This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

In 1971, a 17-year-old girl won the Miss Black Tennessee Beauty pageant.

It set in motion a chain of events that would transform not just her life, but the lives of millions of other people.

Born into poverty to a teenage mother in rural Mississippi, Oprah Winfrey had endured a difficult

childhood. She bounced between relatives, experienced abuse, and left home at 13. The pageant

became the first domino in a series of extraordinary events. Her win caught the attention of

WVOL, a local radio station.

It offered her a part-time news position.

At 19, Oprah became Nashville's first female African-American news anchor.

She then moved to Baltimore for television news

and eventually to Chicago,

where she transformed a struggling morning show

into the Oprah Winfrey show. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and that's what we're talking about today.

Then came a production company, a magazine, a book club, and eventually her own television network.

Oprah Winfrey became a billionaire, a household name.

For millions of people, she was the American dream made real.

Can you see how each opportunity created momentum for the next?

How each win opened doors that were previously closed.

As the saying goes, nothing succeeds like success.

But if good things can build on one another, if success can lead to more success,

can the same thing happen the other way around?

Can setback lead to setback, failure to failure? Can one door that is

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