Neen James: Focus And Attention Always Wins The Day

Return To The Top Of Neen James

If you enjoyed this episode with Neen James, why not check out other inspirational chat with David Kadavy, Alana Hurd, Joshua Spodek, and the amazing Mitch Russo

You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy

Full Transcription Of Neen James Interview

Intro [0:00]
Life shouldn’t be hard life should be a fun filled adventure every day. So now start joining up dots tap into your talents, your skills, your God given gifts and tell your boss, you don’t deserve me. I’m out of here. It’s time for you to smash that alarm clock. And start getting the dream business and life you will, of course, are dreaming of. Let’s join your host, David Ralph from the back of his garden in the UK, or wherever he might be today with another jam packed episode of the number one hit podcast. Join Up Dots.

David Ralph [0:40]
Yes, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, and welcome to Join Up Dots. Thank you so much for connecting with us. Uh, one more time. Well, today’s guest on the show how she first joined us back on episode 258 of the show back in 2014. And I remember it really well because she talked openly about her journey from corporate Australia, to the United States, and then her own entrepreneurial success. Now with a strong background in learning and development and managing large teams at various corporations. She was and still is the perfect fit for organisations wanting to learn implementable strategies to save time, increased focus, and help their people get more done. Now, it’s not the kind of stuff that you might have seen time and time again, when the work management takes as long as doing the job in the first place. But actual practical stuff that can make a huge difference. She’s the author of eight business books, including folding time, which I’ve got on my shelf secrets of super productivity, strategic networking, and network or perish to name just a few. And now it seems that she’s bringing everything together and really tackling the crux of productivity issues, which is lack of focus. She challenges audiences and clients to prioritise focusing in on what matters most in their work and their lives to see big results, which is of course, the perfect place to start today’s show. So with more and more interruptions, beeps, notifications, and other distractions entering our lives every day. Is there a way to break the circle? and focus on what matters most? And of course, when she’s talking to someone and Ben sneaks a quick glance at our phone does she? Are you as bad as the rest of us? Well, we’ll find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only but lovely Neen James.

Neen James [2:34]
God a what a treat it is to be back on the show. Can you believe at the time of recording it has been seven years since we’ve been together. My goodness, so much has happened. You’ve had 1000s of fabulous episodes. One of my favourites was one you did with Mike Egan. That was really really cool. So in southern lovely to be back, it’s lovely to have you back up when you said you’ve had so many I thought you’re gonna say 1000s of children? And oh, no, there has been sort of 1000s of things happening this life has engulfed me over that period of time. Do you look back at 2014 and think, gosh, I was so useful and springlike, or or are you feeling that now with your with your business in your life? You know, it’s funny, because the book you mentioned in the introduction, thank you for that generous kind words, was folding time. And that was published way back in 2013. And I remember when that came out, because I’d taken quite a controversial standpoint. And I had said that time management doesn’t work. It’s all about attention management. I’d said time management’s out the window. And I didn’t believe in time management, and the whole book unpack that. And since that book, it has the work has evolved even more so and I have, as you mentioned, really leaned into, if we can’t manage time, what can we manage what we can manage our attention. And that’s how attention pays became the evolution of that work. So I feel like not only has my business grown, my clients have expanded, I’ve gone deeper into particular industries. I focus more as an executive strategist. But what I’ve really been loving is helping people really pay attention, David, I think that’s the key to all of this, especially as you mentioned in our world right now where we are so distracted by notifications interruptions. And sometimes we are our own worst enemy when it comes to paying attention.

David Ralph [4:28]
Because I don’t have beeps and notifications. I have nothing I can’t remember the last time something beeped at me. Because on my PC, I had nothing that could take me away from my focus. I don’t have a tablet, I don’t have a device. I don’t have a mobile phone or anything like that at all. The only thing that beeps at me is my alarm clock when that goes off in the morning. And more often than not, I’m awake before then. So I always say to people, you know, it’s not hard, but a course is hard because it’s an addiction, isn’t it? All this talking and Facebook and you know, my wife’s addicted, she swear blind, she’s not addicted. But she’s addicted. You know, I know where she’s going to be, she’s going to be warming her backside on the radiator, looking up and down Facebook. And that’s where you can always find her.

Neen James [5:13]
And she’s not alone. I don’t know if people realise this. But at the time of recording, some of the studies are showing that the average user touches their cell phone already 2655 times ad day. I know

David Ralph [5:27]
hang on names. I say that again. That’s not even possible, is it? We’ve got 24 hours. So they’re doing it 100 times an hour. Is that right? Am I getting a nod? How can you do 100 times in an hour, we got 60 minutes in an hour. So they’re touching their phone more than 1.2 times a minute.

Neen James [5:47]
And they’re sleeping during some of that time, oh, my God, you blow my mind,

David Ralph [5:51]
okay, and so and they’re in the shower, which they can’t, they can’t get there. There might be a little bit of sexy time on the car. And so taking that away, so it’s probably more like 1.6 times a minute. That’s not possible is it?

Neen James [6:07]
It’s crazy. And I think the addiction that we talk about, or maybe we don’t want to talk about is very real. When cell phones were created, you might recall, they were bought for, you know, we bought them for people in our life that we loved for security for safety, to be used, just in case I remember my first cell phone was like a brick, it was huge. And so I think what’s happened though, is what as they’ve become what they call a smartphone, we’ve become dumber in the way that we use them that we’ve become reliant on them. People are not used to thinking time anymore strategic time, they’re not used to downtime. So if they’re waiting for an appointment, if they’re in a meeting, that’s not interesting to them, if they’re waiting for if the other person doesn’t speak fast enough, they grab their cell phone, I see it in people in my life, where I might make a comment about the weather and just say, Gosh, I wonder what it’s going to be like tomorrow. And then someone will pull up the weather app and tell me because they feel like they’re being helpful. Whereas we used to just be able to have a conversation about hey, I wonder what the weather’s gonna be like tomorrow, and you and I would talk about it. Well, today’s beautiful here in Tampa, Florida, tomorrow is going to be beautiful in Tampa, Florida. But now people have access to more information than they’ve ever had in their life. And they mean, well, it’s not just the addiction to the social apps, people genuinely want to be able to help you. And so they feel like if they find the answer to the question that you’re posing, then they’re going to be helpful. But in reality, David, we are all very addicted to technology of some kind, whether it’s our cell phones, whether it is our tablets, whether it is binge watching the latest, you know, Netflix series, we are very, very addicted to our technology. So it’s not that technology is not the enemy of our attention, David, we, we have to think about what are the attention management strategies that we need. I have visions of you sitting in your garden, very serene, where you record you this fabulous podcast, not a lot of people have chosen a lifestyle that doesn’t include a lot of technology.

David Ralph [8:14]
I am like a Buddha. I’m unlike a lot of technology, Buddha. And people say to me, sometimes I go Yeah, but you’ve got an online business. And yeah, I have, but it’s kind of like an online business, old style. You know, I allow people to connect with me, they book a time we talk. So I basically got a website, a podcast, and zoom, basically that those three things and nothing else. But one of the things I realised name is I never ever say I haven’t got the time. You know, I noticed people say, How do I make the time because that just opens the door to you? Well, if you weren’t on Facebook, but in minutes, and when you weren’t touching your phone to naff 1000 times an hour, you know, you’ve got the time. And I do think that ability to know that you should never say the words I haven’t got the time alleviates so many other problems because you kind of think boy, I I’ve got to stay within that remit of making sure that everything gets done. And the only way I can do that is really focus in on what needs to be done. Because life does throw curveballs at you.

Neen James [9:23]
I don’t believe in the phrase I don’t have time. I think that’s an actual lie because you and I both get 1440 minutes in a day time. Time doesn’t care.

David Ralph [9:34]
The way that you quote, you are like autistic you’re like

Neen James [9:40]
I just feel like people have these awful phrases like let’s kill time. Tom never did anything to you. Like that’s just a non phrase. So I never use words like I don’t have time. Let’s kill time. What I do say is I didn’t choose to spend time on that because I do believe we have choice. is on a daily basis on a minute by minute basis about how we’re going to invest our time and our attention. And so if we can’t manage time, because it’s going to happen, whether we like it or not, we can manage our attention. And I think that’s what we need to think about is, if you want to mindlessly scroll on Facebook as a treat, because you’ve completed a business proposal for a client, go for it. But if you’re scrolling mindlessly on Facebook, instead of creating a business proposal for a new client, then we have an issue. And so what people need to think about is how do they prioritise their priorities? What is most important to them? Whether is recharge relaxation, or revenue generation, they’ve got to think about how are they investing their attention. So they’re focusing on what matters to them, and no one can judge that that is an individual thing. And the way you spend your time and the way I spend my time, a completely different, but at the end of the night, when you put your head on your pillow, you want to think back and say was today a good day? Was it a productive day? Was it a profitable day? Did I achieve my goals today, and it’s only in how we manage attention that we can think about that through that lens.

David Ralph [11:10]
So this is interesting to me. So instead of as you’re basically creating micro goal reward system, where instead of saying at the end of the week, I’ll go out and have a few beers or whatever you say, at the end of a task, you can then spend 10 minutes looking at Facebook, or you can spend 10 minutes looking at their football results, whatever, and then match your reward for that task and then get back onto it. Is that what you’re saying?

Neen James [11:36]
Yeah, if that works for you, I know it works for me, because I enjoy connecting with people and community on social. And I also know I would be very happily on social all day, but that’s not going to advance my goals. So if you think about setting rewards, whatever that looks like a reward might be going for a walk, a reward might be making your favourite cup of macho coffee, a reward might be calling a friend. But a reward might be social media. And so if you think about some of the ways that social media has been designed, the algorithms are designed to continue to encapsulate your attention and continue to engage you. And they’re going to continue to show you content that is appealing to you, the whole tic Tock platform is based on that premise. And so one thing you want to think about is for you to take control of your attention is to think about what motivates you to get something completed, right. So for example, for me, one of the things that I do, David, to make it really simple, is I do what’s called a social media drive by so every morning, I make my cup of matcha, I sit at my computer, and I do a drive by all the social media channels. So Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and what I’m doing is I’m commenting, liking, tweeting, we tweeting, posting, sharing, and it’s in my 15 minutes. And that way, I know that I’ve connected with people, it feels like something, I’m gonna have my lunch in the morning anyway. So I might as well multitask in that particular way in the morning, and then I’m done. And then I’ll check in occasionally through the day. But one thing we have to be really diligent about is that we need to achieve the big goals so that those little things that are distracting us, you can still have those in your life. But you want to control the achievement of the bigger goals that you have.

David Ralph [13:24]
Do you have to check back in nine what you’re saying to me sounds like how I operate, I come up to my office, I look at the emails, if it’s a pitch to be on the show, or if it’s some kind of, you know, corporate event, they can wait. But if it’s a listener vein, I respond to them as soon as possible, because I think they’re key to my business and my success. And of course, my podcast. But I’ve been I don’t check back in, I close off. And then the next morning is the first task I do again, I don’t look at it at all for the rest of the day. Unless I don’t get a chance to do it first thing in the morning. And then it becomes my one time during the day, if that makes sense.

Neen James [14:05]
Yeah, and it does. And that works really well for you. But some people their business is very reliant on the platforms and social communities that they’ve built.

David Ralph [14:13]
Yeah, but you say I’m jumping back in it is is it Reliant that they can’t just do it once a day? You know, the people aren’t drowning out there. They don’t need us back urgently. Do they? You know?

Neen James [14:30]
Yeah, I think it depends on the business, the precedents that you’ve created and the service level agreements you have with the clients you have. My email often has a bounced back that says I only check my email once a day. And so that manages the expectations of the clients if they send me anything, and for the clients that I really love to have my cell phone number and they will, you know, they know they can text me but I think you’ve got to set up those service level agreements based on the business you have. So I don’t publish my cell phone anywhere. Nobody is on Absolutely no collaterals, it’s on no printed materials, it’s not on my website, I give that to my clients and say, if you need me, this is the best way to get my attention. a text message will always get my attention over an email. And so one thing just to think about is whatever systems you land on, whether it’s social, whether it’s email, whether it’s text messaging, whether it’s an actual phone call, which you know, a phone call now is considered a personal touch. You can have a whole text conversation, if someone calls you up to texting you people like what what are you doing? No, no, no, let’s just stay in the text relationship. So it’s really funny to me how we’ve changed some of the rules, but you have to have those agreements with your clients, whatever your clients look like, because I run a global business, David, just like you have global listeners, I can’t be responding to everything all the time at all hours. And so using out of office systems like a bounce back and out of office on my email, which I update on most days, it’s a different kind of message, even like my cell phone is set up so that if I’m driving, the person gets a bounce back message that says I’m driving, so I’m not going to see your text message. So wherever possible, I leverage technology to help manage the expectations of people for the service level agreements I have been placed with them.

David Ralph [16:15]
Love this, I love this. So it is, it’s about setting the expectation of others, which will then start helping you not feel like you’ve got to check your phone all the time. And then it will help you ultimately tackle I tell you, because it is the addiction I tell you, I rarely Well, I’m not on Facebook at all anymore. But when I decided I was going to get rid of Facebook, and absolutely clear everything off. Even though I only went on it like once every I don’t know, five days or something, I still felt an addiction to actually check back in and just see if anyone said something. And it took me away how I was such a small user. But I still felt this poll to log in, just to see if someone had said something nice about me. and nice. Yeah,

Neen James [17:06]
I totally get that. I think that one of the things that I’ve realised in my body of work as it has evolved from productivity, and time to focus and attention, what I’ve realised is that we have to have systems in place and what I call systems of attention, because systems create freedom, the more systems you have in life, the less you have to think about them. And so one of the systems that I apply is things like out of office messaging and using technology. But I also regularly do digital detoxes. Now in my world, a digital detox can look anything from a day to a week, it really depends on what’s going on in my practice and what deliverables I have for my clients. But for some people, you know, they were sort of forced to do a little bit of a digital detox, because in the US recently, Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram went down for almost a whole day, and people all went to Twitter, it was hilarious to watch. And so people still had a need to feel connected in some way. But understand some people have built their whole business on some of these platforms. And so I think that’s also a really good lesson for us whether you have an online business or a brand or whatever it is that you’re building, when you build on someone else’s real estate to use my friend Jay Bay is language building on someone else’s real estate, like social platforms, you don’t own that. So if something happens to that platform, and it goes down, that’s totally out of your control, which also I think is a really good reminder for those of us who have businesses to always be directing people back to the platforms we control, like our website. So think about, you know, often what happens is we point people to social as a default, David. But in actual fact, we may want to be thinking about capturing the communication methodology, whether it’s a email address and have a newsletter, or subscribers for a podcast, but let’s direct people back to platforms we control versus owned by other people.

David Ralph [19:09]
Yeah, I agree with base 100%. Now one of the things that I love about uni, and there’s so many things I love about you, but one of the big ones is huge, don’t have a podcast, and he drives me to I don’t, I don’t like podcasts. I really don’t like podcasts because there’s so many people that podcasting for the wrong reason. It’s just another task to have on it, you know, and I think it’s a bad way of doing it. I looked at yours and I thought named James, you turn to have a podcast and I love that. Is that because you’ve looked at it and you said it’s something else I don’t need. I’m sticking to the focus, because a minimal business really amplifies your message, doesn’t it?

Neen James [19:54]
Yes. And you were in the podcasting game before it was even cool to podcast. So you were one of the pioneers who We’re doing this before we all have that, you know, app on our iPhones, right? So you have been doing this a long time. I felt like there was a lot of people who started podcasting, and they didn’t have a strategy. I have deliberately chosen not to have a podcast, I have been approached a bazillion times about creating a podcast. I’ve had people to offer to produce the podcast, I’ve had people offer to do the complete thing. Even my publisher has said, you need podcast, I don’t want I am so good. What I need to do is to serve on other people’s podcasts as a guest because I show up, I have fabulous conversations, and you do all the work, all I have to do is help share the brilliance of your podcast with others through the platforms I already own. What people don’t realise, I think David is, if you think about all the different profit centres in your practice, in my business, I’m an executive strategist, I do an enormous amount of work with very senior level executives. And so that then drives a lot of the profit centre of my speaking profit centre executive mentoring, I work an enormous amount with people in luxury, and I love it. My clientele don’t need a podcast for me, what they need is my advice directly to them customised for their situation. So creating a podcasting profit centre, if you can call it that, or marketing distribution channel is a distraction in my practice in how I deliver for my clients. So I can share all the podcasts that I’m on with them as a value add. But I do not need to have my own, the only way I would ever have a podcast, I think David is if it was, I do a lot of video interviews, if I stripped the audio of those video interviews and made it available as a bonus. But what people don’t understand is to do a podcast well, like you do, you need a complete system, you need a marketing distribution system, you need to be able to have phenomenal interview skills, and engage guests provide a diversity of resources. It’s a full time job. That’s not one that I want.

David Ralph [22:08]
I love I love that bow. I love the fact that you understand that because this is one of the problems and we’re going to turn the conversation slightly, because this is one of the problems when people start creating a business. They start from a point of this is an idea. And then they look around and I literally look on what other people are doing without really thinking, you know, what is the value point that I’m really delivering for that individual. Now I pivoted over the years and I have kind of virtually stopped you from afar. And when I when I looked at this I where you are now I thought to myself, this I can see is an eight to 10 year journey, you can just see it where things had got deeper and deeper and vein, you’d work with a client or you’d have a conversation and then you realise there was another issue of a problem point and it becomes stronger and stronger. That’s why I said in the introduction, the whole crux of time management and productivity and everything is individual. And if the individual hasn’t got his ass into gear and is focused on the task, it’s never gonna happen. So it made more sense to me. Now, when you started, how did you get the first idea of what Nene James was going to do? Because I know that’s one of the stumbling blocks that people look around. And I’ve been, I haven’t got any skills, but I can translate.

Neen James [23:36]
One of the greatest influences in my life is a gentleman by the name of Matt church. And I remember watching Matt when I was still a corporate girl in Sydney, and he was speaking for the National Speakers Association of Australia and I had been invited before I was a professional speaker I was hands down a corporate girl had all the beautiful trappings of corporate life, corner office overlooking Sydney Harbour two secretaries, that’s what they used to call them back then. And expense account. I had a national team it was fab. But I’d been invited to the National Speakers Association of Australia to watch and Matt happened to be the guest speaker. And he was standing at the front of the room and he was giving all his intellectual property away to the people in the room who in my mind were his competitors. They were professional speakers like him. And I remember thinking, What on earth is this guy doing? For goodness sake, he’s giving all his gifts to everyone. templates, everything. I approached him afterwards and asked him about that. And I was like, I don’t understand, because I’m a corporate go. Remember we have lawyers to protect our IP. And I was like, you just gave away all your intellectual property and he said name, they won’t use it. And I was like floored by this statement. So I reached out to him and eventually I had decided that maybe that’s a profession that I wanted. And so I reached out to Matt and said, Will you be my mentor? And he said, No. Like, what do you mean? No, like, I mean, James, you don’t say no, he’s like, no, for six months, David. I asked him to mentor me for six months. He was adamant. Absolutely not. I don’t want him Until you you’re not ready, all the things anyway, persistence paid off because I that I just wore him down, I think. And he eventually agreed to mentor me, I set up an agreement. It was very official. Remember, I was a corporate girl, I knew corporate systems. And I remember when we were talking about what would I talk about as a professional speaker? And I really was at a loss, David. And he said, Well, you know, what about productivity, because one of the things I was renowned for David in my corporate life was being able to get things done, I could inherit a project that was 10 months behind, and I could bring it back on track in two months. I mean, I just had that reputation. And then he said, productivity, and I was like, oh, stupid. That’s not very interesting. Nobody cares about that. Isn’t everyone productive? I remember him laughing. I remember sitting on Sydney Harbour, I remember exactly where we were. And I was like, What do you mean isn’t just everyone productive. And I think, David, sometimes the key to our thought leadership is something that is intuitive to us, right. And so when we start to reverse engineer what we’re good at, and we break it down for other people, and teach them how to do it, it becomes valuable. But sometimes we’re so good at something, it’s so in our bones, it’s in our body, it’s in our brain, we just do it, I just assumed the world was productive. I just assumed people knew how to put systems in place. I just assumed people knew how to really focus on what mattered, they didn’t. And so me being able to provide practical advice and systems that I used was how my speaking practice got started. I had people ask me to speak at best practice conferences based on projects I’d done in my corporate life. As soon as I opened my doors of my own little tiny practice, we had a retainer client who hired me to work with his team every single month. So one thing that we need to think about is as business owners, it could be something you’re so good at, you don’t even think about it. Other people value it. So I owe that start of my career, and so many successes in my journey to the legendary Matt church.

David Ralph [27:02]
What he said and why I laughed was brilliant, that you can give away all the freebies you want, and the people won’t use it. And it blows me away. And I’m going to point of view, do you think that we have trained the world to not see the value of free and almost expect free if we could go back 30 years, instead of doing the the free six part video course which leads into an email marketing and going into a webinar and being pre content on Facebook and free podcast and previous and previous? And just say to them, okay, this is what I do, this is how much I cost boom, I think that we would open the door to a much easier way of operating What do you think mean if we trained the world to expect free to just be given to them?

Neen James [27:55]
People don’t always value free. So that is something that is very evident in no matter what industry you serve, whether it’s the online community, whether it is a corporate community, whether it is nonprofit, it doesn’t matter. people haven’t they don’t value free as much they’re not as bought in to situation However, I do you believe that being able to give away resources is a lovely way for people to get an experience of you or to get to know you. So for people who have intellectual property that they can share that is valuable to others, a downloadable tip sheet or 10 ways to do this, or one of my favourite humans. She has a website called the well dressed life. Her name is Megan Christelle. She’s a genius stylist, an awesome human. And when you go to her website, one of the things that she gives away is this free checklist of all of the different items in a wardrobe that women need to be successful. Now it sounds so simple, but I cannot tell you how many of my executive clients that I have coached over the years of the centre, Megan, and I’ve asked them to really look at the way she shows up in the world. That one free thing she gives away generously. It’s, it’s the same thing. She was like, Yeah, but everyone should have these things. It’s so intuitive to, but to others, where they don’t think about their executive presence, and their executive image and the clothing they put on their body and the message it sends the world. This is an important resource. I love that she gives away that free checklist. I think it’s a very valuable way for her to instantly add value to that person who’s on her website. And then if they love what she has, then they can get her daily newsletter or they can sign up for something with her. But I do love that opportunity to give something to people that hasn’t cost you a lot of time and energy and maybe it’s a downloadable thing, but I do believe that most to people when it comes to the intellectual property that you have, they don’t always value it. As the same thing, as a professional speaker, I see this all the time, when I share with people what my keynote fee is, you watch their reaction, and they like, but it’s just an hour of your time. And I say it’s actually 20 years of experience to put into that hour, you only see an hour on stage, but there could be up to 100 hours of preparation. And so I think that’s the challenge, right? It’s not tangible. And so when it comes, if you’re selling your expertise, you have to be able to articulate your value in a way that people are willing to pay.

David Ralph [30:40]
There’s a real journey, you’ve got to go on mentally, and you cost yourself quite often, I think way your business is more advanced than your actual personal belief. And then your personal belief becomes even further and you look at your business and you think, ah, I’ve got all this out, it looks old hat, it hasn’t moved on with where I am and my monetary options. We’ve yourself once again, looking at your website now and his videos of you moving around, and it’s sort of very glossy, is it matching up with the name, but we’re speaking to is the confidence of view evident in your door sort of online profile?

Neen James [31:20]
Oh, absolutely the same same whether you meet me at the airport at midnight, because my flights been delayed, or I’ve just got offstage in front of 1000 people, it’s the same, my job is to show up in the Zoom Room in the ballroom or in the boardroom, the same person. And so absolutely, I’ve always walked into every room and assumed everyone wants to play with me, that’s been something that I’ve always had and held to. And so that definitely shows up the challenge with websites. I think David is things like show reels, those, you know, fancy videos that are there. They’re out of date, as soon as you put them on there. Because the clients I work with the work I do, it evolves constantly, but you have to have something on there. And so that’s what that’s about that video on there. Honestly, Mark would be horrified if I told him how old that video is. But the work I still do is executive strategy. The work I still do involves me sitting around boardrooms with leaders, for global companies, it still involves me standing on stage. Well, it did have a book COVID. And I love that kind of work. It’s still what I do. But I think even websites collaterals all of those tools. They’re just tools, David, they evolve as the work evolves, the challenge of being a business owner is actually staying on top of the evolution and keeping them up to date. And how

David Ralph [32:39]
do you do that? Then how would you keep your own personal focus on where your once again, your value point is, without being overwhelmed with the movement is just ahead of you? And that’s that’s the big problem, isn’t it? There are movers and shakers that are creating the curve. And then the most of most of us are on the curve. So how do you keep that focus on what you need to do, and not just chase after those those people ahead of you.

Neen James [33:09]
I think you’ve really got to understand where you’re at. I remember Matt telling me when I first started my business, you had choices, you could be focused on platform, or you could be focused on growth, but it was hard to focus on both at the same time. What he meant was platform as far as all of the tools, building the systems, the websites, all of the things that are going to help you have the platform you need in order for you to grow your business, or growth, meaning real business development opportunities. Now it’s not to say you can’t do both, but it’s really stuck with me because you know, my website being out of date, it’s not costing me business right now, not to my knowledge, my clients need me to show up 100% for them, I’m choosing to be in those conversations fully present listening to what they need. I think one of the challenges we have is that it’s very easy to get distracted by a pretty a website, or a nicer one sheet or fancy business cards. And these things are all really important. But are they actually driving the results you need? For me, I’d rather be focusing my time doing the work with clients. And then what I do is certain times in my year David, that’s a system where I review the platform where I work with the website team to make the changes. Every business has peak delivery times before COVID I knew that January would always be ridiculously busy for me. And February in the winter on the East Coast a little bit cooler. March things would get back in April business would be nutso the spring and the fall where my silly seasons but my summer, I would often take all the stuff because in the US not a lot happens in August. I had one client I did a wonderful job for every year and I love them was my only speech I did in August. So I think you have to know The peaks and troughs of your own business cycle. But what I used August for was writing new content, updating existing tools, refreshing scripts, and text and content. People have to create systems that work for them. I know I’m way behind on sending newsletters to clients. And then when way behind on writing, I have a deal for three books, and I haven’t written one of them yet. I know that but right now my focus is on growth. It’s serving the clients that I have, at the time of recording. That’s what I’m choosing to focus on. And so I think it’s easy to get distracted by all of the marvellous things you can do, but you have to focus on what you must do. I think the key to this, David too, is having a team, being able to work with people that you really respect your marketing team, your content providers, your social media person, whatever tools work for you. But you’ve got to also have time where you can do the work.

David Ralph [35:56]
When you’re not doing the work, how can you switch off? Do you switch off? Or are you always

Neen James [36:04]
no i i mean, I’m the kind of personality You know, I’ve always been a probably an adrenaline junkie, I love fast anything. I love being with people I love being on the guard, that’s very much who I am anyway, but me recovering is with people. So I love having meals with friends that to me is recovery and reach out to time, my ultimate decadence i think is laying by the pool with a magazine and reading it cover to cover or just like reading a book for pleasure, not for business. Those things I do build into my calendar, I shedule recovery time, just like I shedule Executive strategy sessions with clients, because the only way I can show up in the world to serve the clients that I do is to make sure my energy is at the right level. My role is to help motivate, inspire, challenge the clients that I serve, which means I have to make sure I stay up to date and I manage my own energy sources.

David Ralph [36:59]
When COVID hit in 2020. I loved the person. I adored it when everything closed down and it was all just quiet time. But I look back on it now. And I realised there was a big part of me that slowed down so much that I couldn’t get going again. It was like the battery had run down. And I’ve spoken to quite a few people. And they say yeah, they were on the go over time then forced to slow down and painful. I actually don’t want to speed up again. I’m quite happy to sort of like sitting there. Did you find it similar with you? Or did your business just keep on operating at the same pace.

Neen James [37:36]
Everything had to change David so understand. I spent my life on the road. I was in hotel ballrooms, convention centres Ubers that was my life by choice. I loved it. I loved every second of it. And what I didn’t realise is how exhausting the travel makes you. So when I went from having a full calendar to working out of my little home office in Tampa, Florida, what I had to do was I had to change really, really quickly. So instead of being on the road, I was on camera, but I was on camera for you know 1012 some 14 days like hours a day and what I realised was my job David was just to stand in service of whatever my clients needed. So I was doing an enormous amount of executive mentoring talking to leadership teams talking people off ledges, I was having conversations with CEOs about whether they should close their manufacturing plants. I was talking to media CEOs about what they should do about their buildings about their team. I mean, it was so constant. I was more exhausted in those first few months than I ever remember being and so my pace actually got greater I didn’t have any downtime because when you travel you have downtime on the plane waiting for the plane, waiting for the soundcheck waiting to go on stage. I didn’t have any of those things. So I found that my job was to really stand in service of whatever clients needed. Very quickly, I realised how exhausting that was. So secretly, what I did was I would work Monday, Tuesday, you know, I would do 12 to 14 hours on zoom every day, Monday and Tuesday, and then I’d take Wednesday off, sit by the pool, do all my personal errands, do that kind of thing. And then I would work Thursday Friday. So I redesigned my calendar, David so that I could still serve but I was really only working four of those five weekdays. Now clients didn’t know that that’s just how I designed my calendar. And so now what I’ve done my adjustment has been that pretty much I work really hard Monday to Thursday and I frequently take Friday off and so I use Friday for all the personal things that I want to get done with just some thinking time but that’s the benefit of having your own practice right is you can design your own calendar. Now I have one client I usually talk to on a Friday but that’s easy. She doesn’t care if I’m in my workout gear and I you know, turn the camera That’s the deal we have. But I think we have to design the lives we want. Before COVID we were living lives we thought were what everyone needed us to do. COVID allowed us to stop and say, but what do I want to do? Now I miss a live audience. David, I miss standing on a stage. I love signing books after a speech, I love taking all the selfies. I love everything about being with humans. But right now, David, I can do three shows in a day, I can do 6am with Singapore, I can do 12 o’clock with the East Coast of the US and I can do 6pm with Australia, New Zealand. And I could never have done that before COVID.

David Ralph [40:39]
So it has been such a benefit for so many people to reassess and become more profitable and create new income streams. Would you say that away from the loss of life and the terrible personal situation, or business, it’s actually been good.

Neen James [40:59]
For me, it has been but not for all of my clients. And so I don’t think that there is an easy way to look at this. What it has allowed my clients to do is to reassess the ways they used to do business. Some of my CEOs used to require their people to be seen every day in an office, many of those CEOs have realised that their team can be highly productive working remotely, and they don’t need them in the office every single day. So some of my CEOs have negotiated to more of a hybrid model so that when they go back to work whenever that is, they might allow some time from home some time from work. What I think it’s also done is it has allowed people to explore things they might have wanted to do in the past, but they just didn’t think they could. People have relocated, they’ve moved their families to places civilis dreamed of living. So I think what it has done is it made the world stop and assess, well, what do I want? What’s the best thing for me and my family? And then how do I make that work? Some of my clients though, David, this has affected them enormously one of my most favourite industries I work in is luxury travel, we’ll just have a look at what happened to my cruise lines, to my hotels to my adventure clients, all of their businesses shut down. Even as some of my hotels started to open, David, I have general managers cleaning rooms, because they couldn’t get the housekeeping stuff to come back. So you have to think about their massive implications that we haven’t even seen yet of industries, we’ve always assumed our hotel will be open. But there will be someone there to service our room. We’ve asked people to now review the way that they travel, review the way that they experienced the world. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. But there are a lot of industries who are really hurting through this process.

David Ralph [42:53]
Yeah, but I think through the hurting, people reassess. And people look at becoming more streamlined and not so fat and lazy. And a lot of the businesses that were just resting on their laurels. I’ve seen it time and time again that they’ve had to find different ways of doing it. And you know, in many ways, it’s bought a farm that and vibrancy back into businesses that were getting fatter and flabby.

Neen James [43:19]
Yeah, I think that all of the ways they used to do things, they thought they had to do things, they were able to take stock and say is this the best? Is this the best thing for our clients? Is it the best thing for our team? Is it the best thing for our community. But there is a lot of burned out people there is a lot of very exhausted tired leaders, whether they’re in corporate nonprofit, or whether they’re entrepreneurs. There are a lot of people who are suffering from mental health issues and exhaustion, and they’re the sorts of things we’re going to have to be dealing with coming out of this global pandemic.

David Ralph [43:55]
So just before we move you for a second time to the Sermon on the mic, when we send you back in time to speak to the the name James of the last time he was on the show, what would be the two big things that the listeners out there could do an implement that could make a massive difference to their focus, what would be the domino that they could achieve, which would have ripples across their life.

Neen James [44:23]
The first thing I would suggest is that for all of the listeners to invest 15 minutes every morning in a strategic appointment with yourself and your 15 minutes, just identify your top three non negotiable activities that you must get done today. So before your head hits the pillow tonight, think about what are just three things that you need to achieve that will get you closer to your goals. And then speaking of 15 minutes The second thing I would say is start approaching time differently. Look at everything in 15 minute increments. Can you have meetings in 15 minutes? Can you answer your email in 15 minutes? Can you look on social for 15 minutes, can you meditate for 15 minutes. But if you start looking at time differently, nobody has an hour anymore. We don’t have these amazing schedules, we can do whatever we want. But we show can create 15 minutes, you can either get up earlier for 15 minutes, or you can go to sleep later for 15 minutes. So my challenge to all of the listeners is looking at time and 15 minute increments, and have one strategic appointment with yourself every single day, and just identify what are your top three priorities for the day, that’s how you prioritise your priorities.

David Ralph [45:33]
Oh, good stuff, and give us another one I want more Naina. One more

Neen James [45:39]
young thing that I want to suggest to people is we’ve talked a lot about it on this episode. And that is think about attention management and Device Management. You are the one who gets to choose how you use technology, leverage technology use all of the out of office facilities turn off every sound notification bell and whistle use Do Not Disturb frequently on your computer, on your phone. There are settings for all of these things. Think about really focusing on the person who is on camera with you, or on the call with you or at dinner with you pay attention to the people that really matter. Because attention pays.

David Ralph [46:18]
Yeah, it does, especially to my family that will sit down dinner table with all their devices around them. Yeah, well, we used to, I don’t know, I’m actually going to stop this Nene. I’ve just realised we used to have this roll, no tablets, or no phones at a table. But I mean, my wife started to break it. And then the kids looked at her and she’s breaking it, we can break it. And so it’s become a slide a slippery slide. And yeah, yeah.

Neen James [46:45]
modelling to everyone around us how we want to be treated. So if we’re connected to our devices constantly, we’re making it okay for others to do the same. So I love the idea of challenging listeners. Could you tonight have a device free meal and really just have a conversation with people and their day?

David Ralph [47:04]
Oh, there’s gonna be a lot of divorces. I think I think a lot of these devices are keeping people together because they don’t really have to talk to each other delay.

Neen James [47:12]
That’s not true. I just think we’ve lost that out of conversation

David Ralph [47:17]
is true. Yeah, yeah, I would romantic person you can see every restaurant in the world for the couples not talking to each other.

Neen James [47:26]
It’s heart wrenching. You know, there’s restaurants in New York, perfect COVID. There are restaurants in New York that if you handed them and today, your phone on the way and they would give you a 15% discount on your bill. We are literally paying people to pay attention.

David Ralph [47:41]
That’s where we’ve got to go. Well, I’ve been paying attention all the way through this episode, and paying attention to the time when I can take you on another journey. And this is the journey that we called a sermon on the mic. And as I said earlier, this time, when you go back in time, you don’t get a chance to choose but you go back to Episode 258 of the show and give a chance of a little pep talk to the Nene James that appeared on the show before so I’m going to play the music and when it fades is your time to talk. This is the Sermon on the mic, part two.

Neen James [48:18]
We go with the best bit of the show. And that’s what it’s gonna be like five years from today, you’ve just published folding time, people are responding so much to the book and the practical advice. But look ahead, look ahead to five years down the track. When you’re going to be enjoying speaking with people about how they can be even more productive and pay attention. You’re going to be enjoying working with leaders who have a global impact. So stay true, stay true to what you believe. Stand tall and what is important to you and hang on to the fact that yes, what you’re talking about might be a little bit controversial. Yes, it might be something people haven’t heard before. But it’s a message that is needed and will evolve. So think about imagining what’s it going to be like five years from now. Be present in what’s happening today. Enjoy the journey, enjoy every moment, but keep looking forward because the work is going to get bigger, the ideas are going to get stronger and you’re going to have even more fun.

David Ralph [49:36]
Yeah, great stuff. Great advice for everybody listening as well. So Nene, what’s the best way that the audience can connect with you?

Neen James [49:44]
The great thing David is there’s only one name James online so you can stalk me on the socials I play every day on Instagram I share content on LinkedIn or you can simply go to my website name James calm.

David Ralph [49:56]
We have over links on the show notes on Join Up Dots to make it as easy as possible, nine, thank you so much for spending time with us today joining up even more dots. And I’m going to say it but please come back again when you’ve got even more dots to join up again, as I believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our pasts is always the best way to build our futures named James, thank you so much.

Neen James [50:18]
It was an absolute privilege. Thank you for everything you’re doing in the world.

David Ralph [50:24]
Lovely Nene James. So she’s built a whole business around productivity and time focus and setting boundaries. And it’s one of those things that you might be very good at doing that in the office, you might say to people, oh, I’ve always got all the time to get the tasks done. That could be a great business for you to transition. But how do you take those skills and find an audience a client avatar, but really need that, and one of the best ways is to go deeper and deeper and find a smaller and smaller focused avatar or customer base, and when you can get smaller and smaller and more tight and niched in, then you understand their problems even more and then your, your profile and your your products become that much powerful, and start to sell themselves. So it really is a case of finding out what you can do and what you can do well and then limit it to a very small selective group that deserves you and Bay in your business will start flourishing. And as always, for anybody out there that books time with me, it’s a delight to speak to you all you got to do is come over to Join Up Dots, click on the Contact page, and we will help you get going with your new online business. Until next time, my friends you Look after yourselves. You stay sexy NRC again. Cheers. See ya. Bye bye.

outro [51:48]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self you or wants to become so he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to Join Up dots.com to download this amazing guide for free and we’ll see you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.