Oprah Winfrey: How to Find Your Unique Purpose, Authentic Power, and Calling In Life

Hey, it's friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I don't even know how to explain how I'm feeling right now. I mean, I can't even believe I can say these words to you. Oprah Winfrey, flew to Boston to sit down and have a conversation with me and you. I just finished taping it and it's kind of hard to put into words what you're about to experience. We talk about your unique purpose, your calling in life, the reason why you're here and what you're meant to do. There is absolutely no way that you could listen to this and not be forever changed. I know I am. You're going to hear something that will make you see your life differently. There are irrefutable truths in this conversation that will stay with you long after it ends. I am so happy you get to experience this. Today, on the Mel Robbins podcast, a life-changing conversation with Oprah Winfrey. I'm so happy to be here with you. I really am. I thought I would be coming to you. No, I had to come to you. I could go anywhere and talk to anyone. You were born to fulfill the dream of your life here on Earth. You were born into this planet, into the density of this gravitational pull, to fulfill the dream of your life and of the creator's dream of your life here on Earth. Get about the business of doing that. Whatever you're looking at is only a piece of the picture of your whole life. Hi. It's so good to see you. I came to Boston to see you. Yes. Thank you. I have always wanted to sit down and have a conversation with you. But I always imagined that I would be coming to you. Really? Yes. And I guess the reason why is because I just thought, well, you could go anywhere in the world and talk to anybody. And it never even occurred to me to think about or manifest you coming here. Well, I appreciate the invitation to actually be able to sit in your home space. Because this is where you reign. And this is where you reign. And I have watched you listen to you. And I watched the best sellers list regularly. And I am just so rooting for you. I have watched you become the voice of our time in leading people home to themselves. This is why one of the things I hope people get from you and I today. Because I see so much of myself in you, Mel. I actually see you do. And I'm honored by who you have become. Because I know for sure that some of what I did, what I've said over the years, you really got it. And you to me are like on the same mission in your own voice, in your own way, through your own self expression. But to me, you are one of those people who took the message of everything that we were trying to say on the show. And you just paid it forward, are moving it forward in your own way. So it's like every time I run into someone who says, I watched your show, my mother watched your show, my grandmother watched your show. I watched your show. I was a latchkey kid. It makes me feel like, oh, you're a part of the children I raised. Yes. And you are one of those who's taken that light and just blasted it through the world. Well, that's one of the reasons why I was so excited to welcome you here. For 44 years, I have been your student. You have been my guide and my teacher. And I think that you have served that role for hundreds of millions of people around the world. There are producers on this team whose mothers learned English by watching your show. And your life and the way you move through the world is an example of the difference that each and every one of us can make. I would love to have you speak to the person who is here with us watching or listening. Yes. And share your intention for this conversation and how it might impact their life. My intention for flying to Boston to be with you, Mel. And to be with you all is to be used as a light that shines or illuminates in a way that you can see yourself through me, through my stories, through Mel, through her stories. And have that light ignited within yourself. I believe that I've had just the most blessed life on earth. I just can't get over how blessed I have been in my life. I can't get over it. I marvel at what God and the life forces have done for me. I marvel at that. But when I think about it now from the point of view of 72, I realize that what I have acquired is not as magnificent or extraordinary as who I have become. And I know that the world looks at what I have acquired, but it's who I have become. And I recognize that the work to become myself is the same work and ability that everybody has to become the most of themselves. And I am most proud of the women that I have become. And I want everyone else to have that. I want you to have that. I want, before I leave this earth, I want everybody to know that you have the power to literally fulfill the fullest expression of yourself as a human being. So that's why I wanted to have this conversation with you today. I believe everybody has come to do a service to the planet. That's why we're here. I believe that this is a. I don't believe we're the only planet. I don't believe we're the only life, but I believe that this is a special one. I believe that this is the earth school where we all get to teach and we all get to learn from one another. And right now a lot of us are messing that up because we've missed the point. But I also know that within each of us is this internal GPS within you, mine is no different than yours. Mine is no different than yours. The difference is I'm obedient to mine. Everybody has it. I just listened and obedient to mine. But every single person that comes to the planet comes to the planet with the ability to have that light within side themselves and to be guided by that light. And every time you go off course, every time you allow yourself to be out of alignment, things go wrong. Or you feel stuck, you feel overwhelmed. You feel exhausted. You feel that you can't go forward. You feel you don't know what to do next. You feel confusion. You feel but everybody has it. I know one of the reasons why I think I was so successful and we were number one for 25 years because I really did not see a difference between me and the audience that was watching. I recognized that we were the same and that I was the serrated voice for them. That I get to sit there and I get to interview Tom Cruise and I get to interview all the people. But what gave me the power to do it was that I was speaking for the audience, not for myself. And so I do believe that a lot of people are missing out because they're not obedient to the call. And the call is within you. It's not out here. It's not on social media. You're not going to hear it from your friends. It means being still enough to know what it is. And you can feel it. It's just a feeling, doesn't it? It's a feeling. It's a feeling. There is a particular story that you share about being three or four years old and watching your grandmother through the screen door. And the voice spoke to you. In a very firm way about what you don't want, and I think it might be helpful for the person listening to understand that if you're not hearing it in the affirmative, it may be easier for you to hear it in the way that it's like, "Nope," or "No, don't go that. I just had it all. I'll listen to that." You're right. You're so right. A lot of people think, "What do I want to do, what do I want to do?" Do you know what you don't want to do? And a lot of times, if you're in a job that you know you don't want, that is vital information. You're in the job that you don't want, that's telling you you don't want to be here. Let's figure out where I actually do want to be. This story I've shared often, but it's so dear to me because it's the only conscious memory I have of recognizing the voice from the first time for the first time. I had to be between four and five because that's where, like, round memory starts. But I was very, very small. And my job with my grandmother was to take out what we call a slop jar because there's no, it was like a pea pot, you know, for using the bathroom because you don't want to go to the outhouse at night because it's too dark and it might be snakes in there. And so my job was, as a little girl, too much responsibility to empty that pot every morning. My other job was to, you know, sort the clothes pins for my grandmother, she's hanging clothes on the line so that she doesn't have to sort them and also pick them up at the same time. And also turning butter because all you do to turn butter is you just do, there with the stick turning butter, butter had to be turned back then, y'all, we didn't have butter. So I was turning butter on the back porch looking through the screen door and it was cold and my grandmother was hanging clothes on the line and I had sorted the clothes pins all in one place and she's just picking up the clothes pins and hanging these sheets because she was a domestic worker and had brought the sheets home from the white people's houses and was boiling them in the pot. That's how we clean the sheets and she said, "Opergale, you better watch me now because one day you're going to have to learn how to do this for yourself." And I was just turning the butter and I was watching her and this feeling came over me that literally spoke to me and said, "No, you won't. This will not be your life, but don't tell her." Because you will not appreciate that. And I want to hover on this because there are so many times in my life where I could not hear. I couldn't even hear the radio. I was so confused. I mean, forget about that little whisper inside me because the noise was so loud. The fear was so loud. As you call it, the disease to please was just eating me away. So for the person who's listening who has now heard, there is a GPS, a light inside you because it begins here. And you have said, "Opergale, I believe that every single one of us, yes, you are listening right now. Opergale believes I believe that you have a light within you. You're here for a very unique and particular purpose." Yeah. And don't get confused that it's some big thing that has to be seen. I think a lot of people think when you talk about purpose, what do you say? Okay, hold on a second. I want to make sure that you heard that. Don't get confused. Confused that, "Oh, it has to be a big thing. It has to be Instagrammable." Yes. Yeah. I think that's where you're like, "Okay, my thing needs to be out here." Yeah. No, no, no. That's where you're wrong. It's in here. It's in here. And it's also how do you best serve where you are? When I ended the show, I said that I had had this marvelous platform of speaking to millions of people on a daily basis. But every person has a platform. Your family is your platform. Your community is your platform. Your church is your platform. Your job is your platform. Your work. You have the ability to reach and touch people's lives wherever you are. If you touch the life, you still have a legacy. And so for everybody, everyone who listens and hears us, your legacy isn't the big, big, big picture. It's what you're doing today. It's how you speak to the person that's a dry cleaners. It's how you talk to the person who's parking your car. It's how you're treating the people in your immediate circle. That's how you will be remembered. And so, and that's the heart print that you leave or don't leave with people. Heart print, yes, it's the heart print that you leave or don't leave. Actually, I learned that word from a little guy named Maddie Stepanick, who was on my show. He was in a wheelchair and ended up dying when he was 13, but really one of the wisest little angels who would come to earth. And he used to say, whenever you touch someone's heart, whenever you moved, you're moved by something someone does. You leave a heart print. And so, we're leaving heart prints all the time. And you know that wonderful phrase that Maya has about people don't remember what you say or what you did, but they always remember how you made them feel. So, just be responsible for the energy that you're carrying into the world and understanding that you are, you are a part of the bigger picture. We are all a part of the big thing. We are all here. And I know it's so hard when the price of eggs, the price of everything, the price of just living seems so overwhelming. But there is a deeper reason other than just working to survive. And when you recognize that, I think it gives you room to breathe in a deeper force field. You know, it's not just about the job that the real work of your life is to figure out why you actually came. The real work of your life is why did you actually come? And I know I can tell just by listening to you that you have figured that out. Me? Yeah, that you are in service to the call. Absolutely. In service to the call. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's true. And it wasn't always that way. I wasn't always that way for me. I lived in chaos fear, anxiety, self-destruction, people pleasing, addiction. Oh my God. Like just, it's interesting because when you're in chaos in your head, it's so loud that I could hear what you're saying in those moments. Yeah. I feel pulled to wanting to tap into the light and to trust myself and define that energy, PS. I honestly didn't know how, which is why I kept coming back to you. You would be the voice that would silence everything. And then I would start to practice what I was learning. And I would love to have you expand on this, 'cause I know the person that's thinking right now is probably thinking, okay, well, I want that. - Oh, easy for you. I want that, I want that. - Or easy for you, Oprah. - Yes, yes, which is a deflection, because when you start to blame and get triggered by the very thing that could save you and help you and free you, that's a sign that you want it, but you don't know how. - Having sat with so many people that have found purpose and meaning in peace in their life, versus people who are very stuck. Is there a difference between those two people in terms of if somebody's very stuck right now? - Yeah, I think the difference is, if you're very stuck right now, it's because you can't see the bigger picture. You can't see that the source of all being didn't bring you here to get you stuck. It brought you here so that you can continue to move forward and offer what you came to give to the rest of us, to the rest of the world. That's all we're all here to do, is to bring our offerings. And our offerings come from every lesson we've ever learned. Don't you see that now? Am I actually wrote a book called, I think it's a book of poetry call, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now, but she used to sing the song, it's an old hymn. I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now. For my journey now, for my journey now, I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now. That means all the stuff that was a part of the journey to this moment, I wouldn't take nothing for it. And I feel that. And I want you to know that whatever has happened to you, was also happening for you, once you could recognize why it was happening to you, no matter how horrible it was. And that's why I can say, in spite of the sexual abuse, in spite of growing up poor, not only in spite of, I am so grateful to have been born, literally, Red Dirt Road Poor in Mississippi with no running water and electricity. I am so grateful for that. I am so grateful for having an outhouse and not knowing what a baby is. bathroom was for the first six years of my life. 'Cause it makes every darn time I flush my toilets. Like a wow experience. I'm just like, wow. So it makes, it makes coming from that dirt road so much more thrilling that journey. - If somebody's sitting there thinking right now, especially the line, everything happens for you Oprah. I mean, come on. Like the things that are violent and terrifying and awful that I don't deserve. How do you flip that in your mind? So that the things that happened to you don't keep you there. Like 'cause there's a real flip there. 'Cause, you know, I've never liked that saying everything happens for a reason. - I know. - Because I just believe that sometimes very cruel and unfair and horrible things happen to people who don't deserve them. But I think a lot about how to truly grow and reclaim your life after something like that, you have to find a reason to move forward after it. Can you just dig even deeper for the person who's really feeling like I don't know how to embrace everything happens for me as a mindset so I can move forward? - Well, when it happens, if you don't move forward, then you just get stuck and your life debilitates. And so when I say it happens for a reason, I don't mean oh, there's a reason for everything. I mean, that when that thing shows up for you that often feels unfair, that often you don't understand why was I raped at nine? Why did that happen to me? I, at the time, couldn't see any good coming from it. Why did I have to grow up poor and Mississippi in an environment where it was illegal for black people to be on the street after dark? All the things that happened in my family life, why was I raped again at 10 and 14? Why, why, why, why? I mean, I'm actually not supposed to be here. And people have more horrific stories, unimaginable stories than mine and yours. So I don't mean that like, oh, willy nilly, like, oh, everything's happening and there's a reason for it. There's a reason for everything that doesn't mean you're responsible for the reason or that that thing should have happened to you. Yes. And so really bad things happened to me. I grew up feeling very lonely and I know a lot of people grow up. Most people grow up not getting what they need. I remember doing a show with John Bradshaw, who is the founder of the whole inner child movement. John Bradshaw did an exercise where he had people go back into their childhood and look through the window, walk yourself home. And then look through the window of your home and what do you see? And I saw myself separated from my grandmother and my grandfather but feeling very much alone. I don't actually remember feeling loved by my mother or my grandmother growing up. I now know they loved me in the best way they knew how. But I didn't feel it. And because I didn't feel it and didn't get what I needed, that is what inspired me to be such a talker. That's to be a speaker, to be an orator, to do so well in school. Because that's where my validation came from. I got, I felt no validation from home. So I felt love from my teachers. I felt pleasing my teachers, made my teachers like me. I felt, I felt a sense of satisfaction and worthiness outside my home, not inside my home. Because I didn't get that from the people that I needed from. I got it from the worlds. I got it from strangers. Yes. Because we all have a design for our lives. One of the things that impressed me so much to be able to find peace within my own family. Because I grew up, as I said, not feeling loved. But once I became Oprah Winfrey. Everybody loved me. Everybody. I was driving in Chicago and my mother was in the car. And she goes, we didn't have much, but we sure had love. I almost wrecked the car. Like, what are you talking about? What are you, who are you talking to? I said, what did you just say? She goes, well, we didn't have much. But we sure had love. Win. So I know that I never felt it. I know that I was never shown it. I don't remember one moment ever when my mother ever complimented me or said, I'm proud of you. I do remember being young and reading in the house. And it was summer and was hot. And I was sitting in a corner reading. And my mother goes, what's she doing? And he has sitting up in here, reading in the house. You need to get out there with all these other kids. You're thinking, bedding, everybody else just sitting up in this house, reading. So I remember being punished for wanting to read. I don't ever remember. But I made peace with my mother. I made peace long before she died. I made peace. Well, this is one of the pivotal things that I learned from you. And it was the life class that you did with TD Jakes. And I would love for you to share what he taught you because it forever changed my ability to see people in my life very differently. Could you explain? Because that was-- Oh, that was a fantastic life class that I did with him. And it actually struck me, too. Because I remember crying. Like tears just shot out, flowing. When he said that, because it was so affirming for me, he said that you're a 10-gallon person. I'm a 10-gallon person. A lot of you are 10-gallon people trying to get 10-gallons worth of love from pint-sized people who cannot carry the 10-gallons. They can't even carry the gallon. You're looking for 10-gallon love, 10-gallon responses, 10-gallon reception, 10-gallon acceptance from people who have a pint-sized ability. So what I learned from that is that expecting people to offer you or give you the love, the attention that you need, who do not have the capacity to do it, they just-- they don't have the-- they don't have it. And you have to recognize they don't have it. So what do they have? Can I accept you exactly where you are with what you do have? And so my mother could cook. She made some incredible collard greens and could make cornbread like nobody else. And that was the way she offered love. And her idea-- just like I know a lot of you have grown up with parents, especially if you're my generation or below my generation. You have parents who thought, because I provided for you, that was love. You had food on the table. You had shelter. You weren't on the streets. That was all I had. That was all I had. And I realized now my mother was a maid. Her entire life until I retired her. My grandmother was a maid, a domestic worker. And taking care of other people's kids, you're giving all of your energy to taking care of other people's kids, to putting on the face for them, wearing the mask for them. And by the time you came home, you had nothing left for me. I recognize that now. And I forgive that. And you know my favorite definition? Oh, well, I'm going to let you say it, because this changed my life, too. Your definition of forgiveness. Yes. Is giving up the hope that the past could be any different. If you are still wishing, hoping, wanting what happened to you to be something different than what it was, that will leave you so stuck. So you forgive for yourself. You forgive. You forgive to say, I am going to release this thing that happened to me. And, first of all, get to the stage that requires all of us to move forward. And that is acceptance, Elizabeth Kugleross in her-- Kugleross in her famous five stages of grief. You go through denial, and you go through anger about it, and you go through telling yourself it could be different. And then you get to acceptance. When you get to acceptance, when you've lost someone or any other job or relationship, when you get to acceptance, Acceptance leads you to freedom. And until you get there, you're still just living in the past. You're hoping that it could be different. That is the best definition I have ever known. - Now at the beginning of our conversation, Oprah, you talked about how each one of us has this internal GPS and this guiding light inside us. Now I have to take a quick break so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors, but don't go anywhere. Because when we return, Oprah's gonna talk all about the power of intention, how it changed her life, and how it will fundamentally change yours. Stay with us. - Within each of us is this internal GPS. Within you, mine is no different than yours. Everybody has it. - That's Oprah Winfrey. I am dying. She is here right now in our Boston studios and we're gonna talk all about the power of intention. Now Oprah, you talked about how you had a job in the beginning hosting your show. But then you had this awakening. When you realize through the power of intention, you could use it as a platform as a force for good. - Yeah. In the beginning, I was just doing a job. Just like so many people that are listening to us and watching us right now, I was just working at a job. But that decision to change my job and my work into a force for good to actually use it as not just a show, to recognize it's not just a show, but you have a platform here and you can use this to help other people see themselves. But I had got caught up into the whole, you know, confrontational television and my producers were so proud of themselves because they had gotten a guy to come on with his mistress and his wife, which unheard of that you can get the three of them together on national television. So they were on the show and I had no idea. I mean, I'd read the background and he was having the affair and she was, he, this was not in our, you know, in our preview. And so he says to her on the air to his wife, he turns to his wife and he says, well, what you don't know is that she's pregnant. And I'm telling you the audience gasped, I gasped and I looked at her face and I said, never again will that happen to me, never again. I was so angry with myself and angry upset with the producers who were so proud of themselves. And they go, we didn't know he was going to say that. We didn't know it was going to say, because her humiliation still abides with me, but was a great teacher for me 'cause I thought the worst thing you can ever do, if you all are listening, if you are listening right now, the worst thing you can ever do to anybody is to cause them to be humiliated. That's why if you've got to criticize somebody, if you have something to say to somebody that's going to be hurtful or is going to put them in a position where they feel devastated, you never, ever, ever do that in front of other people because then they have the humiliation and then the shame of it. So I said to myself, I cannot live with myself doing that to somebody. And I apologize to her afterwards and him afterwards, we're on live television though, we're on live television. I know she never got over it 'cause I haven't still to this day never gotten over it. And I said to my producers, never again will that happen. We're not doing that anymore. 'Cause around this time, in the late 1980s, I was reading Gary Zukoff's book, See the Soul. And in that book, one of the best books of my life, actually. And he has two chapters on intention and he talks about intention being one with cause and effect. And you all know that cause and effect is the law of karma. It is what you put out is coming back. And when I got that, I got it. It changed everything for me because I used to be such a huge people pleaser. I didn't know how to say no. And what I learned from the principle of intention is that if you're saying yes because you want to please the person, that is what they feel. They feel your pleasure. They feel your acquiescence. They feel your desire to make them feel okay. They don't know that behind it, you are resentful. You don't know, they don't recognize it behind it. You really didn't wanna do it 'cause you said you wanted to, you said yes. Yeah. So as soon as I got clear on, oh, the reason why people keep coming back is because they are feeling my intention of wanting to please them and not wanting to hurt their feelings. So I don't hurt their feelings. Not only do I not hurt their feelings, I make them feel pretty good. That's why when you loan money or you give something or you're the person who's carpooling and they always ask you to be the carpooler, it's because they know when they come to you, you're gonna say yes. And so when I learned to say no, when I learned to say no, that for myself, I then carried that principle of intention. I sat down with all the producers and said we're no longer gonna do a show unless we come from the point of view of intention. And so when you present me the ideas, I want the intention for the idea alongside the idea. Yes. And so every show then, after 1989, became designed around the intention of how we're gonna let people be enlightened, uplift them, see something today, hear something today that's an aha moment for them that changes the direction for them. And so yes, you as your listening or watching right now, you have a platform right in front of your face. It's your family, it's your community. And through the power of your intention, you can start to be a force for good exactly where you are. And I would say, let me just say to you, if you're just at a job right now, shift the paradigm in your mind about the why you're doing that job. Even if you say, well, I'm just doing this job to make money for my family, 'cause I've got to make ends meet. Then let every single step you take in that job, every single move you make in that job, even though their job may be boring and even though that job may be irritating to you. Let it be for the love of your family. Never, ever, ever lose sight every day you're walking out of the door. This I do for the love of my family. This I do to show that I am a provider and one who can offer to my family a sense of safety, a sense of comfort. Just that little shift makes a difference in the way the work day moves. And whatever the job or the work is, to be able to shift it to, how do I use this thing that I'm doing that is born the hell out of me or that is irritating to me and I've got a boss of it? How do I use this in service to something greater than myself? How do I use this to serve? And I've had these conversations with people who have supposedly dull jobs in order and I sat down with a guy one day and by the end of the little conversation, he was crying. I was saying, so why do you do this work and what are you doing it for? And what is he goes, oh, well, I've got to pay the bills. And so you're paying the bills for what? I'm paying the bills so my family can eat and you're paying the bills so your family can eat and who is your family and tell me about your daughter. So when you change the paradigm of what you're doing and shift why you're doing it to an intention behind doing it, it lightens it, it lightens it. 'Cause if we go back to some of your teaching, the energy you put out is the energy you get back. So if you are bargaining with life and not able to accept it, the energy is resistance. - Absolutely. And if you're any energy of resistance, you're gonna be stuck in resistance. And so I often ask myself if something's not going the way I want, what is it I'm resisting? - Oh, okay. So if you're enough, like can you give me an example? Something's not going the way you want and you're starting to feel bothered by it or upset or stuck. - Yeah. - You ask yourself, what am I resisting? What am I resisting? For every person who is listening to us right now, you are listening to us right now, you know whether or not your life is in flow or not. It can't flow unless you're in flow. And so if you're out of order, your house is out of order, your closets, your car, I was just sharing with some of the other day that I used to drive this little Chevy Chevette and it was, I would do my hair on the way to work and I'd take the rollers out and I'd throw the rollers in the back and change my, at the stop signs. And then at one point, you do that every day. After a while, you're looking your car and your car is like a wreck. And I was like, coming to my car right now, and I looked in the car and I was like, whoa, my life is like that right now. This car represents my life right now. And so I started taking them at one roller at a time, one roller at a time, find 25 cents under the car seat, all that stuff. But I have learned that getting out of flow with myself, getting off center, not listening to this energy PS is what causes disruption in all the areas of my life. - I've heard you say that one of the most important questions that you can ask yourself is what do I really want? - Yeah. - Why is that such a hard question for so many people to answer? - Because most people that I have encountered in my life experience of talking to thousands and thousands of people. And I used to sit after the show with everybody and literally talk to the audiences about where you're from and what you want and when you wanted to. And I'd ask that question, tell me what do you want? And women would stand up and say, well, I just want to be happy, Oprah, I just want to be happy. And I'd say, well, what would make you happy? I'd say, well, my children and what's going to make you happy when your children are no longer in the home? What makes you happy other than your children being happy? What makes you, most people could not identify that. And what does that happiness look like for you? So are you going to live your dream or are you going to live the dream that the world has decided, that Instagram has decided, that X has decided, that threads have decided, that you should live. What is the dream you hold in your heart? And the reason why I wanted to talk to you about this is because you and your audience understand that there's more. And I started to listen to my audience back in the, when did this happen, late 80s, early 90s. And women started to actually say, out loud to me, Mel. You know, I've done everything, and I say, what do you want? They say, I've done everything. I've got the college degree, I married, I have the house, I have all the things. I have the look who say, pot, I have the whole, I have the things. But it just feels like there's got to be more than this. There's something more, there's something more. And I said to my producers, people keep saying the same thing. That they realize that there's more. And I believe we know what it is. And we got to show them what it is. What they're missing is the connection to the spiritual core within themselves. Not a religion which I got accused of. Oprah's now trying to create her own church. Oprah's trying to church him over. No, they're missing the essence within themselves. They're missing being centered in that GPS guidance for themselves. So how do we give them that? And we started Mel doing these little clips called remembering your spirit. And I remember doing a show where Carolyn Mays was on with her book Anatomy of Spirit. And the audience was watching. But I could see they had gone somewhere else. And I stopped the show and I said, hey, are you all not tracking? And they said, well, what is she talking about, Spirit? This is in 1992. In 1992, people didn't know weren't familiar. They said, are you talking about Jesus? Are you talking about Moses? What are you talking about? I said, no, I'm talking about you have a mind, right? You have a body. You have a soul or you have a spirit. That's what she's talking about, the soul of yourself. There's something deeper than just your mind that you feel in the most quiet still moments of your being with yourself. And that's the something more that you're talking about that you're looking for. And if you stay connected to that thing, you will never be guided wrong. Now I can talk the talk and most days I live it. But oh my God, when it came time to end the show, I made one of the biggest mistakes actually of my life. And that is, I didn't listen to that GPS. And I struggle, I mean, 2012 was one of the worst years of my life. Every single story headline about me was, Oprah and the struggling own network, Oprah and the struggling own network. And it was hurtful and painful to me because it was the truth. I was struggling, I was hurting, and I was so angry with myself. What did you not listen to? I did not listen to the voice inside myself was so strong telling me not to do it that I would wake up in the middle of the night. It couldn't breathe, I'd say, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Then I'd say, but I already signed, already signed, already said I was going to do it. You dummy. (laughing) I hate what? Are you human? How dare you, Oprah? I know, but I already said I was going to do it enough. And I've got to be my word. I've got to keep my word. But here's what's interesting, let's pull this apart because I want to learn from you because I don't want to wake up. Yeah. Five years from now. When you say I have to keep my word. Yeah. We must, from this point forward, Oprah add to whom? Yeah, or whom? To whom? To whom? Yeah. Am I keeping my word to the outside life? Yeah. Or am I keeping my word to the inside? And what I ultimately understand now that that decision was because I was keeping my word, not because I wanted to keep my word. This is the real truth. I've never said this before. I was keeping my word because I was trying to please the people on the other side. I was trying to please, I was thinking, what are they gonna think of me for changing my mind? And this is what I want you all to learn from the lesson. I knew, but didn't pay attention to. You always have the right to change your mind. If the people are in the church sitting in the pews and you're getting ready to walk down the aisle and you know inside yourself, I should not be marrying this person. You always have the right. If, you know, I talked to someone along, why are you getting married? You don't even know how to get together. But the invitations have gone out. And so I didn't take my own lesson from that. And I struggled, I struggled, I struggled. You know, that's the thing about the irrefutable laws of the universe. You don't just learn them once. You don't learn them once. You have to learn them. But why did I have to learn that again? I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. And that's why I was so angry on myself. Why, why do you think it was happening for you? Yeah, it was happening for me. So what, what, what, if you zoom out and say, I needed that because of why? What, what was the lesson in that? The lesson in it was that you didn't take it the first time 'cause I already made that mistake. And this is what I also know, that if you don't get the lesson, it comes around wearing a different pair of pants. What does it feel like in your body when you're out of alignment? Oh, I was sick, I was, I was, I was like behind the wall. I wasn't, you know, clinically depressed, but I was, I became like numb. And numb, and numb to receiving, numb to giving, numb to just like trying to fix it, how do we fix it? How do we fix it? What do I do? What do I do, what do I do? So I, and, and, and, and, and if you've ever made a mistake and you knew before making the mistake, it was a mistake, there's nothing worse than being mad at yourself. Oh, is it where you say, I knew that. I knew that. I knew, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that. I knew that and I still did it. And, but I also understand that it was not being guided. I mean, you can't do better than the universe can't do any better for you than you waking up in the middle of night and you can't breathe. Okay. And do you hear that? If you're waking up in the middle of the night and you can't breathe, if you're pulling into a job that you hate going into, if you see the text message from the person and you go, ugh, yeah. That is a huge sledgehammer from the universe. We ignore and ignore and ignore and ignore and ignore. But I really hope now that you've heard Oprah tell you that story, you're not going to ignore it anymore. Well, here's something I can't ignore are extraordinary sponsors. I got to take a quick break so they can share a few words with you, but do not go anywhere because Oprah and I are going to be waiting for you. And she's going to share a couple things that I know you will love learning. Number one, she's going to dig into purpose. And number two, she's going to put you right at the scene of one of the biggest mistakes she's ever made. And right after the break, I'm going to ask for her advice on how you make decisions when you're afraid. You don't want to miss this to stay with us. That's Oprah Winfrey. She is here with you and me live in our Boston Studios. I have goosebumps just looking across this table and seeing Oprah Winfrey. We're going to jump right into the topic of fear and how to make decisions. I want to read to you this passage in your blockbuster or bestseller. This is the 10th anniversary edition, what I know for sure. What I love about this book is that it's all essays from O magazine and that you wrote. As I read each one, I can remember reading it. Oh, really? Because you read every magazine. I was a student. I was a student. I love this. This is on page 39. Whenever I'm faced with a difficult decision, I ask myself, what would I do if I weren't afraid of making mistakes, feeling rejected, looking foolish, or being alone? I know for sure that when you remove the fear, the answer you've been searching for comes into focus. As you walk into what you fear, you should know for sure that your deepest struggle can and if you're willing and open, produce your greatest strength. For the person who's listening right now, and in those moments when you're afraid and you start to question everything, how do you find the truth when the fear is so loud because the truth can feel quiet or scary? This reminds me of moving from Baltimore to Chicago and everybody around me telling me that the move to Chicago was going to destroy me and that I was living in Baltimore and you're doing well and you're an anchor woman and you should just keep this job and my father, my own father was like, well, you're not going to have to find a job like this again. And it was safe. But this is the most important thing. Understanding that the source, whatever you call it from which you've come, has put you here for a greater reason than whatever the small thing in front of you is. So one of the reasons why I've been able to maintain the center of myself is because even in that moment of struggle with own in the beginning of building that network, I was sad, I was numb, I was depressed, I was angry with myself, but I knew trouble don't last always. I knew that that two would eventually pass. I didn't know how because I live in the center of knowing that there's a bigger reason why I'm here. And I have always understood that I've always understood that I am a child of the universe. I am God's child. I am born to Vernon and Vernita Lee. But my coming here is such a fricking miracle. My parents were only together one time. One time. It was literally a one afternoon delight stand. It wasn't even a one night stand. One time. And I, born, colored. We weren't even black then. Colored in Mississippi were the dream for a colored girl. The dream for a colored girl did not exist. So this miracle that has become my life. I know exists for everybody who is willing to tap into the source of themselves to that. And that's what has eliminated my ultimate fears. I mean, I was, I've been anxious about things, but I know that ultimately I belong to something bigger than myself. And that my reason for being here is bigger than a job or bigger than what I could even know. And so my message and my offering to your audience is to ask the life force to use you for its highest good. Not you just tell it what you want to use you for its highest good. I will share this story. There was, there was a producer of mine in Baltimore who was the richest person I'd ever seen or known. Her name was Arlene Weiner. Her husband's a famous attorney there. And they, I went to her house in when I was 28, 29 years old. And she had us all over and I was like, wow, Arlene is rich. And I went into her home and there he's looking out the window, all these trees in the front yard, just like I counted six trees out of her window. I thought, wow, by ever gets the money, I'm going to have me some trees. I don't care about the cars, but I'm going to have me some trees. In one morning, I was sitting in the kitchen waiting on the water to boil, making tea. And I looked out the window and there were the six trees. I went, oh, there were those trees that I'd seen an Arlene's yard. And I walked out around to the porch and I looked, counted the trees, but I couldn't even count all of the trees. I could see the six from the window, but I couldn't see the hundreds beyond the six through the window. So I literally, you've been to my home. I live in a forest. I had a dream for six trees. My dream was six trees. The life force that I call God had a bigger dream for me. And that is my message. Whatever dream you're dreaming, surrendered that dream to the forest that brought you here, regardless of what name you give that force. Because what I know is the force by all the names that we call God, ain't jealous about the name. You know, ain't going to be jealous about the name. It's not going to say, oh, you didn't call me Allah. You didn't call me Jehovah. You didn't call me God. Okay, whatever you call that, whatever that is, the life force that brought you here. Lean into that dream for you. Because there is a dream for your life, for your life, for my life. Don't live in your little small six tree dream. Don't live in the forest of dreams for yourself. Lean into that. And I think the reason why people are so stuck because they can't see their connection to the thing that's greater than themselves. Your life isn't this small. It belongs to the world. The reason why we're all here is to give to the world, to give to myself, to feed myself, to take the lessons that I've learned, to go forward, to understand what happened to me, happened to me so that I can use it. I was raped so that I could help other women who were raped. I was not seen so that I could see other people. All the things that I didn't get, I now can give to other people. As can you, as can you, as you are doing, that's what it's for when you say it's all happening for a reason. Oh my goodness, it's happening so that it feeds and fuels you in a way that you have more to give. That's the lesson that we're missing. And we're missing it because we're so, we're so narrowly tracked. We're in our phones and you think your life is this big. You think your life is this big. But it belongs to the world, belongs to the world. Yeah, and I want you to really pay attention because I remember moments in my life where my life felt so small. The job I hated, the relationship, I didn't have the courage to get out of the debt that I was in, the anxiety I was feeling. I've been there too. I've been there. And here's the thing that is hard to believe. But I'm going to say it anyway. Yeah. If you can get yourself out of bed and if you can get yourself out the door, you can do a little experiment where you can prove to yourself that you are powerful beyond measure. In fact, I just did it this morning. It was 555 and I'd come out of the hotel and I was walking across a crosswalk and there was a woman that was walking that had her shoulders down and was looking at the ground and was like frowny face and walking. and you know, it's 555 and as I walked up to her, I smiled and just said, "Good morning!" And she perked right up and said, "Well, good morning!" And we just smiled and had this positive energy exchange. And that tiny little thing that you miss that's right in front of your face is this enormous power that you have through your energy and your attitude to flip a switch inside somebody else. I know. And when you do that, you are being of service. And the energy that you're putting out despite how horrible things may be that are going on in your life right now, it shows you. It shows you. It shifts. It shifts. Yeah. It doesn't pay the bills. But it shifts something in you to know that you still have the power to positively impact somebody else. I think that's how it begins, at least that's how it began for me, is to notice, and you already said it, every person, yes, you listening, you have a platform. Your platform is your family, your roommate, the people that you work with, it's the person that you meet or you pass and don't smile too. And recognizing the power that you have to impact people positively is how you start to center yourself in a deeper source. That is number one, certainly recognizing that. And the other really crucial thing is the religion that I practice, which is gratitude. I will tell you, beyond a shadow of any doubt that I have for any human being who's listening to us right now, that if you start a sincere, consistent practice of gratitude, your life will shift, because it is energetically, vibrationally, it causes your energy to change. And the vibration to change and also what you then began to attract into your life to change. It's the single greatest thing anybody can do from where you are, no matter how down you are, how stuck you are, if you start looking at what you have instead of what you haven't. And you just practice it. You just do five things, if you can't do five, do three and if you can't get to three, look at your breath, breathe, breathe, breathe, you're still breathing. And I'm thinking for myself, when I'm in flow is when I'm in my period of gratitude. I am most in flow and my life most works most perfectly when I am in the gratitude state. This is the thing I know people listening to this thing, well, OK, easy to do because you're Oprah. I got to be Oprah by doing that. That's how I got to be where I am by doing that. I have had a practice of honoring that source that's greater than myself since I was a little girl. I mean, I grew up speaking in the church and having the people say to my grandma, "Had it made? This here is a talking chow. You got yourself a talking chow here." And so talking and using my voice and being able to express to other people. And I realize now, so people talk about what is your purpose, what is your purpose, what is your purpose, how do you find your purpose? No matter who you are listening, if you were to pass away today, the people who you energize you would connect the ducts of your life. And at your funeral or memorial service would talk about what you offered, what you brought to them. And wherever you are in the journey, you are already creating a thread, a purpose that flows through everything that you've done. And my mind is inspiration and has been since I was four years old speaking in the Casi Esco church, standing on a stage, reciting and people saying, "My, my, my, my, my, my, my, this little chow can talk." And then being an orator and winning all of the oratoric contests when I was in school, that thread of speaking is what prepared me for the first audition when I sat down to do the radio show and then being recognized and brought into television. That thread has led me to sitting the Mel Robbins podcast, okay? That thread has brought me here today. And everyone listening to us has a thread. What's your thread? What is carried through? Thing or theme that has been through the course of your life. Mine is inspiration. What's yours? Encouragement. There you go. Yeah. Encouragement. Encouragement. Yes. That's exactly what you do. Yeah. Because I think it's easy to have the information or to get it. Yeah. But if you believe and convince yourself it won't work for you, you won't do the things that change your life. That's the difference. That's what you do. I weave encouragement through everything because I know it's what I've always needed. Yeah. Because when you can't, when you don't believe in yourself being able to borrow somebody else's belief in your ability can really help and that's an encouragement. That's what you do. Yeah. Girl. You're on it. You know, there's a, as you were talking about purpose, it reminded me of one of my favorite ways to think about purpose, which is that purpose is not the thing that you do. purpose is the thing that happens in others when you do the thing you do. Ooh. I like that one. I need to write that down. This is not the thing that you do. Purpose is not the thing that you do. Purpose is the thing that happens in others when you do the thing that you do. I love that, Miss Mel. Because it really weaves together what you were saying about how purpose doesn't have to be this big thing that you put on Instagram. It's actually something very quiet that you practice every day. And it also ties in what Maya said to you about it's, it's how you make people feel. Yeah. And it's you start doing the small thing, the small thing leads. I think the problem, one of the, I actually do think it's a problem with the way social media works is that I think a lot of people are just constantly bombarded with the lives of other people and trying to keep up with that. And so you think your life is supposed to look like that. And it's just coming from every direction. Every direction is telling you and you haven't gotten still enough with yourself. The answers are not out there, they just are not out there. The voice of God, God, silence is the language of God, silence is the language of God. And you can't hear it unless you are still enough, quiet enough within yourself. The moment you're asking out there and asking everybody, and what should I do and what should I do and what should I do. That's the moment that you get still. And even if still is just sitting on the toilet, seat with the door closed, with the door closed. Well, for some of us, that's the only place they can escape everybody, just to be still, to be able to feel what that thing is, it's trying to get through. There's nobody born that doesn't have it. You know, I have a very good friend who was giving advice to one of my daughters, funny enough, and he was saying to her, "Listen, you got a lot of gifts to give. Don't you dare show up in heaven with your pockets full of that song you didn't sing or that book you didn't write or that smile you didn't share. Is there anything left that you're still wanting to share or teach?" I was standing in the sphere in Las Vegas after the Bono concert and I'd gone with friends and we'd had the "ah, la, la, la, bono." And when it was all over, I walked to the edge of where we'd been sitting and they were all behind me and everybody was all over to the side and they were all cheering each other because it was the first performance of YouTube, Bono, at the sphere. I was standing alone on the side and I had that feeling. The same one I felt when I was five years old on the back porch and it was as clear to me, it said, "Wow, what just happened here? You could take people to the edge of the universe, you could use this stage, this screen, this window into the universe to allow people to connect to themselves in a way that they have never experienced before. You could connect them to the universe and to themselves and to each other. That is what that feeling said to me. It was a voice and it was a feeling and it was exactly the same as when I was five years old." It said, "Huh, this is an incredible arena, an incredible venue. I didn't even. know what I had just seen, but it's not being used to its maximum potential. You could use it to its maximum potential. How do you do that and share the experience of what it means to be fully alive with people? How do you connect people to the light within themselves using the tools of this space? That's what the voice said to me. This was 2023. Wow. 2023? Almost three years ago. And in the beginning, everybody thought it was thinking of it as a show. And I was like, it's not a show. It's an experience. It's to be felt, not just seen. How do we bring the team together that can create feelings for people. And so now three years later, this dream is being scored by one of the greatest musical composers on Earth, Max Richter. So it's an immersive musical light experience of people coming together to ignite the light within ourselves. You know what I think is so amazing about this. And I want you to really consider everything that Oprah has poured into you and shared with you today. I think it's easy when you're standing in a moment and you look backwards to see how all the dots connect. And it requires deep faith to stand in the present moment and believe that where you are is leading you somewhere. And it is much larger and grander than anything you could possibly imagine for yourself if you keep walking in that faith, if you keep telling the truth, if you keep staying centered and grounded in your intention. And you follow these fundamental laws that you have taught us, the energy you put out is the energy you get back. I think it's really cool that even for somebody like you who has achieved things that are beyond our wildest imaginations, that here you are doing something that even five years ago was not even on your radar. Was it on my radar? Was not something you would have possibly imagined was a thing. And so it proves yet again how when you're clear about the way you're showing up and serving the world and you're clear about the reason why you're here, which is inspiration. Yeah. That life does rise up. Yeah. And my prayer has always been use me. Show me how. Show me. Show me. Show me. Show me. What is the next? Is there an next? Oh, you just want me to rest? I'll do that too. By actually being in conversation with the life force within me has led me to the highest grounds possible for myself. And I've been asking that how can I be used? I mean, I am 72 and very much aware of the urgency of time. Very much aware that I have one solid good decade left. Very much aware. So I'm looking at my life as though I am going I have one solid decade left to give and offer the message that I came to give and to do it with clarity and do it with love and do it without ego and to do it as an offering to say, this is why I came. I think we should all steal what you said. When you said, I believe I have a decade to do what I came to do. Yeah. And I don't care how young or old you are. Imagine if you started living as if you had a decade. You had a decade to do what you came here to do. And how that focus shifts your intention. You know, the big dream for me right now is the spear, but I also realize in every day, in every, in my every day life, that every encounter that people that people are seeing me and that I feel like it is my responsibility to actually also see them as well. It's beautiful. Yeah. I want to read to page 79, what I know for sure. Okay. What did I know then? When you make loving others, the story of your life, there's never a final chapter because the legacy continues. You lend your light to one person and he or she shines it on another and another and another. And I know for sure that in the final analysis of our lives, when the to-do lists or no more, when the frenzy is finished, when our email boxes are empty, the only thing that will have any lasting value is whether we've loved others and whether they've loved us. And I can tell you for sure that I know for sure that you loved us. And we all love you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oprah Winfrey, what are your parting words? My parting words are you were born to fulfill the dream of your life here on earth. You were born into this planet, into the density of this gravitational pull to fulfill the dream of your life and of the creator's dream of your life here on earth. You heard her. That's right. I love you, Oprah Winfrey. I love you too, Mel. Thank you for having me. Oh my gosh. Thank you. And thank you. Thank you for making the time. Thank you for spending it with me and Oprah. And thank you for being generous with this conversation with the people in your life. It is a gift that you can give to other people that will inspire them, awaken them, remind them. And in case no one else tells you today as your friend, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you. I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better life. Now get about the business of freaking doing it. Yes, do you want the cheer away? Oh well, now we're breaking stuff. It's okay. Mel, you look so good. This is the first time I've had makeup done for my own show. Because I was talking to look bad. We're nowhere without our hairdresser honey, child. Yes. Oprah Winfrey. Oh my gosh. Oprah Winfrey. Okay, now you're pushing in. Okay. Yeah. Action. Oprah Winfrey. Oh my god. Let's get the coffee up before today and support. Oh, don't worry. No, don't worry. Don't worry about that. I'll clean that up. I knocked it over. It's going to be the ultimate. Uh-huh. Are you going to come out and like a bed? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I want to see this. No, I'm so freaked out about the glasses. Wait, do you see what we ordered? Oh my gosh. Throw all the practice shots. No, you didn't. Yes, we did. And so if you need an extra pair, you can actually there you go. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. So good, girl. You've got the goods. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.