The OFFICIAL SITE to Americas #1 Youth Motivational Speaker!

I’m committed to bringing you an “EXPERIENCE”; filled with truth and humor, passion and emotion. My visits to school communities literally changes lives, saves, lives, and changes the climate and culture of your campus.
Whether it is a Full Day, Two Days, or Three Days in your community, I guarantee I will leave your school community with more value than you expected.
I know teens and youth. I know what they’re thinking and why they’re thinking what they’re thinking. Let’s chat about me coming to your community.
I’ve come full circle being one of today’s teens to now being their inspiration. I think today’s teens are desperate for the attention of caring adults who recognize their problems, and speak with them honestly and directly about the challenges they face. When I was in high school, I was desperate for this attention, and since then I’ve been passionate about teens and what they go through every day. Therefore, I’ve made it my purpose to be that caring adult who shows teens that I recognize their problems, and to be their inspiration too.
Tragically, today’s youth are lost in a culture of confusion. I call it the “fog” of youth, a time of uncertainty, immense social and cultural pressures and an inner crying-out to be accepted by others. It is a fragile time, a time when choices resonate for a lifetime.
When I show up on stage, teens quickly pay attention to me and what I have to say. They learn that I faced many of the same challenges they are facing, and they hear about the key qualities that I had to cultivate in myself in order to overcome my obstacles to and become ‘The Man’ I am today. As they listen to me, they discover that I’m a sensitive, compassionate man with a passion for connecting with and inspiring young people. They find out that family is my number one priority. You’ll have your students saying things like:
I never would have thought that even someone I have never met, I could connect with on so many levels.”
K.C. Student
Educators and parents choose me because they say that nobody speaks to their kids like I do. I speak with teens in a way that afterwards kids say, “He made me think of things I never thought about!” Maybe my presence helps me instantly connect. I’m different and the kids like that. After all, aren’t we all different?
I’m not a typical looking, clean cut, bland, young teen motivational speaker. My audiences have described me as “edgy” and “real.” And that’s why teens relate to me. I am ‘edgy’ (I’m a New Yorker born and raised) and I pride myself on being ‘real’, I’ve always wanted to talk to teens the way I wish someone had talked to me when I was at my most vulnerable point in life.
My perspective on life and the way I have been living is forever changed after hearing Jeff Yalden speak today.”
M. Radevski, PA
It is so critical to bring CLARITY to the hearts and minds of today’s youth by establishing a solid foundation for building a healthy self-esteem and a passion for becoming a “good” person who displays character and commitment!
My mission is to lift that “fog”! A little more about me later but right now you are about to discover a NEW way to begin that process. A school assembly entitled “About LIFE” journeys into the hearts and minds of youth today. It’s a 60-90 minute high school assembly (I speak to middle school assemblies too), that will literally break down and build back up the toughest “at-risk” kids in your school. How do I know this? Because I watch the tears well up in their eye’s day after day. I witness “hardened” kids melt like ice cream on a hot summer day. And once broken down, they quickly re-build with a new perception, a new commitment and a new character!
Friend, we cannot keep covering up layers after layers of inner wounds just to make kids graduate and pass them on to someone else or society at large. NOW, is the time to break down their protective walls. NOW is the time to establish what kind of person they want to be. NOW is the time to build their character and I believe with all of my heart that my “About LIFE” high school assemblies is exactly the tool to make this happen.
The ‘About LIFE’” high school assembly is about AWAKENING! When we live through a “fog” we wander around aimlessly leaving ourselves open to depression, apathy, bullying, or even worse drugs and violence. When we AWAKEN to who we are and our purpose the “fog” lifts and a new life begins to unfold. I know because I was once in that “fog”, and having been lifted from it, I have devoted my life to helping teens escape their fog! This high school assembly really is “About LIFE” and is a life-changing teen event!”
Sincerely,
Jeff Yalden
You have made me believe that I don’t have to be someone I am not.
– T. Strong, Student