Blog - Carpenter Smith Consulting, LLC

Live 2019 with Grace

January 28, 2019

During some personally difficult times, clients and colleagues will often ask us, “Why do you do this work?” They are puzzled that we would choose to put ourselves in the middle of the messiness and pain that people experience in their lives and work. We do this work because we know that when people matter to themselves and believe that others matter, too, success is ensured. This is true in organizations, on teams, and with individual contributors. Success increases when people matter. …

US & THEM

January 21, 2019

Monday Morning Business Coach

This week in honor of Martin Luther King Jr, we’d like you to consider a change of language that can have a profound effect on you and on others. You see, language is the fundamental way in which we come to understand and relate to the world around us. When you change your language, you influence your ability to relate to others and to build powerful connections. This week, we’d like you to play with your language. Every…

Why 2018 Was the Best Year in History!

January 14, 2019

Monday Morning Business Coach

With some regularity, our clients share with us that they’re more distressed by the state of the world than they can ever remember. We can sometimes feel the same, so imagine our surprise when on January 6, 2019 we came upon a New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof titled: “Why 2018 was the Best Year in Human History!” We found it very powerful to hear some of the amazing things that happened in 2018 – most of which didn’t make it…

PAUSE and HALT: A Powerful Combination

January 7, 2019

Monday Morning Business Coach

One of the things we love about the PAUSE is that you can use it to interrupt your reactivity to external actions, and you can use it to provide support for how you respond to your internal thoughts and feelings. When people are under stress, they often work harder, run faster, spend less time sleeping, exercising, and eating. They feel overwhelmed and have no clue how to get clear about what they need. Pausing is a powerful way to…

Your New Year

December 31, 2018

Monday Morning Business Coach

We are not big proponents of resolutions, since most of us don’t get much beyond January with this laundry list of big ideas. We believe that you matter. And because you matter, you need to know what your priorities are in life so that you can take steps to move toward them throughout the year. On this last day of 2018, we encourage you to spend a few minutes thinking about what you want to focus on in 2019. Identifying your priorities can…

Interrupt Reactivity

December 24, 2018

Monday Morning Business Coach

Last week in our post, Holidazed?, we talked about 4 things you can do to position yourself for a fun, hectic, connecting, tiring holiday—one that leaves you proud of how you showed up and how you managed your priorities. We started with PAUSE, which many of you know is the first step in our Leader in You framework. The PAUSE can look like taking a small sip of water, a shuffling of papers, or a full out break from the action;…

Holidazed?

December 17, 2018

Monday Morning Business Coach

In the movies, the holidays are perfect, happy, loving, spontaneous, and connecting, or they are disastrous explosions of personal misery. Both images are stressful, and neither has to be yours! We’ve heard from many of you that you’re feeling pretty tired, worn down, and not quite in the holiday spirit this year. In fact, many of you report a love-hate relationship with the holidays. On one hand, you love much of the connection and celebration but on the other hand, you’re busy,…

You Will Fail

December 10, 2018

Monday Morning Business Coach

You WILL Fail. Those were the first words out of a friend’s mouth when, in 2011, we said we were going to create and send out a nugget of our best thinking every Monday morning for a year. For a brief moment we actually wondered, what could we possibly find to say every week for a whole year? Apparently, a lot! Thanks to your support, we’ve delivered 7 years of weekly coaching nuggets! Today marks the 7th Anniversary of the Monday…

You Are Not Alone

December 3, 2018

Monday Morning Business Coach

We were recently facilitating a company meeting with a team of people, many of whom had worked for the company for their entire career. In the meeting, people were complaining about the challenges they faced and the hardships of the current financial environment in their industry. They were feeling threatened, singled out, and personally beat up in this environment. As we listened, we came to understand that this group had been together for so long and for so…

Certainty in Your Truth vs. THE Truth

November 26, 2018

Monday Morning Business Coach

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote a post about The 5 C’s of Self – Confidence and the importance of standing in your own truth. The 5 C’s include: Conviction, Certainty, Commitment, Courage, and Connection While many of you wrote that you loved the idea of the 5 C’s, those of you who know us know that we are often saying don’t get certain, get curious. So, many of you asked what we were thinking when we included certainty in this list. And…