Transforming Mental Health Outcomes at Home, School, and Work

Justin Goodman brings over two decades of leadership experience and a deeply personal mission to every stage he takes, helping students find hope and equipping leaders to build cultures where people thrive.

CO-FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, PROJECT 55
100K+ PEOPLE REACHED ANNUALLY
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, TOTAL CSR

Tailored for Every Audience

Whether it is a gymnasium full of high schoolers or a ballroom of executives, every presentation is crafted for who is in the room.

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Jr. High & High School

Age-appropriate, high-energy presentations that meet students where they are. Justin tackles mental health with vulnerability and humor, giving young people permission to talk about what they are going through and tools to help their friends.

 

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Colleges & Universities

For campuses navigating a mental health crisis, Justin delivers talks that resonate with students, faculty, and administrators alike. He combines personal narrative with practical frameworks for building campus-wide cultures of care.

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Conferences & Corporate Events

From keynotes to breakout sessions and panel discussions, Justin brings insight on leadership, talent development, and workplace mental health that leaves audiences with strategies they can implement immediately.

Topics That Move People to Action

Every talk is built around the belief that your greatest competitive advantage is your people. When we invest in their well-being and growth, everything changes.

Jr. High and High School Assemblies

High-energy sessions that go beyond motivation to give students real tools for mental health and emotional resilience. Perfect for schools that want more than an inspiring message; these assemblies equip young people to recognize when they or someone around them is struggling and take meaningful action.
  • Recognize warning signs of mental health struggles in themselves and peers
  • Build confidence to start difficult conversations instead of staying silent
  • Learn actionable response strategies grounded in Project 55’s frameworks
  • Walk away equipped, not just inspired

Teacher & Staff Talks

Educators are the first line of response for students in crisis, and most have never been trained for it. These sessions draw from Project 55’s Mental Health First Responder framework to equip staff with the skills to recognize warning signs, respond effectively, and protect their own mental health in the process.
  • Identify early indicators of student mental health distress
  • Respond to crisis moments with confidence using proven frameworks
  • Set boundaries that prevent compassion fatigue and burnout
  • Create classroom environments where students feel safe enough to speak up

College Talks

College students face a unique collision of independence, identity pressure, and declining access to support. These talks confront the realities of anxiety, isolation, substance use, and the stigma that keeps students from seeking help. Grounded in Project 55’s mission and clinical best practices, these sessions give students actionable strategies while normalizing the conversation around mental health.
  • Confront anxiety, isolation, and substance use without sugarcoating
  • Break through the stigma that keeps students from asking for help
  • Gain practical coping strategies built on clinical best practices
  • Support campus retention, wellness initiatives, and duty-of-care goals

Leadership and Professional Development Talks

Someone on your team is struggling right now, and no one around them knows what to do. These sessions, grounded in Project 55’s frameworks, train leaders and employees at every level to see what others miss, step in when it matters most, and build workplaces where silence is no longer the default response to pain. Because the moment someone finally asks for help should never be met with someone who wasn’t ready.
  • Spot the warning signs hiding behind “I’m fine” before crisis hits
  • Respond to struggling employees with confidence, not confusion
  • Navigate difficult conversations without damaging trust or relationships
  • Build a culture where reaching out is an act of strength, not weakness

About

Meet Justin Goodman: Entrepreneur, mental health advocate, speaker, author and the driving force behind Project 55! Justin’s commitment to transforming how students and professionals approach mental health fuels everything he does. His personal experience navigating the invisible pressures of high-stakes environments gave him a front-row seat to a truth few are willing to name: the people achieving the most are often the ones quietly falling apart. And the people closest to them are usually the first to notice, yet the last to be equipped to do something about it.

That recognition became a mission. Justin founded Project 55, a mental health movement built on one foundational belief: the barrier to saving someone’s life was never credentials. It was being close enough to see it, caring enough to act on it, and prepared enough to know how. This movement wasn’t born in a textbook. It was born from lived experience and a deep conviction that no student should suffer in silence and no leader should lose themselves in the pursuit of excellence.

By partnering with mental health experts, Justin developed practical frameworks that integrate emotional intelligence, mental health awareness, and actionable intervention skills into school environments and business settings alike. His focus on redefining strength (not as suppression, but as empathy, awareness, and the courage to act) has resonated with school districts, universities, and organizations nationwide.

Business Books

Each book distills years of experience into practical guidance for building better teams and organizations.

Retain

The Future of Learning in a Distracted World. A blueprint for rethinking how organizations train and develop their people.

Agency Amplified

Achieving Scale in a Shifting Digital Landscape. Strategies for agency owners who want to grow smarter and faster.

The Insurance Talent Magnet

If you build it, they will come. How to attract, develop, and keep the people who will define your organization.

Books by Justin

Each book distills years of experience into practical guidance for building better teams and organizations.

Retain

The Future of Learning in a Distracted World. A blueprint for rethinking how organizations train and develop their people.

Agency Amplified

Achieving Scale in a Shifting Digital Landscape. Strategies for agency owners who want to grow smarter and faster.

The Insurance Talent Magnet

If you build it, they will come. How to attract, develop, and keep the people who will define your organization.

“Empowering everyday people to be the difference maker when it matters most.”

Bring Justin to Your Next Event

Whether you are planning a school assembly, a university wellness week, or a national conference, Justin brings a message that resonates and a presence that stays with your audience long after the event.

More on Justin’s Story

Somebody in your audience is struggling right now. They’re smiling. They’re showing up. And they’re drowning. Justin Goodman knows, because he was that person. It started the way it starts for a lot of people. A kid getting bullied finds the one thing that makes the noise stop. For Justin, that was golf. It became his identity, his escape, and eventually the only version of himself he knew how to be. Then a devastating diagnosis took it away. Overnight, the thing that defined him was gone. And without it, Justin had no answer for the question that followed him everywhere: who am I without this? That silence became dangerous. Opioid painkillers led to addiction. Depression and social anxiety took hold. Justin became the fraternity brother everyone liked but nobody really knew. He showed up. He smiled. And behind all of it, he was quietly falling apart. The weight of it pushed him to a place he didn’t think he could come back from. Justin attempted to take his own life. He survived. But it wasn’t a hospital or a hotline that pulled him back. It was two fraternity brothers who had been watching closer than Justin realized. While everyone else accepted the smile at face value, these two refused to. They saw the withdrawal, the changes, the things that didn’t add up. And instead of assuming someone else would handle it, they showed up at his door, looked him in the eye, and started asking the questions everyone else was too afraid to ask. That single act of courage changed the entire trajectory of Justin’s life.

The Shift

Justin got clean. Then he got to work, turning the worst chapter of his life into a mission to make sure no one has to wait as long as he did for someone to step in.

Whether it’s fifty students in a classroom or thousands in an auditorium, Justin doesn’t give a lecture. He tells the truth about what it feels like to silently fall apart while everyone around you assumes you’re fine. That honesty opens a door most talks never touch. And he doesn’t leave your audience there. He gives them something they can actually use: the confidence and the tools to be the person who steps in when it matters most.

Impact & Credentials

The lesson that saved Justin’s life became the principle behind everything he builds: nobody gets across the finish line by themselves. That conviction isn’t just something he talks about. It’s how he operates. Every venture he has launched, he has launched as a co-founder, because the model that saved him is the model he refuses to abandon.

His nonprofit, Away To Help, provides clean water to over 150,000 Ugandans every year. His company, Total CSR, helps agency owners build training and development systems that retain top talent, reaching over 100,000 people annually. And his latest organization, Project 55, is working to equip everyday people to transform mental health outcomes at home, school, and work.

Across three organizations and hundreds of thousands of lives touched, the throughline has never changed: equip the people closest to the problem with the skills to solve it. Because the barrier to saving someone’s life was never credentials. It was being close enough to see it, caring enough to act on it, and prepared enough to know how.