Fill - ES4T

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Published by SUCCESS Books, an imprint of SUCCESS Media. SUCCESS Media is a division

of Video Plus, L.P.

Various teen stories copyrighted by and provided courtesy of Youth Communication/N.Y.

Center, Inc. See bibliography on page 143.

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The Slight Edge

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is a registered trademark of The Meyer Resource Group, Inc. and is used

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SUCCESS is a registered trademark and SUCCESS Books is a trademark of R&L Publishing, Ltd.

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Printed in the United States of America.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

Cover and text design by Floro Torres and Carl Waters

Copy by Jeff Olson, John David Mann, and Al Desetta

ISBN-13: 978-0-9790341-5-2

ISBN-10: 0-9790341-5-9

Contents

Preface ..................................................................vii

Foreword ................................................................xi

Introduction ........................................................... xv

Chapter 1: Little Things Matter ................................... 1

Point #1: Little Things Matter .............................................................................2

Point #2: Knowing What to Do Isn’t the Same As Doing It .................................6

Point #3: The Ripple Effect ............................................................................... 10

Point #4: Make the Right Choice at the Right Moment .................................... 12

What Does Success Mean to You? Think About It: .......................................... 16

Chapter 2: Attitude Is Everything .............................. 19

Point #1: Your Philosophy Is the Key ................................................................20

Point #2: How You View Yourself Creates Your Life ........................................ 21

Point #3: Change Yourself by Changing Your Philosophy .............................. 22

Point #4: What You Think Matters, Too ........................................................... 26

What’s Your Philosophy?Think About It: ......................................................... 32

Chapter 3: Use the Moment ....................................... 37

Point #1: Your Circumstances Aren’t You ........................................................ 37

Point #2: You Can’t Control What Happens to You, Only Your Reactions ........ 39

Point #3: When You Stop Blaming, You Take Back Your Power ...................... 43

Point #4: Someday Never Comes .................................................................... 45

Past or Future?Think About It: ......................................................................... 48

Chapter 4: Everything Starts with Small Steps ............. 53

Point #1: The First Step Looks Harder Than It Is .............................................. 53

Point #2: There’s No Such Thing As a Lucky Break ..........................................55

Point #3: Make the Steps as Small As You Can ................................................ 57

Point #4: The Second Step Is Just As Important ................................................ 59

The Power of Small StepsThink About It: ........................................................ 64

Chapter 5: There’s No Such Thing As Failure ............... 67

Point #1: Success Is Built on Failure ................................................................. 67

Point #2: It’s All in Our Heads ..........................................................................69

Point #3: Failure Creates Unexpected Opportunities ..................................... 72

Point #4: Another Word for Learning .............................................................. 76

The Key to Success Is FailureThink About It: .................................................. 79

Chapter 6: Habits Are Powerful ................................. 81

Point #1: Habits Run Your Life .......................................................................... 81

Point #2: Make Your Habits Serve You ............................................................85

Point #3: Take Small Steps to Develop Good Habits ....................................... 86

Point #4: Don’t Give Up a Habit—Start a New One ..........................................90

What Are Your Habits?Think About It: ............................................................ 94

Chapter 7: You’re Always Learning ............................ 97

Point #1: The Earlier You Invest, the Greater the Reward ...............................98

Point #2: Take Advantage of All Opportunities ............................................. 105

Point #3: You Need a Team on Your Side ....................................................... 108

Point #4: Adjust Your Course Continually ......................................................111

Take Advantage of Opportunities Think About It: .........................................114

Chapter 8: Make Your Dreams Come True ................ 117

Step One: Picture It Vividly ............................................................................ 118

Step Two: Look at It Every Day....................................................................... 124

Step Three: Start with a Plan .......................................................................... 125

Step Four: Don’t Quit on Yourself ................................................................... 129

Afterword ............................................................. 133

The Slight Edge Principles ......................................135

Resources for Teens ............................................... 137

Bibliography ......................................................... 143

Acknowledgments ................................................. 147

vii

A MESSAGE TO TEENS

Dear Teen,

Sometimes one book can make all the difference in your life.

Stuart Johnson learned this at age 15 when he was given David Schwartz’s

The Magic of Thinking Big, which began his own personal-development

journey. That book led him to read other classics, including Think &

Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Success through a Positive Mental Attitude by

W. Clement Stone, and many others. Through these books, he discovered

that working on himself ﬁrst best prepared him to take on the challenges of

business and life. Today, he is a highly successful businessman, the owner

of VideoPlus, L.P., SUCCESS Media, SUCCESS magazine, and founder of the

SUCCESS Foundation.

Perhaps you have received this book from a parent, coach, teacher, or friend

who wants to give you a resource for making the transition from passively

waiting for life to happen to actively pursuing your dreams. It is our hope that

SUCCESS for Teens will provide you with similar “magic” for thinking big in

your life.

The Slight Edge

For the past few years, I have made it my mission to help youth receive the fun-

damental life-skills and personal-development philosophies necessary for success

in school and in life. One of the best tools I have found for achieving this is the

slight edge philosophy, which was ﬁrst articulated in Jeff Olson’s best-selling

book, The Slight Edge. Jeff, through his wonderful book and from more than 20

years of teaching its philosophy, has positively inﬂuenced hundreds of thousands

viii Success for Teens

of lives, encouraging people to do those simple, little disciplines that can change

their life for the better forever.

You have in your hands what is NOT taught in high school or college.

What you are now holding is the secret to a successful life. These pages

provide you with the time-tested principles that will allow you to excel in

all areas of your life—your health, your ﬁnances, your career, your personal

relationships, and your family life. You’ll learn essential skills such as goal-

setting, time management, and self-motivation to help you reach new levels

of achievement. And, best of all, you have the beneﬁt of youth to get the

most from these life-changing principles.

The foundation for the slight edge philosophy comes down to this: You can

create any life you want, no matter how difﬁcult it may seem, by understand-

ing how small, positive steps make a difference over time. It’s the things you

do every day that don’t even seem to matter… that do matter most. In this

book, you’ll learn that through the eight slight edge principles that teach you:

Little Things Matter 

Attitude Is Everything 

You Must Use the Moment 

Everything Starts 

with Small Steps

There’s No Such Thing As Failure 

Habits Are Powerful 

You’re Always Learning 

You Can Make Your 

Dreams Come True

I know that once you read these pages, you will come to understand that

little things do matter, the choices you make are important, and you can make

dreams come true.

Regards,

John Fleming

Executive Director

The SUCCESS Foundation

www.SUCCESSFoundation.org

Preface ix

Preface

A MESSAGE TO PARENTS

Dear Parent,

A startling number of young people say they aren’t motivated to achieve,

don’t know how to plan or make decisions, and don’t feel a sense of purpose.

That’s why Stuart Johnson created the SUCCESS Foundation. He believes

that young men and women thrive best when they ﬁrst understand themselves

and then apply that knowledge to the world around them. He wanted a way to

illustrate the importance of clarifying goals, practicing the small efforts neces-

sary for success, and accepting responsibility for one’s own destiny.

We believe that every teen needs to be directed toward a path that enables

them to achieve their goals, pursue careers, and become productive citizens.

The tools for enhancing skills such as goal setting, dream-building, self-

motivation, time management, and creating high self-esteem and a sense of

purpose are so very important but often not taught in school. The SUCCESS

Foundation believes that providing today’s youth with personal development

resources such as SUCCESS for Teens will help them reach their full potential.

I encourage you to share the fundamental life-skills and personal-development

philosophies found in these pages and at www.SUCCESSFoundation.org with

your teen. Together, we can help make a difference in the lives of our children.

Regards,

John Fleming

Executive Director

The SUCCESS Foundation

www.SUCCESSFoundation.org

xi

FROM THE DAUGHTER:

Small Steps Win the Race

The slight edge has made a huge and positive impact on my life, and it can

do the same for you.

When I was a senior in high school, I felt overwhelmed about applying

to college. Applications, essays, recommendations, ﬁnancial aid—there are

tons of things I had to get together, and I felt the pressure to do it better than

anyone else. I didn’t think I would ever get everything done, but I ended up

putting together a strong application and getting into colleges that I wanted.

How did that happen? Because I disciplined myself in getting everything

ready and didn’t leave anything for the last minute. I didn’t let my feelings of

being overwhelmed keep me from accomplishing tasks. I applied the slight

edge—I took one small step after another until I reached my goals.

My most vivid memory of how I used the slight edge was during my fresh-

man year at the University of Florida. There were about 8,000 students in

the freshman class, and everyone was incredibly smart and had done great

things in high school. Once again I felt overwhelmed, up against people who

were obviously very bright. I wasn’t sure I belonged among them.

I remember asking my dad, Jeff Olson, “How am I going to do well in

college? How am I going to stand out?”

And he gave me some fantastic advice: “If you apply the slight edge prin-

ciples, simply show up at your classes every day, and do the things your

professors tell you to do, you’re going to beat 50 percent of the people by just

doing that.”

xii Success for Teens

What my father meant was that many people just don’t put in the effort—

they let the small things go by the wayside. So starting out freshman year, I

went to classes every day and studied every night. It was amazing to me how

many students didn’t do those small things—instead, they crammed for tests

and tried to take shortcuts at the last minute.

I did very well in college and graduated in the top 15 percent of my class. It

wasn’t because I was smarter than the other 85 percent of my classmates—it

was because I was disciplined and did the small things every day, the little

things that didn’t look like such a big deal at the time.

Life is always a struggle, and you can get in the mindset that skipping the

small things and taking shortcuts isn’t going to harm you, especially when you

get to college, because the professors aren’t checking up on you, making sure

you read the books, and showing up to class. You’re on your own, and you can

end up thinking, “If I don’t go to class one day, it isn’t going to hurt me.” But

the little things you do every day are more important than you can imagine.

Whether you want to play a new sport, do better in math, lose ﬁve pounds,

or write your own book, the slight edge philosophy will help you. Success

will come your way, if you do the things that are simple and small, and do

them every day. You don’t need to take huge leaps in life. When you tackle

problems and challenges step by step, you’ll be amazed at how much prog-

ress you can make.

Remember the tortoise and the hare—slow and steady wins the race. I

wish you the best of luck on your journey.

Amber Olson

Dallas, Texas

Foreword xiii

Foreword

FROM THE DAD:

When I Was 19, I Was Headed Nowhere

I wish someone had given me this book when I was a teen. I sure could

have used it.

For the ﬁrst 20 years of my life, success was the last word anyone would

have used to describe me. Throughout my childhood and teen years, it

seemed like I was destined for nothing but failure and trouble.

In the third grade my teachers told me I had a low I.Q. My dad died when

I was 10, and I became a troublemaker. My mom did her best to hold every-

thing together, but as a fatherless, blond-haired kid growing up in a Hispanic

neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I just didn’t ﬁt in. I struggled

my way through school, and by the time I was 19, I was headed nowhere.

But somewhere along the way I stumbled upon the ideas in this book—and

everything shifted.

I went to college, got straight A’s, and graduated at the top of my class.

I went to work for a company and did well, then left and started my own

company, which became one of the largest in its ﬁeld. Then I built another

company. Since then, I’ve created several multimillion-dollar sales organiza-

tions, produced nearly 1,000 television programs with New York Times best-

selling authors, and presented seminars in every major city in the United

States. I’ve even written a best-selling book, called The Slight Edge, upon

which this book is based.

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here: This book is not just about

ﬁnancial and career achievements. Success is not deﬁned by money. It’s about

what you achieve in all areas of your life. Beyond the business successes and

bank accounts, I’ve been blessed with the joys of family and friends. I have

relationships in my life that are more fulﬁlling than I ever thought possible.

I’ve discovered new ways of learning and taken many paths to adventure.

When I was 19, it looked like I was getting ready to ﬂunk out of life. But

today I have an amazing life, one I never could have imagined when I was a

teen. None of this was luck, and it sure wasn’t coincidence. I owe it all to the

ideas contained in the pages you’re about to read.

xiv Success for Teens

“The slight edge philosophy comes down to this: you can create any life

you want—but not all at once, and only by utilizing your philosophy and the secret

of time. To understand that little steps, compounded over time, do make a dif-

ference. That the things you do every single day—the things that don’t look

dramatic, that don’t even look like they matter—do matter.”

I learned this in my 20s, but now you have the opportunity to learn in just

a few hours the valuable principles that took me years to learn. I’ve seen it

work wonders for my daughter Amber, for her friends, and for other teens.

You can put these principles to work no matter how old you are, and the

earlier you start, the better.

I am honored that The SUCCESS Foundation, which made it possible

for you to be holding this book in your hands, has built its ﬁrst initiative

around the slight edge principles that have changed so many lives. It is a

most important endeavor, and I applaud and support my good friend Stuart

Johnson for his commitment to providing teens with the personal develop-

ment tools and resources needed to achieve new levels of success.

As I said before, I wish someone had given me this book when I was a teen.

Fortunately, you won’t have that same regret, because someone who cares

about you has put it in your hands now. My deepest wish is that you read it,

take it to heart and put it into practice.

Here’s to your amazing life!

Jeff Olson

Author, The Slight Edge

xv

LITTLE THINGS MATTER

This book is about becoming the best possible person you can be. It’s about

making the most of your talents and opportunities, dealing with problems in

positive ways, no matter what life brings, and achieving success—however

you deﬁne it.

We’ve talked to teens from around the country to ﬁnd out how they deﬁne

success and what they’re doing to make their dreams come true. And the

answers they gave seem to boil down to the same answer (or set of answers).

Teens have said that success in life is not a question of how smart you are,

how talented you are, or how lucky you are. It’s not about the family you

come from, the neighborhood you grew up in, or the school you go to. It’s not

about good looks or good luck.

There’s only one difference between teens who are on the path to success,

and those who aren’t yet on the path.

That difference is called the slight edge and it boils down to three words:

Little things matter.

Or, to put it another way, you can create any life you want—but not all at

once, and only by taking small, positive actions every day. These small steps

may not look like a big deal, but the teens in this book show how important

they really are. By understanding your attitudes and the secret of time, you

can achieve success in life, no matter how difﬁcult that might seem right

now. The slight edge is having faith that miracles do happen, if you know

how to trust yourself and keep trying.

To understand the heart of the slight edge, let’s look at an example from nature.

xvi Success for Teens

THE LESSON OF THE WATER HYACINTH

The water hyacinth is one of the most beautiful and unusual plants on

earth. A delicate ower with six petals, it ranges in color from blue to

lavender to pink and oats on the surface of ponds in warm areas around

the world.

What makes the water hyacinth really special is that it is one of the

fastest-growing plants in the world. A single water hyacinth can produce

as many as 5,000 seeds and sends out short stems that become new

plants. Over time, a single water hyacinth continuously doubles itself—

one plant becomes two plants, two plants become four plants, four plants

become eight plants, and so on.

One day there was a very beautiful (and very small) water hyacinth

growing near the edge of a big pond. Nobody noticed it. Nobody

noticed the second day either, when it had doubled and there were

now two plants. Nobody noticed the water hyacinths on the third day or

the fourth day. Even though they kept doubling in numbers, the water

hyacinths were so small on the big pond that you’d have to look very

hard to see them.

For two weeks the water hyacinths continued to double, but still

covered only one square foot of the pond, just a tiny part of its

huge surface. On Day 20, a person passing by the pond noticed

something oating along the shore, but mistook it for a lost towel or a

discarded trash bag. But by Day 30, it was impossible to ignore the

hyacinths, because a blanket of beautiful owers now covered the

pond’s entire surface.

The lesson of the water hyacinth is this: Small actions may not seem

like much at rst, but over time they have a compounding effect.

All that means is that actions add up or intensify over time—you

can get big results from small, daily steps. This is perhaps the most

important lesson of the slight edge and it applies directly to your life.

As you read this book, keep the image of the water hyacinth in

your mind. You are making choices every day, every hour of your

life, and the impact of those choices spreads throughout your life

like a blanket of water hyacinths covering a pond. You may not see

the results of your choices today, tomorrow, or even next year. But,

over time, you

will

see the results of your actions.

The question is this: What kinds of actions will you choose?

Introduction xvii

Introduction

As you read on, remember two more important points.

Only you can deﬁne what success means, and no one can do it for you.



It’s what you most want to do, not what others tell you to do.

Everyone has the ability to be successful. Maybe you think success



comes only from doing incredibly difﬁcult things—things you don’t

think you’ll ever be able to do. But that’s simply not true.

The teens in this book talk about the many ways they’ve used the slight edge:

They describe how they discovered what matters most in life, and how



that’s inﬂuenced their decisions and choices.

They will teach you new ways of thinking and acting that will help



you to make wise choices, whether at home, with friends, in school, in

choosing a career, or in using your talents to their fullest potential.

They will show you how to deal with difﬁcult obstacles and challenges



and keep going until you reach your goals.

They will explain how you can be successful, however you deﬁne it.



Listen to what these teens have to say. Think about your own life as they

tell their stories. After each story, ask yourself some questions. How are their

experiences similar to yours? How are they different? How can you use what

they’ve learned to improve your life? What new ideas or insights do you have?

(If you want, there are places in the book where you can write down your

thoughts and reactions.)

But most of all, use the advice these teens have to share—because, if you

do, your life will start to change. Maybe not tomorrow or even the next day,

but soon enough. Because when you understand the slight edge, time is on

your side.

1

Chapter

1

W

hen Ferentz Lafargue was 16, he thought back to the fun he

had with his friends when he was younger. They hung out in a

parking lot, playing baseball, football, manhunt, and anything

else they could think of. Like most kids, they made up their own games.

One day we noticed a piece of wood in the corner of the lot. We found a

rock to prop it up and made ourselves a bicycle ramp. We practiced jumping

for a week or two until the wood broke.

Every winter when it snowed, there would be huge piles of snow in the

corners of the lot. We would start out by doing some light skiing to get

warmed up. (The skis were made of the ﬁnest cardboard we could ﬁnd.) But

we all know what happens when you put a bunch of guys somewhere with

snow... SNOWFIGHT!! When that happened, it was every man for himself.

We would go home looking like we had just climbed Mt. Everest, and some-

times I think that would have been easier.

But Ferentz and his friends drifted apart:

These days the parking lot is just used for parking cars. We don’t even

keep in touch like we used to. Rarely will you see two of us together. Some

have moved away, the rest just feel like they’re miles away. The only thing

we all have in common is that we grew up.

Devon was the superstar of the parking lot. He could throw, run,

catch—the whole nine. We thought he would play high school base-

ball or football, and go on to become a major leaguer. But instead he

ended up hanging out and doing things like robbing people, stealing

chains, or getting caught up in stupid gang battles. Devon’s only 18

2 Success for Teens

and has been sent to jail two times already. The sad thing is he has no

fear of going back.

Devon’s younger brother John was a pretty good ballplayer, too, but more

importantly he was a B+ student and a born leader. Now John is 17 and has

a kid, and he’s not even close to a high school diploma. He was hardly ever

in school last year. The word is that John is dealing guns.

Then there’s Angel, who used to be my best friend and in a way he always

will be. One summer he lost his glove and, being that he was the only lefty

in the parking lot, he taught himself to pitch right-handed. He could trick an

opposing batter with a wicked right-handed curve ball.

Angel hasn’t dropped out yet, but I doubt he goes to school more than ﬁve

full days a year. He’s dealing drugs. He used to have determination, but

these days the only thing he seems determined to do is mess up his life.

I looked up to Devon and John and Angel. But I was smart enough to

learn from their mistakes. I intend to go to college and study communica-

tions and advertising. One day, hopefully, I’ll be writing for a big-time news-

paper or working for an advertising company. Then I’d like to do whatever I

can to help out some of my old friends.

Devon, John, and Angel still keep an eye out for me. Every time one of

them sees an article I’ve written or hears about me doing anything else good,

he’s always ready to congratulate me and tell me to keep it up. It’s almost

like I’m their last hope of success: If I come out OK, then they’ll honestly be

able to say they had a hand in raising me.

Perhaps you’ve known people as talented as Devon, John, and Angel. Any

of them could have turned their skills in a better direction. Why didn’t they?

Because of three words: Little things matter.

POINT #1: LITTLE THINGS MATTER

Those three words are the heart of this book. The slight edge is a pretty

basic idea and you can sum it up this way: every day, every hour, every

moment of your life, you face a choice. You can take a simple, positive action.

Or you can take a simple, negative action. The difference between teens who

Little Things Matter 3

Chapter 1

feel successful and those who don’t feel that way comes from the little choices

they make about what they think, say, and do.

Simple actions, repeated over time, will determine the life you lead. Devon,

John, and Angel didn’t become dropouts involved in crime and drugs over-

night. They made small choices, day after day, week after week, until they lost

their way. That’s the bad news. The good news is that everyone—even people

who seem as lost as Devon, John, and Angel—can start making different

choices today and turn their lives around. It’s never too late to change.

The little things that lead to success are easy to do. They can be as simple as

getting up on time in the morning, showing up at school, and doing home-

work. The steps can be very small—as small as choosing a different response

in the moment.

Mikaela Suarez, 13, from Rogers,

Arkansas, likes to stay in the

back of the class during dance

class. She doesn’t like the

attention up front.

One day my friend

asked me if I wanted to

stand up closer to the

teacher and I said, “No, I’m

ﬁne where I am.” But my teacher

overheard and asked me to stand up

front. During that whole class I was really mad

at my friend. But I didn’t say anything and instead focused on dancing.

And that was a positive decision on my part, to not get mad or worry

about what anyone was thinking.

Octavia Fugerson, 17, from Atlanta, Georgia, went into foster care

when she was 15 and was very depressed, to the point where she some-

times thought of suicide. But she now plans to become a psychologist and

someday have her own foster care agency staffed by former foster kids.

What enabled her to deal with her pain and stick to her goals?

The slight edge is

a pretty basic idea. Whenever

you face a choice, you can take a

simple, positive action. Or you can

take a simple, negative action. Simple

actions, repeated over time, will

determine the life you lead.

4 Success for Teens

I always looked for positive distractions. I knew if I got involved in drugs it

wouldn’t help me, only bring me down more. I tried to distract myself through

reading and writing. If I was havi ng a real rough day, I would just read a

book to distract me away from everything and take me to another world.

Writing poetry also helps me. I can’t honestly say that it takes the load

off, but it helps me understand it, which takes

the load off indirectly.

Kyle Freas, 19, from Plano,

Texas, found himself with too

much time on his hands.

I used to play basketball every

day after school. I was on the

school team. When the season

was over, I had like three extra hours

every day, because I was still in the habit of

using that time to play basketball. I always wanted

that extra time, but then when I had it I didn’t know what to do with it.

So Kyle began spending an hour a day looking for ways to help other kids.

In the last seven years he’s raised thousands of dollars to help abused, home-

less, and sick children. And Kyle considers himself just an average kid.

People get the idea that I’m not a normal teenager, that I don’t have friends,

that my project is all I do. I’m a normal kid with normal friends. I play video

games and sports. I’m nothing special. It doesn’t take anything spectacular to

have an inﬂuence like I’ve had. I just put in a little effort every day.

Mikaela, Octavia, and Kyle, each in their own way, used the slight edge:

Mikaela chose to remain silent when she was angry instead of lashing 

out at her friend.

Octavia turned to reading or writing when she was depressed. 

Kyle spent an hour a day on a new project. 

Small actions

compound over time. For

example, if you exercise for an hour a

day, you won’t see much difference after

a couple days or even a week. But after

a couple of months you’ll notice a big

difference. A little effort each day

will result in huge rewards

over time.

Little Things Matter 5

Chapter 1

The little things they did weren’t so little after all.

Think about how this applies to your own life. For example, if you exercise

for an hour a day, you won’t see much difference after a couple days or even

a week. But after a couple of months you’ll notice a big difference. If you read

10 pages of a good book every day, it might not seem like a lot. But after one

year, you’ll have read more than two-dozen 150-page books. It’s the same

with learning to play a new instrument or improving at a sport. A little prac-

tice each day will result in huge rewards over time.

Taylor, 18, discovered how small actions compound over time as she

played soccer. She has a passion for the sport and has played it since she

was 5 years old. But the older she got, the more competitive the sport got.

Although Taylor loves soccer, she’s never liked running. And soccer is a sport

that demands a lot of running. When she was 15, her trainer made Taylor’s

soccer team practice extra running drills.

We had practice three times a week, and the ﬁrst hour of it was condi-

tioning. And then on the days when we didn’t have practice our coach told

us to go out and run three miles. And we had to be able to run those three

miles in 30 minutes.

For the entire ﬁrst month, I couldn’t even ﬁnish the three miles. I would

stop at two and a half because the pain was so great. It made me sick to my

stomach to run that far. It was blazing hot outside, because I’m in South Texas.

And there would be days when I wouldn’t run because I didn’t feel like it.

I thought maybe I could get away with not doing it. But when I would show up

at practice the next day, you could tell who ran and who didn’t. When I started

to look like someone who was slacking, I realized that it was bigger than just me.

I needed to help the team. I needed to do my part in order to make a difference.

I had friends encouraging me. They told me, “We want to do well at the

end of the season. If you love this sport, then you need to do what it takes to

honor your commitment to it.”

So on the days I didn’t feel like running, I would make myself put on my

tennis shoes and go outside and do it. Even if I had to start slow, I realized I

was at least trying instead of sitting at home.

6 Success for Teens

At the start I knew I couldn’t run three miles in 30 minutes, so I told

myself I’ll do what I can and see how that goes. The ﬁrst day I could do

only two miles in 30 minutes. It was slow and painful because I hadn’t been

running. But once I kept going I could see myself getting faster, and once you

see yourself getting faster the easier it gets. It took me two months to run

the three miles in 30 minutes.

During the soccer season, coaches who were looking for college players

scouted Taylor’s high school team.

Coaches would send me e-mails, saying, “I noticed you played the entire

game, and it’s really impressive to see girls who can last that long on the

ﬁeld and not show any wear and tear, to be able to play 100 percent the

entire time.” It was an eye opener to get these e-mails from college coaches

who noticed how I could run so much, when a few months before I couldn’t

even run three miles.

Taylor is now attending college on a scholarship and playing for the

school team.

Small actions compound over time. That means they grow in size and

impact and lead to much bigger things. This is one of the most important

lessons of the slight edge.

ACTION STEPS

What small steps could you take to reach your goals? 

What steps could you start taking today? 

POINT #2: KNOWING WHAT TO DO ISN’T THE SAME AS DOING IT

Teens we spoke to said that knowing how to do something and actually

doing it are two different things. For example, Angel, Devon, and John had

the talent and intelligence to know the right things to do, but still ended up

making the wrong choices.

Little Things Matter 7

Chapter 1

Knowing how to do something isn’t actually doing the thing. Having the

answer to a problem isn’t the same thing as using the answer to solve the

problem. That’s because the little things that are important to do are also

easy not to do, so a lot of people don’t do them.

You know this from your own life. What’s easier—trying something you’re

afraid of, or not even trying in the ﬁrst place? Going along with what others

think, or being who you really are, even if it means feeling alone? Avoiding

your feelings because they’re too hard or painful to face, or facing them

square on? Getting up and running in the morning, or sleeping late?

The answer is pretty clear—it’s often a whole lot easier not to do the

simple things.

Some teens told us they didn’t do the little, positive things because of what

other people thought. Jesselin Rodriguez, 16, faced this problem when she

got into junior high. It wasn’t cool to be a success in school. If you did well,

you got teased. Failure was cool—not in the sense that everyone fails at one

time or another and can learn from it, but in the sense that it was cool to not

do your best and be stuck in failure forever.

When I was in elementary school, doing well in school was the only thing

that mattered to me. But when I got to junior high that all changed.

The atmosphere in junior high was totally different. When I walked in

there for the ﬁrst time, it seemed like everyone was just chillin’. I saw kids

hanging out in the auditorium when they didn’t belong there and even

screaming at teachers. There was a ﬁght almost every day. No one seemed to

care about classes.

In that school you looked crazy if you were doing any work. The important

thing was to have friends. If you didn’t have friends, you were nothing. You’d

get picked on, cursed out, and if people fought you it was never one-on-one.

I decided schoolwork wasn’t going to be my top priority anymore.

I thought my classmates would like me better if I acted more like them—

lazy and not caring about anything except going home to watch TV.

So I made it a point to have friends and started thinking of school as a

playground. I could do anything there—cut classes, write on the walls,

8 Success for Teens

hide in the bathrooms—and nobody knew about it because there were too

many kids.

When I did go to class, I’d walk in 20 minutes late, sit with a friend, and

talk the rest of the period away. When the teachers asked me why I was

late, I told them that I was in the bathroom or that I was talking to another

teacher about something. They wouldn’t bother me after that.

I did just enough work to pass, but I made it a point to never let my

friends ﬁnd that out. On the days when I did my homework, I used to give

it to the teacher after class so my friends wouldn’t see. If they knew, I was

sure they would give me a hard time. They would be like, “What are you

doing the work for? You think you’re better than us?”

Then my class was divided up. The kids with the worst behavior and

grades, including most of my friends, were sent to a different class. Since I

didn’t have my crew to do things with anymore, I had two choices—I could

either not go to school at all, or I could start doing my work.

I knew my mother would kill me if I didn’t go to school, so I started to go

to class every day and began to do my homework on a more regular basis.

My teachers were happy, and so was I.

By the time I was in eighth grade, I had worked my way up to a B

average. I still felt that I could do better, but I didn’t want to get higher

grades than most of the people in my class. I thought they would get mad at

me and be like, “Oh, now she thinks that she’s smarter than me.”

Soon Jesselin started high school.

Then came ninth grade and a big reality check. I thought that high school

was going be a bigger playground than junior high. I was wrong. Even

though most of the kids were the same, the atmosphere was very different.

It was a brand-new alternative school and there were only about 50 stu-

dents in the whole place. Every teacher knew who you were and where you

were supposed to be every minute of the day. I had to do my work because

there was no place to hide.

My teachers knew that I was smart and saw right through my front of

acting like I didn’t care. Still, I thought that as long as I handed in a couple

Little Things Matter 9

Chapter 1

of pieces of work they would be satisﬁed and not bother me. For my whole

freshman year, I was constantly told that I could do better. But it just went

in one ear and came out the other.

Over the summer after ninth grade, I was talking to a friend who was in

college. He asked me how I was doing in school. I told him that I was doing OK.

“How OK?” he asked. I told him I was doing just enough to pass. He

asked me why, because he knew I could be at the top of my class if I wanted

to be. I told him that I had gotten very lazy.

Then he asked me if I wanted to go to college. I told him that what I really

wanted was to get a scholarship so I could go to a college out of state.

My friend told me there was no way I was going to get a scholarship. He

even told me to forget about college at all, because I probably wouldn’t ﬁnish

high school the way I was going.

He put so much fear in me that I spent the rest of that summer thinking

about what he said. It was the same thing my teachers had been telling me for

years. It ﬁnally started to sink in. For a long time, it had been my dream to be

the ﬁrst one in my family to graduate from high school and go to college. Now

I realized that I was going to have to work to make that dream come true.

Jesselin began to change.

For all of 10th grade, I did nothing but work. Breaking my lazy habits was

the hardest thing I have ever done. I had to get used to doing my homework

every night, not just when I felt like it. And I had to make a lot of sacriﬁces. I

couldn’t sit home and watch TV all day. I hardly listened to music. And I didn’t

see a lot of my friends outside of school. They would say, “Jesse, let’s go down-

town so I can go buy this shirt” or, “Let’s go downtown and just chill.” And I was

always saying, “No, I can’t, I have to stay after school and ﬁnish my work.”

So, here I am, a junior almost ready for college—not at all ashamed of

how bright I am, and not caring who knows it. It feels like the good girl I

once had inside me has come back.

Jesselin learned that success can mean going against what’s popular and

sacriﬁcing for what you really want. She started doing the little, positive

10 Success for Teens

things even when she didn’t feel like it. She started to believe in herself and

in what she knew was most important. And she started using that knowl-

edge, even if other people were telling her something different. Instead of just

knowing the right things to do, Jesselin actually did them. And she grew as a

person and made herself a better life.

ACTION STEPS

Is there something you know you should be doing that 

you’re not doing?

What’s stopping you from taking that small, positive step? 

POINT #3: THE RIPPLE EFFECT

You’ve heard the expressions “timing is everything” or “he was in the right

place at the right time.” What that means is that by doing the small, positive

things, you increase the chances that other positive things will happen to you.

It’s like tossing a rock into a pond—you’ll see a splash and the ripples spread-

ing out, but those ripples can go far beyond what you see. They can go all the

way to the opposite shore.

It’s the same thing in life, although you often don’t see the ripples until

something good happens (or something not so good). For better or for

worse, even your smallest actions create a ripple effect that has a huge

impact on you and the people around you, even when you don’t see it or

aren’t aware of it.

Jordan Schwartz, 14, of Marietta, Georgia, knows from experience that when

you do a simple, positive thing, you never know where it will lead. A few years

ago she was traveling with her family and passing through an airport.

There was a woman there who had lost all her travel papers and she

didn’t speak one word of English. She was Spanish-speaking. My mother,

who speaks Spanish, noticed something was going on and went over and

offered her services. And she helped the woman get her forms ﬁlled out

Little Things Matter 11

Chapter 1

and on her way. It was all done in about a half-hour, with my mom step-

ping up to the plate, when it would have taken an hour with a translator.

That incident made a big impact on Jordan, because it made her think

about helping others.

Some people think that community is just your town or your city. It’s

bigger than that—a sense of community means a sense of right and wrong,

a sense of what to do in certain situations.

Jordan kept thinking about what happened in the airport when she got

home. At the time she was raising money for a local police canine unit. She

just wanted to donate the money, but the police commissioner invited her to

make a speech about her project.

After it was over, the commissioner thanked me, said I did a great job,

and said if I ever needed anything in the future to please let him know. So I

took him up on his word.

Ever since her mother helped

the Spanish-speaking woman,

Jordan had been thinking

about people’s attitudes about

bilingualism, or speaking

more than one language.

Some people in her com-

munity think it’s great that

people speak Spanish in

this country, while others think

Americans should only speak English.

Like her mother, Jordan speaks both English

and Spanish, and she decided to start a bilingual theater for children

to teach tolerance and acceptance of everyone, no matter what language

they speak. When the police commissioner asked if she needed anything,

she told him about her idea and asked for his help.

When you do

small, positive things, it

increases the chances that other

positive things will happen to you.

Your smallest actions affect you and the

people around you, even when you

don’t see it or aren’t aware of it.

12 Success for Teens

The commissioner helped Jordan get permission to use school auditori-

ums to stage her productions. And that started her theater project on its way.

I was sending e-mails and putting ﬂyers in the windows of local shops

and businesses. After about a week or two of that, I started getting calls

from people who wanted to help.

Today, Jordan’s project—called the Children’s Bilingual Theater—puts on

several theater productions each year, in both English and Spanish, involv-

ing more than 100 young people.

And it happened because of the ripple effect:

Jordan’s mother helps a stranger in an airport. 

Jordan thinks about the meaning of community and starting a 

theater project.

She’s already working on another community project and an adult 

offers to help Jordan with anything she needs.

With his help, Jordan starts her theater project. 

Soon the word spreads and other people are pitching in to help. 

When you take a small, positive step, you never know where it will lead.

But if you take that ﬁrst step, the chances are great that more positive things

will happen to you.

ACTION STEPS

Have you seen the ripple effect in your own life? 

Have you ever taken a positive step that led to another 

positive thing for you?

POINT #4: MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE AT THE RIGHT MOMENT

Only you can deﬁne what success means. But however you deﬁne it, the

slight edge basically means doing the right thing at the right moment. That’s

where it all starts, and that often takes a lot of courage.

Little Things Matter 13

Chapter 1

Chantel Clark understands this. When she was a senior in high school,

Chantel hated a girl named Kim.

Kim was dark-skinned, with short hair she often wore in braided exten-

sions. She was loud for no good reason and would get nasty with you in a

heartbeat! She didn’t care what people thought or said, dressing how she

wanted regardless of trends.

Kim and I had different styles, but we were also a lot alike, and we found

each other threatening because of that. In freshman year we got into a ﬁght. She

started it, over some “he-said, she-said.” I won and gained my peers’ respect.

After that, I had to live up to my reputation. So when I walked past

her, I had nothing to say. If we saw each other in the mall, we would roll

our eyes at each other. If we saw each other at a party, we made it our

business to walk past each other with disgust.

But when I came back to school from summer vacation senior year, I saw

my archenemy and she was no longer the same. Kim didn’t do her hair or

dress nice anymore. She didn’t even hang out with her group of friends.

I began to see people picking on her for no reason, calling her names,

throwing things at her, and starting ﬁghts.

I heard through people that Kim was homeless because her mom kicked

her out. She was getting skinny, her face looked like death and, honestly, I

was worried. For the ﬁrst time I did not want to pick an argument with her.

Chantel’s attitude toward Kim began to change:

I know pain ﬁrsthand, and it’s weird—once you’ve been hurt or gone

through some trials, it’s like you know when someone else is hurting inside.

You can sense it, you can feel it. I had a yearning inside to talk to Kim,

because I was sure I could speak to her like no one else could.

One day I went to the ofﬁce of the school social worker, Ms. Bee, and saw Kim

crying. I felt a heaviness in my chest. I wanted to reach out to her, but I couldn’t.

I was scared about talking to her. What would people think? I also thought

to myself, “What if I try to be nice and this chick gets smart? I might curse

her out.” So my pride, my temper, and my attitude kept me still.

14 Success for Teens

I left Ms. Bee’s ofﬁce wondering what I could do. How could I speak to

Kim? What would she say?

I returned to Ms. Bee’s ofﬁce later that day and asked her what was

wrong with Kim, but she knew our rivalry and said it was conﬁdential. So I

asked Ms. Bee if she could set up a meeting between Kim and me. I

explained that I saw how much pain she was in and wanted to help in any

way I could.

Ms. Bee knew my life story and

that I would be able to say

things that only the two of us

could have understood.

About a week or so later, Ms.

Bee called me into her ofﬁce,

and Kim was there. I suddenly

felt out of place and weird, but I

went in anyway.

I said to Kim, “I came from a

broken home, my life was never a bowl of

cherries. My mother, a drug abuser. My father, missing

in action. No one knew when he would pop up. But I was strong enough to

overcome. You’re beautiful and strong, and if you ever need a shoulder to

cry on, I’m here.”

Kim was shocked. She looked at me with this face that said, “No way.”

I guess she never saw me as the type to have a hard life, because I hide it

so well.

I told her how this fairy princess in a glass castle is my image, but it’s

only a lie. We told each other things that almost nobody knew, and we

laughed about it, too. After that conversation we became true friends,

because we trusted each other. People often stared at us and talked behind

our backs, because we were once enemies but are now friends. They could

never understand the relationship we had.

I gave her clothes, lent her money, and snuck her into my house to eat

and to hang out. We became like sisters.

However you

dene success, the slight

edge basically means doing

the right thing at the right moment.

That’s where it all starts, and that

often takes a lot of courage.

Little Things Matter 15

Chapter 1

We realized we could both change and be our real selves. She didn’t need

to be loud to be respected. I found out that I didn’t have to pretend all the

time. I could be me without worrying about what anyone else would think. I

helped Kim to ﬁnd herself again and in return I found me.

Success is more than ﬁnding the right job someday or making a lot of

money. It’s about doing the right thing at the right time.

That takes faith and courage. Chantel had faith in knowing the right thing

to do and the courage to do it. Once you start using the slight edge, you will

have both faith and courage to make the right choices.

16 Success for Teens

What Does Success Mean to You?

What does success mean to you? To ﬁnd out, start with these questions:

What’s important to you? ✎

What do you like to do? ✎

What do you care about? ✎

What things mean the most to you? ✎

After you’ve thought a while, jot down your thoughts in the spaces below.

What are ﬁve things you’re good at? List them here:

______________________________________________________________

Now, what are ﬁve things you love to do, whether or not you’re especially

good at them? (You may end up listing some or all of the same things in

your ﬁrst list. That’s OK.)

______________________________________________________________

And now, let’s take it a step further, too: What are ﬁve things you would

Little Things Matter 17

Chapter 1

do if you could, no matter how outrageous they are, even if you think

you’re no good at them?

______________________________________________________________

Is there something you would have included on that last list, but didn’t

because it seemed too far-fetched? Maybe even impossible? If so, write it

down here.

______________________________________________________________

This gives you a pretty good idea of how you deﬁne success. But how are you

going to get there? By taking small steps. So let’s take the next step.

Success Starts with Little Steps

Think of three little things you can do that could lead to success in six areas

of your life. Then write them down below. (Remember—they can be small

steps! And you can repeat what you’ve written above in the spaces below.)

For Myself:

____________________________________________________________1.

____________________________________________________________2.

____________________________________________________________3.

18 Success for Teens

For My Friendships:

____________________________________________________________1.

____________________________________________________________2.

____________________________________________________________3.

For My Health (physical, mental, and spiritual):

____________________________________________________________1.

____________________________________________________________2.

____________________________________________________________3.

For My Wealth:

____________________________________________________________1.

____________________________________________________________2.

____________________________________________________________3.

For My Education and Career:

____________________________________________________________1.

____________________________________________________________2.

____________________________________________________________3.

For My Footprint on the World (what I want to accomplish or how I want to

be remembered):

____________________________________________________________1.

____________________________________________________________2.

____________________________________________________________3.

Hold onto your answers—we’ll come back to them. But in the meantime,

which of these steps can you take today?

19

Chapter

2

L

ittle things matter. But what makes you do the little things, whether

positive or negative? Have you ever thought about that?

It’s not willpower that determines what you do. Willpower means

forcing yourself to do something you don’t really want to do. You can’t

force yourself to enjoy washing the dishes or raking the yard or helping

your brother with his homework if you don’t really feel like it. That may

work for a while, but not for long. You can’t keep forcing yourself to do

something if you don’t really want to do it.

No, it’s not willpower that drives your actions, but your attitude.

Your attitude shows itself in everything you do. Your attitude is so pow-

erful that people can sense it before you say a word. Your body language

conveys your attitude—you can sense how someone feels by the way he or

she walks down the street, enters a room, or sits on a couch. Your attitude

determines both your simplest and most complicated actions—from the

way your carry yourself to the way you deal with hard times.

So, is controlling your attitude the “secret” to controlling your actions? If

you could control your attitude, then you’d be able

to control your actions, right?

Not exactly. That doesn’t work

because you don’t have one single

attitude. Your attitudes are change-

able. One day you couldn’t be

happier—until you run into your

ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend at

school, or your mother yells at you,

or you get teased again in the

Your attitude

determines both your

simplest and most complicated

actions—from the way your carry

yourself to the way you deal

with hard times.

20 Success for Teens

lunchroom. Maybe today you’re excited about studying for that upcoming

test. And because you feel like it, you crack the books and get moving on it.

But what if you just don’t feel like studying tomorrow? Then what?

Your attitude is changing all the

time. And as your attitude

changes, your feelings also

change. Some days you’re

not going to feel great. And

it’s hard, if not impossible,

to just force yourself to feel

happy when you’re not.

Trying to control your atti-

tude and feelings might work at

ﬁrst, but not for long.

So if your actions are not a result of will-

power, determination, or controlling your attitude and

feelings, then what is at the heart of your actions?

POINT #1: YOUR PHILOSOPHY IS THE KEY

The key to the slight edge, or doing the little, positive things, is discovering

the source of your attitude. Understanding what’s at the heart of what you feel

and believe is the key to achieving what you want in life. It comes down to

what is called your “philosophy,” which is a fancy word for the way you see

yourself and the way you see the world.

ACTION STEPS

Have you thought about the source of your attitudes? 

Do you feel you understand them? 

What could you do to better understand your attitudes? 

The key to how

your life turns out is your

ability to understand the source of

your attitude. And the source of your

attitude is your philosophy—the way

you see yourself and the way you

see the world.

Attitude Is Everything 21

Chapter 2

POINT #2: HOW YOU VIEW YOURSELF CREATES YOUR LIFE

Whether you know it or not, you already have a philosophy. Maybe you’ve

never put it into words. Maybe you’ve never even noticed it, much less

thought about it. But you have one. Everyone does.

Remember, all “philosophy” means is your view of life or your picture of

how life operates. Your philosophy is how you see things. Your philosophy

is what determines your attitudes and your actions, whether you realize it

or not.

your philosophy —> your attitudes

your attitudes —> your actions

your actions —> your life

Your philosophy is more important than just having book information or

knowledge. Your philosophy is the secret that lies behind the puzzle of fate

and destiny. Two people will grow up in the same difﬁcult family or rough

neighborhood, but one person will overcome it and the other won’t. Why?

Because how they view their experiences will determine how they react

to them.

You create your destiny with your actions. But your actions are determined

by your attitudes, and your attitudes in turn are determined by how you see

the world.

Sometimes you get pulled away from your philosophy when you’re con-

fronted by a difﬁcult choice or challenge. This hap-

pened to Sage, 18.

When I was 16, it turned out that

my friends were smoking weed,

and I thought they were really

stupid. Then, as usual, I started

questioning myself—I wondered if

they were having a lot of fun. So I

took a little puff, and it was no fun

at all. In fact, it hurt my lungs.

You create your

destiny with your actions.

But your actions are determined

by your attitudes, and your attitudes

result from how you see the world—

by your philosophy.

22 Success for Teens

I thought it was stupid, gave it a little try, conﬁrmed that it was stupid, and

never did it again.

Confronted with a choice, Sage decided to stick with his philosophy and do

what he thought was best. He says teens should “think for themselves.”

A positive philosophy turns into a positive attitude, which turns into positive

actions, which lead to positive results. A negative philosophy does the opposite:

It produces a negative attitude, which produces negative actions, which lead to

negative results. Remember the ripple effect. It works both ways.

ACTION STEPS

Have you ever been faced with a choice that went against 

your philosophy?

What happened? Would you make the same choice now? 

POINT #3: CHANGE YOURSELF BY CHANGING YOUR PHILOSOPHY

If you want to change what’s happening in your life, change your

philosophy or how you see things. When you do that, you’ll be able to take

the steps that will lead you to the answers you need. Changing how you

see things is not some huge task, but comes down to—you guessed it—

small steps.

Tamecka Crawford, 19, learned the power of changing her philosophy

when she went away to college. She lived in a foster-care group home and

was very scared and insecure:

How would I survive all alone in a strange place? Could I make it as a

college student? Would I fail or drop out? I worried about people ﬁnding out

I lived in a group home and treating me differently or making fun of me.

I even wondered if my professors would treat me differently.

When I ﬁrst started classes, things seemed ﬁne. But after a little while

I met a guy and started spending lots of time with him, skipping classes

Attitude Is Everything 23

Chapter 2

and not studying. I felt I had all the time in the world to pull my grades

up. So I started missing classes and my grades dropped tremendously.

I found myself using the excuse of being in foster care every time I missed

a class or failed an exam. A lot of times I would say to myself, “Oh, I live in

a group home. Who cares if I go to class or not?” I felt as if the words group

home child were hanging over my head. Even though nobody treated me

differently, in the back of my mind I felt they were.

My self-esteem was very low. I just gave up and didn’t care. As a result,

I completed my ﬁrst semester with a 1.0 grade point average (like a D

average), and ended up on academic probation during my second semester.

I felt nobody cared for me. I didn’t have any family support. I kept

making the mistake of comparing my life to students who had parents

calling and visiting them. The other students would get care packages ﬁlled

with all sorts of things, including their favorite foods, money, and supplies

they asked for. I wanted so badly to have someone care about me like that. I

felt neglected, not to mention jealous.

I remember hearing my roommate talk on the phone with her mother,

describing her day and what classes she liked. I wished so badly that could

be my mother or somebody who really cared for me.

But gradually, Tamecka’s attitude changed:

Just before the end of the ﬁrst

semester I realized I was

wasting time feeling sorry

for myself and had to do

something about it. I never

thought the semester would

go by so quickly. When you

ﬁrst get to college you think

you have all this time, and

then before you know it, it’s over.

I realized that I was so wrapped up in

worrying about having people do things for me that

If you want to

change what’s happening

in your life, change how you see

things. Changing how you see

things is not some huge task,

but comes down to taking

small steps.

24 Success for Teens

I wasn’t taking the time to care for myself. I got tired of using foster care as

an excuse. I was tired of failing my exams. I was tired of crying. I noticed the

people I was envying weren’t doing so well in their classes, either. I ﬁnally

realized it wasn’t because I was in foster care that I was failing my classes. It

was because I had been paying too little attention to my schoolwork. It wasn’t

being in a group home holding me back—it was me holding myself back.

By looking deeply at the way she saw herself, Tamecka realized that she

needed to change her philosophy.

I had to accept the fact that I was in foster care and move on. Right after

spring break I decided to wipe my eyes and ﬁnd ways to start my inde-

pendent life. I decided to attend all my classes and start pulling my grades

up. I began studying night and day, especially subjects like history, which

I always had problems with. I got help from peer tutors (fellow college

students who were good in a particular subject). In exchange, I’d type a

paper for them or make them dinner. I started letting professors know I was

having problems and met with them to get help.

My next step was to see a therapist. I’d had counseling in the group home,

but I never liked it because I felt we were prejudged. But in college I realized

I needed help dealing with the transition from group home to college life. I

talked about school, foster care, and other things on my mind. At the end of

the sessions, she gave me suggestions about how to deal with my problems.

It helped me realize that while I couldn’t have the family relationships that I

wanted so badly, I could thank God for the people who were taking the time

out to help me any way they could.

I also got a part-time job to make some extra money. I was even able to

put some money in the bank for rainy days. Basically, I started to depend

more on myself.

Through counseling, I realized that people aren’t better than me just

because they live with their biological families. I also realized that, in some

ways, being a foster child was an advantage. For example, I had already

learned how to live with different people’s personalities and attitudes. And I

already had a sense of independence.

Attitude Is Everything 25

Chapter 2

Yes, I still felt envious. When other students were planning their spring

breaks in Hawaii or Virginia, I was deciding on what movie I was going

to see. Sometimes I would end up staying at the group home for the whole

vacation. But I pulled up my grade point average to 3.0, which was great

compared to how things were looking at the end of my ﬁrst semester.

Tamecka didn’t ignore her problems or pretend they didn’t exist. Her prob-

lems were real. Not having parents to support and guide you is real. Fear of

failure in college is real. Being envious of people who seem to have more than

you is real.

But when Tamecka changed her philosophy, she changed her life. She

didn’t completely forget her circumstances, but accepted them and then used

them to her advantage. She put her focus on the only time that matters—the

present, or what she could do in the moment to improve her situation.

One of the quickest paths to success is to get out of the past. Sure, it’s smart

to review mistakes and unhappy events because that helps you to make better

choices in the future. Review, understand, and take responsibility for the

errors you’ve made. (And don’t spend a great deal time doing even that!) Then

use the past as a tool to do things differently in the present and move on.

ACTION STEPS

Do you tend to get stuck in the past? 

What can you do in the present to create the future 

you want?

Sometimes it’s not necessary to completely change your philosophy.

Instead, you can use the philosophy you already have in a new way that

works better for you. That’s what Tonya Groover did.

Tonya was always outspoken in high school—in the wrong ways.

I was not the straight-A student. I was ﬁghting all the time or getting into

confrontations. I’d sometimes talk back to the teacher.

26 Success for Teens

She did better in school when she started using her outspokenness in a

new way—to ask challenging questions rather than confront people.

I’m not afraid to ask questions. For example, how did Christopher

Columbus discover America in 1492 if the Native Americans were already

living here? Let’s be real about this. Those are the types of questions I would

ask. You have to use your attitude to your beneﬁt. You have to know when

to use your attitude and when not to use it.

Tonya is now a graduate student studying to get her Ph.D.

ACTION STEPS

What are the most positive parts of your philosophy? 

How could you use those positive parts in better ways? 

POINT #4: WHAT YOU THINK MATTERS, TOO

What you do matters. But what you think and say to yourself matter, too.

Perhaps even more, because what you think determines the source of your

attitudes (your philosophy).

More than a hundred years ago, in a book called As a Man Thinketh, James

Allen explained that the single most powerful factor in determining the

course of your life is not your circumstances (what happens to you), but the

way you think. Here is what Allen wrote:

The mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character

and the outer garment of circumstance.

In other words, what you think determines who you are and what happens

to you. Your thoughts have the power to determine how you see yourself,

other people, and the world. Your thoughts have the power to determine your

actions, behavior, and how others respond to you. Your thoughts are directly

linked to the type of person you become.

Attitude Is Everything 27

Chapter 2

This is true of positive thoughts. And it is also true of negative thoughts.

When Tamecka told herself she couldn’t do well in college, guess what hap-

pened? When she changed her philosophy—when she told herself she could

take action to do well in college—her entire experience changed.

Look at what she told herself when she ﬁrst got to college:

I’m different from everyone else. 

People judge me because I’m in foster care. 

No one cares whether I go to classes or fail. 

Everyone else is happier and doesn’t have problems. 

I don’t have a chance of doing well in college. 

I can’t do well in college because I don’t have family to support me. 

Now compare it with the new things she started telling herself:

I have the ability to pay less attention to my boyfriend. 

I have the ability to attend classes and study hard. 

I can get help from peer tutors. 

I can get help from my professors. 

I can get help from a therapist. 

My foster care experience wasn’t completely negative but a source 

of strength.

Other students don’t have perfect situations. 

I’ll have bad days, but I can get through them, by using my own 

resources and help from others.

For Tamecka, it came down to a simple but incredibly important realization:

It wasn’t because I was in foster care that I was failing my classes. It was

because I had been paying too little attention to my schoolwork. It wasn’t

being in a group home holding me back—it was me holding myself back.

We’re always talking to ourselves, but most of the time we’re not aware of

what we’re saying or how it affects us. And there is no more powerful voice

than that silent voice in our minds.

28 Success for Teens

HOW THE BRAIN WORKS

To understand why thinking is so powerful, let’s take a quick detour

through your brain.

Your brain has both conscious and unconscious functions, and it’s

important to understand the difference.

Your conscious brain is the part that does the “thinking.” It focuses

intensely on one thing at a time, like a ashlight beam scanning a dark

room. The conscious brain is incredibly powerful at what it does, but its

scope is very limited. For example, you can’t remember more than a

few numbers in your head at one time. Prove this to yourself: Open the

phone book, read three phone numbers at random, close the book, and

see if you can remember even one of them.

But your unconscious? It can remember lots of information at the

same time! If your conscious brain is like a ashlight, shining on one

object at a time, your subconscious brain is like a oodlight that lights

up everything at once—but only on a subconscious level (which

means you’re not aware of it).

Your conscious brain is easily distracted. The average person loses

focus six to 10 times per minute (you know that from being in school).

How often does your subconscious lose focus? Try never.

That’s the key that most people don’t realize. We think of our

conscious functions—our will, our conscious decisions, our

conscious thoughts—as what is really “us,” and our subconscious

as something that’s going on under the surface and not so important.

The truth is, the subconscious runs virtually everything.

And that’s why some people end up in negative situations or

living the life they don’t want. They say to themselves, “How did

I get here?!” They got there on automatic pilot—their actions

programmed them into the life they ended up with. They weren’t

conscious

of their choices.

So, how do you program your life? How do help your

subconscious make the right choices and decisions? In the same

way you learned to walk or tie your shoes or skateboard: by

taking small, positive steps over and over, until your actions are

handed off to your subconscious. Then you can take those steps

without thinking.

Because at that point, they’ve become a habit.

Attitude Is Everything 29

Chapter 2

You know the expression, “Be careful what you wish for—you just might

get it”? It’s not even a question of what you wish for: Be careful what you

think. Because what you think, multiplied over time, will create what you get.

This may be hard to believe, but it’s the truth. Your “dominant thoughts”—the

thoughts you have so often that they become habits of thought, or the automatic

responses of your mind—do in fact determine what you will do in life. Whatever

circumstances you encounter in life (and we don’t have much control over what

life brings), it’s the way you think about those circumstances that will determine how

you respond to them. And how you respond determines your actions and the

path you take.

Remember, you are the most inﬂuential person in your life. There is nobody

more effective at supporting your success—and nobody more effective at

undermining it.

Think about this from your own experience. No two people react to the

same situation in the same way. We’ve seen that from the teens in this book.

Ferentz made the most of his talents while his friends did not. Octavia dealt

in positive ways with her depression after going into foster care. Jordan kept

plugging away as she tried to start a theater company at age 10. These teens

were successful because of the ways they thought, because of the things they

told themselves.

As Sir Edmund Hillary, the ﬁrst man to climb Mount Everest, put it:

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

You can look at anything you do, and by the message you give yourself

about it—by the way you think about it—turn it into a success or a defeat.

You can turn failure into success, and you can turn success into failure, by

the sheer power of what you tell yourself.

Here’s an example. You fail a test in school. What do you say to yourself?

“It’s the teacher’s fault for making it too hard.” 

“The school system shouldn’t require all these tests.” 

“I didn’t have time to study for it.” 

“I did my best and will try to do better the next time.” 

30 Success for Teens

“I’m going to study the questions I got wrong and do more homework in 

those areas, so I can do better the next time.”

Quite a difference between these statements, right? Did you also feel a dif-

ference as you read them? Telling yourself negative things will certainly make

you feel (and act) differently than if you tell yourself positive things.

Here’s another example. Think back to a time you did something well that

was really hard to do. What did you say to yourself?

“I have the skills to do that again.” 

“I was lucky and that was just a ﬂuke.” 

In other words, did you put yourself down or give yourself credit? Did you

see your success as something you achieved through your talent and skill, or

as an accident?

How you talk to yourself determines how you view what happens to you—

good or bad—and how you will respond in the future.

When Jordan was starting her theater company, she remembers having a

lot of doubts, but she didn’t give up.

I couldn’t drive myself places, I couldn’t sign contracts, I couldn’t really do a

lot on my own. I was just a little kid. But don’t be afraid of the word no. Most

of the time you’ll have 10 to 15 no’s before you get that one yes that will get

you to your overall goal.

Dallas Crilley was only 15 when he wrote a book about teens who started

their own businesses. He accomplished this goal because he thought in

positive ways.

If attitude isn’t everything, it’s close to everything. There’s always a way to

reframe the way that you’re thinking. If you got a bad grade on a test, you can

reframe it to, oh, well, what can I learn from this? The problem with attitudes

is that once you have a negative attitude, you get used to being in that atti-

tude. It gets kind of hard to fall into a more positive attitude. You want to get

into the habit of thinking positively and then eventually it will come naturally.

Attitude Is Everything 31

Chapter 2

Dallas uses an important word—reframing. It means changing the way you

think about something, to have a more positive result.

Kyle Freas often felt discouraged when he was trying to raise money to

help abused children. But he learned to deal with setbacks and rejection and

kept going.

Perseverance is a cliché but it’s pretty huge. Lots of times I’ve been turned

down, or I e-mailed someone about doing a project and heard no word back.

I try not to get discouraged about that. I’d have to approach teachers and

student councils, and sometimes they would be responsive and sometimes

they wouldn’t. Sometimes a charity or a foundation would respond, and

sometimes they wouldn’t. Sometimes people act a little skeptical of me. When

you’re my age in high school, you say to yourself, “No one’s responding, so why

am I even trying?” It’s discouraging and you don’t even feel like trying, but

you need to learn from your mistakes and approach things in a different way.

Ralph Waldo Emerson described this truth of human nature accurately:

Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for

their victories.

No one has more inﬂuence over you than you do. Nobody gets into your

head more than you do, and there are no messages more powerful than the

ones you tell yourself.

Other people may doubt your dreams and do their best to pull you off your

path. You know people like that—people who can disappoint you and hurt you.

But other people don’t have the power to stop you because they don’t have the

power to control your most important tool—your attitude and the way you think.

ACTION STEPS

Are your thoughts mostly positive or negative? 

How can you change what you say to yourself? 

32 Success for Teens

What’s Your Philosophy?

If you could sum up in a few sentences how you see yourself and the world,

what would you say?

Are you pleased with the way you see yourself? Are there things you ✎

want to change?

What about the way you see the world? Is it a welcoming place or a ✎

scary one? Or neither?

However you see it, write it down below.

Here’s how I see myself:

______________________________________________________________

And here’s how I see the world:

______________________________________________________________

Attitude Is Everything 33

Chapter 2

Now, think about what you just wrote. Why do you think you see your-

self and the world that way? Where did your philosophy come from?

Write your thoughts below.

______________________________________________________________

Are you pleased with what you wrote? Surprised? Saddened? Anything

you’d like to change? Write your reactions below.

______________________________________________________________

Maybe you’re happy with what you’ve written. Maybe not. If not, that’s

OK—at least you know what needs to be changed. Whatever your philoso-

phy looks like, the key to getting what you want, to creating your dream life,

is to make your philosophy work for you and not against you.

34 Success for Teens

If You Want to Change Your Life, Change Your Philosophy

But before you can use your philosophy to your full advantage, you have to

know what parts of it are working for you and which parts are holding you

back. Let’s ﬁnd out.

Before, on pages 32–33, you described your way of looking at yourself and

the world. Look back at your answers. Now, think more deeply about what

you wrote. What parts of your philosophy are helping you achieve success?

Jot down your answer below.

______________________________________________________________

Now, think about what parts of your philosophy don’t work so well. Are

there ways of seeing the world or yourself that are holding you back or

causing problems in your life? Write your answer below.

______________________________________________________________

Hold onto your answers for now. We’ll be looking at them again.

Attitude Is Everything 35

Chapter 2

How Do You Talk to Yourself?

How you think has a big effect on how you live your life. Try to remem-

ber a time when you were successful at something that was new or really

hard. What did you say to yourself after you accomplished it? Whatever

it was, try to remember it and jot it down here:

______________________________________________________________

Now, think back to a time when you tried to do something really hard and

didn’t do well. Can you remember what you told yourself? Write it down here:

______________________________________________________________

Did you give yourself credit for succeeding and believe you could do it again?

Or were you very hard on yourself and not conﬁdent about succeeding?

Now think about your philosophy and the way you think. Then answer

these questions.

36 Success for Teens

How are your philosophy and the way you think related to each other?

______________________________________________________________

Are your philosophy and way of thinking mostly positive or negative?

For example, do you expect the worst or best from people? Do you tend

to put yourself down?

______________________________________________________________

How would you like to change your philosophy and the way you think?

______________________________________________________________

37

Chapter

3

U

sing the moment means taking control of your life in the moment—

right now, today. It means not blaming the past or worrying about

the future. The only time you have is the present, because the past is

gone and the future hasn’t happened yet.

This can be a simple idea to understand, but a hard one to live by.

A lot of the past goes into who you are and what your life looks like—

your parents, your childhood, your neighborhood, and your community.

There’s also your race and ethnic background. Let’s not forget your school,

your teachers, and your friends—and maybe some people who aren’t your

friends. And you’re getting all sorts of messages from TV, movies, the news,

and the world around you.

All of this is called your “circumstances” or your situation. And sometimes

your circumstances can weigh pretty heavily on you.

It’s easy to get caught up in your circumstances—the problems of right now.

There’s so much on your plate. You may feel like there are too many problems

you don’t have answers for and challenges you have no idea how to handle.

But guess what? The teens in this book say that circumstances may be

affecting you, even driving you crazy, but they aren’t who you are. And they

don’t determine who you will someday be.

POINT #1: YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES AREN’T YOU

Always remember this: Even with all your problems, there is still an invisible you.

The invisible you is who you will be someday. Maybe not tomorrow or next week,

but someday. And the little choices you make every day are what will put you on

the path that takes you there. Whether or not you’re aware of it, the little things

you do every day—or don’t do—are creating that invisible you of the future.

38 Success for Teens

“Circumstances are a factor in what you become,” says Tonya Groover, “but

you are a factor in what you become. And that is more important.”

Tonya grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh where a lot

of people took the wrong path. But thanks to the choices she made back in

high school to get back on the right track, she’s now a graduate student.

One reason I think I’m more successful than other kids my age is because

I didn’t let my circumstances make me. I was aware of problems in my

community, and I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to become a sta-

tistic. I made up my mind I wasn’t going to be in jail. I wasn’t going to have

a baby before I got married. I was going to ﬁnish high school, go to college,

get my Ph.D., and become an active leader in my community. And I wasn’t

going to let anything stand in my way.

Kyle Freas, 19, says it’s important to learn from your past experiences,

even your negative ones, but there’s a difference between learning from them

and getting bogged down in them.

It’s natural to linger in the past

about some things, and every-

one should do that a little

bit because you deﬁnitely

have to learn through

mistakes in life. You have

to have bad experiences,

because you’ll never learn

if you don’t. But you’re not

going to be stuck in a situation

forever. You can always climb out of it.

I used to worry about the future and how

things would be. But you can’t control it. You can only prepare for it the

best way you can. You need to live in the moment because the moment is

the only thing you can live in. And try to take steps that will be good for

your future.

Your present

circumstances may be affecting

you, but they aren’t who you are.

And they don’t determine what you will

someday be. There is still an

invisible

you,

the person you will be someday—

maybe not tomorrow or next

week, but someday.

Use the Moment 39

Chapter 3

And says Jacob Suarez:

The past is the past. It has made you what you are today. But if you don’t

take advantage of what is happening now, you’re not going to have that

bright future.

ACTION STEPS

How do you feel about your current situation? 

Do you feel happy with it or stuck in it? 

What would make you feel less stuck? 

POINT #2: YOU CAN’T CONTROL WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU,

ONLY YOUR REACTIONS

The problem with circumstances—the reason you can get bogged down

in them—is that they’re always changing. Bad things can happen to every-

one, at any time. Life isn’t fair. Some kids are poor, some live with only one

parent, and some end up in foster care. One day it’s bright and sunny, and

you can’t imagine life will ever get dark again. But then the next day some-

thing bad happens, and you can’t believe life will ever get better.

Most of the crummy things that happen to us are completely out of our

control. Just because we want the weather to be bright and warm doesn’t

mean that it will be. We can’t control the weather, and we can’t control our

circumstances. We can gripe and complain, but we can’t really do much

about whether or not difﬁcult times happen. They will happen. What

matters most is what you do about the difﬁcult times when they do happen.

What you can control is how you feel about your circumstances. You can

control how you feel about yourself. And you can control what you do about

your circumstances.

How you view your circumstances makes all the difference between

success and failure.

And that is completely within your control.

40 Success for Teens

For Kyle, that kind of control means this:

Paying attention to how you inﬂuence people and not to how they

inﬂuence you. When I was younger, I had the mentality of looking at how

people inﬂuenced me, not the reverse. It’s much better now that I see myself

as an “inﬂuencer” rather than the one being inﬂuenced.

Tonya Groover talks about the dif-

ference between reacting to circum-

stances, which means getting bogged

down in anger or blame or giving up,

and acting to try to change them.

Are you going to be the person

reacting, or are you going to be the

person acting? It’s better to be the person

acting, because when you’re acting and creat-

ing action, you’re creating opportunities. You’re creating

outcomes and possibilities. But when you’re always reacting to situations,

circumstances, and consequences, then you’re not going to get very far in life.

Although you may grow up in poverty and not have what other students

your age have, or though your parents may not be able to throw you that

Sweet 16 birthday party, you can make up your mind to throw that Sweet 16

birthday party for your kids. You can create opportunities for your children

that you didn’t have.

Why is it so important to act rather than react? Reacting usually means

complaining or blaming. Why did that happen? Why me? It’s my parents’ fault

or my friend’s fault.

Taking action means taking control of what you can do to change your

situation. And you can only take action in the present—not in the past,

which is gone, and not in the future, because it hasn’t happened yet. You can

only create the future in the present.

Pauline Gordon, 20, knows the difference between reacting and acting. She’s

now in college studying to be a social worker. But, to get there, she overcame a

You can’t control

your circumstances. What

you

can

control is how you

react to your circumstances and

how you feel about yourself.

Use the Moment 41

Chapter 3

lot of tough times as a teenager. She grew up in a housing project in one of the

poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods in New York City. (One day when

she came home, she found a bullet hole in her front door.) Actually, it’s probably

better to say that she used her past to her advantage instead of overcoming it.

I chose to do well in school because I always felt I had something to prove.

I felt I was looked down on because I was the youngest child in my family.

Both my parents are mentally ill. So I really felt like an outcast because of

that. I always felt like I had to prove something to my family and friends.

Also, my sister was diagnosed with bipolar illness. She’s another reason I

try to do well. I want her to look at me as a role model, so she can do well too.

The strongest kids I know are not hindered by the experiences they’ve gone

through. They’ve turned poison into medicine. I guess that’s the term for it.

They’re making the best out of bad situations, and I would call that success.

Pauline has taken control of her future by acting in the present. By taking

advantage of scholarships and ﬁnancial aid, and by managing her money

carefully, she’s saved about $20,000 in the last year and a half.

After I graduated from high school, I started saving, saving, and saving.

Whenever they had free classes about budgeting, saving, or banking, I went. I

started researching banks that offered high interest rates on savings accounts,

money market accounts, and certiﬁcates of deposit. I’ve been

managing my accounts online. I even read

some personal-ﬁnance books.

Pauline understands that

taking small, positive steps in

the present can have a huge

impact on the future—even

the distant future. Several

months ago she opened her

own retirement account, not

something most teens and many

adults think about. But the earlier

Reacting usually

means complaining or blaming.

Taking action means taking control of

what you can do to change your situation.

And you can only take action in the

present—not in the past, which is gone,

and not in the future, because it

hasn’t happened yet.

42 Success for Teens

you start, the more money you’ll have when you’re older. Pauline found out it was

easier to open an account than she thought.

You don’t need a whole bunch of money to start a retirement account. You

need to do your research. I got to start my retirement account with just $1,000.

I’m pretty sure you can start one with even less, if you just do the research.

Pauline could have gotten stuck in the poverty of her past, but she used the

present to make a better future.

The sun is going to rise every day and keep rising for the rest of your life.

And some days that sun is going to be hidden by dark clouds. But the “sun”

of your own internal weather is something you can always control. That sun

is your intention—what you plan to do.

You are not at the mercy of your situation or self-image: You get to create

it. Yes, there may be days when it’s cloudy and rainy. There may even be a

tornado passing through. But you’re in charge of your internal sun, and, if

you choose, that light can penetrate a gloomy day and shine through.

Remember these two points.

Self-esteem (feeling good about yourself) is not something you’re born 

with or that you automatically either have or don’t have—it’s something

you create.

And you  can create it. Right now, right in the moment. Your self-image,

your view of yourself and who you are is something you build every day.

ACTION STEPS

Do you feel you create your circumstances or your 

circumstances create you?

Why do you feel that way? 

What could you do to change the way you see 

your circumstances?

Use the Moment 43

Chapter 3

POINT #3: WHEN YOU STOP BLAMING, YOU TAKE BACK YOUR POWER

When problems happen—when you’re hurt, depressed, or angry—it’s easy

to blame other people. It’s especially easy to blame them when they did some-

thing to deserve it! But when you grasp how the slight edge really operates in

your life, something interesting happens:

You stop blaming.

When you stop blaming, you accept the fundamental truth that you are

the cause of what happens in your life. You can then look at everything that

brought you to this point—your parents, teachers, childhood, neighborhood,

God, you name it—with appreciation and without blame. And what comes

next in your life is your call.

You’re free. The past isn’t gone, but you have a different attitude toward

it. Problems will still come your way, but you don’t look at them in the

same way.

Teens who are successful tend to take responsibility for who they are, where

they are, and everything that happens to them. Taking responsibility for what

happens to you—even when it hurts, even when it isn’t fair is one of the most

liberating things you can do.

When Tonya Groover was a teenager, she fell into the habit of making nega-

tive choices. Starting in seventh grade and throughout most of high school, she

was in a clique of about 10 girls.

In the neighborhood where I was growing up, everyone was in a clique.

In high school we got into ﬁghts over who was cuter than who, or who had

the hottest boyfriend. Eventually these confrontations became physical. And

when it becomes physical, you’re dealing with a situation where you could go

to jail, get expelled from school, or lose your life. You can get killed if someone

hits you in the temple or if someone has a pocketknife.

I think one day I came to the decision that I wasn’t going to ﬁght someone

else’s battles. I had my own battles to ﬁght. Most of the girls I had confronta-

tions with, in my mind they weren’t going to be anything. Why would I even

waste my energy by battling or arguing with these girls? This came to a head

when I was in 10th grade. I had to think about Tonya ﬁrst. I wasn’t going to

44 Success for Teens

risk my life for someone else. It may seem extreme when I say I was risking

my life, but that’s what it is.

Tonya also understood the importance of time—that the actions she took

as a young person would, over time, affect the rest of her life.

Your life starts in high school. The students who are focused in high school

have it a lot easier, because high school is easier compared to college and

graduate school. If you do good in high school, you can get a scholarship and

you don’t have to worry about ﬁnancial problems in college. The more time

you spend studying, the better your grades. The better the grades, the better

the job. It’s a domino effect that starts in high school.

Tonya broke away from the clique. She didn’t abandon her friends. She still

stayed close with the girls but she set limits—she refused to participate in the

negative things they did. Instead of blaming the clique or her circumstances

for her behavior, she changed her behavior. Now 22, Tonya is a graduate

student at a college in Pennsylvania, working toward her Ph.D. in computer

science. She took actions that put time on her side.

Here’s the problem with blame: When you don’t see yourself as being the

cause, when you react to crummy circumstances or events by blaming other

people, the system, fate, or anything else, you are giving away your power.

On the other hand, when you take full responsibility—even when others are

wrong or the situation is downright unfair and you really have been dumped

on—you keep your life’s reins in your own hands. Even when life is unfair.

Think about your friends for a moment. Do you know people who are

always angry about what happened to them? How someone cheated them or

treated them badly? Are they always complaining about what a jerk their ex-

boyfriend or ex-girlfriend is? Or how unfair their math teacher was last semes-

ter for giving them a bad grade? Or how mean their friends were last year?

You might notice two things about this kind of conversation: 1) It’s usually

about blame and 2) it’s usually about things that happened in the past.

But when you stop blaming your viewpoint shifts, from seeing circumstances

as things that happen to you, to seeing circumstances as something that you

Use the Moment 45

Chapter 3

create. You realize you’re responsible for your life. And you also realize that

your only limits are those that you—and not other people—put on yourself.

You have the power to choose those simple actions that will serve and

empower you—and to keep on choosing them. And that slight edge moment

happens every day, every hour, and every moment of your life.

ACTION STEPS

Do you have the habit of blaming? 

What could you do to give it up? 

POINT #4: SOMEDAY NEVER COMES

Let’s hear it one more time: You can’t change the past. You can change the

future. And the only place you can change the future is now. You can think about

the future, you can plan for the future, but you can’t take action in the future. You

can only take action now. Give up the idea of taking action “someday.”

Someday, when I feel more conﬁdent… 

Someday, when I feel good about myself… 

Someday, when I’m older and living on my own… 

Someday, when I have the time… 

Someday, when I have the money… 

If you’ve ever said these things to yourself, there’s some bad news:

“Someday” does not exist. It never has and never will. There is no “someday.”

There’s only today. Right now. This moment. When tomorrow comes, it will

simply be another today; so will the next day, and the next, and the next.

There is never anything but today.

And if you don’t take action today, you’re cheating yourself. Because your

todays are limited. None of us has unlimited time. That might be hard to

understand when you’re 13 or 16 or 19, but it’s true. That is what 16-year-old

Kesly Coba learned. A few years back, she was extremely shy and quiet.

46 Success for Teens

I remember sitting in class and feeling out of place. I would never partici-

pate. I was so shy that I didn’t want to raise my hand to answer a question,

even if I knew that my answer was right. I always used to search the room

for girls with big hair so I could hide behind them. There was even a time

when a teacher gave me the wrong test grade, but I never complained. My

shyness kept me from it.

Not only was I shy by nature, but I was also uncertain about my English

because I had just come to the United States from Colombia. I was afraid

that if I said something wrong, people would make fun of me. So I just kept

quiet in order to not be ridiculed. My shyness was driving me so crazy that

I had become the “mute child”—until something unexpected happened to

shake me out of my skin.

On that day, Kesly and her family were driving to their cousin’s bridal

shower. The family split into two cars, and Kesly rode with her cousins.

As normal kids, we demanded that the music be on full blast. I reached

down into my bag, pulled out my Snoop Doggy Dogg tape, and said “Hey,

play this! I’m sure everyone is going to like it.” We all went crazy and

started rapping along, although I had no idea what Snoop was saying.

After about an hour, the ﬁrst car pulled over to the side of the road and

then Kesly’s car pulled over too.

As we stopped, I could see everyone running towards us with scared looks

on their faces, and I wondered what was wrong. “Get out of the car!” Luis

yelled, and I saw my mother crying in the background.

When we got out, smoke and ﬂames surrounded our car. I saw a man

running towards us with a ﬁre extinguisher, and that’s when I started to

cry. I realized that our lives had been in danger.

As I sat on a nearby hill, I started thinking about what might have hap-

pened if the ﬂames had gotten to us. I started to cry even more because I

realized that my dreams and expectations could all have ended that day.

This incident not only scared me to death, but also changed me for good.

After the accident, I started to open up and talk more. I didn’t plan this,

Use the Moment 47

Chapter 3

but I guess that in my unconscious mind I realized that I had to change my

shy ways, because being shy wouldn’t get me anywhere. I realized God had

given me a second shot in this world, so I decided to get the most out of it.

I started to raise my hand in class. At ﬁrst I still felt nervous and too

concerned about what others might think or say, but little by little I let go of

my fears and just let the words pour out. My teachers and fellow classmates

developed a new kind of respect for me, and I no longer felt boxed in by my

shyness. My mother was very proud of me because she knew how ashamed I

felt when the teacher used to ask a question and I was too shy to answer it.

It seems strange to have gotten such positive results out of a negative situ-

ation, but the truth is that scary or difﬁcult experiences can make us think

about what we want from life, and help us change and accomplish things we

once viewed as impossible.

If you’re waiting to start making changes tomorrow or the next day,

remember this:

You already have the skill, conﬁdence, and strengths. 

You already have the time. 

You already have everything you need to achieve everything you want. 

There’s nothing to wait for. You can take action now.

ACTION STEPS

What are you waiting to do? 

How can you stop waiting and take action? 

48 Success for Teens

Past or Future?

Let’s try an experiment to show you two different ways your mind works.

Really do this—it’s fun, pretty fascinating, and will take just a few minutes.

First, take a comfortable, seated position and look down at the ﬂoor, at a spot

right between your toes. Take a few deep breaths, and then, staying in that

position, take the next two minutes or so to think about your life. Anything and

everything in your life—it doesn’t matter what, just whatever comes to mind.

All right? Go.

What did you think about? Jot it down here.

______________________________________________________________

Now, clear your mind, get up and walk around for a minute, then come back

and do the second half of the experiment.

This time, take that same comfortable, seated position, only tilt your head up

so that you’re looking at the ceiling. Take a few deep breaths, and then think

about your life over the next two minutes or so to—again, it doesn’t matter

exactly what you think about, just focus on whatever comes to mind.

All set? Go.

Use the Moment 49

Chapter 3

What did you think about this time? Jot it down here.

______________________________________________________________

Now, how did those two experiences compare? Did you think about pretty

much the same things both times, or were they different?

For example, during the ﬁrst part of the experiment, did you ﬁnd yourself

thinking about the past? Did any regrets come to mind? Did you ﬁnd yourself

thinking about things you could have or should have done differently?

During the second part, when you were looking up at the ceiling, did you

ﬁnd yourself thinking about the future? Were your thoughts and feelings

more positive?

If so, you’re not alone. Most people ﬁnd it’s pretty hard to not start thinking

about the past when looking down. And when looking up, it’s hard not to

think forward into the future, about hopes, ambitions, and aspirations. It just

seems to come naturally.

The point is this: Looking behind you will cause you to feel and act much

differently than if you look to the future (and make plans to make it the best).

A Look in the Mirror

How do you view your present circumstances—your family, school, friends,

neighborhood, and state of mind? What’s going well? What’s holding you back?

50 Success for Teens

Think about each part of your life listed below. For each, do you tend

to see yourself as at the mercy of what happens (not taking action), or

someone who is in charge of what happens (ready to take action)? Be as

honest as you can with this—and if you don’t like any of your answers,

don’t worry: We’re going to show you how to change them!

For Myself:

______________________________________________________________

For My Friendships:

______________________________________________________________

For My Health (physical, mental, and spiritual):

______________________________________________________________

For My Wealth:

______________________________________________________________

Use the Moment 51

Chapter 3

For My Education and Career:

______________________________________________________________

For My Footprint on the World (what I want to accomplish or how I want to

be remembered):

______________________________________________________________

Perhaps this exercise helped you see where you need to take action. Lots of

times we wait for a lucky break. But good things will happen if you start to

take little steps to achieve your goals.

So let’s start taking those steps….

53

Chapter

4

E

very achievement, accomplishment, and success starts somewhere. Every

task, large or small, begins with a ﬁrst step. That ﬁrst step can be hard

to take. Yet one small step can lead to results you never imagined.

On a chilly day in December 1955, Rosa Parks was an unknown 42-year-

old seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama. On that day she took a small step,

because she decided she’d had enough. She was tired after a long day’s work.

Most of all, she was tired of being treated the way she was—and tired of every

other person of her color being treated that way, too. So when she was told to

give up her bus seat to a white passenger, she refused—even when the bus

driver threatened her with arrest.

It wasn’t an empty threat—Rosa Parks was arrested, convicted, and

ﬁned for violating a city law that black passengers had to give up their

bus seats to white passengers. But the step she took led to the start

of a new civil rights organization. Not long after, the newly formed

Montgomery Improvement Association elected a young and relatively

unknown minister named Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be its spokes-

person, launching a political movement that over the next decade ended

legal segregation in the United States and transformed race relations in

our country.

What difference can one step make? Think about Rosa Parks.

POINT #1: THE FIRST STEP LOOKS HARDER THAN IT IS

Yes, everything starts with a ﬁrst step. But when you try something scary

or new, taking the ﬁrst step can look too hard. Some people get afraid and

don’t take that ﬁrst step. But they don’t chicken out because the ﬁrst step is

54 Success for Teens

too hard—they chicken out because the ﬁrst step looks like it’s too hard. Who

wants to make a mistake and look like an idiot, right?

Brian knows how hard the ﬁrst step can look. He was afraid to approach a girl.

Some guys seem to ﬁnd it easy to approach girls they don’t know, but not

me. The few times I’ve gone up to girls in the hallways at school or on the

streets in my neighborhood, intending to get their phone numbers, I’ve given

up at the last minute.

One time I was chillin’ at the bus stop with three friends. John spotted a

girl coming our way. The guys and I stared at her as she walked down the

street. Everything on her was looking good except the look on her face. She

pointed her eyes to the sky, acting as if she were too busy for anyone.

John said to me, “Yo, Brian, that girl looks like your type. She got on

glasses just like you and she seems the nerdy type. Why don’t you go up and

talk to her?”

I was afraid to talk to her because I didn’t want to get rejected in front of

my friends, and the girl’s expression made it plain that that would happen.

Besides, she was already halfway down the street, so I ﬁgured that I had

missed my chance. But I thought to myself, “She is ﬁne. If I ever see her

again when I’m by myself, I’m gonna talk to her.”

A week later, I saw the same girl again at the bus stop, but this time I was

alone. Since the guys weren’t around, I thought, “This is my chance. There’s

nobody around to see me if I fail.”

Once again, she was walking mad fast and I had to hurry to catch up

to her. I politely said, “Excuse me, I’d like to know your name.” She rolled

her eyes and started to ignore me. Then she asked, with a big chip on her

shoulder, “Why do you wanna know?”

I told her that I was interested in her. She replied, “I got a boyfriend already.”

That was the end of the conversation. I walked away from her because

I wanted to save myself a little dignity (if I had any left). I felt like a total

loser. I hoped I would never see her face again so I wouldn’t be reminded of

this horrible episode. I thought about how I wasted my time trying to talk to

a girl who I knew would be stuck-up.

Everything Starts with Small Steps 55

Chapter 4

But later that week I saw the incident in a new light. After I thought

about it, I decided that what happened wasn’t all that bad. At least I threw

my fear aside and approached the girl.

Even after he got up the courage to take the ﬁrst step, Brian still didn’t get

what he wanted. Or maybe he did—he faced his fears and, by taking that

risk, perhaps it will be easier for him the next time and he’ll do better. Brian

was programming his subconscious—the more you do certain kinds of

things (especially hard and scary things), the more you become comfortable

with them, and the more they become a habit.

ACTION STEPS

What rst step are you afraid to take? 

What would help you take that rst step? 

POINT #2: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A LUCKY BREAK

Another reason people don’t start taking small steps toward their goals is

because they’re waiting for a lucky break. Perhaps you know someone who’s

hoping to make the NBA or become a rap star.

The truth, of course, is that very few people have the talent to become

superstars in sports or music, where the odds of making it big are a

million to one. Everyone hoping to become the next Michael Jordan or

Tupac will eventually ﬁnd that out. And since the lucky break didn’t turn

out the way they hoped, they give up. They become victims of the lucky

break myth.

A lot of people look up to the wrong role models for success. We make

heroes out of people in sports and entertainment, but we don’t see the years

of hard work behind the success. Michael Jordan didn’t become Michael

Jordan overnight. Any great athlete pays the price: hours and hours and hours

of practice with no one watching or cheering. Success in anything doesn’t

happen overnight or out of thin air.

56 Success for Teens

Lucky breaks do happen—but not in the way you think. They are slowly

grown, like a crop: planted, cultivated, and ultimately harvested. Success is

not a random accident. Life is not a lottery.

Dallas Crilley, 15, knows this truth. He created his own big break when he was

bored one summer. He saw opportunity where others didn’t and took action.

I was sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing, and I knew that I wasn’t

the only one. All of my friends were doing the same exact thing—sleeping in,

watching TV, and eating all three food groups: Cheetos, Ramen Noodles, and

a whole lot of Coke. After a while, I started asking myself why. The theory

that I came up with was that in our society, there seems to be this imaginary

number of “18,” and until you hit that age you can’t make any money.

That didn’t really make sense to me—when you’re a kid, aren’t those

supposed to be your best dreaming years? The pressures of society haven’t

beaten down kids, so they have all of these hopes and aspirations. Why

shouldn’t kids be able to apply their creativity to the business world, since

so many adults lose their creativity as they get older?

Dallas set out to look for kids who had ignored that rule and followed their

dreams while they were still teens. What he found amazed him.

After a few Google searches for “kid entrepreneur” or “teen inventor,” I

found that there were tons of kids who had ran a successful business before

18! Knowing a good idea for a book when I saw one, I decided to stop

kidding around and get writing.

So Dallas decided to write a book about kids who had run a successful

business before they turned 18. He began by writing a chapter a week over

the summer.

It was a great idea, but making a great idea into a reality always comes

down to small steps. And those small steps can trip you up. At one point,

Dallas found it hard to keep going.

About halfway through, it seemed there was still so much to do. It was hard

to keep ﬁnding stories. But I set a time that I would write every day. Initially

Everything Starts with Small Steps 57

Chapter 4

it was a chapter a week. And I had to have that chapter a week. Even if it was

Sunday and I was tired, I had to have another chapter written.

But eventually I started to learn to enjoy it. I started looking forward to

these writing times. I’d turn on some music to kind of ﬁt the vibe I was in,

to get in the rhythm of writing.

The little steps fell into place after Dallas took the big ﬁrst step:

I think getting yourself off the couch is the hardest part. And once you get

a set schedule and a set method of doing things, and you keep doing it every

day, it gets easier and easier from then on.

I don’t think luck plays a role in success at all. If something good happens

to you, in some way or another you did something that caused that to

happen. I think waiting to get lucky is an excuse for laziness. You can’t just

buy a lottery ticket every day and convince yourself you’re going to get rich.

You have to take things into your own hands.

Waiting for a lucky break puts you at the mercy of the world around you.

That’s a pretty passive place to be. Over time, it creates a victim mentality,

and that mentality tends to become a self-fulﬁlling prophecy. It keeps people

from ever taking action and creating breaks for themselves. And the only

way to create those breaks is through small steps—the power of simple daily

actions, compounded over time.

ACTION STEPS

Are you waiting for a lucky break to happen? 

Is there an opportunity you can take advantage of 

right now?

POINT #3: MAKE THE STEPS AS SMALL AS YOU CAN

When you ﬁnd it hard to take steps toward a goal, the teens we talked with

suggested that you break the task into the smallest possible steps. That way it

won’t look as scary. For example, if you want to write poetry, play a musical

58 Success for Teens

instrument, or learn a new language, you can start by doing it 10 minutes a

day. Ten minutes a day of anything can have a huge impact on your life. If you

start with small steps, you’re more likely to stick with the task than avoid it.

Jacob Suarez used to love to put things off to the last minute.

I was a big procrastinator, like really big time. I’d have an eight-page

paper due or something… and it would be the night before, and I’d be, “Uh

oh, I got an eight-page paper due.”

Then he got a huge assignment—he had to design a theater production for

a school project.

I had to choose the lighting and draw the sets to scale, I had to have a budget,

I had to have costumes, I had to have a whole bunch of stuff. I had two months

to do it for our ﬁnal. What I did was make a schedule to break it down. I made

a list of everything I needed to get done, and what day it needed to get done by.

Essentially I created a deadline for each little thing. I would do a costume this

day, a set design the next day. I’d write down all the things I needed.

It seems like a daunting task at ﬁrst to change your attitude and the little

things here and there, but once you break it down it will make you so much

more successful in the long run.

By taking this huge project and breaking it up into small pieces, Jacob

made it a lot less frightening and overwhelming.

Desiree Bailey, 19, is in her ﬁrst year of college and uses very small steps to

manage all her responsibilities.

Sometimes when I look at my schedule—a paper due, an exam on

Tuesday—I’m thinking how the heck am I going to get everything done and

make it through the week in one piece. It’s really helpful to calm down, not

stress out, and say, “OK, I can’t get anything done at all if I sit here and think

about everything I have to do.” So I break it up—I say I’m going to do this

on Monday, I’m going to do this on Tuesday, and then I can move onto the

next thing. Maybe I can do half of a paper, depending on what’s due ﬁrst. It’s

so easy to get overwhelmed when you look at things as one big task.

Everything Starts with Small Steps 59

Chapter 4

ACTION STEPS

Are you having trouble starting or nishing something 

because it seems too big?

What’s the smallest step you can take to get started? 

POINT #4: THE SECOND STEP IS JUST AS IMPORTANT

The first step is key, but the second step is just as important. Lots

of people take the first step, don’t see any immediate success, and

quit. How many people have the strength and courage to take the

second step?

When you were an infant, you made your way around your world on

your hands and knees crawling. Everyone around you was walking,

and one day you got it into your little head that maybe you could give

walking a try.

You grabbed onto something above you and pulled yourself upright.

You stood up, holding onto that playpen, chair, or big stuffed animal.

You were wobbly and unsure, but you were on your way, and there was

no turning back. You let go and took that first, amazing, bold step—and

smack! You fell right on your butt.

So what did you do? Did you think, “I hope nobody saw that. You

know, maybe I’m not cut out for walking. And crawling isn’t so bad. Lots

of people crawl…”?

Of course not. You did what every other infant has done throughout

time—you got back up and took a second step.

The second step was probably no better than your first. But that

second step was where you really started to learn how to walk. From

that point on, it was only a matter of time before you were really walk-

ing—no hands, no holding onto Mom or Dad, all by yourself. Every

baby instinctively understands the slight edge. We forget it only as we

grow up.

60 Success for Teens

Alison, 17, knows a lot about the second step. When she was a junior

in high school, she started to look for a job:

Working in a clothing store was the ﬁrst thing that occurred to me. I

ﬁgured I’d get paid to hang out with guys while getting huge discounts on

clothes. I asked in every store if they were hiring. I got really excited every

time they told me to ﬁll out an application. I ﬁgured that I would soon be

picking and choosing from a lot of job offerings.

But my “sure thing” turned out to be a ridiculous fantasy. I waited for

the stores to call me back and they never did. I tried again a few months

later and, once again, no calls came in. Eventually I lost interest in

getting a job.

The ﬁrst step failed. It would have been easy for Alison to give up, but

she didn’t.

Then, last summer, I decided to look for an unpaid internship. Since I

had worked on my school newspaper and was considering a career in jour-

nalism, I called every newspaper I could think of. I accepted the ﬁrst offer I

got from a community newspaper. (You’d be amazed at how easy it is to get

a job when you’re willing to work for free.)

I worked two days a week doing the things no one else wanted to do, like

typing other people’s articles into the computer. But I also got to write a lot

of little articles. I really enjoyed the work.

At last I had real experience and a work reference (someone who could

say I was a good worker). So in the beginning of my senior year, I started to

look for a paying job again.

I was smarter this time. When I went into a store, I’d introduce myself

to the manager and ﬁnd out exactly what they were looking for BEFORE

I ﬁlled out the application. I began to carry around the information that I

used to forget to bring with me, like the phone number and address of the

person I was using as a reference. Most important of all, I always asked

when I could call, rather than assuming that they would call me. I had a

stack of business cards with the names and phone numbers of managers

Everything Starts with Small Steps 61

Chapter 4

I’d spoken to. Every day I would call to ﬁnd out whether they’d made

a decision. The hard part of all this was trying to be persistent without

becoming a pain in the butt.

All my work (and good timing—stores were doing their Christmas

hiring) paid off. I was offered not one, but three interviews—at

Bloomingdale’s, Barnes and Noble, and Express Ltd.

But my trials and tribulations were not over yet. Bloomingdale’s put me

through an intense screening process. I was interviewed three times. Next, I was

supposed to attend a two-day training program on a Saturday and Sunday.

Unfortunately, that Saturday happened to be the date of the SAT’s. They

wouldn’t let me do it on another weekend, so I had to say, “Goodbye, Bloomies.”

Then Barnes and Noble called and offered me the lowest of the low

positions—cashier. The job was really easy, except that my feet were in the

most pain I have ever felt. I wasn’t used to standing on them for ﬁve or more

hours at a shot.

I got my ﬁrst paycheck after two weeks and it was HUGE. And the

employee discount at Barnes and Noble was 30 percent off, which is really

good, especially combined with a sale.

Success, right? Yes, but Alison was looking to take new steps to be even

more successful:

The hourly pay was only $4.75, so I began looking around for bigger

and better wages and discounts. I called Bloomingdale’s again and found

out that there was a position still available. Since the pay was $6 an

hour, plus 15 percent off on almost anything in the world, I was out of

Barnes and Noble within a few days and started a new job at Bloomies.

Mostly I worked as a cashier, but occasionally I had to restock displays

of merchandise.

I volunteered for overtime the next day (that’s when you work more than

your scheduled hours and get paid extra for it), which was a big mistake.

I worked from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and almost died. I had an hour for lunch and

a 20-minute break (better than Barnes and Noble, where I got a half hour

lunch and a 15-minute break). The bad thing about Bloomies was that my

62 Success for Teens

schedule changed every week. I was supposed to work 19 hours a week (three

evenings and a weekend day), but I always ended up working both weekend

days for a total of 22 to 24 hours.

But I didn’t mind. I was having fun. Over Christmas vacation I did a lot of

overtime and was really raking in the bucks, because they paid time and a half

($9 in my case) for every hour that you worked over your scheduled hours.

When you start something new, you feel excited. But then the excitement

wears off and the new job or new relationship or new guitar isn’t as excit-

ing as it was before. This is the hard part of the journey—the long stretch

between being a beginner and mastering a task. The middle part is when

you need the most encouragement to stay on the path. No one was cheering

for Alison when her feet hurt, during the middle part of her journey. Yet she

made it through all the stages:

ALISON WAS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE:

She adjusted her course. When she didn’t get a paying job at 

rst, she took an unpaid internship. That experience led to a

paying job later on.

She was persistent. Looking for a job is one of the hardest 

things in life, for anyone of any age, but Alison didn’t give up.

She started at the bottom. She took the rst job offered to her, 

even if it was the lowest paid position in the company.

She put up with difculty on the job. Her feet were killing her, 

but she still showed up.

She created her own luck. By not giving up and taking 

action, she put herself in the position to take advantage of a

better job when it came around.

Everything Starts with Small Steps 63

Chapter 4

Beginning:  She was looking for job, with no luck.

Middle:  She was dead tired, working hard, and her feet were killing her.

Mastery:  She was working overtime and making good money.

The middle of the journey is the easiest place to give up. But Alison stayed

on the right path. It wasn’t a question of luck or big breaks, but of putting

one foot in front of the other. Little steps.

ACTION STEPS

Have you ever been afraid to take a second step toward 

a goal?

What could help you take it? 

64 Success for Teens

The Power of Small Steps

Think about something you had to do in the past that seemed impos-

sible—a project at school, saying sorry to a friend, participating in a

sporting or outdoor event. It should be something that you thought you

couldn’t accomplish but did accomplish. Below, describe how you felt

when you ﬁrst thought about tackling this big thing in your life.

______________________________________________________________

Now, looking back, think about the small steps you took to tackle this chal-

lenge and how you felt afterwards. Describe those steps and feelings below:

______________________________________________________________

After it was over, did the challenge seem as hard as it did at ﬁrst? Did you get

the conﬁdence to tackle other hard challenges? Did you give yourself credit

for succeeding?

Everything Starts with Small Steps 65

Chapter 4

A Single Step You Can Take

At the end of Chapter One on page 17, we asked you to describe three

steps you could take in each area of your life to reach your goals. Now

you can narrow it down even further—what is one simple thing you can

do in the next 24 hours that would help you reach your goals in the fol-

lowing areas (just one thing):

Have fun with this—be creative!

For Myself:

______________________________________________________________

For My Friendships:

______________________________________________________________

For My Health (physical, mental, and spiritual):

______________________________________________________________

66 Success for Teens

For My Wealth:

______________________________________________________________

For My Education and Career:

______________________________________________________________

For My Footprint on the World (what I want to accomplish or how I want to

be remembered):

______________________________________________________________

Hold on to your ideas. When we get to the last chapter, you’ll start using them.

(But if you want to put them into action right now—go ahead!)

67

Chapter

5

B

y now you understand that the secret of success is failure.

That’s right—you have to fail in order to succeed. This can be a

hard point to understand.

Thomas Watson Sr., a very successful businessman who founded the

company IBM, once said this:

The formula for success is quite simple: Double your rate of failure.

Double your rate of failure to be successful? It sounds a little crazy. Fail

your way to success? When was the last time anyone told you to do that? The

chances are probably never.

No, we don’t get the message that failure can be a good thing. More likely,

we try to avoid it at all costs. And why not? Who likes to fail?

As Desiree, 19, puts it:

Honestly, I’m one of those kids who’s afraid of failure. And I realize it’s

something I have to come to terms with, because I realize it’s necessary for

personal growth and maturity. But at the same time, it’s scary. It’s very

hard to see it as positive when you’ve failed.

So many times I think I should have done this differently, or if I had only

done that, but at the same time it’s an opportunity to see how far you’ve

come from that moment. And what you did wrong in the past can help you

do something correctly or differently in the future.

POINT #1: SUCCESS IS BUILT ON FAILURE

What looks like failure can be something else entirely. When Lucas Mann

had his ﬁrst date, it certainly appeared that he had failed completely.

68 Success for Teens

My date and I had known each other since we were kids, but it had

always been platonic. Then, about a month ago, I started to realize that I

liked her as more than a buddy. I’d catch myself fading in and out when

we talked because I was staring at her face. Man, that was stressful. I was

killing myself over whether she felt the same way, whether I was going to

ruin our friendship.

We decided to go to the movies, and when I picked her up I got up the

courage to ask her, “Umm, do you maybe want to make this a real date?”

She gave a shy smile and said, “Sure.” I was momentarily overjoyed. But

then my anxieties sprouted. Could people passing by tell I was nervous?

Was my ﬂy open? I kept glancing at her out of the corner of my eye, forgot

to watch where I was going, and tripped over the uneven sidewalk.

“Slick,” she said.

Cool. If I had to be a loser, at least I was a loser walking with a funny girl.

Finally we got to the movie and took a seat in the back row of the

theater. The lights dimmed and I felt a familiar sensation—tickling in

the nose, a sudden headache—that only meant one awful thing: an

allergy attack.

The ﬁrst sneeze was a monster. It exploded, forcing me to pull away to

keep from splattering her. I excused myself and sprinted toward the bath-

room. People gave me stares. My face was bright red, I was wheezing, and

my eyes were watering.

In the bathroom I grabbed handfuls of paper towels and blew my nose for

all it was worth. I took a bunch back to my seat. But there was no stopping

the stream. I was sitting there with a river ﬂowing out of my nose, making

the sad noises of an asthmatic.

Of course, she was leaning back in her seat, more frightened by my

leaking ﬂuids than by the psycho on screen.

All seemed to be lost.

Walking home was a jumble of sneezing and panicked thoughts. All the

things that went wrong were constantly replayed in my mind. We ﬁnally got

to her house. There was the longest pause yet. I just stood there, thinking

There’s No Such Thing As Failure 69

Chapter 5

over all the little things that happened. A quick hug and she was gone, the

perfect end to an embarrassing night.

Later, I had a hard time sleeping. The tripping, the allergy attack, the

awkward silences. There would be no second date.

Still, the next day I forced myself out on a limb and called her. My palms

were sweating as I prepared myself for rejection.

“Sooo, do you think, um,” I stammered, “maybe you’d like to go out again?”

“Why not?” she said and laughed.

Amazing!

We went out to the movies again and this time it was a lot better. Let’s

just say that I can’t tell you how that movie ended. We’re still going out. It’s

only been a few weeks, but it seems to be going well.

So, there’s a moral to this story: Just relax instead of thinking about every

moment on your ﬁrst date. Things can’t possibly be as bad as the gruesome

battle scene going on in your head.

Lucas got it right: Failure is in our heads. We create it. We interpret what

happens to us. We put the labels on everything we do. We’re the ﬁrst ones to

use the word failure—and usually about ourselves.

But how can you learn anything without failing at it ﬁrst? Who ever does

something right the ﬁrst time (or the second, third, fourth, or ﬁfth)? What if

Lucas believed he was a failure and didn’t ask for a second date?

ACTION STEPS

Was there a time you thought you failed at something? 

How can you see it in a different way? 

POINT #2: IT’S ALL IN OUR HEADS

Can you imagine if you’d been afraid of failure as a baby?

“Shoot, I knew I wasn’t cut out for that whole walking thing. What was I

thinking? I was crazy to even try!”

70 Success for Teens

Teens who are successful know that falling down is the way you learn to

ﬂy. Tonya Groover doesn’t believe failure even exists:

I’ve failed classes in college, but when I go back to take those classes

again, I already know the material and have gained a deeper understand-

ing of it. I don’t think there is such thing as failure, because you always

have a second chance. When you learn to ride a bike, you have to fall off a

couple of times. When you fall down, you get back up. There’s an expres-

sion—you have to go through something to get somewhere.

If you talk to anyone who has a high position or anyone you look up

to, nobody gave them everything so they can be where they are. Nobody’s

giving out jobs, nobody’s giving out grades. Nobody’s giving out anything.

You’ve got to work for it. And when work is involved, there’s also competi-

tion and failure. But that’s okay, because eventually you know what kinds

of things you’re suited for and which things you’re not.

You have to fail a couple of times. But you shouldn’t look it as failure.

Let’s say you apply for a scholarship but you don’t get it. Go back to the

scholarship committee and ask them why you didn’t get the scholarship. Did

you need to improve the way you answered the questions? Was it your SAT

scores? Were your grades not high enough? You can ask for constructive

feedback. It’s about critically analyzing yourself.

Whether or not you want it to happen, you’re going to fail at one time

or another. Everyone does. If you go through life with the philosophy that

failure is bad, you’ll be too hard on yourself when things don’t go as planned.

You’ll never learn from your mistakes. You’ll never grow as a person. You may

be so afraid of failure that you won’t even try in the ﬁrst place.

To put it in perspective, consider the following:

A young African-American woman wanted to work in TV and became 

the evening news anchor for WJZ-TV in Baltimore. But she was taken

off the air because the station didn’t think she was ﬁt for television.

She didn’t give up, though, and kept giving TV a try. Her name?

Oprah Winfrey.

There’s No Such Thing As Failure 71

Chapter 5

Bill Gates founded Microsoft and is one of the richest men in the world, 

but his ﬁrst business venture was a ﬂop.

Michael Jordan missed more than 9,000 shots in his career and lost 

almost 300 games. Twenty-six times he missed the game-winning shot.

If a baseball player hits .333 he’s had a fantastic season. But it also 

means that he failed to get a hit almost 70 percent of the time.

Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric light bulb, tried out thou- 

sands of different versions of it and every single one failed before he

invented the right one. His comment: “I have not failed. I’ve simply

discovered ten thousand ways that don’t work.”

See if you can ﬁgure out who this is:

In 1831, he failed in business.

In 1832, he ran for the state legislature and was defeated.

In 1833, he failed in business again.

In 1834, he was elected to the state legislature.

In 1835, his sweetheart died.

In 1836, he had a nervous breakdown.

In 1838, he ran for speaker of the state legislature and was defeated.

In 1840, he ran for elector and was defeated.

In 1843, he ran for Congress and was defeated.

In 1846, he was elected to Congress.

In 1848, he ran for Congress again, and was defeated.

In 1855, he ran for Senate and was defeated.

In 1856, he ran for vice president and was defeated.

In 1858, he ran for Senate and was defeated.

Finally, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln ran for president of the United

States—and won. Many historians now consider him to be the greatest

American president. Think about that list you just read if you ever visit

the Lincoln Memorial in Washington—if he had been afraid of failure,

we never would have heard of him.

72 Success for Teens

Here’s another great example.

Back in the 1700s, a bishop named William Wilberforce was a member

of the British Parliament. At that time slavery was legal in Britain

and its colonies. Starting in 1788 and for the next 18 years in a row,

Wilberforce introduced a bill in Parliament to end slavery. And every

year, for 18 years in a row, his bill was defeated.

Finally, three days before Wilberforce’s death in 1833, Parliament passed

a bill to abolish slavery not only in England but also throughout its colo-

nies. Not many years later the United States abolished slavery because

Lincoln also refused to be afraid of failure.

Think of how history took a different path because of these two men.

Think of how Wilberforce and Lincoln used failure rather than being

defeated by it, and how the world today is better as a result.

What’s true for great ﬁgures in history is also true for you.

ACTION STEPS

Think about a time you learned from failing at something. 

What did you learn? 

How have you used what you learned? 

POINT #3: FAILURE CREATES UNEXPECTED OPPORTUNITIES

Failure can help you discover positive parts of yourself you didn’t know about

and create new opportunities in your life that you never expected.

Jacob Suarez, 16, loves to sing and participates in school singing competitions.

But one time he didn’t win a competition and was very disappointed. He could

have stopped singing, but didn’t. Good thing he didn’t.

I kept practicing and practicing, and it ended up that the girl who was

supposed to go to the state competition wanted to do something else. So she

dropped out and they asked me if I wanted to go in her place. And I went on to

participate in the state singing competition.

There’s No Such Thing As Failure 73

Chapter 5

When Kyle Freas was in elementary school, his teacher became frustrated with

him. The teacher picked Kyle up and threw him hard against a chair. Kyle suf-

fered injuries to his neck and became depressed. But something good came out

of it.

It gave me a good perspective. It gave me sympathy for abused kids, because

no one can understand what that situation is like until you’re in it. Once you

experience something like that, you can’t imagine what it would be like for

someone to be caught in that kind of situation all the time.

Instead of making Kyle bitter, that incident is part of the reason why he became

involved in raising money to help abused and critically ill children. Who knows?

If Kyle had a better teacher and the incident never happened, perhaps he never

would have developed as much sympathy for kids who need help.

Michelle Stallworth, 18, is another example of a teen who discovered her

greatest strengths and talents only through failing. Michelle has to use a wheel-

chair because of an accident when she was a year old. When she was younger

and her cousins asked her to play baseball or basketball, she always refused.

She felt her braces and wheelchair made her look handicapped. But eventu-

ally a teacher encouraged her to give basketball a try and she started playing.

Michelle loved the sport.

One day in the school lunchroom, I told someone that I hoped to play someday

against really good wheelchair players in the Special Olympics. A girl overheard

what I said and whispered to a guy, “Can you imagine a bunch of crippled

people playing basketball?” The guy started acting like he was retarded and

trying to dribble a ball. I didn’t want anyone to know how hurt I was, so I didn’t

say anything. But after that I wanted to prove what a good player I could be.

Michelle joined her high school’s wheelchair basketball team. But in a game

against a rival high school, things didn’t go so well.

Throughout the game, my teammates would pass me the ball as soon as they

got it, but the opposing players double- and triple-teamed me. I either lost the

ball or threw up shots that hit nothing but the bottom of the hoop without going

74 Success for Teens

through. I missed an easy layup. I got fouled a couple of times but I missed all

my free throws. I even got hit in the head by a pass.

I started getting really mad and screaming at my teammates. I started

hogging the ball, but as soon as I did that, the coach called a time out and

screamed at me. “Pass the ball! People are getting open!” So I went back in and

passed to a teammate. He caught the pass but missed the shot. I just looked at

the whole team with a vicious stare. We lost 33 to 12.

Michelle gave up.

After the game, I walked out on my team. I hated everyone on it. I thought

they were all scrubs. The teachers who came to support us said I was a baby

and a sore loser.

But then she had a change of heart.

It took me a while to calm down and ﬁnally admit that I was one of ﬁve

people who had played horribly. I knew I needed to practice if I was going to

improve my game so that nothing like that ever happened again. So I spent a

lot of time during the summer playing with the walkers around my way. We

played in the school gyms that were open and outside at the playground.

I also thought about playing on the street courts near where I lived, but

I thought the guys would make fun of me. Finally I just decided to give it

a try.

I went over to the court and a few guys were shooting around. At ﬁrst things

were a little scary and I was reluctant to join in. But I asked if I could play,

and the guys said OK. I was the only wheelchair player on the court, but

every time I would touch the ball they would tell me to shoot it, and that gave

me conﬁdence.

When one game was tied, a kid named Shawn said, “You’re gonna get the

last shot.” He passed the ball to me when I got open under the basket.

A defender was on me, but I shot the ball under his arms and it went in.

When school started again in the fall, all the practice paid off. Michelle’s

wheelchair team developed a better chemistry than they had the previous year.

There’s No Such Thing As Failure 75

Chapter 5

They ended up playing in the city championships against the same team that

destroyed them the year before.

Everyone was saying my team had no skills because of the way we played last

year, so I came into the game thinking I had something to prove. During the ﬁrst

half, we got no respect. A scrub talked trash to me and made me so mad that

I wasn’t concentrating as well as I should have been. But the second half was a

different story. I scored 18 points, had seven rebounds, seven assists, and seven

steals. We beat them 29 to 17.

Michelle was named Most Valuable Player.

For the next three days, I was the most conceited person you would ever want

to meet. But then I realized it wasn’t fair—my teammates had played great too.

I told everybody who gave me credit that our win was a team effort. I’ll always

remember that game and the pizza party we had afterwards.

I’m very thankful to basketball because it taught me how to make friends

and not be so shy. I don’t worry as much about people making fun of me

because I’m in a wheelchair. Basketball also forced me to face some things

about myself, from my quick temper to the fact that I’m a sore loser. I’m more

in control of those things now.

Think of how close Michelle came to never playing basketball again. If she had

been defeated by her failure, she never would have become MVP.

Failure is just another word for hard or difﬁcult moments in life. And life

will hand us those moments, like it or not. Successful teens are not thrown off

course by tough times. They have the ability to keep going even when they think

they’ve failed.

ACTION STEPS

Have you ever had an experience similar to Michelle’s? 

What was it and how did it change you? 

76 Success for Teens

POINT #4: ANOTHER WORD FOR LEARNING

Mark Stumer, 18, learned that failure can be a great teacher when he and

his friends tried to start a business in high school. And he learned that failing

wasn’t the end of the world.

My friends and I had wanted to start a school store so we could make

money. We had been selling lukewarm sodas from a little corner of the cafete-

ria, with three or four people chaotically giving out sodas and taking money.

So when we got an assignment in business class to create our own busi-

ness, we ﬁgured it was time to make our store a reality. At ﬁrst we were

going to sell only soda, but after a week or two of business, we merged with

another group who sold candy and became a snack food juggernaut.

To begin, we ﬁgured we at least needed a name. A few days later, a joke

from The Simpsons gave us one: in one episode, Homer sings a little song

about how he’s so smart, but he misspells smart as “s-m-r-t” and acciden-

tally sets the house on ﬁre. It was so funny that we called the store SMRT

(pronounced “smart”). We had an idea and we had a name. Now it was

time to start learning how to make money.

First, we had to decide what to sell. We went to a big chain store, armed

with nothing but our wits and a calculator. We had to ﬁgure out which

products could be sold for the biggest proﬁt. We decided to buy candy that

came in boxes of 200, and cost us 8 cents each. We sold them for $1 each.

Every box cost us only $16, but earned us $200! That’s a huge proﬁt!

Then we set up a table in the cafeteria with a wide variety of candy and

cold sodas in coolers. We were doing steady business, pulling in between

$200 and $300 a week. It was pretty cool selling behind the counter, but the

hungry masses got impatient quickly, so it was also annoying.

Mark and his friends learned that running a business also has its downsides:

Unfortunately, not every part of the company ran like clockwork. We

hadn’t put much thought into how we would use our proﬁts. We decided

that we would spend a portion of our proﬁts to pay our senior dues. And

if we made enough of a proﬁt, each of us would receive a small amount of

There’s No Such Thing As Failure 77

Chapter 5

cash. However, arguments about paying senior dues and how to split the

extra money became constant issues.

“So, if we’re gonna split the money, everyone should ﬁgure out how much

money they deserve.”

“Dan, you’re an idiot! You think anyone’s going to say, ‘I’m not worth a

share of the cash?’ ”

“Chill, dude. He’s trying to get an idea of how to split the money.”

“Everyone’s gonna say they’re worth so much, when some people aren’t

doing jack.”

“Look, if this is how we’re doing it, I’m worth like, 50 percent of the store.

There’re some people who never sell, don’t come to meetings, or anything

else, like…” I trailed off to avoid pointing ﬁngers.

The ﬁghting frustrated me. But I also learned a lot of lessons about

running a successful business. The most important and obvious lesson

is: Never, ever leave $300 in small bills lying around unguarded. (It got

stolen.) That mistake was a deﬁnite setback. Everyone was upset that we

lost half our money, and it caused several ﬁghts over whose fault it was.

Another big lesson is: When you go to restock your inventory, make sure

the person with the chain store membership is with you! Forgetting this simple

detail has complicated a few trips to restock and led to some fun arguments.

“Yo, Davina’s comin’ right?” I’d ask, since she was our member.

“No, her parents won’t let her leave home.”

“So, we have no card?”

“We might get Kristina’s. She’s supposed to call me at like 1 in the

morning to let me know.”

“And if we can’t get it?”

“There’s probably a way.”

“You mean, I’m getting up at 9

a.m. tomorrow?” I’d sputter. “When we

don’t know if we’re going?”

“Well… sorta.”

A third, very important lesson is: Unless it’s absolutely necessary, don’t

start a company with so many other people. We had nine people running one

small store. With so many people, we were always having arguments. The

78 Success for Teens

stress was ﬁnally too much, and we had to take drastic actions to save our

friendships: One Friday in March, SMRT permanently closed for business.

But even though the store folded, we learned a lot. Like how and why to

use spreadsheets and databases, and how a vast number of careers depend

on those basic skills. We learned how to (sort of) work together as a team

for the greater good of the company.

And I’ve gotten a decent idea of what types of skills I’ll need in the future,

if I don’t want to end up living in a basement apartment eating cold ravioli

from a can.

Remember that in anything you do, you will experience failure. But no

experience in life is wasted if you learn something from it. Failure is all in your

mind, because the slight edge tells us that it’s the only way to learn and grow.

ACTION STEPS

After reading this chapter, do you have the same attitude 

toward failure?

If you’re still afraid of failure, what would help you 

change your attitude?

There’s No Such Thing As Failure 79

Chapter 5

The Key to Success Is Failure

Let’s look at your own life. Think back to something you failed at (or

thought you failed at). It could be a test in school, the ﬁrst time you

tried a new sport, or anything else you that didn’t go as you expected.

Describe what happened in the space below:

______________________________________________________________

Think for a moment about what you’ve written and answer this question:

What did you learn from that experience? Did anything positive come

out it, no matter how small? Write your answer below:

______________________________________________________________

Now ask yourself: What did I learn from this experience that I can use

80 Success for Teens

in the future? What can I do differently next time, either in the same

situation or a different situation? Write it down below:

______________________________________________________________

Do you look at your “failure” in a different way? Do you see positive

ways to use “failure” in the future? Jot down your thoughts:

______________________________________________________________

81

Chapter

6

You know that little things matter. 

You know that whatever you accomplish, big or small, is made up of 

small steps.

You know the power of acting now, in the present. 

You also know that failure is the greatest teacher you’ll ever have. 

N

ow it’s time to talk about habits, the simple things you do over and

over again, day after day.

We often take habits for granted. After all, they’re habits—some-

thing you do without thinking. It’s very easy to forget you have them.

POINT #1: HABITS RUN YOUR LIFE

But here’s a secret about habits: They have enormous power. In fact, your

habits are what run your life. Whether the habit is good or bad, you know

that to be true.

A habit is simply an action that you have repeated and repeated until it

becomes automatic. Your actions, repeated consistently over time, migrate

from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind, and your subcon-

scious mind is what really runs the show.

We’ve talked about the subconscious. It’s a very powerful part of your life,

although you’re mostly unaware of it. You’ve learned to do certain things

without thinking. In other words, you have passed control of your actions to

your subconscious mind. That is, your actions have become habits.

Habits come out of your subconscious. When you put on your shoes, you

don’t think about it—you just do it automatically. Same thing when you ride

a bike or brush your teeth—it’s like you’re on automatic pilot.

82 Success for Teens

That’s okay, if the habit is a good one. But what if it’s not such a good one?

What if you have a bad habit and you’re not even aware of it?

Everyone knows about bad habits. You can fall into habits of thinking or

speaking or behaving that are either positive or negative. Some people fall

into cigarette habits or alcohol habits or drug habits. The focus of this chapter

is not on bad habits, but on what you can do to develop good habits that will

help you grow.

The good news is that your habits can be changed. And they can be changed

if you understand where they’re coming from. Habits are actions repeated over

time—but do you remember where your actions come from?

your philosophy —> your attitudes

your attitudes —> your actions

your actions —> your life

Your habits are the result of the choices you make in the moment, which

come from your thoughts, attitudes, and your philosophy—the way you see

yourself and the world.

So once you’re aware of a habit that doesn’t serve you well, how do you

change it or get rid of it?

The ﬁrst thing to remember is that trying to get rid of an unwanted habit is

a little like trying not to think about a pink elephant. The more you try to tell

yourself not to think about the elephant, the more you think about it!

Why? When you put a lot of energy into

focusing on what you don’t want to

do—by talking about it, thinking about

it, complaining about it, or worrying

about it—you usually get more of what

you don’t want.

Remember Tamecka? The more

she thought about not doing well in

college, the worse she did. Always

remember the power of what you think

about and focus on, perhaps the most

Habits have

enormous power. In fact,

habits are what run your life.

Whether the habit is good or bad,

you know that to be true.

Habits Are Powerful 83

Chapter 6

important habits of all. Because what you focus on, good or bad, grows. So

it’s better to develop the habit of focusing on what you do want.

This takes time—and it takes knowing where

to focus your energy. The key to your

success, to mastering your every-

day habits of thought and

action, is through changing

your philosophy. And when

you change your philosophy,

you can change your habits

and your life.

Magda, 17, found out that

it was better to focus on what

she wanted rather than on what

she didn’t want or couldn’t have.

For almost a year I had been desperately in love with Mike, and I

thought that having him love me back was the purpose of my existence.

Then my friend Anna started to spend time with him, and he fell for her.

(By the way, I was the smart one who introduced them to each other.)

I was very depressed. My self-esteem dropped as low as the tempera-

ture in Alaska. I spent whole days looking unsuccessfully for a meaning

for my life. I was having pointless ﬁghts with my mom and I cried often,

especially after Anna’s calls about how happy she was with Mike. She

thought I was over him, but the truth was they both hurt me.

Being in love with Mike, and wanting Mike to love her back, was Magda’s

habit—a hard one to break. She got over it by starting new habits.

A year ago, I thought nothing in the world except Mike could help me

feel better. I was wrong. I didn’t realize that the world held many things

that could heal my pain. To my surprise, the cure wasn’t another guy to

make me blush and sigh. I discovered that the key to saying good-bye to

my depression was getting involved in new interests and activities.

When you put a lot

of energy into focusing on what

you don’t want, you usually get more

of it in your life. Because what you focus

on, good or bad, grows. It’s better to

focus on the positive things you want,

rather than the negative things

you don’t want.

84 Success for Teens

Cure #1: Helping Others

About a month after Anna and Mike got together, my friend Martin

asked me if I knew anyone who would like to tutor an 8-year-old girl from

Poland, the same country I’m from. “Yeah, me,” I

answered, only because I was looking for a

way to earn money. The next day I met

Kathy, my future student. She had been

in the United States only a few weeks

and needed somebody to teach her

English. I agreed to come twice a week

for two hours each time.

A week later, Martin found me two more

customers, an 11-year-old boy and his 9-year-old

sister. Spending 10 hours each week tutoring made me

realize how rewarding it is to teach. When Kathy ﬁrst started going to school

here she couldn’t understand anything. She felt lonely and sad. Now she loves

school. Being the one who helped her made me feel really good.

Tutoring gave me a feeling of independence and improved my self-esteem.

Furthermore, I enjoyed making my own money, and it was much more pleasant

than sitting at home hopelessly wondering about that jerk going out with Anna.

Cure #2: Keeping Busy

Through school, I got involved in other activities that helped me get Mike

off my mind. I got an internship at a kids’ clothing company (internships are

required at my high school) and also began volunteering at an animal shelter.

Having a busy schedule helped my healing process. People at my internship

helped me believe in myself because they appreciated my work, whether it

was copying, ﬁling, or proofreading.

My duties at the shelter—walking dogs, cleaning cats’ cages, and feeding

them—made me feel even more needed. I felt great and ﬁnally I was able

to tell myself, “Life is not that bad.” I didn’t waste any more time wondering

whether “he” would ever want to go out with me.

Habits are tools

that help you grow and

develop as a person. Instead of

serving your habits, make your

habits serve you.

Habits Are Powerful 85

Chapter 6

The other thing that made my summer great was that I did a lot of

reading. I was looking for advice on ﬁnding someone special and keeping

him, but the books helped me realize that I should not live for love and jump

from the roof when I can’t win somebody’s affection.

I realized that love is only one part of life. The incident with Mike taught me

not to fall so hard for a guy and not to wait for him to like me. Now I give a

guy a few weeks and if he doesn’t show any signs, too bad for him. I move on.

I am a junior in high school now, and I’m involved in a lot of activities

that make my life exciting. In addition to working part time, I tutor, go to a

gym and swim in the pool, read, study Spanish on my own, and, of course,

go to school. I do all this during the week, so I have weekends free to see my

friends. I feel I am more conﬁdent, independent, happy, and mature than I

was a year ago.

Instead of focusing on being with Mike, which wasn’t going to happen, Magda

put her focus on new interests and activities—new habits she could develop.

She still feels sad sometimes, but now she tells herself she can overcome it.

ACTION STEPS

Do you have habits you’d like to change? 

What new habits would you like to start? Why? 

POINT #2: MAKE YOUR HABITS SERVE YOU

What limits you is never circumstance or fate. The limiting factor is always

you and what you hold to be true in your mind. And if what you believe is

positive, you’ll have positive results. The wisest choice you can ever make is to

believe in your unlimited possibility. And the tool you use to do that is habit.

There are two kinds of habits: those that help you grow, and those that

hold you back. The ﬁrst type of habit is a tool you can use to achieve success.

The second type of habit makes you its slave—the habit doesn’t serve you;

instead, you serve it.

86 Success for Teens

Facing difﬁcult feelings serves you well, while avoiding difﬁcult feelings 

does not. By avoiding difﬁcult feelings, it becomes harder to face them

later on. Many people develop bad habits to avoid facing difﬁcult feelings.

Looking for the best in people serves you well. Expecting their 

worst doesn’t.

Looking for the positive side of every challenge can become a habit. So 

can ﬁnding a reason to complain.

Putting a piece of every paycheck into a savings account can become a 

habit. So can spending more than you earn.

Finding out what you believe serves you. Believing and accepting every- 

thing you read on the Internet or hear on television doesn’t serve you.

Are you going to be a slave to bad habits? Or are you going to make your

positive habits serve you?

ACTION STEPS

Do you have a habit that helps you grow? What is it? 

Do you have a habit that holds you back? What is it? 

POINT #3: TAKE SMALL STEPS TO DEVELOP GOOD HABITS

Lots of teens take small steps to replace bad habits with good ones. As you

read their suggestions, think of how you can use them in your own life.

Tip: Develop a Schedule

Desiree Bailey used a schedule to develop the habit of doing her schoolwork:

I always did homework right after I came home. If you want to watch TV,

tell yourself you’re going to watch TV for an hour and after that you’re going

to do homework. You can take a break for a half hour, have a snack or

something like that, but then go back to it. Having a schedule helps you get

into the routine of using your mind.

Habits Are Powerful 87

Chapter 6

Tip: Do Things Ahead of Time

Octavia Fugerson developed the habit of doing things ahead of time and

seeking out opportunities, rather than waiting for good things to happen:

When I was living at home, my mother didn’t allow us to do homework.

That was because I liked homework and she didn’t like anything that I liked.

My grades dropped and I failed three classes in the ninth grade. But at the

same time I understood that if I was going to get somewhere, I was going to

need my education. If I was going to get out of my situation, I wasn’t going

to get nowhere without an education.

I tried to do my schoolwork ahead of time. I’d make sure I’d do it to retain

the information, not just to pass. If I was struggling in class, I’d let the teacher

know if I was having a really hard time with it. I’d try to get some extra help.

I would go online and look for tutors. Online tutoring was the best for me.

Tip: Don’t Get Down on Yourself

Don’t get down on yourself if you’ve developed a bad habit. Almost every-

one has one. Instead, see how you can adjust the habit into something better.

Ralph Tarrant, 18, fell into the bad habit of wasting money before he took

small steps to change that:

It wasn’t until I hit 18 that I started saving money. I realized that if I

didn’t get my act together, I’d probably ﬁnd myself in trouble. I also got tired

of owing people money and always having to ask people for stuff.

I have a bank account and I put money in every chance I get. Let’s say I

get $20—$10 to $15 of that is going into my account.

I know I may sound kind of preachy, but I’m telling the truth. Believe me, I’ve

been there. Back in the day, I never saved money. I used to spend every little bit

of money I got. All of it went to sneakers, video games, and comic books. The

way I saw it, if you always saved your money, you’d never have anything.

Having to repay the people who loaned me money is what made me

see the light. I got tired of wasting my money. Why, summer before last I

actually bought ﬁve pairs of sneakers—not because I needed them but just

because I wanted to have every new pair that came out.

88 Success for Teens

Nowadays, I try not to let styles affect me as much as they used

to. I mean, they still do somewhat, but not to the extent of me not

having any money in my pockets. Instead of buying five pairs of

sneakers, I buy two or three and save the rest of my money. I manage

my own bank account now and I work. Overall, I’d say I have my

priorities in order.

I’m not telling you to put all your money in the bank for a rainy day.

I’m also not going to lie and tell you that saving is easy, because it’s

not. It’s the hardest thing to do in the world… well, in our age bracket

anyway. But I can’t go out of my house with empty pockets.

Although I know many of you won’t take kindly to this, try to find

ways to earn money. Go out into your neighborhood and walk dogs,

mow lawns, shovel snow, pack bags. If none of my solutions appeal

to any of you out there... improvise. For all it’s worth, do whatever it

takes to make some money.

And please don’t take me literally on that. When I say, “Do whatever

it takes,” I don’t mean to go out and rob and steal or sell drugs. Use

your head, and make sure whatever you do is legal. Do the smart thing

by looking out for your future.

Ralph didn’t stop spending money or buying sneakers—he just cut down a

bit and changed his money situation for the better.

Tip: Be Yourself

Patricia Rogers, 15, also found a way to develop good money habits—by

being her own person:

High school is all about image. When teens come to school wearing $20

sneakers, they look like they don’t care about what they have on or that

they don’t have enough money to afford the cooler brand names.

Clothing companies make us feel that we need their sneakers, jeans, and

jackets to feel good about ourselves. When we don’t buy those things, we

sometimes feel bad about ourselves, especially when people look down on us

and tease us.

Habits Are Powerful 89

Chapter 6

And the pressure doesn’t stop with the advertisers. As soon as teens see

that other teens are wearing something with a name brand—no matter

how ugly or expensive—we buy it.

I try to find nice clothes for a good price—by shopping for discounts.

Every year my friends and I go shopping for inexpensive blue jeans

and shirts in all colors. We don’t go to the really expensive aisles,

where jeans and shirts can cost $70 to $100. We go to the cheaper

aisles and rack up on some plain jeans that cost $25 to $30. That way,

we get more for our money and have enough clothes throughout the

school year.

Tip: Separate Needs from Wants

Jeremiah Spears, 18, used to spend money like crazy until his friend Lisa

made a great suggestion:

She suggested I make a chart of needs, wants and gotta-haves. Needs are

like food, clothes (you don’t want to walk down the street in your birthday

suit), shoes, toothpaste (no one wants stinking breath, now do they?), etc.

Wants are things you can do without, but would rather not—like a car, a

big house, more clothes, more shoes, jewelry.

Gotta-haves are really a way of spoiling yourself—they’re things you see

and decide you “must” have, like a pair of black snake-skin boots that I saw

the other day. As you can imagine, gotta-haves tend to be more expensive.

Lisa said it’s important to get what you need ﬁrst and let the rest come

later, so I began to make a chart every time I went shopping.

If you want to know where the slight edge is taking you, look at your habits

and the kinds of choices you habitually make.

ACTION STEPS

Which one of these suggestions could help you? 

How could you use it? 

90 Success for Teens

POINT #4: DON’T GIVE UP A HABIT—START A NEW ONE

It’s tough to get rid of a habit you don’t want—or to change anything—just

through willpower. You can’t just wish a habit away.

It’s a lot easier to start a new habit. Eventually, the new habit becomes strong

and replaces the old habit. That’s what happened with Magda. She got over

Mike by getting involved in new interests and activities. The new things she did

became more interesting than feeling sorry for herself. And Magda did it the

same way you do anything: one step at a time.

The ﬁrst step in changing a habit is to know which one you want to change.

One way to ﬁnd out is to get into the habit of reﬂection.

Reﬂection means looking carefully at yourself and your life on a regular basis

to see what you’re happy with and what you want to change. You can reﬂect in

many different ways—through writing or doing art, by taking long walks, by

visiting a favorite place, talking to a favorite person, or through a religious or

spiritual practice.

One teen, who wants to remain anonymous, used a journal to reﬂect on her

feelings when her family was in a crisis.

When I was in the ninth grade, my mom lost her job and we didn’t have

any money to keep our apartment. My dad had left us and wasn’t giving us

ﬁnancial support. I was really depressed (you can imagine how my mom felt)

because I was concerned about my next meal and where I would sleep.

I wasn’t really talking to anyone about what I was going through, which

wasn’t a good feeling. But because of all the stuff

that was happening to me, I eventually

started keeping a journal, which really

helped me out. I gained a better under-

standing of how to handle emotional

problems through writing in and re-

reading my diary.

Writing allows my emotions to pour

out of my emotional storage bag, my

heart. When I hold my feelings in, I feel a lot

It’s tough to get

rid of a habit you don’t want.

You can’t just wish a habit away.

It’s a lot easier to start a new

habit. Eventually, the new habit

becomes strong and replaces

the old habit.

Habits Are Powerful 91

Chapter 6

of pressure and worry that I may eventually explode or take out my pain on

someone else if the pressure is not released. But once my feelings are released, I

feel at ease.

I began to write in my journal almost every day. After I poured out every-

thing in those entries, I felt much better, even though I was still worried about

what would happen to my mother.

Before I had my diary, I would just sit and cry and hope for the best when

something bad happened. Sometimes I prayed, too. But writing helped me the

most. My journal was my best friend. It made me think and helped me come up

with different ways to handle problems by myself.

I now have over three years of my life recorded in my journal. I recently

named it “Precious,” because that’s how I feel about all the thoughts it contains.

ACTION STEPS

Do you take the time to reect on your life? 

If so, how do you do it and what do you learn from it? 

If not, how could you begin to reect on your life? 

New, positive habits can bring you peace of mind. Writing, painting, drawing,

walking, camping, exercising—all are ways to relax and calm yourself. Emily

Orchier, 16, was very depressed until she started a new habit.

Have you ever been so depressed that you can’t sleep, eat, or read? You have

no friends to call and there’s nothing good on TV. So you sigh, press your face

into your pillow, and shed a few tears. This was my life two years ago. I had just

turned 14 and I felt bleak.

One Saturday my mother peeked into my room on her regular “is Em still

alive?” check. Even I knew that if I spent much more time like this, she would

have to begin dusting me.

“Hi, hon,” mom said.

I grunted in response.

“How are you feeling today, sweetheart?”

92 Success for Teens

“How do you think?” I replied sarcastically.

Then my mother made her move:

“Emily! Get dressed! I’m taking the dog for a walk and you’re coming

with me!”

“Why?” I moaned.

“Because it will make you feel better.”

The thought of moving was unbearable. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d

gone outside. Somehow I found the strength to slip on a pair of jeans and a black

sweatshirt. My mother was waiting at the door for me, leash and dog in hand.

“I still don’t get how going for a walk will make me feel any better,”

I complained.

My mother gave me a look and opened the door. We stepped outside. It

was one of those unusually warm March days, but the signs of spring had yet

to appear. It had been a long time since the warmth of the sun had touched

my cheeks.

My mother led the dog and me to a dirt path that goes on for miles and miles.

I carried on and complained the whole time we walked.

“This is boring, Mother. When can we go home?”

“Not just yet,” she’d say.

My mother greeted every jogger, dog-walker, runner, and bicyclist who passed

us by. She made herself happier than she really felt from being around me. I

thought it was all so senseless. After walking for what seemed to be an eternity,

she ﬁnally said that it was time to turn around.

When we got home, I felt as if a ton of bricks had been lifted from my heart.

I didn’t know how to handle it. For nearly a year I had been immersed in

sadness. How could I learn to feel happy again? I soon found myself back in my

room, in a comfortable funk.

Emily had fallen so deeply into the habit of being depressed that she didn’t

know how to be happy.

But that walk had done something to me. I didn’t know how or why, but for a

moment life almost felt all right. A week went by, and the next Saturday found

me asking my mother if we could go for another walk.

Habits Are Powerful 93

Chapter 6

April arrived and with it an array of beautiful spring blossoms. I began to

take my dog out for her midmorning walks. We would go across the street to

a big ﬁeld, which led to small paths lined with daffodils, which in turn led to

orchards with apple blossoms. Smaller ﬁelds abounded with blooming dogwood

and magnolia trees, and scattered patches of tiny purple wildﬂowers. Walking

there, I was overcome by beautiful fragrances. It became my little slice of

heaven. I was healing.

So it came to pass that I was the ofﬁcial dog walker of the family. Walking

became an everyday affair for me, and I began to acknowledge the powerful

peace and relief that it brought me.

Late that summer, I remembered a small pond that my parents used to take

me to when I was a very small child. One morning I decided to make the trek

over there.

It was a very long walk, taking more than two hours there and back. But as

soon as I laid eyes on the place, I knew that I loved it. Everywhere I looked there

was life—ducks, geese, deer, turkeys, watersnakes, turtles, squirrels, and giant

carp. I began to wake up early in the morning to take my daily pilgrimage there.

If walking was my spiritual practice, then that pond was my sanctuary.

I felt such peace and serenity there. I also made many friends at the pond, and

greeted every jogger, runner, dog-walker, or bicyclist who came my way.

Gradually, my depression lifted. Even though I’ve become much busier and

have less time to walk, I make time to walk every day, if only for a little while.

Walking saved me from my depression. It is strong medicine for the soul.

Sometimes, as Emily found out, it doesn’t take a lot to turn your life around.

Starting a new and positive habit—going to church on Sundays, volunteering for a

worthy cause, calling an old friend, or just taking a walk—can lead to happiness.

ACTION STEPS

Has this chapter given you an idea about starting a 

new habit?

What is it? 

94 Success for Teens

What Are Your Habits?

Think about the habits you have. Don’t judge whether they’re good or bad

habits—that’s not the point right now. Merely describe below the habits

you have, in doing your schoolwork, relating to friends, deciding what to

wear or eat, what music to listen to, or in any other area of your life.

______________________________________________________________

Now, are there any habits you want to change? Again, don’t judge them or

put yourself down. Just list below the habits you’d like to try and change:

______________________________________________________________

Starting New Habits

Habits Are Powerful 95

Chapter 6

Think about what you’ve read in this chapter. Reﬂect on changes you’d like

to make in your life. But forget about changing old habits. Instead, what new

habit or habits can you start in each area of your life?

New habits I can start for myself:

______________________________________________________________

New habits I can start with my friends:

______________________________________________________________

New habits I can start for my health (physical, mental, and spiritual):

______________________________________________________________

New habits I can start for my wealth:

______________________________________________________________

96 Success for Teens

______________________________________________________________

New habits I can start for my education and career:

______________________________________________________________

New habits I can start for my impact on the world (my accomplishments

or how I will be remembered):

______________________________________________________________

Which new habit would you like to start ﬁrst? Can you start it today?

97

Chapter

7

T

he teens you’ve met in this book have faced a lot of challenges. And

they’ve learned a lot from the challenges they’ve faced. That’s what is

so amazing and wonderful about this part of your life—you’re always

learning and discovering new things that have the power to put you on the

path to success.

You may not think so, but you’re in motion right now. You’re either going

up or going down. You’re either ﬂying, or falling. Because in life, you’re never

standing still.

Why is that?

Because the world is constantly changing and so are you. You’re always in

motion. Your life is always going somewhere. Everything changes. You aren’t the

same person today that you were yesterday. You won’t be the same person tomor-

row that you are today. You will have changed, even if only a tiny bit.

It can be pretty easy not to notice which direction you’re going. It can look like

you’re standing still in one place, heading neither up nor down. But you’re either

on the path of continuous learning—or not on the path—whether you realize it

or not.

Which way are you heading? You have total choice over that. But chances are,

you don’t realize it. The time when you have the most choice is now. The teen

years are the best years for determining and changing the direction your life.

Once you get older, it can be a lot harder to ﬁnd the time and freedom to go after

the skills you want to acquire.

Perhaps this is a little scary. Perhaps you think you get one chance now and if

you blow it, it’s all downhill from here. Not at all. It only means that you have a

great opportunity right now to set yourself on a course of continuous learning.

98 Success for Teens

What does continuous learning mean? You probably have an idea, from what

you’ve read so far.

It means there is no treading water in life, no running in place, no standing

still. If you’re not continually learning—if you’re not taking advantage of oppor-

tunities to increase and use your knowledge—you’re not on an upward path.

And if you’re not heading upward, you’re heading in the other direction.

Continuous learning means:

You haven’t got it all ﬁgured out but are open to new possibilities. You’re 

alert to ﬁnding opportunities in classes, programs, internships, and jobs.

You try to develop your talents to the fullest by learning from people who 

have more experience than you do, usually adults. It means getting a team

on your side, so you’re not setting out on your journey alone.

Most of all, it means continuously adjusting your course in life, as you 

learn from mistakes and apply what you’ve learned to new challenges

and opportunities.

POINT #1: THE EARLIER YOU INVEST, THE GREATER THE REWARD

Your teen and young adult years are the time when you can begin molding

yourself into the person you want to be, and let time work for you and be on your

side. It’s not that much different from the principle of compound interest, or how

money grows over time.

The world of money is one of the easiest places to see the power of investing

early. As we’ll show you soon, the earlier you invest, the greater your reward.

One of your goals should be to put in place a ﬁnancial plan for yourself so you

are consistently, automatically building your savings. All this takes is choosing

some simple action that is easy to do, which you repeat automatically, either daily,

weekly, or monthly, and that will, over time, lead to ﬁnancial success.

But ﬁnancial success is not only about making money, but also about

understanding how to make it and how to use it. That’s what the following

story is about.

You can be as wise and successful as the ﬁrst boy. It’s unlikely that anyone will

ever give you a million dollars. But you can set up an automatic savings plan that

You’re Always Learning 99

Chapter 7

THE CHOICE

A wealthy man was about to die, so he called his twin sons to

his bedside. The boys began to cry as they heard their father

speak about his approaching death, but with a wave of his

hand the father silenced them.

“I am leaving you both with a gift,” he told his boys. “I want

you to enjoy the same happiness I had during my long life.

Which gift you choose is up to you.”

The man reached into a beautiful box on his bedside

table and held out two gifts. One gift was a thousand

$1,000-dollar bills—a million dollars in cash. The other gift

was a single, shiny copper penny.

“You both have the same choice—either one million or

one penny. If you choose the million, it will be deposited

in my bank in town and you can use it however you want.

If you choose the penny, I will double the pennies you

have every day for the next thirty-one days. Now, go rest

and think. Come back tomorrow morning and tell me

your choices.”

He kissed them both and sent them on their way.

Late that night the first boy lay in bed thinking,

“Why

is our father giving us this choice? Which should

I take?”

He was unable to sleep. But the more he

thought about his father’s choices, the more he was

sure about taking the penny.

The second son didn’t lose any sleep. He had made

his decision the moment his father had held out that

sheaf of thousand-dollar bills. He was going to take

the million dollars and he was already making big

plans about what he was going to do with the money.

100 Success for Teens

The next day the two boys went to see their father. The rst

son took the penny, and the second son took the million dollars.

A few days later, the boy decided to visit his brother, to see

what he was doing with his penny.

“As father promised,” the first son said, “my pennies have

been doubling every day. On the second day, I had two

pennies. On the third day, I had four pennies. On the fourth

day, there were eight.” The second son wasn’t impressed.

After all, he already had a million dollars and was sure to

make a lot more.

Over the next weeks, the second son visited his brother

every day and listened to him describe how his pennies

were piling up. On Day 5, he had sixteen pennies; on Day

6, thirty-two; by week’s end the boy had 64 cents. And by

the end of the second week, had had $81.92.

A few days into the third week, the rst son’s pennies had

grown to $655.35. But the second son was still not impressed.

On Day 28, the first boy’s pennies had passed the

million-dollar mark. On Day 29, he passed the two-and-

a-half-million mark. On Day 30, his pennies totaled five

million. And on Day 31, he had $10,737,418.24.

The boy who chose the penny had discovered the

extraordinary power of

compound interest

—how

money, even a very small amount of money—can

grow over time.

The first son also understood that their father was

giving them more than money.

The true gift was

wisdom

in knowing how to

respect and use money.

The boy who chose the million had his $1 million.

But the boy who chose the penny was worth more

You’re Always Learning 101

Chapter 7

than

ten million dollars.

Because he wasn’t greedy, because he

was careful with his money, and because he understood how

money can grow over time, he achieved true wealth.

The choice the wealthy man offered his two sons is the same

choice the world offers you every day:

Small actions compound over time into big results.

The actions you take today, whether it’s about money,

friendships, or your health, can have a huge impact on your

life over time.

102 Success for Teens

will deduct, say, $10 a week from your paycheck or your checking account and

deposit it into a savings account. That’s $2 a day, not counting weekends.

Two dollars a day, $10 a week—that’s about $500 a year. Let’s say you’re 16

years old and you start doing that now. What would happen in 30 years, by the

time you reached the age of 46? Let’s say you earned 5 percent interest a year on

the money, which is a reasonable estimate.

Age Payment Total

16 $ 500 $ 525

17 500 1,076

18 500 1,655

19 500 2,263

20 500 2,901

21 500 3,571

22 500 4,275

23 500 5,014

24 500 5,790

25 500 6,604

26 500 7,459

27 500 8,357

28 500 9,300

29 500 10,290

30 500 11,330

31 500 12,422

Age Payment Total

32 500 $ 1 3 , 5 6 8

33 500 14,771

34 500 16,035

35 500 17,362

36 500 18,755

37 500 20,218

38 500 21,754

39 500 23,367

40 500 25,060

41 500 26,838

42 500 28,705

43 500 30,665

44 500 32,723

45 500 34,884

46 500 37,153

More than $37,000—just by putting aside two bucks a day. Is that easy to do?

Surprisingly so. Easy not to do? Tragically so. We’ve got a whole country full of

people who aren’t doing it and are ending up approaching retirement age won-

dering what they’re going to live on.

The Cost of Putting It Off

“This saving thing seems like a great idea,” you say, but for one reason or

another (mainly because it’s so easy not to do), you put it off. After all, not doing

it doesn’t hurt, right? It doesn’t seem to have any real cost. You’re only a teenager.

You’ve got years ahead of you to start saving money.

You’re Always Learning 103

Chapter 7

But oh, what a cost. To give you a sense of the cost of waiting, look at the

following example.

Remember Pauline Gordon back in Chapter Three? She just opened a retire-

ment account at age 20 with $1,000. Let’s say you have the same idea, and you

and Pauline agree to each contribute $1,000 to your accounts each year (or $20

a week). This is for real—Pauline has already invested her ﬁrst $1,000. But you

don’t get around to it. (Yes, it’s an easy thing to do, but also pretty easy not to do.)

You don’t start this year, or next year, or the next. In fact, you keep putting it off

for the next six years.

But at the beginning of Year Seven, when you ask Pauline how she’s doing, you

can’t believe her reply: she’s already ﬁnished!

After investing $1,000 a year for six years at 12%, she’s all set. All she has to do

is let it sit there and accumulate interest, without adding any new savings. By the

time she reaches age sixty, the little ﬁnancial ball she’s started rolling will have

snowballed into over $500,000—even if she never puts in another dime.

So you decide to catch up and start putting away $20 a week, or $1,000 a

year. At what age will your savings top $500,000, so you can stop putting in that

weekly $20 like Pauline did?

Let’s do the math...

A Delay of Six Little Years

Pauline You

Age Payment Total Payment Total

19 $ 1,000 $ 1,120 0 0

20 1,000 2,374 0 0

21 1,000 3,779 0 0

22 1,000 5,353 0 0

23 1,000 7,115 0 0

24 1,000 9,089 0 0

25 0

(Pauline stops) 10,180 $ 1,000 $ 1,120

26 0 11,401 1,000 2,374

27 0 12,769 1,000 3,779

28 0 14,302 1,000 5,353

104 Success for Teens

Pauline You

Age Payment Total Payment Total

29 0 16,018 1,000 7,115

30 0 17,940 1,000 9,089

31 0 20,093 1,000 11,300

32 0 22,504 1,000 13,776

33 0 25,205 1,000 16,549

34 0 28,229 1,000 19,655

35 0 31,617 1,000 23,133

36 0 35,411 1,000 27,029

37 0 39,660 1,000 31,393

38 0 44,419 1,000 36,280

39 0 49,749 1,000 41,753

40 0 55,719 1,000 47,884

41 0 62,406 1,000 54,750

42 0 69,894 1,000 62,440

43 0 78,281 1,000 71,052

44 0 87,675 1,000 80,699

45 0 98,196 1,000 91,503

46 0 109,980 1,000 103,603

47 0 123,177 1,000 117,155

48 0 137,959 1,000 132,334

49 0 154,514 1,000 149,334

50 0 173,055 1,000 168,374

51 0 193,822 1,000 189,699

52 0 217,081 1,000 213,583

53 0 243,130 1,000 240,333

54 0 272,306 1,000 270,293

55 0 304,983 1,000 303,848

56 0 341,581 1,000 341,429

57 0 382,570 1,000 383,521

58 0 428,479 1,000 430,663

59 0 479,896 1,000 483,463

60 0 537,484 1,000 542,599

You’re Always Learning 105

Chapter 7

You can’t believe your eyes—you’re not going to catch up to Pauline until

you turn 57! That six years of procrastination has cost you 36 years of investing.

That’s 30 more years than it would have taken, and $30,000 more that you would

have had to invest, just to wind at the same place. If only you had started when

Pauline did!

And by the way—in case your dad is reading this, or someone else in their 50s

or 60s, and they’re slapping their foreheads and moaning that they wished they’d

done this in their teens, tell them to relax: It’s not too late. You’re never too old

and it’s never too late to start applying the slight edge to achieve your dreams.

The point here is that there is a cost to waiting—whether it’s money or develop-

ing the attitude and skills you need to succeed. It’s never too late to start. But it’s

always too late to wait. And the earlier you start, the better.

While this is true about money (and knowing how to handle your money is a

very good thing), early investing is not much different with all the other areas of

your life. Right now, in your teen years, you have the power and the freedom to

invest in where your life will head in the long run. Right now is the best time for

setting your life on the right course. Habits, actions, attitudes, and philosophy—

you know by now how powerful they are. The earlier you can get on the right

track in all of these areas, the better. Putting it off is not the way to go.

What you’re going to do with your life is much more than a question of what

kind of job you’ll have or how much money you’ll make (although both are

important). It’s a question of deciding what kind of person you want to be. Now

is the time to decide and take action.

ACTION STEPS

Do you have a plan for saving money? 

In what other ways could you invest in your future? 

POINT #2: TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL OPPORTUNITIES

Continuous learning means taking advantage of all opportunities, as Tonya

Groover did when she was a teen:

As soon as I was able to work, I always had a job. I just didn’t sit around

the house after school. I took the bus to the mall and worked at the mall.

106 Success for Teens

You develop those habits and discipline through after school jobs and

extracurricular activities.

If you see an opportunity, grab it. That was my thing. Whenever I saw

something free—free was my favorite word. If I saw a free program, I was

involved in it.

Desiree took advantage of a journalism internship in high school that exposed

her to the working world:

It helped to broaden my horizons. I was interviewing people and seeing how

the professional world works. It taught me to think differently about myself.

When you see examples of success, it makes it tangible and gives you something

to reach for. It helps you to be comfortable in a working atmosphere. And it

helps you to know how to get things that you want.

Andrea Facey, 18, had an opportunity to learn about the business world and

grabbed it:

Last summer I was accepted into the summer program of the National

Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). The goal of NFTE is to

teach people the basics of how to start a business.

At our ﬁrst meeting, we were given information about the business world.

Then we were asked to write up descriptions for the businesses we wanted to

start. I planned to sell goods related to Caribbean culture (I’m from Jamaica)

and call my business Caribbean Heat.

To write the description, I had to think like a consumer. I had to decide what

I liked to buy and what other young people would be interested in buying. I had

to come up with prices that would be competitive with stores that sell Caribbean

items. I also had to estimate what my proﬁts would be over a one-year period.

Later on in the week, we were each given $25 to buy things that we wanted

to sell. My friends Takiesha and Michelle bought cosmetics and earrings. I

bought things that represented my Caribbean culture, like rasta belts, pouches,

and chains. I also bought crystal chains, lighters, spandex, and cologne.

After that shopping spree, we went back to the ofﬁce to demonstrate our sales

pitches—what you say to customers to persuade them to buy your products.

We had to get in front of video cameras and do our sales pitches. I was nervous

at ﬁrst and it got worse when I couldn’t get one of the lighters to work. Then we

watched the tape to see what we could do better.

You’re Always Learning 107

Chapter 7

I learned that I had to speak more slowly. I seemed to rush through my lines.

And the incident with the lighter taught me that I have to check my merchan-

dise before showing it to customers.

Next, we discussed different ways to design our business cards. We had to

think of creative slogans to catch the attention of customers. I thought of this

for my card:

CARIBBEAN HEAT “Come ﬁ de nuf nice stuff”

Andrea Facey

President

Rasta belts, pouches, lighters, etc.

To encourage us to save our money, we were given the opportunity to open

bank accounts with a $25 contribution from NFTE. We received receipt books

to keep track of how much money we made.

After the program ended, I decided to try to keep running my business. It’s

going slow but I’m making a little money for myself. So far the items that are

really selling are the rasta belts, pouches, and the map pendants of Africa.

The hardest part of being an entrepreneur is the competition of the differ-

ent businesses around you. Some customers try to get you to lower your prices

because someone else is selling that same item for less. You have to make sure

the customer doesn’t feel like she’s being ripped off.

And, of course, ﬁnances are always a problem. You have to have money to

start a business and keep it going, especially if you are selling things that need to

be restocked.

Despite the problems, I’m glad I had this opportunity to get a peek into the

real world. The experience of starting my own business opened my eyes to pos-

sible careers later on in my life.

ACTION STEPS

What opportunities do you have available to you right now? 

What new opportunities would you like to have? 

How could you go about getting them? 

108 Success for Teens

POINT #3: YOU NEED A TEAM ON YOUR SIDE

In order to continuously learn, you need help. We’ve got this “do-it-yourself,

I-don’t-need-anyone” idea in America, like it’s somehow cooler, tougher, smarter,

or better to do things on your own (and only for yourself).

But doing it all by yourself is not only unnecessary but impossible. You can’t do

it on your own. So how do you get the help you need?

Everyone needs someone they can conﬁde in, someone they can talk to about

whatever mountains they happen to be facing at the time. “Someone you can

talk to” might mean a professional counselor, but not necessarily. It might be an

uncle, a grandparent, a teacher, a school counselor, or a coach.

When Giselle John found an adult to conﬁde in, her life changed. She came to

the U.S. from Trinidad and Tobago at age 14 and had a rough time adjusting to

high school. She got into a ﬁght with another girl just two weeks after she started

ninth grade, and soon lost all interest in her education.

I kept getting low grades because I was cutting and not doing the work.

Sometimes I would just go home and sleep, or I wouldn’t even go to school at

all. There was no one looking over me, so I did what I wanted. I failed almost

all my exams.

I didn’t live with my family because they were back in the West Indies. I lived

with my mom’s friend, and she was too busy with her own life to pay attention

to mine.

Then I found a babysitting job, which made things worse. I was always tired

and skipping school more often than before. I couldn’t give up the job. I needed

the money to take care of myself.

But when Giselle began the 10th grade, she met a teacher who would change

her life.

One day I was falling asleep in my English classroom. Just before the period

ended I woke up, only to see my teacher, Ms. Stanford, looking at me.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I answered softly.

I wanted to tell her what was on my mind. I needed someone to listen to me

and I knew she would. I always noticed how the other kids related to her. She

You’re Always Learning 109

Chapter 7

was friendly but stern. The other kids seemed to like her, even those students

she failed numerous times. I thought I could relate to her.

At the end of the class, I approached her table and asked if I could speak to

her whenever she had time. She said yes and we made plans to see each other

at lunch that same day.

That meeting was a turning point for Giselle.

I told her what was bothering me and she listened. After that day I went to

see her at lunch almost every day. We began to walk home because we lived in

the same direction.

I could talk to her about anything that bothered me, and she always gave me

good advice. She understood me because she was from the West Indies, too.

(Ms. Stanford is from Guyana.) She took an interest in my life and I felt special.

She even took me to church. I began to settle down and go to school more often.

Ms. Stanford once told me that even before she knew me personally, she

tried to get me out of regular English and into honors English, because she

knew regular English was no challenge for me. I felt good when she told me that

because I never saw myself as a good student.

It meant that I had potential and I was smart. I felt intelligent and wanted to

prove that I could do well in school. I wanted to get good grades and be on the

honor roll. I wanted to be somebody in life—the lawyer I dreamt of being ever

since I was younger. I was hardly ever late or absent from school. Eventually, I

got placed in more honors classes.

I made new friends as I changed classes, and they were kids who were hard

workers. Many of my old friends either left school, changed school, got expelled,

or just hung out in the hallways. My new friends were looking toward the future

and so was I. Instead of hanging out and cutting school, we were studying to

pass an exam and to stay on the honor roll.

My friendship with Mrs. Stanford has lasted throughout the years. Presently

we still attend the same church, a place I forgot when I came to this country.

Eventually Giselle graduated near the very top of her high school class, which

wouldn’t have been possible with Mrs. Stanford’s help.

Another way to get support is to ﬁnd a mentor.

110 Success for Teens

There are three ways to learn something new.

One is to study how it works and what to do. 

The second is to learn by actually doing it. 

But, there is a third and even more powerful way to learn, and that is to 

ﬁnd someone else who’s already mastered something you want to do. That

person, called a mentor, can teach you through his or her experience.

Pauline Gordon has made use of mentors for several years:

I have two mentors who help me. Both are business majors and they helped

me with my résumé. If I have to do a cover letter, I do a rough draft and let

them edit it. And sometimes they look over my résumé. Every time I apply for

a job I always feel conﬁdent because I have that network and that support. And

my résumé is great.

There are so many resources out there that you just need to take advantage

of. And networking is very important—for example, talking to your teachers

after school or going to the guidance counselor.

Whatever goals you aspire to, seek out adults who have achieved the same or

very similar goals. Hang out with people who have been there and done that. If

you want to be a good writer, spend time with good writers. If you want to be a

success in business, then ﬁnd a way to spend time with a successful business-

person. If you want to be a painter, study with an adult artist. If you’re thinking

of becoming a lawyer, set up a meeting to talk with an attorney. There are many

adults out there who have a lot of skills and knowledge to share.

ACTION STEPS

What kind of support do you need in your life right now? 

Is there an adult who could give you that support? 

How can you nd that person? 

You’re Always Learning 111

Chapter 7

POINT #4: ADJUST YOUR COURSE CONTINUALLY

When you drive a car, you’re constantly making tiny adjustments, correct-

ing the direction you’re heading every moment. Once you’ve learned to drive,

that constant adjustment of the steering wheel becomes so familiar that it’s

second nature, and you probably never think about it. But if you decided to

hold the wheel in one place, you’d be off the road in less than a minute.

Perhaps you think being off course is something to avoid at all costs. After

all, if you’re off course, you’re failing, right? Not according to the slight edge.

Remember Thomas Watson Sr.’s philosophy:

Would you like me to give you the formula for success? It’s quite simple,

really. Double your rate of failure. You’re thinking of failure as the enemy

of success. But it isn’t at all. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you

can. Because that’s where you’ll ﬁnd success: on the other side of failure.

The Apollo spacecraft didn’t reach the moon safely because it was always

on target—it achieved its destination by constantly correcting its course.

Planes do the same thing. So do babies, when they’re learning how to walk.

And so do successful teens.

Desiree had to adjust course when she arrived at college, as almost all

students have to do. She felt out of place among students who had gone to

private schools, because she had always gone to public schools:

I had this whole image of what college was like in my head. I was

really excited, but at the same time a little bit nervous, a little bit scared.

There were lots of kids with a private school education and I’m from a

public school.

It’s all about realizing they’re not too different from you. Of course there

are going to be people who were exposed to more things than you were, but

there are other people who weren’t. Sometimes you’ll be more knowledge-

able about an aspect of life than someone else. At the beginning people

were showing off because we all had the same fear. Now we’re comfortable

around each other because we’ve all found where we belong. And we all

realize that we each have something special to offer.

112 Success for Teens

Samantha Brown, 17, had to adjust course when she opened her ﬁrst bank

account. She wanted her own account, but had to open a joint account with her

mother, which meant that both Samantha and her mother could put in and take

out money, whenever they wanted, without consulting each other. Samantha felt

like her mother didn’t trust her.

I sucked in my breath so I wouldn’t start to cry. I felt like my one chance at

independence was taken right out of my hands. It didn’t seem like my bank

account, it seemed like my mother’s.

The bank teller and my mother both stared at me, waiting for my reaction.

I just smiled dryly and said, “OK, no problem.” But in the pit of my stomach I

was nauseated that I needed my mother’s signature to have this account.

For a while I liked the freedom of having an account, with money that

was there any time I needed it—especially since my mom was really

cheap when it came to giving me allowance. Actually, I was cheap,

too, when it came to spending it. I hated spending my money—even

on myself. I was afraid that if I let myself start spending it, I’d wind up

spending the whole thing. So I was very responsible with my money. If I

took money out of the bank to buy something, I would immediately save

up some more and put it back.

Everything was going well, until Samantha was in her sophomore year of

high school.

I was going away for a big track meet, and I needed $100 for admissions,

plus money for food and clothing to wear. When the track meet came around, I

wanted to show my mother that I could go without begging her for money. So I

took about $200 out of my account. I told myself that I would eventually get a

job and put the money back in.

But when my mother found out that I was going to the meet, she gave me

money too. Instead of putting it in the bank to replace the money I took out, I

used it to buy more clothing—for school, for the summer, and even just to have

more clothes. I bought a lot of jeans, one for every day of the week. I bought

ﬁve of the same shirts, each a different color. I bought cardigans with corduroy

You’re Always Learning 113

Chapter 7

skirts to match, and little tees and dresses. I even went as far as to buy church

dresses—though I hardly ever go to church.

I just went wild.

But when September came, along came the big expenses. First it was the

PSAT, then the SAT, then the SAT again. I needed money fast, so I went back

into my account for more money. When I saw I had only about $200 left, I

panicked. I thought, “If my mother ﬁnds out, she’ll take my bank book away.”

I began searching my room for money that I had stored up. I saved my allow-

ance. I even tracked down friends who owed me a dollar or ﬁfty cents.

I was able to pay off my expenses and replace the money I had wasted—

which was a relief.

Even though I had to sweat and panic to put the money back, I still think

the experience was worth it. I was able to see a bit what the real world

would be like and what I would be up against. I got to learn about myself

and see how I reacted. I learned that I’m not always the super-responsible

person I thought I was.

But it also made me see that I was able to get out of a bad situation on

my own.

I believe if adults trusted teens a little more and gave us a chance to screw up

and learn from our mistakes, we’d probably be more cautious when spending

our money.

ACTION STEPS

Are there ways that you need to “adjust course” in your 

life? Are there ways you need to change the way you see

things or do things?

What are they? What steps could you take to adjust 

your course?

114 Success for Teens

Take Advantage of Opportunities

What new skills or new opportunities would you like to have? Jot down

your thoughts below.

______________________________________________________________

Find a Mentor

A mentor is an adult who can help you learn a skill or gain a certain kind

of knowledge.

Is there an adult who can help you achieve what you want? Who is that

person? What would you like to learn from him or her?

______________________________________________________________

You’re Always Learning 115

Chapter 7

Adjust Your Course

Are there ways you need to “adjust course” in your life? To change the

way you see things or do things? What are they?

______________________________________________________________

What steps could you take to adjust your course?

______________________________________________________________

117

Chapter

8

Y

ou’ve got seven ways to apply the slight edge to everything you do:

The little things you do matter. 

Your attitude is everything. 

The present moment is all you have. 

It takes small steps to get where you’re going. 

Failure is your best friend. 

Good habits are your next best friend. 

You’re always learning. 

Now it’s time to go deeper and make your dreams come true. At the begin-

ning of this book, we asked you to imagine your dream life. In this last

chapter, it’s time to look at how to turn those dreams into reality.

It’s time to plan your future and think about your dreams. To reﬂect on the

things you have experienced and how they have affected you.

What have you learned from your past experiences? How have 

you grown?

How do you need to continue to grow? 

What areas in your life do you need to work on? 

What are your goals and how are you going to achieve them? 

What have you learned from the stories in this book that can help you? 

By now you know that success is no accident. Teens who achieve what they

want in life do it by following a very speciﬁc recipe. Perhaps they’re not even aware

118 Success for Teens

that they’ve taken speciﬁc steps, but everyone who has ever created success in

their lives, whether consciously or not, has followed more or less the same process.

And to reach the speciﬁc and tangible goals that make up success, there are

four steps you need to follow. For any goal to come true:

You must picture it vividly. 

You must look at it every day. 

You must have a plan to start with. 

You can’t quit on yourself. 

Let’s go through those steps one by one.

STEP ONE: PICTURE IT VIVIDLY

The most important skill for creating success in anything is the skill of

envisioning. Envisioning means creating a picture of something that hasn’t

actually happened yet, but making that picture so vivid that it feels real.

The reason this is so crucial is that your subconscious mind—remember,

that part of you that controls 99.99 percent of what unfolds in your life—

needs a clear picture of your destination. Once you have a clear, vivid picture

imprinted in your mind, you’ll ﬁnd a route to get there.

It doesn’t work the other way around—you don’t pick out roads that look

good and hope they’ll take you to the right place. Destination has to come

ﬁrst. To create your dream life, you have to start with some sort of vivid

picture of where it is you’re headed. You start with the end in mind.

Pick a dream you have, any dream—an accomplishment, a triumph, your

dream house, dream car, dream job, the relationship of your dreams. Pick a

dream that you’d really like to have come true. Look back at the answers that

you wrote after each chapter. Keep picking until you have ﬁve dreams. Write

them out in the space on page 120.

As you do, here are some tips to follow.

Write your dreams in the present tense and don’t use any words that 

make your dreams seem vague or not realistic. For example, don’t write

“I hope to” or “I’ll try to” or “If possible.” Instead, write “I will…”

Make Your Dreams Come True 119

Chapter 8

This is important because your subconscious doesn’t deal with the

future—it deals in the now. If you write out, “Someday I hope to be an ele-

mentary school teacher” or “Someday I hope to write a novel,” that goal won’t

be real in your subconscious. It’s better to write something like, “I will be

proud to be an elementary school teacher” or “I will be successful in writing

a novel.” It even helps to say your goals out loud.

This might seem a little awkward or goofy to you. Saying out loud, “I have

discovered a cure for cancer” may feel funny, when the current truth is that

you have no idea what causes cancer. That’s okay. If it feels funny, let it feel

funny. This is where dreams start.

Make your dream vivid. Envisioning isn’t simply creating a picture in 

your mind. That’s wishful thinking. Envisioning means making it real.

You need to make it physical, and that involves your senses. The more

vivid it is, the more it starts to become real.

CREATE A DREAM BOARD

One way to make your dream vivid is to

nd a bunch of pictures that represent the things

you want to accomplish and make them into a collage.

You can cut pictures out of magazines, print them off

the Internet, or take photos of things you want. You can

then thumbtack them to a corkboard or glue them to

cardboard. This is called a “dream board” and

it’s a great way to make your dreams

seem real and reachable.

120 Success for Teens

For example, if your dream is to own a home, describe it in vivid detail.

How many rooms does it have? What does the yard look like? What kind of

living room or kitchen? What’s the neighborhood like?

Don’t worry about doing this “right.” There are no right answers. 

You’re ﬂexing your dream muscles. Your dreams can be anything—as

huge as stopping global warming or as modest as getting an A in math

next year. The size of the dream doesn’t matter. The only requirement

is that these dreams are real for you.

Now start:

My Five Dreams

____________________________________________________________1.

______________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________2.

______________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________3.

______________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________4.

______________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________5.

______________________________________________________________

Make Your Dreams Come True 121

Chapter 8

Make Your Dreams as Speciﬁc as Possible

Now, do two things that will make your dreams even more concrete.

Look at each dream you wrote down and ask two questions.

The ﬁrst question is, “What, exactly?” Go back to each dream, one at a

time, and add whatever wording you need to make sure each goal is speciﬁc.

Why is that important?

Let’s say you wrote down, “Good grades next year.” But what exactly

is a good grade for you? Does that mean straight A’s? Does that mean

going from a C average to a B average? Does it mean good grades in

specific subjects?

If you wrote down, “Get a job and make money,” what does that actu-

ally mean? What kind of job? How much money? What will you do with

that money? Spend it? Put it in a bank account?

What if you wrote down “Be more healthy”? Does that mean eating

better? If so, eating what exactly? Getting more exercise? Stopping smoking?

Imagine reading your dreams out loud to someone you care about,

and that person saying, “I’m not quite sure what you mean. Can you tell

me exactly what you’re shooting for?”

Rewrite the same five dreams below, only this time add whatever

words you need to make each one as specific as possible. Picture it

vividly—and make that picture real and here and now.

My Five Dreams in More Detail

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122 Success for Teens