Oprah Winfrey Interview (page: 7 / 8) Entertainment Executive	Print Interview

How has luck affected your career?

Oprah Winfrey: I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity. The reason I feel so strongly about that, and it's not just a saying for me. I was hired in television in 1973, right after the riots of '71, '72, and other blacks and female people were hired at the same time. People accused me of being a token at the time. It didn't really bother me because I realized that I was going to stay there. Once I got there, I realized, nobody is getting me out of here. This is not just a phase for me. I sort of began to create my own luck. I said I knew how to edit when I didn't. I said I knew how to report on stories. I went to my first city council meeting, I wasn't quite sure of what to do, but I had told the news director that I did. So, then what you have to do is, be willing to admit that you know nothing. So I walked into the city council meeting and announced to everybody there, "This is my first day on the job, and I don't know anything. Please help me because I have told the news director at Channel 5 that I know what I'm doing. Pleeeeze help me." And they did. And from that point on all those councilmen became my friends, and I'd come in the council meeting, and they helped me out. And I realize now it was because of my willingness to say, "I don't know it, but if you will just, you know, help me." So that's how I learned.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

One of the biggest lessons I've learned recently is that when you don't know what to do, you should do nothing until you figure out what to do because a lot of times you feel like you are pressed against the wall, and you've got to make a decision. You never have to do anything. Don't know what to do? Do nothing. I wait. And that has been a big lesson: to be willing, to be still with myself, and trust myself and my higher power to help me make the right decision. And to not feel pressured. We create stress for ourselves because you feel like you have to do it. You have to. I don't feel that anymore.

You literally bend yourself out of shape, just to try.

Oprah Winfrey: Most all the mistakes I've made in my life, I've made because I was trying to please other people. Every one of them. There is not one that I've made because I did something because I really wanted to do this for myself. Every mistake I've ever made was because I went outside of myself to do something for somebody else that I should not have. Not good. It's a woman's disease.

What prompted you to develop your own studio and take control of your show?

Oprah Winfrey: It was what we call a win-win-win situation, but it was a lot of trouble. Just to get to be an actress, I ended up building my own studio, because when I was shooting The Color Purple, I was not allowed the kind of freedom that was necessary to do that work. And what I really want to do is create films -- for myself and other people -- that uplift, enlighten, encourage, and entertain people. In order to do that, I need time. So I was working under a situation where I only had so much time to do it. As I say, to me, success is a process. There was this empty studio and old vacant lot available. And I have a partner who said to me, "You know, there is that studio available. And if you take over your own show..." Well, it just never occurred to me that could happen.

So the studio came to be as a roundabout way for me to get to be an actress. I've been trying to be one since I was three. And it happened as a part of an on-going process for me. It's much easier for me to make major life, multi-million dollar decisions, than it is to decide on a carpet for my front porch. That's the truth. I was in the K-Mart store, and I couldn't decide between the one with the kittens and the ducks. I had them all laid out. They are $5.99 a piece. It took me longer to make the decision as to which mat I would have: "Welcome Friends" or "Welcome"or "Welcome to My House" than to make the decision to get my own studio.

I have a lawyer/manager, he and I are now partners who came to me and said, "You know, you could own your own show." And before he said that to me, I thought, "Own my own show?" I just totally dismissed it. "How am I going to own my own show? I have a contract. What am I going to do?" He says, "You can own your own show, and there is a studio that is the old Fred Niles studio that is going to become available. It needs a lot of work..." I thought nothing of it at the time. I totally dismissed it because he was always making projections and coming up with ideas, and I just thought, "Okay, I'll let him dream on." Just as my speech coach had said to me many years ago. "Dream on." Because I had a really solid contract when I was shooting The Color Purple, I didn't have enough time to shoot it. I was begging for time because I realized that what we were doing was something very special. But, it's very difficult to convince news people that. "oh, no it's really not what you think." So the studio came about as a result of me wanting more time and creativity and control for myself. I bought the studio, so that I would be able to act and do the show at the same time. So that I would be able to do two things that were very important to me.
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The show is very important to me because it is a platform for being able to make a difference in people's lives, to influence them to change for the better. I don't want to give that up -- until it's time. And I will know when it's time. I don't want to be the kind of person that stays in the ring too long and gets punch-drunk from the experience. I just want to be able to do it for as long as it works. And I know it's not going to work forever.

As long as I can be an influence and make a difference, that's what I want to do. But I also want to act because I think that it's very important to create work that for one, puts the black cultural experience on screen. I've been black, I've been female all my life. That's the only thing I know. So I know that experience. I love being a woman, and I love being a black woman. I read mostly female literature because I just find that I'm drawn to it. If I'm in a book store, I'm drawn to the women writers because that's what I know. And so I want to be able to put that on screen. I want to be able to do work that encourages, enlightens, uplifts and entertains people.

There is some work I would not do. I get offered a number of scripts, and have chosen not to do them because, fortunately, I am in the position that I don't have to work for the sake of working. The process of the work is far more important to me, in many cases, than the end result. Once the picture is finished, that's fine. The process of working on a show and being in the midst of a show -- being right in the heart of it -- is far more stimulating, fulfilling, and exciting to me than finishing the show. Then I'm on to the next thing.

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