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

Visit BobbyPowers.com or Substack for more book recs & articles.

Thanks to everyone who responded earlier to my request for beta readers for my forthcoming leadership book. The response was way higher than I expected, and all of my beta reading slots for this round are filled.

For anyone else who wants to check out an early draft, I'll share another opportunity later once the book is further along.

🗣️ "Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will." -Suzy Kassem

🗣️ "At the moment of commitment, the entire universe conspires to assist you." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

🗣️ “Sometimes you have to aim for things that feel unreasonable to make sure your instinct about what’s reasonable is right.” -Cate Hall

🗣️ "A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate." -Steven Pressfield

Here are five ways to overcome the curse that plagues every teacher, subject matter expert, public speaker, sales rep, and writer ​Read more​

These books taught me that we're not as rational as economics professors would have us believe ​Read more​

​The Happiness Files by Arthur C. Brooks​ ​Nonfiction: Self-Help, Philosophy, Life I've read tons of books on happiness, and this is now up there with The Happiness Advantage as one of my faves. Brooks weaves research data and compelling stories in this collection of ~30 essays.

​The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick​ ​Nonfiction: Business, Entrepreneurship If you're a company founder, product manager, or researcher who's trying to learn what people think of an idea, Fitzpatrick's book will help you develop questions that can even get unbiased answers from your mom. ​See takeaways​

🗣️ "Constantly search for overlapping areas of agreement and dwell there. Disagreements will appear to be edge cases." -Kevin Kelly

Any leader who works with clients must become a master of conflict resolution.

The single best insight I've learned about conflict is to try to find a way to figuratively sit on the same side of the table to resolve the issue.

It's not "Me vs. You." It should be "Me + You vs. The Problem."

Here are a few phrases I've found helpful for approaching issues this way:

• "I think we can both agree that we'd like to..."
• "What do you think we can do together to improve this?"
• "What can I do to make this easier for you while we work on the long-term solution?"

The key is using "we" language that shows you're both on the same team.

If you can do that and identify common ground of what you both want to achieve, the relationship can sometimes emerge stronger than before the issue arose.

I love this related visual from designer Liz Fosslien:

I just got back home last night from my annual trip to Las Vegas with some of my best buds to watch the first round of March Madness.

On top of watching a lot of basketball, this year we also hit up a comedy club and the Meow Wolf "immersive art experience." Both were awesome.

I also brought a quirky little friend on the trip. My friend Ben's son is doing a "Flat Stanley" unit at school, and they asked me to take the little cutout on adventures this month. So the cutout accompanied me on this trip, just like he's joining me for activities around my hometown of Seattle.

We did a few photo-ops, including the one below in front of the Vegas skyline. A bit goofy, but it was fun.

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.

📬 Did someone forward this to you?
​If you dig what you see, sign up here.​