PART I

Meet the Unstoppable Total Package Girl

Who Is the Total Package Girl?

Meet her. The #TotalPackageGirl. She has an aura, an essence, a charisma. She seems amazing in a friendly yet irresistible sort of way. Defining her is a bit of a mystery. Before you get to know her, you observe that everyone, including you, likes her and enjoys being near her, not in a "put her up on a pedestal and worship her" kind of way, but rather in a "want to be around her because she is awesome" way.

Is she perfectly perfect? Does she do everything exactly right? No. No one is and no one does. Does she make mistakes? Yes, of course. Everyone does. Yet she still seems to have it all going on. People like her — really like her — in spite of her imperfections. What a novel concept!

Unstoppable (adj.)

Amazing, invincible, awesome, on fire; feelin' it; a force to be reckoned with, incapable of being stopped.

#RightNow, you are becoming an amazing, savvy, unstoppable Total Package Girl.

Why all the love for this so-called Total Package Girl? On the outside, she exudes confidence. People are attracted to that energy, that smile, that package. Then when you actually talk to this Total Package Girl, you learn that she's approachable. She's nice and charismatic on the inside. One could describe the Total Package Girl as:

* Happy and confident

* Friendly, easy to talk to, genuine, and nice to everyone

* Not gossipy or someone who says bad words about another person; not two-faced

* Not boastful or trying to impress others with possessions or looks

* Hardworking, takes school seriously; a quiet leader

* Good at decision-making

* Not a stir-it-up, get-into-trouble kind of girl

For these reasons and more, she's the unstoppable Total Package Girl. She focuses on positive things like taking care of her Body, Brain, and Spirit, and she clearly has some secret weapons — things that she knows deep inside that others have yet to learn, sort of like a secret society of quietly amazing girls.

That Girl: A Story

She was a shy Midwestern girl. Perhaps attractive, but she didn't know it. Perhaps happy, but she wasn't sure. As a young girl, she often felt scared and insecure about how she looked, what she wore, what she said. Ah ... those thick glasses she'd worn since she was six didn't help; the hand-me-down clothes she often wore didn't help her confidence either. Early on, she didn't really know who she was, what she stood for, or who her true friends were.

That Girl was humble and modest. She rarely, if ever, used her voice to speak up. ("How do you speak up anyway?" she wondered.) She let others speak for her, telling her how she felt, making her decisions for her. She wished she knew how to take a stand, how to speak up, how to make friends more easily. Life was serious for That Girl.

That Girl wouldn't hurt a fly. If she did, it would devastate her; her intentions were pure. When she did speak, her words came out awkwardly, not how she wanted them to. Yet she spoke the truth. She didn't brag about her gifts, her academic and athletic achievements, her happy moments. She left them alone, never to be shared — just like the little victories she didn't share or the battles she fought inside. Most went unnoticed, unspoken, within her mind.

She watched the behaviors of others and learned. She heard mean girls say nasty words to those who were different than the rest. It made her sad. Mad even. She stayed away from mean girls; not her thing. Instead, she chose steady friends who also had been looking for true friends. She liked these friends for who they were, and vice versa. They made her feel good and confident about herself. They were true. It was refreshing.

She stayed quiet pretty much throughout her elementary-school years but continued watching, learning, and absorbing the behaviors and words of others, both kind and mean.

That Girl did her very best not to gossip, be rude, or exclude others. On the playground, she chose to play with those who had no one to play with rather than run with those who excluded others. ("Why are people mean?" she'd worry.) This choice felt better — more natural — to her.

Like clay being molded, That Girl was learning as she watched, as she experienced. She stayed away from trouble, stayed consistently nice. People were not always nice back, That Girl learned, nor were they always who they seemed to be. She was growing up, getting smarter, becoming savvier, making mistakes and learning from them most of the time. All the while, she was being molded into a uniquely beautiful piece of art, although she didn't know it.

Insight: The Total Package Girl isn't preoccupied with everyone else's status, what they're wearing, what activities they're going to join, whose house they're going to. Instead, she's running her own race and setting her own GPS in the direction of her dreams, interests, and feelings. She's real — a Total Package Girl with a focus on the positive things in life ... unlike the mean girl.

Who Is the Mean Girl?

Meet her. The Mean Girl. She is swarming with frenemies, unclear as to what a true friend is. Quantity of friends is more important than quality when it comes to the mean girl.

Like a bee, she has a stinger — in her words and in her relationships. She's an identity thief; when others follow her, they lose who they are, trying too hard to be like her. She stirs up controversy and hurts others with her sharp tongue, her bully tactics, and her hot-and-cold attitude. Who knows how she's going to act from one day to the next? Will she like...