Teens easily succumb to anxiety and depression, alcohol and drugs, and even bullying. As parents, providing support, helping them prepare for their future, and guiding them will help them avoid being led astray by predators of social problems. Today, certified life coach Michelle Mehta shares some advice if we want to see teens step into the workforce confidently. She also discusses how parents can support teens in preparing for their future.
Michelle also opens up about what she went through during her teenage years and why she became a life coach for teens. Tune in to this episode and learn from Rosie and Michelle as they talk about helping teens prepare for their future and how parents can support their teens.
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I am so excited to have on the show one of my good friends, Michelle Mehta. She is a delight and is such a lovely person. She is so easy to love. I love Michelle. Let me tell you a little bit about Michelle. She is a TEDx speaker, confidence expert, and international bestselling author. You may have seen her on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno or interviewing people like Dr. Deepak Chopra and Vicente Fox, the former President of Mexico.
ABC Television said of Michelle, “She has overcome unthinkable obstacles and is one of the most successful team coaches in 2020.” Yahoo Finance named her as one of the top 11 female coaches to follow in 2021. She has worked with organizations like Morgan Stanley, MassMutual, and Wells Fargo. She has coached mayors of major California cities and celebrities like James Haven, Angelina Jolie’s brother. Michelle speaks to teens and women all over the country about overcoming peer pressure, bullying, and low self-worth by increasing their confidence to live a life they fully love and admire themselves every single day. She even shared this message at the US Air Force Academy.
Michelle is quite a force to be reckoned. She is going to talk to us about teenagers and their confidence. The reason why I wanted to bring Michelle on my show is that when we teach teens to gain that confidence, then they are going to be able to continue in high school and move on to college with that confidence. Eventually, when they go into corporate, they’re going to have that confidence so that they can feel prepared to ask for what they need, ask for raises, promotions, and aspirations like that. Without further ado, stay tuned to know Michelle.
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Michelle Mehta, how are you?
Thank you so much for having me here. I am so grateful to be on your beautiful show and talk about all things teenagers, and finding the right career path for them because that is so confusing and sometimes can be complicated. I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be a part of your community.
Thank you for being here. I know that you’re a confidence expert. That’s what I want to focus our conversation on. I heard that ABC TV said that you have overcome unthinkable obstacles, and we may talk a little bit about your story. You are one of the most successful teen coaches in 2020, which is amazing. Life is hard enough for adults, but when you’re a teenager, you have so many obstacles and challenges such as peer pressure. I cannot even imagine being a teenager these days, having to figure out who likes you, who doesn’t like you, and all that good stuff. Why don’t we start with what has your experience been with teenagers these days on overcoming peer pressure and low self-worth?
It’s such an honor to be recognized by ABC Television for overcoming unthinkable obstacles. One of the things that they found out about me was that I was molested at the age of sixteen by a family member. I grew up in a family filled with family. I could get 50 people within a 5-mile radius. There’s always somebody living at my house as a permanent member. It was always my mom, my dad, my sister and me, and then someone that was living with us for years. It’s always a family of five, whether it be my grandparents, my dad’s cousin, my aunt or my uncle. It was always filled with family until I was sixteen years old. I grew up in an environment that loved joined connections. It was very much prevalent in the way I was growing up.
Until I turned sixteen years old, I had my whole world spin upside down. Not only was I molested, but the summer before my molestation took place, I was being bullied for being a lesbian because I complimented a senior. I was a sophomore at that time. I complimented a senior by saying, “I love your lipstick.” It reminded me of Selena, the Latina-American singer. I was like, “You remind me of her.” Seeing her video and her movies through the way J. Lo perceived her. I fell in love with the whole concept.
I complimented her and my friends overheard that. They would purposely touch my butt and say, “She’s a lesbian,” or “She likes other women.” I didn’t even know what that meant because, in my mind, I was like, “I can’t see myself with the same gender. I get bored looking at my body already.” That was the turning point of losing who I was at the essence. Through that, I realized every single decision that I made based on my worth and value turned into a downward spiral.
Even though I got accepted into my dream college, I got rejected from many other colleges when I was a senior. When I wanted to work in Corporate America, I got laid off twice at the age of 25, and then I got laid off one more time under the age of 30. I thought, “Something isn’t working.” Along with that, I thought, “Maybe I should focus on relationships because maybe I’ll find value by dating other men who are more successful than I am or older than me.” In reality, they wanted that one thing, which was sexual or physical. There was no emotional connection.
They ended up taking advantage of me. I didn’t have the value to say no or run away from situations. They took advantage of me leading up to rape and having two abortions in the process. It turned into this uphill battle and now I’m on this gigantic million miles per hour downward spiral. What am I going to do? How am I going to come out of it? The only way I could come out of it was if I sought personal development.
There are no words. I cannot even say that I can empathize. You have been through so much. I see how you are where you are. You’re helping teens because you suffered through so much negativity with the molestation, abortions and bullying. You’re young enough to still remember those years when you were a teenager.
When you’re talking about low self-worth and teenagers now, how are you helping them with their low self-worth? To put things into context, this show is about women and how I teach them to move up the corporate ladder. A lot of women hold themselves back. I know that it starts when we’re kids and teenagers, but for teenagers specifically, when they’re not feeling like they’re worthy, what do they do?
Let someone else decide for you. You go ahead and apply. If you don't get it, then that's fine. You didn't lose anything. If you don't apply, you're automatically discounting yourself. – Rosie Zilinskas Click To Tweet
It’s understanding what is worth to you. How do you see yourself being valued? Sometimes, we think of worthiness as, “I need to buy that Louis Vuitton bag because all my friends have it,” or “I need to shop at Nordstrom or Bloomingdale’s because that’s where everybody else is shopping at.” In reality, how do you see yourself in the mirror?
When you look in the mirror, are you extremely proud of the self that you are? Are you proud of every single scar on your body? Are you proud of the way your teeth are, the way you smile or the way your eyes brighten? Are you proud of that? If the answer is no to any one of those things, you’re diminishing your own value because value starts from the inside out. It does not go outside-in. As a society, we are programmed with the outside, “I need to have this. I need to have that.” In reality, do we need it?
Happiness is from the inside. People are like, “I want to choose happiness,” but what does happiness mean to you? What does being high energy mean to you? That determines your own intrinsic value. I didn’t know anything about value until I sought counseling and therapy. Being an Indian woman, we don’t magic-ly go, “I’m going to go walk into a counseling office.” We don’t do that. We have a lot of internal biases of, “Is it worth it? Is it important? What will my family think? What will my friends think?” That’s a value that we’re putting outside.
Internally, when we look at value, it’s not about the post that you see of your friends on social media, TikTok or Instagram. It’s more about how you value yourself in the mirror. Are you achieving the grades that you’re getting? Are you excited about going to school? Are you excited about the next match that you’re having, whether it be a basketball game, tennis game, wrestling or swimming? How do you see yourself performing and the things that matter to you?
That is a perfect answer because you’re right. People are always looking for validation, especially when you’re a teenager. You think that if you’re not liked by all the kids in school, you don’t matter or that you don’t have worth. I agree that self-worth comes from the inside out. All the people and their opinions as well as the physical items are just a tangent. You have a couple of examples of teenagers that you have worked with. Can you give me an example of someone that you worked with that had that low self-worth? What was your conversation with them to get them out of that low self-worth?
I was working with a client named Elizabeth. She had this dream of being the best animator that she could be. Her dream was to go into animation and work with Disney and Pixar. In reality, she would draw and paint in her spare time, but when she was looking at her drawings after completion, she said, “It’s still not good enough. I still think I need to work on it.” She would show her mom and her mom would be, “That’s amazing.” In her mind, she goes, “You’re just saying that to be nice to me,” but in reality, it was beautiful.
Because she didn’t value herself, she didn’t have the confidence to even get accepted. She didn’t even know she had the confidence to even apply because, in her mind, she always thought she wasn’t going to be good enough, “They’re going to reject me.” She saw herself in the mirror as, “I love to draw but Woodbury University is number one in the animation world. I’m just a low somebody. No one’s going to take me in,” not realizing that her portfolio, when shown to the dean, was exactly what they wanted.
We sell ourselves short, even as adults, because we feel we’re not qualified enough to get that job. We feel we’re not qualified to get that car. We feel that our credit score isn’t good enough. We feel that the apartment that we live in is not good enough, or the clothes that we wear aren’t good enough. That’s why T.J.Maxx and Ross were invented. You could get named brands for less for a reason. That’s why outlets were invented. You could still have the Michael Kors and the Coach bag, but you don’t have to pay $1,000. You can pay $500 and still get the same quality.
At the end of the day, it’s what you want at that moment and how badly you want that. Working with me for six months, not only did she get the confidence from the dean of the number one animation school in California but she also got the, “Congratulations. You’ve been accepted. We’re more than happy to have you.”
When she received that letter, what was her reaction?
She couldn’t believe it because this was such a far-fetched goal. We think about, “How are we going to get to the moon?” Now we’ve been to the moon multiple times, but the initial step or that initial jump, sometimes we make it so big as if it’s impossible to reach the moon. At the end of the day, if you don’t try it, you’ll never reach it. By trying, you might get one step closer to that yes or you might land on that yes in a heartbeat. The goal is to keep trying. How much do you have conviction in yourself?
There’s a reason why she went to the dean with her entire portfolio. She didn’t just go in with a little bit of characters here and a little bit of drawing here. She went with full-on sculptures, shading, and all the things that artists require to draw to show where you’re at. It’s a creativity degree. It’s a degree based on the creative process. It wasn’t just Math or Science. It’s a very artistic point of view.
It’s having that confidence to know that she does belong there. It’s that conviction that she had within herself. She had that low self-worth because she felt she wasn’t good enough. She showed her artwork shyly, sheepishly, and with a lack of courage way of showing it. She’s scared. She was like, “What if they don’t like my work? What if they say it’s not good enough?” What if they say, “It’s the best thing that they wanted.” What if they say, “That is exactly what we wanted,” but we don’t know? We focus on the negative so much because that’s what we’ve heard our entire life. We hear the word no before we hear the word yes.
I want a touch base on a couple of things that you said. You said that maybe people don’t even apply to whatever it is that they’re looking for. Hewlett Packard did a study many years ago. They found that men apply for jobs having 50% of the skills, but women wait until they have 100% of the skills on the job description. I’m not surprised that the same phenomenon is happening with teens because the same teens are eventually going to go into the workplace.
Our job, your job and my job is to make sure that teens, both male and female, and women in corporate, if they want to move up the ladder, realize that they are their own obstacles. If they’re not applying for the jobs, they don’t know if maybe it’s going to be the perfect description for them and they might get the job. I want to acknowledge the fact that I love that you’re already teaching teens to know that they just need to go for it.
You brought up a good point because, in the college applications, they look at the dream college. They look at the college requirements. Immediately, some kids are like, “That’s not my cup of tea.” There are some kids that are like, “That is my cup of tea.” Regardless, you might get accepted from both or you might get rejected from both.
Just because you applied does not mean it’s a guaranteed yes. Because you didn’t apply, that’s a guaranteed no. If you don’t apply, you’re losing out on that opportunity. If you do go on and apply, you never know. Maybe they’re getting all the people with the perfect SAT scores, but maybe you had the imperfect SAT score and they’re the ones that they’re looking for to offset their own balance. Maybe they need someone like you in their university. Sometimes, 100% doesn’t mean it’s 100%.
The one thing that I tell women that are interested in applying is, “Let someone else make the decision for you. You go ahead and apply. If you don’t get it, then that’s fine. You didn’t lose anything.” If they don’t apply, they’re automatically discounting themselves.
It’s up to you. Do you want to get discounted? Do you want to discount the price or would you like to decide, “No, thank you?” Women have the power to do everything. Women have the power to say yes. Women have the power to say no, but we have been trained as a society to have it backward.
I know that you have a great blog. One of your blog posts was about helping teenagers figure out how they can find their careers. I’m assuming that more parents and moms with kids are looking towards the future on how they can help their teenagers figure out their careers. Tell me a little bit about what you covered in that blog post.
Focus on the strengths because every human being has a unique blueprint on this planet. Every human being is born with that purpose. As parents, we need to help them figure out what they enjoy and find their interests. – Michelle Mehta Click To Tweet
One of the things that I love is first off, figuring out what they’re already naturally good at. Every human being has strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes, we focus on the weaknesses and make those our strengths, and we let the strengths go by because you’re already good at that. I’m saying focus on the strengths. What are they naturally good at?
If they have organization skills, focus on that. If they have poor communication skills, don’t focus on that. Focus on what they’re naturally good at because every human being has a unique blueprint on this planet. Every human being is born with a purpose. As parents, figure out what they enjoy. Find out what their interests are. Don’t ask the question, why are you interested in this? Ask the question, “What makes you interested in this? How do you feel about doing this particular activity? Do you feel like it’s easy peasy or do you feel daunted about that fact?” If it’s daunting, it may not be something that they’re good at.
I always had some vision in my brain that I was going to be in a Business degree. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in business, but I took some personality tests in high school as part of our curriculum and it kept going back into the Accounting and Finance world. Going through college, I applied to Cal State Fullerton thinking, “They have Finance and Accounting. Maybe I’ll flip flop between them.” I realized halfway through Finance that I don’t like it. I hate anything to do with mathematics. Halfway through Finance, I took my first Marketing class and it clicked.
I’m a visual learner. I like to see things, hear things and do things. Finance is more behind the scenes. Companies look at books all day long, but they don’t talk about numbers on television. You’ll hear a Coca-Cola ad or some drug company talk about their product. They’re advertising. That’s when it clicked. Halfway through Finance, I was like, “I need the Cs to get the degree. I’m going to focus my energy on Marketing.” Had I known that earlier, I probably would have made different choices.
They put so much pressure on the eighteen-year-olds to figure out their life. In reality, the first two years are exploratory. I recommend kids go undeclared because what you see on paper is not what you see in reality. Just because it’s theory-based, it does not mean it’s practical-based. You think it’s amazing, but the book doesn’t say you’re going to make it the same way, so you might think it’s disgusting. Think of every degree and every college career prep like a recipe. Practice with it.
I heard a podcast with Brené Brown. She said that when her daughter was getting ready to go to college, her daughter wanted to take a ton of AP classes. Brené and her husband said, “No. You’re going to take this number. You’re not going to take anything beyond that because we want you to enjoy your high school years.” She also said to her daughter once she got to college, “You have to take something about geography or astrology.” Those are a lot of different things. When you start taking many different things, being exploratory and coming in undeclared, then by trial and error, you start figuring out what you like by figuring out what you don’t like. That’s pretty powerful. What else can a parent do to help their teen choose some kind of career path?
Thinking that they’re going to follow in your footsteps the same way you did your career path is an expectation. When you set an expectation, you’re setting yourself up for failure because you raised the bar so high. You raised the bar on 15 or a 10 when these poor kids could be at a level 5 mentally. You put so much pressure on them, so they’re running around with boulders of burdens on their shoulders trying to navigate life.
Instead, say, “Come with an open space. I want to know more about you as an individual.” America is based on individualism. We all come alone and we all die alone. With the pandemic, it has been more so. Take each person as an individual. Just because they’re a product of your environment, it doesn’t mean they will become the product of your environment forever.
That is fantastic advice. My son is 24 and my daughter is 21. Over the last couple of years, I have had to learn to let go. We’re empty-nesters. They’re both on their own. I’ve had little struggles within myself going, “They should do it this way.” When I sit back, I’m like, “Why do they have to do it this way? That’s my stuff and my issues, not their issues.” Sure enough, they’re doing things the way they have decided to do them. I just have to be supportive and accepting.
When you let go, they will rise faster and stronger. A lot of people walk their dogs on a leash. If they let the leash go, the dog runs freely. A lot of times, as parents, we have a leash on our kids. It’s an invisible lease that does not retract. It’s always going to be 10 feet no matter what. They’re a product of the environment, which means they have already amazing values. Let them figure out what their core values are. As parents or as a society, we’ve taught them right and wrong, and from wrong to right, but it’s up to them to also experience life the way you experienced life. Your parents let you be free. It’s about time that you let your kids be free.
America is a beautiful country to do that because we’ve been told from day one to make choices. We’re constantly in a room where we’re changing seats. In India, you sit with your same friend from kindergarten to twelfth grade. You do not move at all from your desk. In America, that’s unheard of. In India, the teachers will rotate period after period. In America, the kids rotate period after period. We have already trained the kids to be independent. We’ve trained the kids to make their own choices and find their own friends. That’s where the seating chart keeps getting shifted every so often. Let them be free because that’s going to reduce your burden as well.
Let’s shift a little bit to teenagers coping with high school pressure. We’re still in a pandemic. I was listening to a psychologist. They were saying that kids over the last couple of years have lost so much socialization. Since kids are back in school, how do they cope? How do they cope with that high school pressure specifically?
Think about what they’re going through on a day-to-day basis. They wake up in the morning and there’s already pressure to be on time for school. They get to their first period and it’s starting with home workload and exams are coming up. They finish their sixth period and they go in to play sports, and that’s the pressure to perform. If they’re in AP or honors, then they have more homework to cope with. At that moment, don’t feel sorry for your kids, but understand what’s going on in their day-to-day. Ask about them and their bodies. How are they feeling? How is their stomach feeling? How is their head feeling? How are their shoulders feeling? These all are points that also speak to us.
Sometimes, kids are feeling nauseous because they’re anxious. Sometimes they’re tired because they’ve mentally checked out. Watch the tone of the way you’re speaking to your kids. If you’re having a bad day, they’re also having a bad day. Sometimes, kids become the, “I’m sorry I saw you, here’s my angry moment. I’m sorry I saw you, here are all my frustrations taken out on you.” Kids automatically become punching bags without the parents even realizing what they’re doing.
You yell at the people that are the closest to you. Kids are the closest to their parents and the parents are the closest to the kids. They want the best for each other but sometimes, there’s parental pressure and the comparison of, “Look at your older brother doing this. Look at your younger sister doing this. Look at your older sister doing this. Your twins could be doing this.” Stop the comparison. They’re already being compared enough.
You used a specific way of asking a question a little while ago. Can you repeat that question again and how you changed it? When I heard you change that question, it made a huge difference. What was that question again?
When we ask questions, we automatically go to why, “Why are you playing video games? Why are you showing up like this? Why are you dressed like this?” Instead, say, “How does it make you feel when you play a video game? What makes you decide to wear this over that? What fashion trends are you following? How do these fashion trends make you feel?” When you ask a why question, what happens is a justification perspective.
A lot of kids ages 2 and 3 would say, “Why, mommy? Why is the sky blue? Why do I have to wear this?” The answer always comes back to, “Because I said so.” That is a common phrase that has been used. Anytime a why question gets asked, it comes out, “Because I said so. Because your dad wants you to. Because your mom wants you to.” It turns into shutting down. When you ask a what question or a how question, all of a sudden, it’s expansive energy that comes through. You’re asking your body and mind to give an answer. It’s not your typical, “Because I said so.” You also let go of the judgment that teenagers are constantly faced with.
From a parental perspective, you open up the conversation to get to know your teenagers. Instead of saying, “Why are you doing that?” You say, “How does it make you feel? What do you like about playing video games?” I probably would have saved myself so many hours arguing with my son when he was going through that had I been savvier on how I connect and how I use language in a smarter way. That’s beautiful. Another thing that you said earlier is that every human being has a blueprint. What did you mean by that specifically?
Every human being is here with a purpose. That’s why we’re all not robots. That’s why you focus on careers and I focus on teenagers. We’re both ethnic women. You’re from a Latin American background and I’m from an Indian background, yet we are two different individuals. We both belong to the same coaching community. We both have similar mutual friends, but we’re both different.
As parents, your kids will rise faster and stronger when you let go and not put pressure on them. – Michelle Mehta Click To Tweet
Sometimes, as parents, we put everybody in a box, “All of your friends are studying Mathematics, you should study Mathematics too. All your friends are doing Computer Science, you need to do Computer Science too.” What if I don’t like Math or Computer Science or I hate science in general? I am not going to follow where everybody else is going. I have my own path. We all have our own paths.
It’s about asking the right questions and coming from a place of curiosity. Get curious about your child because no one is going to get more curious than you. As parents, sometimes, we fail because we put them in that judgment, “All your friends are going to Magic Mountain, you have to go too.” If they’re like, “I hate heights. I don’t like heights. I am not going there,” respect that. It’s okay if they don’t follow the norms.
I have a perfect example of that. My daughter, Marissa, she’s 21 and she’s an aesthetician. When she was approaching that college application process and we started looking at colleges, and the process was about two days old, she was like, “I don’t want to go to college.” I was like, “What? No, you’re going to college.” It took me a good 2 or 3 days to understand what she was telling me. It would have been disastrous if by forced her to go to college and I was going to spend money. I was going to force her to do something that she was telling me she didn’t want to do.
She was already eighteen years old. It took me a couple of days of me to get over it, and then I was like, “What are you going to do? What’s your alternative?” She had already started looking at aesthetician schools. She went to an aesthetician school for nine months. Now, she does lash extensions and waxes, and she loves her job. Had I imposed my beliefs and my expectations on her, we would be having a very different outcome and relationship now. I love that.
It creates resentment for no reason. Had you forced her to go to college, she would have resented you from day one because she’s following your dreams and not following her dreams. Things are changing more so than they did in the ‘80s and the ‘90s. There are online schools that are available. There are specialty schools that are available. It’s up to you what makes your child shine the most and give them the options.
I’ll go back to the lack of socialization. What have you noticed or what have you seen that the pandemic has impaired teens over the last couple of years?
First of all, they have forgotten to have communication with physical human beings. They’re so caught up on the screens and they think those are their real friends. The interaction of, “Hi, how are you?” They have a text message that comes back, “Hi, I’m good.” The humanness of the conversation is missing. It’s almost like reading words on a screen and thinking how that person is feeling versus picking up the phone and calling.
Regardless of whether you feel like, “I don’t need to talk to anybody physically,” in Corporate America and in any job that you do, you need that human interaction. You need to know how to smile when you’re communicating. You need to know how your eyes widen when you’re communicating. That’s what has been happening. People have lost the ability to make eye contact and continue with the staring contest.
I remember growing up we used to have a staring contest and then the first one to blink would lose. Now, people can’t even keep eye contact for less than five seconds. It’s almost like, “You’re looking at me. I need to turn.” Focus on that because through the eyes, you can figure out how that person is feeling internally. They say the eyes are the window to your soul, so open up your courage to connect.
Open up the vulnerability to connect. We are all humans at the end of the day. You’re not the only one that has gone through the pandemic. It’s a worldwide pandemic. How we’re experiencing the pandemic is how every country on this planet, even Antarctica, is experiencing the pandemic. We are all in this together but sometimes we forget that.
I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. I am going to ask you to give us two tips that you think would impact teens, whether it’s in their high school or college careers. We’re trying to prepare them for either a corporate job or some type of job when they come out of college, or whatever they choose to do. Can you share two tips that you think would be valuable?
Number one is to Google what your strengths are. There is a book called StrengthsFinder. It’s a quick exam that you can take online. It depicts your top five qualities of who you are as a person. They give you a career choice as a result of it. It’s understanding your strengths. You can get that online. You can get the StrengthsFinder test online and understand that.
Number two, know your love language because that is the best way to understand how you communicate with yourself and with others, and how others can communicate back to you. A lot of conflicts happen because they’re speaking the wrong love language. There’s a quiz on that too. It’s understanding your 5 Love Languages. Gary Chapman has a book about that. The StrengthsFinder is by the corporation called Gallup.
Understanding your strengths and knowing your love languages will impact you as a better human being because these things are with you no matter what. Your love language is going to be with you until you pass away. Your strengths are going to be with you until you pass away. It’s not just about now. It’s about your future. It’s about how you interact with humans altogether.
I use the StrengthsFinder with my clients. I also am words of affirmation. I’m assuming you’re words of affirmation.
I am words of affirmation and physical touch. I love those hugs.
I noticed that when we were in Colorado Springs together at the Air Force Academy because we both spoke at the Air Force Academy. I enjoyed your hugs. I watched you gain energy from all of our co-speakers as well. I believe you have a gift. What is your gift?
I’m offering a ten-step How to Motivate Your Team Success guide for high school and beyond. It’s about you and your child coming together and connecting about different communication styles. How you react is going to determine the outcome of your experience. Also, I talk about don’t ask questions with the why, but ask questions with the how. All of these things are available to you for download and will be in your inbox shortly. It’s all about you interacting with your kids because your kid’s success starts with you and it starts at home.
That’s the perfect ending to the segment that the kid’s success starts with the parent and it starts at home. I am so excited that you came to the show. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. I’m sure I’m going to have you back because we barely started talking about teens and confidence. I am going to have you back on the show at some point.
Thank you so much. It was such a beautiful honor to network with you and your community. If you guys are reading this, please take this advice to heart. The change begins with you. That’s all I have to say. Thank you so much for your time. I love you so much.
I love you too.
Have a good day, everybody.
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I told you all that Michelle Mehta is a force to be reckoned. She is a lovely person. I love all the tips that she gave us, especially how to ask questions properly to your teenager so that you can connect. The last thing we’re going to do is recap the two tips that Michelle gave us. The first one was to Google your strengths. Meaning, figure out what your strengths are. She recommended doing StrenghtsFinder by Gallup. That’s the first one.
The second thing is to know your long language. Gary Chapman is a reverend in his 80s. My husband and I have gone to see him twice in person. He wrote a book called The 5 Love Languages. The five love languages are physical touch, acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time, and gifts. Those are the five different love languages. It’s how you interpret that someone loves you. That’s a very important tip. There is a book that’s for teenagers. It’s The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers.
It’s important for you to know what your teen’s love language is so that you can relate to them much better. Those are the two tips that Michelle gave us. This was a very powerful and great conversation with Michelle about teens and confidence. I hope you got a lot out of this. With that, remember to be brave, be bold, and take action. Until next time.
Michelle Mehta is a TEDx Speaker, Confidence Expert, and International Bestselling Author. You may have seen her on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno or interviewing people like Dr. Deepak Chopra and Vincente Fox, the former President of Mexico. ABC television said of Michelle, “She has overcome unthinkable obstacles and is one of the most successful teen coaches in 2020.” Yahoo Finance named her as one of “The top 11 female coaches to follow in 2021.” She has worked with organizations like Morgan Stanley, MassMutual, and Wells Fargo. She has coached Mayors of major California cities and celebrities like James Haven, Angelina Jolie’s brother. Michelle speaks to teens and women all over the country about overcoming peer pressure, bullying, and low self-worth by increasing their confidence to live a life they fully love and admire themselves every day. She has shared this message at the US Air Force Academy.
