Oprah Winfrey on using your job to serve something bigger (vision 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fohCkaIhnBc [0:10- 0:47]

My life is fuelled by being yeah and the being fuels the doing so I come from a centered place, I
come from a focused place. I come from compassion it’s just it’s just my nature. I come from a
willingness to understand and be understood and I come from wanting to… to… to connect. I mean
the secret of that show for 25 years is that people could see themselves in me all over the world.
They could see themselves in me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wah-cd7Xj8o [1:43- 2:41]

The real truth is that service and significance, service and the significance that you bring to your
service is that which is lasting. So to be able to whatever your occupation or job or talent or gift is
our honourees today getting doctorate degrees- apparently opposite fields HIV and AIDS and the
spoken word but what they have in common is service using the spoken word in service to
community in the world, using your knowledge and information about HIV and AIDS and medicine in
service to the world. And if you look at the most successful people in the world whether they know it
or not they have that paradigm of service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wah-cd7Xj8o [1:08- 1:34]

You must find a way to serve. Martin Luther King said that not everybody can become famous but
everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service. Now we live in a world where
everybody wants to be famous and where we admire people for just being famous. We think being
known brings us value. The truth is all of that will fade in time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZy945CoYUM [1:23- 1:57]

The number one lesson I could offer you where your work is concerned is this become so skilled, so
vigilant, so flat-out fantastic at what you do that your talent cannot be dismissed. Stop comparing
yourself to other people. You are only on this planet to be you not someone else’s imitation of you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZy945CoYUM [6:53- 7:15]

Only you have the power to take the responsibility to move your life forward and the sooner you get
that the sooner your life gets into gear. What matters is now and your willingness to see this
moment for what it is , accept it, forgive the past, take responsibility and move forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a8ncSBU-Eg [0:18- 0:49]

The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? Not think
about oh I got all of this to do. What is the next right move? And then from that space, make the
next right move and the next right move. And not to be overwhelmed by it because you know your
life is bigger than that one moment.

You know you are not defined by what somebody says is a failure for you because failure is just
there to point you in a different direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a8ncSBU-Eg [1:05- 1:46]

For me luck is preparation meeting the moment of opportunity. There is no luck without you being
prepared to handle that moment of opportunity and so what I would say for myself is that because
of my hand in a hand and a force greater than my own, I have been prepared in ways that I didn’t
even know I was being prepared for. And the truth is for me and every person, every single thing
that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for the moment that is to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRrZiiMT68g [3:20- 3:42]

So for me, the foundational base of empowerment, of entrepreneurship, of any kind of engagement,
the foundational base of my success, of my well-being, my wholeness, my everything is knowing who
I am and where I come from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKkWjGisBIo [2:08- 2:43]

It doesn’t matter how far you might rise. At some point you are bound to stumble because if you are
constantly doing what we do, raising the bar. If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher, higher.
The law of averages, not to mention the Myth of Icarus predicts that you will at some point fall. And
when you do I want you to know this, remember this: there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just
life trying to move us in another direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKkWjGisBIo [8:05- 8:49]

The point is your generation is charged with this task of breaking through what the body politic has
thus far made impervious to change. Each of you has been blessed with this enormous opportunity
of attending this prestigious school.

You now have a chance to better your life, the lives of your neighbours and also the life of our
country. When you do that let me tell you what I know for sure. That’s when your story gets really
good.

Maya Angelou always says, “When you learn, teach. When you get, give. That my friends is what
gives your story purpose and meaning.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKkWjGisBIo [9:23- 10:06]

I know that you all understand better than most that real progress requires authentic- an authentic
way of being, honesty, and above all empathy. I have to say that the single most important lesson I
learned in 25 years talking every single day to people, was that there is a common denominator in
our human experience.

Most of us, I tell you we don’t want to be divided. What we want, the common denominator that I
found in every single interview, is we want to be validated. We want to be understood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKkWjGisBIo [11:23- 12:20]

There is a light inside each of you, all of us, that illuminates your very human beingness if you let it.
No matter what challenges or setbacks or disappointments you may encounter along the way, you
will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal, there really is only one, and that is
this: to fulfil the highest most truthful expression of yourself as a human being. You want to max out
your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family and the people around you.

Theologian Howard Thurman said it best. He said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask
yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that, because what the world needs is people
who have come alive.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRrZiiMT68g [0:39- 0:55]

Everybody wants to fulfil the highest truest expression of yourself as a human being. That’s what you
are looking for, the highest truest expression of yourself as a human being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6oU4DfdH0 [2:24- 3:11]

It is my intention to live to the highest calling and be pressed to the mark of the highest calling that I
have come to do. And when you can ask the creator, ask that which made you you, what is your
dream for me? I guarantee you instead of you trying to define the dream, what is your dream for
me? If you are able to lean into the dream that the universe and all the forces of light and love and
power and grace and all the names that we call God has for you. Nobody can touch you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6oU4DfdH0 [3:49- 5:03]

There’s a bigger dream waiting for you, just waiting for you to step into it, to step into it, your life is
big, your life is huge, and we spend so much time wanting to be in somebody else’s life. And you
don’t get honoured. You don’t get revered. You don’t get celebrating, wanting what somebody else
has. Because that which created you divine intelligence to dreamed you from before your ancestors
ever knew they would become your ancestors, that would dream the seed of you, want you to know
how special, how wondrous, how mysterious, how complex, how glorious, how phenomenal you
are. And you get no credit messing in somebody else’s territory. Or trying to have power over
something you have no control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6oU4DfdH0 [5:22- 6:05]

You get to be the master of your own fate. You get to be the captain of your own soul. And if you
just manage that, if you just took care of your territory, all the glorious, glorious, glorious, wondrous,
wondrous opportunities and possibilities that are waiting for you. So the question is, what are you
resisting? What are you pushing against? What are you not allowing? What are you blocking?
Because you have this idea of who and what you are supposed to be instead of leaning into the
dream that’s already been created and waiting for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozUlPufDEqo [11:02- 11:41]

So I think we all must practice becoming more comfortable stepping into the unknown and when
those uncertain, overwhelmed feelings creep in, you need to make an effort to stay in the present
moment and just be still and breathe and say to yourself, I am here now and right now everything is
OK. All is well, all will be well and there’s nothing I cannot handle.

So take some time to be quite enough to listen to your internal GPS, your true self and let the
clamour of the world dissipate.

Listen to the whispers, as I like to say, and then let that guide you.