MEETING MS. WINFREY: MY GRATITUDE FOR ALL SHE S TAUGHT US Keith Yamashita Cofounder, Unstuck @keithyamashita 1
I have always adored her, as have you. In college, I d skip class to watch her show. DID YOU? So getting a chance to meet Ms.Winfrey was one of those YOU-HAVE-TO-BE-KIDDING moments. My business partner, Susan, and I were invited to share our first app we ever developed: an app called UNSTUCK. 2
There she is, sitting next to me using the ipad app to diagnose an aspect of her life that felt stuck. There I am, barely breathing, wondering if (more like praying that) the app s algorithm would suggest the right path forward for her. After several hour-long minutes she exclaims in the way only she can, People, that is dead on. How is it doing that? Truth is, the answer isn t in the app, the answer is within you. It s how you approach your stuck moment that makes the difference. 3
GETTING STUCK ISN T A NEGATIVE. (WALK INTO IT, NOT AWAY FROM IT.) If you re human, you ll get stuck. You need to get stuck. It demonstrates that you re trying things in your life that go beyond your existing capability or capacity. It means you re putting yourself in a situation where you re being vulnerable in a good way. You ve encountered something you haven t mastered. Yet. And that yet is important. The core of getting unstuck is to shift to a mindset of uplifting and continuous growth. I m grateful when Oprah says, The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you re willing to work. 4
GETTING STUCK IS A SIGNAL THAT SOMETHING IS READY TO GET BETTER. For some reason so many of us have been raised thinking that being stuck is a pejorative thing. Something to be embarrassed about, or maybe even a bit ashamed. Turn that notion on its head. Be in tune with it, and you re likely to benefit greatly. Listen to what s going on as Oprah says, pay attention to life s whispers. Because when you do, you ll see that being stuck doesn t have to ultimately be negative. It s a signal that something is ready to get better in your life. You just have to be awake to claim it. 5
ADMIT THAT YOU RE STUCK. THEN WORK ON WHAT YOU BELIEVE. As I was sitting in the audience in the Life You Want Tour, I wrote down a phrase that Oprah uttered: Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe. It s really a profound statement, the more you dissect it. Create means it comes from within us. Highest and grandest is about aspiration with possibility (not limits) at the core. We alone control what we believe about ourselves and the world around us. And what we believe can open up our path in a day. 6
SHIFT YOUR LENS, SHIFT INTO POSSIBILITY. Where you have only seen sadness, find the opening for delight. Where you have experienced only limits, find a small doorway for possibility. Where you have experienced people who seem to be against you, find your own compassion and realize it could be that they have their own struggles. Where you have seen only scarcity, try to find something that s abundant in the situation. For things that hold you back, try to find one thing about it that challenges you to be a better you. The method of getting unstuck lies in being able to find a new lens. Same scene you just see it better. 7
BREAK GETTING UNSTUCK INTO BITE-SIZED STEPS. I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear. That Oprah thought has been, for me, the biggest defining wisdom I ve learned from her teaching. I try to combine it with a philosophy that s foundational to personal transformation. It is through the tiniest daily change that our grander life emerges. Break getting unstuck into the smallest unit of daily change you can. Don t tackle all of it at once take the smallest thing and turn it into a habit. And in doing that habit, choose love of yourself, of the opportunity, of momentum. 8
EXPERIENCING FAILURE CREATES A FULLER LIFE THAN PERFECTION EVER COULD. Oprah taught us, Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don t fight them. Just find a new way to stand. When you start to view your life as a creation unfolding, rather than a plan that must be executed, you start to find richness, humanity, humility, tenderness, optimism, lessons learned, hope especially in the failures. When we are most stuck as human beings is when we find what we truly care about, who we are deeply capable of being. 9
DEMONSTRATE YOUR GRATITUDE BY SHARING WHAT YOU LEARN IN LIFE. Your life journey is different than your friends, than people at work, than your neighbor. When we are stuck, we often feel we are alone. But this is far from the reality. Any room you enter, any friendship circle, any person you meet no matter how pulled together they seem has some part of their life that is stuck, unraveling. When we share what we ve learned in our life s journey, we have a chance to lessen the suffering of others. And when we do, that is, indeed, a life worth living. Share, today. 10