I have had a dream to go on the Oprah show ever since I wrote From Sabotage to Success (AKA Reach Your True Potential) about 10 years ago. Sometimes it’s been a goal in the forefront of my mind that I’m very passionate about and other times I haven’t given it any thought at all. Sometimes I’ve felt so ready to go on Oprah that I half expected the phone to ring and other times it seems like a pathetic pipe dream, way too big to come true.
One day I had a different thought: Dreaming about going on Oprah was limited thinking. It’s not so much big as it is small. It’s more narrow-minded than it is possibility thinking.
Let me explain.
Probably the main reason I’ve wanted to go on Oprah (if I am to be honest) is because I know that whoever goes on Oprah is pretty much guaranteed to be successful. Iyanla Vanzant, Marianne Williamson and Louise Hay come to mind.
So, (if I am to be honest) I really wanted to go on Oprah because it seemed like the easy way out. In other words, it’s like I was thinking “let me ride on the coattails of Oprah’s success rather than carve out my own path to success.”
There’s another reason why the dream of going on Oprah is limited thinking. If I think to myself: “Going on Oprah is the sure (only) way to big success” what I’m also reinforcing is that “If I don’t go on Oprah, there is no way to be a big success.” I can also be reinforcing things like, “I’m not successful because I didn’t get on Oprah”. I hate to admit it, but this is victim thinking and not much different than waiting for a knight in shining armor.
During a recorded conference call one day, two people who call themselves “Secret Masters” were talking about the importance of the types of questions you choose to ask yourself. In essence, they stated that your mind is like a slave and whatever question you ask, your mind will find an answer to. So, if you ask a question like “what’s wrong with me?” your mind will begin searching for data about what’s wrong with you.
During the conversation, Bill Harris and Joe Vitale talked about using a question that will cause your mind to search for information that will be helpful and life changing. One of the suggested self-question formats was to start with the words “how can I” then complete the sentence with a positive, goal oriented statement.
For example, instead of asking a question like “why can’t I ever seem to get ahead” change it to something like “how can I become financially free or how can I make it inevitable that I will earn $8,000 this month or how can I create a lifestyle of financial freedom?” When you ask these questions, your mind will begin to search for the answers and as a result, you might find yourself drawn to a particular book or you might be inspired to make a call to someone you haven’t talked to in a while or an idea might bubble up from your unconscious mind that had never occurred to you in the past.
So, although I wouldn’t mind being interviewed by Oprah or having my OWN show, I decided instead to expand my thinking and to focus on what I want. Here are some questions I asked myself:
Question: What do you want?
Answer: I want to reach a lot of people with my work and I want to make a positive difference in the world.
Would going on Oprah help me accomplish this goals? Yes, I’m sure it would but is going on Oprah the only way to accomplish this goal? Certainly not. So, I’m going to take the advice of Joe Vitale and Bill Harris and ask myself questions like this:
How can I reach a lot of people with my work and make a positive difference in the world while also enjoying creative freedom and financial abundance?
I have also outlined several other, more specific questions in my journal and I’ll be interested to see what will come of all this. I wrote about some of these same ideas in my book, From Sabotage to Success over 10 years ago but then I got into graduate school at a state university and allowed myself to be pulled away from these concepts of creative thinking and manifestation mindset in favor of more traditional psychology theories.
Luckily I have allowed myself to come back to these ideas recently and to find a way to integrate them in my life once again. Fortunately it’s never too late to change my thinking and to dare to think big. Oprah, I love all that you’ve done for television viewers in the past 25+ years but I’m gonna think outside of the box now and see what other exciting possibilities life holds in store for me.
Two things I am doing now to express myself creatively and reach out to people is The Sheri and Erin Show and Agape Toastmasters. This week Victoria Reynolds and I did projects #2 and #3 out of the Communicating on Television manual and had a great time talking about topics that are empowering for women. Below is a clip of me interviewing Victoria Reynolds about how she is helping liberate minds from oppressive religious beliefs. After that is a clip of Victoria Reynolds interviewing me about how to overcome fear and keep a strong mind. I talk a little bit about how roller derby helped me to get bold enough to push past fear.
One of my goals is to see The Sheri and Erin Show get on T.V. or Internet video broadcast. I think that just seeing us in action is something that would be mind-expanding for a lot of people.
Recently, someone referred to us as the “ebony and ivory of consciousness” and I thought that was pretty cool. If you’re stuck on skin color, then technically, Erin and I are both the “wrong” color. Our stories don’t match with our skin color. Not only that, Erin and I really get along great. I think many people would be shocked to see this.
Our goal is to tear down barriers and build bridges. Here’s a show we did when we interviewed James Hyman at The Spot in Culver City. I hope this is one of many video interviews we will do and that our work will send a message of unity and self-empowerment to an audience of forward-thinking women and men.