Hello everyone!
If you've read my previous blogpost, you'd know that I've mentioned this new so called 'series' that I'd like to start, titled 'Tea with Queens' where I talk about queens who have inspired me in a way or another. I'm super excited to start this whole series with the current reigning Mrs Singapore Planet, Priscillia Tan, and her experience in the Mrs Singapore Beauty Pageant 2017!
I met Priscillia when I was getting my gown for the Mrs & Classic Mrs Chinatown grand finals last year and I was very happy that I've met her. We even ended up sitting together during the grand finals event itself and it was a lot of fun!
A little more about Priscillia:
She was born in Indonesia, and moved to Singapore after she married and is a loving mother to two little boys. Priscillia shared about her childhood with me, about having a broken family, and how she wanted to make sure that her children didn't live the same way. She has great admiration and respect for her mother, and is also very close to her brothers. Priscillia shared that her experiences when she was younger has shaped her into the strong and independent woman that she is today. Being the eldest, she also made sure she looked out for her brothers when times were hard,
I asked about how she managed to get over her hardships and what keeps her going, and her answers were simple, but made so much sense. I think we could definitely benefit from what she had shared with me.
Priscillia mentioned that no one can fully forget the hard things or change what has happened, but what you can change the way you deal with it. How she personally chose to deal with her hardships? - She used it to her advantage and made herself a stronger person, and she used it to motivate herself to be a better person than she was before. This is something that I feel a lot of us need to hear, it's always easy to whine and be upset about what has happened, I'm guilty of that myself, so of course, her advice was very up-lifting.
Another thing she told me stuck to me, I'm personally very open and sharp tongued with what I say and I lack a lot of patience as well. She mentioned she had her fair share exchanging harsh words with people, and now that she's an adult, she's very careful with what she says because you can't ever take the hurtful words back. 'Not everyone can take the words in a motivational way, it could leave grudges and scars for life'.
Priscillia also mentioned that doing things for people will never make you satisfied, if it's satisfaction that you're after, you need to be doing it for yourself and you have to do what makes YOU happy. I know most of us would know this at the back of our heads, but how many of us actually act upon this piece of advise?
Which lead me to ask her why she decided to join the pageant in 2018, I love finding out about why contestants joined the pageant, whether it was for experience, for fun, or purely just to see how far they could go. For Priscillia, she shared with me that she wanted to do something for herself, all this time, she has put in so much effort into her family, and starting her own family with her husband. I thought it was admirable that she did this for herself, instead of being asked to.
We live in a time where women empowerment is becoming a thing. To her, the key ingredients to a woman's success were ambition, confidence and a positive attitude, which I feel she herself lives by.
"To be ambitious, because when you are ambitious, you are focused and motivated. To be strong, when you are strong, you are empowered and has greater influence. To be confident, you have to believe in yourself and have a positive attitude. Success does not happen overnight. You have to put in a lot of hard work and always learn from every failure and pick yourself up when you fall." I realised that people rarely do things for themselves nowadays, we tend to be unkind to ourselves, so to me, it was nice that Priscillia decided to embark on a journey to the crown, on top of taking care of her little boys, and managing her job as a company director. As a modern day married woman, she shared that one of her biggest challenges was striking the right balance between work, self, and family. She felt the need to work hard, to look her best, and to take care of her children and husband, which were, to her, the responsibilities that she expected to fulfil at her greatest ability.
Of course, she won the title of Mrs Singapore Planet 2018, one of the three titles up for grabs in the Mrs Singapore Pageant.
Subsidiary titles won:
Mrs Singapore Star Chef 2nd Runner Up
Mrs Singapore Best Dressed Award
Mrs Singapore Mrs Elegance
I think the subsidiary titles and her final titles were well deserved, and it was such a shame that I didn't actually get to blog during her pageant as well, it would have been so great to have witnessed her journey first hand!
She is definitely inspirational and head strong, which I admire in people. She had shared interesting quotes with me the other day as well, which I think you guys would also enjoy.
"If you put your mind to doing something, you can achieve anything. No person or society can tell a woman what her duty is or what should be done as a woman."
Women empowerment right there! Priscillia is passionate about helping women and children in need, which is stemmed from her experiences in her earlier years, which brings us back to what she said about changing your perception of what has happened into motivation. If that isn't admirable, I'm not sure what is.
I should also put it out there that she isn't a feminist. She believes that men and women work together as a team, and they support each other to achieve common goals, which brought her to mentioning how her husband had supported her during her pageant journey. Instead of "Behind every successful man, there is always a woman", she's someone who believes that "Behind every successful person, there is a loving and supportive partner." Personally, this was one of my favourite things that she shared with me.
The second quote she shared with me was so intriguing. It was a quote from the Coca Cola CEO, I loved that she sent this to me one day, and I just wanted to share it with you guys as well.
"There are 5 balls of life:
- Health (glass)
- Family (glass)
- Spirit (glass)
- Friends (glass)
- Work (rubber)
Work is like a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. We must understand that and strive for balance in our life."
To end off, I asked her what would she look out for in a pageant queen.
"To be beautiful inside out, she must possess more than a pretty shell. Elegance, kindness, confidence, intelligence, humility and love.
Elegance is the undeniable quality of the depth of your personal wisdom.
There is no other human quality that will get you further in life than kindness.
When you are self-loving you naturally possess a quiet confidence.
Your self-awareness, dedication to self-development and personal growth provide you the knowledge to succeed at nearly anything you seek.
Lastly, there is nothing more appealing to others than to be in the presence of a loving person."
Priscillia has definitely gone through enough to be able to share these words of wisdom, and she has grown from her hardships. I'm personally very grateful that she was so willing to share her experiences and to share pieces of advise and motivational words with me, and with you guys who read my blog as well!
I hope you guys have felt inspired like I did, and that this gives you a motivational start to 2019! I'm definitely excited to share more about her international journey soon as well, so do look out for that! We'll see you in the next post!
xx
Shayne