Miss New Mexico USA 2017 Ashley Mora has launched the “Pretty Happy Podcast” as a “place where people can find inspiration and positivity.”
Let’s be real, has there been a better time in any of lives to add some “inspiration and positivity” to our world than in 2020?
Resiliency is something that many of us have had to discover as we all adapt to the ever-changing landscape of daily life during a pandemic and Ashley Mora’s quest to the crown of Miss New Mexico USA is essentially a case study in resilience. She literally won the title on her eighth attempt in the pageant, never giving up and continuing to chase her dream.
Her journey to the pageant included being a cheerleader in both high school and college, which was a beneficial experience in achieving that ultimate goal which landed her in the Miss USA Pageant.
With her podcast recently launching and her first guest being professional dancer Kristin Dodd, Ashley Mora took some time to sit down with us and discuss her latest endeavor.
PDC: To start things off, talk about your journey to becoming Miss New Mexico USA.
ASHLEY: I was Miss New Mexico USA in 2017 which led me to compete in Miss USA. I tell the story in the podcast that I actually competed in Miss New Mexico for eight years before I ended up winning, so it was really a life changing moment for me. Chasing after your dream for eight years and every time you lose, it’s like being told no, but I wouldn’t accept no for answer. I went back year after year until finally my dream came true. That has become a huge topic of discussion for me to tell people to never give up on their dreams. It would have obviously been easy for me to give up, but I knew that if I worked hard enough that eventually it would happen. Pretty cool moment.
PDC: Many of the dancers and cheerleaders we talk to have said they’ve been dancing since they were two or three years old. Did you know as a kid that you wanted to be in the pageant world?
ASHLEY: I remember watching Miss USA and Miss America back when I was a young kid and it’s funny because at that time, I didn’t understand what all it entailed but when someone would ask me what I wanted be, while other kids are saying ‘I want to be a doctor’ or all those other things, I would always say “I want to be Miss USA.”
PDC: Your new show “Pretty Happy Podcast” is about being positive and resilient. Where did your resiliency originate?
ASHLEY: I have to give all the credit of being someone who is resilient to my parents. From a young age, they taught me to never quit whether it was in sports or competing for Miss New Mexico. Whenever I lost in sports, they would say ‘yes you lost, but what can you learn from this?’ So I think that ever time I lost when I competed for Miss New Mexico, I didn’t take it as a ‘this is never going to happen for you’ but rather ‘what do I need to work on for the next year to come back even better?’
PDC: What was your dance or cheer background?
ASHLEY: I cheered in high school at Hope Christian, the same school as Kristin, that’s where we met. Then I went on to cheer on the all-girl cheerleading team at the University of New Mexico for a year after that.
PDC: Were you able to take anything from your dance and cheer experiences to help you in the pageant world?
ASHLEY: Stage presence and not being afraid to be on stage. When I was doing Miss New Mexico, it was a little different because you are on stage by yourself, but I would have to say that being comfortable on stage came from being a cheerleader. Also, the competitive drive came back to being a cheerleader. I had a great experience being on the cheerleading team and I think my coaches in high school and in college instilled a lot of great attributes in me like being confident instead of cocky.
PDC: What would you say is the difference in being confident rather than cocky?
ASHLEY: I think being confident is really correlated with being passionate and that your heart is in the right place for whatever it it that your doing. However, when you’re cocky, its arrogance and you’re not in any way humble. If you want to be successful in anything you do in life, it has to stem from a humble heart in ultimately wanting to serve other people.
PDC: What made you want to do a podcast and what made you want to do this particular podcast?
ASHLEY: When I was Miss New Mexico, I started blogging and I really had no clue where that path was going to take me and I just did it almost as a diary that I was going to share with the world. It ended up taking off more than I ever expected. So I did that for a couple of years. After Miss New Mexico, I kind of lost the inspiration for doing it. I moved out to San Diego for my job and I became complacent in a lot of areas of my life and to be in a creative place, you have to have that inspiration. I knew that podcasting was something I wanted to do, but for about two years, I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about and where I was going to take it. Last year, I took pen to paper, wrote out a vision board and came together with the idea of the Pretty Happy Podcast and knew exactly what I wanted to talk about and dialed in on what topics I wanted to discuss. It was kind of like a snowball effect and here we are.
PDC: Is it fair to say that your podcast revolves a lot around ‘state of mind’ and fits a need for what is going on in the world right now?
ASHLEY: We are all in an interesting place where we are all navigating in unchartered territory and my intention for the podcast has always been for it to be where people know they are going to tune in and find some type of inspiration and that there will at least be a positive message. Honestly, it stems from me, myself needing that and thinking that other people will need that as well.
PDC: What made you decide to have Kristin Dodd as your first guest?
ASHLEY: From my background in pageants, I have always been the person being interviewed and not the one doing the interview, so I was really excited to be the person on the other side. I was trying to come up with who I wanted to my first guest to be and I have a long list of people, but Kristin crossed my mind and once she did, I knew she was the most perfect person to have on the podcast. Not only do I feel like our morals and values align, but we’ve known each other since she was in kindergarten and we have a very similar story with her trying out for DCC three times and making it in her third year. It was a very similar story in being resilient and it was just the perfect match.
PDC: So you two are essentially lifelong friends?
ASHLEY: I have known Kristin since she was five and watching her journey was pretty incredible. Hearing her talk about it and hearing her voice and to feel the emotion of going through her journey was incredible. I actually cried a couple of times during the interview. Anyone that knows her is lucky to know her, for sure.
Listen to the Pretty Happy Podcast episode with Kristin Dodd
New episodes of the Pretty Happy Podcast drop on Wednesday mornings.
The Pretty Happy Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts. The easiest thing to do is subscribe to the podcast so that it will show up on your device whenever a new episode is released.
For updates on future guests, follow the Pretty Happy Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and prettyhappypodcast.com.
