Oprah Winfrey on NXT Chapter with T.D. Jakes (Transcript)

I only do what I want to do. And I am led by the power and principle of intention which I 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 appears to be special. It is special to me. But it has only been possible because I was obedient to the call.

And I wanted to say that when I first met Maya Angelou, I had read “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” It was a 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.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” opens with “What you’re looking at me for? Didn’t come to stay, only came to say happy Easter Day.” Now, the reason I am a broadcaster and have had the career that I’ve had is because I grew up in the church in Mississippi.

In my first Easter, remember when they were called pieces because you get this little piece of paper from Sunday school. My first Easter peace was “Jesus rose on Easter Day. Hallelu, hallelu. All the angels did proclaim.” 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. 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 on the back porch. You know this. Cheryl 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 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 going to have to do this for yourself.” And the spirit inside me said, “No, Grandma.”

I could feel inside myself at 4 or 5 years old at the time, looking through the screen on the back porch, that this is not going to be my life. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I know this is not going to be my life. Because the preacher said I was God’s child. And because I am God’s child, all things are possible.

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?”

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 Maya Angelou, she said…

Meeting Maya Angelou

I saw her backstage at an event, and I was by that time, a reporter in Baltimore. And I had to convince the station that Maya Angelou was worthy of doing an interview. So I went. She was speaking at Morgan State University.

And I went backstage and I said, “Ms. 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 at 4 minutes, 58 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 places because you are first and foremost obedient. Obedient.”

And so what often happens 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 spirit what it is you would have me to do.

So my prayer, since I was, for as long as I could 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 an actress.

And when I told my father I was going to be an actress, “No daughter of 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 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 Nashville had asked me to be their person for the Miss Fire Prevention contest. When I was 16 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 you grow up.

I thought I was going to be a teacher. And 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 opened my mouth and allowed me, at 16 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. So I was just thinking, what can a woman do? What can a woman do? I said, “I want to be a journalist and I want to use journalism and the telling of stories to help people see themselves and other people’s stories and live better lives.” I don’t know where that answer came from, but God.

Taking Risk

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: With that kind of answer. And I relate to those epiphany type moments where all of a sudden you know something. You don’t know how you know it, but you know it.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Once you know it, a lot of business comes into play.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Contracts, agents, lawyers, shenanigans, crooks.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yes. You know, all of that comes along with it. Talk to us about how you navigated through those waters from a business perspective that caused you to land where you. You got a television deal that nobody has ever gotten before or since.

OPRAH WINFREY: It’s not going to happen again.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: It’s not going to ever happen again. You ruined it for the rest of the world.

The Power of Ownership and Spiritual Alignment

OPRAH WINFREY: Well, it’s not going to happen again because, just because. Not because of me, but because of the state of television. But at the time I had an attorney. It actually happened because of the Color Purple, because I had wanted to do the Color Purple more than anything in my life.

My bosses at the time, I only had a two week vacation period. So I agreed to 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 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 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 50%, and by the end of the show, I owned 93%. So every year I would increase it.

And because 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 in the beginning, when we were just, you know, 20 people, 100 people, 200 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 500 employees, that’s hard to do. So you have to surround yourself with people who also have not just your, not just 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 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 of the doubt, hoping things get better. Hope you pull yourself together. Don’t want to fire a brother.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yes, yes, yes.

OPRAH WINFREY: Let me tell y’all, this is a funny story. So I was doing the movie Beloved in 1990. It was 1998, and we were in Philadelphia, and there was a black man driving. I won’t say his name because 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 get picked up at 4:30 and this brother was going to sleep in the car, okay? And so I said, “Jesus, help 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, so I called security 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 barely missed getting hit by, you know, a Mack truck, at the end, when we got to our destination, I called him into my trailer and I said, “Helping you is going to kill me.”

Understanding Organizational Culture and Fit

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: 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.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: That culture emanates from its owner and founder. When you talk about, because, because I’m afraid that people are going to walk out of here and start just hiring believers at random.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: And only to find out that that doesn’t work either. That doesn’t work either. So I want to go deeper down to understand. 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 ought to look something like you. And there ought to be some similarities in your DNA when you hire them. And if you don’t sense that kinship, if you don’t sense that kinship, you can put all those scriptures to bed. If you don’t sense that kinship, you may have somebody who quotes scriptures and still falls asleep and snores and needs sleep apnea. Am I right?

OPRAH WINFREY: 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, which I still do. Listen to everybody, what everybody has to say.

And then something inside you connects 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 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 took me two and a half hours. And at the end of the conversation she said, “So are you firing me?”

You know, it’s supposed to take 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, you only need to do what you do and let all the other people do that.

And you are going to hire the people and surround yourself with the people that you don’t have to micromanage them, you don’t hire them and then tell them what to do.

Hiring for Innovation and Fresh Ideas

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Say it for the people in the back. Stand for the people in the back. Absolutely. 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 the wrong people.

You want people who contribute to the growth and the development of your company, your organization, your 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 we need to shut down the hospital and start over again. Is that what you’re saying?

OPRAH WINFREY: That’s exactly what I’m saying.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Chapter three, Intention.

The Secret Behind 25 Years at Number One

OPRAH WINFREY: So the Oprah show was number one for 25 years. Nobody knew this.

And I’m telling you, I’m telling you the secret behind that. There actually is a secret. The secret is that around 1989, I’d already been on the air from ’86. Starting in ’86, around 1989, 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 my spirit, “Hmm, this isn’t good.”

I think I’m, I think I am showing the world who they are and they are using me. That’s what I felt. 25 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 and that they used that tape to recruit other people.

So I could feel that happening when I during the commercial break. So I said to the producers after that show, “Never doing that again.” Did another show where the producers were so proud they got some fool 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, he tells his wife that his mistress was pregnant. And the audience is 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 the producer’s like, “Well, what you want us to do?”

So I had read this book called Seed of the Soul by Gary Zukoff, where he talked about intention, intention being 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 to 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 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 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, I went into the green room before, and I said to the woman, “Tell me why you’re here.” It was a woman who was there whose daughter had been murdered by her boyfriend. The daughter was 16 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 into the green room and I said to the mother, “Can you tell me why? 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. 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 murderer. 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, for people to see their own lives and your daughter’s life. So every question that I ask you, I’m not asking it to be a voyeur. 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 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 having everybody else in the room in alignment with that vision and how to execute that vision so that everybody is in synergetic vibration to make it, to bring it into fruition and manifestation, you know?

The Art of Decision-Making

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: 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.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yes, yes, yes.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: And if we don’t make good decisions, we can’t have good outcomes. And one of…

OPRAH WINFREY: Because every decision has an outcome.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yes.

OPRAH WINFREY: And so you have to be responsible for the choices. Choices that you make, 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 know, it’s the thing. It’s the same.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: It’s, it’s that. But, but, but the thing that has always amazed me about you is not your yeses, it’s your no.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, yeah.

The Courage to Stop

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: You have 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 and start over again. And I want to talk about not just the courage to start, but the courage to stop.

OPRAH WINFREY: Thank you for that. Thank you. That’s a beautiful question. I’ve never been asked that question before.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Like you.

OPRAH WINFREY: I could feel it just like I was spirit led into that show. That show was God’s idea for me. 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. That’s why you can’t touch. Cannot be touched.

It cannot be touched. All the haters can hate on. They can say whatever you want to say. They can do it. Cannot be touched. When you live God’s dream for you.

What is God’s dream 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 him yesterday because I think it’s wonderful that he’s handing over the authority of the pastoral duties.

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 transformed.

Living God’s Dream

You transcend a human thing. You are transformed. You are able to interpret scripture and allow us to see and feel it. Let me tell you. 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 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.”

I had all these contracts for, you know, starting a new network. And I was like, “Oh, but they’re there, and that’s it.” 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 “Oprah and the struggling OWN network.” Because it was. It did. 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 have to tell you, I was as close to being depressed as one can be and still moving through the world. And I came down to the Potter’s House.

I came down to the Potter’s House.

Saving the Scraps

And the bishop was preaching a sermon called “Saving 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 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 times that God had showed up for me. So I left the Potter’s House and prayed that prayer underneath my oaks and the eucalyptus. “All right, God, I’ve been trying to do it myself. You tell me what you want me to do.” Thank you for that.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yes, thank you. Thank you.

It’s an amazing thing to get to a no. When you are an aggressive person, 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 worst enemy. So I was anxious to hear what you had to say about that. By the way, it might have not have been what God dreamed for you, but you still landed on your feet pretty good.

OPRAH WINFREY: I did okay. I did okay with that.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: You did okay.

OPRAH WINFREY: I did okay.

Turning Mistakes Into Miracles

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: 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 that’s not an entrepreneur that didn’t buy the wrong building, move to the wrong neighborhood, buy the wrong product, trust the 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, and so there’s a big nose print on the center of your living room window, 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 learn to think a certain way, we will throw our hands up in a mess and go make it a bigger mess.

OPRAH WINFREY: 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 “Super Soul Sunday.” 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, 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. 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.

Chapter Four: Money

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: You don’t run around with a lot of people.

OPRAH WINFREY: No, I don’t.

I don’t.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: You know, you don’t see you in a big crowd of people and a bunch of girlfriends down at the mall and doing all of that. Talk to me about the social life that accommodates success because a lot of people say they want success. And then when they start to get success, the disappointment from family, from friends, from co-workers, from neighborhoods, drives them off to…

OPRAH WINFREY: Can I get a witness?

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yeah, can I get a witness in here?

How have you learned to make yourself happy reading a book?

The Power of Solitude

OPRAH WINFREY: Well, first of all, I grew up reading Bible stories. Remember, they were selling those blue Bible stories just looked like encyclopedias. 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 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 done what I call the “Negro exit fee.”

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: I love it. I love it.

OPRAH WINFREY: 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 not going to pay it back to me. You ain’t never going to pay it back to me, because when it comes time to pay it back, you’re going to go, “She don’t need it.” So.

I have given money to people that I wanted out of my life.

Just so I could say, when you come back, “I’m done, I’m done, I’m done.”

The South African School

Now here’s the thing. And you know, I have this wonderful school in South Africa where I put 830 girls have graduated from the school. 690 girls have, 690 have graduated from college. And I currently have 195 in college still. And all of those girls come from challenged backgrounds because you can’t, you’re not allowed in the school if your parents make more than $10,000 a year. And most of the girls, on average, their parents make no more than $3,000 a year.

So they come from really challenged, traumatic backgrounds, but are brilliant girls and have gone on to do. I just had a survey done last year where all those girls are. That’s why I know there’s 890, 195 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 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 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 a bank. And anybody here, anybody here know what I’m talking about.

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 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.

Setting Financial Boundaries

What I made was in the paper. So I could no longer say, “I don’t have the money,” because people say, “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?” And this is what I’ve learned. I bought houses and cars and homes for people who lost them. I 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 going to 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 more money because when somebody asks you for. So in the beginning, my family always needed $500. When I was in Baltimore, the day I moved to Chicago, everybody needed $5,000.

The day it was announced I was syndicated, everybody then needed $50,000. Nothing worked unless they had $50,000.

And so this is what the professor of economics told me, is 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, enabling them and enabling them. And so 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 and doesn’t mean you have to do it. So I decided, I brought all my family together one night that wasn’t a reunion.

The Cost of Generosity

OPRAH WINFREY: And I said, “Here’s what I’m going 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 going to get this and you’re going to 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 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 and how to give it.

And it should be thoughtful 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.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Amazing advice. Thank you for that. I think there’s a big hand clap. Yeah, a really big hand clap.

The AI Revolution

Chapter 5: Artificial Intelligence.

Listen. Our voices are too big 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 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 prepared for the jobs that AI is going to create and they’re going to lose their jobs at a time that the tariffs are going to raise the prices on goods and services. I am concerned that inflation is concerned, squeezing us 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. Every doctor needs a plumber. There are strategies that would avert this and make this work. Well, what do you think? Say to us at this time in 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 we should be doing or telling our children or exposing ourselves to 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. I know what it is to not be able to buy diapers for 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 take on courses, take on classes, or raise our voices? And when we raise our voices, what should we be saying?

Embracing the Inevitable

OPRAH WINFREY: Okay, I don’t think raising your voice in this moment about AI is going to do one dog gone thing. I don’t. Because I think it’s here. I think AI is going to be as prevalent as the automobiles. And so what you don’t want to be is one of those people saying, “I’m going to hold onto my horse. I’m keeping my horse.”

Because it’s 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 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 way to adjust and live with it and be open to the possibility 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.

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 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 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.

The Dark Side of Technology

On the other hand, I just was speaking to someone yesterday who’s a member of my staff who had to put her 19-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 kind of discipline and control with their kids is also very, very, very dangerous. I think that these are real defining times for us.

And I firmly believe that in times like these it is necessary, it is essential, it is vital to get as close to God as you can. I think that the spiritual root, the spiritual root defines and upholds itself for all things. And so as I look out into the world and all the things that are happening, it has encouraged me to be more diligent with my spiritual practice is what it is doing for me.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: I think that’s very, very, very important. When you think about—I’m reading a book, Anxious Generation.

OPRAH WINFREY: Oh yeah, I’ve interviewed him three times.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yeah, it’s a very, very interesting book on what technology does to a child. Too soon.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yes. And a child’s brain.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yes, yes.

OPRAH WINFREY: And right now, 40%—because I just interviewed him—40% of two-year-olds are given an iPad. And the thing about giving your child an 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 synapse in the brain does not. So I think that we are in for a wild ride.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Not only that, you don’t know how to have interaction with other human beings.

OPRAH WINFREY: Well, that’s the woman who just had to institutionalize her son.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yeah.

OPRAH WINFREY: Dropped out of school, dropped out of sophomore year in college because could not function. So these 18, 19-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 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 real women.

The Importance of Human Connection

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: 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, because that’s the one thing that artificial intelligence cannot duplicate, is our human ability to be creative and 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. We just came through Covid.

OPRAH WINFREY: Absolutely.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Okay, then we go through AI, we’re dealing with AI. Then we’re dealing with the inflation 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 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 you really okay? Are you okay?”

OPRAH WINFREY: 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 all would think my life is so boring because I spend so much time booking inward and being. Sometimes Gail will call me and say, “What are you doing?” Sometimes sitting with your thoughts.

By the way, she was very upset that she couldn’t come. She told me to give—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 pudding now.”

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: But anyway, 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 got to do is hook up 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 worked. You know what worked? I said, “I’ll make you a banana pudding.” She said, “I’m coming.”

OPRAH WINFREY: I’m coming for the banana pudding. That’s true.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Now you done got all skinny and stuff. I’m going to have to make you a lettuce roll or something. I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re going to do about that. Are you all enjoying this conversation?

AI and the Entertainment Industry

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 shoot a show, used to edit a show, used to add color to the show, used to intensify. All of that has changed now.

OPRAH WINFREY: That’s right.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: 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 paying more money to ride your horse rather than to get in the automobile? Because you just say, “If I ignore it long enough and stick my head in the 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 don’t. 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, I might ask you.

The Power of Storytelling

OPRAH WINFREY: Well, this is what I know to be true. And that is that storytelling in whatever form—one of the reasons why you’re so great in teaching us the gospel is because you always build it around a story. And that is why it is so well received, because people connect 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 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. Everybody talks about fake news, but it’s up to us to understand through our discernment the difference. Because it’s going to be—it’s going to be difficult. And that’s on purpose.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: It’s already difficult.

OPRAH WINFREY: It’s already—it’s on purpose. Designed that way, sweeping our country.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: You can’t believe what you see because they produce at a massive rate things that 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? 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 selling? And a lot of times you’re good seed, but you’re in bad soil.

The Power of Good Soil and Strategic Placement

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: 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. America is green.

America is green.

Incorporating AI Into Business and Ministry

OPRAH WINFREY: I was curious as to how, because I had a wonderful conversation last night with Ms. Kelly Cornish, who’s head of your foundation, and also with Michael, who’s running T.D. Jakes Enterprises. I’m curious as to how you all are incorporating AI into the work that you’re doing now with Good Soil and other things.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: See, you interview. Maybe I… yeah. And she’s good at it, too. You got to watch this girl. If you clap up on stage with her. We are using it for research.

We are using it to do analysis of what is going on in certain states and certain cities and what are the laws regarding each area that we operate in. We are looking at it for projections over the next 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.

OPRAH WINFREY: I need to sit down and talk to you.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Yeah.

OPRAH WINFREY: About all that.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: You should. No kidding. Because you can translate into… excuse us. We talk. So we, we 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 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.

OPRAH WINFREY: Right.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: And 80% of people who start a business because of their own need go out of business. The most successful businesses are built on finding the need of the area that you’re working in. And AI will help you to be able to do that.

Serving Your Audience First

OPRAH WINFREY: 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 service?” to the people who are coming and wanting your product or wanting your service or wanting your information, and it 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 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 serve?

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: 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. 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.

OPRAH WINFREY: So which AI do you use? You chat GPT? What do you use? I want to know.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Let me talk to you after this interview.

OPRAH WINFREY: Okay. We want to know which one you use.

The Promise and Peril of AI

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: 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. And I think that’s what we need to be watching out for, because we may have created something that we can’t control. I’m concerned that we don’t have laws that have caught up with our technology.

OPRAH WINFREY: No. And we don’t, because everybody was trying to stay ahead of China. Yes. It all comes down to the green, as you were saying.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Right, right, right. And any tool, no matter how good it is, in the hands of a wicked person… 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 wrap this up in a minute, but let me ask you, is there anything special you wanted to say before I shoot?

OPRAH WINFREY: No, I’m just following your lead.

Advice to Younger Selves

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Okay. Okay. Chapter six. Advice to Younger Selves.

If you could go back to Mississippi and talk to that little girl out in that front yard. What would you tell her?

OPRAH WINFREY: 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. 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 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 and said, “Steven Spielberg 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 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, and many, for many years, when people would ask me about it, I would say, you know, “Jesus is my brother because I’m God’s daughter.” And the kids would want to beat me up because here 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 her. To hold to God’s unchanging hand. Because it has been the source of all things for me.

The Story of the Six Trees

And can I tell this story? Can I tell this story? I want to tell this story. Some of you may have heard me tell this 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 $22,000 a year. By the time I finished, I was making $57,000. So I thought that was it. When I went to Chicago and they offered me $250,000 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 16 years old and first started working at the radio station, made $100 a week. And then I went from $100 a week, and then I made $10,000 a year, $12,000, $15,000, all the way up. 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 Jewish woman who still remains a friend, 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… there were like, three cars in the driveway. And I was like, “Whoa, there’s a Jaguar and there’s a Mercedes.” And then there was, like, a Stingray for their son. I was like, “Arlene is rich.”

And I walked into Arlene’s house and 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 I ever get enough money to buy myself a house, I’m going to 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 tea to brew. And I looked out and I saw the six trees. And I went, “There’s the six trees. There’s the 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 hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trees. The bishop can tell you, I live with some trees. I am 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.” 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 going to look up and you are standing in a forest.

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 living God’s dream for me.

Thank you, Dallas.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Amazing. Absolutely incredible. Give it up for Oprah Winfrey. Come on, Ms. Oprah Winfrey.

Can I say… can I say one thing before we close?

Breaking Free From Imposter Syndrome

What she said about your belief system, about yourself is one of the hardest changes to make you will ever make in your life. And if you want to start the change, one clue that I have found that works very well: watch who you hang around. They are a mirror that often reflects what 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 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 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 front of this wonderful audience the conversation with my friend. Thank you, Dallas, and my sister. Thank you for coming.

OPRAH WINFREY: 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 the… this imposter thing, because the first time somebody told me in an interview they felt like an imposter, I had to go look it up because… because I know whose I am.

When you know whose you are, 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.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Right?

OPRAH WINFREY: You are there because you belong there. You belong there, and you are there to be shown how your being there changes the space because of the energy that you’re bringing into the space.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: You’re absolutely right.

OPRAH WINFREY: Absolutely right. Right.

Standing as Ten Thousand

OPRAH WINFREY: I’ve never felt like an imposter anywhere. And most places I go, certainly in the earlier years, 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? Oh, 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 Angelou says is true in her poem “The Grandmothers.” She says, “I come as one, but, baby, I stand as 10,000.”

You are never in there alone. Everybody 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.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, give it up for her, Ms. Oprah Winfrey.

OPRAH WINFREY: Thank you, Dallas. Thank you, Dallas.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: We love you.

OPRAH WINFREY: I’m returning to my trees.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: We hope you enjoyed it.

OPRAH WINFREY: Returning to my trees.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: She’s going back to her trees and her cabbage and her book. Thank you, Oprah.

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