Ep518: Brenda Bence – Think Long Term Even in the Face of Risk

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community, we know that to win an investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives to reduce risk in your life. Go to my worst investment ever.com And today and take the risk reduction assessment I created from the lessons I've learned from all my guests. It's time to start building wealth the easy way by reducing risk. Fellow risk takers this is your worst podcast hose Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests. Brenda, Ben's, Brenda, are you ready to join the mission?

Brenda Bence 00:46
Absolutely. And let's do this.

Andrew Stotz 00:48
I'm so excited to have you to the on the show. And I just love your energy. And you know, we were just, I was talking about something just before we turn on the recorder, saying, I'm kind of losing hope in something and you're like I'm not and I thought okay, that that's the spirit. I like that. So I know you're going to bring a lot of that on to the show. So let me introduce you to the audience. Brenda Benson is one of the world's top executive leadership coaches and motivational speakers recognized by both thinker's 50 and global gurus as an expert in her field. Brenda earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and is the author of 11 award winning books on leadership coaching and branding. After a successful career managing mega brands for Fortune 100 companies, Brenda left the corporate world, and has been successfully running her own business out of offices in both Singapore, and the US an experience that has given her ample opportunity to make plenty of mistakes. And I just want to mention to the audience that in 2021, she published her most recent books, The Forgotten choice, and I love the title, shift your inner mindset shape your outer world. Brenda, take a minute, and tell us a bit about the value you bring to the world.

Brenda Bence 02:07
Absolutely. Look, I look at leadership and inspired leadership and branding and how the two mix together. And I've put this into both what we do in the outside world, how we act, how we react, how we look how we sound, how we build brands, for ourselves. But that all starts from the inside world, how we think what we believe what we feel, and it impacts every aspect of our life. And when you can take those two, how we think, feel and believe and mix it with how we act react, look and sound you build an aligned life and coming out of that from a career professional personal standpoint, financial standpoint, that's how you make the magic work.

Andrew Stotz 02:46
And how does someone know if they need this? Like, is they just having a hard time and they feel depressed? Or they can't figure out what they want? And they just they're not able to kind of get that alignment? I mean, I'm curious, like, for the listeners out there, you're listening, let's hear what Brenda has to say about kind of how do we know what's the warning signs? And how do we then take the first steps?

Brenda Bence 03:07
Well, I jokingly with my clients called it the other F word feelings. We have to think about our feelings. The truth is we know if we're feeling aligned are not often what we do is we don't take enough time to recognize it to take that moment to pause and say something's feeling off here. I'm just not right. And we feel that consistent lack of connection, you know, the turn of space where the inside the outside just aren't fitting together. And so that's when you can look outside for someone to help you get back into alignment, to really, really achieve the life goals, the career or the finances that you want.

Andrew Stotz 03:45
You know, in my own personal story, I was ended up in drug rehab as a young kid. And I went through three different Drug Rehabs, but after that, I went through outpatient therapy and was attending 12 step meetings and all that and still do. And I added it up and I had had about 2000 hours of group therapy, individual therapy and family therapy. And you pretty much can avoid, you know, going deep into your feelings if you have good counselors who kind of pushed me. And basically, I really learned to get in touch with my feelings and not be afraid of my feelings. I think I was terrified. I mean, part of the reason why I was using drugs and doing the things that I was doing because I didn't feel good about myself. And I can just say that that journey at a young age just sent me up. Like I learned some lessons like one of the lessons that I learned is that a feeling is like it's a signal it's a warning, you know, stop, stop and listen, that's the first thing I learned. The second thing is that you know, you can have it all. You know if you try to feel your way through the day, feel how you feel If you've said something wrong, or you feel bad about what you've said, you can just go back and apologize. And, you know, like, there's so much that we can take off the burden that we can take off ourselves that I think people don't either realize, or they don't take the little steps to get there. Just curious, like, tell us just a little bit about how you help your clients, and maybe some tidbits for people who are struggling.

Brenda Bence 05:23
Look, it all starts the feelings actually comes second, the feelings come after the thoughts and the beliefs. And what is the belief, a belief is just a thought that you think again, and again, and again and again, until it becomes your natural, I know this to be the truth. But life is evolving. So quickly, we have to pause and say, are those self limiting beliefs? Are those beliefs really holding us back? Because honestly, most of the time they are, you know, we're programmed from the time we're just young by society, teachers, professors, and, and bosses to think certain ways, and the world's changing so quickly, when we start to feel uncomfortable, we have to stop and say, Aha, there's usually a number of beliefs underneath that are holding us back from greatness. And you know, you've got to work to work on the hard stuff, you got to look at that. And once the lead comes off,

Andrew Stotz 06:14
is that what you do with clients? If somebody work with you that you try to dig down to what are your underlying beliefs? Because if we can, we can identify those and start to work on those?

Brenda Bence 06:24
Yeah, well, we start there, we start there. Because that's the source of everything, isn't it? Where we start is always with our thoughts and our beliefs and our feelings. That's what it's all under the radar. No one sees that. And then you get to get into Okay, is how is that manifesting the workplace? How is that turning you into the leader you want to be or not be? How does this impact you in terms of wanting to be an inspiring leader? How is it impacting the brand you're building for yourself? And I work with a lot of very senior leaders, very sweet folks. And they're impacting 10s of 1000s of stakeholders, often all around the world. So when you can start on the inside, and you start to make changes on the outside as a result, they're not only powerful, they're sustainable.

Andrew Stotz 07:05
What's the best way for someone who appreciates what you're doing? And likes that? What's the best way for them to connect with you?

Brenda Bence 07:13
Oh, just reach out at my website, Brenda? bense.com? And or Brenda at Brenda? events.com? Email? Yeah, feel free to reach out.

Andrew Stotz 07:21
Fantastic. Take up that opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, I think you won't be disappointed. And I think, you know, the one thing I was thinking about is one of the things that I liked about having gone through all that kind of emotional journey at a young age or discovery, let's say. And overcoming a lot of that is that it led to a life of more authenticity. And that's what this podcast is about. You know, it's about coming on and talking about, you know, a truly painful or difficult time, and then how you dealt with it and what you learned from it. So I think it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to then tell us your story.

Brenda Bence 08:06
Absolutely. Andrew, well, listen, I've listened to your podcast, and I always enjoy the sessions. And I know that you believe that 99.9% of people are not fit to be entrepreneurs. Okay. But so many people right now are leaving the corporate world and trying their hand at entrepreneurship. So I thought I would share my story of entrepreneurship and how it does relate to my worst investment ever. So the circumstances, I'm just a bit of background, I You mentioned that I worked for Fortune 100 companies, I worked for big corporations fortune 100 across four continents. My last position was one of the top 300 of an 85,000 person company. I mean, I was pulling in a very, very nice six figure salary plus ample bonuses every single year, you know, flying around the corporate jet had the title, the perks, the income. But then 911 happened. So takes us back a couple, a few years. But still, it's an important lesson that's still lost today. 911 happened in September of 2001. And on that day, and dry was in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for work. I was actually I just found in the night before it took me 40 hours to fly from Bangkok where I was based at the time to Sao Paulo, okay, 40 hours. And I was staying in the World Trade Center there. And I had just arrived the night before. And I saw that morning arrives. It's the morning of 911 It's the same time as New York I'm seeing on television, what's happening and I and I get a call from my boss within hours, saying we're calling all top officers back to their home bases. So you need to fly back to Bangkok as soon as you can. Now, I suddenly realized in that moment, that all the people that I loved were either in the United States, my family where the borders were shut down, or they were halfway around the world where my husband was watching the news back in Bangkok and watching it unfold. And it was one of those moments where it just hits you. And it was like, I am not living the life I wanted to live. Yes, I had the perks. I had the title, I had a lot of angst. A lot of exhaustion. I was a harried executive. I wasn't spending enough time with my family. Not good enough self care. No me time. So I flew back to Bangkok within the fly flew within three days, I flew 80 hours, okay, back to Bangkok. And I back then you couldn't get on the plane with anything like a purse or anything at all. So I had nothing. And I said, I said, I need a piece of paper and a pencil, I sat down on the planet, so I need to preface it. She said, Ma'am, I can give you a pen. But I cannot give you a paper like okay, you have pens, but no paper, okay, I could do more damage with a pen and paper. But okay. So she hands me a paper napkin and I wrote my business plan to start my own company on the way home, I didn't sleep at all, it was just gonna do that. So when I got home, I announced to my poor husband, like, I cannot do this anymore. I want to start my own company. Now you can imagine he was shocked. And just for context, by the way, my husband had just started working for a VC backed company brand new, like, based in Bangkok. So our risk profile went from two steady incomes, to me running a startup from scratch. And my husband working for a high risk VC backed new company. I mean, can you imagine, right? But anyway, he finally agreed. He said, Okay, if you got to do it, you got to do it. So I shared my decision with my boss, and he asked if I could give them six months to find someone else to replace me. I did. So the following spring, on April Fool's Day 2002. I started my own business. And I decided that would be the day that I would do it. Because if it didn't work out, it was April Fool's Day, right? Just run back to the corporate world. Kidding.

Andrew Stotz 11:48
Like being the worst podcast host, you know, we've always got an out, you start on April Fool's Day, you always got an out.

Brenda Bence 11:54
So anyway, that's the context that leads up to it. So here we are my worst investment. As you can imagine, and I did not want this to fail, like, there was tremendous risk involved already, as I just explained, and to exacerbate that the previous three years in the market 2000 2001 2002, there were three years of negative returns in the stock market, you may recall that minus 9% minus 11% minus 22%. So all this money I've worked hard to earn is being dwindled and dwindle and dwindle. And because we'd lost my income, and my husband was in a VC company, we needed to make sure that we had enough that we wouldn't lose any more. So due to our situation, we've come become very much more risk adverse, right. So I convinced my husband to get out of the market, to make sure we safeguarded the funds that we needed to fund my new business. Now, mind you, this was not an easy discussion to have Andrew, we had a lot of arguments about that. My husband is a University of Chicago MBA. He's a CFP, Certified Financial Planner, I but I was so scared. And I could just see this money dwindling every single year, and our portfolio was dropping year after year after year. So anyway, I wouldn't I just wanted to do anything I could to lose, lose, avoid losing more money and having to go back to the corporate world. So just months after I started the business, we went largely into cash and sold over 90% of our equity investments. Now, Andrew, I don't know if you recall, but of course, in 2003, the market went up 28% 2004 went over 10%. So the market went back up, but we didn't get back into it for yet another three years. And we lost all those growth opportunities. So my worst investment was actually pulling out of an investment.

Andrew Stotz 13:52
Wow. And how would you summarize the lessons that you learned? Well,

Brenda Bence 13:57
I think a couple things. Number one, you have to think long term, even in the face of heightened risk. And importantly, and this is what I write and talk about now, don't let emotions primarily fear, impact your investment decisions. Because the link between your mindset and your money is direct. Right? And I had a fear, fear, very risk based mindset. And it was impacting our money, situation, how I saw that. And the other thing I would say is sometimes you don't need a marriage counselor, you need a qualified investment advisor to reduce the stress in your life, because we were bickering about how we were going to manage this. And so despite the fees, it was still definitely worth hiring an expert especially, especially today, by the way when interest rates are almost zero so cash is not yielding a return at all. Anyway, so anyway, good news. In the end, I did make a great investment by starting my own business because this April 2022, we will be celebrating 20 years of success as a business man. And five years after I started the firm. It got so big My husband joined me. So he quit his job. And now we run the business together. We were doing that for 15 years. Yeah, it's incredible.

Andrew Stotz 15:08
Yeah, that's a great ending to the story. There's a few things that, you know, I think about one of the things as, as a stock market guy, all of my life, I've looked back, how many times have I looked back at a stock chart, and saw that the market was down? 3040 50%? And I'm thinking, why didn't I pile in then. And the reason why it's so hard to see is because there's no emotion attached to that price for that, when you look at it in, in historical terms, but when you're actually going through it, there's a hell of a lot of emotion. And that emotion, you know, what's interesting about this case, is that the emotion you were feeling was not really about the stock market, it was about the change you were facing in your life. And you really wanted to protect yourself in the face of that. Yeah, the stock market falling, just added to that, if the stock market was going up, you probably would have said, Ah, let's just keep riding that, you know, but it's, it's, it's, you know, what people don't see. And it's the same thing. It's one of the hardest parts about investing is adding to your investment at the bottom of the market. And the reason why is because everything looks terrible. Yeah, and people are afraid, I'm gonna lose my job, I'm gonna lose my cash flow, I'm getting pressures, maybe somebody, you know, my family is going to need to borrow money, and all of a sudden, you know, all of these pressures. And so it's a lot harder to do than it is to say, to stay invested in the market.

Brenda Bence 16:35
Well, around that time, don't forget, there was still a lot of fear in the world because of 911. And so it was all it was dropping, dropping, dropping for three straight years in a row and not small, it was dropping double digits every single year. So it was one of those situations where I thought no, all those years of all that hard work, I don't want to see all my portfolio keep dropping and dropping. So and

Andrew Stotz 16:55
I'll tell you a story about my that my mother told me. And she, she basically was telling me that when my mom and dad retired in North Carolina, they had a pretty good pension and savings from DuPont. And DuPont had given them options and abilities to buy shares at low rates. So they took advantage of that. So they ended up with a very large portion of their portfolio, DuPont and my dad worked at DuPont all his life. So they hired a, you know, an advisor, and they started working with the advisor and the advisor looked at it says, You have to start reducing this position. And they're like, No, my dad was saying No way. Why would I reduce the position? And DuPont I know the company and it's, you know, he said, Look, you know, the stock price was I don't know what it was, let's say it was 100. So what if it went down to 20? What would be the impact on your family's future and all that, and my dad was like, it's not going to go down at 20. But anyways, okay, we'll listen to you. And the advisor started, like trimming that position, year by year. And what my mom told me is, it went down to 20. And by that time, they were already out, you know, much more diversified. And so, you know, it just shows that there is a value of a third party kind of coming in with a bigger perspective. And, you know, that's a critical thing. And I know, I do a portfolio strategy that I have with the firm here called phenomenon in Thailand. And we've got a lot of people that are following that strategy. And I meet with them every month. And a lot of what I try to do is show them, show them the structure I'm using for what I'm doing and the long term perspective that I have, and try to give them comfort that you know, okay, don't put everything in this. Yeah, but what you put in, you've got to think 10 years, 20 years, not, you know, six months, three months. So I think, a lot of lessons,

Brenda Bence 18:52
you know, else, it's interesting, a lot of executives get stuck into this too, because they have so stock laden with their existing company. And that's how their company, you know, remunerate spam, right, with bonuses, and you get extra stock and you start realizing that your portfolio is completely out of whack. It's completely out of balance. And one of the things I'm proud of right now is we really do have a well diversified portfolio now across many asset classes. So but again, I'm married to, you know, MBA with financing. Yes. Step away from the step away from the gun, right, I stepped away from falling out of the market.

Andrew Stotz 19:30
So I think, you know, I'm really interested to hear your answer to my next question, because not only have you been through this situation, but also having written the books The Forgotten choice, as well as your other books, you know, and doing what you do you have a different perspective. And so, here it comes based upon what you learned from this story and what you continue to learn. what action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Brenda Bence 19:58
Yeah, you know, I guess My answer would be watched your thoughts, watch how you're thinking about things. Because we have self limiting beliefs that are driving just about everything. Well, I would say pretty much everything in our life. And until we can surface those and look at them and say, aha, that's what's going on. I see, I see until we can challenge those beliefs, we're always going to do the same thing over and over and over and over again. And when you can stop long enough to look at them, like an anthropologist, almost on the outside, looking down, like you're on the top of the mountain looking down objectively, you'll suddenly see it and go, yeah, maybe that's not true. Maybe I could look at that differently.

Andrew Stotz 20:35
And observe yourself. Yeah.

Brenda Bence 20:39
unexamined life. Yes.

Andrew Stotz 20:42
Yeah, that's beautiful. And one thing I thought about when you were telling your story was, I think it was William James that said that the conclusion that he had come to was that we used to be thought that we went out when a bear comes chasing after us, we feel fear. And then we run. But he said, in fact, we run, and then we feel fear, as in the action, action leads to emotion. And that made me think a lot. But anyways, now let me ask you, what's a resource that you'd recommend for our listeners?

Brenda Bence 21:18
Sure. Well, you know, if they're interested in thinking about mindset, I have a free resource. If you just come to my website, Brenda bense.com, right on the homepage, you can sign up for my newsletter, and, and you'll get an A free seven point set program for how to manage your mental well being your, your mindset, to build an inspired mindset, because I think the inspired mindset is what really helps us drive where we want to go.

Andrew Stotz 21:44
That's exciting. That's valuable. I mean, I particularly when there's so many pressures on us these days and home alone, and, you know, pressures everywhere, and fear, yeah, fear everywhere.

Brenda Bence 21:57
It's everywhere around. But it doesn't have to be that way. And that's what this mindset toolbox helps you with, I think, where you have another choice beyond fear.

Andrew Stotz 22:06
Yeah, that's, that's a valuable. So, ladies and gentlemen, I have that also in the show notes. So just go to the show notes, click on it and get access. Last question. What is your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Brenda Bence 22:19
Yeah, well, I'm working on building more passive income, more passive income, is the nature of our businesses, if I'm not speaking, I'm not coaching, we don't make money. But, I mean, that's a bit exaggerated. It's not that black and white anymore, but it used to be like that. So I'm really working on building more passive income as a part of the business rounds and new online coursework. I'm preparing some, obviously, in my books, etc. But also, I just signed up to be a presenter on an app, 5 million subscribers, and I get paid every time that someone listens to my track. So you know, there's this kinds of passive incomes that are nice to have, where you're adding value at the same time, and you bring in that passive income,

Andrew Stotz 23:01
I have no doubt you're gonna, you're gonna succeed in that, because you've got a lot of great content. And really, it's just bringing that content to platforms that have audiences as an example. And, you know, figuring out other ways, so I'm looking forward to hearing more about that in 12 months.

Brenda Bence 23:16
All right. All right.

Andrew Stotz 23:18
Thank you. Yep, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't yet taken the risk reduction assessment, I challenge you to go to my worst investment ever.com Right now, and start building wealth the easy way by reducing risk. As we conclude, Ben, I want to thank you again for joining our mission. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience? Enjoy have fun and let go of fear. Hmm, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, this podcast is about one guest one story. One mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz St. I'll see you on the upside.