Blog - Carpenter Smith Consulting, LLC

The Bones of Meetings

January 18, 2016

Last week, we started the conversation about meetings with our post, Meeting Madness. In it, we outlined the roles and rules that help to create great meetings. But no discussion of meetings would be complete without reviewing the importance of creating and using an agenda. An agenda is to a meeting like our skeleton is to our body: it provides the internal structure that allows the meeting to successfully come to life. Research on meetings has shown that whatever the group…

Meeting Madness

January 11, 2016

Monday Morning Business Coach

“I cannot get my work done because all of my days are spent in *^#@ meetings!” Sound familiar? Meetings are supposed to be a means to success, but most people in organizations describe meetings as a time-suck that actually prevent them from getting their work done. We’d like to suggest that at the beginning of each year, you take time to inventory your meetings to decide if they are adding value and contributing to your success… and if they…

Make 2016 Your Best Year Ever!

January 4, 2016

Monday Morning Business Coach

Welcome to 2016, the year that you are going to claim your individual power! But how, you ask? Not by making resolutions. Instead, we want to you have 2-3 specific goals that you can achieve this year, goals that enable you to create your best life. Come on, let’s get started. Spend a few minutes thinking about the following areas of your life (if there are other areas you want to address be sure to include them in the “other”…

Faces of Leadership: Noah

December 28, 2015

Monday Morning Business Coach

To ask him about it you would assume that it was no big deal. He’s just not the kind of guy who is going to hype it up. He isn’t the type to brag, or grab attention just because he saved someone’s life. Not Noah. He’s a soft-spoken guy who keeps his own counsel and is pretty low key. But, he’s willing to step up and lead when the situation calls for it and saving someone’s life is one of…

THE Truth, or Your Truth?

December 21, 2015

Monday Morning Business Coach

One of the more challenging aspects of being in relationship with others is navigating the different truths that exist. As individuals, we each have a way of seeing and experiencing the world. Your way of looking at things is different than your neighbor’s or mine. There are certainly some common truths. Most of us can agree about things that are more objective, like the weather. “Raining” or “not raining” is a fairly simple truth that people share if they’re in…

5 Ways to Overcome Self-Doubt

December 14, 2015

Monday Morning Business Coach

Last week, we talked about Disappointing Others. A number of you wrote to thank us for that post and asked about an even more challenging person to disappoint… yourself. You described having the experience of being disappointed in something you did or didn’t do, or gave up on too early and found yourself paralyzed by self-doubt. Self-doubt is a debilitating emotion that leaves us unprotected in our inner world and unable to take action on our own behalf in our…

Stop Disappointing Others

December 7, 2015

Monday Morning Business Coach

One of the toughest parts of being human is disappointing others. Yet it happens all the time, whether intentionally or unintentionally—there is no way to truly stop disappointing others. In the managing world and in the parenting world, disappointing others goes with the territory. Unfortunately, in order to be a good manager (and a good parent) you have to get used to disappointing others. There is no way that you are going to make everyone happy all the time. Sometimes…

Life As a Zombie

November 30, 2015

Monday Morning Business Coach

“I feel like a zombie — like the walking dead. I float through my life, doing one task after another without meaning or purpose. I am always doing, but I’m not fully alive. I’m always running… from work, to home, to my daughter’s soccer game. I’m constantly trying to keep up and yet feel like I’m just going through the motions, and showing up without really being there. How did I become like this? This was not the life I…

3 Things To Do When Others Sabotage Your Growth

November 23, 2015

Monday Morning Business Coach

Last week we wrote Take Small Steps and talked about how small steps taken consistently over time can lead you to your goals faster than big steps taken from time to time. There are benefits to moving slow, as slow change is less likely to evoke resistance from inside of you and from those in your world. Slower, more consistent change over time can decrease others’ fear that you are changing, things are out of control, they are going to…

Take Small Steps

November 16, 2015

Monday Morning Business Coach

If you’ve been reading the Monday Morning Business Coach for a while you probably know that we are big fans of small steps. When you take small steps, you’re less likely to evoke internal, psychological resistance to change and start to get traction. And when you take those small steps consistently over time you can end up in an entirely new place! “Small steps taken consistently over time will lead you to your goals faster than big steps taken from…