Former Miss Kansas Adrienne Bulinski gave a presentation to over 750 student council
representatives throughout Kansas. Bulinski is currently traveling the state sharing her steps to
success to be a better leader.

How did Bulinski get to her dreams? Bulinski won her title as Miss Kansas in 2005 but in
2007, she lost her professional entertainment career when she was severely injured in a horse riding accident. Unwilling to give up on her goals, Bulinski received the first of many prosthetic replacements under the skin. More of her story can be found in her book “Blood, Sweat, and Tiaras”. Bulinski was told by one of her close friends that every successful performer must know how to ride a horse bareback. The horse bucked and she landed in one place and her foot in another. After many months of being told she will never walk without a limp, her brother found a doctor in Denver, Colorado who was willing to perform a new kind of procedure.
During her presentation Bulinski shared with student leaders four steps to success or steps to failure of becoming a great leader. In other words, she said people can’t have success without failure. The four steps include 1. Saying your dream out loud, 2. Dedication, 3. Attitude, and 4. Perseverance. Bulinski acquired these steps from her own personal experiences.
Step one came from her fourth grade teacher asking what she wanted to be when she grew up, and then following up at her high school graduation to see what she had done to make her dream come true.                                                                “I told my fourth grade teacher what I had done and she said okay,” Bulinski said.

Bulinski wanted to be a Broadway dancer, so she needed her splits, she worked and worked until finally, after over three years, she got her splits. The attitude step came from her dad. Every morning her dad would come down the hall and ask her and her siblings if they were going to have a good day or a bad day. By saying to herself every morning that she was going to have a good day, her mind is tricked into thinking that she will have a good day. Saying to herself she was going to have a good day helped Bulinski through the most challenging part of her life. After recovering from her accident Bulinski no longer wanted to be a Broadway dancer. She wanted to help teenagers with their dreams.

“None of this would have been possible if I didn’t have perseverance,” Bulinski said.