- Name
- Ryan Berman
- Tagline
- Author, Entrepreneur, Business Keynote Speaker
- Credentials
- Ryan Berman is the founder of Courageous and has been credited with instigating the corporate courage movement. With more than 20 years in the courageous ideas space and an intimate understanding of the intricacies and interworking of emotional story telling for the purposes of driving courageous change, Ryan is both a practitioner and authority on the subject. His methods have been featured in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Inc and Forbes. Ryan speaks all over the country to C Suite, marketing and professional services audiences on the topic. He covers the learnings found in his book Return On Courage: A Business Playbook For Change. Living in San Diego, California, Ryan also has his own Courage Brand called Sock Problems—an altruistic sock company that strives to “sock” the world’s problems.
I didn’t wake up one morning as a kid thinking, “I want to be a keynote speaker when I grow up!”.
It all started because I simply wanted to share what I learned along my 1,000 day listening tour where I was able to interview CEOs, SVPs and other leaders at Amazon, Apple, Google, Method, Harvard, Dominos and others. I also had the chance to sit with those who study the way we’re wired because I was curious to learn the science behind what holds us back. This led me to clinical psychologists, Cambridge PhDs, Immunologists and the co-author of The Secret who now has a company called Neurogym (a gym for your brain). Finally, I had a front row seat to learn from Astronauts, Tornado Chasers, Navy SEALs, Army Infantrymen, A Bank Robber who was trained (and survived) a robbery.
All of that ended up inside my book Return On Courage.
Over the course of the last year, I’ve been fortunate to keynote/consult for Kellogg’s Europe, Johnson & Johnson USA, Kraft Heinz, Google, General Mills Innovation Switzerland, and Cereal Partners Worldwide. I’ve also had the pleasure of being the opening/closing keynote at The Cult Gathering, HSMAI (Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association), Snapchat, Creative Mornings, Digital Summit, Pledge 1% and a handful of others.
I believe there’s a big difference between a careless act and a courageous one! And I believe that creating an arena for safe but hard conversations is critical for any team and company looking to stay ahead.
Deep down, if you feel that the conversation you’re having with yourself leads you to believe you, your company or your team is stuck, scared, stale or spinning, I can share what I learned from other courageous companies who have been successful in fighting fear, creating change and remaining relevant.