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…
We coach people who want to be powerful and effective, to come to a discussion about concerns with not only the concern, but also with a proposed solution. For some people, the idea is quite natural, but for others, it’s a challenging concept. They don’t know how to organize their thinking, particularly when the concern is emotionally heated. Today we wanted to offer you a simple structure that was initially developed by the US Navy and is now being…
In our work, we are having many discussions about the value of diversity. There is clearly a belief that diversity is a good thing, but many people don’t know exactly why. So, we wanted to provide you with some new research. We’re at a time in our nation where there’s much division, anger, and fear. One of the areas of significant debate is the value of racial and ethnic diversity. So, it’s exciting to see this new research in…