Latest / Motivation Mindset Podcast / Oprah Winfrey: 30 Minutes That Will Change the Next 30 Years of Your Life

Transcript

Oprah Winfrey: 30 Minutes That Will Change the Next 30 Years of Your Life · Motivation Mindset Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: The number one lesson I could offer you where your
0:04
Speaker 1: work is concerned as this, become so skilled, so vigilant,
0:08
Speaker 1: so flat out fantastic at what you do that your
0:14
Speaker 1: talent cannot be dismissed. You know, when I was a kid,
0:23
Speaker 1: I thought I was going to be a social worker,
0:26
Speaker 1: or be a teacher, or somehow be in an environment
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Speaker 1: where I would be connected and speaking to people to
0:33
Speaker 1: honor that calling. I had no idea that God could
0:37
Speaker 1: dream this big dream of television life for myself. But
0:42
Speaker 1: everybody has a calling, and your real job in life
0:47
Speaker 1: is to figure out as soon as possible what that is,
0:51
Speaker 1: who you were meant to be, and begin to honor
0:54
Speaker 1: that in the best way possible for yourself. We have
0:58
Speaker 1: seen over the years on The Open Show so many
1:00
Speaker 1: people who've been able to rise to success in their life,
1:04
Speaker 1: and only able to rise to success because they answered
1:08
Speaker 1: the call. Lots of people think that it's about being famous,
1:11
Speaker 1: or about being known, or about doing big, big, incredible things.
1:15
Speaker 1: What you're gonna hear today and see through the stories
1:20
Speaker 1: is that sometimes the calling is right in your own neighborhood.
1:25
Speaker 1: Sometimes the calling is something that was just a whisper
1:30
Speaker 1: to you and when you begin to honor that whisper
1:34
Speaker 1: and to follow that, you end up being the best
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Speaker 1: that you could be.
1:40
Speaker 2: I actually thought at the time that being thin.
1:45
Speaker 1: Made me better my identification with form, wanting so desperately
1:53
Speaker 1: to be in a size ten gene was so prominent
1:56
Speaker 1: identifying with that that shortly after this, I gained five
2:00
Speaker 1: pounds and I was invited to a party at the
2:04
Speaker 1: time by Don Johnson, Remember dreaming Don Johnson. I was
2:07
Speaker 1: invited to a holiday party and I did not go
2:10
Speaker 1: to that party because I thought the five pounds made
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Speaker 1: me too fat, not good enough to be a Don
2:17
Speaker 1: Johnson's party. Sounds kind of sick, now, I know, but
2:21
Speaker 1: that's what the ego does it. It is sick, it's wiley,
2:26
Speaker 1: it's cunning, it's deceptive. It's an impost imposing on the
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Speaker 1: real you, making you often think that you're something that
2:35
Speaker 1: you're not. You're not the shape of your body, you're
2:39
Speaker 1: not your status, you're not your position in life. You're
2:44
Speaker 1: not the car you drive, no matter how fancy it is.
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Speaker 1: You're not your house or your square footage. For all
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Speaker 1: of you watching right now, here's another way to better
2:53
Speaker 1: understand ego. What I'm talking about. Eckhart taught me this. Everybody,
2:58
Speaker 1: try this from home, rate or wherever you are right now,
3:01
Speaker 1: close your eyes and notice what you're thinking. Notice your thoughts.
3:10
Speaker 1: Now who is thinking those thoughts? Can you notice that
3:17
Speaker 1: there is a space where you are observing the thoughts
3:22
Speaker 1: and where you are aware of the thoughts that you
3:24
Speaker 1: are observing. Eckhart says, you are that awareness disguised as
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Speaker 1: a person. And when I got that, I understood the
3:35
Speaker 1: difference between my.
3:37
Speaker 2: True self and my ego self.
3:41
Speaker 1: Over the years, we've heard invaluable information that in a
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Speaker 1: moment of danger, could be life saving. Nothing I heard
3:51
Speaker 1: made a greater impression on me than back in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety one. I think we were beginning our fifth season
3:58
Speaker 1: and a man named Sanford Strung came on and shared
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Speaker 1: this never forgot it.
4:03
Speaker 3: Rule number one, and frankly, it's probably, in my opinion,
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Speaker 3: the most important. Never allow them to take you somewhere else.
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Speaker 2: Never.
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Speaker 3: If everyone in this room and everyone watching this program
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Speaker 3: has never drawn the line and made a decision on
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Speaker 3: crime protection, you better make it when they decide to
4:25
Speaker 3: move you from crime scene number one to crime scene
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Speaker 3: number two. Because the crime scene number two is going
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Speaker 3: to be isolated. You won't choose it, You'll be the
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Speaker 3: focus of the crime.
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Speaker 1: I think what was so interesting about that piece of
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Speaker 1: advice is at the time that we all heard that,
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Speaker 1: we had been trained, as women people especially to believe
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Speaker 1: that you just do whatever they say.
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Speaker 2: Whatever they say, go.
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Speaker 1: Along with it. And what's important for those of you
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Speaker 1: who are watching right now and those of you who
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Speaker 1: are on the internet with us right now to know
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Speaker 1: is that it's all about using your in the moment.
5:01
Speaker 1: And people who've survived horrific circumstances talk about listening to
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Speaker 1: that intuition and every move being made calculated on listening
5:10
Speaker 1: to what your gut says. What the experts now say
5:14
Speaker 1: is do not allow yourself to be taken to the
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Speaker 1: second location, because anybody who is trying to harm you
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Speaker 1: wants to get you to an isolated place where they
5:25
Speaker 1: can do that without other people seeing or knowing it.
5:28
Speaker 1: So in that moment of making the decision, oh you're
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Speaker 1: gonna shoot me, If you're gonna shoot me, you have
5:34
Speaker 1: to shoot me now rather than shoot me in isolation
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Speaker 1: where nobody can see you. Whenever somebody has said something
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Speaker 1: that made the little hairs on my arms or neck
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Speaker 1: stand up. I know that if that's happening to me,
5:47
Speaker 1: that's also happening to somebody else too. The way to
5:51
Speaker 1: make movies is to do stuff that you love, because
5:53
Speaker 1: you know, for twenty five years I worked on The
5:55
Speaker 1: Opra Show, and Steman will tell you that there were
5:59
Speaker 1: day that I came home and I almost you know,
6:02
Speaker 1: it's hard to even like take off my clothes because
6:04
Speaker 1: I knew I was going to be getting up four
6:06
Speaker 1: hours later. But I never really felt exhausted. Like never
6:12
Speaker 1: I felt exhausted, but I never felt depleted. So do
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Speaker 1: the work that comes straight from the soul of you,
6:19
Speaker 1: from your background, from stories that you've grown up with,
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Speaker 1: from stories that bring you passion, from stories that you
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Speaker 1: not just yearn to tell, but that if you don't
6:29
Speaker 1: tell them, they won't get told. And when you when
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Speaker 1: you are operating, you know, the single, the single greatest
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Speaker 1: wisdom I think I've ever received, other than when people
6:40
Speaker 1: show here they are, is that the key to fulfillment, success, happiness,
6:48
Speaker 1: contentment in life is when you align your personality with
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Speaker 1: what your soul actually came to do. I believe everybody
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Speaker 1: has a soul and has you know their own personal
7:01
Speaker 1: spiritual energy. So when you can use your personality to
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Speaker 1: serve whatever that thing is, you can't help but be successful.
7:11
Speaker 1: So if you do films that come from the interior
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Speaker 1: of your soul, you do work, you do art that
7:16
Speaker 1: comes from the interior of you, you cannot miss. It's
7:21
Speaker 1: only when you're doing stuff that you think might make money,
7:24
Speaker 1: you think it may be a hit, or you think
7:29
Speaker 1: it may bring you some level of attention or success
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Speaker 1: that isn't what does it. I would have to say
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Speaker 1: that all of the great wonderful experiences of my life
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Speaker 1: that have brought me to this moment have come from
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Speaker 1: working from the interior of myself. And so that's why
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Speaker 1: it feels so authentic, because it actually is.
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Speaker 4: So when you do that, you'll win.
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Speaker 1: And everybody has a different talent, and the reason we're
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Speaker 1: all so messed up is because you're looking at everybody else.
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Speaker 4: El talent and wishing you had some of their talent.
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Speaker 1: All the energy that you spend thinking about, wishing about,
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Speaker 1: being jealous of envious of anybody else is energy that
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Speaker 1: you're not only putting out going to come back to
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Speaker 1: you negatively, but you're taking that away from you. All
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Speaker 1: your energy should be forced on what do I have
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Speaker 1: to offer?
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Speaker 2: What do I have to give?
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Speaker 4: How can I be used in service?
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Speaker 1: Because Doctor King's message of not everybody can be famous,
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Speaker 1: but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service.
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Speaker 4: And there is not a job in here that.
8:38
Speaker 1: You can do that you don't switch the paradigm to
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Speaker 1: service and not make that job more fulfilling.
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Speaker 4: I don't care what the job is.
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Speaker 1: If you say I'm a singer, I'm a dancer, I'm
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Speaker 1: an artist, I'm a teacher, I'm a nurse, I'm a doctor,
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Speaker 1: I'm a janitor, I'm a clerk, I'm a If you say,
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Speaker 1: if I look at this from how do I use
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Speaker 1: this in service to some thing bigger than myself, it
9:03
Speaker 1: no longer becomes a job. It becomes an offering to
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Speaker 1: the world. I first started making money, and it was
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Speaker 1: you know, my salary or my earnings were published all
9:15
Speaker 1: over the place.
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Speaker 2: I mean the first year, I was like, really did
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Speaker 2: I make that much money? Oh my god.
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Speaker 1: It was very difficult for me to figure out where
9:24
Speaker 1: my boundaries were because I'd grown up poor and didn't
9:28
Speaker 1: have anything. So it's easy when you don't have anything,
9:31
Speaker 1: and people ask you for money and they say I
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Speaker 1: need five hundred, you say, I don't have it because
9:35
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get my rent paid. It's harder
9:40
Speaker 1: when your multi billion dollar salary is now in the
9:43
Speaker 1: paper and you get a lot of friends and cousins
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Speaker 1: you didn't have before. So how do you set boundaries
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Speaker 1: for yourself? I was having trouble setting boundaries for myself
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Speaker 1: for even strangers.
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Speaker 2: People would just show.
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Speaker 1: Up at my door in Chicago and say, oh, I
10:00
Speaker 1: left my husband, Please help me, and I would because
10:04
Speaker 1: she knows I haven't. So what I learned was is that, oh,
10:09
Speaker 1: the reason why people keep showing up is because my
10:12
Speaker 1: intention is to make them think that I'm such a
10:14
Speaker 1: nice person that you can ask me for anything, you
10:19
Speaker 1: can get me to do anything, I'm going to say yes.
10:22
Speaker 1: I'm going to say yes.
10:23
Speaker 4: So when Stevie called.
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Speaker 1: Me this time, I thought I'd try out my first
10:28
Speaker 1: know on Stevie, Let's start big. He wanted me to
10:32
Speaker 1: donate some money to a charity, and I didn't want
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Speaker 1: to donate to the charity because I have my own
10:38
Speaker 1: charities and I care about a lot of people. But
10:40
Speaker 1: the problem is when you have money. Everybody thinks you
10:43
Speaker 1: just want to give to everything. So every letter I
10:45
Speaker 1: ever get starts with we know you love the children. Yes,
10:51
Speaker 1: I do love the children, but somebody else is going
10:54
Speaker 1: to have to help the children.
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Speaker 4: So I said to Stevie. I said to Stevie no, And.
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Speaker 1: As a person who has that disease to please, I
11:05
Speaker 1: was waiting for him then to say.
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Speaker 4: I will never speak to you a.
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Speaker 1: Gun, I will never call you, I.
11:12
Speaker 4: Will never sing a song for you. And he didn't.
11:16
Speaker 1: He just said okay, okay, okay, it's okay. He said, okay,
11:23
Speaker 1: check you later. And what I learned from that is
11:30
Speaker 1: many times you will have anngst and worry about things
11:34
Speaker 1: and put yourself in a state, like someone said this
11:38
Speaker 1: morning because her phone went off. They were mortified over
11:40
Speaker 1: a phone.
11:41
Speaker 4: I said, really, you.
11:43
Speaker 1: Will put yourself in a state when the other person
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Speaker 1: really isn't even thinking about you. So, learning that I
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Speaker 1: could specifically determine for myself what the boundaries were for me.
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Speaker 4: I wanted to do.
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Speaker 1: Give my money, give my time, give of my service
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Speaker 1: to who I wanted to give it to.
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Speaker 4: When I did that, I get to make that decision.
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Speaker 1: And just because you get one hundred requests a week
12:13
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you have to try to fulfill all of that.
12:17
Speaker 1: Just because you have all of these demands on your
12:20
Speaker 1: time and on you doesn't mean that you have to
12:24
Speaker 1: say yes. You get to decide because you're the master
12:28
Speaker 1: of your fate, the captain of your soul, as William
12:31
Speaker 1: Ernest Henley said, and invictious and understanding. That really change
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Speaker 1: the meaning of my life in that I was not
12:40
Speaker 1: no longer driven by what other people wanted me to do,
12:45
Speaker 1: but took charge of my own destiny, making choices based
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Speaker 1: upon what do I feel is the next right move
12:54
Speaker 1: for me. There is one woman out of all the celebrities,
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Speaker 1: out of all of the famous, non famous, infamous people,
13:03
Speaker 1: one woman from Who is she? Her name is Terrai Trent.
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Speaker 1: Listen to the story. I'm gonna try to shorten it
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Speaker 1: for you, God right, okay, Terrorrii Trent born and raised
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Speaker 1: in a village in Zimbabwe. Eleven years old. She's doing
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Speaker 1: her brother's homework. She wants to go to school. Her
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Speaker 1: father says, no, you, as girl, you have to educate
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Speaker 1: the boy.
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Speaker 4: Yes, that's right, that tradition, that's.
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Speaker 1: Right, the boy has to go to school. You can't
13:29
Speaker 1: go to school, so she starts doing her brother's homework.
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Speaker 4: She does his brother's homework.
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Speaker 5: He goes to school.
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Speaker 1: He gets all a's on his homework, yet he doesn't
13:36
Speaker 1: know the answer to the question. The teacher comes to
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Speaker 1: the village to say, what is going on here? This
13:41
Speaker 1: boy doesn't know the answers, but his homework's perfect. She
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Speaker 1: finds out that Terrorrii, his younger sister, is doing his homework.
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Speaker 1: She begs the father to Letterarai go to school. The
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Speaker 1: father says no, she can't.
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Speaker 5: Go to school.
13:53
Speaker 4: Finally, he marries her off.
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Speaker 1: She marries at eleven and a half years old, she
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Speaker 1: gets married. She has three children by the time she's
14:01
Speaker 1: eighteen years old. A woman comes to the village from
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Speaker 1: an Ngo Heafer International and asks, what are your dreams?
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Speaker 1: This is gonna make me cry.
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Speaker 2: Finally cry, so what are your dreams?
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Speaker 1: This child has never thought about what her dreams were.
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Speaker 1: She says, write down your dreams. She writes down her
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Speaker 1: dreams on a piece of paper and she folds them
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Speaker 1: in a tin can and she buries them under a rock.
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Speaker 1: The first dream was to be able to go to
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Speaker 1: the school, and go to a school in the United
14:27
Speaker 1: States of America and.
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Speaker 4: Get a college degree.
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Speaker 1: She ends up through some miracle of the NGO, going
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Speaker 1: to the United States.
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Speaker 4: She gets a college degree.
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Speaker 1: Wow. Yes, she gets a four year degree in three years,
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Speaker 1: terrorI Trent. She goes back to the rock in Zimbabwe.
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Speaker 1: She writes her next goal on the piece of paper.
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Speaker 1: She buries it under the rock. She writes, I want
14:54
Speaker 1: to get a master's degree.
14:56
Speaker 4: She goes back to here I had said. She gets
14:58
Speaker 4: a master's degree. By this time, she now has five children.
15:01
Speaker 1: She's married to a man who still meets her r. Incredible.
15:04
Speaker 1: She goes back here and say she gets her master's degree.
15:07
Speaker 1: After the master's degree, she goes back.
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Speaker 4: To the rock in Zimbabwe.
15:11
Speaker 1: She writes down her final goal is to get a
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Speaker 1: doctor degree, and last year she became doctor. Terror Rai Trent.
15:18
Speaker 1: Where did you find it?
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Speaker 4: Where did I find it? I found her in.
15:25
Speaker 1: The in the Nicholas Christophe's book called uh Something, the
15:29
Speaker 1: Sky underneath the Sky or the Sky Nicola. I found
15:32
Speaker 1: her in Nicholas Christophe's book, and I was reading the story.
15:37
Speaker 1: I had Nicholas Christoph on the show. Nicholas Christoph, the
15:40
Speaker 1: famous New York Times writer and she wasn't there, she
15:45
Speaker 1: wasn't a part of the child. I'm reading the story.
15:47
Speaker 1: I can't believe this book, the story of this woman
15:49
Speaker 1: as I'm reading the story. So when we go to
15:51
Speaker 1: do the show, the producers have Nicholas Christoph on, they
15:55
Speaker 1: bring on other guests, but this woman isn't there.
15:58
Speaker 4: I go, how could you not have her there?
15:59
Speaker 1: So we tape another show with Nicholas christof we go
16:03
Speaker 1: back and go find We're gonna find that woman, terror.
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Speaker 2: Rei Trent, which time.
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Speaker 1: By this time she's living in the United States. We
16:09
Speaker 1: followed her back to Zimbabwe to the rock.
16:13
Speaker 4: We pulled the tin can from underneath the rock.
16:18
Speaker 1: And that is my favorite guest of all time. And
16:21
Speaker 1: I don't have a worst. I don't have a worst.
16:24
Speaker 1: But the reason why she and as I said this
16:26
Speaker 1: on my show, the reason why terror Right Trent is
16:29
Speaker 1: my favorite guest of all time is because she represents
16:33
Speaker 1: in that one story of the little girl in a
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Speaker 1: village in Zimbabwe who had a dream and the heart
16:40
Speaker 1: and depth and discipline to pursue it. She represents everything
16:44
Speaker 1: I tried to say in every show in twenty five years.
16:48
Speaker 1: She literally, through her life story sums up the message
16:52
Speaker 1: that I was trying to give to every single one
16:54
Speaker 1: of my viewers. You can, you can keep trying, give up.
17:00
Speaker 1: You have to believe, You have to believe. Over the
17:04
Speaker 1: years the century, so many teachers and poets and songwriters
17:09
Speaker 1: talked about the significance of knowing yourself. I know we've
17:13
Speaker 1: all heard to thine own self be true Shakespeare, or
17:18
Speaker 1: learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all
17:21
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston. What I know for sure is that in
17:25
Speaker 1: all the talk about loving yourself, you can't begin to
17:29
Speaker 1: love yourself or even be true to yourself unless you
17:34
Speaker 1: know who you are, separate from your ego. So think
17:40
Speaker 1: about this for a moment. You're at home, listening, watching me,
17:43
Speaker 1: and taking in the thoughts that I'm sharing right now,
17:46
Speaker 1: and there is an inner space that allows you to
17:49
Speaker 1: perceive these thoughts little not even a space. I'm just
17:53
Speaker 1: using the word space because there is no other word.
17:56
Speaker 1: There is the ability to perceive what I'm saying and
18:02
Speaker 1: be aware of what I'm saying. That is where the
18:06
Speaker 1: true You abide in that awareness, in the very center
18:09
Speaker 1: of yourself, And when you stray from that center, you
18:13
Speaker 1: get lost and you make mistakes. I learned this the
18:17
Speaker 1: hard way. Your ego takes over. Everybody has an ego.
18:21
Speaker 1: I used to think the ego showed itself through someone
18:26
Speaker 1: being arrogant or stuck up or haughty, or the who
18:31
Speaker 1: does she think she is printsing down a red carpet
18:34
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Well, I'm in show business, in the
18:37
Speaker 1: business of showing myself, so I'm aware that there's a
18:41
Speaker 1: lot of egotism involved in this business. And I always
18:44
Speaker 1: thought that I had my ego in check until I
18:49
Speaker 1: realized that it's not just the obvious, it's not always
18:53
Speaker 1: acting out or showing off. In two thousand and eight,
18:58
Speaker 1: I chose Eckartoli's book Earth for my book club, and
19:01
Speaker 1: this book will change the way you view your life
19:06
Speaker 1: and the people around you and your world. Chapters three
19:09
Speaker 1: and four literally change the way I saw myself and
19:13
Speaker 1: my ego. It changed for me what ego meant and
19:18
Speaker 1: totally says that any identification with form, meaning any identification
19:26
Speaker 1: identifying with something that is not the center of yourself,
19:30
Speaker 1: that is possessions, penterior things, cars, titles, social status, or
19:36
Speaker 1: in my case, identifying with the deep desire to be thinned,
19:44
Speaker 1: you will find true success and happiness. If you have
19:48
Speaker 1: only one goal, there really is only one, and that
19:51
Speaker 1: is this to fulfill the highest, most truthful expression.
19:58
Speaker 4: Of your self as a human being.
20:02
Speaker 1: You want to max out your humanity by using your
20:06
Speaker 1: energy to lift yourself up, your family and the people
20:10
Speaker 1: around you.
20:11
Speaker 4: Theologian Howard Thurmann said it best.
20:13
Speaker 1: He said, don't ask yourself what the world needs.
20:18
Speaker 4: Ask yourself what makes.
20:20
Speaker 1: You come alive, and then go do that, because what
20:23
Speaker 1: the world.
20:24
Speaker 4: Needs is people who have come alive. The world needs.
20:33
Speaker 1: People like Michael Stolzenberg from Fort Lauderdale. When Michael was
20:38
Speaker 1: just eight years old, Michael nearly died from a bacterial
20:41
Speaker 1: infection that cost him both of his hands and both
20:44
Speaker 1: of his feet, and in an instant, this vibrant little
20:47
Speaker 1: boy became a quadruple amputee and his life was changed forever.
20:54
Speaker 4: But in losing who he once was, Michael discovered who
20:59
Speaker 4: he wanted to be.
21:01
Speaker 1: He refused to sit in that wheelchair all day and
21:03
Speaker 1: feel sorry for himself, so with prosthetics, he learned to
21:07
Speaker 1: walk and run and play again. He joined his middle
21:12
Speaker 1: school lacrosse team, and last month, when he learned that
21:15
Speaker 1: so many victims of the Boston Marathon bombing would become
21:18
Speaker 1: new amputees. Michael decided to banish that darkness with light.
21:24
Speaker 1: Michael and his brother Harris created Mikey's Run dot com
21:29
Speaker 1: to raise one million dollars for other amputees by the
21:32
Speaker 1: time Harris runs the twenty fourteen Boston Marathon, more than
21:37
Speaker 1: the thousand miles away from here. These two young brothers
21:42
Speaker 1: are bringing people together to support this Boston community the
21:46
Speaker 1: way their community came together to support Michael. And when
21:51
Speaker 1: this thirteen year old man was asked about his fellow amputees,
21:55
Speaker 1: he said this. First, they will be sad. They're losing
22:02
Speaker 1: something they will never get back, and that's scary. I
22:08
Speaker 1: was scared. But they'll be okay. They just don't know
22:14
Speaker 1: that yet. We might not always know it. We might
22:19
Speaker 1: not always see it or hear it on the news,
22:23
Speaker 1: or even feel it in our daily lives. But I
22:25
Speaker 1: have faith that no matter what class of twenty thousand,
22:31
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, you will be okay, and you will make
22:36
Speaker 1: sure our country is okay. I have faith because of
22:40
Speaker 1: that nine year old girl who went out and collected
22:42
Speaker 1: the change. I have faith because of David and Francine
22:45
Speaker 1: Wheeler I have faith because of Michael and Harris Stolsenberg,
22:49
Speaker 1: and I have faith because of you.
22:52
Speaker 4: The network of angels sitting here today.
22:55
Speaker 1: One of them Kadijah Williams, who came to Harvard four
22:58
Speaker 1: years ago. Kadija had attended twelve schools in twelve years,
23:07
Speaker 1: living out of garbage bags, amongst Pempson, prostitutes and drug dealers, homeless,
23:14
Speaker 1: going into department stores Walmart in the morning to bathe
23:17
Speaker 1: herself so that she wouldn't smell in front of her classmates.
23:20
Speaker 1: And today she graduates as a member of the Harvard
23:23
Speaker 1: Class of twenty thirteen. Nobody's journey is seamless or smooth.
23:29
Speaker 1: We all stumble, we all have setbacks.
23:31
Speaker 4: If things go wrong, you hit a dead end, as
23:34
Speaker 4: you will. It's just life's way of saying time to
23:39
Speaker 4: change course. So ask every failure.
23:43
Speaker 1: This is what I do, every failure, every crisis, every
23:47
Speaker 1: difficult time. I say, what is this here to teach me?
23:53
Speaker 1: And as soon as you get the lesson, you get
23:55
Speaker 1: to move on. If you really get the lesson, you
23:58
Speaker 1: pass and you don't have to repeat the class.
23:59
Speaker 4: You don't get the.
24:00
Speaker 1: Lesson, it shows up wearing another pair of pants or skirt.
24:06
Speaker 4: To give you some remedial work.
24:09
Speaker 1: And what I found is that difficulties come when you
24:12
Speaker 1: don't pay attention to life's whisper because life always whispers
24:17
Speaker 1: to you first, and if you ignore the whispers, sooner
24:20
Speaker 1: or later you'll get a scream.
24:22
Speaker 4: Whatever you resist persists.
24:23
Speaker 1: But if you ask the right question, not why is
24:26
Speaker 1: this happening? But what is this here to teach me?
24:29
Speaker 1: What is this here to teach me? It puts you
24:32
Speaker 1: in the place and space to get the lesson you need.
24:35
Speaker 1: My friend at Cartole who's written this wonderful book called
24:39
Speaker 1: a New Earth, it's all about letting the awareness of
24:43
Speaker 1: who you are stimulate everything that you do.
24:45
Speaker 4: He puts it like this.
24:46
Speaker 1: He says, don't react against a bad situation, merge with
24:51
Speaker 1: that situation instead, and the solution will arise from the challenge.
24:56
Speaker 1: Because surrendering yourself doesn't mean giving up.
24:59
Speaker 4: It means dean with responsibility.
25:02
Speaker 1: Okay, many of you know that, as President Hennessy said,
25:06
Speaker 1: I started this school in Africa, and I founded the
25:12
Speaker 1: school where I'm trying to give South African girls a shot.
25:15
Speaker 4: At a future like yours.
25:17
Speaker 1: Stanford and I spent five years making sure that school
25:23
Speaker 1: would be as beautiful as the students. I wanted every
25:27
Speaker 1: girl to feel her worth reflected in her surroundings. So
25:32
Speaker 1: I checked every blueprint. I picked every pillow. I was
25:36
Speaker 1: looking at the groud in between the bricks. I knew
25:39
Speaker 1: every threape pound of the sheets. I chose every girl
25:42
Speaker 1: from the villages, from nine provinces, and yet last fall
25:46
Speaker 1: I was spaced with a crisis I'd never anticipated.
25:49
Speaker 4: I was told that one of the dorm matrons was
25:52
Speaker 4: suspected of sexual abuse.
25:55
Speaker 1: Well, that was, as you can imagine, devastating news. First
25:58
Speaker 1: I cried, Actually I sobbed for about a half an hour,
26:02
Speaker 1: and then I said, let's get to it. That's all
26:05
Speaker 1: you get is a half an hour. You need to
26:07
Speaker 1: focus on the now. What you need to do now.
26:11
Speaker 1: So I contacted a child trauma specialist. I put together
26:14
Speaker 1: a team of investigators. I made sure the girls had
26:17
Speaker 1: counseling and support, and Gale and I got on a
26:21
Speaker 1: plane and flew to South Africa. And the whole time
26:24
Speaker 1: I kept asking that question, what.
26:26
Speaker 4: Is this here to teach me?
26:29
Speaker 1: And as difficult as that experience has been, I got
26:32
Speaker 1: a lot of lessons. I understand now the mistakes I
26:36
Speaker 1: made because I had been paying attention to all of
26:40
Speaker 1: the wrong things.
26:42
Speaker 4: I built that school from.
26:43
Speaker 1: The outside in, when what really mattered was the inside out.
26:49
Speaker 1: So it's a lesson that applies to all of our
26:52
Speaker 1: lives as a whole.
26:53
Speaker 4: What matters most is what's inside.
26:56
Speaker 1: What matters most is the sense of integrity, of quality
27:00
Speaker 1: and beauty. I got that lesson, And what I know
27:03
Speaker 1: is is that the girls came away with something too.
27:06
Speaker 1: They've emerged from this more resilient and knowing that their
27:10
Speaker 1: voices have power. There's a bigger dream waiting for you,
27:17
Speaker 1: just waiting for you to.
27:20
Speaker 2: Step into it, to step into it. Your life is big.
27:26
Speaker 2: Your life is huge, and we.
27:28
Speaker 1: Spend so much time wanting to be in somebody else's life.
27:36
Speaker 1: And you don't get honored, you don't get revered, you
27:40
Speaker 1: don't get celebrating wanting what somebody else has. Because that
27:52
Speaker 1: which created you difine intelligence to dreamed you from before
27:58
Speaker 1: your ancestors ever knew who they would become, your ancestors,
28:03
Speaker 1: that would dream.
28:04
Speaker 2: The seed of you wants you to know how special.
28:10
Speaker 1: How wondrous, how mysterious, how complex, how glorious, how phenomenal
28:16
Speaker 1: you are, and you get no credit messing in somebody
28:21
Speaker 1: else's territory or trying to have power over.
28:30
Speaker 2: Something you have no control. Another one of my favorite.
28:33
Speaker 1: Teachings is the Wizard of Oz when wicked Wrich of
28:36
Speaker 1: the West says, go away from here, because you don't
28:38
Speaker 1: have any power here.
28:39
Speaker 2: You have no power in any territory other.
28:42
Speaker 5: Than your own.
28:45
Speaker 2: Oh, but you are the master of that. You get
28:49
Speaker 2: to be the master of your own fate. You get
28:53
Speaker 2: to be the captain of your own soul. And if
28:55
Speaker 2: you just manage that, if you just took.
28:59
Speaker 5: Care of your territory, Oh, the glorious, glorious, glorious, wondrous,
29:06
Speaker 5: wondrous opportunities and possibilities that are waiting for you.
29:11
Speaker 2: So the question is what are you resisting? What are
29:15
Speaker 2: you pushing against? What are you not allowing? What are
29:19
Speaker 2: you blocking?
29:21
Speaker 5: Because you have this idea of who and what you're
29:24
Speaker 5: supposed to be instead of.
29:27
Speaker 1: Leaning into the dream that's already been created and waiting
29:33
Speaker 1: for you, it's waiting for you.
29:35
Speaker 2: And the second I mean, it doesn't it's an instant thing.
29:39
Speaker 1: It's a shift in the way you see yourself and
29:44
Speaker 1: the power from which you have come o