To this day, there are lots of talks on TV, radio, etc. about how to improve yourself, build your self esteem or tap into the power within you. Some motivational trainers are capitalizing on that, making a killing with their self help tapes and lectures charging thousand of dollars for anything from losing weight to becoming more assertive or becoming financially independent. The truth is, only you can change yourself. Only you can make it happen.

I have seen a real live example of this as a teenager in high school and I am a firm believer that anyone can transform themself if they really want to.

Now we have to go back in the days of the weekly series of Charlie's angels, six million dollar man and get smart etc. Of course all the boys wanted to be like Steve Austin (Lee Majors) and all the girls wanted to look like Jamie Summers (Lindsay Wagner) or Loni Anderson.

At one point, during the school season, appears that gorgeous girl apparently from nowhere...needless to say that all the girls were instantly jealous of her because you see, she brought more competition in the school and all the guys wanted to know more about her.

A bit later in the year, she started dating that guy, who happened to be not only the hottest hunk in school but had good grades and also was a team leader. Mind you, the guy wasn't really one of my friends due to the fact that he was about 2 years older and was two years ahead of me academically.

I have to admit that our team leader, hunk and also the boyfriend of the most gorgeous girl in school was also a nice guy, contrary to the belief that we have from movies that most of the jocks are jerks. He would occasionally greet us with a nod in the school hallway.

Now the question was, who is that girl? Where does she come from? I remember thinking with my friend John at the time. John didn't know then but it wouldn't take him too long to find out.

After a bit of digging around, John came back one day and told me! Remember Kathy, she was here last year and the year before but she was just an average looking girl and no one paid much attention to her.

Kathy had come to the realization that she was just average and decided that it was about time that she did something about it. Time to leave average behind and let her natural beauty come out from within.

No one can tell for sure what Kathy did to her hair, clothes, body, etc, but anyone knew right away when she walked into a room. All of a sudden, she had grace, beauty, self assurance and charisma. She was by now sporting the superb looks of a model with makeup that would emphasize her strong points and clothes that would make anyone turn around to look at her a second time. In short she was the envy of everyone in school.

Now when I hear about improving yourself, I immediatly think about how Kathy went from an average looking girl to the girl that demanded attention from everybody around her whenever she strutted about with a new found self from within.