I love the way Valerie puts it:
"It means that she knows she’s in charge of creating the life that she wants and has accepted the responsibility of making her dreams come true....You just have to be someone who’s committed to being a life-long learner and interested in personal development. "Being an EBQ is tied to the idea of confidence, taking control of your life, and using those skills often developed in pageantry to set personal goals. Valerie had many more beautiful sentences to share, and I want to share one more with you. In describing the EBQ, Valerie writes,
"She’s learned that while goal setting is serious business, winning in life requires the ability to accept who you are, who you want to be, and to laugh at yourself occasionally!"Now, Valerie uses the title EBQ as a very high honor. I'm a work in progress. I still have a tendency toward perfectionism. I'm still getting used to this idea that it's okay to be confident and that one can be confident and humble at the same time. Being an EBQ is something I aspire to. Today I'm a woman who appreciates myself as I am, while at the same time realizes there is always room for growth. I've always known that there was room for growth -- but I'm trying to be better about the first part. I used to think, "I'm just a graduate student," "I'm just a math teacher," "I'm just Mrs. Oklahoma," "I'm just a volunteer," minimizing my roles and achievements in my own mind. Even when I earned my master's degree, I thought, "It's just a master's degree." It is just a piece of paper but my two years of study are years that I can be proud of. It gave me a sense of camaraderie to know that Maria Shriver has the same tendencies. I heard her say on Oprah that some her self-talk includes, "I'm just the first lady of California." But she is not! She is much more than just the governor's wife, and being the first lady of California is a very high honor.
God showed me this year that it's okay to be confident, and that while He wants me to watch myself, guarding my heart and being careful not to sin, that He doesn't want me to berate and belittle myself when I make mistakes. He wants me to learn from them, move on, and be confident in the way He designed me and His ultimate plan for my life. God gave me the gift of knowing that it is possible to be confident and humble at the same time.
I encourage each of you to take a look at Valerie's new Everyday Beauty Queen website. She encourages us to believe in ourselves in addition to setting goals and achieving them by living our lives with purpose. When you believe in yourself and are able to gain new skills because of it, your confidence grows and you're able to achieve more than you ever imagined.
To me, being Mrs. Tulsa, Mrs. Oklahoma, or Mrs. America will always be about serving others first and personal growth second. For me personally, being Mrs. Tulsa is about addressing the problem of divorce: helping young people after divorce through the classroom and Blended Love, and preventing divorce and strengthening marriage through the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative's relationship education classes. But in order to help anyone, you must believe you can. You must believe that change is possible and that we humble beings can initiate change. Valerie's new website is for those people that believe, or for those that want or hope to believe in themselves and others, in the near future.
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