{"id":606961,"date":"2026-07-27T19:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/606961\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T19:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:27:12","slug":"oprah-winfrey-says-life-starts-at-44-and-research-shows-founders-start-their-businesses-after-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/606961\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah Winfrey says ‘life starts at 44,’ and research shows founders start their businesses after 40"},"content":{"rendered":"

Workers spend their 20s climbing the corporate ladder under the belief<\/a> that they\u2019ll have it all<\/a> by 30\u2014the perfect job, six-figure salary, and dream house. But seasoned professionals are pulling back the curtain on the realistic timeline of career success. And for billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey<\/a>, that begins in your mid-40s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLife starts at 44,\u201d Winfrey recently said on<\/a> the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast. \u201cBecause you come into yourself in a way that you\u2019re no longer trying to please everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that age, Winfrey was in the middle of her stride; she was in her daytime talk-show heyday, having already amassed a collection of Emmy awards for her work hosting The Oprah Winfrey Show; was named one of Time\u2019s \u201c100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century\u201d; and produced and starred in her movie adaptation of Toni Morrison\u2019s Beloved. Winfrey says she was finally in \u201cfull drive,\u201d and purposefully living for herself\u2014a hard-won confidence that can take decades to develop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do have some girls now that I\u2019ve mentored who are in their early 30s, who\u2019ve gotten to it sooner,\u201d Winfrey continued. \u201cBut for me it was 44 where I locked in\u2026I could see the rising for myself. I wasn\u2019t just doing things for other people.\u201d And research shows she\u2019s not the only one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The average founder is 42 years old, and Fortune 500 CEO is 57<\/p>\n

Winfrey\u2019s experience isn\u2019t unique to any one profession or industry; many workers come to know that their wisdom and biggest milestones arrive well after the age society tells them they should have \u201cmade it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The average Fortune 500 CEO is 57, while the typical billionaire<\/a> is 57 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Plus, the stereotype of hoodie-wearing 20-somethings building unicorn companies is largely a founder myth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The average person who starts a business is 42 years old\u2014and among the top 0.1% fastest-growing companies, they\u2019re 45\u2014according to<\/a> the Center of American Entrepreneurship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Workers aren\u2019t all running on the same career clock. For Winfrey, that professional reassurance came from a decade of hard work following her big break in her 30s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Winfrey\u2019s big break didn\u2019t come until her 30s\u2014now, she can do what she wants\u00a0<\/p>\n

The now-72-year-old Winfrey spent decades on the grind to get to a place of genuine fulfillment\u2014and now, she says that working relentlessly is non-negotiable in your 20s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou ain\u2019t gonna have no work-life balance at 22, 23,\u201d Winfrey said on the podcast. \u201cYou\u2019re not supposed to have it. You\u2019re supposed to lay it in, lay in the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her own career took off when she was just 19 years old, after becoming the youngest person and first Black woman to anchor the local news at Nashville\u2019s WTVF-TV. After getting a degree from Tennessee State University, she moved to Maryland to become a reporter and anchor, drumming up buzz as the co-host of the Baltimore talk show People Are Talking. Winfrey was on the career grind, attracting bigger audiences with her charismatic personality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, at 30, a huge professional opportunity was on the table. Winfrey moved to Chicago in 1984 and took over A.M. Chicago, turning it into the top local talk show within months. Many of her peers viewed it as a risky move, with daytime TV legend Phil Donahue being in direct competition in the Windy City. But fellow entertainment icon and longtime friend Gayle King pushed her to take<\/a> the leap. A couple of years later, her program went national and was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. The entrepreneur also founded Harpo Productions the same year, enabling her to take ownership of her own content.<\/p>\n

And her success hasn\u2019t been confined to daytime television. Winfrey has taken her talents to Hollywood, starring in movies including The Color Purple, Selma, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. She\u2019s also authored a slew of New York Times bestsellers focused on personal growth and health; led the massively popular Oprah\u2019s Book Club since 1996; and founded top-selling lifestyle publication O.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With $3.4 billion<\/a> and decades-worth of accolades to her name, Winfrey says she\u2019s living her best life now that she has the \u201cfreedom\u201d to do what comes from \u201cthe purest part of myself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI only do what I want to do, and I\u2019ve earned the right to do that. Because there [were] lots of times I had to do what I had to do,\u201d Winfrey added. \u201cYou have to do what you have to do, what you need to do, until you can do what you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Workers spend their 20s climbing the corporate ladder under the belief that they\u2019ll have it all by 30\u2014the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[178],"tags":[3500,37072,79,5500,58670,2788,434,18,6151,236,33194,11315,19,17,227,1109,327,41660,41663,128,2797],"class_list":["post-606961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-advice","tag-billionaires","tag-business","tag-career-advice","tag-career-success","tag-careers","tag-celebrities","tag-eire","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-founder","tag-founders","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jobs","tag-media","tag-movies","tag-oprah","tag-oprah-winfrey","tag-tv","tag-young-workers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116993592505720413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}