I am deeply honored by the decision of West Point’s Library and Associate Dean Christopher D. Barth, Director of Libraries and Archives, to receive the original manuscripts of my eight books.
Years ago, as an immature poker-playing Cadet, I often used the USMA Library not to complete required reading, but to devour novels and to study arcane archives. Meanwhile, CPT Chester Joseph Stanley Piolunek, my wounded, war-hero English prof, via To Kill a Mockingbird, was stealthily teaching me how to write.
My modest writing collection is currently half novels and half-non-fiction. West Point later selected one from each category to become examinable required reading by West Point Cadets, to lamentably include the course that produced the lowest average grades.
West Point later forgave me my low grades and named me its first chair of character development. Now, the Academy Library has added my writing to its illustrious permanent historical collections.
I absolutely know that only in America could a sickly, blind, self-doubting kid from a poor, broken immigrant family learn to become a novelist at a renowned service academy. Only in the USA could military service have given me skills of the spirit to strive, however imperfectly, to provide value, however small, to all others regardless of the person’s background and regardless of feelings.,
Duty Honor Country, and a Present Arms to all our veterans.
Thanks to two great readers and polymath SMEs, Alen Ulman and Leon Garber. They invited me onto their SEIZE THE MOMENT PODCAST to figure out HOW TO GET OUR COURAGE, FREE OURSELVES FROM FEAR, TRULY HELP OTHERS, AND LIVE WITH QUIET RESOLVE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. This is a time-out from my blog series on Getting Your Courage so you can enjoy listening to two very sharp, warm, and welcoming hosts learn how we overcome fear and access courage in everything. Courage is the real deal and is, for most, merely the biggest issue in our lives. https://youtu.be/jWwJZlmhF2E
How to get your courage, Part 2. Get a piece of paper. Write down your two biggest fears; it takes guts to admit them. Say to your fears something like, “Worry reduces my inner self and spreads fear to my friends. Leave my mind and my heart.” Tape the paper to monitor or mirror. For one take, retake control over anxiety. Don’t quit.
Not letting fear control our thinking, dialogs, meals, and life, is a superior human achievement. Naming, facing, and banning them — that’s key to Courage 101.
Fear has 2 moving parts. First, it’s a huge primitive emotional reaction to a lethal threat; it triggers more than 26 involuntary physiological reactions (heart races, mouth goes dry). The biggest is that fear drains blood from our brains to arouse our major muscle groups for a life-and-death struggle against saber-tooth tigers. Filled with stress hormones, we lose logic and become freaked out Neanderthals on crack. We act badly; we become our worst selves.
We counter fear’s first moving part with BICBOF: BREATH IN COURAGE, BLOW OUT FEAR. Take slow, deep, diaphragmatic breaths, 5 seconds in 5 long, slow seconds out. This dissipates our home-made street drugs and frees us from looking like stunned mullets. (Read James Nestor’s Breath to learn why slow nasal breathing is essential to your health and weight, as well.)
Part 3: how to beat fear’s second moving part. Check out THE COURAGE PLAYBOOK: 5 STEPS TO OVERCOME YOUR FEARS AND BECOME YOUR BEST SELF at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You can also read this on guslee.net or LEADERS OF CHARACTER, LLC, on fb.
Make it a courageous day by how you treat non-friends.
Did you know that courage is our one, key human ability? Courage lets us do what we value most: love others and unconditionally respect all persons. We can gently retire those crazy forms of bias that feed on our imperfections. Courage lets us genuinely care for others when we’re tired, cranky, and sliding into unhealthy interior spaces. It frees us from self-doubt and sad regrets. It equips us to do the right thing, especially when we’ve told ourselves that we can’t. It grows us to make wise and celebration-worthy decisions in relationships, life, and work.
Courage promotes hope and health. It mitigates angst re: texting drivers, loud neighbors, and dental care. It gives hope for the future. Life teaches us that without courage, even love gets totally messed up. Then anxiety wrecks the delicate eco-cultures of identity, of families, organizations, and communities. Peter Pan creator J.J. Barrie told college graduates: If courage goes, then all goes.
Many of us see courage as a nice, abstract idea without boots on the ground, unrelated to being able to love, to be loved, and to find meaning. But research reveals that courage is that one intensely vital, tangible, practical, operational, and often, life-giving and lifesaving, human ability, that we all need just to get through the day, and to then thrive, despite unknowns, into many tomorrows.
Okay, Gus, say you’re right. So how do we find and get our courage? Turn on your sweet, essential Courage Mindset app (John Whitcomb, a genius colleague, is creating this). Virtually admit that feeding your anxieties and fears like they were household pets is a fake and even a bad form of living. Take a deep cleansing breath, dump self-critical mindsets and believe that you need courage to truly love, to live rightly, and to handle chunk servings of contentment and happiness. Practice this twice. In the next blog, I’ll provide the next step to courage.
Breaking news: what if there were already a user’s manual that laid out how to become personally courageous — and to become an effective, courageous leader regardless of station or history? The Courage Playbook just came out. https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Playbook-Steps-Overcome-Become/dp/1119848903?asin=1119848903&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-courage-playbook-gus-lee/1140119834
Until next time, per Nelson Mandela, play life large by helping another person in the moral frame.
Make it a courageous day.
We
must model the behaviors we expect from others. Gandhi
We watched our grandkids happily join a playgroup along a quiet
stream in the Rockies. Sticks became shovels, magic wands and light sabers.
Rocks were curated gems and blocks formed a great wall. Ala Last Child in the Woods, their
creativity and birds, trees and chipmunks stirred deeper meaning than bright
objects that flash, beep and drug their receptive brains.
A young mom said, “I can’t wait for them to hit the
Big Four. Potty trained, sleep through the night, dress themselves and eat
independently.”
We laughed. The benchmarks for tired parents! But if
chimps can master the Big Four, were we elevating the trivial and forgetting
the higher standards?
Where was the moral element – the stuff of essential
and eternal human value?
I grew up in a busted family of weeping and wounds
ruled by adults who could punch but wouldn’t cook and could criticize but
wouldn’t restrain their anger. Despite my fears, I joined my courageous wife in
imparting The Big Two to our own children.
1. UPR: UNCONDITIONALLY
AND POSITIVELY RESPECT ALL PEOPLE. Easy as a self-inflicted root canal!
I’d yell, “SHOW RESPECT!” But for that to occur, I had
to respect them so they knew what respect looked like. What I modeled would be
reflected back.
I’d bellow, “NO MORE TEMPER TANTRUMS!” A big Ah-ha: If
I complain and carp and disrespect the world and then denounce and blame those
I despise, I’m training our children to complain, carp, denounce and blame
siblings, outliers, those with differing opinions and, eventually, us.
“STOP FIGHTING!” I’d yell combatively. If I mean it,
then I can’t explode, ever. I had to model calm listening, peaceful compromise
and self-governance despite the wily seduction of my precious anger lest I teach
them that anger is the true and wise adult answer to problems.
“DON’T SAY THAT!” Meant I’d have to ditch the oaths
I’d adopted as a Soldier humping hills too steep, grunting on forced marches
too forced, suffering weather too insufferable and subsisting on tinned food
too tinny.
“SIT UP AND BE POLITE!” Meant I had to pay exquisite
attention to immature children instead of tending to my comfort-seeking self
and trivia-dripping screens. For them to listen, I had to listen. To invite
respect, I had to be respectful. If I desired peace, I had to stop making war
on what triggered my emotions. To hear happy words, I actually had to be happy –
a condition I controlled more than I knew.
Is it that simple? Yup.
2. HELP OTHERS DO THE HIGHEST
MORAL ACTION, the HMA. To grow happy and truly successful kids, I need to
do the Highest Moral Action despite discomfort or risk to self-interest. I need
the guts to dial back my career hungers and ramp-up love of my family lest I
become not, too cool for school, but too stressed to love.
It’s easy to overwork – for external kudos and money –
and damage our most tender, interior relationships – the true and worthy
subjects of love.
Parenting challenged me to look at myself and my true
core values – not the ones I claimed, but the ones I was living. I waited too
long to accept The Big Two, but our
children say they’re thankful that I did. Few things cause greater happiness
than seeing them guiding their own children toward right living by modeling UPR and Doing the HMA.
What would happen today if you
replaced your natural impulsive anger with intentional courageous patience and
the personal strength of attentive listening?
BELICHICK, DR. KING & UPSIDE DOWN VALUES. How do the hated Patriots rule the NFL? Jerry Rice overcame poor speed with harder work. Fred Astaire was not a great dancer but a great rehearser.[i]Tom Brady, maybe The Greatest of All Time, has won more Super Bowls and MVPs than Wheaties has flakes, yet he opts to rank only 15th in QB pay.
“Kid,” said YMCA Coach Tony, “yur
upside-down. Ya missed class the day they gave out bodies ‘n other fighters got
all the muscles. They ain’t blind like a bat with the asthma ‘n don’t cry ‘n wheeze
in the ring.” I strove to be a black male youth, an honorable goal for which I
was poorly suited. Coach was training me to box other street kids who were
stronger, faster and tougher.
“Build yur try, yur endurance. First round, the opponent’ll beat you like a bongo drum. But in the last round, he’s tired, arm-weary, slow, ‘n his kidneys hurt. If yur conditioned better and got the spirit to be tough when yur tired, sure as bears crap in the woods, you’ll beat a stronger fighter.”
The YMCA’s upside down values: Mind, Body, Spirit.Spirit meant courage, and
we got courage by practicing it, again and again. From courage came a better Body
to be used for right purposes, and a Mind that would help others. Without moral
courage, I’d be an ego with biceps and would use Mind to be a show-off. For little
pay, my coaches trained angry and violent teens in the disciplines of moral
courage. They taught us not to look good, but to be good to others.
The Pats are also upside-down. Others
saw Brady, Edelman, White and Van Noy as weak, small and as promising as my first
attempts to box. Coach Belichick studies the opponent’s moral flaws and then game-plans
to win; his opponents try to beat him with physical strength.
NFL: SKINNY BRADY
COURAGEOUS BRADY
1
Bad measurables, never saw a weight room, poor musculature, poor build
Out-works, out-studies, out-practices others
2
Weak in talent, not athletic, can’t throw a tight spiral
Courageous, calm, no panic, blame or griping
3
Lacks physical stature, strength, gangly, a ping pong player
Loves teammates, team, values
4
Poor decision-making, can’t read defenses, easy to sack
Tough, executes under pressure and in pain
Belichick values courage, humility and responsibility. They love team more than self and the game more than raises. They embrace a gut-busting Ranger School-like regimen to be the NFL’s smartest, most reliable and best-conditioned team. The Pats chose to run onto the field as a team with no names. They don’t showboat; they toss each other’s hair. They improve from early games and learn from first halves and win in the 4th quarter by being smarter, stronger, more focused and more inter-dependent. Not all NFL players, or people in other fields, want to be humble or work that hard.
It’s
not being bigger, special or having groovy music, cool threads, fun friends or living
based on how we feel. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., our true
identity is not in color of skin, beauty of thoughts, depth of passion, specialness
of Me, or firmness of bodies.
He
said his children should be judged by the content of their character. That was for
us. We are our selflessness and our brave oaths to honor all persons. We are the
quotient of our courage.
Can
you live his upside-down words? 1. Are
you selfless or selfish? 2. Respect
all persons or dis those who disagree with you? 3. Self-disciplined or quick to anger? 4. Always improving how you treat others or increasing how you blame
others? May we all improve our answers!
Next
time: the difference between honesty, grit, ethics, courage and character.
NFL (PHYSICAL)
PATS (COURAGE)
1
Stand-out statistics
TRUSTWORTHY
2
Strength, Size, Speed
SELFLESS
3
Agility, the Combine
TOUGHEST
4
Smart enough
LEAD OTHERS
5
Ego but not too big
DO THE RIGHT THING
From
The Courage Quotient, the working
title of Gus’s next book.
This
just in: the hated NFL Patriots once again made the NFL’s better-talented teams
look like they forgot their vitamins and then sent them to the doghouse. Seven
hundred coaches not named Belichick, McDaniels or Scarnecchia are munching kibble
and binging on 2018 game film.
They’re
trying to decode Coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady’s method. In September,
after serving a mandatory seven months in the Dog Pound, they and 1,600 of the
world’s toughest athletes will take the field. But high hopes may drop like old
elevators when they face Belichick, Bradyand those upside-down, zip-superstars-you-can’t-beat-us-but-we’re-still-here-Patriots.
With higher draft picks and better players, 31 teams will try to stop a head coach (fired by the bottom-drawer Browns) who uses alien technology to rule the ‘verse. His poster kid? An unwanted 41-year old senior citizen QB with a boyish voice. Tom Brady was rated as slow, weak, breakable and un-athletic whose poor abilities and footwork would be exposed by pressure. He couldn’t throw a spiral, had the build of a ping pong player and was skinny.
He
dropped to the 199th pick in the 6th round. Now for 19
seasons, he’s been tougher than a rodeo cowboy and executes under pressure with
the panic that Batman exhibits while reading an old novel. Brady’s quick,
strong and smart in the pocket. He throws into tight windows, grinds like a
grinder and is as hard to beat as Indiana Jones. He’s taken 1,000 mind-warping hits
and gets up like he’s going to re-fill the puppy’s water bowl. He’s #1 in Super
Bowls, SB MVPs, SB wins, playoff TD’s and yards, ya-da-ya-da. By his choice, he’s
15th in QB pay. (More on this next time). He wins at table tennis, no
doubt takes out the garbage and writes haiku for his kids.
There’s his go-to receiver, Julian Edelman, a small Bam-Bam Jetson guy who went 232nd in the draft and was penciled in as a training camp blocking dummy or a camp arm to toss a ball at practice. (Yo – who’s the dummy now?)
He missed the standard for top receivers: 6-5, 225, fleet as Mercury, meat hook hands, rich as Midas, younger than springtime and bigger than Skaar, son of Hulk. JV-sized Edelman is virtually invisible at 5-10 in boots, is a buck-ninety-five dripping wet, owns so-so speed and at 32 racks up 160 receiver years. A famous superstar receiver’s mediagenic handle: Megatron. Edelman’s is Squirrel. He’s the best receiver in the game and is the Super Bowl MVP.
Over
the years, Belichick had 20 All-Pro players with gargantuan arms, greater
height, better tattoos, F-22 Raptor speed and championship laurels. But if they
busted the team’s operating principles and locker room unity by sporting
Godzilla egos, beating women, skipping practice, thinking they’re better than
others, or demanding more money, Belichick dumped them. Despite cutting elite physical
specimens, Belichick and Brady own the record for Super Bowl and Championship wins,
and forged and now own the athletic gold standard for sustained success.
Besides
dismissing non-team players, how do they do it? How do forgettable people without
top credentials become courageous performers?
It’s not an Area 51 secret. Belichick, Brady, Edelman, and many others in the Patriots organization have explained how they do it. The Patriots own a radical thematic method and haven’t varied the pitch. They’ve kept true to a basic set of operating principles that amount to what we can call life values.
Why haven’t 700 of the best coaches in football figured it out? Might it be something about them, and us? Do we get the feeling that the hated Pats’ winning principles might extend beyond football? If they do, and they’d help us live better, can we learn them, too?
A young, elegant, and perfectly composed Cindy Schwarzkopf stood before the teary-eyed assembly in West Point’s vast and upward-reaching Gothic chapel. She spoke to her family, ex-vice presidents, secretaries of state, great generals and battle-hardened, jaw-clamping warriors, these tough men of straight spines and many wounds.
“How do I honor my father, a man of exceptional gifts, in ten minutes? Doing right was his guide — get it done and get it right.”
Three years and four days ago, we lost one of our now very rare national heroes. In the words of the black streets which were my home, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, The Bear, had gone up a yonder to meet his Maker and to take his reward.
He had committed his character and genius to living fearlessly in selfless service to concepts greater than himself. By demonstrating unwavering fidelity under a self-imposed rule of courage and principles, he had achieved the Cervantes goal of achieving victory over self and had met the Horace Mann standard of winning a victory for humanity. The Bear was our last liberator of other peoples and the admired ring champion over an unquestioned tyrant. After retirement, instead of seeking power and wealth, he spent his time with family while quietly funding and serving charities for terminally ill children.
Nearing the 25th anniversary of the American victory in Desert Storm, it’s easier for us to celebrate Frank Sinatra’s cool, sensual rock star life-style than to cement within ourselves the character of a Soldier who took great wounds for his beloved Soldiers and nation, and whose great sins were outbursts at senior officers and a weakness for chocolate chip mint ice cream.
The Bear passed two days after Christmas, a holiday he cherished. Now, on New Year’s Eve, I thank him for his giving of his life to the development of leaders of character. I think this is the second greatest gift any one can give to others, for it produces persons who will fight fiercely to get it right, instead of fight selfishly to get More.
I’m delighted to announce the release of my new book, WITH SCHWARZKOPF: LIFE LESSONS OF THE BEAR from Smithsonian Books. It happily recounts the life-changing privilege of being mentored by the General across a 47-year relationship. Where many mentors focus on professional advancement, the Bear’s fierce commitment was to replace my weaknesses with unflinching character, to get it right instead of to get ahead. I’d come from a long history of family tragedies triggered by immoral decisions; he offered lessons and skills for one who hungered for moral instruction and reconstruction. I hope this book does honor to a man who honored others.
“Fear is contagious. But so is courage,” concluded Glenn Harlan Reynolds last week in USA Today. Reynolds was reporting on the terrorist attack on a French high-speed train in which three American friends on holiday quickly subdued a Moroccan gunman, saved the life of his badly-wounded gunshot victim, and probably rescued most of their 550 fellow passengers from death and terror.
What I didn’t know is that British businessman Chris Norman had come forward to help the Americans. Norman told the Fiscal Times that when the shooting began, “I was frankly, dead scared.” He quickly hid. But seeing the moral courage and physical bravery of three young Americans, the 62-year old grandfather came from hiding and retrieved ties and belts from silent, fear-paralyzed passengers. He then helped bind the wrists and ankles of the furiously fighting assailant, a man who was on three Euro-security watch lists, had an AK-47, eight 30-round magazines, a semi-automatic handgun, and a box cutter, with which he slashed Spencer Stone, the American closest to the terrorist.
In Courage: The Backbone of Leadership, I wrote that we operate in a culture of fear. We use the modern terms, “conflict avoidance,” to dignify cowardice – an ancient, morally convicting word that might have seemed insensitive to cowards. Every day, in terror of discomfort and in fear of disapproval, we avoid difficult personal situations that call for well-spoken truths and respectful interventions. (Failure to speak up has caused our massive economic upheavals, depressions and recessions.) Several times every day, we face the River of Our Fears and can look the other way, or, act rightly. Chris Norman experienced the impulse for personal survival. But seeing courage in action he was reminded of his better self.
Churchill deemed courage “the first of all human qualities, for it alone guarantees the existence of the others.” Courage wipes clean the cobwebs of our naturally fearful and avoidant selves. We are wired to act heroically but must cultivate those neural pathways with grand intention lest our emotions dictate our lives. That’s why we can’t help but be inspired by courage and to imitate it until we demonstrate it.
The age of heroism has not passed. It is here, before us, for in truth, no generation, regardless of war, peace, depression, or prosperity, is spared the need to demonstrate courage on the ever-watched stage of our personal and public lives.
Thank you to three California buddies since childhood – Airman 1C Spencer Stone, Infantryman SP4 Alek Skarlatos, just back from Afghanistan, and brave student Anthony Sadler – for demonstrating courage regardless of risk to your self-interest. Thank you to Chris Norman, for crossing your River of Fear.
Courage, said Aristotle, is a learned set of practiced skills with which, like playing the violin or playing goalie, we are not born. If you want to learn and practice the skills to build habits of courage and to construct strong and straight backs in your workplace, home, community, and personal life, I challenge you to read Courage: The Backbone of Leadership. It was written by a recovering coward with a weak and scoliosis-bent spine.
November 2022: Interview senior staff candidates, Houston Christian High School, Houston
January 2023: Practical Character Development, Content design: Desmond Doss Council, Tennessee
October 2022: Courage Coaching, In-and-Out Burger, California (tentative)
September 7, 2022: How to Get Your Courage: Seize the Moment Podcast
May 18, 2023: Leading Courageously: Otter Box Products, Colorado
May 9, 2022: West Point Class of 1970: Recipient, Serve with Integrity Award, Colorado
May 2-3, 2022: West Point: interview Cadets on Character Advancement
July 20, 2022: Courage Coaching, Alegrium, Inc.
June 30, 2022: Gus Lee’s The Courage Playbook was nominated as a Next Big Idea Club Selection
May – December 2022: write the Blue Courage Courageous Leadership 2-day Module
April 21, 2022: With Blue Courage, LLC: Courageous Leadership, 1 Day, Louisville Police Department, Kentucky
April 2022: Courage-Praxis Character Advancement Proposal submitted to CIAG, U.S. Military Academy, West Point
January-March 2022: Courage Coaching, CEO, Washington State
March 2, 2022: With Blue Courage, LLC: Courageous Leadership Part II, 1 Day, San Francisco Police Department, California
February 9, 2022: With Blue Courage, LLC: Courageous Leadership Part I, 1 Day, San Francisco Police Department, California
January 24, 2022: Courage Coaching, Alegrium, Inc., Jakarta, Indonesia
January 13, 2022: Blue Courage, LLC: agree on partnership; commit to design a complete Courageous Leadership training module by January 1, 2023
January 3, 2022: Planning meeting on China Boy screenplay
December 31, 2021: Submitted the final manuscript of The Courage Playbook to Wiley & Sons
December 2021: Campion: Courageous Teambuilding Training
December 13, 2021: Courage Coaching, Alegrium, Inc.
November 29, 2021: Courage Coaching, Alegrium, Inc.
October 25, 2021: Courage Coaching, Alegrium, Inc.
April – December 2021: Courage Coaching, 2 execs, Campion Organization
January-June 2021: Proposal for The Courage Playbook, the sequel to Courage: The Backbone of Leadership, for Wiley & Sons
October 2020: Palo Alto High School: China Boy presentation
October-November 2020: Alegrium, Inc: TI Interview & Hiring training
October 2020: RMC, Courageous Leadership Skills Intensive & Training the Trainers
August 2020 – February 2021: Alegrium, Inc: Courageous Executive Coaching
July-December 2020: China Boy Co-screenwriting agreement with Ron Bass
June -December 2021: Wiley & Sons: write The Courage Playbook
January-April 2021: for CIAG, U.S. Military Academy: write the Courage-Praxis Character Advancement Plan proposal
2020-21: various events cancelled due to COVID-19
April 2020: Campion, Courageous Executive Coaching
March 2020-March 2021: NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center: Executive Coaching & Training the Trainers
January, 2020: AEA, Courageous Leadership Skills Intensive for Asian leaders
May – October, 2019: NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center: Executive Coaching: Courageous Leadership & Zero-sins Strategic Planning
May – until completion, 2019: WHO ARE YOU: THE COURAGE QUOTIENT, a follow-on to COURAGE: THE BACKBONE OF LEADERSHIP
May – June, 2019: NPR interviews
December 17-19, 2018: NOAA, Aviation Weather Center: Courageous Leadership Skills Intro IA, Kansas City, MO
November 7-11, 2018: Central Valley Fire District:Courageous Leadership Skills Intensive IB; Zero-sins Strategic Planning IA: the Courage Leader Academy; Courage for Families, Belgrade, MT
October 6, 2018: Officer Leadership Development Planning, Loveland, CO
September 12-13 and 26-27, 2018: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center: Introductory Courageous Skills/SWPC’s GR8 Evolution, Boulder, CO
August 23, 2018: National Weather Service Central Region, Meteorologists-in-Charge/Hydrologists-in-Charge Leader Development: Fly-over of Courageous Leadership Skills, Kansas City, KS
June 12-15, 2018: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction: Courageous Leadership Skills Intensive Intro IA; Courageous Hiring, College Park, MD
April-Dec 2018: Central Valley Fire District: Key Leaders: Courageous Leader Development
April 14, 2018: Central Valley Fire District: Relationship Reconciliation Intro; Annual Awards Banquet Keynote Address: You Always Miss the Shot You Don’t Take
April 9-13, 2018: Central Valley Fire District: Courageous Leadership Skills Intensive IA, Belgrade, MT
April 5, 2018: LC3 Leadership Class: Facing Fear, Lakewood, WA
March 16-17, 2018: LC3 Man Camp: Man or Male — Courage, Character, Six Go’s & Six No’s, Auburn, WA
December 4, 2017: NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Courageous Leadership Skills, Marine Operations Leadership Summit, Kansas City, MO
October 12-13, 2017: 551st Special Operations Squadron, 16th Special Operations Squadron and 27th Special Operations Wing: Courage, Leadership & Resiliency, Cannon AFB, Clovis, NM
August 23-25, 2017: PlayMakerIQ, Estes Park, CO, Senior Leader Development & Skills Program
May 11, 2017: University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, AOA Visiting Professorship on Leading Courageously in a Noble Profession
May 5, 2017: Bellevue Healthcare, Redmond, WA, Leadership Summit: Courageous Leading & Communication
April 19, 2017: Consulting Services, Executive Coaching, San Francisco, CA, Avoiding 10 Strategic Planning Sins
April 10, 2017: The Leadership Podcast, Portland, OR, Leadership is Hard Because Character Is Hard & Integrity Is Really Being Our Best Moral Selves
February 15, 2017, Dassault Systemes, Chicago, IL, Executive Coaching, Avoiding 10 Strategic Planning Sins
February 9, 2017: Lake City Community Church, Lakewood, WA, Men’s Leadership Class, Covenant to Stop My Cowardly Behaviors
August 11-14, 2016: College of the Ozarks, Lookout Point, MO: Character Advancement and Courageous Leadership
February 17-19: City of Greeley, CO, Courageous Leadership Skills Development for City Leaders
February 24, 2016: University of Tampa Sykes College of Business, Tampa, FL, Keynote on Global Leadership
January 14, 2016: Lake City Community Church, Lakewood, WA, Men’s Leadership Class, Christ-centered Character Development & Character Assessment
August 18, September 8, October 6, 2015: DuPont WA Police Department, Leaders of Character development: Courageous Communication
August 10-11, 2015: Houston Christian High School Leaders of Character Development: Conflict Resolution
September 18-19, 2015: College of the Ozarks, Leaders of Character: Character Development, Training, Education, Strategic Planning for a Character Initiative
October 17, 2015, 12-2 pm: Joint Base Lewis-McChord Post Exchange book signing: With Schwarzkopf
November 4, 2015: Poudre Fire Authority, Leaders of Character Training: Forging a Courageous Organization
November 4, 2015, Colorado State University, Leaders of Character lecture and book signing 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm @ Yates Hall Rm 104.
November 5, 2015, 7 pm, Tattered Cover Aspen Grove Bookstore, Leaders of Character book signing, talk, Q&A re: character and GEN Schwarzkopf, Littleton CO.
November 10, 2015, 8 am PT: WNEW “News Radio with Judlyne Lilly”, Washington DC, Interview.
November 10, 2015: DuPont, WA, Police Department, Course Completion Exercises.
November 11, 2015, 7:05 am PT: WOCA Radio, “AM Ocala Live” Interview with Larry Whitler, Ocala, FL.
November 12, 2015, 1:30 pm PT: KAHI Radio, “Popp Off” with Jane Popp, Interview, Sacramento, CA.
December 2, 2015: Article on mentoring published in the New York Observer Magazine, “What Schwarzkopf Taught Me From War”
_________________________________________
January 4-6, 2016: College of the Ozarks, Branson MO, Leaders of Character Training: Behaviors of Character
January 8, 2016: 2nd Bn, 75th Ranger Regiment, Leaders of Character LPD, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA
February 18-19, 2016: City of Greeley employees; Police and Fire Departments, Leaders of Character Training, Greeley, CO
February 24, 2016: University of Tampa Business School, Leaders of Character Keynote, Leadership Conference; class instruction in character-based leading
April 28-29, 2016: College of the Ozarks, Branson, MO, Leaders of Character Training: Advancing Character
August 10-18, 2016: College of the Ozarks, Branson, MO, Leaders of Character Training: Advancing Character to the College and School communities: 6 presentations on character behaviors, habits, skills and tools
—————————————————————-
Jan 7-11, 2013. Lakeshore Talent Community; Courageous Leader Development Intensive, Denver CO
Jan 28-Feb 1, 2013. Poudre Fire Authority, Instructors Academy & Mentoring Program Design, Fort Collins CO
Feb 4-8, 2013. MAPET, U.S. Army, FT Hood TX
Feb 11-13, 2013. Omidyar Fellows Hawaii, Courageous Leader Development, Honolulu HI
March 25-26, 2013. City of Greeley; Courageous Leadership Introduction (tentative), Greeley, CO
March 11-12, 2013. St. Mark’s School of Texas, Ethics & Leadership Program, Dallas
May 2, 2013. Leadership Development, Behavioral Health, Madigan Army Hospital, JBLM FT Lewis, WA
June 6-7, 2013. Lakeshore Courageous Leader Development, Denver, CO
June 11-12, 2013. Forging a Courageous Organization, Poudre Fire Authority, Fort Collins, CO
August 15-16, 2013. St. Mark’s School of Texas, Precessional, Dallas
September 3-12, 2013. Becoming the Courageous Leader, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
September 26, 2013. Keynote: The Courageous Advocate, Hawai’i State Bar Association Conference, Honolulu, HI
September 27, 2013, Character Advancement one-on-one, Omidyar Fellow, Honolulu, HI
October 2-4, 2013, Colorado Springs Reads China Boy and Courage, CO
October 8-11, 2013. National Conference on Ethics in America Planning, USMA, West Point, NY
January 25, 2014. NCEA Train the Trainers Webinar.
February 1-6, 2014. National Conference on Ethics in America I U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY
April 7-8, 2014. Leadership & Ethics Program, St. Mark’s School of Texas, Dallas, TX
April 10, 2014. Courageous Leadership, Vistage, Oakland, California
May 29, 2014. Courageous Counters to Bullying, Pierce County Library System.
July 30-31, 2014. Courageous Coaching, Poudre Fire Authority, Fort Collins, CO
July 9, 2014, Courageous Leadership, Vistage, San Francisco, California
August 4-5, 2014. Courageous Leading, Houston Christian High School, Houston, Texas
August 14-15, 2014. Leadership and Ethics, Leader Development in Character, St. Mark’s School of Texas, Dallas, Texas
AUGUST 25-29, 2014 [OPEN REGISTRATION: CURRENTLY THE ONLY ONE THIS YEAR -A 2 OR 5-DAY PROGRAM] Building Leaders of Character, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO. See PAGES, 3rd entry, below, for information and registration for 15-20 open slots.]
October 1, 2014, Convocation, College of the Ozarks, Hard Work U, Branson, MO
October 20-24, 2014. National Conference on Ethics in America II, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY (tentative)