Oprah Winfrey Best Ever Motivational Speeches COMPILATION MOST INSPIRATIONAL VIDEO EVER
[Music]
there’s a bigger dream
waiting for you just waiting for you
to step into it
everything you try to do is already done
so when i figured that out oh what i’m
putting
out is what’s coming back let me get
real clear about what it is
i’m putting out real clear
so i read a book about 1989 called seed
of the soul
and in that book gary zukov talked about
the laws
of karma of the laws
of cause and effect the third law of
motion
and in that book he talked about how
intention
your intention is always
one with the law
meaning before you even think about a
thing
you have an intention for the thing and
that the intention
is going to determine the outcome
that’s why the same people can go to the
same church service
and somebody walked down the aisle just
to be seen
to put some money in the
church and somebody else who just goes
and just has a little bit to offer
the intention with which you give
the intention with which you serve
determines the outcome so when i
figured that out i went whoa
i changed everything i did on my show
i called in the producers and i said
from this day
forward i will no longer be speaking to
the kkk
i will no longer be speaking to people
who are fighting each other in a way
that it is damaging to the character of
myself and other people who watch
from this day forward i am only going to
do
intentional television
so it is my intention my
intention to fulfill
the dream of the creator
it is my intention to live to the
highest
calling and be pressed to the mark of
the highest calling
that i have come to do and when you can
ask the creator ask that
which made you you what is your
dream for me i guarantee you
instead of you trying to define the
dream what is your
dream for me if you’re able to lean
into the dream that
the universe and all the forces of of
of of light and love and power
and grace by all the names that we call
god has for you nobody can touch you
every single day i would have a pre-show
meeting
and have the producers come in and state
to me
what is your intention
how do we want to use whoever is on this
show
whatever is happening on this show to
serve the audience in a way that
fulfills the mission of uplifting
enlightening encouraging as well as
entertaining
and if it doesn’t do that then i can’t
do it
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 to 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
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
i went through some tough times after
after i left the oprah show i made a
conscious decision
that when i felt i had said all that i
could say
and the audience had heard it that i
would move on
and that i would not spend my life
regretting or trying to hold on to what
used to be or hold on to what i had
so i dreamed this dream of starting a
network
and in the beginning it was it was a
struggle
it was a struggle because i didn’t
honestly goodness i did not know what i
was doing
i was trying to figure it out i was
trying to figure it out
i thought that the oprah show audience
would follow us to own
then i realized y’all didn’t have cable
and if you had cable you did not have
the own package
so so it took me a minute
and unlike most people who you get to
have your mistakes in private
some don’t go right in your life you get
to soak about it in private
if i make a mistake it’s on the cnn
crawl
or the cnn news so when i was in the
climb and there were so many wonderful
owners i see churro action jackson here
there were so many wonderful owners
people who said oh we’re going to stand
with you we’re going to stand by you
thank you roland martin
there were so many people who said
listen we believe that this can happen
so i dreamed the dream along with tyler
perry who was my friend who came to me
and said tyler
tyler said i’m going to help you out
because tyler can go home and write a
script and
direct it produce it and shoot it
and do it for less money than anybody in
hollywood so we started with the
foundation
of having have not
[Applause]
if loving you is wrong
love thy neighbor mama hattie
and then i started to dream another
dream about
scripted television because in the
beginning i was told you couldn’t do it
you couldn’t do it didn’t have enough
money to do it
and i dreamed the dream
i read proverbs 11 28 that says those
who trust in their riches will fall
but the righteous will rise and thrive
like a green leaf
[Music]
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 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 as 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 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
[Music]
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
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 worked 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 10
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 were worthy
to say no
you were 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 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
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 uh friend maya
angelou i said maya
i’m so i’m just so proud that i was able
to create this school and 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
[Music]
and as you exhale just feel
the vibration energy
blood pulsating through
your body through you and another inhale
and another inhale
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’s 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
[Music]
that push 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
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 you 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 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 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 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 juju
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’d 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
but 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
my one hope today is is to is that i can
be a source of some inspiration i’m
going to address my remarks to anybody
who’s
ever felt inferior or felt disadvantaged
felt screwed by life this is a speech
for the quad
well i was on television by the time i
was 19 years old
and in 1986 i launched my own television
show
with a relentless determination to
succeed at first
i was nervous about the competition and
then
i became my own competition raising the
bar
every year pushing pushing pushing
myself as hard as i knew
sound familiar to anybody here
eventually
we did make it to the top and we stayed
there for
25 years
the oprah winfrey show was number one in
our time slot for 21
years and i have to tell you i became
pretty comfortable with
that level of success but a few years
ago
i decided as you will at some point that
it was time to
recalculate find new territory
break new ground so i ended the show
and launched own the oprah winfrey
network one year
later after launching on nearly
every media outlet had proclaimed
that my new venture was a flop not just
a flop but
a big bold flop they call it i can still
remember the day
i opened up usa today and read the
headline
oprah not quite standing on her
own it really
was this time last year the worst
period in my professional life i was
stressed and i was frustrated and quite
frankly i was i was actually
i was embarrassed it doesn’t matter how
far you might rise
at some point you are bound to stumble
because
if you’re constantly doing what we do
raising the bar if you’re constantly
pushing yourself
higher higher the law of averages
not to mention the myth of icarus
predicts
that you will at some point fall
and when you do i want you to know this
remember this
there is no such thing as failure
failure is just
life trying to move us in another
direction now when you’re down there in
a hole it looks like
failure so this past year i had to spoon
feed those words to myself
and when you’re down in the hole when
that moment comes it’s really
okay to feel bad for a little while give
yourself
time to mourn what you think you may
have lost
but then here’s the key learn
from every mistake because every
experience encounter and particularly
your mistakes
are there to cheat you and force you
into being more of who you are
and then figure out what is the next
right move and the key to life
is to develop an internal moral
emotional gps that can tell you
which way to go
but the challenge of life i have found
is to build a resume that doesn’t simply
tell a story
about what you want to be but it’s a
story about
who you want to be it’s a resume that
doesn’t just tell a story about
what you want to accomplish but why a
story that’s not just a collection of
titles and and positions but a story
that’s really
about your purpose because when you
inevitably stumble and find yourself
stuck in a hole that is the story
that will get you out what is your true
calling
what is your dharma what is your purpose
for me that discovery came in 1994 when
i interviewed a little girl who
who had decided to collect pocket change
in order to help
other people in need she raised a
thousand dollars all by herself and i
thought well if that little
nine-year-old girl
with a bucket and a big heart could do
that i wonder what i could do
so i asked for our viewers to take up
their own
change collection and in one month
just from pennies and nickels and dimes
we raised more than three million
dollars
that we used to send one student from
every state in the united states to
college
and together we built 55 schools
in 12 different countries and restored
nearly 300 homes
that were devastated by hurricanes rita
and katrina
so the angel network i’ve been on the
air for
a long time but it was the angel network
that actually focused my internal gps
it helped me to decide that i wasn’t
just gonna be
on tv every day but that the goal
of my shows my interviews my business
my philanthropy all of it whatever
ventures i might pursue
would be to make clear that
what unites us is
ultimately far more redeeming and
compelling
than anything that separates me because
what it become clear to me
and i want you to know it isn’t always
clear in the beginning because as i said
i’ve been on television since i was 19
years old
but around 94 i got really clear so
don’t expect the clarity to come all at
once to know your purpose right away
but what became clear to me was that i
was here on earth to use television and
not be used by it
to use television to illuminate the
transcendent
power of our better angels
so this angel network it didn’t just
change the lives of those who were
helped but the lives
of those who also did the helping
it reminded us that no matter who we are
or what we look
like or what we may believe it is
both possible and more importantly
it becomes powerful to come together
in common purpose and common effort
[Music]
in our political system and in the media
we often see
the reflection of a country that is
polarized
that is paralyzed and is self-interest
did and yet i know you know the truth
we all know that we are better than the
cysticism
and the pessimism that is regurgitated
throughout washington
and the 24-hour cable news cycle
we understand that the vast majority of
people in this country believe in
stronger background checks because
they realize that we can uphold the
second amendment
and also reduce the violence
that is robbing us of our children and
we understand
that most americans believe in a clear
path to citizenship for the 12 million
undocumented immigrants who reside in
this country because it’s possible to
both
enforce our laws and
at the same time embrace the words on
the statue of liberty that have welcomed
generations of huddle masses to our
shores
we can do both
the point is your generation is charged
with this
task of breaking through what the body
politic
has thus far made impervious to change
each of you has been blessed with this
enormous opportunity
of attending this prestigious school
you now have a chance to better your
life the lives of your neighbors
and also the life of our country when
you do that
let me tell you what i know for sure
that’s when your story gets really good
maya angelou always says when you learn
teach when you get give
that my friends is what gives your story
purpose and meaning so you all have the
power
in your own way to develop your own
angel network
and in doing so your class will be armed
with more tools of influence
and empowerment than any other
generation
in history i did it in an analog world
i was blessed with a platform that at
its height
reach nearly 20 million viewers a day
now here in a world of twitter and
facebook and youtube and tumblr
you can reach billions in just seconds
i know you all understand better than
most that real progress
requires authentic
an authentic way of being honesty and
above all
empathy i have to say that the single
most important lesson i learned in 25
years talking
every single day to people was that
there is a common denominator
in our human experience
most of us i tell you we don’t want to
be divided
what we want the common denominator that
i found in every single interview
is we want to be validated we want to be
understood
i’ve done over 35 000
interviews in my career and
as soon as that camera shuts off
everyone always turns to me and
inevitably in their own way
asks this question was that okay
[Music]
i heard it from president bush i heard
it from president obama
i’ve heard it from heroes and from
housewives i’ve heard it from
victims and perpetrators of crimes i
even heard it from beyonce and all of
her beyonce
she finishes performing hands me the
microphone and says
was that okay
friends and family yours enemies
strangers in every argument
in every encounter every exchange i will
tell you
they all want to know one thing
was that okay did you hear me
do you see me did what i
say mean anything to you
so whether you call it soul or spirit or
higher self intelligence there
is i know this there is a light inside
each of you all of us
that illuminates your very human
beingness
if you let it no matter what challenges
or setbacks or disappointments you may
encounter along the way
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
from time to time you may stumble
fall you will for sure count on this
no doubt you will have questions
and you will have doubts about your path
but i know this if you’re willing to
listen
to be guided by that still small voice
that is the gps within yourself
to find out what makes you come alive
you will be more than okay you will be
happy you will be successful
and you will make a difference in the
world
[Music]
the three things that i want to leave
with you just
these three i could do ten i could do a
whole life class
but just these three things will carry
you
if you let them
first and foremost knowing
who you are
knowing who you are being able to answer
this question
who am i and what do i want
who am i really my answer is i am god’s
child
i am that which is born of all that
is i am as peter chardin said
a spiritual being having a human
experience
come trailing the breath of the
ancestors yet
but trailing the breath of the angels
and understanding
that because i am connected
to the source of all that is
all that is possible is possible for me
that’s who i am and what do i want
i don’t want to just be
successful in the world
i don’t want to just make a mark or
have a legacy the answer to that
question for me is
i want to fulfill the highest
truest expression of myself
as a human being i want to fulfill the
promise
that the creator dreamed when he dreamed
the cells that made up me what do i want
you must have some kind of
vision for your life even if you don’t
know the plan
you have to have a direction in which
you choose to go
what i’ve learned is that’s a great
metaphor for life
you want to be in the driver’s seat of
your own life because if you’re not
life will drive you
so knowing who you
really are in this space and time
that we embody that’s number one
what do you want who are you
number two you must
find a way to serve
[Music]
martin luther king said that not
everybody can be famous but everybody
can be great because greatness is
determined
by service now we live in a world where
everybody wants to be famous
and where we admire people for just
being famous we think being known
brings us value the truth is all of that
will fade in time in three years you
won’t be able to name the housewives
of atlanta the real truth
is that service
and significance
service and the significance that you
bring to your service
is that which is lasting so to be able
to
whatever your occupation or job or
talent or gift is our honorees today
getting doctorate degrees to
[Music]
apparently opposite fields hiv and aids
and the spoken word but what they have
in common
is service using the spoken word
in service to community and the world
using your knowledge and information
about hiv and aids and medicine
in service to the world and if you look
at all the most
successful people in the world whether
they know it or not
they have that paradigm of service
everybody’s talking about mark
zuckerberg and ipo
[Music]
service jay-z rapping
service through the word to people
through song for many years
i was really just happy to be on tv and
people would stop and say oh you on tv
yeah i’m on tv
i like being on tv it’s a nice job
and it was about the time that i
received my
honorary doctorate from spelman around
1993 so i don’t know if that had
something to do with it i thought of
myself as dr winfrey
that i went back and i took a long look
at what it was i was doing on
on tv and made a decision
that i was no longer going to just be on
tv
but i was going to use tv
as a platform as a force for good
and not be used by tv and i will tell
you
my decision to make that
significant change in the way i operated
on television using television as a
service
changed my career exponentially
service through medicine service through
art using whatever it is
you produce your product
as a way of giving back to the world
when you shift the paradigm of whatever
it is you choose to do
to service and you bring significance to
that
success will i promise you
follow you service and significance
equals success that’s number two
number three it’s so simple but so hard
to do
always do the right
thing be excellent
people notice think of how you notice
you go to taco bell somebody gives you
extra napkin and some sauce
you notice you want to go back to that
person
because even at taco bell excellence
shows itself be excellent let
excellence be your brand
everybody talks about building a brand i
never even knew what that was
when people say you’re a brand i would
say no i’m just oprah
what i recognize now is that my choice
to in every way in every example
in every experience to do the right
thing
and the excellent thing is what has
created
the brand and what i know
is that when you are excellent
you become unforgettable
people remember you you stand out
regardless of what it is
you become an unforgettable woman and
that is what we all want
we want to be unforgettable and not
forgettable
so doing the right thing even
when nobody knows you’re doing the right
thing
will always bring the right thing to you
i promise you that why because the third
law of motion is always at work
for every action there’s an equal and
opposite reaction
that is so true in all of our lives
you just have to do the right thing and
the right thing will follow you even
when people
don’t support it i remember
many times on my show there are many
shows y’all never saw
and the reason you didn’t see them is
because i
got the last vote and i remember
2010 my team hardest working team in
television had done this
interview with a woman who turns out she
was a sunday school teacher by day
and a sex addict at night they were like
you won’t believe it we got her going
out
we got her with the men and we get to
show her and she was willing to show us
everything
i sat down with a woman for an interview
that was taped
and during the process of the interview
i said
why are you doing this and she said oh i
want to help
people i want to tell my story and i
want to help people i said do you have
children she says yes
i have a 10 year old son i knew right
then this is never going to see the
light of day
so we got off the air and i said to the
lady we are not going to air that show
and she said why my producer said
why she knew she was being filmed she
knew
what she was saying she knows what i
said because
her son will never get over it
her son will never get over it
and it’s not worth a rating point to me
not worth the rating point to me to know
that there’s a ten-year-old boy
who’s destroyed because his mother went
on the oprah winfrey show
and told all her business you do
the right thing even when other people
think it may not be and oftentimes
when you make a decision to do the right
thing immediately you’re faced with
doubt
was that the right thing was that the
right decision i don’t know was that the
right thing
you always know it’s the right thing
when in the end
there is peace you are rewarded
by peace in knowing that you did the
right thing
[Music]
you