Got Your Attention

How can you get and keep people's attention in a world where goldfish outlast us in focus? In Got Your Attention?, communication strategist Sam Horn argues that success in life and business depends on one skill: the ability to earn and hold meaningful attention in an impatient, distracted age. If you can’t get people’s attention, she warns, you’ll never get their connection.

Horn introduces a method she calls INTRIGUE—a framework for creating communications that grab attention immediately, earn respect, and turn one-way exchanges into memorable two-way connections. Each letter—Intro, New, Time-efficient, Repeatable, Interact, Give, Useful, and Examples—represents an ingredient for crafting messages that people actually notice, remember, and repeat. The book combines psychological insight, storytelling, and real-world case studies from entrepreneurs, speakers, and everyday professionals who learned how to become intriguingly clear rather than boringly thorough.

The Attention Crisis

Horn begins with alarming facts: human attention spans average eight seconds—less than that of a goldfish. People swipe, skip, and scan endlessly. We are living in what she calls an age of attention bankruptcy. The result? Disconnection. Our pitches fall flat, our messages get ignored, our relationships remain shallow. Drawing inspiration from Dale Carnegie’s timeless advice, Horn reimagines influence for the modern era: instead of forcing people to listen, we must first give our attention if we want to earn theirs.

Introducing INTRIGUE: The New Recipe for Connection

Horn has spent two decades coaching leaders at NASA, Boeing, Cisco, and entrepreneurs at conferences worldwide. She distilled her observations into a practical roadmap. The eight steps of INTRIGUE help you design communications that are not only heard but felt:

• I = INTRO: Start strong. Hook people at hello with curiosity-based intros that replace bland openings.
• N = NEW: Offer fresh perspectives that stand out. Being right isn’t enough—you must be different.
• T = TIME-EFFICIENT: Respect attention as the new currency. Be brief, clear, and high-value.
• R = REPEATABLE: Craft phrases-that-pay—memorable sound-bites others can share and quote.
• I = INTERACT: Transform monologues into dialogues. Make communication a two-way exchange.
• G = GIVE: Give attention before expecting it; focus on others' needs instead of self-promotion.
• U = USEFUL: Make your insights actionable. Offer real-world relevance, not abstract talk.
• E = EXAMPLES: Replace fluffy theory with vivid, true examples that make ideas real.

Horn contends that when you align your communication with all eight ingredients, you earn what she calls an “ROI: Return on Intrigue.” People not only listen; they repeat your message, act on it, and share it with others.

Why Attention Is the Gateway to Connection

“Only connect,” novelist E. M. Forster urged a century ago. Horn takes that call into the digital age. We are drowning in INFObesity—too much content, too little connection. The real challenge isn’t creating more information; it’s fostering interactions infused with empathy, curiosity, and usefulness. Horn’s stories—from a mother helping her son land a NASA job to entrepreneurs winning investor buy-in—prove that intrigued attention leads to influence.

Unlike traditional communication guides that focus on persuasion or performance, Got Your Attention? focuses on emotional resonance. Horn believes true communication isn’t what you say; it’s what the receiver takes away. If people can’t repeat or apply your message, you’ve failed. When they want to share it because it struck a chord, you’ve succeeded. The INTRIGUE framework turns communication into an act of giving, not grabbing.

What to Expect from the Journey

Throughout the book, Horn takes you from mastering quick introductions (“Did you know?” questions) to crafting memorable rally cries (“We will prevail”). You’ll learn how to make your message repeatable, how to illustrate ideas through empathy-driven examples, and how to build connections through listening and interactive meetings. Every principle ends with concrete Action Questions—Horn’s signature coaching move—so readers can immediately transfer concepts into their own communication routines.

In essence, this isn’t a book about marketing or speaking—it’s a manifesto for human connection. Horn urges readers to replace old defaults of information overload with new defaults of curiosity, brevity, and empathy. The payoff, she promises, isn’t just better business results but stronger relationships, influence, and joy. After all, attention is love made visible.

Horn begins with one of communication’s biggest hurdles: the opening moment. She reminds you that people decide whether you are worth listening to within the first sixty seconds. If you waste that time explaining yourself or rambling through background, it’s too late. The antidote is her clever formula of “Ask, Imagine, Affirm.”

Ask “Did You Know?” Questions

Horn’s favorite opening tool is a trio of startling “Did you know?” questions followed by three imaginative “Imagine if” statements. She helped entrepreneur Kathleen Callendar, founder of PharmaJet, craft this kind of intro for investors. Instead of saying “We’re a platform for a medical delivery device for subcutaneous inoculations,” Callendar began with: “Did you know there are 1.8 billion vaccinations each year? Did you know up to half use reused needles? Did you know we’re spreading the diseases we’re trying to prevent?” In sixty seconds, everyone in the room leaned forward. Investors who heard sixteen other pitches suddenly cared about hers—and she went on to be recognized by BusinessWeek as one of the most promising social entrepreneurs of the year.

Applying this to your own life, Horn suggests finding three surprising facts about the issue your audience cares about—numbers that make them say “Really?” Research them credibly (she jokes, “GTS—Google That Stuff”) and lead with intrigue. People can’t resist completing an unfinished mental loop; when they’re curious, they choose to listen.

Turn Facts into Vision with “Imagine”

Once curiosity is sparked, paint the future with the word “Imagine.” This bridges from the problem to the promise. Horn demonstrates this through Sean Keener, whose company BootsnAll launched an app called Indie. His intro: “Did you know you used to need a travel agent to book a five-city trip? Did you know it took up to five days for a price quote? Imagine if you could do it yourself—in less than an hour.” Indie went viral because people didn’t just understand it—they could picture it.

Affirm Reality with “You Don’t Have to Imagine It”

The final step is to assure the audience that what you propose isn’t fantasy. “You don’t have to imagine it—we’ve built it.” Bring proof: testimonials, news coverage, data. Within one minute you’ve solved the toughest problem in communication: moving people from passive skepticism to active curiosity. Horn insists this short frame is more effective than long explanations—because our brains shut down when overloaded. The impact of brevity is not simplification, but amplification.

“It’s far more effective to cherry-pick the three most impressive aspects and make them as pithy as possible so people grasp them the first time they hear them.”

(Note: This mirrors the “lead with tension” principle in Nancy Duarte’s Resonate, which also emphasizes starting with what’s unexpected.)

For Horn, confidence under pressure is not an inborn trait—it’s a trainable mindset. She draws from sports to show that communication, like competition, rewards practice, presence, and preparation. The key is to psych yourself up, not out. When entrepreneur clients told her fear was sabotaging presentations, she reminded them that great athletes don’t avoid nerves; they channel them.

Walk and Rehearse

Instead of memorizing lines, Horn advocates what she calls “walk/rehearse.” Just as athletes train under real movement, speakers should practice speaking while walking to simulate dynamic focus. A Stanford study she cites shows moving boosts creative output by 60 percent. Muscles recall rhythm better than minds do.

Use Home-Field Advantage and Posture Power

Walk the room before your meeting starts; make it familiar. As football coach Pop Warner said, “You play the way you practice.” Horn even uses posture coaching—replacing the “fig leaf” pose with the “tower stance”: feet shoulder-width apart, chin up, hands as if holding a basketball. You literally embody readiness.

Design a Confidence Ritual

Every professional performer has pregame rituals. Horn learned this from tennis legends like Rod Laver and Rafael Nadal. Before any high-stakes talk, repeat a grounding statement: “I’m here to serve, not to shine.” It resets focus from self-consciousness to contribution. (That’s similar to Amy Cuddy’s power pose insights in Presence.) Horn reminds you that anxiety is “experiencing failure in advance.” Confidence is a choice to expect the win.

Horn argues that to intrigue others, truth must feel new. Being correct is not enough—you must be original. The chapter “Create the Next New Thing” introduces her Seven Ps of Disruption—a checklist to innovate whether you're pitching an idea or designing a product.

The Seven Ps of Disruption

• Purpose: Define the goal and success metric.
• Person: Know your target decision-maker intimately.
• Problem: Identify their frustrations or challenges.
• Premise: Ask “Why not?” and “What if?” to break habits.
• Product: Prototype a new or better solution.
• Promise: Offer reassurance of results or payoff.
• POP: Craft a name or title that stands out.

She used this with a Six Sigma client who titled a medical presentation Flaw and Order—a memorable twist prompting record attendance. Similarly, she reverse-engineers how Uber’s founders followed each “P” to redesign the experience of getting a cab.

The takeaway: originality doesn’t come from invention alone but from evolution—seeing what people dislike and flipping it. When you create something that gives people exactly what they want and nothing they don’t, you win attention through service. As she says, “Unless you’re perceived as different, you’ll always struggle for attention.”

People’s internal clocks are ruthless. Horn’s principle: Be brief or you’ll cause grief. When you start speaking, the real unasked question is, “How long will this take?” By keeping messages short, structured, and surprising, you earn trust—the ultimate form of attention.

Swaddle Your Communication

Horn borrows from psychology’s concept of boundary-setting. Just as babies feel secure in a snug blanket, listeners feel safe with clear limits. Keep emails under five sentences, set meeting time caps, and define how many points you’ll cover. Her client Rick, an engineer, reduced his endless monologues into crisp three-minute reports and gained respect overnight. Deadlines and constraints, she stresses, do not stifle creativity—they enable it.

“When forced to work within a tight framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost and produces its richest ideas.” – T.S. Eliot

The metaphorical “ThunderShirt” she uses for her dog during storms becomes a symbol for containment—communication swaddled in clear time and length boundaries calms everyone involved. (Comparable to Seth Godin’s emphasis on “short, sayable, shareable.”) Fewer words, more clarity.

Horn teaches that messages last only if they can be easily recalled and retold. A phrase-that-pays—a short, rhythmic, repeatable line—turns information into influence. Think of slogans like “Click It or Ticket” or Neil Gaiman’s commencement mantra “Make Good Art.” Such lines become viral because they tap rhythm, rhyme, and emotion.

Five Steps to Memorable Messaging

• Distill into eight words or fewer—short enough to fit on a bumper sticker.
• Use rhythm and alliteration to make it sing.
• Use rhyme to fix it in long-term memory (“Click It or Ticket”).
• Deliver it with distinctive pause and punch so it lands emotionally.
• Turn it into a rally cry that makes people feel part of something.

She cites poet Nikki Giovanni’s “We will prevail” address after the Virginia Tech tragedy as a case study: the right phrase at the right time unites and heals. Her broader point—soundbites aren’t manipulative when they encapsulate truth; they’re memorable because they serve meaning. When people can repeat your key idea word-for-word, you’ve won the long tail of attention.

Most people think connection comes from talking. Horn flips that: true intrigue comes from turning talking into interaction. Whether at networking events, meetings, or interviews, she shows how asking better questions creates genuine rapport. Channeling her mentor Dale Carnegie, she shares a rule: trade “Here I am” energy for “There you are” energy.

Ask Engaging, Open Questions

Instead of “What do you do?” ask, “What are you working on that excites you?” Instead of telling your story first, draw theirs out. One client, Maria, overcame her fear of elite CEO mixers by using Horn’s “listen in” tactic: join a group, ask permission to listen, contribute thoughtfully, and watch connection bloom. Within minutes, Maria had executives competing for her company at their tables.

Turn Back Conversations

Horn explains the brilliance of ending your turn with a “you question” to keep the focus on others: “That’s interesting—what’s your take on it?” Each time you do, you build what psychologist Bernardo Carducci calls social “glue.” Real connection is less about eloquence than intention—you show interest, not get interesting.

The reward is mutual intrigue: others leave feeling heard and consider you fascinating. (It’s the conversational corollary of Stephen Covey’s “seek first to understand.”)

To make an idea memorable, Horn says, you must make people feel. She urges you to replace abstract explanations with emotional illustrations—what she calls “Dog on a Tanker” examples. Named after a true news story of a dog, Hokget, rescued from a burning tanker after global empathy spurred a $250,000 mission, this metaphor reveals the psychology of compassion: it’s easier to care about one visible life than thousands of invisible ones.

The Empathy Telescope

Drawing on Shankar Vedantam’s article, Horn explains the “Empathy Telescope” effect—people identify with individuals, not statistics. To move hearts, anchor your argument in a single relatable person. Nonprofit leader Tom Tuohy illustrates this with his story of JJ, a quadriplegic teen who swam with dolphins through his charity Dreams for Kids. Instead of citing organizational metrics, he shares JJ’s kiss from the dolphin, and donors cry—and give.

Your takeaway: embed what you teach in true human examples. People forget numbers but remember faces and moments. Logic convinces, but empathy compels. (This mirrors Chip and Dan Heath’s “Made to Stick” SUCCESs framework—especially “Concrete” and “Emotional.”)

Perhaps Horn’s most humane insight is this: intrigue begins with the attention you give, not the attention you get. She argues that listening is the highest form of respect—and maybe the rarest. True communicators “listen like they like to be listened to.” Drawing from research showing that nearly half of employees who quit do so because they don’t feel heard, she shows how attentive listening turns isolation into connection.

The LISTEN Framework

• L: Look, lift, and lean—give physical presence.
• I: Ignore distractions—make others your #1 priority.
• S: Suspend judgment—approach with curiosity.
• T: Take notes—it proves respect and attention.
• E: Empathize—ask “How would I feel?”
• N: No buts—replace “but” with “and” to acknowledge instead of negate.

Stories like her son Andrew’s meeting at Howard University drive the point home: he turned a rejection meeting into a partnership simply by asking a decision-maker what motivated her work. The shift from pitching to listening flips power dynamics and builds goodwill. Horn sums it up: “Being intrigued in others makes you intriguing to others.”

Horn closes with a call to action: communication is not performance; it’s generosity. Using the story of researcher Brené Brown speaking at NASA about vulnerability, Horn illustrates how authentic storytelling anchored in empathy can capture even the toughest audiences. Influence, she insists, is not about ego but about offering lessons learned so others grow faster.

She challenges readers to share insights instead of hiding them out of modesty or fear of imperfection. “Lessons learned in your head help no one.” Expanding influence “for good” means using INTRIGUE not just to sell but to serve—to connect people to what matters, inspire action, and build communities. In Horn’s words, when you learn to be more intrigued and intriguing, you leave a legacy of connection—not noise.