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Jake Olson
Team Building
Accountability
Creativity
Help audiences reframe adversity with Jake Olson, the first completely blind Division I college football player and eight-time cancer survivor. Jake works with organizations to build resilience, growth mindsets, and adaptability, delivering keynotes for clients including Google, Microsoft, and SpaceX.
Blind
Golf
Cancer Survivor
American Football
After Dinner Speakers
Faith
Entrepreneur
Author
Philanthropy
Motivational
Inspirational
Mindset
Sport
Jake Olson became the first completely blind player in college football history when he long-snapped a successful point-after try for USC against Western Michigan in September 2017. His story has since been covered by outlets including ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and many others.
An eight-time cancer survivor after losing both eyes to retinoblastoma as a child, Jake has gone on to become an author and adaptive golf champion. He graduated from USC in 2019 and has since spoken for hundreds of organizations, including Google, Microsoft, Bank of America, and SpaceX.
Jake blends personal stories, humor, and distinctive life philosophies to help audiences reframe how they see adversity, encouraging them to find the setup in the setback. His talks average eighteen laughs in fifty minutes while still delivering the practical mindsets and tools that help people grow through hardship and reach their full potential.
Audiences leave Jake's sessions with more gratitude and with a genuinely new way to perceive and tackle adversity in their own lives and teams. He tailors every talk to the client's event theme, ensuring the message lands exactly as organizers intend.
Book Jake to give your audience a story of perseverance that reframes how they respond to setbacks.
Topics, sessions and talks
Jake Olson has battled cancer eight times, lost his sight at 12, made history in college football, and won the USGA Adaptive Open. Drawing on personal stories, including encounters with Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods, plenty of humor, and his own life philosophies, Jake reframes how audiences perceive adversity, showing that a setback handled the right way can become the setup for something greater. Audiences leave with more grit, sharper productivity, and a renewed sense of perspective and accountability.
Blindness reshaped Jake Olson's life at age twelve, but his determination to succeed never wavered. Jake shares how his drive inspired those around him to innovate: a math teacher devising new ways to teach him calculus, teammates building a unique system so he could play football, and his father guiding him to excel at golf. Leaders, managers, and teams leave with practical strategies for collaboration, creative problem solving, and inclusion that unlock possibility across their organizations.
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frequently asked questions
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Email jake.olson@getapeptalk.com or call PepTalk on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US), and one of our speaker agents will contact you within hours to confirm Jake's availability and fees. If you can, please include your budget upfront – it helps us fast-track your request. It’s also helpful to know the date, format (virtual or in-person), location, and a bit about your audience.
Jake Olson structures his talks around personal narrative, drawing on first-hand experiences — including encounters with Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods — to illustrate a reframe of adversity as a precursor to growth. He integrates humour throughout, with his talks averaging eighteen laughs in fifty minutes, alongside practical mindsets and tools delivered to the audience.
Jake Olson speaks on reframing adversity, collaborative problem-solving and inclusion, and building resilience and accountability through setback. He became the first completely blind player in college football history when he long-snapped a successful point-after try for USC in 2017, a story subsequently covered by ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, and Sports Illustrated.
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