Posted by Fab Style on Apr 2, 2012 in Fabulous Style-News
Oprah Winfrey News: OWN Mistakes and What I Would Tell My Younger Self
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah appeared on the CBS Morning Show and talked candidly about OWN and the mistakes and its woes. She said that if she had it to do all over again, she may not have launched the OWN Network. The Big O stated:
"The idea of creating a network was something that I wanted to do. Had I known that it was this difficult, I might have done something else". She continued, "It's like, having the wedding when you know you're not ready. And you're walking down the aisle and you're saying, 'Oh, I don't know if we should be walking down the aisle. Maybe we should have postponed this. … I would have probably waited until I actually finished 'The Oprah Show.' Because from the day that David Zaslav (the head of Discovery Communications) came in to see me, I said to him, 'The thing that I'm worried about who's going to lead this train because I can't do it.' I know how hard it is to do a daily show…and I'm in Chicago and that's in Los Angeles. That's going to be very hard.
OWN has struggled in the ratings since its inception with Oprah most recently having to ax the Rosie O'Donnell's talk show on the network and axing 30 staff members from the OWN Network.
O Magazine
In other O news,in the May edition of O Magazine, the mogul writes an open letter to herself about what she would tell her 25 year old self. She writes:
Dear beautiful brown-skinned girl,
I look into your eyes and see the light and hope of myself.
In this photo you are just about to turn 20, posing outside the television station where you were recently hired as a reporter. You're proud of yourself for getting the job, but uncertain you'll be able to manage all your college classes before 1 and arrive at the station by 1:30 for a full day's work. Even so, your biggest concern is how to manage your love life with Bubba. Yes, you are dating someone named Bubba.
On this day you've brought him to the station to see where you work, hoping he'll be proud, too. He seems less than impressed. The truth is, he's intimidated. You don't know this, though, because you can see yourself only through his eyes. A lesson you will have to learn again and again: to see yourself with your own eyes, to love yourself from your own heart.
You've spent too many days and years trying to please others and be what they wanted you to be. You will have to learn that the wounds of your past—rape, molestation, whippings for "stepping out of place," and not being allowed to show anger or cry afterward—damaged your self-esteem. Yet through it all, you've held on to a belief in God and God's belief in you.
That will be your single greatest gift: knowing there is a power greater than yourself and trusting that Force to guide you.
The trajectory of your life changed the day you answered the call from Chris Clark, the news director at WLAC-TV. Your response was ignited by the words of your then-favorite Bible verse, Philippians 3:14. "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
Knowing there is a "high calling" is what will sustain and fulfill you.
From where I sit now, viewing your journey, there are few regrets. Only months before this picture was taken, you wrote a poem about a "woman becoming." Even then you understood that success was a process and that moving with the flow of life and not against it would be your greatest achievement.
Love you deeply,
Oprah
Other people who contributed to writing to their younger self were Katie Couric & Octavia Spencer.
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