Unlock And Instill Courage: How You Can Drive Change Into The Future With Ryan Berman

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markell and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change.

Proof.

Hey everybody, it's Adam Markellen. Welcome back to the Change Proof podcast. I've got an incredible guest today, an amazing guest and a dear friend. His name is Ryan Berman. He is like a brother from another mother and we have the same haircut, the same barber, and all that good stuff. But he is also the founder of Courageous, a Think, Feel, do change consultancy that's based in San Diego. With more than 20 years working in courageous leadership, courageous ideas, and courageous reinvention, Ryan believes that your future is safe with change and and I both feel that way. Ryan is a speaker, practitioner, and an authority on the subject who has been featured in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Inc. And Forbes. He's also spoken on the topic all over the country, including for Google, Snapchat, Kellogg's Craft, Heinz, Logitech, PNC, and many, many others. His book Return on Courage shares why companies need to unlock courage now while providing practical tips on how organizations can install courage courage in their people. Today we're going to have a great conversation and vibe hard. So sit back, buckle up and enjoy my conversation with Ryan Berman. All right, Ryan, you and I are, we're definitely brothers from another mother and all that good stuff, pals I have wanted and I think actually we went through some logistical hoops to get kind of you and I get our schedules aligned, get this show finally up and running. So I'm thrilled for the the chance to sit down with you and have a chat. And you and I have a lot in common. We've known each other a while, travel similar paths and all that kind of thing. So I'm going to ask you something about your introduction, the bio that people just heard. What is one thing that is not in that bio, not written in your standard introduction that you would love for people to know about you?

Great question. I think the answer is that I'm just trying to figure it out as a guy that has courage as a brand, I'm still just trying to figure it out like everybody else. And there are new things I want to create. I'm a creator. In fact, one of the things that probably brought me the least joy in my last life is the bigger we got, the further away I got from creating and the more of a Manager I became. And it was like I became the guy that was solving problems on the way to solving the problems I wanted to solve. And so what I love about my life now is I'm trying to design a life where I could continue to create. And I mean, it's all under the lens of courage, right? Whether it's courageous leadership or courageous ideas or courageous reinvention. But I'd say the one thing I hope. How about this? One thing I'd like, I hope to add to my bio is starting to bring together a community of people that are courageous and, to use your word, resilient, who want to know each other and want to create together. And that events arena is really interesting to me when it's curated with people that have the same mindset. And I'm terrified of it. But I know that that's where my life is going, is I. In the next thousand days, you could ask me, how successful were you on curating this group? That's what's coming next.

I'm envisioning like a Roman Colise. And you bring. Only instead of, you know, lions and gladiators and all that kind of, you bring other creative people, crazy people, entrepreneurial, crazy, courageous people together to have at it. I don't know what else it looks like beyond that.

I don't think it's Fight Club. I don't think this is Fight Club or building. But I. I think it's. Look, it's really lonely to be the leader and. And it's lonely to, like, you've navigated and you've gotten where you are and. And you feel like you finally got there. And then at the same time, you're like, well, who do I tr. Can I trust and can I go there? And I think there's a lot of amazing people out there that would benefit from. So I don't see it as Fight Club. I think they would benefit from, like, hey, this is how we do it in this vertical. And originality sometimes is taking something from a different vertical and bringing it into yours. And I want those collisions to happen, but it has to be the right. With the right people that want to make the world better and want to use their superpowers for good.

Another C word, as I'm listening to you, that you just said was collision. And I met the. Who was just until recently, was the CEO and chairman of the board at WD40, this really amazing guy, Gary Ridge. You probably know Gary, right? He's a super, super wonderful guy based in San Diego. And. And why that word collision came up for me was. I remember going down to their headquarters. We were doing, I think I was being asked to do a keynote for them and talk about some workshops and stuff like that. And he said, well, come on down, let's have lunch. And we had lunch and you know, in, in the boardroom. And it was like no boardroom I've ever been in the office that they constructed this building where among other things, they wanted. Gary wanted to have collision zones. That was his vision, that people would collide, literally, physically. They're kind of run into each other for the purposes of conversation, for the purposes of creative expression. You know, the thing that's was studied in the early 70s that I think the term is used called weak ties to describe this phenomenon where people that don't typically run into each other don't have conversations from all ends of an organization. As a result of that conversation, that unexpected, you know, sort of water cooler discussion, innovation occurs. You know, 3M and lots of companies really accelerated because of that, that weak tie connection, I gotta say. You know, that idea, I think has legs, buddy. I mean, you could do a lot with that actually colliding, you know, the Coliseum, you know, but not, not like you say, to wipe people out, but really to, you know, wrestle with the world, wrestle with the ideas that will change the world for the better today.

And yeah, for me, it. And you know, Gary, so I'm, you know, you and I are a couple of guys that have homes in SoCal, right, which is where WD40 is based. But I stumbled into the concept of collisions first. Rest in peace, Tony Hsieh. You know, I got to tour Zappos, which is in Vegas. And it's like, I'm sure the last thing you're thinking is, we're going to Vegas, let's go tour Zappos. I get it. But like, you can now tour Zappos. I think it's like five or ten bucks. And Tony was all about collisions. He was all about, you couldn't walk the place without colliding in with a core value or a person that was living that value, that created a moment where two minds met. Maybe they didn't agree at first, but through the volleying of conversation, the best idea would percolate. I think that, to your point, that is the idea of creating space for collisions, where, okay, yeah, like this is where the best idea comes from. And I think, and again, you and I were just having a conversation. So it's not like we've got this planned out, but I think this is my another c the catastrophic concern of remote work. And I think the big loser here is innovation. I think the collisions aren't happening. Like they could, you know, I mean I've never run a, you know, thousand person company, but I've run a almost 100 person company. And the thing that I terrified the most was when someone would come to my door like, do you have a minute? And like, oh shit, okay, well here go. I just lost two hours. 45 minutes is about, it's never a minute, it's always like 45 minutes. But in that little do you have a minute? Was a collision moment. And ideas got better, innovation got better. And I think right now our schedules is like, it's so transactional. Your calendar is like 20 minutes, 30 minute zoom, 15 minute teams, 20 minute zoom. You've got blue all over your calendar. Those do you have a minute? Collisions aren't happening. And like I said, the losers are the companies. And honestly I think the losers are the next generation who think that they've got it good because they've got flexibility and they're like, oh, I'm so much more productive. But what's missing is those moments to collide. And when you collide with people that really share your logic, they become mentors for you or you build relationships with those people and it's slow cooked. Right. Three years down the line, nine years down the line, those people are the same people that you want to start businesses with. That's gone away for at least now. And I, I don't know how leaders can bring that back and be like, this is why we need to be in the office, for the greater good of innovation.

Yeah, I mean you said it, I was thinking it and then it came right out of your mouth, which I wasn't surprised at all to hear. But mentorship, this, these, the collisions for innovation. Get that? And what I also feel that people who have not underst, have not known mentorship because they entered the workforce while this is happening. And that's a big group of people. You, they will not know what they've missed out on. They won't know it until, not that it's too late, but at some point when you're deep into your career, mid career, you know, 30s and 40s, and you didn't have that mentorship, there's a gap that will be palpable. I think that you will wish, you know, hey, it's like if you didn't learn numbers by wherever you could have learned numbers, you know, like whether it was in business school or it was in math class or whatever it might be as soon as you become someone in charge of money. And I'll just keep it in a business context because you're the CEO or you're, you know, you wouldn't become the CFO if you weren't a numbers guy. But I'm saying if you're in a leadership role of any kind, then you don't, or you're even up and coming wanting to grow your career. And you don't understand money, math, you don't understand the way business operates. You would know a balance sheet from a bouncing ball. You have a gap and that knowledge gap will impact, negatively impact the trajectory of your career. And if by chance you went out on your own and started an adventure, you will, you will find really quickly that it's, it's an impediment to the growth of your business if you just don't understand those numbers. So I think mentorship is one of those things as well, that down the road it's, there's a big price to pay for it. Yeah, you, you said something earlier I want to come back to as well. And clearly, you know, when it comes to the remote workforce, as you said, there's this, this gap, this, this, they're missing something. But for those people who've started up a venture. So I'm just going to speak now to the part of our audience that are either already business owners themselves, operators, entrepreneurs, or they might want to be. Here's something we don't hear a lot of chat about, which is that if you don't have those collisions happening, if you don't meet people in the office in that way and have those ideas percolating, as you say, it also will impede or impact, let's say, the number of startups. This is my prediction. I don't know if this is right or wrong. It will impede or impact those startup formations down the road. Right. Because how many guys do you know that are in the middle right now of a 7, 8, 9 figure business who met at a company that they thought like they cut their teeth, you know, they learn stuff, good, bad, ugly, right, whatever. And then they went out on their own because they met there first. Right? What?

That's what's at stake. I think that's it. It's the same thing as mentorship. You know, maybe this is a show about ships, kinship, friendship, you know, mentorship, relationships. To me, until you have those moments where you are in the fire with somebody and by the way. It doesn't even have to be like, hey, bro, or this place is messed up. It's not that. It's like we mesh our skills, right? We share logic, but our skills match. You're great, you're the artist, I'm the operator, or whatever it might be.

It's forged in the fire because the.

Fire is what's missing. And so again, it's like if you don't have that. And by the way, just to like the audience if you're like. Because I'll tell you what I don't miss. I don't spend missing 25 grand a month on rent, okay? I don't miss the, the price of rent, all right? I miss the collisions. There are ways to.

I don't miss the commute. I just want to put my. My own. I used to commute three hours a day, literally an hour and a half to, you know, to and from Manhattan, from the suburbs in New Jersey where we were raising a family. I don't miss a three hour commute every day.

Honestly, if I'm honest with myself, deep down in my soul, I learned in New York City. That's where I learned from all the crazy mad Men folks. The reason that I left, a major reason why I left is I could not visualize myself living out of the city and doing the commute. For me, I couldn't see it. I tried to see it and I was like, how much time am I going to be? Just like you said, those three hours. Same thing about L. A. Like, I couldn't visualize myself in a car for hours. So I understood your point. I understand fully on like, productivity, how tolerable is that commute? There are ways to do remote work where you can be intentional to make sure collisions happen. And you know, this is like two inspirational business leaders walk into a bar. So I always say, if remote work isn't emote work, that is the goal of the leader. If it's just remote work and you have not figured out a way to make remote work emote work, you will not. First of all, you're going to have a loyalty issue, right? But if you can make it emote work where they're like, I love this, it's emotional. I'm going to stick around for the cause. Then you can get intentional about, about creating. You know, imagine you put like, do you have a minute, 30 minute session on the calendar? And it's like, look, this is open, an open forum. It's called do you have a minute? It's 30 minutes. We're going to do it twice a month and it's going to, It's a safe place for messy conversations. And at least we can like. Or a collision room. You can block this stuff off now on your calendar and okay, no commute. We understand why we're colliding. And even if you're responsible for the calendar, you block it off on your calendar and then you invite the right people you need to that room at that time and at least there's at least a space for it versus what's happening now, which is like a. It's like Tetris. It's like, you know, you're just trying to fit in the next 15 minute meeting.

And to our, the stuff that we do and studying resilience, it's the level of exhaustion depletion from that what you just described, that game of Tetris of meeting after meeting after meeting, it's just like. Yeah, it's not a healthy thing. But I want to just pivot for a second here. Go back to something you said at the very beginning. You're talking about some of the just emotions of, of even where things stand in, in life right now and what a lot of us are dealing with. And you, you said lonely. You use the word lonely. And I think it was just recently, maybe it was a surgeon general that came out with a study about how loneliness is affecting people. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on that because it's. And I think the remote work situation might be another one of those lenses that you could look at that question about what loneliness is looking like for people, you know, through that lens as well.

Look, I think, I mean it's right there in the name remote. I mean, you're on your own, you're alone on an island. And, and again, imagine how you felt when you were with. Around other people. Like, imagine walking by people in an office and still feeling alone. Now you really feel alone. And to me, it's funny, I've always done like different purpose statements and the one that keeps coming up for me is I want to be the best friend I can be. I want to and I do. I blend work with, just keep it human, keep it real. And what does a good friend do? A good friend is a good listener. A good friend isn't afraid to deliver tough love. Tough without love is you're an asshole. But tough love, right. It comes from intention. And I don't see it any different than in our, our world. You know, I mean, yes, you're, you know, when your company Is called courageous. I think it does give you a little bit of permission to speak the truth if someone is stuck or scared or playing it safe. Right. But, like, I want to be the best friend I could possibly be. And if you know me, you know, like, I've always loved people, and it's just. That's all it is, is trying to, like, be on the hip of people and be there when they need you.

Well, it's loneliness is. Is a real thing, as you said, it preceded. Certainly preceded the pandemic and. And all the changes. But again, look, just looking at what we're hearing and what I think is real anxiety, people feeling more anxious, feeling more in a silo of sorts. I think is. Is on the. It's on the up swing. And, you know, I think it's just something we have to be aware of. So you, again, when you think about who's listening to this, there are people of all, you know, people that are in. In leadership roles, to be. To be sure. And people are wrestling with this idea of, you know, how. How do we get people back in the office where they want to come in? It's not mandatory where it's productive. It's not just checking a box that somebody's going, you know, hey, you know, how much we pay in rent every month to have, you know, like 30%. They can see, you know, places, crickets. It's a, you know, echo chamber. Got to get everybody back in. And there's business reasons for. For wanting to utilize space and all that stuff. But. But I think the future of work is here now. This is something was being discussed more than 20 years ago. The decentralization and allowing people more autonomy and more freedom, you know, would be something that was more than just a perk, but would become more of a norm. And I think that that certainly was accelerated. There's no turning it back now. It's just a question of where. Where do we calibrate from here and what. What does that look like?

You know, again, let's go back to the idea of loneliness. Like, why. Why are people lonely? It's, you know, if you really break it down, and I think I read somewhere recently, this is not my quote. I don't know how to cite where to cite it, but I just ran into 79 of people right now in America are coping with mental health issues. Four out of five. Okay, so. So again, why. What's going on? Is that loneliness? Is it not feeling like you belong to something, that you're a part of something? And so for one, I feel like this is a great time. If I'm the leader, if I'm listening to this podcast, think about your staff. Do they want to belong? Do they want to be part of what you're doing and what you're building? Imagine your business is a nation. You have citizens of the nation. Do they want to fly your flag? Are they proud of the flag you're flying? Do they want to tell their neighbors about what they're doing? I imagine like the companies, if I'm at Patagonia, the citizens of Patagonia know, right. What the. The national anthem of Patagonia is, and they fly that flag proudly. If I'm at Space X. Right. I understand that's a different flag. The citizens are there. They're passionate about being there. I think that's part of this, is as the leader, president of the. Of your citizens, why are people. Why do people want to be a part of what you're building? Are they proud to fly that flag? I think if the answer is yes, you probably have a real culture. Attrition's probably lower. Go back to Gary, right? Gary is so intentional. Gary Ridge is. And again, I have not had a chat with Gary Ridge outside of a coffee conversation when his nephew worked for me years ago. But like, like you said, that intentionality, a lot of people talk about, do they actually put their money where their culture is? And so I think when you do, you have a shot of losing that loneliness because people feel like they belong.

They belong higher. Cause, yeah, I think it just, again, these things are just exacerbating the kinds of issues, and we all have issues. So I'm not. This is not a, you know, like, some people have issues, some people don't. Let's call bull on that. Everybody's got issues and everybody's got mental health issues, frankly. Because, you know, what we call a mental health issue itself is an issue because it's not about being, you know, for Cocoa Puffs or being clinically depressed or clinically narcissistic or any of the other terms that get used, you know, on a pretty regular basis. Everybody is a work in progress, to put it mildly. And everybody's just their own little brand of up. And by that I mean we're all coping. And a lot of the ways that we learned how to cope, we learned in childhood. And some of those things that. That we did learn as a result of life trauma, etcetera, when we were too young to even be able to process it, even precognitively speaking, those coping Mechanisms are not good in adulthood. They don't necessarily serve us. My anger as a, as a 14 year old who needed to deal with bullies that I had since I was 5 years old. That anger, you know, might have served me in my 18 year stint as a, as a litigation attorney, but it was also killing me, which led to mine, you know, needing to create a midlife pivot instead of a midlife crisis for myself. So we have to just recognize that, that we're all dealing with stuff, processing and working through things. And you know, in these times, as you said, a business, an organization where people spend so much time can really be a catalyst for better health all around, better well being all around. We can create work cultures of well being. That's what our company workwell, is committed to doing. That's, that's an essential element of that. And you brought up Gary. I'll go back to the one you mentioned earlier, which was Tony, Tony Hsieh, when I became the CEO of a company was about the same size as yours, you know, little over 100 people. The first book I gave out to the entire company was Delivering Happiness. I mean like, it's a killer book. It's a killer manifesto on culture, as you said, on you know, having people, you know, want to wear the company, the company logo, the company mantra, the company colors, the company flag around them. You know, it's like, and that sense of belonging is, is a gap filler for sure. Like, and if you're still dealing in your life, wherever you are, you could be 20, you could be 60, but you still feel you're not good enough. Your self esteem isn't always 100%. You're not, you know, the most confident person walks into the room and many other things that are the remnants of our, of our childhood past and traumas, et cetera, Then to be around other people that you can feel, to use a term of art today, psychologically safe to speak, to be heard, to be seen to object, to do all those things. I mean that's, that's an environment like no other. That's not like being in fifth grade and being in a classroom. That's not that environment. That's definitely not eighth grade, you know, middle school environment. This is like, you know, we have an opportunity to create an environment that helps people to process and integrate things in their lives so that they, they, they actually are continuing to grow and can be as used to use your word, to be courageous in their lives. And that means to deal with fear. You know, that that's how I, you know, think of fundamentally.

So I totally agree. And I think go back to your Coliseum. I mean, the irony here is who really needs to go to the Coliseum first but yourself? And I think, never in the history of life call me off on this. This is audacious.

Do it.

Has there. Has there been a time where mental health has been more normalized than now growing up? I've never said mental health together. I said mental right? And I said health. I never said the words together. And what this, what this means is although a lot of our kids or a lot of the next generation workforce have their. They've got. Their. Mental health is a normalized term for them. Therapy. Therapy might be a normalized term for them. So the real problem is for guys around my age who are probably leading companies who never took themselves to the Coliseum and put the camera on themselves and figured out how to fix or address the shit that they've been suppressing.

Or just be aware, even.

Exactly be aware of it. And look, I'll tell you what, Adam. For the first time, for real, for the first time, someone introduced me to a possible client to run their off site. And I was on a call with this person and I'm like, I know I. I will not take this person's money because I can't help him solve the issue, because the issue is him.

Isn't that interesting?

It's the first time in my doing this, you know, where I was like, did I not have the courage then, like, to tell him that, like, you need to look like you are the problem?

Did you say that? I'm just. No, I'm not calling it. Thank you. All right. Thanks for being honest about that because I had a conversation just yesterday with somebody and yeah, that's probably. It's, you know, I'm not taking, I'm not deflecting this. I'll just say I don't, I don't think it's your job to do that. And, and I don't even know that it would have been appropriate to do that.

But I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. And by the way, my energy went away. So, like, here, this is how you know. Yeah, you know, like, here's how you know if you're in like the right place or the wrong place. I think three types of people in the world, people you gain energy from, people who drain your energy or people who. It's like an energy maintain. I don't think energy maintain is a great place to be either. By the way. But like, I got so small, like the air was gone. And I just knew in my heart, like, yeah, I know why there's a problem. It starts with the leader. And so anyone that's listening to this. Yeah, get that self awareness as you said, Adam, like, look in the mirror. You know, what do you need to do to like, better understand yourself? And, you know, we're kind of full circle on mentorship where I, where I missed early when I got to New York City, I'm like, I will not fail. I will not fail. I'm like, I'm ready to go. I will, I will live at this office. I will live here. I will not. There's no way I'm not going to be successful. And, and I did. I didn't have any money to like hang out in New York anyway. It was like, where's the free meal at 7pm you know the thing, Big network in New York City. But I closed myself off to mentorship until later in my life. And thank God my. One of my main mentors is a guy named Steve Willite who was hired by Steve Jobs years ago. And like, the amount of courage and confidence he gives me and he can be his tough love to me. So, yes, maybe that's the theme. It's like, I think mental health gets bigger and bigger if you don't find a mentor. I think mental health gets bigger if you don't at least acknowledge mirror, mirror on the wall.

Well, in part because. And Tom, again, you push back if you think this is inaccurate. I think we're the worst abusers on the planet of anybody we know. We abuse ourselves the worst meaning mentally, inside, in our, in our own thinking. So when you don't have a mentor to not only just call you out on yourself. And I, I was so blessed from really an early age. I mean, I want to say from like 8, from 17 to have had a series of mentors, including through my law practice. And some of them would out in ways that I, you know, I won't digress in, in this conversation to call to bring them up, but I mean, they were, I look back on them, they were hysterical and they were, they were just what I needed because, you know, because then I wasn't making up stories in my own head about what this stuff meant. So mentorship on one level is you're not alone. Like, if you've ever, I don't know, not everybody has ever spoken to a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Probably many people have at this point. But the first time you ever speak to one, if you have recollection of it, you know, it's like the first thing I got out of it was there's nothing wrong with me. Like I'm not unusual. My head is telling me is, it's like that's, you know, like, why are you so angry? You know, like, oh, and nobody's as angry as me. Like, that's not true. But to be unaware that you have a tendency to rage or where the rage comes from or any of that stuff, that's what's dangerous. And when a mentor is in your life, whether that mentor is a professional that you see and pay, and that's a psychologist, psychiatrist or someone else, or it's somebody that just takes an interest in you or is assigned to you, is to parlay what you said earlier about creating those collision rooms and, you know, messy conversations and sessions for that. That's brilliant. That's a brilliant, that's a brilliant recommendation. Because in that mentorship relationship you learn you're not alone, that you're, you're part of a big club. And that club, it's not a small club, it's a very big club. It's called humanity. And we all, and when we're born, we're blessed to be to enter into that large club. We think we're separate, we think somehow we're different, other people are different than us. We judge all that, right? In the end, we're going to all get the same answer. That's my view.

I think primally we're all afraid. And I do wonder. I have a theory. Again, permission granted. Since we're going to keep it honest, call me out on this if you disagree. I do think that a remedy, not the remedy, but a remedy for mental health is nothing more or less than clarity. And I think we're on a path that can be cloudy or when you don't know what you want, you don't know, then you're like racking your brain trying to find a path on a cloudy day. And I think if people had. And by the way, again, I'm a 47 year old man, right? Like it's been a journey to get to my version of clarity, but my mental health. And again, to your right, it's still not like I'm not talking to myself, I'm still, there's stuff I'm still navigating, but I have clarity for why I was put on this planet and, and I actually believe that. And there's belief and then I try to surround myself with people that can Help me fulfill that mission, and I'll give you. I think where it starts, by the way, is looking at, like, what do you truly value? And for me, my values, every decision I make is through the filter of four values. Optimism, creativity, courage, and excellence. And that's the order that they're in. And so as I. It's not even like I'm a robot, by the way. It's just these are the filters for where I spend my time. The leader I mentioned on the phone, I didn't sense optimism or creativity. Maybe you wanted to be excellent. We just had very different ways of going about it. And I think it starts by, like, getting clear on how you happened, why you wired the way that you are. If you're running a brand, you probably have values for the company while you're a brand, whether you like it or not. Adam Markle's a brand, Ryan Berman's a brand. What do I value? Have I actually treated myself like a brand? And, like, why am I wired this way? One more thing, and then I'm off the rant. You know when you talked about Adam, like, there's been shit that, growing up, pissed you off and you were angry. As an observationalist, my sense is usually when somebody violates a value of yours, even when we couldn't explain it, anytime you're angry, it's a violation of a value, right? Like your kids lie to you, right? Try to hide something from you and you're pissed at them or whatever it might be. Anytime you get pissed off, it's probably a violation of some known or unknown value that you've got. So why wouldn't you get clear on those values? You can understand why your emotions are going the way that they are. I'm like, oh, I get it. This person's an eeyore. And as an optimist, that's going to be hard for me because I see it. I see the opportunity I'm not going to spend for the next three days. What's the positive? And for that person, they're probably like, oh, my God, do not call Ryan Berman. He's going to spin this in a positive. The optimist in him, he can't even see it the other way. So the. The club of humanity, I think, is still broken into little clubs. You got to find the thing you're passionate about. Why you and I work is you recognize the journey you've been on. There's self awareness, I recognize the journey I am on, their self awareness, and it's like mutual respect in Both directions. Not everybody's like that. There's a lot of robots out there.

And I mean, to me, it's also about what you mentioned before, which is about energy. And so you get to a place in your life where what you really want to do is be around people who give you energy and that you can give energy to. So it's a really wonderful exchange. As opposed to, as you said, you describe, like an Eeyore or whatever, you know, and to me, that is a personal choice. You get to make a personal choice about who you're spending your time with and, and what the purpose of that time is. You know, we can't, as the saying goes, can't select some people in our lives. You know, there's family and friends, folks that you just. That's it. And that's, you know, that's fine. But. But there are a lot of other choices that we get to make.

You know, I'll say, why, why can't it be a professional choice if I'm a leader of a company?

It absolutely can, and it ought to be. Yeah, it ought to be. I mean, when you're, when you're a leader, just, you know what it's like, you're wanting to create a great team and, you know, that's either something you do consciously or without a lot of consciousness. And I think, I think in, in large part, everything we're talking about really has a great deal to do with consciousness because this. And that's something that, that, at least in my own experience, happens with time. It happens with age, it happens with experience, it happens with. With a lot of things coming apart at the seams. And, you know, maybe in the last section of our talk here, we could talk a little bit about what does it look like when things do come apart at the seams or they, or there's the feeling that they might even. Because I think part of what's causing those mental health challenges for a lot of people today is this just tremendous, unknown lot. Just so much uncertainty and anxiety about the uncertainty. And look, I haven't been. Been around the Maypole times than. Than some, but I, but yes, I have been around that poll more times than others. And so I've seen a few things. I've watched the economy crater and, and gone through cycles where, you know, look like the sky was falling and, and I watched businesses succeed that I've been a part of and I've watched them fail, and I've been a part of those failures, and I've been a part of Those successes. So just like you, Ryan, right? We've been. We've been around long enough to have seen some of that stuff and to have gained some level of resiliency out of it. So I want to ask you about that. I want to find out how you've been resilient in your career and your reinventions in your life even. And that could take any number of. You know, like, we can tackle it from a mental side, an emotional side, a physical side, spiritual side. Whatever you like, buddy.

I think that it's. We're back to consciousness, right? Like, I think there's a famous Japanese proverb that fear and courage are brothers. You actually can't get to the courageous choice without first channeling it through fear. But a lot of times when things start to come apart at the seams, we're so afraid that we suppress the fear versus address the fear. And I think leaders, many leaders think that they're supposed to have all the answers when sometimes it's about just posing the questions. And I think this is one of those scenarios. And to your point, we've both been around the block. I've gotten this wrong. I've gotten this right. I could get it wrong the next time. I think as a leader, what feels like over communicating is just communicating. And so if you feel like something is coming apart at the seams, at the business, there's a way to do it where. With tact and grace, that the sky isn't falling. And there's a way to do it where it's not hubris or pretend mode, that it's all figured out. And it becomes, in the sharing economy, just another thing that's shared. Usually when you surround yourself with the right people, they want to be part of the solution. They don't want to be told the solution. And it's like, this is a real. This is our reality right now. It's messy out there, and I think it's coming right at it versus burying that fear, burying the thing that you're afraid of. And it starts. I think it starts there. It just starts by bringing, like, I think the more we bury it and the more time that goes by, the harder it is to recover. And you think you have to hold on to it. And that maybe that's why we're lonely, is that we're. We're so holding on to the things that we feel are ours. And it's not about sharing the anxiety, but it is about sharing, like, what's at stake and what we're dealing with. And what we're coping it and normalize it. Don't make it more scary than it needs to be. To me, this is part of the leader is acknowledging it can be a shared reality for all. Just do it in a way that's not. The sky is falling and now it's your problem and you figure it out. No, it's a we problem and I think that's how it starts. Again, no, by no means am I making it sound like a solution is easy. There is reality on this. Maybe there's a cutback of people. Nobody likes to do that. But like, again, I would go at it and stay human as you do it versus what a lot of people do is they think they want to own it and they just bury it and then it's too late to address it.

So I want to turn it really on you now in terms of just your own personal brand and your business brand, which is about courage. So what's the connection between resiliency, having made it this far, having learned as much as you've learned all that good stuff, what's the connection between your brand and resiliency?

So the way I, I've tried to articulate this in the past because I think there is nuanced differences. So, like, let's agree that we don't get a say on change. It starts there. Like, change is happening whether you like it or not. You actually don't get a say. Look, Pandit, did anyone like vote for the pandemic? Probably some biotech or farm suburb pharmacy, pharmaceutical might have. But realistically, like, nobody wanted the pandemic. We had to. That change happened to us. I think when change drives us and we have to really see what we're all about, that is an act of resilience. I think when you drive change and you're hitting the gas and you're proactive about it, that is an act of courage. They're both great skills that are needed. There's a lot of times where you're gonna have to respond and react to what's happening in life and resilience shows up. Change drives me. How do I respond to that change? Are we just gonna bury that thing? No, we're gonna come together and show our grit. That to me is resilience. When it's time to play offense and we're going to drive change, we're going to be proactive. So that is where courage shows up. That's it. Changes happen. That's the primal part. You drive change, change drives you. To me, that's the Difference between the two.

Yeah, I so appreciate that. I'm, I'm gonna, I can't help myself because it's, it's such a great, almost like planned lead into this. But I think the issue with resilience on some levels is for people, how you described it. And by that I mean the paradigm of resilience that, that we have to, we use it to get through stuff. That it's about grit or grind or perseverance, persistence, tenacity. Any of those kinds of concepts. Yeah, there's an element of that that has worked for me in my life, that I'm a tenacious person, that I'm, you know, usually not too easy. You know, quitting is not, is not on the menu typically, unless it's like, like that's the only thing left on the menu, all that good stuff. And yet that for me was a road to exhaustion. Where I ended up in the hospital, where I ended up feeling. Feeling as though my life was, was spiraling out of control. And, and where I was having my own mental health challenges was when I continued to play that paradigm represents to me this grit, this grind card over and over and over again. I think you're right. The pandemic revealed in so many, in so many instances a lot about us. Not just even what we're made of, but just revealed things that were hidden from view, including to me, the fallacy of the idea that we can continue to grind and grind and grind and grind without a cost and a really, you know, kind of a cost that's not, you know, that we wouldn't want to negotiate for. So to us, the resilience work is, is really more about how we recover. And that's where I think our, you know, courage and resilience aligns really well for me. And what I love about what you're, what you do, what your company does, what your brand is all about, because it, it takes courage to create your, to take care of yourself primal, just primal thing. Because we think that self care is selfish. And people don't realize that you've got to develop resilience before you need it. If you truly want to be able to weather everything you just said, which is constant, never ending, you know, change, blastic change in the environment of, of your making, and of many times, most times, not your making, then you've got to be developing your skills to, to thrive in those environments and be creative in those environments long before the fan. And I think that's. That takes a lot of courage to commit.

I think in the spirit of being courageous. I, I think that you have a harder sell, like you're in an insurance policy, right? Like you need resilience, but you don't know you need resilience until you need resilience. Right? I mean, and so I think, I think you're hard. Like, I'll get brought in.

I don't think that's true anymore. It might have been, but I think right now everybody sort of realizes, especially call it, you know, whatever the things are, the pandemic, great, you know, great resignation, quiet quitting, you know, attrition rates, engagement rates, mental health. I mean, people are just all kinds of banged up, right? Don't we get that already?

I sure hope so. I mean, from the right leader. Right? But I agree. I meant that, like, I already think courageous is a hard sell, right? Because I think a business leader looks at the word and I know you never get a hundred percent of someone's attention. You get like 18%, and they're like, my wife said this, and I gotta go pick up my laundry. And they're like, courageous. No, we're fine. Carry on. But what happens if. If a, If a business really is stuck or, you know, they're spinning on something or they feel like, okay, we've been a little too safe and we need. We do probably need to be a little bit more brave. I could see the moment where maybe I get a phone call and you're right. Like, if you don't see the power of resilience now, you're never going to see, like, wouldn't you want a resilient workforce? And to be honest, there's probably. You probably know half of your workforce is resilient just from out the response to the pandemic. Right. I'm making that number up. I'm just wondering, you know, who.

It's actually about 64 points. I'm only saying that because, I mean, we, we, you know. Well, I. That's based on a. On a data set of about 6,000 liters. So it's not, it's not probably wide enough. But yeah, you get a lot of people who have made it, made it this far, and they are resilient. And it's just the question of, like, to what, to what extent, like, to what extent are you mentally, emotionally, physically resilient?

Purpose and for what purpose? For what? To me, we're back to that. That the point I was attempting to make on, like, the remedy to mental health could be clarity. Do I really feel like I belong to the cause? Am I Willing, like, if I was like, would you go 15 rounds? Because that's really what business is, right? Like, will you go 15 rounds for something you don't believe in? Why? Oh, okay. You need a paycheck. I get it. I don't necessarily want that for me. But if I'm like, would you go 15 rounds for what you absolutely believe in, even if it's not totally figured out, you don't know how this box boxing match is going to go. Yeah, especially because I'm not the only one in the ring now, because I know that everybody else is in here with me trying to figure this thing out. We will. We will box, we will fight. And so I think when you have that, you know, we're kind of back to. This is, you know, it's not the facts, it's the feels. As I like to say, when you have the feels and people feel like they're in. I will fight if I, you know, just like you have your spiel, the world needs more courage, and if I could be part of that, I could inspire teams to be more courageous and, by the way, teach them how to do that in a way that's not a reckless move. That's a pretty good life. I'm down with 15 rounds. But when you don't have that clarity of where you're going, you can see why, like, people are spinning.

I mean, it's. I'd say it's. It's almost obvious in hindsight. You know, you look backwards at things. Right. It's obvious, and that's why hindsight's 20 20. Yeah, it's. I think. I think right now the world needs more courageous leaders. There's no two ways about it and how you. How you develop your courage and. And where it. Where you can grow it. I had a Navy SEAL on the show a couple of years ago who talked, but I still remember about it, you know, about him saying that courage is contagious, and the seals, courage is contagious. Fear is contagious.

Yeah.

Good attitude or bad attitude contagious. Right. These are. All these things are contagious, resilience, contagious. And it's, you know, the. I think the way people feel today, on some level, at least, based on. On where things have netted out in. In our conversations and what we've been really. It's a privilege, right, when people let you into their organization to look at. Look under the hood. I'm sure I know you feel the same way, Ryan, but it's a. It's genuinely A privilege. I mean, I feel like I'm being, you know, brought to the dinner table, someone's home, and you get to, you know, watch everything, like the kids fighting, the parents, you know, whatever the food that gets served, just the whole, you know, process. It's an intimate look. So I don't, we don't take any of that lightly. And honestly, it is, It's a, It's a, it's an honor. What we hear is that a lot of people, they don't feel like it's a 15 round thing. It's like every day it's another. It's like another round. Like. So if you said, hey, can you go 15 yards, 15 rounds for the cause, for the thing you're passionate about? You go like, of course. And, and would you not go that distance if it was for something else? Yeah, got. It's like, like, what about the cause that you feel passionate about? But every day, you know, like, it's, it's a, there's no, there's no end to the rounds like this. It's not 15 rounds. It could be a thousand rounds. You go, come on, man. Like, how much do you want from me for a lousy, you know, for whatever that paycheck is? How much do you want from me? My life, my soul, my, you know, like, anyway.

But that, but it's back to energy, right?

It's back to energy, right?

Because if it lights you up, you. You will go a thousand, right?

Else you might.

And you're grateful. Just like you said, it's an honor for them. It's a privilege. Like the amount of thought it takes to come to that conclusion. And that's context, because I feel the same way. It's like, I'm so grateful when someone reads my stuff. We have a conversation and we connect. And to the point that they're like, I trust you to come in and help me here. And you're just like one thank you, universe that I'm not crazy. That my logic and my point of view is landing with others and is.

Value and is valuable. Like when you.

Valuable? Yeah, Yeah, I think that's it. And it's like they want. They want to be courageous or they want to be resilient. They want their cultures to be courageous. They want to help their people. And like, you get the opportunity to come in and keep it real and be on their hip, and it's not transactional. It's. It's like there's a relationship there. And so just like you feel. And by the way, part I think of the journey, even though you don't know it at the time, is maybe you're exactly, precisely where you're supposed to be at every phase. When you're 24 and you think you know everything, you're actually supposed to be where you are. And like the most primal way to describe it is like everyone remembers their favorite boss and their least favorite boss. You have to go through those experiences.

Exactly. Yeah. I mean I would say is we're, we'll take a couple more minutes here and wrap up. I feel like it might even seem like, I don't know if people are listening to this, thinking we're saying something like that we're like, like in opposition. I don't mind being in opposition, but I think this is like a Venn diagram more than it is anything else. Because there's an element of, in my view of resiliency for people where courage has a major, it's a major component of that. And I would imagine that when it comes to being courageous, if you're exhausted and depleted and anxious, you're not going to be likely, you'll be less likely to be courageous in that head space or that, you know, physical space. So, so I think these things are super compatible. One thing like you said that when you, you've been in, you have a bit more self awareness and you, you able to look at things objectively speaking, you go, well, I don't want to run, I don't want to run an organization that's just about how do I extract, what can I extract from whatever it might be from the marketplace, from my employees. To me, that's what, that's, that's what's depleting and that's what's being objected to in the world. And I think to again bring it back home to courage. What's been courageous is people saying I'm not going to put up with that and I'll leave and find someplace else. Of course they take themselves with them wherever they go and you know, all that good stuff. Right? But, and they'll find problems everywhere they go. But it takes a lot of courage to just push back and go, no, I don't need to feel guilty about going to therapy if I don't need to feel guilty about attending my kids recital instead of being in the office past the point of what makes sense. I, I don't need to feel, you know, bad that I'm not going to work extra hours, even though that might be what is being modeled by some of my own leadership. I Mean, that's, that takes a. Of courage.

I have a shameless promotion alert. But I guess if we've made it to the hour mark, I can go there at this point.

And by the way, yeah, we're gonna have a lot of stuff about, about Ryan and his work in the show notes, so you can get more there. But go ahead, plug away, buddy.

Yeah, well, two things. One, I totally agree with you. I don't think we're on opposite sides of this at all. I think it's. It's like, it's basically the school of mentality and they're two separate courses in the same galaxy. It's like, I don't, I don't see how you get to one without the other, frankly. And it comes back to awareness and consciousness as a starting point before you get into the rest. Two, so this is the shameless plug. So I have a weekly dose of courage that goes out every Thursday. And I'd say six weeks, eight weeks ago, I wrote one. I think we both live it, but you tell me if I'm off. It was about, you have to care and not care at the same time. And I think, like, when you deeply care about your purpose, then sometimes you have to not care about what other people think. Now, you don't have to be an. You could have grace and tact and be thoughtful about what you say and how you say it. But what I think I learned from coming out of story and marketing is that the very best brands on the planet pick a lane. They don't try to be all things to all people, and they, they're passionate about what they're talking about and they're at peace. Like I said, I'm not going to be able to help every Eeyore on the planet. And it's an energy drainage. If there's an optimist with a problem, I'm your guy. And I'm trying to, like, direct myself down that path. And it's. And that's hard. Like, that's caring and not caring at the same time. I can't. There's 340 people, 340 million people in America alone. I'm not going to be everybody's best friend. If I could get 3.4 million, if I get 1%, inspire 3.4 million people to be courageous, I could transfer the light to them and then they can all, all unlock one person. Now we're talking. And so I try to stay intentional about, like, I can't save everybody. Like, let me stay focused on what I'm Best in. That's aligned with my values. Care and don't care at the same time.

Well, I was going to ask you, how do you maintain your own resiliency, but I think I feel like you just answered the question. I'll reflect it back to you. I feel like when, when managing your own energy and you're shaking your head up and down for people who can't see so. Right with that.

Yeah, I agree with that.

You finish it, then I. I'll just say managing your own. Tell me.

Yeah, I like you. This is. It sounds. This is good to me.

I feel like that's one of the key ways, you know, people are always asking, you know, what are the, you know, the tactical things? And I'm a big believer in, in a. Something we call a recovery map that creates these zones during the day that are everything from 60 second things to things that last 30 minutes at most. But tactically speaking, you know, managing your energy is a big deal. And just what you just described, I mean, that's, That's a big deal. Not setting yourself up for failure by trying to be, you know, pleasing to everybody. What, what a nightmare and hellish experience it is to try to please everybody or be liked by everybody. Huh?

And I've been there.

Oh, I'm saying I'm recovering. Still recovering from that pleasing nature or whatever.

I would say, I would challenge you as a listener. How valuable are your values? Get to know them and then use those for filters. Because my gut says your energy levels will be higher if you're meeting people or working on things, things that align with those values. And when you surrender those. The worst word in the dictionary is not moist. That's up there. It's actually tolerable. What. Tolerate is the worst word dictionary. I will tolerate that behavior. That is a violation of who you really are.

Right.

So get to know, like, do the exercise, figure out your personal core values and like, get clear on that. And then like, like you said, you can't do it with everybody. You've got family. But for those you can do it with, with. I'd be, I'd be curious to see, like, who really aligns with your values and who doesn't.

Yeah. And then plus, plus that, that statement earlier, which is, you know, what are you tolerating? What a great question to ask yourself on a daily basis. You know, what, what am I tolerating to? Do I tolerate mediocrity? Do I tolerate it? Where do I, you know, like, where are you? Where, where and what? It's It's a deep, you know, it's a thing you take a walk on. It's a thing you sit in stillness on that you pray on, whatever. You know, your thing is, that's what I do. And I get those moments of clarity. So I think for me today in our conversation really is that word clarity you brought up. Because this, there's just something that is very affirming and very energized, you know, like literally regenerates the energy when you have, when you have clarity. You know, we do a lot of things in a, in a moment. We could do a lot of things when we have a moment of clatter clarity. You know, as I heard, you know, said once upon a time, you know, we make it this, we get married, you know, ask somebody to get married in a moment, you know, we'll start a war in a moment with fight in a moment. You know, it's like a lot of things that happen in just a moment. So that moment is powerful. If you can create clarity, just think about what is possible from that clarity. So. And you don't do that when you're just going from one matrix event to another, right. From one meeting to the next, that just, you don't get a lot of clarity in a day like that. Just get wiped out. Yeah.

To your point, be intentional about creating space to think. Right. Don't hate to think, man free to think.

Exactly. Buddy. I knew you're, you're such a wordsmith, you're such a, a thoughtful person and leader that I, I was already knowing we, we'd have a great vibe today. Love the conversation, love every ounce of it and all the insights you added. So again for the audience, our beautiful community show notes, we'll have just chock full of things about those insights that Ryan sends out, as well as more information about his work as a keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, consulting organization that he runs. So lots in there. If you have questions for Ryan and or myself, then you can go to AdamMarkel.com comment, leave your question, your comment there. I promise, as always, it's not a bot, it's not chatgpt. It's going to be one of us that responds to that. So thank you for doing it ahead of time. Also, if you know somebody, somebody that would just, you know, resonate with some of the things you heard here today, it's our request, as always, share this podcast with a friend, a family member, a colleague, somebody that you think could benefit from it. Please do that. And lastly, a request that if you feel good about the show. Rate it, give it a. Give it a rating. 5 stars is always lovely. We love that. But whatever rating makes sense to you because that just tells the algorithm what to do next. And what we want, you know, is the same thing you want. We want it to get out to more people and have more people's lights and light turn on, to use Ryan's lovely words. And with that, I will say ciao. And once again, Ryan, thank you so much for your time today, buddy.

Thanks, Adam. Good to see you, man.

Oh, I had such a great time speaking with my buddy Ryan Berman on our Change Proof podcast today. I hope you love that episode as well. I'm going to just do a little summary here of what I got out of it, and I feel like there's so much rich conversation and shared insights. He and I, we wrestled, chewed on a few things together. We talked about loneliness. That is not an easy subject for, For. For any of us. I think we all have bouts of loneliness. We feel it's. And it's not. It's. There's nothing. It's something we need to pay attention to, of course, and it can bring us down. We can feel in need of support. We shouldn't feel alone. Even feeling lonely is something we should know. We're not alone in. We're not alone about that. It's something we all feel and we feel from time to time. And. And we also feel it profoundly at times. And in those moments, in those times when we do feel it profoundly, we need to have. Have the support of other people around us, people that, that we feel get us. As. As Ryan was talking about, you know, being in an environment where you feel as though you belong is. Is one of those sort of antidotes to that feeling of isolation that, again, is gripping so many people right now. And it's something that we have to. We have to just be aware of. We have to look out for ourselves, and we got to look out for other people around us when we see it. We talked about delivering happiness, about the concept that, that Tony Hsieh, the late, great Tony Hsieh, brought to the table in his formation of a company that many of you have heard of called Zappos. And it was really, you know, a very creative process of creating a culture where. Where people again, felt as though they belonged, felt as though they could express themselves, that they had psychological safety in the workplace, which was a term that was not in use. It was not a term of art at the time. That Tony Hsieh was the founder and CEO of that company. But it has since become the case and it is ultimately very important. Ryan talked about collision, the collision of ideas. We talked a little bit about WD40 culture and collision culture. There really had a wonderful conversation about, about this coliseum, if you will, of. Not of combat, but of collision, of messy conversations and opportunities for people to connect and share ideas and innovate and disagree and all of that. That which is I think what was modeled in my, my discussion with Ryan today. We know each other, we're friends, we're colleagues and, and, and so we had a, you know, we chewed on a bunch of things together. It was really, really inspiring for me to, to listen to him share his own personal philosophy of business, his life experiences around it. We talked about the difference in the distinction, if there is one, even between courage and courage culture in an organization and resilience culture in an organization. I think there's quite a bit of overlap there. Venn diagram, if you will, things that are not mutually excl. Collaborate, coordinate, cooperate quite well in crafting culture that is effective, that enables people to feel seen, heard, to have their needs met. To be a place where people want to spend time, where they will wear the company colors and sing the company anthem and, and walk the walk and talk the talk of, of what that brand is all about. And that's not an easy thing to create. And it can. And it really takes its genesis from leadership, from the, the highest levels of leadership. So I am such a proponent of looking at how we make well being workplaces and work cultures of well being the norm and not the exception to the corporate rule that has existed for so very long. And that's the work that our team is at, workwell is committed to. And that when I get out and, and give keynote presentations on resilience, that's what I'm talking about. How it is that we, we, we sort of debunk this myth that resilience is about endurance and how much you can grind and grit your way through challenges and changes, but rather how it is that you ritually recover so that you can go the distance, so that you always have the capacity to deal with whatever is around the corner, whatever the, the next wave that's breaking is, whatever the next uncertainty or unknown is that would create anxiety in the, in the ordinary situation, but with the resilient. Stress is not something we shy away from because we have a recovery mechanism to deal with it. So you know, as Peter Drucker might have said, you know, we eat it for breakfast. I so enjoyed this conversation. I hope that you did as well, and I hope that you will share it with a friend or a family member or a colleague that might need to hear some of these things. If you want to take a snapshot or get a snapshot view of your own level of resilience in this very moment, there's no limit to the number of times that you can find this out because it's different. Different. And hopefully it based on these conversations that we're curating here and that you're consuming that your resilience levels are increasing, you can go to resiliencerank.com resiliencerank.com and in just two to three minutes, 16 simple questions in four specific zones of resilience, you will find out how resilient you are mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually. I so appreciate you being a part of this community. Thank you so much for your support. If you've got questions or comments, always, always welcome to leave them at AdamMarkel.com forward slash comment and I'll be the one to respond to those. But for now I'll just say thank you so much as always and we'll see you in the next episode.

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