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Earlier this year, Oprah Winfrey nabbed the number one spot on the Forbes list of the country’s 250 Greatest Self-Made Americans — and this week, at a Forbes event in Philadelphia, Winfrey talked about why the keys to her success have been lessons learned from her challenging early years.

“I thought my life was over, and I had tried to actually harm myself, to do whatever I could because I had so much shame about it,” Winfrey said of being raped and sexually abused starting at age 9 and giving birth to a son at 14 who died soon after. But she also said that she would’ve been pulled out of school if she had had to raise her child, so she now looks at the tragedy as a second chance for her to go back to school, where she discovered her talent in debate and public speaking—which led to a radio job, a scholarship to Tennessee State University and eventually her national media brand.

Winfrey’s wide-ranging conversation with Forbes chief content officer Randall Lane can be watched in full here, but in the meantime, I want to leave you with her reflections on how poet Maya Angelou reframed how to think about a legacy: When Winfrey once told Angelou that her Leadership Academy would be her greatest legacy, Angelou countered that "you have no idea what your legacy will be" because legacy isn't tangible like a building or a dollar amount but, "every life you have........

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