The Path Made Clear, page 6
At the time, I said I was “getting my butt kicked” in the news over the way OWN—the Oprah Winfrey Network—was “struggling,” as they reported it. It felt like everywhere I looked, critics were taking me to task for OWN’s performance. One of the toughest headlines announced, “Oprah Winfrey Isn’t Quite Holding Her OWN.” That one stung. I had enjoyed a long stretch at the top and was proud to be known as a powerful businesswoman. Now it felt like every decision I made ended up on the nightly news crawl. And so when Harvard reached out, all I could think was, What can I teach about success when I’ve stopped succeeding? It was a frustrating time. And to be frank, I was embarrassed.
At one point, I was deliberating what to do while in the shower. It’s not a myth that some people make their best decisions in the shower—there really is something about the warm spray and lack of distraction that helps crystallize your thoughts. And indeed, as the water cascaded down and I thought about that mountain metaphor, I decided I would immediately stop calling the experience of building my own network anything but a privilege. I mean, really, I told myself, who gets to do this? It is the honor of a lifetime. If you think about it, people all over the world dream of climbing Kilimanjaro.
The words to an old hymn started playing in my head: Trouble don’t last always. I got out of the shower and thought, This too shall pass, and I will be the better for it.
One of my favorite lessons from Joel Osteen is, “What follows ‘I am’ is what we’re inviting into our life.” Meaning when you use phrases like,“I am exhausted,” or, “I am overwhelmed,” you are inviting exactly that kind of energy into your life. The moment I shifted my perspective from I am struggling to I am honored, my climb was transformed from an arduous trek into a still challenging but now stimulating adventure, and my entire outlook changed. Ever since that time, whenever I’ve encountered a disruption, rather than allowing it to rattle me, I ask myself one of the most meaningful and productive questions there is: What is this here to teach me?
Today, OWN continues to evolve. Every day brings a new teachable moment. And I look back on each step of the journey with gratitude.
The insights I hope you will embrace in this chapter reflect the knowledge I try to impart to my girls in South Africa as they consider any worthwhile pursuit: “There will always be setbacks. What you are experiencing is a detour. It’s not the end of the road. You’ve got to be prepared to fail up.”
Most important, I teach the girls that everything that is happening to them is a means to help them evolve into who they are meant to become. Nothing is ever out of order.
So when their will is being tested and all seems lost, I advise them to stop, get still, and listen. Their heart will tell them the next right step. And once they figure it out, it’s time to look around and ask themselves, Who is standing with me in the gap? Because what I discovered long ago is that when life is treating you well and it seems you can’t go wrong, there will always be people who want to ride with you in the limo. But what you really want are the people who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
As you make your way up your mountains, no matter how steep the climb, remember the words of Nick Ashford:
If you need me call me no matter
where you are
No matter how far don’t worry baby
Just call my name I’ll be there in
a hurry
You don’t have to worry
’Cause baby there ain’t no mountain
high enough
Your Kilimanjaro awaits.
—Oprah
ECKHART TOLLE
ECKHART TOLLE: Being challenged is a good thing. Let’s look at the nature of challenges. First of all, if you look at your own life, you may find that what look like obstacles to where you want to go, where you want to be, what you want to achieve, seem to arise almost continuously in the form of difficult people or difficult situations. Some people resent being challenged by life. They think challenges should not exist. But if you have lived for long enough, at some point you realize that the world isn’t here to make you happy. It can’t do that.
OPRAH: It’s like what you say about human evolution: It’s not linear. Rather, it’s take two steps forward in your life and one step back. And the farther back you go, the more of a bounce you have to move forward. Right?
ECKHART: Yes. We definitely have evolved in consciousness. But it does not go in a straight line upward. You regress, and then you go forward. You regress, and then you go forward a bit more. It goes in cycles. We need the crisis. There are two levels of truth. One is to see the craziness of what’s happening now. And another is to see, from a higher perspective, that what’s happening now is part of our evolution.
OPRAH: It needs to break down so that something else can break through.
ECKHART: Yes. That’s right.
Vice President JOE BIDEN
A tractor trailer broadsided and killed my wife and daughter, and my two sons were badly injured. As we walked out of the hospital, my mother grabbed my hand and said, “Joey, out of everything horrible, something good will come if you look hard enough for it.” I thought it was cruel at one point, but that was my mother’s notion. We were taught just to get up. When you get knocked down, just get up. And move forward. When you think about it, so many people, without the kind of help that I had, do it every day. Right now, somebody’s gone through something significantly worse than me, and they have nobody behind them, and they’re getting up and they’re moving. It gives me such overwhelming confidence in people. The ability to absorb pain and the spiritual reassurance that comes from knowing those we lost are still a part of us.
Father RICHARD ROHR
FATHER RICHARD ROHR: For a marriage to be successful, you’ve got to have someone who wants you to grow into who you really are. And if you don’t have that, I have seen people become smaller after marriage. But love has to expand. It always has to expand. I believe we each create our private salvation project—what will make me wonderful, what will make me look beautiful and be admired? And every time people have to let go of that in its present form and reshape it, they say, “Darn, I based my life on that salvation project and now it’s gone.” You know? “I based my life on looking good or being a priest or being married. And now that’s falling apart. That’s dying.” And you never go there voluntarily. You fall.
OPRAH: Yes. So this happens when you go through a divorce. At first you fight it, and you think it’s the worst thing that could ever happen to you. And then you come out the other side and you feel a greater sense of freedom and closer to your true self.
FATHER ROHR: Yes, it might take you five years to get there. But you wake up one day and say, My God, this is much better.
OPRAH: Or you lose your job.
FATHER ROHR: Yes, or your reputation or your money. You know, all of those tragedies. That’s the way the self expands. I’m sorry to say it’s true, but it’s true. It’s all what you do with suffering. If you don’t transform your suffering, Oprah, I always say, with 100 percent certitude, you will transmit your suffering to your family, your neighbors, even to your country.
ROB BELL
We always talk about marriage as a creative act. You’re creating something new in the world. For many people, that becomes heavy. It becomes, Well, let’s just try to stay together.
Duty. Obligation. As opposed to, We get to make something with this life. My wife, Kristen, and I now see that we get to go on an adventure and create something new. So every problem becomes not, Oh my word. Are we going to make it? But, Well, look what came down the road today. I wonder what this will produce. I wonder what we’ll learn through this. It’s just a shift in how you view life and life together. It’s an adventure in which you actually get to create and cocreate a life.
ALANIS MORISSETTE
ALANIS MORISSETTE: I thought that all would be helped and healed and soothed by fame.
OPRAH: Because you believed, When I get famous …
ALANIS: I will be less lonely. And I will be understood and I will be loved and that love will go in and heal any of the broken parts.
OPRAH: And the truth is, there’s no difference between fame or, thoughts like, When I get thin, or, When I get rich, or, When I meet the right guy.
ALANIS: When I get that job. Yes. When I have babies. When I retire.
OPRAH: Then I will be happy. I will be healed. It’s all the same thing.
ALANIS: And everything will be okay. Yes. As though somehow we as humans could be exempt from pain. You know, one of the big lessons I’ve learned has been that if I can be comfortable with pain, which is different from suffering, but comfortable with pain as just an indication. And, it’s potentially a daily thing, in my case, then there won’t be my living in the future all the time. That one day if and when I’ll be happy and that on the other side there is this great sense of peace.
CHERYL STRAYED
How long do we hold on to this old idea? I was going to do this job or I was going to go to this school or I was going to be married to this person. And it doesn’t serve us anymore.
I once wrote a letter to my younger self and told the younger me, It’s okay to rewrite my story from time to time. And not only okay, but necessary. Sometimes you have to see things through, even though they don’t cause you joy. But sometimes you need to say, You know what? I’m not going to surrender my joy. I’m not going to be this thing anymore. That story is no longer true. I’m going to be this other thing. This other way.
TRACEY JACKSON
OPRAH: Many times when you try to change, there’s a whole circle of people who actually liked you better the old way. And a lot of people are torn between that life and the life that’s calling for them.
TRACEY JACKSON: You develop languages with people and you develop patterns of behavior. For instance: I’m the dysfunctional one; you’re the functional one. I’m the one in control. You’re the one who’s a little bit crazy. I’m always depressed. Whatever it may be. But when you change that, all of a sudden their role in your life is put into question. And they start having to question their own behavior.
TRACY MCMILLAN
The lesson that took me the longest to learn is that I have to practice hard-core compassion for myself. Because I used to be very hard on myself. I thought I was supposed to know things before it was possible to know them. And the truth is that everything we’re doing, that’s our life’s work. My life’s work is to learn how to love better. My life’s work is to learn how to put light in places where it’s dark.
CINDY CRAWFORD
The idea of getting older is daunting and intimidating and not that fun, really. But recently I shifted to I have the privilege of getting older, and I really like that because it’s easy to spin off into the negative, as opposed to Aren’t we lucky? That we’re here, that we get to get older. I think it’s a lot easier to see yourself getting older if you’re happy in your life or if you’re doing meaningful work, and you are contributing to life in a way that makes you feel good about yourself.
JON BON JOVI
Anytime you think you’ve hit the top of the mountain, the truth is, you’ve just reached another mountain, and it’s there to climb over again. Each step along the way is just a life lesson in humility. And it gives you the ammunition to go on and be excited about the next day.
JOEL OSTEEN
What follows “I am” is what we’re inviting into our life. You say “I am tired.” “I am frustrated.” “I am lonely.” Well, now you’ve invited more of that in. So the principle is to turn it around and invite what you want into your life. There’s a balance to it. I don’t think you’re denying the facts. You’re just not magnifying the negative. Rather, start saying, “I am a masterpiece. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am strong. I am talented.” I think that is speaking to the core of what God’s put in each one of us. He has equipped us. He’s empowered us. We have what we need to fulfill our destiny. But we have to bring it out. And you can’t bring it out being against yourself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE GIVE
My life’s goal is to be of service to a greater good. Wherever that true calling takes me, I’ve always been willing to go.
—Oprah
My spiritual queen mother, the great Maya Angelou, was for me the ultimate teacher.
Only Maya had the ability to reduce me to my seven-year-old self simply by the way she greeted me.
“Hello, you darling girl,” she would say at the start of every conversation. Her e-mails always set a loving tone, opening with, Oh Dearie O.
I’ll never forget the first time she shared with me what would later become a much beloved refrain: People may not remember what you did or what you said, but they always remember how you made them feel.
What her words so brilliantly remind us is that every single moment is an opportunity to be of service to another human being. That is what I hope will be your takeaway from this chapter. I’m not referring just to volunteering or contributing to a cause, though those are wonderful, worthwhile activities that strengthen us. What I am talking about is committing, decision by decision, to a sustained, heartfelt, compassionate approach to life.
We are more alike than we are different, Maya used to say.
Imagine what would happen if two people with opposing views came together to inform each other from a position of wanting to be of service. If you’re caught in the deluge of negativity and vitriol we’re bombarded with on a daily basis, this would seem a nearly impossible idea. But I believe we’re closer to reconnecting than we realize.
When I accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2018 Golden Globes, my speech caused a bit of a stir. It was not my intention to spark talk of a presidential campaign, but I can tell you why I believe that speech resonated with so many people. In my conversations with men and women from many walks of life, I have felt a growing shift, a mutual yearning on all sides for a different way of envisioning the world. There is an eagerness rising within all of us to bridge our divides, to bring an end to vicious attacks on those whose viewpoints differ from ours, and to focus on elevating humanity. What I was trying to express in my speech was that all humans have value and a voice. And I consider it my purpose here on earth to celebrate and validate both.
The sheer volume of reaction to what I said at the Golden Globes is a direct testament to the fact that millions of us are ready to seek out and stand up for what’s good, right, and just in our world.
Maya once told me that my legacy will be every person whose life was touched by my being here. I believe the same is true for all of us. When it comes down to it, life can be measured in exchanges of energy. Positive or negative: What is the energy you choose to bring to the world? Positive exchanges multiply and grow. That’s why giving on any level feels so great. You are creating an actual force for good.
Most people wait to assess their legacy until their second or third act of life, when there is time to sit back and reflect. But what if, right now, you began to structure your decisions based on how you want to be remembered, rather than on what you believe you still need to accomplish? What I’m suggesting is that you don’t wait until you’re sitting on your porch in your rocking chair to evaluate the character of your actions. Ask yourself today, in the middle of your complicated, demanding, chaotic life: What do I want my legacy to be? And then start living from that intention.
As Maya always said: When you know, teach. When you get, give.
—Oprah
BRYAN STEVENSON
Often we measure how we’re doing in life by how much money we make or how many people know our name, and all these other kinds of metrics. I think there’s another way of measuring how you’re doing: by how many stones you catch. By how often you actually position yourself to help those who need help. There’s something redemptive, powerful, and transformative about catching the stones that people throw at each other unfairly. We run from problems, most of us. But sometimes we have to run to the problem.
GLORIA STEINEM
If you are in a place where you’re more powerful than the people around you, listen as much as you talk. And if you’re less powerful, talk as much as you listen.
THICH NHAT HANH
Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of the other person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: Help him or her to empty their heart. Remember that you are helping him or her to suffer less, and even if they say things full of wrong perceptions, full of bitterness, you are still capable of continuing to listen with compassion. If you want to help them correct their perception, you wait for another time; at this time, you just listen with compassion and help him or her to suffer less. One hour like that can bring transformation and healing.
U.S. Representative JOHN LEWIS
During the Freedom Rides, or during the sit-ins, during my civil-rights efforts in Mississippi, or working in Selma, I never ever thought about giving up and saying, This is too much. I never thought about dropping out. You come to that point where you’re saying, I’ve got to go on and see what the end’s going to be. You have to. You have to get out there and push and pull to try to make things better for a generation yet unborn. Each one of us has the ability to resist, not to be quiet. We have to be brave. We have to be bold. And sometimes you have to fight some of the old battles over and over again for the next generation. You too can make a contribution, and you must.
