David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Amazing. At this point it was a startup, it was incredibly scrappy. On the one hand, they're in 138 markets. How can they possibly not get Don Johnson to come on the show? They're just hustlers and they only have the track record of being a local show before this. This actually is the other piece to the magic. Oprah had the gift and that got her to this point. She now has the aim for the mogul mindset, that's the second piece. I think the third piece of the magic is that Oprah didn't get Don Johnson as the guest. Instead, her guest on that first show was an author named Margaret Kent who'd written a book called How to Marry the Man of Your Choice. I’m going to read in a sec, verbatim, Oprah's cold opening to the first national show, but keep in mind, as I’m saying this, what Oprah is, who she is here, and how she's coming across. This is the opening of the show, “I’m Oprah Winfrey and welcome to the first national Oprah Winfrey Show.” Just screams the classic Oprah. This is the next line, “There has been so much hoopla about this premiere show that it's enough to give a girl hives. I mean I’ve got them right now under my armpits. One thing I’ve learned is that no matter how far down you go, and I tell you, I’ve been down on my knees with the best of you, no matter how low you feel this show always allows people, hopefully, to understand the power they have to change their own lives. Now, I don't have a lot of problems in my life. I have to tell you, things are going pretty good for me right now, but two things have bugged me for years. The first, my thighs. The second, my love life.” Then she introduces Margaret. Okay, just think about that. WBEZ podcast talks about this, the target audience is Suzy. They identify Suzy as this mythical— Also, is this the first persona? Startups are obsessed with persona development now. They actually named a false audience member Suzy and had that as a persona that they would like to check against.…

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