Secrets of Success for Teens: The Thank You Note

Ok...did you get some cool stuff for Christmas or Hanukah? Did you get some geeky presents?

Whether you liked your gifts or not, it's time to write a thank you note. Even though we're all online or on the cell phone, there is still no substitute for the handwritten thank you note. Here's why: it tells someone that you care about them enough to take the time and spend the money on the paper and stamp.

Email and text messages are fine for quick messages but there is something enduring about a handwritten thank you note. Right now along with a few photos (not nearly enough) and lots of wonderful memories, all I have left of my best friend are the thank you notes she wrote me over the years.

She was the Queen of Thank You Notes and really was my thank you note teacher. But I treasure those notes more than you imagine because she took the time to tell me what she really thought about things. I love seeing her tiny neat handwriting and I'm so glad she took the time to share how she appreciated our friendship.

Thank you notes are still the right thing to do in the work world too. More on that later...time to get busy writing those holiday thank you notes...(which is what i need to do as soon as i get home from the coffee shop where I'm writing this!)

Secrets of Success for Teens: Failure

If you've watched the news lately you can't help but see that former American Idol failure Jennifer Hudson is everywhere. I say failure because in our society we seem to only focus on the one who wins. We easily lose interest in only but the most visible 'winners' - the top athletes, the supermodels, the Paris Hiltons of the world. And we often feel like losers because we don't measure up to them.

It's really kind of crazy when you think of it. There's only a few of them and there's a lot of the rest of us. Why do we put ourselves down because we don't look like them or have the imagined life that they have? But so many of us do...especially teens.

Jennifer Hudson...she's not pencil thin, she didn't win American Idol. But she didn't give up on herself. I certainly don't know the whole story of what she did with her career after Idol but she's now a Golden Globe nominee for best actress for "Dream Girls" after auditioning many times. One door closes...as Meredith Vieira says in her blog (see link)...and another door opens...

Let's make sure we're not so busy looking at that closed door...what we don't have in our lives...that we miss the incredible doors always opening ahead of us.

Secrets of Success for Teens: Parents

Parents. We all have them. They can be tough at times. Most of them love us more than we can even comprehend although it hardly seems that way at times. I never had children so I can't truly imagine what it's like to worry about a teen other than the worry I felt as the teacher of teens. I bet parents can still see us as the babies they brought into the world...and they want to protect us at all costs. But it sure doesn't feel that way sometimes...no matter how old you are.

So what to do? When they yell and try to force their way of doing things on us? Well if we still live with them, we've got to honor the fact that they're paying for pretty much everything. We also have to keep in mind that they're probably doing the best they can. After all, no one gives parent lessons.

Here's my take on it as I often shared with the thousands of teens I worked with. Try to see things from your parents point of view. Think how protective you feel about friends, a pet, even a new outfit or car. Imagine if it's actually your child?? Realize that you're supposed to be pulling away from them when you're in your teens. Otherwise you would never be able to leave to start your own life. It's how you pull away that either creates more stress...or less.

Refrain from saying something that will just get you in more trouble. In class, we all breathed when we felt stressed. Breathe in for a count of 5, hold for 20, breathe out for ten. Do it a couple of times and the words we want to say, stay in our heads where maybe they should stay.

I read recently that we all get the parents were were supposed to get. Even the tough ones. They makes us who we're supposed to be. Mine made me search out ways to help people cope with life maybe because I had to at a young age. Guess if I had had the type of parents who gave me everything, then I wouldn't have learned what I learned that led to helping so many teens get their lives in shape. Might not have been there to prevent the couple of suicides that I helped to prevent either.

Things work out the way they're supposed to it seems. While they're working out...we need to make sure we're not looking for reasons to be offended. Don't take it all so personally...it truly does make life easier...with parents...and with ourselves.

Secrets of Success for Teens: Are you bored in school?

I just got home from tutoring two high school students in math. One had written "bored" all over his math notebook. I know how he feels. I know from being a student who was bored with geometry...and also from boring myself...when I was the teacher!

One of my goals is to help teachers be more exciting in class. I left teaching when I realized after 13 years that I was bored. I came back to the same school 4 years later with a whole new outlook...and tools to make my classes fun.

So part one of the goal is to help teachers.

But part 2 is to help students. I believe we all have to take responsibility for our lives. So it's up to us to find ways not to be bored. After all, we'd better get a plan because for all we know our significant other's parents might bore us to tears...and we can't run from that situation.

So what to do? I'm a visual learner. My high school notebook was filled with drawings. I was able to concentrate better when I drew. Make sure that strategy is ok with your teacher. Tell them you can focus better when you draw if that really does work for you.

Get some good sleep. Part of the boredom is that we're all so tired. It's a lot easier to focus when all your attention is not spent trying to keep your eyelids propped open.

More on this next time...

What is beauty...part 2

What are your best features? Eyes? Hair?

What are your worst? Bet it's easier to make this list. It's always easier to find what's wrong with ourselves than what's right. Not that we should be vain. But you probably have more great features than bad ones.

I was driving the other day and passed a couple of girls walking home from school. One had the thickest most gorgeous hair. I thought to myself that she was lucky to have such beautiful hair. She looked at my car as I passed and I noticed that she had a few zits on her face. I wondered if she realized that she was a beautiful young lady or if she thought she was ugly because of the blemishes on her face.

If your body is healthy, you have much to be thankful for. How about sending a thank you to your body for all the good things you have going for you? And the next time you begin to obsess about some detail you don't like, thank yourself for the good ones.

What is beauty?

Dove soap has a new campaign where they show a video of a woman is made ready for what appears to be a typical ad campaign. She is a woman who is beautiful before they even begin working on her - a natural beauty by most standards.

But then they begin to change her to match what our society now believes is beautiful. They put a team of make-up artists and hair stylists to work on her and then take some of the windblown glamor shots we're used to seeing.

But they don't stop there.

The computer artists take the photos and begin to change her features...bigger eyes...a longer neck...a thinner face...no blemishes. When they're done, we see the type of woman who we often see on the cover of the fashion magazines. She is no longer the natural beauty. Even she doesn't look like herself..

Imagine what this kind of digital magic is doing for the self-esteem for women of all ages?

We're comparing our looks to the pictures of women who don't even look like that themselves. Cindy Crawford was once heard to say she wished she looked like Cindy Crawford. Oprah Winfrey says it takes a team and a day to get the cover picture of "O Magazine."

Let's give ourselves a break...let's start to think about what true beauty is. We each have much more of that than we realize...

Haven't seen the Dove video...check the link above.

More on this later...

Why can't adults use technology??

Why aren't the adults in your life as good with technology as you are? Do you make fun of them or think they're not as smart as you? Have you ever really thought about why they can't program their cell phone or use an Ipod or set their TIVO?

Before we answer that question, let's go one more. Are there life situations that wish you could handle better? Maybe you wish you could drive or deal with people without all the drama. Or maybe you wish that you had all the things figured out that your parents do - a good job, a spouse, a house.

Ok..now for some answers. Different things take on importance at each stage of our life journey. When we're kids/teens, we have the time to play around with all that "My Space" can do. We create cool sites and really can check out all the features of the technology around us. Yes, you have school to go to each day but once the homework is done (and the after school activities/part time job) you've got more time on your hand than an adult does.

The adult has to go to work, run the household, take you to all the things you can't get to because either you don't drive yet or don't have a car, pay the bills, shop for necessities, cook, clean, and maybe if they're lucky, have some time for a social life. There is really very little time to see all that their cell phone can do. They get one, learn what they really need and move on. So we ought to be a bit understanding that they don't measure up to our tech skils because they just don't have the time to practice.

The adult on the other hand has already lived through their teen years so they know how to navigate the difficult waters of dealing with the things teen must deal with. Plus, they already know how to drive, get a job, kepp a job, find a house, furnish a house, raise a family, cook, and clean. All things that teens must learn if they want to be successful in their lives. Most adults know how to do many more things - some fly planes, some paint, some are champion runners, and some play drums.

I can't say I've heard too many adults make fun of teens because they couldn't do something that really didn't make sense for them to do just then. No rolling eyes because a kid doesn't know how to drive or deal with stress. As adults, we know that with time and practice, teens will learn how to do the things that are necessary. Why make fun of teens because they can't do these things...that would be cruel and just doesn't make sense. We love our kids...why would we laugh at what they can't do?

How about we look at adults the same way? So what if they can't download songs onto an Ipod? If they really wanted to know how, they would. But learning how might take up the time they'd rather spend doing something much more important. Spending time with you...

Bottom line...it's all about how we treat each other. Let's give each other a break...and try to see things from their view. After all, isn't that what we want for ourselves?

PS...maybe you could show them how to download...after all, they're probably going to teach you how to drive!

Mid term report cards

Well this has been way too long! Time to getting back to the reason I created this blog in the first place - to help teens get through the challenges in school and in every day life.

For most of the US, school is already at least a month and a half old. Everyone has a pretty good idea of what the year is shaping up to be, what each teacher is like, and what the tough spots are going to be. Mid term report cards which we called either progress reports or interims are either just coming out or just did. How did you do and better yet, what do they really mean for you?

These give you an idea of where you stand at one moment in time. They tell you if you're on the right track in a particular class or if you need to make changes. They should not be a reason to panic but I know many students who did just that. Of course if you did well, you don't really need a strategy from me other than to say, don't rest on your laurels...in other words, don't forget that you need to keep up what you've been doing right.

But for those of you who didn't do as well, here are a few tips:
1. Talk to your teacher and find out what you can do to improve. I know you don't know your teacher all that well yet but it's a good idea to let them know that you care about how you do. At this point in the school year, your teachers know your names but they don't really know you well yet. With over 140 students each, anything positive you can do to let the teacher know more about you help get you in the direction you want to go.
2. With the teacher's help or on your own, come up with a plan to make changes.
2. Show your parents your progress report even if it's not good. If you want to get your license when you're 16 1/2 or do any of the other things you want to do, you have to show your parents that you deserve their trust. Best plan? Tell them you already talked to the teacher and you already know what changes you're going to make to do better. (Make sure you actually do talk to the teacher first!)

OK....now take a deep breath and get on with the school year. It's only one progress report and you still have lots of time to get those grades where you want them to be!

Good luck!

Long time

Well it's been quite a while since I've written here. I lost my best friend in late May and it's been a long hard summer coping with the loss. But we all have losses to deal with in life so like anything else, we must have strategies to get by. I'm grateful that I learned a lot of strategies when I created my course for teens but I've learned even more which I'll share in the near future because they're useful for the many things that stop us in our tracks.

But mostly I wanted to share how important it is that we appreciate the people in our lives. One thing I don't regret is that I got to let my best friend know how important she was to me. I knew she would most likely not be around by the end of this year so we made the most of every moment we spent together. We did that for all the 14 years we were best friends. So even though she slipped away way too soon, I don't feel like there was anything left unsaid.

Does your best friend know how you feel about them? I know it's not always cool to say how you feel but some of the things my friend said are my best memories. You know what's even better? She sent me cards and thank you notes which I really treasure. I learned a lot from her - she was one amazing person - but her thank you notes were one her best lessons.

Who can you thank? Who can you tell today that you care? Trust me when I tell you how great it will make you feel to do so...and even more important, how great they'll feel.

Cell phones

I was looking out my window from my home office and noticed two teenage girls walking down the street. One was on her cell phone and the other one looked ignored. Which she was. Do you think the girl on the phone was taking an emergency message? Doubtful...few of us are.

I wonder when it became more important for us to talk on the phone than to talk to the person we're with? Probably when phones were first invented. It must have been such a big deal to get a phone call that everybody then stopped to find out what the important call was about.

Little by little, the phone ringing caused us to drop everything to answer it. We've made rudely interrupting the person we're talking to seem normal which anything does if you do it often enough. Maybe it's time to rethink our phone behavior.

What are we talking about so much on our cell phones anyway? Is the call really important? Important enough to ignore the friend or family member we're with? Something to think about in this era of people having low self esteem and seeking attention.

Maybe we need to spend the time with the person we're with...let the cell phone grab the message...and get back to the caller when we're done with our inperson conversation. Imagine how good that could make people feel?

Pay it forward! We could all use a little common courtesy and respect!

Loyalty...and your word

We're responsible for what we do or say. Sure it's a free country but what we do has consequences and it's worth thinking about the effect of what we say or do. I was thinking of that today as I watched the first Red Sox - Yankee game of the season. Whether you're a baseball fan or not, there were a lot of lessons in the game. You see this was the first game that former Red Sox hero Johnny Damon returned to Fenway Park as a member of the New York Yankees - the arch rival of the Red Sox.

It's not so much that he switched teams. It was what he said before he did it. A year ago he said he would never play for the Yankees and would never let money influence his decision. Fact is, he did just that. He turned down the Red Sox offer of $40 million for 4 years of work and took the Yankees offer of $52 million. Hmmm....seems like he contradicted himself big time.

Now I know that sports is a business and that people go for the money. It was his choice and we Red Sox fans have to accept that. But Mr. Damon also thought that he would be cheered when he came to Boston. Yes, he helped the team win the World Series in 2004. But he turned his back on his team and his fans for money, saying he wasn't wanted by the Sox and that he needed the money for his children. Wouldn't you feel wanted if someone offered you $40 million? As for the kids needing the money, what about the families with kids struggling to afford tickets to one game which are so expensive because we pay so much for players like Damon?

What you say matters. Loyalty and teamwork matter. The money is all well and good but who are you if your word can't be believed? Something to think about whether you're into baseball or not. Red Sox fan or Yankee. Your word is all.

National High Five Day

All of you who were in my Strategies for Success classes know that we started each class with a high five. It was fun, it cheered us up, it help us feel connected, it put our bodies into a positive physiology, and it general it just made us feel good. Not a bad way to start a class every day to be sure. A simple high five can be used to congratulate someone, to show enthusiasm, to celebrate success.

It actually is National High Five Day today. Take a moment today and high five someone to tell them how great they're doing. If high-fiving is a bit to energetic, just share with someone that they're doing a great job. Your words will mean a great deal.

This email is my high five to you...to wish you a great day, to thank you for being part of my life, to celebrate that although there will always be challenges in our lives, there are many successes that we deserve to pay attention to.

So consider yourself high-fived. And pass it on!

OK...how does StarPOWER help my life?

Ok...the last entry sounded like a textbook. Let me see if I can make this a little less like being in school. Sorry it's the teacher in me. All I can say is that I know this information works because it worked for the 1000 or so students who learned this with me.

Let's start with the P in StarPOWER. I said it stands for physiology. What's that mean? It's how you carry your body around. Are you full of pep or dragging? Do you walk like the living dead or like you've got your life together?

What separates the stars we see on the red carpet from us is how they carry themselves. Even if they feel lousy that day, even if they feel nervous (and who wouldn't with all the paparazzi chasing them!), even if they feel self conscious....they hold their bodies up strong and strut their stuff. If they can do it with all the pressures they have, so can we. And the funny thing is that once you walk like you're confident, you begin to feel like you are. It really works.

Next time you're feeling a little shy, uncertain, or self conscious...change the way you walk and carry yourself like the star you really are. You'll be pleasantly surprised with how different you feel.

More on Star POWER next time...

So what is StarPOWER?

We all see plenty of stars everyday with all the tabloid magazines and tv shows. They seem to be rich, beautiful and happy. We don't know for sure if they're happy but they sure make us think so. How do they do it? They know a few secrets about how to present themselves to the world. And they're secrets that anyone can use.

I put them together in a way to help people remember and called it StarPOWER. If you draw a star with 5 points and write P.O.W.E and R at the points, you've got the drawing I use to explain my version of StarPOWER. Here's what the letters stand for:
P - stands for physiology (how you carry yourself around every day)
O- stands for oxygen (how you breathe can bring you confidence or extra stress)
W - stands for the words you use (did you know that words have power?)
E - stands for envision or how you see life
R - stands for realize because once you know the first 4, you'll realize that you can have the power to carry yourself like the stars do any time you want.

More later...

Looks - Part II

It's been a few days since the last blog but it was time for the computer to get itself some spring cleaning sort of. It's happy and cranking so now back to sharing some secrets.

So last time we talked about how we feel about our looks. Few people are happy with their looks and spend a lot of time either obsessing or feel bad about them. I heard on the Today show this morning that if we put spent as much time doing something positive as we do worrying about our looks, we could change the world. Hmmm....they're probably right. I sure have wasted a lot of time feeling badly about the part of my looks that I couldn't change. Sure wish I had used that time for something better. And now I am.

Not that I always feel great about my looks especially since I'm getting older (who isn't?) and starting to notice things changing. I wish I hadn't been in the sun so much. I wish I had thicker hair. The funny part is I did once when I was in my teens and twenties but I didn't appreciate it then because all I could think of then were the things that were wrong with me....not all the things that were great...and looking back now, some of them really were.

As I was driving the other day, I passed some kids coming home from school. One girl had beautiful thick hair, the kind that I had years ago but didn't really appreciate. Her face was broken out a bit and I wondered if she had any idea how beautiful her hair was. My guess is that she didn't because she probably only worried about her face.

What are your best features? Take a minute today and write down all the great things about you...inside and out. Hard to do? Pretend you're doing it for your best friend...or maybe ask your best friend to make the list for you. And the next time you start to focus on your flaws, remember this list!

Do you like how you look?

How many of us like our looks? Few if any. Even some of the most beautiful people in the world are self conscious about how they look. When I spoke with a group of teens recently, I shared with them a quote by a famous woman who said she often felt funny about how she looked. I asked them to guess who she was....and no one suspected that it was Angelina Jolie. If she can feel bad about her looks....what about the rest of us??

In a recent article in O Magazine, the author tells us 5 things you should never do if you want to feel beautiful. This is directed mostly to females but it has lessons in it for guys too. Check it out.
How does this apply to Star POWER? Check out the next post...see you then!

Star POWER

Ever wonder how stars seem to have their act together all the time? We see them on the covers of magazines or walking the red carpet and they look perfect. How do they do it?

Well first of all they're human like the rest of us and don't look that way all the time. I heard Cindy Crawford say that she wishes she looked like Cindy Crawford. She is a beautiful woman no doubt but to look like she does on the cover of the magazines, she has a large group of people working on her. Then the photographer takes the picture and erases out any flaws. We'd all look pretty good with that much help.

But how do they manage to look like they're so together? There are secrets to their success and in the next few posts on here, I'll begin to share what they are. They're things anyone of us can do and I call them Star POWER because each of us the ability to star in our own lives.

More later...

How good was today?

If you read the blog from yesterday, you learned a new strategy where you ask yourself what's good about things. Did you try it?

What's good about a day in March? Here in New England, it was almost 60 degrees which felt really good after the cold days we've had lately. The sun set later than it had been too. It was still light out at 6:30 pm. And the time is going to change this weekend I think so it will be light much later. All good in my book. (Some not so good things happened...but why think about them and let myself feel bad when I get to pick what I want to think about??)

What good thing happened to you today? How would your life begin to change if every night before you went to sleep you asked yourself, "What good thing happened to me today?" Try it for a few days. Even better, get a notebook and write them down. That's what the most successful people do. Not every day. But lots of days!

Have a day tomorrow full of good things!

What's good about this?

The world right now is pretty negative - online, on TV, in song lyrics, on sitcoms. No wonder everyone feels so lousy. But there are some fairly simple ways to feel better. One is to ask ourselves a good question. Not, "Why does bad stuff always happen to me?" Because your brain will answer you and you won't like the answer.

Instead, when you're in a situation ask yourself, "What's good about this?" Sounds way too simple I'm sure. But try it. Everyone knows what's bad about their school, their home, their life. When you ask yourself what's good about those things, your brain starts noticing the good stuff. It's just how your brain works. It answers what we ask it. We just usually ask lousy questions.

Give it a try. Over 1000 teens I know personally did and their outlook on life changed to a more positive one the more they used it.

Welcome to SOS for Teens blog

This blog is a continuation of what I used to do as a teacher. I created a course called "Strategies of Succees" which I taught to over 1000 teens in a public high school. It was one of the most popular courses in the school and the teens who took the course really liked the information I passed on to them. They liked it so much they even asked me to create a sequel!

I am no longer in the classroom but still want to help teens across the country. One way I'm doing that is to take my program to other high schools because one of the best ways to learn how people create successful lives for themselves is with other students around and a great teacher.

But I also want to blog suggestions. This way I can share what worked with the teens in my school with teens around the world. I can also share some of the newest things I've learned and also give a positive outlook to some of the negative things happening around us.

I hope you'll check in frequently and that you'll try out some of the strategies. I promise you that people who are successful...whatever that means to you...are successful for reason. And I think it's time the secret is out. Why wait until you're 40 to pay big bucks to go to a seminar and learn these things? Why not learn them now and create an awesome life for yourself?

Check in tomorrow for the first official 'secret'.