Oprah Winfrey 30 Minutes for the NEXT 30 Years of Your LIFE

the number one lesson i could offer you

where your work is concerned is this

become so skilled

so vigilant so flat out fantastic

at what you do

that your talent cannot be dismissed

you know when i was a kid i thought i

was going to uh

be a social worker or be a teacher or

somehow be in an environment where i

would be connected and speaking to

people to honor that calling i had no

idea that god could dream this big dream

of

a television life for myself but

everybody has a calling

and your real job in life is to figure

out as soon as possible what that is

who you were meant to be

and begin to honor that in the best way

possible for yourself we have seen over

the years on the oprah show so many

people who’ve been able to rise to

success in their life and only able to

rise to success because they answered

the call lots of people think that it’s

about being famous or about being known

or about doing big big incredible things

what you’re going to hear today and see

through the stories

is that sometimes the calling is

right in your own neighborhood sometimes

the calling is

something that

was just a whisper to you and when you

begin to honor that whisper

and to follow that

you end up being the best that you could

be

i actually thought at the time

that being thin

uh

made me better

uh my identification with form my

wanting so

desperately to be in a size 10 gene was

so prominent

identifying with that that shortly after

this i gained five pounds

and i was invited to a party at the time

by don johnson remember dreamy dawn

johnson i was invited to a holiday party

and i did not go to that party because i

thought the five pounds

made me too fat

not good enough to be a don johnson’s

party sounds kind of sick now i know

but that’s what the ego does it is uh

it’s just it is sick it’s wily it’s

cunning it’s deceptive it’s an imposter

imposing on the real you making you

often think that you’re something that

you’re not

you’re not the shape of your body

you’re not your status

you’re not your position in life you’re

not the car you drive no matter how

fancy it is you’re not

your house or your square footage for

all of you watching right now here’s

another way to better understand ego

what i’m talking about eckhart taught me

this everybody try this from home or

wherever you are right now close your

eyes

and

notice what you’re thinking

notice your thoughts

now

who is thinking those thoughts

can you notice that there is a space

where you are observing the thoughts

and where you are aware of the thoughts

that you were observing

eckhart says you are that awareness

disguised as a person

and when i got that

i understood the difference between my

true self

and my ego self

over the years we’ve heard invaluable

information

that

in a moment of danger could be

life-saving

nothing i heard made a greater

impression on me than back in 1991 i

think we were beginning our fifth season

and a man named sanford strong came on

and and shared this never forgot it rule

number one and frankly it’s probably in

my opinion the most important

never

allow them

to take you somewhere else

never

if everyone in this room and everyone

watching this program has never drawn

the line

and made a decision

on crime protection

you better make it when they decide to

move you from crime scene number one to

crime scene number two because the crime

scene number two it’s going to be

isolated you won’t choose it you’ll be

the focus of the crime

i think what was so

interesting about that piece of advice

is at the time that we all heard that

we had been trained as women people

especially to believe that you just do

whatever they say whatever they say go

along with it and what’s important for

those of you who are watching right now

and

those of you who are on the internet

with us right now to know is that it’s

all about using your gut in the moment

and people who’ve survived horrific

circumstances talk about listening to

that intuition and every move being made

calculated on listening to what your gut

says

what the experts now say is do not allow

yourself to be taken to the second

location because anybody who is trying

to harm you

wants to get you to an isolated place

where they can do that without other

people seeing or knowing it so in that

moment of making the decision oh you’re

going to shoot me if you’re going to

shoot me

you have to shoot me now

rather than shoot me in isolation where

nobody can see you whenever somebody has

said something that made the little

hairs on my

arms or neck stand up i know that if

that’s happening to me that’s also

happening to somebody else too

the way to make movies is to do stuff

that you love because you know for 25

years i worked on the oprah show and

uh stephen will tell you that there were

date nights that i came home and i

almost you know it’s hard to even like

take off my clothes because i knew i was

going to be getting up four hours later

but i never really felt exhausted

like depl i never i felt exhausted but i

never felt depleted so do the work that

comes straight from

the soul of you from your background

from stories that you’ve grown up with

from stories that bring you passion from

stories that you

not just yearn to tell

but that if you don’t tell them they

won’t get told and when you when you are

operating you know the single the single

greatest uh

wisdom i think i’ve ever received other

than when people show you they are is

that

the key to fulfillment success

happiness contentment in life is when

you align

your personality

with what your soul actually came to do

i believe everybody has a soul and has

you know their own personal

spiritual energy so when you can use

your personality to serve whatever that

thing is

you can’t help but be successful so if

you do films that come from the interior

of your soul you do work you do art that

comes from the interior of you

it you cannot miss

it’s only when you’re doing stuff that

you think might make money you think it

may be

uh

a hit or you think it may uh bring you

some level of attention or success that

isn’t what does it i would have to say

that all of the great wonderful

experiences of my life that have brought

me to this moment have come from working

from the interior of myself and so

that’s why it feels so authentic because

it it actually is

so when you do that you’ll win

and everybody has a different talent

and the reason we’re all so messed up is

because you’re looking at everybody

else’s talent

and wishing you had some of their talent

all the energy that you spend thinking

about wishing about being jealous of

envious of anybody else is energy that

you’re not only putting out is going to

come back to you negatively but you’re

taking that away from you

all your energy should be forced on what

do i have to offer what do i have to

give how can i be used in service

because dr king’s message of not

everybody can be famous but everybody

can be great because greatness is

determined by service and there is not a

job in here that you can do that you

don’t switch the paradigm to service and

not make that job more fulfilling i

don’t care what the job is if you say

i’m a singer i’m a dancer i’m an artist

i’m a teacher i’m a nurse i’m a doctor

i’m a janitor i’m a i’m a clerk but if

you say if i look at this from how do i

use this in service to something bigger

than myself

it no longer becomes a job it becomes an

offering to the world i first started

making money

and it was you know my salary

or my earnings

were

published all over the place i mean the

first year i was like really did i make

that much money oh my god

um

it was very difficult for me to figure

out where my boundaries were

because i’d grown up poor and didn’t

have anything

so it’s easy when you don’t have

anything and people ask you for money

they say i need 500 you say i don’t have

it because i’m just trying to get my

rent paid

it’s harder when your

multi-billion dollar salary is now in

the paper and you get a lot of friends

and cousins you didn’t have before

so how do you set

boundaries for yourself i was having

trouble setting boundaries myself for

myself for even strangers people would

just show up at my door in chicago and

say oh bro i left my husband please help

me

and i would because she knows i have it

so what i learned was is that

oh the reason why people keep showing up

is because my intention is to make them

think that i’m such a nice person

that

you can ask me for anything

you can get me to do anything i’m going

to say yes i’m going to say yes so when

stevie called me this time i thought i’d

try out my first no on stevie let’s

start big

he wanted me to donate some money to a

charity and i didn’t want to donate to

the charity

because

i have my own charities and i care about

a lot of people but the the problem is

when you you have money everybody thinks

you just want to give to everything so

every letter i ever get starts with we

know you love the children

[Music]

yes i do love the children but somebody

else is gonna have to help the children

so i said to stevie uh i said to stevie

no

and um

as a person who has that disease to

please i was waiting for him then just

to say

i will never speak to you again

i will never call you i will never sing

a song for you

and he didn’t he just said okay

okay

okay it’s okay he said okay check you

later

and

what i learned from that is

many times you will have angst and worry

about things

and

put yourself in a state like someone

said this morning because their phone

went off they were mortified over a

phone i said really

you will put yourself in a state when

the other person really isn’t even

thinking about you

so

learning that i could

specifically

determine for myself

what the boundaries were for me

what i wanted to do

give my money give my time give of my

service to who i wanted to give it to

when i did that i get to make that

decision

and just because you get a hundred

requests a week doesn’t mean you have to

try to fulfill all of that just because

you have all of these demands on your

time and on you doesn’t mean that you

have to say yes you get to decide

because you’re the master of your fate

the captain of your soul as william

ernest henley said in invictus and

understanding that really changed the

meaning of my life

in that i was not

no longer driven by what

other people wanted me to do

but took charge of my own destiny making

choices based upon what do i feel

is the next right move for me

there was one woman out of all the

celebrities out of all of the

famous non-famous infamous people one

woman

who is she her name is tarai trent

listen to the story

i’m going to try to shorten it for you

guys okay tara right trent born and

raised in a village in zimbabwe 11 years

old she’s doing her brother’s homework

she wants to go to school her father

says no you’re a girl you have to

educate the boyfriend yes that’s right

that’s right the boy has to go to school

you can’t go to school so she starts

doing her brother’s homework

she does his brother’s homework he goes

to school he gets all a’s on his

homework yet he doesn’t know the answer

to the question the teacher comes to the

village to say what is going on here

this boy doesn’t know the answers but

his homework’s perfect she finds out

that tarai his younger sister is doing

his homework she begs the father to let

terrorize go to school the father says

no she can’t go to school finally he

marries her off she marries at 11 and a

half years old she gets married

she has three children by the time she’s

18 years old a woman comes to the

village from an ngo heifer international

and asks what are your dreams this is

going to make me cry finally

what are your dreams

this child has never thought about what

her dreams were she says write down your

dreams she writes down her dreams on a

piece of paper and she folds them in a

tin can and she buries them under a rock

the first dream was to be able to go to

the school and go to a school in the

united states of america

and get a college degree

she ends up

through some miracle of the ngo going to

the united states she gets a college

degree wow yes she gets a four-year

degree in three years terrorized trent

she goes back to the rock in zimbabwe

she writes her next goal on the piece of

paper she buries it under the rock she

writes i want to get a master’s degree

she goes back to uni and said she gets a

master’s degree by this time she now has

five children she’s married to a man who

still beats her incredible

she goes back until she gets her

master’s degree after the master’s

degree she goes back to the rock in

zimbabwe she writes down her final goal

is to get a doctorate degree and last

year she became dr tararai trent where

did you find it where did i find it um

i found

her

in the in the nicholas kristoff’s book

called uh

something the sky underneath the sky or

this guy and nico i found her in

nicholas christoph’s book

and i was reading the story

i had nicholas kristoff on the show

nicholas kristoff the famous new york

times writer

and

she wasn’t there she wasn’t a part of

the ch i’m reading the story i can’t

believe this book the story of this

woman as i’m reading the story

so when we go to do the show

the producers have nicholas kristoff on

they bring on other guests but this

woman isn’t there i go how could you not

have her there so we tape another show

with nicholas kristoff we go back and go

fine we’re gonna find that woman terror

right trend this time by this time she’s

living in the united states we followed

her back to zimbabwe to the rock

we pulled the tin can from underneath

the rock

and that is my favorite guest of all

time and the worst

um

i don’t have a worst i don’t have a

worse but the reason why she and as i

said this on my show the reason why tara

wright trent is my favorite guest of all

time is because she represents in that

one story of the little girl in a

village in zimbabwe who had a dream

and the heart and depth and discipline

to pursue it she represents everything i

tried to say in every show in 25 years

she literally through her life story

sums up the message that i was trying to

give to every single one of my viewers

you can

you can

keep trying

don’t give up you have to believe you

have to believe

over the years the century so many

teachers and poets and songwriters have

talked about the significance of knowing

yourself i know we’ve all heard to thine

own self be true shakespeare or

learning to love yourself is the

greatest love of all whitney houston

what i know for sure is

that in all the talk about loving

yourself you can’t begin to love

yourself or even be true to yourself

unless you know

who

you are

separate from your ego

so think about this for a moment you’re

at home listening watching me and taking

in the thoughts that i’m sharing right

now

and

there is an inner space that allows you

to perceive these thoughts

little not even a space i’m just using

the word space because there is no other

word there is

the

ability to

perceive what i’m saying

and be aware of what i’m saying

that is where the true you abide in that

awareness in the very center of yourself

and when you stray from that center you

get lost and you make mistakes

i learned this the hard way your ego

takes over

everybody has an ego i used to think the

ego showed itself through um

someone being arrogant or

stuck up or haughty

or the who does she think she is

prancing down a red carpet kind of thing

well

i’m in show business in the business of

showing myself

so i’m aware that there’s a lot of

egotism involved in this business and i

always thought that i

had my ego in check until i realized

that it’s not just the obvious it’s not

always acting out or showing off

in 2008

i chose eckhart tolle’s book a new earth

for my book club and this book will

change the way

you view your life and the people around

you and your world chapters three and

four literally changed the way i saw

myself and my ego

it changed for me what ego meant

and totally says it’s any identification

with form

meaning any identification identifying

with something that is not the center of

yourself that is possessions material

things cars

titles social status

or in my case identifying with the deep

desire to be thin

you will find true success and happiness

if you have only one goal there really

is only one and that is this

to fulfill

the highest

most truthful

expression

of yourself

as a human being

you want to max out your humanity

by using your energy to lift yourself up

your family and the people around you

theologian howard thurman said it best

he said don’t ask yourself what the

world needs

ask yourself what makes you come alive

and then go do that

because what the world needs is people

who have come alive

the world needs

[Music]

people like michael stahlzenberg from

fort lauderdale when michael was just

eight years old michael nearly died from

a bacterial infection that cost him both

of his hands and both of his feet

and in an instant this vibrant little

boy became a quadruple amputee

and his life

was changed forever

but in losing who he once was

michael discovered who he wanted to be

he refused to sit in that wheelchair all

day and feel sorry for himself so with

prosthetics he learned to walk

and run and play again

he joined his middle school lacrosse

team and last month when he learned that

so many victims of the boston marathon

bombing would become new amputees

michael decided to banish that darkness

with light

michael and his brother harris created

mikeysrun.com

to raise one million dollars for other

amputees

by the time harris runs the 2014 boston

marathon

more than a thousand miles away from

here

these two young brothers

are bringing people together to support

this boston community the way their

community came together to support

michael and when this 13 year old man

was asked about his fellow amputees he

said this

first

they will be sad

they’re losing something

they will never get back

and that’s scary

i was scared

[Music]

but they’ll be okay

they just don’t know that yet

we might not always know it

we might not always see it or hear it on

the news

or even feel it in our daily lives but i

have faith

that no matter what

class of 2013

you will be okay

and you will make sure our country is

okay

i have faith because of that

nine-year-old girl who went out and

collected the change

i have faith because of david and

francine wheeler i have faith because of

michael and harris stolzenberg and i

have faith because of you the network of

angels sitting here today one of them

khadijah williams who came to harvard

four years ago

khadijah had attended 12 schools in 12

years

living out of garbage bags

amongst pimps and prostitutes and drug

dealers

homeless

going into department stores walmart in

the morning to bathe herself so that she

wouldn’t smell in front of her

classmates

and today she graduates as a member of

the harvard class

of 2013. nobody’s journey is seamless or

smooth we all stumble we all have

setbacks if things go wrong you hit a

dead end as you will

it’s just life’s way of saying

time to change course

so ask every failure this is what i do

every failure every crisis every

difficult time i say what is this here

to teach me

and as soon as you get the lesson

you get to move on

if you really get the lesson you pass

and you don’t have to repeat the class

if you don’t get the lesson it shows up

wearing another pair of pants or skirt

to give you some remedial work

and what i found is that difficulties

come when you don’t pay attention to

life’s whisper

because life always whispers to you

first first and if you ignore the

whisper sooner or later you’ll get a

scream

whatever you resist persists but if you

ask the right question not why is this

happening but what is this here to teach

me

what is this here to teach me it puts

you in the place and space to get the

lesson you need my friend ed cartoli

who’s written this wonderful book

uh called a new earth

that’s all about letting the awareness

of who you are stimulate everything that

you do he puts it like this he says

don’t react against a bad situation

merge with that situation instead and

the solution will arise from the

challenge

because surrendering yourself doesn’t

mean giving up it means acting with

responsibility

okay

many of you know that as president

hennessey said i started this school

in africa

and

i founded the school where i’m trying to

give south african girls a shot at a

future like yours stanford

and i spent five years making sure that

school would be as beautiful as the

students

i wanted every girl to feel her worth

reflected in her surroundings so i

checked every blueprint

i picked every pillow

i was looking at the grout in between

the bricks i knew every thread count of

the sheets i chose every girl from the

villages from nine provinces and yet

last fall i was faced with a crisis i’d

never anticipated i was told that one of

the dorm matrons was suspected of sexual

abuse

well that was as you can imagine

devastating news

first i cried actually i sobbed for

about a half an hour

and then i said let’s get to it that’s

all you get is a half an hour you need

to focus on the now

what you need to do now so i contacted a

child trauma specialist i put together a

team of investigators i made sure the

girls had counseling and support and

gail and i got on a plane and flew to

south africa and the whole time i kept

asking that question

what is this here to teach me

and as difficult as that experience has

been

i got a lot of lessons

i understand now the mistakes i made

because i had been paying attention to

all of the wrong things

i built that school from the outside in

when what really mattered was the inside

out

so it’s a lesson that applies to all of

our lives as a whole what matters most

is what’s inside what matters most is

the sense of

integrity of quality and beauty i got

that lesson and what i know is is that

the girls came away with something too

they’ve emerged from this more resilient

and knowing that their voices

have power

[Music]

there’s a bigger dream waiting for you

just waiting

for you to step into it

to step into it your life is big

your life is huge and we spend so much

time

wanting to be in somebody else’s life

and you don’t get honored

you don’t get revered you don’t get

celebrating wanting what somebody else

has

because

that which created you divine

intelligence that dreamed you from

before your ancestors ever knew

they would become your ancestors that

which dream the seed of you

wants you to know how special how

wondrous how mysterious how complex how

glorious how phenomenal

you are

and you get no credit

messing in somebody else’s territory

[Music]

or trying to have

power

over something you have no control

another one of my favorite teachings is

the wizard of oz

when the wicked which is the west says

go away from here because you don’t have

any power here you have no power in any

territory other than your own

oh but you are the master of that

you get to be the master of your own

fate you get to be the captain of your

own soul and if you just manage that if

you just took care of your territory

all the glorious glorious glorious

wondrous

wondrous opportunities and possibilities

that are waiting for you so the question

is what are you resisting

what are you pushing against

what are you not allowing what are you

blocking because you have this idea of

who and what you’re supposed to be

instead of

leaning into the dream that’s already

been created and waiting for you it’s

waiting for you and the second i mean it

doesn’t it’s an instant thing it’s a

shift in the way you see yourself and

the power from which you have come

[Music]

you