Oprah Winfrey Delivers Speech at Women's E3 Summit at the Smithsonian | NowThis

Rarely seen on television, she made conversations that shaped how generations of Americans thought about themselves and their country. I also want to say publicly that there is a lot I could say about her and what she has accomplished, but I want you to know that without her support. without the vision without the friendship of Oprah Winfrey there might not be a National Museum of African American History and Culture which she may not remember, but years ago, like 2005, when we started this effort and we were dreaming we didn't know exactly what to do. you took the time to help us shape our dreams and remind us how to engage the public, how to tell meaningful and true stories, you took the time and made a dream come true, your steadfast support and commitment to the museum has been a source of inspiration . for all of us, for which we are truly grateful, so I am very happy to say this for the first time, please join me in welcoming you to the Oprah Winfrey Theater, Miss Oprah Winfrey, amen, children, where there is so much scandal, the day It will surely be something out of place.

I think the twixtor

women

in the north and the men here, the white gangs are going to be in trouble very soon, that little man back there says to help the

women

get into the carriages and get over the mud puddles and I'm here to tell you. No one helped me get into any carriage and I have never been helped over even a mud puddle and am I not a woman? Look at me, look at my arms. I have already planted, plowed, gathered into barns and worked so hard. She had as much as any man she could get, no one could hit me and she is not our woman.

I was born 13 children, 13 boys and I saw them all sold as slaves and when I cried with the pain of a woman. No one but Jesus heard me and it is not a woman not born of the whip also and it is not a woman, it is impossible to stand in this space to be in this building and not feel the spirits, can you feel them? Take a seat, I want you to take a seat and fill the spirits fill the spirits the presence of the spirits who honor us by accepting our invitation to make their homes here at the National Museum of African American History and Culture sit the spirits because they have waited a long time It's time to tell their stories, but I wanted to start with the words of surge or truth because those words I have been reciting out loud since I was a little girl, somewhere inside me I knew that I had come from a long lineage, so I began to learn Fannie Lou Hamer and Sojourner Truth, all the black poets Maya Angelou, but I've been reciting those words out loud because they resonated so deeply within me and because her anti-woman question is at the heart of why I work to include African women.

The voices of American women in our historical and cultural narrative by telling and retelling each and every story are absolutely necessary if we are serious about getting to the heart of the issue of gender equality and empowerment in this country. , and today I feel honored. introduce myself as Oprah Winfrey in the theater Oprah Winfrey hello to add my voice to the chorus so that foreigners truth her famous question arose in response to a definition of womanhood that had just been offered by a white delegate to the 1851 women's convention in Akron Ohio were doing the same thing in '51 that we're doing here today, it was a definition that seemed at the time determined to exclude her entirely, so it rejected the notion of that little man back there that wealth, male protection and that kind privilege are what define who is a woman and who is not, she offers instead her own lived reality as proof that she needs to take her place and her seat at the Welcome Table and as she speaks her passion and her eloquence are undeniable, but here it is What is undeniable to me and has impressed me is her certainty.

What I admire most is her defiant refusal to be made less than the adult woman she knows she is and that is what she asks of all of us because her wife It is never up for debate in our woman. Her question is actually rhetorical. It is a challenge to the little man in the back there and to anyone who thought they could confine a being as majestic and magical, as mysterious, as complete as her, in a small dark space. where they could disrespect her and punish her, where they could rob her of her humanity, not a woman, certainly not. a man but a strange informed creature distinguished only by his physical strength by his ability to withstand the whip and his ability to suffer the pain of his lost children without going completely crazy I think about her I think about them all the time I think about how...

It's just that they didn't really go crazy again and again and again and again and again losing your mother losing your brother losing your children losing your husband working all day in the field getting up before the sun came up not finishing - did the sun set? working hard under the hot sun without being able to ask for a glass of water coming home not just tired to the bone tired exhausted tired to the bone and your family left without a word without a whisper they left missing just left they returned from the field and just They are gone so listen to the words of Alice Walker when she says what is real is what happened what happened to me and what happens to me is the most real of all that she says and I am here to testify that it is. what happened to them is a part of me it's a part of us it's a part of me in a tie a woman that question is at the heart of the collective experience of black women it's not that we haven't tried to answer it it's not that we haven't No I've tried, we've done it, but because it's often just us talking about ourselves because often it's just us listening when we're talking about ourselves, it's been hard for us to be heard, but not anymore because we have the National Museum of History and African American Culture and I am here to tell you that it is a creation, it is an existence, being here screams, listen to me, listen to me now, listen to me the words of Helen Mary Helen Washington, she says that if there is a desynchronization, every distinctive feature of the literature of black women and this explains their lack of recognition is that our literature is about us, it is about black women, it takes the trouble to record the thoughts, the words, the feelings, the facts and the experiences that make up the reality of being black in America looks very different from what men have written because there is actually this general narrative, but there is also the specific narrative of the black woman without which the whole edifice is a lie, no matter how carefully it is constructed, it does not matter.

However carefully it is presented, as if it contains the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it does not and cannot contain the truth, because if we are not there, the true American story cannot be told because we are always there and we have always been there doing everything, being everything. doing our part and then some because, as Gwendolyn Brooks said, we would have to carry out our bloom, she said in the noise and the whip of the wind from the well, that's what she said and so we did and so we still do, in fact , we are just getting started. running our business because we have entrepreneurs, educators, directors, filmmakers, communications experts and visionaries, we have fearless wars and first ladies, we have poets, we have politicians, we even have a princess and we also have our own network and no t IA woman in the OL network at this moment we are focused on telling stories well so that you can see yourself in them stories like Queen sugar and stories like Greenlee and on June 19 Mara brocco kill brings a new story called love is where you can simply see beautiful beautiful faces on the screen beautiful reflections all of them of art imitating life as we know it life in our churches and life in our kitchens and life in our bedrooms we have been invisible for so long and we have also been silent for so long and make no mistake about it There is a high price to pay for accepting your own invisibility.

There is a diminution of soul and spirit when the images you see and the definitions you hear never reflect that of your specific woman when the truth of who you are is denied relentlessly aggressively boldly I mean, I grew up with no one on the screen, but no one wants to be a bug, so it's no surprise that we were silent at times and that silence created a void, a feeling of primal abandonment and despair at times. that has shaped not only our history but all too often it has shaped our daily lives because it makes us the fact that you never see yourself and you never hear your stories makes you start to doubt ourselves and wonder if we are missing something intangible and elusive that could complete us it makes you feel isolated it confuses you and you start to wonder if you will ever be good enough this is what I know after thousands and thousands of interviews everyone feels it's the human condition am I enough but is it a human condition on steroids for black women everywhere, you know, when I talk to my young students in South Africa, the insecurity and fear that comes up again and again for them is that question: Am I enough?

Am I enough? Can I be enough? and my neck my answer is always yes you are enough because you come from what is more than enough and you just need to be reminded where you come from and that is what this place does that is why I love this museum so much it is here to shake the memory banks is here to reiterate the knowledge of what you have been through so you know what you can overcome here are the words here are the words of Pericles she says we have sometimes shivered at the edges of a very cold place where people do not She always sees our beauty or understands the rhythm of our song, that's what she said, but we never stop singing, no way could we do it because before all that attempt to silence, the woman who survives intact must always be alert in the town, she must constantly remember. that your values ​​and your choices matter, you must know deep within your being that you matter, not only that you matter, but also why, for me, the fundamental basis of the empowerment of the entrepreneurial spirit of any type of commitment, the fundamental basis. of my success of my well-being my integrity my everything is knowing who I am and where I come from in my living room right now there is a painting that I have had for thirty years, you can Google it, it is called to the highest bidder and it is in the center of my house and it is in the center of my house because in reality it is a symbol of the foundation not of the house but of the foundation of my life.

The painting is by Harry Rosalind, who was a genre painter in the early 20th century. 19th century and the painting is over six feet tall and shows a slave at the auction holding her daughter's hand and I can't walk in the door of my house or I can't leave without passing by that painting. I remember where I come from. every day of my life and I remember it because I never want to forget it and in my library I have a list of enslaved African Americans. Remember that I showed you who was held captive on various plantations listed in the ledgers along with the cows and horses, carts and other property and I went over this list every day and often stopped in front of it and simply said their name in loud voice and their ages Jonah was eleven years old five hundred dollars Sarah forty-one years nine hundred dollars Elizabeth fifty-seven eight hundred dollars and I forced myself to consider the absurdity and obscene of the prices that would be put on each one if they were put to the sale and sometimes I just stop before them with a prayer, especially before I have to make a big decision. about one of my companies or if I continue forward or if I stay still, it reminds me to say those names out loud not only where I come from but how far I have to go thanks to them and it reminds me that I will never be alone, it reminds me of what I have I've had to overcome to overcome and even when I find myself in environments where I'm the only black woman who still has that kind of uniqueness, it doesn't make me feel uncomfortable and I have to tell you it never has.

She made me feel uncomfortable. I entered a room as cool as you want and, before a man, the companions knelt because I always knew that I was never anywhere. God didn't want me to be there and I've had no problems accepting success or being worthy of what I know I work for, but these days it just makes me wonder, when I'm still the only woman or person of color sitting at the table. Where are my sisters, makes me wonder who it was. I built what obstacles were meant to keep them out because without artificial barriers we would be represented in every room, we are the criteria, our excellence, discipline, determination and vision, we would be there at that table, so these moments when I walk into the room as well as cool as you want and I am the only person of color I am the only woman these are the moments when I call upon the ancestors to surround me to sustain me and strengthen me and I call upon them here today I call upon them and I offer myself to them I say I am here I'm ready and well, here we go because when I enter any room, when and where I enter I am already more than I was, I already embody the truth of the wise men of Maya Angelou. words when she said I come as one butI am 10,000 I come as one but I am 10,000 I am not only 10,000 I am 10,000 raised to the tenth power I stand I stand on solid rock I stand I stand because I am the dream and the hope of the slave and I am more than the seed of the free the one spoken by Langston Hughes and the black mother's pawn I am the fruit I am the flower I am the blossoming tree and I will not be moved anymore I am not a woman and when I walk with them when I walk with those ten thousand that's how I carried myself through life I carry myself through life standing with the ten thousand and when I walk with them I remember something else that Maya taught me that Jimmy Baldwin taught her that he used to say to be Baby, your crown has been paid for, all you have to do is put it on your head and use it, so when we get into this museum we can see how the wreaths were laid for us, that's what you did for us, Lonnie, you laid.

With the crowns facing out so that we can see with the naked eye, we can see and feel that sense of connection with the past that allows us to step out of our history and into a future that is brighter than any of them could have imagined, but here. now we are together reshaping our history to finally reflect the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that is what this museum is about and we are learning to understand and learning to embrace the power from which we come, that power that I am. telling you that power that feeling of spiritual energy that you feel here that is the weigh station that is the fuel tank that is the pillar of all empowerment look at what they did now imagine what you can do we need to wrap ourselves in the certainty of foreigners when we say yes this is our story yes you need to know that story you need to know it to know yourself you need to know it to know your strengths and understand that strength for strength for strength for strength for strength equals power see what they did and then imagine what you can do, what we can do together and then let's get to the work of doing it here.

The words of Pearl Clete, she says, we know that we are walking in the deep footprints of the confident steps of the women who parted the air before them like the forces of nature that they were and we are grateful because we need their wisdom now we need it now more that we never need your clarity and we need your courage we need your vision to dream bigger to climb higher to sing louder to walk louder to be better to allow ourselves to move fearlessly in spaces that are big enough to contain all that we are, all that we We have been and everything we are supposed to be, the reason why many of us cannot move forward if you are in a space that is too tight to contain your spirit, you are too tight, you have to be aligned with what you want to do, so Otherwise, empowerment does not work, we have to be ready.

We have to be spiritually tuned, it starts here and works outward, we have to be mentally spiritually tuned so that when we are asked to create entire worlds from scratch we say yes, yes, of course, we can cause that creative thing, that's how you specialize . that's what we do we have so many worlds within us so many starlit galaxies so many deep reserves with rivers of wisdom and so much truth we know so much and we have so much joy so much buried joy waiting to burst out and yes we will be happy to share them we are just waiting for you everyone see it and ask because I always knew the answer to the question about anti-woman surge winners the answer is yes, always and forever, yes, I am a fully grown, fully grown woman. a phenomenal woman is Maya she said and when you see me walking you should be proud to hear the words of Bari Evans I am a black woman the music of my song a sweet arpeggio of Tears is written in a minor key and you can hear me humming at night you can listen humming in the night because I'm a black woman tall as a cypress I'm a black woman strong beyond all definition they're still trying but beyond definition still defying where I must find time and circumstances I'm a black woman assaulted yes waterproof yes indestructible yes I am a black woman look at me and renew yourself thank you so I told Lonnie I love answering questions I love the spirit and energy of this place happy to answer questions for As long as they tell me I can, it was so much fun.

Remember I told you that I walked into the exhibit yesterday and Mari Evans' book is there and I said I'm going to do them. It's one of my favorite ways. Someone has a question. Yes mom. I'm the lady in orange yeah yeah cross DeMars Whiteville North Carolina umm what inspires you every day because you inspire us every moment every time we see you so what inspires you I'll tell you I live in the space of inspiration for me and I thank you. To say that the truth is, my vocation is to inspire and I have been doing that since I was three years old at the Kosciusko Buffalo Methodist Church.

You will see that when you see the exhibition, how small, that was where I started making Easter pieces. Jesus rose on Easter day. , hallelujah, hallelujah, all the angels did not complain, they proclaimed and you know, when we, in the black culture, would get all the old hymnals that had been passed down from the white churches, and so, we would make everything known to them. their discarded things so that you would become a little piece and they would give it to you and tell you this is your piece to learn whether it's for Mother's Day or Easter Christmas, so my career in broadcasting actually started in the church. making those pieces and I recognized that the thread of my purpose in life began there just like yours if you start to think about where your longing to be began, it begins for me it began in the church with the church with the sisters in the front row Fanning they themselves tell my grandmother that she had a maid is a talking ciao so my inspiration was I checked out the whole exhibit it's quite extraordinary it's been a hashtag Gold's to have your exhibit in the exhibition Adam you see but I checked out all the exhibit yesterday and What made me cry was that at the end there was a book where people had written exactly what the exhibit meant to them and what the Oprah show had meant to them over the years and one woman wrote "watching you every day." I love myself so fiercely and that made me cry because that is my goal my intention is to use my life as an inspiration for other people to see what is possible for themselves, not my life is impossible but my life is an inspiration for you see the light and what makes me happiest is when someone understands that and during all the years on The Oprah Show I could always feel when I had connected with the audience when something was said and it was really heard and people like me remember the Una I once shared something that Maya had taught me about when people show you who they are, believe them and I could feel that people understand it.

I could feel that people get it because the people, the audience is just what you just did, they said yes and then someone told you. Teach people how to treat you if you go, yeah, so you can feel when you're connecting and you're doing it, so there's nothing that makes me happier in life than enabling other people to achieve their own happiness. You don't have all these beautiful girls that are some of them, I thought, so you asked a question, but beautiful girls from South Africa, hello, who are a stand-up girl so they can see all these girls that I've known since they were.

They were 12 and 13 now they are all graduating from college and going out into the world and I tell them all the time don't worry about a Mother's Day gift, don't worry about it, first of all, words are important, so knowing how you feel is important, but the other thing is that your happiness is my reward your success is my reward my only goal is that I have opened the door and that you are smart enough to walk through that door and accept the opportunity, so what inspires me is having other people inspired thank you yes Mrs.

Flores that mmm I can listen to you it's just true mm-hmm well first of all there is nothing but thank you for that and good luck with your career yes your manifestor so that It's good. I'm a big manifester, but here's the deal: There isn't a dream you can dream that the power that is God, regardless of what name you call Him, hasn't dreamed big for you, so please. For the good of all, let us be in the same place. page let's use life for God life has dreamed dream for you and your goal your number one job is to discover what that dream is and align yourself with the dream because the dream cannot come to you unless you are willing to fulfill it energetically in the same place so if your energy is off, which I tell my daughters all the time, they could teach this class right now on being and flow if you are not in flow with God's dream for you with life's dream for you If you are out of order if you are not in sync it cannot come to you it will not come because the purpose of your life is to align with the purpose and so if you are operating with fear if you are operating with jealousy jealousy will kill your jealousy it will maintain any type of anger or jealousy that you have towards someone else, so here are a couple of laws.

I have the first law, the third law of motion in physics, which says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and we demonstrate it very beautifully in purple when Missy Lee says sir, everything you're trying to do to me you've already done to me. you, that's not just a rhetorical saying, that's the law, Newton's third law of motion in physics, which says that everything that goes out is coming back, it's like everything that goes up comes down, it can take a long time to come down, it's going down. everything that goes out is coming back is coming back so to respond to the power of manifestation and meditation what meditation does is synchronize you with The source of what meditation does is literally allow you to access the power that created you so that you are aligned with that and so, when you bring that into the world, everything that you do comes from the center of that alignment that comes from the source that we call God we call it divine energy divine intelligence whatever name you want to give it we call life when you are synchronized with life life simply gives you gives opens doors creates experiences allows you to meet people things appear You never thought we were going to appear and you are doing what is the purpose of your soul being here, so one of my favorite teachers is Gary Zhukov, who says that authentic power is when you learn to use your personality, which I have done very well.

Well, use your personality to serve your soul energy so that you are the greatest soul that has personality when you figure out how to take it. I have a great personality. It's charming. It's charming. But it's not me. It's not me. I'm here to do it. the work of my soul and I use my personality to serve the work of the soul and because I know what the work of the soul is I heard someone ask before what you should be praying about, the prayer is use me, you are here to be used as a vessel from the fountain. where you come from and if everyone has a different talent and the reason we are all so confused is because you are looking at everyone else's talent and wishing you had some of their talent, all the energy you spend thinking about wishing about being jealous or envious of someone else is energy that you are not only wasting but will come back to you negatively but you are taking it away all your energy must be forced into what do I have to offer what to do I have to give how can I be used in service because the Dr.

King's message that not everyone can be famous but everyone can be great because greatness is determined by service and there is no job here that you can do that won't shift the paradigm to service and make that job more satisfying. I don't care what the job is if you say I'm a singer I'm a dancer I'm an artist I'm a teacher I'm a nurse I'm a doctor I'm a janitor I'm a self I'm an employee, I'm a if you say that if I look at this from how I use it in the service of something bigger than myself It no longer becomes a job, it becomes an offering to the world and that is why you are here and when you can align yourself with whatever it is, align yourself with that and all you have to do is keep asking the question and do the question with purity, not with when he will come, you know I'm not looking for a man, but yes. that he from there I played that game I played that game when you can do that then then it comes it opens up don't you see that and don't you see the difference between the days you meditate and the days you don't?

I try to do it every day because if you don't it usually makes the day harder, it doesn't mean you can't get through life because a lot of people get through life, it just means your life isn't as better. and everyone who is afraid of meditation don't even call it medication don't call it that just say I'm going to have I have what I call I have a prayer chair I am a prayer and then I only have a place go and be still then the Bible says sit still in Illustrated and knowing that there is and you actually already know it because it's a reminder of what you already knew so someone says something you're in church the preacher says something that you already know it's just a reminder You care that you've forgotten who you were and where you come from and there is nothing you cannot do if it is not aligned with themajor source and the reason people have so many struggles is because you are fighting what is for you. you are pushing against it, so when you find that you are not moving forward, you have to stop, be still and say: what am I resisting?

That's because it can't come through if you push against it, it only happens if you're flowing with it and it just flows flows and it can't flow if you're afraid it can't flow if you're afraid okay, that's an elegant question, yeah, okay, it adds up. to my kind of cunning swar dienes what year was that? Oh, mm, okay, thank you, thank you for that, thank you for that, okay, couple more lady in yellow lady in yellow then lady in green back there and then you and the whip oh yeah, the new anthem policy was the moment when the last world completely succumbed to the stupidity of everything else that's going on right now remember let's stop pretending there might be some kind of temporary recreational escape point lower than I thought well first of all , thanks for asking that, so how do you do it right?

How is the narration done? yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, well I think that's because there's still some shame involved, it's like no one understands it, so here I'm going to go down the road to answer that question, so I have this all-girls school in South Africa and It started with the idea of ​​taking girls who came from difficult backgrounds, bringing them to school and giving them this great opportunity, and all of that works because every one of my girls is brilliant, they even come from the small rural schools that they come to . ever since Gail and I went the first year handpicking each girl, so every girl you see here today has been handpicked because they were smart wherever they were, then they came to my school and they were all expelled because they all smoked. the first time they were in a place and that was their first crisis, oh god, I used to be number one and now I'm number 12, so one of the things that has absolutely helped change my school is opening up and sharing stories and that started because and getting up was accepting who I, who I started doing it speaking all over the country and sharing her story and she has a what's your website, but at first you were afraid to share the story first with all the girls.

Over half of our girls have lost their parents to AIDS at my school and everyone was embarrassed to tell the story because they thought they were the only ones who were right and now you know there's nothing you can share so thank you , boom, but I would say. This is why I was number one for 25 years because I found out early on that there is no story that anyone has ever heard that someone else hasn't experienced anything and I also found out that probably in the first year or two everything pain is. the same as a mother in Somalia feels the same as a climate in Seattle when she loses her child and the common denominator in the human experience is our emotions and our feelings and the more vulnerable and open you are willing to be with your story the more understanding real you create with other people and the more powerful you become, people don't think less of you for sharing your story, they think more of you for having the courage to share it, so that's what I would tell your women, there is nothing . that they can say it hasn't been felt, this is the classic example of this was when I did Toni Morrison for the first time in the book club or for the second time I chose Bluest Eye, now Blue Eye, do you know intrinsically a black story? about a black girl who wants to have blue eyes because she doesn't know enough about herself or doesn't think she's beautiful, so I thought this was going to be a story that black women everywhere would relate to. women in Brazil women in the Philippines women in Korea women in China women around the world said I am that girl and it actually surprised me, I wonder what that girl is like because everyone has experienced that feeling of being marginalized because you didn't look like everyone else others thought you had to show off, so another great example was when I went to interview in the mid and late 80s a group of women in prison in Texas, all accused of killing their children and there were six of them all murderers for life and I sat with them I spent an afternoon with them I ate with them I talked to them and at the end one of them came up and said you are the first person who has treated us like we were real people.

How could you sit with us because you know we've done, we've done terrible things and I said because I realized talking to you that all pain is the same and this is what you did with yours and that's why there's no story, all the stories. They have the seven basic themes: you know, pain, suffering, loss, triumph or whatever, when you get to the core of what's really happening, everyone who has lost a mother, that's why when Ava Duvernay had this beautiful saying, everyone saw Queen. sugar, here the first season, watch the first season, you see the first episode of the second episode when the father dies and the three generations the father is in bed dying the angel Ralph is there with his youngest son that's why the people of everyone cried because everyone knows what it's like anyone who's ever been in a hospital room and had to have that moment doesn't know the color doesn't know the background doesn't know doesn't know Creed your belief system does it does it so it doesn't make it like that when you get to the root of what's really happening we all feel the same, that's why I was able to be so successful because I knew we started in Chicago and I was on the air for a year in Chicago, a couple of '80s- 84, I started God.

I looked at that exhibit and we were looking at each other the first day. I'm actually wearing white tights from Joe Aquarius. I didn't go to the nurses. I'm wearing white tights with a jheri curl. What a skirt that is too long and a coat that is too short. No, no one but Jesus could have helped me at that particular moment. Gail just told me yesterday. There's no way you could have made it today. There was no way, no way, no way you could have done it, but I understood that there was a common denominator and the human experience. because we had already been talking to all these women in Chicago for years and their feelings and emotions and what they had been through, so I know that just because you cross the state line in Iowa you won't, you won't. you feel different or because you're in Michigan you won't feel different because you're in Ohio because you're in Seattle because you're in Boston you don't feel different, they're all the same everyone who's been deceived feels the same no matter what color you are you feel the same you're angry you knew him well someone there understood him that's how the whole story is done you get yes ma'am it's a deep gratitude and confirmation I want to ask you about calling, yes I was one of those people who struggled because I was running away from mine, finally I decided that I wanted to align and I discovered in the last few weeks that my calling is very simple to tell the truth, two days after I found out that I received the invitation to be on stage here, that's what happened and that's what I want to say , that's why it happened and as I was walking through the exhibit before this part I read the diary entry you wrote the midnight before your first national show aired. show where you said maybe this is my calling, yeah, and I'd love to hear from you what took you from the place of maybe to safety, yeah, and your calling and your and keeps you in the place of being unafraid and unapologetic. for exactly what it is. great question yes well what took me from maybe to a certainty was actually a show I did with the Ku Klux Klan and that's why all this is what I wanted if I leave you with nothing else it's just not this for sure there is nothing that has ever happened to you, not an experience, not an encounter, not a crisis, not a joyful thing that has not happened just to make you better and help you overcome each thing you are asking for, whether you know it or not when you calculate it.

Realize that you are calling it when you really start meditating or praying or doing or having a spiritual practice, which is the number one thing you need if you want to be successful in the world, you need something that will give back to you and nourish you no matter what you do. . you call you need you need to fill your cup in order to be so full your cup overflows and you have enough to give to other people if you don't fill your cup you end up dry you end up tired exhausted and you don't have enough to give to other people you end up resentful every time someone He asks you because your cup is empty and now they want some of yours, so your number one job, your number one job is to fill your cup and feel complete. that's your job, so it went from calling to, I mean, I was happy to be on TV.

I've been in television since I was 19 years old. I met my best friend Gail in Baltimore. I knew that was not my calling, being a television reporter. I hated it, she loves it and I knew I knew she loves it. I hated it. I always felt out of alignment with myself, but my dad was like a girl, don't quit your job, make $25,000, twenty-five, don't give up. his work, so I had those vocals, but every day I was, I wasn't saying agony, I was trying to figure out how can I be myself, be real on the air and I always felt like I was faking it and I was out of alignment. and then when they were ready to fire me, they were going to fire me, but they didn't want to release me from the contract, so they thought, "Well, let's just pay him and we can get him to do this talk show, so they literally put me on the talk show to get me out of the way and the first day I sat there interviewing the Carvel ice cream man about his many flavors and Bennett of all my children remembers that he used to be in all my children, those first two guests and marking dollars in the middle I knew he was back.

I couldn't predict that it would become what it is, but I knew that I could finally breathe and I no longer intended to restrict my feelings because I go out to read stories and I would feel empathy for people and that would reflect on the person. job and then, you know, I would have a little slip-up with my boss because I had a bad boss, you know, very aggressive I started to feel then, oh, this is, oh, this is the job I want, but I didn't know what to call. . I was interviewing a woman on one of the shows.

It was so impressive for me to see all the shows we've done, Lord. It makes me tired to watch it, but I was interviewing a woman, it was a show called The Mistress The Wise Meet the Mistress's or something crazy and this woman was on the show and it was a live show and in the middle of it her husband says to his wife . and our entire audience and the world that his lover was pregnant yes to this day it makes my eyes water because I saw his wife's face and I felt his humiliation and I said: I will leave television if I have to do this, I will not do this. and my producers like what we're going to do, this is what everyone's doing and then the same thing over that same period of time, so I was like, I'm not going to do any of that anymore.

I'm not bringing people. TV, where is it? We're on the wall, but we didn't know that moment was going to happen, they were like we didn't know it was going to happen, but that shouldn't happen on TV and I don't want to be a part of the energy that caused anyone. Feel that because that will now come back to me. I have to pay for that. So I was interviewing the KKK on stage. That was the day a guy in the audience called me a monkey and during the commercial break I could see them signaling to each other. and just watching them and their behavior I thought, oh, they get it, I don't get it, they're using me, they're using this platform because they understand, because I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to tell them all about the KKK that they were using.

They used it to recruit members for themselves, they were using it to recruit their base and then I went to the beer tree. The sister said I won't do a show like that, so they said you're not going to do the mistress one, you know you won't. It would be cool what we're going to do, so I said let's create a baseline for ourselves that's based on intention. This was around 1989, when I read Gary Zhukov's book called The Seat of the Soul and that book changed my life because in it he talked about the power of intention and that cause and effect what goes out comes back is determined by your intention. energy of your intention is what determines your life most people do not think about their intention, they only think about what they wanted For most people they do not think about why they want to do it, but what will come back to you, the energy that will come back to you, is the real why of why they did it, and so I told my producers, "We won't do any shows that aren't intentional, so don't bring me an idea unless you have an intention for the show." what you want the result to be and we will strive to see if we can live up to our intentions and So in the late '80s, we started a pre-show to talk about what the intention was and then a post show after each show to say if we fulfilled that intention and that was when I realized that this is bigger than me and me.

It's not my prayer journal, if you looked at my journal over the years it's that I started to recognize that it wasn't just a show and the KKK helped me see that it wasn't ashow, it was a platform to be used. as a mission, just like they were recruiting their base, I could recruit mine and I was going to recruit forever, so I told the producers we're going to be a force for good, we're going to use this to inspire your question and We're going to use this to encourage whenever we can and we will use it to inspire, uplift and entertain, so your show ideas should include a little of all of that.

Did it inspire anyone to encourage anyone? Encouraged? someone and you also did it in an entertaining way and you will know that it is your calling when you would do it for nothing you will know that your support you will know that you are in linemen because the flow is like that, I mean, we Worked, you know, our team worked 14 days of 18 hours every day and then we took a three-month break and then we came back and tried to do better. We were our own competition, the only competition.