Salata - The beautiful no: and other tales of trial, transcendence, and transformation

For Annie and Julia

Based on many, many true stories.

Contents

Jack Benny Junior High,

We proudly sing your name,

our teams will never yield

as they go down the field

they will lead us on to fame.

Jack Benny 39ers Fight Song, 1971

S o, this is my story.

Its about how a regular middle-class girl from Waukegan, Illinois, grows up to run one of the most beloved brands on the planet and one of the most successful television shows in history and then, after all thatafter all that dreamy on-the-job-nessfinally figures out how to live the life of her dreams.

Like any good story, it begins with a quest.

I wonder, all these years later, if my quest wasnt actually launched in grade school. After my navy dad retired from active duty, we settled in my parents hometown: Waukegan, Illinois. This bustling mini-metropolis was an hour north of Chicago and claimed as its favorite son the legendary comedian of yore Jack Benny, who was quite famous for always saying he was thirty-nine years old. Hilarious stuff for its time. I was a proud Jack Benny 39er, enrolled at the junior high institution that still bears his name. We Waukeganites really milked the Jack Benny connection, that is until another hometown hero, Jerry Orbach, hit the big time in the mega-hit TV series Law & Order.

It was in eighth grade that I had my first real brush with show biz. After years of waiting on the list, my auntie Barb scored impossible-to-get tickets to Bozos Circus, which taped in downtown Chicago at WGN Studios. I was entranced by the big studio cameras and even though I was the oldest child in the audience and twice as tall as the itty-bitties, I loved the energy of the live taping as the crew scurried around the set. There was a make-or-break tension that felt like life. I wasnt selected for the Grand Prize game but snagged the second most coveted spot on the show, introducing the cartoon. Mr. Ned, in his top hat and red tails, cozied on up to me in the bleachers as I proudly faced the camera and declared, Folks, heres Huckleberry.

I was a born producer. In my earliest memories I am leading groups of my little pals in live productions of Barbie, High School Musical (decades before the blockbuster movie), and The Life and Times of Uncle and Aunt Sam (it always bugged me that she was not represented) all involving acres of crunchy crepe paper, Elmers glue, and the big box of Crayolas. As the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family, I was pretty much in charge while the adults were sipping their manhattans, martinis, and scotches. My brother and first cousins on both sides were my beloved cast for all of our family skits and musical spectaculars. Though they sometimes balked at my relentless rehearsal schedules, they always loved the standing ovations that came after. Everyone does.

Producing is multifaceted. First you have to be a bit of a visionary and love that dreaming things up process, and then it doesnt hurt if you like to herd kittens, as they say, because you are in charge of the whole shebang. But it is absolutely essential that you have real storytelling chops. I polished all of those skills in my spare time for most of my life and one magical day they led me to the greatest show on earthThe Oprah Winfrey Show.

The producers were arguably the most prolific storytellers in TV. And every kind of story under the sun got told in the hallowed halls of Harpo Studios. Spiritual stories, lesson stories, literary stories, famous-people stories, historic stories, giveaway stories, makeover stories, and the kind of deeply personal stories that could make you laugh out loud, shout aha!, or bring you to the ugly cry, as Oprah coined. Peoples stories mattered, and that is no doubt why untold millions tuned in around the world from every walk of life for twenty-five years.

As a writer and a producer, I have honored the impactful nature of stories for a long time, but its only now in the middle of my life, that I understand their awesome quantum power. I can see clearly now that stories are the actual building blocks of our lives. They are the ingredients of our intentions, our deepest desires, our requests to the Universe, our hopes, our most fervent prayers. And the most crucial stories are the ones we author for an audience of one, ourselves. Thats right, what we say to ourselves about ourselvesabout every area of our livesis life and death. The difference between the joy ride and the hard road.

It almost seems too simple, which is why I think we miss that nugget over and over again. I had a front-row seat to some of the most enlightened people on the planet (Deepak Chopra, Dr. Maya Angelou, Marianne Williamson, Iyanla Vanzant, Bishop Jakes, Eckhart Tolle, Cheryl Richardson, Gary Zukav, Wayne Dyer, Jack Canfield, Debbie Ford, Louise Hay, Geneen Roth, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and the list goes on) sharing bushel baskets of wise pearls. And while I ate up every teaching, every word with a spoon, its only now that I understand that the stories I tell myself matter more than anything. Believe me, it requires constant rewiring because those neural pathways of unconsciousness, at this stage of my life, have some well-worn grooves. I am as quick to put myself down, reach for guilt or shame like a Triscuit with French onion dip, as I ever wasbut what I focus on now is catching the first few words of that deflating, cynical story before it becomes a paragraph. When I hear that dream-killing voice, I literally say out loud, Not helpful... not helpful (a life-changing tip from spiritual teacher Esther Hicks), as I snap myself back into the now.

Somehow we think of it as being vain or being too self-absorbed to tend to our ourselves and our stories properly. To give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, the pat on the back, the word or two that raises our spirits and reminds us of how extraordinary and divine and beautiful we really are. Im going to guess that you are like I was for so many years: you talk to your pets or to a strangers baby in a grocery store with so much more love than you have ever spoken to yourself.

There are a lot of supportive choices you can makeheart-opening, inspiring information you can begin to digest. You can read every book, including this one, go to every seminar, sign up for every retreat, but in the end you will have to be the one to rewrite the stories of your life. Meaning, you will have to be the one who dissolves the lies of unworthiness, not-good-enough-ness, I-can-only-have-this-ness, other-people-are-luckier-than-me-ness, things-will-never-work-out-ness, money-isnt-everything-ness, I-dont-care-ness, and recast it all with new beliefs full of love, beauty, grace, power, and abundance. And I tell you, it can be done. You can read about transformation, you can talk about transformation, you can produce talk shows about transformation, but only you can be transformed.

Moment by moment, day in and out, the world is reflecting back to you the stories you repeat to yourself on autopilot. You are the author and the storyteller and ultimately the experiencer of that creation, the good, the thrilling, the painful, and the downright awful. All of it.

At fifty-six years old, I found myself ready and willing to rewrite almost every single story of my life. And it will be, until the end of my days, a work in progress, but that intent and focus has taken my life in a wondrous new direction.

Here is an offering that you may find helpful: its never too late to make the rest of your dreams come true.

And if not now, when?

First we were so young and then we were so busy and then one day we woke up to discover we were at an age we once thought of as old.

Anna Quindlen,