Bite-sized insights for curious leaders & learners every other Sunday.

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🗣️ "Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself." -Marcus Aurelius

🗣️ "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." -Annie Dillard

🗣️ "There is someone somewhere who is looking at you and learning from you. You can be extraordinary in the most normal occasions and settings." -Kyle Carpenter (Medal of Honor recipient)

🗣️ “A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others. A loser wants to be considered an expert by others, before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.” -Sydney J. Harris

There’s something magical, wild, and powerful about the way children interact with the world around them. We should be more like them. ​Read more​

Stoic philosopher Seneca’s book On the Shortness of Life is packed with fantastic quotes about life, death, wealth, and wisdom. Here are my faves. ​Read more​

​Hidden Genius by Polina Pompliano​ ​Nonfiction: Personal Development Pompliano profiles the world's most extraordinary people, and she shares many of their stories in this book. Hidden Genius put me into a creative, productive mindset, and I love that feeling. ​See takeaways​

​A Mystery of Mysteries by Mark Dawidziak​ ​Nonfiction: Biography of Edgar Allan Poe Poe's death seems like a story that came from his pen. He was found semiconscious and incoherent, wearing someone else's clothes. He died a few days later, but no one knows why. If you want to learn more, check out this great book. It's <300 pages.

🗣️ "Only in fairy tales are emperors told they are naked." -Charlie Munger

Earlier in my career, I remember getting scared whenever a Director or Executive called me into their office to talk.

Now that I'm a Director, I try my best to be approachable and kind, but I sometimes forget that my position still makes me "scary" to some employees.

If you're in any kind of leadership role—even if you're a new manager or team lead—it's important to realize that some employees will be wary around you.

Remember these tips:

• Now that you're a manager, most people will be hesitant to share feedback with you. That means you'll need to get even better about seeking it out and asking for it with humility and curiosity.
• Try your best to create psychological safety in your team. Make it safe to voice disagreement or unpopular opinions.
• If you need to chat with an employee 1-on-1, be sure to tell them what it's about. Avoid vague messages like "I need to talk to you." Instead, give more information so they don't assume the worst: "I'm looking for your idea on a project. Do you have 5 minutes?"
• Use your positional power for good. The higher up the corporate hierarchy you are, the more your kind words and positive feedback will mean to people. Share kudos liberally!

If you've read my newsletter for a while, you know I'm a huge Stephen King fan. (Btw, you'll see a few of his books show up on my End of Year Recap post soon.) Recently, I've been loving the new HBO show Welcome to Derry, which is set in the universe of It, one of my favorite King novels. If you're a horror fan, I highly recommend that show.

Visit BobbyPowers.com for more articles and book reviews about leadership and self-improvement. I recently published the Leadership Philosophy template I use (shown here). Team members have loved this doc because it lets them know exactly what they can expect from me. ​You can download the template for free here.

You can access high-res PDFs of my other 1-pagers and cheat sheets here.

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