This demo reel highlights Julian Pistone’s central message: courage is the defining requirement for leaders navigating today’s unprecedented complexity. He opens by acknowledging the scale of disruption organizations face and positions courage as the essential capacity that enables leaders to move from paralysis to decisive action. Rather than presenting courageous people as fearless, he reframes courage as an intimate relationship with fear, emphasizing that fear itself is the gateway to courageous behaviour.

Julian shares that he has travelled globally—from meeting influential entrepreneurs to connecting with women empowerment advocates in the Amazon—to understand the universal essence of courage. Across cultures and industries, he discovered that courage is not innate but learnable, echoing Aristotle’s view of courage as a craft that can be developed. He reminds the audience that the opposite of courage is not fear but inaction, and that courageous action is required to innovate, disrupt, and lead in environments steeped in volatility.

The reel integrates keynote clips where Julian introduces a process rooted in neuroscience and neuroplasticity, designed to help individuals and teams build the capacity to face uncertainty with clarity. He speaks of five steps that strengthen adaptability and resilience while reducing the paralysing effects of fear. He offers a memorable Italian phrase—testu—which means “put your head down and just go,” underscoring that courageous leaders take action even when the path is unclear.

This short reel captures Julian Pistone’s message at Rio Innovation Week, where he underscores how rapidly the rules of leadership have changed. He opens by stating that most leaders are still operating with outdated models shaped for a slower, more predictable world. Today’s environment, he argues, is marked by uncertainty on an unprecedented scale and speed. The traditional approach—waiting for clarity before acting—no longer works. Instead, clarity now emerges from action itself.

Julian points to Brazil as an example of a nation demonstrating urgency, ambition, and agility, standing out in a world where hesitation has become common. He highlights courage as the essential capability that transforms uncertainty into forward motion. Courage, he explains, is what converts hesitation into decision and decision into momentum, even when the way ahead is not fully visible.

The reel transitions into Julian’s reflections on the week ahead at the event. He shares that he will be spending time with C-suite leaders from diverse industries and learning from thought leaders such as Daniel Goldener, Peter Deantes, Ian Becraft, and Neil Reading. His focus is on exploring how leaders can act decisively despite disruption, how they can guide change rather than wait passively, and how they can shape the future rather than simply react to it.

Set against energetic visuals and a driving soundtrack, the clip positions Julian as a catalyst for courageous, future-focused leadership. It reinforces his belief that the greatest risk in uncertain times is not making the wrong move but hesitating to move at all.

In this compelling 5 minute 19 second keynote excerpt, Julian Pistone explores the second core component of courageous leadership: purpose. Not purpose as a slogan or personal ambition, but the kind of purpose that arises from showing up for others. He opens with a metaphor from surfing, describing how time seems to stretch inside the barrel of a wave. It is loud and terrifying, yet surfers ride it anyway—an image he uses to frame how individuals confront fear in high-stakes moments.

Julian then shifts into the real-life story of Saná Lima, a young girl from the small beach town of Paracuru in Ceará, Brazil. Growing up in hardship, she surfed daily without coaching, equipment, or resources—only determination and a dream to give her family a better life. Her talent carried her through competitions where she began winning repeatedly, soon gaining the admiration of judges and fans alike.

But despite her success, sponsors refused to support her. They told her she wasn’t “pretty enough” or “marketable,” revealing a painful truth: her rejection was rooted not in merit but in appearance. Julian invites the audience to imagine dedicating everything to a craft only to be told you are not enough for reasons beyond your control.