A Bitter Childhood
Oprah! Oprah Winfrey and her media empire are now household name. Time Magazine ranked her as one of the most influential women in the world, while Forbes credited her as the richest self-made African American woman ever lived.
I first bumped into Winfrey in the fall of 2004. At that time, I was casually browsing through my TV channels and the title of the show, “Wildest Dreams Come True” caught my attention. I was intrigued when I witnessed how Winfrey extended a helping hand to deserving individuals that had been overlooked by society.
Winfrey rescued a 21 year old Alexandra Molina from a vicious cycle of self-doubt and failure. Molina, who had been in and out of foster care and homeless shelter, was given a new lease of life. Through Winfrey’s assistance, Molina regained her ability to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming a model. Molina was awarded a full four-year scholarship to the university of her choice, $10,000 EXPRESS wardrobe and a make-over opportunity with a former Victoria’s Secret model, Tyra Banks.
On another occasion, Winfrey went an extra mile to thank another extraordinary individual, Bernadette Robinson. Robinson was hailed by her Starbucks colleagues as a selfless woman who never failed to take care for her love ones in spite of her own struggle. Robinson and her husband volunteered to become foster parents of their nieces and nephews whose parents were serving time in jail. As an appreciation of Robinson’s sacrifice, Winfrey granted her with a very big surprise. Overnight, Robinson was upgraded from being a renter to a homeowner of a fully-equipped designer home. And, just in time for Christmas, her children were also showered with toys from Toys “R” Us that no child could ever imagine.
The pinnacle of the series was the flabbergasted $7 million General Motors Pontiac G6 Giveaway. Everybody in attendance received a car! Winfrey carefully selected attendees had been recommended by their community-at-large for their extraordinary service. If you have not seen it, check it out! In fact, it was Winfrey’s most successful season ever.
It may seem that Winfrey and her media empire had limitless fortune to give away, but things weren’t always easy for her. Born to an unwed teenage mother and raised by her grandmother in rural Mississippi, Winfrey grew up in poverty. She often had to resort to using potato sacks as dresses. At the age of 9, she was raped; at 13, she was sent to a juvenile detention home; at 14, she gave birth to a baby boy who died at infancy. With a series of disastrous setbacks, one would expect her to become a bitter woman.
Thanks to her dad, Vernon Winfrey, Winfrey was saved from destruction and hopelessness. Her father, who was strict and encouraging, made her education a priority; and her life was transformed by 180 degrees. In no time, Winfrey was heading towards a new direction. She not only won the Miss Black Tennessee Black Pageant, but she also secured a full-scholarship to Tennessee State University, a traditionally black institution. That early success ignited her momentum and jumpstarted her broadcasting career.
With more than two decades running, Winfrey never failed to connect with her viewers. Instead of succumbing to bleak past, she used her past experiences and insights to relate to their daily challenges. She instilled her supporters the feeling of self-worth and empowered them to see their very best. Her devoted audience regarded her as a teacher who can continuously inspire and motivate them to see the light of possibilities in the midst of darkness. At present, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” attracts more than 7 million viewership daily and “The ‘O’ Magazine” has a subscription base of more than 2.5 million subscribers. They cover topics from home decorations to financial planning, relationship issues to celebrity interviews, health check to environmental issues, just to name a few. To top it all off, her endorsement engine has a Midas touch. Anything that she recommends becomes instant hits, whether they are for books, movies or even presidential candidates. Recently, her nod of approval to Senator Barack Obama as Democratic presidential nominee boosted Obama’s election coverage; and that is how powerful the Oprah brand is.
I feel that Winfrey’s life story and her media influence echo two very subtle yet vital aspects of life. That is when new opportunities and positive thinking intersect, your past is no longer a reliable predictor of your future. Anything can happen. Winfrey is a living proof of it.
Everyday we are given a new chance to make a difference in our life. We are presented with two daily choices: positive vs. negative actions. As long as you are willing to look at a glass half-full instead of half-empty, you have given yourself another chance of change. And when opportunity comes knocking and you are prepared for it, abundant blessings are waiting for you to unlock. For Winfrey, it is choosing between using her past bad experiences to haunt her life or turning them into catalysts for her future success. She chose the latter. Consequently, she emerged from being a destitute child to become an Emmy award-winning talk-show host and a billionaire media mogul. And now she is paying it forward through her Oprah’s Angel Network and Harpo Studio. (Harpo is O-p-r-a-h spelled backwards.)
Let me conclude with one of my favorite quotes by Oprah Winfrey.
“It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you — always.” – Oprah Winfrey