She's one of the most well-known people on the planet. Oprah Winfrey. She's a journalist, an author, an entrepreneur, a media mogul, the whole nine. And now she's heading to Vegas April 2nd through 4th to host an immersive experience at the Sphere. Hello, I'm Dana Taylor. Welcome to the excerpt.
USA Today's executive editor for entertainment, Wendy Nogle, sat down with Oprah in New York. Here's their conversation.
You have created television, films, a magazine, an entire network. What is it about this experience at the Sphere that allows you to do something that none of those were able to do?
It's the culmination of all those things. I've said it and said it and said it and said it and said it and said it and then said it in another platform and said it another way, other ways. This allows for an opportunity to say it with some of the world's great collaborators who are the best in their field and also bringing in the people who are at the top of their game and their best to help me elevate it in a way. So this is how it came about. I was at the Sphere. I was at Sphere. You're not supposed to say the I was at Sphere Las Vegas September 29th going to see Bono and U2 and just excited to be a part of that. Love the concert, had a great time.
And at one point during the concert, I turned I was seated next to Jim Dolan actually who built the thing. And at one point I turned and I said, 'What is happening? Are we now outside? Are we outside?' And I said, 'Oh my god, I thought it was dark outside, but is that the sun coming through the dome?' I couldn't figure out what was going on. And I could smell the sea. So we're not just outside looking at the sea. I could smell it. And he was just like, 'Calm down. It's going to be okay.' But really, I was really like a little disoriented because I couldn't understand what was happening and I wasn't prepared for it, right? An immersive experience.
At the end of the concert, everybody was high-fiving each other because this was the first one. And I was just standing there alone and I just looked and now I couldn't I was like, 'Oh, it's a bunch of speakers. There isn't even a stage. What? What?' I thought there was a stage. What happened? And I had this feeling as I stood there in silence just sort of taking it all in that what if you could take people to the edge of space and allow us to see our relationship to Earth and the stars, the galaxies, how enormous it is and yet how small we are. How small we are and yet how miraculous it is that we have come from that.
What if you could do that? What if you could transform the way we saw ourselves in the greater vision of what it means to be born and to be here on the planet Earth and be connected to other human beings who are feeling the same thing? What if we could use this as a space of bringing people together to see that and feel that and experience that? It was just a feeling that I had. It's very much like the first feeling I remember having like that. The very first one was on my grandmother's porch watching her hang clothes on a line.
She was a domestic worker and she brought the clothes home from her client's homes to our house to boil in the backyard because we didn't even have a washing machine, no running water, no electricity. And I remember seeing her through the screen door saying, 'You, Oprah, Gail, you better pay attention and watch me now because one day you gonna have to learn how to do this for yourself.' And she's showing me how to get the cones and hold it up in the clothes pin. And I just watched and I had that feeling. No, I'm not. This will not be my life.
So that feeling said to me, don't tell her because you going to get a whipping if you say that out loud. That same feeling, that same calm, that same kind of you could use this for something really out of this world that allows people to feel transformed in a way. That's what it felt like.
Why do you think people need that sense of wonder, that sense of community right now?
Because that's how you are able to move yourself from confusion, exhaustion, being overwhelmed, being stuck, being not just unhappy, but not actually feeling alive. So people need awe, they need wonder, they need joy to feel more alive. And I think a lot of people are numbed. I think they're numb from their phones. They're numb from their work. They're numb from what's going on in the world, in the news. They're numbed in their relationships. I see them. They're numb. They're walking across the street. They're looking at their phones. They don't even know what the traffic is. Everybody's just shut down. They're shut down.
So this is an opportunity to bring a sense of vibrancy and aliveness. Not to preach to you or to tell you anything that you don't already know. That's why it's called aha. Because every aha moment I've ever had or you've ever had has only been a reminder of what you already knew. I just forgot it. I knew that. So it stirs something inside you to remind you of what you already knew. And what I'm trying to remind people is that there is a light that we all carry. That each of us has a calling to do the work that we've come to do and not to be overwhelmed, but to be about the business that is truly your life and not get sucked into all the things that tell you that they're a part of your life. Most of the stuff you have no control over.
So why don't you control the things that you can? Why don't you live presently for the children that are in your house? Why don't you live presently for the people whom you actually have contact and connection with? Why don't you fulfill the calling of your life by giving of your life to those people who most deserve it by being fully present and not checked out. And so that's what it's all about. I know because I talk to people, I see people, I've used my platforms as a way of connecting to people who are not connected. And you know, it's really not saying anything I haven't been trying to say through 4,561 shows on the Oprah show, through 20 years of the Oprah magazine and Oprah Daily and the podcast and all the things. The difference is I never ever called together other people to say help me with this message. Help me let people see. How do I let people see that there is something that we all carry the spark that is within us?
And of course your show debuted 40 years ago.
And in that very first episode, you said your mission was to show people that they have the power to change their own life.
I know. And I'm still doing it.
That's an incredible through line. I mean, isn't that an incredible through line? It's really incredible. How did you always have that certainty of vision? I mean, it seems like it came up even when you watched your grandmother hanging the laundry on the line. You knew that. How did you protect and preserve that?
