Oprah Winfrey speaks at Agnes Scott College's 128th Commencement

thank you thank you thanks president each morning Agnes gosh I gotta give it to you all y'all do it y'all do it right I got a choker you get up you get out you get it on you get it over and out into the world by noon today you'll be launched into the world congratulations class of 2017 I'm really happy to be here as president Keisha said this this isn't my first visit I was here in the summer filming for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks over I think it was a Rebecca Hall and it was 104 degrees we were pretending it was winter so when I woke up and saw the clouds this morning I was like thank you lord I want to say a special thank you to the Board of Trustees every one of you who I met today and said thank you to me well thank you to you thank you Board of Trustees and especially to you Beth Daniel holder thank you so much as a chairman Thank You faculty I love what you do all my life before I became interested in television I thought I was going to be a teacher or a professor I think it is the most noble profession there is I think to do what we do changes the world on a daily basis so I thank you and all of you gorgeous women of Agnes Scott thank you for having me but the truth is I was come in anyway whether you had invited me here to speak or not I was I was coming this was my year to come because as president Keisha said one of my daughter girls I called them all daughter girls because when I was calling them my daughter's on social media people like if you didn't raise daughters you didn't have no daughters they're not soaked daughters they are my daughter girls they're my daughter girls and I didn't raise them from birth God knew that that wouldn't work out for me but I got them at the perfect age when they were like 12 so I've all potty-trained and stuff so my daughter girl has had the great privilege of growing and blossoming here at Agnes Scott and I want you to know that at my school the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girl every girls every year we're graduating another class of girls I now have a hundred and seventy-nine girls in college 20 of them came to the United States ten are graduating this year five I have five graduations next week in four different states so Agnes Scott you got me fresh this is this is the fresh version see how I'm holding up around June 18th after the ninth one one of the ten called me recently all tentative like oh mama I'm so sorry I'm so stressed I wasn't able to complete one of my courses so I'm not going to graduate I would yeah you are stressed and you can't graduate in June and I only have nine graduations fantastic i centered three dancing emojis so let me say when I say I'm happy to be here I really am I'm thrilled to be here not like you know most people they get amazed I'm so very happy to be here distinguished guests I'm so happy to be huh I'm really thrilled because um one of my girls who's graduating next week sent me this message saying mom Oprah we've been through a lot thank you for believing in me and seeing what others couldn't and when I walk across that stage this is for us we did this and I would like to say that goes for every parent in this room every guardian every every trusted loved one here today this is for you those of you who are here and those who are passed even thank you for encouraging and supporting and being there for our daughters for being often a balm in Gilead for them for these daughters who've grown into these incredible young women that you barely I know recognize when they come home right before our eyes because let me just tell you this my daughter girl I came here and when she came her name was a pretty and I knew her as pretty I found her in a township in South Africa and she was known as pretty and so when I was meeting here in in in the president's office this is after they had sent me every possible Scottie piece of merchandise you could I had Scottie hats and scarves and gloves and Scottie towels and Scottie I had a Scottie microwave I mean there's just lots of Scottie merchandise so I was stopping in to say thank you you can stop now so I was sitting in prison Keisha's office and she was telling me about Satoko Satoko who's such an inspiring student in two tacos gone overseas and I'm thinking who the hell is she talking about she must have me confused with someone else it turns out Satoko is Satoko Mele who used to be pretty when she came to the school so that's what happens when you come to Agnes Scott here too for a girl who was just happy to be called pretty pretty she gets educated here and thinks more deeply about what really matters to herself she learns to live more honorably engage in the intellectual and social challenges of our times she comes through this process and wants to own herself in in the fullness of her name she wants to lay claim to her calling and have the fullness of her name spoken out loud even if you can't pronounce it Satoko Bella that that's what happens when you come here to Agnes Scott you leave a more deepened human with higher standards striving to realize your social and your academic responsibilities to the community in our world and whoa does the world need you right now really the struggle is real out there it's real the struggle to remain compassionate and the struggle to remain committed and the struggle to be constructively engage that's the challenge that you're in for class of 2017 but I'm betting on you Agnes Scott women I'm betting on you particularly this class of 2017 I'm betting that you will break new ground to move us all forward and we need your passion we do we need your passion to served and I was so thrilled to hear that so many of you have signed up for the Peace Corps and many of you have signed up for Teach for America all of these service-oriented opportunities but I say this to you also I'm here to tell you that you don't have to necessarily join the Peace Corps or Teach for America or go work for an NGO in a third world country to live a life that's full of service you don't have to do that I was not your age but about 30 years old I started to realize that it was my whole life not just parts of my life just not parts of what I was doing but my whole life was a prayer my whole life is an offering in service first to yourself to become a fully actualized human being and you do that through your actions and your interactions with others but when I started to realize it's not just what I do but it's how I do it it's how I'm not just praying on my knees but I live in a state of humility on my knees in service to the higher calling of my life that things started to change you know I 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 so I have made I've made a living I've made a living I've made a life made a fortune really it's fantastic [Applause] all good from being true to myself and that's the if I could leave you with any message today that is it 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 so when I was saying to my girls last night some of them to come in to support Satoko Millie what should I talk to you about they were like why don't you just any one of the things you've told us over a hundred times will work so I'm usually go to my school in South Africa once a year and I teach a class called life 101 where for a week I just talk about what I think you need to know to go out in the world so I'm trying to distill it for you today and I would say that having compassion for other people is at the top of that list I would say commitment is at the top of that list and also a spirit of constructive engagement and by compassion I don't just mean sympathy it certainly isn't pity it's being present and it's also feeling with other beings you know during the years of the Oprah show I interviewed over 37,000 people one on one so whenever I'm telling my girls anything and they say ah you start rolling their eyes echo I'm the only person you don't talk to itself 37,000 people so if I were you I would pay attention for during all those years of talking to over 37,000 people one-on-one I could feel what they were feeling so strongly sometimes it made me sick literally so I had to learn how to feel how others were feeling feel with others which is which is what it means to be compassionate to feel with others without taking in all of their stuff being compassionate means I feel with you it is one of the greatest qualities in the world to have if you're going to be majoring and what it takes to be a great human being I feel with you means I'm not only I'm willing to walk in your shoes it means my heart beats with yours it means I see myself in you it means I may not have shared that circumstance but I know what heartbreak feels like I know what pain feels like an old pain is the same it means I can feel your will to want to do better and be better and I feel and I am with you in spite of everything that's happened to you I feel your need to rise I want to help you rise I want to rise with you so compassion is one of them commitment is another you know one of my favorite quotes is dr. King who says not everybody could be famous but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service I am committed to service service through my work service through my life's purpose and if you make a commitment a conscious intention to be committed to the work that you do to the relationships that you have your life will unfold with such beauty and grace through that commitment you know every day for until the very final shows of The Oprah Winfrey Show I have the producers come in and tell me ahead of time what their intention for every show was because I figured out around the second year of doing that show that it wasn't just about being on television and performing that here was this opportunity this offering I could give to people through the service of a television show to better see themselves through the stories that we're telling and through those stories help themselves to improve their lives so I started using television as a tool of service so as you're trying to figure out what do i do how should I do it first of all I will say this that when you don't know what to do my girls have heard this over a hundred times when you don't know what to do you do nothing you get still until you do now because when you have to ask everybody else should I should I should I do this should I should and that's whether it's buying a pair of shoes or going with a guy buying a house taking a job should I should I show the show when you have to ask everybody else it means you don't really know the answer fully yourself so you get still be still and know the answer will come and more than ever I would have to say I miss the Oprah Winfrey Show I chose to let it go I felt that I said everything I needed to say after 25 years and I wanted it to be my decision when I let it go but I will say this past year and now more than ever I miss it because I miss the opportunity for the spirit of constructive engagement that that platform offered so two weeks after the election last year I went to a diner in Queens for Oprah magazine with a group of women half of them were Trump supporters half of them were Hillary supporters nobody wanted to come to breakfast I was like it's gonna be so great great great for some we're gonna have some nice jams ladies nobody wanted to sit down and have the couscous so everybody came in the room all tight and hardened and so we were able to I was able to say they were like why I've never been this close to these Hilary elitists I've never been that close as close and they're other people are saying well I never said this close to Trump supporter before but we're going to do it I will tell you after two and a half hours I had those women not only eating croissants sitting around the table listening to each other's stories hearing both sides and by the end they were holding hands exchanging emails and phone numbers and sing and reach out in touch we're opportunity to be Diana Ross which means it's possible it can happen so I want you to work in your own way to change the world in respectful conversations with others at a rate and a rhythm that's in tune with the source from which you have come your truth and I want you to enter every situation aware of its context open to hear the truths of others and most important open to letting the process of changing the world change you that is the spirit of constructive engagement so that's the goal to be a compassionate woman of substance to be committed to have constructive engagement to live this life of substance substance what I know for sure is if you focus on the substance the success will come and most importantly let failure be your friend there are going to be times of course where you're going to win a lot a lot of things are going to go your way and it's wonderful to bask in that adulation and to feel proud of your successes but they're also going to be times the satisfaction that those moments bring nothing can compare to that those victories will feed you for years to come and help you stake a minute when your tank is sometimes empty winning is great it's fantastic I love it I love being number one I love winning but it's the times when things go wrong when you fall or fail that you're actually gone going to learn the most about yourself you know all those years on The Oprah Show 25 years we were the number one show for 25 years and that's because I lived with the intention to serve the audience the audience came first every show I would sit with the producers and say well I can't do that because I can't find the truth of myself in that show I have to have a thread of truth to be able to hold on to so I knew so well the audience I felt like I was the audience the audience was me and I felt so connected and then I ended that and started a new network and I flail for a while and I was really upset with myself but I will tell you that when I was able to shift the paradigm to start to looking at Wow what I have instead of what I don't have what I have instead of what I thought I'd lost I was able to begin to turn things around but it's those moments of being of uncertainty it's the moments where you know all of my mistakes show up on the evening news you can make a mistake I can tell if I've done something wrong it's on the CNN crawl I can read about it but learning from the moments where things weren't going so great being able to get still to connect with that which I know is God the force the power greater than myself and to come back and realize that in order to move forward you move forward by taking the next right stepped you don't have to know everything to do you don't have to know all the steps to make just what is the next right move and then there's this I leave you with this nobody makes it alone nobody I don't care what they look like I'll gear what they're insta posts a nobody makes it alone and so you will get nowhere without a spiritual practice you need a spiritual practice and by that I mean not necessarily religion for some people it is church for some people it is meditating for some people it's dancing some people is singing but you have got to find a way to nurture that which is the essence of you you've got to find a way to continually give back to yourself so that you are a full woman you want to be a woman who's full of herself I used to fear that you know when I first started out people say oh she thinks she's just so full of herself she's so full of herself and I now say yes hi oh I am so full my cup is one in over that's what you want you want your cup to be so full it's running over so you have enough to offer others if you do not if you do not have something a spiritual practice maybe it's music or dancing or times just time for yourself to feed nurture your own spirit your you'll run out your tank will become empty you will burn out and not have anything left to give so set aside space every day to make space for that aspect of your being which no other single activity you engage in can fully Express that's all I mean by spiritual practice nurture that thing that is the essence of you and I leave you with the words of my mentor teacher Maya Angelou I'm thinking of her a lot because it's Mother's Day tomorrow I'm going to have her own super soul Sunday those of you who watch but I learned so much from her and when I had finished my school and I was so proud of myself for building this school in South Africa and I went to my aunt I said Maya that's going to be my greatest legacy to school and Maya said you have no idea what your legacy will be I go I know I know I know that but I really I really do think that the schools gonna you know be my like greatest legacy Joe you have no idea Saigo yes ma'am she said this and I leave this with everybody in the room graduates friends of graduates family she said your legacy is every life you touched your legacy is every like [Applause] it's not just the big school with your name on it it's not the awards that you received it's not the acclaim it's every single human being you've ever come in contact with you have left your heart sprint and your legacy I remember the story of a man who was a police officer who had his heart had stopped and they weren't even able to get into the emergency room and just cut him open on the floor of the hospital as he was entering the hospital and massaged his heart he said for nine minutes trying to bring him back sounds incredible and unbelievable but the story he told of having a near-death experience whether you believe it or not the impression it left with me was something happened there I don't remember his name but the story has lingered in my spirit and abides with me he said I didn't see Jesus but I did have what I thought was my own life review I was able to feel in a way I cannot explain he says it felt like real time but I know it couldn't have been because I wasn't gone for that long but I was able to feel in what felt like to me real time every single thing I ever did and I was able to feel the feelings that I created in other people I was a wife-beater he said I used to beat my wife and I could not only feel the physical pain I caused her I felt what I did to her spirit I broke her heart so when I came back and realized I wasn't dead I decided I'm gonna feel things differently I'm going to try to feel everything with love I'm going to feel everything with love so that I can live everything with love so that's my wish for you feel everything with love because every moment you are building your legacy [Applause]

Channel: Agnes Scott College

Views: 78,074

Keywords: Agnes Scott College, commencement, graduation, 2017, Oprah Winfrey

Id: QS2gSyrhJMo

Length: 28min 29sec (1709 seconds)

Published: Sun May 14 2017