The Profile Dossier: Oprah Winfrey, the self-made billionaire who revolutionized media
Winfrey has been methodical and strategic when it comes to growing her brand, allowing her to become a self-made billionaire.
For 25 years, The Oprah Winfrey Show dominated television screens across America, reaching millions of viewers from 1986 to 2011.
She became a household name thanks to her iconic in-depth interviews with celebrities and regular people alike, diving into topics like addiction, infidelity, spirituality, polygamy, weight loss, racism, and so many more.
But after a quarter of a century, The Oprah Winfrey Show came to an end, partly because the staff was overworked — sometimes working 24 hours straight. It was out of fierce loyalty to Winfrey, with one producer saying she was a life-changing "mother figure" to the entire crew.
The staff also had a hard time coming up with fresh ideas and trying to disrupt themselves. Winfrey said, "It had become increasingly more difficult to top what you did the year before.”
The show’s end marked a new beginning for Winfrey. Since 2011, she has built a media empire. After studying Winfrey for weeks, I discovered something interesting: It’s rare for her to be the one being interviewed, and it’s even more rare for her to be interviewed about her business dealings.
Nevertheless, the biggest lesson I learned about Winfrey’s business philosophy is simple: Own everything. This allows you to be in control of your work, and write your own check.
Winfrey founded her own multimedia production company, Harpo Productions, and O, The Oprah Magazine. In 2011, Winfrey launched a cable channel, OWN, and her 25.5% stake in the network is worth more than $65 million. In 2015, she also bought a 10% stake in Weight Watchers (since lowered to 7%).
Winfrey says, “The reason I've been able to be so financially successful is my focus has never, ever for one minute been money.”
But don’t be fooled — Winfrey is methodical and strategic when it comes to growing her brand, allowing her to become a self-made billionaire. Forbes estimates Winfrey’s net worth at $2.5 billion.
The reason Winfrey’s success is so remarkable is that she wasn’t born into wealth or status of any kind. Born to a teen mom in Mississippi, Winfrey’s early life was fraught with poverty and abuse. She was raped by a cousin at age 9 and later sexually molested by a friend of the family and then by an uncle.
“It was this ongoing, continuous thing, so much so that I started to believe that this is just how life is,” she says. “I became a sexually promiscuous teenager, and as a result of that, got myself into a lot of trouble and believed I was responsible for it. It wasn’t until I was 36 years old — 36 — that I connected it all, ‘Oh that’s why I was that way.’”
The abuse happened when she was living with her mother, so Winfrey ran away from home, secretly pregnant at age 14. After she gave birth prematurely, the baby passed away two weeks later.
This was a pivotal, life-changing moment for a young Oprah.
Once she began living with her father, she got structure, discipline, and attention. “It changed the course of my life. He saved me,” she says. “He simply knew what he wanted and expected. He would take nothing less.”
And from then on, neither did Winfrey.
The Profile Dossier below details Winfrey’s rise from poverty in rural Mississippi to local talk-show host to global superstar. Here’s what we can learn about sharpening our interview skills, developing an entrepreneurial mindset, and building an empire.
READ.
On the challenges of building a media empire: This profile was written by one of my mentors, ‘the queen of profiles’ Pattie Sellers. It’s well worth your time because it is a rare look at Winfrey’s business dealings and the beginnings of the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). OWN was announced in January 2008, and drama soon followed: The network lurched through two years of launch delays, management tumult, and internal confusion about what kinds of shows to do. This profile reveals the extent to which Winfrey struggled with her own commitment — and how that struggle nearly scuttled the deal.
On dominating the world of media: What's left for Winfrey, the media empress, to do? She has her own studio, TV network, magazine and a mega-deal with Apple that will include a book club, documentaries & a potential series that would put her back in the interviewing chair. In this wide-ranging interview, Winfrey breaks down the creative fire that continues to fuel her.
On what she knows for sure: I love this little book. Organized by theme—joy, resilience, connection, gratitude, possibility, awe, clarity, and power—Winfrey’s essays offer a rare, powerful and intimate glimpse into her heart and mind—while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves.
LISTEN.
On making Oprah: Winfrey’s show was aired in 145 countries and watched by more than 40 million viewers a week in the U.S. alone. This is the first of a three-part podcast series in which Oprah and former producers talk about the early, scrappy days of the show. If you listen to one thing, let it be this.
On becoming a billionaire: In this longform podcast episode, the hosts break down Winfrey’s juggernaut conglomerate Harpo Studios. Here’s how she built her brand, grew from TV personality to business mogul, and why she controlled every detail in her business.
On becoming a confident adult: How do you overcome childhood trauma to become a confident adult? Here’s how Winfrey says you can redefine your childhood trauma, how experiences at a young age mold our adult life, and finding rhythm and balance to start healing yourself. “Where there is no center or sense of wholeness, there is going to be disarray, chaos, confusion, and dysfunction in your life,” she says. “People behave how they were loved and how they were able to process that in a way to love other people.”
WATCH.
On learning to be aggressively herself: In this one-hour 1991 interview, Winfrey offers a masterclass on the importance of being yourself. When she’s on air, she says nothing can embarrass her, but this was not true when she first started out. “That’s because I was pretending to be someone I was not,” she says. “I was pretending to be Barbara Walters.” In the beginning, she was more focused on her phrasing of the question and how it sounded than truly listening to the answer.
On her life of resilience: In this interview at Stanford, Winfrey shares some of the seminal moments of her career journey and discusses the importance of listening to your instincts. She offers advice on how to find your calling: "Align your personality with your purpose, and no one can touch you."
On the inevitability of failure: I was shocked to find out that Winfrey was very nervous before this Harvard commencement address. She asked herself, “What could I possibly say to Harvard graduates, some of the most successful graduates in the world in the very moment when I had stopped succeeding?” She used the opportunity to impart a valuable lesson: It doesn’t matter how far you might rise. “At some point you are bound to stumble because if you’re constantly doing what we do, raising the bar,” she says. “If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher, the law of averages — not to mention the Myth of Icarus — predicts that you will at some point fall.”
On turning her wounds into wisdom: In this 1997 commencement address, Winfrey shares several lessons she had learned up to that point. One of the most powerful is to live life as a seeker of truth. “You will survive everything if you can live your life from the point of view of truth,” she says. “That took me a while to get, pretending to be something I wasn't, wanting to be somebody I couldn't, but understanding deep inside myself when I was willing to listen, that my own truth and only my own truth could set me free.”
On paying attention to the ‘whispers:’ Winfrey and Gayle King, who have been friends for more than 40 years, take the stage. They discuss King’s ex-husband’s infidelity, and Winfrey uses it as an example of paying attention to life’s “whispers.” She says the universe speaks to us constantly, but it first subtly “whispers.” She asks: Will you heed the message before the whispers become a "brick upside your head"?
POLINA’S TAKEAWAYS.
Approach life like a business owner: No matter what you’re doing, it’s helpful to look at the world through an entrepreneurial lens. Even if you’re working at a traditional job receiving a traditional salary, you can still do this. Here’s how my husband explained what he learned from Winfrey’s strategy: “At each inflection point, she applied a business owner mindset to her compensation, while the industry incumbents were focused on talent deals. When they were seeking cash deals, she was seeking equity deals. When they were looking for equity deals, she was asking for equity and royalties. When they were looking for royalties, Oprah was spending $16 million of her own money to buy back the content IP from the distribution company.”
Remove barriers to enhance intimacy: Winfrey is a master at building intimacy with strangers. One way she does this is that she removes any and all furniture and objects that may stand between her and her guests. While other TV show hosts often interview across a table or behind a desk, Oprah is known for walking the aisles of her studio to get as close as she can in proximity to her viewers. She also often had them sit on the same couch as her or show her around their homes. This technique can be applied during dates with a romantic partner, difficult conversations with a family member, and any other scenario in which you want to build intimacy at a faster pace.
Use ‘mirroring’ to build trust: If you ever watch Winfrey conduct an interview, you’ll notice she uses a technique that the most skilled hostage negotiators use too. Her tool of choice is mirroring, a rapport-building technique that is commonly used to put the other person at ease and gather intel. You “mirror” someone by repeating several key words they used in their last communication. For instance, “I had a really hard day because of all the stress I’m under.” Response: “The stress you’re under?” Mirroring often shows the other person that you’re listening intently, and it often defuses negative feelings, ensures the other person feels heard, and allows them to open up more deeply.
Understand the power of giving your full attention: Winfrey believes that each human has one common desire: the need to be understood. This is why when she is engaging someone in conversation, she gives them her full attention, and she aligns her words to her body language to show them that she’s listening intently. Next time your partner is speaking to you, make it a point to turn toward them, look them in the eyes, nod your head, mirror them, and ask follow-up questions. It’s an absolute game-changer for any relationship because it’s the highest compliment you can give a fellow human being.
True power comes from within: Author Robert Caro once said that regard for power means disregard of those without power: “You have to write not only about the man who wields the sword, but also about the people on whom it is wielded.” So how does someone like Winfrey go from the receiving end of the sword to a billionaire media titan whose power has endured through the decades? “In every challenging experience, there's an opportunity to grow, enhance your life, or learn something invaluable about yourself,” she says. “When your life is on course with its purpose, you are your most powerful. And though you may stumble, you will not fall.” If your power is a measure of status, money or a job title, know that it’s something you can lose, as Winfrey says, “in the blink of a board meeting.”
We all seek genuine validation: If there’s one thing Winfrey has learned from conducting more than 35,000 interviews, it’s this: We all have a basic need to feel validated and understood. As soon as the camera shuts off, her interview subject often turns to her and asks, “Was that okay?” Winfrey says, she’s heard that question from George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Beyonce. “I’ve heard it from heroes and from housewives,” she says. “I’ve heard it from victims and perpetrators of crimes. I even heard it from Beyonce and all of her Beyonceness.” This, Winfrey believes, is the common denominator in our human experience: “Everybody wants to know did you hear me and did what I say matter?” That genuine empathy and innate curiosity has allowed Winfrey to touch millions of people. So I’ll leave you with a piece of advice from Winfrey: “Make sure that the speed and distance and anonymity of our world doesn’t cause [you] to lose [your] ability to stand in somebody else’s shoes and recognize all that we share as a people.”
QUOTES TO REMEMBER.
“When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are.”
“True forgiveness is when you can say, 'Thank you for that experience.'”
“You get to know who you really are in a crisis.”
“Your job is not who you are, it’s just what you’re doing on the way to who you will become.”
"Align your personality with your purpose, and no one can touch you.”
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