E137: I Had It All. Then My Brain Had Other Plans - Samuel Barreto

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Perception Paradox. My name is Givile, and I'm your host. And today we are diving into a very interesting episode that's related to career, ambition, health. Basically, we could answer the question, what does it take to build a global career at brands like Red Bull and Puma? And what happens when life forces you to rebuild yourself from the inside out? Samuel Barreto grew up shaped by Italian, Portuguese, and Brazilian roots, and channeled that energy into over a decade at the heart of some of the world's most iconic experience brands. But his most defining moment, uh, had nothing to do with a campaign or a product launch. At 29 years old, in the middle of an ordinary lunch, he had a stroke and woke up facing a 50/50 surgery decision that would change everything forever. In this episode, Samuel opens up about identity, resilience, letting go of the life you knew, and finding your way back, one small win at a time. Let's dive in. [upbeat music] Real people, real stories, and real challenges that break the status quo. I'm your host, Givile, and welcome to Perception Paradox. Samuel, welcome to Perception Paradox. I think that was a great intro about where are you coming from, and you're saying, "Oh, identity, it's easy just to define where you're coming from, uh, the roots." And I kind of find that identity is such a complex thing, and especially the sense of belonging k- nowadays when the world is so open, and, uh, from being very settled back in the days, we kind of are open for any experience, any shift we want in a way. Uh, and you're, like, approaching it as it's simple. That's, that's a great way, uh, to look at this. So maybe a good conversation starter would be, uh, your background. You've been working for the major brands. I would-- I always like to call such brands like Red Bull and Puma experience brands. And lots of people, especially who are active, who are into marketing and all the communication or different fields, they dream about getting into, uh, su- such brands. So how did that happen for you that you found yourself moving all the way from Brazil to Europe and working for such big brands?

Yeah. Uh, first and foremost, thank you very much for having me here, for the invitation. I'm glad that I'm here. I can exchange a little bit about, yeah, private, uh, and also professional, uh, life. So, so thank you very much. Starting from, from that. And, uh, and yeah, I was one of those guys that actually had Red Bull as, um, as a dream job and Puma and after that. So, so my journey, as you mentioned, like, my foundation is really in marketing, so it is where everything start, and I always had this creativity, um, element in my, in my life. Like, very, very young already doing a couple of things, random things. At the moment was random, but-- and then after that, after a couple of years, you realize that, ah, wasn't that weird? Actually, everything would come together. You, you... I have the feeling that what I'm doing now is really coming from those random things that I was doing, like in, you know, music and, uh, sports and, uh... Because when you put all together, you feel that, okay, this is really...