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
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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