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🗣️ "A fool is someone who stubs their toe on the same rock twice." -Roman saying

🗣️ "Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result." -Michelle Obama

🗣️ "If you're not failing all the time, you're not creating a situation where you can get super lucky." -Ira Glass

🗣️ “Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them.” -François de La Rochefoucauld

​Wise Words from Wise People (Sept 2026)​ The best quotes I found this month in books, articles, newsletters, podcasts, etc. ​Read more​

​One Analogy That Can Save You Time and Energy in Life​ It's related to this quote from Seneca: “He who indulges empty fears earns himself real fears.” ​Read more​

​Never Enough by Andrew Wilkinson​ ​Nonfiction: Entrepreneurship, Memoir I'm shocked I've never heard anyone talk about this book. It's one of the most honest explorations I've found about whether money creates happiness. (Hint: It doesn't.) Wilkinson's story is also a masterclass in entrepreneurship.

​Verity by Colleen Hoover​ ​Fiction: Thriller, Psychological I had never read a Colleen Hoover book because she mostly writes romance, which isn't really my thing. But based on how good this book is, I hope she writes more thrillers soon. Verity is a dark tale about a ghostwriter whose newest project leads to twisted places. The movie version just hit theaters on Friday.

🗣️ “You used to be in charge of the work. Now you’re in charge of the people who do the work.” -Monica Livingston, re: becoming a manager

The transition from individual contributor to manager is a HUGE transition in many ways. One big change is that your success is now evaluated based on your team's output rather than just yours.

For all of you who crushed it as an individual contributor, it may take a while to rewire your brain around this new reality:

• Sales: Your commission check was based on the new revenue you brought in every quarter. Now it’ll be based on the revenue your team brings in.
• Customer Service: You were proud of your client retention, net promoter score (NPS), or renewal rate. Now you’re evaluated on whether your team can hit those targets.
• Manufacturing: As an individual contributor, you had fantastic numbers for yield, cycle time, and throughput. Now your success will be gauged on your full team’s metrics.

This means your new focus should be removing impediments for your team. Your job is now THEM, not yourself.

The faster you can embrace this mindset and put their needs first, the more successful your team will be.

My wife and I recently went to one of our favorite events in our Seattle neighborhood, the annual Fremont Oktoberfest.

Neither of us enjoys beer, but we tried a bunch of ciders and cocktails. It was a blast. :) I'm already looking forward to next year's event.

You'll find my favorite pic from the night below.

I hope you're having a great weekend,

I always love meeting interesting people, and I recently got to meet a thoughtful book coach and ghostwriter named Jessie Kwak.

Jessie and I quickly bonded over our mutual love of reading, writing, and the Northwest. She lived in my hometown of Seattle for 13 years, and she's now based in another one of my favorite cities: Portland, OR.

One of the biggest things that impressed me about Jessie is that she writes both fiction and nonfiction. (I aspire to do that someday!) She's written over 20 books and ghostwritten for dozens of speakers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and business owners.

If you're looking for a book coach or ghostwriter, check out Jessie's helpful newsletter 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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