Shadowing Practice: Oprah Winfrey - You Will Never Be The Same Again | Motivation - Learn English Speaking with Video
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I was raped when I was nine by a cousin and never told anybody until I was in my late 20s.
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Not only was I raped by a cousin,
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I was raped by a cousin and then later sexually molested by a friend of the family and then by an uncle.
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It was just an ongoing continuous thing.
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So much so that I started to think, you know, this is the way life is.
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As a result of that, got myself into a lot of trouble and believed that I was responsible for it.
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It wasn't until I was 36 years old, 36, that I connected the fact, oh, that's why I was that way.
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I always blamed myself.
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Even though intellectually I would say to other kids, I would speak to people and say, oh, the child is never to blame.
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You're never responsible for molestation in your life.
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I still believed I was responsible somehow, that I was a bad girl.
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The same thing that in some cases causes a child to be abused is the same thing
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that causes you to be abused as an adult,
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is the same thing that in your adulthood that allows you to never be able to say no to people.
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And I realized that I was the kind of child who was always searching for for love and affection and attention.
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Unfortunately there are adults who will take advantage of that and misread your intentions.
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Part of the process for me as an adult has been to come to recognize
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that my inability as an adult female to say no is the same thing
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that caused me to be victimized as a child.
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Many times I would get myself into situations as an adult where I didn't want to say no
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because I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
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I didn't want to say no because I don't want anybody angry with me.
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I didn't want to say no because I don't want people to think I'm not nice.
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And it that to me has been the greatest lesson of my life is to recognize
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that I am solely responsible for it and not trying to please other people, not living my life to please other people,
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but doing what my heart says all the time.
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That's the biggest lesson.
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You know the other big lesson for me has been to
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learn not only do you have the right to do whatever you want, you have the right to change your mind.
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Like I'd say, oh but I have to
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because I said I was gonna do it
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and then later you think about it you realize I shouldn't be doing this
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but I said I was gonna do it and I don't want to make anybody upset.
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It's taken me 37 years to figure that out, to get that straight.
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I think, oh my goodness, if I had learned this 20 years ago, all the time I could have saved.
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Look where I could have been.
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I don't know if men have this problem.
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I think men who are, for instance, abused sexually or physically, that it manifests outwardly in some way,
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that their anger and their rage takes on a different kind of direction.
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I think women to a great extent, and I know many, many women who were sexually abused,
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internalize it and then allow themselves to abuse themselves later on in life.
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You know, you just don't allow yourself to be all that you can be, whereas a man will make it more external and will be angrier.
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I don't believe that anything happens without a reason, and in order to believe that is the truth, you have to believe it in all circumstances.
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If you're going to take responsibility for your life, then you have to take it in all forms.
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I certainly wish that I had been the kind of child who told the first time.
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And so because I wasn't the kind of child who did that,
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a part of my mission in life now is to encourage every other child who's abused.
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You tell.
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You tell and if they don't believe you, you keep telling.
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You tell everybody until somebody listens to you.
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If nothing else, that's part of something good that came out of that experience for me.
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Because I don't want it to happen to another child.
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I don't want another child to be afraid of saying this is what happened to me.
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I was living with my mother and living under circumstances
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that a lot of young children have to deal with today
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and if you'd asked me at the time
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if we were poor I probably would have said no because
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when you are living it
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and you don't know anything else you think that's the way life is I think
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that success is a process and I believe
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that my first Easter speech at the age of three
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and a half was the beginning and
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that every other speech every other book I read every other time I spoke in public was a building block
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so that by the time I first sat down to audition in front of a television camera,
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what allowed me to read it so comfortably and be
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so at ease with myself at that time was the fact that I'd been doing it a while.
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If I'd never read a book, I'd never spoken in public before, I would have been traumatized by it.
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So the fact that we went on the air with the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986 nationally,
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well it's because I've been being myself since I was 19.
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I would not have been able to be as comfortable with myself had I not made mistakes on the air
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and been allowed to make mistakes on the air and understand
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that it doesn't matter there's no such thing to me as an embarrassing moment
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if I tripped and fell if my bra strap showed
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if I fell flat on my face there's no such thing as an embarrassing moment
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because I know that there is not a moment
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that I could possibly experience on the air
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that somebody else hasn't already experienced it's no big deal
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I can't be embarrassed I can't be embarrassed you can laugh at yourself
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and you can make a mistake and it's not the end of the world.
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You don't have to be perfect.
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I truly believe that thoughts are the greatest vehicle to change power and success in the world.
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Everything begins with thoughts.
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I mean, the chairs that we're sitting in, the room that we're in, all started because somebody thought it.
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I thought up
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The Color Purple for myself.
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I read the book.
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When I heard that there was going to be a movie, I started talking it up for myself.
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I felt it so intensely that I had to be a part of that movie.
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I really do believe I created it for myself.
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I wanted it more than anything in the world.
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and would have done anything to do it.
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It was all, I think, a part of the process of growth for me to recognize it can be done.
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I had done a movie called Beloved, a book written by Toni Morrison.
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I worked on that movie for 10 years, and then it came out and it bombed.
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For the longest time, when I would read people say, read that people had said it was a bomb, I would get like, ugh,
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clutched, because I couldn't even say the word bomb.
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I couldn't say it failed.
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It was, it felt like at the time, one of the biggest, you know, disasters of my career.
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It felt like the saddest thing.
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It sent me into depression.
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And what I learned from that experience is what we talk about in the book,
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is you take the thing that was the worst thing for you, the thing that was the challenge,
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and you begin to look at what it was that you really benefited, or how you benefited from that thing.
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And what I learned from that beloved experience, because at the time that it bombed, I went into depression about it.
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My former depression was eating macaroni and cheese for breakfast every morning.
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And about 40 pounds later, I was talking to a friend and they were saying, so why did this take you down so?
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And I said, because I just wanted everybody to feel about that movie the way I felt about it.
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I wanted people to understand that you could be an enslaved person, come through that and still have love.
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And the person said to me, well, I felt that.
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I said, well, I actually wanted millions of people, not just you.
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And then I decided that from all of my work going forward, and that was in 1998 when it bombed,
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I would no longer be attached to the work.
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I would allow myself to detach from it
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and just offer whatever I was doing offer it I say
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this is what I'm doing this is what I would love for you to receive it in the manner in
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which I'm giving it if you don't receive
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that then the joy for me was in the giving of it this is the other thing
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I think that's really important that I've come to on my own I just realized
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that you reach a point where you have to ask yourself what is enough what is enough and you
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You know, I live a really huge life surrounded by,
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it was actually a goal of mine when I was first doing the color purple in 1985.
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I remember writing in my journal then that if I ever get enough money, I want a house surrounded by beautiful things.
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And so I have done that, I have achieved that over and then over and then over.
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And I look around and I say, okay, you got enough.
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It's okay.
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I'm satisfied.
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I have all the things that I need and so now I can focus on how do I take what I know,
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what I've gained, who I've become in the world,
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and how can I use that in service to other people in a way that makes them happier.
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And that for me that's part of what this book is about.
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This is the thing, I remember years ago during the beloved period actually
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when I was being interviewed by a reporter
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and then about a decade later I ran into the same reporter I didn't remember her
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but she remembered me and she said yeah I remembered you I interviewed you during the beloved
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so that was a time and she said
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but no what I realized is
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that you're the same person you just to become more of yourself
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and I thought I actually think that's right I think
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that one of the reasons why I am
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so proud of myself is not just because I escaped apartheid Mississippi
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and was able to get an education and becomes successful in life it's
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because I have paid attention I have paid attention I am a great observer of my life
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and the lives of other people and every day on
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that show it was a classroom for people who were viewing but it was a major classroom for me.
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And so I learned by watching other people's dysfunction, their struggles,
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their triumphs, celebrating in their joys about the meaning of life and what it means to live a full and engaged life.
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And I learned that one of the most important things that everybody is looking for is to be validated,
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to be seen, and to know that they matter.
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And that no matter who you are, Barack Obama, The first time he came on the show as senator.
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He finished the interview and said, that good?
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Is that all right?
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Good for you?
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Beyonce, when she finished teaching me how to twerk, said, was that all right?
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When I interviewed a woman who had lost three of her children to cancer, she said, did I do okay?
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And what I realized is in one form or another, at the end of every conversation, people would say that.
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And I started to see the pattern and understood that what people really want is to know, did you hear me?
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Did you see me?
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And did what I say mean anything to you?
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And in recognizing that, I was able to become a better interviewer
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because I can give you that thing that you're looking for.
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I know how to help you be better in that seat, just as you're doing with us here today.
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Be better in that seat and tell your story in a way that when you leave here, you got what you wanted.
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I would say be easy with yourself.
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Be easy with yourself.
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And it's all going to work out because one of the primary,
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I think, principles that has led me to success is intention
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and I think clarifying the intention based on the principles
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that we set out and the guidelines and manual work that we set out in the book, clarifying the intention, your reason for being.
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I mean, we talk in the book about asking yourself the question about what you're willing to live for
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and what you're willing to die for and getting clear on that because that is really the real work of your life.
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Everybody's going to find a job that's going to be able to bring you money and you're going to be successful.
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You're going to get all of that.
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But why were you really brought here?
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By whatever means you think you got here.
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Why are you really here?
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You've come here to serve and you've come here to love.
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And how are you going to use your service in love?
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First and foremost to yourself because you've got, the work is not to make yourself perfect, but to start to begin to make yourself whole.
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How are you going to do that?
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How do you fill yourself up to be a whole person, a full person of kindness,
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of grace, and being able to offer
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that into the world along with all the wonderful skills you all are going to have?
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How do you offer that into the world in service
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that lifts you up and allows you to meet the rising of your life and lifts other people up.
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And so changing the paradigm to how, not just what am I gonna do, but how am I going to serve?
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How am I going to serve?
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And my prayer for myself since I was a little girl is God use me, God use me.
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And whether you believe in my God or your God or no God,
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the question is how can you be used in service with all this work you're putting in, all this stuff that you're doing,
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you're doing that for what?
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You're doing that to be of service, first and foremost to yourself, your family and your community.
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And then how do you push that out into the world?
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And if the world is 20 people, 20 ,000 people, 20 million people as it was with me every day,
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it does not matter because what really matters is that you're building legacy.
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This is the greatest definition of legacy I ever heard.
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When I opened my school in South Africa for young girls, one of them is here today,
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who's now grown in law school and starting work in New York.
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But I opened that school for girls who were like me.
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I grew up in rural Mississippi, no running water, no electricity.
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My grandmother and I on what I thought was a farm, and I went back and realized it was just an acre.
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It was so big in my mind.
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I went back, oh, this is not a farm.
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This is actually just a yard.
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When I was growing up there, I had a dream for myself.
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I remember being out with my grandmother washing clothes in a big iron pot because we didn't have a washing machine,
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of course, and her putting clothes on the line and saying,
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you better watch me because one day you're going to have to learn how to do this for yourself.
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And I will tell you that the voice inside myself, that all of us have, that feeling, that spirit, that inner voice.
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That voice at four years old said, Mm -mm, mm -mm, this is not going to be my life.
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But I had sense enough not to tell my grandmother.
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I had sense enough not to say that out loud, but I could feel inside myself.
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I'm not going to be doing this.
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And it turned out to be true.
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But what I do know now is what
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Maya Angelou told me about legacy.
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When I came back from opening the school, I said, Maya, the school is going to be my greatest legacy.
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These girls are amazing.
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And I can't even tell you, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy is going to be the great.
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She said, you have no idea what your legacy is going to be.
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I said, oh, no, I'm telling you, it's going to be these girls.
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You should have been there.
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You should have seen it.
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She was making biscuits at the time and she put the dough down
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When Maya puts the dough down get back
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She said I said you have no idea what your legacy will be
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Because your legacy is not your name on a building
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Your legacy isn't even the lives of those girls.
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It's every life you touch
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Your legacy is every life you touch and you are building your legacy here and now.
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So everything that you do going forward, every life that you encounter and experience and the way you treat yourself
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and the way you treat other people is building your legacy.
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So think about it in terms of the bigger goal and meeting the rising that is there waiting for you.
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And the fact that you've gotten here and all the things that you had to overcome means you've already won.
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So go forward, that's what I say.
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One of the challenges, especially when you're going through anything, is not allowing the emotions to take over you,
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and to be able to separate the feeling from who you know yourself to be,
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and being able to have that little space in between where you can be the observer of the feeling, when you can observe the feeling
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and not be absorbed by the feeling you can feel it
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and then take the wheel for yourself it's just like you know
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when i was eight years old i memorized invictus
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and at the time i was reciting out of the night
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that covers me black as a pit from pole the pole
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i didn't know what the hell i was talking about at eight years old
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but i did know that the last stanza i am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul,
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that had meaning for me even at eight years old.
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And so as I've grown into myself, become more of who I was meant to be,
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the mastery of that comes when you can separate those emotions and feelings from the who of who you are.
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So The Oprah Winfrey Show was on for 25 years, was the most successful television talk show in the history of all television.
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I did it for 25 years.
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Never missed a day.
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Never missed a day.
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And the reason it was the most successful is because around the second year of it,
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I changed the motivation and intention of the show.
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I went from just trying to be a talk show competing with everybody else in the rat race of ratings
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and literally sat down with my producers and said, how do we use this show as a force for good how do we
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and that came after doing three shows in a row i'd done a show with the ku klux clan
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and i realized in the middle of that show that i wasn't helping anybody i thought i was
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exposing their vitriol when in fact they were using their appearance on the show to recruit other members
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and so i could feel that going on in the audience
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and then another show that we did with on people who had infidelities
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and a husband had come on with his with his wife
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and his girlfriend the producers were so happy that they got the husband
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and the wife and the girlfriend and in the middle of
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that show the husband humiliated his wife and said she's pregnant
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on national television and when that happened i was so ashamed that that had happened on my platform I said,
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this will never happen to me again, and I will never do a show like the Klan again.
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And so my producers were like, well, what are we going to do?
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I said, we're going to turn this around,
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and we're going to, nobody bring me an idea that you are not clear about what the intention is.
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And we are going to only do shows that come from the intention of how can we best serve the audience.
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And I'm telling you, after every show, there was a meeting to say, did we serve the intention?
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Did we do what we say we wanted to do? and how can we do it better the next time.
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And that is when the joy, the happiness, the level of satisfaction,
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the level of pleasure and everything changed for me in doing that show.
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And it's also when the numbers took off.
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All sort of happened at the same time, but it was because it was intentional.
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and we were trying to use it as a service and not just as a show.
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My favorite quotes of all time is Martin Luther King, who says, not everybody can be famous,
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but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service.
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And what I found is no matter what it is you're doing for other people,
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no matter how tedious or menial the job may seem to you,
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that if you shift the paradigm of whatever your work is to how do I use this to serve, How can I be of service?
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Whether it's your talents, whatever it is you're offering, if it is offered in service, the shifting of the paradigm to I'm going to use
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this to serve makes a world of difference in the way you put
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that energy out into the world and the way that it comes back to you.
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That's what I learned from doing the show.
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My life is fueled by my being and the being fuels the doing.
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So I come from a centered place.
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I come from a focused place.
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I come from compassion, it's just my nature.
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I come from a willingness to understand and to be understood.
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And I come from wanting to connect.
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I mean, the secret of that show for 25 years is that people could see themselves in me.
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All over the world, they could see themselves in me.
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And even as I became more and more financially successful, which was a big surprise to me,
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I was like, oh my god, this is so exciting.
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I got more than 30 ,000 by the time I was 30.
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So, but what I realized is through the whole process, because I'm grounded in my own self,
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that although I could have more shoes, my feet stayed on the ground, although I was wearing better shoes.
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So I could keep my feet on the ground, even though I could get more shoes.
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And I could understand, I could understand that it really was because I was grounded,
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was doing and continue to this day to do the consciousness work.
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I work at staying awake.
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And being awakened is just another word for spirituality, but spirituality throws people off and they think you mean religion.
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When I was hiring people for my company looking for presidents, when people would come in,
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I'd say, tell me, what is your spiritual practice? and literally people go, well, I'm not religious.
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I said, I didn't ask you about your religion.
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I asked you what's your spiritual practice.
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What do you do to take care of yourself?
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What do you do to keep yourself centered?
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What do you do to the, and you know, one woman started crying, you know, that's not the person.
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Everything is fueled that comes from me really wanting to be a better person on earth.
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And this is what I know to be true.
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The reason why the show worked is because I understood that audience,
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my viewers, the people who watched us every day and would come and just like you all did,
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get tickets and they would come with their family.
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You all just came across campus, but that's good too.
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People would come from all over the world just to be there with their aunts
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and their mothers and they'd come with their cousins and there'd be a few men in there going, what the hell?
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Or saying, well, I went to Oprah with you.
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I went to Oprah and I'll at least give me clear for three or four weeks I went to Oprah with you.
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I had such regard for that and I just had a conversation with John Mackey who runs
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Whole Food and has written this fabulous book you should get it called Conscious Capitalism
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and he was talking about how the investment in the stakeholders the people who you are serving
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that connection between the people who you're trying to serve
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and sell to is equally as important as the people who you're buying from, equally as important as the people who are,
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you know, supporting you financially, as your stockholders if you are, you know, a public company.
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So I always understood that there really was no difference between me and the audience.
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At times I might have had better shoes, but at the core of what really matters, that we are the same.
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And you know how I know that? because all of us are seeking the same thing.
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You're here at this fabulous school and we'll go out into the world
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and each pursue based upon what you believe your talents are, what your skills are, maybe your gifts are,
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but you're seeking the same thing.
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Everybody wants to fulfill the highest, truest expression of yourself as a human being.
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That's what you're looking for the highest, truest expression of yourself as a human being.
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And because I understand that, I understand that if you're working in a bakery and that's where you want to be,
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that may be what you've always wanted to do is to bake pies for people
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or bake cakes for people or to offer your gift, then that's for you.
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And there's no difference between you and me, except that's your platform.
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That's your show every day.
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So my understanding of that.. has allowed me to reach everyone.
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And there's no way that you wouldn't, because that's what I truly feel.
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I first came across this question,
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what happened to you, when I was doing an interview with Dr. Bruce Perry a couple of years ago for 60
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Minutes Story I was doing.
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Now I've known Dr. Perry for over 30 years.
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I first started interviewing him in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s on the Oprah show,
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when we were talking about raising children and how important it is those first zero to six years.
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So I've been hearing about what it means to nurture and support the brain early on.
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It wasn't until that conversation a couple of years ago.
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I don't know whether, I think it's because of where I was in my life at the time.
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I opened a school in South Africa.
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I've had these wonderful, brilliant girls who come from traumatic backgrounds.
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grow up and have really serious mental health issues.
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And I was trying to, at the time, figure out what are we doing wrong at our school?
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Something's really wrong here.
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And in that interview with Dr. Perry,
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he said, you know, most people ask the question when kids are not behaving the way you want them to behave, or what's wrong with them,
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we really should be asking about what's happened to you.
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It was like a major moment, like I got it in a way that I hadn't received it before.
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And I realized that it's not just for children that you ask that question, but it's really everybody.
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And that moment, Bruce, as I've said to you many times, Dr. Perry, changed the way I saw my relationships, how I saw my own life,
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how I interacted with people.
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And even in politics where it was so crazy in the past four years, and everybody's always talking about what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong.
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I would always say, I wonder what happened to that person.
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I wonder what happened to them younger that caused them to be this way.
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So all of the labels that you just gave, Jay, there is a world of labels.
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There is, you know, overachiever.
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There is, you know, obsessive compulsive moms, soccer moms.
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There is the desire to, you know, please people all the time.
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There's a multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple labels that refer back to what happened to us.
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And so I will just say this.
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One of the things that Bruce says in the book, each of us comes into the world with our own worldview.
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And that worldview is actually shaped from the crib.
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And you get from the world what you project into the world
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and you project into the world what you were raised with and what you were raised around.
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So that's why what happened to you is the essential question.
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The younger the children are, the more influence you have, not only on who they become,
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but on what their brain becomes because if you're surrounded by chaos
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and dysfunction and loudness and disorder at a zero to two months,
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it means the synapse in your brain doesn't form in the way that it does in children who have had that.
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And you are more likely for behavioral problems, health problems, all other problems in life,
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just because you didn't get what you needed from zero to two months.
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That is what is so amazing.
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I thought trauma prior to my conversations with Bruce in doing this book,
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I thought trauma had to be a big gigantic thing, experience.
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You had to go through a tsunami, literally, if not literally a tsunami, a tsunami -like crisis in your life a fire,
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a hurricane, a tragedy, a car accident, a stabbing, somebody died.
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And it was through co -authoring this book with him that I understood that it was the consistent little things.
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It was the aggressions and microaggressions in a person's life that causes them to have their own worldview.
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Whatever that worldview is for you is different from me.
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So the biggest learning for me is that trauma doesn't have to have a great big old capital T on it.
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It's really how you were loved.
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And that neglect and trauma are hand in hand because both are equally as toxic.
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Over the years of interviewing people, it was my greatest classroom.
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I was always paying attention to what people were saying and paying attention to their lives.
397
And what I understood and could articulate, not through science, but just through my own observation,
398
is that, oh, people are as dysfunctional, as unhappy,
399
as.. disoriented in their lives based on how far they are from the center of themselves.
400
And the center is where wholeness lies, as you know.
401
And so where there is no center and there is no sense of wholeness and love for yourself,
402
there's going to be disarray, chaos, confusion, and, you know, dysfunction in your life.
403
And I saw that over and over and over again, that people behave based on how they were loved
404
and then how they were able to process that in a way to love other people.
405
Well, you start with understanding that your cup being full is how you allow yourself to give to other people.
406
You can't give what you don't have.
407
You can't love if you haven't been loved.
408
You don't even know how to begin to do that.
409
So I think it begins with fundamentally understanding that you are worthy enough,
410
you are valuable enough, you matter enough to give yourself the love that you deserve.
411
And that starts by taking out time for yourself.
412
So I have my own rhythm and pattern.
413
I know that if I go six days and then on the seventh, by the seventh or eighth,
414
don't give myself a break that lots of other things give.
415
That I'm not as alert, I'm not as attuned, I'm not as centered, I'm not as focused.
416
So I know that that is my limit.
417
I cannot go beyond a certain amount of days.
418
And for me, walking in nature is my solace.
419
It is where I feel that I am one with all and all being, you know, all creation and connected.
420
For other people, it may be dancing, it may be music, it may be knitting,
421
it may be whatever it is that brings some kind of rhythmic pattern into your life.
422
Actually, it was Bruce and I were walking on my campus in South Africa, and there were a group of girls dancing,
423
literally, on the lawn, because Lord knows they love to dance.
424
And Bruce says, oh, that's not just fun.
425
I said, oh, they're just having fun.
426
And Bruce said, oh, they're not just having fun, they actually are healing themselves.
427
The rhythmic pattern, that's why when you've been in an argument with someone
428
or you're in the middle of an argument with somebody,
429
if you just go and take a walk or you go and turn on some music and you start dancing,
430
if you just have some form of movement, you feel better.
431
That's number one.
432
Number two, one of the most important things most most important takeaways from
433
what happened to you i believe is understanding how the brain works
434
and that diagram that's on page 26
435
or 27 about the inverted brain being like a triangle
436
so you see
437
that beginning with the brain stem that's the lower part of the brain all the way to the cortex
438
and through the limbic area you understand that um you understand
439
that when you're upset or in fear or angry
440
or are in an antagonized state
441
and you're trying to reason with a person a child your spouse your boss your friend
442
they literally cannot hear you because the reasoning part of the brain is in the cortex
443
and what you're saying is only reaching the brain stem
444
So whenever somebody is dysregulated, which is what that is, being anxious and fearful and yelling and screaming,
445
the thing to do is to calm yourself first.
446
Then you will be able to help that other person get calm and regulated.
447
That's how you get to reason.
448
But if you both are just yelling at each other, literally, and you're going, you don't hear me and you don't hear me either.
449
They actually cannot hear you.
450
That's what I thought was so fascinating.
451
I was in a boardroom having to confront someone in my 40s
452
and I had so much anxiety about the fact that I was going to have to have this confrontation with somebody.
453
Normal disagreements would cause me a great sense of angst
454
and worry and oh my god and what's going to happen and I just said what where is this coming from?
455
Why am I so afraid when I am the one in the power seat?
456
I am Oprah Winfrey running the Harpo Studios, my name spelled backwards, I'm the person in charge,
457
and in order to have a disagreement with somebody I go through so much angst.
458
And I realized, Jay, that even though I had the power.
459
I still felt that every confrontation, I was going to get a whipping, that a whipping was going to result.
460
That thing that used to come up inside me when I had to walk to get my own switch.
461
Oh, where is this feeling coming?
462
I'm feeling like in every confrontation, I'm going to get a whipping.
463
And at the end of it, that person's going to be mad at me.
464
And at the end of it, that person's going to say, you better not act like you're mad.
465
You know, all the things that happened to me as a kid.
466
So it wasn't until I was a full -grown adult in my own seat of,
467
you know, perceived power, feeling those feelings of anxiety and anxiousness, having to have the slightest bit of confrontation.
468
So what I say in what happened to me is that being beaten as a child,
469
having to be subservient to other people's ideals of what it means to be a child meaning you are seen
470
and not heard so i've grown up to have this big personality
471
but being raised in an environment where children are seen
472
and not heard and your opinions do not matter
473
so what happened to me taught me
474
that my opinions do not matter keep your opinions to yourself
475
and do whatever you can to please other people so
476
that other people will like you so that other people will not be upset with you.
477
And I will have to tell you, it is also for me, not for everybody else, but for me,
478
one of the reasons why I was so susceptible to sexual abuse,
479
because I had been taught and trained not to speak up for myself,
480
that whatever somebody wanted to do who was older than me or in a position of authority,
481
that they had rights that I did not so that what happened to me was ingrained in a way that,
482
you know, literally caused me to be a major people pleaser for a great deal of my life.
483
If you come into success and fame, and particularly fame, because fame is its own world and definition,
484
because it really is based upon what other people think of you.
485
So because fame isn't what you think of yourself, it's what other people think of you.
486
If you come into that and you don't have a grounded,
487
centered self, you will be controlled by the outside instead of the inside.
488
And if you come into that not in the fullness of knowing who you are
489
and what you're supposed to do with that fame.
490
Whenever somebody likes you or doesn't like you, that determines whether or not you're having a good day or a bad day.
491
And you have lost control of your own life.
492
So I think what fame teaches you quickly is to grow the wholeness within yourself
493
so that you're not controlled by others' outside opinions of you.
494
I have people that I trust and one of the things
495
that if I may pat myself on the back for is
496
that I try to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am.
497
I think that the ability to be as good as you can be comes from understanding who you are
498
and what you can and cannot do
499
and what you can't do is far more important than what you can do
500
if what you can't do is going to keep you from flying as high as you can.
501
I think the most important thing to get ahead falls back to what what I truly believe in
502
and that is the ability to seek truth in your life
503
and that's on all forms you have to be honest with yourself you can be pursuing a profession
504
because your parents say it's the best thing you can be pursuing a profession
505
because you think you'll make a lot of money you can be pursuing a profession
506
because you think you're gonna get a lot of attention none of
507
that will do you any good if you're not being honest with yourself
508
and the honesty comes from your your natural born instinct will tell you
509
when you're doing something whether or not this feels right you feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment
510
and worthiness to the world in such a way
511
that you know you're doing the right thing you don't have to ask anybody
512
when you're doing the right thing you don't have to say you think this is okay
513
it's like and it works on every level whether
514
or not you're going to a party or you're choosing a dress
515
or you're choosing a friend
516
if you ever have to say do you think this is okay chances are it is not
517
because that's your instinct trying to get you to ask yourself that question maybe this isn't okay
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Oprah Winfrey - You Will Never Be The Same Again”. This video has 517 sentences and 6916 words to shadow. The speech runs for 39:38. The speaker talks at a natural 174 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| legacy noun | /ˈlɛɡəsi/ | Money or property bequeathed to someone in a will. |
| intention noun | /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/ | A course of action that a person intends to follow. |
| fame noun | /feɪm/ | One's reputation. |
| cousin noun | /ˈkʌz(ə)n/ | Chiefly with a qualifying word: Any relation (especially a distant one) who is not a direct ancestor or descendant but part of a person's extended family; a… |
| pursue verb | /pɚˈsu/ | To follow urgently, originally with intent to capture or harm; to chase. |
| beloved adjective | /bɪˈlʌvd/ | Much loved, dearly loved. |
| trauma noun | /ˈtɹɔm.ə/ | Any injury to the body of a living thing. |
| surround verb | /səˈɹaʊnd/ | To encircle something or simultaneously extend in all directions. |
| confrontation noun | /ˌkɑn.fɹənˈteɪ.ʃən/ | The act of confronting or challenging another, especially face to face. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| producer noun | /pɹəˈdjuːsə/ | An individual or organization that creates goods and services. |
| label noun | /ˈleɪ.bəl/ | A small ticket or sign giving information about something to which it is attached or intended to be attached. |
| equally adverb | /ˈiːkwəli/ | In an equal manner; in equal shares or proportion; with equal and impartial justice; evenly |
| classroom noun | /ˈklɑːsɹʊm/ | A room, often in a school, where classes take place. |
| grandmother noun | /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌmʌðɚ/ | A mother of someone's parent. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| going forward adverb | In the immediate future and beyond. | |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. | |
| come back from verb | To become successful, confident or effective again after an injury, setback, failure, embarrassment, etc. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| come through verb | To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Why are you really here?
- How are you going to do that?
- How am I going to serve?
- I'd say, tell me, what is your spiritual practice?
- What do you do to take care of yourself?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been being · I've been hearing |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been · hasn't already experienced · I've come |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was raped · be abused · be victimized |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | men who are · women who were · people who were |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 154 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: grandmother /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌmʌðɚ/, seventh /ˈsɛvənθ/, worthy /ˈwɝ.ði/, eighth /eɪtθ/, rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: intention /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/, confrontation /ˌkɑn.fɹənˈteɪ.ʃən/, profession /pɹəˈfɛʃ.ən/, dysfunction /dɪsˈfʌŋk.ʃən/, wash /wɑʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: confrontation /ˌkɑn.fɹənˈteɪ.ʃən/, anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, spirituality /ˌspɪɹ.ə.t͡ʃuˈæl.ə.tɪ/, electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like legacy, intention, fame.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.