Helene Hadsell, the contest queen who planned her wins
By Joanna · Published 22 October 2026
Helene Hadsell was a Texas homemaker, later known as the "contest queen", who won a house in a Formica contest at the 1964 to 1965 New York World's Fair, one of about 1.5 million entries. She got there by putting two things together: years spent learning what contest judges wanted, and a habit of deciding on a prize, picturing it and preparing as if it were already hers.
Key takeaways
- Helene (born Helen) Hadsell, 1924 to 2010, won a $50,000 house in a Formica contest tied to the 1964 to 1965 New York World's Fair, and went on to write and teach about how she did it.
- Her family started entering contests in 1948 and rarely won for about ten years, so her famous run is also a story of persistence.
- A correspondence course taught her that judges wanted humour and new words, and she credited Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking with much of her success.
- By her own account, she had picked out a lot and had plans drawn up before she was named the winner of the house.
- Her book teaches a four-step formula she called SPEC: Select, Project, Expect and Collect.
Who was Helene Hadsell?
Helene Hadsell was born Helen Barbara Daeschel in Aberdeen, South Dakota, on 1 June 1924, and both spellings of her first name are still in use. She married Pat Hadsell during the Second World War, and they settled in Grand Prairie, Texas, where they raised three children. She sang in a community chorus, helped with the Girl Scouts and the PTA, and after the family moved to Irving in 1959 she wrote society news for a local paper.
Contests were a family hobby, and her husband helped write the entries. Her Wikipedia biography , built from newspaper reports of the time, follows that hobby from a home permanent kit she won in 1949 to the house that made her name.
Was Helene Hadsell always a winner?
No, and that is the most encouraging part of her story. The Hadsells began entering in 1948, mostly skill contests where you write a slogan or a name, and for about ten years they rarely won. A home permanent kit came in 1949, and in 1957 her son won a set of toy guns for naming a pony.
Ten years is a long time to keep at a hobby that rarely pays out, and it is the part of her story many people will recognise from their own practice: a long stretch of doing the work with little to show for it, and choosing to carry on.
What changed for her?
Two things changed after those lean years, and she credited both. The first was a correspondence course in contest writing, which taught her that judges were "looking for something different, coined words or phrases and humor", as she put it in 1964. She later called humour her most successful approach.
The second was Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking , which she read in 1959 and credited with much of her success. That same year she won electric food mixers, one of them for naming a cake. In 1963 she became president of the Competriots, a Dallas club of about forty contest writers, and by early 1964 her prizes ran from a lawn-mower blade sharpener to a trip to Disneyland, with trips to Washington, D.C. and Venice still to come.
How did Helene Hadsell win a house?
She won it in a contest the Formica Corporation ran for its exhibit at the 1964 to 1965 New York World's Fair. The grand prize was a $50,000 copy of the house shown at the fair, built anywhere in the United States. About 1.5 million people entered, and her entry won.
By her own later account, she had picked out a lot and had plans drawn up for the house before she was named the winner. She told the story of a trip the same way, saying she got passports and vaccinations before she won it. She credited her creativity for the win and said she had planned for it in advance, so in her telling the entry writer and the planner were the same woman.
The house was built in Irving, Texas, the family was ready to move in by the end of 1965, and they lived there for several years. That kind of preparation is what manifestation teachers call living as if, and our guide to preparing as if it is already yours goes into it in more depth.
What was Helene Hadsell's SPEC method?
SPEC is the four-step formula in her book, and its letters stand for Select, Project, Expect and Collect. The description of the 2020 edition calls it a four-step law of attraction formula for winning prizes and for the rest of life. Summaries of the book describe the steps in this order:
- Select what you want deliberately, naming the one prize or goal in full.
- Project it by picturing the outcome as if it has already happened.
- Expect it, holding a steady expectation that it is yours.
- Collect it by getting ready to receive it.
Read alongside her story, the lot and the drawn-up house plans look like the Collect step in practice. Her book also covers the practical side of contesting, including how contests are run and how to write a winning entry, so the lessons from that correspondence course are in there too.
What did she do after the house?
She spent the next decades teaching: in 1967 she sponsored a seminar in Dallas, and from 1968 she lectured on positive thinking. In 1971 she published The Name It and Claim It Game: with WINeuvers for WISHcraft with DeVorss & Company, a publisher of New Thought books, and it was in its seventh printing by 1982. From the early 1970s she trained in José Silva's Silva method, later taught at his institute in Laredo, Texas, and led workshops across the United States, Canada and England.
She kept writing into her eighties, and a humorous poem of hers, "Where's Grandma?", ran in the Saturday Evening Post in January 2007. She died on 30 October 2010, aged 86, and her books have since been republished with the contesting author Carolyn Wilman, beginning in 2020 with Contesting: The Name It & Claim It Game .
What can you take from Helene Hadsell's story?
Take the whole of it, the lean decade and the famous win together, because each half explains the other. She practised her craft and learned what judges wanted, and she decided on the prize and prepared for it before the result came. In the language of the law of assumption , she acted from the end, though she reached that idea through other teachers, crediting Peale.
Select is the step you can start today, because it is a sentence you write down. Write your goal as a line about who you are, in words you can stand behind, such as "I am someone who finishes what I start" or "I keep going when progress is slow". Our list of 100 "I am" affirmations has more, sorted by goal.
In Subliss you write the lines in your own words, or start from the free AI writer, and the builder turns them into a subliminal track you can play every day.
Frequently asked questions
Is it Helen or Helene Hadsell? Both. She was born Helen Barbara Daeschel, her books carry the name Helene Hadsell, and you will find both spellings in print.
What does SPEC stand for? Select, Project, Expect and Collect, the four steps of the formula in her book The Name It and Claim It Game .
What books did Helene Hadsell write? Her best known is The Name It and Claim It Game (1971), republished in 2020 as Contesting: The Name It & Claim It Game . She also wrote In Contact With Other Realms (2002), Confessions of an 83-Year-Old Sage (2007) and A Man Called Friday (2008).
Did Helene Hadsell follow Neville Goddard? She reached a similar idea through other teachers, crediting Norman Vincent Peale and, later, the Silva method. For Goddard's version of acting from the end, see the law of assumption .
Where was the Formica house built? In Irving, Texas. The Hadsells were ready to move in by the end of 1965 and lived there for several years.
The contest queen who planned her wins
Helene Hadsell is remembered for winning a house in 1965 against about 1.5 million other entries. Her own version of the story is fuller and more useful. A homemaker kept entering for ten lean years, learned what judges wanted, chose her prize, and had the house plans drawn before anyone told her she had won. That is a practice anyone can borrow, starting with the line you write down today.
Write your first line at subliss.app/create and turn it into a track from your own words. The free plan includes 3 subliminals in total.