“Fail. Try again. You will do better the second time”. The rules of success for the most famous TV presenter Oprah Winfrey
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Oprah Winfrey has a combined fortune of $ 2.6 billion in the Forbes global billionaire ranking. The icon of American television has managed to reveal famous guests in a new way in her show, do business and give valuable advice to an army of fans in the United States and beyond.
She is the only African American and creative person with billions on the list of America’s richest people. Oprah Winfrey leads a rich creative life – she starred in two dozen films and is waiting for new proposals, received an Oscar, a Golden Globe, as well as fifty awards for her legendary show.
Childhood and adolescence of Oprah Winfrey were so dark that it is worth talking about them only in the context of an example of how you can push off the bottom and swim out into the world of fame, money and success. By the way, the path to success was not so easy. However, life’s wisdom, intuition, straightforwardness, charm and business flair allowed Oprah Winfrey to become the darling of millions, converting this love into real capital.
“Passion comes when you do what you love,” TV presenter Oprah Winfrey, who is rightfully called one of the most influential women of our time, once said. “When you are passionate, you can work all night long. Passion is strength, it is the fuel you need to succeed. Find your passion and devote your life to realizing it, and it doesn’t really matter how long it takes”.
It was her passion that allowed her to transform her 25-year hit talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show into a successful media business empire.
How did it all begin? In her early youth, Oprah dreamed of getting on television, and finally, thanks to her disruptive nature, at the age of 17 she became the first black woman reporter in Nashville, as well as a correspondent for the CBS television channel. She was later hired as a news anchor assistant.
Once replacing a colleague – a commentator on the evening show – she brilliantly coped with her role. While more successful colleagues were whispering behind her back about a strange girl who copies the movements of the presenters and learns cues from memory, Oprah Winfrey tried to get into the frame at all costs. She did not succeed very often.
“Do at least one thing that seems impossible to you. Fail. Try again. You will do better the second time. The only people who never fail are those who don’t climb great heights,” Oprah recalled that period.
Once her determination was rewarded – she was entrusted with a small morning program with a zero rating. Imagine the surprise of the channel’s management when in just two months the ratings of this show skyrocketed.
A lively black girl decided to transfer to a new frontier – to raise views of the morning show AM Chicago. And again, success – the improvisations on the air of this perky African-American woman were so fond of the public that this show was a success.
“Trust your inner voice. It is the wisest thing in life,” famous presenter Oprah Winfrey wrote in her autobiography. She recalls how she felt that very moment. Then, in 1986, her program went nationwide, already with absolutely confident in her own professionalism host of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
The secret of the audience’s love is in Oprah’s immediacy. She never aspired to be perfect – she could tell the whole story about herself, absolutely not ashamed of the details. She looked and felt the same as the average viewer on the other side of the screen in each of the 65 countries in which the program was broadcast.
With her frankness and simplicity, she bribed world stars and revealed their images in new angles. It was on the The Oprah Winfrey Show that the most shocking confessions of celebrities sounded: about love and drug addiction, hatred and losses, real figures of fees were called and details of scandals were announced. More and more revelations were published in the fresh O, The Oprah Magazine.
Fortune, recognition and success helped Oprah Winfrey to realize herself in the charitable field. For example, she built a girls’ school in South Africa. The TV presenter commented, “I opened a school in South Africa because I wanted to do something useful. I always hoped that my show and my magazine were useful, that they were worthy of people’s time. Once upon a time, education became a light for me. And I want to do for African girls what my teachers did for me”.
Oprah Winfrey supports various social programs, and recently donated $ 10 million to the fight against coronavirus.
Now Oprah owns her own film studio, O, The Oprah Magazine, a radio network, the OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network TV channel. The TV presenter invests in weight loss products, real estate, and has signed a long-term contract with Apple.
“Small but sure steps should be taken. You don’t have to think about the need to move mountains, but only about the next right decision,” says Oprah Winfrey. Her success story is a vivid example of building a strong personal brand from scratch with those very small but sure steps.