Ryan Berman: Fearless Leadership, Bold Decision-Making & Creating a Courage-Driven Culture | Ep33

Ryan Berman is a corporate fear fighter. He’s the founder of Courageous, the author of “Return On Courage”, and the Host of The Courageous Podcast. For 25+ years, Ryan has helped corporations who have been stuck, scared, stale or safe choose courage. He has counseled on the topic at Google, Procter & Gamble, Kellogg’s, Kraft Heinz, Bausch & Lomb, Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans, LA Galaxy, Snapchat and many others. His consulting firm, Courageous, is a full spectrum courage company, guiding its clients through courageous conversations, courageous decisions, courageous ideas, and courageous transformation. Ryan believes that change is hard, but the hardships that come from not changing are far harder. You can learn more about Ryan at www.ryanberman.com.

In this conversation, Ryan Berman dives deep into why most businesses operate in fear, how to develop a culture of courage-driven leadership, and why bold decision-making is the key to long-term success. He shares his Think-Feel-Do framework, explaining how leaders can push past fear, make clear choices, and create a fearless workplace that fosters innovation.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in playing it safe, struggled with making bold business decisions, or wondered how to create a company culture that embraces risk and growth, this episode is packed with game-changing insights. Ryan explains why fear is the biggest obstacle in leadership, how to identify the 4 S’s of Life to see where you are on your journey, and what steps you can take today to start leading with courage.

Connect with Ryan Berman:

Read Return on Courage: www.ryanberman.com

Listen to The Courageous Podcast – www.courageousideas.com

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanberman

Core Themes

• Fear vs. Courage in Leadership & Business
• The 4 S’s of Life – How to Move from Survival to Soul Mode
• The Think-Feel-Do Framework for Bold Decision-Making
• How to Build a Fearless Company Culture
• Why Clarity Creates Confidence—and Confidence Fuels Action
• The Power of Authenticity in Leadership & Personal Branding
• The Role of Courageous Conversations in Business Growth
• The Future of Leadership, Risk-Taking, and Innovation

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Transcript

Christian
What is up beautiful people? This is Christian from the Successful Spiritualpreneur Podcast and today I'm super excited to have Ryan Berman on the show and he is a corporate fear fighter. I'll let that sink in for a second. He's the founder of Courageous, the author of Return on Courage and the host of the Courageous podcast. For over 25 years, Ryan has helped corporations who have been stuck, scared, stale or safe to choose courage.

He has counseled on the topic at Google, Procter & Gamble, Kellogg's, Kraft Heinz, Bausch & Lomb, Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans, LA Galaxy, Snapchat, and many others. His consulting firm Courageous is a full spectrum courage company guiding its client through courageous conversations, courageous decisions, courageous ideas, and you guessed it, courageous transformation. Ryan believes that change can be hard, but the hardships that come from not changing

are far harder. You can learn more about Ryan at RyanBerman.com. Welcome to the show Ryan.

Ryan Berman
Can you believe what business I'm in? I'm in the courage business, Christian. Is that a surprise?

Christian
It's so cool. Like, how did you make that your thing, you know, without any further ado and your story and like when why Kertz? Like, why that? Why and how do you make it such a impactful philosophy?

Ryan Berman
mean, I think like a lot of us, you go through life early and you're a bit on autopilot, like I have these, you know, if I really sit back and audit my life, and I think we're not great at this, right, because we're just going through life. Yeah, but if you actually sit back and put your life on pause, I call them the the s's of life, like the there's four s's these four stages. And the first s was shoved.

Like life is shoved at you. And like whatever you grow up in, your parents beliefs are your beliefs, right? Like whatever city you grew up in, you root for those teams and like that's your, those are your people. And so whatever you, however you started life has sort of just shoved at you and your, and that's your belief system. And then for me, I moved near my, you know, 18, 20, 25.

you move into what I would call a survival mode. And you're like, shoot, I'm I now have to leave. I go to college, I leave my home. And you're like, I need a job. Who's going to give me a job? Well, you'll pay me for that. I'm in. And but you're kind of like the duck, like underneath the surface, your legs are moving. But above it, you're just doing the best you can. And I think a lot of people never leave survival mode. I they stay in that space. And this is the power of fear.

And in those, those years of survival, the, the, the environment for me was New York city and it was an awesome, awesome environment. I grew up on Madison Avenue. All of my mentors were crazy mad men who you're playing in a very elite arena to learn story, but it's also exactly what you'd expect. mean, it's

transactional is ruthless. It's around the clock. It was a different time also, but it was survival mode. It's almost too fast. And you're just trying to like stay at the speed of New York City. And everybody has their version of survival mode, but that was mine. And then in those moments, you do meet a few people, not many that you're like, shoot, I need to stay close to that person. That person hasn't figured out or like, wow. Who's that person?

And you start to see certain people that are saying no for the first time. They're not just on autopilot and life starts to slow down. And you move into the next desk, which I think is success mode and success mode is you get to call some of the shots. Success mode is you understanding a few of the rules, unspoken rules of society, like being able to say no to certain things.

And success people, like when you're in that success mode, you want to surround yourself with other people in success mode. And usually you're also it's not just like good for my, you know, all of me, you're making money. You're actually like on your path. You have this idea of like all of that craft and all of that work has put you on a path to make more money. And then at some point, it's like, wait a minute, there's got to be more than money and.

The last S for me, in my opinion, is soul mode. And for me, it's like, I want to make money, but I want to do good. I want to be a mentor. I want to give back. Right. I want to, I want to find my people. I want to find my community. And so, you know, like a lot of us, I feel like I was going through life. Lots of people that I love were telling me what life was all about. You assume that's the book of your life.

And then at some moment you're like, wait a minute, record scratch moments. And you start auditing the decisions that you make. And it was interesting that almost every single time I made a really scary move, looking back at it, I'm like, those are the moments I remember. Those are the moments that changed me going to New York city, leaping from being on the business side to being on the creative side. I now live in California, moving to San Diego.

starting my first company, having the courage to buy out a partner, having the courage to merge the company. Like every moment that I really remember is that moment where I took a leap. And it wasn't until I started writing my book, Return on Courage, where I really got to get quiet and interview lots of different types of people. And you can't help but then look at their stories and reflect it at yours where you're like, wow, it

almost every single time it was a courageous move. It was, I didn't even realize like that we were two passing ships in the night. I was just living my life. And then where I really got the most energy is when it was that scary little tension moment. And I did it anyway. And it's like, wow, there's, something with this word, right? And so did I find this word? Did this word find me? there's certainly many, many things.

It is a little near nature, nurture of my environment that allowed me the ability to, continue to leap. And, and then you go deeper down the rabbit hole and you deconstruct. All right. What is this word? Courage really all about it? Is this the right word? And since 2019 now, you know, this experiment called courageous and helping leaders be a little bit more clear.

I mean, I definitely said, Christian, like you cannot be courageous when you're cloudy, just like you can't see your true north on a foggy night. And so if our job is to help leaders and companies find their true north, means first getting them clear and then on something that's worth having conviction for. And we're kind of full circle back where you started. If you have those two.

there's probably some confidence that comes along with that for you to keep doing it again and again.

Christian
Beautiful. Yeah, that's a cool journey. While you were talking, I was like, you know what the fifth S might be? It might be spirit.

Ryan Berman
Tommy.

I like it.

Christian
You know, because ultimately,

ultimately we all, we're not the body, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna leave this vessel anyways, you know what I mean? So the last stage is just returning back to that source, to that oneness where everything comes from anyways, and realizing how everything has happened for a reason, you know, so.

Ryan Berman
Yeah,

I wonder if it's I don't know if it's it feels like to me something that's always been there, you know, so don't know if it's like a separate stage, but just to stay with the S's like if we said something like your spirit can be suppressed, suppressed spirit, right, like suppressed spirit because I've always felt it. But I think a lot of people when

you know, the, old version of work was this is pre COVID work for a lot of people was you would go to work during the week and then the weekend would happen and there'd be this imaginary line that you would drive home and you'd cross over this fictitious line and like personally you showed back up and then you'd, you'd go home and you do what lights you up. You'd paint or you'd binge watch or you'd

watch your favorite team and then, and then Monday shows up and then it's like you put on your khaki pants or whatever you, know, whatever you're wearing and you cross back over that imaginary line and you have this sort of fictitious version of this other persona of you that goes to work that doesn't really show all of themselves. And I think that's the suppressed spirit. Like I think that's the, again, on my journey,

that that's that spirit still in there. I just have like buried it until finally I was like, wait a minute. And again, in the book writing journey for me, one of my very first interviews with was with a woman named Loretta Hidalgo, who is a founding astronaut at Virgin Galactic. And she said her definition of success is when there's no daylight between the personal you and the professional you. And that was the one that was the one that got me going.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't know it at the time, but you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no spirit, stay suppressed, stay down there. Don't come out in my work. And the more I've been on this journey about courage, the more I've realized that being the true version of yourself is an act of courage. And like, that's really what it's all about is designing a life where you can actually be you on Monday, on Thursday, on Sunday. That's the goal.

Christian
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and that's exactly what this podcast is about, know, spiritual entrepreneur. You know, it's like you want to combine these two worlds because the less you need to change yourself, put on a persona or suppress something, the more authentic you are throughout your day and throughout your life, every single day, you know? And the more you live in authenticity,

with who you are at any given moment and also can do that because of, know, environment of work and et cetera, et Like the more your frequency, energy, vibration, whatever you want to call it, is just like, it's just freeing. Like it's like you're living freer every day, you know? So.

Ryan Berman
I also

think as a guy that's come out of marketing, which is my background, and let's agree that I think marketing can get a bad rap, like advertising can get a bad rap, but just the fact that a guy in Florida and a guy in California could connect, like you've only found me because I'm putting my signals of courage into the world. And it just so happens that it aligns with your version of logic.

So again, it's sort of that is the power of being genuine. I mean, you need to know who you are and you need to like put your bat signal into the world. So the right people see it. Now, there's lots of other people that probably like Christian, what are you talking about? I just want to make a ton of money. They're probably not listening to this podcast. mean, who doesn't like money, but like they're probably not figuring out like how to live fully in alignment. In some ways, you're.

kind of a you're like a like a health chiropractor, right? You're like helping people get into alignment again. And we were there at some point, like, I think that's the thing like gravity of life usually is the thing that throws us out of alignment. Maybe he was at the age of three or four or seven or childhoods, but it happens to the best of us.

Christian
Yeah, so true. So can you just share with us what were pivotal moments in your life that led you to that realization of like, let me get more into that alignment because I feel ultimately a life that is just out of balance or one set is not worth it. What were those moments in your life?

Ryan Berman
Yeah, I think, I think many of them came after I was in California. The collection of experiences did give me confidence, but I've always taken pride in hearing what's not said. Right? It's like, I'm fluent in subtext. Like you said one thing, but it really means something else. And, and so when you audit all of those,

little moments and you're being the observationist that you are. You know, I was like, well, let's see here. There's a very specific moment at my last business where we were around 90 people and I can like, can see myself now sitting in my office and I remembered feeling, did I just work like a decade of my life? And is this how I'm supposed to feel? Cause I, you know, I'm back then I think I was

relatively young, was 37, 38. And I'm like, is this it? So I thought, let's start there. Like if you've said the words to yourself, is this it? That is like the signal. The answer is it isn't it. But but you got to have the courage to like address that moment. Right. So I could see myself in that moment and.

Christian
You

Ryan Berman
there was so much wrapped into it, like because you had given all yourself to this company. My identity was wrapped in that world. had fear on if I could like even leap out of that world. I was like, I'm like, how exhausting is this going to be to like pivot and leap? Is there a net? And I think there's like there's two worlds. You talk about spirit. There's two worlds.

that are constantly at battle for all of us. There's one that's above the neck and there's one that's below the neck and the above the neck for us in our minds. We're trying to constantly talk ourselves in and out of what's right for us. And the nervous system is so good at doing what it does. It's just designed to keep us safe. It's just designed to like tell you not to leap. And it gives you all the reasons why.

But if you can start to trust what's below the neck a little bit more, there's another little hum of a voice or a feeling that's saying, mm-mm, you know the truth. Like, you know. Again, it's the suppressed spirit. So we're all fighting these two worlds, I believe.

Christian
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting to see how in corporate world really what counts is the mind space, right? The logic, the data, the analytics, the productivity, the measurable things. And what really counts for humans is the one, you know, below the shoulders, the heart, the heart set, you know? So it's very interesting to see that. And I believe.

Maybe not always, but oftentimes the heart is so much more intelligent and wise than the mind. It doesn't even understand. The decision from the head analytics is definitely smarter and it makes more sense and maybe also more profit, but long-term isn't really the thing that's gonna get this company forward. So basically what you're doing is you're going into companies and bringing them more into their heart space and on a long-term basis, they will make better.

more wise and lying decisions because the body and people in certain positions, they know sometimes intuitively whether to take a department in this direction or that direction.

Ryan Berman
And just to put it, use another word, they don't just know. They also feel right. They, they, they, they feel when they should take the organization in another direction. What's really crazy Christian is like a lot of, a lot of the times that I've now been able to address companies. Like I have a very, the one in mind right now. So like I can see myself in Houston right now. And it was probably two years ago.

Christian
Mm.

Ryan Berman
And this was like one of the most terrifying rooms I had painted in my head. It wasn't a terrifying room when I was there, but in my head, like, and the room was full of Deloitte employees. And it's like, when you think of thinking, what do you think of like brilliant people, right? You're like, yeah, I'm thinking Deloitte. I'm thinking Bane. I'm thinking these colossal.

consultants. And I remember walking into the room and going, I couldn't even imagine.

Christian
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berman
having the ability to outthink this room. But I can out-feel this room.

Christian
Hmm interesting Isn't it fascinating how like one heart is so much more intelligent than a hundred brains

Ryan Berman
Right. It's like like.

It all has a role. It all has a role, right? Like this, think the secret of life is when you realize that we're all cocktails, right? It's just a cocktail. It's like a splash of thinking, a dash of feeling and a skosh of doing. And when you get the think, the feel and the do all in there together, right? Like, by the way,

Christian
Mm.

Ryan Berman
my magic gets better thanks to Deloitte. Like when the thinkers think and they do their part, they're giving the feelers what they need to then take it to the next level. Now to my knowledge, which is funny way to say it, because we're talking about feeling behavior change really happens only when you feel it. Right. If it's stuck in the head, there's

Nothing I will say today that is going to convince Christian of anything, but I may say something that gives you enough to convince yourself. That's as good as I got, right? And how's that going to happen? You feel it, you're like, yeah, actually, that's exactly. Yeah, that's how I feel about this. And so I think that's when you say how strong the heart is, that that that empath in me understands, OK,

When you go into a company creating courageousness, it does happen from the inside out. And what I think I continue to see out there are businesses. Sometimes they're winning, but the minute that they're not, they're like, wait, what's going on? Then the business is put on pause. They're like, maybe it's the culture. Maybe it's the inside.

Christian
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berman
And it's

like, no, no, no, no, no, no, The companies that thrive are the ones that mitigate the daylight that exists between the inside of the organization and the out. It's the culture and the business. That's where the outcomes come from. So that's really what we do is creating a courageous company. It happens from the inside out. And that starts with, all right, leaders, what courageous conversation are we not having? All right, leaders.

What crazy decisions are we not making? All right, leaders, where do we not have that clarity that we need to create believers? Okay, now let's talk about the business. Now let's talk about how we want to show up. Now let's talk about courageous transformation, courageous change, courageous ideas. It's a really, really fun space to be in.

Christian
Hmm.

Ryan Berman
And I've definitely said like, yeah, I get paid to tell the truth. Like that's why you bring me in. And there's a lot of joy with that.

Christian
I know it's so cool and I think it's really cool how like you said, you know, it's, it's, it's neither fully the heart nor the mind. You know, it's just that, that in certain circumstances or situations, it is overly mind versus overly heart, you know, or overly doing without mind and heart, you know, that's, know, so like bringing these two, these three, components into balance is really where, you know, the, that's where the golden ticket is for.

Ryan Berman
Yeah.

Christian
companies and even ourselves as individuals out there.

Ryan Berman
And usually we over index on one, right? So like, I'm grateful for Billy Collins, who's my partner. He runs our knowledge team. Like that's his, his whole thing is knowledge gathering. That's the think part of our business. And then he's setting my team up on the faith building side, which is what we call it. Like I run the faith team, right? Why, why do we have faith in this? Why do we have belief in this? Have we come up with the exact precise words? People can be like, Oh,

You know, actually can buy into that. Yeah, yeah, you're actually willing to give your Monday to Friday because you believe in this. And then Nicole Miller, our third partner, runs our action team. So we have these little special forces units that help companies figure out they're special and bring to life their special. But it's done through the lens of thinking, feeling and doing knowledge plus faith, plus action, which is actually our definition of courage.

And if you remove one of those three levers, it's something else. knowledge plus faith without action is paralysis. Right. How often have you known the right move? Think about when you started the podcast, like maybe how long did you think about starting and you felt it was right? And you're like, why am I not doing this? Right. So like thinking and feeling without doing is paralysis, faith and action without knowledge. Well, that's a reckless move.

Right. That's a careless move. I've left all heart. I'm jumping. I'm like, I probably should have brought a parachute, like have some knowledge and some wisdom and some data before we leave. And then.

from a corporate standpoint, this works in life as well, but like knowledge and action without faith. Like when you're numb on the inside and you're just going through the motions and you don't have that little voice talking to you anymore, saying, what am I doing? This is imposter syndrome. This is crazy. Am I really going to ask that investor for this money? If that little voice has gone away and you're numb,

You're working on status quo. You're working on safe. You actually want imposter syndrome. You actually want that little voice. You actually want that. my gosh, this is crazy. I can feel like the sweat on the back of my neck. So to me, that's that our whole company is, built off of, well, if you deconstruct courage, it's knowledge plus faith plus action equals courage.

Christian
Yeah, I think that's a really cool framework to also just like apply for any, for any type of strategy or thing you might build up for yourself applying these three quadrants or, you know, whatever circles and seeing is this, what am I doing, what I'm doing here in alignment with all three.

Ryan Berman
Yeah.

And to us, that's the, you're in the strategy business and you're to take anything away from today, take a piece of paper, break it into three. And on the right, on the left side, put, what do I think about this? In the middle, put out, how's it going to make me feel? How's it to my customer feel? And then on the bottom, put, what are we going to do about this? Right. To me, that is the.

That is the process by which we follow. It's the thinking, it's the feeling, and it's the doing. And if you get that right, you got a shot to like overcome those large obstacles.

Christian
Yeah, beautiful. Is there a similar framework or obviously, you know, could be the same, but like how do you apply that to starting a new company or starting a new project arm of your company?

Ryan Berman
Yeah, great question. So this is kind of a little matrix. We're entering red pill, blue pill mode here. so when I wrote Return on Courage, the next question, the first six months was like looking at the dictionary definition of courage and realizing I didn't like the utility of the dictionary definition.

which is the ability to do something that frightens you. So that first six months was like coming up with that construct. And then the rabbit hole was, okay, if we believe this to be true, then which knowledge should you follow? How do you actually build team faith? And where should we take action? And where shouldn't we take action? And so in the book, we go over this five step process. There's a price of courage, price is an acronym.

If it was easy, everyone would do it and price. And again, we don't have to go crazy here on it, but it's in return on courage. If you want to pick it up, you can Amazon it away. Price stands for prioritized through values. Rally believers. Identify fears. Commit to a purpose and execute your action. So like these are the steps like if I'm starting a company, I'm going back to.

prioritize, then rally. So look at your values. Like what are the values of the company? I always, always start Christian with core values are not I roles. They're how the exceptional role. And again, data point on why we met because I was putting something out in the world on my values that aligned with your values. And you're like, this dude seems cool. I want to reach out to him. Right. That's all it was.

was a shared value system between one of my values and one of your values. So if you're listening and you're starting a business or you're already have your business, this is the moment that I would ask you to pull off on the side of the road. If you're listening, this is your car. Cause like, take this away. How valuable are your values? Do you really know how valuable your values are? A lot of companies that we deal with cause they get big, they get big as they've forgotten

how important those are. Over 40 years, there's been erosion of the values. And now it's like, great, it's an employee manual or it's lobby wall art, but they have not operationalized the values. Maybe they need to be refreshed. You know, a little bit more energy. So I'd start there, like look at the values of the company. Are they real? Also the number one value of courageous.

And it's not Ryan Berman's number one value, but the company's core value is sacrifice. So we help companies make hard choices. So if you've got seven values, 10 values, you're watering down another value that you already have. So make choices on those values. I think once you have that and they're real and you're hiring off those values.

Then you move to the next layer, which is rally believers. And you even make believers or fake believers, right? Like fake believers don't walk around the office wearing a t-shirt that says fake believer, right? They just sort of nod and smile and collect a paycheck. And so use those values to find the right people that are on the mission with you. And I always say the sole goal leadership is believership.

Christian
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Berman
right? did your whole goal as a leadership is to be the believership and to make believers and the people that are that are working with you on the cause. So those two steps are the where you start. Those are what I would call the organizational health steps. And then, you know, in this period of time, I will say the eyes identify fears. So we're kind of back to the top of the show where we are fear fighters.

think most people want to suppress that fear versus address that fear. And we just have a very different way of looking at fear where it's, it's not about burying it. It's, let's pull it out, talk about the fears of the organization as is it a vertical fear that could take the whole industry down? I mean, if you're a spiritual entrepreneur, then most likely

you are the industry fear. Like you are probably building something that a big company should be afraid of. You're trying to disrupt the entire industry, right? Because you know, it's not just about the mind, it's about something bigger. So an industry fear, that vertical buster is one of five fears that we look at. Another one is service fears from a customer service standpoint. Another one is personal fears.

Can you truly speak up inside your organization? Or do you feel like you always have to bite your lip? You we say you want to watch your back culture or got your back culture? You know, which one would you rather be in? So this is the work that we do with our clients. It's like very much smoking out all this stuff. You can't address it if it's buried.

Christian
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, know, bringing things to the surface and really just dealing with things that are, you know, under the surface, hidden, you know, so.

Ryan Berman
I mean, some of it's problem solution, right? It's like, right now we've got the problem, now let's go forward, right? It's like, what's gonna be our cause here? What is our rally cry here as an organization? So again, in the spirit of saving the audience here from the whole book, all of this is what the three-year listening lap was doing was sitting with people that were running companies and coming up with this methodology that holds your hand through a courageous process.

Christian
Yeah, and the book again, know, for all the listeners, it's called Return on Courage.

Ryan Berman
Yeah. And if you like my voice, you can, I did the audible. That was fun.

Christian
was great.

So I have a couple more personal questions as we near the end of the episode. And that is, what would be, like, what are three words you want people to know you for after you leave this physical plane? And I think I know one, but I don't know the two. I don't think I know the other two, so I'm curious.

Ryan Berman
Ha ha ha ha ha.

I mean, I don't know if I want people to know me for this, but I obviously, you know, one of them, which is courage, right? Like I think a life worth living is a courageous one. Right. And we can all have. It's a whole other episode, right, on what life we're in. But for now, let's assume this this is this is the one we should be focused on.

So a crazy life is a life worth living. Two, would say kindness. I'm a class F full person and I definitely have my style, but it's always rooted in goodness and kindness. like, I think if I was at a dinner the other night and so I had my birthday this week and one of my buddies,

at dinner is like, Ryan treats everyone the same. He's like, whether he knows you or not, like he's going to be, he's like, the amount of times I've sat at a table is like, what would Ryan do here? Like with somebody new. And it's like, I'm definitely of the mindset of, I trust you until you give me a reason not to, but there's so many people on the other side of that. Right. And then gosh, the third word.

think the third word is probably just human. Like not afraid to be human. It's a messy experiment. So I don't think someone will be saying at my eulogy, Oh, Ryan was such a human. I mean, it's almost like a funny word to say, but like, but

putting it all out there, right? The good, the hard, right? You see it around my back here with this, brave what's hard is our tagline. And it's like, sometimes it's the hard stuff, even the hard stuff to talk about that makes you personable, makes you approachable. And so the human experiment as a whole, just showing who I am. I mean, I guess that's authenticity. I guess that's real. Just being real, right? Just being real.

I think being real is the path to being relatable. those are my three.

Christian
Beautiful.

Cool. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. And next question would be, who what inspires you the most in your spiritual and entrepreneurial journey currently?

Ryan Berman
Yeah.

wow. I would say probably my family. But that's I'm kind of putting bundling them all together. I mean, my wife has really had a rebirth, but she's super spiritual, almost Buddhist. It's not Buddhist, but almost Buddhist. We got a lot of Buddhas around the house here. So

I love that she doesn't get, she like nothing throws her off who she is, which is cool. You know what I mean? Um, and then my kids, just because I don't know if you feel this way, but I think we're like little boys and girls trapped in these adult bodies and we're just doing the best we can to like remember what we loved. And when we were kids and then maybe that's a data point that I had a good childhood, right? But like,

Christian
Beautiful.

Hmm.

Ryan Berman
I think they remind me to play and I think play and spirit are connected.

Christian
Beautiful, Yeah, it's a true joy, you know, family where there's so much shared and cultured and nurtured and cultivated. It's such an incredible space of this. I mean, that's why people say it's where it's at because that's where it's at. know, that's where everything gets put into action, the thinking, the feeling, the doing, you know. It's a beautiful space. I have a little one too, so it's an honor to raise them.

Ryan Berman
That's where it's at.

Yes.

Christian
Yeah, and with that we come to our next question which is, what's your vision of the new earth? Whatever you think that is, the new earth.

Ryan Berman
I mean, this is only through my lens, right? My version of the new earth is, again, if the data that I've seen is correct, good news or bad news, the facts are 95 % of us are freezer flight.

That means 5 % of us are fighters. So if I'm designing my version of the new earth, every bat signal I put out into the world is to attract that 5%. Right? I think we make this, it's not our fault, but like we try to fix everybody and not everybody, not everybody can be fixed. I'm right.

Christian
Yeah, not everybody wants to be fixed, not everybody's ready.

You can save someone, but then a month later they're in the ditch again. It's like...

Ryan Berman
I'm

And there's,

there's a lot of people out there that love to save people, right? That love to save people. just the, probably can see that puppy dog person, right? Like, I say that little puppy. And it's like, well, you know, is that where you're to put your energy and your focus? So to me, I'm really focused in the U S on 3.4 million people, like 1%. 1%.

Can I build a community of 1 % of people that want to choose courage that should know each other, that should collide with each other, that can learn from each other? They're thinkers, they're feelers, they're doers. We need each other. But I'm trying to just continue to be disciplined on finding those people. And community will be a big part of where we go because I mean, think we can agree that the world needs more courage.

We could probably agree that your world needs more courage. And so if I could develop spaces for us to all collide, who knows what could happen? And I have to surrender. The rest almost like I have to, by the way, tough thing to do with certain family members by blood, you know what I'm saying? Like the certain people like some cousin or and here's another crazy thing, like 50 % of the US lives 50 miles from where they were born.

The apple truly doesn't fall far from the tree. And I wonder, I don't know the numbers on this, but I wonder what percentage of that is like you're guilted into thinking you need to live near family, even if they don't share your logic. So I was always gifted the opportunity to be independent and go live my adventure. Doesn't mean I don't miss my parents still alive. They're on the East Coast.

But I love the journey that I'm on. I certainly don't have it figured out, but it's in progress on the experiment.

Christian
I love it. Yeah. And thanks for, you know, being so authentic in your own courage, you know, showing us that, yeah, I don't have it all figured out, you know, but I'm still doing it every day. I'm showing up, you know, because I think at the end of the day, that's what it's all about, you know, showing up consistently is what builds, you know, your muscle and or heart or whatever, you know, in your life. So, yeah, thanks for thanks for sharing all that. And then

as closing advice and final thoughts, like what are your last words that you want to leave the audience with in working people?

Ryan Berman
Well, I mean, first of all, if you've made it this far into the episode, then that alone is a data point, right? That alone should say something really curious about this topic, right? Like honor that, you know, I'm a podcast host, too. You know, I've got my courageous podcast. I always try to like be really thoughtful of an audience as there's some episodes that people are out in 14 minutes, right? Like and there's some episodes that

Here you are, like, why? Why this one? Why did you stay so long? So there's something about what we talked about that I think you should consider exploring longer. Whether it's the piece of paper, breaking it into think, feel, and do. Sure, if you want to learn more about me, ryanberman.com is probably the best place to start. But maybe there's some fear that you've got that you're working through.

We'll put time on the calendar and like, go fight the fear, like bring it out to the surface, try to understand it. Um, one of the guys that I follow, his name is Seth Godin. He's a, he's a very well known, um, he's just like a guru in the thinking space. And, you know, I once had him on my podcast and made a joke how I was in the fear shrinkage business. And he said, no, no, no, no. He's like, you want to balloon fear and give it gratitude that makes it less scary.

And that always stood with me. So maybe there's like some fear right now that you have to, you have to balloon and give it gratitude and then start to like go after it. But if you're still here, there's something about this topic worth exploring or go to return on courage.com, grab the book and never hesitate to reach out. And if you have an idea for me or you like something in the book, if you want to challenge something in the book,

You know, we're, like I said, we're all on this journey to get better and keep experimenting. So probably a good place to end. Appreciate you bringing me on Christian.

Christian
Yeah,

I love it. Yeah, thanks so much for coming on and you know being so real, sharing your heart, sharing your wisdom and just being such a you know after all the success you've had you still are balanced in yourself you know and that's something I you know admire deeply so thanks for showing up with that integrity and authenticity.

Ryan Berman
Thank you, I appreciate that. You know what? We're both trying to figure it out, no different. Simple as that.

Christian
Beautiful. Well, thanks for coming on.

Ryan Berman
You got them in.