Month: July 2010

Today I want to talk about seven amazing life lessons from Oprah, I recently wrote an article titled “7 Must Read Lessons from Oprah,” so needless to say, there’s a lot to learn from Oprah.

Oprah Winfrey is an American television host, producer, and philanthropist, most known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history.

She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was once the world’s only black billionaire.

Some even consider her to be the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She went though considerable hardship during her childhood, prior to becoming the person she is today.

7 Amazing Life Lessons from Oprah:

1. See What You Want to Be

“When I look into the future, it’s so bright it burns my eyes.”

What do you see when you look into your future, because what you see is what you’re going to get. Do you see your future so bright it burns your eyes? If you do, then that’s what you’re going to get. If you see your future as mundane, then that’s exactly what you’ll get as well. What you see is what you get; I suggest you begin to see what you want to be.

2. The Power of Passion

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”

Passion comes from doing what you love. When you’re passionate you can work all night long. Passion is power, it the fuel that you need to succeed. Discover your passion and dedicate your life to fulfilling it, no matter how long it takes.

3. Focus on the Good

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

What you focus on expands. If you focus on the good, you will get more of it. If you focus on lack and poverty, you will get more of that as well. Learn to recognize the good in your life and be grateful for it everyday. Soon your focus will change and so will your life.

4. You Must Change

“We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”

In order to have more, you must become more. Nothing changes in your life until you grow. What are you doing daily to grow, to change? If you’re not changing, you shouldn’t be expecting your life to change. To the degree that you change is to the degree that your life will change. If you keep on doing, what you’ve always been doing, you’re going to keep getting the results you’ve always been getting, to expect otherwise is insane.

5. We All Fall Down

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.”

Imagine if a small child quit trying to learn how to walk after falling down twenty times. Imagine if he or she said, I guess this walking thing isn’t for me. In life you will fail, you will make mistakes, you may even get discouraged, but you must try again. The only people not failing are the people who are not stretching themselves beyond their current comfort zone. Dare to fail until you succeed.

6. Maximize Your Potential

“The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.”

Are you maximizing your potential? Are you utilizing 100 percent of your skills, talents and knowledge, or are you settling. The purpose of life is to grow, to become all that you were intended to be.

Your purpose is to grow big enough so that you can help others, so the question is, are you maximizing your potential?

7. Think Bigger

“What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.”

So many people live beneath their capabilities because they are riddled with guilt by the thought of living a lavish life. Your creator intended for you to have the best, and to become your very best. The best was made for you! If not you, then who?

Thank you for reading and be sure to pass this article along.

Mr. Self Development is an author who teaches a practical guide to success and wealth. Please visit him at Mr. Self Development.com. If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, then you may want to subscribe to his feed, follow him on Twitter, or read one of his most popular articles, “How I Manifested a Seven Bedroom Home at 24.”

This is a guest post by Barrie Davenport of Live Bold and Bloom.

For anyone under 50 reading this, I have some good news for you. 50 is pretty darned good!

I even surprise myself by writing this, because believe me, I never thought the day would come when I would embrace being half a century. But it has arrived, and it doesn’t stink.

Yes, yes — there are the inevitable physical changes that are quite unsettling. Things do start to droop, wrinkle and expand. Sometimes you will catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and wonder who that middle-aged person is. On the outside, you may look like a grown-up, but on the inside it’s crazy how you still feel like you are 30. Or younger. (Ask my teenagers. They hate that about me.)

When I was in my 30’s and 40’s, I took life much more seriously.

In fact, I think I was mysteriously older then than I am now. Is that possible? When you are busy building a career, raising children, accumulating stuff, and creating a lifestyle, you are defined by that busyness. It’s serious work. You have to make money to pay for the lifestyle. Your kids need to be raised right lest they become a scourge on society and embarrass you by living in a trailer and eating bugs.

Those years are fulfilling and wonderful, but they also are fraught with upheaval and angst. Things that once didn’t matter when you were younger, like having the right cocktail napkins or winning yard of the month, somehow matter so very much. We struggle toward some kind of perfection and achievement that is ‘out there’ somewhere.

I don’t know about you, but I have spent a lot of time trying to create the self I thought I should be. I cobbled together the perfect me made from pieces of this and that. The clothes I wear, the neighborhood we live in, the car I drive, the friends I have. It looks pretty nice from the outside. And much of it is nice on the inside too.

But I spent way, way too much time in the work of crafting myself, and far too little time just being myself.

When you are spinning your wheels to maintain this beautifully crafted life, you miss out on a whole lot of real living.

If I were able to time travel and visit my twenty or thirty-year-old self, there are some things I would really like to teach me. Since I can’t do that, hopefully you will benefit from some of the lessons I’ve learned over the last 50 years.

50 doesn’t feel like 50. It doesn’t feel like the age you imagined when you are in your 20’s or 30’s. For the most part, it feels the way you feel right now. But smarter and more confident. You also have more time and resources to enjoy life. So don’t fear it. Look forward to it.
Experience life before you settle down. Whatever it is you want to do or experience, do as much of it as you can before you have children. Especially travel. Live in a hovel and drive a beat-up Dodge Dart if you have to. But go have some really great, amazing, mind-blowing experiences.
Money and stuff are not all that important. Yes, you want enough to be comfortable and do the things you want to do. But accumulating for the sake of accumulating is so boring and empty. Feed the soul, not the ego.
Don’t try to impress people. That’s an act that brings nothing but a momentary ego boost. Be real with people instead. Connect with fewer people on a level that is deeper and more profound.
Let your kids fail. Your kids will be okay, even if you think they are headed for the juvie right now. Don’t come to their rescue all the time. Don’t manage every detail of their lives or over-schedule them with tao quan dao or viola lessons. Give them some boundaries, and then relax about them.
Bad things will happen. Part of living and getting older is experiencing upheavals in life. People lose jobs, get divorced, die. When you are younger, and things have gone pretty well, this can be shocking. The bad things won’t kill you. You will learn from them if you allow it.
Not much is worth fighting about. If you can avoid it, don’t fight. Step back from arguments with your spouse or family member or neighbor. When you feel anger surging up and you want to say that snarky thing on the tip of your tongue, just close your mouth and walk away. Let yourself calm down. You don’t have to be right or win the argument. It just doesn’t matter that much.
Little things stick with you. So pay attention to them. Like watching your child sleep. Preparing a meal with your family. Sharing a great laugh with an old friend. That is the real stuff life is made of.
Keep having fun. Fun is way underrated. With all of our responsibilities, fun seems like an indulgence. It shouldn’t be. It should be a requirement. Remember what you did to have fun when you were younger, and go do it again. Leave the house messy and the yard un-mowed for the weekend. You will remember the fun, not the clean house or yard. Make time for fun.
Make things simpler. Pick the five most important things in your life now, and focus on those things. Let the other stuff go. Let go of the activities, the events, the commitments, the shopping, the to-do lists. Stop the busyness and really enjoy the important things you have right now.
Keep your brain active. Don’t get into a mental rut. Do new things, learn new things, explore new ideas in all areas of your life. Keep challenging yourself and your mind. Be curious and interested in the world around you.
Hang out with younger people. Stay connected with what the generation behind you is doing and thinking. Establish friendships with them. You will benefit and learn from each other. Don’t act superior, because younger people may know a whole lot more than you do!
Keep exercising and eating healthy. You know this, but I’ll remind you anyway. The older you get, the more important a healthy lifestyle is. In my 20’s, I could shovel down a Wendy’s hamburger and fries every day and never see the difference. Now I just look at a hamburger and my butt gets bigger.
Manage aging, but why fight it? You can spend a fortune on face creams, plastic surgery, hair growth formulas, and botox, but eventually you realize you are fighting an uphill battle. Groom yourself nicely. Stay fit. Have unsightly things removed. But accept the beauty of aging. A striking mature man or woman is much more attractive than someone who looks overly taunt, tanned or top-heavy.
Everyone doesn’t have to like you and vice versa. One of my friends likes to say, “She’s not in my cluster.” Sometimes there are people in your life who are just not the right fit or who drain you dry. It is fine to back off from them or even let them go.
Marriages evolve and change. The feelings you had for the man or woman you married will mutate and evolve several times over the life of a marriage. Hopefully you will evolve in the same direction or at least embrace and accept the changes in the other person. It takes work, and sometimes it takes counseling. Don’t gloss over those changes or you may wake up next to a stranger one day.
Yes, you can still have great sex. When I was in my 20’s, I thought you stopped doing it when you were in your early 40’s. I assumed middle aged people would no longer want to disrobe in front of each other. I’m happy to inform you that this is not the case.
Tend to your friendships. Especially your oldest friendships. These are the people who know and love you best, in spite of your flaws. Treat them like the precious gems they are.
Stop worrying. Worry does absolutely nothing productive. In fact, it is counterproductive. The more you worry, the more you reinforce the problem or concern in your brain.
Everything is not always black or white. Life is often very ambiguous. Sometimes there isn’t a right or wrong decision or choice. Things are not always completely clear. You may not get THE answer, so you just have to wing it.
Take action on your dreams. If you’ve been putting things off — a new career, more education, the big trip — start taking action right now to make it happen. Don’t dream about it anymore. Start doing it.
Don’t dwell on your wounds. Everyone has something that has caused pain and has been limiting them in some way. If you need help to deal with it, then get it right away. Don’t let the past limit your future.
Embrace change. As uncomfortable as it is sometimes, change allows us to stretch and grow. New things feel awkward and scary at first, but those feelings go away, and you are left with something bigger and bolder in your life.
Be vulnerable. Allow yourself to feel, to be open and authentic. Tear down any emotional brick walls you have built around yourself and feel every exquisite emotion, both good and bad. This is real life. This is how you welcome new opportunities.
Count your blessings every day. I know, this is a refrigerator magnet line, but practice it daily anyway. There is so much good, so much beauty, so much love in your life. What more do you really need? You have so much right now, you just need to pause long enough to appreciate it.

“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours”

~swedish proverb