The past two weeks we have been talking about Jim Carrey’s commencement speech at Maharishi University of Management. During that speech, he made two statements that spoke to us and clearly to many of you (based on your notes to us): You can fail at what you don’t want to do so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love. AND The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there…
Last week, we described Jim Carrey’s commencement speech at the Maharishi University. In that post, we described Mr. Carrey’s wise words for the Class of 2014, “Remember, you can fail at what you don’t want to do, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” In that same speech, Mr. Carrey described the importance of being aware of how you show up in the world, saying: The effect you have on others is…
During this season of graduations, we were recently encouraged to watch a commencement speech by Jim Carrey. He was speaking at Maharishi University of Management and the audience of young people seemed absolutely thrilled to have him there. We watched the video expecting the typical Jim Carrey humor and little depth. Much to our surprise, we walked away with two thought-provoking nuggets that we will be speaking about this week and next week. Go Jim Carrey! In talking about his…
Since we’ve been talking about Emotional Drama and Emotional Data, we wanted to spend this week talking about one of the ways that we have defined adulthood over the years: Adulthood is the ability to hold two opposing ideas or feelings at the same time. The ability to hold two opposing ideas or feelings simultaneously is especially important when managing or leading others. In our work as coaches and consultants, we have seen that individuals who have the ability to…
My message today is a simple one. Test your assumptions before you take them in and operate as if they are fact. Human beings always make assumptions. That’s how we create order and logic in our world. Sometimes, however, the assumptions are not accurate and can hold us back from taking positive action. Below are a few of the assumptions that I hear most often from my clients who are looking for a job: There are no jobs. Everyone knows…
Last week we talked about the difference between using your emotional response to gather data about what is going on for you and creating emotional drama. We defined drama as the uncontrolled or unconscious expression of emotions, often in ways that exaggerate the importance of what has happened. Drama is the antithesis of healthy emotional expression; it’s the seeping of emotions into the workplace, through covert means, as a result of people not believing they have been heard or understood…
From time to time, an executive will come to us saying that they are working to create an environment of logic and reason but despite their best efforts they are failing. Unfortunately, the fact that they are failing makes sense. Business is and always will be an enterprise where feelings and emotions are a central part of the environment because of the simple fact that businesses are made up of people. It’s a package deal; people bring the whole of…
A number of years ago, a thoughtful and talented business owner, Andrea, was bumping into some old anxieties about the sustainability of her business and the decisions she was making. We spent a couple of meetings teasing out the data behind her anxiety. We explored what she needed to be genuinely concerned about as the industry changed and the economy floundered. We also explored the various old messages, which were rooted in her family, that were grabbing her by the…
Recently, we took a cross-country flight and on the flight we witnessed an extraordinary leader in action. Let us explain: At Carpenter Smith Consulting we define leadership as a willingness to influence your world and a willingness to be influenced by your world (or in this case, a plane with 180 passengers on board). One of the things we see in great leaders is that they are in relationship with the people they lead even if it’s not face-to-face. As…
Over the years, Memorial Day has come to mean many different things in our culture—it’s the beginning of summer, the running of the Indianapolis 500, and a day of countless sales—everything from mattresses to lawn furniture. It can be hard remember why we have this holiday at all. A brief history lesson: Memorial Day is the day when we remember the men and women who died while serving our country. Originally (in 1862), it was called Decoration Day, an apolitical…
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