One of The Most Eye Opening Speeches Ever Oprah Winfrey
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 haven’t
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 gonna
say yes i’m gonna 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
yes i do love the children but somebody
else is going to 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 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 quincy jones discovered me
and it’s so interesting to me because
when i was uh working as a television
news woman in baltimore
and really all i wanted to do was be in
actors but i was
doing television and i felt at the time
like i can’t quit this job because this
is what everybody else wants to do
and if i quit this job what am i going
to do
um and i was going to a speech coach at
the time that the station had sent me to
they
you know they have the broadcasting
school they sent everybody the same
woman
and i was telling her you know i really
don’t want to do this what i really want
to do
is act and she says my dear you don’t
want to act because if you wanted to act
you’d be doing it what you want to be my
dear is a star
because if you wanted to act you’d be
waiting tables in new york you’d be and
i thought now why am i going to wait
tables if i’m already working in tv
so i said well what i think is going to
happen
is i will be discovered because i want
it so badly somebody’s going to have to
discover me
and she said you just dream you dream
you’re a dreamer so when it happened
i called her up i said you will not
believe this
i got discovered and it really was a
discovery it’s like one of those
lana turner stories only um wasn’t a
drugstore he was uh in his hotel room
saw me on tv it was unbelievable the
interesting thing about that is that
i i truly believe that
thoughts are the greatest vehicle
to change power and success in the world
everything begins with thoughts i mean
the chairs that we’re sitting in the
room that we’re in
all started because somebody thought it
so i thought up the color purple for
myself
i know this is going to sound strange to
you i read the book
i got so many copies of that book i
passed the book around
everybody i knew if i was on the bus i’d
pass it out to people
and when i heard that there was going to
be a movie i started
i started talking it up for myself i
didn’t know quincy jones or steven
spielberg
or how on earth i would get in this
movie i’d never acted in my life
but i i felt it so intensely that i had
to be a part of that movie i just
i i really do believe i created it for
myself i wanted it more than
anything in the world and would have
done anything to do it
anything to do it turn your wounds
into wisdom you will be wounded many
times in your life
you’ll make mistakes some people will
call them failures
but i have learned that failure is
really god’s way of saying
excuse me you’re moving in the wrong
direction
it’s just an experience
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just an experience i remember being
taken off the air in baltimore
being told that i was no longer be being
fit for television
and that i could not anchor the news
because i used to go out on the stories
and my own truth was even though i’m not
a weeper
i would cry for the people in the
stories and uh
which really wasn’t very effective as a
news reporter to be covering a fire
and uh crying because the people lost
their house
and it wasn’t until they i was demoted
as
a on-air anchor woman and thrown into
the talk show
arena to get rid of me that i allowed my
own truth to come through and the first
day i was on the air
doing my first talk show back in 1978 it
felt like breathing which is what your
true passion should feel like it should
be so
natural to you and so i took what had
been a mistake
what had been perceived as a failure
with my career
as an anchor woman in the news business
and turned it into a talk show career
that’s
done okay for me what drives you to keep
working so hard you could
you know you and i are in the 60s
category
and so when you’re in your 60s you know
you’ve lived more than you’re going to
live
yeah realistically so when you realize
you’ve lived more than you’re going to
live you can say why not
relax a little bit why not just ease up
why have you decided to even work harder
than you did before
because i think david that everybody you
know the thing that works for me
all these years whether it was the
magazine or
which i still have or whether it was
the show i could i understood that
there’s a common denominator in the
human experience
and i want the same thing you want which
is the same thing you want and you want
what we all want
is to be able to live out
the truest highest expression of
ourselves
as a human being that doesn’t end until
you take your last breath
what is the truest highest vision that
you hold for yourself
no matter where you are in your life
there’s always the next level there’s
always the next level
to the last breath so i feel that i
always
knew that i would get be done with the
show when i felt like
oh i’ve said as much as i could say here
on this platform and then how will i be
used
i feel that until you have used your
value as a human being you’re not done i
first started as a broadcaster i was 19
very insecure
thrown into television pretending to be
barbara walters looking nothing like her
and still going to college so i do all
my classes in the morning
from eight to one and then the afternoon
i work from two to ten
and did the six o’clock news and would
stay up and study and all that stuff
you know until one two or three o’clock
in the morning and then just start the
routine all over again
and my classmates were so jealous of me
that i remember like
taking my little 115 paycheck and
um at the time i thought it was really a
lot but
taking 115 and trying to appease them i
would like
oh anytime anybody needing money i was
always offering oh you need ten dollars
or taking them out for pizza ordering
pizza for the class and things like that
trying to that whole disease to please
that’s where it was the worst for me i
think because
i wanted to be accepted by them and
could not be because
first of all i didn’t have the time they
wanted wanted me to pledge and i didn’t
have the time to pledge i was
i didn’t have the time to be a part of
all the other college activities or a
part of that whole
lifestyle and it was very difficult for
me socially really one of the worst
times of my life because i was trying to
fit in
in school and be a part of that culture
but also trying to build a career
in television it’s very difficult for me
to even
see myself as successful because i still
see myself as in the process
of becoming successful to me successful
is getting to the point where you are
absolutely comfortable with yourself
and it does not matter how many things
you have acquired
the ability to learn to say no and not
to feel guilty about it
to me is about the greatest success i
have achieved
the fact that i have you know in the
public side done whatever
is fine it’s all a part of a process for
for growing for me
but to me to have the in the kind of
internal strength
and internal courage it takes to say no
i will not let you treat me this way
is what success is all about it’s the
same thing that prevents
you from being abused as a child that
prevents you from being abused as an
adult
that allows you to build success for
yourself i will not be treated this way
i demand
only the best for myself you are worthy
to say no
you’re work that it’s okay if you say no
it’s okay if you say no and then people
don’t like you
that’s really okay the important thing
is how you feel about what you’re doing
how you feel about yourself it’s a long
struggle though
it’s a long struggle and i’m just hoping
that you know in the work that i do on
the show
and the speaking that i do around the
country and that
young people who are watching this can
get the lesson sooner than i did
because it’s painful because you keep
repeating it over and over and over
until you get it right and what i found
is that every time you have to repeat
the lesson
it gets worse because it’s you know it’s
i i call it
god trying to get your attention the
universe trying to get your attention so
we didn’t get your attention the first
time so we’re gonna have to hit you a
little harder this time so
i’m still doing it i’m still learning
create the highest grandest
vision possible for your life because
you become what you believe when i was a
little girl
mississippi growing up on the farm only
buckwheat is a role model
watching my grandmother boil clothes in
a big iron pot
through the screen door because we
didn’t have a washing machine and made
everything we had
i watched her and realized somehow
inside myself and the spirit of myself
that although this was segregated
mississippi
and i was colored and
female that my life could be bigger
greater than what i saw i remember being
four or five years old i certainly
couldn’t articulate it but it was a
feeling
and a feeling that i allowed myself to
follow
i allowed myself to follow it because if
you were to ask me what is the secret to
my success
it is because i understand that there is
a power greater than myself
that rules my life
and in life in life
if you can be still long enough in
in all of your endeavors the good times
the hard times
to connect yourself to the source
i call it god you can call it whatever
you want to the force nature
allah the power if you can connect
yourself to the source and allow
the energy that is your personality your
life force to be connected to the
greater force
anything is possible for you
i am proof of that i think that my life
the fact that i was
born where i was born in the time that i
was and have been able to do what i’ve
done
speaks to the possibility not that i am
special
but that it could be done
[Music]
i have paid attention to my life because
i understand
that my life just like your life is
always
speaking to you where you are in the
language
with the people with the circumstances
and experiences
that you can understand and interpret if
you are willing to see
that always life
god is speaking to you
now it took me a while to actually
really
get this and to understand it but once i
did
i started paying attention to everything
and one of the reasons why i can now
accept the fact
that i can offer my
gatherings of information and wisdom and
call myself a spiritual teacher
is that every single person whoever came
on my show and i hear there’s like
37 000 guests i’ve talked to
a lot of them came from dysfunction and
a lot of them wouldn’t appear to be
teachers but every one of them had
something to say
that was meaningful and valuable and
that i could use
to grow myself into
the best of myself which is what all of
our jobs are
your number one job is to become more of
yourself
and to grow yourself into the best of
yourself
i remember when i started the school and
i said to my uh beloved
friend maya angelou i said maya i’m so
i’m just so proud that i was able to
create the school i said this is going
to be my greatest legacy
and maya said to me you have no idea
because your legacy
is every life you’ve touched and that
shifted
the way i saw legacy or what you leave
behind or what you do
because maya was explaining to me that
you know
over all the years of watching your show
everybody who decided that they were
going to go back to school or lose
weight
or no longer hit their children or get
out of a bad marriage
all of those people who have seen and
experienced your voice
and the same thing with everybody here
your legacy
is every life that you’ve touched and we
like to think of it i know
you have done amazing things with your
philanthropy
we like to think that these great
philanthropic moments
are the ones that leave the impact or
will make the huge difference in the
world but it’s really what you do every
day
it’s how you use your life to
be a light to somebody else’s you know
and it’s how
you use your work as an expression of
your own art whatever that is
close your eyes for a moment will you
please
and breathe with me just close your eyes
and if you will
put your thumb to your middle finger
and gather your other fingers around and
let’s feel
the vibration and pulse of your personal
energy
as you take three deep breaths with me
inhale
and as you exhale just feel
the vibration energy
blood pulsating through
your body through you and another inhale
and another inhale
[Music]
and keep your eyes closed
and let’s just think about
this day
this day that you have been graced
to breathe
in and out thousands of times
this day where many of those breaths
were taken for granted you just expected
the next one to come
but the truth is there is no guarantee
that the next one comes
this day how you started your day what
your thoughts were this morning
how you’ve carried yourself through this
day
how you’ve been allowed to have
encounters and experiences
some challenging some more life
enhancing
that pushed you forward another day
of being here on the planet earth
as a human being
let’s just think about that after all
you’ve been through
in this day alone
and the many days and years passed
how you got here to this prestigious
esteemed university
the choices you made that have brought
you to
this day
open your heart
and quietly to yourself
say the only prayer that’s ever needed
[Music]
thank you
thank you
thank you
you’re still here
and you get another chance this day
to do better and be better
another chance to become more of who
you were created
and what you were created to fulfill
thank you
as i’ve grown older i’ve learned to
appreciate
living in the moment and i ask that you
do too
i’ve asked i’m asking this graduating
class those of you
here i’ve asked all of my viewers in
america and across the world
to do this one thing keep a grateful
journal
every night list five things that
happened
this day in days to come
that you are grateful for what it will
begin to do is to change your
perspective
of your day and your life i believe that
if you can learn to focus on what you
have
you will always see that the universe is
abundant
and you will have more if you
concentrate and focus in your life on
what you don’t have
you will never have enough be grateful
keep a journal
you all are all over my journal tonight
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you