More poignantly for Phipps, Winfrey also illus-
trates another of his foundational metaphors:
understanding the difference between riding the
wind and trying to be the wind. “That has been one
of her great strengths, learning to ride the wind,”
he says. “That’s one of the things a communicator
and speaker has to do—not to manufacture wind
but to be able to sense where the wind of destiny is
blowing and ride that moment.”
From presidents to prisoners and every notch in
between for audiences around the world, Phipps still
feels the breeze from his first speech, to a church
group in Nashville. “I had put some thoughts
together, but as I was presenting it, and at the end of
it, there was a certain aura in the room that let me
know that I had unwittingly tripped over the light-
ning in the bottle,” he says. “I think that at the end
of the day you measure a speaker’s success by the
lives that are transformed, and the lives that go on
to make a difference in the world or change the
world. In a way, the speaker touches eternity.
Type “wintley phipps amazing grace” into your favorite
search engine, and you’ll find a You Tube video capturing one of his performances at Carnegie Hall a few
years ago. it would spoil the magic of the moment to
reveal here what it contains, other than to say it’s the
quintessential phipps performance. The eight-minute
clip illustrates what he describes as exhibit A of what
he does and who he is: teaching, speaking, motivating,
inspiring, edifying and touching people’s hearts with his
mellifluous baritone. “again, i can’t take credit for it,” he
says. “Someone else put it up there, and now it’s become
the most watched inspirational religious teaching on the
internet.” as of april, the various postings of the video
had logged more than six million views.
The magnitude of the video’s spread hits home on a
regular basis. while he’s been recognized in public for
years from his regular appearances on Robert Schuller’s
Hour of Power television program, Phipps now gets
stopped by even more people who’ve seen him on
You Tube. even more important, of course, are the lives of
the people that the clip has touched. “i got an email from
a soldier in Afghanistan who was so touched by it that he
took his laptop, connected it to the speakers in the camp
and began to play it,” he says. “The soldiers stopped, and
started singing and crying together. it was one of those
incredible moments.”
If you’re looking for the secret to viral video success,
you’ve come to the wrong place. “people are always
trying to figure that out,” he says. “it’s an unusual phe-
nomenon for speakers. i don’t know how or why it
happened, but I know that it’s a result of all the driving
on ice i’ve done, captured in that one moment.”
Indeed, Phipps revels in the fact that there’s no
formula.“if you think you are smart enough to do it, go
ahead and do it,” he says. “But you soon realize that the
process of catching lightning in a bottle requires skills
that are beyond your imagination, ability and technical
expertise. it’s important that we never be able to shrink
wrap and market that process—for if we could, it would
take it out of the realm of the extraordinary and make it
ordinary. and we would be the lesser for it.”
Contributing writer Jake Poinier , who interviewed Phipps
for this article, says, “if you haven’t watched Wintley
Phipps’s YouTube video yet, what are you waiting for?”
Poinier blogs regularly at jakepoinier.blogspot.com.
