Motivational Speaker & Mental Health Advocate Eden Gold On Transforming Education and Youth Mental Health

…As an entrepreneur, I have ideas all day that could do great things for the world. One of the main movements I’m passionate about is providing young adults with the roadmaps they need to succeed in adulthood. This includes everything we’re not taught in school but that can make young people highly successful earlier in life. That’s the movement and the goal: helping them see their potential and giving them the tools to achieve it. Outside of that, I’m also passionate about bringing this same concept into prisons. The justice system often overlooks the potential of incarcerated individuals who might have gotten the short end of the stick. They’re still radiating balls of potential. Starting a movement that helps them see their potential and channel their intelligence into something positive, despite their circumstances, would be incredibly impactful. Both of these movements aim to unlock potential and provide the necessary tools and support to succeed…

I had the pleasure of talking with Eden Gold. Eden is a 26-year-old entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and mental health advocate, making waves in the realm of youth empowerment and mental health awareness. As the founder of Life After High School LLC and the host of the Real Life Adulting podcast, Gold is on a mission to impact the lives of one billion young adults, aiming to dismantle the stigma surrounding mental health and equip youth with the tools they need to succeed.

Gold’s journey is deeply rooted in her own experiences of hardship and resilience. Her father was sentenced to life in prison without parole when she was just ten years old, an event that profoundly affected her upbringing. Growing up in a dysfunctional family, she faced numerous challenges, including sexual assault and a six-year battle with bulimia. These early experiences left her feeling vulnerable and insecure, driving her to become a “people pleaser” in a desperate attempt to fit in and find acceptance.

Despite these adversities, Gold vowed to change her life and has since transformed into a formidable force of positivity and change. Her recovery from bulimia and her journey to self-acceptance inspired her to help others facing similar struggles. She pursued a course at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) in 2018, initially to heal her relationship with food. This experience, combined with a pivotal moment at a women’s retreat in Fiji, ignited her passion for speaking and advocating for mental health.

Gold’s work as a health coach, mental health advocate, and professional speaker has led her to share her story with millions of teenagers and young adults. She addresses topics such as mental health, personal development, productivity, and the challenges of post-high school life. Her goal is to equip young people with the skills they need to succeed earlier in life, with an emphasis on mental health as a foundational component.

A significant part of Gold’s mission involves education reform. She believes that the current education system fails to address the real needs of students, particularly in areas such as mental health and personal development. Through her online program, Life After High School, she offers courses on a wide range of topics, including personal and professional development, mental and physical health, relationships, creativity, and cultural inclusion. This program aims to bridge the gap between traditional education and the practical skills needed for successful adulthood.

Gold’s impact extends beyond her programs and speaking engagements. She is working on launching College Happy Hour, a membership site designed to provide college-age students with essential tools, resources, and community support. This platform aims to help students navigate adulthood with confidence and success, emphasizing the importance of mental health and personal development.

Throughout her career, Gold has faced numerous challenges, including self-doubt and the pressures of being a young entrepreneur. She has had to overcome skepticism about her age and credibility, as well as the personal struggles that come with building a brand from the ground up. However, her dedication and passion for helping young adults have driven her to persevere.

Gold’s unique approach combines authenticity, research, and creativity. She believes in the power of storytelling and vulnerability, using her own experiences to connect with her audience and build trust. Her commitment to long-term goals and discipline has helped her create a thriving digital community that continues to grow and inspire.

Looking ahead, Gold is focused on expanding her reach to young adults across the United States and eventually globally. She envisions a future where her work significantly impacts the education system, making mental health and personal development a priority in schools and universities. Her ultimate goal is to create one of the leading brands in student success, helping young people achieve their full potential and lead fulfilling lives. Through her various initiatives, she continues to be a catalyst for change, shaping the future of education and mental health advocacy. Her work serves as a practical guide for young adults, encouraging them to speak up, take control of their lives, and pursue their dreams with confidence.

Yitzi Weiner: It is such a delight to meet you again. Before we dive in deep, our readers would love to learn about your personal origin story. Can you share with us the story of your childhood and how you grew up?

Eden Gold: Yeah, I grew up in a military family. I was born on Oahu in Hawaii because my dad was stationed there. Then he was stationed in Georgia, so we moved there. When I was about three, my parents got a divorce. My mom took me, my brother, and my sister and drove us 3,000 miles across the country. I grew up in California pretty much my whole life until just two years ago, and now I live in Oregon.

Yitzi Weiner: Amazing. So, tell us a bit about what you do and what led you to this specific career path.

Eden Gold: So, what I do is I’m a youth motivational speaker. I speak on topics surrounding mental health, personal development, productivity, and helping young adults navigate post-high school life and set the foundations for everything they do in adulthood. The goal is to equip them with the skills they need to succeed earlier in life, quicker in life, and ultimately have more fun than many of us did when we were growing up, confused, and felt like we didn’t have someone to turn to for answers.

I’m also the founder of the online program Life After High School, which bridges the gap between what we’re taught in school and what we actually need to be successful in adult life. My vision for this path came from my struggles with an eating disorder growing up. I was very insecure and didn’t really have a word to describe what I was feeling. We’re not taught about depression, anxiety, how to stand up to bullies, or deal with traumatic experiences.

My dad went to prison when I was 10, and he’s serving life without parole. That shocking change at such a young age made me feel like I had done something wrong, which I believe led to coping behaviors associated with eating disorders. That lasted for about six to eight years. I thought when I got to college, I would become a vet, which I always wanted to be, but I ultimately dropped out because I was too sick with my eating disorder. My number one goal at that time was to heal.

I went on a path of discovery and found the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN). It was a year-long program teaching about the mind-body connection, a concept that’s simple yet often overlooked in school. After 10 years of struggling with body image, I was able to heal from my eating disorder in 10 months without the help of a therapist and without many people knowing because I was so embarrassed.

That realization — that other young adults might be struggling as I did and unaware of what I now knew — drove me to share this information. This expanded into more topics, like time management and other essential life skills. But the foundation was always mental health.

Yitzi Weiner: So you’re a speaker. Do you have a favorite story about one of your travels, one of your speaking engagements, where you feel like it stands out in your career?

Eden Gold: My favorite speaking and travel story happened before I even knew I wanted to be a speaker. As I mentioned, my dad’s in prison. He graduated from this prison program called Defy, and he was wearing a cap and gown. He was one of 12 graduates. At the time, I was 19. I drove from Santa Rosa, California to Crescent City, Pelican Bay, where my dad was. I got to watch his graduation, and it was the best day of my whole life. The woman who founded that company earned my deep respect because it was the first time I had seen my dad in five years and the first time I actually got to touch him since his incarceration, which had been 10 years. His wrists were shackled to his waist, but it was still memorable.

I reached out to her and asked if I could visit her for a business weekend. She lived in Colorado and was going to fly me out there in 2018. Then she got invited to be the keynote speaker at a business event in Fiji. She said, “I’m not going unless you invite Eden.” And I was like, “Oh, me?” So, there I was, 18 or 19 years old, flying first class to Fiji. She gave the keynote speech and included my dad’s and my story. She brought me up on stage, and I looked out into the crowd of 200 businesswomen, sharing my story with them. They were crying with me. It was looking into their eyes that I realized this is what I have to do. The life-changing power of words and sharing those with a mass of people on stage, connecting with them — that’s when I realized speaking is the direction I want to go.

Yitzi Weiner: That’s such an amazing story. It’s been said that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Do you have a story about a humorous mistake you made when you first started your career as an educator? What lesson did you learn from it?

Eden Gold: Oh, gosh. I don’t know if this is humorous; it actually might be kind of messed up. When I was starting to build my speaking career, I was almost willing to do anything it took to succeed. So, I started taking on multiple roles that were outside of my expertise. I was trying to be people’s therapist and show them that I cared. When I was about 20 or 21 years old, I did three workshops at a high school in my hometown, Santa Rosa.

For some reason, I ended up giving one of the students my number because he was struggling. I thought I could help him. He was 15 years old and started texting me. One Friday night, I was drunk, and it hit me that this was not only unprofessional but also uncomfortable and beyond my scope of practice. I had no business giving any of the people I spoke to my number. I guess I just didn’t know any better at the time.

We learn from our mistakes. I talked to my speaking mentor, and he was like, “Yeah, you can’t be doing that. You’re no one’s therapist.” I get that my heart is big, but I also have to know my place. And my place is not giving a 15-year-old my number. There was just no point in doing that.

Yitzi Weiner: That’s a great story. Okay, so you have so much going on. Are you working on any exciting new projects?

Eden Gold: I am. I have two upcoming speaking engagements that I’m really excited about with a bunch of student leaders. Outside of those, my business partner, Tariq, and I are launching a membership site called College Happy Hour in just a couple of weeks. We’re launching it on August 20th.

College Happy Hour is designed to provide college-age students with essential tools, resources, and community support. It helps them not only navigate the back-to-school era but also navigate adulthood with confidence and success, all while having more fun. It’s a one-stop hub for learning, growth, and connection, tailored specifically to the unique challenges young adults face.

We envision a community where people have a safe place to ask any and all questions as they navigate adulthood — something none of us had. So, we’re super excited about College Happy Hour.

Yitzi Weiner: Amazing. What kind of topics do you cover in the program?

Eden Gold: Yeah, so we’re going to have exclusive blog posts that tackle very relevant issues for college-age students. Right now, we’re focusing on the back-to-school season to help students set up for success, but we’ll also cover a wide range of topics under that umbrella. These include moving out, meal prepping, making friends, and streamlining everyday processes so students don’t have to put too much thought and effort into mundane things that don’t actually move the needle in their lives.

We’ll have blog posts, checklists, downloads, and spreadsheets. After four years of being in this space and helping young adults, I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews with high school students, college students, and busy young professionals. I’ve asked them all the same series of questions: Where did the education system let you down? What did you love about it? Where did therapy let you down? Did you love therapy? If you could wave a magic wand and have one thing taught, what subject would that be?

What I found is that almost every problem a young adult faces isn’t unique. We often think we’re alone in our struggles, but we’re not. There are common trends, and the solutions to these problems are usually simple, even if not always easy. If we don’t know what questions to ask, we can’t access all the information to make it simple. So, we’re providing this simple, step-by-step information, and the community aspect is here to help them execute it.

Yitzi Weiner: It’s amazing. You have somebody working with you who’s in college now and knows the latest issues that are coming up.

Eden Gold: Oh, you know what’s funny? Every speaking engagement I go to, I get the opportunity to talk to some really incredible young adults. I feel so honored when they open up to me, whether it’s through DMs or in person, telling me what impacted them. All of this is just data that I get to collect to better serve this audience. I would say that every young adult I come in contact with is also a resource because they’re helping me help them through the connections we’ve built.

Yitzi Weiner: Amazing. I hear that you’re working on putting out a book. Can you tell us what it’s about?

Eden Gold: This book is all about education reform and highlighting people who are doing great things to shape the future of education. The current education system is built on a centuries-old model that doesn’t fit the needs of the world in 2024. Today, we have more free thinkers and creative minds who don’t want to sit at a desk and learn in traditional ways. While there have always been creative minds, technology has now brought them into the limelight.

We need to shine a light on what’s actually working so kids feel heard and seen. It’s impossible to change what someone does or thinks without first changing how they feel. When we talk about education revolution, we’re tapping into the minds of young adults, understanding what bothers them, what excites them, and using that data to build software and teach subjects that genuinely help them succeed in life on an emotional level.

The book focuses on people who are bringing this revolution into the world and transforming the education system.

Yitzi Weiner: That’s amazing. Is there a backstory to why you became so passionate about education reform? Of all issues to work on, why education reform?

Eden Gold: Right, because I wanted to be a vet my entire life. I was all about animals, not people. But we can’t always pinpoint exactly why our passions shift. For me, it’s about recognizing the incredible potential that young minds have to shape the future. Knowing what I know now, I’m in a unique position: I’m young enough that they see me as one of them, but old enough to guide them based on my own mistakes.

I see how they can be wildly more successful than people my age or even their parents’ age, but they just weren’t taught how to achieve that. I’m not faulting parents for this, because we only know what we know. However, if I can help young people tap into their potential and fulfill their vision, while also reducing the mental health crisis in the United States and the world, it really fires me up. It gets me out of bed every day. They’re like little balls of potential, and that’s what drives me.

Yitzi Weiner: That’s great. Do you have a main empowering takeaway that you want readers to get from your book? What do you want people to walk away with?

Eden Gold: I want people to know that they are a lot smarter than they give themselves credit for. Young people often think they are not smart, uneducated, or unprepared. But we all have untapped knowledge and potential. We need to learn how to ask better questions and sit with our thoughts. Maybe write them down and think, “What could a possible solution to this problem be?”

We hold ourselves back because we’re uncomfortable stepping outside our comfort zone. But if you’re already uncomfortable in your comfort zone, it’s time to change. You might as well be uncomfortable chasing something deeply fulfilling rather than staying the same as everyone else. Just believe in yourself and know that you have many of the answers you’re looking for.

Yitzi Weiner: There are so many books out there. There are a lot of books on education. Why do you think your book is unique?

Eden Gold: Our book is unique because it’s built on extensive research, data, and real-world feedback. We’ve tapped into the minds of young adults, educators, and other experts to understand what works and what doesn’t. We’ve collected feedback over the years to see what young adults want, what’s missing, and what we can do differently to help them get from where they are to where they want to be faster.

Traditional education often doesn’t address these needs. While some shifts are happening, we’ve taken an extra level of time and passion to develop proven strategies that work. This book is filled with insights and tools designed to unlock the potential inside young adults and provide them with a clear roadmap for success. It’s our deep passion and commitment that make our approach unique and effective.

Yitzi Weiner: This is our signature question, our main question. You’re putting together a digital community and turning that into a business. Can you share with our readers the five things you need to build a successful, thriving digital community?

Eden Gold: A thriving digital community. A successful digital community. Absolutely. So, some of this will focus on community-building and some on developing the software around it.

1. Passion: You need to have a deep passion for what you want to help people with. Whatever it is that’s pulling you toward a greater future for yourself and the people you serve, that’s your driving force. Ideas aren’t put in our heads for no reason. Those positive, future-focused thoughts are there to guide you. Passion fuels the creation of a community and keeps you motivated.

2. Authenticity: People love a good story and are drawn to authenticity. Be vulnerable and open about your struggles. You don’t have to pretend to be perfect or have the best day all the time. Sharing your growth and journey builds trust and community. Find ways to share your journey in a genuine and relatable manner.

3. Research and Infrastructure: When building a digital community like College Happy Hour, research is crucial. Understand what kind of software and tools you need. For example, a software hosting platform, an email list, and a way to exchange emails for freebies or lead magnets are essential. These elements funnel people into your system, where you can develop trust and engagement.

4. Creativity: You need creativity in colors, fonts, and ideas. While it’s essential to start with a focused approach, the sky is truly the limit in entrepreneurship. Creativity helps make your community visually appealing and engaging. It allows you to try new things and keep your audience interested.

5. Discipline: Discipline is about sacrificing short-term benefits for long-term gains. We live in a society that often seeks instant gratification, but building a successful community requires patience and persistence. I’ve already accepted that what I do today might not benefit me immediately, but in three to five years, it will pay off. Develop habits through discipline, and it becomes a way of life. This long-term vision makes the future exciting and achievable.

Yitzi Weiner: That’s our final aspirational question. So Eden, because of the platform that you’ve built and your amazing work, you’re a person of enormous influence. If you could spread an idea or inspire a movement that would bring the most good to the most people, what would that be?

Eden Gold: That’s a really good question. As an entrepreneur, I have ideas all day that could do great things for the world. One of the main movements I’m passionate about is providing young adults with the roadmaps they need to succeed in adulthood. This includes everything we’re not taught in school but that can make young people highly successful earlier in life. That’s the movement and the goal: helping them see their potential and giving them the tools to achieve it.

Outside of that, I’m also passionate about bringing this same concept into prisons. The justice system often overlooks the potential of incarcerated individuals who might have gotten the short end of the stick. They’re still radiating balls of potential. Starting a movement that helps them see their potential and channel their intelligence into something positive, despite their circumstances, would be incredibly impactful. Both of these movements aim to unlock potential and provide the necessary tools and support to succeed.

Yitzi Weiner: Amazing. How can our readers continue to follow your work? How can they join your program? How can they buy anything that you’re offering? How can they support you in any possible way?

Eden Gold:

The easiest 2 places are TikTok and Instagram. As TikTok’s “Adulting” Expert, I’ve built a following of thousands of ambitious young adults. Both are @EdenGold_

If you are between the ages of 18–30, the next best place you can start to get one-on-one access to me (the only place to get personal coaching by me), is by joining my membership site, College Happy Hour.

College Happy Hour is designed to provide college-aged students with the essential tools, resources, and community support they need to navigate adulthood with confidence and success.

Lastly, if you want to collaborate with me, or book me to speak at your upcoming event, please click this link

Yitzi Weiner: Eden, you’re so inspirational. I wish you continued success and blessings and I very much look forward to interviewing you again in the near future.

Eden Gold: Thank you.