Isaac Lidsky

Isaac Lidsky lost his sight to a rare degenerative disease by the time he was twenty-five years old. Before that, he had been a child television actor. After that, he graduated from Harvard Law, clerked for Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, argued more than a dozen federal appeals without losing a case, and built and sold a construction technology company that grew to hundreds of employees.

Eyes Wide Open

Lidsky’s TED Talk and his book of the same name are built on a counterintuitive central argument: blindness gave him clarity. The process of losing his sight forced him to examine the stories he was telling himself about what was possible, and what he found was that most of our limitations are self-constructed. His keynotes translate that insight into a practical framework for challenging the assumptions that keep organizations and individuals operating below their potential.

A Resume That Defies Categorization

Inc. Magazine described Lidsky as possessing perhaps the most eclectic resume in entrepreneurship, and the description holds. His presentations combine law, business, neuroscience, and lived experience in a way that is both intellectually rigorous and deeply personal. Audiences report that his keynote changes how they think about fear, perception, and the relationship between circumstance and outcome.

Isaac Lidsky keynotes are booked for events focused on overcoming adversity, leadership, entrepreneurship, and challenging the mental frameworks that limit what individuals and organizations believe is achievable.

Eyes Wide Open

You create your own reality, and you believe it. Isaac will prove it to you, sharing his eye-opening perspective of sight itself as an example. You’ll gain the vision to shape your life deliberately, with awareness and accountability.

Leadership & Teams

To lead is to listen. True leadership is the alignment of intentions and effort, and true success a byproduct of common purpose. We accomplish nothing alone, and we accomplish little if we cannot listen to each other. Isaac will talk you through it. Listen to him and you’ll learn to conduct a harmonious team.

Motivation & Achievement

In every moment you choose who you are and how you want to live your life. With this empowerment comes responsibility, complete and inescapable. When you’re beset by challenges, you’re tempted to plead with your heroes, blame your villains and surrender to your limitations. This is a temptation to relinquish your choice, to abdicate your control. Isaac will inspire you to make a better choice. Your heroes, villains and limitations are fictions you perceive as reality. Choose to see through them. Choose to let them go.

Change

Fear is a powerfully destructive force in our lives. Above all else we fear the unknown. Yet to thrive in transition we must find empowerment in uncertainty. Isaac will show you how to deconstruct fear’s oppressive tunnel. You’ll learn to embrace the expansive possibilities of the undefined and uncharted.

Entrepreneurial Endeavor

Effort without purpose is entropy. When we labor without a goal we are destined to fail. Using his 3 successful startups as examples—an internet advertising technology company in New York (sold for $230 million); a nonprofit to fund scientific research in Washington, DC ($0 to $5 million in 5 years); and a construction services business in Florida ($15 to $150 million in 5 years)—Isaac will show you how success is a matter of definition. You’ll learn to reinvent yourself and create the organization that expresses achievement as you see it.