Even billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey has bad days.

In a recent interview with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, Winfrey revealed that she reads historical documents from slave plantations when she is in crisis and needs to be reminded that those who came before experienced far worse. 

“I will speak their names out loud,” Oprah explained to Paltrow on the latest episode of Goop's podcast. “I will speak their names out loud — Douglas, and Jenna, and Carrie, and Sarah and Anna — and their ages, and their prices, and remind myself of how far I have come. And no crisis seems that much of a crisis after you look at the names, the ages, the prices of people who were before you — who made this way possible.”

Not only does she reread the documents, but she looks at the Harry Herman Roseland’s 1906 painting “To the Highest Bidder” that she purchased in 1988 to find comfort. The painting depicts an enslaved woman named Anna holding her child, Sarah,  as she is waiting to be sold off. 

Oprah acknowledges that the ancestors can lead us even in the darkest times

“The most important, though not most expensive [piece of art], in my home is a picture of a slave woman on the auction block with her daughter,” Oprah explained. “When you come in my house, that’s the first thing you see and that is the grounding painting for me.”