“Every company should have a potential future fear because fear leads to growth” – Ryan Berman. NOW is the time to face that fear of the unknown and a very uncertain future, NOW is the time to unleash COURAGE in our organizations.  “What could the future of your company look like with an infusion of courage?” – Ryan Berman In 2019 Ryan sparked the courage movement that set out to reinvent businesses by galvanizing people, inspiring leaders, and celebrating courageous action in life and in business. 

In this episode, you’ll meet Ryan Berman, once an intern at MTV, now a major thought leader in the world of leadership change and branding and, very much an authentic leader. Ryan is the founder of Courageous, a change consultancy that develops Courage Brands and trains companies on how to operationalize courage through Courage Bootcamp. Ryan has spent a career developing meaningful stories for household brands—like Caesars Entertainment, Major League Baseball, New Era, Subway, and UNICEF—and he believes that courage is the ultimate competitive advantage for any willing business, being or brand. Ryan used the courage methodology detailed in the book Return on Courage to launch his own Courage Brand called Sock Problems, a charitable sock company that socks different problems in the world.

https://www.couragebrands.com/

https://www.returnoncourage.com/

You can reach Ryan on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/courageousideas/

04:41 How we met

06:56 Ryan’s Story, with a few twists and turns

14:18 Millennials, change, and the New Normal

18:58 Back to Ryan’s Story

38:24 Interviewing leaders for the book, Steve Wilhite, Russell Weiner, Eric Ryan and more

47:59 Time to put your business in timeout

49:51 Back to work, where do we start?

53:49 Fear of failure, trust, and vulnerability

57:45  Take the mask off

59:22  Get the rallying cry behind your why

01:01:57  Advice from Ryan 

[Transcript]

00:03

Welcome to the Finding Gravitas podcast brought to you by Gravitas Detroit. Looking to become a more authentic leader. Finding Gravitas is the podcast for you. gravitas is the ultimate leadership quality that draws people in. It's an irresistible force encompassing all the traits of authentic leadership. Join your podcast host Jan Griffiths, that passionate rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales, entrepreneur, leadership coach, keynote speaker, one of the top 100 leading women in the automotive industry as she interviews some of the finest leadership minds in the quest for Gravitas.

We are getting ready to go back to work. Yes, that's right. The world has changed. It has changed in every aspect of life, both personal and professional that we have known and loved. And as terrifying as that sounds. And as awful as that sounds. It's not. It spells opportunity. And a significant window has opened up for all CEOs, leaders, team leaders, professionals, to go back into the workplace and make the changes they've always wanted to make the time is now it's time to get the courage to make that happen. The question is how? How do we make that happen? A few things have happened during our time working from home virtual connections with our team, we've become closer. Yes, that's right, we've become closer even though we're physically further apart. We've gone through a shared struggle known as the pandemic and we've gone through this together, good leaders will have connected with their teams at a much deeper, more emotional level. And the result is increased trust the foundation for high performing teams. The question is, what do we do with all the things that we've learned working from home and building this trust and this high performing team? What have we learned from this experience that we can take back into the workplace and build upon and yes make the changes that we've all wanted to make? So the question is, how how do we do that? And I can think of no better person to bring on this podcast to help us with our mission and direction than Ryan Berman. Ryan Berman is the founder of courageous a creative business consultancy that develops courage brands, and trains organizations through courage bootcamp, working with brands like Caesars Entertainment, Major League, baseball, Puma, subway, and UNICEF. Ryan is the co founder of his own courage brand called SOC problems. But more importantly, Ryan Berman is an authentic leader. He is a man. Not only does he have a mission, he's on a mission and he's living that mission. In 2019, Ryan sparked the courage movement that set out to reinvent businesses by galvanizing people, inspiring leaders and celebrating courageous action in life and in business. Never before has there been a better time to bring that to life than right now. And to steal shamelessly from his book return on courage. There's no time like the present. It's a shift to there's no time but the present. So the time is now for us to explore the complicated mind of Ryan Berman. So Ryan, welcome to the show.

It is a complicated mind. There's no question. It's a complicated mind. But I'm very happy to be here and hear from me, by the way is San Diego, California, where I guess it's a little warmer.

It is indeed. It is April here and it snowed yesterday.

Well, if it makes you feel a tinge better, which maybe it doesn't, but when you live in San Diego during a pandemic, and you're quarantined at home, it's like imagine being at the greatest meal with all your favorite foods. There's lobster, steaks, you know, shrimp cocktail, sushi, and you have no mouth to eat it. That's what it's like to look out my window right now not being able to go outside.

That sounds terrible. Before we get into your story, Ryan, I want to share with the listeners how we met because this is an example of who you are as a human being. When I launched my business 18 months ago, I put out that social media postings. And we had connected, there was obviously something about your profile and the messaging that you're putting out there that resonated with me. And we connected. And you saw that that I had started my business. And you responded with a private message on LinkedIn. And you said that you will never regret this decision. Five years from now you'll look back and wonder why you didn't do it earlier. And I will never forget the fact that you're a complete stranger, fairly high profile guy took the time to send me, a complete unknown person, an individual private message, that's an example of who you are as a human being. So with that, not to set you up. But I really want to know more. And our listeners would love to know more, I'm sure. So tell us your story. Right from the beginning, Ryan Berman, who are you?

Well, first of all, I think I have to address that that moment. Because no one's a stranger, really. And when you when you see yourself in somebody else, you do everything you can to like, help them along their journey. And so to me, it was didn't matter. Like you had been in a position where you needed maybe a little nudge, or you needed, like, Hey, you're making the right decision. And if we're going to talk about leadership we're going to talk about the reality is that sometimes it gets lonely out there. You know, the other thing we didn't mention, with this pandemic that's going on is this loneliness epidemic. So you thought You thought it was lonely enough as a business leader now layer on this extra stress. And so how can we like actually be there for one another, and we see someone that speaks your language that shares your values. We got to look out for each other. And I think that's just you taught you, these are your words. That's authentic leadership. Now, okay, I guess I should get to the question. Who am I? I'm Ryan Berman. I am the founder of courageous. I wrote a book called Return on courage. The truth is, I was writing my book to deviously position, my last creative agency in fish taco country called San Diego. And that journey was 1000 day listening tour, that had me pretty much getting quiet an interviewing, you know, some of the most relevant leaders or companies on the planet. And I was doing this, like I said, to promote my 70 person creative agency at the time, and you go through this process in this journey, and I had two business partners. And, you know, I thought it was writing up is like a business development book. And then, like great movies, the hero thinks the journey is one thing and turns out to be something entirely different. Describe the book like a rite of passage, I learned more about myself, because I'm the one who needed the book first. So the joke is, I wrote the book to position my last company, and it gave me the courage to fire myself. 20 years in the service business. One thing about our business is you get to see every vertical under the sun, which is great news. But I also think, being in the service business, sometimes we sacrifice ourselves, little by little 1% at a time per year, over 20 years. And how can I possibly sit here and write a book about courage? And then not make the courageous move myself? So I went to my partners and said, I'm out, you know, and that I look, I love them as people. It's just the idea of what where I wanted to spend my time what I was passionate about. And where I was passionate about was having these hard conversations about change. And where change needs to happen, whether it's at a leadership level or culture level, are we helping you reevaluate what your values might be? Making sure you have the right team with you for this this hard reality called business? Whether it's a story change, right, do we have the story, right? By the way, I got very lucky coming out of the advertising world, because I learned in New York City from the people that really did live in the Mad Men era. These are my mentors. Some of them are bananas. I'm so grateful to have been able to run into them. This was at a 700 person creative agency in the city. When I say the city, I've got to be careful. I mean, New York City.

But you take all that learning, of telling stories and quick bites. And now, what I see is many companies are telling the outside world one story, but that's not the truth on the inside. The stories are out of alignment. It's the old Wizard of Oz. Curtain problem, though. Go behind the curtain where the workers are restless or they're or they know that it's not truthful. So we were kind of like change mechanics, we're helping you get your story, right and aligned on the inside to play on the outside. And that's the best companies, the most relevant companies in the world. That's exactly what they're doing. The final changes and an innovation change. So where does reinvention need to happen? And I think with this audience in particular, the in the invention part wasn't the hard part. It's the reinvention part. It's the where else do we take the business. So what happens is, if you stay in paralysis, you just squeezed the same sponge, and you squeeze and you squeeze for every drop. Meanwhile, whether you like it or not, you're getting passed by a competitor, or somebody completely new that you didn't take seriously at first. So my passion is helping companies find the courage. In some ways, it's showing them that if you get clarity in the right places, it's less courageous than you think, to make the courageous choice. And as hard as it is, in the moment, just like it was hard for you to probably leave corporate life as you knew it. The outcome when you follow through, and it's purposeful, is courage actually makes you happier. Do you Would you agree with that statement?

I absolutely would. And the the idea of aspiring to these corporate roles, which a lot of us have had or still have, at some point in time, right? It's the title, it's the trappings that go along with it, right? It's walking into a party or an event and saying, I am, you know, a vice president or president or CEO, right. And there's an awful lot of pride and accomplishment. But that doesn't really it doesn't make you happy. It just it just took me a long time to figure that out, quite frankly.

Well, and again, it's not to vilify the corporation, you can be happy in a corporation. In fact, it is a deadly in the right way, combination when you're at a company with resources that believes in courage. Oh, my goodness, I mean, you can feel the magic, you can feel the reinvention. And if you're part of that, why wouldn't you take the resources to be part of that if you could, but that means there has to be alignment everywhere. And just to go back to where we started this whole conversation about trust. To me, that Trust Barometer isn't just everything, it's about your intention. So what do you do with that trust, if you have someone to trust, and then you use it the wrong way, your intention is negative, it's going to come out. If you're telling the world one thing, but your people are feeling something completely different. Your employees are seeing how you're truly operating. They know your intentions. But if you can figure out a way to put it all in alignment, the right type of trust, especially in this new world, and you said it perfectly in the open it the time is now. So we shouldn't be in our thick times, doing our think timing right now thinking through what what do we really want to be? How do we really want to serve? And how are we going to really add purpose, genuine purpose add value to the conversation? And I think right now, especially in the automotive and because America, America plays like it's clear that America can play there's an opportunity here an American car company, we're just an American company. What else are you going to do? Awesome. You're gonna serve? Exciting time, I think.

Yes. And I believe that minds are open right now. We're all the world is talking about the new normal, right in our minds are open, you're not a company or corporate, trying to improve employee engagement or get cultural change or redefine their brand or their message. This is the window, people's minds are open. We're ready. We want leadership to take us in a new direction. We want people to determine what the new normal is, this is the time.

Here's the irony. This is just my take. Okay, I could be wrong. All right. I could also be right. So what we're gonna find out, right, but And you and I were talking before the show, that addressing courage can't come off aggressive to a leader. But when I come at it, like look, I'm every company I've ever owned was full of 20 Somethings and to me change. This isn't changed to them. It just is to them. It's changed to you. Like they want to work with purpose driven companies. Right? They they're accustomed to being challenged. They're accustomed to working on eight things at one time. They want to be invested in, in the good ones, if they're not invested in your company, they're gonna go find somewhere else. So in some ways, I describe my role as a translator, like, I'm just trying to translate what this next generation desperately wants the world that they want. And make sure you're not just creating an environment, that you had to work your way up in the ranks, which was keep your head down, do your job for 25 years, you might get a couple of nice watches along the way, congrats. That's not what inspires or motivates this next generation and the generation behind it, who thinks we've messed up their world. And by the way, they're not afraid to be the ones to come together, to congregate to fix it. So when you talk about the new normal, to me, it's the same old normal for the next generation, who already in their minds are like, well, we'll fix it. If you mess this up. We're gonna find ways to fix this world. So how do we adapt to a world that they really want, where they actually want to be inspired to work for you, which by the way, from an attrition standpoint, like if they want to work for you, the amount of money you save, time you save on an old turnaround time turnover time goes away? Because they're actually galvanized and screaming from the mountaintops? How much they love to work for you. Right? So I think that's the interesting thing is almost like, hopefully, it's a delicate nudge or shake at the top to really think through what this world looks like a decade from now. And how are you going to help create that world?

And 2025 millennials will make up 75% of the workforce. And I like the way that you, you phrase that this is this is more of a nudge, right? This is a nudge to say, Come on, and the millennials are out there going, Oh, come on, what you got? What are we going to do here? People? Let's do this, let's do this now. Yeah, I think that's, that's a very interesting perspective.

Well, I also wonder, this might not be a popular thing to say, but I call it ivory tower syndrome. So you worked your way through the system, and you made your money. And you're now on a board, but you're so far away from the people. You're so far away from reality, you've got layers and layers of bureaucracy, probably in your organization. You don't mean for that to happen. But sometimes it just happens. When you're so far away. From a place where you can really listen, you might miss something, or worse, you just shrugged his shoulders because you've made your money. And then you're not really making an impact or change. So to me, like heart courage, for me is sort of, hey, this is the temperature check of what's going on right now. Here's where I think it's going. And in terms of like, being in a position to inspire and impact a lot of people. Right, that change comes down to potentially whether you say yes or no. So that's the beautiful part about courage to the other thing about this is for courageous, and it's just nothing more than a little bit of a marketing tactic, which is, you know, we're not called iterative.com. You know, we're not called safe.com. So, we're qualifying in the right types of leaders or businesses that, that recognize that this might be a time for change. And, yeah, it takes courage to change. So if I can teach you how to do that, I can teach you how to be courageous in a way that doesn't threaten your bottom line. Well, why why would you take it and set up the future?

Yeah, well said, We drifted a little bit from your story. So I'm not gonna let you get away with it. Let's go back. Let's go back. And I think, you know, I would certainly like to understand I read the book, but I'd like to understand a little bit more about Ryan, where was Ryan born? Where did you come from me, I know, you worked your way up to the corporate world and then made a change. Share some of that with us if you would, please. Sure.

I really think this is this is clearly a biased statement. But I think I got very lucky to grow up where I grew up where I was born, I was born in Potomac, Maryland, in the three car garage house. My father was the one who basically came from the wrong side of the map the wrong side, the other side of the of the railroad, you know, the train tracks he, he was the one that you know, his mother was maybe a little bit of a socialite father was in a card room. So my my father's way and kind of getting back at them. Like if I had money, I'm good. So he did all these odd jobs, very strategic, worked his way up, put himself through law school. My mother was the teacher from Ohio. Her version of courage at the time, by the way, by the way, my mom and dad were my first two interviews for the book. This by the way, separately, too, and neither made it in the book, but it was important for my book, that I had this online knocked down. So, Mom was from Ohio. No, when you think about courage, she's not the first thing you think of. But when you really like dissect her life. Back in the 60s, she was engaged to a man who moved to DC. They were they went to Ohio State together. She started to graduate when she graduated, she moved to the DC area. Live with him, realize he made a mistake and have the courage to call off. Which I'm grateful for, because only half of me would be here. I don't know what's

That's courage. That's courage. And back then that was a lot of courage.

Exactly. And surprising for my mom for for my lens that my dad decided not to move back to Ohio convinced her sister to move to Maryland. And, and that begins then with, with my brother and myself. My brother's four years older than myself. He was the branded as the chosen one. In our family. He's brilliant, is if I'm on millionaire, he's my phone call. I'm calm, definitely he went to Georgetown Law still lives in the DC area. But growing up like if he was branded as the brilliant one, I was branded as the good with people when and I was 40 years younger, and I quit it to that story I told myself as I must be the stupid one. And the this was the first of two stories that I chose to tell myself. Growing up now I also super competitive, turned to sports and television. Those were my babysitters. You know, whatever season it was I was playing with soccer. Still my passion still, thankfully, being in San Diego, I still play on Sunday as well. Hopefully we'll get back to that. But you know what I'm saying? The second truth in our family, and it was not spoken, it was just sort of understood is that you're supposed to do better than the last generation. So this is just a data point. And to me, it's fairly unemotional that we weren't a family in Maslow. You know, we were the fact that we're the goal was how to do better than the last generation. You know, we weren't struggling for a meal. So imagine the psyche for me. In my mind, I'm the stupid one. Right, my brother was the smart one. And I'm somehow supposed to do better than a three car garage house in Potomac, Maryland, whatever that meant. And that baggage, stuck with me for a long time. Even getting into Ithaca College for television, radio, in my mind, I got in because of soccer. Not because of my grades. Who knows what the truth is, you know, that was my truth. By the way, the minute I got to Ithaca and was able to be hands on. I mean, 4.0 student, I just I was I could learn. That's how I learned by being hands on. Can't imagine I'm alone on that. And I think my you know, I always had confidence with people I could talk to anybody. I was curious about people. You know, is it really is surprising that I really picked my job as the youngest. Right as the observant son who watched when my brother got in trouble Michael don't do that. Right. Or when he was praised, okay, do that. To me, I call myself a compensated observation list now and did just fine once I got to college. The I ended up spending a summer in LA. Thinking about the television business, working on the car seat Warner lot. I worked at MTV, as an intern. And I was really thinking it was even TV or advertising. My mentor at Ithaca. His name was Howard Cogan. He reminded me of Papa Smurf. He's like this little you know, lovable huggable with white hair guy. And he ran the advertising program and thought it would be really good there. If you've ever seen the effect is gorges t shirt G O R G E S. I'm pretty sure he wrote that line.

And so he's like, Hey, I think you should try advertising to love this. Love the storytelling side of it. And one day my roommates. This is my junior year my roommates dad comes up and takes us to dinner and my roommate was not a great student, great guy, not a great student. Definitely sort of helped him where I could not taking credit for his him getting through college. But it is just that that I was funny. And it's like, one of these New York City guys is like, Do you know what I do for a living? You only do you know what I do for a living? I drink beers with their son. Try to make sure he doesn't fail out. And he's like, why don't you come into it for me? It turns out this was Ron Berger Ron Berger was the be in envy BMS. It was a 700 person, creative agency they did. They came up with somebody fresh, they came up with the SEC, he's the most interesting man in the world Volvo. Just a powerhouse company. And so that kind of made my decision. Well, I guess I guess I'm going to New York, what I learned was I had a paid internship, where I was one of 22 interns. I call it survivor intern episodes. And somehow, I was the last intern standing and was offered a job. And at that point, I'm like, There's no way I'm not getting a job. I lived at the company. And I knew I knew at what time pizza was going to be delivered to what floor for after hours work. Had made like, No, you know, obviously, I'm an internship money living in New York City. And even my first salary when I finally got in, wasn't pretty. So this is what really started my, my trajectory. I wanted to be a creative had a portfolio coming out of school, Ron looked at my portfolio is like, we need a writer on our business development team. And I'm like, so I got the job. And so I got in, it wasn't my first choice. I got the chance to work for some amazing people, including pretty much a direct line to Tom Carroll who ran ChIAT day later. And we just pitched in one Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure down in Florida launching the park. And I was, you know, I wasn't like a critical component of the pitch I was sort of, you know, behind the scenes, and Tom was basically like, go see my brother, Michael Carroll, you're gonna be on the business, you're gonna be an A on the business. Tom, I mean, I'm a night school for being a creative, I don't want to be an A, you're going to be a secretary, your whole life, you can stay in new business, go see my brother, Michael. So again, now all of a sudden, I'm thrown into account management. I'm an AE, I worked my way up to an account supervisor. I'm running part of the subway business. This is years later, which is when I first finally got my shot as a creative. And for about six to nine months, honestly, I was the khakis, buttoned down guy running the subway business and was pretty much given a direct order. Hey, you can't let the client know you're riding on the business because you're running the business. So it wasn't until they had bought one of my campaigns for subway for Jared, which now Jared is a dirty word. But back then it was a pretty good thing that they finally told the client Hey, see the guy at the end of the table there. He has been reading your stuff for the last year. And I finally got to turn in my, my button downs for T shirts and jeans. And not getting my first choice was the best thing that ever happened to me. I believe in negative blessings. This is one of those negative blessings. Because it forced me to learn business, enough business that I could speak fluent clients. Even though on the inside it was just another monkey in the in the creative Zoo. And it's a skill that one of the best compliments someone never meant to give me was, Oh, he's a business guy that thinks he's a creative. And I was like, that is the thank you so much. It is the best compliment you can give me. Because I think most business people they don't understand the power of creativity, though creative, creative thinking can do for their business for their stories for galvanizing people.

And sadly, I think most creativesare like windshield wipers on a car. Like when it rains, you're my guy or my girl. But like if it doesn't rain, you have no idea how the engine works, how the tires function, know how to flip on the light. So if you just stayed your curious self and learned a little bit more about business, the power that creativity can bring to the scenario. Off The Charts. Actually, even today, the way I can justify myself as a consultant. Because I think that when you think consultants you think like oh, consultants are good at making you think they're not good at making you feel. And there's no change of behavior if you don't make somebody feel. And so that's our sweet spot. That's our superpowers. How do we, how do we use creativity? To really make people feel so I gotta get back to the story. And so seven years in the city, new creative executive creative director comes in. lets me go. I don't think he even knows my name, frankly. And it felt all the feelings it felt. I felt like sad. I felt like it wasn't good enough. I felt best. I gave seven years to one company. And then they just chop chop. I felt curious about what was next. I'd say the cocktail was like 40%, embarrassed 30% Mad 15% too complex to understand and the rest, some something assemblance of curiosity for opportunity. And what I didn't share was once I was a creative, and it was an awesome three years where I got to basically travel all over North America. You know, I was Vancouver one week in Toronto, the next la the next San Francisco, the next shooting for subway, Schering plough, whoever. I was like, Okay, what's next? And what I thought was next was, how do I go to 120 minutes? How do I tell tell movies? Or write movies, and I was taking classes at night for that. When, when I got let go, so the original plan was, okay, I'm gonna take the rest of this last summer in New York, and write just write movies. And I had a friend who after 911 moved to San Diego, she was a strategist. And she's like, Well, why don't you move here helped me turn this photography studio into a branding firm. And the deal was, Okay, I'll do it. If I can live rent free for three months at the house. That was the deal. I was gonna write movies from the beach, help her on the side. And this is 2004. The next thing you know, I'm living a movie, you know, instead of writing them, like literally, that company that I'm supposed to be helping. I'm like, Well, why would you do it this way? And have you considered that and then the CEO is never around and cannot really see you as a photographer. He doesn't. It's not his fault. He just doesn't know how to how to be a business person. He knows how to make good looking pictures. And this is a true story that has really never been shared. So I'm excited to share it. My office, when I show up, is closest to the front desk and take out some of the basically two girls with clear heels, clear heels show up. This is Southern California. And the receptionist comes and gets music. Can you please help me and I walk out and I'm like, hello. And they proceeded to tell me that they haven't been paid by the photographer. And I started to put two and two together the reason he's never around, by the way, which he wasn't as he was shooting extracurricular activities at night in the studios. Oh, ouch. So this explains the glitter. And I'm literally, you know, sort of surprised and floored and embarrassed. And I go back to my business. Well, my future business partner at the time, I go back to the woman that dragged me out to the strategist who was married to one of my best friends, by the way. And I'm like, is he shooting pornography? And I kid you not her response was, you never want to move down here if I told you. Okay, so this is, by the way, this is who ends up being my first business partner. So obviously, we I mean, at this point, we had just won a pretty big piece of business out of New York, who wanted to work with me and they wanted to work with the strategist. We ended up resigning. We ended up starting our first company a month, this is all happened in one month.

And started my first agency called fish tank, brand advertising. Fish Tank basically ended up becoming Ida. I merged it with the PR and social media firm. Not surprising the same woman that said, you never would have moved out here. You know, if I would have told you. Well, that's not a great business partner. So I ended up buying her out about four years, and and parlaying that into IGDA grew to 70 people. It's been a crazy ride. I think. I think being a creative company from San Diego is very hard. It's hard to win what I call the golf course conversation, which is we were always prepared for any meeting because we knew we couldn't be even we had to be better. I imagine if you're a creative company in Detroit, you feel the same way. Like if you're going to compete with LA, or New York or Chicago, you have to be better you can't be even because the person that falls in love with your preparation and your thought process that has to go on the golf course with the C suite. And they're like who Where are they from? Why don't you just use widening Kennedy and so writing the book was my first attempt to start to show how we were better to separate us from from from other companies and big markets. And then the rest is history. Like I said, I, I think I learned more from the first seven years of fish tank when you had little to no budgets, but plenty of clients because that's the only way you could scrap by and you're, you're building those muscles, it didn't matter what I did in New York, it didn't matter that I worked on subway, or Universal Studios or had come up with stuff for Evian. It was like going back to square one. We were doing real estate work. You know, we were doing healthcare, tech, whatever we get our hands on. But through that training, the shaping of the way, I think it also brought this odd validation that if you could do this with no budgets, with clients that people hadn't heard of, imagine what would happen if you run the race the right way. And you finally get to companies with budgets. And, you know, we basically started to parlay that company you hadn't heard of, with a company you maybe had heard of but weren't like really doing well, to accompany you know, who you love. That took time. You know, I also wonder about this next instant gratification generation, if they're going to be able to run the race, the way it's supposed to, from my lens, at least, where you get the hours in working and chiseling on your process. So by the time you're in the big leagues, you're truly ready to go. So yeah, even this year with courageous, we're working with Johnson and Johnson. We're working with Gibson guitars. We're working with the NFL and Caesars Entertainment on their sponsorship deal when Caesars reopens? I'm speaking to nestle and General Mills. They're their serial partners worldwide team out of Switzerland. And I feel like I took all the necessary backroads and just to put a pin in and take, you know, this full circle. It's ironic that my parents meant no harm when they were like, you're good with people. They're right. I am, I'm a good listener. One of my superpowers is hearing what's not said. And I think clients who stumble through they're not they know they have a problem. They're just not totally sure which one it is that they should focus on first. And so I take a lot of pride and in being on the level with my clients and listening, and I it comes from the right place, like I'm just trying to help them. And I think the money usually follows when you do the right thing.

Yeah, I think and I see that. I feel that in you. I felt that right from from a very first interaction. And when you wrote the book, you selected certain people to interview and I'm assuming you selected them for a very good reason. And because they embodied the values, a lot of the same values that you hold dear to you. Could you share maybe just a couple of those those people I know one of them is particularly of interest to the audience in the Detroit area because of the Domino's connection. Could you share a couple of them though?

Sure. Steve Wilhite who was hired by Steve Jobs at Apple, it's an amazing story of his interview process. Maybe we can get him on the show. Russell Winer, like you mentioned who is now the president of Domino's, at the time he was the CMO. Always a good sign by the way. If you interview someone as the CMO, and now they're the president, yeah, obviously that tells you something worked. Eric Ryan is the founder of method soap, who has been now caught on to start Ollie and to start Welly. He's, he is amazing at finding commodity arenas and sexing. And that's the best way I can put it, which is called brand that's called brand. And I think he's from the Detroit area. Maybe Chicago. He's originally he's in San Francisco now. But you know, you read the book. So you know this. This is in the epilogue. But there wasn't that. Intentional to go back to that word too. I was I was looking for Kurt what I would call courage brands. Even though I didn't really know what that definition the definition of a courage brand was yet. And so I you know basically reached out to those companies that I thought were really leading the way and maybe I did it because I thought it was a new business tool at the time like how do I gain exposure for my last business but then You know, the more time you spend with the Russell's of the world, Russel Wallace calls it from my nation, Gil Avery at Harvard, the more I spent time with him, the more I realized, there's really nothing different about them than me other than they're doing it at the highest level on I've chosen to not go for it at the level I think I could play at. And so, you know, that whole Jim Rohn here, the makeup of the five people you spend the most time with, I've kind of felt myself, sort of, sort of stretching. And at first, as you can imagine, my mindset was like, Don't ask a stupid question to the smart people. And then you just start to build relationships with them. And like, see that they're just very real people. As mentioned, in the epilogue, I reached out to a ton of different brands. And the irony was the people, there were a lot of interviews that were set up, that people chose to cancel. Now that chose to cancel, maybe maybe legal got involved. Maybe PR got involved. But imagine being in a company that maybe wasn't that courageous that I was going to interview. And you could feel it. You could feel it in the person's voice, where they're like, I'm so sorry, I talked to legal, we can't go on record. The ones that really, I think, really were sort of embarrassed or like, can't do it, but I'm going to introduce you to this person of that company. So they at least tried to pay me for it. But so I talked about there's a data point in there like the willing Ascender always took the meeting, weren't afraid to like, let me behind the curtain for like, yeah, come up to San Francisco and have lunch with me. The cautionary descender PR shut it down, legal shut it down. They were afraid of what someone who had never been a professional author before it was going to write. And to me the the lesson there is, well wait a minute, how about fixing what you're afraid of? How about fixing? Why are you afraid to have me combine the curtain? What do you worry that I'm going to amplify to the world? To me, it's just a data point of this is where we need courage. We need to actually address this.

You're You're so right. And I saw it myself just recently, I had interviewed Laura Lawson. She's the Chief People Officer for United Wholesale mortgage. She actually has a background with Ellen she was a associate producer on the Ellen show. And she what she's doing with the culture there with Matt ish BIA. It truly is a servant leadership culture. They believe wholeheartedly in their people and their mission. And they are being successful. And they're driving it day and night. I met her in a conference and I asked her if she'd be on the podcast. And she said yes. And then it was a seamless, easy process. It was okay, come to my office. I did. I went to her office. We sat down, we had the conversation, it was very open. And I always give the guests the option to listen to the recording deceivers anything they want edited? Oh, no problems, because that's fine. And I said, alright, well, this is what I'm planning to do. And when I'll publish it, yeah, that's fine. And there was no, let me check with my boss, let me check with this. Let me approve that compare and contrast to some other companies, where it's, oh, well, I don't know if I can talk about that. I'm gonna have to have this approved. I don't know if I can schedule that. So many different levels. It is such a telling indicator of the culture of the company, you can tell the companies where these people are free to be who they are. Because they know that the company has their back. They're fully aligned with their values. They're fully authentic, and nothing they say would ever be a problem.

It's sort of sad that it's, you can't be yourself in certain environments. And how many years does it take to get there? Like, again, I go back to my over 20 years in the service business, maybe sacrificing myself 1% at a time per year. The universe is a funny thing. You know, one of my first in person interviews was with an astronaut named Loretta Hidalgo, founding astronaut at Virgin Galactic. And she's like, come up, come up to Orange County. And at this point, it's probably 2015 I really don't know what I'm writing at this point. You know, I'm just kind of fiddling around. Try not to act stupid. Don't ask stupid questions, right? Know where my head is from my childhood. And I get up there for lunch. And before I Trey's even at the table. She goes so What makes you qualified to write a book about courage to say astronaut? Well, I have been writing pithy one liners on Twitter for a living, that's pretty courageous. And she's like, No, no, no, no, no. You're putting the like, the emphasis in places I'm not. That's your brain doing that. I didn't tell you to write this book, you need to go figure out why you're writing this book. Like, that's the journey that you need to go on. And she proceeds to tell me that her definition of success is when there's no daylight between the personal view and the professional you? Oh, I like that. That's well said, Yes, you know, and I'm, like, punched in the face, say, direct, direct it. And that statement has me driving back in silence with my hands and attendant to position on my ride, you know, just thinking about what the business is like, and where have I just sort of allowed the rules to drive my behavior. And at that moment, I was like, never again, I need to figure out why I'm wired the way I am and the book writing process for the book. It's called Return on courage. I do believe that Roc is how you maximize your ROI. I do think any willing business being a brand, truly can return on the courage platform. We just have to learn how to do it. And and I kind of feel like I had to learn how to do it. So I felt like Rocky like I went to the woods, the metaphorical woods for three years and chop wood and got myself strong to go run this race. And I was the first focus group. You know, I was taking everything I was learning from Eric Ryan from Russell Winer from Steve Wilhite from Jack Williams, who ran Royal Caribbean and really was responsible for at the time for making the big bet that you could build, like this massive cruise line, like create a category one brand is what he called it that had Cirque du Soleil and skydiving. At the time, the fear was, that would be a mall in the water. Obviously, that's not what happened at the time, it was a game changer for their business. And you throw all of these these for all these findings into the soup. Had a Navy SEALs do what they do, how do astronauts do what they do? And you come out the other side with clarity. Or you come out the other side with the process. And never in a million years, I think I'd be just another guy with a with an acronym and a method and and here I am, you know, I have a pretty clear crystallized process, from the 1000 days of listening to very smart people on how to train companies or leaders how to take on business, and how to be more courageous. And as I said earlier, how to become a courage brand. And I do I think every brand on the planet. If you put your business on timeout, and you don't lie to yourself, are you a coward brand? Are you a stasis brand? Are you an iterative brand and aspirational brand? Or a courage man? And I gotta tell you, I have a slide in my new business deck. It's like slide four, where we're there in the first four minutes of ever knowing each other. Where I'm gonna ask you point blank. Where are you on the spectrum? And what happens almost every time as you can hear the Tumbleweed phone call rolling through. It's like crickets until someone has the courage and the team to go.

Well, I don't know if this is how everybody else feels. But yeah, we used to be this and now we're that. And that kind of goes back to the invention piece was one thing. The reinvention piece. You know, figuring out your tomorrow, especially under the guise of what people know about your business and your brand. That's the magic. That's the secret. And so yeah, I get to wake up every day because I had the courage to fire myself from a pretty stable thing with true purpose. I love what I get to do. I did feel so many times I don't know if you felt this way in my last life, that I was stuck solving the problems on the way to the problems I wanted to solve and shame on me if I allow that behavior to happen anymore. So again, you write a book about courage. You live the promise and you eject yourself from the business. You have the courage yourself to follow your hunch. That's courageous.

It is. Ryan, our listeners out there right now they are contemplating going back to work. They're starting to put their plans together. What advice would you give them? Where should they start? Let's let's say they've they've listened to you, they've they've read the book, they see this as the opportunity to redefine their mission, their purpose, their brand, their messaging, right? They want to get the team behind it. But where do they start? They're going, they're going back to work in the next couple of weeks, could you give them some insights as to how to go about that process?

What what I would do, the very first thing I would do, is in about 45 seconds from now, I would pause this podcast. And I would I would write down on a list what I would call your experimental Taskforce, your ETF. And the minute you hit pause, those names of people, not not their titles, those names of people that are diverse, could be anywhere from three years in your company to 20 years. You know who your future superstars are. That amalgamation of people cross pollinated, who really want to roll up their sleeves and make tomorrow better. And you strip the politics away. And you just write down those first five to seven names that came up. And that's, that's where I would start, I would just follow your, your intuition and not get caught up in the politics. Arena, I would do what I do right now I'd pause it, go get it, go get a piece of paper or your phone, just write down the first five to seven names that shows up. And then we'll go from there.

And what I like about the book is you provide a structure and a process, you give people some some guidance as to where to go with this. And obviously, you start with values when you go through a values exercise. But it doesn't have to be this complex thing, right? It starts with, you start with the basics. And I like the chapter in fact that the part that probably resonated with me the most was this taskforce idea, because it gets it out of the siloed. Thinking the silos that we're in every single day, that if we're not careful, will not change. When we go back to work, you have to break out of that. So putting a team together of talent that really is diverse in terms of everything you can think of age, gender, experience, background, and ethnicity, all of it. Get that diverse group of people together and stop them thinking about what what who are you as a company, because if companies don't do this, now, we've already said 2025 75% of the workforce will be millennials. They're not gonna they're not going to want to give of themselves to you, they're not going to want to come to you, to help you to make sure that you have a future.

And I just want to add, and by the way, if you look at my presentations, I use that exact same statistic. 75% of millennials will be our workforce. And moving forward from this day, I'm going to change that statement to 75% of diverse millennials. Yeah. Because here's the deal. And it's so sad that I have to say this. Like, like diversity inclusion has nothing to do with checking a box. It has everything to do with helping you think outside your

box. Yes, it's diversity of thought. There's no question.

It's a collision of ideas looked at from different perspectives. And when you have courage, and you can roll up your sleeves and have hard conversations about hard topics. Usually, that coming out of that battle, is where the great ideas, thrive, and live and show themselves. So to me, it's the ETF, the experimental Task Force, it doesn't work, unless it's a collision of different departments, maybe different ages, different titles, different thinking. And then you have to put a process in place. You have to put a budget in place. If you're a marketer listening to this. I didn't like it's demanded on the on your marketing budget on put it on, put it as a line item. It's different than your contingency budget. It's your it's your experimental budget. It's your who knows what comes out of it. Google, I talked about Google in the book, Jason Sparrow, he gives his ETF these are my words, but his his math 5% He gives 5% of his budget to an ETF. He gives them six months of coverage. And he's like come back in six months with recommendations that we can then move 20% of our budget to what's the worst that can happen? There's a failure that you learn from and you don't move 20% And you start back over at the 5%

Why do you bring up the F word fail? Oh, yeah. And there is a tremendous fear of failure in the corporate world today, as you well know it, because we're, we're driven to succeed. We're all about metrics and numbers. And you know, this is performance reviews that still exist in corporate America today. So if a company believes in putting together this task force, that task force, those people on that task force have to feel safe in putting their ideas forward. What guidance do you have for these leaders to help their teams feel safe, so that they can innovate, bring their creative ideas to the table.

It's easy to say and hard to follow. But it's not new news. It's setting the rules of the Taskforce. And one of them, of course has to be there's no such thing as failure. It's just a learning opportunity. Now, maybe don't spend the whole budget on that. Right, but like, but but give your team permission to experiment. That's why I like that word, experimental Task Force. It's an experiment. Experiments fall flat every day. In some ways, it's using that my branding skills threats, like, if you brand it as an experiment, it gives you a little bit of permission to try and fail and learn from that failure and take that failure with you and pivot it forward.

I think that trust, the foundation for all of this has been developed over the last four to six weeks, as we've been in, in this pandemic, I believe there's a stronger base of trust that people have with their teams. Now more than ever before. And part of that has come from leaders starting to show some level of vulnerability. You mentioned earlier quote with the astronaut, and she said that how you measure a person is the amount of daylight between their personal and professional selves? Yes. Is that okay? So that that gap has been narrowed significantly, because now you've got VPS, and CEOs and directors who are on a zoom call, with a T shirt on with their kids run around in the background, right, which you would never have seen before. So that's really exposed the humanity of some of these leaders. And they've either been able to use that vulnerability to help further the connections and deepen the connections with the team, which gives them this foundation to springboard off of or not.

So I think where you are going, and I don't think it's something that you shouldn't have said is, it's a strength, I think you use for vulnerability for strength. Yes. You know, it is a strength. It's not devious if it's authentic. Right. Right. The irony here is that right now, we are all asked to walk around with a mask on. You know, he's been wearing a mask for a really, really long time. Many, many leaders mask off, now's the time to take the mask off and lead authentically. I don't like that word, by the way, either. Just lead, be yourself, whoever you really are. Perfectly stated. Yeah, my kid runs in here, which is could still happen at any moment. That's that's the way it's going to be. We want to follow people we believe in. So really, that's the question you should be asking yourselves. Do people believe in you? Do they want to follow you? The great leaders right now are great guiders. So go back to what you could do? What's the first thing you could do? Once you put that team together? Listen to them, guide them, take them with you. They want to be invested in, they want to make a difference. You're not alone. You don't have to do it alone. And so it starts with that. It's like how do you guide give them permission to think and to come back with recommendations. We don't have to work wait to go back to work. If you do that. And a zoom right now you do a zoom committee with the same five to seven people you put down. And if you really want to have a vulnerable moment, you can say I thought of you five to seven, you were the first five to seven I thought of because I think there's no one better in my mind to lead us forward than this group. And I don't have all the answers. So let's start working on where do we want to take this and open it up?

Once you have that? What I really love in your book, you say you talk about Simon Sinek and the need to understand your why which we all you know, we all believe in and everybody out there in corporate America believes in. But it's more than that. And you say it's about getting that rallying cry behind your why. And that's where great leaders I think will really step up and inspire their teams.

Yeah, I just don't see how the next generation is going to decide to give their time if they have a choice. If there's not a rallying cry in your why, you know, and it's easy to be it's easier to work for SpaceX All right, it's like, what are you doing this weekend? Well, I'm just working on putting life on another planet human life. Planet. What are you doing? I just wanted to go to brunch? You know, but I think I think that is the challenge for all of us is how are we going to put a genuine, rally cry in our why? The people want to wake up in the morning and come work for you. And it can't be BS, it's got to be truthful. Obviously, it has to be purposeful, needs to be emotional, because like I talked about that emotions important if you're going to move people, and then the needs to be different, like, how is that going to separate your company, from everybody else. And when you have that galvanizing force, and it's clear, and people want to push it forward, guess what people will want to stay at your company longer, they're willing to give more. And to me, it starts to get at that attrition issue that we're all afraid of that's real. I will say this, it will be fascinating to watch. If millennials will still bounce around as much as they did, before life before COVID. I think for the first time, they're going to want to find a home and be there for a little bit. So if they're going to make that choice, they're going to make one with a company that's purpose driven? For sure.

Yes, yes. Well said, well, the time, the time for courage is now it is time for leaders to take everything that they've learned, bring everything out of the toolbox that they've got and step up and lead in a far more courageous way than perhaps they've done in the past. Out. In closing, Ryan, what would you like to share with our audience to inspire them to do this right now?

Well, first of all, if you made it this far, thank you, because it's not easy to give up your time. And the fact that we're probably anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes and padding on the editing job. I don't think that doesn't go, it's not a small thing, as far as I'm concerned. So I appreciate the fact that you're still here. It says something about who you are. And it says that, you know, you want to make a bigger impact, you want to make a bigger difference, whether it's for yourself, your family, or the company you're working for. I truly believe that courage is regret insurance. I think if you have a regret, and or you think you have a regret, or you might have a regret, this is the time to start thinking through. What is it that you really want to do? How do you want to inspire somebody else? What are the moves that you're going to make to put yourself in a position where maybe you won't have regrets? What I can say is that courage, you know, and this was one of the aha moments from the book. It's a word, it's a journey word, it's something you need, while you're on the journey of figuring things out in the messy middle. And when you stay courageous in the messy middle of a project that you're nervous about, but excited about, and you have that discipline to stay courageous. Usually, you're gonna land on a meaningful destination, and to land on putting your life and doing something that's meaningful, I think is like, what can we what can we better I mean, to me, that's what I mean, when I say courage makes you happier. It means you've gone through the scary the journey, and you went through those fears, and you came out the other side, you're gonna come out doing something more meaningful, probably put a smile on your face, even if it's like a big change or a little change that starts that process inside a company. So if you feel like a tinge of regret, if you don't speak up and your company meeting, or you're not doing that thing you know, you should be doing, find a little bit of courage and lack a little bit of courage. I think the whole intent of my book is to teach you how to do it in a calculated way. And then find me on LinkedIn or find me at Ryan berman.com. And let me know what you're up to. I'd love to hear.

Great with that. Ryan Berman, thank you very much.

Keep rollin. I love what you're doing, Jan. Thank you

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