Oprah loved her first job in television, but she says she had a lot to learn in the early years of her career. Though she made mistakes, she tells shame and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown that they allowed her to become her authentic self.
"When I was first starting out in television I was pretending to be like Barbara Walters, because that was the role model," Oprah says in the above clip from "Oprah's Lifeclass."
"I was just trying to sit like Barbara, talk like Barbara, act like Barbara," she says.
But to try to appear spontaneous, Oprah decided not to read the TV copy ahead of time so it would sound fresh. While reading the news on-air one night, Oprah made the mistake of pronouncing Canada as "Can-ahh-da."
"Literally, hello 'Can-ahh-da," Oprah says.
Rather than feel embarrassed about the mistake, Oprah explains how it allowed her to be more authentic. "I cracked myself up, and that was my breaking through the wall, to start to be myself -- because Barbara Walters would never call Canada, 'Can-ahh-da,'" Oprah says.
The positive way people responded to her, flaws and all, "allowed me to be a real person, really opened the door for me," Oprah says.
"I think the vulnerable thing has always been -- that's the space where I live," Oprah says. "You tell the story, you offer it to people, they accept it, they don't, that's OK."
Oprah and Brown delve into the power of vulnerability on "Oprah's Lifeclass" this Sunday, September 22 at 9 p.m. ET on OWN.
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