Oprah Winfrey MOTIVATION - Best INTERVIEW MOMENTS

hello believe nation I started the mentor me series with the goal to try to hang around people who've done a lot more than us and I hopefully spending a little more time with them some of their mindset motivation inspiration way of thinking belief system seeps into us to help us become the best version of ourselves so today we're going to learn from Oprah Winfrey on staying motivated mentor me Oprah and as always guys if Oprah says something that really really resonates with you please leave it in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired as well enjoy [Music] when I was about eight years old I was I grew up in the church and I was going to one of those women's day you know how we we had that we have a church all day long I've been to Sunday school and then we're going to and then afternoon they were having a women's tea from the women's board they were having a tea and the little girl that was supposed to be there to do a recitation had gotten ill and so they said to my stepmother we need some little girl can Oprah come back and do a recitation this afternoon my stepmother said yeah I'll have her back here this afternoon so this you know church ain't over to 1:30 so by 4 o'clock I had gone home and learned to recite Invictus by William Ernest Henley now it starts out out of the night that covers me black as a pit from pole to pole I thank whatever God's may be for my unconquerable soul I was reciting it and doing the pit from pole to pole I didn't know what I was saying but at the end of the poem there is the stanza that says it matters not how Strait the gate how charged with punishment the scroll I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul now my little eight-year-old brain didn't really fully understand the power and depth of those words but they sounded good enough for me to write them down and put them on my mirror and those words I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul became a mantra for me what it said is I am responsible for the choices that I make in my life I am responsible I am responsible so obviously I grew up and was better able to articulate what those words really mean and I discovered in physics class those of you who remember physics the third law of motion you remember what that is the third law of motion in physics says for every action it's called Newton's law and it says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction so what does that mean that means everything that you are putting out into the world every action BAM there is an equal and opposite reaction it means no matter what you do the energy of what you do what you say and most important the energy of who you are is going out into the world into your home into your relationships and that energy is always coming back to you you are responsible for the energy that you are pulling out into the world because that very energy BAM is coming right back to you every single time whether you believe it or not because it is law it is law it is law that what you put out into the world is coming back and I was hired in television not knowing anything about it having in mind Barbara Walters but thinking okay I can do that not knowing how to write or film or anything and I think it was because it was the it was the time and I literally had somebody who was willing to work with me that I managed to to find my way but I had to find my way because the reporting never really fit me and what did work for me I'm this hole I'm so old that when I started that it was a year of live action cam and so it's like video cameras live until the news stations would do a live a live shot they would throw to somebody live even if nothing was going on just so they could say live action cam and what I found is I wasn't so good at the writing part but if I was just standing up and talking about what it just happened it was really good and then I started to feel so I started in nineteen working in television became an anchor immediately afterwards my father still had an eleven o'clock curfew can you believe such a thing that I am I am the ten o'clock anchor in Nashville Tennessee I am the woman on the newscast reading the news and my father would say be home by 11:00 and I take Eadie the news is on at 10:00 he goes in it's off at 10:30 so be honest so I had a very strict very strict father so anyway I I could feel inside myself that reporting was not the right thing for me even though I was happy to have the job right I got an offer to go to Atlanta I was making ten thousand dollars a year in 1971 but still in college I was thinking I was doing pretty good I got an offer to go to Atlanta for 40,000 which I thought it's over I'm gonna make $40,000 and my boss at the time said to me you do not know what you don't know and you need to stay here until you can learn to write better until you can perfect your craft as as a journalist and so I said and we can't give you 40 but we can give you 12 so so I stayed and you know the reason why I stayed is because I could feel inside myself that even though the forty was alluring at the time that he was absolutely right so to make a long story short because I'd be here all day just talking about how it all came about I started listening to what felt like the truth for me a couple of years later I moved to Baltimore I could feel that as a reporter and by this time 22 I'm making twenty two thousand I met my best friend Gail there who said oh my god can you imagine if you 13 you're making 30 Volvo and then you're 40 in its 40,000 we actually had that conversation in the bathroom so this is I started to feel that reporting wasn't for me but I had my father I had my friends everybody was saying oh my god you're an anchorwoman you're on TV I mean you can't give up that job and when I was by the time I was making twenty five my father goes well you just hit the jackpot you're not gonna make more money than that that's just it so I was torn between what the world was saying to me and what I felt to be the truth for myself it felt like an unnatural act for me reporting although I knew that a lot of people it was glamorous and I started to just inside myself think what do I really want to do what I really want to do and I will say this knowing what you don't want to do is the best possible place to be if you don't know what to do because knowing what you don't want to do leads you to figure out what is it you you really do want to do so you discovered talk then right around that time I didn't discover talk I was being I got demoted they wanted to fire me but I was I was under contract for didn't they didn't want to give up the 25000 so they were trying to keep me on to the end of the year so they put me on this talk this is way life works they put me on a talk show to try to avoid having to pay me the contract out and the moment I sat on the talk show interviewing the Carvel ice cream man and his multiple flavors I knew that I had found home for myself because when I was a news reporter it was so unnatural for me I you know to cover somebody's tragedies and difficulties and then to not to have feel anything for it and I would go back after a fire and I would take them blankets and then I would get a note from my boss saying what the hell are you doing you're just supposed to be you can't be that can't cannot be that empathetic and it felt unnatural for me so if I were to put it in business terms it or or to leave you with the message that the truth is I have from the very beginning listened to my instinct all of my best decisions in life have come because I was attuned to what really felt like the next right move for me and so it didn't feel right I knew that I wouldn't be there forever I never even learned the streets in Baltimore because I thought I was there longer than I thought I was there eight years I should have learned the street but I kept saying myself I can be hey I'm gonna be good you're not gonna be here so I'm not I'm not gonna learn the street so when I got the call to come to Chicago hmm after you know starting with a with a co-anchor and and working and talked for several years I knew that it was the right thing to do and I knew that if I'd even if I didn't succeed because at the time there was a there was a guy named Phil Donahue yeah was the king of talk and was on in Chicago and every single person except my best friend Gail said you're going to fail every single person when I love it my boss is by this time thought I was terrific and said you're gonna you're walking into a land mile you're going to fail you're going to fail Chicago's a racist City you're black you're not going to make everything to keep me saying they then offered me a car and an apartment and all this stuff and I said no if I fail then I will find out what is the next thing for me what is the next true thing for me it felt right to you see was it I felt like this is now the move I need to make and I was not one of those people you know all of my the people who worked with me in News it would have their tapes and they'd have their stories and they'd have you know resumes ready I didn't have any of that because I knew that the time would come where I would wear what I needed would show up for me okay and when that showed up I was ready because my definition of luck is preparation meeting the moment of opportunity and I was prepared to be able to step into that that world of talk in a way that I knew I could do it people refer to me as a brand now out there with the oprah brand I never knew what a brand was when I start when I when I first started out even know what that was I became a brand by making every decision flow from the truth of myself every choice I made for every show that was going to be on the air I made based upon does this feel right does this feel right does this feel right is this going to help somebody is this going to help somebody that's not going to help somebody and I learned my biggest teachers were were were people like the Ku Klux Klan and skinheads because I was sitting on television one day doing an interview with the KKK and I realized in that moment that the energy that I was broadcasting throughout the world was energy that I did not want to be a part of and so I literally in the middle of a commercial break I just thought I will never do this again I will only allow my platform to be used for as a force for good and that there are many forms of the KKK even if it's not called that so I really made a conscious decision to use myself and to use the platform for that which I thought was going to enhance enlighten people in a way so that's the difference in that moment I stopped being used by television and made a decision to use television I started out I wanted a million dollars so I could buy my dad a house on a hill or something you know I didn't I didn't see the possibility for a long time until I was in it and then I saw it and then I said oh this is more than what I thought it was this isn't just the vision too you know because when you're in television as I was starting out the big vision is oh gee can I get a network job and I had this idea I literally had said to my agent when I was in Baltimore I said could you get me the substitute job for Joan Lunden on Good Morning America I was just like - when Joan Lunden doesn't want to be there when she's on vacation could I just have yeah villain and he said this was 1982 he said mmm you're not gonna get that job because they already have a black person oh they don't have a black person as a bryant gumbel already has that job well ABC doesn't have a person because you're not gonna get that job not even as a substitute no not even substitute so I let that at that agent go but that was my thing oh gee if I could just get to the network if I could just get to the network if you can get to a larger market if you could get to and the top three were you know New York Chicago no New York LA Chicago I knew it wasn't going to work I wasn't going to be accepted in LA in 1982 because I wasn't the right minority and that's why Chicago and I'd literally chose Chicago because of that and then I happened to be I thought well Chicago and then I was on someone else's tape and I got a call from Chicago oh that's a sign but when you wanted when you envisioned yourself being a backup what was the greater call that was it that was a step in the right direction so that somehow cookie said my goal was is that I would be the backup for Joan Lunden and they would see how good I was and then they'd want me to back up more and then when Joan left for a vacation or Joan you know decided that she no longer wanted to do it they'd say what about that girl that stood in for Joan yeah that was my goal and then you'd be on air yeah be a personality but again to what end yes because I didn't have a vision beyond being successful on network television it wasn't until I was literally on television had my own show made the decision that I was going to own the show meaning I would take the risk if it worked or didn't work that I thought about what does this really mean and actually I guess the vision was inspired by I used to speak in high schools all the time and I remember speaking of school and a kid said to me you're that lady oh you're the one you're the one that plays on TV and I said no I don't play on TV it's actually my work can I use TV as my work and when I you know Journal every night and was thinking about that yeah a lot of people think I think and for a long time I thought it was just a job were you going to play on TV you're gonna act on TV you're gonna have this job but it was around probably two or two-and-a-half years into it around 88 89 that I started to see oh this is bigger than the platform yeah television that it's actually a platform I changed how I viewed power about 1989 there was a book I read by a man named Gary Zhukov called Sita the soul and in Cu the soul he defined what is true power what is authentic power and and his definition of authentic power meaning the kind of power that can never be taken from you not your looks not your fame not your money not your square footage but authentic power is when the personality your personality comes to serve the energy of your soul when you are able to align who you are who you've become in the world with really what you've come to do in the world when your personality serves the soul so I thought a lot about that that book was actually life-changing for me and I was building a home in Santa Barbara and as anybody who's ever built a bathroom or a home or anything nothing ever happens on time and it was 2002 and we're supposed to be finished and it wasn't finished and I was like I can't wait to get in my house and I'm finally going to have a great Christmas and I'm going to do the kind of Christmas that I dreamed of from the Currier and Ives you know cards so I'm going to have the reads on the door and but I didn't have a floor so it's a little difficult to do that so I started to think if I can't do that Christmas well what am I going to do for Christmas my house isn't even ready and what can I do so I started as I was walking around through the tree sitting under that tree because my favorite time is to be alone with my thoughts and as I was alone with my thoughts I was thinking what would be the next best possible Christmas for myself and I thought of the best Christmas I ever had the best Christmas I ever had was when I was 12 years old my mother was on welfare I was living with my mother and a half-brother and sister in Milwaukee and my mother called me the oldest to say into a room to say we won't be having Christmas this year I said we won't be having Christmas what about Santa Claus there is no Santa Claus I had already figured that out but okay I was embarrassed and I was ashamed because for the first time I had to face the reality that yeah what I've been suspecting that we're not like the other kids that we really are poor is true so we're not going to have Christmas and there is no Santa Claus my first thought after being embarrassed at ashame was what will my story be what am I going to tell everybody when we go back to school and they're showing their toys and I don't have anything to talk about what am I going to do I'm not going to go outside tomorrow when everybody is out in the yards in their yards showing the toys they got for Christmas I'm going to stay inside am I going to pretend I'm sick what is my story going to be well late that night some nuns showed up at our house and they brought a basket of food and they brought toys for my my brother and my sister and I was overwhelmed with joy that those nuns showed up not because they brought me a Tammy doll when I really wanted a Barbie though I was overwhelmed because somebody remembered that we existed and somebody cared enough in the middle of the night to come to our house with food and toys and also I would now have a story so as I was contemplating what is the that was the best Christmas I ever had I thought how could I make that possible for somebody else what could I do to create the same kind of experience for other children so I took 50 members of my team at Harpo Harriett one of them sharing the table and hired another 50 people in South Africa and we went to South Africa with the idea of creating something that we ended up doing a documentary about called Christmas kindness Christmas kindness using my personality to serve the energy of my soul so we went from village to village offering toys and clothes food soccer boy soccer balls to children who never experienced Christmas before and early in the morning you could see them lining up by the thousands to come and we actually went to 10 or 12 villages to do this and people said to me at the time oh that's so frivolous and the kids won't remember it and why don't you use your money to do something else more substantial Oprah and I said they may not remember the toy they may not remember the clothes although they were most excited the children to open boxes containing clothes because as their caretaker said to us having new clothes made them not feel poor and for so many of these kids was the first time they'd ever experienced having something that was new for them they may not remember what they got in the box but they will remember that somebody remembered them they will remember the experience so during this entire experience Nelson Mandela had invited Steadman and I to stay at his home so when Nelson mendelian by true you stay and I was so nervous I was like oh my god what am I going to talk to because it's 10 days it's 10 days is not just a dinner it's not alleged to 10 days it's 10 days breakfast lunch and dinner with Nelson Mandela what am I going to say Stedman said why don't you try listening so I did I had 29 meals with Nelson Mandela at first really really really I was very you know like oh my god it's Nelson Mandela and by the third or fourth day he and I were to sit together in his living room sharing the paper at the end of the day talking about events in the world and one of the things we came to talk about the most was the power of Education to overcome poverty so in one of those lucid moments I said to him well you know I've always wanted to build a school he said you want to build a school Oh brah you want to build a school he got up and made a phone call to the Ministry of Education I wasn't planning on building it then but all right the Minister of Education comes over later in the day and we start the process of building a school the reason why I wanted to build a school because I tried different things because I always knew even before I could articulate that my personality needs to serve my soul this is what people don't know because you can't tell everybody I am Who I am one black woman my hand in God and trusting in that word cuz that word never failed me and I got to where I am and I stand as I am as Maya Angelou often says and often said and says in her poem to our grandmothers every time you see me I come as one but I stand 10,000 every time you see me I come as one but I stand as 10,000 so it's just not me standing up here it's every it's my mother my grandmother her mother the mother before her her grandfather every uncle who prayed every sister who cried every on to sacrifice those whose names made the history books those whose names never could make the history books who allowed me to come as one and stand as 10,000 so oftentimes when I walk into a room just as cool as you please and I can't see another black face in a 50 mile radius I stand and sit at the board's as one but I'm bringing the 10,000 behind me because I not only know who I am but I also know who's I am and so anything you hear about me that feels good sounds good you think about what Oprah's doing has she done I I am living the dream and I want you to live the dream because I'm not living the dream because I'm special I'm living the dream because I was obedient to the call of the dream so I want you to leave here today thinking about what is the dream for you what is God's dream for you what does the creator's dream hold for you so often we spend our lives wishing and hoping and hoping and wishing and desiring things this is what I know for sure you don't get what you wish for you don't even get what you hope for you get what you believe so what is it you believe and know to be God's dream for you so I live in the dream I'm living in the space of the dream and dreams good dreams good the dream is greater than anything that I could have imagined you know when I was a little girl my father on Sunday mornings after church he was a deacon so he thought he had to say goodbye to every single person we were the last car leaving the parking lot in the green Oldsmobile and we would drive through the white people's neighborhoods and I used to dream the dream driving through the white people's neighborhood we drive through white people's neighborhoods and you see their fancy houses some of them had gates but all of them had trees and I remember when I first came to Baltimore I met a friend hello Baltimore in the house when I first came to Baltimore I I made friends with a wonderful woman named Arlene Weiner she was a wealthiest person I'd ever met and I went to her house and parked at the driveway there was a Corvette and there was a BMW and there's a Mercedes away whoa Arlene's rich and at Arlene's house once I got inside I could see from her kitchen window six trees in the front yard I thought oh rich people have trees when I get rich I'm gonna get me some trees I'm not just gonna get me everybody want to get cars and pocketbooks and shoes I want me some trees so as life would have it I was standing in my kitchen window about three years ago in California making coffee in the morning and I was looking out the window and I saw the six trees but listen to me I was making making making the coffee I saw the six trees I went out on the porch to actually count the six trees and this is what I noticed that I could dream the six but beyond the six trees in my kitchen window or 3687 trees how do I know because I had them counted I hadn't counted as I said I wonder how many trees out there I dreamed the six that's as much as my my small mind and my imagination could hold for myself I dream the six but God can see beyond the six can see beyond the six because there was a bigger dream for me and I'm here to tell you there is a bigger dream for you essence there's a bigger dream and so the key the secret the magic is to surrender to God's dream for you to quit fighting against and pushing against and disallowing against and resisting against and trying to tell the Creator the universal forces divine intelligence what you were supposed to do and get still and know for sure what his dream the dream is for you thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed I'd love to know what did you think of the video were you inspired are you motivated what was your favorite message from Oprah please leave it in the comments below and I'm gonna join in the discussion I also want to give a quick shout out to Renee Montague Renee thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book it really really really means a lot to me so thank you guys again for watching I believe in you I hope we continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is much love I'll see you soon

Channel: Evan Carmichael

Views: 1,146,991

Rating: 4.8549037 out of 5

Keywords: oprah winfrey motivation, evan carmichael oprah winfrey, oprah winfrey interview, oprah winfrey, career-defining moment, oprah mentor, motivation for success, oprah winfrey emotional, how to become successful, oprah invictus, entrepreneur, oprah inspiration, oprah winfrey inspiraton, oprah winfrey success, mindset behind success, oprah winfrey on stage, oprah winfrey public speaking, oprah winfrey inspirational speech, oprah zukav, oprah seat of the soul, oprah maya angelou

Id: TT0DOvnx0Oc

Length: 31min 6sec (1866 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 10 2016