Beauty Isn’t “One Size Fits All”

When it comes to the pageant stage or the stage of life, we need to remember that beauty isn’t a one size fits all type of mold. Each of us needs to create our own definition of beauty so we don’t allow society to dictate to us their standards. When I began my fitness journey, I was apprehensive about walking into a gym because I felt self-conscious. Its interesting that the gym is supposed to be a place where we can build our self-confidence by transforming ourselves, yet walking into this place of transformation is often terrifying- much like a pageant stage is. Both the gym and the stage push us out of our comfort level and force us to reach for courage we never thought we had.

We fear being judged in the gym, on the pageant stage, and on the stage of life. It is astounding that often the voices of strangers canker us in the corner of our own fears, but transformation is about listening to one voice…. your own. I spent the first two weeks hearing strangers comment that I didn’t need to be in the gym because I was “already too skinny.” One person even went as far as to continue telling me that I was going to wither up and blow away if I worked out. Mind you, this person never even met me! My response was no response. I literally ignored all of those people who were making unsolicited comments about my fitness journey and remained focused on my program.

The more focused I remained, the less I heard the voices of negativity around me. This was exactly the way I competed when I was in pageants, by remaining so focused on my end goal that I didn’t listen to the sounds of the negative voices around me. In order to achieve any lofty goal, we need to be so focused on the end result, that we tune out the sounds of the world around us. Had I listened to the opinions of complete strangers attempting to convince me of their definition of “beauty,” I would have never remained dedicated to my once pageant goals and now fitness goals. God blessed each of us with a perfect genetic makeup so we can all embrace our beauty. We don’t need to all be a size 2 or a size 14 in order to be beautiful.

Our role in life is to embrace the body we were blessed with and treat it like the temple of God is was created to be. Look at your body as a house. Within your house there are rooms for your mind and soul, and we should create a sacred space for each of those. Your beauty consists of your mind, body, and soul so never allow another person to define what these elements should look like. If you are comparing yourself to the images you see on the social media, television, or magazine, keep in mind that these images are filtered and photo-shopped. If these beautiful models and role models need to be enhanced through technology, then we as a society need to learn to define our own beauty inside and out.

Take control of your destiny today and define your own standards of beauty and fitness goals. Prepare your mind to win by competing against yourself and strive to become a better version of yourself than you were the day before. Your destiny is in your own hands, and you don’t need to adopt the illusion another person is attempting to make you believe when they whisper words of negativity into your ear. You own your destiny, so climb your highest miracle mountain and don’t stop until you get to the top! I believe in you. For more tips on how to achieve your goals, order Preparing the Mind to Win!

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

Finding Fitness – Who Are You Competing With?

by Suzy Pageant Coach

When it comes to fitness in pageantry and in life, how are you pushing yourself and who are you competing with? When I competed in pageantry, I realized although I was blessed with good genetics and a healthy nutritional diet it was difficult for me to put on muscle. My fitness routines usually included running, running, and a little more running after that. I transitioned from shorter distances to half-marathons because it was easy for me to use my long legs to reach distance. However, I soon realized I had grown into my comfort zone through my course of running and stopped challenging myself.

Since my body frame is tall and thin, I soon realized that running wasn’t the best way for me to build muscle. As a matter of fact, the cardio I was doing daily was counteracting my fitness goals. I was losing muscle because I was doing too much cardio and not taking in enough calories. Whoever said that ignorance is bliss was highly mistaken!!! Since I had become accustom to being in a certain pattern of thinking, I understood that I needed to hire a trainer to teach me how to think differently when it came to fitness. My trainer also educated me on the importance of building muscle for the protection of my bones, my over body strength, and the level of fitness I eventually wanted to achieve.

As you are preparing for your upcoming pageant or fitness goals, be sure you are working with an expert in the field who understands your genetic makeup and doesn’t do a “one size fits all” program with your fitness. As a matter of fact, there is no “one size fits all” since we are all built differently. Your pageant and fitness goals should push you into competing against yourself rather than competing with another person. We can become our greatest challengers when it comes to any goal. If we look at the world around us then we risk believing we are supposed to look a certain way in order to be considered beautiful. Each of us are created in a beautiful and perfect form and how we treat ourselves mind, body, and soul allows us to appreciate ourselves and grow into the confidence level we want to achieve.

By competing against yourself, you are able to become a better version of who you were the day before. You will soon realize the ability your body has to adapt to a strength training program and maximize your fitness goals to a level you probably didn’t realize you were capable of achieving. Your fitness goals take time, but you need to begin today. Research your trainers, communicate to them your specific fitness goals, and realize that your fitness journey is a marathon and not a sprint. To better learn how to prepare your mind to achieve any of your goals, order my book Preparing the Mind to Win.

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

Are You Competing for Your Pageant or Aligning with it?

by Suzy Pageant Coach

Are you competing for your pageant title or aligning with it? I think it would be safe to say that most people associate pageantry, fitness competitions, and any perceived contest as a large part having to do with luck. After all, if one doesn’t understand the world of competition, then it would appear that those contestants vying for a single pageant title or a fitness contest need a great deal of luck and skill to win their contest. Yet ask another person who has understood the process of “winning” any competition and they will more than likely inform you that they connected to the win long before the arrived at the competition. How? By understanding the process of creating their experience before they even arrived at the competition.

When I competed in pageantry and before winning the Mrs. International Pageant, I used the law of attraction to my benefit. Every night before I went to bed I would visualize myself walking on the International Pageant stage and would detail every part of my experience to make it as real as possible for myself. I would also use my senses to connect with the experience so I would visualize feeling the hot stage lights on my face, I would hear the applause of the audience, and feel the touch of the stage underneath my feet. This process took time and deliberate intention because I had never won an international pageant before. So I had to pull from prayer and the art of creating the experience so I would be able to convince my brain that it was real enough for me.

Every night I visualized the experience, I was able to take the details one step further and deepen the connection between myself and this dream until I realized it didn’t feel foreign to me anymore. I knew what the lights felt like, what the audience sounded like, and what the crown felt like when it was placed on my head. My mind had experienced these thoughts and emotions enough where by the time I arrived to the International Pageant, I already felt as if I won. My brain couldn’t decipher the difference between the “illusion” of visualizing these details to the reality it had not yet happened. So… I arrived at the pageant and six days later was crowned the winner.

Keep in mind that I did not only rely on creating the connection of my competition win through my thoughts and emotions, but I worked daily towards perfecting my actions. Every day I practiced my interview skills in front of the mirror and recorded my answers so I could hear the influx and delivery in my own voice. Every day I would walk in my pageant heels and practice my poses and transitions so the were effortless. I didn’t rely only on the law of attraction to connect to the win, I worked for it daily through my actions and through prayer and conversations with God.

In order to align with a dream that once appeared so intangible I needed to understand my “why” enough so I could be authentic and speak to the judges in an honest and transparent way. In order to push myself out of my comfort zone, I needed to know why God wanted me on this journey and how he was going to use me to inspire another. The reason then is the same reason today I am an International Pageant coach. God used me to share with the world that we have more control over our dreams than we once thought. What are you doing to align with your dreams? Whether you are walking the pageant stage or the stage of life, reach deeper than you ever have and align with your destiny mind, body, and soul. Let me show you how!

For more pageant and competition books, order the book Creating Queens Secrets in Pageantry and the corresponding Creating Queens Workbook.

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

How to Win a Pageant? It’s all in the Details!

by Suzy Pageant Coach

The best way to prepare for winning a pageant or any competition comes down to the details. As creatures of habit we tend to repeat the same patterns of behavior and wonder why we are getting the same results. We watch other pageant winners succeed and create our journey through the limited knowledge that we have about their preparation. As a pageant coach I have heard many contestants blame their lack of pageant success on the color of dress they wore, their hairstyle, and even their accent! The bottom line comes down to the preparation in the details. Ask yourself how deep you created the connection to your goal as you were preparing externally? In other words, did you cover the mental details of placing yourself on the stage and counting paces, holding the seconds as you looked each judge in the eyes, and even transitioning your poses?

While you were in the process of running at the gym, were you mentally covering every detail of your pageant preparation down to the most minute glance, shrug, and smile? Or did you like many other contestants, rely on being pretty and having a great personality? Believe it or not, many contestants including myself have mastered the art of mental preparation when it comes to their pageant. Whether you are standing on the stage with ten or 110 contestants, you must cover the details with every area of your scoring so you can ensure you present yourself in the most consistent and solid performance that will carry you from preliminary to the final competition.

While the other contestants were standing backstage during rehearsals or pageant night, were you chatting with them or were you in your head reviewing your performance on a mental level? The art of winning pageants or any perceived competition is created in the details of the experience. I teach my clients to compete always being at least two steps ahead of their performance. They don’t rely on just “winging” it but have reviewed the entire on-stage performance from opening number, to swimsuit or fitness, and then to evening gown. I can ask them at any point what they were thinking when they were on stage and the majority will tell me their mind was thinking ahead of their body so they knew where to stand and how to compete at their best.

If you want to know what it feels like to be in control of how you execute your competition then you need to prepare in the details of every aspect of your pageant journey. Just like it is important to know what separates you from other contestants in the interview room, you also need to know what separates you from other contestants on-stage. Do you have a certain style of walk or are you playing it safe and just trying not to fall off your pageant heels? Can you transition smoothly from one pose into another effortlessly or are you counting in your head and looking blankly at the judges because you are too much in your own head to be present in the moment? Details are the keys that separate the winners from the rest of the contestant, so cover your details now before you even get to your next pageant. I can walk you step by step to your next competitive level, so contact me and I will help you prepare!

For more winning tips, read Creating Queens Secrets in Pageantry and the corresponding Creating Queens Workbook.

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

Five Easy Steps to Mastering a Winning Pageant Interview

by Suzy Pageant Coach

When I competed in pageantry, I attempted to only enter competitions that included 50% of the interview as the total scoring. Why? With almost 17 years of sales and marketing under my belt, I always knew how to win a pageant interview. I realized that if I could sell “air” for a living then I could sell an idea in a Judges Interview room. Then as a pageant coach I taught my clients the art of selling in pageantry and they too began winning the Judges Interview as well as many of their local, state, national, and international pageants! The best way to simplify the sales process is to use 5 easy steps that will get you more comfortable…

Know Your Product! In pageantry you the contestant are the product, and you need to know how to sell yourself. Since pageantry is a me, myself, and I competition then the only person you should be focusing on learning about is yourself. When you find yourself getting interested in stalking other contestants on the social media to see what they are doing, change your perspective into focusing on yourself again. In a few short minutes, your skills need to be effortless and authentic so practice selling yourself in 15, 30, and 60 seconds.
Know How to Master the Interview “Open:” If you can get comfortable leading an interview, then your skills will reflect in your judges scores. The most effective pageant interview is about allowing the judges into the window of your soul without getting to walk through the front door. By knowing how to begin your open with a “Tell Me About Yourself” story then you can learn to lead the interview effortlessly and still allow the judges to feel like they are in control.
Know How to “Close” Your Pageant Interview: How you end your interview is as important as how strong you begin. Knowing how to lead the interview without appearing as if you are taking control allows you to share information that you may not otherwise get to share. Consider that your “close” is the final statement your judges hear before you walk away from their chair and their pen hits the paper to score you. Also, you want to leave a memorable impression so you can have the judges remember you even when another contestant sits in the same chair and asks for the job you are applying for as a titleholder.
Have a Strong Pre-Sell: One thing I learned in sales and marketing is the stronger your pre-sell with your judges, the easier it is to close the deal. Understanding the key points to any effective pre-sell will allow you to build a connection with your judges before even meeting them. Mastering your pageant interview techniques is more than just selecting the right wardrobe. It is about understanding how to connect with a group of strangers with the least amount of time possible. How are your pre-sell techniques?
Be Proactive: Part of mastering your pageant interview is to learn to be proactive when it comes to communication. As a pageant coach I often hear contestants tell me the reason they didn’t do well in their last competition was because the judges didn’t ask questions of substance, or the “right” questions. “If only they would have asked me about…” is something I often hear. This tells me that the contestant approached her pageant interview from a reactive frame of mind. Knowing certain things you want to share in the interview allows you to take control over some questions that you may feel are irrelevant or lacking substance.

Are you ready to push yourself out of your comfort zone and learn winning pageant techniques? I can walk you step by step to your next competitive level, so contact me and I will help you prepare!

For more pageant tips, read the book the winners have read; Creating Queens Secrets in Pageantry and the corresponding Creating Queens Workbook.

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

The Art of Winning Pageants Using the Law of Attraction

by Suzy Pageant Coach

The art of winning pageants using the law of attraction allows us to paint the picture of our journey and use every detail possible to connect to the unseen. If you could create the experience of winning before you even stepped foot on the stage, would you do this? What if I told you that I used the Law of Attraction to win my state, national, and international pageant titles? I harnessed the power of my thoughts, emotions, and actions to create the win before I stepped foot on the stage, and you can too! Our mind is capable of creating so many amazing experiences, yet we limit ourselves to what we see. Use your pageant journey to push yourself beyond your own self-imposed limitations and push your mind to create experiences you once dreamed of.

“Realize that your role as a successful contestant is not to convince the world around you that you deserve to win a pageant. Your role as a co-creator in life is to convince yourself that you are worthy of creating the experience without the approval or permission from another person. If you realized the power you have within yourself to create so many dreams you would spend less time entertaining yourself on the social media and more time harnessing your energy to reward yourself. We are not taught this in schools or even home because we watch our parents struggle to care for our family and learn we have to create our lives much like they did, and their parents before them.

Learn to replace the voices of approval from the world outside of you by listening to your own voice. So many contestants desire to win a pageant and use opportunities to make a difference. They want to have their voices heard and impact the life of another person, yet so often these same contestants fail to hear their own voices. They allow the world of pageantry and the illusion of perfection to define them. When you realize that you can live in a world of possibilities then you can identify your greatest dream. What would you do to create that dream one thought at a time. How would you shift your concern of getting approval from another person to validating yourself?

The greatest gift you can bestow to yourself for your next pageant is to create the ultimate goal of your journey today by being as detailed as possible. Use every ounce of passion that you have to be so focused you allow nothing to create the illusion of fear in your mind. Your thoughts are your most powerful tool because your emotions and actions follow your thoughts. Guard them carefully and understand the road to your own greatness is often a journey you travel alone. It does not mean that you have to be lonely, rather you just get to create your own definition of success and what it means in your life today. Shift your perception from lack to already having that goal and you will see it eventually come into your experience just as you created it to be.

Utilize the talents of people in your industry who you connect with and want to emulate. Learn from your perceived failures and most importantly, never allow fear to create a wall between you and your dreams. Fear is an illusion that once identified can be used to turn your pain into power. You hold the key that unlocks the door to where you are today and where you ultimately want to be at the end of your goal. Are you going to stand by and watch others walk through their doors and live vicariously through them? Or are you going to have the courage to realize that as a child of the Divine abundance of any dream you desire is not only your gift but your birthright.” – Excerpt from Preparing the Mind to Win

Are you ready to push yourself out of your comfort zone and learn winning pageant techniques? I can walk you step by step to your next competitive level, so contact me and I will help you prepare!

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

Winning the Pageant Interview – Are You Memorable?

by Suzy Pageant Coach

As you prepare for winning your upcoming pageant interview, have you mastered the art of selling yourself as the person for the job? If you don’t believe you are the best person for the role you are applying for, then the judges won’t believe it either. Everyday I tell my clients that the only person I need to convince is the winner of the pageant is the client themselves… not the judges. The best salesperson believes in their product and in the exemplary service they provide. Once they believe what they are selling, then the sales process is effortless and the close is easy. So ask yourself, how are you at mastering the process of selling yourself to a group of strangers that you only have moments to connect with?

Being memorable is about knowing the details that separate you from people around you. This appears to be an easy process, yet ask yourself how many times you have heard contestants in pageantry define themselves through the same descriptive words the majority are using. For example, these are just a few words and phrases I have heard repeatedly in pageantry…

Passionate
Dedicated
Hard-Working
People -Person or I love People
I didn’t choose my platform – it chose me.
I want to win because I am a great role model
Use the title as a voice or as a megaphone

The list could cover the entire page, so if you have or are currently using these words or phrases then realize you are in the majority. It becomes more difficult to stand out among a group of contestants if your interview sounds just like theirs does. So, how do you master the art of selling yourself and your services? Through practice, practice, and more practice. In fact your practice should be so good that it now sounds authentic and spontaneous. Knowing what to share and how to share your interview are the keys to being memorable in the interview room. For more winning pageant and competition tips, read Creating Queens Secrets in Pageantry and the corresponding Creating Queens Workbook.

Are you ready to push yourself out of your comfort zone and learn winning pageant techniques? I can walk you step by step to your next competitive level, so contact me and I will help you prepare!

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

Preparing Your Mind to Win a Pageant is about Embracing Your Gifts!

by Suzy Pageant Coach

The most effective way to prepare your mind to win a pageant or competition is to embrace your uniqueness and do something different than the average contestant is doing. This will make you even more memorable and allow you to be authentic to yourself and showcase your personality! Understanding what makes you unique and what gifts you have to offer allow you to embrace yourself on this journey through the world of perceived competition.

Being a greater version of yourself allows you to continue growing and honoring yourself and your Creator while still connecting to others around you who are also searching to express their greater vision. I don’t believe we were meant to be duplicates of others, but instead own our unique gifts and attributes whether they are physical or spiritual. You need to give yourself permission to be great in your own eyes because so often we are the only people holding ourselves back from embracing our journey into that greatness.

In the world of pageantry or any perceived competition, I work with contestants whose greatest fear is not actually losing the pageant but winning the pageant they are competing in. There is something to be said about having a fear of being different because it separates us from the approval of the masses. I have learned from first-hand experience and teach my clients every day that the higher you succeed in any industry, especially pageantry, the more you become a target to those who want to see you fall. Not because of anything personal about you, but because you mirror something within them they have not yet embraced. It becomes uncomfortable for some people to watch you grow into a more confident and comfortable version of yourself, because they may not have yet granted themselves permission to do the same. Whether people love you or hate you, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with how they feel about themselves. If you remember this, you will allow the love of your desire to become better than you are today, to outweigh the fear of the unknown. – Excerpt from Preparing the Mind to Win.

Are you ready to push yourself out of your comfort zone and learn winning pageant techniques? I can walk you step by step to your next competitive level, so contact me and I will help you prepare!

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

Prepare your Mind to Win Your Pageant – Not Just Compete In It.

by Suzy Pageant Coach

When I competed at my state pageant before getting to compete at the Mrs. International Pageant, I literally didn’t tell anyone but my husband. The months and weeks prior to my competing, I was very focused on creating my emotional experience before I even walked into the orientation room on a Friday evening pageant weekend. I will never forget running to the ladies bathroom at the office where I worked at 5:10pm because I wanted to ensure that everyone had left the office, and on Friday that was a safe bet.

I quickly changed and applied my pageant makeup and hair in time to drive three blocks down the street where my state pageant was having their orientation. As I snuck out of the ladies room dressed in my beautiful orientation suit and heels, I briskly walked down the hallway where I heard a voice shout of someone’s office, “Hey where are you going all dressed up?” My response without slowing down before my hand pushed the front door open was, “I’m going to compete in a pageant…bye!”

When I walked into work Monday morning, there were a group of women standing in front of our Program Director’s office and they all smiled at me as I nonchalantly walked down the hallway towards them. I was pretending that it was just another Monday morning, but the smiles they had on their faces let me know that the cat was out of the bag and half the office heard that I had competed in a pageant that weekend. One of the ladies piped up and asked, “So….you entered a pageant this weekend? How did you do? The smile that showed my thrill was finally revealed and I told them I had won. The very first question was, why I didn’t tell anyone I was competing.

For me the risk was too great because I knew that I had the power to create my dream through my own thoughts, emotions, and actions and I didn’t want to risk anyone’s negativity dimming my light. It was too important to me, which is why I had worked so hard on a mental level that by my state pageant that weekend I knew I was going to do well because I knew in advance the emotions I had wanted to create, and through my own control was able to provide that experience for myself without the permission of the five judges. I knew that I was working on creating an emotion that would finally begin to empower me after losing my mom to breast cancer only two years prior. It had nothing to do with a crown or banner, and everything to do with believing in faith once again, and allowing my soul to heal on a level that at that time only pageantry could take me through.

In order to create the experience in the physical world, I knew that I had to be courageous enough to stand face to face with something that broke my spirit and allow myself to heal so I could empower myself and others. Being brave doesn’t mean that you have to go about creating your dream alone, but it does represent the amount of resistance that you can withstand if another person attempts to dissuade you from believing in yourself. After all, our dreams are a part of us and if we do not believe in them then we are in essence telling ourselves that we do not believe in what we are capable of. – Excerpt from Preparing the Mind to Win

Are you ready to push yourself out of your comfort zone and learn winning pageant techniques? I can walk you step by step to your next competitive level, so contact me and I will help you prepare!

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

Prepare your Mind to Win a Pageant by Defining the Job

by Suzy Pageant Coach

Being involved in the world of pageantry for so long, I know that not every contestant who enters a pageant wants to win it. She may be using it to develop her self-esteem, to create relationships with herself and others who share a bond with her, or maybe just to get one step closer to ultimately creating the experience she has lined up after the pageant. There is a responsibility that goes into winning a pageant, and oftentimes these responsibilities are very much like having a job. The problem is that so many contestants just see the outside of the journey through the photos that are posted on the social media and think that is all that the job requires.

How many contestants actually enter a pageant competition where they truly understand the full job description? Yet so often there is no written description covering all of the roles she will play throughout her year. Instead of researching it, she goes into it completely unwilling to explore the job or understand the expectations and then halfway through her year begins having feelings of disappointment. This is why I believe that very few contestants actually enter a pageant fully preparing to win. Because they don’t take the time to understand what the job requires and how they can fully be the best employee for their Director and the system.

When you interview for a job at work, don’t you ask questions as to what the role and responsibility is of the applicant if they hire you? Of course you are expected to dress nicely for the part and meet new people throughout your course of representing that company, but what goes into the job role behind the obvious? Learning as much as you can about the role you will be playing in the business of pageantry is just as important in getting the job as it is for any position you want to get hired for. The candidate with the best ability to fill this job is the person who will get hired, so don’t you owe it to yourself to connect with the role you want to create on a level of mind, body, and soul? – Excerpt from Preparing Your Mind to Win

Are you ready to push yourself out of your comfort zone and learn winning pageant techniques? I can walk you step by step to your next competitive level, so contact me and I will help you prepare!

Live Inspired Miracle Workers!

Author: Suzy