Even At Oprah, You Have To Read The Fine Print, by Laura Reilly

Oprah writes a column……”What I know for sure”.

I have discovered that “What I know for sure, is that things don’t always appear as they seem”.

I was most fortunate to attend the Oprah event in Vancouver on January 24th where 14,000+ people came together in Rogers Arena to listen to Oprah share her story. There were several famous people onstage before Oprah finally made her appearance. The Host of the Event, Richard Dolan the President of REIN Group of Companies and lead sponsor of the event, kicked the evening off. During his opening Richard promised us all a gift of being able to receive the transcript of the evening, so he directed us to put away our pens and sit back and enjoy, more on this later, and then he went on to introduce Jimmy Pattison of The Pattison Group who in turn introduced a surprise guest…..Stedman Graham.

Unbeknownst to Oprah, Stedman truly was a surprise – she didn’t even know he was in town – and he spoke of the woman and her work, and his admiration of her and all that she has accomplished.

And then finally Oprah takes the stage and the magical 2+ hours really begins. She speaks about the pivotal moments in her life when she experienced paradigm shifts in her thinking, when she trusted her intuition and listened to “the whisper” and what results she experienced as a result and when she didn’t listen to her intuition – what the fallout was she experienced.

Oprah does not believe in luck. What she does believe is that we are all here for a purpose, that because we are here for a reason we have an obligation to serve. She challenged us to think, how can you be of service to your fellow man? Don’t take your life lightly. You have been given a gift to be here. She talked about the children from the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary last December. Right after the tragedy occurred, she thought to herself, why? She recognized immediately that those innocent children had a purpose and were of service. Though tragic, their deaths have brought gun violence to the forefront yet again to the American Government.

Along the journey we shared with her for over 2 hours, she shared stories to explain the message to have her message resonate with the audience. Very few pictures were shown, as, “We were so poor, I only have 6 pictures of when I was a child”. She did share video clips of shows that went along the particular message she was sharing. But in the big picture, very few visuals were displayed; it was simply Oprah onstage doing what she loves to do.

She spoke of interviews and friendships and the pivotal moments in her life and a shift in her thinking because of these interviews and friendships. She spoke of her own practices. As simple as it seems, she keeps a Gratitude Journal, and practices gratitude and giving thanks daily, and she encourages everyone to adopt this simple practice because this simple practice will make a huge difference.

She quoted and spoke of the work and gave recognition to Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Gary Zukov, and others who she knows personally and who have touched her heart and expanded her mind and challenged her thinking.

There was nothing ‘new or ground breaking’. She didn’t come up with any new realization or concept, but instead by weaving her own personal insights into the thoughts, quotes, concepts, lessons learned, and stories, she gave us a gift.

I had my journal on my lap throughout the evening, and realized that I couldn’t write as fast as the ideas and stories were being told and I gave thanks that I would be able to receive a transcript later on, so I would be able to go back and read and review what I was experiencing and hearing.

My experience was Oprah could have been sitting at my kitchen table with me and we were talking over coffee. How does she make an event with 14,000 so intimate? Because she speaks from the heart, she has no hidden agenda, she wants to pass along her knowledge; she wants to pay it forward. And yes, I have heard it all before from Oprah and other ‘experts’, but it was the whole experience, the pleasure of seeing her live. And sometimes as we well know…..people need to hear the message up to 7 times before they have the ‘aha moment’.

As Oprah said, “I believe I raised 14,000 of you here in this arena. And you had your children watch the show with you when they came home from school, and then your children’s children started to watch the show. That is when I realized….. 25 years is a long time, it’s time to stop and move onto my next challenge.” (said with a laugh from Oprah and the audience)

She has been and continues to be an influence in my life.

The evening’s event was sponsored by several companies. The biggest sponsor was also our host for the evening, Richard Dolan, President of REIN. During Richard’s introduction he asked the audience a rhetorical question….

“How many of you plan on taking notes while Oprah speaks tonight?”

A cheer goes up from the audience.

Richard then tells us that he has a gift for us. “No you’re not all getting a car. What we will receive is a transcript of tonight’s show. It’s our gift to you. So you don’t have to take notes. If you go to your program and turn to the page where we have our advertisement and you will see that all you need to do is send an email to me, and in the subject line, write Oprah Live Event.”

What Richard failed to mention during his offer to us was that there was a catch. There was a deadline to this offer, which was 10pm Event Day. This stipulation was is in the bottom corner of the ad in the program written in red ink, and I may add that it was impossible to see this in the darkened arena.

Have I mentioned that the event ended at 9:50pm?

In the hope of being able to receive the transcript even though I missed the official deadline, I did email Richard on the weekend. I explained that I was not able to meet the deadline and I hoped that in the spirit of the messages that Oprah shared with us that an exception could be made.

I have yet to receive any communication in kind from Richard or a member of his team.

Yes even at Oprah you have to read the fine print.