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🗣️ "The quieter you become, the more you can hear." -Ram Dass

🗣️ "Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices." -Benjamin Franklin

🗣️ "A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others." -Kevin Kelly

🗣️ "Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes—including you." -Anne Lamott

​The 25 Best Quotes About the Wisdom of Silence​ I dug up the best quotes I could find about silence and why it’s an important communication tool. ​Read more​

​16 Exciting Nonfiction Books Dropping in Q2 & Q3 2026​ Here are some of the awesome NF books coming out in the next few months, including a few that dropped last week. ​Read more​

​Think You Don't Like Classic Literature? These Books Will Prove You Wrong.​ Each of these 15 books is engaging and well worth the read—even if you’ve seen the movie or think you already know the story. ​Read more​

​Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox​ ​Nonfiction: Memoir, Film/Celebrity By age 29, Michael J. Fox had starred in classics like Back to the Future and Family Ties. He seemed primed to take on the world. Then came a rare diagnosis: early-onset Parkinson's. In this surprisingly vulnerable, funny, and heartfelt memoir, Fox explains what it was like to get that diagnosis and how it shaped his life.

​Braving the Truth by Rachel Held Evans​ ​Nonfiction: Spirituality/Religion Evans was one of the rare writers who could fiercely challenge religious norms while also admitting vulnerability and doubt. She passed away back in 2019, and this posthumous book is a collection of many of her most popular blog posts.

🗣️ "While it is true that much of the time we currently spend in meetings is largely wasted, the solution is not to stop having meetings, but rather to make them better. Because when properly utilized, meetings are actually time savers." -Patrick Lencioni

Early in my career, I often "winged it" whenever I had to lead a meeting.

But inevitably, the meeting wouldn't go as well as I'd hoped. Sometimes I botched the way I asked a question and attendees struggled to answer it. Other times, I realized we didn't have some of the data we needed to have a productive conversation. Or our discussion ultimately went nowhere.

After many mistakes, I finally realized that the only way to host a great meeting was to perform well in three distinct components:

1. Before the Meeting: Research, prep the necessary data and share it with others, invite the right people (and only those people), draft the exact questions I want to ask
2. During the Meeting: Begin by setting context, explain the problem we're trying to solve, keep the group on track, end by asking "Who will do what by when?"
3. After the Meeting: Send a recap email, follow-up with attendees to make sure each person completed what they promised

What about you? Which component of your meeting facilitation could use a little tune-up?

Last week, I spent five nights on Whidbey Island (off the coast of Seattle) on a solo retreat. This was my 15th one, and I'm already looking forward to my next one in the fall. (I do two every year.)

My biggest focus this time was my book. I'm writing a book for first-time managers, and it'll come out in 2027.

I made great progress on the book during my retreat, and I've now written roughly two-thirds of the book.

I'm immensely grateful to the 20 courageous beta readers who reviewed my first 8 chapters earlier this year and provided a bunch of helpful feedback. I'm going to do another round of beta reading soon, and I'll announce it here in my newsletter, so keep an eye out! ;-)

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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