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What
is it about you that people connect to?
The idea of being every woman. You know,
like Chaka Khan sang, “I’m every woman. It’s all in me.”
What is your message now?
The message has always been the same:
that you are responsible for your life. Now we’ve evolved into talking
about how to live your best life. That’s the theme of my magazine.
That’s also the intention of every show—to get people to take charge.
To get people to realize that things are not just happening to them
willy-nilly.
Your image has gotten a little
tied up in the whole candle-lighting spiritual thing.
I know. I noticed that in the
“Remembering Your Spirit” segments on the show. Regardless of who
we’re talking to, they have a candle lit. Every single person. There
was a woman sitting beside the stove paying her bills, and there was a
candle on the stove. Nobody pays their bills with a lit candle!
I saw a segment about a woman who
was reconnecting with her spirit by fishing. She was casting her line
with this euphoric look on her face. I mean, come on.
Get real, right? I’m with ya. We need to
pull that back, so we don’t end up being a caricature of ourselves.
That sort of thing was good in the beginning, when we needed to spell
out our message. But now let’s evolve to the next level. Your holiest
moments, most sacred moments, are often the ones that are the most
painful. And we need to get with that. You know, feel some spirit when
you’re sitting there arguing with your husband and your children.
Do
you think you were too involved, too controlling, in the early stages of
the magazine?
I wasn’t too controlling.
I needed to be involved. When you get me, you are not getting an
image, you are not getting a figurehead. You’re not getting a theme
song. You’re getting all of me . And I bring all my stuff with me. My
history, my past. Mississippi, Nashville. I’m coming with the sistahs
in the church, I’m bringing Sojourner Truth with me. And then there we
all are, sitting up in your meeting, at your table, with the marketing
directors.
Does the success of the magazine
create new pressures for you?
What has been an advantage—even
though some people might not consider it an advantage—is the fact that
I had no magazine experience. Zip. Zilch. None. Zero. And
so I came in with an open mind about what could and could not be done.
And I still maintain an open mind. At first people said, “You can’t
put the table of contents there.” After a while they just said, “OK,
Oprah, where would you like it?”
What
are some things you’ve had to streamline because of your hectic pace?
I don’t read much negative mail anymore
because it doesn’t do me any good. It used to be that I had to read
negative mail and track people down. The slightest thing would get me
going, and I’d have to find Mary in Oregon and call her up and talk
about what she wrote. That was during the days when I wanted everyone to
like me. And now I don’t read tabloids and most press anymore. I’ll
probably read this.
If you’ve reached the point
where you won’t let it influence you, why have all the barriers to
people talking about you?
You
cannot create an atmosphere where your employees know that they can be
bought, that they can sell you out—where your staffers are open to
being approached all the time for money for stories that can then be
distorted. If people were just going to tell the truth and it was about
freedom of speech, that’s one thing. But when you add money into the
picture, it becomes completely different.
Do
you ever think that if you just let everybody say what they wanted to
say, there wouldn’t be all this mystery and people would be tired of
you by now?
Everybody makes such a big deal about this
issue with me. But every person I know who is a public figure has people
sign confidentiality agreements. You have to have some level of
protection. For a long time I was like you—you know, just let them do
it. And Stedman would say to me, “That has been one of your biggest
problems, Oprah, all through your life. You don’t protect yourself.
You don’t set up boundaries.”
How
do you balance your spiritual self with the decisions you have to make
as a businesswoman?
I don’t think of myself as a good
businesswoman. I am a person who is aware of what my purpose is and what
my gifts are. And what I teach is that if you are strong enough and bold
enough to follow your dreams, then you will be led in the path that is
best for you. The voices of the world will drown out the voice of God
and your intuition if you let it. And most people are directed by voices
outside themselves.
What do you do when you’re in a rut or
when you feel lost?
It is constant work staying on target and
coming from a centered place. I meditate in the morning, in one form or
another. Sometimes it’s a formal 10 minutes sitting quiet in a room.
Sometimes I meditate with people here [at Harpo] after working out in
the morning. But I have to, every day, find a place where I can
physically allow myself to breathe, and be aware of the power of my own
breath and what that represents—that I am alive and I am still here.
What do you do in the evening to
separate yourself from work?
I have a glass of wine and a hot bath.
I’ll show you my tub. My bath is my sanctuary. It’s the place where
I can wash off all the stuff of the day. I soak in a hot tub and put on
a nice pair of pajamas.
Those are nice pajamas. Are they cotton?
They are pashmina. Pajamas! That’s my
thing! They help me separate from the day and relax. I have flannel and
cashmere and silk, white and flowered. I
love pajamas... I
have a pajama collection. Dozens and dozens of pajamas.
Do you have a plan for how
you’re going to move forward?
No. That’s the one thing Stedman and I
argue about. We argue about almost nothing. But the one thing we argue
about is vision planning versus not planning. He is a goal setter. He
can tell you literally what he’ll be doing a year from now. I bet you
if I went and looked at his calendar, it would be all laid out. How long
he’s going to work out, what and when he’s going to eat. Well, I am
just none of that. I live moment to moment.
Many
people are walking your path with you.
Just last week I was out walking the dogs,
and this guy walks up to me, his name was Armand, and he says, “Can I
talk to you for a minute?” So I say, “Sure.” And he says, ” I
know that you have difficulties going on with you and I know you’ve
had troubles in your life, but you’ve made such a difference in my
life. And I know you’ve made a difference in other people’s lives.
And all I wanted to say is that I just wish you happiness.” A total
stranger, this man. And I said, “Thank you for that.” And he just
walked away. It was like an angel, an intervention... I think it really
is an amazing accomplishment that I, who grew up a little Negro child
who felt so unloved and so isolated—the emotion I felt most as |
