Three lessons hiding inside the Miss Universe fallout

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I don’t know about you, but for the past couple of weeks, every time I opened my phone, there seemed to be a fresh Miss Universe drama waiting for me.

And whilst the pageant fans and “experts” are still critiquing and breaking down what happened, I’m more interested in the practical lessons we can all take away from the chaos.

Lesson One: Know What You’re Getting Yourself Into

Do your research. It doesn’t have to take long, and with AI tools such as perplexity (which is specifically built to search the internet and fact find), you can get a great overview of any pageant system in just a few minutes.

Ignorance might be bliss, but naivety equals pain in pageantry.

Lesson Two: Don’t Listen to What People Say. Look at What They Do.

This is a great life lesson in general, but specifically in pageantry—where there can be a tendency to gloss over things and not discuss issues publicly—it’s hugely important that you become adept at studying people’s behavior, especially over an extended period of time.

It’s like they say: trust but verify.

Lesson Three: Have a Plan That Doesn’t Involve Winning

Here’s a thought experiment. If you poured your entire budget, time, and energy into a pageant and still placed dead last, would you still feel it was worth it?

No? Then we need to set some different goals.

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What were your takeaways from this year’s pageant? And what do you think it means for the future of Miss Universe?

Hit reply and let me know.

Adrian

PS Want my hot take on where pageantry is heading and a potential new trend? It’s at the end of this week’s episode.

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