Oprah Winfrey | NXT Chapter with T.D. Jakes

Oprah Winfrey sits down with Bishop T.D. Jakes for a rare, unfiltered masterclass on calling, courage, ownership, and intention. From a Mississippi back porch with no electricity to building a global media empire, Oprah traces the moments that shaped her—how obedience to the call guided her decisions, why she negotiates for ownership (from 50% to 93% on The Oprah Winfrey Show), how she learned to say “no” at the perfect time, and the intention framework that redefined her show and led to Emmys. They unpack the Color Purple contract lesson, the OWN pivot (turning a mistake into a miracle), money boundaries with family (“never give more than they’ve earned”), and how AI will transform medicine, education, entrepreneurship, and storytelling—plus the mental-health cost of always-on tech.

This inaugural Next Chapter episode is for founders, creators, pastors, leaders, and anyone writing a new season of life. You’ll hear the inside stories—Maya Angelou’s mentorship, Beloved in Philadelphia, the Ku Klux Klan interview that changed the show’s DNA, Gayle King’s “banana pudding” bribe, and how a childhood Easter speech became the blueprint for a lifetime of purposeful broadcasting. Oprah’s advice to her younger self, the “six trees → forest” revelation, and Bishop Jakes’ coaching on decision-making and imposter syndrome (“stay there”) will meet you where you are—spiritually and strategically.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I could feel inside myself at four or five years
old at the time, looking through the screen on the
back porch, that this is not gonna be my life.
I don't know what it's gonna be, but I know
this is not gonna be my life.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello everybody, I'm so excited to welcome you to the
inaugural broadcast of my first podcast. It's so exciting and
I'm so glad to be here, and I believe we're
gonna have a wonderful time from week to week, sharing thoughtful,
provocative subjects that are stirring the mind, renewing the spirit,
and challenging your next chapter. As we all walk into

(00:38):
new doors and new places, what better way to start
off than to start out with the one and only
Miss Oprah Wintree. Today, we sit down with one of
the most influential voices of our time. From her humble
beginnings in rural Mississippi to building a global media empire,
Oprah Wintree has lived a life chain by vision, resilience,

(01:02):
and the power of intention. In this conversation, we'll talk
about the lessons behind her journey, how she learned to
take risks to handle success, and what she tells the
younger Oprah. So it's not online. This is more than
a story about success. It's about faith, courage, and the
choices that change everything. Chapter one, Building Empire. I have

(01:41):
been thinking where it gets started. I have so many
Oprah Winfrey stories. I can't hardly figure out which one
to pick, but I'll start with this. When she was
doing her Super Soul Sunday, and she had invited me
a couple of times to come out there, and you know,
Sundays for me, is it not a good day to

(02:03):
go to California. So I finally decided that I get
somebody preach for me that day and I would go
out there because I didn't want to keep saying no.
And she was shocked when she saw me. She said,
I didn't expect you to come. Yes, I just invited you.
I thought, okay. And she had three hundred or so

(02:25):
guests out there in an amphitheater, worshiping, teaching, singing, ministering.
She left all of them y'all and got on a
golf cart and took me all over her property, showing
me everything from her eucalyptus trees, which she called the

(02:45):
twelve Apostles, to all of her ground and territory and
everything like that left all the three hundred people behind. Okay,
most expensive chauffeur I had ever heard life.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
That's because I love you, you know I do. I love you,
and I have such regard for what you have been
able to accomplish, not just creating for yourself, but planting
that good soil into the hearts and spirits of people
all over this world, all over this world.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yes, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
That's why I said yes, And I said, and then
then you said, oh, can I pay for your gas?
And I go, I will pay my own way, Thank
you very much.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
She did. She paid her own way to come here. Hey,
my own wod even let me pay for the gas?
Y'all out a shout, I mean church shout, Yeah, tambourine,
beaten footstuff and shout. I did, But I would have
happily paid it to have an opportunity to talk to you.

(03:55):
One of the things that I thought about most of
the projects that you have worked on that have become
so notable and unprecedented as a woman, as a black woman,
not just in America, in the world. There's hardly a
place on the globe you can go and use your

(04:15):
first name only, and everybody know who you are. And
it doesn't come from working for somebody. Most of the
things that you have done, you have created from the
ground up. Magazines, movies, talk shows, everything you can think of,

(04:40):
Oprah's favorite things, Oprah's hair product, Oprah's this, Oprah's that,
all done from the ground up. And I think that's
why I'm so excited to have you here, because no
matter where these entrepreneurs are on the spectrum, just getting
started or halfway there, mid level company or one hundred companies,

(05:06):
it doesn't matter whether you're at the very top of
the line, she can relate to the journey and becomes
proof positive that it's possible to come from making Mississippi
mud paths. Yes, yeah, I know. My people were from
Mississippi on my father's side, so listen, I know about

(05:28):
Mississippi from Mississippi mud Paths to Hollywood and beyond. And
did your talk show when everybody was doing it in Hollywood,
you started it in Chicago, one of the first people.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yes, yes, yes, Well. One of the reasons why I
wanted to be here first of all, is because the
bishop asked me, and I love the Bishop. In Surrita.
Every birthday, I know when their flowers arrive because it
arrives with three of four men carrying in whatever it
is they've sent, and so I always feel so honored

(06:07):
to receive to be blessed on my birthday from you.
But one of the reasons I said yes to coming
here and I never listen, I don't do this. I
only do what I want to do, and I am
led by the power and principle of intention, which I

(06:30):
want to talk to you about tonight. But one of
the reasons I really wanted to say yes is because
I want everybody who is seeking good soil for yourself
to know that my life, although it may look like
an anomaly, and that what I've been able to achieve

(06:50):
appears to be special. It is special to me. But
it is only been possible because I was obedient to
the call, and I wanted to say that. When I
first met May Angelou, I had, you know, read the
I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings. It was a

(07:10):
really seminal book in my life because I'd never read
a story about a young black girl who was raised
by her grandmother, who grew up in the church. Why
I Know Why the cage Bird sings opens with what
you're looking at me for? Didn't come to stay, only
came to say happy East Today. Now. The reason I

(07:32):
am a broadcaster and have had the career that I've
had is because I grew up in the church in Mississippi.
And my first Easter piece, remember when they would call pieces,
because you get this a little piece of paper from
Sunday School. My first Easter piece was Jesus rose on
East Today, Halley Lou, Halley Lou, all the angels did proclaim.

(07:55):
And I was three and a half years old when
I did that speech, being raised in the church, sitting
in the second pew on the left hand side every
single Sunday, absorbing what our pastor said when he said
you are God's child. I believed it. I believed it.

(08:16):
I believed him. And so I am here because from
a very early age, those of you who followed me
know the story of my grandmother's on the back porch.
You know this girl standing on the back porch because
I was raised no running water, no electricity, and my
grandmother was washing clothes in a big iron pot because

(08:37):
she was a domestic worker and would bring the clothes
home and she was hanging the sheets on the line
and said, Oprah, Gail, you better watch me, because one
day you're gonna have to do this for yourself. And
the spirit inside me said, no, Grandma. I feel inside myself,

(09:01):
at four or five years old at the time, looking
through the screen on the back porch, that this is
not gonna be my life. I don't know what it's
gonna be, but I know this is not gonna be
my life because the preacher said I was God's child,
and because I am God's child, all things are possible.

(09:24):
And so I will tell you that I have been
God led, spirit led from the beginning, and every decision
I have ever made that has led to any kind
of success whatsoever, has come from sitting with the spirit
and asking God, what would you have me do first?

(09:47):
And every time I've made a mistake and been in
the struggle, it's because I was led by my own
mind and not God's mind for me. And that's what
I want you to know. When I first met my Angelou,
she said, I saw her backstage at an event, and
I was by that time a reporter in Baltimore, and

(10:07):
I had to convince the station that my Angelou was
worthy of doing an interview, so I went. She was
speaking at Morgan State University and I went backstage and
I said, Miss Angelou, if you'll just give me five minutes,
If you just give me five minutes of your time,
I promise I won't take up any more time. And
she said, all right, sit down, and we did, and

(10:30):
at four minutes fifty eight seconds, I stopped that interview
and she turned to me and she said, who are
you girl? And she then invited me to her home
and we became friends, and later she my mentor and
mother figure for me. But soon after we met, she said,
I can see that God is going to take you

(10:51):
places because you are first and foremost obedient, obedient, And
so what often happened is you have an idea of
what you want your business to be, what you want
your career to be, what you want your life to be,
and you don't put God in it. You don't ask

(11:12):
Spirit what it is you would have me to do.
So my prayer, since I was for as long as
I can remember, is use me God and tell me
what it is you want me to do. Because I
thought I was going to be an actress. Now I
have acted, but I do not consider myself to be

(11:33):
an actress. And when I told my father I was
going to be an actress, no nough to mine's going
to be laying up on somebody's couch, is what he said.
And so I had to make a decision. I'm going
to go to college and I'm going to end up.
I thought teaching. I will teach acting. And when I
was in the middle of the college classroom my sophomore year,
I get a call. It is divinely ordered, a call

(11:57):
from the local television station call me out of class
to say, are you interested in working in television because
we've heard you on the radio. Okay, And I'm on
the radio because there was a contest from the local
TV local radio stations, and the black station WVOL in

(12:19):
Nashville had asked me to be their person for the
Misfire prevention contest. When I was sixteen years old in Nashville,
there'd never been a black girl in the contest. Nobody
expected me to win. I didn't expect to win. When
I'm on stage and all the little white girls being
asked the questions about what you want to be when

(12:39):
you grow up, I thought, I was going to be
a teacher. So three of them had already said they
were going to be a teacher. So I said, I
can't say I'm going to be a teacher, right, So
I said, God, give me an answer. God give me
an answer, and spirit in my mouth and allowed me.

(13:02):
At sixteen years old, had never had this thought in
my life before I said I want to be a journalist.
I had seen Barbara Walters on the Today Show that
morning I want to So I was just thinking, what
can what can a woman do? What can a woman do?
I thought? I said, I want to be a journalist,
and I want to use journalism and the telling of
stories to help people see themselves in other people's stories

(13:26):
and live better lives. I don't know where an answer
came from, but.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
God, chapter two taking risks with that kind of answer. Yeah,
and I relate to those epiphany type moments where all
of a sudden you know something. You don't know how

(13:51):
you know it, but you know it. Yes, once you
know it, a lot of business comes into play, yes,
contract agents, lawyers of Shenanigans, crooks, yes, yes, yes, all
of that comes along with it. Talk to us about
how you navigated through those waters from a business perspective

(14:17):
that caused you to land where you live. You got
a television deal that nobody has ever gotten before or.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Since, it's not going to happen again.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
It's not going to ever happen again. You ruined it
for the rest of the world.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Well, it's not going to happen again because the just
because of not because of me, but because of the
state of television. But at the time I had an attorney,
it actually happened because of color purple, because I had
wanted to do the color purple more than anything in
my life. My bosses at the time had I only
had a two week vacation period, so I agreed to

(14:54):
give up my entire vacation for the rest of my
contract in order to be able to do the color purple.
And because I had done that, my attorney said to
me when it was time to renew the contract, he said,
you never want to be in the position when there
is something important to you to do where you can't
do it. So are you interested in owning yourself? And

(15:17):
I said, sign me up for that, and he said, well,
if you're going to take ownership of yourself, it means
you have to also take the risk that if it
doesn't work, then you won't get paid. I said, I
believe enough in myself to know that somewhere on the
other side I will get paid, So I will take

(15:39):
less now in order to get more later. And here's
the deal. I have had the best contract humanly possible
in television. I started out with owning fifty percent, and
by the end of the show, I owned ninety three percent.
So every year I would increase it and be because

(16:00):
of the ownership. I then decide for myself when I
take a vacation. Nobody ever again was given the authority
to tell me when I could or could not work.
I set my own schedule. I designed it the way
I wanted to design it. Now, here's the thing about
the charlatans and making the decision that's going to be
right for you. For every single person that I hired

(16:23):
in the beginning, when we were just you know, twenty people,
one hundred people, two hundred people, I would always come
into the room and give a gut check. I would
sit with them, I would have a conversation. When you
get to have three and four and five hundred employees,
that's hard to do. So you have to surround yourself
with people who also have not just you're not just

(16:47):
the ability to execute, but also have the spiritual grounding,
the spiritual education, the spiritual information, so that they lead
from your point of view. The biggest mistake is that
people get people around them and those people are not
aligned in spirit with you. And my biggest mistakes have

(17:13):
come from when you because you can't get it right
all the time. My biggest mistakes have come from when
you see somebody who isn't aligned in spirit. You need
to pull it right. Then you need to cut it
off right. Then. My big mistake has been looking at it,
seeing it for what it is, giving them the benefit

(17:35):
of the down Hope and things get better. Hope you
pull yourself together. Don't want to fire brother. Let me
tell you all this is a funny story. So I
was doing the movie Beloved in nineteen nineties, nineteen ninety eight,
and we were in Philadelphia and there was a black

(17:57):
man driving I won't say his name. He was the
only black man who was a member of the union,
and he had worked for a long time to get
to be a member of the union. This one black
guy is a member of the Teamsters Union hard to
get into. And every morning I'd get picked up at
four point thirty and this brother was going to sleep

(18:19):
in the car, okay, And so I said, Jesus helped
me with this. We're rolling the windows down and we're
I'm singing in the car, trying to get him to sing,
and every morning he would just fall asleep. So at
first I had no security with so I called security

(18:40):
to sit with the guy in the front seat to
keep the guy awake. I'm kicking the back seat to
keep the guy awake. And one day we're on the
highway and almost had an accident, and the whole time
I'm like, I can't let him go because he's the
only brother in the union, only brother in the union.
And at the end of that day where we just

(19:02):
barely missed getting hit by, you know, a mack truck
at the end, when we got to our destination, I
called them into my trailer and I said, helping you
is gonna kill me.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
You know, you know when you when you when you
talk about what the spirit says in a mixed crowd
of diverse people, everybody walks away with a different idea.
Tell me if I'm wrong every institution has a culture. Yes,
that culture emanates from its owner and founder. When you

(19:39):
talk about because because I'm afraid that people are going
to walk out of here and start just hiring believers
at random, yes, and only to find out that that
doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
It doesn't work either.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
That doesn't work either. So I want to go deeper
down to understand are they a good fit for the
culture of the organization, and that God doesn't raise the
organization faster than he raises you, and that what you
produce are to look something like you, and there are
to be some similarities in your DNA when you hire them.

(20:14):
And if you don't since that kinship, if you don't
sense that kinship, you can put all those scriptures to bed.
If you don't sense that skin kinship, you may have
somebody who quotes scriptures and still falls asleep and snores,
and the sleep at me.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Am I right, absolutely, And so I think that's such
a valid point. And thank you for the clarification, because
it doesn't mean that people have to believe like you.
Actually it's better if they don't, because you want as
many diverse ideas in the room as possible, and you
want to be able to listen to every single one,

(20:52):
which I still do. Listen to everybody, what everybody has
to say, and then something inside you connect to what
is the right thing to do for you and for
your company. But you've heard it all and I am
the kind of leader not a good manager. I'm not
a good manager at all. And I had to learn

(21:12):
that the hard way. And so as soon as you
know that that's not what you do, well, find somebody
who can do that, find somebody who can't do that.
I knew that because the first time I had to
fire somebody, it took me two and a half hours
and at the end of the at the end of
the conversation, she said, so are you firing me? You

(21:33):
know it's supposed to say eight to ten minutes. Two
and a half hours later, I'm like, well, actually, so
now that's not what I do. So finding out what
it is you do, and also understanding that when you
are at the lead, when you are the one who
is in charge of how everything is going to happen,

(21:55):
you only need to do what you do and let
all the other people do that. And you're going to
hire the people and surround yourself with the people that
you don't have to micro manage them. You don't hire
them and then tell them what to do.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Say it for the people in the bag. Say it
for the people in the bag.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Sometimes I think that people's idea of being the boss
is coming up with all their ideas. And if you
have to come up with all the ideas, you hired.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
The wrong people.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
You want people who contribute to the growth and the
development of your company, your organization. You're not for profit,
whatever it is. You want somebody who brings in fresh ideas.
You may not always do them, but you always want
to hear them. And if they are not a birth
canal for creative thought and innovation, then then we need

(22:51):
to shut down the hospital and start over again. Is
that what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's exactly what I'm saying. Three Chip, So the Oprah
Show was number one for twenty five years. Nobody read us,
and I'm telling an I'm telling you the secret behind that,

(23:17):
there actually is a secret. The secret is that around
nineteen eighty nine, I'd already been on the air from
eighty six, started in eighty six. Around nineteen eighty nine,
I interviewed Ku Klux Klan and thinking I was showing
their vitriol to the world. During a commercial break, I
saw them giving each other signals and I thought, inside

(23:41):
my spirit, hmmm, this isn't good. I think. I think
I am showing the world who they are and they
are using me. That's what I felt. Twenty five years later,
I brought them back as I was ending the show,
and they told me that they that that coming on
the Oprah Show was the biggest platform they'd ever been on,

(24:03):
and that they used that tape to recruit other people.
So I could feel that happening during the commercial break,
so I said the producers after that show, never doing
that again. Did another show where the producers were so
proud they got some food to come on with his
mistress and his wife to admit that he was having
an affair. And during that show, he said, on live television,

(24:29):
he tells his wife that his mistress was pregnant, and
the audience did exactly what you just did. Everybody was
embarrassed for her, and I saw her face and I
felt her humiliation, and I said, that will never happen
to me again. So I'm not doing that anymore. So

(24:51):
the producer's like, well, what do you want us to do.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
So.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
I had read this book called Seat of the Soul
by Gary Zukov, where he talked about intention intension be
one at one with cause and effect. How you cannot
have a cause and effect without having an intention behind
the cause. So I said the producers from this day forward,
once I got understood the principle, from this day forward,
we are not going to do a show unless my

(25:17):
intention is aligned with your intention. So do not bring
me an idea unless you are clear about the real
intention for doing it. And if I can find a
thread of truth in it, I can sit in the
chair and be myself. I don't have to believe in

(25:37):
everything that you're telling me, but if I can just
find one thread of truth, that gives me a reason
to sit and be myself. So let's all be intentional
about why we are booking anything. And that changed everything.
It changed everything. So the very first emmy I got,

(25:58):
I went into the green room before and I said
to the woman, tell me why you're here. Is a
woman who was there whose daughter had been murdered by
her boyfriend. The daughter was sixteen years old, pretty blonde
girl going to the perfect school, leading what they all
thought was the perfect life, but the boyfriend was abusing
her and the mother didn't know. So when I went

(26:22):
into the green room and I said to the mother,
can you tell me, tell me why you came, What
was your intention? She said, I came because your producers
asked me to come. I said, but why did you
say yes? And she said, because everybody wants to talk
about the murder. Nobody wants to talk about my daughter's life.

(26:42):
My daughter had a life. She was loved, and she
had siblings who cared about her. She had family, we
loved her, and all anybody wants to talk about is
the murder. And why didn't I see it? I said, well,
I want people to see. This is my intention. My
intention is for people to see their daughter and your daughter,

(27:04):
for people to see their own lives in your daughter's life.
So every question that I ask you, I'm not asking
it to be a warrior. I'm asking it to actually
exploit the life of your daughter so that people can
see themselves. And I can make sure that people leave
this studio and leave their television sets understanding that your

(27:28):
daughter had a life and she was loved. And that
was my first emmy. That was my first Emmy. Because
we were both aligned in intention. And I will tell you,
whatever project, whatever opportunity comes your way, being clear about
what it is you actually really want to achieve, and

(27:51):
having everybody else in the room in alignment with that
vision and how to execute that vision so that every
body is in synergetic vibration to make it, to bring
it into fruition and manifestation.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
You know, you know, I'm glad you said that. So
many good things came out of that. And how you
make decisions and how that process is. I think a
lot of businesses fail because we don't know how to
make good decisions.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yes, yes, yes, And if.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
We don't make good decisions, we can't have good outcomes. Uh,
and one of us.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Every decision has an outcome.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
And so you have to be responsible for the choices
that you make, y period. That's in your life, your
personal life, especially so if you with somebody and it
ain't working out, you made the choice, you.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Know, it's that. But but but the thing that has
always amazed me about you, it's not your yes, it's
it's your nose.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yeah. Yeah, you have you have.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
The ability to know perfect timing to walk away. And
I see very few people because we get in the
habit of it and we love it, or our ego
is attached to it, or our identity is attached to it,
or we think that if I'm not this, who will
I be? But you are not afraid to walk away

(29:20):
and start over again. And I want to talk about
not just the courage to start, but the courage to stop.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Thank you for that. Thank you, that's that's that's a
beautiful question. I've never been asked that question before. I
could feel it, just just just like I was spirit
led into that show. That show was God's idea for me.

(29:55):
Because the question to ask is not to tell God
what you want. The question is to ask God, what
do you want for me? Because God has a dream
for you. And I will have to tell you I
have lived and continue to live God's dream for me.

(30:16):
That's why you can't touch it. It cannot be touched.
It cannot be touched. All the haters can hate on,
they can say whatever you want to say, they can
do you want to they it cannot be touched. When
you live God's dream for you? What is God's dream

(30:43):
for you? Can you step into what God's dream is
for you instead of you trying to figure out what
the dream is and what to do and where to
go and the next thing. He has a dream for you.
That's why i'm you know, the bishop. I was just
talking to me yesterday because I think it's wonderful that
he's handing over the you know, authority of the pastoral duties.

(31:08):
And I said, this cannot mean that you're not preaching anymore,
because that is your gift, that is God's dream for you.
I mean, something happens to you when you're in the
spirit and doing that right. Something happens you are You
aren't transformed, you transcend a human thing. You are transformed.

(31:34):
You are able to interpret scripture and allow us to
see and feel it. Let me tell y'all, I was
going through a thing because I didn't listen to God.
I was listening to myself. I was trying to not offend.
I made a business decision that I shouldn't have made
at the time when I left the show. What I
should have done is what I know is the truth.
I should have gotten still so much so that I

(31:58):
would wake up in the middle of the night and
the Bible verse that was running through my head was
they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.
But I had all these contracts for, you know, starting
a new network, and I was like, oh, but they're there,
and they said and but God. And I was trying
to convince God that it was the right thing to do.
And that's why a year later, every single headline was

(32:23):
OPRAH and the struggling Own Network because it was It
was not a decision that came out of the spirit.
Was not And it was a mistake for me at
the time because I didn't listen to the voice inside myself.
I was like, well, everybody says, you got to leverage
this moment, You got to leverage this moment. And I

(32:45):
have to tell you, I was. I was. I was
as close to being depressed as as one can be
and still moving through the world. And I came down
to the Potter's house. I came down to the pot
house and the bishop was preaching a sermon called saving

(33:05):
the Scraps. Now, I yes, and I listen, we all
church people, we have heard the story of them loaves
and fishes our whole lives. The bishop took those loaves
and fishes and talked about what happens after the loaves

(33:28):
and fishes and saving the scraps, and they put all
the scraps on the boat, and then when the winds
and the waves came, they forgot all about what had
happened earlier in the day. That sermon saving the scraps
turned me around and allowed me to remember all the

(33:52):
times that God had showed up for me. So I left.
I left the Potter's house and prayed that prayer underneath
my oaks and the all right, God, I've been trying
to do it myself. You tell me what you want
me to do. Thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, thank you, thank you. It's it's an amazing thing
to get to a know when you are an aggressive person. Yes,
you have to be an aggressive person in order to
be successful, but you cannot be so aggressive that you
damage yourself with your own aggression and become your own

(34:28):
worst enemy. So I was anxious to hear what you
had to say about that. By the way, it might
not have been what God dreamed for you, but you
still landed on your feet pretty good.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
I did, okay, I did okay with you.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Did okay okay. So so talk to me a minute
about turning mistakes into miracles. Because you said clearly I
made a mistake, and there's not a person, there's not
an entrepreneur that didn't and buy the wrong building, moved
to the wrong neighborhood, buy the wrong product, trust the

(35:05):
wrong person, get the wrong supplier, get the wrong delivery.
And you made a mistake. But you made a mistake
and turned it into a miracle by timing it out
in such a way. I guess you never told me this.
I'm just standing on the outside looking in the window
with my nose up against the window pane, you know,

(35:27):
And so they're the big noseprint on the center of
your living from Winda because all of a sudden you
took this mess and turned it into a miracle and
worked your way out of it. And what I'm trying
to do is get in your head, because until we
learned to think a certain way, we would throw our

(35:47):
hands up in a mess and go make it a
bigger mess.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Well, what I realized is I started out with this
idea that I was going to have it as a
spiritual inspirational channel based on sheating the soul, and that
audience was not coming. So what I was able to
do in making the shift is what a lot of
people do in relationships and also businesses. You have this
idea that you want or you want this person to be,

(36:13):
and you're trying to force that thing instead of looking
at what do you really have? What is the audience
that followed you to this channel, and how do you
now take that base and use that base and offer
that audience what they are looking for. That is what
I did. I had an idea of what it should be.

(36:33):
Then it showed me what it wanted to be and
what it could be, and so I shifted and moved
in the direction of what was possible instead of pushing
against the resistance of what I thought should be possible.
That is what changed.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Chapter four Money. You don't run around with a lot
of people.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
I don't you know, you don't see you in a
big crowd of people and a bunch of girlfriends down
at them all and doing doing all of that to
talk to me about the social life that accommodates success,
Because a lot of people will say they want success,
and then when they start to get success, the disappointment

(37:27):
from family, from friends, from coworkers, from neighborhoods drives them off.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Can I get witness you kind of get a witness.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, how have you learned to make yourself happy reading
a book?

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Well, first of all, I grew up reading Bible stories.
You remember, they were selling those blue Bible stories just
look like encyclopedia. So I grew up with my grandmother alone.
So being alone is a comforting thing to me. But
I also learned that who you associate with, especially when

(38:04):
you're on the rise and people are trying to use
you and take advantage of you, and you can feel that,
you can feel when that is happening. You can feel
when that is happening. You can feel when that is happening,
that the ability to distance yourself from that. I've actually

(38:27):
done what I call the negro exit fee.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
I love it have a negro exit fee where you
have just come and you want to because I don't
believe in loaning people money because I know that when
I loan it to you, you're not gonna pay it
back to me. You ain't never gonna pay it back
to me because when it comes time to pay it back,
you're gonna be cause she don't need it. So I have,
I have, I have given money to people that I

(39:02):
wanted out of my.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Life, just so I could say when you come back,
I'm done.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
I'm done. I'm done. Now here's the thing, And you know,
I have this wonderful school in South Africa where I've
put eight hundred and thirty girls have graduated from the school,
six hundred ninety girls have six ninety have graduated from college,
and I currently have one hundred and ninety five in
college still. And all of those girls come from challenged

(39:37):
backgrounds because you can't you're not allowed in the school
if your parents make more than ten thousand dollars a year,
and most of the girls, on average, their parents make
no more than three thousand dollars a year. So they
come from really challenged, traumatic backgrounds, but are brilliant girls
and have gone on to do I just had a

(39:57):
survey done last year of where all those girls. That's
why I know there's eight ninety five still in college.
And what we have been able to do in South
Africa is interrupt poverty. Is what this study showed us.
We have interrupted the cycle of poverty with these classes

(40:17):
of girls who have gone on to become doctors and
lawyers and investors and clinicians and stem girls and you
know every facet of the work environment. These girls are
now in and have gone back into their communities and
have changed what is happening in their family's lives, so

(40:38):
that that is really the blessing that God has been
able to allow me to bestow upon so many other
African women. But this is what I tell them, because
you are the first in your family, everybody's going to
think you were bank and anybody here, anybody here, know

(40:58):
what I'm talking about it, and it is up to you.
It is up to you to help them to know
the truth about how it works. And you do not
serve them when you continue to take care of people

(41:22):
who refuse to take care of themselves. So this is
what I had to learn. I had to learn that
it was my decision. And I was so troubled by
this in the beginning because I you know, what I
made was in the paper, so I couldn't I could
no longer say I don't have the money, because people say,

(41:43):
I know you got it because I read about that.
In my house. I need a new porch and I
need a new car, and I needed this, and so
I mean there was a time back in I think
I used to pray on this all the time, of
Lord help me. How do I do this? How do
I do it? And this is what I've learned. I've
bought houses and cars and homes for people who lost them.

(42:05):
I've bought I've put so many people through school. I've
given so much money, And this is what I learned.
In the end. You should never This is the best
advice you're gonna get on this. You should never give
anybody any more money than they've already earned. That's good
and the reason why you should never give them any

(42:27):
more money because when somebody asks you for fu So
in the beginning, my family always needed five hundred dollars.
When I was in Baltimore. The day I moved to Chicago,
everybody needed five thousand. The day it was announced I
was syndicated, everybody then needed fifty thousand. Nothing, nothing worked
unless they have fifty thousand dollars. And so this is

(42:53):
what is the professor of economics told me that when
you give people more money than they've ever been able
to earn, they have no idea of what that is,
and so you are really doing them a disservice. You
are doing them a disservice and enabling them. And so

(43:15):
once I recognize, first of all, I used to pray,
what do I owe? What do I owe? What should
I give? What do I know? And I recognize that
you get to decide. Just because they're asking for an
amount doesn't mean you have to do it. So I decided.
I brought all my family together one night that was
in the reunion, and I said, here's what I'm going

(43:41):
to do. Here's what I'm going to do for you
and you and you and you and you, and this
is my decision, and this is how much everybody's going
to get. And you're gonna get this, and you're gonna
get this. And I will tell you it didn't work.
It didn't work because within a short period of time,
this is before I knew that rule, but within a

(44:02):
short period of time, everybody had wasted the money and
lost the houses and all the things. So I think
that that is one of the hardest things to overcome
when you have been the one in your family. So
I leave you with you get to decide, and you
get to decide how much, how often, where to give it,

(44:25):
and how to give it, and it should be thought
full in such a way that it doesn't enable people
not to take care of themselves, because ultimately, that's what
you're trying to do. You're trying to lift up, lift up,
and let them raise and meet the rising of their
own lives.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Amazing advice. Thank you for that. I think that that
is a big hand clap. Yeah, a really big hand clap.
Chapter five, Artificial Intelligence. Listen, our voices are too big

(45:07):
and too loud and too strong not to at least
touch on this. I believe in artificial intelligence. I'm living
today in part because of AI. I had a massive
heart attack that went in through my They went in
through my artery, in my arm and cleared out my

(45:28):
heart while I was awake because of AI. So I'm
not against AI and what it has done for medicine
and what it has done for the speed of technology
and efficiency and solving problems and finding cures. However, I
am concerned that a lot of our people are not

(45:53):
prepared for the jobs that AI is going to create,
and they're going to lose their jobs the time that
the tariffs are going to raise the prices on goods
and services. I am concerned that inflation is squeezing us

(46:13):
like a vice between two parameters, and we are not
really fully conscious that we are being squeezed, and nor
do we have a strategy. And there are strategies, you know,
every doctor needs a plumber. There are strategies that would

(46:34):
avert this and make this work. Well, what do you
say to us at this time and history? We've seen
it before, We've seen it lots of times before, and
we've overcome them. But each time you can't use an
old method against a new devil. What do you think

(46:56):
we should be doing or telling our children, or exposing
our e in order to maintain a relevancy. I came
out of the industrial age, the whole plants and everything
shut down. We lost, everything, went down to absolutely nothing.
I know what it is to have my car repossessed.

(47:18):
I know what it is to not be able to
buy diapers from my children. I know what it is
to have a very very very hard time, and I
know it takes a lot of grit and stamina to
rise above it. What kind of grit do you think
we need in this hour to prepare us to either

(47:42):
take on courses, take on classes, or raise our voices.
And when we raise our voices, what should we be saying.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Okay, I don't think raising your voice in this moment
about AI is going to do one dog gun thing.
I don't because I think it's here. I think AI
is is going to be as prevalent as you know,
the automobiles, and so what you don't want to be
is one of those people saying I'm an hold onto
my horse. I'm keeping my horse, you know, because it's

(48:14):
not just is it coming, it is here. It is
already here. And I think the most we can do
is to educate ourselves about it. And the thing about
the thing about educating, because I did a whole special
on it, is that every three to four months the
education is different than it was three months ago because
it is advancing so rapidly. So I think finding a

(48:37):
way to adjust and live with it and be open
to the possibility of not of using it. And I
do think that using it medically is where we're going
to see the greatest benefits. We've already so we say God,
thank you and bless AI for helping to save you. Yes,

(48:58):
So I think the greatest advances are going to be
in the medical field. Amen to that, Amen to that,
Amen to that. Stand up for yourself. Amen, to that AI.
So I think the greatest advances are going to be
for that, and I think other advances are going to

(49:18):
be in terms of education. I think the ability to
have each child, particularly kids who are slow learners, or
are dyslexic, or have learning disabilities. I think having a
system of AI that coordinates a curriculum specific to your
child is going to change the way children learn in

(49:42):
the future. And I think that our eyes have not
seen or ears have heard the possibilities that are going
to that we're all going to be allowed to benefit from.
On the other hand, I just was speaking to someone
yesterday who who's a member of my staff, who had

(50:02):
to put her nineteen year old son in an institution
because he's so addicted to gaming and the telephone and
cannot function in a world without it. So I think
that what social media and what technology is doing with
abandon to parents who are not able to maintain some

(50:26):
kind of discipline in control with her kids is also very, very,
very dangerous. I think that these are real defining times
for us, and I, you know, I firmly believe that
in times like these, it is necessary, it is essential,
it is vital to get as close to God as

(50:49):
you can. I think that the.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Spiritual root, the spiritual root defines and upholds itself for
all things.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
And so you know, as I look out into the
world and all the things that are happening, it is
encouraged me to be more diligent with my spiritual practice,
is what it is doing for me.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
I think that's very, very, very important when you think
about I'm reading a book Anxious Generation.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've interviewed him three times.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah. Yes, it's a very very interesting book on what
technology does to a child.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Too soon, Yes, and a child's brain. Yes, yes, and
right now because I just interviewed him. Forty percent of
two year olds are given an iPad. And the thing
about giving your child a iPad at such an early age,
it's your babysitter. But your child's brain doesn't form the
way it's supposed to form because the syneps in the
brain does not. So I think that we are in

(51:59):
for a while.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Not only is that you don't know how to have
interaction with other human beings.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Well that's the women who just had to institutionalize our son. Yeah,
dropped out of school, dropped out of sophomore year in college,
because could not function. So these eighteen nineteen year olds
coming up who lived through COVID and were on their
phones on social media the whole time, particularly a lot
of men who grown up and will not be able

(52:28):
to be socialized because having access to pornography at such
an early age has disabled them to even be able
to socialize and actually have interactions with you know, real women.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Don't you think that we have to be intentional about
creating communication amongst ourselves lest we reduce everything down to
texts and tweets, And we have to be intentional about
picking up the phone, about calling people, about sitting down
and having a cup of coffee. And because that's that's

(53:00):
the one thing that artificial intelligence cannot duplicate, absolutely is
our human ability to be creative and to have conversation.
And that was exactly what I was hoping you would
get to and did, is that we have to be
we cannot afford ourselves to allow ourselves to be pushed
into an island of isolation, because mental health is real.

(53:25):
We just came through COVID, absolutely, Okay, then we go
through AI. We were dealing with AI. Then we're dealing
with the inflation, and now we're dealing with the tariffs,
We're dealing with the news itself. The news itself is
a stressor all by itself, and I don't know whether

(53:45):
we realize it or not. Our customers are stressed, our
family is stressed, our co workers are stressed. And sometimes
in order to keep your staff together, you have to
stop and talk to the people that normally could be
a contribution to you, to say how are you? Are

(54:07):
you really okay? Are you okay?

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Are you okay? Here's the thing I've done. I have
limited my intake of news. So when I say I've
gone back to and you mentioned that I like book,
you always think my life is so boring because I
spend so much time looking inward and being Sometimes Gail

(54:31):
will call me and say, what are you doing sitting
with your thoughts? By the way, she was very upset
that she couldn't come. She told me to first of all,
for us to get a picture together, and she said,
tell the bishop, I really wanted to be there for
some banana pudding. And I said, I'm off of banana
putting now. But anyway, let me tell you.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Let me tell you what that means. I told Oprah
when she came to me last time. I was persuading
her to come. I said, I've already got all the cameras.
I've already got everything you need. All you gotta do
is he'll couple your equipment and you can come in.
You can get a couple of shows out of it.
And I'm trying to negotiate a deal. None of that work.
You know what word I said, I'll make you a

(55:11):
banana pudding. She said, I'm coming.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
I'm coming for the banana pudding. That's true.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Now you'd have got all skinny and stuff. I'm gonna
have to make you a letter's roll or something.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
I don't know what we're gonna do about it. Are
you all enjoying this conversation? So when you start talking
about AI, it is impacting your world through entertainment. The
way that you used to make a movie, used to
make shoot a show, used to edit a show, used
to add color to the show, used to us all

(55:50):
of that has changed.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Now, that's right.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
How are you handling that? And how should the people
out here who also whether they want to admit it
or not, AI is changing the way you do business,
or you're paying more money to ride your horse rather
than to get in the automobile, because you just say,

(56:13):
if I ignore it long enough and stick my head
into sand, it's going to go away. But machines don't
get sick, machines don't get pregnant, Machines don't take off
from work, machines don't take vacation. Machines they are here
to stay. And how are you incorporating that in your
strategy for business? And since I can't ask all of them,

(56:36):
I might ask you.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Well, this is what I know to be true, and
that is that storytelling. You know, in whatever form. One
of the reasons why you're so great in teaching us
the gospel is because you always build it around the story,
and that is why it is so well received, because

(56:59):
people cant to the story and then the message of
the story. So what I know is in my business
and line of work that the ability to share stories
and to share information through stories that will never change.
And what is going to be important is for us
to keep our eyes on the prize because it is

(57:21):
necessary to have discernment, which is what we're missing. It's
necessary to have discernment so that you can tell the
difference between the distortions of AI and that which is
made up and that which is make believe. You know,
everybody talks about fake news, but it's up to us
to understand through our discernment the difference, because it's going

(57:45):
to be it's going to be difficult, and that's on purpose.
It's already it's on purpose design that way.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
In our country, you can't believe what you see because
they've produced, say, at a massive rate, things that it
sound like you look like you. I've seen things that
I know you didn't say. How are we going to
use this amazing gift before somebody uses it against us,

(58:15):
not just in a salacious way, but in a destructive
way that could cause us our lives. How do we
think about marketing? How do we think about doing business overseas?
How do we think about reaching around the world. Because
your neighbors are burned out with what you're selling, and
a lot of times you're a good seed, but you're

(58:35):
in bad soil. Yeah, and if you take that same
seed and you put it in good soil where there
is a real appetite for what you have to offer,
it's amazing what can happen to you? And it's amazing
who will support you irregardless of the color of your skin. Black, white, brown,

(58:58):
America is green, America is great.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Curious as to how, because I had a wonderful conversation
last night with Miss Kelly Cornish, who's head of your foundation,
and also with Michael who's running tdj's enterprises. I'm curious
as to how you all are incorporating that into incorporating
AI into the work that you're doing now with good
Soil and other things.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
See you're gonna interview maybe yeah, And she's good at
it too.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
You got it.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
You gotta watch this girl if you climb up on
the stage with her. We are using it for research.
We are using it to do analysis of what is
going on in certain states, in certain cities, and what
are the laws regarding each area that we operating in.
We are looking at it for projections over the next

(59:54):
five years of where we're going, incorporating it into our
plans and our thought process. We are using it for
technology to do advertisement. We are doing it because I
can't be in every place at the same time, and
I can reproduce my voice in such a way that
I can take my voice and propel it into places
and languages and languages yeah about all that you should

(01:00:20):
no kidding, because you can translate into excuse us we talked,
so have we forgot y'all for a minute. You can
translate it into languages that you wouldn't be able to
speak in and propel your voice much further than you
could on its own. But the analysis, the analysis I

(01:00:43):
keep coming back to, because we start a business because
we need money. We don't start a business because the
community needs a service. And eighty percent of people who
start a business because of their own need go out
of business. The most success US businesses are built on
finding the need of the area that you're working in,

(01:01:06):
and AI will help you to be able to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Absolutely. I have to say too, just to add to
that point that whatever your business is, if you shift
the paradigm to how do I use this in service
to the people who are coming and wanting your product
or wanting your service or wanting your information, and it

(01:01:30):
is geared. That's what I did with own and also
what we did with the Oprah Show. We after every
show would sit down and talk to the audience who
came and would listen to them, and that became my
focus group. Every day having conversations with people about where
they were in their lives and what they were looking

(01:01:52):
for and how they needed to be served. So you're
saying we can now use AI to do that. You
just feed into who the audience is or who the
customer is, and AI will help you to better search.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Absolutely, you can do it and save all kinds of
money in editing, and save all kinds of money in
producing products, and save all kinds of money in research.
There are a lot of ways you can do it,
and you don't need a lot of money to do it.
You can start out with your telephone. You can start
out very very small.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
So what AI do you use? Check GBT, what do
you use?

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
I want to let me talk to you after this interview.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
We want to know which one you use.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
I think you have to use several because some of
them do graphics, some of them do voiceover, some of
them do research. I think you have to study the
family of artificial intelligence to better understand what they can do.
What I am concerned about is the new forms of
AI that are coming out who are thinking for themselves.

(01:03:01):
And I think that's what we need to be watching
out for because we may have have created something that
we can't control. I'm concerned that we don't have laws
that have caught up with our technology.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
And we don't because everybody was trying to stay ahead
of China. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. It all comes down
to the green, as you were.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Saying, right right, right right, and and any tool, no
matter how good it is, in the hands of a
wicked I heard Warren Buffett say something I will never forget.
You can't do good business with bad people. You just
cannot do good business with bad people. We got to

(01:03:46):
wrap this up in a minute, but let me ask you.
Is there anything specially you wanted to say before I
ask you this?

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
No, I'm just following your leave.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Okay, okay. Chapter six Advice to younger self. If you
could go back to Mississippi and talk to that little
girl out in that front yard, what would you tell her?

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
What would I tell her? I would first and foremost
know how loved she is, because I grew up not
feeling a lot of love from the people around me.

(01:04:41):
And I would tell her. You know, my grandmother did
the best she could, but I had one of those strict,
disciplinarian grandmothers, And I say, as Tyler often says, you know,
she didn't give me much, but she did give me Jesus.
She had the ability to give me Jesus. And so
I would say to that girl, and I'd say to

(01:05:02):
anybody here, it's going to be all right. It's going
to be all right. And I would say, you know,
my favorite song is I Surrender All. And I learned that,
you know, when I was trying to get into the
color purple and didn't think it was going to happen,
and started singing that song, and suddenly the woman appeared

(01:05:25):
and said, Steven Spielberger is on the phone. And so
I have lived a surrendered life. And I would say,
understanding as I believed. You know, I've said this for
many years that you don't get what you want, you
actually get what you believe. And so if you're not

(01:05:48):
where you want, you need to look at what you believe.
And so because I truly believed when I was told
that I was God's child of Mini for many years
and people would ask me about it, I would say,
you know, Jesus is my brother because I'm God's daughter,
and the kids will want to beat me up because

(01:06:09):
he come that preacher girl talk about Jesus again, and
so I would tell that little girl to hold on
to God's unchanging hand. That's what I would tell him,
to hold to God's unchanging hand, you know, because it
has been the source of all things for me. And
can I tell this story? Can I tell this story?

(01:06:30):
I want to tell this story. Some of you may
have heard me tell the story, but this is this
is actually how I know how God works. So when
I was in Baltimore and I was making started out
in Baltimore making twenty two thousand dollars a year. By
the time I finished, I was making fifty seven thousand dollars.
So I thought that was it. When I went to

(01:06:51):
Chicago and they offered me two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars a year, Gail said, that's it. You never have
to work again. So I've come up the ranks. I've
had every single salary from the time I was sixteen
years old and first started working at the radio station.

(01:07:11):
Made one hundred dollars a week, and then I went
from one hundred dollars a week, and then I made
ten thousand dollars a year, Twelvey fifteen, all the way
all the way up the ranks. And when I was
in Baltimore, there was a woman who was a producer
of this show I was doing called People Are Talking
and wealthy, wealthy Jewish woman who still remains a friend.

(01:07:33):
Arlene Wiener is her name, and her husband Arnold, very
famous attorney in Baltimore. And so I went to visit
Arlene at her house and Arlene had they were like
three cars in the driveway, and I was like, whoa,
there's a Jaguar and there's a Mercedes, and then there

(01:07:55):
was like a stingway for their son. I was like,
Arlene is rich. And I walked into Arlene's house and
they got all the things, and I remember standing in
the kitchen looking out Arlene Wiener's window, and I could
see in the front yard these six trees, and I went, oh, rich,
people have trees. If IVI get enough money to buy

(01:08:22):
myself a house, I'm gonna have me six trees. And
I was at my house in Santa Barbara, a couple
of years after I'd moved into the house. I was
standing in the kitchen looking out the window and I
was standing there waiting on the on the on the
tee to brew and I looked out and I saw

(01:08:44):
the six trees, and I went, there's the six trees.
There's a six trees. I walked out into the front
of the yard. Y'all, I wish I had a picture
of my front yard. And beyond the six trees were
hun and hundreds and hundreds of trees. The bishop can
tell you I live with some trees. Yes, I am

(01:09:08):
surrounded by trees. And the trees have trees, the trees
have little tree babies. And in that moment, I thought, wow,
I had the dream for the six but Jesus had
a bigger dream for me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Murd you on here.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
You had a bigger dream for me. So here's the thing.
You plant the six in your good soil. You plant
it in your good soil, You nurture that good soil.
You ask God, what do you want me to do
with this good soil? And one day you're gonna look
up and you are standing in a forest.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
That's fabulous.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
You are standing in a forest. Whatever it is, you
give it to him, You offer it in surrender, surrender
it all, and it will come back to you a thousandfold.
I can tell you that is true because I am

(01:10:17):
living God's dream. For me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
Thank you Dallas, amazing, absolutely incredible. Give it up for
Oprah Winfrey. Come on, miss Oprah Winfrey, can I say,
Can I say one thing what she said about your

(01:10:47):
belief system about yourself. It's one of the hardest changes
to make you will ever make in your life. And
if you want to start the check one clue that
I have found that works very well. Watch who you
hang around. They are a mirror that often reflects what

(01:11:13):
you really think of yourself. And this canceling out of
the idea of imposter syndrome that when you get in
a better situation, you self sabotage yourself out of that situation.
Refuse to run and hide. Stay there. If you don't
have the right clothes, stay there. If you don't have

(01:11:36):
the right shoes, stay there. If you don't learn the
language yet, stay there. If you don't know what to
think about yourself, stay there. If they mistreat you, stay there,
if they don't like you, stay there. If you have
to learn a whole new way of talking and talk
real slow so that you don't go into your old

(01:11:58):
dialect and hit that default setting. And over time, over time,
nothing is impossible to him that believes it has been
my great honor to have the privilege to have in

(01:12:22):
front of this wonderful audience down with my friend, Thank
you Dallas and my sister, Thank you for coming.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
I'm so overjoyed to be here, so overjoyed to be here.
I have to say that, you know, let's speak a
minute about this imposter thing, because the first time somebody
told me in an interview they felt like an impostor,
I had to go look it up because because I
know whose I am. When you know whose you are,

(01:12:56):
when you really know whose you are, you know who
put you in those rooms, you couldn't be there. The
reason I don't understand it is you couldn't be there
unless he put you there. Right, you are there because

(01:13:17):
you belong there. You are belong there, and you were
there to be shown how your being there changes the
space because of the energy that you're bringing into the space.
Absolutely right. I've never felt like an impost anywhere, and

(01:13:38):
most places I go, certainly in the earlier years, I
would I would have to leave and go, Oh, I
think was I the only black person in the room.
Was I the only black person in the room?

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
I certainly was the only woman in the room, the
only black person in the room. And it never occurred
to me to feel like I didn't belong because I
knew that what Maya Angelo says is true. In her
poem The Grandmother's she says, I come as one, but baby,
I stand as ten thousand. You are never in there alone. Everybody,

(01:14:19):
who ever prayed for you, whoever wanted for you, whoever
hoped for you, you walk into the space with all
of them, with all of them, and we all have
been prayed up to this moment.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely again give it up for her, Miss
Oprah Winfree.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
Thank you, Alice, Thank you Alice.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
We love it, We love you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
I'm returning to my trees.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
We hope you enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
Turning to my trees.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
You're going back to her trees and her cabbage and
her books. Thank you, Oprah. Hey, everybody, I want to
take this time to thank you for what the next
chapter podcasts. If this conversation inspired you, helped you reflect
on an idea, or spark something new inside of you,

(01:15:10):
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