The Missing Piece To Success According To Oprah

As another year comes to a close, you’re probably asking yourself where did the year go? Why didn’t I achieve the goals I set out for myself? Or worse yet, why do I seem to be setting the same goals year after year, yet making little to no progress in achieving them?  

Before making another new year’s resolution, writing another smart goal, purchasing a new and improved planner, or investing in another end-of-year goal-setting virtual retreat, consider this.

It’s not your goal-setting or lack thereof that’s keeping you from achieving your desires.  Rather, it’s your beliefs.  And, while most people will say that, in order to change your beliefs you need to change your mindset, the truth is, your mind is only one small, albeit important, piece of the puzzle.

Yes, most leaders will tell us that the greatest obstacle holding us back is not our resources, our education, or our talent, but our minds. Successful people, regardless of how they define success, have a knowing that they are and will be successful. 

Those of us struggling to achieve success and mired in obstacles believe that success is difficult to attain. So we work harder, devote more hours, and continue to struggle. 

The problem with putting so much emphasis on mindset is that it tends “to be very rational and rooted in the physical. While every successful person will have a mindset, mantra, or core belief that anchors them, not everyone will have a spiritual practice that contributes to their success,” says Matt Gardan, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Digital Native. 

A spiritual practice for success? That sounds a little woo-woo, and frankly, lacking in empirical evidence. Show us something we can do; show us something we can measure; show us something we can track on our Gantt charts and Kanban boards.

“The spirituality of success,” Gardan continues, “blends the energetic realm with the physical one. And that is where the magic happens.”

Come on, Matt. Are you saying that you just wave a virtual magic wand and will things into existence?

Not quite, Matt continues. “You still need to do something in the physical. You must take action, but the compounding effects and results of those actions are amplified exponentially when you understand the power of intention and how energy flows.”

Yes, success has a spiritual component, a knowing that there is an energy beyond ourselves that is moving us in the direction of our dreams.  Just ask Oprah.

“It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control.” – Oprah Winfrey

Before adopting his spiritual practice, Gardan was hustling every month to get new business and make sure everyone was paid. “We’d usually go from feast to famine. One big project, then chew through any profit before the next one landed.”

Now he describes his business as flowing. “Now we are working on bigger projects than ever before, turning back clients that don’t align with our business values. We turned down a $50k job for a big mining firm and a few days later landed a $150k plus client.” 

Margret Stefandottir, host and supervisor of Iceland’s Whole and Happy? concurs. “It is fairly easy to put your mind to it and imagine where you want to go – your own destination of success – and that can be useful. But for me, the right mindset is just a part of the way to the destination. 

“If the mind and the spirit are not aligned, mindset alone is not enough. The spirit is such a powerful part of this process and only by having everything aligned can we optimize for the success we seek.”

Stefandottir credits her spiritual practice for raising her up from a messy and financially devastating divorce with three daughters to creating her own company.

“The unbelievable feeling of not fearing the future got me to the place I am today – of that I’m certain. I got a job that led to my ideas for the TV series and led me to start my own company.”

So how exactly does one start such a spiritual practice?

Both Stefandottir and Gardan do a practice called Tya, short for “Trust your abundance.” With Tya, they’ve transformed their lives and careers from barely scraping by, to easy abundance.

The Tya practice is based on four fundamental principles.

1. Source Consciousness

We are part of a consciousness greater than ourselves, which some refer to as Source, others call nature.  Whatever we call it, rather than solo journeyers through life, our existence our actions are interconnected and contribute to a greater whole. 

2. Forgiveness, or radical appreciation.

Tya teaches that all of our past and present struggles are necessary for the full realization of who we are.  When we appreciate what we have gained from every struggle, loss, or trauma, these experiences lose their power over us.  

3. Polarity

The physical world is a world of polarity, of contrast.  We have good days, we have bad days. We have successes, we have failures. There is nothing in the physical world without its opposite. 

We all feel down at times, which is a necessary part of the universal process of creation. It is then that we manifest problems in need of solutions. 

When we feel good, we are then in the position to solve the problems we manifested. All creation begins as a problem in need of a solution. 

“Now, doubt and fear are not parts of the equation,” says Stefansdottir. “Contrasts are a logical part of the universe and for our own good. Otherwise, we won‘t experience growth. The result is that the experience I will get from making mistakes will take me to another place of improvement, development, and eventually more spiritual growth.” 

4. Intention

Tya teaches us to be very intentional with what we want, to let go of fear, and to trust the universe to deliver beyond our wildest dreams.

“Intention is such a powerful tool,” says Gardan. “Energy just wants to flow, and if you don’t direct it then it flows everywhere, chaotically. 

“But once you understand how to manage, focus, or even just point it vaguely in one direction, then things speed up, dramatically.”

Do you need to believe in God to do Tya?

Absolutely not. The concept of God is a sticking point to many, having been used throughout history to condone the opposite of what Tya is.  Whereas many religions espouse a judgmental Creator, Tya is the complete absence of judgment. 

Will Tya compromise your religious beliefs?

Not at all, unless your beliefs are judgmental. Tya is a practice that trains you to trust that Source, or nature, is always taking care of you. 

“Notice how our planet always thrives regardless of what it encounters,” explains David Strickel, CEO and creator of Tya. “Storms come through, humans leave a footprint, but the planet ultimately flourishes. Now, apply this to your life. If the flourishing isn’t happening, why is that? Perhaps because your mindset is stuck in the storm that has long passed.”

If anything, Tya will improve your relation with your Creator.

Tya is as much a practice as is setting goals and whittling away at them.  But with Tya, there is no whittling. Rather, you set your goals for your dream life, and then you focus on finding joy in everything and let the universe surprise you with the how. 

“Meetings go better budgets get approved quicker,” explains Gardan. “There seems to be a direct correlation between ease in my biz and the discipline of my practice.”

Still skeptical?  

Many successful people have attributed their success to the spiritual, perhaps no one more than Oprah Winfrey.

In a 2015 lecture to a gathering of Stanford students, she said, “I’m not telling you what to believe, or who to believe, or what to call it, but there is no full life, no fulfilled, meaningful, sustainably joyful life without a connection to the spirit.” And, she added, that the way to achieve such a life was through practice. 

She went on to describe her practice to the young audience. Back in 1985, she had auditioned for the role of Sofia in The Color Purple. She was convinced that, because of her weight, she had lost the part to Alfre Woodward. “So I’m running around the track praying and crying,” she describes. “The way prayer works is, you can pray, but if you don’t release it, if you don’t surrender it, it goes nowhere.”

She sang, prayed and cried until she could not only release the pain of the rejection but could actually bless Alfre Woodard in the movie. 

In doing so, Winfrey practiced the Tya pillar of radical appreciation, detuning her desire for the role until she could actually feel good about losing the part to someone else.

“So I pray, I pray, I pray, and sing ‘I surrender all’ until a woman comes out to me and says to me, ‘There is a phone call for you,'” Winfrey continued. “And in that phone call I was told, ‘Next day, show up in Steven Spielberg’s office and if you lose a pound you could lose this part.’ So I stopped at the Dairy Queen.”

This year, why not try doing something different? Why not take a lesson from Oprah’s playbook? 

Set your goals for the new year, and instead of white-knuckling how it has to happen, trust the universe to pamper you in its unfolding. If nothing else, it’ll make for a lighter, freer, and more flowing new year.