Super Soul Special: Father Richard Rohr: Finding Your True Self

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1:03I'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. He was born in 1943 in Topeka, Kansas. Father Rohr says he started his ministry at a very early age, pretending to teach catechism to friends when he was only seven years old. Intrigued by the Franciscan message of compassion and universal acceptance, Richard left home to study at the seminary when he was just 14. He entered the Franciscan order and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in his 20s.

1:56Inspired by the example of St. Francis of Assisi, who believed in a simple life, lived in harmony with all things, Father Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That was in 1987. A much sought-after speaker who's traveled the world for more than 40 years, he continues to inspire readers with timeless wisdom through his writing, including his book, Immortal Diamond, The Search for Our True Self. Welcome, Father Richard Rohr. Thank you so much. So you've been called one of the most influential spiritual teachers in the world. So many people are excited that we're seated together.

2:37But tell me, how do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as this great spiritual teacher? I can say this for sure, Oprah. I never intended this to happen. This was not my self-image. It just happened little by little that people responded so beautifully to what I was trying to say. And I took the next step and the next step and now I end up doing this. But when I was a young boy in Kansas, of all places, on the other side of the Wizard of Oz, I would have never thought I would write books someday. But I'm just grateful. I'm grateful. What is the immortal diamond? The immortal diamond is the soul.

3:20It's the true self. Yeah, it's the indestructible part of the self. Isn't that interesting that the diamond is almost indestructible? So for me, when I knew I had to write this book, I knew that had to be the metaphor. So you believe within each of us there is, which I sense that too, there's a true self and a false self. And our goal in life is to follow the road, the path, the light to whatever is the true self. The true self. And how do we know which is what? The false self is the fabricated, concocted self that we have to do. It's not wrong. The false self is not bad. But it's your persona, it's your education, it's your race, it's your sexual orientation, it's your country.

4:07All of which are necessary to create an ego structure. But it's not you. It's the answer that people most often give when somebody says, who are you? Or what do you do? I am Buddha, my name. I do the son, the son, so, and so. My mother is son, so. And you're saying, although, but in some ways that is a real self. It is. That's why I wanted to say it's not bad. You don't want to put it down. It's the raw material that you fall through to find your true self. And I like the word falling through, that you don't create it. It's already there. It's why most religion called it the soul. Yes. It's already there.

4:47Yeah. So the soul is? The soul is, well, let's quote the Zen masters, if you don't mind, the face you had before you were born. Your inherent self, your authentic self, it's not your psychological self. You see, we're so psychological. Oh, I love that. I've got to sit with that for a moment. That deserves a T and a tweet up. It's the face you had before you were born. So the psychological self is created. And again, I don't want to say that's bad. But go back before, like before I was a priest, before I was a Franciscan, before I had white skin, before I was an American. All those labels. Those are labels.

5:30That's exactly the right word. But that's not your true identity. Now, I'm going to use religious language, in God. In God is who you were from the moment of your conception. That's your inherent dignity that no one can give to you and no one can take from you. Okay, so tell me what you are talking about when you're talking about God. God is, is God Franciscan? No, I don't think so. I hope he likes us. Is God Catholic? And God isn't he. And God isn't even a he. That's right. Okay. God is more of an it. Let's try this. God is more a verb than a noun. Does that help? There's a dynamism that connects everything, that fills everything, and makes it connect with everything else.

6:19That's why we called it the Holy Spirit. Yes. God isn't a being as much as God is being itself. And I don't mean to be overly abstract when I say that, but being itself means the ground of being, that which substantiates everything and fills everything. Oh, I got that. And connects everything. Okay, so I'm just going to repeat it. God isn't a being as much as God is being itself. It's the grounding of all being. That's it. That's it. Yes. I got that. And you can only see that if you realize that it's all one. It's all connected. Yeah. It's all the same. There are times here when I'm walking around in the morning or in moments of, you know, just solitude.

7:08where I can feel and see that, where every single thing is connected, where it's just all kind of like vibrating and you can feel that vibration. So the false self isn't our true identity. Our true identity is... Is who we are in God. In that being, in that grounded being. Foundational being. And that no one can give to you and no one can take away from you. So is the true self the same as our soul? 90%. And let me tell you why I can't say 100%. Okay. Because the true self includes embodiment. Right. So therefore there is a physical, material, emotional, sexual, use any of those words, element to the true self.

7:55Now that's revolutionary for a lot of dualistic Christians who think that soul is entirely a spiritual notion and has no physicality to it. But I think your and my embodiment and our struggles with it also lead us to God. So the true self includes body. Okay. So how do we, this is what's wonderful about the immortal diamond, how do we get to cultivate and continuously live in the space of the true self? Because, you know, when you just said that a moment ago, I had a little aha. I mean, it's like Maya said to me many years ago when she first said the word, she was talking to a pastor who said, repeat, God loves me.

8:43And that she kept saying it. And the very notion that this all encompassing, indescribable, omnipotent, mystical power loves me. So when you said a moment ago that God isn't a being as much as the grounding of being. Being itself or the ground of being. And that our goal here as human beings is to realize that that is the source from which we also are grounded. If you really recognize that all the time, there would be no reason to be afraid. Yeah. You don't live out of fear anymore. You live out of connection. So are you living that? On my better days and my better moments, I don't think any of us can sustain it 24 hours a day.

9:31Isn't it true that being human means we can't sustain it? I don't think we can, you know? I remember listening to your series with one of my heroes, Eckhart Tolle, and how he and you even said there, even this living in the now, as much as we try to do it, you can't do it every waking hour, you know? Yes. Are you constantly trying to get there yourself, or do you feel like you live what you teach? No, I only live what I teach some hours of the day. Because into my head come feelings of hurt, offended ego moments. No, I don't hold on to it so much anymore. I can let it slide off my back. But I have to admit, it's this struggle with the false self that reveals to you your true self.

10:18Yeah. I wanted to just read. I love the Kindle. Do you read from Kindle? I do, yeah. Success is hardly ever your true self. That's right. Only your early window dressing. That's right. It gives you some momentum for the journey, but it is never the real goal. Now, this is, this is, in this country? I know, I know. In our culture? Talk about counter-cultural. We're all trying to be successful. I know, I know. And you say success is hardly ever your true self, only your early window dressing room. Yeah, it's a persona. I had to think about that for a while. Is that always the truth? Yes, because the only real success is the success that is inherent.

11:04Your DNA is divine, and that is the ultimate success that levels the playing field of reality, which means that a man in Africa, a woman in Estonia, we're all the same. And that dignity cannot be given or taken away. It's given to you by God. And that's why no one can destroy your dignity. Now, I don't think we've taught that very well as Christians, you know. We still have been inside of the success game too, of, you know, if you were more moral, if you went to church more, if you read the Bible more. So we created our own success system that still appealed to the ego. Okay. I'm just going to read that again.

11:49Success is hardly ever your true self. Only your early window dressing gives you some momentum for the journey, but it's never the real goal. So the real goal is, okay, let me finish this. You do not know that, however, in the moment it just feels right and good and necessary. Yeah, success feels really good and is for a short while. It doesn't teach you anything. Everything meaningful. I'm going to say up to the age of 30, you need some successes to create your ego structure. But it's an arbitrary number. But after 30, everything I've learned has been from humiliation, sin, failure, rejection, betrayal.

12:32Yeah. The difficult times teach you so much. That's when my soul expands. Now, I don't like it, and I don't know it till afterwards, too. You know, you want to get rid of it. But then two days later, in the surrendering, the accepting, the seeing, I realize I'm larger. I'm larger. I think what you're saying is some of what Gary Zukav has said here before when he talks about authentic power. And he says that when the personality serves the energy of the soul, then that's authentic empowerment. And that authentic empowerment is that which is yours, which no one can take away. No one. Or give to you.

13:12Or give to you. Because you got it. Because you got it. You got it. And so if you're relying on your beauty or relying on your athleticism or you're relying on your square footage. All of that is going to die. All of that is going to die or go away. That's right. At some point. How do we continually, how do we get to that true self? That's the goal. I want to be in that space. I think you are, but none of us are 24 hours a day. it's largely a matter of letting go of the false self. Like, let's say someone doesn't kiss up to me and call me father or respect my importance or my intelligence. Or the fact that you've written 30 books.

13:54So I'm offended for, you know, how many seconds? I don't know. But then I say, now, what part of you, Richard, was offended? You know, it's always the false self. The true self can't be offended. There's nothing to offend. It's too large. It's too grounded. It's too real. So that's my simple rule of thumb, Oprah, how to recognize the false self. Whenever you take offense. Whenever you take offense, you're living at that moment. Now, it still hurts for a few minutes. But once you go back to who you are, hidden with Christ in God, as Paul would say, nothing can hurt you. Yeah, so it's like that moment where you say, so-and-so, like, they dissed me or disrespected me.

14:40or we're giving me my props or whatever. That's always the false. Always. Always the false self. I'm going to make an absolute statement. It's always the false. Now, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. You're hurt. But it is the false self that was hurt. Yeah. Yeah. And so many people become obsessed with this whole idea of perfection, which is also, in many ways, seeking the false self, right? Perfection is a mathematical concept. it's not a human concept. Humans are inherently imperfect. And that's what God loves, which is the good news, you know, that God has chosen. Because you wouldn't be here as a human being if you were perfect.

15:20That's right. Because this isn't the perfect planet. No, it isn't. The suffering on this earth right now, today, and it breaks our hearts. But what can we do about it? We can't resolve it totally. We can stand for a truth that opposes it. or would seek to relieve it, but we live in an imperfect world, and it breaks our hearts every day. Yeah. What really breaks your heart when you turn on the news? What is the thing that, there's a consistent theme that comes. Powerless people who've never been able to experience their power. You know, you and I were given such opportunities too, And there's so many people who've tried.

16:05They accepted what life handed them, but never had a chance, you know, never had a chance. It's so wrong the way so many people have to live their lives. But isn't the reason why Sister Joan was here the other day. Yes, I did. She was saying that some of the same things you're saying, but that we as a species have everything we need. isn't the reason people suffer is because we let them? Yes. I mean, well put. That we are complicit in this human tragedy. Yes. We are, yeah. We are humans letting other humans suffer. But contribute to it. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's why I know we're tired of the word and we push back, but that's why the biblical tradition used the word sin, that we are complicit in the suffering of the world.

16:57You're right. So tell me this. You say that what our false self fears more than anything is change. And you write that whether human beings admit it or not, we're all in love with, even addicted to, the status quo and the past, even when it's killing us. You know, Pope Francis, who is obviously a hero of mine, he says the church is not an antiquarian society. and I look at the history of Christianity, so much of it has been a love affair with the past, with keeping things like they used to be, you know? What you see in the Gospels is, you know, Jesus moving ahead into history. God's in love with the future.

17:44Not that God doesn't forgive and love the past, but that in the name of Jesus, at least, a religion was created that was so afraid of the future. It just astounds me. You know, when God clearly is not. When he himself was so futuristic. It is future. That's right. Why do we fear change so much? Because it asks us to let go. And we're not good at letting go. Yeah, we're good at holding on. And not only are we good at holding on, but we can show this. And I've seen it in myself. We hold on to the negative. Do you know it's hard to hold on to joy, but resentment, hurt. You can just live in it, wallow, make yourself a little home and have a tea party.

18:33For years. For years. I mean, how many people don't we both know? Yes. That just, this is their whole identity, victimhood. Yes. And it's like, oh, come on. Now, when you don't need to play the victim or create victims, you're free. And that is the freedom I hope for. I hope I can live, that I don't need to blame another group or another race or another religion or another country. It's such a waste of energy, you know, this blame game. I know. Of thinking that other people have to be victimized or demoted so I can be promoted, you know? Well, anytime you're in that space, you're operating out of the false self.

19:15You got it. You got it. Okay, so you say that moving beyond the false self requires a kind of dying. literally, right? Unlearning and dying. Unlearning and dying. And by dying, you mean? I don't just mean the final physical die. Anytime where I have to let go of my present construct, my success project, as Thomas Merton called it. I love Thomas Merton. He's one of my great teachers. We each create our private salvation project, our private what will make me wonderful, What will make me look beautiful and be admired. Every time you have to let go of that in its present form and reshape it, it's dying.

20:01It's, darn, I based my life on that, you know? I based my life on looking good or being a priest or whatever. Or being married, and now that's falling apart. I have a friend who's going through divorce, and I said, you have to relearn a new normal. You have to, you know, it doesn't mean it's relearning a new normal. But the old normal has to fall apart. That's dying. That's right. And you never go there voluntarily. You fall. This is a psychological dying we're talking about. Yes, it will be experienced psychologically. Yes. That's right. That's right. So this happens to people. When you go through a divorce and then first you are fighting, fighting it, and you think it's the worst thing that could ever happen to you.

20:41And then you come out the other side of it and you feel a greater sense of freedom and closer to your true self. It might take you five years to get there. But you'll wake up one day and say, my God, this is much better. Or you lose your job. Yeah, lose your job or lose your reputation or your money or your child dies. You know, all of those immense tragedies. That's the way the self expands. I'm sorry to say it's true, but it's true. Why can't it just expand? I know, I know, I know. I'm going to ask God this. Please, would you have a conversation with God and say, why can't we just learn through the happiest times, God?

21:22I don't know why God shaped the world this way. But all the spiritual masters I've read and studied would say this, you know. Even Buddhism. The Buddha says, you know, life is about suffering. It's all what you do is suffering. If you don't transform your suffering, Oprah, I always say you will transmit it. With 100 % certitude, you will transmit your suffering to your family, your neighbors, your country. If you don't transform it. If you don't transform it. Hi, it's Ashley from OWN. Losing weight is one thing, but keeping it off? That's where it gets really frustrating. That's why Weight Loss by HERS now offers access to the FDA-approved Wagovi pill and the FDA-approved Wagovi pin.

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22:55Save now at Whole Foods Market. It's the Summer Splash event. With great everyday prices on 365 brand ground beef for the grill and ice cream for dessert, They have yellow sales signs on ready-to-cook beef or chicken kebabs, too. Level up with savory marinade, spices, and rubs, and complete your cookout with a crowd-pleasing cherry pie and their balsamic chicken salad. Available at the prepared foods counter. Get Summer Splash savings now at Whole Foods Market. And define suffering. Okay, I've got a definition. Good. You suffer whenever you're not in control. like at a stop sign that seems interminable you're suffering you know, that just come on, come on, come on I want it to change and it's those little sufferings that have taught me the meaning of suffering right now I'm not in control, I'm not getting what I want and I'm upset now if I can learn right now that it's still okay I can still be happy even though I'm not getting my own way that's how I find freedom it's the only way I can find freedom one of the things that I learned from Eckhart Tolle that comes resonates with me so deeply he was saying all stress is created by wanting something the what is to be what it is not that if you can just be in the present moment and accept acknowledge what is I'm at the stop sign it's the red light it's not changing and be with that immediately you can find some level of contentment.

24:36Some level of true self. Yeah, of true self. The true self can be content right there. Yeah. I think it's interesting how you describe love or falling in love, being in love, true love as a death of the false self. It actually is. Because we all love to fall in love. Yeah. But to fall in love, you have to take the risk of changing yourself for this person. And you have to let go. You have to. You have to. And that's why a lot of relationships don't last because you have to let go of who you thought you were before you loved that person. You're giving them power to change you. If you don't give your friend, your partner, power to change you, I don't think you love them.

25:21You know? And your unconscious knows that. Your soul knows that. Yeah. Once you've been able to give yourself over to that other person, does that mean you actually get to become more of your true self, who you were meant to be? If that other person is growing up too. Do you understand? Yeah. If it's mutual. If it's mutual. Yeah. If it isn't mutual, I've seen marriages pull people down into smaller cells. Which is what Gary Zukav calls spiritual partnership. is a partnership between equals. Equals. Partners. Partners for the purpose of spiritual growth. You've got to have somebody. I would agree.

26:05Would you agree? You've got to have somebody who wants you to grow. To grow. To your fullest self. To your fullest self. To who you really are. And if you don't have that, I have seen people become smaller after marriage, that it's like egotism between two. And they say, let's just live behind the white picket fence, and you take care of me, and I'll take care of you. And this is not enough. Not enough. No. It's a good start. You deserve your honeymoon period. But love has to expand. It always has to expand. Do you sense this yearning of the souls in the world, yearning for something more? I think a lot of people aren't in touch with that yearning.

26:50They're not aware that they're longing for something more, I think. Don't we come in longing? Because don't we miss God? I deeply believe that, that all spiritual knowledge is not cognition. It's recognition. You're re-knowing what you deeply already knew. What you deeply intuited, suspected, desired, hoped for, that's the soul. Yeah, because don't we come in knowing? Isn't it Immortal Diamond where you tell the story of the little boy? Can you tell us that story? Yeah, that this family had a little boy who was about three or four. They come home with another little baby boy. Yeah. And the three or four-year-old said, I want to talk to my little brother.

27:33And they said, oh, go ahead, you can. And he said, I want to talk to him alone, which surprised them. And so they shut the door and they cupped their ears to the door to listen. And this is apparently what the little boy said. Quick, quick, tell me who made you. tell me where you came from, I'm beginning to forget. And, you know, could this be true, that we know at the beginning and we get caught up in all the complexities, personas, struggles of life, and we forget it, but our heart of hearts knows. Knows. Knows, yeah. So is in this quest, like everybody's looking to find themselves when there's really nothing to find.

28:20It's all really within. It's true. But is the finding of the true self the same as finding God? Experientially, yes. The discovery of myself and the discovery of God will eventually be parallel movements. Well, initially, too. That you fall into one and you fall into the other. You fall deeper into yourself, you fall deeper into God. You fall deeper into God, you have permission to fall deeper into yourself, even warts and all. So they sort of play back and forth. When did you first come to know your true self? Well, I wouldn't have called it that. I didn't know that's what I was experiencing.

29:02Yeah. But I can remember, maybe I'm five years old, the family's in the kitchen. It's either Christmas Eve or a couple days before the Christmas tree is all lit. I'm standing alone as a little boy looking at the Christmas tree, and I remember just being absolutely certain that life was good, and I was good, and everything was beautiful. That's probably why I became a priest, because the spiritual world from that day forward was real to me. It wasn't just a belief system. I knew it. I knew that there was something beyond the visible. and that that was the real. Yeah. But I want to say strongly that's not the only path.

29:52I was a jail chaplain for 14 years in New Mexico, and no one came that way. They came through hitting the bottom for the most part and so longing for God, for grace, for love, for forgiveness, for release from self-hatred that they met God out of desperation. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because the path says it doesn't matter as long as you come to it. To the moment of communion. To the moment of communion. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Save now at Whole Foods Market. It's the Summer Splash event. With great everyday prices on 365 brand ground beef for the grill and ice cream for dessert.

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31:38What is your personal soul practice? What is your personal practice for keeping yourself in that space of being? You know, for the last 15 years, the Franciscans have allowed me to live in a little hermitage, a small house behind the Franciscan community in New Mexico. And I try to preserve good chunks of silence. If I can do that and learn how to rest there, it is a resting, then I have to use that as a touchstone all day. Can I get back to that place of who I am in God, apart from my role, my success, my title, my authorship, or all of those things. Those are going to pass. And silence is the one spiritual discipline that is found in all of the world religions at the higher levels, some degree of silence.

32:38And that would be my practice, finding inner silence and then honoring the silence that's really around everything. What's the difference between religion and spirituality for you? Spirituality is when you're personally, subjectively on the journey. It's not just I believe it because I was told to believe it. I believe it because the Bible says I should believe it. It's not church knowledge. It's not theological knowledge. It's experiential knowledge. So when you move to the experiential level, that's when you can talk about spirituality. What's interesting, Sister Joan was saying that religion is pointing to the moon.

33:20It's the way to. Perfect. It's the way to. But it's not the moon. It's not the moon. She's right. Pointing to the moon, not the moon. I've read in Immortal Diamond where you said that the role of religion isn't so that we can believe things, but it's so that we can know things. For ourselves. For ourselves. Yeah. You know, maybe you saw that film of Carl Jung as an old, he was the Swiss psychologist, and they asked him once with a microphone, do you believe in God? And his face gets sort of strange. Believe? Believe? No, I don't believe. And he said it so humbly. I know. I was just, I just wanted to cheer, because that's what I would like to say.

34:06I do say that. Somebody was challenging me on Twitter not too long ago about, Oprah, you're always trying to get people to believe in God, which I'm really not. You're not. I'm really not. You can't do that. You can't do it, because I know I can't. So my thing is, I think I tweeted back, you don't need to believe in God. It's just there to experience. It does nothing for God. to believe in God. Really? I mean, you and I both know people who believe in God and are the most racist, the most bigoted, and they believe in God. That doesn't impress me anymore. It just doesn't. No, it doesn't. Religion is one of the safest places to hide from God.

34:46Who would have thought? Who would have thought, you know? But that's why Jesus is so lethal to the high priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, the elders of the law. it's almost like he's revealing the danger of religion without throwing it out now that's non-dual thinking you see without I'm not throwing it out but you better be aware yeah I've been a priest 44 years religion is the best thing in the world and it's the worst thing in the world an egocentric person who wants to feel separate and superior and that's what the ego always wants the ego always wants to feel separate and superior you know the best way to feel separate is to get God as your little commodity in your pocket.

35:28You know, God. So I use God so I can feel superior. So religion at that level ends up being more a part of the problem than the solution. And we've both seen that. Well, you are. Listen, I have never heard a person of the cloth, a religious person, say that religion is both the best thing and the worst thing in the world. It is. Yeah. It is. and I'm supposed to be a company man. But that's why Francis didn't want us ordained priests because he knew once you're ordained, you've got to speak the party line and sometimes the party line is more about holding the party together than it is about proclaiming the truth.

36:12And that's just, I think, true. Okay. On page 125 you write, our true self remains untouched for most of us because any direct experience of God or explicit union with God was blocked, denied, and largely declared impossible. It always had to be mediated by a Bible, a priest, a minister, a church, or a sacrament. And very often the mediators and the defending of their mediations became the primary message itself. Ah, darn, it's just so true. You know, I want to get back to Pope Francis, you know, that he wants to be so simple and so ordinary. He's making us aware to dress up in all this stuff and have titles and thrones and special hats.

36:59Would Jesus have worn one of those? I know. Unbelievable. And yet you can't let yourself get hateful or angry at that or you'll become a mirror image of it yourself. But still, to be able to laugh at it a little bit is almost necessary to get free from it, you know, to laugh at the silliness of human pretense. So what is the message you most wanted to convey? I'm going to say it in a phrase that might sound too clever, but I do mean it. God doesn't love you because you're that good. Just get over that. It's not a worthiness contest. God loves you because God is good, right? God doesn't love you because you're that good.

37:43because then we have to try to prove that we're worthy of it or we're good enough for it or we've deserved it. Or in competition for if I do this much, if I give this much. God loves you because God is good. That's the experience of radical grace. That's the experience of unconditional love that never stops giving. It never stops giving because once you know that, you're sort of indestructible. What can defeat you henceforth? So all my books are an attempt to lead people to a personal experience of their divine nature. If I don't succeed at that, all the rest is straw, you know? What do you know for sure?

38:29I know that I'm an ordinary man, and I know I've been given an extraordinary gift, and therefore I know God can give extraordinary gifts to anybody. I'm average intelligence. I am not that holy. I've made major mistakes in my life, and God has still used me. So that I know for sure. The connection between human imperfection and God's perfection. If you wanted to give me, our viewers, the ultimate advice in how to walk the path to your true self, you would say? Don't take your successes too seriously, but don't take your failures too seriously. Don't take yourself too seriously. See, it's this grabbing around identities, negative ones or overly positive ones, that keep us from the true self.

39:22When we can be humble and poor, when we can be naked and empty. I hate to use such radical words, but that's why Jesus went into the desert for 40 days to get rid of persona, to get rid of words, to get rid of all these projected... I mean, you're like me. Strip himself down. Yeah. People project onto you all kind of things that you know aren't true, and they do the same to me at a much lesser level, but people think I'm much more than I am. And when I stop believing that and stop hanging on to that, then I can rest in God and rest in Richard, too, at the same moment. It's the same resting. Yeah, you get it.

40:05I can tell. You know I get it. You know I get it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I love it. It's great. Hey there, podcast listeners. I have exciting news. We're launching a brand new podcast in addition to Super Soul Conversations. It's called Oprah's Masterclass. The Masterclass podcast allows you to hear the greatest life lessons from some of the most respected and renowned actors, musicians, public figures and athletes. in their own words. Listen as Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Ellen DeGeneres, Shaquille O 'Neal, Reba McIntyre, Dwayne Johnson, and Jane Fonda, just to name a few, share what they've learned about life and their own insights into their personal stories and challenges.

40:49I believe that there's something to be learned from every experience and everyone can use their life as a class. Oprah's Masterclass Podcast will be available July 19th on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe now and listen free. Go to applepodcast.com slash Oprah's Masterclass. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.

41:36a cast powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend i'm alexandra fairweather raised by one of the world's great creative geniuses john chamberlain on his famous foam couches now i'm on the couch again with today's boldest creative minds for conversations that will spark your creativity and give you the courage to create something new. On the Couch launches May 19th with John Gray of Ghetto Gastro, whose food will make you rethink who belongs at the table. Season one, Daniel Arsham, Alexander Wang, Annabelle Seldorf, and more. Subscribe wherever you stream and follow along at John Chamberlain Estate.

42:23Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Thank you.