I have always been a fan of Oprah Winfrey, the billionaire mogul who continues to defy stereotypes and is just SO real.

The first time I watched her long-running talk show more than 20 years ago, I felt like she was talking directly to me with honesty and relatability, no pretense or phoniness.  

This is her magic — the charisma that launched the Oprah show was on the air for 25 years (until Sept. 2011) as well as her TV network OWN (The Oprah Winfrey Network).

Oprah loves to focus on the positive. She started SuperSoul Sunday, a daytime series on OWN that offers inspirational programming, to help viewers become their best selves and connect more with the world around them.

Jack Canfield, the originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, is credited with starting the genre of inspirational anthologies that is now a billion dollar market. He was a recent guest on SuperSoul Sunday. Canfield was at Oprah’s estate in Montecito to film a program and he told Oprah he wanted to introduce her to some friends in the Santa Barbara area. And this is SO Oprah; just how I picture her to be. According to Canfield, the megastar and magnate simply said "Great. Invite me to dinner," handing him her phone number.

For some reason, the Chicken Soup author did not follow through with an invite for Oprah (maybe he was starstuck?!). However, he instead got a call from Oprah inviting him and 300 others to a Sunday Gospel brunch to launch her new book The Wisdom of Sundays. The book is a collection of the best inspirational insights from SuperSoul Sunday TV interviews, which have garnered 3 Emmy awards.

Canfield says the book is an excellent and inspiring read. The Wisdom of Sundays features excerpts from conversations between Oprah and influential leaders like Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Arianna Huffington, Shonda Rhimes, Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson and more. It includes beautiful photographs, some taken on Oprah’s Montecito estate. In these trying and discouraging times, we truly need to be fed all the positive thinking we can get.

By the way, Canfield did a rain check on the dinner and had Lady O to a meal at his home the first week of December. The author said it was an "amazing evening" (no doubt) with his wife and a few friends. Among other topics, they talked about Oprah's Leadership Academy for Girls, the school she founded and opened near Johannesburg, South Africa. Canfield wants to gift the staff with his Train the Trainer online program. Oprah accepted his offer. It looks like he will travel to South Africa with Oprah to direct a live training for teachers. Now that turned out to be not only savory, but a productive dinner, too!