By Roger Yale for Jeff Yalden, Youth Motivational Speaker
After he was already booked to speak at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO, North America’s Number One Youth Motivational Speaker Jeff Yalden got an email that there had been a student suicide on campus.
“The young man was a sophomore and part of the men’s lacrosse team, and as you can imagine – this rattled the community and the school,” he said, adding that the athletic director asked Yalden if he could come in a day early to speak with the athletes, because they would be out of town competing on March 21, the day he was to speak.
This would have involved changing his existing flights, resulting in additional fees that would be passed on to the school.
“They said they didn’t have that in their budget, and this weighed on my heart. I told them I would come in on my dime and do it for free. I’d spend an extra day and then come back on the second night,” he said.
Ultimately, the school decided to go a different route, and Yalden spoke on the day he was scheduled.
“We had a great turnout. About 150 people showed up to the mental health/suicide prevention talk – and we didn’t really talk about the suicide too much, but we addressed it.”
Yalden did, however, talk heavily about his three-point theory about teen suicide:
1) I am alone.
2) I am a burden and a liability to other people.
3) I have the desire for suicide.
He talked about major depression, which is short but severe – causing young people to feel as if it will never end and prompt a suicide attempt. He mentioned dysthymia, which is a lower-level but constant depression that can also lead to suicide if left undiagnosed.
“Suicide is the culmination of a lot of things, and one thing can be the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said, and addressed the stigma attached to mental health.
“None of you are laughing at me because I have glasses – and if I put my glasses on, life gets a little better. Same thing with therapy or maybe going to the doctor and taking medication. You [should] be your best advocate.”
Yalden spent some time talking about cell phones and social media, and the effect these things are having on young people today, and said video will soon overtake all other types of content by 2020. Indeed, a recent Cisco study predicted that video will account for 75 percent of web traffic by 2020 [Source: Tubularinsights.com].
“That tells us that if young people are having trouble with social media today, it’s only going to get worse,” he said.
Other hot topics that night were boundaries and balance.
“I talked a bit about mental health, asking for help, learning how to put priorities and boundaries into their lives – learning to say know and learning to close their circle. It was a well-rounded program.
To find out more about Jeff Yalden’s impactful speaking programs, visit www.jeffyalden.com.
Jeff’s schedule fills up fast. To book him now for your event or school, call 800-948-9289.