In a hotel suite on a sunny London day, sat two of the most influential women in the world reflecting on their extraordinary accomplishments and anticipating a future unburdened by their success.

This thought might strike you as a bit counterintuitive; after all, how can success be a burden?  The question here is not so much “how do you attain success”, but rather, “how do you deal with its consequential aftermath.”

In that hotel suite Oprah Winfrey chatted about the 25th and final season of her talk show (arguably one of the most influential media platforms in history), with J.K. Rowling, now often referred to as the first billionaire author – not so much to emphasize her awesome wealth, but to acknowledge her impact on how the world reads in a post-Harry Potter world.

As Oprah asked Jo (the use of the initials J.K. was a marketing ploy created by the editors out of fear that boys would not read a book written by a woman) about her plans after Harry Potter, Jo returned the question by asking how Oprah sees her life at the conclusion of the Oprah Winfrey show. Both women immediately gravitated towards Nancy Griffin’s Vanity Fair article, “The ‘Thriller’ Diaries,” published July 2010.

The premise of the article, and the lesson these two icons learned from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” experience was quite simple yet profound: Michael Jackson never realized that “Thriller” was a phenomenon.  He spent the rest of his career and life chasing a phenomenon.

“Having transformed a fun but marginal song into a heroic and historic video, Michael Jackson rode “Thriller” to the mountaintop.  The video sent the album’s sales back into the stratosphere, with Epic shipping a million copies a week; by the end of 1984, the album had sold 33 million copies in the U.S. Since then, Thriller has remained unchallenged as the No. 1 album of all time (current sales worldwide: an estimated 110 million).”

Oprah and Jo have realized, consoled themselves, or decided that The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Harry Potter series, respectively, are in fact phenomenons.  The thinking is that yes there is talent involved, but also that these events happened because a series of events came together at the precise moment in time that gave way to an exceptional and rare product.

“Thriller had profound consequences on Jackson’s life and subsequent career: it was both a source of his greatest pride, and his curse.  Like most entertainers, he was happiest during the heady days of the upward trajectory, and hated the downward journey; his story became uniquely tragic because he viewed everything that came afterward as a failure, and the satisfactions of his private life were not sufficient to compensate.  “Michael didn’t see Thriller as a phenomenon,” says Brunman.  “He saw it as a stepping-stone to even greater things.  We were ecstatic when [his next album] Bad shot past the 20 million mark.  Michael was disappointed.”

Oprah created the OWN cable television network to expand her communications platform – but it will not be The Oprah Winfrey Show.  Jo says she will never stop writing and will never be able to stop thinking about Wizards and Muggles, but they will not be the original series.

To realize this is to be free of the burden of having to duplicate or top this achievement.

There has never been another “Thriller”.

Some people say they peaked in High School because they were in the popular crowd or won the championship game.  Some see it in a relationship when “she” was my girlfriend, wife, or friend.  Others see it in their teens, thirties, forties, or fifties.  Some see it in a job, title, or position.

The fascinating question to ask is whether or not a phenomenon has existed in our lives.  Do we recognize it? If we do, does it give way to complacency?  Or does it free us?

Does Michael Phelps not work as hard in the next Olympics because he’s not going to/should not expect to win as many medals?

photo credit: astrosurf, Oprah.com, LA Times, Sports Illustrated