There are always possibilities to do more of what you love. Identify opportunities that align with your life priorities, the best of your skills, and an environment where you’ll thrive.
Business is all about the people. We’ll partner with you to enhance team engagement, develop interpersonal communications, and improve individual performance.
Great leaders, whatever their role, can inspire others and change lives. Whether you’re an established leader or a new leader, this is a powerful way to enhance your skills and drive day-to-day results.
Whether for a 30-minute keynote or an all-day workshop, we’re passionate about presenting dynamic and inspiring content. Our underlying message is always about leadership and its power to move individuals, teams, and organizations successfully forward.
"Stephanie is masterful at bringing clarity to things and helps me look at the big picture. She was instrumental in my decision to leave a long time job and open my own firm—the best career of my life."
Angie Galimanis, Owner/President @ Lawrence PR, Portland, OR
"Heather empowered me to look inside and see what it was I truly wanted out of work and life. We set out my priorities, my criteria for my next job, and I learned about the strengths I had as a person, not just a list of software acumen!"
Zöe Flanagan, Research Assistant @ Pacific Research & Evaluation, Portland, OR
"Linda’s Executive Coaching has helped me become a better leader. She coached me to not avoid difficult discussions, but to approach them in a non aggressive way. I feel like much more of a natural leader, and I’m having a lot more fun now."Jeff Fuchs, City Engineer for the City of Tualatin, OR
"Working with Heather changed my life in ways I didn't know were possible. This year I launched a business that has gone from nothing to flourishing in so many ways. I'm so grateful to Heather for her personal, heartfelt, and out-of-the-box style. I'm so grateful for all you do!"
Meghan French, Licensed OR Broker, Scout Realty, Portland, OR
"Working with Stephanie has been the single most transformative experience. Thanks to Stephanie’s advice and support, I entered and completed graduate school, have made it through many professional challenges, and have established my own business."
David Hanna, Couples, Family, and Individual Therapist @ David Hanna Counseling, Portland, OR
"Linda unlocked some doors inside me with some ready understanding of concerns that face me as a leader, a parent, and a partner with some very simple solutions and practices. Linda's been an integral part of my successful leadership role at work and home."Katy Patricelli, Former Sr VP @ Wells Fargo
"Stephanie has been an invaluable sounding board. My coaching sessions with Stephanie have provided me with a case study-like approach to work through current business challenges, a constructive unbiased listening center which provides immediate stress relief, and an actionable and useful “nugget” to put into immediate action from each session."
Kathryn Loescher, MBA, Sr. Director of Compensation, The Standard
"Heather brought order to my chaos and helped me pursue my goals in a more purposeful, fulfilling way. Now I feel less stressed, more in control and able to enjoy taking some big steps that I’ve been working towards for a long time."
Carolyn Cosgriff, Owner/Artist/Designer @ HissBuzzHum, Portland, OR
"I love working with Heather, she's not only my productivity coach, she’s my accountability partner. She helps me stay on track with my goals, my weekly tasks and I’ve been able to accomplish more in the past 3 months than I have all year.”Shannon M. McCaffery, Founder @ SoulfulVisionMarketing.com, Richmond, VA
"In my work, I found myself challenged to engage the physician leaders across the organization. With Carpenter Smith Consulting, we learned strategies that resulted in a dramatic growth in provider satisfaction from the 11th percentile to the 73rd percentile!"Sharon Crowell M.D. @ The Vancouver Clinic, Vancouver, WA
"Linda is a great listener and powerful observer. I rely on her wisdom and pragmatic advice around team dynamics, culture and leadership. Simply put, Linda makes me better."Katherine Durham, VP Individual Disability Insurance and Corporate Marketing & Communications @ The Standard, Portland, OR
"I found my sessions with Heather to be very insightful, practical, and useful, and focused on elements of employee behaviors which we normally don't pay attention to. Our discussions helped me grow in my new role at work as well as out of work."Kunal Dugal, QA Manager @ Logitech, Camas, WA
"Heather helped me see that work isn't just about the money. She took the big picture view of my life and gave me the tools I needed to commit to my pursuits. My stress is gone and both of my businesses are better than ever!Theresa Provitola, Founder/CEO @ Pixels & Ink Media, llc, Vancouver, WA
"I learned more about how to be a leader from Carpenter Smith Consulting than I did from my Master's program at Harvard."
Alfred Seekamp, M.D., Chief Medical Officer @ The Vancouver Clinic, Vancouver, WA
Linda is described as a powerful ally and skilled strategist in helping them develop their personal and professional leadership to move their businesses forward.
Stephanie is known for providing trusted advice and management techniques to people seeking personal and professional success.
Heather is unmatched in her ability to motivate clients, friends, and family members to take charge of their lives and to boldly step into their leadership.
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…
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…
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;…
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. 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…
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…
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…
Here in the United States, this is Thanksgiving week, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It’s a day that we here at Carpenter Smith Consulting use to remind us of all that we are and all that we have. As coaches, we recognize the power of gratitude and giving thanks while moving through life. Life brings with it all kinds of things including: demands at work, managing change, dealing with challenges, facing losses, experiencing grief, as well as…
Last week, in our post, Imposter Syndrome: You’re Not Alone, we encouraged you to watch the short TED-Ed talk, What is Imposter Syndrome and How Can You Combat It?. We hope it was helpful to learn more about this surprisingly common experience that can seriously undermine your confidence, and get in the way of success. As a result of last week’s post, we had a lot of people asking if there is any way to bolster their confidence. Many of us have been made to believe…
This week we want to talk about what we’ve all come to know as Imposter Syndrome – which is known as Imposterism in the research community. Imposter Syndrome is a powerful and derailing experience. People with Imposter Syndrome believe that they have successfully hidden that they are not competent or capable and they believe that their actual accomplishments are not earned. They feel fraudulent and live in fear of being “found out”. Imposter Syndrome leaves people feeling alone and ashamed. To…
