In a world where everyone finds increased difficulty and challenges daily, it’s no surprise to hear the word “Resilience.” But here’s the thing: Do you really know what resilience is? Do you naturally know how to activate your own, when needed the most? In this powerful presentation of “Resilience Ready,” Ricky walks you through the intimate details of his 23-year wrongful conviction, and how he discovered the five keys to activating his resilience, while also helping you understand how to activate your own. You’ll learn how to be prepared for the storm that will inevitably come your way and always be Resilience Ready.

Can just one person help transform a life or even the world? For Ricky Kidd, the answer is a definite yes—if you learn to be a courageous leader. So, what exactly is a courageous leader? Harvard Business School Professor Nancy Koehn describes it as “an individual who's capable of making themselves better and stronger when the stakes are high and circumstances turn against that person.” And there is no one who fits this description better than Ricky. He spent 23 years wrongfully incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit. For those two decades plus, he never gave up proving his innocence. In the thousands of letters Ricky wrote seeking help, he kept reminding himself that he only needed one person to respond. One person to change his life. Fighting against his wrongful conviction, Ricky lost 11 times before winning his last appeal. His odds of winning were said to be only a one percent chance. Today, he is free and spends his time as a COPD (Cost of Prosecutor’s Decision) trainer, playwright, thought leader and national speaker —fighting to be the voice of those who are voiceless. In this powerful and highly motivational talk, Ricky shares his story, the importance of turning anger into passion, why cultivating relationships with key stakeholders is critical to great leadership and how ordinary actions influence extraordinary change. Ricky's presentation encourages audiences to remember the power of one—even if it is them becoming “the one” themselves.

It’s hard to imagine a heinous action taken against you, and then finding it within yourself to forgive the person who harmed you. Yet Ricky Kidd has done just that. In this incredibly inspiring talk, Ricky tells the story of being wrongfully incarcerated for 23 years for a crime he didn’t commit and how he was able to reconcile and forgive the prosecutor who fought against his deserved freedom. Learn how Ricky was able to forgive, become friends and work with the prosecutor to combat other wrongful convictions. Ricky will show you why forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting; and how forgiveness can only happen when lessons are learned. For anyone who has been harmed or wronged, this talk will motivate you to move forward, heal and live the life you deserve.

The idea that greatness is first recognized by the world or told by someone other than the person is a fallacy. It wasn’t that way for Michael Jordan, when we saw him score 65 points in one single game or help lead the Chicago Bulls to six championships in his career. The same holds true for the Williams sisters, who slayed on the tennis court year after year. Or for Kansas City Quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who dominates in football. Before we ever caught a glimpse of any of these individuals, they had all decided to stand in their greatness. To recognize it first, before anyone else did, to own it as their possession before the media helped share their gifts with the rest of the world. In this motivational talk, Ricky Kidd shares his personal story about standing in his greatness, which ultimately led him to become a national speaker, trainer, playwright and thought leader—all while allowing his audiences to connect with their own stories of greatness. He drives home the point that “potential” must be realized first by themselves before ever being recognized by the world.

According to a report by The Sentencing Project, Black Americans are imprisoned at a rate that is roughly five times the rate of White Americans. Latinx individuals are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is 1.3 times the incarceration rate of Whites. And in another report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Indigenous people made up 2.1% of all federally incarcerated people in 2019, larger than their share of the total U.S. population, which was less than 1%. For Ricky Kidd, who was wrongfully incarcerated for 23 years for a crime he didn’t commit, these stats prove that although slavery ended more than 150 years ago, it’s still going strong—just in the forms of prison and laws and policies that favor non-people of color. In this talk, Ricky takes his audience back in time, tracing the journey from the so-called abolishment of slavery to the new slavery, where people of color were routinely accused of a crime with zero opportunity for such a charge to ever be contested fairly, to the civil rights movement and today’s work by diligent lawyers, non-profit organizations and others who are raising claims of innocence for those otherwise believed guilty. Raised claims, raised eyebrows and now Ricky’s lecture offers further insight into just how far back innocent men and women were convicted and the public policies that worked against them.