by Tavis Smiley
OVERCOMING ADVERSITY
Iyanla Vanzant
There are two kinds of adversity that we experience in our lives: the kind that is thrust upon you, and the kind that you put yourself in. For the first sixteen years of my life, I lived through adversity that was thrust upon me. The reality of growing up in poverty without real parenting caused me to develop certain ways of dealing with life, certain outlooks, and certain perceptions of life and of myself. This is a natural part of growing up where our development of how we think and feel about ourselves can be influenced by the adversity thrust upon us by the environment we grow up in.
My self-perception was definitely influenced by the poverty in my environment, as well as by the images of the women I grew up around and who were important in my life. Most of the female figures I grew up around struggled on a daily basis. Their struggles were built on hard work, but it wasn’t the kind of hard work that advanced you or got you ahead in life or got you acclaim and notoriety. It was just basic day-to-day struggle.
At the age of sixteen, I started making choices and decisions on my own. Unconsciously, I brought adversity into my life by putting myself in situations and creating experiences for myself where I had to struggle. For example, I had my first child when I was sixteen. This made me discover that it was hard being sixteen, not having an education, not having any money, and trying to raise a child on my own. These were clearly experiences of adversity that I created for myself. In trying to overcome this self-created adversity, I married somebody who was not capable, who was not ready, and who, quite frankly, was not even willing to engage in a marriage and in raising a family at the time. So instead of correcting the situation, I ended up thrusting even more adversity upon myself. I moved from the place of unconsciously creating adversity for myself to the next stage of my life.
Fast-forward…. At the age of thirty, I had three kids and I began the process of consciously examining and evaluating my life in order to make different choices and decisions, but this time consciously. This process of self-reflection was hard for me, because the major question that kept popping up in my head and my heart was How do I keep any sort of faith in my life when all I’ve known is adversity? What is it that gives one the strength and the courage to know that there is something better for you? For me, it was a feeling of deep belief; not even a practicing faith, but a deep belief that God, somehow and in some way, had something for me to do and that He would present the opportunity for me to do it.
My first opportunity happened while I was riding on a bus, coming from a welfare center. I passed a sign that read, “If you’re ready to change your life, come to Medgar Evers college.” For me, that demonstrated an opportunity. When one lives in adversity, there comes a time when you literally have to move in blind faith; you cannot waste time asking questions—you just have to move! Because the minute you start thinking, the deceptive intelligence will remind you of how many other things didn’t work and you will stop yourself.
So, I went to college; me and the three kids. I took things day by day and moment by moment. I think faith is a second-by-second thing. When you have a deep sense of knowing a certain thing, it’s the same as having faith. My faith and my deep sense of knowing allowed me to feel that, with every fiber of my being, God had something for me to do, although I had no idea what it was. However, faith kept telling me that God had a definite purpose for my life. In this respect, I had to hold fast to my faith and let it guide my direction and my journey. In times when I feel I am in the most trouble, unable to see any direction or purpose for my life, my faith leaves me and I often revert to my human thinking, which was, for me, loaded with adversity. So, because of my faith, coupled with my deep sense of “knowing,” I went to college and to law school.
Fast-forward…. I started practicing law in Philadelphia, and I was just miserable! I did not want to do what I was engaged in doing because it conflicted with my belief that God had something better for me to do. I had come from a situation of being on welfare with three kids and in an abusive marriage, to practicing law as a criminal defense attorney in one of the largest and most prestigious defense offices in the world—the Philadelphia Public Defenders Association. The PPDA was the second-largest public defenders association in the nation, yet I was miserable working there. What it took for me to walk away from my job was, again, that deep knowing that God had something better for me to do with my life. Here again, I had no clue what it was, but that’s when the principle kicks in—you have to let go of what you don’t want in order to get what you do want. Looking back, I guess if I had thought about it more, I would have stayed in the PPDA office, gainfully employed, and kept actively searching for my purpose while constantly asking God for clarification of purpose. But I was impulsive and so I left. Sometimes you have to be willing to walk in the darkness and not be able to see until this thing that you “deeply know” develops. It’s almost like a photograph that starts off as a negative and transforms into a clear image. A friend of mine described it this way: “When you’re in the darkness, God is developing you. There is a new image that is going to be impressed upon you.” So I ended up walking in the darkness of being unemployed, getting evicted from my house, living in a friend’s basement, and having my youngest daughter come home pregnant, but yet, there was still this feeling of “deep knowing” for a higher purpose working inside of me.
Fast-forward…. I took a job teaching life skills on how to reenter the workforce to women who were on welfare. I put together a little workbook for them which basically said, every day I want you to do this and do that. I called the workbook Tapping the Power Within. When I sat down to review the workbook, I realized it had thirty-two pages. So I took it to Kinko’s to have it photocopied, added a cover page to it, and ended up with a pamphlet for the women in my life skills program. Throughout the course I kept working on the pamphlet, and it kept growing until it finally developed into seventy-two pages, at which point I thought, This is a book! I wrote Alice Walker, who had her own publishing company at the time, about the possibility of publishing my pamphlet. Her response was “Nice idea, but I can’t publish it right now.” I could have taken her rejection of my work as an act of adversity, but I simply said, “Okay.” Then another opportunity presented itself when I was encouraged to call an agent by the name of Marie Brown. She also responded that it was a lovely idea but she was not ready to publish it. Finally, two years later, Marie Brown called me to say that she knew of someone who was interested in my book. During times of adversity in your life, when you have a deep sense of knowing that you have divine purpose, you’ve got to exercise patience and hold the vision.
Fast-forward…. Tapping the Power Within was published and the news of it began to create a buzz in circles here and there. Another friend encouraged me to write Susan Taylor of Essence magazine as a way of generating more support for my work. Mind you, there were many others who said I would be wasting my time in writing to Susan Taylor because so many others had written to her and never received a response. Two weeks after I wrote to her, she responded to my letter and Essence magazine ended up publishing my story in April 1988. After my story was published, I started getting offers for speaking engagements. In order for me to come and speak somewhere, I asked that I be sent an airline ticket and be paid $500. As a result, I traveled all over this country speaking at different locations, without a dime in my pocket, hoping that when I got to where I was going, they would feed me and knowing that I would come back home with $500. Sometimes you just have to move your butt!
One day out of the blue, the same agent I mentioned previously, Marie Brown, called me about an offer from Simon & Schuster to write a book they had a concept for. At the time, I was still living in my friend’s basement, my youngest daughter was pregnant, and I still didn’t have a dime to my name. Another friend gave me a computer (without a printer, mind you), and I started writing the book Acts of Faith. I was basically writing about things that I needed to know about. In adver
sity sometimes you have to be your own teacher and your own support. Acts of Faith was published and I continued to travel around doing speaking engagements. Things started to move slowly and then they just took off.
Fast-forward…. It was now 1998, and I was seven books into my career and I get the phone call that Oprah wants me to come on her show. After I picked myself up from the floor, I started doing The Oprah Winfrey Show. But it was a really weird experience for me because, like most offers, I thought, If I could just get on Oprah and people know I’m out here, I’ll be okay. By the time I got to The Oprah Winfrey Show, however, I had already been out there and people already knew I was okay, so I didn’t have this particular motivation in mind. Instead, my motivation became to be able to reach the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time. And, in doing her show, that is what she provided me with the opportunity to do. So I did my first show on Oprah in February 1998. I came back to do the show in May 1998, September, October, November, and December of 1998. I ended up becoming a fixture on live television through her show.
While there at the studio getting ready to do the Oprah show, I received a telephone call to attend a meeting with Barbara Walters on the possibility of doing my own show. After I picked myself up from the floor, once again, I met with Barbara Walters. At end of the meeting, she asked me to consider the possibility of doing a show with her. I explained to her that I was already happy doing The Oprah Winfrey Show every week. Barbara told me that if I ever changed my mind, to let her know. “Okay, but I don’t think I’ll be changing my mind,” I told her.
I went home the same evening, sat down, and did what most human beings do that ultimately gets them into trouble: I started thinking. Thinking can be hazardous to your health. I thought to myself, This is very bizarre! “Okay, God—what are you trying to tell me?” I immediately went into seven days of prayer and fasting, praying for clarity of purpose. On the sixth day I felt I received the message “The time is now!” For me this meant the time is now for me to stand on my own; the time is now for me to get my message out to reach the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time; the time is now and this is the opportunity. But, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t imagine myself leaving The Oprah Winfrey Show.
I ended up going to Oprah and sharing the news with her of the opportunity I had to do my own television show. I asked Oprah if I stayed with her show, would she be willing to eventually produce my own show for me. Her response was “Absolutely.” But here again, it was about timing. At the time Oprah was getting ready to launch her magazine, she was teaching a course with Stedman, her show was at its peak, and the movie Beloved had just come out. Things were incredibly busy for her as well.
In the end it was my impatience, my naïveté, my ego, and my everything that took me out of Oprah to Buena Vista Pictures. We shot one pilot, and the pilot didn’t sell. One year later, the producers came up with a new concept and I went forward and did the show in the new format. It was the biggest mistake of my life! Oftentimes when we have to walk through adversity, we are unaware of what we’re actually going through. Ultimately, I got stuck on doing the show and forgot about my vision, reaching the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time. I focused on doing the show and not on the vision of what I wanted the show to really be about. The producers were focused on doing the show as well. Once I got into the notion of doing the show, I realized that the producers were not aligned with my vision. Vision is part of the “deep knowing” that I mentioned earlier. It is vision that will bring you through adversity. Vision represents what you stand for. It represents what you are doing and why are you doing it.
Fast-forward…. After twenty-six weeks on the air, the tragedy of September 11 happened and television audiences were down. My show was in the sixth major market at night and so my viewer numbers didn’t count and I didn’t know dip from diddly about doing television. I ended up surrendering my inner authority and inner guidance to those who throught that they knew more about the industry than I did. Then I received a call from the producers, who told me, “We changed our minds about the show and we’re done with you.” So I packed up my things and I went home. Afterward, I heard from gossip out in the street, “What did you think you were doing, anyway?” My doing the show ultimately confused some people, angered others, and even attracted others. It was at this point it hit me that I had aligned myself with folks who weren’t in alignment with my vision. I realized that I had made a big mistake.
Looking back, I know within my own self that I am a good student. In making the mistake of doing my own television show, I had to sit back, reevaluate things, and look for the lesson in what I had done. This is what I learned: that in all my adversity from my younger years, from my growing up in poverty and struggle, in the confusion I experienced and in the lack of identity I had—all these things I had experienced collectively came to a head. If I had stayed on Oprah, it would have been absolutely grand for me. But I had to make it hard for myself. I had to go to New York and struggle and fight to try and prove myself and move through adversity, because adversity was my condition. As we examine and evaluate our lives, we have to be real and conscious about how our conditioning as children manifests itself in the way we make choices in our adult lives. Once you realize what you’ve done, you have to take the appropriate steps to correct yourself as soon as possible.
Right now, I am in the process of reclarifying my vision, reclarifying what it is I stand for, and aligning myself only with people and activities that are in accord with who I am, what I stand for, and what it is that I believe. To quote a line from one of the old Negro spirituals, “I don’t feel no ways tired.” How many people get an opportunity to have their own television show? For me, it was a blessing and it was part of my divine purpose, because there may have been no other way for me to learn the lesson that I’m addicted to having it hard, that I’m addicted to struggle; the lesson that if things are too easy, I’ll make them hard. What Oprah gave me was a gift, but it was too easy.
How do you keep the faith? Have a vision. How do you keep the faith? Walk through the darkness knowing there is something better and something more grand for you to do. How do you keep the faith? Keep yourself in check and when you find that you’re out of order, self-correct. How do you keep the vision? Stay away from thinking—don’t think! God speaks to us in our hearts and in our spirits, and if your head, your heart, and your gut are not in total alignment and in total agreement, recognize this as a situation that is not God, but a situation of you and your conditioning. Self-correct as soon as possible. My head and my heart and my gut were not in alignment with me going to Buena Vista Pictures because I didn’t know enough about television and I didn’t feel comfortable with the people who were producing my show. I saw who these people were and I ignored what I saw. If there is a piece of advice I can give from all of this, it is to never surrender your own authority. Sometimes you will have to say no to someone or to something and it won’t make sense. But do it anyway. Just say no! Have a very strong no and a very strong yes, because if you don’t have a very strong no, it disempowers your yes. Say yes only when you mean yes and no when you mean no, and don’t compromise. I realize that I did not have a strong yes and I did not have a strong no. If I had had a strong yes to Oprah, I would have had a strong no to Buena Vista.
Finally, I’ll be back! I don’t know in what form, but I know that I’ll be back, because I’m real clear about what I stand for and I’m clear about aligning myself with people who support my vision. My vision is about healing the planet and the universe. In terms of keeping the faith, if your house is not in order, you can be coerced into doing things that you wouldn’t normally do. I went to television because I wanted to, not because I had to. Television seemed a natural extension of the work I was already doing. In that sense, my house was in order. If I had done it for the money or to satisfy some need that I wasn’t aware of, I could have been coerced into doing some things that would have
compromised me as a person. My mistake was the result of my naïveté and my lack of clarity. The one thing that saved me and that I believe will ultimately save others is to never let your integrity be compromised. This is so critical for us.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to do my own show. Even when you are sitting in the midst of adversity, look for the blessing. As I count my own blessings, among them are the fact that I am healthy, I’m surrounded by people who love and support me, I have a wonderful family, and I’m absolutely gorgeous. I could have been ugly and broken down, but thank goodness, I’m not. And always, always, find something to laugh at when you’re in the midst of adversity. Looking back, I can remember the days of being in New York and shooting three and four shows on the same day, arguing with the producers and trying to figure out what the heck I was doing; just all kinds of mess! But I found joy in eating chicken wings! The message is to find something to make you feel good or to laugh at. You have to keep this in mind no matter what is going on in your life. Sometimes we take life too seriously. One thing I’ve discovered is that you can’t mess up your inheritance, your destiny, your greatness, your divinity, or your ability. You can create messy situations, but as long as you don’t get stuck in the mistakes you make, the poor choices and the bad decisions you make, and beat yourself up, terrorize yourself, and brutalize yourself, you can recover from anything. I think we lose sight of that sometimes because we come from a history of adversity. But if you can manage to always find something to laugh at while in the midst of adversity, you will always be able to make it!
OVERCOMING DYSLEXIA
Danny Glover
When I was a child, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Although you never fully get over it, it had a much more profound impact on my life during my childhood. It is in childhood that we first learn to believe in ourselves. Having dyslexia as a child can impact the child’s self-esteem, and the way they see themselves in the world. It can cause them to feel they are dumb, or unworthy, or that they are a disappointment to their family. I felt all these things.
