Living The Red Life - Miss Florida, Lindsay Bettis’ "Overnight" Success

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Lindsay Bettis is Miss Florida 2022 and she's bringing her style, grace, and beauty to Rudy's Living The Red Life studio. Her victory story and perceived ‘overnight success’ is one of struggle. She competed in beauty pageants for many, many years until she finally won Miss Florida - with a torn hamstring! She's openly sharing about her family's struggle with addiction, her own struggles being OCD, and the triumph of turning insecurity and a desire to be loved and recognized into a superpower by getting up on stage, championing important social causes (like addiction treatment), and remaining steadfast in her determination to be authentic. Rudy expertly engages Lindsay on her recipe for success, the importance of influence as we try to create impact, and the wins we create from our failure. Please join us. "Being flexible and adaptable is a big part of success." ~ Lindsay Bettis, Miss Florida 2022The first 1000 to click here and send the promo code from the podcast can claim one of my courses for FREE!  - https://m.me/rudymawerlifeIn This Episode:- Winning Miss Florida with a torn hamstring!- Developing your self-confidence by getting up on stage- What are they looking for in a Miss Florida pageant?- How Lindsay is helping get people into treatment for addiction- How has influence helped Miss Florida with her career?- The feeling of being in front of a judging panel and how to prepare- What are the key attributes of other successful people that Miss Florida surrounds herself with? - Defining your brand in unique and authentic ways in the pageant industry- Coming from a family with a history of addiction- Creating wins from failure- Embracing your differences so you can help more people- Why does Lindsay really want to win? Connect with Lindsay Bettis:WebsiteInstagramConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

The most important thing that you can do is listen to yourself, but also be willing to take input from others because ultimately you're going to have to live with yourself. Yep. And I hated living with myself when I was younger. I was so self-conscious and I was so nervous and anxiety-ridden that one day I became sick of it. So I decided to embrace who I was and utilize that to its full potential. And it's been rewarded exponentially in so many ways in my career as Miss Florida, really in every aspect of my life. My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week.

If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Guys, what's up? Welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Very special guest today. We are here with Miss Florida. Welcome. Yes, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. So I've got a burning question I've wanted to ask all day, right? What are my chances of becoming the next Miss Florida? They're pretty high. I feel like you have the smarts, you have the business acumen, you have the business plan to become Miss Florida. I think you have everything that it takes. And it's only three days after my birthday. And it's only three days after my birthday, so there'll be no better gift. Can you train me, do you think, the next six

months? It's going to be like Rocky. I won on my sixth try. Oh God. So it doesn't happen overnight. Okay. So no, pull it off. Okay. No. Well, that'll be the theme of this episode, right? Overnight success, building for success, staying consistent and pursuing, right? And you know, you achieving what you achieved, me achieving what I achieved. There's a lot of resemblance, even though very different, right? So, so let's dive into this. Before we dive into some takeaways and life lessons, it would be great just for people that don't know you to talk about your journey, a couple of minutes recap of how you became Miss Florida and got here today. Yeah. So my interest in the Miss Florida program began at a very young age when I was watching Miss

America from the couch. It wasn't something that I really saw myself ever doing. But when I got into high school, I competed in my high school competition because I said, I need some money to go to college. And I really didn't have the financial assistance or support to be able to make that happen without a large amount of student loans. So once I competed in my high school competition, I didn't win. I got first runner up, but I gained some scholarship money out of it. So when I got to college in my first year, I competed in my very first Miss America preliminary competition, which was Miss Daytona Beach. And I rode that all the way to Miss Florida. And this 19 year old that was clueless on how the Miss Florida Miss America system worked,

aside from TV, showed up and got first runner up. And I was thrilled because I did not know what I was doing. There were so many accomplished young women, but everyone told me it was because I was thrilled because I did not know what I was doing. There were so many accomplished young women, but everyone told me it was because I was so refreshing in myself. Okay. So, you know, fast forward to the next year, I'm looking forward to coming back. And in my mind, I think that the only way we can go is up. Yep. You know, you're a winner or you've done worse. Yep, yep.

Well, I show up and I completely psych myself out and I do worse. I make the top 10, but don't advance from there. So it was a blow to my confidence, but I realized that there's different judges, different days. And if you put a different set of five to seven judges, they would pick a completely different Miss Florida and a top 10. So the theme of this story is persistence. I kept going back to Miss Florida and made top 10 the next year, didn't crack the top five, went back the next year, finally cracked the top five again. I got second runner up that year. Falling year went back. I got first runner up for the second time. That one was painful. And although you look at it from an outside perspective and

it's such an amazing placement, it's so hard when you got it for the second time and you've been so close twice. So this year I go back or last year I go back for my one final time. Okay. Ten days before Miss Florida, I tear my hamstring. Oh, gosh. Off the bone. I'm a dancer. So talent's worth like 35 to 40 percent of your score or something at this point.

And I'm like, am I going to have to go up there and sing the ABCs or something ridiculous because I can't even walk? Well, we go into like fight or flight mode. I'm at the physical therapist's office every single day and he is just training me so hard. And I get to the Miss Florida stage. I do my talent. It's not good. It's bad. I'll be honest.

But it was good enough. And I really laid it all out there in the interview, talking about how I was a testament to the program. It's really easy to quit and give up when you don't achieve your goal. But I kept coming back because I gained so much throughout the experience. And because of that, I was rewarded.

I was completely myself. And the judges were okay with handing me this job. And now it's going to be a part of my story forever that I won Miss Florida with a torn apart hamstring. Yeah. And I mean, one takeaway right away is a lot of people would have probably not showed up. Right. Right. A lot of people would have just said, that's it. Maybe next year just said that's it maybe next year come out and that was a thought that was right of course yeah

so what made you stay consistent for six years i just gained so much out of the organization aside from it being so much fun and making such good friends i over my six years accumulated over seventy thousand dollars in scholarships yeah it completely paid for my undergraduate degree and part of my graduate degree. And I still have a lot more to use. So I'm excited for that. But aside from that, I gained so much professional skills and confidence

that I didn't really have before. And although you think that someone has to be competent to get on the stage, that's not entirely the case. And I think that me getting started in pageants did stem from a little bit of insecurity. It's nice to be validated, to get rewarded. So walked on the stage and it felt really good to be rewarded for being myself. So kept doing it, kept getting more and more scholarship dollars.

And I was finally at some point recruited by my company that I ended up working for before winning Miss Florida because of my experience in the Miss Florida organization. Yeah. Well, and they, so I speak around the world and I've spoken on up to 5,000 people now. And they asked me, like, I get up, I don't even know my slides. I just throw them up and go. And they say, Rudy, how do you do this? And I'm like, no, I wasn't like a confident, that confident as a kid. Like I didn't like speaking in public, but I just did it for so many years that it looks so natural now. Right. And it sounds similar for you. And I'm grown in so many scenarios as Miss Florida where I'm prepared for something and it's the complete opposite thing.

I've gone to presentations where I thought it was going to be to a group of children. It was to like an entire department of adults. Yeah. So completely had to change the topic of the speech. Being flexible and adaptable, I think, is a big part of adults. So completely had to change the topic of the speech. So being flexible and adaptable, I think is a big part of success. Yeah. And so just for people that don't fully understand it and as someone that's aspiring to become the next Miss Florida, right? What is, break it down for me. What are they looking for? How are they picking?

So the areas of competition that I competed in, which I'll get to why that matters in a minute, were the private interview, which is a 10 minute interview with the judges. It's panel style. They are just throwing questions at you rapid fire and they can be absolutely anything. I've been asked if I could be a kitchen appliance, what would I be and why? I like that.

So what was your answer? My answer at the time, I was little. So my answer was the toaster oven. Nowadays it would be the air fryer. Okay. But the toaster oven, cause I said it can do multiple things. Well, you know, that's fryer. But the toaster oven, because I said, it can do multiple things. Well, you know, that's a little like eight-year-old me not knowing what

to say. But they loved it. And being asked anything and everything can really prepare you for a lot of things in your life. And then you compete in the social impact initiative pitch, which everyone that participates in the organization is encouraged to have a social impact initiative, which is a cause or organization that they can stand behind advocate for during their year of service so for mine that was addiction prevention treatment recovery so i went up on the stage and gave a little 45 minute spiel about why that matters what i plan to do with it and where i see this going yeah and then evening gown one of the traditional aspects and then we also participated in an onstage question.

And then once you made it to top five, you had a little final conversation, said some final words, and then they select the next Miss Florida. But the Miss America competition has just changed. So there are going to be some exciting changes. And we don't have all the details ironed out yet, but it's going to be a different looking competition than what you've seen in the past few years. Okay. So what's next for you? Next for me is really, there's a lot of opportunities. And I had a really amazing career before I won the title of Miss Florida. I was the director of community outreach for a team of individuals for a local treatment facility.

So I was able to get people into treatment, help them with their mental health or their substance use. And that was really rewarding because I grew up in a family with substance abuse. So being able to give people the gift of recovery like my family received was something really special to me. But at that same time, Miss Florida is such a transformational year and you meet so many amazing people that there are so many Miss Floridas where their lives were just flipped upside down after their year and they went into something that they never expected. So I'm excited for what the future will bring, but I also have a great career that's waiting for me. Yeah. And so like a lot of what, you know, we talk about here and what I do is influence, right? It's influence marketing, it's social media marketing, it's working with A-list celebrities and leveraging their brand to create products. So we I mean, you're kind of saying the same that this has given you more influence, right? More opportunity. So how do you see that as a way of growing a career and building something big? Like, how do you see it come into life? So before winning Miss Florida, I technically worked in the field of sales.

Although I wasn't selling a product, I was selling a service. Sure. And I feel like that is kind of the same. And those skills transfer over to the role as Miss Florida is selling the program, recruiting girls to compete and getting new sponsors so that we can have that sustained scholarship and new partnerships with the organization. Yep. So this is something that I was kind of thrown into, though, in a different way.

I love social media, and I wish that I had just wrapped my arms around it way earlier than I did. But I was thrusted into an Instagram account, and this may seem tiny to you, of 20,000 followers, 20,000 plus followers. And that was just foreign to me. I've always been very tight knit on social media. So making sure that I tag all the correct sponsors, that I'm putting the right hashtags and really driving business to those that are supporting them as a Florida organization or something that's really important to me. And I know that social media influencing and marketing is huge right now.

So I'm hoping to gain some experience in this field so that I can relay that to my professional field. Yeah, love that. And what are the, what would you say the key attributes and traits you've learned over the six years of, you know, showing up, not winning, showing up, not winning, showing up, not winning, and then eventually winning? So tough skin. Yeah. And it's a tough lesson to learn that five people's opinions don't define you because it is something that you want really badly. But you have to understand, like, you probably watch a TV show and been like, oh, my gosh, I really don't like that person. And then your friend next to you is like, oh, my gosh, they're my favorite. before and we've had polar opposite ideas of who our winner would be. So really understanding that it is something that's really subjective and you don't have any control of the outcome. You can control how you prepare and how you want to present yourself on stage. But again, that adaptability and flexibility and it's all a mental game. And I think the reason that I did so well this year is

because I tore my hamstring. And as ironic as that sounds, I was forced to come to the fact that this might not happen because my talent score probably wouldn't be high enough to get me to where I needed to be. And I thought about what my life would look like afterwards, and it was a great life. And I think that that completely flipped the game for me. And I was able to go in there, be calm, although I was also not calm at the same time, talent night, I was freaking out the entire time. My entire leg was black and blue. If you check out my Instagram, it's there. It is a sight to behold. But really preparing in a different way than I had the past year is making sure that my mind was clear and ready to take on the job if it was meant for me, but also ready to move on if it wasn't. Okay. I like that. Yeah. I mean, I find that too, some places I speak at, I'm like, it's so easy, but then it's my best talk

because you're not in your own head, you're not thinking about it a lot. So maybe that became an advantage in some ways, right? Because of that. So, and what have you saw that, you know, during this time doing this, you've made a lot of connections, made a lot of friends, the people that are continually driving success, what are the key attributes you guys are all sharing as you're growing your brands and growing, you know, whatever you're doing after this, right? Like what, what are the attributes of success you've seen? So I think honing in on what makes us unique. There's a lot of girls that were at Miss America this past year that I got to compete with that were so clear on what their brand and messaging were that it was very, uh, it's something that I look up to and I want

to bring into my own life and into my own social media. Like I read, right? This is clearly defined. It's very clearly defined. They've been able to monetize that and make a very successful career out of that by doing something that they love. They're not stuck in an office nine to five. They are out there having fun and getting paid for it because they clearly define their brand on social media.

And there are so many opportunities out there to do that. So I'm learning that this year. I wish I had learned it earlier. So if you're watching this, learn it earlier. Well, that's what the Red Life's all about. Like literally our motto is build your dream life using the internet, right? And that's exactly how you summarize it there. So I love the building the brand part because we talk a lot about that with businesses.

And it's identical over here, right? So what have you seen with those people? Give me some examples. Like what are they doing to clearly define their brand versus the competition? She is someone that can clearly talk about being an Asian American, being a minority. She talked about her experiences growing up. She is a first generation college student, I believe. I couldn't be wrong on that. Don't fault me, Avery. And she went through law school.

OK. And she has those key things that she was able to utilize to make her successful on social media. Yeah. And people were interested in following her. And I think the other big thing too, that I learned at Miss America is that they were very authentic. And although you think that everyone is authentic naturally, they put their goofy selves online also. And people love that because it's so relatable. And that's another hard lesson to learn because it's kind of uncomfortable to put

yourself out there in that way on social media, but people love it so much. And I find that some of my most liked photos on the internet are like the ones that are being so weird. Well, I think that's harder for what you guys are doing because it's the opposite almost, right? Like, you know, you're trying to present this, like this image that people judge, right? So it's like being the opposite and being authentic and being goofy is sometimes kind of maybe different to what you imagine you have to present as and show up as. And it's the same on social media as an influencer, say for me, right? I've got to always be rich and successful and doing wild, crazy things. So it's like sometimes, but then

when you're just at home, you know, in shorts and a tank top with your dog, it's like the opposite, but people like that and they resonate with that too. Absolutely. Yeah. Some of their most liked TikToks reels are them with no makeup sitting on the couch with their dogs, like you're saying, and people just love their authenticity. Yeah. So that's a great takeaway is like create that uniqueness, right? Figure out what you stand for, who you are, what's true to you. And then also building around that and not being too kind of pre-built, right? Because I think that's what social media is, is like pre-built, right? So it's like being people want to resonate, especially the bigger people, like the more

famous you become, they want to get to know you, right? Like I'm partners with Floyd Mayweather and we're selling a $25,000 weekend experience. People want to come and get to know him and hang out with him and figure out who he is, not just the famous boxer and the champ, right? So it's like people pay a lot of money to figure out who you are and get to know you because they've bought so much into you and they love you, right? Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Before we go into the rest of this episode, I'm going to interrupt abruptly and just ask you one big favor. I hope you're getting a ton of value, a ton of knowledge.

I hope you're getting some breakthroughs from myself and the guests. And I want one thing in return. What I would love is for you to subscribe and leave a review. The reviews and the subscription grows the podcast. It allows me to bring you even better review. The reviews and the subscription grows the podcast. It allows me to bring you even better guests. It allows me to invest even more time and money into this podcast to bring you the latest and greatest, the best entrepreneurs from around the world that are crushing life, crushing their business,

and giving you all the tools, the mindset hacks, the knowledge, and the environment you need to be successful. So do me a favor, if you've got any amount of value from today's episode so far, or any previous episode, or any of the content I've done, it would mean the world to me if you hit a five-star review, give us your feedback on the show, the episodes, and subscribe and download. Plus, if you do that and send me a screenshot on Instagram, at RudyMoreLife, I will send you a bunch of my free training, marketing courses, sales courses worth $499. Yes, $500 worth of courses for a simple 30 second review.

It would mean the world to me. Send me that screenshot. I would love for you to leave that review and I would appreciate it very, very much so we can keep growing this show and make it awesome. So let's get back into the episode. I appreciate you guys. And let's dive back in. Yeah. Are you starting to see that now? I am. It's Florida. After Miss America, I think is what I was able to really take advantage of this more. And I say that loosely because no one was pressuring me to be a certain way for Miss America. But it is a really stressful time and you try to put your best self forward. And sometimes

that messes with your mind, how you present yourself. But after Miss America, I've gotten so many fun opportunities. And one of them is we're recreating a version of Hot Ones. And yesterday I got to film this and we were eating all the hot sauces, levels one through 10. And I was asking this football player rapid fire pageant questions. And it was so much fun. And then they loved the fact that I was being so goofy because people don't expect that from girls that are involved in pageantry. And if you ever get the chance, the viewers at home or whoever's listening, please go look up Miss America, Grace Stanky. She just won. And she is hilarious. And she's the perfect example, I think, of what a Miss America should be because she's not

trying to be anyone else but herself. And the judges saw that and they rewarded that. And our whole entire class loves her. The winning reaction was just hilarious. I think there were just as many people crying as people there supporting her like behind us on stage. Yeah. We were all a mess. So it's just been a phenomenal journey learning. Cool. I love that.

Yeah. And talk to me about the charity side, the course side, like where you're going with that and how that plays a big part in what you're passionate about. Yeah. So like I said, I grew up in a family with substance use. So it was something that was very near and dear to my heart. And I didn't start out with this as my social impact initiative when I started competing. I was actually supporting the Best Buddies organization, which promotes integration inclusion for those with intellectual developmental disorders. And the reason that I did this is because I always felt very ostracized because I have severe OCD and I made really close friends with someone with a disability in my elementary school class that really just resonated with me throughout my entire life.

The reason that I decided to make this switch to the addiction platform, number one, because it's one of the most pressing issues facing our nation today. But also because I felt like not talking about it was adding to the stigma surrounding addiction and mental health. And with my father's permission, I was able to get up there and share our family story. And he was all about it. He said, you know, if my story can help someone else not go through what we did, I'm happy to be that person. And so I felt like finally being open and honest about it opened a lot of doors, not only my career working in behavioral health care, but I get so many messages on Instagram. Every time I visit a school, people message me asking for resources, saying that they're in an almost identical situation. And so it's been really awesome

to see how opening up about my story can help other people. Yeah. I mean, people resonate with stories, right? And I love the combination. Like that's big for me with business growth. It's how do I combine money growth success with giving back and like helping other people and doing what you're passionate about, right? You're passionate about helping people that have maybe going through similar what you and your family went through. And I think it's great that that's a big part of the whole program is that inclusion and focus on doing that, right? Because everyone that I'm sure goes through it and becomes, you know, Miss Florida and they create a platform for themselves, which can be used for business, for success, but also to give back. So that's awesome. It's a unique opportunity that it's a very busy and strenuous year but it's only

a year so trying to get everything done that you can and make the biggest impact you can in that amount of time yeah and what what do you feel like someone that's trying someone that's maybe younger than us or trying to figure out their life trying to become successful uh maybe they're listening to this because they want to follow in your footsteps and they're going to compete against me next year on stage maybe right like you know yeah i can't guarantee that next year will be their year but maybe after that right what what would you say is like key for success what have you learned if you could go back 10 years what would you tell yourself i would say give everything a try you don't know what is going to resonate with you or what is going to be your

specialty until you give it a try i would have never in a million years as someone who grew up watching Miss America think that I would walk on the Miss Florida stage having no idea what I was doing and walk away with first runner up, literally almost going to Miss America that next year. But also giving yourself permission to learn and grow along the way because it was a tough few years that followed. But I would say those were my most transformational years where I experienced the most growth because I learned more about myself, the impact that I could make, and really gave me the opportunity to grow myself into the Miss Florida that I always wanted to be. Because I look back and if 19-year-old Lindsay had won Miss Florida, the whole state would have been in chaos. it wouldn't have been good so I'm I'm also thankful that the timing happened when it did yeah and it'll forever

be a part of my story like I was saying tearing the hamstring and winning and it's going to be part of my my victory story for life and something that I use to inspire people along the way well and I think what's important is like we we as a company, I'm like, the more we can fail, I know we'll be more successful because I've kind of got this formula in our marketing, at least that out of every 10 initiatives, probably eight fail, two take off, but those two will probably make a million dollars each on average, right? So I just go reverse engineer that and I go, well, how quickly can I do 10 things and fail eight times and win two and fail eight times and win two? But I think you only learn that from experience that, hey, failure is good because it shows you're making progressions.

You're trying things out. You're figuring it out and it's creating wins. So what would you and I mean, when we're younger, we're scared of failure. We look if we feel like a failure. It looks bad. We're disappointing people. We're scared to share. It's embarrassing. So did you go through those feelings? And what would you say on that? Absolutely. And as I was saying, I grew up with severe obsessive compulsive disorder, almost to the point where I had to be put in a psychiatric facility because I just could not function in society. So really allowing yourself to embrace your differences, because if I had embraced those differences earlier, I could have helped a lot more people

and not only myself, because I oftentimes find that I grow from allowing myself to be authentically me, whether that is weird, whether it's horrible. And it really gives me an amazing avenue to be able to help others. And I think that allowing yourself to be yourself is a really hard lesson because I remember so many days where I would come home from school and I was exhausted. That's because I put on a facade the entire day that I was okay. Accidental day, right? And if I had just been myself, let somebody know that I was having a tough day, there was probably 300 other kids in that school that were also having a tough day.

And, you know, we could have helped each other and lifted each other up along the way, but I decided to hide it. And that didn't allow me to grow. I've been able to just experience exponential growth, not only in myself, but the opportunities and the impact that I'm able to make. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I think as a kid, it's hard to do that, right? Like we all grow up and it's like, but then the more I meet millionaires and then ultra millionaires and a few billionaires, it flips on itself. The most successful people, they'll be honest, right? They'll tell you when they're having a bad day. They'll tell, like me and my friends will talk about, yeah, we had this lawsuit.

Then we had this staff member leave. Then someone stole this money from us, right? And it's like, we just share it super openly because we get confident in ourselves. And I mean, anyone listening, if you aren't at that level yet just you'll get there you've just got to like start owning it and you'll realize that confidence will come over time and failure isn't bad and if you're you know I teach people I'm like if you're in a group of

people where you can't be open and honest and share the failures and get support you're in the wrong group you need to be with people that lift you up and support you and that share wins and losses, not just the wins. Absolutely. Right. And I'm sure for you, finding those groups throughout life is like challenging, right? Like there's some people that are there to support you when you're only winning. And then there's some people that are there to support you through the wins and the losses. Yeah. And that's also another tough lesson to learn when you're young is quality over quantity. You know, I think when we're young, we base a lot of our worth on how many friends we have, how cool we are in school. And that was a tough lesson for me to learn because I really struggled a lot. So I didn't have many friends.

And my dad one day came to me. He's like, Lindsay, I have like two friends in high school. Yeah. He's like, but I'm still friends with them today. Yeah, most. Yeah. When you're an adult, you have like five close friends. Right.

And then everyone else. And then Miss America and Miss Florida has just been a blessing because I've always, you know, been type A personality. I've been someone who's, you know, stressed out a lot of the time. We got a lot of things to accomplish in a short amount of time. And having a group of girls that are almost exactly like me and then some of them being complete opposite, but all working towards a similar goal and understand what you're going through because i've had so many people

come up to me throughout the years they're like why do you keep competing um and it was amazing to see at miss america how many girls won on their sixth or seventh yeah yeah yeah and then the girls that won on their first try but we all still had so much in common yeah and i mean like we always say the five five friends right i use that quote And I mean, like we always say the five, five friends, right? I use that quote a lot, but you know, you'll become the five people you hang out with. And it's super important to build that tribe, right? And you have built that tribe now and you've got that tribe and this, you know, becoming Miss Florida gave you like grew that tribe, right?

Of those people aligned with your vision and the same for me in business. I find the other people that are trying to achieve big things and align with your vision and the same for me in business. I find the other people that are trying to achieve big things and align with the vision. And people ask me, so I want to be a billionaire. And they say, why do you want to be a billionaire? And I go, that's like asking an NBA player, why do they want to win the NBA? They don't just play to show up. They play to win, right? Most do. So why do you want to win? In life or win Miss Florida? Yeah, but either or. So there was a few different things. One of them growing up, I really didn't see myself represented on the Miss America stage. And I know that sounds weird because I am very traditional Miss America look. Yeah. But I

always saw girls that presented themselves in such a perfect package. You didn't really hear the nitty gritty of their life, but they were going through. And it wasn't until I did my research and found out there were some Miss Americas that really paved the way about opening up about open and honest stories or advocating for things that were really uncomfortable for the time. One of them that comes to mind is Leanne Zicornet. And she's very special to me because she was a former Miss Florida and she won Miss America, but she advocated for AIDS awareness at the the time, so taboo, but she really paved the way for people to have conversations about that topic. And for her to be Miss America and talking about that was a really big deal at the time.

So allowing myself to talk about uncomfortable subjects like my OCD and my family substance use, it was something that I felt like I had a role in this organization. And ultimately, I do feel like I achieved that by winning Miss Florida. Winning in life, letting myself fail upwards. I have not been a winner my entire life, but I've been a learner my entire life. And I'm always open to learning from other people, mentors. And I'm happy to change things if they're not working and take advice. And I think that that's something that's really helped me along the way. I actually took one of those personality tests and one of my top traits was like input.

Okay, nice. Good. So I really love getting input from other people. And, you know, I'm not trying to change myself completely, but if I can tweak something and achieve the goal that I was setting out for, I think that it's worth it. Yeah. I mean, that's super important for success. Like you see that top basketball players will still say, how do I be better? And like, I've always been that way. I always meet consultants, meet people. Maybe people quote unquote are less successful than me, but they're a specialist. And like, I think they sit down and they think, you know, the first thing

I say is tell me three ways we can be better at this, right? What's your opinion? Because I'm always like, how do I go to that next level? How do I go 1% better, 1% better, 1% better, right? So striving to always, I think there's a famous saying, like the minute you start thinking you can be better, right, is the minute everything fails because you've got arrogant, too arrogant at that point and you've always got to keep growing. So just to wrap up, last couple of questions. You know, our whole theme of the podcast

and my brand, Living the Red Life, is taking the red pill, building the life of your dreams, right? And defining the norm. My whole life, I define the norm. Sounds like you've been doing a lot of that along the way. What would you say to someone listening that wants to build their version of their dream life?

What wisdom would you give them? A motivation would you give them? It's a tough question because that takes like all my life's wisdom into this small bit. But I think the most important thing that you can do is listen to yourself, but also be willing to take input from others because ultimately you're going to have to live with yourself. And I hated living with myself when I was younger. I was so, I was so self-conscious and I was so nervous and anxiety ridden that one day it just, I became sick of it. So I decided to embrace who I was and utilize that to its full potential. And it's been rewarded exponentially in so many ways in my career as Miss Florida, really in every aspect of my life. So embrace it.

Embrace yourself. Yeah, I love that. So last question. If people want to follow you, where do they, you know, me on Instagram at MissAmericaFL or at Lindsay, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y-E-B-E-T-T-I-S. And that is my personal Instagram, but it is public and open to everyone. Love to have you there and I'd love to catch up and chat. Good. Well, I appreciate you coming on and it's awesome to hear about your journey and the persistence throughout and the amazing story of how you won, right? Even through adversity. So congrats on that. I'm excited to hopefully go and follow in your footsteps next

year on stage. I'll be crowning you. Yep. Yep. I appreciate it. And hopefully some wisdom there for everyone to take away and some motivation. It's awesome to see what you've done. So thank you. And guys, until next time time keep living the red life stay persistent don't give up and then look at failures to keep learning from and growing from like we've done so see you guys soon take care