Oprah. Synonymous with someone who has climbed high out of poverty
and abuse to become one of the world's most iconic women. The first
black billionaire in the world, she has an amazing record of
achievements that set her apart from many and yet, the allure of
Oprah is that she remains very much a part of all people because
her feet haven't left the ground, and her heart remains firmly
attuned to what we feel and strive for in life.
For Oprah, people matter. Her chemistry with audiences is renowned;
she genuinely connects with people from all walks of life because her
interest in people's lives is sincere. Encouraging everyone to "live
their best life", along with never forgetting her own cultural roots,
Oprah continues to give back to many and seeks to make lives around
her better as an innate part of her lifestyle. As a role model or a
source of inspiration, Oprah is a full package of good ideals,
strength over adversity, and imperfections turned into benefits. If
you'd like to channel your inner Oprah, here are some suggestions.
!! Steps !!
Live a balanced life. Oprah realized in her twenties that balance
was essential to "refilling her tank" or she couldn't be fully
available to others.[1] Energy seems to spring forth endlessly until
one day, you wake up and realize you've been giving 110 percent to
everyone else but neglecting yourself. This endless energy does not
need to fade throughout life but maintaining it requires taking a
balanced approach to your life, to ensure that you give time to your
own needs as much as everyone else's. Women, in particular, tend to
put others first in their roles as mothers, wives, daughters,
workers, volunteers, and more. Yet, the importance of taking time
out for oneself is not selfish; rather, it is the healthiest way to
ensure that you can keep giving to others.
* Stop doing everything when you're feeling overwhelmed. Continuing
to try and achieve when your reserves are depleted will bring on
burn-out and physical illness.
* Oprah takes off Sundays as the day all for herself. She uses it as
a day to do nothing but renew spiritually, and to give herself
time to "be".[2] Follow her example and set aside some time every
week that's just for your own recharging.
Follow your passion. Oprah is a living example of someone who
absolutely loves her work because she's pursuing something she is
good at and that she knows is benefiting the world. She made a
choice to do something that makes the most of her talents and her
ability to connect with people. But you don't have to make your
career your "baby", as Oprah admits she has done. Whatever it is
you're doing in life, be it homemaking, volunteering, coaching,
teaching others, to being a salaried employee or running your own
business, you can follow your passion and do it to your very best,
loving both the wonderful moments and learning from and growing
through the hardships.
Be a leader. In all that you do, shine by example, even if you don't
think you're "leading" because chances are, you're leading because
you're inspiring others. As a leader, Oprah knows how to inspire
people – she follows her vision clearly, and works out how to
ensure that her vision appeals to a large group of followers.[3]
Oprah relies on "team, vision, and values" according to Srini
Pillay, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University.[4] This
means that she combines the strengths of her team with the strength
of her vision and the unfailing faith in her values.
* Take a leaf from Oprah's book and always recognize the strengths
in others around you. Whether or not you're in management or
leading people (bearing in mind that being responsible for a
household or team morale _is_ management), you can always do your
very best to draw out the best in other people by supporting them,
and gently guiding them to rely most on their strengths. Oprah is
so successful precisely because she didn't fear the talents and
abilities in others; quite the opposite, her gift for seeing other
people's strengths has always allowed her to benefit from relying
on those strengths to form a valuable part of her team, building
strong teams because she cares about and fosters the good in
others. Keep in mind that when others about you succeed, so do
you, especially when your united front helps your company, your
household, your local school committee, etc., achieve what you all
ultimately want from the situation.
* Find good mentors. Oprah has had the strength and honesty to know
when she needs others to draw out her own strengths. Throughout
her life she has relied on good mentors to help her be her best,
people such as Bob Greene who helped her stick with her running
program that resulted in her running marathons and improving her
strength and weight issues. Know when you're better off reaching
out and getting encouragement and support from others. This isn't
weakness; it's the ultimate in strength when you accept your
limitations. Relying on good mentors makes you a stronger person,
worker, manager, and ultimately, leader.
* Don't let go of your ambition or your vision. Achieving what you
want takes guts and courage because there will always be
naysayers, and people who won't support you. There will be people
who directly try to undermine your efforts, so you need to keep
your focus on your vision and stay ambitious. For the times when
you feel this sense of purpose slipping, take time to step back
and revisit your vision in order to rejuvenate your sense of
purpose.
Be generous. Generous by nature, Oprah regularly shares her
achievements with others. For example, since winning a Lifetime
Achievement Award in 1999 and her seventh emmy, Oprah hasn't
submitted her work for the award, presumably to help ensure that
more entertainers in the industry have an opportunity to gain such
awards.[5] Oprah regularly helps out causes, friends, and people she
believes in by having them appear on her show, helping many people's
businesses and careers to new heights; as well, Oprah funded the
rebuilding of 300 homes in New Orleans and[6] opened a school in
South Africa (The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls) with
the hope of giving many South African girls better life
opportunities.
* Give to the best of your ability. Few of us have the wealth of
Oprah but being generous isn't about materialism. It is about
being able to give back in the ways that you can afford, whether
it be money, volunteering talent and resources, teaching someone
something new, or taking care of someone's kids for an afternoon.
Generosity is a mindset of appreciating what you do have and of
being an engaged part of the greater human community.
* Listen to others. Generosity isn't only about giving resources,
skills, and talent. It's also about giving of your time, the most
precious resource in today's world. Showing that you truly care
about another person requires good listening skills, something
Oprah demonstrates by listening to her audience and incorporating
their wishes into her shows. When you truly listen to other
people, your generosity is sincere and extensive.
Be a force for love. The whole Oprah phenomenon began because Oprah
didn't like seeing hate messages spread on television.[7] Turn
around the fear, anxiety and anger that leads to gossip,
rumor-mongering, and uncomplimentary conversations about other
people. Stand up for what you believe is right by resisting the urge
to speak ill of others. Your example will be clear to others when
they find that they cannot move you to be a gossiper or force of
negativity and you'll gain much respect.
* If you do succumb to being less than nice sometimes, don't sweat
it. Simply revise why you fell into gossip-mongering, and promise
yourself to do better from this point on. It can take time to
break an old habit and the more that you desist from such negative
talk, the more at peace you'll feel.
Enjoy reading. Oprah's Book Club is worldwide famous and with good
reason; she has encouraged reading with vigor! Read widely and learn
as much as you can from both fiction and non-fiction; other people's
written perspectives of life serve as an important part of
broadening your knowledge and understanding of the world you live
in.
Respect your body and make peace with it. Oprah has long had issues
with managing her weight but she has taken it in her stride and over
the years, has come to terms with it. The ever-present idolization
of stick-thin "beauty" has created a raft of unrealistic assumptions
about what being beautiful (and, by implication, acceptable) looks
like. The unfortunate diet battles cause many people to downgrade
their own beauty and to see faults where there are none, focused
intently on manipulating their bodies into unachievable images.
Oprah realized that the key to being a healthy weight is to respect
oneself and to treat oneself as well as you treat others. While it
may seem a simple realization, it's acknowledge more in the breach
than the observance, making it essential that you learn to love your
body as it is.
* Know your healthy weight range. This differs from the idealized
weight images shown in movies and on catwalks. Aim to stay within
this range. Eat healthily, drink lots of water, and keep alcohol
and treats as consumables to be enjoyed in moderation. Avoid
dieting by treating healthy eating as your lifestyle.
* Oprah sees weight gains as a spiritual issue. She has said that
"if you use food to subjugate your feelings your mis-steps are
obvious; they're manifested on your thighs."[8] This means that it
is important to face the issues of fear and anxiety underlying
urges to eat poorly and to quit the negative self-talk.
* Be patient if you are trying to change your weight. It takes time
to lose or gain weight, and accept that it's about reshaping your
body and changing your activities, not simply changing eating
habits.
* Always make time for exercise. This is body respect at its best
and even if you think you don't have time, squeeze time in. Run,
jog, swim, dance, do housework to music, do weights while waiting
for the kettle to boil.
* Support public role models who present a healthy weight. Write to
editors and producers and ask them for more, more, more of normal
sized people in magazines, TV shows, and other media. It is
starting to happen with more frequency, so don't forget to praise
the media stories that do show real people.
* Make nutritional health a top priority in your life. Stay informed
about nutritional needs, get advice from your doctor, and be sure
that your nutritional requirements are being met through different
stages of your life.
Use failure to take you to greater heights. Oprah has faced many
difficult experiences in her life but she has taken these and used
them as lessons rather than allowing them to shape her into someone
bitter, vulnerable, or resentful. In fact, Oprah would not have
known that her talent even lay in being a talk show host if she
hadn't failed at being a newsreader and being "demoted" back in the
1970s to a morning talk show.[9] Every knock-back in life is a
lesson in changing your approach. Ask yourself "What can I learn
from this failure?". Use that lesson to inform your future path.
Oprah is a shining example of someone who realized that the
important thing is not to keep moving on until you know and
understand what that lesson is, otherwise you'll be bound to repeat
it.
* Do your best, no matter how hard things seem right now. Doing what
you can to make things work better in your life now will set up
tomorrow to be a much better day, with a more positive outlook.
* Change what you're doing when it doesn't work. Oprah has often
reinvented herself when she has realized what doesn't work,
because she forgives herself her imperfections and instead strives
to keep evolving from the lessons learned.[10] Not everything
needs to be tried again and again; some things are best let go of
for good. Bear in mind that tenacity doesn't mean blind
stubbornness.
* Don't be afraid to stand up for what is right. When Oprah was
disappointed by James Frey's fabrications in the book _A Million
Little Lies_, Oprah didn't go into hiding. Instead, she confronted
James Frey head on and scolded him for conning her and her
audience. However, be careful not to adopt an attitude of being
"holier-than-thou" when standing up for yourself. Ask the right
questions in a compassionate and considered way rather than
responding with outrage, and stay open-minded about the responses.
Listen to your spirit. Whatever your personal beliefs, faith is an
important aspect of living a whole and guided life. This doesn't
have to be a religious faith but it does need to be something that
gives you purpose, hope, and connection to both other people and the
greater purpose of life. Spend time reflecting on your spirituality
and your sense of purpose in life; set aside time at least once a
week to connect to your spirituality.
Be grateful. Oprah understands the value of gratitude and says that
concentrating on what we don't have simply makes us unhappy because
that type of focus leads us to feel that we'll never have
enough.[11] Avoid taking life and situations for granted; remind
yourself regularly about the good in your life, and the things to be
grateful for.
* Keep a gratitude journal to document your thoughts in a concrete
way.
* Give back. According to Oprah, this is the only true way to move
forward.[12] Moreover, Oprah makes it clear that a lifetime of
giving makes this about being a process, not a once-off; make
giving a continuous part of your life and remember that what you
give reflects how you value others and what you care about.
* Take care not to use gratitude as an excuse to abdicate
responsibility. Being grateful for a substandard situation that
you can change with effort and resilience can sometimes cause you
to stagnate. Don't count your blessings at the expense of the
greater person you could be. Use gratitude to stop you yearning
for the other person's toys but don't allow it to prevent you from
living your own life to its fullest extent.
"Live your best life". This is Oprah's inspirational catchphrase and
by it she means that everyone has the opportunity and the
responsibility to make the most of our unique talents, abilities,
and healthy energies. It is precisely because Oprah wasn't born with
ready-made opportunities laid out before her that she represents the
ultimate icon for being able to rise above the challenges and
hardships that life lays before us. Making excuses and blaming
others or circumstances can only take you so far (not very far at
all). Ultimately, it's about drawing on your inner reserves, finding
and using your real strengths, and making the most of what you do
have rather than worrying about what's missing or what harmed you in
the past.
* Be real and be open to the possibilities. Oprah doesn't mind
asking the obvious questions that are on everyone else's minds but
they're all too afraid to say for fear of looking stupid. She has
a sense of humor and resilience that keeps her grounded.
* In a world where megalomania takes hold of many in power, Oprah
has managed to keep the focus real and to always make use of her
role to find the good in people and to help many other people be
the best they can be. Her example demonstrates that being ethical,
caring, compassionate, optimistic, and ready to connect with
people will help you to live your best life.
!! Video !!
!! Tips !!
* Spread your wealth. Oprah grew wealthy by sharing and she keeps on
giving. By helping others, you create connections and start the
flow of wealth among others. In turn, they remember you and
continue sharing back and forth with contacts, resources,
connections, and more.
* Did you know that within 15 minutes of starting her Twitter
account, Oprah had 76,000 followers? She now has over 4.5 million
followers even though the account mainly updates only what's
coming up next on her show![13]
!! Warnings !!
* While there is a place for nurturing your hurt self, past hurts
should not form your reason for living a half life. Deal with
hurts and pain through the support of good people, through taking
time to reflect and rejuvenate your spirit and by avoiding taking
on board the negative or constraining messages that many other
people try to overlay on others as a way of coping themselves. You
are a unique entity, as worthy and deserving as everyone else
around you. Heal rather than fester.
!! Related WikiHows !!
* How to Prepare for the End of the Oprah Winfrey Show
* How to Cultivate Compassion in Your Life
* How to Express Gratitude
* How to Run a Marathon
* How to Practice Random Acts of Kindness
!! Sources And Citations !!
* Sharon Krum, _Oprah's five life lessons_, p. 31, Australian
Women's Weekly, December 2010 – research source
!! Article Tools !!
* Read on wikiHow
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