Instead, because she changed her focus from the daily grind to asking herself what she really wanted to do, she made a real impact in the world. While I’m sure the talk show would have still been successful, it wouldn’t have had nearly the impact it wound up having. She would have spent her days as a TV host fretting over ratings, over sponsorships, over landing the best interview. We want a stable job.īut think about where Winfrey would be if she didn’t change her thinking. Those are the exact same sort of goals most of us have in our careers. Making a million dollars so she could buy her dad a house. Becoming the backup anchor for Good Morning America. Winfrey began the interview with Weiner talking about the goals earlier in her career. But it was because she wasn’t thinking about any of those things that it happened, and instead had a completely new goal: increase the level of human happiness through the platform of her show. Ironically, once she made that change, the show was more successful than ever, the ratings exploded and Winfrey became one of the most influential people in the world. And if it was “this would be popular” or “this will draw ratings” or anything other than this is an idea that will serve as a force for good, Winfrey would reject it. “We are only going to do shows that come from a motivation to show people the best in themselves.”įrom that point on, Winfrey would ask every producer what their intention was when they pitched a show idea to her. “I told them we are now going to become an intentional television show,” Winfrey said. Explaining, she told him that a little bit after airing the KKK show, she gathered all her producers together and gave them a new mandate. “The number one principal that rules my life is intention,” Winfrey told Weiner. And, from then on, she decided to stop making her career about getting promoted or getting higher ratings, and instead about making her show “a force for good.” She realized in that moment that having her own TV show that reached millions of people had real impact on the world. Making her career about more than just herself But when she realized what the KKK was doing, and how they were going to use her show – despite her best intentions – to get more people into their ranks, she rethought things. Up until that point, Winfrey saw her career the way most of us see our career: the goal was to get promoted, make more money, reach an artificial sense of “success”. “They understood it was a platform more than I realized it was a platform.” She was interviewing members of the organization, hoping to “change the way they thought about black people,” when she realized something: regardless of what she said or how she framed the interview, the publicity they were getting would likely just help them recruit. The moment happened in the late 1980s, approximately two years after she started The Oprah Winfrey Show. She said yes – a time when she interviewed the KKK. Earlier this month, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner sat down with Oprah Winfrey and asked her if she had an “aha moment” that changed her career.
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