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It doesn’t matter where you start from - Oprah Winfrey's Story
It was hardly a beginning in life that promised a great deal, but Oprah
Winfrey is an example to anyone who thinks that they’ll never make it
life because of the cards they’ve been dealt.
Oprah was brought up by her grandmother on a farm until the age of 6 when she moved in with her mother. There, however, she suffered terrible abuse and molestation, and ran away. Sent to a juvenile detention home but not allowed in, she was then sent to Nashville to live under her father's strict disciplinary regime.
She wanted to be a broadcaster though and it was in 1971, at age 17, when her career began when she was hired by a radio station in Nashville called WVOL. She knew an education would be important also and attended Tennessee State University, where she studied Speech Communications and Performing Arts.
In 1976 she moved to Baltimore to join a local TV station as a co-anchor for a show. Eight years later she moved to Chicago and it was in September 1985 when "The Oprah Winfrey Show" was first aired. One year later, the show went national and just one year after that, Oprah won her first Emmy Award.
Oprah hasn’t just done her TV show for fame and fortune, however. She’s used her position as one of the most loved and watched TV show hosts to improve the life of many people. She was named one of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century by Time Magazine in recognition of those achievements.
For many of her fans she stands as a beacon of hope and an inspiration. She has a personal fortune estimated at more than half a billion dollars. Women, especially, listen to her because they feel as if she's cares about them as a friend. The talk show format she pioneered has been called “rapport-talk" as it models the truly two-way conversation style that is the basis of female friendship. With her shows, the emphasis is on self-revealing intimacies and she’s turned the focus from experts to ordinary people talking about personal issues.
Oprah cares and calls upon her viewers to improve their lives and the world, something she’s done herself – despite her humble beginnings.
What Is Junto?
The scientist, inventor, statesman, philosopher, musician and economist
Benjamin Franklin (pictured) used masterminding. He’s famous these
days as one of America’s Founding Fathers and is regarded as one
of that country’s greatest ever citizens, but what is less well
known is that he ran a Friday evening masterminding club, called Junto,
for many years.
It started in 1727 when he persuaded 12 of his friends to form an alliance committed to shared improvement. The group lasted for 40 years and ultimately became the core of the American Philosophical Society.
One of the things they did was to dream up publicly beneficial ideas. Projects they brought to fruition include the first library in the USA, volunteer fire departments, the first public hospital, police departments, paved streets and the University of Pennsylvania. At Junto meetings, members suggested books, businesses, and friends to each other.
One of the principles of Junto was that club members were prohibited from saying anything that indicated they had a fixed opinion on a subject. This is because they believed that you do not know it all and need to be open to other views and ideas. This point is best illustrated via an analogy:
-- For a man travelling through foggy weather, people in the distance in all directions appear enveloped in fog whilst those who are near to him appear clear. The truth is, though, that these people are as much in the fog as those in the distance, but that is not how it seems.
So to be wise, you need to be aware that you too are in the fog. There are many options and many truths out there. So the more eyes we can see with and the more people we can listen to, the wiser we become.