Young Entrepreneurs – Masters of Self Reliance – Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is said to be the richest African American of the 20th century, one of the greatest philanthropists in history, and one of the most influential women in the world. She is the host and producer of the Oprah Winfrey Show, America’s most popular talk show.

On January 29, 1954, in Kosciuszko, Mississippi, Winfrey was born into poverty to a single teenage mother. She had a difficult childhood, including extreme poverty where she wore dresses made from potato sacks. She was raped, ran away from her house, and became pregnant, all at the age of 14. At school, despite her dysfunctional family, she became valedictorian of her class and she won the title of Miss Black Tennessee at the age of 17. And this is when the greatness began to emerge. She was sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, she got a radio job while she was still in high school and began co-anchoring the local nightly news at age 19 years old. The emotional connection from her made her better. her to the daytime talk show arena and, after propelling a third-ranked local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and gained international recognition. She soon became the world’s only black billionaire.

This is how the snowball effect is created. By “snowball effect” we mean Warren Buffett’s famous saying that if you roll a snowball down a snowy mountain, it will get bigger and bigger when it hits the bottom. This is how great ideas create a compound effect.

Oprah Winfrey once said, “As a child growing up in Mississippi, I never would have known there was anything other than the poverty I lived in if it weren’t for the books I read.”

Some of the most important factors for Winfrey’s success are:

• honesty
• belief in unlimited possibilities, passion to see results, ambition
• impulse to learn, expand and know the reality that will bring happiness
• the willingness to help the world and other people
• the will to be loved

It’s easy to let negative obstacles ruin our lives, slow us down and show us the dark side of events, driving us into the realm of despair and depression. On the other hand, misfortunes can lead us to a world of achievements and miraculous successes and riches. What makes the difference is our choice. We always choose whether misfortune will strengthen our will and character or crush us to the ground. There are examples of both extremes everywhere. Today we have incredible opportunities to learn from the best about how to become the best in our careers or in our lives, and not just by reading books, as Oprah Winfrey used to educate herself. We have examples of greatness everywhere we look: sports, arts, media, business. All it takes to get started is believing that success is within all of us. This was the foundation on which Oprah Winfrey built her successful life and her financial empire.

Take the step. Learn.