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Learning from Oprah's roller coaster ride

March 13, 2013 by Dale Furtwengler — President, Furtwengler & Associates, P.C.

Tanya Young Williams offers great insights into Oprah Winfrey’s recovery after a near disastrous start of OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network). Whether they’re accurate or not the statistics I’ve seen show that OWN’s daily viewers, now growing at a double-digit pace, were as low as 325,000 down from roughly 7 million viewers when she was on network television.

How does such a bright, talented business woman make such a huge mistake? More importantly, what can you learn from her experience?

Oprah Winfrey is without a doubt one of the best at both creating an powerful brand and cross marketing her various enterprises - her program, her book club and O magazine. So what went wrong?

In a word, boredom. I’ve seen it time and again in my clients - the lethargy, feeling exhausted, the sense of being a hamster on a wheel running to nowhere. My consulting clients put it this way “I am dealing with the same issues everyday; different companies, but the same issues.” Who wouldn’t get bored?

I believe that boredom is what caused Oprah to choose to establish OWN. Her Oprah program was nearly flawless in its execution, produced a personal brand that is rarely achieved and made her one of the wealthiest women in the world. 

While that may sound anything other than boring to those of us who haven’t experienced that degree of success, I can assure you that you, too, would be looking for new challenges. For it’s through our willingness to challenge ourselves, to explore new vistas, that we grow personally and professionally.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re making the infamous widget, providing child care services, consulting with Fortune 500 companies or own a retail store in a strip mall, the greater the success you enjoy, the greater your need will be to try something new, to challenge yourself in new and exciting ways.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Indeed, when I see the lethargy, the exhaustion, the sense of a hamster on a wheel in my clients’ demeanor, I know that it’s time to help them find something new - for their benefit more than for their customers’ benefit.

If you’re not adding some new element or reinventing some aspect of your business at least once every three years, you’re going to experience boredom. Here are the keys to successfully challenging yourself:

• Remember that we learn from our mistakes. You’re going to make them and they may cost you business, but you’ll learn from them and, as Oprah has, recover nicely.
• Don’t let your mistakes shake your confidence. It’s human nature to second guess ourselves when things aren’t going well. When you feel that your confidence is shaken, take a few moments and recall the success you enjoyed previously and what the keys to that success were.
• Don’t let your struggles dampen your enthusiasm. Winston Churchill put it best when he said “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Long-term success, which I define as enjoying life, can only be achieved by moving outside our comfort zone and challenging ourselves in ways that excite us. Don’t let boredom deprive you of that style of living. After all, it’s the ups and downs that make roller coaster rides so thrilling. 

About Dale Furtwengler

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