Andrea:  Oh yes, leverage your uniqueness, and that can be difficult.  I mean, it can be because sometimes it feels a little intimidating or you feel like you should be something that everybody else expects you to be and you’re taking a pretty big leap of faith to step out and be you.

Neen James:  It’s true.  And then the other day, like because the book has launched, you know we launched…I think we sold like 6500 copies the first few days.  I mean, it was crazy.  I was very proud of that.  We came in number one, the best new release on Amazon.  That was so very exciting to me.  And then stupid me when I read book reviews for an old book that I had written years ago and some guys wrote, “Oh she sounds like a Minion, which is why I _____.”

It’s really quite enough that kind of review and it had nothing to do with my writing.  It has nothing to do with the intellectual property.  It was just that he didn’t like my voice.  I was like “Oh my gosh that’s amazing.”  That’s tough, like it could throw me for a loop.  I remember reaching out to some friends going “How do you do with these kinds of people?”  So I think we all get our confidence from that by the way, you know what I mean?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Neen James:  So those types of things that like “Oh man, what am I doing?  Why is this happening?”  So sometimes because as thought leaders, especially if you have this message for the world and you’re very driven as a leader, what happens is there’s a place of a vulnerability that occurs, right?  So when you step in the world and say, I stand for this, and then you write a book about it, “Oh good Lord,” right?

So you write a book for that and you are opening up your heart and putting it down in a platter _____ about the world.  It is an incredibly vulnerable thing whether you do a podcast like you, whether you write a blog, whether you write a book; you’re putting your ideas into the world.  When you do that, it’s a place of vulnerability but I don’t think people understand.  I think speaking is one of the most vulnerable things that you can do.  You stand on a stage and share with the world what you think and standing in service to people.  That’s a very vulnerable thing and yet, you have to have the confidence to be able to do it.

Andrea:  You know, I know that you’re friends with Elizabeth Marshall.

Neen James:  Oh I love that woman! If you’re listening to this podcast, stop what you’re doing and go and call Elizabeth Marshall.

Andrea:  I need to have her on here for sure.  I know that one of the things that she talks about is making sure that you continue to market your book after you put it out.  This is something that’s difficult and that’s difficult for me and we’re talking about follow through and execution before.  So when you’re somebody that kind of has a lot of energy on the front end and it’s harder to get all the way to the end of the finish line on your marathon, I think it’s the same way with a book or with a message in general.  It’s so easy to want to just start a new one.  So do you have any thoughts about where you’re at?  I mean, you’re just starting this launch, I mean really, it still a start in just a month or so.  But how do you keep going with the same message for quite a while?

Neen James:  Well, fortunately for me I had Liz Marshall and I had her in the process like the need to hire her because she’s brilliant and she knows the industry and she knows the _____.  But one of the beautiful things she said to me was, we’re talking about relationships, and I was talking to her about the fact that I felt like I was calling in every favor I possibly had in getting people to write testimonials and buy books.  And then now, I’m begging people to write Amazon reviews, like I felt like I was literally calling in every favor.

She said to me, you know, just be really conscious that this is a long term relationship game, it’s not about the launch.  It was a beautiful reminder that I think every author needs to start because it can be very consuming, the launch.  Now, the launch has happened and it was literally only two weeks ago and at the time, I was listening to this some amazing _____ but it was very, very fresh to me.  But as soon as it was launched, I went into an Evergreen Marketing Strategy.

So I hired a fantastic guy by the name of _____ and I have been building this phenomenal Evergreen Marketing Strategy.  So one of the things we talked about is yes, the book is launched and that’s great.  Now, I have to be very intelligent about actively leveraging all of the work that I put into the book.  Because that’s very easy to a point, Andrea, once you hand the manuscript in, I was like “OK great, that’s one major chunk of a project and then it launches.  “Well that’s great too,” right?

But then if you have published it with the tradition publishing, you couldn’t earn back your worth.  So you know, we all get these lovely words to _____.  That’s just funny, it’s doesn’t mean anything.  So I’m very conscious about you know to earn back very quickly.  And then I think for me, it’s very much about thinking, “Who do I need to get this book in front of?”  So it changes the way that I market.

I think it’s one of things that I would suggest the thought leaders if you’re considering publishing, whether it’s self-publishing, hybrid publishing, or traditional publishing; all of them have their own benefits.  All of them have their own drawbacks.  Determine a launch strategy for sure, but put more attention and energy into the Evergreen Book Marketing Strategy so you’re doing something every day to move your book closer to its goals.

Andrea:  OK, let’s just bring this down like my personal own experiences.  So I think my struggle has been with this, number one, I self-publish and so I don’t have the royalty issue.  I was really paying back my own family _____.

Neen James:  That’s more pressure than a publisher.

Andrea:  Well, it can be, it can be, or it can’t.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be so I don’t feel that responsibility.  I felt a responsibility to get it out but then it was kind of…and there’s a little bit of me that is a little bit like “What do I use it for me now?”

Neen James:  Ahhh, well then definitely _____ the different things that I know that I _____.

Andrea:  Yeah.  Do you have any thoughts about how…and I think I would also put out there too that I think that there’s also…and the reason I’m bringing this up for me is not just to get some advice from you, but also because I think that there’s a lot of people that struggle with this and that is that you continue to make yourself vulnerable by continuing to put it out there.  If you put it out there and then you take it away then you’re sort of like “Well, I tried.  I created it.  I did my best and now I’m gonna hide.”

Neen James:  What’s that thing in Sunday school that they used to teach and I thought that the phrase was something like “Don’t hide your light under a bushel,” or something like that.

Andrea:  Yes, yes.

Neen James:  That’s what makes me think of.  See, doing this way and then you have this beautiful product that you’re proud of when it was printed and yet, you know, you’re like “Huh, I’m exhausted.”  That’s the challenge too, right?  It’s the exhaustion that comes from getting it too the place where it’s in the world.  I think you have to fall in love with the product again.

So one of the things that I did was I handed the manuscript in in the fall of last year, but the book didn’t actually come out officially, you know, I got my hands on the very first copy in the beginning of last month.  I literally…I remember, I sat and read my own book and that sounds so self-absorbed…

Andrea:  Oh no!

Neen James:  And I was like “Oh my God, I love the story.  Oh my gosh, I forgot I write that.  Oh I love that,” right?  So what’s happens between handing manuscript in, or in your case going to print production, it is that you worked so hard to pull up this particular project.  And maybe it’s not book, maybe it’s a speech, maybe it’s a blog you’ve been thinking about it, maybe it’s finally launching a podcast you wanted into the world, or it’s finally designing a training workshop, whatever it is that you release into the world.  When I sat and read it, I was like “You know, I really like that.”

Here’s just some quick ideas of ways that I think you can leverage books.  If you have particular case studies that you’ve written about, you definitely reach out and make sure that it gets into the right hands of the person that you wrote about.  If you are looking to book speeches from it, be very deliberate.  I have a particular financial goal and number of speeches I want to achieve as a result of publishing this book and I’m going to track every single one of those.

I also think that it’s a very powerful way to be able to serve the world and thinking through, you know. so Melissa Agnes has a great new book called Crisis Ready.  It’s a phenomenal book and would make the most brilliant curriculum for universities and anyone in academia and schools.  It’s just such a fantastic book on how to build that invincible brand.

So I think what she’s really good at is understanding who she wrote the book for, and then think about, would your book be a great curriculum for someone?  And if so, how would you make that happen?  Some of my clients have done this, they bought the book in bulk and then they put something on it.  So for example, women in cable and television, this is in association for women who are cable and television obviously.

So one of my clients put copies for everyone and then put a sticker of _____.  It’s just really lovely.  So there are ways that you can also leverage the book and then for me, it is the required handouts.

So if I ever do a contextual modeling session with someone or with an organization, I ask that everyone has read that section in advance.  Now, you can also use it during your speech or your training workshop and you just make it required reading or required resource and so that’s another way to be able to move the book.

But I also think that the book can, you know, find its way into the hands of people which is quite serendipitous, right?  So you may meet someone and you might be talking about your particular type of expertise and then you invite them and say “Hey, may I send you a copy of my book.”  I never assume people want the book, by the way.  That’s another thing.  I think thought leaders get so obsessed with their _____ that they think like the whole world wants it.

I know myself, like I literally have a _____ sitting behind me that needs to be read, still there are books every time my friend publishes book, obviously.  But then people send me books all the time which is very lovely.  But if they know where the book was in my reading cue, it might be a little discouraging.  So I always ask permission.  I just say “Hey, would you like a copy of my book?  If so, I’ll be delighted to send you a copy.”  Don’t _____ they have to say yes.

Andrea:  Oh those are some great tips.

Neen James:  Yeah.  We just need to think about how do you cleverly leverage your book.  And then also think about, not just the book but you know, my book is about attention so, obviously, I’ve got to be a little bit more clever.  We had some special packaging design.  We had stickers design.  Inside the cover when I saw in it, we have this little like lipstick kisses that I stick on it.  Stupid stuff but, you know, I thought of as many different things that I could to grab someone’s attention.

And then if I worried about anyone, because the book cover is red, as you know I bought those little red sticky Post-It notes that kind of a little, I don’t know if what kind of sticky notes there.  But they’re little things like tabs and then if I mention anyone, I made sure, I put a red tab beside that section of the book so it grabbed their attention so they go straight to that page.

So rather than saying “Hey, I featured you on page 82,” I tabbed page 82 and then they would go find it themselves.  So there are little ways that you can also think about, you know, what is the role your book serves in the world and how could you leverage that and how can you get it in more hands.  You know, some people book sales are their aspirations.  For others, it is used _____ and for others, it might be just a really expensive business pad.  You have to decide what the role is of the book and then leverage it accordingly.

Andrea:  OK, so you’re so good with these tips, and so before we sign off, I want to go back to some of the ones that you gave in your book specifically.  One of the things that you talked about was the habit loop.  So when you were talking about it, you were also explaining how to break the habit of essentially checking your phone too often or those types of things.  So would you mind sharing with us about the habit loop on how we can break habits that are not healthy?

Neen James:  Well, think about what a habit loop really mean.  If you really want to change your brain, if you really want to change your habits, if you really want to change your focus, it’s not just the matter of saying “Oh, I’m gonna stop doing that.”  It doesn’t really work like that, right?  Which you’ve got to think about this; number one, you got to identify what are those attention triggers that are negative, the things that are really damaging.  Maybe it’s your relationships, maybe they’re damaging your productivity, or maybe you’re not getting goals that you really want.

So the first thing you’re going to do is definitely identify those negative triggers then you’ve got to take responsibility to make a change so that you can get rid of those triggers.  That might mean the simplicity of turning your cell phone completely off or putting it in a folder or putting it in your glovebox so you don’t actually drive and text at the same time.  You got to think about what that means, right?

And then what you got to do is once you do that, you got to then replace that with a new behavior.  So you have a new habit.  For example, when you get in to your car, if you put your phone in your bag if you’re a woman or in the glove compartment maybe, then that’s the new habit that you’re creating, right?  You’re breaking the negative habit of texting while driving and you’re creating a new habit.  So every time, you get into the car, your brain associates that activity with that.  When you think about this new habit, in order for this to new behavior to become a habit, you got to keep doing it.

Did you ever hear that stupid saying that it takes 21 days to form a new habit?  It’s not true.  It’s so not true, and so many speakers including myself, unfortunately, I believed it until I actually did some research and they said, the true amount of time that they find that it takes to create a new habit is actually 66 days.  That’s very different to 21, right?  So it’s about identifying the negative habit, it’s about making sure that you then create a new behavior.  And once you have that new behavior in place is that you keep repeating that that’s the habit.  Make sense?

Andrea:  Yes, and to the influencer listening, there are so many…I mean, dozens and dozens and dozens of like specific ideas and examples that she gives in this book so you really need to get Attention Pays and let’s give them one more, shall we?  What about the 90-day promotional strategy?  I really, really love this.  I think that people need to think about this because it doesn’t matter whether you’re working for yourself or someone else.  You can be intentional about your personal brand, and so tell us about that 90-day promotional strategy that mentioned.

Neen James:   Well, everybody knows that we have a personal brand.  That’s not kind of new to all of the people who are listening to your podcast because you unpacked this so beautifully in your book.  People know the importance of the fact that you are a product then you got to treat yourself like a product as well.  But I also believe that when you think about it, like say for example…I think what you’re referencing is that, you want to be able to create…

Andrea:  It’s on page 66.

Need James:  I exactly knew where it is, believe me.  It’s like when you have a career plan…now, I say that confidently but that’s not a hundred century.  But this one I do know, when I was looking in my career early in banking, I realized that the people that were getting promoted were getting the attention because they were getting things done.  So here’s what I decided to do, I decided that I will have what you’re calling what we have in the book called, the 90-Day Fulfillment Promotional Strategies.  I decided, it would take me 90 days.

So basically, I would think 90 days is going to take me to learn the job then it’s going to take me another 90 days to master the job and it’s going to take me another 90 days to find my successor so that within 12 months, I could be promoted.  So three months to learn it, three months to master it, three months to find my successor and then within 12 months, I’ll be promoted.

Now, if you track my _____ you can actually see the _____ in banking.  I was promoted on leverage every 10 months.  As thought leaders influences leaders in our community, we have to look at our plans and think “What am I gonna achieve in this 90 days and then what am I gonna to evolve that in the next 90 days,” because I think we can our head around 90 days.  But people that are doing five year plans, huh, so much can change.

So what I’m trying to get my client to do is think about how can you accelerate your commercial strategy, and it could be for example, if you don’t work for someone else, maybe you’re not looking to get promoted inside the company if you’re not corporate.  If you’re an entrepreneur, I look at my business in 90 days cycle.  So every 90 days, I’m developing a new marketing strategy, a new message so that I’m constantly looking at the different modalities of the work that I do and how that can be received.

I could get my head around 90 days because you can also see a shift in behavior in 90 days, right?  So yeah, the 90-day strategy was something that I was notorious for in my corporate career.  I had a mentoring program for executives and I cancelled them to look at the same thing, because as leaders we also have to train our successor and I think that’s a gift many of us have.

So in corporate, we are always training the next person who takes our role and if you don’t do that, you can’t get promoted.  As an entrepreneur, we need to know what is our succession plan or what is the plan for our practice or our business so that you have that next-level thinking that allows you to decide how you’re going to take your vacation, what’s going to happen if you, you know, if something happens to your health.  We have to have succession plans and the ways.

Andrea:  Alright, Neen, this has been so great.  Thank you so much for taking time to be with us today and share just abundantly in your words from your wisdom, your brilliance, your experience and your energy.  Thank you for the inspiration as well.  We really, just really appreciate your time with us today.

Neen James:  It was my absolute privilege and thank you for everything that you’re doing in the world to help people find that voice so they can be that most amazing version of themselves.

Andrea:  OK, so Neen, where should people look to find more of Neen?

Neen James:  The good thing for me is there’s only one Neen James online.  So if you just Google it, neenjames.com, you will find me.  That’s the easiest way and you can follow me on Twitter or you can see my adventures in Instagram or you can find out so many free resources at neenjames.com.

Andrea:  Hmmm and YouTube channel as well.

Neen James:  Oh yeah, hundreds of videos, literally hundreds of videos there for free.

Andrea:  Yes, great!  Well, thank you so much, Neen

Neen James:  My absolute pleasure.  Thanks for letting me serve your listeners.