1. We receive:
We came into this world with nothing. We didn't even ask to be born, yet we were granted the wonderful gift of life. And without asking for anything else, we continue to receive. We receive encouragement and comfort and kisses and hugs and nourishment and attention and validation. But we also receive pain and discomfort and disappointment and envy and jealousy and abuse and humiliation and embarrassment.
Things come at us and to us from so many different sources that it is sometimes hard at first to distinguish which ones are welcomed and which ones are not. But the fact remains, we start out in life at the receiving end.
It's funny how becoming so engulfed in our consumer's society, blinds us to the fact that to live life always from the receiving end, would keep us continually in a powerless and vulnerable, even primitive position.
My relationship with you Oprah began where everything else does, at the receiving end. It was in the late eighties, I was still a teenager and you had a new TV show that would soon make History. I couldn't exactly place my finger on what I was receiving, but I kept coming back for more. And through the years I received so many gifts from you that now I wish I had written them all down the moment I was receiving them.
Those gifts came mainly in the form of insights, wisdom bits and different views of life. Some of them came directly from you, others came from various guests of yours but were highlighted and customized by you.
Here are a few from the top of my head:
o "People think you must have, in order to do, in order to be, when it's the other way around. You need to be, in order to do, in order to have." This came from motivational speaker Iyanla Vazant.
o "Hope is not a plan" -quoting from Anderson Cooper's new book
o "Now that you've heard it, you can no longer pretend that you didn't know." -Oprah's original
o "You only accomplish what you believe. Not what you want, not even what you work for but only what you believe." -Oprah's original (my personal favorite)
I've cherished these gifts for years. Of course not only have you shared sayings but inspiration as well. I have found self-improvement stories and those of people going from rags to riches, most inspirational while building my own foundation for success. Shows in the likes of:
o A millionaire a minute (1998) (my all-time-favorite)
o My passion, my fortune (1999)
o How to empower little girls to succeed (one of my all-time favorites)
o Quirky ways people have become rich (2005)
o Ways women just like you have made their wildest dreams come through (2005) Just to mention a few
You have been such an inspiration with your voice and with your life, the way you keep giving of yourself, the way you don't cease to amaze us. For all that I have received from you and continue to receive, thank you.
2. We assimilate:
Once we've been here on earth for a while, we start to associate concepts and reach to conclusions. We take all that we've received and put it together in our own way. Whether our experiences have been wonderful, good, so-so, not so good or down-right terrible, we assimilate it all and interpret it however we choose to. At the end of the day, it will all contribute to our successes or failures. But it will not be because of what we received, but rather because of the way we chose to assimilate it.
The earliest a-ha moment that I can recall was a few years before the first Oprah Winfrey Show, so I didn't call it an a-ha moment back then. It took place during the early eighties when I was still a girl living in my native country -Panama. My parents are strong believers of Education being the great equalizer. They would constantly seek ways to motivate us and get us excited about school. From very early on I received the not-so-subtle message from my parents that going to College really wasn't a decision for me to make, it was a must. I only had the privilege of deciding which one I'd rather attend.
It was a tradition of ours that almost every Saturday or Sunday night we'd ride around in the city to see elegant neighborhoods with beautiful houses where rich people lived. And our parents would say things such as: "that is why you must study, so that you can get a good job and be able to afford this lifestyle." I tried to assimilate this information the best way I could but somehow there was always something missing. I mean, my parents had what a lot of people considered "good jobs", they both worked at what used to be known as The Panama Canal Zone, with the Southern Command. And although we were not considered poor, we weren't living in those elegant neighborhoods in one of the beautiful houses either.
A Sunday night as we were coming back from our ride a bit earlier than usual, my dad said to us: "look behind you" so all for of us -my two sisters, my brother and I- looked back. "you see those elegant cars going towards the city?" I could see beautiful Mercedes, Jaguars, BMWs and such, all brand new and polished, almost racing towards the city lights while we were going in the opposite direction. My dad continued: "They are just going out now, their night of fun is just starting. While we need to get home to go to bed for your mother and I to get up early for work tomorrow. But they don't have to get up early or even go to work tomorrow any at all" -why- I asked curious. "because they are the owners and bosses, the ones who provide the jobs for others to go to." This has been by far my biggest a-ha moment ever. It helped me assimilate important information in a very convenient metaphor. For starters, I didn't want to have a job; I wanted to provide them for others. I looked back at the elegant cars going towards the city lights for the last time. And for the first time, I knew exactly in what direction I wanted to go.
3. We innovate:
Once we have assimilated the things we've been receiving, they suffer slight or drastic changes before we pass them on. We never leave the space we've used the same way we found it regardless of what we do. Hopefully our goal is to change that space for the better. We have the power to turn our experiences into something uniquely beautiful to be spread amongst others, leaving behind a sweet and fresh aroma as we go through life. Or we could turn our life experience into something selfish that will leave behind an ugly and putrid stench of stagnant water.
However we want to do it, the lives we have lived will result into a new and unique product; something only one particular individual could have produced. Something will be different just because you were born. But then something else will be different because of the innovation that resulted from the assimilated information you received. The world is different because of you; it will be different because of me. We were all born to make a difference.
As a child I've always had a very vivid imagination. I loved to imagine that the floors in my house were streets and avenues. That shoes were cars, chandeliers and lamps were restaurants and convention centers. Even flushing the toilet meant that somebody was on a trip to a different country called Charla Puor. From those early days, however, I've moved on to imagine better shoes, better jewelry, better toys, better house appliances, different architectural structures, different banking methods, better educational systems, different movie story lines, different marketing approaches, different retail stores, better traveling luggage and I could go on and on.
For years I've found pleasure in creativity and innovation. I can see just about anything and imagine an improvement for it. Through the years, the ideas became more structured. Not only would I imagine new stuff, I'd also try to find out what kind of technology or combination of technologies were available to bring the new idea to life, as well as the right way to market it. There is nothing that gives me greater satisfaction than to put a new idea together. The only thing in my mind that could offer a greater experience would be to actually bring one of these ideas to life. But I've come up with probably a couple hundred ideas only to see them one by one being carried out by someone else. Surprising as it may seem, this has not discourage me, but quite the contrary. To me it's a sign that I am on the right track. Through years of frustrating unrewarding jobs as well as nice-not-so-frustrating-but still unrewarding jobs, I finally believe my childhood circumstances and young adult experiences have lead me to find a way to channel my innovation and change my used space for the better.
4. We give:
All that we receive, and assimilate and innovate prepares us to be able to give of ourselves. It is not only selfish but absurd to think that we came to this world only to have a good time and erect huge monuments to our greatness. After all, what makes us great is our ability to help others become great. But who knows and lives by this principle better than you Oprah?
I have been blessed to have wonderful parents that motivated me and gave me their blessing at an early age. First my mom looked at me in the eye and told me that I would do something great someday. Second: when I was 3 or four years old, I had a strange dream. I was playing with some other little friends in my grandmother's backyard. My friends went on running but I stopped to notice a pale pinkish liquid with sods running through a PVC tube that was in one of the walls of the building. I stood there staring in amazement. When I told my dad about the dream the following day, he got all excited; he grabbed me and hugged me and then he said: "this is great Jull, that was champagne; it means success."
To both my mom's pronouncing of greatness and to my dad's success anointing with champagne, I didn't really know how to react or what exactly they meant at the time. But through the years I have held myself accountable and have always wanted to live up to those expectations. My parents keep repeating that they are already proud of me and that I'm already great. This is good to hear, but it's really just fuel to do even more.
After countless trials and errors and trying to figure out what and how to do in order to give back to life, the world and the people who live in it, I decided to put all my great and even crazy-sounding-ideas in a book for young women to go ahead and bring them to life. The book contains over 120 ideas in 15 different categories. I believe this would give me even more satisfaction than pursuing each one of them myself. To walk down a certain town and see a building that I helped inspire, read a book with a central topic that I threw out there, step into a mall and see a store that I suggested. All of this is really cool, but greater than this would be to know that someone's life was changed for the better because she found an outrageous idea and thought to herself: "hey I could do that". The thought that I had something to do with that brain-wave, like a pebble in a pond that creates a ripple which goes on to make a great wave in the sea, gives me goose bumps.
That is life worth living. And there's no doubt in my mind that you helped inspire that bigger dream Oprah. Perhaps my plan began selfish and childish almost 16 years ago, when I structured my first idea in a commercial format. But as you always say: "God can dream a better dream for you than you could dream for yourself "
To materialize one idea after another would be great and could have perhaps lead me to live the Fabulous life I've always wanted, but most likely it wouldn't have given me the "what-a-feeling" effect I was really looking for, or at leas not a lasting one. The book was first written with the intention of inspiring students in Colleges and Universities to become more creative, but I realized most of the ideas would appeal more to women. I've just finished reading The BAP handbook. The official Guide to the Black American Princess. It's a fun reading book. And as much as I enjoyed it and the sitcom Girlfriends that was most likely inspired by it, I cannot help but think: what if we could inspire young girls not only to be little princesses expecting to be pampered, and look cute, but to actually create some of the things and products they enjoy so much? What if we could inspire them to create more make up, shoes, design better Jaguars, write more books, produce more movies, design new software or a new building? I can hardly wait to see who is going to create The Shoe Factory or produce the series Bad Attitude (some ideas suggested in the book).
It saddens me to listen to little girls and watch them trying to imitate celebrities that believe all their value is locked into their looks and bodies. Why not inspire them to use their brains? And not only to become a doctor, lawyer or scientist, which would be great, but also to create, create, create! Maybe I am being bias because it's just my thing, but I'd love to see more women creators and innovators. And between you and me, it would make me even happier to see a lot more women of color become creators (again being bias).
We have the ability to do great things. And we can call on a great power that is more than willing to assist us once we are ready to walk in our destiny. I know that everything happens for a reason and nothing takes place a minute before it should. Now I am sure that if God had given me what I asked for when I asked for it, He would have been unable to give me what I really wanted.
I didn't know of a book that was especially dedicated to boost young women's creativity, but I had written a book, and all I needed to do was redesign the cover that it could appear more feminine, the rest was already done. I hope you are proud of me.
So there you have it, I have received and assimilated and innovated and now I am ready to give back. I am ready to get out of the vulnerable position and place myself in the empowering seat. Oprah thank you for letting God use you, thank you for giving of yourself, thanks for making us see you vulnerable because that way we knew that we too could do great things once we overcame. Thanks for all that you have given and continue to give. I am forever grateful. Thank you.
