Confessions of a Pageant King

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There seems to be a lot of people feeling lost right now. Myself included.

Even if you take the crazy world of pageantry out of the equation for a second, we seem to be increasingly living in a world where no-one knows what’s going to be happening tomorrow, let alone in five or ten years from now.

Add to that the ever increasing price of living and the fact that we seem hopelessly divided on issues such as politics, religion, climate change, and AI, is it really any wonder that many of us are feeling a bit lost?

I work a lot with teenagers and young women, many of whom are finishing up high school or college and are wondering what’s supposed to come next in life.

Side note: I always thought it was ridiculous that you were somehow supposed to choose a college degree that would determine the direction of the rest of your life when you were just seventeen or eighteen and had literally no idea what the real world was actually about. Just me?

I don’t know about you, but I was never asked in school or in college what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I was definitely never asked about my goals or given a plan as to how to find a fulfilling career.

Instead, what I do remember is having to attend early morning classes where the lecturer would simply read their notes from the projector out loud, making me wonder why I couldn’t simply have read them myself at home and saved myself an early morning wakeup time. I also remember taking a math class on n-dimensional calculus and being unable to figure out what was wrong with just the three dimensional world I thought we all lived in.

So let me ask you a question. It’s the same one I’ve been asking of myself and many of my clients recently:

What do you want your life to look like?

* How would you describe a perfect day?

* What do you love doing?

* What do you hate doing?

As many of you know, I just got back from Miss USA in Miami, Florida. It might surprise you to know that I spent very little time playing tourist, and instead spent a lot of time reading. Not so much because I love reading, but because I felt I needed new ideas and new perspectives.

In fact, that was why I wanted to fly halfway around the world to go to Miss USA in the first place. I knew that being immersed in that environment would help me determine what direction to take next and what I wanted the next phase of my life to look like.

After all, pageantry is many things, but it is rarely boring. Many are yearning for it to return to its glory days when it dominated the airwaves and titleholders were household names.

Call me a cynic, but that’s never going to happen.

Pageantry is now firmly a niche hobby. It will always have its audience because it’s been such an important part of the cultural fabric of countries such as the USA for so long, but the central problem for the industry, at least recently, has been its struggle to maintain relevancy after the ‘pretty girls in bikinis’ era ended.

It’s tried many things, but nothing’s really landed, not in terms of capturing the public’s imagination anyway.

So what do we do when the industry we’ve dedicated so much of our toil to is struggling? When the public is still largely confused as to how a married woman over the age of thirty could become Miss USA? And when the industry now seems to make front page news only when there’s been another scandal?

We sit. In silence. We think. We learn. We grow. We strategize.

We reinvent ourselves.

Just because pageantry has struggled to reinvent itself, doesn’t mean we should follow suit. Frankly, if there is a way to truly ‘future proof’ ourselves in this crazy world, it will be through reinvention, growth, and learning to get comfortable with uncertainty.

I’m not saying you need to spend thousands of dollars on a course or live as a hermit in a cave for the next twelve months. Start small.

* What’s something you’ve always wanted to learn?

* What’s a hobby you’ve always wanted to take up?

* What’s a skillset you could learn that would help you level up your health, your finances, or your relationship?

So whether you decide to take a stack of books to your next pageant like me or you decide to pursue the new and improved version of yourself in some other manner, make sure to spend some time thinking, dreaming, and envisioning:

What do you want your life to look like?

Adrian.

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

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I just returned from Miami to Sydney.

When it comes to long flights, I’ve always found returning home harder to tolerate - this time was no exception. I made the mistake of checking the flight time remaining when I was sure we were almost back home, only to find we still had eight hours left.

Anyway, I’m back, I’m jetlagged, but I’m ready to give you my first honest thoughts about my Miss USA experience.

Spoiler alert: it’s not all good, it’s not all bad, it’s somewhere in between (as are most things in life).

Did you attend in person or watch the broadcast? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the whole event - hit reply or leave a comment and let me know!

Adrian.

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

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Greetings from Miami Florida. Yes I made it. Yes it’s hot. Yes I’m still jetlagged.

I’ve been here a few days now, and one of the things that has really struck me is how intense and emotionally draining pageant week can be.

As I’m staying at the same host hotel as the girls (thanks Intercontinental Miami), I bump into someone who recognizes me almost every time I leave my room. And, even if they don’t recognize me, if I see them wearing a sash, I’m wondering whether I should introduce myself despite my jetlagged brain.

But do you need to have an unlimited social battery to win a pageant such as Miss USA?

I don’t think so.

I think it could definitely help in some situations, especially the pressure-cooker public situations, but I think there are a lot of benefits to being introverted as well.

And that’s what we’re discussing this week.

Adrian.

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

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I got sent a message the other day from someone asking about taking legal action after a bad pageant experience.

And I get it.

When you feel like someone has lied, mishandled something, treated your daughter badly, changed the rules, played favourites, failed to deliver what was promised, or simply behaved in a way that feels wildly unfair, the temptation is obvious.

* You want consequences.

* You want someone to admit they were wrong.

* You want the situation fixed.

* You want justice.

The problem is that court is not really about justice in the emotional sense.

Court is about law.

Sometimes those two things overlap. Sometimes the legal outcome feels fair. Other times you look at a verdict and wonder how on earth that was the result.

But if you are thinking about suing a pageant director, coach, system, contestant, or anyone else in the pageant world, you need to understand that distinction clearly.

Because “this was unfair” is not the same as “I can prove a legal case.”

And most pageant drama lives in that messy middle.

A lot of what happens in pageantry is verbal, vague, badly documented, emotionally charged, or based on expectations that were never properly written down. Sometimes there is no contract. Sometimes there is a contract, but it is written so badly it looks like someone played lawyer after three glasses of wine and a motivational quote.

That might make you think the director is easier to go after.

Maybe.

But it can also make the whole thing harder to prove.

Because if you are standing in front of a court, the question is not whether your friends think you were wronged. It is not whether your daughter was devastated. It is not whether the whole thing felt shady.

The question is much colder than that:

* What were you promised?

* Where is that promise recorded?

* What did they fail to deliver?

* What evidence do you actually have?

Not vibes. Not rumours. Not “everyone knows.”

Evidence.

And that is where many pageant grievances begin to fall apart.

I am not saying people in pageantry always behave well. They absolutely do not. I have heard enough stories behind the scenes to know there are people in this industry who operate with very loose ethics and an impressive amount of self-importance.

But bad behaviour is not automatically a winning lawsuit.

That is the part people do not want to hear.

The other part is that court is expensive, draining, slow, and often miserable. Lawyers cost money. Letters cost money. Emotional energy costs money too, even if no one sends you an invoice for that part.

And in pageantry, you have to ask a very blunt question:

What exactly are you trying to win?

* Your entry fee back?

* A refund?

* An apology?

* The crown?

Do you really want to force a director to install you as titleholder after you have taken them to court?

How do you imagine that year is going to go?

There are fringe cases where legal action may be worth considering. If you have clear, objective, black-and-white evidence that you were promised something and denied it, or you were dethroned for a factually false reason that can be proven false, then maybe you speak to a lawyer.

Maybe.

Not definitely.

Maybe.

Even then, you need money, evidence, and the temperament to go through with it. Some people are fighters. Some people can handle confrontation, industry whispers, and the nonsense that comes with standing up in a small, messy world like pageantry.

Most people cannot.

That is not an insult. It is just something you should know before you pick a fight that could consume the next year of your life.

I wish pageantry had better standards. I wish contracts were clearer, directors were more accountable, and contestants had better ways to speak honestly about bad experiences without being punished for it.

But wishing does not make it true.

So my general advice is boring, blunt, and probably not what people want to hear.

In most cases, do not sue.

Get actual legal advice if you are seriously considering it. But do not confuse being hurt with having a case. Do not confuse unfairness with illegality. And do not assume court will give you the closure pageantry failed to give you.

Sometimes the better answer is to learn the lesson, take your licks, choose a different system, and move on.

Not because what happened was okay.

Because your life is worth more than staying stuck in the muck.

Adrian

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

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It feels like it’s the peak of pageant season madness at the moment, and so there’s a good chance you’ve just finished competing, or are about to compete very soon.

And, unless you’re competing in an incredibly small pageant (or one where the winner is appointed), there’s probably more than a ninety percent chance you’re going to lose.

(Yes, in this case any result other than winning is counted as losing.)

The question I’ve been asking myself recently, after seeing some of my clients endure some very painful losses:

Is pageantry still worth it?

I know I might be in a minority of one here as far as pageant coaches go, but something doesn’t feel right about encouraging you to pour your blood, sweat, and tears into something that has such a high chance of not being worth it.

And before you get on your high horse, I’m well aware that we often say it’s about the journey and not the destination, and in pageant terms that means we should be focussed on the personal growth and connections we make.

But let’s say that you spend somewhere between five and ten thousand dollars in total on your next pageant: gown, costumes, hair, makeup, travel, coaching, training, etc.

(That’s a conservative estimate, by the way.)

In terms of the “opportunities” that pageants supposedly give us, are we really so sure that we couldn’t create more opportunities for ourselves by using that money in other ways?

* Living expenses whilst you take an unpaid internship toward your dream job

* Travelling to do missionary work

* Legal expenses to start up your non-profit

* A business coach or software expenses to start up your side hustle

We’re not living in the 2000s anymore. Your ability to create opportunity for yourself, as an individual, is greater than at any other point in human history. Between the internet, social media, and AI, you could quite literally teach yourself anything you want to know, or start a multi-million-dollar business overnight.

Against that backdrop, what is the ‘opportunity’ that pageantry can give you that you wouldn’t be able to give yourself better, faster, and probably cheaper?

For myself, there are two and only two reasons that genuinely make pageantry worth it in today’s world, not the world of twenty to thirty years ago. I allude to them in this week’s video, but the point isn’t to copy my reasons.

The point is to find your own.

And if you haven’t found them yet, keep looking.

Maybe outside of pageantry.

Adrian.

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

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ABOUT HOLLY HUBER

After competing for nearly eight years, Holly Huber brought home the Miss Alaska USA title on June 28, 2026. Hailing from Juneau, she’s the first woman from her hometown to ever don this title.

Holly’s pageant journey began when she was just two years old, taking the stage at a Sunburst Pageant in Red Lodge, Montana. Since then, she’s competed her entire life, most notably as Miss Alaska Volunteer and now, Miss Alaska USA.

Her platform, “Stay Another Day” was founded in 2016 after she came home to find her own mother had made an attempt on her life, and her efforts were proven relevant once more when, in 2020, her brother died by suicide. Holly’s efforts have been taken nationwide as she serves on the board of Directors for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She’s lobbied with both state and federal agencies to ensure that Americans get access to mental health resources freely and without judgement.

Now, she prepares to take the Miss USA stage and show everyone just what the last frontier has to offer.

FOLLOW HOLLY HUBER

👉 https://www.instagram.com/kurramaas/

👉 https://tiktok.com/@kurramaas

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

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Your edge probably isn’t where everyone else is looking

If you have just finished competing and did not get the result you wanted, there is a good chance your brain is already doing the thing pageant brains do.

Planning the return.

Maybe you are giving yourself a week. Maybe a month. Maybe you are pretending you are taking a break while quietly scheming your next move.

I can respect that.

But if you are serious about coming back better next year, think carefully about how you are going to prepare.

Because if your plan is simply to do the same prep for next year as everyone else, with the same coaches, same advice, same mocks, same walking lessons, and same recycled pageant wisdom, I have a question:

Why would that make you stand out?

Pageantry has changed. Has your prep?

The world has changed dramatically in the past five years.

Social media has changed. AI has changed. Branding has changed. Communication has changed. The way people build influence, tell stories, share ideas, and create opportunity has changed.

Pageantry is not separate from that.

So if you are still getting the same advice that was being handed out five, ten, or twenty years ago, you need to ask yourself whether that advice is still enough.

Some of it may be. Good advice is good advice.

But if your entire strategy is built around what everyone in the pageant ecosystem already knows, you are probably not building an edge.

You are building sameness.

Pageant problems do not always need pageant solutions

Need better interview? Get an interview coach.

Need better walk? Get a runway coach.

Need better wardrobe? Get a stylist.

And yes, those things can help.

But they are not the only options, and they may not be where your biggest breakthroughs come from.

If you want to get better at interview, why would you only practise pageant interview?

Start a podcast. Do straight-to-camera videos. Go live. Take acting classes. Try improv. Do public speaking.

Put yourself in situations where you have to communicate, think, adjust, recover, and hold attention in real time.

That is interview training.

You are training the skill UNDERNEATH the skill.

Do the thing that makes the pageant skill easier

A great pageant interview is not just about answering questions.

It is presence. Warmth. Timing. Listening. Storytelling. Persuasion. Self-awareness. The ability to think under pressure without becoming a robot.

You can develop those things in coaching.

But you can also develop them by hosting conversations, speaking on camera, doing theatre, performing stand-up, or learning how to keep an audience engaged.

Same with runway.

If you want a stronger walk, pageant runway coaching may help. But so might modelling. Dance. Ballet. Salsa. Anything that builds body awareness, rhythm, confidence, and comfort being seen.

If you want to become truly fluent in a language, you don’t just take one lesson a week and call it a plan.

You go live in the country for twelve months.

So why are you treating pageant prep differently?

Your coach should not be your only practice

This is where a lot of contestants get it wrong.

They say they are practising because they see their coach once a week.

That is not enough.

Coaching is not a substitute for practice. Coaching should help you see what to work on, correct what is not working, and check whether you are improving.

But the actual improvement happens in the reps you do outside coaching.

If interview scares you, do not hide inside comfortable coaching sessions. Speak on camera. Go live. Answer questions under pressure. Watch yourself back.

Learn what your face does. Learn what your voice does. Learn what happens when your heart is in your throat and you still need to communicate clearly.

That is the REAL game.

Create an overlap no one else has

The goal is not to make your practice random for the sake of being different.

The goal is to build a COMBINATION of experiences that makes you genuinely harder to compare.

Pageantry plus podcasting.

Pageantry plus modelling.

Pageantry plus acting.

Pageantry plus stand-up.

Pageantry plus sport.

Pageantry plus leadership, media, music, business, dance, advocacy, or whatever else you bring to the table.

That overlap becomes your edge.

Not because you can say, “I am unique,” which means almost nothing.

But because your preparation, confidence, presence, and perspective are coming from places your competitors may not be looking.

If you are brand new, learn the fundamentals.

But if you are already competitive and looking for the next level, stop assuming the answer is more of the same.

You will not find your edge by copying the same prep path as everyone you are trying to beat.

Try something different.

Then make it count.

Adrian.

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

We show you how to win at pageants and at life. Start your journey for free:

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ABOUT JOSEPHINE BØTTGER

Josephine Bøttger, 25, is a professional ballet dancer and childcare worker from Denmark. After moving abroad alone at 17 to pursue her ballet career, she graduated from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and later joined Junior Ballet Antwerp in Belgium.

Born with a congenital heart condition, Josephine is passionate about supporting children and families living with heart disease through her work with the Danish Heart Foundation’s Children’s Club. As Miss World Denmark, she hopes to inspire others by proving that our greatest challenges can become our greatest strength.

FOLLOW JOSEPHINE BØTTGER

👉 https://www.instagram.com/josephinebottger/

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

We show you how to win at pageants and at life. Start your journey for free:

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ABOUT BRITTANY BOLTINHOUSE

Brittany Alondra Boltinhouse is Miss North Carolina USA 2026, a proud Latina woman with Honduran roots, entrepreneur, and community advocate. As a business owner in the flooring and turf industry, she is passionate about inspiring women to step into leadership, build confidence, and pursue their dreams regardless of their age, background, or past.

What makes Brittany’s journey unique is that she had never competed in a pageant before earning the title of Miss North Carolina USA. Her experience is proof that you don’t have to wait until you feel qualified to chase a dream. She hopes her story reminds others that your past does not define you, experience should never limit your potential, and with faith, hard work, and the courage to take the first step, anything is possible.

FOLLOW BRITTANY BOLTINHOUSE

👉 https://www.instagram.com/Espino.Sosa/

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327

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Stop collecting opinions

It’s crunch time.

For some of you, your pageant is days away. For others, it’s close enough that every tiny detail now feels bigger than it probably should.

That is exactly why you need to be careful about who you let inside your head.

The final stretch before your pageant is NOT the time to ask ten more people what they think of your walk, wardrobe, platform, interview, onstage answer, hair, makeup, talent, opening statement, or entire existence.

At some point, more input stops helping.

It becomes noise.

And if you keep listening to noise this close to your pageant, don’t be surprised when you cannot hear yourself think.

Advice has an expiry date

I’m not saying advice is bad.

Obviously.

I’m a coach. People pay me for my opinion.

But timing matters.

If someone had serious concerns about your preparation, the time to raise them was months ago.

Not the night before. Not the week of. Not when you are already nervous, tired, emotional, and trying to hold yourself together.

People love saying, “I’m only trying to help.”

Fine.

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

If your “help” puts doubt into someone’s head right before she needs to perform, you’re not helping. You’re hurting.

Stop outsourcing your brain

Here is the bigger problem.

Some contestants get so used to asking everyone else what they think that they stop developing their own judgment.

They ask their coach. Their mum. Their director. Their pageant friends. Random people online.

Then, when you ask them what they think, they say:

“I don’t know.”

No. I don’t believe that.

You probably do know.

You’ve just trained yourself to believe your opinion doesn’t count until someone else validates it.

That is dangerous.

Because when you are onstage, no one can think for you. When you are in interview, no one can sit beside you and whisper the “right” answer.

At some point, you need to be able to say:

This is what I think.

This is what I want.

This is what I’m doing.

That does not mean you ignore good advice.

It means you stop treating every outside opinion as gospel.

A coach can see things you cannot see. A coach can challenge you. A coach can sharpen your strategy, interview, delivery, mindset, and preparation.

But your coach is not God.

If you are dependent on someone else to tell you what to think, what to wear, what to say, how to feel, and whether you are doing well, that is not confidence.

That is dependence.

And dependence does not make a strong titleholder.

Lock in

The closer you get to your pageant, the more selective you need to become.

Not everyone gets access to your head.

Not every comment needs to be processed, analysed, defended, debated, or cried over.

Some of it is just chatter.

“You should have been Top 2.”

“The judges had no idea what they were doing.”

“Your dress should have been different.”

“Your answer was too much.”

Noise.

The more attention you give to that, the more unfocused you become.

Your job in the final stretch is not to become available to every opinion.

Your job is to lock in.

Know what you have worked on. Know what you bring to the table. Know what you want to show. Know what kind of woman you want to be when you walk into that room.

Then use that as your compass.

Decide what you want

Before your pageant, ask yourself:

* What do I want to show the judges?

* What energy do I want to bring?

* What have I worked on hardest to improve?

* Which voices help me perform better?

* Which voices make me spiral?

Then act accordingly.

Listen to the people who make you clearer, calmer, stronger, and more prepared.

Block out the people who make you doubt yourself.

And yes, that might include people who love you.

Love does not automatically make someone useful in your final stretch.

Final thought

Pageantry is subjective.

Different panel, different day, different result.

That does not mean preparation doesn’t matter.

But if your only measure of success is the crown, you are putting yourself in a fragile position.

The better question is:

Did I become better through this process?

More self-aware. More disciplined. More courageous. More articulate. More capable of thinking for yourself.

That is the part no judging panel can take from you.

So stop asking everyone what they think.

Ask yourself what you want.

Then lock in and go get it.

Adrian.

The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645070327