Oprah Winfrey's 3 Lessons

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The Great American Tennis Player and Winner of three Grand slam titles, Arthur Ashe once said “Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” I just cannot agree more.  More than the destination we got to enjoy the journey. We must cherish and be thankful to every failure, every defeat, every heart-break, every pain, and every breakdown we have had during our journey to success for breakdowns lead to breakthroughs. The key to massive success is massive failure and I have started loving to fail all these days, how about you?

Today on this public platform, I share with you the letter I wrote to the Employees on Tuesday, April 29, 2014. I hope you will like it.

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Oprah Winfrey’s 3 Lessons

                

Greetings to Each one of you,

I hope you are in the best of your health doing wonderful at work.  Mark Twain had once said “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” So true. To type these Tuesday mailers sometimes it takes more than two hours. I would love to know if these emails make sense to you. Further, your replies will inspire me to go the extra mile :) 

A few weeks ago I had shared Steve Job’s 3 powerful and transforming stories. Today I share with you, another living legend’s 3 lessons. She is an epitome of success, a highly regarded media proprietor, supremely charismatic talk show host, noted philanthropist, the lady with a staunch morale, also called the ‘Queen of all media’, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most influential woman in the world. This Tuesday I share her 3 lessons from her commencement speech at Stanford University Graduation ceremony in 2008. Oprah says the secret to getting ahead is being open to lessons, always willing and eager to learn something new, something useful. She insists to grow into more of ourselves. In order to move to the next level of our understanding, the next level of compassion and growth we must learn on a daily basis. Everything that we do, everything we experience, success or failure, has some lesson for us to move forward. And, this is how we enrich our spirit.

Lesson 1:  The first lesson is about Feelings. Oprah says ‘Feelings are the GPS system for our life’. What does a GPS do, it guides us which path we are supposed to take and which one we should leave, eventually takes us to the exact location we want to travel. Similarly, our Emotion Guidance System lets us know when we are supposed to do something or not supposed to do something. We must and must check our ego at the door (this is difficult, I myself am doing a lot of self-talking these days how can I improve on this attribute J) and believe in gut instincts. Well, for me, every decision I take is based on my guts, sometimes it may not be logical, it may not be reasonable. I do often fail, but I stand by my decisions and take lessons.  Oprah iterates, If you don’t do something right, don’t do it. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your hear and success will come to you. 

 

One thing I would like to add here, In IT world most often, I have heard people saying ‘don’t be emotional’, I have seen people mocking at the ‘ones who show/express emotions’. I have a different opinion. Feelings, Emotions have POWER. Work with emotions. Be Emotional. Use it in the right way. You will find yourself at a much higher position than the average.

Lesson 2: Second Lesson is about Failures. Oprah tells ‘this is what I do with every failure, every crisis, every difficult time—I say, what is this here to teach me? And as soon as you get the lesson, you get to move on.' Eckhart Tolle, author of ‘A New Earth’ says ‘don't react against a bad situation; merge with that situation instead. And the solution will arise from the challenge. Because surrendering yourself doesn't mean giving up; it means acting with responsibility.’ I cannot agree more. Past 2 weeks, I have failed on multiple things, I have been challenged by few but the best thing is I have started loving to fail (change in mindset), taking it as a Lesson which no success could teach me and for these failures will take me to the  grand success I wish to have.
 
Lesson 3: The third lesson is about Finding Happiness. Gwendolyn Brooks in a poem to her children has written "Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along." Powerful. Isn’t it. Ms Winfrey adds ‘Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.’ Live in every moment because few years from now you will say ‘oh those were the days, 2014 was one of the best years’. As far as I am concerned, for me ‘the best way to be happy is to make others happy.’

Another quote which called for my attention was Dr. Martin Luther King (Jr.)’s words on being famous. He says "Not everybody can be famous. But everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service." Today I encourage you to be of service to the Organization, to your society, and ultimately to this humanity.  

My sincere apologies for making it longer than usual. My mission, my Goal through these mailers is to share my learning and add value to you. Please let me know if today’s email has helped at least one of you to change the way you think, you behave and you work.

With Tons of Gratitude and Best Wishes,

Narendra Gupta

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