Suze Orman once said earning more than $800,000 would make her ‘sick to my stomach’—but that turning down Oprah Winfrey cured her self-doubt

Today, Suze Orman may be known as the confident, no-nonsense, financial powerhouse that she is—but she wasn’t always that way. It was the late 1990s and with one hugely successful book already under her belt, publishing houses were fighting for the contract of her next best-seller. The bidding war for publishing rights to The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom soon reached $800,000. However, rather than waiting to see how far the offers would climb, Orman insisted on ending it. “What are you talking about? This book is going to go to a million and a half,” her bewildered literary agent said. But an adamant Orman responded: “If somebody pays me that much money to write a book, I’m gonna get sick to my stomach. You choose which publisher you want to go with. But I don’t want more than $800,000.” Orman says if she could go back in time she would have let the bidding rack up to millions, but looking back, she told Fortune: “I didn’t think I was worth it—I wasn’t a writer. I was a finance person.” Suze Orman turned down Oprah Winfrey when she knew her self-worth Now Orman, who went on to publish a total of 10 New York Times’ best-sellers and star in her own show on CNBC before most recently cofounding Securesave, knows her value. “I know it big time,” she insists. It all started in 1998 when she was offered a spot on the Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about the spiritual side of divorce on the back of a chapter in her book The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom titled “Practical and spiritual steps so you can stop worrying.” Orman is indeed religious, but she felt strongly that this wasn’t her area of expertise. “That is not me,” she told the producer of the show, Katy Davis. “Davis said nobody has ever refused to come on The Oprah Winfrey Show. I said, ‘Well, now somebody has.’” Despite the shock of those around her, she says she stuck to her decision. “That’s when I was like, no, I know what I think and that’s what I’m