How to Ace Any Beauty Pageant Question!

This question has a very simple answer. "Give the RIGHT answer". One must dissect what goes on in pageants in order to understand my answer. Having participated in just one pageant, I am not an expert on this subject, but based on my experience this is the right answer (pun intended) to the question posed in the title.

I participated in the Mrs Colorado pageant at the ripe "young" age of 44. I had recently gone through a long and arduous fight against breast cancer and felt I had a lot to give other women who were fighting this same fight. Having a modeling and image background, a beauty pageant was a comfortable venue for me to go into. As I prepped for the pageant I was told that my score would be based on three things:

1. the strength of my marriage

2. my interview with the judges

3. my general poise and stage presence

The weekend of the pageant arrived and I found myself competing with gals who could be my daughters. I quickly became aware that even though this was called a "Mrs" beauty pageant it was truly just a beauty pageant with a marriage pre-requisite and therefore allowed for a larger age range than most pageants.

As the live portion of the pageant was winding down, one by one the top ten names were read and mine was not one of them. (FYI: I did find out later that I was ranked 15th out of the fifty participants. Not bad for my first, and only, pageant.)

This left me free to watch the ten remaining women as a spectator. As each answered their individual questions I was bit disappointed at the shallowness of some of the answers - and, then I was surprised as those with the most shallow questions advanced to the final five. However, it was the final question and the answers to that question that left me stunned at who was crowned Mrs Colorado that year.

The final question was: "What have you learned about yourself this weekend that will make you the best Mrs Colorado?"

I had come into the pageant with an agenda. I was ready to take the state by storm and tell women that - despite a deadly disease like breast cancer that ravages the body and a women's identity - you are beautiful inside and out and should live each day with gusto. However, as I had listened to the gal's stories throughout the weekend I had realized that I had no better reason to be Mrs Colorado than any of the others. We were all special women with individual life struggles, from infertility to disease to broken relationships - and the list goes on. Sitting there watching these last five contestants I silently answered that question this way. "I have learned that I am no better or deserving of being Mrs Colorado than any of these other wonderful contestants and that is why I am ready to be Mrs Colorado. I believe I can now represent our state in an unbiased and selfless way".

To my chagrin the women who won answered the question with this simple, right answer. "I have learned that I am ready to be Mrs Colorado".

I had a fan rooting for me that evening in the crowd who was a former Miss Colorado. When I expressed my surprise and dismay at the answer given by the newly crowned Mrs Colorado, this friend told me she had given the right answer. They wanted only to hear that she knew she had it within herself to be a winner.

By now, I am sure you can tell I am not a big fan of beauty pageants. They do have some good qualities and some gals really do learn and grow from the experience - unfortunately, I do not believe that is the generally the case. You have to play the "game", doing things the judges way and answering questions the way they want. Reflecting on the weekend of the pageant I realized I had not even known there was a game I was supposed to be playing to win - and if I had, I would not have been willing to be a player.

If you can play the game AND be true to yourself and your beliefs - go for it! Get in there and make each pageant you enter a better place and when you win, share yourself and your beliefs openly as you represent your city, county, state, country or world.

Just know that to ace any beauty pageant question... you must know the RIGHT answer and be willing to give it when asked.