LONDON— With millennials who use social media more than three times as likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, Leonard Sekyonda, CEO of MYCOMEUP.com, recently released Become Your Own Hero aimed at easing the burden of the digital era.
While recalling his journey from failure to success and proving how embracing isolation and self-doubt led him to rediscover his confidence, Leonard’s story tackles the deeper issues of today: a generation’s struggle with anxiety, limiting beliefs and depression.
With the pressure of education, social acceptance and lack of life structure greatly impacting the mental well-being of millennials, 20 percent of them are experiencing some form on the depression. Dubbed my many “The Anxious Generation,” studies show more than 30 percent of working millennials suffer from general anxiety.
“Through my writing, I hoped not only to explore and reflect upon my own journey, but to present my experiences to people who are struggling with the same societal issues I encountered,” Sekyonda said. “Our generation faces obstacles presented by the digital age that have increased anxiety and depression rates, while exposing those suffering to a new societal stigma they are forced to cope with.”
The topics the 29-year-old Sekyonda addresses are issues millennials all over the world are facing. And while these issues are rapidly expanding—especially with a studies finding depression and anxiety diagnoses up more than 30 percent since 2013—the focus is to help those suffering and prevent others from that pain, too.
In Becoming Your Own Hero, Leonard focuses on helping readers develop structured expectations through goal-setting exercises. These exercises are designed to create clear, rewarding structure—not only to help build self-confidence but to build a clear direction for people to navigate through the mass information and digital age. Having engaged a global audience with his writing, Leonard was inspired to write Become Your Own Hero to teach those in a position he was once in how to re-create and re-discover themselves to progress, succeed and get back in the driver’s seat of their own journey.