I am admittedly not a big Oprah fan, however I must respect her business acumen and prowess. Ms. Winfrey has created a media empire and the latest addition is OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

I was intrigued when I overheard a snippet of an interview where she discussed the current state of television and how viewers deserved “more” in its content. (I agreed- including her talk show. I stopped watching long ago because I was clearly not the intended audience.)

Making such a move allows greater control of programming and when you OWN, you can truly do the work for which you are passionate.

I watched the series premiere of MasterClass on the neywork which featured Jay-Z. As we know, he OWNs quite a bit, but if you know his roots, he forged a path for himself. Rather than wait on the fickle industry to accept him, he created his OWN label…there’s that word again. He wanted to make music his way and stumbled a bit when he wasn’t true to himself. As he said, “the key is to be true to yourself.”

Kudos to Op for recognizing this phenomenal man as a Master.

Now, most of us are not at Ms. Winfrey or Jay-Z’s level. However the point is making an impact, providing quality content/product/service and doing work for which you can be proud.

I have recently taken the plunge into OWNership. Although scary, nothing worthwhile is without risk. Everyone has a gift to share with the world, even if that world is your immediate community; sometimes it just takes a while to have faith in that gift.

Let’s take time to think about OWNership as an alernative to reaching our goals and solving the challenges of the day.