20 December 2018, University of Virigina, Virginia, USA
And she says the most offensive things to me that you can say to a person of colour in the United States of America, she asked me, "Were you born in this country?" And I was immediately offended. I put my hands on my hips and I said, "Yeah, I was born in this country." She then goes on to ask me, "How old are you?" I said, "19 years old." She says, "Are you married?" I said, "No, ma'am." She says, "Do you have any kids?" I said, "No, ma'am. May I help you find something?" She then goes on to tell me something that changed my life forever. She says, "You look like you could be the next Miss USA." And I laughed at this woman hysterically. I said, "Lady, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm going into my sophomore year at Virginia State. I'm about to commission in three years, go on active duty, be a military officer."
Somehow this crazy woman convinced me to meet her at Starbucks the very next day. She brought this foot tall stack of pageant books and she goes on to convince me to compete in my very first pageant. I compete in my first pageant three months later and I lose.
I go back the second year, compete in my state pageant and I lose. I go back the third year, compete in my state pageant and I lose. Go back the fourth year, compete in my state pageant and lose. Go back the fifth year, compete in my state pageant and lose. But guess what happens the six year. I lose.
I called her on the phone six years after our Target conversation and I said, "You told me I could be the next Miss USA." And she says, "Deshauna, keep trying, keep trying, keep trying."
In June of 2015, this amazing kind of coocoo woman passes away from leukaemia. In December 2015, I win Miss District of Columbia USA. In June 2016, I'm crown the first soldier to win Miss USA. And last January in Manila, Philippines, I walked the Miss Universe stage in place top nine amongst 86.
Do not fear failure, but please be terrified of regret. When you walk out this door into the real world, you'll receive a lot of shut doors, a lot of turndown applications. You'll hear way more no's than you hear yeses.
Giving up is something I did a lot of growing up and I don't think I really challenged myself to stick anything through until I joined the track team in middle school. I remember having to ask my mom after tryouts and making it to the team for my very first pair of track shoes. Now at the time she walks into our house and she has a bag that has a nice Nike check sign on it. So I get excited because I wasn't getting new shoes very often. I go to take the shoe box out the bag, and I noticed that it says a size nine on it. Mind you, in the seventh grade, I was a size five. I opened the box and I slide my feet into the shoe and I look at my mother and I said, "These shoes are too big." She says, "I know I did that on purpose." I was like, "Why would you buy shoes that are too big on purpose, mom?" And she says, "Because I know that you're going to grow into them."
Coach has us line up on the starting line and he wants us to run a lap around the track. As we go to take off, I immediately fall to the ground, twist my ankle because the shoes are entirely too big. See, I couldn't run at the speed that I wanted to because I didn't fit the shoes I was wearing at the time.
Now, many of us have goals we're trying to achieve, but the person we are right now is not the person that we need to be when we cross the finish line to our dreams. So we must walk and pace ourselves on this journey to our goals because we haven't grown enough in ourselves to fit the shoes that we need to achieve our aspirations. But let me tell you something. If I have won Miss USA, my very first year, I would not have been Miss USA. I would not have been the version of myself that I needed to be to properly handle a national title.
Many of us aren't ready to walk the race. But understand that as we walk this race, we pace ourselves and as we pace ourselves, we grow, and as we grow, our foot gets bigger, and as our foot gets bigger, our shoes begins to fill. As our shoes begin to fill, we can now run a little bit faster and as we pick up the pace, we get to the finish line at the exact time we are destined to cross it.
Do not fear the word no, but be afraid of the possibility of a yes that you have prematurely destroyed because you decided to quit before the clock strikes 12. There are a lot of questions that is going to keep you up at night, but I guarantee there isn't one question that will keep you up longer at night than the question, "What if I didn't give up?"
I am here to tell you in a nutshell that it's okay to walk sometimes. We can dream, we can be ambitious, that is a must when it comes to succeed, but we must also be realistic with where we are in correlation with the person that we need to be so properly execute the goals that we have set in front of us. Well, I'm going to teach you all some new thing.