Remember in 2017 when Oprah was a correspondent for 60 Minutes? If you blinked, you probably missed it.
When I heard why she quit, I was blown away.
It was her first day and they were taping her introduction. Well according to them, she just wasn’t getting her name right.
So they had the Oprah Miss Winfrey, 50-year veteran broadcasting legend, take after take repeating “I’m Oprah Winfrey. I’m Oprah Winfrey. I’m Oprah Winfrey.” Apparently, the way she said her name was “too emotional.”
According to 60 Minutes, she just wasn’t getting her name right.
“You know, when I walk into a room and somebody says, ‘You need to flatten out your personality,’ that’s not usually the space for me to be in.” Oprah said of her time there. Within a few months, she had left the show.
If they would question Oprah’s capabilities, what about the rest of us?
Most of us, no matter how accomplished, don’t have an Oprah level resume. When we’re dismissed, most of us can’t just look at our bank account to remind us that we’re awesome.
Oprah was able to walk away and return to her very successful businesses. For many of us though, constantly being underestimated or overlooked affects our business.
We don’t promote it like we know we should and that costs us clients, costs us business, and costs us money.
We need to remind ourselves that incidents like this happen every day, even to Miss Oprah Winfrey. The question is how do we respond?
Do we go into self-doubt or use these moments as fuel to get better in our business? As fuel to remember our accomplishments, our contributions and our achievements … As fuel to remember who we are and what we bring to the table.
When we fuel our business with that energy, our businesses benefit. So that, especially in these times, when we get the 60 Minutes treatment, we too can walk away because that’s not the space we need to be in.
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