In This Issue
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Where in The World is Brenda Now??
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| Author, Speaker, Trainer and Coach Brenda Bence travels extensively to present her unique approach to corporate and personal branding at conferences, conventions, & corporations all across the globe... |
| If you'd like Brenda to speak or train at an upcoming event, conference, or meeting, please e-mail her at: [email protected]
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In addition to coaching sessions, here's where Brenda has engagements scheduled in the next couple of months:
Jan 30 - Feb 4: Singapore
Feb 5 - 7: Taipei
Feb 8-Feb 13: Singapore
Feb 14-16: Seoul (TBC)
Feb 17-24: Singapore
Feb 25-26: Texas
Feb 27-Mar 1: Florida
Mar 2-7: Texas
Mar 8-Apr 24: Singapore
Apr 25-May 8: Nebraska
May 9-23: Singapore
May 24-29: Bangkok
May 30-June 9: Singapore
June 10-17: Phuket
Brenda is also booking additional engagements for 2017.
Get a Deal If I'm Working Near You!
Save money by sharing expenses with my other clients. If you see I'm going to be at a location near you in the future, feel free to contact me so that we can explore what I could do to help build your team's leadership personal brands and help make a stronger Corporate Brand/Personal Brand Connection™. I look forward to hearing from you!
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| Contact Us Brand Development Associates International Singapore Contact Information Phone: +65-6322-1491 Fax: +65-6322-1493 6 Battery Road #30-01 Raffles Place Singapore 049909 U.S. Contact Information Phone: +1(312) 242-1830
Fax: +1(312) 277-9211
10785 W. Twain Ave., Suite 102 Las Vegas, NV 89135
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.BrendaBence.com |
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Happy New Year! I hope that 2017 has started wonderfully for you.
Are you a New Year's resolution kind
of person? I personally like the idea of
setting new intentions when a new year begins. But this year, I decided to take it up a notch and give myself a personal "self-leadership challenge." It's a good, meaty one, I can tell you, and I would love you to join me as a way to strengthen your brand this year. Read below "The New Year / New YOU™ Self-Leadership 'Stillness' Challenge"
article to find out more.
Did you know that 30% of people prefer to learn by listening? And, that now, a full 20% of all book sales are digital (even my 86-year-old mother reads on Kindle!). With those two statistics in mind, my recently released hardbound and paperback book, Leading YOU™, has now also been released in both ebook and audiobook formats. And to celebrate the event, I'm giving away five Leading YOU™ audiobooks and five Leading YOU™ ebooks to lucky winners - but only to newsletter subscribers! Find out how you can win by reading below.
Lastly, I am incredibly excited about the positive feedback Leading YOU™ has been receiving since its release just one month ago. For perspective, I am sharing a few independent reviewers' comments scattered throughout this enewsletter. If you have read Leading YOU™ and feel it's warranted, I would be humbled and extremely grateful to you for a 5-star review on Amazon. Thank you in advance for all support you can offer!
Here's wishing YOU™ a stellar start to '17!
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"
[A book that] should be on the required reading list in every Human Resources department, and handed out to every newly promoted executive.
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5-star review by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
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"The New Year / New YOU™ Self-Leadership 'Stillness' Challenge"
This year, I decided to forego a traditional new year's resolution and challenge myself instead with something related to the topic of my latest book.
Titled Leading YOU™: The power of Self-Leadership to build your executive brand and drive career success, the book focuses on the critical topic of self-leadership - one of the most important yet often overlooked skills necessary to be an effective leader. In the book, I share the 15 most damaging self-leadership behaviors I regularly see in my coaching practice and offer dozens of tips and techniques to correct them.
One of the first 15 behaviors I write about in Leading YOU™ is mind management. It's covered early on in the first few chapters for a good reason - strong mind management is the foundation of self-leadership. All the remaining 14 behaviors stem from that.
Now, to be honest, I've practiced mind management for years, which has helped me focus my thoughts, shift quickly from negative to positive energy, and much more. But this year, I wanted to take mind management a step further: I decided to practice total stillness of mind and body.
What does that mean exactly? Well, "body stillness" is pretty obvious. I m
ean, we don't move our bodies at night while we sleep, right? But I wanted to integrate that same level of
body stillness
into the hustle and bustle of my typical days. I felt reasonably confident I could do that.
But, "mind stillness" (not meditation)? Well, that's a different ballgame altogether!
If you've ever tried meditating, you might have focused on your breathing, stated a mantra, chanted, counted your breaths, or focused on the air moving in and out of your nostrils, for example. That's all good, but those activities continue to keep the mind "busy."
No, I wanted to challenge myself to have "zero" activity in my mind - absolutely no thoughts at all. No ideas passing through, no counting breaths, not even having any feelings - nothing. Just 100%, pure mind and body stillness. Could I do it?....
What are the benefits - to you and YOU™?
Let's admit it: We've become addicted to busy-ness. I've seen it in myself
and in my coaching clients. Most of us rarely have a moment of stillness (at least not while we're awake!) Whenever my husband and I go out to dinner, I look around and regularly see couples and families sitting together, everyone on his or her individual smart phone or iPad. Instead of experiencing any degree of stillness, we seem to be addicted to always keeping our minds busy. But all that does is increase our stress levels, close us off from creative thinking, and make us mentally tired.
That's one of the reasons why I set this goal for 2017.
So, how does it relate to successful self-leadership and branding yourself a leader?
A host of studies have found that ...
- Besides improving focus, regularly experiencing stillness can decrease anxiety, encourage calmness, and help regulate emotions in order to handle stress better.
- With stillness, the mind can "clear the slate" and come back to address challenges from a truly fresh perspective with renewed creativity and ideas.
- This, in turn, helps manage reactions to situations on the job, staying calmer when issues and conflicts arise.
 And all of that helps build a stronger brand for yourself as a leader at work because doing so impacts the way you act, react, look, sound, and think. And that is how you communicate your brand, impacting how others perceive, think, and feel about YOU™.
Ready, set, go!...
So, I set my sights on a goal for 2017: To spend 17 minutes a day in complete, continuous mind and body stillness. I'm not talking about 1-2 minutes a few times here and there throughout the day. No, I mean 17 minutes in a row with no mind or body activity whatsoever.
How is it going so far? Well, I said I was going to challenge myself, and it has indeed been a challenge!
On January 1 - Day One of my experiment - I was in Thailand, sitting on a balcony that overlooked palm trees. I closed my eyes to begin my first 17 minutes of stillness. Suddenly, all the noises around me seemed to amplify as if blaring through speakers.... Birds of every conceivable type were squawking loudly. Cars and trucks were revving and honking on the distant roads. I heard water rushing, trees swaying in the wind, and the whir of the ceiling fan overhead. All of that proved to be massively distracting from my goal of total mind stillness. I was clearly off to a rough start!
So, my Day Two strategy included ... EARPLUGS! Thanks to that, I was able to achieve a bit of time - albeit very short! - of true, concentrated, complete stillness. Each day since, it's been a mix: I've had some good sessions, some not-so-good sessions. But despite the ups and downs, I have stuck with it, daily.
At this point - a little over two weeks into this year's goal - I estimate the maximum true, total mind stillness I've been able to achieve is about 4-5 minutes at a time, but I'm still working toward that continuous, 17-minute stretch. I am determined!
What about YOU? Are you up for the "New Year / New YOU™ Self-Leadership 'Stillness' Chal-lenge"? No matter how long you manage total quiet and stillness, you will experience big benefits, strengthen your self-leadership, and help to build your individual brand. How about giving it a try?
To encourage you, find out below how you can win a f*ree audiobook or ebook just by giving this a try. I hope that you will join me in this journey!
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"An incredible tool for leaders and anyone who aspires to a position of influence and leadership. A unique and important take on an aspect of leadership that is so often ignored."
- 5-star review by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite
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Leading YOU™ is now available on Audible.com / Amazon as an audiobook, as well as in ebook format (Kindle).
Would you like to win a complimentary copy?
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 I'd love to give YOU a f*ree audio book or ebook of Leading YOU™! All you have to do is try my self-leadership stillness challenge (outlined above) at least once, and then send me an email at
[email protected]
to let me know how it went - the good, the bad, and the ugly!
Share with me your outcome on or before February 10th, and your name will be entered to win one of five complimentary audiobooks or one of five complimentary ebooks (let me know your preference when you write).
You have nothing to lose, but much to gain. So, I hope YOU™ will join me in this 2017 "stillness" challenge!
"As executives, we are often taught skills for leading others, but Brenda Bence makes it clear that it's even more important to take charge of leading ourselves.
Leading YOU™
underscores how critical self-leadership is to continuing success. This book will inspire you to take action and make positive change."
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Angela Ryan, Chief HR & Talent Officer, APAC, GroupM
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