The invitation from Harvard University caught Winfrey at a low point. Her new TV network was struggling, branded a flop in the media, when Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust called last year to ask her to address 2013 graduates.
A year later, Oprah Winfrey Network has found its footing and her approach to facing setbacks had been validated. Stumbles are inevitable but not permanent, Winfrey told the graduates..
“I want you to remember this: There is no such thing as failure,” she said. “Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.”
I – Word Understanding
Low point – when things can’t get any worse.
Flop – failure.
Setbacks – a change from better to worse.
Footing – base or basis.
Stumbles – momentarily lose one’s balance; almost fall.
Inevitable – certain to happen; unavoidable.
II – Have your say
1.Harvard seems to pump out an extraordinary number of accomplished individuals.
Here’s some of the most famous Harvard students of all-time.Do you have any background knowledge of them?
1.John F. Kennedy
2. Bill Gates
3. Mark Zuckerberg
2.The world respects Oprah’s opinion. She was so instrumental in electing Barack Obama as US President last year, the governor of Illinois considered offering her Obama’s vacant senate seat.
3.Perhaps the sharpest contrast between the different ways of dealing with failure comes at the end of the road. In Japan, of course, the standard atonement for a business failure involves having the company president bow deeply and issue a very public apology for letting down those who depended on him. In contrast, Yahoo’s recently fired CEO received $10 million severance, and yet refused to go quietly, calling the board that fired her a bunch of “doofuses.
100 Oprah Winfrey tells Harvard graduates to expect failure on the road to success
