The Power of Stories on your Destiny
have you ever had a conversation
that changed your entire life
once upon a time there was a
ten-year-old girl
whose whole world changed because of one
conversation
on this particular day she ran home from
school
and she noticed her grandmother on the
couch reading a newspaper in a foreign
language
when the grandmother was done with the
newspaper she folded it up and tossed it
to the side
we need more newspapers said the
grandmother
the girl noticed a stack of unread
neatly folded newspapers under the
coffee table
and pointed that out grandma there are a
couple more newspapers under there
she said her grandmother shook her head
saying
no not those the girl was confused
why didn’t her grandmother want to read
those newspapers so she persisted again
like any 10 year old would
saying grandma what’s wrong with those
newspapers why don’t you want to read
them her grandmother casually responded
by saying i can’t read that i never
learned
the english alphabet the girl was
shocked
how could her grandmother not know the
alphabet that she had learned
as early as three years old
the conversation the two had that day
changed
that girl’s entire life that girl was me
my grandmother grew up at a time and in
a place where child marriage was
a normal practice as a result education
wasn’t prioritized as much as managing
the home was
and by the time these women were 16
years old they typically had a few
children
and the responsibility of a family on
their shoulders
when i asked my grandmother what she
would have liked to do if she hadn’t
been married that young
she said that she hadn’t thought about
it
when i asked her if she tried learning
the english alphabet before she said
that while my grandfather had tried
teaching her
she wasn’t able to grasp it when
i asked if she wanted me to teach her
she promptly responded by saying
yes which in english
means all this is beyond my competence
or capabilities
how could something like learning the
alphabet be beyond her capabilities
i responded by fighting back saying that
wasn’t the case and it was really easy
to learn
but i knew that the conversation was
over
the stories that you tell yourself can
determine the distance that you go
have you stopped to consider what
beliefs
are holding you back from being your
best self and from achieving greatness
what stories are you telling yourself
now many of you may know me from my
pageant journey
but little do you know doing a pageant
was never
on the radar growing up hi my name is
chaby burke and i
miss new jersey usa 2017 and was first
runner up at miss usa 2017.
now each year thousands of women compete
for the chance of being miss usa
now 51 make it to competition but in the
end
only one walks home as miss usa
now miss usa then goes on to miss
universe which is the
biggest beauty pageant in the world
miss universe has a massive platform and
becoming miss universe can open so many
doors in the world of fashion
entertainment media advocacy among many
others
now if you told little chubby that one
day she would be missing new jersey usa
and go on to compete at miss usa
she wouldn’t have even believed you even
if you told me that five or six years
ago i’d be appalled
my pageant journey fell into my life
so unexpectedly but i’m so grateful that
it did
born in india i was only four years old
when my family moved to the united
states
and growing up i frequently struggled
with feeling good in my skin
i grew up was my indian relatives call
healthy and by the way healthy does not
mean healthy at all
it means chubby so i grew up chubby and
my relatives
never forgot to remind me of it in fact
i had one cousin in particular who loved
calling me chubby bird as a nickname
now add to that the issue of colorism
growing up i didn’t feel my tan skin was
beautiful
and i was often compared to my mom who
has a lighter complexion than i do
and what high school experience is
complete without the few years of acne
and braces that plague most
14 to 18 year olds
while i was quite confident in other
areas of my life like dance and
academics
i never truly felt good in my skin
now whether you call it fate luck or
sheer coincidence
things began to shift during my junior
year of high school
i got the opportunity to walk in my very
first fashion show and fell in love with
it instantly
i started walking in more shows and
one day when i saw an advertisement for
miss new jersey team usa in my high
school newspaper
i decided to take the opportunity and
compete thinking that it wouldn’t be
much different from the fashion shows
that i had already began
walking in so on finals night of the
miss new jersey teen usa competition
when i found myself being called as
fourth owner up
i couldn’t believe it i had never
imagined i could do something like this
but advancing to that point in my very
first pageant
made me hopeful that if i worked a
little harder
maybe there was even a possibility that
i win this someday
so the following year i competed again
but this time at the miss new jersey usa
competition
as i placed out of the team division
i thought that if i worked a little
harder
had a more beautiful gown cuter
interview dress nicer swimsuit i would
be able to win
so pageant weekend came and as i stood
in line
waiting to be interviewed i started
conversing with one of my fellow
contestants
we’ll call her l for short l was super
sweet
and she even gave me some tips before i
went in to meet with the judges for
interview
pageant weekend flew and i found myself
on finals night
standing on stage with 100 other women
all holding their breath waiting to hear
their name being called into the top
final contestants
i prayed please say chubby please say
chubby repeatedly in my head
the words never came i walked off stage
as a non-finalist
and just kept repeating thoughts in my
head where did i go wrong
what more could i have done
is this something that i’m even capable
of
as i started doubting myself i could
feel tears firming in my eyes
i felt two arms embrace me and i looked
up
to see l i broke down in tears
al what did i do wrong why didn’t i win
am i not good enough
she looked at me in the eyes and she
said
chavi i want you to
promise me that you are going to compete
again
you have it you
are going to be miss usa and miss
universe one day
i got chills i have chills right now
just thinking about how
confidently she said that it meant so
much to me to have someone believe in me
like that
especially a fellow competitor i
couldn’t even envision myself as miss
usa
and here she was saying it as a fit for
already a fact
her words of encouragement gave me the
motivation i needed
to compete again and my preparation
began
the very next day i began preparing for
the miss new jersey usa
2017 competition now there are three
aspects to the competition
swimsuit evening gown and interview
interview is based mostly on personality
so there wasn’t much more i could do
there than
be my true authentic self i knew my
biggest challenge would be the onstage
portion of competition
now at that point in the 19 years i had
been alive i had never
worn a bikini and i never really felt
confident enough to wear one either
but i noticed that all the girls that
had placed into the semi-finals and the
girl that
won all had incredibly toned abs and
were owning every minute on that stage
i knew for me to be able to compete in
the same way
i needed to hit the gym the issue was
prior to this moment i had never really
done much at the gym
i usually did some light weights and
some cardio but i never use the machines
and i thought that lifting weights would
make me look
manly which is the last thing i wanted
fortunately i have i ended up finding a
coach who showed me otherwise
and she showed me exactly how my
previously held beliefs about
strength training dieting and the limits
of my body
were wrong as i started lifting weights
and
seeing my strength my confidence began
to improve
and increase i loved working out
it was a form of self-care for me and
eventually my focus shifted
and the body just came as a bonus in
fact i even ended up getting my personal
training certification
later that year imagine telling 10 year
old chubby that one
now the second part of the onstage
portion that really intimidated me
was walking in heels standing at five
foot nine
inches i never felt the need to wear
heels taller than two inches before
but walking in my evening gown in those
tiny little heels
was pretty hard so upon suggestion i
invested in some six
inch pageant heels now the day i got
them i tried them on
and i took them right off because i
could barely stand in these shoes how
was i supposed to walk in them
i remember my first time attempting to
walk in these shoes
and i say attempting because i probably
did more falling that day than actually
walking
i would get about two to three steps in
lose my balance and stumble
then i tried holding onto the walls for
support taking some more steps
i would fall once again and after about
15 to 20 minutes of following i decided
that i would call it quits this was
impossible
but i knew i couldn’t give up so i
decided to go to watch miss usa and miss
universe videos of the past
to see what the contestants did there to
see how they were walking and hopefully
learn something from them
as i watched these videos of them
walking i tried to envision myself
giving a performance like that
i even went as far as envisioning myself
walking on that stage being miss new
jersey usa
and how that would feel to be on stage
hear my name being called
feel the crown being placed on my head
and that gave me the motivation i needed
to try walking in those heels again
hundreds of falls and many many many
bruises later
i was finally able to walk in these
shoes
by the time pageant weekend came around
i had done so many things i never
believed i could do i
had grown so confident in who i was as a
person
i knew that whether i won the title or
not
i would be walking home a winner so
pageant weekend came
and during interview i shared my entire
journey with the judges
during the swimsuit round i was able to
walk on stage and cherish
every moment because i had truly fallen
in love with my body
and during evening gown all the falls
paid off
and i was able to walk in those shoes
without worrying about falling again
i found myself on finals night holding
the hands of just one other contestant
on center stage the entire room was dark
there were lights shining brightly in my
eyes and it was so quiet
they could hear a pin drop my heart was
racing in my
chest and i took a deep breath as the
announcer’s voice
filled my ears chubby burg
is miss new jersey usa 2017
and my hands shot right up to my face
covering them in disbelief i couldn’t
believe
i won this was really happening
i was so thrilled and i felt the crown
being placed on my head
exactly as i had envisioned it that
entire year
my dream had come true and then she
lived happily ever after right
wrong you know many people think that
when you get
your victory that’s your happy ending
but really that’s just the beginning
in fact the following day i woke up to
many comments online
talking about how there were other
beautiful more deserving girls that
should have won
and i shouldn’t have as the year
progressed the comments got worse
and in fact i actually use that as fuel
to try to work harder and to prove to
other people that i deserve to be here i
deserve this crown
i would get well burst on current
affairs
so that i could confidently deliver my
onstage
answer at miss usa i went to the gym
twice a day to get even more toned
and forget walking in the pageant heels
i started practicing different spins and
turns
to really take my performance to the
next level
still the comments continued and
there was no mercy that was shown
there was no hesitation in people
comparing the looks
the features the bodies of my fellow
miss usa contestants
now i wish i could say that
it was you know i didn’t give in to
these comments or
that i stayed strong but the fact of the
matter is
they did get to me from time to time i
had my moments of self-doubt
moments that made me question if i
deserve to be here
you know there’s a saying in hindi
which in english means people will say
something or the other
now for most of my life up to that point
the words of others had an impact over
what i thought i could achieve who i
thought i was
winning the pageant showed me otherwise
it gave me victory over the stories i
had been telling myself and what i
thought was possible
i knew that in order to succeed i needed
to tune out
everyone racehorses typically have
blinders put on the sides of their head
so that they can focus on their path
and not get distracted by the other
horses that are racing them
similarly i put on my invisible blinders
as well as ear plugs in my ears
to just tune out the noise to focus on
my path and my journey ahead
i found myself on may 14th
2017 holding the hands of one of my
fellow contestants
yet again the room
is completely dark totally silent
but i knew there were about three
million pairs of eyes watching me
but it’s weird because i felt strangely
calm despite of that
again i took a deep breath waiting to
hear what the announcer would say
miss usa 2017 is
i waited for the words that i longed to
hear that entire journey
the words that my friend elle had so
confidently said the day i walked off
as a non-finalist from the miss new
jersey usa stage
the words that would challenge
everything
that was considered possible for my
grandmother and all the women in my
family before her
the words i so desperately long to hear
came i ended up placing aspersioner up
but for the longest time i thought
myself a failure for not being
called miss usa and
it was only in the aftermath that i
realized the impact
that this experience had on my life as
well as on the lives of other people
i later found out that my story
had inspired a relative in india to go
after her dream of becoming an actress
and today as a wife and as a mother she
continues to challenge what people
consider possible
for women by following her dream another
girl
told me that she was inspired by my
journey to compete
at a pageant in her state and she ended
up winning that title
it was remarkable my story
my by me challenging
the limiting beliefs i had i was able to
inspire others to go after their dreams
it made me realize that truly the
stories we have
within our heads are created by us
the only limits that exist are the ones
that we create
now we have the opportunity of breaking
free of these beliefs
by finding comfort and discomfort and by
doing so
despite the fear of falling but if you
do fall
you have two options you can choose to
stay down or you can challenge yourself
to get back on your feet and keep
walking
so let me ask you which of these
are you going to choose