“Thursday morning. One hundred pounds overweight, no man in sight, and rounding the bend to 57 years old—a full-blown catastrophe.”  … Doesn’t exactly sound like the super successful woman who produced TV for arguably one of (if not the) most powerful woman on the planet, does it?

I had the AWESOME opportunity to sit down and get to know this incredible woman in the most recent episode of Capability Amplifier. Sheri gave me some AMAZING insight from her tenure working with Oprah. WOW!

Sheri grew up outside of Chicago and worked with the daytime television titan for more than 20 years with one of the most heralded jobs on the planet as the executive producer of “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. She dedicated decades to her dream job and loved almost every minute of it…

But as AMAZING as that sounds … “It was not a straight shot by any means! I think that when people hear about a 20 year career with Oprah Winfrey, it sounds like I just left college and sailed right into Harpo studios and started climbing up the ladder. But the truth is, I did not start at The Oprah Winfrey Show until I was 35 years old, in an entry level position.” – Sheri Salata

Over her 20+ career, Sheri was privy to EVERYTHING that was pitched to Oprah, and she’s used that knowledge to expand her depth around her own business and passions. From diet trends to celebrity drama, fitness crazes and spiritual movements. Sheri had access to many of the secrets that passed through Oprah’s studios, and today we uncover what those professional lessons did for Sheri and her business, and what it can do for YOU TOO!

Reinventing Herself

Because of Sheri’s job at Harpo Studios, a lot of her focus was on makeovers and reinventions for OTHER people, but eventually … she decided to reinvent herself. Not because she had to from a business perspective but because she needed to do it for HER.

It's a great paradox that she had access to some of the world's foremost wisdom keepers of our time. There was no dearth of information. She had ALL the information coming out of her ears! Notebooks filled with the latest advice and tips for “living your best life” … but like so many people in the transformational world … it's one thing to produce transformation, another thing to write about transformation, another thing to market transformation, and another thing completely to BE TRANSFORMED. They're very, very different things.

One thing I’ve experienced personally is just how dysfunctional many of (and honestly the majority) of gurus are – their marriages, family life, addictions, poor connections with their children, transactional personal relationships are abhorrent to say the least… Just imagine what Sheri witnessed!

To be clear, it isn't about a lack of authenticity. It’s the turn that must be made, where you take that information and let it root in your bones and you simplify what transformation really is like.

She realized that some of her “grandiosity” in doing things like “I'm going to summit the mountain!” … do it for six months, and then do nothing. “I'm going to run half marathons!” … train for eight months, and then nothing. In the end, what she realized is that in all of those big grand plans, schemes and programs, were inherently self sabotage. “When you make your goals SO high and SO difficult, often times you’re setting yourself up for failure.

It wasn't until she cleared her calendar and mind and took a very honest look at what she had created in her life that she could see that it was the little things that created real transformation. It's a glass of water. It's a walk around the block. It's five minutes of mindfulness that makes all the difference in the world.

Through her personal  journey, Sheri, during her professional career, LOST herself, gained and lost 40, 60 and 100 pounds, smoked cigarettes, didn’t marry or have children … and when she made the decision to leave the show, she began the REAL journey to find herself again.

Sheri’s is a story of reinvention over 50 – RELEASING A LIFETIME OF SHAME AND SADNESS.

Some of the biggest takeaways from our time together in our podcast interview included:

• How to use life’s “Magical Glasses” and how that can lead you to fast life transformations and reinventions
• How to see a story in someone and how to use that story to teach and connect deeply to an audience
• What TRULY made the Oprah Show work
• What running a BILLION Dollar media company was like, and the secret to producing 100+ shows a year FOR DECADES…
• How we are “curators of our own reality” – and how to use that to increase your consciousness
• How to intentionally create the most magical moments in your life and how to utilize those to shape your mission
• The power in taking simple actions to make the biggest moves that produce the most significant results

Coming Out The Other Side

At 56, Sheri said to herself “You've manifested this amazing career. Is that it now? Is your plate empty? What are you doing? Are you just going camping? What's happening now? Your creative, your innovative … and there is a life of your dreams that you haven't manifested yet!

Because for 20 something years every day began with how would Oprah do this? What would Oprah want? How do we achieve this vision of Oprah?” She wasn’t super clear on what ACTUALLY WAS the life of her dreams??

But … she finally got clear, took the leap and now she's the author of the best selling book, The Beautiful No: And Other Tales of Trial, Transcendence, and Transformation, (I BURNED THROUGH IT!) and co-host of the top rated podcast, The Sheri + Nancy Show.  There IS a great big LIFE on the other side of 50 after leaving The Oprah Winfrey Show!

“There is no question that the fastest way to transformation in your own life, to how you feel about yourself, to how you feel about your partner, to how you feel about your friends and family, to how you feel about your life, your home, your everything, is to slip on a pair of MAGICAL GLASSES and lead with what is working, what's positive, what’s sparkly and what's shiny.”  -Sheri Salata

Check out the whole Podcast Interview HERE and don’t forget to subscribe, leave me a message, rate, review and share!