I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.

Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now.

16 season, this is it? This is it, 16, can you believe it? No, I can't. I was actually just sitting here trying to calculate. So that's when I turned 50, I remember coming out here, birthday party, home with a...

So you'd already been on the air two years. Yeah. Wow. Think about that. I can't believe it. That's like 12,000, 15,000 guests, something like that. It's just unbelievable.

You know, what I'm often reminded about is I remember, because this is the 20th year of the trial. That's right, isn't it? That's the 20th year of the trial.

Yeah. And I just remember being in that little car driving a trial and sitting there with you and feeling that there was something powerful to be shared in the lessons that you were giving me for people who don't know.

I was on trial for saying something bad about a burger in 1998. And you were the guy who helped get me through it. And I was feeling that there was something that the way you were helping me telling it like it is could be helpful to others.

I had no idea that you'd be on the air 16 years later. Well, nor did I. Or that I would ever be on the air, of course.

And you know, you're saying you're telling it like it was. As you know, when you get in trial, because we've been there more than once together, when you get in trial, that train is rolling down the track.

Yeah. And you got to make decisions and take positions right now. Right. Because you don't get any doovers. Yeah.

So it's like you got to get this right the first time and get it done. And so it's, I mean, the pressure's on. Yeah. And I remember I was going at it from a philosophical point of view.

Like, why is this happening to me? I need to know the reason, which I think is what happens to a lot of people when they're in charge.

And I'm going to see a crisis situation. You want to know why is this happening to me? And you were saying it doesn't matter because these good old boys are going to hand you your ass on a planner. I'll never forget.

I said that maybe a little more. No, no, that was very eloquent. These good old boys are going to hand you your ass on a planner. And you don't figure it out.

And then you're going to get a trial and you lean up said, I don't see any peers over there. I don't see anybody that looks like me. I don't see me over there at all.

At all. At all. But you know, from the very first show we ever did. And your directness, your ability to tell people like it is is what I knew that the country was in need of at that time.

And now you've done it for thousands and thousands and thousands of guests. Do you see that there's a core. There's a core fault or failing that people don't get in terms of taking responsibility for their lives. There's got to be a bread that you've seen all over all these years.

There is. And I tell you what we are. I think what I see is we're a society that has been marketed. We are marketed to our own lives are marketed to us. I mean, think about everything.

You watch a commercial about fast food. Right. If you look, they don't hardly ever show the food. They show everybody happy in the lobby. They show fellowship. Everybody being included smiles on the faces. They're selling a dream. They're not selling food.

They're selling smiles and everybody happy and functional. Right. They're selling a dream. We've been we've had everything spun and marketed to us. And then when people go home and compare their reality to the marketed dream, then they wind up disappointed.

And they're stuck. They're saying, why don't we feel that way when we go there? Why don't we feel that when we come home? And so they feel disappointed and they're stuck. And so, you know, I think people, it's not what happens in your life that upsets you.

It's if your expectations of what's supposed to happen get violated.

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