Listen To This and Change Yourself Oprah Winfrey Eye Opening Speech
[Music]
your real job in life
is to figure out what it is you are
called to do
and you use a job until you can figure
out
what the calling is because a job is
necessary to survive and you live in a
world where
so in my early days i had a job i had a
job
until i could figure out what it was
really
what that gave my life its purpose and
meaning
and um i i’d gotten demoted in my job
in baltimore as an anchor woman because
as they hired me and then they decided i
was the wrong color
and i was the wrong size and i was the
wrong you know i had lots of problems
and they were trying to take me off the
air
and they they put me on a talk show one
morning because
um they didn’t know what to do with me
but i felt like
this is what i’m supposed to do all
these years have been
misplaced in news so but the moment i
did that talk show i felt like oh
i can be myself and that was august 14th
1978 and that was the beginning of
fulfilling
the calling if you can find what is your
passion if you
find what you love you never get tired
or if you do get tired
you’re fueled by the energy of your work
so i know that i’m doing exactly what
i’m supposed to be
doing at this time i also know that what
the
show can do in terms of being
a voice and changing the world it’s just
the beginning of what this show can do
it’s fun to do things like this but uh
and it’s necessary to do things like
this in order to be able to do
the bigger grander things to change what
happens to to the face of children in
africa for example
what happens to education with kids in
this country so
i believe that um that what has happened
to me
is really the beginning of the greater
passion
to come but if you find out what you’re
supposed to do
and you know what you’re supposed to do
by how it feels
and so you know what if you’re doing the
right thing if it feels like it’s right
to you and when you hit the thing that
feels right when you know
it’s the right thing you would you know
it’s right because it gives you your
juice
and you know it’s right because you
would do it for nothing
you would do it for nothing and find a
way to be able just to do it
in order to be able to continue that’s
how you know you’re doing what you’re
supposed to be doing
there were many days that i sat in my
chair across from
one or two or five or six or seven
people and i would be
so frustrated because
i just wanted to shake people sometimes
and say why didn’t you pay attention
to your life i said on the show probably
the producers tell me that they counted
33 times but i know i thought it
at least a thousand times i would say
listening to your life
as it whispers to you first so that it
does not have to knock you upside the
head
with a brick or come crashing down on
you
as a brick wall is one of the greatest
principles of life because there are
many things that happen
in life that are beyond our control
natural disasters death
unexplained events but there are also
many many many things in life which we
can control
and become out of control because you’re
just
not paying attention you are
sleepwalking through your life
and i have seen this so many times on
the show
i wanted to take the guests and go would
you just pay
attention so this is what i’ve learned
and how
i’ve explained it to myself
life whispers to you all the time
your life is speaking to you all around
from the time you wake up in the morning
and every single experience that’s
coming into
your personal space into your
physical space all of those experiences
are speaking to you they’re telling you
something
about your life and about your
circumstances
it whispers and if you don’t get the
whisper
the whisper gets louder if you don’t
get the whisper when it gets louder it
gets i call it like a little pebble like
a little thump upside your head
when i was a kid if i was doing
something my grandmother didn’t like
she’d just turn around and thump me she
wouldn’t even look at me she’d just give
me a thump and i know
that’s that’s my cue to stop it or you
we’re gonna get worse the whisper is the
message
the pebble or the thump upside the head
usually
it’s gone into a problem you don’t pay
attention to the problem
the problem becomes a brick upside your
head
the brick upside your head is a crisis
you don’t pay attention to the brick
upside your head
the crisis turns into a disaster and the
whole
house brick wall comes falling down
many of you as i have been as i am
are where you are in your life based
upon what you believe
and it’s not just what you think you
believe on the surface
it’s also your shadow beliefs that are
holding you back
from moving into the life that you
believe
you deserve what i know is if you’re not
looking at the shadows if you’re not
looking at what is
subconsciously running through the tape
in your mind
telling yourself you’re not good enough
you’re not worthy enough you’re not
smart enough
you’re not enough which is a tape that’s
playing for a lot of people
if you’re not conscious of that then you
end up
acting out of that belief system and not
out of what
you know to be the truest or want to be
the truest
for yourself you don’t become what you
want because so
much of wanting is about living in the
space of what you don’t
have so if you start to think about that
really why are you where you are in your
life
the choices that you have made have been
because of what you believe to be true
for yourself
but i have always had the deep
understanding for myself
that if anything was going to move
forward in my life
that i was going to have to be
responsible for making that happen
and i know that to be true now and can
articulate it as you are responsible
for your life and if you’re sitting
around waiting
on somebody to save you to fix you
to even help you you are wasting your
time
because only you have the power to take
responsibility
to move your life forward and the sooner
you get that
the sooner your life gets into gear this
is what i know from doing
25 years and thousands and thousands of
interviews on the oprah show
it does not matter where you come from
i have seen people come out of the
desert walk across the desert
being born in the most dire
circumstances doesn’t matter what your
mama
did whether she did or had a phd
or no d what matters is now
this moment and your willingness to see
this moment
for what it is accept it
forgive the past take responsibility
and move forward
you