...Oprah Winfrey is quoted as saying, "Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity". This statement reflects the notion that without preparation, many cherished opportunities would be lost. As an inspiration to many people, Oprah is trying to convey the thought that you are unable to be success without doing the heavy lifting required. The concept of heavy lifting can be interpreted in many ways. Hours spent studying, days spent pounding the pavement, weeks spent researching an idea, or years spent honing a craft. All of these tasks are an attempt to prepare for something. That something could be called opportunity. Many in society today look upon the successful as lucky. There is a feeling that opportunity comes to those who know someone. If you speak with successful people, there are the fortunately ones who achieve due to family influences or just the notion of being at the right place at the right time. However, most people spent years preparing for the moment of opportunity. When the moment hit, it is seized upon, and that is sometimes considered luck by other. In reviewing the notion of this question, one must ask if you want to take the literal meaning, or figurative meaning of the statement. If taken literally, one must think that luck is needed for opportunity. Figuratively, the statement reflects that anyone can make their own luck. Being prepared, doing the work that others are unwilling or unable to do, will be the reward itself. Opportunity comes...
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...The life of Oprah Winfrey is the quintessential American success story. I agree with her when she says, "Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity." In fact, I have a similar understanding about luck from my own career, though mine is on a much smaller scale. When success comes, it comes in different ways. Some people are successful based on nothing but hard work, though this is unusual. If your definition of success today is to move a large pile of rocks from one place to another, and all you have are your two hands, then you do not require much luck. Though it may rain or hail, you can just continue plugging along, moving rocks until you are finished with the task. More often, though, success results from of a combination of factors. A farmer may work hard tending his fields, but he must have the right combination of sunshine and rain in order to grow a crop. A football team may do everything right in an effort to win a game, but most times the team on the losing side makes one or two mistakes as well. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenges the notion of individual merit alone being enough to achieve great success. In one example, he produces evidence that great hockey players are often great not only because of their hard work, but often also because they were born earlier in the year, and youth hockey leagues base their age cutoffs on the calendar year. This gives kids who were born earlier in the year an advantage. They are bigger...
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...and Asia It is unbelievable the amount of influence that Oprah Winfrey has had over the lives of millions of people all over the world. She has become a demi-god in America. There are people who are ready to worship the ground over which she walks. She has lived the Great American dream, a veritable tale of rags to riches with the right amount of glamor added to it. Born in 1954 to unmarried parents, Oprah was raised by her grandmother on a farm with no indoor plumbing in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Oprah's childhood turned into a nightmare because of sexual abuse that she suffered. After suffering abuse and molestation, she ran away and was sent to a juvenile detention home at the age of 13. In 1968, at the age of 14 she gave birth to a premature baby who died soon after birth. An incident of this nature can devastate the entire life of a person. But Oprah Winfrey came out of it a stronger and fiercely determined individual. Her story is one of unrelenting focus and determination. Oprah's tryst with the world of entertainment began when at the age of three she began speaking in church. By the time she was a teenager Oprah was touring the churches of Nashville, reciting the sermons of James Weldon Johnson. Crowned Miss Fire Prevention in Nashville at 17, Winfrey visited a local radio station, where she was invited to read copy. She was so good that she was hired to read news on the air. While still in school, Oprah became the first African-American and the first woman to anchor...
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...powerful people in the world, didn’t happen overnight. It took great determination and focus. Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29th, 1954 in rural Mississippi to her unwed parents Vernon and Vernita. She spent the first six years of her life living with her grandparents, where she learned to read and write at an early age. Oprah once stated that if it wasn’t for her grandmother’s “foundation for success” she probably wouldn’t be as successful as she is today. Despite this, Oprah still had a tough childhood. From age six to thirteen, Oprah lived with her mother in Milwaukee. Her mother often worked long hours damaging their relationship. In fact, Oprah’s early childhood was not typical for average American girls. She was raped, gave birth to a premature baby, and was sent to a juvenile detention facility. As a last resort, her mother sent her to live with her strict father, in Nashville. Oprah Winfrey’s success began with her broadcasting career, which she began at the age of 17, when she was hired to read news on the air. After high school, she received a four-year scholarship to Tennessee State University, where she majored in Speech Communication and Performing Arts. Although Oprah was offered many jobs where she would be able to showcase her talent in public speaking, her big break came on September 6th, 1985, where she was given her own show, appropriately named “The Oprah Winfrey Show” based in...
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...I have no doubt that Oprah has the qualities and traits of a High Performance Leader. She is excellent at building cohesive teams and she definitely gets results through others. Her leadership consists of carefully selecting individuals that will be successful on her team. She makes sure to select highly qualified individuals in areas that they need to be in and in areas that she is most weak in. She seeks trusted mentors and uses them for her benefit and her organization’s benefit. With the success of her team, she makes sure to reward them as much as she can. She always makes sure she is valuing her customers and listening to them to show these individuals she truly cares about their wants and needs. Oprah is 100 percent committed to her vision and values which sparks excitement in her followers. She makes sure to communicate this vision clearly and has the most innate ability to motivate them. Oprah doesn’t take the short and easy route, she dreams big and is constantly looking towards the future. She understands herself and stays committed to her beliefs and abilities. This woman is resilient and constantly embracing change and creating ambition, drive, and focus in her employees. One key reason for her ability as a high performance leader is learning from her mistakes and creating new strategies to solve problems. Three development goals for Oprah include owning her own network, maintaining good reviews, and improve staff morale. Her action plan towards owning...
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...Oprah Winfrey is an example of an entrepreneur who has reached legendary status not only in the United States but also worldwide. Overcoming a life of hardship, Oprah leaped over all obstacles to become one of the richest and most successful self-made women in history. Her career started at a news station in Nashville where she became the first African American co-anchor. She dropped out of college her senior year to move to Baltimore to co-anchor the nightly news in Baltimore. Although reading the news did not play to Oprah’s strengths, the opportunity soon arose for her to host her own talk show. Her connection with the audience, her viewers, and her guests on this show is what led to her success in this medium and paved the way for her future successes as she hosted one of the most popular talk shows of all time “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Oprah success as an entrepreneur has been as a business owner, talk show host, philanthropist, actor, producer, director, and author. The greatest economic decision Oprah has made in her career was when she formed Harpo Productions, purchased a production studio in Chicago, and began producing her own talk show (Entrepreneur 2008). This decision gave her complete control over the resources she would need to build a successful business and an even more successful show. It also allowed her to employ hundreds of staff members from all over the world which gave a much needed boost to the Chicago economy. Harpo studios was also the home to other...
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...Entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey Marzette L. McKinnis OMM 614 Dr. Zelihic September 9, 2013 Entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey Oprah Winfrey is in my opinion the epitome of a successful American entrepreneur. I chose an article on Oprah Winfrey for this paper because we share many character traits such as strength, independence, and generosity to name a few. Additionally, she exudes positivity and has an inspirational, energizing charisma that affects everyone in her presence. Like me, Oprah realized at an early age that we are responsible for our own futures. She overcame extreme adversity to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in America today. Harvard Business Scholl professor, Howard Stevenson defines entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity absent regard to resources currently controlled (Schurenber, 2012). Despite growing up poor, enduring racism and sexual abuse, Oprah Winfrey achieved success through sheer force of her personality. An article entitled, “Oprah Winfrey: America’s Ultimate Brand”, discusses how she forged her $1 billion dollar fortune, which today has increased to $2.9 billion. She started her entertainment career at a radio station in Nashville while still in high school. She became the youngest person to anchor the Nashville news at age 19, as well as the first African American woman. Oprah hosted a morning talk show in Chicago that was so successful, within a year it expanded to an hour and was renamed “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. She...
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...Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi to a young unmarried couple, Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey. When Oprah was a young child her mother had her live with her paternal grandmother, while her mother went north to find work. “She described her grandmother as disciplined, strong, and religious and she was raised a churchgoer”, (esbscohost, by Marks-Ellis, Annette, Dehanke, Rowena Wildin, Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, January 2014). As a child she proved to be intelligent and strong willed, when her grandmother couldn’t handle her anymore, she sent her to Milwaukie to live with her mother. Her mother lived in a single room home with very little money. After a while, when her mother couldn’t handle Oprah anymore, she sent Oprah to go live with her father and stepmother in Tennessee. She did very well living with them, because they encouraged her academic work and provided a loving environment. After a summer visit with her mother, Oprah’s mother decided for her not to return to her dad’s. Oprah was not very happy about the situation, her self-esteem suffered badly, and she felt unwanted with her lighter-skinned toned sister. So she took refuge in reading books. Although her school work never decreased, even though she went through many years of sexual abuse by male relatives and acquaintances. So after a few years with her mother, her mother decided to send her back to her fathers in 1968. Her senior year of high school, she decided she wanted...
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...Oprah Gail Winfrey was born in a rural town of Kosciusko Mississippi on January 29, 1954. After a very abusive adolescent years of being sexually abused by male relatives Oprah went to live with her father in Nashville, TN. Oprah attended Tennessee State University and shortly after began working in television and radiobroadcasting in Nashville. One of Oprah success led her into the Award winning role on the movie “Color Purple” where she was nominated Best Supporting Actress. Winfrey is also known for hosting and producing “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. There are many strength that you can see or think of when you think of Oprah Winfrey. There are not very many people in the world that are as familiar as Oprah who is roughly worth $2.7 billion and has also been esteemed as one of the most powerful women in the world. Oprah is also one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in the United States. Oprah has been liberal in donating millions of dollars to different charities each year. Oprah established the Oprah Winfrey Foundation to support, motivate, enable and to educate women, children and families around the world. Through her private charity, Oprah has awarded hundreds of grants to organizations to carry out this vision. She has contributed millions of dollars towards providing a better education for underprivileged students who have value but no means.” Oprah Winfrey serves as the national spokesperson for A Better Chance, an organization that provides academically talented high...
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...Chosen Leader: Oprah Winfrey There are many great leaders throughout the world but the leader that our group chooses to write about is Oprah Winfrey - one of the world’s most influential women. Oprah Winfrey was born in 1954, she is a famous American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. The reason why we choose Oprah is because our group has 5 ladies, all ambitious and want to be successful in life. Oprah is an example of a woman that had overcome many difficulties in life and became one of the richest women. Studying about her will help us apply her leadership style and hopefully be a better leader in the future. Why do you consider her as a leader? According to the definition of leadership we studied in...
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...Oprah Winfrey, possibly the most successful woman in television history, despite the daunting odds of being born black and poor, and having suffered from child abuse. Considering her self-made wealth and her influence Winfrey may be the most powerful woman in the United States. How did she do so? Lets discover her main Intelligences. Intrapersonal Intelligence Individuals who are strong in intrapersonal intelligence are good at being aware of their own emotional states, feelings and motivations. They tend to enjoy self-reflection and analysis, exploring relationships with others and assessing their personal strengths. Compared to other talk show hosts, Winfrey opts for self-disclosure rather than discretion. Self-disclosure is concerned with information about one's self which is not readily available or otherwise easily accessible to others and must be revealed by the communicator herself. For example, Winfrey's audience would not know about her sexual abuse as a child if she had not chosen to talk and reveal it on various episodes of her television show. Use of self-disclosure tends to facilitate communication and intimacy, and give a greater sense of being in a relationship. As Winfrey's popularity increased, so did the frequency of her personal disclosures - from childhood memories of incest to relationships with men to her struggles with weight loss. TV viewers are supplied with a great deal of information about Winfrey's personal life. Oprah fans know about her...
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...Oprah Winfrey Oprah Winfrey is a strong and courageous and loving women and today I will tell you a bit about her life.I will say about her early life.Some of her personal info like birth date.Some of her accomplishments in life.Lastly, why is Oprah important. She was born on January 29,1954 and her age is 63 years old.Her parents were Vernon and Vernita there were not married .She was born on an isolated farm. Her parents were soon separated after her birth. Then she was raised by her mom and Grandma. In kindergarten she wrote a note to her teacher saying. Why she should skip a grade or two after that she was guaranteed to go to third grade after the first break.Also in 1986 Oprah got married to Stedman Graham. She had a long and beautiful...
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...Date: July 24, 2012 Class: CWV-101 Christian Worldview Instructor: Dr. Scott Hovater Role Model Review- Oprah Winfrey When asked to write a Role Model review I knew exactly who I wanted to write about and then I read the instructions that it had to be someone that was relatively well known. This made this assignment a little harder for me and a little more challenging. When going through and looking at other people that I could use as a Role Model I chose to do it on Oprah Winfrey. I picked Oprah because she is a person that is always looking to help someone out that is in need of help no matter what the conditions are that she has to deal with in the enviroment to get these people the help they need. In this review I am hoping to tell you a little about Oprah and her beliefs and what I feel her Worldview is. Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 and lives in Montecito CA. She lives with her partner Stedman Graham. Oprah is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. She is best known for her multi award winning talk show. The Oprah Winfrey show was the highest ranked show of its kind and was nationally syndicated from 1986-2011. (Press Release, 2004) She is now owner and CEO of the Oprah Winfrey Network. During her life as a Actress she was in the movie The Color Purple, the movie Beloved. She did documentaries and movies for HBO. She was also...
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...are constantly contributing in our society in different ways. Oprah Winfrey is one of those women that has contributed greatly to our society and is still contributing today. Lets take a deeper look at what she has done and what has made her into a fascinating woman. Oprah Winfrey was born in January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. She was born in a rural poverty family. Her name...
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...related to social, political, and economic conditions facing the blacks in America. Therefore, this research paper will examine the life history of two famous African American artists in history. The analysis will consider their early lives, education backgrounds and their contributions that led to their social recognition. The research will end with the comparison of the two personalities and come up with a conclusion. The two personalities examined in the research paper are Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey Oprah Winfrey is one of the most renowned actress, African American Television host, philanthropist and producer. She hosts a multi award winning television talk show that has grown to become one of the highest television program viewed globally. Additionally, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most influential women in the world who has the ability to touch other and influence behavior change. Oprah was at first named Orpha, which was later changed to Oprah because of her...
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