I was driving down one of the little rural country roads that is part of the charm of Stanislaus County where I live on a warm sunny afternoon a few weeks ago, listening to an old James Taylor song when... WHOOSH! While I was driving, okay I admit it, around 5 to 7 miles over the speed limit which was 45 mph, this guy was doing at least 60 mph maybe even 70 mph! I thought to myself "what a jerk! Here it is, a nice, bright, sunny day, and you're driving like a bat out of you-know-where! You could cause a devastating accident!" I was very perturbed.
More recently, a little red car was racing down the road, darting in and out of traffic, clearly on a mission. Pulling up to the light, which was red, the driver in the car next to her glanced at the driver of the red car and seeing it was a woman driver thought to himself, "that figures; another 'crazy woman driver'!" The light turned green and she about floored it to get ahead of him. She was soon stopped once again but this time at a 4-way stop. Of course every single street had someone sitting there and as usual, there was at least one who didn't know whose turn it was to go so everybody just sits there. But not the woman in the red car! She just darts around the car in front of her and GOES across the intersection! Oh the cacophony of voices in the cars watching all this! "What an IDIOT!", One man screams out his window, "Ass-----!" A man driving a beat up old pickup says "she needs to be taught some respect!" and imagines himself punching her in the face.
At the first roundabout the woman in the red car just closes her eyes and plows through, cutting off two other drivers, causing them to slam on their brakes, narrowly missing hitting each other as well as her. "Some people need driving lessons!", said one driver, cussing her out. The other driver, a sweet little old lady, is so upset she decides it won't be long before she can't handle driving anymore.
I certainly do NOT condone reckless, dangerous driving, under ANY circumstances, but we really never know the circumstances of the PEOPLE that drive the cars that surround us on the roads. We seem to just look at cars and see nothing but impersonal, brightly colored, brand-new or beat up vehicles that get in our way sometimes when we have somewhere to go. The people within those cars have lives, families and places to go just like us. We can CHOOSE how we want to feel about someone cutting us off, racing past us at a stop sign or stop light, or when they pass us on a country road, sometimes flipping us off when they do; we get to CHOOSE how or even IF we react. In these troublesome times, reacting can get you killed!
I got a phone call recently and it was my daughter crying hysterically informing me of a devastating family emergency. I had to get over to her house immediately! Fortunately she only lives about three miles from me. It shouldn't take me but a few minutes! I jumped into my little red car...
We never know the circumstances of those drivers that DO race past us, cut us off, weave in and out of traffic, seemingly on a "mission". We can choose to "flare up" -- cussing them out, judging them as being "idiots" or worse, "call down evil" on them, or we can be "forbearing" -- decide that maybe, just maybe, their "mission" is to get to a devastated family member, or to the hospital because someone they love has been injured or worse. But HOW we react is our choice. It can make or break our day.
So when you're out driving today, be careful... there are some real "nuts" on the road!
"There's a reason you chose Earth, exactly when you did, as exactly who you are, with those already in your life and those who soon will be: To be an example, to shine your light, and to give hope.
Yeah, you were needed.. super bad.
Kind of obvious now, huh?
The Universe"
We all have a mission on planet Earth and whoever we come across will either teach us a lesson, contribute to our success or make us fail. Depending who you are as a person, you either will let your experiences teach you a lesson for you to grow or crush and break you down. You decide the path you want to go. Failures are lessons, and nothing else. Nothing is permanent, except death. In 50 years from now, death will no longer be permanent with advance medical and scientific research, but for now, I guess death is a pretty permanent event in your life. So how do you want your life to be? Will you let things or people bother you to a point of you allowing it to control your own life? How will you react when facing adversities? What are you going to do overcome your pain and still keep on moving forward? Only you can answer these questions. No one will ever do anything to you when helping you with these struggles. Learn to depend on yourself to get to where you want to go. Some family and friends can assist you when walking towards the right direction, but the rest is left up to you. Make sure to not disappoint yourself in this journey.
Nothing is easy and if it was, everyone would do it. If being a millionaire is your ultimate goal, expect to work your ass off to accomplish your goal. You will come across many obstacles along the way, many friends and family members who will do everything they can to stop you from accomplishing your goals while trying to come out as giving you the best advice to guarantee your ultimate success. You need to learn to listen to your inner voice that will be the one guiding you on the right path. If you do come across failure, learn from it and keep on going forward. Some little tweaking might be needed to make things succeed. Once you have reached your goals, you will forget all the suffering, all the sacrifices, all the hurdles you faced throughout your journey to ultimate success. So what will be coming next? Well, it really depends on you. Your new journey has just begun and you will come across the same hurdles and challenges. The difference now is that you know that there is light at the end of the tunnel and if you put in the same amount of energy, the same dedication and belief in yourself, you will again succeed far beyond your expectation. You will now know what it takes to make it big on planet Earth.
"If it wasn't for needing you there so much, I'd need you here.
"Thanks," on behalf of all those in your life right now who are just too busy, or stressed, or sad, to see how much you add to theirs. (You know who I mean.)
Hope you had a fabulous weekend,
The Universe"
We all have a role in this planet, and this great power given to us from above, comes great responsibilities. Never undermine your presence on this planet. It is not about your size, or your wealth, or your statute that correspond to the amount of impact you can have in people's lives. The little things you do can make a huge impact but you need to start somewhere. When you see someone in need, lay a hand, help out, see how you can make their lives a bit easier. Never hesitate. Always take initiative and be the first one to reach out when your inner voice suggest it. I know we all have our crap to deal with, it's a given, but I am sure that many are in worst crap than you are, so it's always good to help, either way.
You have a mission on planet Earth, but the problem is that we do not have a clue what it is. Some people never accomplish their mission, live their lives, go meet the angels and come back down to try again to accomplish that mission. As many researchers were able to prove that consciousness remains even after physical body dies, we can say that there is an infinite possibility that the reincarnated soul may have recollection of their previous life and remember events that actually NEVER happened in their actual life. Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, have experienced life after death and have seen the process of a mild reincarnation after being in a coma for 7 days. He wrote the book Proof of heaven to describe his experience with the general public. He tried to understand how all that could have happened, especially when his neuro-cortex showed no sign of activity, which for many medical expert, could have diagnosed it as illusions if proven otherwise. Nevertheless, NDE happens and occurs in many cases around the world. Can we say that in the case of Dr Alexander, the angels sent him back down saying that it wasn't his time and his mission wasn't yet accomplished? Did a power from above intervene in his well being to kick him back to life after his severe bacterial meningitis infection and come out alive and healthy? It is hard to explain why certain people will succumb to the illness and others won't. Despite these many questions, we should all be fortunate enough to live a healthy life and allow ourselves to be given an opportunity to make a change and be better people. This is what life is worth living for.
Just like Don Quixote who set about destroying the windmills of Holland, we all have our own demons or windmills to destroy.
Each and everyone one of us comes into this world with a mission, and part of that mission is to overcome fear or dispel whatever karma we may be working on at the time.
Every challenge in life presents us with an opportunity to learn. We often erroneously think the challenges we face are someone else's doing.
They aren't.We each create our own destiny and learning experiences.
Although there may be a perpetrator, and someone we believe is doing us wrong, that act is something we created ourselves to enable us to solve an issue and create an environment for us to move past some karma created by us in this lifetime or in the past.
After we get past the initial anger, the only thing left to do is to understand what we can do about it and learn from it.
Those instances of perceived injustice can actually make us a better person, and I have found if I don't learn from them, the actions get repeated until I do.
There isn't anyway around them.
In today's world with all the advancements in technology, life should be easier than it ever has been in the history of man, but people keep inventing new ways to make their life more difficult.
This just proves to me that humanity continuously needs new challenges to grow intellectually, deep down inside, no one wants an easy way in life.
We need challenges to stimulate our minds and souls, the unhappiest people are often times the ones who life has handed them a silver spoon.
As a result, slaying our dragons should be one of our main objectives in life.
Many times we worry about someone else's dragons and forget about our own.
There is only one person who can meet their own demons, no one else can do it for them.
We can help, but they have to do it themselves, we should always remember this.
That is why it is often said,"No good deed goes unpunished." When we do too much and interfere with their karma, the universe will let us know in no uncertain terms.
People only want so much help, and to know that someone is thinking of them, then they can do what needs to be done, in their own way.
We have enough to think about taking care of our own issues, and only by solving our own problems can we help anyone else.
I have traversed the globe in search of truth, my truth, during which time I have had an opportunity to study with Aborigine elders, native American Indians, and some of the world's finest intuitive. All of this has lead me to better understand our world and all things therein contained.
I opened my eyes. It is cold and it is dark still. Early morning during the winter is one of my less favorite times. It is cold, really cold. It is so warm and cozy in bed, to get out is a mission on its own. As I lie there thinking to myself. Thinking about the choice I have to make right at that very moment. The choice of getting up and writing to you, or I can just set my alarm clock for another hour and a half later and go back to sleep. After all it is winter and it is cold and who would know? Everyone else is sleeping warm, cozy and sound in their beds.
I am the only one crazy enough to get up at 4 am in the morning to write. I am the only one crazy enough to think that the extra time in the morning, before everyone starts to stir and before the sun start to rise for the day, that I will use this time to my advantage and make a difference. Not just a difference in my life but for my son as well. He deserves the very best I have to offer, and that includes me, the very best of me, the successful me.
As I sit and think about the choice I choose to make today, to rather get up earlier, using the extra time to push myself towards my goal. I think back over the past few years, and I realize how many times I have given up... How many times did I choose to sleep a little more, how many times I choose not to take action but rather to blame others for what happened to me, all the stuff that went wrong in my life. It was never me, never my fault. Always someone else's fault, everyone else did all these things to me, they caused every bit of discomfort and heartache, when in fact as I look back I know I caused everything myself. I made the wrong choices. I made the wrong choice every day.
Many things could have been so very different. Some of these make my heart ache when I think of them. How is it that I didn't think, how is it that I didn't know this before. How is it that I messed up my life so bad. Sometimes it still feels that I will never get it back again, any of the stuff I made myself loose. That I messed up my only chance of happiness. I know what I did wrong, I have forgiven myself. Sometimes the regret do come back, then I feel the hurt inside me. But I only let it linger for a little moment, not too long, just a short while. Just long enough to remind me of what it is that I never want to do to myself and to my family ever again. Real honest regret is one of the worst feelings to experience. The moment is over now, got to move on and change the feeling to one of hope and happiness. What's done is done. I can decide today to learn from the past thus making the future a better place.
Today is my choice, I can choose to get up and go, or I can choose to lie back and sleep some more, only dreaming of a better future, not actually doing something to change it. Today is my choice; I will decide what I want to do with the time I am given here. I decide to make a success; I decide to get up earlier and to use the extra time to do something great. I decide to do one great thing today, just one. One is a good start, one is already halfway to two, and two is already halfway to four, do you see where I am going with this? Make one good choice today, tomorrow make two and that is exactly how we grow and that is how we succeed.
Yesterday is gone, tomorrow may never come, but today is here, right here, right now. Today is my choice, just like today is your choice. Choose to make today the best of your life so far, choose to make today the first day of the rest of your amazing life. Then tomorrow you improve on today. You are the creator of the rest of your life right now. And if you really think about it, right now is in fact the only time that really counts, make it count then.
I should have made better choices before, I know. I also know it doesn't help me at all to dwell in the past and regret all the mistakes I've made. I know now to use these past mistakes to make a better today, thus creating a better future. I deserve success, I deserve love and I deserve money, loads of it all. I deserve all the stuff I chased away out of mere ignorance, stubbornness and the greatest of all selfishness. Never realizing I am the one who is creating my own masterpiece. I threw many of the good usable parts away, stupidity and ignorance. But today I see into the future and I see all these things for myself and a whole lot more in abundance.
Therefore I choose today to change my entire existence. To change what I keep and what I throw away. The universe is on my side, smiling down at me, proud of me and proud of my recent good choices. I can feel the universe changing and moving to my advantage. I have forgiven myself, the universe has forgiven me, my choices is made and now I can start to live life the way it was intended.
You and me, we have the same choice the moment we open our eyes in the morning. Right there, this moment is when you make the biggest choice of your life. Whether to get up and tackle this bull by the horns, or lie back and relax some more. My choice is to get up and give it the best shot that I can; then some more. Success is in that choice. You and me, we decide what to do with the time we are given.
Decide what it is that you want, then believe you can have it, believe that you deserve it, believe it is possible, then take action together with your decision. You are a strong amazing wonderful person, just decide and make your world the best place it can possible be. I can, I will, and so can you.
AFTER REVAMPING HER ONCE-STRUGGLING TV CHANNEL, OWN, OPRAH WINFREY HAS FIGURED OUT HOW TO MAKE TIME FOR THE PROJECTS SHE CARES ABOUT MOST.
I’ve come to interview the world’s most famous interviewer, and she has already caught me off guard. "So, what’s your intention here with me?" Oprah Winfrey asks, her legs crossed, a serious look on her face. We’re talking in Winfrey’s office at the Los Angeles headquarters of her television channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network (aka OWN), and the flowing white drapes, gilded light fixtures, and flocculent, cloud-like sofa make the room feel more like heaven than Hollywood. A floor-to-ceiling oak bookshelf behind her immaculately tidy desk is full of intimidating mementos, including one of her 18 Emmy awards and a photograph of her with Nelson Mandela.
Winfrey has invited me to spend some time watching her run her media empire, and so far, my visit has been going well. Despite her massive celebrity (and the fact that she met me just an hour ago), she is warm, huggy, and—true to her spiritual-guru persona—immediately invested in teaching me something I can use to improve my life. We have already bonded over Mississippi, where we were both born ("What a wowzer that is for me!" she says). But then she drops this oddly blunt question about my intent, and I’m unexpectedly stumped. Finally, after a bit of rambling, I come up with an answer. "I’m here," I tell her, "to learn how Oprah gets stuff done."
"Okay, great!" she replies. "I can help you with that."
Winfrey is one of the most powerful and influential people in the world, as well as one of the busiest. With a net worth of $3 billion, she is one of just two black billionaires in North America (the other is Michael Jordan). Her 25-year run as host and producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show—which, in a brilliant business move, she solely owns through her production company, Harpo Studios—changed the TV business and has left a void since its final episode in 2011.
As the chairman and CEO of OWN, she oversees an expanding channel that’s now available in 82 million homes. Jointly owned by Winfrey and Discovery Communications, OWN has nearly doubled its prime-time viewership since it launched four years ago, driven by hits such as the reality show Iyanla: Fix My Life and the Tyler Perry drama The Haves and the Have Nots. OWN has now grown into a cable success story, and the first quarter of 2015 was the network’s most watched yet, with an average of 539,000 prime-time viewers—not too far off from CNN and Comedy Central.
Winfrey is also the founder, publisher, and monthly cover subject of O, The Oprah Magazine (which boasts a circulation of 2.5 million), as well as an Oscar-nominated actress (The Color Purple) and film producer (Selma). From October 18 to 24, OWN will air Belief, a seven-part docuseries that explores faith and spirituality, which she executive produced. She is the creator of a hugely influential book club, has nearly 30 million Twitter followers, and in general holds such sway over public sentiment that her influence has a name: The Oprah Effect.
Oprah Winfrey has a lot going on. And, as I discover, she is on the same arduous and perpetual journey as everyone else: trying to find a way to get everything done while maintaining some kind of balance. "I am aware that there is a finite amount of time and energy in every day," says Winfrey, who’s wearing a breezy cream cardigan with chocolate trim, dangly pearl earrings, and a pricey, 18-karat rose gold Apple Watch. "So what is really important? What do you really want to do?" She leans toward me, stretching an arm across the back of the couch, then whispers, as if confessing a secret: "Now I’m in a position where I only do what I want to do."
Though Winfrey famously ran her talk show and Harpo Studios from Chicago, these days she’s moving her whole operation to L.A., making this expansive complex the center of her empire. By the end of the year, she will have shut down her Chicago studios entirely.
The closing of Harpo is both pragmatic and symbolic, marking a shift in Winfrey’s career and in her lifestyle. "The hardest thing to get accustomed to when I left [my talk show] is that I get to order my own time," she says. "In Chicago, when it was like, windchill-factor 42 below, sometimes I went from one garage to the next garage and never saw daylight. I had this whole little world that was just my little Harpo world." But today? "I’m at a point where I am like, ‘Whoa, my God!’ The birds are tweeting, the sun is coming up. I mean, I appreciate every thing. I’m like a person who’s been let out."
This newfound freedom didn’t happen by accident. Winfrey has structured OWN so it can run without her constant oversight, leaving plenty of time to pursue additional projects that she’s passionate about. To make that work, she has installed a pair of trusted longtime employees as copresidents: Erik Logan, who joined Harpo as an executive vice president in 2008, and Sheri Salata, who started as a marketer at Harpo in 1995 and rose to executive producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006, which she oversaw until the end of its run. The trio refer to themselves as a "three-legged stool" that supports OWN’s organization of about 200 employees, with Logan mostly handling business and operations, Salata primarily steering creative, and Winfrey, of course, as the brand. "I try to surround myself with people who really know what they’re doing and give them the freedom to do it," Winfrey says.
Salata and Logan, who frequently complete each other’s sentences, oversee a leadership team that includes several other longtime Winfrey veterans, some of whom have worked with her for as much as two decades. Together, they’ve developed a keen sense of how she would likely react to any given issue. "I’m right about 89% of the time," jokes Salata. "There’s a beautiful sifting and sorting process that happens with people who’ve been around the mission for a really long time."
Words like mission are common when you talk to Winfrey’s most trusted executives; conversations are full of terms like disciples, sacred, moral compass, and spiritual leader. "We work for a person who has a mission on earth," says Salata. "It’s a great North Star. Not just because she’s the boss, but because she is the heart and soul, and the spiritual leader of this organization." When you work at OWN, Winfrey’s voice isn’t just your product—it’s your guiding spirit. Consequently, signature Oprah queries become part of every aspect of OWN’s process. "What’s your intention?" is one important example, I eventually learn; it turns out that nerve-racking opening challenge wasn’t cooked up especially for me.
The "church of Oprah" has been parodied plenty, but at OWN, it’s a highly effective management tool. "It’s a mind-set," says Logan. "When people deeper in the organization have decisions to make, they can keep that present, because they ultimately know, as it flows up the organization, that that’s how we look at it too." Winfrey is both the boss and the inspirational figure who leads by example. "What would Oprah do when you’re leading a meeting and you have a difficult person?" asks Salata. "[When] you’re in a deal, coming up with creative? It makes the ‘nos’ really easy. I know what Oprah wouldn’t do." She looks me in the eye. "You do, too," she says. (I confess: It’s true.) As I summarize all of this in my notes, "W.W.O.D.?"
The system works out well for Winfrey, who lives about two hours away on a 42-acre Montecito estate and usually spends several days a month in the office. She makes a point to "really, really, really try to avoid meetings," instead getting detailed summaries emailed to her by her staff. To underscore this point, she tells the story of a phone call she once received from the late Coretta Scott King, who wanted to fly to L.A. to meet with Winfrey to ask for help with a project. "And I go, ‘Mrs. King, you should just tell me whatever it is on the phone and save yourself the flight,’ " Winfrey says. " ‘Whatever it is, I’m going to be more inclined to do it if you just ask me on the phone. Because if you come all the way here, if I don’t want to do it, I’m still not gonna do it. And then you would have wasted your time, and I’m going to feel bad, and you’re going to feel bad.’ I spent 20 minutes trying to convince her not to come." She didn’t, "and it’s a good thing," laughs Winfrey, who ended up granting the favor.
Winfrey might not be a constant presence around OWN, but the input she does provide is crucial. "Her brilliance is in frosting the cake," says Salata. "Baking it—those are the meetings and all that. We could spend months and months and months [on something], and we come together, lay out our wares, and say, ‘Go to town.’ Then she comes with a big bowl of frosting: ‘Not this, that’s not right, more of this.’ And you sit back and go, That’s why she’s Oprah."
When OWN launched in 2011, it initially seemed like a rare Winfrey stumble, and her approach today seems in many ways shaped by the tumultuous experience of saving her creation. Originally, Winfrey intended OWN to be a destination for the kind of live-your-best-life self-help content that she assumed her audience wanted. At launch, programming largely consisted of wellness shows—Ask Oprah’s All Stars, In the Bedroom With Dr. Laura Berman—and uninspiring syndicated fare (including reruns of Dr. Phil, no less). What’s more, none of OWN’s new shows featured its biggest asset: Oprah herself. Due to commitments with her talk show, Winfrey initially wasn’t able to host any new programs, appearing only occasionally for special events. The Oprah Winfrey Network launched, essentially, without regular on-air contributions from Oprah Winfrey.
At the time, she was still based in Chicago, which also contributed to a lack of day-to-day engagement in molding the network that bore her name. Early OWN ratings were disappointing, with just an average of 262,000 viewers tuning in during 2011. It turned out even the Winfrey faithful didn’t want quite that much preachy self-help. "My mistake was, I thought I could do that every day, in 24/7 programming," says Winfrey. "I thought I was going to have people meditating in the morning, yoga classes midday, [spiritual guide] Eckhart Tolle on in the afternoon. I had a vision of what living your best life could look like. The people told me otherwise. I had to redo my vision."
In 2011, when The Oprah Winfrey Show ended, she was able to focus on OWN. "I need to be there," she told attendees of a Chicago media conference in June of that year. "I need to be engaged and involved. I need to do the same thing I did on my show every day." By July she did just that, taking over as CEO and chief creative officer (former CEO Christina Norman had departed in May).
First she had to figure out what audiences wanted—and find a way to give it to them without compromising her values. "If we made choices based on ratings, I know that we could be a top-10 network and make a lot more money," says Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav, who created OWN with Winfrey. "But the choices Oprah’s making are purpose-driven." To find her footing, "she spent more time looking at content and talking to the audience, learning what’s different between the cable business and the syndication business. Every week the network got a little bit better."
One major turning point came in 2012, when Winfrey approached her friend Tyler Perry, a hugely successful entertainment impresario who’s known for his lowbrow sensibility. Initially, Perry had come to her, offering his services. At that point, Winfrey wasn’t interested. "Watching how difficult it was for her, I said, ‘You know, I can help you out,’ " Perry recalls. "Nothing came of that because, you know, Oprah’s very clear on her vision and direction." Eventually Winfrey changed her mind, and Perry was happy to get involved. "How do you say no to Oprah?"
According to Perry, Winfrey had faith that he could please his fans without straying too far outside her mission. "There was no ‘change this, do this, choose this,’ " Perry says. "[It was,] ‘I’m gonna sit back and trust you. You know your audience like none other that I know.’ " She was right. Today, Perry’s OWN projects include the megahit soap operas If Loving You Is Wrong and The Haves and the Have Nots, which are currently the network’s two top-rated shows. Thanks to Perry, earlier this year OWN became the No. 1 cable network among women on Tuesday nights, when The Haves and the Have Nots airs, and the No. 1 network overall among African-American women.
Perry is quick to point out that OWN’s turnaround was under way before he arrived. Winfrey had stepped back in front of the camera with a weekly celebrity interview show (guests have included Steven Spielberg and Pharrell Williams), and she had introduced more crowd-pleasing programming to replace some of the self-help. Thanks in part to Winfrey’s greater involvement, the network had also been able to negotiate more favorable contracts with cable providers, significantly increasing revenue.
But Perry’s shows established the kind of "destination viewing" that most networks dream of, and have also helped lure advertisers. According to research firm SNL Kagan, OWN netted $125 million in ad revenue last year—nearly double its first year on the air. Now OWN is adding more scripted series, including more serious fare like the miniseries Tulsa, starring Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer and set amid the infamous 1921 Oklahoma race riot, and the drama Queen Sugar, which is being written by Selma director Ava DuVernay and is slated to costar Winfrey herself.
With OWN delivering both ratings and earnings—the network became profitable in 2013—it seems Winfrey can afford to be less hands-on than when she took control as CEO. "The first night after The Haves and the Have Nots, [ratings] were at such a high number that I gave a sigh of relief," she says. "That allowed a lot of the pressure to come off, you know? That gave us some breathing room." Later, Winfrey lights up when I ask her about her vacation schedule: "This is the first year I’ve actually said, ‘Okay, from these days to these days, I’m not going to be checking into the office.’ "
OWN’s turnaround might have something to do with a concept that Winfrey considers one of her big productivity secrets: being "fully present." "I have learned that your full-on attention for any activity you choose to experience comes with a level of intensity and truth," she says. "It’s about living a present life, moment to moment—not worrying about what’s going to happen at 3 o’clock and what’s going to happen at 7 o’clock." In other words: focus. "That whole thing about multitasking? That’s a joke for me. When I try to do that, I don’t do anything well."
Being fully present is something she’s long cultivated, going back to when she would do interviews for The Oprah Winfrey Show. Sometimes the technique can be too effective, especially when she’s conducting emotional interviews. "I am listening as hard as they’re talking and taking on the energy of whatever is going on in that moment," she says. "I had to learn how to be present but not take it all in. Because at the end of the day I’d just be messed up."
DuVernay, who directed Winfrey in Selma and has come to think of her as a "big sister," remembers when, on her very first day on set in character, Winfrey got the news that her close friend and mentor Maya Angelou had died. "She’s getting hair and makeup," DuVernay recalls, "and Maya’s passing is reported. It was a mournful moment, [but] it was about finishing her business—it was about her work as an artist and an actress." Director Lee Daniels, who worked with Winfrey when she executive produced his film Precious and costarred in The Butler, had a similar experience. "She stopped everything [to work on the movie]," he says. "She disconnected from the business world and her company that she was running. She didn’t come with a posse. She was committed to the character, and she was committed to the work."
The lessons Winfrey seems to have internalized from the OWN turnaround—being in the moment and aware, modifying your vision in service of your overall goal, establishing a trusted team you can delegate to—have helped her figure out what’s important. To friends and coworkers, Winfrey can come off as almost superhuman. At the same time, one key source of her appeal is how she still remains so humble and in touch with her vulnerability. "Most people think the way I did: that Oprah is Oprah and she’s perfect and has got all the answers," says Daniels. "But what makes her spectacular to me is she’s aware that she doesn’t have all the answers. She’s in search of them, in a space of humility."
Some of OWN’s content is filmed on a large soundstage located right behind its headquarters. The day after our interview in her office, Winfrey is perched on a stool in Studio 7, sipping sparkling water from a can with a straw as dozens of assistants, makeup artists, cameramen, sound engineers, and lighting specialists swarm around her. She’s here today to shoot promos for Belief, the documentary series that she and longtime collaborator Jon Sinclair, along with Brooklyn-based Part2 Pictures, produced for her network. In typically efficient fashion, Winfrey is dressed for the camera from the waist up—with gold bangles and perfectly primped curls—and for comfort down below, wearing yoga pants and leather sneakers.
Eventually a short and very authoritative man yells for quiet on the set, and Winfrey begins recording the spots. Salata prompts her with a series of questions about her spiritual beliefs. "I remember praying on my knees the very first night I had been removed from my grandmother," says Winfrey, who was sent to live with her mother in Milwaukee at the age of 6. "My belief and understanding that there was a force—a presence, a power, a divine entity, a being, that loved me, and the very idea of being loved into being—is what has kept me grounded, what has kept me centered, what has kept me strong." There’s near-total silence as Salata, sniffling, moves on to the next question.
Belief traces a range of moving stories about people exploring their spirituality or looking for purpose, from a former pro skateboarder on a pilgrimage to Mecca to an atheist who finds meaning by scaling mountains without ropes or a harness. "I welcome people in all of their beliefs that allow them to aspire to the best of their humanness," Winfrey says. "What really mattered to me about creating a network was having a platform where I could connect ideas that let people see the best of themselves through the lives of other people."
At one point, I share with Winfrey that there’s a story in Belief I find particularly gripping, about a Christian couple named Ian and Larissa. Ten months into their relationship, Ian suffers a traumatic brain injury that renders him barely able to move or speak. Through their faith, they’re able to stay together and get married. I talk about how I identified with the couple’s ability to find meaning in tragedy, and of the similar journey that began for me after the recent loss of three close family members within a 10-month span.
As I finish telling Winfrey what their story meant to me, I look up and see tears streaming down her face, threatening to ruin her carefully traced eyeliner. "Would you get me some Kleenex, please, so I don’t go ugly-cry on J.J. here?" she yells to her publicist, then turns back to me. "Weren’t you reeling, though? Weren’t you reeling?" Then she tells me she wants to talk off-the-record, and offers some unprompted insight and advice. What she shares is heartfelt, genuine, and appreciated.
Winfrey financed Belief on her own, and it has been quite a project, involving three years of production, hundreds of hours of footage, and thousands of miles traveled by her crew around the globe. "We cast it, sent people all over the world to tell their stories, and have been in the process of refining in order to create this mosaic that makes sense to the viewer," she says. When Winfrey talks about focusing on the work she cares most about, this is the sort of thing she has in mind. In fact, she says, this is why she wanted to start OWN in the first place. Though the network’s more conventional offerings continue to rake in the ratings, this is what really drives her. She’s giving people what they want in order to support the kind of programming that she feels they need.
In her office, Winfrey keeps a large charcoal drawing titled Having by the artist Whitfield Lovell, which depicts two African-American women, one standing and the other sitting, wearing what appears to be simple, early-1900s-era garb. Winfrey doesn’t say why she’s drawn to it, though she has displayed it—both here and before that in Chicago—for at least a decade. But it’s easy to imagine that this image of black women in a very different time keeps her somehow grounded.
"Through the grace of a force I call God," Winfrey says, "I have been privileged to live this exquisitely inspired life. Daily, it continues to astound me that I’ve come from where I come from, and I am where I am. I feel that my role here on earth is to inspire people, and to get them to look at themselves. My genuine wish is to do better and be better to everybody. That’s not just some kind of talk for me. That’s who I am."
