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🗣️ "The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood." -Voltaire

🗣️ "Optimism is not the belief that there are no problems. Optimism is a belief that we can fix the problems." -Shawn Achor

🗣️ "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." -Winston Churchill

🗣️ “All the water in the world cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. All the negativity in the world cannot sink a person unless it gets inside the mind.” -Mary Pickford

Struggling to Give Feedback? Try This 3-Step Formula. From everything I’ve tried, the best model for delivering feedback is a simple, three-step model. Here’s how it works. ​Read more​

The 50 Best Quotes About Taking Action Here are the best quotes I’ve found about taking action, including insights from thought leaders in entrepreneurship, productivity, philosophy, and habit formation. ​Read more​

​Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara​ ​Nonfiction: Business, Customer Service Guidara ran Eleven Madison Park, which won the award for #1 best restaurant in the world. He shares tons of customer service tips that can be used in any industry. ​See takeaways​

​Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury​ ​Fiction: Literature, Dystopian This is one of the books that taught me classic literature can be fun. In the bleak world of this story, the government has banned all books, and society’s firefighters are government agents tasked with burning any books they discover.

🗣️ “Kindness often means doing hard things like giving tough feedback…Niceness is about avoiding discomfort, staying agreeable, sidestepping hard conversations, and letting things slide. Kindness means the opposite.” -Macklin, Lee, & Edmondson

Are you being too nice as a leader?

Ask anyone I've worked with before, and they'll tell you I'm a "nice guy." But sometimes that niceness has prevented me from sharing tough information that could upset someone. It's one of the biggest reasons I've had to spend years learning how to give candid feedback.

The recent HBR article "Is Your Leadership Style Too Nice?" explains the difference between niceness and kindness. (It's worth the read.)

Kindness is a leadership imperative. You must be kind to your people and treat them well, but many leaders confuse kindness and niceness.

Niceness is about staying agreeable and avoiding discomfort. That's not your job as a leader.

Are you being too nice? Are you avoiding uncomfortable (and important) conversations?

My wife Kaylyn and I just celebrated our 15th anniversary.

To celebrate, we visited one of our favorite restaurants in Seattle: Ciudad, an awesome Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurant. (Pic below)

This restaurant has some great memories for me. My buddy Thad introduced me to it years ago. We've chatted about books for hours at Ciudad while sharing delicious pita bread, hummus, and halloumi.

Kaylyn and I have also gone here with some of our besties for a monthly dinner club. Ciudad was our pick for a restaurant, and the group loved it.

And now, I get to add an awesome 15th anniversary dinner to my memories there. Can't wait to return!

I wish you all an awesome week,

This fall, I'm running a virtual New Manager Bootcamp for new & aspiring managers.

It will be a small, tight-knit group. We'll spend 90 min/week together, discussing how to handle some of the toughest topics new leaders face, like delegating work, managing low performers, giving feedback, etc.

I'd love for you to join me in this awesome experience. Just reply to this email if you want more info.

Visit me at BobbyPowers.com for more articles and book reviews about leadership, communication, and personal development.

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

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