An awesome platform is vital to getting appearances, especially before you win a big state or national title. Your platform gets you in the door for appearances and media interviews.
And when it comes to pageant week, what you’ve done with your platform is what separates you from all the other contestants. My clients are trained to market what we call a Legacy Project it’s the product or project you lead that uses your unique skills to creatively solve a problem.
One of my clients wrote a children’s book that teaches adults how to read to children while entertaining the kids.
Another created a DIY home garden project in conjunction with Home Depot.
I developed a professional home fitness video series available online for free.
Whatever you DO with your platform will be your legacy… you don’t want your legacy to be that you did nothing.
Today, I’m going to give you 5 steps to figure out what your legacy project can be. We’re going to find the intersection between your uniquely amazing qualities and the problems you want to solve.
Step 1: Write a list of all the things you’re excellent at
Maybe you are great at cooking or sewing. Maybe you can sing opera better than an opera singer. Maybe you know how to talk a cat out of a tree. Whatever you are excellent at, write it down. For me, I knew I was excellent at speaking on camera, designing home workouts, and marketing things online.
Step 2: Cross off the stuff that you aren’t really excellent at
If you can sing, but you aren’t the best in your choir, scratch that off. We want to only focus on where you excel above the others. You may end up with about 5 or 8 things on this list.
Step 3: Determine the group of people you want to help
Who is it you are most passionate about impacting? Is it children who have lost a parent? Or abused pets? Maybe it’s adults who want to overcome addiction or teens that are bullies. Write out the characteristics of this person. If you know of an actual person that’s even better. Maybe you’ll say, Heather who is the biggest bully in the 8th grade. Or Sam, your friend’s dad who has struggled with alcoholism for years. Identify exactly who you want to help. For me, I chose to help people who weren’t exercising, but they really wanted to lose weight.
Step 4: Make a list
of the biggest struggles, challenges, and set-backs that the people you want to help are facing. What is their biggest problem? What are they most afraid of? Maybe the bullies are scared they will not be liked by other kids so they are mean to other kids so those kids won’t be mean to them. Maybe the struggling addict doesn’t know how to break the cycle or where to go for help and feels like if he goes to the AA meetings he’ll embarrass his family. For me, the people I wanted to help were embarrassed to go to the gym and be seen as overweight, so they wanted to work out at home first. They couldn’t afford a personal trainer or they lived too far from a gym to go every day. They also didn’t know how to exercise or which exercises to do in what order.
Step 5: Go through all of the biggest problems
from your second list (step 4) and use your first list (step 1) to create a unique solution to each one of the problems. Get really creative, think outside the box. Don’t be held back by time or money yet. You can flush through the details later. Right now, just let your imagination fly! Some will be better than others, for sure, but this is just meant to help you discover where you can use your unique skills to creatively solve a problem. This is how I decided to create home workouts available for free online.
When you’ve struck gold, you’ll know it! Read back through all of your ideas and select any idea that you think is totally magical! That is where the treasure lies!
Your legacy project won’t be easy, but it will be life-changing for you and everyone you are able to impact!
That, my dear, is how you win a pageant and leave a legacy!
Thanks for joining me today and I’ll talk to ya on the next Win A Pageant Wednesday.
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