Miss America gets a lot of flak, but the reality is that it is uplifting and aspirational - 50% percent of my points were based on talent.

I grew up a fat kid in a small town in Minnesota who was a tomboy and happened to play a mean violin. My goal was to be a famous concert artist some day.

I never had becoming Miss America on my radar screen. But when I was 17, I decided to quit the violin and my parents were devastated.

I'm a big believer in always challenging yourself and learning new skills.

The discipline learned from putting in time and effort as a child is a skill and a talent you carry with you for the rest of your life in trying to achieve goals.

I felt like it was a sense of duty for me to give these women a voice.

I'm advocating for companies not to make women sign confidentiality clauses just to be able to come to work. I understand that companies need to keep some things secret - like business practices and trade secrets - but confidentiality clauses were never supposed to be keeping private what's happening to people within the workplace. It's a human right issue.