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🗣️ “Do not pray for an easy life, pray to be a strong person.” -Nadia Comăneci

🗣️ "A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it." -Marcus Aurelius

🗣️ "Anything that truly improves your life is going to be difficult—difficulty is the price of admission. If you avoid it, nothing changes." -Michael Easter

🗣️ “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” -Helen Keller

​Wise Words from Wise People (May 2026 Edition)​ Here are the best quotes I found this month in books, articles, newsletters, podcasts, etc.

​The 7 Best Books on Building a Positive Work Culture​ Helpful books with practical tips & examples for leaders who want to improve team culture

​5 Reasons You Should Go On a Solo Retreat​ Feeling constantly busy or stressed? Book a solo retreat to get away from the busyness of life and try to reclaim yourself.

​Steve Jobs in Exile by Geoffrey Cain​ ​Nonfiction: Biography, Technology Most biographies about Steve Jobs skip the 12-year "wilderness period" after he was ousted from his own company. Cain interviewed 111 people to learn what happened during that lost decade, which was one of the roughest and most transformative periods of Jobs's life. ​Read my takeaways​

​How to Rule the World by Theo Baker​ ​Nonfiction: Investigative, Memoir Damn, what an incredible book! I flew through this. One month into his freshman year at Stanford, student journalist Theo Baker got an anonymous tip to investigate the Stanford president for prior research misconduct. His investigation led the president to resign. Wild true story.

​Red Rising by Pierce Brown​ ​Fiction: Dystopian, Science Fiction ​Red Rising is one of my favorite series I've ever read, and Book #1 is one of the most unputdownable novels of all time. I can usually predict where a book is headed, but this one fooled me multiple times.

🗣️ "Coaching is simple. Your job is to keep being curious." -Michael Bungay Stanier

As a leader, you're used to people coming to you with problems. And whenever someone asks for help, you have three basic options:

1. Give Advice: Use your knowledge and experience to suggest potential solutions.
2. Ask Leading Questions: Rather than explicitly saying what you think, ask questions to lead them to a conclusion you've picked.
3. Ask Coaching Questions: Set aside your opinions and simply ask curious, thoughtful, open-ended questions to help them decide.

For most of my career, I defaulted to #1 or #2. It wasn't until I learned about the power of coaching that I began leaning into #3.

Ever since, I've realized that asking unbiased, curious questions is an extremely useful tool to help others self-reflect and determine what works best for them (not you).

If you want to dive deeper into coaching, the best book I've found is Michael Bungay Stanier's The Coaching Habit. His tiny book reveals seven powerful questions you can use to coach others.

One of the most enjoyable fiction series I've found recently is Dungeon Crawler Carl. (The first book was my favorite novel I read in 2025.)

Author Matt Dinniman lives in the Seattle area (just like me), so he wrapped up his book tour for Book #8 here at Third Place Books.

His books are hilarious, but you never know whether someone who's funny "on the page" will also be funny in person. Thankfully, he delivered! Matt is witty, articulate, and goofy—just like you'd expect from his books.

I got the chance to snag a quick photo with him (below).

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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