OPRAH: How do you, when you've had your life savings and everything that
you've planned in your whole life is sort of, like, wiped from under you. What
prayer do you say? First you cry. I mean, what -- GENEEN: I cried. I had -- I
had very close friends. The first one I called said to me, nothing of value has
been lost. And I said to her, this is not the time to be spiritual. OPRAH:
(Laughter.) GENEEN: (Laughter.) OPRAH: That's good. That's good. Yes.
We're only spiritual -- GENEEN: We're only spiritual -- OPRAH: -- when
we're happy and things are going well. GENEEN: When we know we have a
lot. OPRAH: This is not the time to be spiritual. GENEEN: Forget it.
OPRAH: Yes. GENEEN: But then I realized -- OPRAH: That's funny.
GENEEN: But you know what, Oprah? OPRAH: What? GENEEN: That
was one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life. OPRAH: How
so? GENEEN: And you know why? OPRAH: How so? GENEEN:
Because when you look -- I lost everything -- we lost everything. We lost -- we
lost all of our money with Madoff. All of it. 30 years of life savings gone. All of
it. Got a phone call. Geneen, are you sitting down? I thought my friend was gonna
tell me she had just had a bad hair day. And instead she said, Madoff is in
handcuffs. And I realized, we've now lost everything. And -- OPRAH: Had
you suspected anything before? GENEEN: Nothing. Because the friend who
got us involved with it had been invested for 30 years. OPRAH: And they lost
everything, too. GENEEN: And he got all of his other friends into it out of the
generosity of his heart because he really thought -- OPRAH: Yes.
GENEEN: -- it was it. OPRAH: Come on, this guy's so great. GENEEN: But
when you lose everything, because I had to focus on what I had, not what I didn't
have, because there was no way of getting through the night with that kind of terror
of having lost everything, Talk about shame. And blame. OPRAH: Yes.
Because you blame yourself for not seeing. For not knowing. GENEEN: How
could anybody not know? And so - and then I realized if I was gonna live -- if I
was gonna sleep, if I was gonna exist, I had to bring my mind back from the --
from the terror and start focusing on what was good. And I had to be fierce about
it. There was no choice about it. Because otherwise, I would careen off into such
grief and terror and shame and it was not a way to live. I mean, it took me a couple
of days to come to this. Good friends who basically said to me, focus on what you
have enough of. Not what you've just lost. And so I'd pick up a cup. I have a cup.
I have water. I have arms. I have legs. I have breath. I have a husband I love. I
still have a roof over my head. OPRAH: Mm-hmm. GENEEN: And you
know what? The most amazing thing happened. Within three to four days, maybe
a week, I was happier than I had been in years. GENEEN: Yes. OPRAH:
When you had lost everything. GENEEN: Yes, because when you start seeing
what you have, not what you don't have, what's good. Not what's wrong.
OPRAH: Okay. So but tell me what did you still have? Because it's one thing if
you say I lost everything but my house was paid for and I had -- so you know
you're gonna have your home. Right? GENEEN: I didn't. My house was not
paid for. I had the house. But which was mortgaged up to the hilt. Plus a home
equity line of credit that we owed on. Big mortgage. Car. Sweaters. And that was
it. OPRAH: So when you get the phone call, do you first think, how are we gonna
live? Or do you first think we're doomed? Do you first think -- GENEEN:
Oh, yes. Doomed. Doomed. Completely doomed. OPRAH: Doomed.
GENEEN: Doomed. Doomed. I call my husband who's in Antarctica at the time
and . I said, hi, honey, nobody died. But we did lose all of our money. We start
crying, both of us. He says, sweetheart, we're gonna be okay.I had confidence in
myself after a week that my mind could start going to the brink of terror and I
could bring her back. So no matter what horrible thing happened ever for the rest
of my life, I saw that if I was conscious about noticing what I did have. Not
noticing what I didn't have. Noticing what was good. That changed my mood
every day.