The Courage Playbook: Five Steps to Overcome Your Fears and Become Your Best Self - Hardcover

by Gus Lee (Author)

A practical pathway to a meaningful life and courageous leadership

In The Courage Playbook: Five Steps to Overcome Your Fears and Become Your Best Self, Gus Lee, bestselling author and leadership expert, delivers an astonishing reveal that with moral courage, we can overcome our fears. This is a practical guide to gaining your courage to live rightly, treat others without bias and lead inspirationally. Readers will acquire Five Steps to Courage, 3 NO's, 3 GO's and Courageous Communication Plays. These lend deeper meaning to life, strengthen our character, improve relationships and allow us to help others for the common good. They lead to contentment, love and even happiness.

The Playbook is a practical, behavior-based "Other-Help" guide that equips us more effectively than the worried "self-help" approach. The Courage Playbook includes:

• Skills and strategies for healthfully and authentically deploying courage in your life
• Ways to actually solve tough moral problems and conflicts at their root cause, genuinely help others, model strength and close the "Courage Gap"
• Methods for courageous and inspirational communication and leadership for all manner of situations - professionally, personally, relationally and organizationally

Designed for people in all circumstances, to include young professionals, executives and leaders, The Courage Playbook belongs on the desks and libraries of business organizations, government agencies, healthcare, education, non-profits, military units, public safety organizations and on the bedside table of all people who want a seriously effective pathway to deeply improve themselves.

Front Jacket

It's difficult to find meaning in work, study, and life. It's tough to lead amid fear, divisiveness, racism, and distrust. Renowned leadership expert Gus Lee uses lessons from hard personal experience to show us how to overcome our fears and obstacles. The Courage Playbook: Five Steps to Overcome Your Fears and Become Your Best Self equips you to deeply self-assess, stop harsh negative reactions to fear, and master a few decent courageous behaviors. The book and its straightforward and astonishingly effective tactics allow you to bravely treat others without bias and with Unconditional Positive Respect, and then to calmly do the right thing.

The Five Steps strengthen your character and relationships, equip you to lead, elevate results, and show you the path to intentionally help others for the common good. As a coach, Gus walks you through a brave behavior-based process, so you gain the skills and strategies to deploy courage in authentic communication, problem solving, addressing conflicts, and closing your personal "Courage Gap."

An inspirational, one-of-a-kind roadmap and playbook to gain a bold profile of courage and contentment, The Courage Playbook is a must-read for young professionals, senior leaders and for anyone seeking a practical approach to dramatic self-improvement, wrapped up in a simple plan for a better world.

Back Jacket

Praise for THE COURAGE PLAYBOOK

"Gus Lee and I worked together 15 years ago. He refined my leadership values to three words--character, integrity and courage. I actively use them today in all endeavors. Courage is rarely discussed, but it is the most crucial. America was built on courage! The Courage Playbook goes in depth into how to find, strengthen and use it. An important read for all leaders."

--ROSS PEROT, JR., Chairman, Hillwood

"This is an important read for all of us. The Courage Playbook's practical tools serve any person and any enterprise when difficulties become routine and fear is the intuitive response to handling complicated life situations. Lee reminds us that courage is the first essential in life, for it impacts how we treat others, our work and the world, and how we fundamentally see ourselves and the future. Without courage, all is struggle."

--AMY TAN, author, artist, composer

"Gus expands courage far beyond overcoming fear to overcoming anger, being open and accepting, shedding hatred and excuses and strengthening moral fiber. The Courage Playbook is a user's manual for life, personal, corporate, or in partnerships. The tools, tips, examples, and answers are here. The Courage Playbook is clear and easy-to-follow and is actually an action plan for a better world."

--DR. CHARLOTTE M. FARMER, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Underwriter Laboratories, Inc.

"I couldn't put down Gus Lee's new book. It's a gripping personal trainer for life. It's warm, witty and wickedly simple, and its specific actions help us move forward with less pain. Unlike short half-life leader training, practicing a few key behaviors produces a courageous life. Its GOs, NOs and his revolutionary Unconditional Positive Respect and Highest Moral Action are breathtaking kicks in the pants to end biases we secretly protect. It's my forever courage-whisperer nightstand book to empower my better angels, overcome demons of fear and break the grip of the past. This punchy playbook gave me real tools to handle difficult clients and situations, help my teenage daughter contend with unknowns, and address our crisis of us vs. them. He gives us clear steps to a more meaningful, connected, and loving life. All it takes is a little courage."

--SARA YING ROUNSAVILLE, Founder, Rounsaville & Associates, Executive Coach, former VP of Public Affairs and Communications, The San Francisco Foundation

Author Biography

GUS LEE, bestselling author of Courage: The Backbone of Leadership and China Boy, is a nationally recognized leadership and character advancement expert who has worked in or consulted to 50 professions and industries. A former corporate chief operating officer, chief learning officer, government senior executive, West Point's first Chair of Character Development, U.S. Senate ethics investigator, acting deputy attorney general, supervising deputy district attorney, university assistant dean, U.S. Army officer and paratrooper, he trains and coaches through his company, Leaders of Character, LLC, and writes at guslee.net.