By Francis Bridges
The media mogul and billionaire turned 64 this year, and she remains as powerful, influential and wise as ever. As someone who constantly seeks self-improvement, through her relentless examination of her own life, reading and her interviews with luminaries from Maya Angelou to the Dalai Lama to Nelson Mandela. She always asks them what life has taught them and how they navigated their most challenging times and how they’ve achieved happiness and inner peace, and tries to connect their experience with her audience’s.
She perpetually shares what she learns, her successes and failures throughout the process, and how to maintain hope and happiness throughout the journey. She is still someone millions of people turn to for guidance, enlightenment and encouragement when they feel lost, or are grappling with something incredibly challenging. It has made her one of the most relatable and accessible celebrities and billionaires, as she continues to share so much of herself with the public.
Through her own infinite wisdom and the questions she asks when interviewing other wise people, Oprah has helped empower millions of people to take control of their lives and find the courage to pursue their dreams. This article could easily be filled with 10 zillion of pieces of advice from the legendary talk show host, but I chose 10 of the best pieces of wisdom she has offered over the course of her career — here is some of the best advice from Oprah Winfrey:
1. Do Your Best, Always
Winfrey has often stated that her definition of luck is when preparation meets opportunity. “My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment, puts you in the best place for the next moment,” she said.
2. We Can Have It All, Just Not At The Same Time
She told People magazine about her partnership with Weight Watchers, and how she was trying to take control of her weight and nutrition. When she discussed balance, she said, “I can eat anything I want; I just can’t eat it at the same time.”
3. Believe When People Show You Who They Are
She has repeated this in numerous interviews, in this instance with Vanity Fair, “When people show you who they are, you should believe them the first time. Your problem is it takes you 29 times to learn that lesson from someone wearing a different skirt or a different pair of pants.”
4. Find What Fits
In her Stanford Graduate School of Business talk, the media mogul said, “Align your personality with your purpose, and no one can touch you.”
5. Your Power Has One Source
At an Essence magazine luncheon, Winfrey discussed how people tried to inform her she had no influence without her talk show, and how she never let that impact her. “The truth is, I try not to let other people define for me whether I have power or don’t. I ended the show, and then there were a whole bunch of people who said, ‘Oh, you don’t have power anymore.’ But the truth is, I know who I am, and the thing about power for me is that it’s connected to a source that’s obviously greater than myself,” she said. “Any time you can connect to the source and understand that that’s where all of your energy, your creativity, your joy and your triumph come from, I consider that to be authentic power.”
6. Every Day Won’t Be A Good Day, And That’s OK
In an article from the mogul’s O Magazine titled, “The Top 20 Things Oprah Knows For Sure,”Winfrey writes,”Every day is a chance to start over.”
7. Follow Your Intuition
In her taped master class, Winfrey tried to compress the most important lessons she’s learned in her life into a couple of hours, and among the great advice she gave in that talk was this gem: “You cannot hear the still, small voice of your instinct, your intuition, what some people call God, if you allow the noise of the world to drown it out,” she said. “So, shut out the haters and the well-wishers and the sales clerk who thinks that dress is “so versatile.”
8. Practice Gratitude
The billionaire has preached gratitude as a foundation of living in countless interviews, and most every episode of her talk show has some iteration of this quote, “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
9. Don’t Fear Failure
Winfrey relearned this lesson relatively recently when she started her own network and it was struggling back in 2013. She had to reframe the problems in her mind, and appreciate how far she’s come to give herself the confidence to address them. “Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail,” she said. “Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.”
10. If You Don’t Learn From A Mistake, It Is A Waste
Winfrey often states some version of this quote in interviews, discussing how to repurpose mistakes into lessons, and use them to improve yourself, “Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
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