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My friends and I have some deep conversations over email and text and sometimes I share them through a series I’ve titled, Conversations with Friends. The latest installment is from an email exchange I had early last year with a friend just moments after I watched a video called ‘Inspiring Words from Oprah‘ on YouTube.
Just a little back story: I normally spend my entire Sunday watching speeches or reading books from people I look up to, and this particular Sunday was “Oprah Sunday.” My friends do the same so we normally hit each other up over email and talk about what we just watched or read and it turns into a full on discussion.
______________________Beginning of exchange
Necole: So you know I love Oprah right? I’ve been watching her interviews all day and I just found this video. Amazing!
Friend: I can watch that clip and apply it to so much that I want to accomplish in life but I know there are so many people that just can’t relate to Oprah’s story. They don’t remember her background. In watching those clips, all you see is this lady crying and having God felt revelations about a movie role. Rich people problems. It takes a lot to see that it took time for Oprah to overcome her past, and learn not to live with a small mind, and to dream big. To bring love and encouragement and positivity into her life, so getting a particular movie role was her biggest concern in life at the time.
Have you ever had a cry fest where you had to surrender to the lord?
Necole: I believe she has the most incredible story on earth. She overcame almost every obstacle a young, poor black girl can have coming from a small town in Mississippi, getting pregnant in high school, not being the standard of beauty in a fickle industry. I believe she spent so much time talking about the role in the Color Purple because she felt that that book represented her story and it was in her destiny to be a part of it.
What made Oprah great was that she loved to read books! Books expanded her mind past the difficulties and obstacles she was dealt with daily and let her know that there was something far bigger out there than what the people in her small town were being exposed to. Nowadays people don’t value reading and their world is limited to their workspace, what they watch on television, their social networks,  and the blogs and news sites they read. I’ve had so many people tell me that they don’t have time to read books. A male friend of mine told me that he didn’t have time to read so many times this year, however, last night, I went to his house and he had read like 5 books since I last saw him. He said that reading books made him feel a lot more intelligent, knowledgeable and it was making him a better writer. Now, when we see each other, we discuss the latest book we’ve read.  I feel like that doesn’t happen too often, but it should.
But I say all this to say, I agree that young girls may watch that video of Oprah and think “rich people problems,” and it’s kind of sad. I also think that is why it is so important for me to be more vocal this year and expose my audience to different things because they don’t look at me as someone who is super rich. They may look at me as a successful person but I am also someone that they can still relate to. What I have is definitely attainable. When I started my website, I had no place to live and no extraordinary talent, but I had a computer and access to the internet. Everyone has that.
I know I can achieve the same things in life that Oprah, Richard Branson, Ryan Seacrest and other business moguls I look up to have, but they are better communicators than I am. But anyone can be an incredible communicator if they work hard at it, take classes, continue to practice speaking in front of people, get some vocal lessons to work on their diction, join toastmasters and focus on being one of the best.
Friend: I don’t think its sad if a young girl can’t relate to Oprah’s story. For instance, a 12-year-old girl. In the last 12 years of her life there was probably never a time she heard Oprah’s story, so she just doesn’t know. That 12 year old child has just watched Kim Kardashian’s family come out of nowhere and make it. So, she looks up to Kim K and her sisters because she feels that she can relate to them. It takes someone like Necole Bitchie, someone’s story she has heard, to bring to light what is so amazing about Oprah’s story. You used to be that 12 year old who didn’t know Oprah’s struggle, but you have grown your mind so much through books that you can relate to so many different kinds of people. You get to be a young girl’s Oprah. Open their minds to new concepts and ways of thinking. That’s a blessing.
And FYI Oprah communicates with her voice. You communicate with words on a computer screen and are able to connect with people in that way. I know what you meant by that statement saying Oprah communicates better, But please don’t diminish your accomplishment of being able to connect with millions from behind a computer screen. I know verbal communication is a huge goal for you and I hope you achieve it, but you have done wonders with just words on a computer screen.
Necole: When I was 16, I said I wanted to be a motivational speaker and that’s when I first came across Oprah’s story and was inspired by her. I think at that time, she was going from city to city on some motivational tour and the tickets were selling out like hotcakes. I saw it on a Baltimore news station. All these women were so excited about hearing her speak. I remember saying, “Wow! I want to one day touch people in that way.” Unfortunately, I didn’t know until my first week attending college that I was a horrible speaker who used words like belk instead of belt, said hice, instead of house and so on. I was teased for the way I spoke and people thought I was illiterate. I was devastated and it made me shut down!
I remember going through the school’s catalog and instead of picking out a major that had speech courses that would help me, I picked the only major in the book that didn’t have a speech class requirement to graduate, and that was computer science. Instead of letting doubters fuel me, I let those people shut down my dream. They stole my voice! They stole my dream. That’s what people do.
I told myself I couldn’t accomplish my dream because they told me I couldn’t. I thought about this a year or two after I created my website and realized that the dream I had was still attainable. This time, I was speaking to people though my blogs. When I went on the Female Success Factor Tour in 2008, I felt so empowered knowing that I only had 10 minutes to speak to people and I touched them. I said, “Wow, this is all coming back around full circle.”
In 2010, I finally found a speech and diction coach but I still remember the taunts and being teased which makes me shut down when it’s time for me to speak in front of people. I’m a work in progress.
Every day, someone is told that they can’t do something and their dream is snatched away from them by doubters. A dream deferred. We have to help them get their dreams back. Instill in young girls that they can be and do anything.
One of my favorite quotes is from the movie, “The Pursuit of Happyness:

Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something. You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period.

_________________________________________ End of exchange.
Earlier this year, I was in a rut after realizing that over the last two years, I had been at a standstill, I wasn’t evolving the way I would have liked and I had lost passion for what I was doing. I had let all of the “no’s” I was getting on a weekly basis discourage me from the bigger goals I had set for myself and I was feeling like I was right back at the young woman in college who was having her dream snatched from her once again. During that time, I started a book club and invited girls to read the book, “The Dream Giver” with me and something very special happened during that time. I got my dream back.
And I found this email exchange right on time. It was a reminder that I had so much more to do.
Part 2 Coming soon.