Alice Aspen March

Madonna is often referred to as the Queen of Re-invention. She changes her look, her music, and her stage show to stay fresh, creative, and marketable. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Alice Aspen March, creator of The Attention Factor and an Emmy nominated producer. Let me tell you, Alice is also a Queen of Re-invention, as you will see.

Like many women, Alice did not have her own identity until she turned 45. Until then, she’d been a “wife,” a “daughter,” a “mother,” but not an “Alice!”

In 1977, she met Sally Williams from San Francisco. They had lunch together and discussed what Sally was actively doing about kids heavy television viewing habits. They both felt that “someone in Los Angeles had to do something about it!” As a result, Alice formed a non-profit and later became Executive Director of FACT, (Focusing Awareness on Children and Television.) to promote quality programming for kids. She put together a conference at UCLA to address this topic, which was no small feat. She later got the golden opportunity to play the key role in keeping Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood on the air and started a life-long collaboration with Fred Rogers.

Alice sold and produced the Emmy- nominated documentary, Latch –Key Kids, narrated by Christopher Reeve, which was responsible for the development of extended after-school programs funded by the California State Senate.

As you can see, when Alice got passionate about an issue, things got done…BIG!

Alice was doing extremely valuable work, but of course that entailed many hours away from home. When she discovered that her youngest son was addicted to television, and drugs, as well, she knew that she had to discover her role in his dysfunctional behavior. She was terrified that she could loose him.

She really did not have a clue, but she chose to stay home more, to make their home into a Teenage “hangout” where her son and his friends would have a refrigerator, an ear and a designated driver. It actually took her two years, before she found a sense of direction in her search. She had an epiphany over the word ATTENTION, while in a UCLA class.

So she consciously started doing research on “attention,” and found only information pertaining to ADD/ADHD. She did not let this stop her. After digging deeper, she developed a body of work and started speaking about the vital role attention plays in everyone’s life, forever, and that the quality of attention we both give and receive becomes an essential part of who we are and has the ability to change ours and others’ lives. Alice ultimately found the secret that saved her son’s life. It was extremely vital to give her son the kind of particular ATTENTION he needed, not what she THOUGHT he needed!

After speaking in Tecate, Mexico, at Rancho La Puerta, an international fitness spa, a book agent happened to sit at her table. Although the agent had not been at any of her presentations, she said that “everyone here is talking about you. You should write a book!”

She got a proposal ready to go and sent it to another very prominent agent who said, “ I love what you’re doing, but you can’t write, so I will send you a collaborator.” Together they wrote another proposal. The agent declared that the new writing was fabulous, sent 19 out and got 19 rejections. When Alice went to New York to meet with the agent, the meeting did not go well.

So, while people around the world were begging her to write a book, she was getting blocked. As a result, she self-published Attention: It’s the Problem-It’s the Solution, a workbook which in her own words: “gives the tools, information and insights to enable people to discover the root causes of how they receive and give attention. It also serves to intervene in our world’s epidemic of personal addictions and disconnections. We are seeing the effects in our workplaces, families and in our relationships.”

When I asked, “What keeps you going?” She answered, “I’m committed to my life’s mission. The only way we can stay young, vital, and relevant is to discover our passions and create our personal visions.” She expects to have another book out this spring, and she keeps speaking and conducting workshops nationwide. While she considers she’s still a “work-in-process,” she continues to inspire and change people’s lives.

Alice Aspen March cannot be stopped and that is a good thing for ALL of us.

You can visit Alice at www.TheAttentionFactor.com