to get everyone together, they organize everything, they help make the team what the team is. - a eagle scout would be one of my personal favorites because i've known only two and every single time i've known them, they've been one of the best people i've ever met, they are in my top leader list, i have a leader list. - a leader to me would be like a teacher, or like an academic dean or someone that does things and they do it not because they want attention but they do it because they wanna help other people around them. - but like just about everything else, there are good leaders and not so good leaders. so how do we become one of the good ones? for some guidance, we turn to jason ma. he wrote the book young leaders 3.0. hi jason, welcome to teen kids news. - hi, it's great to be here. - how do you define a good leader? - a good leader starts with your own character. it starts with your own values and beliefs. it starts with a good belief system. i think a good leader is one who pretty much influences people to achieve a set of goals or a mission. the great ones are really good at inspiring others. i think a good leader, is good in communication, is compassionate, really cares about the project or the company or the club or the mission. communication real well and really brings out the best or brings out the goodness of the team around him or her and there's many more to leadership but those are some of the traits that i see are important. - there's an old saying that says, "leaders are born, not made." is that true? - not at all, not at all. i think a leader could certainly be learned. you can learn to be a leader, you get your coaches and mentors to help you, do a lot of self study. google, read books. i really encourage kids to read books, non-fiction and good fiction because i believe in the humility of continuously learning, improving, questioning, good things, i think certain things that are so important about leadership is really to continue to hone your mindset. i call it practical psychology where it's really about your belief system and story and your management of your state, your emotion, as well as skills and couple that with a strong sense of direction, you can't go wrong. - basketball great michael jordan has said that you need to earn your leadership everyday. how can we do that? - i think it's very important for you to lead by example. so people see you, people feel how you work, people can sense you. for example, i guarantee you, michael jordan, would probably be the first guy who comes into practice and spend the longest hours practicing shooting his moves, his strategies, his reflection more than most other people that are not as great as him. you look at how great he and other great players and great successful leaders work, and one thing that i look into when i look at how successful they are is how do they prepare. it's really the quality of the preparation, the heart, that pretty much result in how great they are. that example about michael jordan, a good example by the way, is he, one time i watch him play way back before you kids were born and he had the flu. he was still playing and he was giving 100% and that is good demonstration of leadership. - is being a leader something everyone should strive for? or is it okay to just be a follower? - first of all leader needs followers. the majority of people are followers and be a good follower, it's fine. everyone does not have to be a leader per se. now that said, a leader could also be a follower based on projects. you could be the head of a club or head of a company but for certain projects, hey, part of your teammates, one of the teammates may be the lead, and you become a follower, you become a support cast. in a way, it's situational. make it dynamic and adaptable, i think is very important. - that's interesting, any last advice? - practice, learn, practice, learn, tap into your potential. be outcome focused, be purpose driven, know why you do things because knowing why and what is more important than hows and of course you have to define how because of road map, your execution plan, in other words, your action plan to achieve important goals are also important too because without great execution, nothing really matters. - jason, thanks for leading us to some great information about leadership. - thank you. - being a good leader doesn't mean just being the person ordering everyone else around. in fact, many people say that the best leaders have a talent for not making people feel like they're not being led. for teen kids news, i'm amelia. - coming up, i'm going to tell you how one kid's sports' blog is a home run. - [announcer] closed captioning is brought to you by. - while a lot of kids play sports, not too many write about them, let alone professionally. scott reports on a teen who does both. - [scott] when he was 12 years old, matt nadel decided to start a blog about baseball. - the reason i started that is because a lot of people in my school, when i talked about baseball history, they didn't really know about it. so i decided to teach them baseball history with a blog. - [scott] at the age of 15, matt's blog not only has over 125,000 followers, but he is also one of the youngest sports writers ever. matt thinks this success is due to one thing, history. - i guess sports bloggers usually talk about current stuff, and i think what makes me unique is i talk about history and i have my own spin off of it which is just giving my opinion and talking about what i like to talk about. (upbeat music) - [scott] not content with his success, matt has also started a video blog channel on youtube under his name matt nadel. - hey baseball fans, matt nadel here, baseball with matt, live from springfield, new jersey at the newly renovated baseball with matt studio. it's basically just me giving information maybe about baseball history. it's usually stuff about current baseball. prediction number one being massahiro tanaka, the newly acquired pitcher from japan by the new york yankees will have a very good 2014 pitching season. - [scott] through his blog, matt has actually been able to interview some of baseball's greatest players. as well as some people who are just as big baseball fans as he is. - red sox all-star fred lynn. pitching hall of famer jim palmer for the baltimore orioles. hank aaron, bob gibson, goose gossage, ricky henderson. i also got to interview phil niekro and rollie fingers. why do you think the statistic of the save was added to the mlb in 1967? - i think just something to give relief pitchers a statistic to-- - [scott] if that isn't enough, matt has also gotten to interview movie star billy crystal and former president george w. bush. - of course their former or current jobs weren't necessarily about baseball but george bush used to own the texas rangers, billy crystal's a huge yankee fan and so, both of which were great conversations to have. - [scott] along with his blog, and video blog, matt wrote a book titled amazing aaron to zero zippers about the as to zs of baseball history. - and basically it's an alphabet book, so it's 26 chapters, they're basically letters of just any aspect of baseball history. whether it be a player, a team, a moment, a stadium, an era. - [scott] with the help of summer games books, matt plans to donate all of the proceeds to charities having to do with baseball. - those four charities are the jackie robinson foundation, the lou gehrig foundation for als patients, the hall of fame's charity and then derek jeter's turn 2 foundation. - although he might be a yankee fan at heart, matt is really just a fan of baseball. (cheering) clearly a kid with a bright future ahead of him. if you wanna check out matt's blog, you can go to baseballwithmatt.blogspot.com or for his video blog, search matt nadel on youtube. - next on teen kids news, fool proof tips on proofreading, we'll be right back. - christin's back with another make the grade report. - when you hand in a paper, you might not get the grade you want if you miss an important step because the difference between an a and a c can be a p, p for proofreading. yes, i know that computers have little red lines that alert us to misspellings but you can't rely on that. let's say you typed i reed a book a week. unless you're using papyrus which is actually a reed, you misspell reed but your computer probably won't catch that. however your teacher will. as for auto-correcting, sometimes it's helpful but sometimes it's not. first of all, when the computer auto-corrects a misspelled word, it often ends up substituting a wrong word. sometimes you weren't even at fault. before you finish typing the word, the auto correct guessed at what you intended to write and finished it for you. unfortunately the computer got it wrong. sure you can deal with that problem by disabling your auto-correct but the best way to make sure what you wrote is correct is to carefully proofread. here are some tips. print what you wrote. most of us find it easier to proof on paper than on the computer screen. read very slowly, look at one word at a time, and if possible, read out loud. i know that sounds like a lot of effort, but experts say our brains actually make it hard for us to catch our mistakes. we tend to see what we think we wrote instead of what's really on the page. the best proof that proofreading works is to give it a try. i'm christin, here to help you make the grade. - 50 us states, 50 state flags, each one with its own unique history. here's eric with flag facts. - in 1910, a national rifle competition was held in ohio, that's when the members of arizona's rifle team realized they were the only ones without a state flag. but then arizona wasn't a state yet, that would take another two years. in 1912, arizona became our 48th state, the last in the continental us to join the country and finally arizona got its flag. - arizona is one of my favorite flags. actually the last five states added to the union, used very simplistic, distinctive designs and arizona's one of those. it's known as the copper star flag because copper mining was so popular in arizona. - [eric] arizona still produces more copper than any other state in the nation but it's also known for its magnificent natural beauty. - [randy] since arizona's in the west, there's a reference to the setting sun with 13 beams of sunlight. the number 13 is chosen as a reference to the original 13 colonies. - the beams are red and gold like the arizona sunset but they are also the colors of the spanish conquistadors, arizona's first european visitors. beneath the rays, a large field of blue represents loyalty. by the way, arizona is sometimes called the valentine state because it was admitted to the union on february 14th. with flag facts, i'm eric. - the lowly nap has gotten a bad rap. sayings like, he was caught napping give the impression that the napper was somehow at fault. but experts now say that napping has a lot of advantages including making you more resistant to colds. to be effective, you have to nap correctly. it's recommended you only nap for about 20 minutes. if you doze off for much longer than that, you'll sleep too deeply. rather than waking up refreshed, you'll feel tired and groggy. so set an alarm, find some place quiet and zone out for just a bit more than a quarter hour. more than that, and your nap may turn into a mishap. - it's time for another important message brought to you by the national road safety foundation. (chattering) - [girl] cool party. - what do you guys wanna drink? - can i have a head on collision with a concussion twist? (tire squealing) (glass shattering) - make mine a fatal accident with no survivors. (glass shattering) (siren wailing) - [girl] and you? - a designated driver please, you know, just a bottle of water. - awesome. - you're a lifesaver. - i'll show you how a b, an l and a t spell delicious, my quick and easy recipe when teen kids news continues. don't go away. for those interested in becoming a chef or working in food services. so when they come up with a recipe, you know it's going to be good. let's see what's cooking this week. - the blt, it's a simple yet delicious sandwich and for a healthier option, you can use low fat mayo or turkey bacon, let's get started. first what you'll need of course is the most important, the b in our recipe, the bacon. i've laid a few pieces out here on a sheet tray that we'll get back to later. the l is the lettuce, i've used a little bit of boston bib lettuce because it's my favorite on a blt, of course you can use whatever lettuce you prefer. the next is the tomato. i've got a big red tomato here. they come out best during the summer. i've got olive oil mayo, it's a healthier alternative to regular mayo. two slices of whole wheat toast. but let's go back to that bacon. i've put 'em on the sheet tray here to cook 'em in the oven, you want to pre-heat your oven to about 350 degrees. place it in the oven and cook for about 15 minutes. that looks delicious. take it out of the oven and allow it to cool a little bit. next we're gonna take the bread, we're gonna add a little mayo. i'm just gonna spread it evenly on both sides of the toast. of course you can use whatever bread you like. some people use white. next we're gonna add the lettuce. just enough so it covers the toast and then the fresh bacon. we wanna do it quickly so the bacon doesn't cool off. i'm just gonna use two slices here. you can either save the rest later or eat it on its own like i do. next is the tomato. and then the top part of the toast. that looks nice, let's cut it. voila, homemade blt. it's delicious, never have three little letters tasted so good. at the culinary institute of america, and for teen kids news, i'm fletch. - do dogs really look like their owners or do owners look like their dogs? either way the answer is maybe so. a study found people were remarkably successful matching photos of dog owners to the breed they owned. if you own a poodle, seems there's something in your face that says poodle. (upbeat music) - this report is brought to you by allstate. for most of us, the holiday season is our favorite time of the year. presents, no school and lots of time to spend with family and friends. but the holidays also bring some dangers that we all need to be aware of. joining us to discuss this is steve sorenson. he's from allstate, hi steve. - hi, how are you? - i'm great, just so we're all on the same page, steve, what is allstate? - allstate's an insurance company. we provide insurance for your auto and home and other things that are important in your life. - okay, so i guess when it comes to home safety, you guys are experts. - we do know a lot and we survey people every year to learn more. this year we had a survey and learned a lot of things about what's important to do to prepare your home for the holidays. - many of us will be setting up a christmas tree in our homes, so what do we need to know about that? - if you're setting up a christmas tree in your home and you're gonna light that tree, you wanna make sure that you don't overload a socket with too many lights. you also wanna make sure that you put it in a place that maybe isn't close to the fire place. a lot of times, we wanna have fires in that kind of ambiance in the home this time of year and you just have to make sure you don't put a tree or other decorations that are too close to the fire. - why should we be careful about what we put on social media during the holidays? - social media is something that all of us use now. what's interesting is as this is a time a lot of us travel, we'll go to a relative's home, we might go to a fun destination. we like to go on social media and let everybody know what we're doing. but what we're also doing when we do that is we let people know we're not home. that's an invitation for a lot of people that might see that to take some of the good things valuable things that we have in our homes. - i guess having gifts delivered to our door, could be another giveaway to thieves. - more of us do our shopping for the holidays online and those gifts come to our houses and our apartments and if they stack up outside, again, it's an invitation for someone to come by and help themselves to some of those great things that we've ordered. what we'd recommend is that you make sure you plan those deliveries for a time when someone can be home. if you can't, make sure that you arrange to have them delivered to a friend's house or your parents might have them delivered to work. but make sure that you deliver it to somebody that is actually gonna physically be there. - good advice, where can people get more info on avoiding holiday hazards? - if you want more information, there's a great website. it's allstate.com/holidaydecorator. there's some great information on there for things you can do to be safe around the holidays because it's important that you and your home or apartment are safe this time of year. - thanks for all the great information, steve. - yeah, you bet, it's great to be with you today. - the best present i can think of is having a safe holiday. for teen kids news, i'm emily. - that's our show for this week, but be sure to tune in again next week for more teen kids news, bye. (upbeat music) - [announcer] write to us at [email protected]. alex: coming next, helping to understand the habits of hibernating critters. plus, saving wild horses. and a small deer is stuck on ice. this is "animal rescue." [captioning made possible by telco productions, inc]