A man owned a large comb production business. As he approached old age, he wanted the smartest of his three sons to take over the business. So one day, he summoned his three sons and gave each one a thousand combs, instructing them to sell them at the Buddhist ashrams which he suggested. Upon arriving at their respective ashrams, they were surprised to find that all the inmates of the Ashrams had shaved heads.

Despite the unexpected challenge, they endeavoured to sell the combs, and returned on a specified day to report their progress to their father. The eldest son stated, “I managed to sell ten combs.” When asked how, he replied, “I appealed to the monks’ kindness, asking for assistance in winning the competition.” The second son said, “I sold twenty combs by highlighting their usefulness for scratching their back.” Finally, the third son said he sold all one thousand combs. When questioned about his success, he explained, “I carved the profound sayings of Lord Buddha onto the combs and offered them to visitors, encouraging them to contemplate these words while combing.”

Often, people limit the utility of an object to its original intent. However, with one’s imagination and creativity, one can transcend such constraints and discover the optimal use for everything life offers. The challenge lies in recognizing opportunities and taking advantage of them instead of focusing on limitations. Today the world is frantically looking for smart people. Steve Jobs while recruiting people for his company had said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so that they can tell us what to do.”

As you embark on this new academic year, one must not forget that like those combs, each student is blessed with numerous gifts — time, talents, teachers, text-books, opportunities and friendships — and is called to optimize one’s potential. In their educational journey, students are not mere recipients of knowledge but are the architects of their future. While parents and teachers offer support, each student is expected to craft their path, utilizing all one’s available resources for a bright future. Schools serve as fertile grounds where students can seize opportunities to discover and sow seeds of their potential, and nurture talents. Every student needs to understand the significance of maximizing time, talents, guidance from teachers, and friendships.

Entering this new school year, The Teenager Today has articles this month to guide you in choosing friends wisely, navigating social media, maintaining a healthy diet, and inspiring you with stories of individuals like Gukesh Dommaraju and Kailash Satyarthi.

The Teenager Today wishes you all a successful academic year!

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People in Japan are fond of keeping plants in their houses. As houses in Japan are relatively smaller, they have developed bonsai plants — miniatures of large plants. In fact, bonsai plants look like dwarfed copies of real plants. Cutting and trimming the plant roots produces these plants.

The bonsai experiment has been carried out on crocodiles. Crocodiles hatched from two eggs from the same parents, possessing the same genes, were subjected to different environments in which to grow. One was kept confined to a small tank and the other was left free to grow in a large lake. Over time, the crocodile in the lake grew to be a healthy, giant crocodile and the one in the tank had a comparatively dwarfed growth.

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Many times we find ourselves caught in the trap of striving to be the best. We confuse ‘being the best’ with ‘doing our best’, and this subtle difference can lead to profound consequences. Striving to be the best often invites comparison, ego and a sense of competition that can result in struggles, instability, non-cooperation from others, and frustration. It creates a win-lose situation where someone must lose for someone to win.

In contrast, doing our best focuses on challenging our own capabilities, bringing out our full potential, and engaging in productive work with a positive frame of mind. It is about creating a win-win situation, not just for ourselves but also for those around us. Doing your best means being in a forward, active mode that is constantly refreshing and self-renewing.

So dare to challenge yourself to do your best in everything you choose to undertake. Give your full 100% to the task at hand each time. Break out of your comfort zone and empower yourself to go full throttle, putting all of your potential into action.

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All you have and achieve in your life is a result of your belief in yourself. That belief unlocks boundless potentialities in your life. Self-belief is about trusting your own verdict and feeling comfortable with your capabilities. This can bring benefits to all areas of life. Self-belief is the difference between feeling unstoppable and feeling scared out of your wits. This makes you think lucidly and logically. You can frame sensible solutions to your problems if you have a strong belief in yourself.

With self-belief you become someone who can chase what he hopes for. It is an open secret that if you want to do well in life, you must believe in yourself. Your interior faith will create your external results. If you lack self-belief you will find it difficult to become efficacious. The way you feel about yourself greatly influences how you live. “Believe in yourself, and the rest will fall into place. Have faith in your own abilities, work hard and there is nothing you cannot accomplish,” says Brad Henry.

Not everyone is born with an in-built sense of self-belief. Building self-belief is a journey. If you believe in yourself, you have won half the battle. Mark Twain once said, “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”

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One of the most well-known stumbling blocks to commencing a passion-based life is predicting what you are passionate about. Michael Hyatt says, “Your heart is the essence of who you are, it is your authentic self, the core of your being. Make it your top priority.” The best way to realize how to be yourself is to comprehend who you are at your innermost, deepest and fundamental level. When you know who you are, when your mission is crystal clear and you burn with the inner fire of indestructible will, no cold can touch your heart. Aristotle believed that there is one thing that remains constant in everything — what he called entelechy or one’s ‘elemental potential’.

Ambika decided to reveal her hidden potential during her final year of graduation. She approached her faculties and expressed her desire to participate in a dance competition. A faculty member told her, “From the start of your academic year you have not participated in any events. It will be very difficult for you to do so now.” Ambika replied, “Give me an opportunity. I’ll prove myself.” Her request was refused. Her classmates laughed at her intention to take part in the competition. Ambika ignored them. She approached a senior faculty member, Deepika, and again asked to participate in the competition. Deepika initially refused. However, she was impressed with Ambika’s initiative and interest and finally allowed her to take part. Ambika won the second prize! Deepika was overwhelmed. Surprised by Ambika’s amazing performance, the students asked Deepika, “Ma’am, what happened when Ambika came to your office?” Deepika replied, “Ambika expressed her interest to participate in the competition and I believed in her potential.” She added, “You need to take risks and trust and encourage others in life. That is what I did and Ambika proved herself by winning second position.”

Every human being has a tremendous capacity to realize his or her potential. When you know what you are doing, nothing will stop you.

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It is the smart decisions that you make today that can change your life forever. As you begin your holidays you’ve got to have a firm determination to do something different to make it possible. Is there a way to spend your holidays that will make it truly meaningful and memorable? Can you think of doing something creative, something very different that will help boost your self-confidence, improve productivity, develop talents and chalk out the course your life takes? If you do, then you can anticipate with a smile the great benefit you will enjoy in the future. Attempt to do something you always wanted to do — it may be learning a skill, receiving some guidelines, or visiting a person or a new place.

The story is told of a poor man who once visited his friend who had become ‘king’. The king was happy to meet him and gave him a special pen as a gift. The friend was sad at getting such a small and apparently insignificant gift. Nevertheless, he took the pen and used it to write. Several years later, a wise man happened to see the pen and told him of how special that pen itself was: it had in it a map that would lead him to a very big treasure with which he could live the rest of his life like a king.

Could this holiday be the time when you find the key that can unlock some great treasure in your life which you will always be happy about and grateful for? If your decision and determination is like that of Neel Shekatkar’s, then you could rest assured that your holiday will perhaps determine the destiny of your life.
Let the various articles in this issue of The Teenager Today serve to guide you to make the right decisions in terms of time investment. TTT wishes you a holiday that is enjoyably memorable!

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Very few people know what potential is. Even fewer people understand that unearthing our potential permits us to transform ourselves, redefine our fortune and change our life itself. Knowing our potential helps us to understand in what field we can excel, and who we can be. This allows us to overcome our “doom” and make our dreams come true.

Potential comes from the root words “potency” and “potent” and refers to all the things we can be triumphant at if we develop and use our gifts, talents, aptitudes, knacks and natural capabilities. All of us have within us the seeds of greatness. But each one’s potential is different. We are all endowed with unique strengths and talents, whether this is a talent for display on the world stage, or on a small stage as someone who makes a difference to just a few other people.

Our personal potential is not limited to just one area of our life. We not only have career potential, but the potential to be great in love and human relationships. We have also the potential to live a vibrant, vivacious, healthy life using astuteness and do far-fetched work.

Many are held back because they don’t believe in their potential for success. They can’t see themselves beyond the run-of-the-grind life they are accustomed to. They look for opportunities from a limited perspective or perception of what they already have. As Eckhart Tolle said, “You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you.”

How do we discover our potential? Often it is easiest to discover what we do best by seeing what comes naturally to us and others struggle with. Brian Tracy affirms, “The potential of an average person is like a huge ocean un-sailed, a new continent un-explored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channelled towards some great good.”

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“My dad was my best friend and greatest role model. He was an amazing dad, coach, mentor, soldier, and friend.”
— Tiger Woods

Having a role model in our life is very important, and having a good role model is more important, as they influence what we do and how we turn out eventually. Positive role models influence our actions and motivate us to strive to uncover our true potential and overcome our weaknesses.

A role model is someone who serves as an example by influencing others. For children, the most important role models are their parents. Children look up to a variety of role models to help shape how they behave in school, relationships, or when making difficult decisions. A role model inspires and encourages you to strive for greatness, live to your fullest potential, and help to see the best in you.

It is someone whom other individuals aspire to be like, either in the present or in the future. He/she may be someone who you know and interact with on a regular basis, or someone whom you’ve never met, such as a celebrity. Common role models include well-known actors, political leaders, teachers, speakers, players, singers, doctors, scientists, and parents or other family members.

A good role model is someone who is positive, calm, and confident. You don’t want as a role model someone who is down or tries to bring you down. We like a person who is happy with his/her achievements, and continues to strive for greater and better objectives.

All successful people have role models. Once they decide who they want to be as their role model, they look at who was there in this role before. When I was small, I did not have any role model. The idea of having a role model was not known to me. But today, I understand the importance of having a role model that I can emulate him/her. Since they have walked through the paths I want to walk, I can always learn from them. The most empowering feature is the belief that if it was possible for them to become successful, so is it for me. All I have to do is to model and install their pattern of excellence in my life.

Today, my role models are Les Brown and Anthony Robbins — both of them are great motivational speakers and authors. They have touched and influenced the lives of millions and are still doing it. My dream is to become like them, one day. I read a lot about them, listen to their audio books and attend their seminars whenever possible. I observe how they build rapport with the audience and win over them during their sessions. I know that they were ordinary people, and today they are extraordinary because they followed certain success principles.

When I decided to run my first marathon, I took cues from my colleague who had run many marathons even when he was in his late fifties. I followed his instructions diligently. You have to find a role model, someone who has been very successful in the area you want to work in. Find out all you can about them and read about their success story and follow their footsteps, and one day, you will be there. Don’t limit yourself when choosing a role model. Choose the best person you know who is already living the life you dream about.

Having a role model is one of the crucial aspects of self-improvement. Following someone’s advice and trying to copy his or her approach towards certain things in life will actually give you a better perspective on how you are coping with problems and how you are trying to climb higher. Witnessing the results and analyzing the change in your role model’s understanding will, in turn, make you aware of your own transformation and effectiveness of your efforts.

You will also get advice on how to overcome your obstacles, at the same time you will also have an insight and see how it was like in the shoes of your role model back then. You will see what was happening in his mind at the time the problem came up, all through coming up with the solution, implementing it, and witnessing the results. That will contribute to the process of your progress, since you will recognize some of your emotions as fears, doubts and hesitations. It will serve as a complete guide for you.

By going through what your role model said or wrote, or most likely did, you will feel motivated to achieve the same progress and witness the same success. Motivation also comes in the way of having faith that you can succeed by following a similar success story, and ultimately having confidence that you’ve taken some of your role model’s qualities and adopted them as your own.

Since you look for a role model in someone you personally admire, having one can help you in a way that you will try to copy many of his/her routines and habits, as those are the habits and routines that drove him/her to success in the first place. Picking up the habits of a successful person can make you more likely to achieve success in the particular field he was successful, build your determination, and shape your mindset in a similar way. Hence, you should feel encouraged to learn more about people who inspire you and whose success you’d like to replicate.

On the other hand, distance yourself from people who are not on the same frequency. People whose qualities you don’t admire or people who don’t live up to your standards and beliefs when it comes to defining greatness. Be in touch with people who move you, challenge you and inspire you.
Do not ever make an extremist or fanatic your role model, as it will ruin your life. Every day we hear stories of young people who are influenced by such negative role models and ruin their lives!

Young people often become fans of celebrities, heroes, and famous people. If you observe these successful people, you will know that most of them do what they love to do. A closer look at these people will reveal that they put their heart and soul in whatever they do. They are passionate about it and deliver their 100%, and that made them successful.

Hence, before identifying a role model, you have to identify your niche and answer the question: “How do I want to be known in the world?” Accordingly, you must choose a role model and model him/her for the rest of your life because they have already gone through what you would be going through. Someone has done it before you!

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