Lee Ellis's Blog, page 61
April 6, 2023
Coaching Clip – 3 Perspectives to Build Lasting Trust
3 Perspectives to Build Lasting Trust ��� Wes and Faye Schierman
In this new coaching clip, Lee reflects one another story in the upcoming book, Captured by Love. Wes and Faye Schierman faced a life-changing circumstance early in their marriage, but some steps they took built a solid relationship of lasting trust. Watch Lee���s commentary on this special relationship.������
Read and watch the entire blog entitled – “What’s the Glue for Leadership Resilience?”
20 Top Gun Romance Stories! Pre-Order Your CopyCaptured by Love��shares the real love stories of 20 Vietnam War POWs. Some had wives who started a movement that changed American foreign policy. Others came home and had to start over, while five single men met the loves of their lives.
Former POW Lee Ellis and love expert Greg Godek take you on a dramatic journey of faithfulness, passion, excitement, resilience, and practical love lessons from these couples.
From the Foreword Authors �����
���What I have cherished but didn���t anticipate is a 50-year relationship with these couples. Please enjoy these dramatic and touching stories about my friends, and I hope that you���re as inspired as I was long ago.���
��� Tony Orlando, Top-Selling Recording Artist, Songwriter, Concert Headliner, Network Television Star, Motion Picture Actor, Broadway Performer, and Author
���Most readers will experience a few tears here, but also lots of laughter as they engage with these stories. The stunning level of pain and sacrifice that our POWs endured is mind-boggling, but the love and romance that they have experienced is even more extraordinary!���
��� Gary Sinise, Actor, Musician, Author, and Founder of the Gary Sinise Foundation
Pre-Order Your Copy on Amazon.comRead some sample stories
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April 4, 2023
Coaching Blog – What���s the Glue for Leadership Resilience?
���Trust is the glue of life. It���s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It���s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.��� ~ Stephen Covey
If you���ve ever experienced the power of trust in a positive or negative way, you���ll instantly identify with this quote. Since my forthcoming new book release, Captured by Love, is at the top of my mind right now, I���ll add one more attribute that the Vietnam POWs and their wives also experienced, and that was resilience.
Having trust in relationships fortifies resilience. Back in the years of 1965-1973, it helped both the POWs and the women back home live up to their commitments to their mission and each other.
Watch my brief leadership coaching clip on building resilience with trust, and then continue reading the blog –
As an honorable leader, if you���re searching for inspiration and advice on building resilience in your own life, here are three perspectives from this book that show how trust strengthens resilience ���
Integrity and good character are the foundation for trust.This perspective may seem obvious, but…
“When the pressure is high in leadership, there���s always the temptation to set your character aside to gain a competitive edge or relieve pressure and stress.” [Tweet This]
The POWs were often tortured when we would not share information and cooperate with our communist captors. Our leaders went first into the fire and set the example of courageous commitment to the military code of conduct that clarifies that we would not cooperate with the enemy and we would be loyal to our country and our fellow POWs.
At the same time, back home in the early years (1964-68), the wives and families were told to ���keep quiet��� about the POW MIA treatment. They did for several years, and then they realized that this was more of a soft political perspective than a strong, faithful stance for the POWs. They knew that we were being tortured and felt it was time to speak up. And so, they did.
In a very healthy but direct and consistent way, they courageously confronted our government. When the new administration came on board in 1969, SECDEF Laird and President Nixon changed our government���s policy in this area from ���Keep Quiet��� to ���Go Public���, and this made a dramatic difference.
It was their solid belief in what was truly right for our soldiers that enabled them to demonstrate what true integrity was. The results of their efforts came quickly when in the fall of 1969, our captors stopped the regular torture in the camps.
Keep your word and your commitments.
This perspective can be hard for some people who are insecure and are afraid of what consequences may occur by keeping your word. The wives and families back home and the POWs in the camps fought hard to be loyal to each other and those who were on their team and fighting with them.
Our POW senior leaders like Risner, Stockdale, and Denton were tortured the most often and all were held in solitary confinement for more than four of their seven and a half years as POWs. When they were so badly tortured that they could not keep their commitment to the Code of Conduct, they immediately sent out a message telling us exactly what they had done.
Then, they bounced back very quickly and resisted the enemy and were tortured again. Their honest sharing of their inability to keep their commitments and bounce back to be resilient helped us bounce back and resist again when we fell short. These natural acts of building trust in difficult times created the ���glue��� that held us together when the enemy was trying to pull us apart.
Good communication is essential for trust.
A heart-warming example is shared in the first story of Captured by Love about F-105 pilot Capt. Wes Schierman and his wife Faye. Before Wes went off to war, he knew it was possible that he might become a POW or even be killed, so he wanted to help Faye prepare for living without him.

Wes and Faye’s story is featured in the new book, Captured by Love. Go to POWromance.com.
He sat down with her and initiated a discussion on the various challenges that she would have to face as a single mom with two children if he did not come home. As they discussed the various hardships and decisions she might face, he asked her questions of ���what if and how would you handle it?��� They discussed what the options and choices might be for her to operate without him.
In this process, he communicated to her that he trusted her and believed that she could handle it. In their story, Faye shares how meaningful this process was because she knew he trusted her to be able to hold things together in an emotionally and financially healthy way. After the war was over, it made their reunion even more special because their trust level had been established years before. Time helps solidify trust and make it even stronger.
Resilient Trust, A Winning Combination
The POWs were committed to the Code of Conduct and each other, and the wives were committed to their husbands and their fellow wives and families who formed the National League of POW/MIA families.
The trust that came from these commitments enabled them both to endure and reunite after many years with honor and love that has held them together for the last 50 years.
Whatever you���re facing today that requires resilience and endurance, remember to build trust as the glue that will strengthen you during this season. If you need help and inspiration, preorder a copy of Captured by Love and download a free copy of the Honor Code. Those two will help you gain and build trust that will bring rewards in every area of your life.
LE [Tweet this Article]
20 Top Gun Romance Stories! Pre-Order Your Copy
Captured by Love��shares the real love stories of 20 Vietnam War POWs. Some had wives who started a movement that changed American foreign policy. Others came home and had to start over, while five single men met the loves of their lives.
Former POW Lee Ellis and love expert Greg Godek take you on a dramatic journey of faithfulness, passion, excitement, resilience, and practical love lessons from these couples.
From the Foreword Authors �����
���What I have cherished but didn���t anticipate is a 50-year relationship with these couples. Please enjoy these dramatic and touching stories about my friends, and I hope that you���re as inspired as I was long ago.���
��� Tony Orlando, Top-Selling Recording Artist, Songwriter, Concert Headliner, Network Television Star, Motion Picture Actor, Broadway Performer, and Author
���Most readers will experience a few tears here, but also lots of laughter as they engage with these stories. The stunning level of pain and sacrifice that our POWs endured is mind-boggling, but the love and romance that they have experienced is even more extraordinary!���
��� Gary Sinise, Actor, Musician, Author, and Founder of the Gary Sinise Foundation
Pre-Order Your Copy on Amazon.comRead some sample stories
The post Coaching Blog – What���s the Glue for Leadership Resilience? appeared first on Leading With Honor��.
Vote for Captured by Love!
Vote for ���Captured by Love��� in the 2023 Bedside Reading Cover Contest! Our friends at Bedside Reading have created a fun contest to help raise visibility on upcoming release of Lee Ellis and Greg Godek���s new book.
Would you take a few seconds to cast your vote? Thank you for help and support
The post Vote for Captured by Love! appeared first on Leading With Honor��.
April 2, 2023
Leadership History Lesson for April 2nd
On this day in leadership history in 1963, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King began the first non-violent campaign in Birmingham, AL.
What���s the leadership lesson? Some leaders think force is the only way to lead, but honorable leaders know that positive influence is much better in the long run.
Rev Martin Luther King Jr – Wikipedia
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March 31, 2023
Visit to USAA and 50th Anniversary Thoughts
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Leading with Honor Wisdom for Today, March 31, 2023
���You will never do anything in this world without courage. It the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.��� ��� Aristotle
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March 30, 2023
WSB Atlanta Interview – POW 50th Anniversary
Great to talk briefly with Jonathan Obrien at 95.5 WSB Atlanta talking about this year’s 50th Anniversary of returning home as a Vietnam POW for more than 5 years. Thank you for raising awareness on this special golden celebration.
In conjunction with this year’s celebration, you can also pre-order a copy of the new book, Captured by Love: Inspiring True Romance Stories from Vietnam POWs on Amazon.
#courage #leadership #accountability #VietnamWar50th #WelcomeHome2023 #CapturedbyLove
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March 29, 2023
March 29th – National Vietnam Veterans Memorial Day
National Vietnam Veterans Memorial Day is today, March 29th, and it is also the 50th Anniversary of this special memorial observance. This is the purpose – ���As we observe the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, we reflect with solemn reverence upon the valor of a generation that served with honor. We pay tribute to the more than 3 million servicemen and women who left their families to serve bravely, a world away from everything they knew and everyone they loved. From Ia Drang to Khe Sanh, from Hue to Saigon and countless villages in between, they pushed through jungles and rice paddies, heat and monsoon, fighting heroically to protect the ideals we hold dear as Americans. Through more than a decade of combat, over air, land, and sea, these proud Americans upheld the highest traditions of our Armed Forces.
���As a grateful Nation, we honor more than 58,000 patriots���their names etched in black granite���who sacrificed all they had and all they would ever know. We draw inspiration from the heroes who suffered unspeakably as prisoners of war, yet who returned home with their heads held high. We pledge to keep faith with those who were wounded and still carry the scars of war, seen and unseen. With more than 1,600 of our service members still among the missing, we pledge as a Nation to do everything in our power to bring these patriots home.���
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U.S. Air Force and Space Force ��� Lee Ellis Interview
Great new Q&A Interview with Lee in U.S. Air Force and Space Force Shop as we work closely together with them to provide Lee���s books and resources. Lee sat down with them to ask him a few questions about the ���Lease with Honor��� book, and get an insider look at what it took to produce such an influential and moving work.
Please check it out on the ShopAFA website, and post any of your questions below, too ���
The post U.S. Air Force and Space Force ��� Lee Ellis Interview appeared first on Leading With Honor��.
March 28, 2023
Lincoln Leadership Attributes ��� A Case Study
After surveying hundreds of leaders about President Abraham Lincoln���s leadership ability to achieve great results amidst unbearably difficult circumstances, there were some tangible leadership attributes that rose to the top in Lee���s research.
Leading with Honor���s ���Leadership Balance Case Study��� examines the unique results vs. relationships balance of this famous presidential leaders in U.S. history.
Please download your copy and post your comments below on this topic ��� thank you!
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