After reading Gus Lee's Honor and Duty, I believed that its author would provide our students at the St. Mark's School of Texas with a sound example of fine writing. So we invited Gus to campus as a visiting scholar. During that visit, we concluded that Gus would provide us with more than lessons in how to think and write, but on how to become better people. Coincidentally, Gus and Diane were in the process of writing Courage: The Backbone of Leadership.

The rest became history. In subsequent years, Gus challenged us to think afresh and more clearly and intelligently about our core values. He has taught us to simplify our objectives by directing our attention to key fundamentals—courage, honesty, integrity—and residing there no matter what the difficulty or cost.

Clearly, we were fortunate to be introduced to Gus. The principles of Courage became deeply embedded in our Character and Leadership program, providing the basis on which we have taken our young men along the Path to Manhood in a thoughtful, ethical, and courageous manner. It was Gus who motivated us to formalize the program and who inspired us to reach further than we otherwise would have dreamed.

Gus advocated that we be ardently committed to our convictions about making our hopes a practical reality and encouraged us to make formal that which was being taken for granted. Without intentionality, he said, we would miss opportunities to take our students into the moral “weight room of life.”

What Gus prompted us to achieve has been enduring and has made generations of our boys better men, leaders, and community members. So many conversations at the school include references to the words of Gus Lee. Innumerable interactions begin with Unconditional Positive Respect and doing the Highest Moral Action despite risk to self‐interest. Our students and faculty have learned to disagree well by respecting others, listening first, articulating their discerned conclusions, and making tough decisions with strength and civility.

The Courage Playbook takes these concepts to new levels of self‐awareness in clearly stated ways. What might have been simply noble and vital aspiration becomes tangible, measurable practice—character made real. One's courage is not questioned, but is only expanded to appear more consistently in everyday behavior through empirical suggestions and steps. This work is a superb guide to helping us become our best selves despite fear and stress. By following the recommendations included herein, one will become stronger and find ways to make one's organizations and teams more productive and effective, thriving in ways that might not otherwise have been imagined. In any era, and perhaps especially in today's climate of blaming, name‐calling, and judging others, their actions, and beliefs categorically, The Courage Playbook provides us with a clear and decisive road map to follow. Through courage, Character first. Character last. Character always.

I am eager to learn how The Courage Playbook impacts my former school and all others. From this vantage point, I envision tomorrow's leaders will exhibit courage, be unafraid to take necessary and intelligent risks, and will hold close the greater good and the well‐being of others as their personal desires. Forward we go with courage!