The Resilient Mind - Your Dream Is Calling - Oprah Winfrey

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Oprah Winfrey is a media mogul, actress, producer, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, "The Oprah Winfrey Show," which ran from 1986 to 2011 and became one of the highest-rated talk show in television history. Its success helped her become the world’s first Black woman billionaire in 2003.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind Podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to Your Dream is Calling with Oprah Winfrey. Get access to the Mental Mastery Program and other exclusive episodes by becoming a subscriber. Enjoy. There's a bigger dream waiting for you, just waiting for you to step into it. To step into it. Your life is big. Your life is huge.

spend so much time wanting to be in somebody else's life. And you don't get honored, you don't get revered, you don't get celebrating, wanting what somebody else has, because that which created you, divine intelligence that dreamed you from before your ancestors ever knew they would become your ancestors, that which dream the seed of you, wants you to know how special, how wondrous, how mysterious, how complex, how glorious, how phenomenal you are. And you get no credit messing in somebody else's territory or trying to have power over something you have no control. Oh, another one of my favorite teachings is the Wizard of Oz. When the Wicked Witches, the West says go away from here because you don't have any power here,

you have no power in any territory other than your own. Oh, but you are the master of that. You get to be the master of your own fate. You get to be the captain of your own soul. And if you just manage that, if you just took care of your territory, Oh, the glorious, glorious, glorious, wondrous, wondrous opportunities and possibilities that are waiting for you. So the question is, what are you resisting? What are you pushing against?

What are you not allowing? What are you blocking? Because you have this idea of who and what you're supposed to be. instead of leaning into the dream that's already been created and waiting for you. It's waiting for you. And the second, I mean, it's an instant thing. It's a shift in the way you see yourself and the power from which you have come. So I went through some tough times after I left the Oprah show.

I made a conscious decision that I did not want to. to be sitting on TV with the Oprah show and y'all saying she should have left that show. That show was really good two years ago. I made a conscious decision that when I felt I had said all that I could say and the audience had heard it that I would move on and that I would not spend my life regretting or trying to hold on to what used to be or hold on to what I had. So I dreamed this dream of starting a network. And in the beginning, it was a struggle.

It was a struggle because I didn't, honestly goodness, I did not know what I was doing. I was trying to figure it out. I was trying to figure it out. I thought that the Oprah Show audience would follow us to own. Then I realized y'all didn't have cable. And if you had cable, you did not have the own package. package. So it took me a minute. And unlike most people who you get to have your

mistakes in private, something don't go right in your life, you get to sulk about it in private. If I make a mistake, it's on the CNN crawl or to CNN News. So when I was in the climb and there were so many wonderful owners, I see Churl Action Jackson here, there were so many wonderful owners, people who said, oh, we're going to stand with you. We're going to stand by you. Thank you, Roland Martin. There were so many people. who said, listen, we believe that this can happen. So I dream the dream, along with Tyler Perry, who was my friend who came to me and said,

Tyler, Tyler said, I'm going to help you out because Tyler can go home and write a script and direct it, produce it, and shoot it, and do it for less money than anybody in Hollywood. So we started with the foundation of have and have not, if loving you is wrong, love thy neighbor. Mama Hattie.

And then I started to dream another dream about scripted television, because in the beginning I was told you couldn't do it. You couldn't do it, didn't have enough money to do it. And I dreamed a dream. I read Proverbs 1128 that says those who trusted their riches will fall, but the righteous will rise and thrive like a green leaf. And so anything you hear about me that, feels good, sounds good, you think about it.

I wonder what Oprah's doing. How's she doing? I am living the dream. And I want you to live the dream because I'm not living the dream because I'm special. I'm living the dream because I was obedient to the call of the dream. So I want you to leave here today thinking about what is the dream for you? What is God's dream for you? What does the creator's dream hold for you?

So often we spend our lives wishing and hoping and hoping and wishing and desiring things. This is what I know for sure. You don't get what you wish for. You don't even get what you hope for. You get what you believe. So what is it you believe and know to be God's dream for you? So I live in the dream. I'm living in the space of the dream.

And dreams good, dreams good. The dream is greater than anything that I could have imagined. You know, when I was a little girl, my father, on Sunday mornings after church, he was a deacon, so he thought he had to say goodbye to every single person. We were the last car leaving the parking lot in the Green Oldsmobile. And we would drive through the white people's neighborhood. And I used to dream the dream driving through the white people's neighborhood. We'd drive through white people's neighborhoods and you'd see their fancy houses.

Some of them had gates, but all of them had trees. And I remember when I first came to Baltimore, I met a friend, hello Baltimore in the house. When I first came to Baltimore, I made friends with a wonderful woman named Arlene Weiner. She was the wealthiest person I'd ever met. And I went to her house and parked at the driveway. There was a corvette and there was a big. BMW and there's a Mercedes. I went, whoa, Arlene's rich. And at Arlene's house, once I got inside, I could see from her kitchen window six trees in the front yard. I thought, oh, rich

people have trees. When I get rich, I'm going to get me some trees. I'm not just going to get me. Everybody want to get cars and pocketbooks and shoes, but I want me some trees. So as life would have it. I was standing in my kitchen window about three years ago in California, making coffee in the morning, and I was looking out the window, and I saw the six trees. But listen to me. I was making, making, making the coffee. I saw the six trees. I went out on the porch to actually count the six trees. And this is what I noticed, that I could dream the six. But beyond the six trees in my kitchen window are 3,687 trees. How do I know? Because I had them count it. I had them count it. Because I said, I wanted to know how many trees out there. I dreamed the six. That's as much as my, my, my, my, my, my, my small

mind in my imagination could hold for myself. I dream the six, but God can see beyond the six, can see beyond the six because there was a bigger dream for me. And I'm here to tell you, there is a bigger dream for you, essence. There's a bigger dream. And so the key, the secret, the magic is to surrender to God's dream for you. To quit fighting against and pushing against and disallowing against and resisting against and trying to tell the creator, the universal forces, divine intelligence, what you are supposed to do

and get still and know for sure what his, what his dream, the dream, is for you. And I discovered in physics class, those of you who remember physics, the third law of motion, you remember what that is? The third law of motion in physics says, for every action, it's called Newton's law, and it says for every action,

there is an equal and opposite reaction. So what does that mean? That means everything, that you are putting out into the world. Every action, bam, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It means no matter what you do, the energy of what you do, what you say, and most important, the energy of who you are is going out into the world, into your home, into your relationships,

and that energy is always coming back to you. You are responsible for the energy that you are pulling out into the world because that very energy, bam, is coming right back to you every single time, whether you believe it or not, because it is law. It is law. It is law that what you put out into the world is coming back. Now, in our country and many countries all over the world, they call this the golden rule. They say, do unto others as you would have them. do unto you.

The truth is, whatever you do is already done. The truth is, so when I learned this, that I am the person who gets to control what comes back to me based upon what I'm putting out. Ms. Sealy tried to tell y'all in the color purple. Ms. Sealy said it best. Roll Sealy for me. Knocked you up, one.

Everything you did. done to me, already done to you. That's real. That's law. That's not just some words. The Alice Walker wrote, that is law. Everything you try to do is already done. So when I figured that out, oh, what I'm putting out

is what's coming back. Let me get real clear about what it is I'm putting out. Real clear. So I read a book about 1989 called CEDA of the soul. And in that book, Gary Zuccoff talked about the laws of karma, of the laws of cause and effect, the third law of motion. And in that book, he talked about how intention, your intention, is always one with the law. Meaning, before you even think about a thing, you have an intention for the thing and that the intention is going to determine the outcome. That's why the same people can go

to the same church service and somebody walked down the aisle just to be seen to put some money in the church and somebody else who just goes and just has a little bit to offer. The intention with which you give, the intention with which you serve determines the outcome. So when I figured that out, I went, whoa, I changed everything I did on my show. I called in the producers and I said, from this day forward, I will no longer be speaking to the KKK.

I will no longer be speaking to people who are fighting each other in a way that it is damaging to the character of myself and other people who watch. From this day forward, I am only going to do intentional television. And they're like, how are we gonna do that and still win? The reason we remain number one for 25 straight years is because every single day,

I would have a pre-show meeting and have the producers come in and state to me, what is your intention? How do we want to use whoever is on this show, whatever is happening on this show, to serve the audience in a way that fulfills the mission of uplifting, enlightening, encouraging, as well as entertaining? And if it doesn't do that, then I can't do it. I can't put my name on it.

So I use this principle of intention for everything. I don't do anything without thinking about what is the real reason. What is the real motivation? What is the energy of my intention that's going to go into my thoughts and action and then be returned back to me? It is law. It's law. So the very first time I practiced this principle, there was a woman on the woman.

the show whose daughter had been murdered by her boyfriend and I went into the green room. I said, I'm going to see if this works. I said, can you tell me what's your intention? She said, I said, tell me what's your intention in being here. And she said, what do you mean? I'm here because your producers asked me to come. I said, but what is the reason you said yes? What did you intend when you said yes? And she said, I wanted people to know. Everybody asked me about my daughter's death and how she was murdered by her boyfriend. But I wanted people to know that my daughter was a real person. My daughter was loved and she loved us. I want people to know that my daughter had a life that goes beyond her death that's bigger than her death, that her

life was bigger than her death. I said, okay, I can help you with that intention. Let me tell you what I intend. I intend to literally exploit your daughter's life to tell the story in such a way that every other 16-year-old girl who is being abused by her 18-year-old boyfriend will see themselves in the story of your daughter. They will hear that she had a life. They will hear that everything seemed normal on the outside, but see themselves in her story and be able to be empowered by the life and death of your daughter. So every question that I ask you is not me trying to be just a voyeur.

I'm using and asking the questions explicitly for a reason, for an intention to get people to see themselves. That is the first show I won an Emmy for. And I will say that this principle of intention I use in everything, thing. For the last interview that I did with Whitney Houston, we did the, hey, girl, how you doing? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I see, oh, so, so, so. Then I say, turn the cameras off. I say, Whitney, tell me, what is your

intention? Why are you doing this interview? Why did you want to sit with me? What is it you want to happen at the end of these two hours? Tell me what it is you want, because I control the mic, and I can make sure that happens. And I've used that principle for every area of my life. I don't do anything, and I ask that you consider not doing anything that you don't truly intend. Do not allow yourself to be marginalized and defined by other people's agendas and intentions. because the power of your story lies in your personal intention.

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

That is the power of your phenomenon. Now, everybody works hard, and everybody has their own dreams. There was a time where I used to spend a lot of energy wanting things. Wanting things. Of course, it's easy for me to say, oh, things don't define you because I got a lot of things. nice, I like them. But this is what I learned. When you can surrender to the dream, you get to live in the space of the higher power. You get to live in the space that you purposely have come to earth to claim for yourself. So around 1984, I was sitting in bed one morning,

Sunday morning, should have been in church, but I wouldn't. I was reading the New York Times review of the color purple. And I thought, whoa, this sounds like a really great book. I got out of bed in my pajamas, put on my galoshes, and went to the store to get the copy of the color purple. I read the color purple in one afternoon, went back to the bookstore, bought every book of the color purple. I took the book to the office, and I said to everybody,

y'all got to read this book. Oh, my God, you got to read this book, Color Purple. I needed a book club. I didn't have one. So I pass out the book to everybody I knew. Please, read the color purple. Read the color purple. Then I start to hear that somebody's going to do a movie about the color purple.

But I don't know anybody in the movie business. By this time, I was on A.M. Chicago. I don't know anybody. I start praying to God. God, please help me find a way to get into color purple. I say, Jesus, I don't even have to have a speaking part. I will be, because I went to the movies and I saw on the movie, credits. At the last credit, there's something called best boy. So I said, Jesus, if you just let me be best girl,

that'll be all right by me. I can be best girl. I can carry the script. I can help the people with the water. I can do whatever. So I start praying for the color purple. As, as divine law would have it. Quincy Jones comes to Chicago and he is in Chicago. for one half of a day because somebody has filed a suit against Michael Jackson, claiming that Billy Jean was their lover and that's not his song. So Quincy had taken the red eye to Chicago. He was in his hotel room. He was coming out of the shower and the television in his hotel room is on AM Chicago.

There sits little chubby me with my Jared Currull. with my Jerry Curl on AM Chicago. Quincy Jones tells Ruben Cannon, the casting agent, I think I found Sophia. So I get a call from Ruben Cannon who says, I'm calling about a movie. It's called Moon Song. Would you be interested to come an audition?

And I say, I have not been praying for Moon Song. No. I have not been playing for Moon Song. I've been praying for the color purple. He said, well, I think you should come and audition. So I go to audition. You know, movie people, they make everything all secrets. Steven Spielberg didn't want anybody.

You know, he was doing color purple. So on the outside of the script, it says Moon Song. But I know all the words by heart. So when I open the script, I know this is the color purple Jesus. This is the color purple. Yes. So I auditioned for the color purple. I can't even believe it.

They don't just want me to be the water girl or the best girl. They are asking me, do I want a pot in the movie? Oh, I'm thinking prayer. Prayer works. Prayer works. But listen to this. Three months pass. Three months is a long time.

I audition in February, March, April, May comes. I haven't heard anything. So I call Ruben Cannon. I say, Mr. Cannon, I'm sorry, sir. I haven't heard anything. I expected to hear something by now. And Ruben Cannon, African-American man, says to me, you don't call me, I call you. And I didn't call you. And I didn't call you. Do you understand that I have real actresses who have auditioned for this part, real actresses? And he tells me who just left his office. And I went, well, okay, I'm not getting that part. So I hang up the phone and I start crying.

I can't believe that God has played this trick on me. I think this is a trick. So I decide that this is because the fat has finally caught up with me. The fat has finally caught up with me, and now I must get rid of the fat in two weeks. I am going to go to a fat farm, and I'm going to lose 25 pounds. I'm going to drink a lot of green juice.

I'm going to have some cleanses and colonics. So I also was trying to make peace with it. I said, God, I don't understand. I thought it was for me. You ever had that talk with God? I thought it was for me. I thought it was for me. God, you let me audition with somebody named Harpo.

That's my name backwards. Jesus, that was a sign. Wasn't it a sign? And then three months passed, and then Ruben Cannon says, real actresses have just left his office. So I start to pray on the track. I'm out on the track at the fat farm,

and I am running around at the track, at the fat farm. It starts to rain. Y'all know how that is. but I don't even care because I am praying to God to help me to let it go. Help me let it go because now I've become obsessed with it and it's now controlling my life. I start praying, running around the track. And I keep hearing this noise and I can't, there's nobody on the track but me and I'm running around the track.

And I look around and it is my thighs rubbing together. it's my thighs. My thighs are rubbing together causing this thunderous sound. There's nobody on the truck. So then I really start to cry. Oh, Lord, help me. Help me let it go.

Help me let it go. Help me let it go, God. Help me let it go. And you ever did this prayer where you say, okay, Lord, okay, I'm going to let it go. Then you get up and you go, well, I think I still got a little bit. bit of it. I did help me let it go, but I'm not going to be able to see the other actress

in my part. I won't be able to see it. I won't be able to see it color purple. Just can't never see it the rest of my life. I won't be able to see it. So then I started, I don't know where it came from. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee my Blessed Savior, I surrender all. I sang and I cried. I sang and I cried and I prayed some more until I could reach the point where not only, not only will I be able to go to the movie,

but I can bless the other actress. I can bless her. I can say, I bless you. I bless you. I bless you with this. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Savior.

I surrender all. And I tell you in my greatest testimony that the instant I, I laid that thing down. I'm telling you, when I laid it down, when I laid it down, and it didn't have me anymore, it had no control over me anymore. I didn't feel anything about it anymore.

When I let it go, when I intentionally surrendered it to the power that was greater than I could ever know. The instant that happened, A woman comes running out of the cafeteria screaming, O'Frey, is your name, O'Frey? For 10 years, nobody can pronounce my name. I said, yeah, she said, somebody's on the telephone for you.

He's a name Spielberg. I get to the phone. He says, I hear you're at a fat farm. I said, no, sir. This is a health retreat. He says, I'd like to see you in my office in California tomorrow. This was in Wisconsin, I would like to see you in my office. And if you lose a pound, you could lose this part.

No problem do I have. I'll have no problem not losing a pound. So, honey, I packed my bags and I stopped at the Derry Queen. I got three. scoops just in case I'd lost a half a pound. And the next day, I was in Steven Spielberg's office and he said, you're hired. You're hired. Thank you for tuning into this episode. If you're enjoying the content, you can access exclusive material by becoming a subscriber. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.