Oprah Confesses Her Brain is Different

Public confessions especially ones coming from Oprah make us sit up and take notice and she certainly has shared a number of personal ones with us. But, it came as a surprise when she admitted her brain was not what we expected of one of the richest and most successful business entrepreneurs in history.

You would think someone this savvy would have a dominant left brain that has been the underpinnings of traditional business success. Not so, according to Ms. Winfrey.

During an interview with Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future Oprah confessed that … “Because I’ve always been a right-brain kind of person — more of an inventive and empathetic storyteller than a liner,logical number cruncher — this book really spoke to me.”

Daniel Pink identifies in A Whole New Mind a very important shift already underway that is shaping the future of business and how that shift is being driven by right brain thinking.

As more and more jobs that require left brain – logical, sequential, formula activities – are moved or outsourced, the new economy will continue to shift to ideas, creative design and big-picture thinking.

It does not mean the disappearance of the left brain business model, but it does mean that consumer products and services will place greater emphasis on design and ideas with connected meaning.  Here are two examples –

Before the left brain thinking can create and build an iPod, a product of high economic value and consumption, right brain thinking has to conceive of a meaningful idea, like the iPod.

Do you recall the Saturn car commercial featuring women designers? These designers spoke of themselves also as mothers who brought their right brain thinking into extra features of car design and safety. Didn’t you feel safer that a woman was designing with ideas of you the woman driver in mind?

According to Pink, anyone tapping into right brain thinking has “… the potential to transform our world.”

What’s the significance of Oprah’s confession?

Women like Oprah and yourself have a head start with transformation.

As Oprah said “This is my time.”  

Make it your time too.

For the full Oprah interview with Daniel Pink click here.