Oprah's Formula for Success

It may seem cliché to write about Oprah Winfrey as a person I look up to. After all, Oprah has achieved status as a daytime television icon, humanitarian, motivator, and influencer of emerging brands. I consider her achievements, however, the result of underlying traits that I find not only admirable, but traits that I choose to emulate on my own path of aspirations and the pursuit of purpose.

I don't know Oprah personally, so I can only speculate about traits that I've observed about her life through the perspective of her show, the media, and the philanthropic press. In fact, it is the source of my observations-her public life-whereby she exhibits one of her best traits: public vulnerability.

For more than twenty years, Oprah has lived out her own personal process in the public eye. Whenever there was a fluctuation in her weight, the public was informed through the media. If Oprah and her longtime boyfriend, Stedman, appeared in public or announced anything related to their relationship, we saw it. She's been challenged with very public lawsuits (e.g., the beef industry), and she's shared very personal information about instances of abuse in her life with her audience.

Why would this trait of public vulnerability influence me to "look up to" Oprah? She has taken her public shortcomings and turned them into a platform for promoting the pursuit of living a better life from the inside out. As Oprah talks about how she overcame her own personal challenges, she not only cultivated a philosophy of living a better life, but she coined a tagline of living your best life; striving for maximum personal potential. Each instance of vulnerability and exposure to a public audience enhanced her inner strength to carry on. As Oprah experienced new levels of personal discovery, and as she embraced the podium of vulnerability, she displayed progressive indications of two other traits that have become hallmarks of her media empire: surrounding herself with people who can inform herself and her audience with an increasing body of knowledge for living your best life; and sharing the bounty of this information and the results of this information with as many people as possible.

Every person that I know personally, or have read about, whom I would consider "successful" (as defined by their achievements, wealth, exploits, or character) has sought to engage the knowledge, insight and experience of those who may be smarter, more experienced or wiser than they consider themselves to be. Why would a successful person consider themselves less informed or capable than another person? One answer would be related to the previously described trait of vulnerability.

A successful person is secure in the fact that they don't know everything-they can't possibly know everything. They know, however, that information is key in strategic thinking and making quality decisions, no matter what the endeavor. So a person seeking the means for living their best life is open to learning from others' lives. As Oprah began to invite more and more guests onto her show who could inform her and her audience about important life topics, she began to develop a forum for these gurus and pundits. They became go-to resources whenever she and her audience needed answers to such topics as personal finance; mental and emotional wellness; health and diet; cultural heritage; business; politics; and general interest. By being open to learning from others, and by being vulnerable enough in the public eye to seek information from others, she has been able to enhance millions of lives both directly and indirectly through product endorsements and exposure for the information providers she befriends. The natural progression, in my opinion, for Oprah-and for any successful person-was to share with others, a third trait I observed in her life.

Oprah has made sharing an art form and taken it to new levels. She shares topics of interest and useful information every weekday on her television show. She shares what she has learned for herself-and encourages her audience to embrace things that they know for sure for themselves. Through her show, her publications and websites, her production companies and her charitable organizations, she shares the products and services of her sponsors and strategic partners with her audience. She shares access to her audience of millions with those same sponsors and strategic partners, creating one of the most influential target markets in the world.

In matters more intangible, Oprah shares joyful experiences with her audience and with her celebrity friends; moments of support and empathy with show guests and friends when the topic is related to matters of the heart, healing and perseverance. She enjoys seeing people's lives transformed (e.g. makeovers; Christmas gift giveaways; and dream getaways). She shares access to her access because she realizes that it doesn't belong to her exclusively. A price has been paid by others who paved the way for her. Her tribute to twenty-five women of color last year, a historical event called The Legends Ball, was one example. Because of that event, she shared one of the last television appearances of Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther King's widow with those attending and her audience.

Why do I look up to Oprah Winfrey? I didn't really get her at first; but because I've had the benefit-like countless millions-to watch her transformation over the years, I believe that I understand her mission, even without reading a mission statement. Personal and public vulnerability; surrounding myself with others who can inform me; and sharing with as many others as possible; these are attributes that I intend to live by. Oprah has shown me that they are a combination for success that anyone can use to pave the way to realizing their dreams and living their best life.