Thank you Marissa Powell for the courage and accomplishments that brought you to wearing the crown for Miss Utah USA. You had one rough patch last night at the Miss USA pageant with your final interview question, but you still rock and a bright future awaits.

Thank you, too, for the opportunity that rough patch gives the rest of us to self-assess and grow. If you ever read this, please know that this analysis using your pageant interview question and answer situation is well-intended for a larger good, even if it might accidentally hurt you a little. I’m sure you will be resilient to all this attention you are getting and make the most of it.

In a previous post today (called Should Pageant Interview Questions be Easier? No) I started to mention how important it is to listen well to get to the core of the question. When we listen well, we are in a better position to make choices about how to answer. This is something you definitely can learn to do every day and under pressure too! Let’s rewind last night and see what we can learn.

Here’s the pageant interview question Miss Marissa got: “A recent report shows that in 40% of American families with children women are the primary earners but women continue to earn less than men. What does this say about society?”

Let’s start with the components of the question:

– Size of the statistic (40%)
– Families or heads-of-household (not single people)
– Gender gap (men usually earn more)
– “Society”

Tip: If Miss Utah had picked any one of those key components and actually started her answer with a reference to that component, rather than to the non-present “education”, she’d have started off on a stronger foot. She would have