Enlightening, inspirational, and self-empowering advice.
An executive coach introduces her internationally tested personal success system.
Bence, author of several self-help and business books, including Master the Brand Called YOU (2014), says she applied “the power of thoughts and beliefs” to her own life and shared her learnings with her clients and audiences around the world. In this engaging book, she explains her success system, which is anchored by a central idea—“to consciously choose the Joy of Possibility over fear,” or as she calls it, “The Forgotten Choice.” The volume begins with several chapters that explore the concept of choice, why people generally focus on exterior rather than interior causes of unhappiness, and why “our ability to take charge and master the intangibles” is key to personal success. One of the author’s compelling core concepts revolves around a pyramid that demonstrates the interrelationship of four essential components of self-determination: “Think-Feel-Behave-Results.” Bence does an excellent job of explaining each of these elements in detail. Using concrete examples, she shows how the pyramid can be applied to decision-making. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the book is the author’s proposition that there are essentially just two “thought-systems”—one is fear and the other is the “Joy of Possibility.” Bence offers a lucid and at times riveting discussion of the aspects of fear, contrasted with an uplifting explanation of the Joy of Possibility. Again, several solid examples are employed to illustrate both of these thought systems. Other concepts in the volume, including the “Inner Coach” and “Mind Leadership,” demonstrate ways to help shift one’s thinking to achieve positive, high-growth potential. Some of the material covered in the work is recognizable; for example, the emphasis on living in the present and using creative visualization to think positively will undoubtedly be familiar to readers of other motivational self-help books. Still, multiple concepts coalesce here in a way that makes the overall presentation meaningful and memorable. Bence’s argument may occasionally rely too heavily on the power of individual choice, but it is hard to disagree with her contention that “we’re not thinking big enough.”
Enlightening, inspirational, and self-empowering advice.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-942718-07-9
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Global Insight Communications
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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