You don’t get to be named one of the most powerful people in the world by giving away your power.
Just ask Oprah Winfrey. She grew up in extreme poverty and was sexually abused by several people throughout her childhood. She bounced between living with her mother, father, and grandmother, and as a teenager, she frequently ran away from home. She became pregnant at age fourteen, but the infant died shortly after birth.
During her high school years, she began working at a local radio station. She worked her way through several media jobs, and eventually, she landed a job as a TV news anchor. But she was later fired from the position.
She didn’t allow one person’s opinion of her on-air suitability to stop her, however. She went on to create her own talk show and by the age of thirty-two, her show became a national hit. By the age of forty-one, she had a reported net worth of over $340 million. Oprah has started her own magazine, radio show, and TV network and has coauthored five books. She’s even won an Academy Award. She’s started a multitude of charities to help people in need, including a leadership academy for girls in South Africa.
Oprah didn’t let her childhood or her former employer take away her power. A woman who was once teased because she was so poor she wore potato sacks as dresses was named one of the world’s most powerful women by both CNN and Time. Statistically, her upbringing would have predicted a poor prognosis. But Oprah refused to be a statistic. She chose to define who she was going to be in life by not giving away her power.
When you decide that no one else has the power to control how you feel, you’ll experience empowerment.
