Oprah Winfrey Leaves the Audience SPEECHLESS One of the Best Motivational Speeches Ever
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 pierre schaden 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 banana 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 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 rapid
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
[Music]
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 would 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 you
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