One of The Most Eye Opening Speeches Ever | Oprah Winfrey

it was very difficult for me to figure out where my boundaries were because i'd grown up poor and didn't have anything so it's easy when you don't have anything and people ask you for money they say i need 500 you say i don't have it because i'm just trying to get my rent paid it's harder when your multi-billion dollar salary is now in the paper and you get a lot of friends and cousins you didn't have before so how do you set boundaries for yourself i was having trouble setting boundaries myself for myself for even strangers people would just show up at my door in chicago and say oh bro i left my husband please help me and i would because she knows i haven't so what i learned was is that oh the reason why people keep showing up is because my intention is to make them think that i'm such a nice person that you can ask me for anything you can get me to do anything i'm gonna say yes i'm gonna say yes so when stevie called me this time i thought i'd try out my first no on stevie let's start big he wanted me to donate some money to a charity and i didn't want to donate to the charity because i have my own charities and i care about a lot of people but the the problem is when you you have money everybody thinks you just want to give to everything so every letter i ever get starts with we know you love the children yes i do love the children but somebody else is going to have to help the children so i said to stevie uh i said to stevie no and um as a person who has that disease to please i was waiting for him then just to say i will never speak to you again i will never call you i will never sing a song for you and he didn't he just said okay okay okay it's okay he said okay check you later and what i learned from that is many times you will have angst and worry about things and put yourself in a state when the other person really isn't even thinking about you so learning that i could specifically determine for myself what the boundaries were for me what i wanted to do give my money give my time give of my service to who i wanted to give it to when i did that i get to make that decision and just because you get a hundred requests a week doesn't mean you have to try to fulfill all of that just because you have all of these demands on your time and on you doesn't mean that you have to say yes you get to decide because you're the master of your fate the captain of your soul as william ernest henley said in invictus and understanding that really changed the meaning of my life in that i was not no longer driven by what other people wanted me to do but took charge of my own destiny making choices based upon what do i feel is the next right move for me quincy jones discovered me and it's so interesting to me because when i was uh working as a television news woman in baltimore and really all i wanted to do was be in actors but i was doing television and i felt at the time like i can't quit this job because this is what everybody else wants to do and if i quit this job what am i going to do um and i was going to a speech coach at the time that the station had sent me to they you know they have the broadcasting school they sent everybody the same woman and i was telling her you know i really don't want to do this what i really want to do is act and she says my dear you don't want to act because if you wanted to act you'd be doing it what you want to be my dear is a star because if you wanted to act you'd be waiting tables in new york you'd be and i thought now why am i going to wait tables if i'm already working in tv so i said well what i think is going to happen is i will be discovered because i want it so badly somebody's going to have to discover me and she said you just dream you dream you're a dreamer so when it happened i called her up i said you will not believe this i got discovered and it really was a discovery it's like one of those lana turner stories only um wasn't a drugstore he was uh in his hotel room saw me on tv it was unbelievable the interesting thing about that is that i i truly believe that thoughts are the greatest vehicle to change power and success in the world everything begins with thoughts i mean the chairs that we're sitting in the room that we're in all started because somebody thought it so i thought up the color purple for myself i know this is going to sound strange to you i read the book i got so many copies of that book i passed the book around everybody i knew if i was on the bus i'd pass it out to people and when i heard that there was going to be a movie i started i started talking it up for myself i didn't know quincy jones or steven spielberg or how on earth i would get in this movie i'd never acted in my life but i i felt it so intensely that i had to be a part of that movie i just i i really do believe i created it for myself i wanted it more than anything in the world and would have done anything to do it anything to do it turn your wounds into wisdom you will be wounded many times in your life you'll make mistakes some people will call them failures but i have learned that failure is really god's way of saying excuse me you're moving in the wrong direction it's just an experience [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 yeah realistically so when you realize you've lived more than you're going to live you can say why not relax a little bit why not just ease up why have you decided to even work harder than you did before because i think david that everybody you know the thing that works for me all these years whether it was the magazine or which i still have or whether it was the show i could i understood that there's a common denominator in the human experience and i want the same thing you want which is the same thing you want and you want what we all want is to be able to live out the truest highest expression of ourselves as a human being that doesn't end until you take your last breath what is the truest highest vision that you hold for yourself no matter where you are in your life there's always the next level there's always the next level to the last breath so i feel that i always knew that i would get be done with the show when i felt like oh i've said as much as i could say here on this platform and then how will i be used i feel that until you have used your value as a human being you're not done i first started as a broadcaster i was 19 very insecure thrown into television pretending to be barbara walters looking nothing like her and still going to college so i do all my classes in the morning from eight to one and then the afternoon i work from two to ten and did the six o'clock news and would stay up and study and all that stuff you know until one two or three o'clock in the morning and then just start the routine all over again and my classmates were so jealous of me that i remember like taking my little 115 paycheck and um at the time i thought it was really a lot but taking 115 and trying to appease them i would like oh anytime anybody needing money i was always offering oh you need ten dollars or taking them out for pizza ordering pizza for the class and things like that trying to that whole disease to please that's where it was the worst for me i think because i wanted to be accepted by them and could not be because first of all i didn't have the time they wanted wanted me to pledge and i didn't have the time to pledge i was i didn't have the time to be a part of all the other college activities or a part of that whole lifestyle and it was very difficult for me socially really one of the worst times of my life because i was trying to fit in in school and be a part of that culture but also trying to build a career in television it's very difficult for me to even see myself as successful because i still see myself as in the process of becoming successful to me successful is getting to the point where you are absolutely comfortable with yourself and it does not matter how many things you have acquired the ability to learn to say no and not to feel guilty about it to me is about the greatest success i have achieved the fact that i have you know in the public side done whatever is fine it's all a part of a process for for growing for me but to me to have the in the kind of internal strength and internal courage it takes to say no i will not let you treat me this way is what success is all about it's the same thing that prevents you from being abused as a child that prevents you from being abused as an adult that allows you to build success for yourself i will not be treated this way i demand only the best for myself you are worthy to say no you're work that it's okay if you say no it's okay if you say no and then people don't like you that's really okay the important thing is how you feel about what you're doing how you feel about yourself it's a long struggle though it's a long struggle and i'm just hoping that you know in the work that i do on the show and the speaking that i do around the country and that young people who are watching this can get the lesson sooner than i did because it's painful because you keep repeating it over and over and over until you get it right and what i found is that every time you have to repeat the lesson it gets worse because it's you know it's i i call it god trying to get your attention the universe trying to get your attention so we didn't get your attention the first time so we're gonna have to hit you a little harder this time so i'm still doing it i'm still learning create the highest grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe when i was a little girl mississippi growing up on the farm only buckwheat is a role model watching my grandmother boil clothes in a big iron pot through the screen door because we didn't have a washing machine and made everything we had i watched her and realized somehow inside myself and the spirit of myself that although this was segregated mississippi and i was colored and female that my life could be bigger greater than what i saw i remember being four or five years old i certainly couldn't articulate it but it was a feeling and a feeling that i allowed myself to follow i allowed myself to follow it because if you were to ask me what is the secret to my success it is because i understand that there is a power greater than myself that rules my life and in life in life if you can be still long enough in in all of your endeavors the good times the hard times to connect yourself to the source i call it god you can call it whatever you want to the force nature allah the power if you can connect yourself to the source and allow the energy that is your personality your life force to be connected to the greater force anything is possible for you i am proof of that i think that my life the fact that i was born where i was born in the time that i was and have been able to do what i've done speaks to the possibility not that i am special but that it could be done [Music] i have paid attention to my life because i understand that my life just like your life is always speaking to you where you are in the language with the people with the circumstances and experiences that you can understand and interpret if you are willing to see that always life god is speaking to you now it took me a while to actually really get this and to understand it but once i did i started paying attention to everything and one of the reasons why i can now accept the fact that i can offer my gatherings of information and wisdom and call myself a spiritual teacher is that every single person whoever came on my show and i hear there's like 37 000 guests i've talked to a lot of them came from dysfunction and a lot of them wouldn't appear to be teachers but every one of them had something to say that was meaningful and valuable and that i could use to grow myself into the best of myself which is what all of our jobs are your number one job is to become more of yourself and to grow yourself into the best of yourself i remember when i started the school and i said to my uh beloved friend maya angelou i said maya i'm so i'm just so proud that i was able to create the school i said this is going to be my greatest legacy and maya said to me you have no idea because your legacy is every life you've touched and that shifted the way i saw legacy or what you leave behind or what you do because maya was explaining to me that you know over all the years of watching your show everybody who decided that they were going to go back to school or lose weight or no longer hit their children or get out of a bad marriage all of those people who have seen and experienced your voice and the same thing with everybody here your legacy is every life that you've touched and we like to think of it i know you have done amazing things with your philanthropy we like to think that these great philanthropic moments are the ones that leave the impact or will make the huge difference in the world but it's really what you do every day it's how you use your life to be a light to somebody else's you know and it's how you use your work as an expression of your own art whatever that is close your eyes for a moment will you please and breathe with me just close your eyes and if you will put your thumb to your middle finger and gather your other fingers around and let's feel the vibration and pulse of your personal energy as you take three deep breaths with me inhale and as you exhale just feel the vibration energy blood pulsating through your body through you and another inhale and another inhale [Music] and keep your eyes closed and let's just think about this day this day that you have been graced to breathe in and out thousands of times this day where many of those breaths were taken for granted you just expected the next one to come but the truth is there is no guarantee that the next one comes this day how you started your day what your thoughts were this morning how you've carried yourself through this day how you've been allowed to have encounters and experiences some challenging some more life enhancing that pushed you forward another day of being here on the planet earth as a human being let's just think about that after all you've been through in this day alone and the many days and years passed how you got here to this prestigious esteemed university the choices you made that have brought you to this day open your heart and quietly to yourself say the only prayer that's ever needed [Music] thank you thank you thank you you're still here and you get another chance this day to do better and be better another chance to become more of who you were created and what you were created to fulfill thank you as i've grown older i've learned to appreciate living in the moment and i ask that you do too i've asked i'm asking this graduating class those of you here i've asked all of my viewers in america and across the world to do this one thing keep a grateful journal every night list five things that happened this day in days to come that you are grateful for what it will begin to do is to change your perspective of your day and your life i believe that if you can learn to focus on what you have you will always see that the universe is abundant and you will have more if you concentrate and focus in your life on what you don't have you will never have enough be grateful keep a journal you all are all over my journal tonight [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Motivation Ark

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Id: 8Rp6ihjAXw4

Length: 22min 3sec (1323 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021