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#WWRRD

Last week, Courageous was back in Chicago with some of our favorite people from the #KraftHeinz transformation team. While my team has now worked with many on this unit, I had yet to roll up my sleeves with their Head Of Transformation Taz Hussain.

Taz is my cup of tea. Like me, he logs a stack of hours on airplanes. Like me, he dreams about Aspen. And, like me, he’s a fellow soccer aficionado. In this conversation, I learned I missed Taz in San Diego for the Manchester United vs. Wrexham preseason friendly a few weeks back.

This was a total downer because Taz makes easy conversation.

This particular afternoon, we were discussing the story of Wrexham. Just the fact that I’m mentioning Wrexham now gives away the lesson of this weekly dose of courage.

When you’re a creative person, and you see an idea “in the wild” you wish you had done, it makes you celebrate — and commiserate — all at the same time.  

How is it that an American who lives 5,318 miles from Wrexham, cares more about an English Football League Two club, than any club in Major League Soccer?

The answer is, of course, marketing. 

If you haven’t seen the “Welcome To Wrexham” documentary series, you still have a few weeks to binge-watch Season 1 before the return of Season 2. In the spirit of getting back to my conversation with Taz, we both gave an appropriate cap tip to Ryan Reynolds and Actor Rob McElhenney for purchasing the club and investing in them enough to:

1) win over the people of Wrexham,

2) win over America,

3) win promotion over a 24-team National League.

All of this is a setup for where Taz and I took our conversation:

Something we landed on called #WWRRD.

WWRRD = What Would Ryan Reynolds Do?

The sea of sameness is voluminously vast.  When you’re not there to defend your idea, will it stand out while standing on its own two feet? Are you truly stretching your idea where it has that Je ne sais quoi to move people?

No matter where you are in your company — in the C-Suite, as a marketer, or somewhere else with decision-making power —  before you green light anything, ask yourself….

#WWRRD

Touche, Van Wilder.

You’ve come a long way.

Ryan Berman
Ryan Berman
Ryan is an author, keynote speaker, and the founder of Courageous. His book, Return on Courage, shows how during these courage deficient times, courage is a competitive advantage for those leaders who choose to unlock it.
Twitter @ryanberman | LinkedIn @ryanberman

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