Dr. Earl R. Smith II

Life coaching can bring some of life’s grandest adventures. The issues at stake are often monumental and, not infrequently, the results can be life changing. In current times such coaching is frequently requested by individuals at the very crossroads of their careers. One such engagement began not long ago.

Thinking about the meanings of word can often lead to a better understanding of our view of the world and place in it. I don’t mean debating the meanings in the dictionary – I mean discovering which of two definitions you prefer and why. Self-knowledge can be increased by acknowledging linguistic preferences.

The human tendency to label – and call the label the meaning of the thing – can prevent us from experiencing the world as we find it. Insisting that the meaning of something is what we say it is is rather like shouting loudly at somebody that is trying to tell us something important and then insisting what we were shouting was their real message.

When you awake each morning, the day presents you with literally thousands of possibilities. Human existence is chocked full of possibilities. But the important questions is, what is probable? And the more important question is, how can you make the right possible things probable – how can you select the right probabilities from all those possibilities?

Socrates observed that ‘a life unexamined is not worth living’. Nowhere is that more true than when we act against our own self-interests and suffer the consequences – pay the bills for our own rash actions.

Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com

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There is no freedom like being able to say what you truly mean – not what others want you appear to mean – nor what you might say in the throes of an adolescent tantrum – but to clearly say in a measured fashion exactly what you mean. Here’s the rabbit hole – down we go. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com

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I won’t sugarcoat it – mentoring can bring some very aggravating experiences. Sometimes it takes forever to achieve just a small illumination. Then there are the times – backsliding – when months of work seems to be washed away by a recidivist tendency. But then there are the other kinds that make the occasional frustration fade into the background. Let me tell you about one of these experiences. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com

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I recently met with a young entrepreneur – let’s call him X – well, to be technically accurate, a wannabe entrepreneur – he had never successfully built a business before. The meeting was a chance one at a networking event but my reputation for helping build business had preceded me. Read the rest of this entry »

To accumulate means that now there is more than before and then there will be more than now. It is a simple idea – then why do some people have so much trouble applying it to their lives?

One of my favorite sayings is ‘to excuse yourself is to excuse yourself. I recently intervened with a management team that had really messed things up – and that saying kept running through my head. They were masters of the excuse.