Speaker Kit
Keynote Speaker | Executive Leadership Coach | Forgiveness Development Pioneer
Plenty of speakers talk about burnout. Dean Eric Smith goes after what causes it.
For 20 years, Dean has been speaking about one of the most powerful, yet overlooked, practices in leadership. For 14 years, he has coached executives and high performers to lead at their best. He helps leaders find and release the Hidden Emotional Overhead, the unresolved conflict, resentment, and regret that quietly drains the clarity, resilience, and capacity that leadership requires.
His keynotes are grounded in real neuroscience and real stakes, immediately applicable, and built around genuine breakthroughs in the room. Audiences do not just leave inspired and forget it by Monday. They leave with a repeatable method they can use the next morning. And Dean has a rare gift for making a room laugh one moment and go quiet with recognition the next.
Dean has brought this message to leaders and teams affiliated with organizations including AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Optavia, and the Gluten Intolerance Group.
Dean Eric Smith is a keynote speaker, Executive Leadership Coach, and the pioneer of a discipline he calls Forgiveness Development. His authority on the subject was not earned in a classroom. When Dean was twelve, his mother was murdered by his stepfather. For years he carried that weight the way many leaders carry their own, until decades later he made a different choice. He forgave the man who killed his mother, sat with him face to face, and ultimately helped him forgive himself. That journey became the award-winning documentary Live to Forgive.
From that experience, Dean built the E.D.G.E. Forgiveness Development Method, a rigorous, secular, evidence-based framework that gives leaders a repeatable way to set that weight down and lead at full strength. He is the author of The Forgiveness Habit and holds a Master's in Organizational Leadership. Offstage, he is a husband to his wife, Molly, a father of two teenagers, and, by most accounts, a pretty funky beatboxer.
Keynote Description
Your capacity isn't gone. It's buried.
Your best leaders are not doing too much. They are carrying too much.
In every high-pressure organization, leaders chase more capacity: more resilience, more output. But the ceiling on executive performance is rarely skill or effort. It is the Hidden Emotional Overhead leaders carry, the unresolved conflict, resentment, and regret that keeps the nervous system activated and quietly borrows against judgment, presence, and energy.
Drawing on his own story and the E.D.G.E. Forgiveness Development Method, Dean names what executives are actually living, shows why workload is not the real problem, and gives them a practical, repeatable way to set the weight down. Not therapy. Not inspiration that fades by Monday. A leadership discipline they can run on demand.
Audiences leave equipped to
› Name the Hidden Emotional Overhead limiting their capacity, and why workload is not the real problem
› Understand the neuroscience of how chronic stress degrades decisions, patience, and presence
› Apply the four steps of the E.D.G.E. Method to release what they are carrying
› Walk away with two simple daily tools to rebuild and protect leadership capacity
Ideal For
Annual executive conferences, board offsites and retreats, leadership development summits, and C-suite gatherings.
What They're Saying
"I've worked with speakers for years, and that was one of the best presentations I've ever seen."
Bob McKinnon, Director of Leadership Development, EXIT Realty Corp. International
Keynote Description
You can't pour from an empty system.
Healthcare does not have a burnout problem. It has a leadership capacity problem.
Physicians, nurses, and clinical leaders are told to be more resilient while the real driver goes unnamed. Beneath the staffing shortages and the workload sits the Hidden Emotional Overhead of caring for people under impossible pressure: moral distress, accumulated grief, and unresolved conflict. It is capacity these leaders are paying for but cannot use.
Dean knows this world from the inside, from years in the healthcare industry to his current work coaching physicians one-on-one across the country. In The Capacity Crisis, he reframes burnout as a capacity problem rather than a personal failing, and gives clinical and executive leaders the E.D.G.E. Method to release what they carry, restoring judgment, presence, and the ability to lead through crisis.
Audiences leave equipped to
› Reframe burnout as a leadership capacity issue, not an individual resilience issue
› Name the moral distress and Emotional Overhead quietly driving turnover and fatigue
› Apply the E.D.G.E. Method to protect judgment and presence under pressure
› Lead in a way that strengthens retention and psychological safety
Ideal For
Healthcare leadership forums, physician and nurse leadership programs, health system executive retreats, and medical association conferences.
What They're Saying
"His message is always passionate and life-changing and we have requests for him to return time and time again."
Dr. Gregory Jantz, Founder, The Center: A Place of Hope
Keynote Description
First they release. Then they lead.
A keynote moves a room. A method changes how they lead. The E.D.G.E. Intensive delivers both in a single day.
The morning opens with the Unburdened Leader keynote, the shared experience that reframes the room. The afternoon turns insight into practice: a focused, hands-on workshop where leaders apply the four steps of the E.D.G.E. Forgiveness Development Method to their own real challenges, guided by Dean.
Teams leave with a nervous-system reset, a personal action plan, and the framework applied live, so the shift becomes a durable practice rather than a moment they hope to recapture.
Audiences leave equipped to
› Experience the full Unburdened Leader keynote as a shared reset
› Work the four steps of the E.D.G.E. Method on a real, current challenge
› Build a personal 30-day plan that turns the decision into a habit
› Leave with a shared language and method the whole team can keep using
Ideal For
Leadership offsites, executive team retreats, multi-day conferences, and organizations ready to go beyond a keynote.
What They're Saying
"Dean possesses a certain kind of magic. His energy and enthusiasm are unparalleled."
Channon Quinn, COO, Gluten Intolerance Group
The Framework
Examine · Decide · Ground · Elevate. Set It Down. Lead Unbound.
Name what you are carrying and what it is actually costing you as a leader: decisions, presence, patience, energy. Facts, not verdicts.
Make the deliberate decision to let it go. A leadership decision, not a moral one, and it is real even before the feeling catches up.
The H.U.M.A.N. Bridge, a five-move sequence that closes the gap between deciding and actually feeling free. The step that makes the decision durable.
Two simple daily tools over a focused 30-day practice that turn the decision into a habit, restoring clarity, resilience, and presence.
Organizations & Audiences
Dean has spoken to leaders and teams affiliated with organizations including:
AstraZeneca
Boehringer Ingelheim
Optavia
Gluten Intolerance Group
EXIT Realty Corp. International
Habit Finder
The Center: A Place of Hope
What Leaders Are Saying
"I've worked with speakers for years, and that was one of the best presentations I've ever seen."
Bob McKinnon, Director of Leadership Development, EXIT Realty Corp. International
"Wow, from his silliness and his fun and his energy to his depth and his sophistication... Unbelievable!"
Paul Blanchard, President, Habit Finder
"His message is always passionate and life-changing and we have requests for him to return time and time again."
Dr. Gregory Jantz, Founder, The Center: A Place of Hope
"Dean possesses a certain kind of magic. His energy and enthusiasm are unparalleled."
Channon Quinn, COO, Gluten Intolerance Group
Thank you for the opportunity to connect.