San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
An Oprah producer decides to focus on her own life
Sheri Salata had a dilemma. As an executive producer for Oprah Winfrey, Salata’s work always came first — and she liked it that way. But despite having the job of her dreams, continually putting other people’s needs before her own had left her personal life in shambles. At 56 years old, 100 pounds overweight, and with no love in sight, Salata asked herself: Can you create a new vision for your life when you’re smackdab in the middle of it? Her answer was a resounding yes.
After nearly 21 years of some of the most demanding but rewarding producing work in television — the farewell season of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the grueling OWN turnaround, and the closing of Harpo Studios in Chicago — Salata hung up her beloved showbiz hat to go in search of the whole life of her dreams. It’s a quest that the Bay Area author and entrepreneur chronicles in her debut book, “The Beautiful No: And Other Tales of Trial, Transcendence, and Transformation.”
“You can go through your life and use your busyness — as a career person, a mom, a volunteer— to distract you from the areas of your life that you’re not so adept at,” Salata said when reached on her book tour. “I had the ultimate paradox: I produced transformation! But I kept putting off my own transformation. Everything was bucketlisted and somedaylisted: ‘Someday I’ll get my health together. Someday I’ll live where I really want to live.’ There’s a bit of a danger in that, which I can only see now.”
In her book, Salata’s journey takes place over 20 breezy chapters that move seamlessly between the past and present. In relatable raw detail, she shares stories ranging from learning how to take charge of her health to opening herself up to finding a soulmate to discovering that rejection — the “beautiful no” of her title — is often a pathway to greater success. Along the way, she adds her friend Nancy Hala to her transformation tribe; she excavates painful remembrances from her earlier years; and, yes, she shares delicious anecdotes about working on the front lines for Oprah.
Each chapter tells a singular story that when put together as a whole leads to a powerful theme: When you commit to little selfcare practices that feel good, you’re able to choose happiness. By the end of the book, you’ll be fully bought into Salata’s story and methodology. (If you can’t get enough of her, you can listen to her podcast, “The Sheri + Nancy Show,” or visit her website, www.thepillarlife.com.)
“The Beautiful No” doesn’t lay out a road map for transforming one’s life. Instead, it meets you where you’re at. If you’re a younger reader, you can use the book as a cautionary tale.
“The best thing you can do is see what someone else did and avoid it,” Salata told me. And if you’re an older reader, her stories can serve as a middleoflife rallying cry. “I never considered I might have 30 or 40 more years on Earth and it’s not too late for me to manifest the life of my dreams,” she said. “If not now, then when?”