Photo: Elise Amendola/AP

“The invitation from Harvard University caught Oprah 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 Winfrey to address 2013 graduates.

The request came ‘in the very moment when I had stopped succeeding,’ Winfrey recalled.

She headed for a long shower to think (‘It was either that or a bag of Oreos,’ she joked) and emerged resolved to change her story by the time her speech rolled around.

A year later, Winfrey said, her Oprah Winfrey Network has found its footing and her approach to facing setbacks had been validated. Stumbles are inevitable but not permanent, Winfrey told graduates Thursday [May 30].

‘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.’

Winfrey spoke during the afternoon session of Harvard’s 362nd commencement before a packed Harvard Yard.”

“Her own calling, she said, was to use television to show people ‘that what unites us is ultimately far more redeeming and compelling than anything that separates (us).'”
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Editor’s note:
Mayor Harding, Pastor Adams and the Yelm City Council could take heed to this talk –
to be inclusive of all here, rather than so divisive and exclusive!