Gus Lee is a best-selling author and nationally-recognized expert on leadership and ethics. He has been a successful lawyer, board member, and executive and is adjunct staff at the Center for Creative Leadership and the US Department of Justice. He graduated from West Point, and served as an army JAG attorney and paratrooper. He speaks frequently to a broad range of organizations and educational institutions including the Smithsonian, Bank of America, the FBI, Levi Strauss, MCI, Intel, Kaiser Permanente, Lucent, Whirlpool, West Point, USAF, the DEA, Harvard, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. He has also appeared on many major TV and radio shows.
His previous books include the best-selling novels China Boy (a New York Times Best Book selection now in its 17th printing), Honor and Duty, Tiger's Tail, and No Physical Evidence. He has also written a nonfiction book, Chasing Hepburn, and contributed to Time magazine, Encyclopedia Britannica, and other anthologies. Through his company, Integrenomics, he has created several assessments and skill-building tools about courage and character. He grew up in San Francisco and now lives in Colorado Springs.

Diane Elliott-Lee is a distinguished and award-winning clinical nurse specialist. She has helped edit Gus's five previous books and provided the guidance, inspiration, and structure for this book.