- My name is Endyia Kinney-Sterns,
I am a television media professional.
I've had the pleasure of producing and overseeing shows
for networks such as BET, OWN,
and developed the first African American reality show.
You gotta keep going to keep it up, right?
Like you got bills now, like big bills.
And you know, you got stylists
and you got fame and you've got responsibilities.
And then a call comes.
So the president got let go,
and so there's a hiring freeze.
You don't realize how special it is
until you don't have it.
It was really pride swallowing hard.
I mean, talk about faceplant.
I had no job, and I just was so broken.
(typing)
(gate slamming)
I grew up in Fort worth, Texas.
It was my mom and I, I just remember
my mother telling me, "Listen,
"if you wanna be successful in life,
"to know what your purposes is,
"all you gotta do is use all your gifts
"to glorify God and bless others."
When I got to be around four years old,
my mom was like, "What do you really wanna do?"
And I said "I wanna be on that."
And that was the television screen.
She's like "I don't know anything
"about getting you on TV, but there's
"this theater down the street.
"If you could do it in front of live people,
"then maybe you have a gift."
I was four years old, I'm on TV shows,
I'm in movies, I've been commercials.
And my mother (laughing), she was like,
"The minute that you don't like it, let me know."
Like it had nothing to do with the money,
had nothing to do with fame or fortune.
It was, you have a gift, use your gift,
use everything you got, use it up.
But the minute it stops being fun,
the minute you stop not having a passion for it.
We need to find something else.
And so the why to me is what drives you,
what your intention is,
what is pushing you towards your goal, your purpose.
And your why to me has to be something other than yourself.
As I got older, you know,
I had to start thinking about college.
To be honest, I had gained a lotta weight
and I was really frustrated.
I knew I wanted to get back into television,
but I was like, I'm not ready to be on TV.
I know, I'll go to law school, 'cause why not?
And in my mind, I'm like, you know what?
I'm gonna own my own production company, one day.
I knew I was gonna be in television.
A law degree what help.
So I'm there, and the only course
that I really thrive in is civil procedure,
which is basically trial, where you're in,
I'm like, I'm gonna be Perry Mason,
so I can pretend like a lawyer,
and I'm like, people are loving it,
'cause I'm performing as a lawyer.
And I'm like, there's a problem here, there's a disconnect.
And so I took a hiatus from law school
and I was like, you know what,
let me learn what it's like to be behind the scenes.
I wanna be a decision maker.
People were like, Oh my gosh, you really got it.
Like, you're really good at producing.
You got to get out there and just experience it.
So I produced various television shows
for seven, eight years, making really good money.
I got an opportunity to be a network executive
with like a real title and a role
in being able to have a lot of influence
and then rose up in the ranks from there
from network to network, having hit shows,
getting write-ups in magazine, winning awards.
It was like, this is crazy.
Apartment got a little bigger.
My boyfriend becomes my husband.
So I am flying high, houses, cars,
you know, kids, my oldest one is
in a nice private elementary school
that, you know, it's ridiculous
that you're paying that much.
My why changed, I just lost it, I lost it.
The stock market crash in 2008,
and that's when everything started to crumble.
I remember being called into the president's conference room
and I was so arrogant and prideful
in myself at the time that I didn't think
that was a red flag for me, seriously.
I walk in and I'm like, oh, somebody's getting let go,
who could it be?
And they're like, ooh, yeah, so about that,
we are making some changes.
I'm like, oh.
And at the time three other networks
were already trying to poach me.
So I was just waiting for an offer.
Four months go by, I get a call.
Yeah no that, I'm sorry, we just can't make it work.
Six months go by, this other president gets let go,
that job goes away, and that's when
I think I went into panic mode,
they usually pick up the phone right away.
And now it was as if they were saying
we don't have time for you.
I just broke down.
I remember bawling uncontrollably.
Money is like gone, like my little nest egg gone.
One of the things we had to get rid of
was one of the cars, like, you know,
we don't need two cars now, we need one.
What was even harder was realizing
we've gotta get out of this house
and to have to go to the kids and be like,
we have to leave.
It was just horrible.
All of the things you're thinking
that are so important that you strive
so hard to have happen.
They get taken away and you realize,
wow, they weren't that important.
And I got back to my why.
Why I started what I started.
And I started my own business.
People were so excited to work together with me.
My business took off.
It was fantastic because I had more time with my family.
I ended up making just as much money
with a lot of peace of mind, with my why intact.
You can't always control what happens to you,
but you can control your response to it.
I read somewhere that, you know,
OWN network is up and running and it's having some problems,
a really good friend of mine works there.
I said I'm gonna reach out to her
and mind you, what's crazy is,
I never once thought about Oprah
and I know this sounds crazy, but I'm being honest.
It wasn't about, Oh, I'm gonna meet her
and I'm gonna to knock her socks off.
Old Endyia, absolutely.
Humbled Endyia was more like, wow,
what a great opportunity to align with a network
that really wants to affect change
through programming, like what?
And so I was able to meet with various people
and finally, they were like, listen,
we need you to come on full time if you're gonna come.
And I was like, oh, I have to wrap up
all these projects, I have to do full time job again.
I mean, in retrospect, I'm like,
why would you even second guess
going to Oprah Winfrey Network?
But because my head was in such a different place,
I didn't wanna make the same mistakes twice.
And it ended up being one of the best decisions on my life.
My wildest dream moment was when Miss Winfrey was like,
"Hey," you know, "I need your help with this show."
Like I'm at a table with her,
and she's asking me my thoughts on something,
and what do I think.
I'm grateful for having gone through
what I went through to be humbled
in that place to not let it make me feel
some type of way of like, Oh, you've made it or this is it.
No, I'm one purpose, I'm clear about why,
I'm at the table with this prolific amazing woman.
And I was able to stand firm and be confident in that
because it wasn't about her, it wasn't
about anything else other than the bigger purpose
of the why I was there.
It's so interesting when you talk about faceplants,
because I think that there are multiple faceplants
along the way of your life, right?
Like adversity comes in different waves
and you gotta figure out what is it trying to teach you?
What is it showing you about yourself?
And so you get to decide whether
you just go through it or you grow through it.