Mental Health & Substance Abuse Speaker That Will Engage Your Students Like Never Before
Substance Abuse Speakers: Mental Health, Substance Abuse Prevention & Motivational Speaker for Schools
If you’ve gotten this far, chances are you’ve been tasked with finding a guest motivational school speaker for your campus’s mental health, drug misuse prevention, and/or motivational speaking event. With so many options for motivational speakers for high school students and middle schoolers, what is the right choice? As leaders of our communities, we want students to have a better understanding of mental health, substance use, and the impact life choices have on outcomes. We want a person students can relate to and understand but not feel like they are being lectured. We want someone with life experiences, but we don’t want them to overshare and leave our students wounded, confused, and without hope.
I believe if you continue to read my history and observe my work over the last 15 years of pouring into students’ hearts as a high school motivational speaker and the most requested substance abuse prevention speaker in the country, you will see I am the perfect speaker for your students. If you have questions or need clarification on anything, I would absolutely love to go on Zoom to ensure everyone is comfortable with my arrival on campus. I don’t have agents or a speakers bureau. I do this life work myself. I’d love to hear from you.
~ Tony Hoffman
“Tony’s talk made an indelible mark on our school. He is down to earth, engaging, funny, and real, and our students connected well to his message. Schools today, more than ever, need social and emotional support for all students. Tony reinforced our work in this area in ways that we could not have on our own.”
— Principal La Canada HS
Substance Abuse & Mental Health Speaker for High Schools & Middle Schools
Tony Hoffman is a mental health speaker for schools who uses his experience with mental health struggles to help teens and young adults better understand themselves and others. His goal is to leave every listener inspired and ready to act, support their peers, and create a positive culture around emotional health.
Since the pandemic, mental health struggles among teens have rapidly been on the rise. For this reason, it’s more important now than ever that school districts implement positive change and bring in a guest school speaker who specializes in mental health for high schools & middle schools who can captivate a youth audience and educate them in a way that stays with them for the entirety of their life. This is what makes Tony the most unique of the mental health speakers. During his speaking engagements, he shares his story ‘From Prison to The Olympics’ in a way that instead of lecturing or spending time on buzzwords, Tony likes to tell stories throughout periods of his life while perfectly weaving in the valuable insights we want youth to receive.
Laying the Foundation (Education Through Storytelling, not PowerPoint Lectures)
Tony spends a large portion of his mental health speech discussing his early childhood and teenage years. This is where students find Tony most relatable; Tony struggled with the same social anxiety, depression, and self-acceptance issues most teens and middle school students struggle with today, and he was not able to find any relief from these emotions. They created confusion internally for him because, at the time, he did not know how to use the positive coping skills he now champions, such as having a safe space and a positive support community. One instance of not understanding his emotions Tony chooses to share is his relationship with his father shifting when Tony’s mental health begins to decline. His father, who was Tony’s hero as a young teenager, spent long days away at work to provide for his family, but at the time of being a young person, Tony did not understand why his father was away for so long. He believed his father was unable to attend his basketball games because he, Tony, was not good enough for him, and his father did not love him. What Tony felt as a child was real, but school speaker Tony realized his feelings, and the story he created about his father’s absence was not true, and it was a seed for disaster.
Solving Problems With Emotional Intelligence
As a mental health speaker for high schools, Tony’s goal is to help solve problems for young people they may not easily find the answers to. Why do I feel this way, and what does it mean? It’s a question Tony believes we should all search to find the answers to, but as young people, they’re not meant to navigate emotional wellness and unwellness alone. Complex mental health dynamics are typically beyond the comprehension of most youth and not easily applied by a student who often just wants to feel safe within themselves. For this reason, Tony focuses on two core principles as a mental health speaker for high schools and middle schools that can be easily adopted and understood to make positive impacts on themselves and those around them.
- Having a safe space to communicate with a trusted adult.
- Connection to a community of like-minded people who are focused on the empowerment of others and self.
A Deeper Look Into Why
As Tony unpacks his life story, he depicts how the principles of safe spaces and community are actually the most important factors in emotional wellness from childhood through adulthood. He explains that our behavior results from how well we apply these principles. Less attention to them leads to riskier behavior; the more attention to them, the more self-empowering our decisions become. Tony is a mental health speaker who can articulate to students the risks of holding onto uncomfortable feelings and how trying to manage these experiences alone is often the precursor to risky behavior and the reason many students have already begun taking risks in their behavior. As a high school and middle school speaker, it’s important for Tony to teach students that risky behaviors are not about good or bad people that stigma often makes us believe but about managing mental health through safe space conversations and connection to empowering communities.
By having a safe space to communicate with a trusted adult, whether at home or school with a school staff member or counselor, we can release any emotional pressure that may be building in our life, and the adult can use their life experience to help the young person create a positive storyline about their emotions that leaves them feeling capable of handling the adversity of what they’re facing. Tony does not want students to make the mistakes he made at their age by leaving life’s experiences, and the feelings that come with them to be managed alone because when we do manage our emotional states alone without any emotional knowledge, we often create a negative, harmful storyline with uncomfortable feelings like young Tony did about his father. Once a person believes less in themselves, the likelihood of risky behaviors showing up to try and create a sense of safety within themselves goes up.
The lack of emotional wellness is why people bully and get into unhealthy relationships, and substance use like vaping, marijuana, alcohol, and other drugs begin in young people’s lives. Whether you want to educate your students about substance use, addiction, and life choices, or you want a speaker who can bring in an incredibly inspirational story to educate on the importance of proactive mental health coping skills, Tony is the best mental health speaker for schools in the United States.
Change the Culture of Your Campus
The beginning of positive change is awareness. By bringing Tony, a highly empathetic and relatable school speaker, to speak with your students, they’ll have a greater understanding of themselves, their mental health, and decisions, as well as what they mean. They’ll find ways to support their peers better and be future leaders. Tap the book Tony link below to find out how you can bring him to your campus:
Substance Abuse Speakers for Schools: Let’s Talk Prevention
Substance use and drug misuse among students are growing every day, and it’s becoming an issue even in middle schools. Vaping is widely used and a struggle on campuses with young students everywhere, starting in late grade school and early middle school. Fentanyl, the most powerful opioid available today, has already made its way into middle and high schools, putting students’ lives at risk.
“Don’t Do Drugs” Speeches Are Outdated
The idea and message are not wrong, but does it work? Tony doesn’t think so. As adults, we understand the dangers and risks involved with substance use, but trying to educate youth from an adult perspective is where most substance abuse speakers and schools fall short. 75% of decisions made by youth and young adults before the age of 21 are not made with logic but rather with feelings. This neurological fact of human development reveals why the old don’t do drugs speeches are not effective and worthwhile for schools. Students using substances are simply trying to alter a negative or uncomfortable mood, and if students are making most of their daily decisions based on their feelings, then the most important thing we can do for students is help them and hire a school speaker to educate them and get them to understand that our mental health, when unchecked, is the precursor to substance abuse and one of the key risk factors for addiction long term. A substance abuse prevention school speaker like Tony Hoffman understands this dynamic and is an expert in the field of addiction recovery. How and why drug misuse starts is Tony’s passion for every guest speaker presentation he does.
Tony has changed what it means to be a drug misuse and recovery speaker for high schools and middle schools with his unique storytelling approach. It’s not about scaring kids away from drugs as a means of prevention but about educating students about mental health and their current coping skills and challenging them to think differently than they once did about why people use substances like vaping, alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs. This is what has earned him the title of the best drug prevention and misuse speaker for schools over the last 15 years.
Making Motivational Speakers for Young People Relatable
A big challenge students face with drug speakers for schools is that most speakers often use details of drug use, where they were purchased, or what it was like to be high, which students cannot relate to unless they are currently using those substances. Tony Hoffman, however, is a substance abuse speaker for high schools like no other. He focuses on the emotional struggles in his early childhood and teenage years to develop relevance. He can speak sobriety in a way that resonates with students, often leading them to message him on social media or tell teachers and administrators that he “gets” them.
Tony does not overshare details about drugs with students; his stories are engaging while remaining age-appropriate. He wants students to feel his life story and experiences, from being a middle and high school student to a young adult who struggled with addiction to the point of homelessness and incarceration.
Tony’s goal is for students to carefully consider their own choices and feelings and decide if they are willing to risk feeling the way he did as a result of substance abuse. He speaks sobriety in a way that encourages students to reflect on their own mental health and coping skills, helping them move to a place where drugs are not appealing.
Belief Systems = Behavior
When Tony Hoffman, a speaker for high schools and middle schools who strives to be relatable, begins to share his early childhood, kids become captivated by his vulnerability. Tony was a star athlete who shared a unique gift with athletics that very few others had. Despite his gift for sports and dreams of making it to the NBA, Tony was suffering internally with his mental health and the absence of his father from his basketball games. Tony reveals to students that every human, as they develop and grow, subconsciously creates a belief system about themselves and others. These belief systems are developed based on the experiences a person has at home and reinforced by the ones had in school. The two belief systems Tony shares with students during his mental health and drug misuse prevention school speaker events are:
- I can. I will. I’m able
- I can’t. I won’t. I’m not able
Through the depiction of Tony’s perceived mistakes, looking back on his early teenage years, he shares with students what he believes they can do for themselves to curate positive affirmations within themselves that lead them away from substance abuse, not toward it.
Addiction Is Not a Choice
The old belief that addiction is merely a choice in which the person continues to engage is not supported by the latest neurological research. Tony is considered the best drug misuse, mental health, and addiction speaker for high schools and middle schools for his ability to articulate this scientific concept without using doctoral jargon or words that high school and middle school students can’t capture. The three most telling factors for why addiction occurs are:
- Environment
- Genetics
- Psychology (Mental Health)
Tony masterfully uses a doorway analogy to depict how a person can use a substance like vaping to take them into the door, but what happens once they enter is no longer in their control because substances can trick the brain into thinking that a person’s mental wellness and perceived mood is better. Which can trigger a craving every time a mood is considered low. Once this dynamic is introduced to the brain enough times, the brain no longer believes it can function or achieve a happy mood without it. Tony’s continual encouragement for students as a substance abuse prevention speaker is to intentionally take care of one’s mental health and be watchful of the community of people you’re connected to because the community of friends is the biggest influence on the decisions we make in our teenage years. Learn more about Tony’s powerful school speaker presentation that has changed the lives of thousands and heard by millions by hitting the Book Tony button below.
Motivational Speaker for Schools
‘From Prison To The Olympics’
It’s not uncommon to consider a motivational speaker for schools to be a person or public figure who speaks with students about buzzwords regarding achievement, goal setting, positive friend groups, etc. The content is good, but is it presented in a way that captivates teens with a real-life story and application of their meaning? This is what makes Tony Hoffman the best motivational speaker for schools in the United States. Tony Hoffman’s ‘From Prison To The Olympics’ is one of the greatest comeback stories in the world; to date, no other person has been incarcerated in prison and participated in the Olympics as an athlete or coach.
As a motivational speaker for high schools and middle schools, Tony has no interest in buzzword presentations. He understands fully that buzzword talks are the quickest way of losing young people’s attention or a hindrance to getting their attention at the start. Motivating the young human spirit isn’t about words; it’s about feeling. It’s about hearing and feeling another person’s experience and feeling something inside us that says, “I want to do more,” “I can do more,” and “It’s possible for me.” Tony’s unique ability to story-tell as a motivational school speaker is where the magic happens. Students never feel like they are being lectured or ‘learning’ because Tony’s ability to tell his story in such a captivating way is almost like watching your favorite movie live and in person.
Failures Become Successes
Tony’s personal story and journey is one that students can relate to. It’s the storyline of a young person with a dream and gift but also a young person with questions about life as he enters his teenage years. His questions and confusion gave way to risky behaviors like substance abuse to try and quiet the storm he felt inside. It was these decisions he speaks about that would ultimately take him from his gifts and dreams and enter a phase of darkness with substance addiction. As the top motivational speaker for schools, Tony can articulate and recall where he believes he was making mistakes for students so they can use his life as a light in their own and how he’s changed his perspective about his mistakes and now uses them as lessons to make his present and future version of self the best possible.
Small Things Become Big Things
One of the reasons people believe Tony is the best motivational substance abuse speaker for high schools and middle schools is because he has lived every moment he speaks about and does not talk at the students he’s speaking to; he speaks with them. Tony does not believe that his position in life makes him better than the young people in the audience; instead, he considers everyone the same. We’re all simply doing the best that we can, but Tony’s unique life experiences give him a personal responsibility as a school speaker to share what he’s learned and how he’s gotten to the position he is currently in.
Tony had an opportunity to change his life when he got to his prison cell at Wasco State Prison. He recognized that this window of opportunity was small, but the time to change his own life was at that very moment. He set four goals in his prison cell:
- Race BMX professionally
- Go to the Olympics
- Start a non-profit called the Freewheel Project
- Become a professional speaker
Tony set out to accomplish what most said could never be done, and where he chose to begin his journey is one of simplicity. Tony’s life was completely unmanageable at the time he was in prison. He needed a starting point of change in his life that he knew he could accomplish but also prove to himself he was making progress. As Tony begins to share this process with students they can see that it’s not about the big decisions we make but all of the little ones that we think don’t matter which have the biggest impact. Tony’s journey to the Olympics and becoming the best motivational speaker for high schools and middle schools started with learning to brush his teeth every single day and treating the task as if it were like the Olympics. He would then go on to make his bed, organize his stuff, and become disciplined.
Tony Is the Right Person for the Job
Tony’s story leaves students’ hearts filled with the message, “It’s never too late to make a change,” “It’s possible to do the impossible,” and that the process to goals and aspirations is along the narrow path of discipline, sacrifice, positive friends-choice making, and investment of self. If you’re looking for a motivational school speaker for schools, please tap the Book Tony button below, and Tony will personally contact you.
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The Best Motivational Speaker for High Schools & Middle Schools
Tony brings 15 years of speaking experience with him as one of the best guest speakers for high school students and middle school students. From the most prestigious of stages to rural and middle USA communities. Middle schools, high schools, preparatory schools, alternative education, and more! His testimonials speak to the quality of work he does with students all over America as the USA’s best motivational speaker for schools. His content can be tailored to every audience’s needs. All you need to do is reach out to learn more. Now the question is…What are you waiting for? Tap the book Tony link below and bring a life-changing presentation to your campus!
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