Episode 59: Glamorous, High-Flying, Action-Packed Dream Jobs
But first, meet the woman who helps millions of people get dressed every morning, sometimes including the FIrst Lady. She is the visionary behind J.Crew. Watch this and Oprah will meet us back inside.
Jenna Lyons, the executive creative director at J.Crew, has had to convert an entire bedroom into her closet to house her clothing and shoes . She color codes her shoes. She shares her Brooklyn townhouse with her husband and 3 year old son. “I love going to work every day. I never sit on the edge of my bed and think, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do this today,’” Jenna says. Since she was a child, Jenna has had a flair for fashion, adding ruffles and sequins and switching out buttons on outfits. Jenna landed her first job at J.Crew when she was only 21 and has been flying up the ladder ever since. Today, she oversees a creative force of more than 100 designers and every aspect of the J.Crew kingdom. She has back to back meetings on the day the Oprah crew were there, weighing in on new J.Crew creations starting on summer 2011, then moving on to wedding gowns and what is new for fall. She also directs the designs, layouts and looks for the catalogue. Jenna makes it a point to be home by 6.30pm each night even though her buzzing Blackberry comes home with her. Coming home to her son is the perfect end to any day. Better even than puppies, says Oprah.
Oprah says that she is dressed head to toe in J Crew and she didn’t realize that they made shoes and they are so comfortable. A reasonable heal and a comfortable shoe, she says. Jenna says that there is an interior platform which makes them that much more comfortable, it makes a big difference. Oprah asks if Jenna recognized that this was a dream job. Jenna said that she never dreamed that she could have a job this great. Oprah says that she used to wear J.Crew all the time for casual wear, and the first time that she saw Michelle Obama wearing J.Crew, she went out and bought J.Crew stock. And that was a very good decision. Other than Jenna, Oprah said that the First Lady is the face of J.Crew. One of the most exciting moments of Jenna’s career was seeing Michelle Obama appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in head-to-toe J.Crew. “The trailer came up and she comes up on the screen, and I could barely breathe.” She could barely talk or breathe, she slapped her husband on the head and Blackberries were flying. Jenna is a huge fan of Michelle anyway- as am I says Oprah- So to have her wear J.Crew and mention them on national television was amazing. Oprah mentions when Michelle wore the sweater, and Jenna says “she is the gift that keeps on giving, in many ways.” They laugh. Jenna lives by a few fashion rules she says everyone could benefit from following.
*Make a statement with jewelry.
*Balance feminine pieces with tomboy accents, like a military blazer.
*Wear opposites. If you’re wearing something tailored, sprinkle in some sequins.
*Mix textures—pair tweed with silk, for example.
Oprah noticed that in the film Jenna wore the same striped shirt, (“I was. I was shopping my closet,” says Jenna) with sequined pants which Oprah would never in a million years have thought to do. An easy rule to go by, says Jenna is to always pair opposites. Oprah asks how she scored such a dream job. Scoring your dream job is about doing what you love, Jenna says. “You don’t actually think about what time it is. I never look at the clock. I love what I do ,and I think I don’t care about whether I’ve been there, you know, until 10 p.m.,” (although she no longer does that now that she has a child). Oprah says that anyone who is successful says the same- do what you love and find a way to get paid for it. “And do it 110 percent, whatever you do—whether it’s getting the coffee, whether it’s putting the finishing touches on that dress—do it 110 percent. The people you work with will notice, and that will be rewarded,” says Jenna.
Oprah asks if we are in an era of our own personal style and we can mix it up. Yes, says Jenna, that is exactly what Michelle Obama does, wearing sneakers and a t-shirt and J.Crew pants. Wearing all different designers, anything goes, it is about finding your own personal style and what feels like you. Oprah asks what they are looking for when they are doing the catalogue- Jenna says that they are looking for what feels new, what they like this year, which is often what they didn’t like last year. Oprah thanks Jenna for coming on the show. And the shoes, thanks for the shoes, says Oprah. Oprah is so excited that she can wear these shoes all day, normally they are her 45 minute shoes. That makes Jenna very happy.
He is the Cake Boss. Buddy Valestro has been running his family bakery since he was 17. From rhinos to dragons to the NY skyline to a life size race car, it’s all a piece of cake. Today, customers line up for Buddy’s sweet treats, and millions tune in to see him at work on his TLC show, Cake Boss. Now he’s taking on one of his biggest jobs to date: making a cake for Oprah. He says that it is one of the most important jobs that he’s worked on. The team works tirelessly on this. The clock is ticking and the driver needs to hit the road. They ship it in one piece and drive it to Chicago.
Let’s see it, says Opah, wow! She screams. Oh my God, she screams. There’s my tree, there’s my tree! She shouts, wow. His creation is a cake in the shape of Oprah’s favorite tree, complete with Oprah and her dogs sitting beneath it. “I wanted to make something that made you feel happy,” Buddy says. “And I know that you love to sit under your oak tree.” Oprah is so excited that there is a mini version of her under the tree with the dogs, and she is reading Buddy’s new book with him and her on the cover. Wow, says Oprah, that is so good, thank you. The first time Buddy worked in a bakery, it was as a punishment. “Me and my friends got caught actually playing with matches. I was 11,” Buddy says. His Dad said: “You want to play around with your friends on weekends? I’m going to put you to work, and you’re going to start to understand what it’s really like to work.” So I went to the bakery, and to my amazement, I instantaneously loved it.” From that moment, Buddy says he knew he wanted to be a baker. Buddy’s dreams were initially inspired by his father, he says. “I so looked up to him and he was my idol and my mentor, and I wanted to be just like him,” Buddy says. “My dad passed away when I was 17, and me and my family had to keep the business running, and I had to step into my father’s shoes, which were really big shoes to fill.” To gain the respect of all the employees at 17 was a hard job. Oprah asks what his Dad would think if he saw Buddy now with his own TV show. “He would be so proud,” says Buddy, tearing up. Oprah hugs him. Buddy promised his mother, wife and sister that one day he would be on Oprah and make a cake for her. This has been a dream of his for a long time. Oprah asks his family to stand up. When it comes to landing your dream job, Buddy says it’s about working hard, following your dreams and finding your zone. When he makes cakes, “It’s like an artist painting his painting. I don’t hear nothing. I feel no pain, and I just concentrate,” he says. “When you’re done, you feel like you’re so tired because you gave everything you have into that project, but you look at what you made and you’re like, ‘Wow.’” To see someone’s reaction after you did it, it’s the best, he says. Oprah says that the description of the zone is what athletes describe. Oprah asks if he ever gets bored making cakes. He says you always change it up and raise the bar. Sometimes he needs to just make cakes, it’s his zen. For all the people who want to be the next cake boss, follow your dreams and work hard and you never know what will happen. “I mean I’m standing next to Oprah Winfrey and I made her a cake!” They hug again. Thank you Buddy and his family, says Oprah. His family is here with his signature canolis and cake for everyone. The crowd cheer as the food comes in.
Dubbed the rock ‘n’ roll florist, Jeff Leatham has made a name for himself with his unconventional style and bold designs. He’s perhaps best known as the star of TLC’s Flowers Uncut, but he’s currently the artistic director of the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris. He was blown away by the artistry of the flowers at the Four Seasons in LA and right away he knew that it was something that he wanted to do. He has created beautiful bouquets for Cher, Tina Turner and Eva Longoria.
Jeff is in the studio, he asks the boys to bring out the flowers- over 32,000 stems. He loves the color blocking but this is Plan B. Originally the flowers were to come from Amsterdam but there is a “little volcano problem.” The audience get some flowers. They cheer. Jeff shows Oprah the hydrangea clouds made from chandeliers. The peonies are some of Oprah’s favorites. Jeff says that doing this job for Oprah was so much fun.
Oprah thinks it’s interesting that for his first job with flowers, he said that he had experience, but he didn’t. He’d worked in the yard with his father before. “I never wanted to work with flowers. I trained to be a model in L.A., and worked for the GAP for many years and I said, ‘I have to either move back home to Utah or get a job.’ So, luckily enough, I had a friend that worked at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles at the flower shop,” he says. They gave him a chance. “I walked into that hotel and I saw it was like art. This is like walking into a museum, and they’re creating something so special that I said, ‘I have to be a part of this.’” Jeff says his designs are inspired by both passion and color. “People often say to me: ‘What do you do with your designs? Do you sketch?’ I used to sketch a lot, but my sketches are really bad, it’s like a Curious George book” he says. “It’s better to kind of sit back and look at color and go from there.” Oprah remembers walking through the Four Seasons in Paris and had one of those Oh My Gosh moments- she asked who did this. They told her about Jeff and gave her a book. She says that there is a tilt to it- Jeff says that his whole life has a tilt to it. He thinks that you have to re-imagine what can be done with flowers. Oprah thinks having flowers in the house is one of the nicest things that you can do for yourself. If you’re looking to send flowers to someone, Jeff suggests sending a bouquet without a vase and passing on arrangements of many different types of flowers. “Just say [to the florist], ‘What’s the most beautiful flower you have in your shop right now?’ … Just send a big bunch of the same type,” he says. Spend more money on the flowers, we all have too many vases in our homes. “It’s really important, too, to really think clean, simple and chic.” Don’t get nervous. A luxury flower tip is to use carbonated water like Perrier to make bubbles around the stems and the flowers. Oprah asks what advice he would give to someone to find their dream job. He needed a paycheck, that is what he was after originally. But, like Buddy said, it’s finding your passion and doing what you love to do and creating something that stops people in their tracks. “We’re all so busy in the brouhaha of everyday life,” he says. “If you stop a businessman in the lobby of a hotel or if you make something in a restaurant and they’ll stop and say, ‘That’s amazing,’ you’ve done your job.” It’s about taking time in life to say it’s not so bad, he says. Oprah says it’s filled with flowers. The audience cheer. She thanks Jeff and his team.
Oprah asks Angela if she is still on the roof outside and if she can come down. Angela turns around and leaps off the roof.
One of Hollywood’s leading stuntwomen Angela Meryl jumped off the Harpo Studios roof. This mom has smashed through glass, tumbled down stairs, dangled from helicopters and walked through fire. She says that everyone has a dream job, and this is hers. Come on out Angela Meryl. Oprah says that this would not be her dream, how come it is Angela’s? As a girl, Angela says she was a tomboy who loved playing in the yard and getting into trouble alongside her brother. This adventurous spirit led to a successful career in Hollywood, where she’s been a stunt double for actresses like Halle Berry, Beyoncé and Vivica A. Fox, one of the stars of the Kill Bill movies. Oprah asks her if she ever gets scared, Angela says yes, but being on Oprah is more scary than jumping off a building. Oprah asks if she has ever been hurt? She got stitches in her hand falling through a glass table for Kill Bill. They show an extract of her in Kill Bill. When she looks at it, Angela says that she doesn’t know who that girl is. She says that she is shy and timid. Oprah asks what Angela’s mother thinks? At first, Angela says her mother didn’t take her kick-butt career aspirations seriously. “She told me to get a real job, actually,” she says. Thankfully, Angela didn’t listen. Angela says she lives by the belief that if you follow your passion, you’ll never work a day in your life. A delight to meet you says Oprah, thanks. Then Oprah says don’t try this at home.
If you love gadgets and gizmos, Internet analyst Omar Wasow might just have your dream job. Ten years ago, he introduced Oprah to email, when Oprah thought why would anyone want to do that? He got one of the firtst iPad’s in the world- he got it a week before it was released. He wanted to tell all his friends but he was sworn to secrecy, like the CIA. Oprah says that she had to wait until the release day. This is what Omar loves about his job, he gets to play with the future. Oprah loves books and loves the Kindle app so that you can take the books from your Kindle and put them on your iPad. Oprah loves the light. “I love to read the news, and now I read the news in bed on the iPad,” says Omar. He loves the digital photography. Yes, yes, yes, yes enthuses Oprah. It’s great for sharing photos and board games. Oprah does Scrabble! She loves it! They high five. He shows an interactive example of an interactive book, Alice in Wonderland. “I know there’s going to be a generation of kids who learn to read on interactive books. Oprah gets excited about a moving element on the screen. Omar says that it will make books more interesting for children. A mom can record her voice reading to the kid if she is away. It’s going to change the way kids learn, says Oprah. He shows her Oprah.com and the email system. His favorite thing to use it for is reading and photographs. He has all of Oprah’s photos on his iPad. He says it’s nice for watching movies and it’s super easy to navigate. He uses it for many things instead of his laptop. With 10 hours of battery life, they talk about how fabulous it is, they go to Oprah’ book club. Oprah thinks it will change the way we read. “I never knew I needed it, and now it’s hard to live without it,” Oprah says. “That iPad can do things you didn’t imagine.”"I learned to read from comics,” Omar says and he believes there will be a generation of kids who learn to read from interactive books. Oprah thanks him and says that he has a cool job. He grew up loving gadgets. As a child, Omar says his parents and grandparents encouraged his curiosity, and now, he puts it to good use.
Many people dream of soaring high through the air, and for Daphne and Eboni, it’s all in a day’s work. These women are two of the acrobatic “wine angels” at Aureole Restaurant in Las Vegas. Their job description? To gracefully ascend Aureole’s four-story wine tower and retrieve bottles for diners below. Inspired by the movie Mission Impossible, the wine angels are strapped into an elaborate harness system and pulled to top of the 42-foot glass and steel tower, which holds 10,000 impressive bottles of wine. This is an extreme job. “It’s one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever had,” Daphne says. “I love it.” Welcome Daphne and Eboni, they ascend into the studio. How cool, says Oprah. They give her wine. They have never dropped a bottle. Daphne grew up in the Philippines and says that her family consider her to be a celebrity, especially now she’s been on Oprah. Eboni says this is also her dream job…for now. “Ultimately, I want to become an amazing accountant,” she says. Oprah thanks them and says next time you are in LA, check out the wine angels at Aureole Restaurant. The dream job team have all agreed to sign the No Phone Zone Pledge today, so Oprah is excited about that. Friday April 30th is the National No Phone Zone Day special event. Oprah’s first boss in television, Harold Krump stands up in the audience. When Oprah was earning $112 a week, Harold called all the staff upstairs one Thanksgiving and gave them all a week’s salary as a bonus. Because of that for the last 24 years, Oprah gives all her staff a week’s salary as a Christmas and Thanksgiving bonus. The audience each get $100 gift card from Lowe’s. They cheer.
WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:
Dream Job Hunting Tip 1: Do what you love and find a way to get paid for it.
Dream Job Hunting Tip 2: Do it 110 percent, whatever you do—even if it’s getting the coffee.
Dream Job Hunting Tip 3: If you follow your passion, you’ll never work a day in your life.
People who have to convert entire rooms to house their clothes and shoes get to “shop their closets,” whilst the rest of us just put on clothes.
The audience today received flowers, cake and a Lowe’s gift card… But no iPad.
A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:
You might not know what it is yet, but you can get your dream job by working hard at something that you love so much that it isn’t work to you.