Keynote · Resilience
Resilience is a skill. Train it.
Brad Hook is a resilience speaker based in New Zealand, speaking internationally. A decade with the Resilience Institute, insights drawn from more than 20,000 resilience assessments, and a keynote that leaves audiences calmer, sharper and genuinely equipped for pressure.
Why Brad
A decade inside the science of human performance.
Resilience is Brad's home ground. As CEO and partner at the Resilience Institute, he spent close to a decade working alongside founder Dr Sven Hansen, delivering hundreds of seminars to organisations across the world — from PwC and Shell to Fonterra, Electronic Arts and Fletcher Building.
His book Resilience Mastery distils a survey of more than 20,000 people into the eleven factors that drive sustainable performance: focus, purpose, optimism, bounce, sleep, vitality, presence and more. The keynote brings that research to the stage — along with lessons from high-performance sport, positive psychology, ancient philosophy and the world's Blue Zones.
This isn't harden-up resilience. Brad's message is performance with care: the science of staying energised, focused and connected while doing demanding work — not toughing it out until something breaks.
What the keynote covers
From nervous system to Monday morning.
The predictive brain under pressure
Why brains treat inboxes like predators, and how to work with ancient hardware in a hyper-stimulating world. Includes the lion-and-zebra chase, live on stage.
Bounce: the skill of recovery
What 20,000+ assessments reveal about the difference between people who break, cope, and bounce forward — and how to move up that curve.
Energy before willpower
Sleep, movement and recovery as the foundations that fund everything else. A body budget in credit beats motivation every time.
Calm is contagious
How leaders' nervous systems set the emotional climate of their teams, and the practical skills of presence under pressure — sometimes demonstrated with a live heart-rate stress test.
How it works
Keynote, workshop or both.
The resilience keynote runs 45–60 minutes and is tailored to your audience and industry — conference main stage, leadership offsite or wellbeing day. For teams who want to go deeper, it extends into a half-day or full-day workshop built on the same research.
Every session is interactive and grounded in evidence, and every participant receives a follow-up resource pack so the ideas stick long after the applause. Virtual and hybrid formats are available for distributed teams.
Bookings run through FLAME, Brad's human performance company.
Absolutely brilliant, engaging, practical, and energizing.
Outstanding presenter, facilitator, communicator and educator.
Genuinely helps people improve their wellbeing and health.
Trusted by leading organisations
Questions
Booking a resilience speaker: the practical bits.
What does Brad's resilience keynote cover?
The science of sustainable performance: how the predictive brain responds to pressure, the eleven research-backed factors behind resilience (from a survey of more than 20,000 people), the role of energy and recovery, and practical tools audiences can use the next morning. It blends neuroscience, story and humour — corporate enough for a boardroom, alive enough that nobody checks their phone.
Who is the keynote for?
Leadership teams, conferences and organisations navigating pressure, change or growth. Brad has delivered resilience programmes for organisations including PwC, Shell, Fonterra, Electronic Arts and Fletcher Building, and tailors every session to the audience and industry.
Is Brad available outside New Zealand, or virtually?
Yes. Brad is based in New Zealand and speaks internationally, in person and virtually. Interactive online and hybrid formats are available, including live Q&A and digital resource packs.
How is this different from a typical resilience talk?
It's built on a decade inside the field — not a motivational story with the word resilience attached. Brad was CEO and partner at the Resilience Institute and wrote Resilience Mastery, so the keynote is grounded in assessment data and delivered with demonstrations, audience participation and follow-up resources rather than platitudes.
How do I book, and how far ahead should I plan?
Bookings run through FLAME at flame.live, or you can contact Brad directly. For major conferences, three to six months' notice is ideal; smaller events can often be arranged with a few weeks' lead time.
Go deeper
Brad writes extensively about resilience.
Book the resilience keynote.
Enquiries and bookings run through FLAME. Tell us about your event and we'll come back within a day or two.