The Most Eye Opening 30 Minutes Of Your Life Oprah Winfrey Motivation
so we are a couple of weeks of course
into 2022 and i know that so many people
made resolutions some of you already
broke them already whether it’s to put
your health at the top of your to-do
list or follow your passion i know the
mark of a new year is that we’ve been
conditioned to reset and get all pumped
up for our next chapter and all the
possibility that awaits but i want to
propose something to you all today
i want to propose that you resolve
something very powerful
to love who you are right now and of
course i think that wanting to be your
best self and setting goals and
intentions is really major
but i remember doing a stop on the 2020
vision tour i met this reporter in miami
we took some photos together and she
said to me oprah next time you see me
i’m going to be so much skinnier and i
replied
well the next time i see you hopefully
you’re going to be as healthy as you can
be in that moment because right now
this is as healthy as you can be in this
moment and the next time you’ll be as
healthy as you can be in that moment i
told her to be kind to herself
and she looked at me and said how do i
do that
well it starts with loving right now who
you are all yourself your flaws
living in a space of lack focused on
what you don’t want or what you don’t
like about yourself
i i promise you i’ve learned it doesn’t
work
take a moment to look at what is really
running through your mind about yourself
that may be holding you back
the energy of the universe responds to
positivity and so if you’re telling
yourself you’re not slim enough you’re
not good enough when that negative
chatter starts in your head stops lean
away from it when you let those thoughts
of not being enough seep in you can’t
really act out
the best of yourself so your actions
must be in alignment with all the
goodness and strengths that you know to
be true about yourself so this week i’m
inviting you to put on your happy
sweater wherever it is or whatever that
is for you
quiet all the negative self-talk and
allow your confidence your sense of
knowing that better days are ahead
to be at the forefront of your thinking
tomorrow is never promise so let’s
accept and then let’s celebrate
ourselves
just where we are right now
thank you
thank you for where i am
and who i am
right now
let that be the blessing and intention
for ourselves this
week you know when i was a kid i thought
i was going to 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 began to honor that whisper
and to follow that
you end up being the best that you could
be
so in my own life i i have to say that
i
had no idea that i would end up being
who i have become
but i had a strong belief that the
calling was something greater than what
mississippi was showing me the calling
was greater than my front yard the
calling was greater than what my
grandmother believed that my life could
be
the problem is everybody is meeting
hysteria with more hysteria
and then we just are all becoming
hysterical and it’s getting worse
what i’ve learned all these years is
that we’re not supposed to match it or
even get locked into resisting or
pushing against it we’re supposed to see
this moment in time for what it is we’re
supposed to see through it and then
transcend it
that is how you overcome hysteria
and that is how you overcome
the sniping at one another the trolling
the mean-spirited partisanship on both
sides of the aisle the divisiveness the
injustices and the out and out hatred
you use it
use this moment
to encourage you to embolden you and to
literally
push you into the rising
of your life
and to borrow a phrase from my beloved
mentor maya angelou just like moons and
like sons with the certainty of tides
just like the hopes springing high
you
will rise
well you know i managed to get here
stedman and i have
absolutely uh differing philosophies
because he um teaches the idea of he has
a book called you can make it happen
nine steps to success and he’s always um
talking to me about cr having a vision
that would with no vision that people
perish and i always say i don’t have a
vision i don’t have a vision to get here
to where i am my vision was of
surrendering to what i believe was god’s
vision for me and i always say god can
dream a bigger dream for you that you
can dream for yourself i now believe
that i need a vision i think stedman is
finally right
that uh in order to continue to move
forward that i need to develop a vision
for myself and um
one of my big goals is to use this
television show as a forum and a
catalyst for change in people’s lives
that’s one of them the other is to move
out into the world in a more impactful
global format to help women and children
across the globe without education the
people perish without education nobody
will be able to survive without
education women cannot overcome poverty
will not be able to learn to take care
of themselves will not be able to move
forward on the planet so i want to use
my life and this television show to
continue to do that
i think some people think that are under
the impression that i was born empowered
that i was born coming out of the womb
ready to interview a klansman
but the truth is
i know very well what it’s like to be
marginalized to be told either
subtly or quite directly that my
contribution isn’t or wasn’t welcome
that my face was invisible and that my
needs were an affront so back when i was
doing the news in baltimore i asked to
be paid the same as my co-anchor who did
exactly the same job as i was doing
and i
expected that i would be compensated so
i went in and i asked that i would get
the same amount of money so he was doing
the same job i was doing except that he
called me babe all the time babe yeah
babe
anyway i was told by my news director
and by the general manager because first
i went to the news director then my
general manager and i was told that
because i was a single woman
who didn’t have a mortgage and i didn’t
have kids that i was not entitled to
earn the same kind of money as the man
who was sitting next to me
doing the same thing
and i realized in that moment that my
employers did not get it they did not
understand my value
but you know what i did
so cut to am chicago the team’s hard at
work and they had been working for a
long time
and after a year or so
we were asked to be syndicated that work
began to pay off
before long we were now no longer called
am chicago we’re the national oprah
winfrey show i got a raise
but my producers did not so i went into
the boss at the time
and i asked that my producers who
incidentally were all female
i asked that they would be given a pay
raise increase
and my boss this is in 1986 said why
they’re only girls
what do they need more money for
girls
uh i’ve used the word affectionately
sometimes referring to women as girls
and
there was no affection in his tone it
was absolutely condescending so
you know it takes a while to develop a
voice but once you have it you damn sure
better use it on stuff that matters
so i took a deep breath in that moment
and said
either they’re going to get raises
or i’m going to sit down
i’m not going to work if they don’t get
paid more
babe
i would like to believe that i could
have spoken that kind of truth to
misogyny even if i’d been all by myself
but here i was on the brink of finally
getting what i really wanted and had
been working uh many years for a
national show
i mean i might have been too intimidated
to stand my own ground against this guy
if i were actually alone but here’s the
thing you’re never alone
you’re never alone
the sovereign sound of maya angelou’s
voice
was pushing me forward that day
whispering
i come as one
but i stand as ten thousand
so when i was faced with the opportunity
to advocate for my producers i silently
called on some of the ten thousand
and walked into my boss’s office
hand in spirit with the women who had
come before me
i could feel bessie smith
and billy holliday and ella fitzgerald
and pearl bailey and sarah vaughan and
lena horn clutching their green books
looking for a place to eat while they
sang in supper clubs for whites only
and i could feel
reese taylor and rosa parks refusing to
relinquish their dignity in the face of
death threats all these women were with
me that day walking into the office in
chicago as was diana carroll and petula
clark and joan baez and mary tyler moore
and mom’s maybelli and barbara walters
and all of the astonishing women
whose
names none of us will ever even know
despite their sacrifice
and i’m pretty sure
i even heard shirley chisholm
urging me on with this thought
if they don’t give you a seat at the
table
bring a folding chair
i understood that there were so many
times
that many women from my mother’s
generation and god knows my
grandmother’s generation who were forced
to grit their teeth and just take it
because standing up for themselves
wasn’t even an option
the risk was too great
and they knew it
but they also knew in their bones what
my dear friend maya
put so eloquently into words when she
says you may not control all the events
that happened to you but you can decide
not to be reduced by them
because these women and so many others
like them made the decision not to allow
themselves to be reduced by the many
injustices they were subjected to
i found the strength to act if not just
for myself
not just for my producers but for all
the women who in their ingenious ways
subverted the rules laid the foundation
and pushed the envelope just a little
bit further for me
we
all are here to fulfill the dreams of
those who came before us
maya used to say you’ve been paid for
you’ve been paid for young people so put
your crown on your head and wear it
we are here not merely to bear witness
but to be the new voices of an
extraordinary new age you see when i was
growing up there were no black people in
the media just buckwheat on television
and i was constantly doing that thing
looking to find myself and what i found
and said was leave it to beaver and
donna reed and lassie although
technically i guess lassie was mostly
brown the the the point is though we are
now able to see ourselves reflected
through entertainment but what pleases
me most is that we’re beginning to see
on screen
what we’re beginning to see is starting
to change the landscape of what we see
behind the scenes what kamal was talking
about true inclusion
and what i realized during all those
years during the oprah show and the
reason that own is now thriving is how
essential it is to see yourself
reflected in other people’s stories it’s
something that you as white people never
have to even think about
because the more you see a broader and
richer and more nuanced depiction of
yourself and your neighbor and the world
the more empowered you become and it’s
that sense of empowerment that actually
tethers us to the universe it gives us
at least a glimpse of how connected we
all are
so what a blessed sign of progress it is
to know that millions of kids in 2019
don’t have to stand with their noses
pressed up against the window or the
television screens looking in at a
family that makes them feel less than by
comparison today we can point to work
that says you
are every bit as valued
and vital to the fabric of life as
anyone else you are a part of a
community but it takes time it takes
time to see yourself it takes time to
hear yourself and to feel to feel
appreciated for just being yourself
empowerment does not happen overnight
like change it is never just one thing
it is a series of consistent steps great
and small that proves to us again and
again that genuine change is actually
possible
so many people are worried about
building a brand i hear kids on social
media talking about their brand and i
used to really resent the word when
people would say to me oh you have this
brand because i never never even thought
about a brand
i just thought about day in and day out
making the best right choice for me
but now i embrace it because i recognize
people see me as a brand
but for me it’s not a business it is a
question of what do you stand for
and i will say this you’re nothing if
you’re not the truth
and that’s the if i could leave you with
any message today that is it
uh the biggest reward is not financial
benefits though it’s really good you can
get a lot of great
shoes nothing wrong with great shoes
but those of you who have a lot of shoes
know that having great shoes and a
closet full of shoes or cars or houses
or square footage doesn’t fill up your
life
it doesn’t
but living a life of substance
can
substance through
your service your offering of your whole
self
and the baseline for how do you live a
life of substance is whatever is the
truth for you what do you stand for
[Music]
people may not remember your every word
they may not remember all of your
actions but they certainly remember
how your words and your actions made
them feel
so let’s leave here today
with the collective memory
of wanting to create enlightenment in
the world
let’s leave here
knowing that we can give people the
sense
that they have been heard and respected
let’s foster original thinking
and humane treatment
let’s seek out the words we don’t know
let’s do away with the us and them i’ve
seen us in them create a whole lot of
problems but i’ve never seen it solve
one thing
instead let’s nourish our artists let’s
offer the possibility of something
better
for all of us
because a new day is no longer on the
horizon
the new day is now
one of the things i started to get
around
mid to late 90s is that everybody that i
had on the show at the end of the show
would say something to me like
was that okay was that okay how was that
was that okay at the end of the
interview
and i started to then track it it didn’t
matter if it was
i had gone and done a show where i was
in um
a prison i was interviewing a father who
was in jail for life for murdering his
twin daughters and at the end of the
interview even behind bars he said to me
is that okay
how’d i do
and barack obama said it when he sat in
the chair the first time and george bush
said it
this is what i learned
sitting in that chair for 25 years that
at the end of the day
whether you are
interviewing me or i get to interview
you
whatever your profession is
wherever you are in your life in your
relationships
every person that you encounter every
experience the person wants to know
was that okay
was that okay
and what i started to hear was that what
people are really saying is did you hear
me
did you hear me
and did what i say mean anything to you
and so i started to listen
with that in mind with that intention of
validating that your being here
you’re speaking to me you’re taking the
time to do this with me is important
because you matter and that’s true for
everybody who’s watching or listening
that every argument that you ever have
every encounter the person just wants to
know did you hear me did you see me and
did i say anything that mattered
everybody works hard
and everybody has their own dreams
there was a time where i used to spend a
lot of energy wanting things
of course it’s easy for me to say oh
things don’t define you because i got a
lot of things things nice i like them
but this is what i learned
when you can surrender to the dream
you get to live in the space of the
higher power
you get to live in the space
that you purposefully have come to earth
to claim for yourself so
around 1984
i was sitting in bed one morning
i was reading
the new york times review of the color
purple
and i thought whoa this sounds like a
really great book i got out of bed in my
pajamas put on my galoshes
and went to the store to get the copy of
the color purple
i read the color purple in one afternoon
got
went back to the bookstore bought every
book of the color purple
i took the books to the office and i
said to everybody y’all got to read this
book oh my god you got to read this book
color purple i needed a book club i
didn’t have one
so i passed out the book to everybody i
knew please read the color purple read
the color purple then i start to hear
that somebody’s going to do a movie
about the color purple but i don’t know
anybody in the movie business by this
time i was on am chicago i don’t know
anybody i start praying to god god
please help me find a way to get in the
color purple
i say jesus i don’t even have to have a
speaking part
i will be because i went to the movies
and i saw on the movie credits
at the last credit there’s something
called best boy
so i said jesus if you just let me be
best girl
that’ll be all right by me i can be best
girl
i can carry the script i can help the
people with the water i can do whatever
so i start praying for the color purple
as divine law would have it quincy jones
comes to chicago
and he is in chicago for one half of a
day
because somebody has filed a suit
against michael jackson claiming that
billie jean was their lover and that’s
not his song
so quincy had taken the red eye to
chicago
he was in his hotel room
he was coming out of the shower
and the television in his hotel room is
on am chicago
there sits little chubby me
with my jared curl
on am chicago
quincy jones tells ruben cannon the
casting agent i think i found sophia so
i get a call
for movement cannon who says
i’m calling about a movie
it’s called moon song
would you be interested to come and
audition and i say i have not been
praying for moon song
[Music]
i had not been playing for moon song
i’ve been praying for the color purple
he said well
i think you should come and and audition
so i go to audition you know movie
people they make everything all secret
steven spielberg didn’t want anybody
know he was doing color purple so on the
outside of the script it says moon song
but i know all the words by heart
so when i open the script i know this is
the color purple jesus this is the color
purple
so i auditioned for the color purple i
can’t even believe it they don’t just
want me to be the water girl
or the best girl they are asking me do i
want a part in the movie oh that i’m
thinking prayer prayer works
three months pass three months is a long
time
i auditioned in february
march
april may comes i haven’t heard anything
so i call reuben cannon i say mr cannon
i’m sorry sir i haven’t heard anything i
expected to hear something by now and
reuben cannon
african-american man says to me you
don’t call me i call you and i didn’t
call you do you understand that i have
real actresses who have auditioned for
this part
real actresses and he tells me who just
left his office and i went well okay i’m
not getting that part
so i hang up the phone and i start
crying i can’t believe that god has
played this trick on me i think
this is a trick
so i decide that this is because the fat
has finally caught up with me
the fat has finally caught up with me
and now i must get rid of the fat in two
weeks
i am going to go to a fat farm
and i’m going to lose
25 pounds
i’m gonna drink a lot of green juice
i’m gonna have some cleanses and
colonics
so i also
was trying to make peace with it
i said god
i don’t understand
i thought it was for me you ever had
that talk with god
i i thought it was for me i thought it
was for me
god you let me audition with somebody
named harpo
that’s my name backwards jesus that was
a sign wasn’t it a sign
and then three months pass and then then
ruben cannon says real actresses
have just left his office
so i start to pray on the track i’m out
on the track
at the fat farm
and i am running around at the track
at the fat farm
it starts to rain
you all know how that is
but i don’t even care cause i am praying
to god to help me to let it go help me
let it go because now i’ve become
obsessed with it and it’s now
controlling my life i start praying
running around the track
and i keep hearing this noise and i
i can’t there’s nobody on the track but
me
and i’m running around the track
and i look around and it is my thighs
rubbing together
my thighs are rubbing together
causing this thunderous sound
[Music]
there’s nobody on the track so then i
really start to cry
oh lord help me
help me let it go help me let it go help
me let it go god help me let it go
and you ever did this prayer where you
say okay lord don’t come and let it go
then you get up and you go well i think
i still got a little bit of it
i did help me let it go
but i am not going to be able to see the
other actress
in my part i won’t be able to see it
won’t be able to see color purple just
can never see it the rest of my life i
won’t be able to see it
so then i started
i don’t know where it came from
i surrender all
i
surrender all
all
to thee my
blessed savior
i
surrender
all
i sang and i cried
i sang and i cried and i prayed some
more
until i could reach the point where not
only
not only will i be able to go to the
movie but i can bless the other actress
i can bless her
i can say
i bless you i bless you i bless you with
this i surrender all
i
surrender all
all
to thee
my
blessed savior
i
surrender all
and i tell you
in my greatest testimony
that the instant i laid that thing down
i’m telling you when i laid it down
when i laid it down and it didn’t have
me anymore
it had no control over me anymore
i didn’t feel anything about it anymore
when i let it go
when i intentionally surrendered it to
the power that was greater than i could
ever know the instant that happened
a woman comes running out of the
cafeteria
screaming offering
is your name all free
for 10 years nobody can pronounce my
name
i said yes she says somebody’s on the
telephone for you he’s a named spielberg
[Music]
i get to the phone
he says i hear you’re at a fat farm
i said no sir
this is a health retreat
he says i’d like to see you in my office
in california tomorrow this was in
wisconsin i was i’d like to see you in
my office
and if you lose a pound
you could lose this part
no
problem do i have
i’ll have no problem not losing a pound
so honey i packed my bags
and i stopped at the dairy queen
i got three scoops just in case i’d lost
a half a pound
and the next day i was in steven
spielberg’s office and he said you’re
hired you’re hired
you have no idea of the power
of
noticing
another human being
and what it feels like when somebody
knows that they have been seen truly
seen by you
it is the greatest offering you can give
and all those years of the oprah show
the greatest lesson i learned was that
you know after every show
uh someone would say invariably in one
way or another um
how was that i’d finish an interview
with father who killed his twin
daughters i’d finish an interview with
politician barack obama joe biden george
bush they beyonce they all say the same
thing
how is that
and so i started to see that there’s
this common thread in our humanity
where everybody wants to know
how was that
did i do okay
did you hear me
and did what i say
mean something to you
so i would have to say that
recognizing that in other people has
helped me to become you know a person of
compassion a person understanding a
person who can interview anybody about
anything because i know that if the core
of you is the same as core me you just
want to be heard
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
you