The Courageous Podcast with Ryan Berman

Suffer from achievement addiction? It’s a real thing. When accomplishment becomes the drug and slowing down feels threatening because it forces you to sit with yourself you might be in it. Mandy Balak knows the feeling. She was succeeding on the outside while quietly running on empty. As a three-time founder, she led a growing team, and collected plenty of accolades all while...

This week, Ryan Berman is turning the Courageous Podcast toward a different kind of challenge: raising courageous kids. Fresh off a back-to-school appearance on KTLA, Ryan shares the full segment and expands on why curiosity can be one of the best ways to help kids navigate fear, anxiety, and unfamiliar situations. He talks about resisting the urge to rescue kids from discomf...

Dr. Shirley M. Collado knows firsthand how transformative an education can be. The daughter of Dominican immigrants who grew up in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood, she became the first in her family to attend college and eventually made history as the first Dominican American to serve as president of a four-year college in the United States. Now, as President and CEO of...

Jackie Plaza knows a thing or two about betting on yourself. She left a successful career in Los Angeles for a new opportunity in San Diego, stepped into the challenge of helping reshape perceptions of one of the world’s most recognizable theme parks, and discovered that taking risks gets a little easier once you’ve survived a few that didn’t work out. Today, as VP Marketinga...

Ania Smith learned early that you can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can be intentional about what you do next. After moving from Poland to South Dakota at 12 without speaking English, she developed a curiosity and adaptability that would eventually take her to companies including Airbnb, Uber Eats, Walmart, and now Taskrabbit, where she serves as CEO. In t...