Unleash Courage: Building Conviction and Confronting Fears with Ryan Berman

Your CNS is an awesome system designed to be like, hey, watch out for that. Be wary of that. That's a fear over there. But when we don't develop a central current system, we allow the nervousness and anxiety to rule our lives. And we've never created any sort of construct to go, oh hey, thank you nervous system for doing your job. I object to that. I understand you're trying to keep me saf. I'm still gonna go ahead with this courageous risk.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experiences and and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger, so that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

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We're back. This is around two. Mr. Ryan Berman, how you doing today?

I mean, what a metaphor, you know, I mean, I do think. Do you feel that for most people, I feel like when Friday rolls around at like 4pm you're like, I went 15 rounds again this week. And like, you just try not to get knocked out. And is that just a me thing or do you think people feel like, ding, round three, here we go. Ding, round four, here we go. Do you feel that?

I do feel that, man. And I think of it's how can I stay in the game longer? How can I watch my energy, you know, make sure I'm not putting it everywhere throughout that week, throughout life, you know, got more than just business, the.

Business week or that. It's like, oh, oh, this one's not 15 rounds. This is 27 rounds. Because that's what it feels like too. And it's. It. It is. It's like, hey, if you focus on the 15 and the 27 rounds, you're in trouble. But, like, I just need to get through round three or. So this is round two, right? Let's get through. Ding. Let's get through round two. Where am I? Where am I jabbing? Where am I throwing punches? Where am I being proactive? Don't get knocked out, be careful, get to the next round. And this concludes the podcast, right? Are we done? Are we wrapped?

That's the moral of the story. Yeah.

Let's get to round three right away.

Let's hit stop and re. Record.

Dang.

I love your metaphors. I always have, man. And. And that's where it's always fun hanging out with you, bro.

And thanks, Joe.

Yeah, it's cool to be, you know, share a mastermind, but outside of that, tons of friends, we just happen to run into each other. And I know you're a busy man. Yeah, that's probably why you brought this metaphor up. I mean, what, is life feeling pretty.

Full right now for you?

I'm just kind of assuming.

Yeah, but it's, you know, there's no, poor me. Oh, I'm. Oh, poor Ryan, he's busy. You know, I mean, I think, you know, we're. I think what it does is as you step back, you can recognize that a lot of companies are, you know, feeling this is a Burmanism. But, like, are you stuck? Are you scared? Are you stale? Are you safe? And I think we're getting hired because there's a place where a Company does feel stuck or stale. They're spinning. Right.

They're just.

They're just not able to push for whatever reason and take. They're talking a lot, but not a lot of action. And. Yeah, so it's been a. It's been a busy six months, but it's good. Like, I love that I get to do this. And, you know, both of us call San Diego home. I pretty much call it my storage unit at this point because I'm living on planes. But I've seen you.

But I'm traveling. You're doing a lot.

Yeah, but it's cool. I get. I enjoy the work and I enjoy having hard conversations with clients and also helping, helping them get clear. And it's been this month alone, we were. I guess I have to be careful what I say and how I say it, but, you know, we were out in Chicago with Kraft Heinz, with their global leaders, and then had a chance to jump into Michigan and work with a company called Spartan Ash and run there what we call a courageous summit. 3 day off site and just trying to help them get aligned and bring inspiring speakers and help them get ready for 2024. Right. I think that's. If you're not planning for 24 now, you're probably.

Going to be responding and reacting a lot to what happens in 2024.

You're probably behind already. Yeah, correct.

Yeah, exactly.

From your travels and because you work.

With some incredible companies and, you know, people can dive through. You've already named some, but just go check out Courageous. You know, your, your company, your agency, but also Courageous podcast. Just the type of people that are going, you know, that you have as guests top CEOs and leaders of massive brands, nonprofits, causes, athletes. You get a lot of input. I know you're. You're tapped in with the right people. So I'm curious, like, speaking into this whole planning into 2024 and beyond. We know the world is very uncertain for a lot of people, but also companies. What are like the top three things you're seeing that are pretty common obstacles that people are starting to realize?

I mean, number one, by far, it's the reality of fear. And the fear looks different depending on the business. For some companies, the fear might be.

Hybrid work, like trying to figure out remote work. And like big companies that know that some of their employees only know three days a week in the office and they're, they're like that. They're like, nope, time to. Time to come back in. And they're afraid they're going to Lose their people and rightfully so. Right. Because that's all they've ever known. Two, I would say many are focused, in my opinion, on.

The wrong inputs.

A lot of performance marketing, short sighted wins, you need short sighted wins, but at what cost? And so, you know, as a guy that values slow cooked brand building, which I do, I think let's not forget that brand equals trust. And if you don't have a brand and you're just jamming sales down the throats of your customers, I believe that will run out. And so have the courage to find that right blend of when it's I need performance marketing, but I also need preference marketing, brand matters. I think brands going to continue to be something that's more important than people think. And then three, I think.

Making sure the right people understand that. So this isn't about just coming to the side of marketers and brand builders. Because I came from that world, I now have the luxury of going behind the curtain and sitting with elts, executive leadership teams or C suites. And if you break down the makeup of a C suite, like 85%, this is me throwing a dart. By the way. 85% are on one side of the brain, right? Chief Legal Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Sales Officer, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer. Right. And then there's this poor sad chief Marketing officer that's trying to like hold their position on the importance of story.

And the story, I think the story goes something like this, hey, Chief marketing Officer, where are the customers? We need customers. Can you get it at this cost? Can you justify that? Where's the data?

And I, I believe that if there's one story that rules them all right now, it's that, hey, everybody else in the C suite, don't forget that the story starts on the inside of the culture. Have you landed on something that's real, that can then work on the inside and truly be shared on the outside? I just had a conversation this week with Xanthi Wells from Pinterest. I think she's gonna come on the podcast. She's a badass guy. She's so cool. And she's like, I've never had, I don't think I'm giving anything away. She's like, I've never had a big idea land faster with the culture. And so she gets that when you get it right on the inside, retention goes up, word of mouth goes up, people stay longer, people want to rally around that idea. And a lot of agencies I think right now are being told, hey, can you help me find customers, so they're telling a story to the outside world and it may or may not be in alignment with the reality of the culture. And I think this is the biggest mistake that companies are going to continue to make in 2024 and beyond.

So I'm thinking of the hybrid work culture, like you said, and we're all. Or just purely remote that some things have gone to, you know, and it's like the culture bit is, I would imagine, so different now to rally the troops from the inside and then have that permeate out. So I mean, where would you suggest someone like, let's just assume most people have at least a hybrid element in their business. Maybe it's fully remote even and people listening here. So like, where would you start to focus on that internal bit that can then permeate out elsewhere?

Yeah, what a surprise. I've got a bit, a bit on this. And again, I think when you come from the lexcon land, you're gonna, you're thinking about this stuff all the time. And so I always say if, if you want to win remote work, it better be emote work.

Right? It better be emotive. Like, you better be clear if you're going to let people and, and look, this is real like the, and the good news is what the good news is if you now have a good product or good brand and people want to work with you, they could be on the east coast, west coast, Austin, they could be anywhere. And that's also the bad news because now my house is in office. I now have headquartered in 700 places because people are living everywhere, right? So you better find that rally cry. And it has to be clear that aligns everybody, right? And if you don't, they're gonna do the guesswork for themselves. And it's probably going to be some ambiguity, which is why I still think getting clear and communicating that and doing so consistently, repeaters make believers. So you have to know what you're saying and then you need to say it over and over and over again. Think Jim Collins. And good to great said the signature of a pedestrian company was persistent inconsistencies.

Yeah, yeah.

Which means like, oh, New year, new a new idea. Wait, how we shifted already. It's a new year, new mantra. I've always told, even when I've done keynotes, like, why are we changing the theme from last year? I didn't need to be at that theme. But be consistent with what you're asking. It's going to take a thousand days for this stuff to land. And what you really want to do is share like, yes, this is still important. Yes, this is still important. And so I think as you land on that emote idea, that that's emotional, that makes people want to stick around that story. That's. That narrative needs to happen from the inside out. So when you're not being watched because you live in seven states away, you know how to operate and you know how to get aligned with what's important to the company.

You know, that permeates everything, I would imagine that goes out onto the website, that comes out in your content. Obviously, it starts with us as leaders, with our team, so reminding folks, like, are there actionable ways that you. You find people get the most success out of this to start that momentum and keep it up. The whole boxing round analogy, again, it's like, yeah, 500 rounds later, it's like, we better be kind of stout our, you know, piping the same kind of thing to everyone for consistency.

Yeah. I think, you know, this is probably not surprising, but words matter, right? How you say it and what you say matters. And have you landed on, you know, just to talk about the old know your why? Right? It's like, it's not just know your why, it's. There has to be a rally cry in that why. What is the rally cry that people want to stick around for? And it's. It is incredibly complicated to come up with something clean, simple, that can break through the complex, but when, again, you're not there to defend, can sing and hum on its own. You know, we talk about, at Courageous, we talk about fighting fear since 2019. You know, we, we're corporate fear fighters. Like, we want to hunt. Hunt the fear that's inside your organization. And, and we want to bring it to the surface. We want to address it versus suppress it. And I think it starts by having the hard conversation of like, all right, where's the fear? Is there a. Is there an industry fear that could take the whole vertical down, yours included? Or are you the vertical fear? Are you the industry fear? Right. Is there a perception fear which is marketing? Right. We always said we were this, but the world sees us as that. Okay, now at least we know what fear we're trying to take down. Is there a product fear? Where could the product be better? Have we addressed that? Are we putting the investments toward that? Is there a service fear from a customer service standpoint? Is there a personal fear? Right. Like, I'm afraid that if I speak up, I'm on an island and I'm going to get Fired. So the frameworks that we have it in Courageous. We always say that fear and courage are brothers. They're two sides of the same coin. You can't get to the courageous move without first channeling it through fear. And so helping our companies fight that fear, hunt that fear, understand that fear, and shrink that fear down is usually where we start. And then, you know, this is very soapboxy, so forgive me, but, like, you know, if you don't know what you stand for, you never know when to take a stand. And that's where we think. Oh, okay. We said we stood for this method Soap the people. Against dirty. Are you for dirty or against dirty? Joe, Are you for dirty or against dirty?

I'm against it, I guess. I don't know. I kind of want to be for it, though.

Just if I. I can tell you, only in one keynote I've shared this with, and they said it depends what time it is. I was like, okay, touche. Okay. I didn't see that coming. But yeah. So to me, for us, it's, are we fighting fear? Are we hunting it? Are we bringing it out and addressing it with leaders?

Yeah. I would imagine when fear is. It's like that whole awareness thing. It's like once it becomes aware of, like, what is the fear and clearly define it, go to that. Whatever place you got to go to to hunt down the root of that fear. After you realize it is fear that might be stopping you, because that's probably even the awareness as before, have been finding the root, I would imagine, then I'm sure that builds us to the courageous point, you know, where we can actually start to feel confident about, like, oh, shit. Yeah. That's the thing that's been keeping me stale, stagnant, whatever it might be.

I don't. I mean, I guess I don't have data to support this, but I do wonder how often a company knows the fear, but just haven't addressed it. Haven't, like, are afraid to even bring.

It up, you know, like, resistant to any of that.

Yeah, right. I mean, that's why one of my favorite little memes that that was out there was from Netflix, and they're like, you can do it. Keep going. Never forget we started at DVDs, right. Like, you know, it's. Everything is there, and they got that. Better for them to cannibalize their business than to be out of business altogether. And they figured out a way to address the fear and push through it and move on.

Yeah. Without losing yourself in the process, you know? Yeah. And Having what you define and what you can take a stand for, which is probably the biggest things, because I've definitely been a culprit over the years of changing things up. And obviously this year, you know, new. No co host since the last time Lost. I lost the Mateo over here. But you know what? It's great because it's redefined. It's been a. This whole year, you know, 10 months now has been redefining. What is that, you know, the mission behind what I'm doing here at Hustle and Flowchart, the type of people I want to talk. Talk with here and curate specifically. So it backs up that mission.

Look, Courageous podcast, same thing. I had a. I had a co host when I started, and I'm grateful. Like, without that co host, I. I probably wouldn't have gone in the podcast space. I'm, like, beyond grateful. We had a po. We had a podcast. I had a co host and I had a producer. And, you know, just talked to the producer last week and still, like, mutual respect and root for what they're doing. But, like, I also know how much I've grown since that started. And so that's the cool thing. It's. It's not yet. Change happens, right? You don't get. Really get a say on change happens, but it's. If you can drive the change and you're proactive about driving that change, usually that. That is an act of courage. And I think when. When change is driving us and you're responding to that change, that is an act of resilience, and people confuse the two. So you drive change. Hit the gas. That's courage. Change drives us. We're responding. Like, none of us. None of us voted for Covid, I hope, right? Like, we had to respond to that. Right?

And so you got to see how resilient people are. And as you move forward into what you do, just like me, it's like, okay, where do I get to hit the gas? Where do I get to. You know, I know that community is a big, big piece of what I want to do moving forward.

I don't have a lot of Tony Robbins quotes. The one that I do have that I like was, we overestimate what we can do in a year, and we underestimate what we can do in 10. And so I launched Courage Week this year for the first time in September. It was more of a digital content that we were sharing. But where I really want to go, Joe, is how do I start to bring all these people together that I've met Who in some ways it could be really, really lonely to be you as the leader. And I'm like, if I could just connect all these people, good things will come of it. And that's the plan.

It's so similar to what I want to do too and what I'm actively doing with people in podcast or brands more so that leverage podcasting, but bringing them together in a group. I've already started to do that with a small cohort, but starting beginning of next year will be in person plus hybrid version of that. And to your point. Yeah. I mean I think it's a Dan Kennedy paraphrasing, but really maybe it's Bill Glaser's old partner. Either way, the loneliest are the number one is the worst number in business. And a lot of us leaders find ourselves single. Yeah. In terms of who we can talk to and the deep dark thoughts that we have that we can share with and get feedback because we need that feedback as humans.

That's the sole goal. It's funny, I don't know when this is gonna air, but we'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Friday. Friday. I have so I now have two weekly dose of courage newsletters. I've got one that is more intimate, that is an email and then I've got one through LinkedIn that's a little bit. It's still personal but it skews more business. And this week's which will be on Friday, so I'm sure this will be, it'll be out in the ether is called the friend zone.

Okay, tell me.

And it's like the friend zone.

Our whole lives are like, oh, you've landed in the friend zone. Like that's not a good place to be. Right. And like somehow the word friend because become in business the word friend is like a four letter other F word. Right. And we, we pretend to be somebody in at work this professional version of ourselves. And I don't even know for those of us who still go in, there's like this imaginary line when we drive into work where personal you that's like did I give the dog, did I feed the dog today and my kids are okay? Sort of moves to professional version of you. And then there's like button down version of you that sounds very smart and is afraid to show off who you really are. And anytime I've done my own purpose statements, it's in my, my own personal manifesto. Now I always come out like I want to be the best friend ever. I want to be the best friend I could be. And I want to because it's so lonely to be the leader and people are scared and they don't know who to trust. And so, like, I instantly want to be like, I'm here to be your friend. And my hope is it's not a fake friendship. It's like good things happen when you know someone has your back. You pick up instantly with people, at least your friends. Like, I might not have seen Joe. We're a good example. I had seen you in a year when we ran into each other at Amish's movie, which you. Everyone should go see Natural Law. He'll be happy with that little nod. But it was like, I saw you a month ago because we just picked right back up. And that takes the two of us to get there.

Yep. Yeah. It's this feeling of safety and trust. And when you have that, I mean, that's what all humans want at a core level anyways, to feel safe, you know, that's what we want to do for our kids. So why not do that for ourselves when it's kind of up to us at this point and then surround us ourselves with more of those people and shit. Yeah. Do it outside. Do it on a personal level. I have like a group of men that are like this accountability buddies. We check in with each other. It's cool. Habit track, it's cool it works out. But that I know is permeated. And that same thing can apply into business however you want to arrange it. And it's so damn powerful.

And all you can do is try to put yourself out there. And I do think that we're. We're mirrors.

Yeah.

So, sure. I think if you're playing the victim card, even if you don't even realize it. Right. You're going to attract that. Right. If you're. If you're. If you're. If you're emoting kindness, usually you're going to get kindness back. If you're a leader that, yeah, kind of a jerk, guess what? You're going to get back. It's. And so in the spirit of mirrors, I'd rather emote friend. And I know I'm not going to get that back every time, but the people that it lands with. It's so funny. This past weekend, I shockingly, was on the road and was with a client who gave a toast at a dinner and said. And he didn't need to include me in the toast, but he basically said, as much as I appreciate the work we've done to get to this point, and it's made him a better leader. He's like, what I appreciate the most is our friendship and how far that's come.

Yeah, man.

What else did you ask for? What else did you ask for?

It's like the perfect testimonial or public statement right there. And that's great, man. And because that gets out of being the fearful state, like, we. We kind of started off talking about that, and it's like, when you're like that, you feel tight, you feel closed down. Shit can get wonky in your head. So then that can permeate into your family life, which you know that I know for both of us, that's a huge thing. So, you know, keeping your head on straight there all the way throughout.

I'm gonna pause this really fast and shout out another podcast that's on the HubSpot podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals. This one's a podcast hosted by someone I've followed for years.

I've read his books.

His name is Donald Miller, and he hosts the podcast called Business Made Simple. The whole premise there with that show is that it helps take the mystery out of growing your business. And one of the recent episodes is one with Alex Hermosi, someone else I.

Followed for years now.

And it's all about talking about the uncertainty that we're living in right now in 2024 and beyond, but how we can take our business and shore it up. There's actually four principles Alex shares and.

Don gets into it as well.

So definitely recommend checking that out. So go listen to Business Made simple, hosted by Donald Miller, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I want to tell you about an all in one marketing platform that's been a game changer for a bunch of businesses. It's called Kartra, and it's the all in one tool that you need to grow. So the point is, you don't need to pay for a whole bunch of different subscriptions because Kartra does it all. So what makes Kartra different is that you can automate everything. Everything from delivering your online courses, sending targeted emails, selling products, and even handling your customer support. So all in all, it's saving you.

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R A I guess I'm curious on, on your front, now that you find Yourself doing a lot, you know, you're, you're traveling a lot, you're. I mean, like, you mentioned the, the newsletters. I noticed that on LinkedIn when I was looking around, I was like, he's got a newsletter here too. I gotta subscribe. I'm like, that's another thing. You got your podcast, what, 125 plus or something episodes. How do you keep yourself, like, what are some actionable ways that you keep yourself? I mean, I've always seen it as like the chill, down to earth, fun guy, you know, but you still take your seriously. You get the job done if you create things.

So yeah, I mean, I can't talk about consistency, right, and then not be consistent myself. But like, in some ways, all these, all these, I don't know, these opportunities.

That they're there, they are deadlines that I have to hit, right? And I'm writing them. I'm not outsourcing any of this shit, right? So I hate the word deadline, though. Like, really, we couldn't come up with a better word than deadline. Yeah, but, but in, in some ways there's a little bit of, oh, thank you, fear. I have to hit this deadline. Right. Thank you, Fear for being there, so I can't procrastinate. And then I find that.

And sometimes it's hard. Right. But being able to.

Still write it out is helping me get crystal clear on my point of view.

And are you saying write it out like whatever that vision is or that thing is to just clarify your, whatever your mind?

Yeah, like I knew, like the, the newsletter that I was talking about for LinkedIn. I knew that I wanted to.

It's always stories, but I knew the story I wanted to tell.

I'll give it to you here too. I guess I, I think I started it off with what has two thumbs and, and keynotes on Thanksgiving.

And I said, allow myself to explain. It was 2020 and I had been found by the woman who.

Reports directly into the president of Kellogg's in Europe now, Kellanova, and how cool is the Internet that she found one of my, you know, your future is safe with change sizzle reels. And I guess a few months prior, David Lawler, who's a badass president of Kellogg Kellen over Europe now, had given a talk about staying brave at Harvard. And so she felt, knowing her boss, that I would be like, hey, some patico. And you know, she was right. A few months, six weeks later, I was hired, give the green light and guess what? Europe doesn't give a about Thanksgiving. So So, you know, 6:00am I was going to be on live on a virtual keynote. And then that was a 90 minute keynote. And I was going to come back the next day and run a courageous conversation with some of their leaders. And, you know, I think I made the point in the note. You'll see where this is going. But listening, truly listening is the currency to connection. And I had made demands on, like, I need to, like, have access to no less than five leaders and I love 30 minutes of their time. I know they're busy, but if I'm going to be successful, I need to do a leadership lab. And the next thing you know, I'm like, the power of zoom, right? I'm. I was in Amsterdam, I was in Paris, I went to Moscow, I went to Manchester, I went to London. I had met all these amazing people and was very surprised to learn.

That the last person I met, English wasn't their second language. She sounded like me. I'm like, oh, you're in Manchester. She was an American who was a high performer and, and was asked to, like, basically she was running, like, partially running the show in HR over for. For Kellogg's. We hit it off. Thanksgiving came and went, did my thing, came back a few months later, she reaches out, she's moving back to Kellogg's us And we just, we ended up. She ended up hiring me to do something there. And she recently left the business and is now the Chr of Spartan Ash. And we have a real friendship. Like, it's truly like, I'm in the friend zone with her. And again, it took me to the end of writing that to land on the friend zone. I knew this is the thing I wanted to talk about, but I'm like, wow, when did friend zone become a bad thing? Friends should be like the best thing. Like, do everything in your power to land in the friend zone, because then that means you're through the bullshit, you're through the fear, you're through the ego, you're through. Is this person trying to take my job? You're like, oh, this is a shared thing that we're trying to work on together. And so every week now, I have two opportunities to sift my way through thoughts like that and try to crystallize something that can help people do better and be better and be clear what they do. And. And like, how is that a bad thing? I just get sharper at what I do just from doing that. I'm sure you feel the same way with the podcast, right?

I do, man. And that's exactly Why I continued it, you know, after Matt left and. Because for a while, I was. I was on the fence. But then it came down to I need an outlet. And I had this poll. It was early January or, I don't know, December. It was right around New Year's, and I was in Sedona and Arizona on a trip with. With family. And I was just like, I gotta fucking do this. Like, there's no. I have no question, but, like, I need to put it out there. And, yeah, mix of, like, bringing. Having great conversations like this, where there's that connection piece is key for me. Like, just have me feel good. But I know it creates more friend zones. It's like the best friend zone creator that I know of is podcasting like this. And obviously, in person's great, but shit, Power, Zoom, Riverside, whatever. You're using SquadCast, you know, you could do this multiple times a day, and. But then after that, the writing part, that's the element that I'm starting to do that more so. And it's a whole different way to work in your brain. Of course.

I think once you start it, you know, this is easier for you to write to get with the pod. I think once you're in it and you're like, oh, wow, like, I feel good. I'm learning, I'm connecting. I get to amplify someone else. And then it's like you've built this muscle up. Like, you've gone to the mental gym. And then, like, what happens when you stop going to the gym and you're like, huh, something's off. I feel sluggish. I feel I'm tired. I don't want to do that. Like, you're like, oh, shit, I kind of have to do that. Like, I need to get back to doing that. And I think the less. The less I write, the more I feel that sluggishness, and I feel less sharp. And, you know, it is a reflective opportunity. How cool is it that basically, 104 times a year now I'm not taking weeks off, right? 104 times a year now I get to put insight or a thought or a story out in the ether, and you don't know what's gonna land or where it's gonna land. You just know that hopefully with somebody, they take something away, think just a little bit differently or reinforces what they're already thinking. I'm. I'm in for that.

And that's the thing of express and expression, and that's really my big thing and why I love to Work with people, I just happen to say through the podcasting side, but really it comes down to expressing and because I knew that was my outlet with that expression attracts the right community. Like, and I want to get your thoughts on, on that piece because the way I see it, when you're expressing whatever's true to you and you have your own whatever frameworks or something you can reference, I mean they could all get built through just you brain dumping on the mic or on the paper. And then it's like the thousand true fans concept. Kevin Kelly. The right people show up and they stay and then they refer more of the right people. And flywheel effect starts to happen when.

You think of your quest to a thousand fans or like who you think will listen to our show. Give me, give me like, before I answer, give me like your two to three quips on, on who you think the audience is. Are they entrepreneurs? Are they, are they trying to be better? They could be all the above, but I'd love to hear it from you.

Yeah, I mean the common.

Umbrella, I would say are coaches, experts, thought leaders, people who want to package up their knowledge, their IP in a way. And that could be in the form of a larger brand. Of course it doesn't have to be a single person, but someone who has a brand to build and they want to, they want to leverage some way to get it out there at scale and attract the right. That's a key thing.

So I think it's important to acknowledge where I over index. Right. So I, I started in New York City, Matt. All the crazy mad mens were my mentors. I caught the tail end of that, you know, that a 700 person ad network. And I did not get my first choice when I got there. And so I got it. It's like getting into the school you want but not getting your major. Yeah, right. And I had to work four years before I got into my major. Code for I was a writer who was a television radio major. And when the founder of this network looked at my portfolio was like, we need a writer on our business development team. And I was like, so I got the job, you know, cool, I'm in. And we ended up winning. I'd say two years in, we won a piece of business for Universal Studios. We launched Islands of Adventure. And without anybody asking me, even with me, it's in night school. I was told to go run the business. Like I was gonna be the account executive on this business. I wasn't running by myself. There was other people and I'm Like, I don't want to be an account executive, I don't want to be an account supervisor. I want to be a creative. And they were like, no, you're going to be on. The client likes you. You're going to go be on the account side. So it took me four years before I ever got into the creative department. Finally got in cool shit. Got to run around the country in North America shooting writing concepts, shooting commercials when it really, really mattered. Moved to California in 04, stumbled into my first creative agency. So the point of all this is, for the last 20 years, it will, I, I'm gonna always look at it through the filter of, of how do you break out.

In this media obese world we live in when we're not there to defend an idea? Because you're not, you're not pointing next to the idea like, look at this one. It just kind of goes across your feed and you hope it, you know, you hope it sticks. You got to keep your fingers crossed. So even now I'd say if I was a cocktail, there's like 50%.

Clarity expert and 50% business mechanic. And the business mechanic is attractive to the leader. Like the actual leaders of the business. The 50% clarity expert is still attracted to chief Marketing officer, Chief Brand Officer, Creative department. And I, so I, so I, I'm now living in this brand space, but in this leadership space as well. And this is a long winded way to get to this answer. But I think today, today.

In business we were always taught through marketing to differentiate. Right. Pick a lane, make sure it's the right lane. And then just like heavy dose of that over and over again said differently, done differently, but with the sentiment of that, like the transfer that's taken away is that.

And then we go back to our everyday lives and we go really, really wide.

And we try not to offend anybody. There's 350 million people in the US alone and we're trying to be cordial and friendly with everybody. And when realistically we should do what we learned in marketing, which is pick a lane, hammer that lane over and over again. Don't be afraid to be that person. Don't be a jerk. You don't have to alienate others.

Yeah.

This is my third creative business that I'm on and I finally think I got the name right, you know, like, you know, Fish Tank was my first business. The idea behind it was everywhere you go, there are fish tanks, hotel lobbies, Chinese restaurant, fraternity party. You think you're like, oh, cool, look at that. Fish tank. Well, no, no. The fish tank is observing you as you are because you would never think, ooh, the fish tank is watching. And we were gonna get to real truths that we're gonna land with you. Fun name, cool name, but not a name that kind of. It needed explaining. Second name was Idea Idea. Powerful ideas, empowering ideas. Yeah. But still, we would sometimes qualify in the wrong lead and someone's like, oh, we actually need SEO. And we took that work. Well, that's not what we're experts at. We shouldn't have taken that work. Did we take it because of money? Okay, so now finally, Courageous, right. What I love most about our name is it tells the world who we're not for as much as who we are for. So the speed to the right person picking up the phone.

We'Re finally. They know they. They need to be a little braver or a little bolder. They have to shift. And that's the type of phone call that we're getting, rather, whether it's a leader or an idea, business or idea assignment, mission, as we like to call them. And so I think that's. That's the goal is to get really. It's not. It's like what I call narrow casting.

Narrow casting.

Don't broadcast narrow cast and get really narrow and find your thousand fans that way.

Yeah, narrow casting. I'm gonna start using that. Man, that's great. That's. See, everything is. Yeah, I love it. I'll. I'll nude you to it. But, yeah, that's. It's interesting because Courageous. It's exactly. I'm looking at it. Behind you, there's a lion, you know, in a wire frame. And it. Honestly, it took me that long to. And I've seen it before, but I'm like, oh, that's a lion. You know, I'm like, I freaking love lions. Because, yeah, they're proud, they're strong, they're the leaders, they're, you know, they're overseeing. There's a lot of meanings. That's actually probably my favorite, like, spirit animal type of thing. It's come up in some visions along the way of some fun adventures. But the fact is, you're like pre qualifying people in this picture. For one, with every name you put on things, you have the Courageous boot camp right there. The courageous podcast, you know, Return on. On Courage, your book, It's.

A lot. You blanketed it everywhere, man. Smart.

Yeah. In the book, you know, the look, the big aha that I had. And Return on Courage, it's not a Soapbox book. So even if I sound really confident now, it's like it was just a fact finding mission and it's more like a documentary. And the aha moment that I had was when I spoke to a guy named Nicholas Alp who's a Cambridge PhD immunologist and he's explaining like what the heck is actually happening in our bodies. And it's like, look, we are still cavemen and cave women. We have not evolved that much, right? Like, and by the way, back when we were cave in and cave women, when we were eating berries and a bear showed up and dopamine and cortisol hit the right parts of your muscles so you would survive and so you can run faster and run away from the bear.

Now that exact same trigger is happening when you're stuck in traffic or you have a boss who bites your head off and your central nervous system is like an onion in reverse. And that shit that happened in high school is still there if you haven't dealt with it. Or that first boss who was a jerk and you wonder why you won't touch the hot stove again. And so the aha moment I had was like, wow, we all have this thing called our central nervous systems, right? And it's kind of right there, it's like right at the center nervous system core to you nervous system. And we never developed a central courage system to combat the realities of what your CNS is doing. Your CNS is an awesome system designed to be like, hey, watch out for that. Be wary of that. That's a fear over there. But when we don't develop a central courage system, we allow the nervousness and anxiety to rule our lives. And we've never created any sort of construct to go, oh, hey, thank you nervous system for doing your job. I object to that. I understand you're trying to keep me safe. I'm still going to go ahead with this courageous risk. And I'll never forget sitting with Loretta Hidalgo, who's a founding astronaut at Virgin Galactic. She's about to get rocketed up into space and they're shaking and she's like, fear is just a data point. It's evolutionary. She's like, thank you fear for trying to keep me safe and know we're going. And that was it. That was like, so again, central courage system return on Courage Courageous. It's all, it's all aligned.

Yeah, I love that. It's just a data point and but guess what? We've done a lot of other data points in this rocket to ensure that this is going to be a successful journey. Damn, that's cool. I like that. That's maybe the last, like the central courage system. Is there like a quick framework or something we can just wrap on that and leave people with something tangible?

Yeah. So what I'd say is it's not something we'll nail in four minutes, five minutes. Right. The ccs, as I like to call it, is what's covered in Return on Courage. And what I think we can cover, Framework Wise is the first exercise I tried to look at when I was writing. Return on Courage was the definition of courage. So the existing definition is the ability to do something that frightens you. And I struggled with that. I struggled with that for a number of reasons. First, who the hell am I to question the dictionary? I went to, didn't go to an Ivy League school, you know, so like, I, I questioned who, you know, am I the right person to challenge the dictionary? My last name's not Webster. But then I was like, well, where's the utility in this definition? Like, and who wants to do frightening things that work? So I was just trying to come up with a better definition of courage. And where I landed, and this is after like two years of talking to, you know, people that are brave, that are bullish, and that are brainiacs. And where I landed was three levers. There's knowledge, there's faith, and there's action. And as you think about your life, anytime you were going to take a risk, how often have you known the right thing to do and you felt it was the right thing, and then for some reason, you never leap. And the irony is two of three in any direction is something else. So knowledge and faith without action is paralysis. Faith in action without knowledge is a reckless move. And knowledge in action without faith, if you're numb on the inside. And when we talk about faith, we don't mean it in the religious sense, but the, the intuition, inner belief, all the feels sense.

Yep.

If you have that knowledge and you have that action, but you're just kind of going through the motions, you're probably working on safe, you're working on status quo. So you have to have all three. Knowledge, faith and action. Where I then took it in for the book was, okay, which knowledge should I follow? How do you build faith within yourself, within your teams, and where should you take action and where shouldn't you take action? So the framework that's in the back half of Return on Courage, it's called the price framework. There's a price of becoming a Courage brand. If it was easy, everyone would do it. But Price is an acronym. Stands for prioritize, Rally, Identify, commit, and execute. So prioritize through values Rally believers. Identify fears, commit to a purpose, and execute your action. And in the book, each letter is a chapter. And after each chapter and after each letter in the framework, there's worksheets that you could start working on to get clear so you could build conviction to confront your fears and to find your cause so you can take on change.

Get return on courage, y'.

All. Yeah.

Because that's your playbook. That's your playbook, but you set it up perfect, man, because that's. I've. I've read it, and I want to reread it now after even just this year of change in my own entity, whatever my own being. So. And then Courageous Podcast, of course, go check that out. To deep dive. And I love how you interact with people. And all of these elements are played into those episodes. It feels like, too.

Wow. Thanks, Joe. And yeah, I'm psyched, man. I'm. I'm pumped for you. I'm excited to see.

Thank you. Where.

Where you run this thing. And then in the spirit of. You're in the friend zone with me, brother. Let's be. When you leave.

I'm happy we're in the friend zone, bro. Yeah. I appreciate you, man, and for being. Just sharing so openly, too. And you've always been a wealth of knowledge and inspiration for me. I hope it's the same for. For those watching and listening, man. So let's go run into each other again sooner than later.

All right, I'll see you at 18. Please, Joe. No.

All right, fine.

I'm sure I'll see you soon, Other Berman. I'm sure. Other Bourbons listening. He's been waiting for a shout out here. So what's up, Aaron Berman? We'll see.

I was gonna. I was gonna call you, Joe Rogan on accident, but, you know, I'm just kidding.

Not gonna. This week in Michigan, three times, people are like, are you related to Joe Rogan? I. This is. There's worse. Worse things.

It's not bad.

That's a great thing.

Well, it's feeding my algorithm, so.

I mean, like, we mentioned him. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. Yeah, man. No, we'll. We'll. We'll be hanging again. And Vermin, if you're. Other Berman, if you're watching. Sorry you didn't get the shout out until now. First time. It was a little earlier. Inside joke for Those who are 46.

Minutes was the over under right?

I did it. All right, brother. Thank you.

Thanks, buddy.

All right, all right.

That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But you know, work can be fun and it should be fun feeling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps help. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast and I will see you next time.