Extended interview: Oprah Winfrey on life lessons, the road to happiness and new book

[Music] hi I'm Nora O'Donnell and this is Person to Person Our Guest today is Oprah [Music] everybody Oprah Winfrey is a Powerhouse and media icon hosting the Oprah Winfrey Show for 25 years and interviewing more than 37 000 people during the show's run she is one of the most influential and famous people in the world Oprah retired from her daily TV show in 2011 launching her media Empire which now includes the Oprah Winfrey Network O magazine Oprah's Book Club and lifestyle website Oprah daily she's also an author Oprah has written over a dozen books about

self-care and healing now she's coming out with a new book with Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks called build the life you want the Art and Science of getting happier so we visited Central Park those are the things that make you the happiest they make me the happiest bread and trees in a cafe in New York City for an intimate person-to-person conversation about the road to happiness [Music] so good to see you so good to see you I was a philosophy major in Aristotle of course talks about the power of reflection so to hear you reflect about

everything you learned on the show and as you write in the book the Oprah Winfrey show is a front row seat to unhappiness yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes you know I learned it was my greatest classroom I've never had a therapist but I had so many therapists on the show and I got my therapy from the Oprah show and so when I first ations with families from you know different walks of life that's when I came to understand that there is a common bond that we all share that we're all really seeking

the same things and knowing that that thing was happiness came from the show and every day I would sit and talk with the audience for a half hour sometimes 40 minutes a producer would be like oh my god when is she going to let go of the audience what I really want is to have a conversation with the audience to see why did you come and what did you get from the show and did you benefit it all and why do you watch all of that so 10 years in the audience became my focus group

I would always ask people what do you want what would it take to make you happy and most people when I say what do you want they just say I just want to be happy tell me what that looks like and as the years progressed women were more able to identify what that specifically was but when I first started asking that question in the mid 90s they would always just say well I just want to be happy I just want to be happy what does that look like Define it Define happy Define it and what

I realized is that most people have never defined it and then they'd say well I want my kids to be happy well that's your kids but what do you want and so being able to answer specifically what that looks like for you is the beginning of being happier you know I used to always think that I would be happy going to Broadway because I thought that's just the natural progression you gotta you gotta do Broadway when the show ended I was I was like got to do Broadway got it Broadway and I remember the Tony

Kushner sent me a play I've never shared the stories and after a while I started to realize I really don't know how I'm going to do this play every night for eight shows a week I don't know how I'm gonna do that and I don't even love the play as much as I love the idea that it was Tony Kushner and the idea of being on Broadway so I then really started to examine for myself what would that look like for me being in New York where would I walk my dogs where would I live

where would I go to the grocery store if I can't be surrounded by the park how am I going to really exist just getting around the city was was always overwhelming for me so I made a conscious choice for my happiness early in my career that New York would not be the place that I would seek my dream was Chicago and so the very idea of being in a place where I felt like I could I could take Roots was was what I was looking for to make myself feel secure solid confidence so on that

in terms of what you said the defining happiness because that's part of I feel like what this book does in the beginning is exactly what you just said it said happiness is not I want to be happy what is it yeah what does it look like for you so what how do you define happiness well you call it happierness yeah I call it happy Earnest because as Arthur explains in the book none of us can be happy all the time but I will say that I have reached a level of enjoyment contentment satisfaction and purpose

that I'm pretty much happy all the time even though I have negative feelings and one of the things I think that he expresses so well in this book is being able to identify your negative feeling versus believing that that is a constant state of mind for you or happiness or unhappiness so the fact that I have a bad emotion or bad feelings but can absorb those feelings and then change them he wrote In the book that the part of the Oprah Winfrey show was that it was a classroom yeah and I think the heart of

me is really a teacher one of the big lessons I learned from the show was this that after every conversation no matter who it was in one form or another that person would say how was that was that okay that happened the first time Beyonce taught me to twerk yes it's the end of it she handed me the mic and she goes was that okay you're Beyonce it's very much okay I learned to twerk and then it happened when I was interviewing a father who had abused his children at the end of it he goes

was that all right Obama is like it's good it's good and so what I started to see was that there was this thread that connected all of the conversations and that what people were really saying they were looking for a validation like was that all right did you hear me and did what I say matter and I just could I could tell you at after every interview I'm sure it happens to you in one form or another a person the people were looking to say was that okay why do you think we're in a happiness

slump in America oh I will tell you one of the most profound reasons I think is because everybody is looking at other people's social media what they believe to be other people's lives which is only a snapshot of other people's lives and feeling Envy about that and one of the things that Arthur and I talk about in this book is that Envy is the great Destroyer the happiness killer it is the happiness killer and so anytime you any time you're looking at anything else with Envy you have already killed your own happiness or your ability

to be happier in that moment and probably in moments to come so I coming from where I've come from rural Mississippi never Imagining the life that I have for a long time I have felt that I had enough even though I kept getting more but inside myself I feel that I am enough which is one of the great lessons what is at the root of most people's dysfunction is that you don't think that you're good enough you you don't think that you're worthy you don't own your own Essence and your own power you write one

must recognize that the person in control of your happiness is and forever will yeah be you yeah I wonder how would you advise given everything that you've been through in your life and talked about in your childhood how does one take agency over their life and their happiness oh I love this question um I know this that many of the things that have happened to you have also happened for you and that I learned when the crisis or the challenge showed up for me I immediately would ask sometimes out loud but certainly in my own

conscious Spirit what is this here to teach me and how can I get that lesson as soon as possible and this I guarantee you the moment you have the conscious realization of oh this is why this is here showing up to allow me to see whatever that is in your life changes for you unhappiness is not the enemy no it is not the enemy the unhappiness and if actually one of the things that's so powerful I think about uh what Arthur has written specifically is about how your emotions are there to allow you to feel

the feel and then take the wheel of this feeling that I'm having I'm having this feeling and now I need to do what and not to allow yourself to be overcome by the feeling so you have a feeling of anger you have a feeling of sadness you have a feeling of disappointment doesn't mean you are those things you are those emotions and so now what am I going to do now that I'm feeling disappointed about certain things how did you find Arthur Brooks during the pandemic I was in search of fuel to keep myself inspired

to keep myself open to possibility to keep myself hopeful and I started reading his column in the Atlantic and then looking more and more forward to that column every week on how to build a life that column is called how to build a life and then I invited him for dinner and he is the perfect person to have for dinner because you just probe his brain about all the things you've ever wanted to ask about your own emotions and searching for happiness and well-being and all of that so um I am the kind of person

as you know that believes that life is better when you share it whether that's bread or information and I called him up and I said what you should do I think is take all these columns that you've written and put them in a book because I think people would really benefit from having all of that information in one space and he said okay I think that's a good idea where did the idea come to write a book together well he said why don't we write a book together and I said well you're the one you're

you're the professor you're the one who's mastered in it and he said well you've mastered too you just don't teach it in a classroom and I thought well that is true and um so I I agreed to do it for that reason he said that when you called him he was incredulous about you know meeting him talking to him yes he couldn't believe that overall was calling Arthur Brooks yeah and you know sometimes that happens when I call up people for book clubs and they'll say no no it is and I go yes it's Oprah

[Laughter] when we come back Oprah tells us the ingredients to happiness so after all those interviews in many years what did you learn from Arthur about happiness the thing that I learned from him mostly is that we are in control of our happiness and happierness you get to decide whether or not you choose to be happier or not and it's not the circumstances and why do you call it happierness because getting there it's not a destination it's a direction yeah I love that and I love that term because we here in the United States our

Declaration of Independence says we have the pursuit of happiness we think the pursuit of happiness we don't think that we're just supposed to pursue it we think we're supposed to have it we think we're supposed to have it it's one of the reasons why I think all of the you know Finland and all of those uh countries Norway that get um High rankings High rankings one of the reasons they rank so highly is because their expectation isn't up here they are content with really a lot less than we are so there isn't this constant Pursuit

that you got to be better and better and better and better they know when they've had enough and for me it's understanding that um the pursuit is not out here but it's here the pursuit is within the pursuit is to first of all have a great understanding of your own identity and what is required for you to be happy and to know the difference between your negative feelings and your emotions and your state of being so my state of being is always a state of satisfaction enjoyment and purpose which is what defines happiness you need

enjoyment you need satisfaction and you need purpose so what author has also taught me is to have more fun he has taught me to be more open to saying yes to experiences that I normally probably would have not said yes to so now you're going to concerts like Beyonce we don't normally do that I normally do I don't go to concerts I don't stay out late I am the homebody of old I'm so I have been more open just to going to different places in the world and Hiking but also just open to to saying

yes to life in a way that I had not been before I think sort of distilling in so many ways what you've learned all of these years too and the ingredients too if you're thinking how do I get to happiness or happierness as you outline in the book family yeah friendships work work work and faith faith and faith and faith meaning not religion because we're not here to tell anybody about any religion you need to be but you need a faith in something that's more Transcendent than yourself you need if that nature if that's you

know a walk in the park if that's music if that's art I don't know how people survive without some kind of spiritual practice or some kind of acknowledgment that you are not the only thing that matters in the world that there is something bigger than you by whatever name you choose to call that and that there is the Mystery of Life and that you lean into that that's key you have enormous choice to choose whatever you want to do in terms of work so what was your intention in working with Arthur on this book my

intention was to spread the message that you cannot control all of the external circumstances in your life but you can control how you feel about those circumstances in your life and once you recognize that you are the you it it boils down to the thing that I do when I go to teach in South Africa to my girls I always teach a class called life 101. and at the end of that class I leave them with the poem Invictus which I learned when I was eight years old the last lines are I'm the master of

my fate I am the captain of my soul and so what that taking control of your emotions and not allowing your emotions to control you taking the will allows you to be the master of your fate and the captain of your soul and to do that with greater happierness I love Invictus and if I had on short sleeve shirts you would see my Goosebumps really and why did you get goosebumps I had written that down before many times but to hear you say it and also because the stories we learn as young children and then

the stories we tell ourselves yes the songs and lyrics and poems and phrases and quotes that we repeat what we tell ourselves becomes truth yes yes it was the very first like big person's poem yeah that I memorized and then grew to understand what that actually means and so being able to be the captain for yourself and master your own fate begins with mastering those emotions so I think that's one of the most significant things that Arthur has to teach us about being happier and when we come back Oprah tells us her first thought every

morning [Music] what makes you happy in your daily life so so so so so so many things I have trained myself that the first thought is thank you that is my first thought and then I move from what do I have to do or what is this day what day is it oh I'm in New York I'm talking to Nora later but my first thought no matter where I am in the world is thank you and that is also my last thought going to bed is Oprah ever envious [Music] it's just not a part of

my ever can't I'm happy for other people's happiness I am particularly happy when other women rise I mean when I heard you were going to be doing the evening news I was so happy for you because I remember when Barbara Walters first did that with Harry Reasoner and how horribly she was treated during that time and at the time I was being treated horribly too you know by by even the local anchor so for you to be able to sit at the helm in that seat i i i nothing but happy for that do you

remember you called me you just talked about being someone there in the unique role of being able to travel the world as a woman and tell the most important stories in the world I felt proud for you and I felt I understood having seen this from a you know another perspective and been much older than you that wow that is a really big deal that is a really big deal you have the gift of letting people see something that they cannot see themselves do I you do okay I I accept that yeah I think that's

your gift I mean that's what you do with this book that's what you did for me at that moment I think that's why Arthur and I are so complementary to each other because that's what I've been trying to do my entire career is help people see the fullness of themselves is holding up a mirror so you can see even when you're looking at the most dysfunctional people that I'm talking to on the show you can say well I'm not that and I don't want to be that and oh if they were able to triumph over

that I could triumph over that and so now this opportunity to do this through a book and perhaps maybe a podcast or however we can spread the word that your happiness your happiness is going to be up to you and it's up to you to be the master of your fate the captain of your soul and most importantly the master of your happiness no matter what I'm going to be okay and I think that's what this book helps you get to no matter what I can be in control of how I choose to react regardless

of the circumstance thank you thank you [Music]