Relentless Hope with John O'Leary Part 3

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hello, my friends. My name is John O'Leary, and
when I was nine years old, I was burned on
one hundred percent of my body. Eighty seven percent of
those burns were third degree. Given no chance of survival,
I decided that first day in hospital, and then each
day afterwards for five and a half months, to take
the hand of God, to walk the journey with him,

(00:21):
and to fight like enough a fuck before. It did
not make the journey easy, what would. But I think
that decision as a kid made the journey possible. And
yet when I came home, my goal in life was
not to stand out and shine reflect his mercies. My
goal was to fade. So that's what I did. For
decades after being burned. I covered up the scars. I

(00:44):
hid from the struggle. I turned toward addictive behavior. And
when my life truly was transformed was not at age nine.
It was at age twenty eight, in a church service
in the back row, arms crossed, looking down when the
pastors said, and for those of you who feel as
if God has blessed you with no talent, not five,

(01:04):
not to not even one, but none, listen to me.
Your life is a precious gift. You got one job,
say yes to be a US for good.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well. I wrote that down and the following day I
was invited by it the girl Scouts, to speak it
to truth.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I never told anybody how I was burned. I never
showed anybody my scars, but on that day, on the heels.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Of that message, I said yes.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
That yes has led to twenty seven hundred additional speeches
around the world. It has led to two bestselling books,
and now it leads to a fourthcoming major motion film
released by Sonia.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Firm October tenth, called Soul on Fire.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
The best thing about this film is it's not about
a kid who got burned who figured out, ultimately about
the end of it, how God was using his story.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Now, this is a film ultimately about heroes. It's a
film about love. It's a film about family and faith
and what can happen when we recognize God used all
all people and all experiences for his perfect purposes. My friends,
I hope you will join me October tenth and afterwards
in theaters around the country to take in, be inspired

(02:10):
by and transformed through the film Soul on Fire.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
John is the two time national best selling author of
On Fire and in Awe. He's a world class inspirational speaker,
the host of the Live Inspired podcast, and he's the
real life inspiration behind the major motion picture Soul on Fire.
Each week, John interviews extraordinary individuals about their life stories

(02:35):
so you can more fully live your life story.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Here's your host, John O'Leary.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
This one's going to be an incredible conversation with a
man who, whether he's walking onto a set, onto a
lot at Sony, or into a room, changes the room
that he walks into. His name is Devon Franklin. During
the conversation that you're about to listen into or watch,
you're gonna witness some man who opened up his front door,

(03:01):
let me into his house in California and open up
his heart to the rest of us on what he's
been through, what he's learned, and ultimately what it means
for us in our lives. So who does Devon Franklin
play in the film Soul on Fire? He plays a
mighty warrior in one of the heroes in My story
in My Life and in the film a gentleman named

(03:24):
Nurse Roy Roy shows up in My Life Today after
I'm burned. He walks me forward literally over the five
and a half months that I'm in hospital. He transformed
not only my healing physically, but my healing spiritually. And
when you listen to this conversation with Devn, when you
pick up on the cue is what makes him tick.

(03:45):
You'll find out also not only why he said yes
to portray Nurse Roy, but how he embodies Nurse Roy
in his real life. Devon Franklin is one of my heroes,
and after you hear this podcast, he's going to be
one of yours. So my friends, buckle up, get ready
to be picked up and walk forward into your life

(04:05):
with my friend now yours. His name is Devn Franklin. Devon,
welcome to Live Inspired with John O'Leary.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Thank you, my brother, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
This is a treat man. I've had the honor of
interviewing about seven hundred and sixty people in my life. Wow,
from astronauts to presidents, to servants, to pastors, to cancer survivors,
marathon runners, tra athletes. And I was standing outside your hotel,
this beautiful house today waiting for you to come on

(04:34):
don and let me in. And I don't remember ever
being nervous before interviewed a lot of people never been nervous.
I'm nervous this time.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Is that right? When? Is that?

Speaker 1 (04:43):
It's because I respect you?

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I respect your work, I respect your life story, I
respect your heart, I respect your heartache. I respect the
fact that you said yes to us when we invited
you to be part of a project.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
And so I think the anxiety outside your kind of
minium is the anxiety of doing a job. Well tonight
with you? Amen, So man, I just want to really
let you know I'm grateful for you, and I'm grateful
for this time. So welcome to our Living Spire podcast.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Thank you, Thank you for having me. I can't believe
seven hundred and sixty and now.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
We got seven sixty one with you. Man, So well,
may finally turn the tide and get some better guests
going forward. I love it for folks who don't know you,
and I'm going to do that nice long introduction when
you're not tuning in. But for the folks who don't
know you, if you were to meet someone in a
grocery store and they're like, hey, man, I'm John, what's
your name and you said Devin. Yeah, if they asked you, Devin,

(05:35):
what do you do.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
How do you answer that, My goodness, I don't That's
a great question. I don't know. It's something that you know,
I do honestly wrestle with because there are so many
things that I do legitimately. You know, I'm a TV
and film producer. I am a preacher, I'm an author,
I am an actor, I am a you know, TV personality.

(06:01):
All of those things are things that I do. So
usually if somebody were to ask me, well, where you know,
what do you do? I would say, you know, I'm
in the entertainment business, and I use entertainment as a
way to uplift people's spirits.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Let's go back in time a little bit. Yeah, April thirteen,
do you remember, well, yes, my.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Birthday nineteen seventy eight. That's right up a.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Little bit north of where we're gathered here today. You
were raised up in Oakland. Yes, I just talk about
aspects of your childhood. I think it's a fascinating origin story.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Yeah, you know, I was raised in the Bay Area.
I'm the middle child of three boys, and so us
middle children, I mean, and no one realizes how hard
it is, but a middle child. So you know, that
was great, and you know, it was raised with my
mother and my father. When I was born, my mother
and bother were together and raised in the church. And
where we were I was raising the suburbs of like

(06:58):
the Bay Area, So I was born in a place
called Livermore, and then my mom and dad lived in
Pleasantin and so you know, it was very idyllic in
terms of the American dream. He was a manager. He
started off washing trucks for UPS, and then he became
a manager for UPS, and then my younger brother came,
and as far as I can remember, it was like

(07:18):
after my younger brother came is when things started to
you know, really you know, start to shift, you know,
because my father became an alcoholic and ended up losing
his job and we ended up losing the house and
had to move on my grandparents in Richmond, California. So,
you know, I have was.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
There a moment, Was there a trigger for your father
that caused him to choose a different path?

Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know? It was really interesting because you know, I've
done some research about Okay, you know, is alcoholism hereditary?
And what I've found is that there's no gene that
can be pinpointed as an alcoholic gene. However, what has
been in research is that it's environmental on some level,

(08:03):
like if you grew up in the home of an alcoholic,
you are you know, predisposed or you have a higher
potential for alcoholism. So my father grew up in the
home with his mother and father, and his mother and
father were alcoholics, and then one of his brothers, his
younger brother, was an alcoholic. And so as he was
working at ups, they would go and do these things

(08:25):
that they called liquid lunches where during the lunch hour
you would drink, and you know, he initially did it
and just thought like, oh, yeah, it's no big deal,
you know what I mean, Like it's just social hanging out.
But for whatever, for him, as he started to drink socially,
he tapped into maybe something that was lying dormant within him,

(08:45):
which was this predisposition for alcoholism. And so he would
over drink at lunch. Sometimes they would call my mother
to come get him, to say, hey, you know, Donald,
is he's not fit to drive? Can you come get him?
And she would come pick them up from work, you know,
and it's like picking him up from where he got
drunk at work. I mean, that's such a you don't
really hear that very often. So, uh, that's what happened

(09:08):
and why he, you know, did that? I don't. I
don't think that from what my uncle and people have
told me, Like he wasn't aware that this was his predisposition.
But then once it kind of hit, alcohol for him
was like hard drugs for someone else. That the more
that he tried to stop, he just he couldn't help himself.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
What was he like at home?

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Most of the memories that I have of him, he
was he was drunk. And I do have a few
memories where when he was sober and he was great,
you know, a lot of fun, very loving, very kind,
really loved hanging out with us. I like to joke
a lot, like to have fun. And then those memories
of him being drunk, you know, just depend on just
to pend. You know, some days he'd be very aggressive,

(09:52):
kind of loud, you know, a little belligerent. So yeah,
most of my memories were that. But what was interesting
is my mother I never talked bad about him. She
never said a negative words.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Well, well, they were married, after they were married, to
this day, to this day, to this very moment, why
do you think that is?

Speaker 3 (10:10):
I think because she just you know, loved him and
really saw the best in him and wanted us to
see the best in him, and so she never she
never to this day, has said anything negative about him.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
You were nine, Yeah, when your father passed away.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, you've been in both your books and also an
interview is very candid about losing your dad and how
dramatic that was, not only to lose this father figure
from your wife, but the experience of actually being called
into the morgue and kissing your father goodbye with you
shared this experience from the perspective of a kid going
in it.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, I mean it it was tough, man. I remember,
you know, I did a book that came out not
too long ago called It Takes a Woman Ess, And
it was a book I did with Audible, and it's
an audio only book. And I talk about our story,
I mean, in my family story, and I start the
book and you know, narrating my perspective of my father dying.

(11:08):
And he had a heart condition from what we found
out later, but for whatever reason, he didn't take it
seriously as sometimes men tend to do. So I remember
he had had a heart attack and we were with
him because he came to see my older brother deliver
Martin Luther King's speech, and it was probably maybe two

(11:29):
years before he died, and so he had an art
a mild heart attack at that event, went to the hospital.
They checked him out, you know, as far as we knew,
he was going to be all right, and then we
wouldn't see him all the time. So he resurfaced and
he was living in Oakland, working in a soul food
restaurant and living in the back and so we would
go see him, and he had another heart attack, and

(11:51):
so we went to the hospital to see him, and
he was like, look, you know, I'm going to get
out of here. I really want to get my family back,
I want to back into church. And what I remember
was that, and I think it was might have been
the next day. We were going to go see him
after school, and you know, the call the phone rang,

(12:11):
and my mother you know, answered and started screaming, and
we just knew, me and my brothers knew what that meant.
And my mother drove us to my aunt's house, picked
up my aunt, and we went to to the hospital
and my mother left us with my aunt and the lobby.
We didn't know where she went at the time, and
then she came back and she said, come with me,
and so she took us to see him and he was,
you know, in the morgue and there he was, you know,

(12:33):
laid out on the table, and she just said, you know,
kiss your father goodbye, and we did. And you don't
know a cold until you've you've touched the cold of death.
It's it's it's it's hard to describe. And in that moment,
I didn't know what to do. I really didn't know
how to process it. But I just said, okay, you know,
like I don't. I don't understand this, but trust somehow

(12:56):
it all figured itself out. And I didn't want to
go to the funeral at the time, but my family
insisted that I go, and I'm glad they did, so
I have those memories, but I never really quite understood,
you know, especially at that time, how to put it
in perspective.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Seems to me, when you're a child and your father
is an alcoholic and there's separation in the family and
then you lose them dramatically, that you kind of make
one of two choices. Usually one is to begin every
making every poor choice in the book right and becoming
it did, becoming a petty criminal and then going downhill quickly,

(13:31):
and it happens often. Yeah, And alternatively it's to become
the angel child and to overproduce and you sit in
the front of the classroom everybody else a different way forward,
even when you don't feel like living that way forward?
Which path did you find yourself on the latter? You know,
you know you're self described at that age mister perfect.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah, I know, Oh my goodness. And you know what's
crazy about that is when I was in school, people
that's what they would call me because I was always
on time, always addressed well, you know, head of the class,
honor roll, all of it. And so people were calling
mister Perfect. And at the time, there was like a
wrestler named mister Perfect and uh yeah, yeah, you know,

(14:15):
w w F is what it used to be called
before WWE, and he was in the w w F.
And at the time I thought that was like great.
I was like, oh cool, yeah, mister Perfect, cool cool,
you know, But I didn't realize until I got to
become an adult that you know that that that's not
the best.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Why not because a lot of our listeners are striving
for that. And not only are they striving, they're rearing
children and they have them in every practice, every choir thing,
every church service, every honor program, working on resumes, repracticing,
the act, on and on and on toward perfection. Yeah,
So why is striving toward being mister perfect not the

(14:54):
right call?

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Because to all the things you just listed, all the
of those things, you can certainly raise up and achiever.
But can you raise up someone who's comfortable being a
beer just being who they are? That is the hardest
and the most beautiful thing in life, when someone is

(15:19):
comfortable being who they are. Because, yeah, you can push
a child to perfection and achievement, and certainly some children
will rise to the occasion. And I'm not saying achievement
is not important. I'm not saying that. But what I'm
saying is that if I achieve, and I understand what
that is, but I have no sense of self, those

(15:40):
achievements will become addictive. I need to keep achieving in
order to feel good about me, or in order to
have my parents' approval, or in order to be looked
at in a way that I can then say, oh, well,
this person is saying I'm doing a good job, so
that makes me feel good. But once achievement stop, or

(16:01):
once you know, miss the mark. If you don't have
a sense of self, if you don't know how to beat,
then that will devastate you. And so I believe we
have a culture that we're raising of a lot of achievers.
That's that's fine, but are we raising people that know
how just to be?

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Unfortunately, we got to keep recording because I think we
could end the podcast right out there and set people.
I think we got enough, divine, go back to making
dinner for your family. We're good to go. But I
want to learn about what that mister perfect looked like,
what it led to, and ultimately when you learned what
you just said to.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
Me, Yeah, because that's it, man, Yes, it one thing
to say it. Yeah, but you had.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
To learn it first and it wasn't at age nine,
ten or eleven. It took a little minut. So as
you're striving on as a kid, what kind of stuff
were you involved in?

Speaker 3 (16:46):
I was acting in school plays. What got you in
acting in school place? You know? I actually have no idea.
I don't remember. I just remember that we had a
teacher in middle school. His name was mister Gamba, and
he would take popular plays and kind of do spoofs
of them. So instead of the music Man, it was
called like the Miserable music Man. And so I was

(17:07):
the lead of that play. And I don't know, I
just always at a good stage presence. I was always
well spoken, always had some charisma, and I just think
when you're in middle school, it's like, oh, okay, you're good enough,
come on. And I did it and I enjoyed it.
So I was doing that. I was playing basketball. I
was on the honor roll. As I mentioned earlier, I
was involved in church. The year that my father died,

(17:30):
my great uncle, he and my great aunt started a
church in Oakland called Wings of Love mayor not the Ministries,
And so I was very involved in church. I mean,
you know, I was even the director of the youth choir.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Ever pushed that where were you always all in on church?

Speaker 3 (17:46):
I was always all in on church. I always enjoyed it,
you know, when we were at church all day and
we would get there in the morning. Because see, I
was raised observing Sabbath, so Friday night sundown to Saturday
night sundown is the day of worship and I wouldn't,
you know, go to school games and all that in
school dances and that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
So before you continue, how'd you feel about that as
a kid.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
For the most part, I was cool with it. And
then there were some times it was like a big dance,
I'm like, oh ma, let me go, you know, please,
or like a big game, let me go, you know.
So some I mean rarely she would let us do it,
but sometimes she would. But overall, I enjoyed the Sabbath
you know, it was good. It was just I didn't
know anything else. It was like, oh, this is just
the way life is. Sabbath morning, we would go to

(18:30):
Sabbath school, which was like at nine thirty. Then we
would do church service at eleven. Then we would go
downstairs at like two to eat, and then we come
back upstairs for the afternoon program at like four, and
then sometimes there would be a social later on the night.
So we were in church all the time. So that
was a big part of my upbringing or my experience
when I was around that time of you know, mister

(18:52):
perfect At.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Fifteen, I was rolling around in the dirt watching baseball
games and getting ceas on my report card. At h eighteen,
you preach your first sermon? Yeah, I did, come on, man,
and from your own recollection, and I'm sure it's accurate.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
He did, all right, Yeah, yeah, it went well, I did.
It was our second youth day at the church I
grew up in Wings of Love. Before the first youth day,
my older brother spoke. He didn't really preach, he kind
of gave a little bit like a speech almost, And
then because I was kind of the next in line
and I was also pretty outspoken, they were like, okay,
it's your turn. And to this day, I mean, one

(19:33):
of the greatest motivational speakers to me is Less Brown
and he wrote a book at that time called Livier Dreams,
and so I, you know, I was looking at the Bible,
and I was looking at his book and pulling, you know,
ideas from his book and the Bible, and then you know, preached.
It might have even been the title of his book, preached.
And people were just like, oh, wow, that's amazing. You

(19:55):
did great. You got to go in the ministry and
you got to go become preacher. I said, no, I'm not.
I'm going to movies.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Who'd you model your style after? And most of the
guests I mentioned, We've had a more than a couple
that I've I've interviewed, and I read their books and
listen to some of the podcast interviews and some of
the television programs or movies that they've been in. In
addition to all of that, which is a lot already.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
For you, you.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Have so many sermons, so many, so many preaching topics online,
and I made the mistake of listening to one which
led to another, which like they just kept coming my way.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
You got an unusual style.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
So convicting, ah and so charismatic.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Thank you, thank you, It just from your heart.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
But men, you're rolling, Where does that originate? Who are
you modeling of that app Who are you trying to
be more like?

Speaker 3 (20:48):
That's a good question.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
Me and my uncle, my great uncle, you know, the
pastor of the church. He was a pretty dynamic speaker,
very dynamic, and I loved obviously Martin Luther King as
a speaker, Malcolm as a speaker, Less Brown as a speaker.
You know, all of these great orators were definitely influential
for me and my thing always and I think it's

(21:13):
just how I view life from that day to this
in terms of preaching, is really trying to get to
practical application, you know, because even with the first sermon,
you know, live your dreams, I'm talking very practically about Okay,
how do you apply what the word is saying towards
your dreams? And so that's just something that I've always
has always been a part of my style or my approach.

(21:35):
And then also I believe from a place of being convicted.
It's similar to acting like if I don't believe it,
If I don't believe what I'm doing or saying, nobody's
going to And sometimes people will get convicted because of
your convictioned As a speaker, you know, you know, I
mean you're a dynamic, motivational speaker. If you get up
there and you're not really sure about what you're saying,

(21:56):
or you know, you're not energetic about it, why would
someone want to be energetic about your message if you aren't.
If your message doesn't excite you, it definitely not going
to excite me. So me being excited and being convicted
comes from me one knowing that that that's a part
of how I convey and get someone else to connect
to what I'm saying. Yes, but also you know, I

(22:18):
try to find things that I'm really convicted about. So
it's not a it's not a gimmick, it's just natural.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
You do a couple other things that are not unique
to you, but package show up I think highly unique
to you. You put it all in one package. You
make them laugh probably every five minutes, just.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Like that, dude.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
I mean it is like every five minutes we're laughing
about something. And I think that is unusual for some sermons.
Some pastors, Yeah, do it brilliantly. You also have turned
to a neighbor and share, like tell me the time
in your life when you got burned where God showed
up for you and what you learned from that. More
like turn your neighbor and say.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
God is with you.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Then turn back and say yes, see I hear the
whole church, whether it's fifty or ten to thousand. Yeah,
follow your lead. Yeah, and it's cool I think to
draw people in not to your words but to theirs.

Speaker 5 (23:12):
Yeah, absolutely, their story, but ultimately yeah, because also it's
like and again you know this because you speak in
front of audiences all around the world, and when you're
in front of an audience, when someone's sitting there it's
so easy for the mind to wander and so.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Easy for people to check out. It's just very easy.
I mean, think about us. If we go to an event,
to church, a motivational conference, and we're listening to someone speak,
it's very easy to just be bored or wander or whatever.
So when I say turn to your neighbor, it engages them.
They're like, oh yeah, okay, so you know who am
I talking to? You know, like, oh right, we're talking

(23:52):
to me. You know. It's like because it engages in that,
it engages them. It engages them mentally, emotionally, virtually, practically. Yes,
so they're really in it with me, so that I'm
not you know, talking at them, I'm talking with them.
You know, May I submit for your considerations? Right, So
like hey, I'm just saying this is for your consideration.

(24:13):
You can just it may not work for you, but
I just want you to consider this. It's like one
of the just in terms of learning to preach. And
you know, my uncle, you know, giving me a lot
of books and kind of helped me over the years.
And then also when I got to La the church
that I was involved in, I was in elders training
and one of the books was about like basically note

(24:36):
list preaching. That book's theory was that when you get
up there to preach, if you like aren't operating off
of notes, you're going to be able to be more impactful,
more dynamic, and connect with people. But the key to
being able to do that is not just getting up
there and just speaking on the top of your head,

(24:57):
but it's about preparing in advance. So every sermon, I do,
you know, I've prepared hours and hours in advance, and
I have it all written out, and then I try
to I don't want to say memorize it, but I
try to like really make sure that I understand what
my points are. And most of the time I'm you know,

(25:18):
preaching from the Bible, So I usually will have a
physical Bible in my hand when I'm preaching, and so
as I'm going through the text, I will be reminded
certain keywords, will remind me of things in my notes
that I wanted to talk about. So it's not scripted
per se, but it's very well studied. And then once
I'm up there, then I can be free, right because
I know I know, I know the scripture, I know

(25:39):
what I want to say I have, I have a
sense of how I want to say it, and then
I can just be in the moment. And that's where
the real, you know, magic happens when you're just free
in the moment and people are just on a ride
with you.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
So I'm seven questions, then I have two hundred and
nine to go. So great, first time ever ever seen.
Devon Fry was right there when he finds out he's
stuck with the.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Least three hours. Never that.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Eventually, believe it or not, you graduate with the honors
from high school.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
You go on to USC Y USC because I wanted
to be in the entertainment business and USC has at
I mean, he still does, the number one film school
in the country or the world, and I knew I
needed to be in Los Angeles because this is where
in the entertainment business is pretty much housed. And so
I wanted to go to USC or UCLA. Originally I

(26:31):
wanted to go to the USC Film School as an undergrad,
but I got rejected from the Film School. But I
did get into the USC general admission, and once I
went to go visit UCLA because I got in there too.
Once I went to go visit them. I really felt
like God was calling me the USC, and so I
went ahead and accepted admission at USC and decided to

(26:51):
become a business major and a film minor. Because business
I was always just very interested in the entertainment business.
So I said, all right, well, let me specialize in business.
And that was great because that actually gave me time
because the film program, if it for the major, it's
a very rigorous program, but as a minor, it wasn't

(27:12):
as rigorous, and the business school major was rigorous but
not crazy. So it gave me time my freshman year
to add in an internship. And I got this internship
working for the company that managed Will Smith, and that
was my foot in the door of entertainment. And every
single opportunity I've had in entertainment comes directly from that.

(27:36):
That opportunity.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, why does an eighteen year old kid up in
Oakland want to get into entertainment?

Speaker 3 (27:42):
I don't have a good answer for it, but it's
best I can understand that, you know, motive, my motivation
at that time, I just remember movies like you know,
Rocky and Back to the Future and the color Purple
and just movies. There was one was the other et,
a lot of the Spielberg from Jaws, you know, all

(28:03):
these great films. They just captivated my emotions, my imagination,
and I was like, Wow, how does this happen? You know,
I was watching TV shows like Different World and other shows,
and I just said, wow, I need to understand about
the business of entertainment. I said, I love this. And
also I think there was definitely a correlation between you know,
the death of my father and my mother didn't have

(28:25):
money for therapy, so going to church and watching entertainment
became my therapy. And so I think there was something
in the movies I was attracted to. I mean, even
at a young age I was I was really gravitated
to the inspirational movies, the movies that were uplifting or
had something positive to say, because I felt like, for me,

(28:45):
that's what I needed right as a kid losing my father,
feeling like we didn't know quite who I was or
where I was. I found myself in entertainment, found myself
in movies. So that I think is probably what motivated
me to ultimately pursue that as a career.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Grandfather, great grandfather, great uncle, you're inundated in the church, world. Yeah,
and sometimes some folks think church world in Hollywood world
don't see how to I So you're coming from this
origin story of all these folks who are Bible believing leaders,
and they have one vision for your life and you
might have a different one. How did that work out? Well?

Speaker 3 (29:25):
Initially, when I would tell people, especially in my church
community or my church family, that I wanted to go
to Hollywood, you know, they were like, oh, man, well
that's sodam Ingemoor. You know, that's the devil, the Devil's
playground and all these things, and you know, why don't
you go to ministry or why don't you know? And
I just said, look, I gotta go. I just believe

(29:46):
that that's where I'm supposed to be. And you guys
have just got to pray for me, because I gotta
I gotta go. I got it, I have to see.
And I'm glad that at that age I was that
convicted and not swayed by their you know, not everyone,
but there were some that were definitely didn't think it
was a good idea. But I'm glad I wasn't swayed

(30:07):
by that. I was very clear, like, no, this is
what I need to do, and this is where I
need to be. Not knowing that it was going to
be successful. I already didn't know at all, but I
just knew that this is where I had to be.
You're in USC, a very difficult school to begin with. Yeah,
if complicated classes and you're an intern and it's real work.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
What kind of stuff were you doing as an intern?

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Oh man? First of all, I had a full class
load full units. I think it was eighteen units at
the time, and I was doing the internship, and I
was also doing a work study job at the Hallel
Jewish Center on campus, So I mean I was busy,
and so in terms of the internship, it was getting coffee,

(30:50):
picking up dry cleaning, picking up the lunch order. Do
I feel beneath you, No, not at all. I mean
I was raising the church and me being raised in
the church, and my uncle was very involved in the
civil rights movement and very much kind of a pull
yourself up from your bootstraps kind of guy, and so
he really instilled that in us. So at the church
that we grew up in, every Sabbath I was there,

(31:12):
you know, cleaning up and putting up chairs and putting
up tables and all of it was I just was
used to serving, so you know, when it came to
the internship, it was about me thinking, I'm trying to
figure out, okay, well what's the path to service here?
Like how do I serve? Oh? Okay, this is the
way I can serve? And then I figured.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Well the service became seams.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
And what I mean by that is that you know,
if you go get your shirt altered, you're wearing a
blue button up. If you go get that altered, the
way they're going to alter that is they're going to
look at the scene and they're going to open the
scene because that's where change can happen. And so, you know, so.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
I did here.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
Funny, So for me, I'm a young kid just trying
to make a name myself, and I'm like, how do
I make a name? Right? Okay, service is the way
that I can actually you know, find the seam and
make change and find a way to insert myself. And
you know, well that led to everything. I mean, you know,
it's like people started noticing like, who's this kid, you

(32:17):
know from USC And also one of the things that
was very important was they offered me the internship. But
before I took it. I told him, I said, listen,
I observed Sabbath. I said, so, I don't work on
Friday night and Saturday. So I said, if so, if
taking the internship would require me to work on the Sabbath,
I won't take it. So I just said that up front,
like hey, I'm not going to do it, and they

(32:38):
were like, no, no, no problem, will work around that.
So people also were like, well, who's this kid with
this faith and whatnot. So as I started to make
a name for myself, there's service copy and scripts, filing, faxing,
all of these things, then I got more opportunities. So
there was a guy's name was Benny Medeina and he
was one of the owners of the company. He's still
around now. He manages Jennifer Lopez and at the time

(33:00):
he was managing p Diddy and Mace and so this
was right after Notorious d Ig died and so they were,
you know, on top of the world. And so I,
as an intern, you know, would drive Bennie around, drive
him to rehearsals, to studio, to award shows. So that
was like, man, I was learning, and I was so grateful.

(33:21):
I was like, this is awesome, and I know it
sounds crazy. It's like I was like literally his uber
when I was in the office. But I loved it
because I learned I Woul could listen to him, you know,
make phone calls. I'd be out on the field with him,
seeing how he was doing what he was doing. And
I got a chance to get what I wanted, which
was an information and opportunity. And then not only did
that happen, that also got me on the radar of

(33:42):
Will Smith, and he and I even at that time,
you know, started to kind of build a rapport and
he was very impressed with the work that I was doing.
And I ended up leaving that company when Will started
his own company in the junior year of my college career.
He started a company called Overbrook Entertainment. Was Overbrooks first intern.
From that day to this, Will and I have been

(34:03):
really cool. He's like a mentor figure. He's like a
big brother. Whenever I need advice, he's always there. You know.
I just was at the house a few weeks ago
and just man, and he's such a man of God.
He don't know that about him. He's a man of God.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
I'm only kind of joking when I say of hundreds
of questions, I really do, and we won't get through
all of them. One that I did not write down,
but until my heart to ask is you know have
worked with and love Will Smith absolutely and the world
has a very convicted opinion of him right now. Yeah,
and I would just like for you to tell our
listeners and viewers who's Will Smith?

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah? Well, I mean he is one of the most amazing, generous,
kind hearted, intelligent, spiritual, talented, giving, magnanimous people I have
ever met. He truly is an incredible individual and he

(35:02):
is consistently on a pursuit for excellence, for growth, for
expansion emotionally, spiritually, mentally. And this is m to sound crazy,
but it's true. He in terms of my relationship with God,
in terms of being a better loving Christian, Will Smith

(35:24):
has had more of an impact on that on me
than any minister that I know. That's the type of
man that he is. And also, when you're living your
life in the public, we all have our moments, right,
but most time nobody sees them right. So when you're
living in the public, you know, one of the challenges
is that when you have your moments, everybody sees it,

(35:44):
but those moments are only there to underscore the truth
of our humanity. Going back to perfection, none of us
are going to be perfect. We're not. The diamond is
more valuable the more flaws, because it's it's unique, it's specific,
it's different, and too often when we have our moments,

(36:05):
we get down on ourselves. But this is what makes
us human. This is yeah, well yeah, okay, you know,
I looked at that. Maybe I could have done that differently,
And that's what I love about Will is that he's
always on a journey to become better. He's always on
a journey to help those around him become better in
every possible way that he can that he can't. And
for me personally, having that kind of model, you know,

(36:26):
for not only professional development but personal development as well,
has really made a huge difference.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Thank you. Let's talk about some of the milestones professionally
that I want to shift into relationships and then go through.
I wrote down a bunch of quotes. Okay, you won't
get through all of them. You're just so gifted, thank you,
and so we're going to go through a couple of
those things. Wrap up in a moment professionally, after graduating university.
What were some of the things you did first? And

(36:53):
one did that lead to?

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Sure? I became an assistant when I graduated for Will
Smith's producing partner and manager, and then I was there
for about two years, and then I left and became
a junior executive for this producer, like working in the
film department, and then I was there for about a
year and a half and then I got a job
as a studio executive working for MGM, and I worked

(37:16):
on films like Be Cool, which was the sequel to
Get Shorty with John Travolta and Uma Thurman. And then
I worked on a movie with Queen Latifa called Beauty Shop.
And then MGM got sold to Columbia Pictures and I
was able to make the transition to Columbia Pictures as
an executive once the sale went through, and I worked
on movies like Pursuit of Happiness and Seven Pounds and

(37:37):
Hancock and twenty one and Captain Phillips, Pink Panther two,
Jumping the Broom, Sparkle, Heaving Is for Real. I mean
so many movies just you know those a few of them.
And then I ended up while I was at Columbia Pictures,
as an executive. I got an opportunity to write my
first book, and that book was called Produced by Faith,

(38:00):
How to Enjoy real Success without Losing your true Self.
And so I wrote that and then I did a
movie called Heaven Is for Real, which was very successful
at the box office, and that gave me kind of
enough cachet to start my own company. And so I
ended up quitting my job and asked the chairman of
the Columbia Pictures to give me my own deal, and
she said yes, and I started my own production company

(38:24):
about nine years almost ten years ago, actually ten years
ago this year. It's amazing because Heaven Is for Real
came out ten years ago, came out Easter ten years ago.
That's amazing. And then so I have made everything from
Miracles from Heaven to break Through the Star, the movie
Flaming Hot that just came out for Disney and Hulu,
and you know, have so many other films that are

(38:45):
coming up and written, you know, I don't know, six
books along the way, and TV and preaching and all
that good stuff.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
How do you decide what to say yes and no to.
You mentioned the films alone would be full time work. Yeah,
Then you mentioned six big books, and then every weekend,
it seems sure, at a different church of preaching. And
then occasionally you're in front of businesses or other organizations speaking,
you're serving in the community. Yeah, you got a million

(39:15):
things going on, and you could have a million more
or nine hundred thousand less. How do you decide what
to say yes and no.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Two. I gotta feel it. I gotta feel it, you know.
I have to feel like, oh, okay, this feels right. Okay,
I'm gonna do that. It starts there. Just I just
have to feel it, like okay, yeah, I feel like
I need to do that, and that feels good. And
then also depending on what it is, is like the
feeling and the finances, I'm like, oh, okay, you know,
all right, it feels good, and you know, what do

(39:42):
the finances look like? And then once then if the
two are in alignment, then I do it. You know,
there are some things that feel good, but I'm like, oh,
the finances I don't know. I don't know, or I
might have to wait, you know, or the finances might
be good, but the feelings not there. So I'm like, oh,
I can't do that now. But that's really how I
do it. I just really be also because everything I
do is the same thing, just in different ways. You know.

(40:05):
It's it's all for the most part, about inspiration, information, motivation. Yes,
So whether someone's reading one of my books, Okay, what's
the what are the what's the book about about? Inspiring them,
informing them, motivating? What's the move What are the movies about? Inspiration? Information, motivation?
You know, what are the roles about, what are the

(40:26):
acting about. Most of the roles have been inspirational or motivational.
When I'm preaching, that's what it That's what I do.
When I'm on TV, that's what I do. So it's
not that hard for me to do it because it
all is like me just doing the same thing in
different ways. It's just different forms of expression. You know.
I think maybe if I was like making horror films

(40:47):
over here and writing inspirational books here and doing stand
up comedy, I don't know, that might be a little
bit more challenging. But for me, every it's the same wheel.
It's just different spokes.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Before we recorded, you asked me how my family was doing,
and for you, you have a family, you also had
a family, Megan Good, Yeah, decade marriage in the very
very very bright lot of Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, with you
not only your star shining. Megan's a star.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Yes, she is, without a doubt known and beloved to
run the world absolutely. So talk at.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
First about what it's like to be in a relationship
where everywhere you go people are watching. What is that?

Speaker 3 (41:26):
What's that like? It's kind of fun? Yeah, yeah, it's
kind of because let me put it this way, it's
like when we were together, it was like, yes, Megan
is famous, and by default me being with her, certainly
people came to know more about me because of my
association and marriage to her. But it's not like we're
at a jay Z or Beyonce level of thing, right,

(41:49):
So we could still go out and people would see us,
but it wouldn't be like inundated or anything like that. Now.
You know, maybe if we were at the Beyonce jay
Z level, the answer may not have immediately said fun.
But for me, you know, it was fun, right. It
was like, okay, cool, we go out, we have a
good time.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
You know.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
I was like okay, yeah, people come over, we want
to take a picture of great it was. It was
all up. It was a good energy and sometimes if
we didn't want to be bothered, we just wouldn't go
out right, or we would choose where we went to.
But in general, I never felt any negativity about having
a public marriages, as it felt like it came with
the territory.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
You wrote a book. I know it struck me. In
almost any interview when you have a book out, people
are interviewing you to celebrate the book you wrote. Yeah,
and I felt in doing the recon for this interview,
many of the interviews where you two were together, it
seems like people were interviewing you almost to get you.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
It seemed like they weren't celebrating the.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Choice you and Megan made. Yeah, it seemed like they
were trying to poke holes in it.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
I don't know if you agree with that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
No, you know, there were definitely some interviews that I
remember that that were like that. So no, I think
your assessment is accurate.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Talk about that. Talking to me, what was the book about?
What were you hoping that readers might receive?

Speaker 3 (43:03):
Sure, and they read it. Sure. The book is called
The Weight, and it was really about the power of
delayed gratification. And we talked about our marriage and we
talked about waiting until marriage to have sex, and talked
about the value of that and what it meant to us,
and also shared some of our personal relationship journey that
led us to one another, and really went through a

(43:24):
lot of principles that anyone, whether you're in a relationship
or not, could kind of say, oh, okay, here's how
I practice delayed gratification. And there was also a lot
of science we put in the book and a lot
of research to talk about what happens when you wait,
not even just waiting for sex, just about anything in life,
because so often we gratification, yeah, because we're in a
culture that practice is instant gratification and not everything. Most

(43:46):
things that are worthwhile or long lasting do not happen immediately.
And so the book really gives readers tips and tools
on how to embrace the weight, whatever weight that particular
reader is in. So we wrote that book two three
years into our marriage, and it was very successful, you
know New York Times bestselling book. Yeah, you know, sold

(44:08):
a well received Yeah, yeah, yeah, very well received.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Still as it is dead with that positive marriage, with
that positive book, with ten years of marriage, eventually the
relationship doesn't work out, Yeah, And I'm not going to
go too deep into what happened there. What I will
say is when things fall apart, typically one side blames another. Yeah,
and in particular, when this thing is in such a
broad light. Yeah, I've looked, and I've found nothing where

(44:36):
there's finger pointing, where there's garbage being thrown across the fence,
where there's even tones of animosity. It seems like there's
sadness and there's need for healing, but there's not blame shifting.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Right, Yeah, No, because for a number of reasons. One,
our love was real and we we did not split
up because we weren't in love, or we we didn't
love each other. That wasn't the reason. It wasn't falling
out of love, right. So you know, for me, that
commitment to love her was intact then and it is

(45:11):
still intact now. You know, even if we're not married,
I have no there's no lack of love in my
heart for her at all. So when you talk about
looking and there's really not any negativity, you know, in
part it's because we both believe respect one another and
care about one another and care about one another's well being.
And I know for me, what I know about her

(45:33):
is she is a genuine and sensitive person. So as
a man, no matter what I feel about the reasons
that led up to us splitting, as a man, I
can't find in my heart any justification to say something
that would cause harm to a woman that I have

(45:58):
spent ten years of my life with that I deeply love. Like,
I can't find any justification no matter how I may
feel about certain things that happen in our marriage. This
is a sensitive, genuine woman of God. As a man
of God, I can't find it in my heart to
get out and say anything in the public that would
disparage her or that would take a shot. I won't

(46:22):
do that. I don't. I don't believe in that. You know,
and that's why, because there really is there really is
genuine love there.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
You've written about how we both bring brokenness into relationship.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yeah, so a couple.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Questions First, is in that marriage, what did you discover
about yourself that you loved that, like in that marriage
ten years?

Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, it's a long time. Yeah, Oh what did you discover?

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Like? Wow, Man, I didn't even know this about myself
until this time with Megan.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
One, Like, I didn't know I was fun. You know
what I mean, Like we had fun just you know,
and most of my life I'm like, you know, I'm
very achievement focused, career focused, and so when we got married,
it was like, oh man, this is fun. You know,
Megan's an artist, he's an actress, so you know, she
lives just a different lifestyle. So that was very cool

(47:15):
for me, Like, oh okay, cool, Like everything doesn't have
to be you know, nine to five or button up,
like just sometimes you just got to be in the
moment and live and enjoy. And I like that. So
I really learned like, oh okay, I'm more fun than
I gave myself credit for. And I also realized in
the marriage, like wow, I really take a lot of
pride and duty in being of service. I really do.

(47:36):
Like I knew that in my career, but like truly
in marriage, I'm like, oh, okay, this is part of
my DNA. When I'm with somebody, I'm into the details
of their life. You know, what do they need? How
can I be there for them? Not at the expense
of myself per se, but just being a tentive right,
Like I'm like, what matters to you matters to me.

(47:57):
And so that was also you know something that I
really took out in a positive way, like, oh wow, yeah,
I really I really love being of service.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
And then sometimes when we are in a relationship, we
realize also what we don't love about ourselves.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Sometimes it's really only when we step in when we're
in the same car with someone all the time. Yeah,
whatever that looks like that you recognize, my gosh, this
thing about me is broken.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
Yeah, well, you know, one of going back to what
we talked about earlier, Like so, buying in to an
achievement oriented identity at times can make for a very
empty person because okay, well when you're not achieving, who

(48:44):
are you?

Speaker 1 (48:45):
What do you like?

Speaker 3 (48:46):
What do you like to do? Where do you like
to go? We like to eat, what we like to wear. So,
for me, when I realized in the marriage that as
much as I had a sense of what I was achieving, es,
writing the books, speaking, making movies all of that, I
didn't really have a strong sense of self. So then

(49:09):
in the absence of having a strong sense of self,
then for marriage to work, in my opinion, in my experience,
both people need to have a strong sense of identity
and they bring that to one another. And then one
plus one equals one. So if both have a strong
sense of self and a strong identity and they bring

(49:30):
that together, then the union can have a strong identity
because that's what both are bringing. So for me, I
don't believe that in my who I was as a
person and who me, liking me and me really knowing me,
I don't think I really brought that to the marriage.
So as a result, she wasn't to this day, as
far as I know, is very you know, understanding who

(49:52):
she is and understanding what she likes, and very strong
in that. And so in some ways for me that
was great, But then what happened was I would gravitate
to her strength and not cultivate my own. And the
problem comes that in a marriage and a healthy marriage,
especially as a man. I don't believe any man in

(50:14):
a marriage or otherwise has a position to dominate a
woman in any way I think in marriage in my experience,
a woman though also it doesn't want to be dominated,
but likes being led, would like to be led, and
part of that leadership comes from strength. So if I
don't have a sense of self, then my leadership is

(50:36):
not going to be a strong And then I'm going
to defer in some instance says, yeah, that's fine, but
who are you so for me? Long answer to your question,
for me, I realized in many areas, yes I was
very strong with the achievement, and yes I was great
at serving and being intentive, but I was very weak

(50:58):
in certain areas of knowing myself, knowing what I was about,
knowing what I wanted, and then bringing that leadership to
the marriage. And I think that was really one of
the cracks in the foundation that me as a man,
I was not really strong in my sense of self.
And then part of what that is is like when
you're you or I are not strong in ourself, especially

(51:21):
in a relationship, what happens is we end up acquiescent,
we don't we actually like certain things we may not like,
or certain things that we want to see different we
you sometimes don't express because it's like, well, no, I'm
just gonna I don't want to rock the boat, or
I'm just gonna go with the flow, or I don't
want my partner to be upset and all that. But

(51:44):
what happens is that if I'm not true to me,
even in the context of a marriage, even if it
causes an argument. If I'm not expressing my truth, that
marriage is not going to be very truthful, and as
a result, it'll be much weaker. So I learned from
me like, oh, Devon, you have been an achiever all

(52:06):
your life. But then going back to what I said earlier,
once the you know, divorce happened and the marriage didn't work,
you know, that was for me the result of what
I characterized as a faulty belief system, because I just
believed that, like, oh, I can you know, I can

(52:28):
fix anything, I can fix anyone. I can achieve my
way through this. No, no, no, I couldn't. You can't. No.
So then I had to then stop for a moment
and assess. I had to look instead of pointing the finger,
I had to look in the mirror. What was my role?
What are the things that I could have done differently?
What did I learn from here? You know? From this?

(52:50):
You know what did I learned from her? How do
I apply that? How do I heal from it? How
do I learn from it? And And one of the
greatest gifts is paying for as it has been. And
when I say it's painful, it has been painful. That's
the part about being in the public that is very painful.
It's fun when everything's going great, but when it's not,

(53:13):
and everywhere you go, everybody knows, oh, you're the guy.
Y'all didn't work out why he wrote a book and
all this kind of stuff. So for me, the greatest
gift to come out of it was the process of
learning who I am, what I'm about, and not just
that being okay with advocating for myself in certain ways,

(53:35):
like you know, no, you know you have a team,
you know what I mean, that helps you do what
you do. For me, what I noticed was because I
really didn't have a strong sense of self, even though
I had strong achievements, what would happen even with my team.
I wouldn't speak up. I wouldn't hold them accountable. I
wouldn't express what I needed, and then you know, say hey,

(53:58):
if it's not being done, because I was so concerned, like, oh,
I'm afraid of their feelings and I don't want them
to be upset and all this kind of stuff. So
if it's anywhere, it's everywhere. Right, If it's anywhere, it's everywhere.
If you or I have cancer, we don't just have
cancer in our arm we got cancer, and if there's
an area that we're not standing up for ourselves and
that's going to affect everything that we do. And so

(54:21):
long answers to your question. But that's one of the
greatest things that I learned, you know, that I didn't
like about myself, but then that it became a thing
to learn to like about myself, you know what I mean, Like, Oh, okay, Devan,
this is who you are, this is what you like,
this is the type of life that you want, this
is this is what the contributions you want to make.

(54:42):
And then also just learning to be comfortable just being
me like that is still I'm still I haven't perfected it.
You know. Again, it's not that I dislike who I am.
It's not that, but so much of me liking who
I am has been directly connected to what I'm doing,
not who I'm being. So I've really been working on

(55:06):
just the being like, Hey, no matter where I am,
no matter what I do, I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
So good man. I mean, the agony a child felt
when he was nine turned him to performing absolutely, and
the agony a man experienced when he lost his first
love his marriage. A decade of being in the sand
bed with the woman he was wild about. Yeah, turned
into letting go, surrendering and starting to try to fall

(55:30):
in love with himself.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Like that's.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
That's deed, that's deep. I hadn't even thought about it
like that, but yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Who guided you toward recognizing I can't earn my way,
I can't love my weight into some other relationship. I
can't get a next part to heal this thing. I've
just got to take some time off and figure out
really who I am and whose I am, and how
how to fall in love with me again?

Speaker 3 (55:56):
Man, and listen, pain is the greatest teacher, period And
so the pain of it not working the way that
I intended it for it to work and the way
I wanted it to work, that pain. I had a
choice either I numb it or I listen to it.

(56:18):
And sometimes I think a lot of people end up
numbing it for sure. You know, whether it's through watching TV,
scrolling on social media, over eating, drinking.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
A lot of people, most people are addicted.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Addicted. It could even be going to church. You know,
I love going to church. I go to church all
the time. But sometimes people go to church because they
don't want to feel. They don't want to feel. But
God allows us to have pain because the pain teaches
us where we need to heal. So for me, the
greatest teacher was pain, the pain that I was feeling.
It was like, Yo, I can't get up and preach

(56:57):
right now. I can't go out there and talk about anything.
I can't do it. I no, I can't post on
social media like I'm fine, because I'm not. At that
time when the divorce happened, I'm like, I'm not fine.
So I have to listen to what this pain is
telling me, and that, you know, took the form of therapy,
life coaching, a lot of reading, a lot of journaling,

(57:20):
a lot of prayer, a lot of thinking, you know.
I mean I probably lived in a hotel for a
year after the divorce and spent a lot of time
just contemplating, you know, and just processing and sifting and
sorting through all of it and trying to better understand.
Because again, like it's a peculiar experience, in a very

(57:42):
unique experience to have written a book and traveled the
world on some level promoting the book. But again, I
love the book. I think if I were to do
it again, I would have waited to maybe year ten
to do the book. And here's why. Because we were

(58:02):
showing people a recipe for a dish that hadn't come
out of the oven yet. We were showing people like, hey,
here's how you get like, this is the recipe, here's
how you get to put it. But it's not it's
not fully baked yet. We don't actually know what we have.
So you know, at the very start of our marriage,
you know, we're out here promoting this idea and sharing

(58:23):
our story which was which which in and of itself
wasn't a bad thing and it's helped a lot of people.
But in terms of our our inner dynamic, you know,
a couple of years in, you're still learning each other.
So I feel like, you know the fact that we
did write that book and then you know, years later
we it you know, the marriage ends in divorce. You know,

(58:44):
I just had to take some time and say, Okay, wow,
that is that is man, that's hard. That is hard.
It's just hark. There's no I'm not even even sugercoated.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Months before it was announced publicly that you were going
to get a divorce, I'm listening to you on interviews
and people are asking about the marriage you're in a
bride liott Man, So you are, yeah, you're I'm mild
about it and things are good, and like there's just
this pain right below the surface, absolutely of what's really
going on, and you can't you can't go there yet.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
No, No, could not, especially at that time. No, I couldn't,
couldn't at all. And since then, you know, it's like,
I don't think that even now I could be, you know,
as clear about what I'm saying if I just hadn't
taken the time to do the work. And even still, man, listen,
it still hurts, you know, like I did not get married,
do get divorced? Right, I never did. Like that love

(59:38):
was genuine, that was real, And even to this moment,
it still is painful, you know, not the degree where
I can't function and do what I need to do,
but I still feel it.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
For someone who's listening to your voice and they hear
the pain in your voice, but also the joy. Yeah,
but they're not feeling that joy right now. What's your
encouragement to them struggling in singleness or in a broken
sideways relationship upside down financially they're in the middle of it.
What's your encouragement to them.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Yeah, the encouragement is in order to get to the
other side of where you are. There's no other way
but through, you know, And that pain isn't a problem.
Pain points to the problem. Tell me what the difference.
So here's the difference. Sometimes we, as we talked about earlier,

(01:00:30):
we feel pain. So anyone listening right now, you mean
it may be in one of those scenarios you're talking about.
So you feel the pain of you know, your financial situation. Well,
that's not the problem. That pain is pointing to the problem. Okay,
what's the problem? Okay, Well, maybe we've been living beyond
our means, or maybe we didn't budget correctly, or maybe

(01:00:51):
we need to generate some more revenue. Like, it points
to the problem. So if the pain points to the problem,
also points to the solution. And sometimes we're looking at
the pain it's the problem, right, I'm just trying to
get rid of the pain. Okay, I'm not asking you
to be a masochist. Okay, but what is the pain
trying to point you to? So, if anyone's listening right

(01:01:12):
now and you're in some you know, emotional pain, spiritual pain,
physical pain, financial pain. Before you just rush for the
pain to stop, ask the question, what is the pain
pointing to? What is it pointing to? Because whatever it's
pointing to is the real solution. It's the real solution.

(01:01:35):
So then when you get there, that's when real healing
can happen. That's when real revelation can happen. And so, yes,
I wish we could all get through this life without pain.
But why is pain a necessary part of our experience?
We're gonna have to when we get to have him,
let's ask God, you know what I mean? Why? But
until then, if you're in pain, it's because you're in

(01:01:57):
purpose and that that pain and is working for your
good if you allow it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
So it's working for your good. Now I'm gonna shift
back professional journey.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
For a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
You are a producer, an author, and a million other
job titles, but you're not one job title. And that
one job title you are not is an actor. Ah right,
that's a playgrade man, that's not what you do. And
then you get a call and someone says, hey, Devon,
I think I got a role for you, but you're
not an actors? So what happens there? Oh? Man?

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Well, the first time I got that call. It was
my buddies that did a film called Jesus Revolution, and
they called me and said, hey, you know we have
this movie we're doing. We want you to play this part.
And I was like, what's the part? And they were like, oh,
you know it's a period piece. You know you would
play this reporter. In my initial you know, reaction was

(01:02:52):
almost going to be well, I'm not an actor. But
then I said, well, let me read the script. So
I read this and I said okay, I said, well, yeah,
I mean sure, I like the story, I like the part,
let me do it. So because I've been in entertainment
my entire life and been close to Will and you know,

(01:03:13):
was married to Megan and helped her with her scripts,
and I knew the process of what it takes to
be an actor and to get on set and be ready.
I just relied on what I already knew and got
to add an acting coach to help me. But like
I was shocked. I was like, oh, I actually know
how to do this. I mean, you know, I still
need more experience, but I know like the fundamentals of

(01:03:33):
how to approach us this. And so I went and
did Jesus Revolution and that went really well, and we.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Got to pause there. Man, Like, it's one thing to
be behind a camera or to be in a c
suite and make decisions at an executive level, or to
be running coffees out to Willsmith's car when you're a kid.
To jump in front of a camera and to become
somebody and you're not, Man, it's a different It is

(01:04:00):
a completely different world.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
I know you've been in that world, and I know
you were married to that world, and I know you've
exactly led that world. Yeah, but to become an actor
in that world is it's a mighty leap.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
Yeah, you get an extraordinary thank you, thank you, Yes Revolution,
I mean you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
You pulled that off as if you are him.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Hmmm.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
So take me through that process quickly.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
So what it was was breaking down the character, better
understanding who he is, creating a bio for the character
so that I could understand like, oh, okay, here's his story,
here's how he got to these moments that were portrayed
in the movie, right, and me understanding that then helps
me understand you know, like audiences don't necessarily they don't

(01:04:47):
understand it, like lot logically, but like they feel like,
oh okay, they feel what's going on. So for me
as a actor, preparing that bio, and that may be
words that never gets said on the screen, but it's
my and it helps me transform internally so that then
that can be rendered on screen. And so that was great, man.

(01:05:07):
And what was so amazing there was one amazing thing
that happened. I was writing my bio. And now, mind you,
I'm just taking what's in the script, but I'm making
stuff up for myself, like of how I got here,
and I studied the script, I learned all my lines,
and so I got to set and one night we
were shooting this scene and I hadn't looked at the

(01:05:30):
You know, every day when you're an actor or a producer,
they give you what's called sides, and sides are the
script pages that are being shot that day. So I
hadn't looked at my sides yet. And something said, you know,
look at the sides. So I look at the sides,
and like my biggest scene in the movie that was
written as a dialogue in the script, in the new sides,

(01:05:54):
it was more of a monologue and it had some
new word in new sentences and new phrases in there,
and I was like, oh, man, I got to learn this.
And then as I read what they wrote, it was
almost exactly what I put in my bio. And I
never had a conversation with the director or the writer
about what I was written. So I was like, oh,
I'm ready. All I gotta do is learn this, but
I already know it because I've already been thinking this way.

(01:06:16):
So that was just like a godwink to me, like
You're on the right path and I'm opening this door
for you, and you are ready for it and just
walk in it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Well, I learned about two guys who I fell in
love with after watching that movie. One I'm seated across.
We got to blow kisses back and forth right now
across the microphone. The other one is probably home right
down in Memphis, Tennessee, named Joel Courtney. Yes, my brother,
another great man, and those two came together in a
more recently shot film called Soul on Fire. Finally, Devon

(01:06:50):
Franklin made it in Hollywood, all right, Yes, moon walking
his way slowly forward, he turns around and starts leaping
baby into the bride lights.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
I love.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
It wasn't about the script for Soul on Fire. A
man who has read hundreds ye scripts, participated in many, many,
many dozens as a producer, and you've been pitched a
bunch of a bunch of projects.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Oh yeah, watched Soul on Fire. The first thing about
on Fire was I was set to videos. I was
set one the video of the reunion of you and
Nurse Roy that Alabama Power had put on. So I
was set that video and I watched that and I

(01:07:33):
was like, oh man, this is I'm feeling something. This
is kind of emotional. I was like, okay, this is good.
And then and then you, you know, so graciously did
a personalized video, and so I watched your video and
I was really I didn't I didn't know of you,
and I was really just humble and moved by your video.

(01:07:53):
And so I was like, okay, well, I definitely want
to read the script. So then I read the script,
and when I liked about it was you know, it's
like wow, to have experienced that as a kid, how
do you go on and have a life And that
just the complexity of that is what kept me reading,

(01:08:16):
Like how's this all going to turn out? And how
do you deal with this, and then also I loved
how the story didn't just focus on like a miraculous
healing or recovery, but also dealt with the psychology of
recovery and in a real way. But you know, you've
told your story, you know, many times for your audience,

(01:08:39):
but so they know it, but like the idea of
like not really even though you've survived it, not feeling
good yourself, you know, in that process. I loved it
the movie that the script explored that. And then I
went to your book and I started reading the on
Fire book and I was like, oh, man, yeah, I
gotta do this. So I hit you know on the

(01:09:00):
director back and I just said, man, I, yeah, I'd
love to be a part of this. And this is
also what I do. I do as racial films for
a living. So you know, it wasn't it really wasn't
that hard. It was just like, oh, yeah, I want to.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Be a part of this and help tell this story
you told through your acting, the story in the life
of a man named Roy. What is it about Roy's
specific character that you liked within the script? And we're
speaking about the scriptures and thirty pages long. Yeah, real,
but these are real people.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Absolutely, who really took cars.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
To work and walked in and did difficult things day
after day.

Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
Yeah, and in doing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
So well, we're part of other people's miracles.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, And that, to me was
one of the things I loved about the character of
nurse Roy, which is obviously based on the real Roy,
was you know, being just an everyday person who was
a miracle facilitator. Right. And so I did some research

(01:10:05):
and I talked to nurses, you know, in the burn unit,
and talk to you know, nurses that they've done this
there and you know, pretty much their entire career, and
you know what they they told me, which made me
have even more respect for Roy, was that at the
end of the day, you know, a nurse certainly is

(01:10:25):
going to do their job, but in some cases you
get personally invested. And I think Roy did that well.
He got personally invested, and that for me was compelling
that he didn't he didn't have to yes, get get
to get you up and walk you. Okay, sure that
may have been part of his job, but to tell you, listen,

(01:10:48):
you're gonna walk on my watch, You're gonna walk. That
level of belief, that level of love that level of
care and that level of strength to know that you,
as a child were in pain, and he's like, I'm
not going to pand it to your pain because if

(01:11:09):
you don't push through this, you are never gonna walk. So, yeah,
it's going to hurt, but I guarantee you it's going
to be worth it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Man. You brought so much of your own joy in
that role, and all of the actors added a little
bit or took out a little bit to make it
more unique to them and who they thought, how they
thought it ultimately should be performed. You took sweeping movements
in the script to truly make it yours, but at

(01:11:38):
the same time remaining consistently treated to Roy and the story. Yes,
and I love everybody who participated in the movie. I
truly love him, So you can't pick a favorite child, right,
But man, if they had to partying for them right now,
only because the way you stepped into that little boy's
room and his life and did not pay to it. Yeah,

(01:12:01):
and you know that's a it's a long project to
make a movie. Yeah, and that was emotional during lots
of it, but never more emotional than the scenes with
Nurse Roy. Because I think you were more him than
anybody else in that movie you became Roy.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Was that hard for you to pick a little boy
and got him into the Is that hard for you
emotionally or you just now it's on the script and
I'll do that and then we'll turn the page and
do the next part.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
No, with especially those scenes that I, you know, had,
you know, where I had to pick them up and
drive them down the hall or walk them. All that
was it was very natural.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
I have nieces that I've kind of helped take care
of since they were born and now they're fourteen and ten.
And I have nephews. And then also my mother used
to own a daycare center, so my entire life I
was always around kids and always kind of taking care
of kids. Yes, there was a kid she used to
keep who had autism and for whatever reason, like he

(01:13:03):
wouldn't sit still, but whenever I was there, he would
come sit on my lap and would watch TV and
be still, you know. And then I had a godson,
you know, I was keeping from the time he was
like two, of keeping him every weekend almost from the
time he was from he was time he was two
to maybe like six or seven. So I just I've
just always had an affinity for kids, always just love them.
So when it came to this, it wasn't it wasn't hard.

(01:13:26):
It was just like, oh, I know what to do here.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
I'm sure you were acting. I'm pretty sure you were
just having fun. You got paid to have fun for
couple weeks of your life.

Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
Yeah, and just being in the moment, just being in
the moment like, Okay, here's this kid who is wrapped
up and in pain. And then for me when he
when because also in the script, you know, Roy and
in the real life, real story, Roy was calling you boy.
You know, boy, Hey, you're gonna do this, and boy,
you're gonna do that. And so I was just like, okay, okay,

(01:13:54):
where does this come from? Like why is it calling boy?

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
Not that it was not that I had a problem
with that. I was trying to ground it and try
to understand. And so that's when it made me think like, oh,
I'm gonna call him boy you know for boy Wonder,
you know, and that's that's the nickname for Robin. So
that's he's robbed. That means I gotta be batman. You know.
It just was logical to me. So I just brought
that and played with it, and thankfully, you know, it

(01:14:18):
seemed to work.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
It worked, brilliant. That's so touching, man, I am every
time I see it. I've moved to tears, wow and
not tears of pain. Yeah, you behind you over your
right shoulder. Are some incredible leaders. One of them is
Martin Luther King Junior, and I mean, we could spend
eleven podcasts on him. But one of my favorite speeches
is in Philadelphia to a group of middle school age

(01:14:41):
kids Wow, where he talks about the dignity of work
and regardless of what you were called to do in life,
do it well. Yes, And he's referring to not not
if you become a president, to be a good president,
become a Hollywood actor doing well. He's talking about sweeping streets,
sweeping streets and as he finishes this speech, middles school
kids in Philadelphia or on their feet clapping, And I

(01:15:03):
think that celebration of ordinary work is overlooked today.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
Yes, it is.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
In your role, Franklin celebrated ordinary work done well, being
part of someone else's miracle. Hey man, that's awesome. Yeah,
so now like it fires me up all right, dude. Yeah,
it's midnight summer, so we're gonna begin this thing. It's
appropriate conclusion. The majority of the quotes that I have
down here are yours, but one of them is your grandfather's.

(01:15:29):
I'm living in the blessings.

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm living in the blessing. Oh man, yeah. Man.
Brother Levan, like brother Alvin Levann, who passed away recently.
Whenever I would ask him how he was doing, that
was his answer. I'm living in the blessings. Didn't matter
how sick he was, didn't matter. I'm living in the blessings.

(01:15:51):
And what that means to me is when we have
a understanding of God's goodness, then we can always live
in a blessing because even in a moment that is difficult,
we're still alive to experience it, and that just being
alive is a blessing. So yeah, things may not be

(01:16:12):
every may not be going the way I want per se,
but I can still say I'm living in the blessings,
and that to me is definitely something that I take
with me, you know, as a way to honor him,
and then also just to give myself perspective, because sometimes
when you're going through difficult things. You don't think about
the blessings. You're like, God, I need blessing. He's like, no,
you're living in them right now. So that's a statement

(01:16:33):
in a saying that always, you know, brought me joy
when he would say it, and certainly something I'm aspiring
to live by today.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
Anything we suppress we empower.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
Yes, Yes, because it's very much in line what we've
been talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
So I'm going to get that on my right arm
in lay tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
It's so mighty.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
But tell me and our listeners what that means.

Speaker 3 (01:16:56):
Yeah, anything we suppress we empower. So going back at
we talked about like that pain. So let's say there's
a feeling that we need to do something, or there's
something that we just keep feeling like I'm either angry
or I'm frustrated. But you know, I'm not supposed to
be angry. I'm not supposed to be frustrated, you know.
So I suppress that emotion. I suppress it. I'm not
going to acknowledge it. I'm going to act like it's

(01:17:18):
not there. I'm going to be in denial. Well, that feeling,
whatever we resist persists, So that feeling just because we
try not to acknowledge it doesn't mean that it goes away,
it doesn't. It means that it actually becomes stronger. So
then why do we fly off the handle when someone
just said something to us? Why is it that we

(01:17:40):
all of a sudden are very angry or all of
a sudden we're just like unhappy and we do can't
even explain it because that feeling has been empowered, it's grown.
And so that's why I said earlier, Hey, don't suppress it.
Acknowledge it. Even if it's even even if you don't
like what, you have to acknowledge that is there's power
were in that, so that you can't alleviate the power

(01:18:05):
from the will that the suppression will create. And so
for me, I had to start saying, okay, you know,
going back to what we're talking about, like, hey, I
don't want to acknowledge the pain of mind. Of course,
I don't want to acknowledge my heartbreak. I don't want to, Okay,
but I need to because if I don't and I
suppress it and just say hey, I'm good, I'm fine,

(01:18:26):
it's going to come out. And whenever it comes out,
it's going to come out more aggressively, and it's going
to be more detrimental and it's going to be more
destructive than if I would just take the time and
acknowledge how I'm feeling. A lot of times we don't
acknowledge it because we don't know what to do with it.
Let the how be its own process. First part of

(01:18:47):
the process is acknowledging it and not suppressing it. How
well are you preparing for what you're praying for? Aha? Yes,
I love that, man. Yeah, that's that's you know, I
love that. That's good. I can't that's a good. Yeah,
there's you know the scripture that says faith without works
is dead. So if I look at it in the

(01:19:09):
context of praying and preparing, so it was like, okay,
so if I have faith over something, but then my
works my actions don't support my faith, then I really
don't have faith in it. So if I'm praying and
I'm not preparing to receive what I'm praying for, then
I really don't believe that it's coming. So that's what

(01:19:32):
it's about. It's about the preparation process because that preparation
is an act of faith, because I'm preparing for something
that does not physically exist yet, but I'm believing it's
on the way.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
It's probably a made up story, but I've heard another
pastor share the story of when there was a drought
in Kansas and everybody came up to church to pray
for rain, but only one little kid brought an umbrella.
M it's this idea there you go, Yeah, leaving to
such a degree where you affect it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
That's right, that's right, absolutely, and it's another way of living.
But I find it to be a very powerful one,
you know, a very very powerful one. And what I
mean by that is so often we wait for a manifestation,
we wait till we see it to believe it, but

(01:20:25):
it actually is supposed to go the other way. I'm
supposed to believe it and then I'll see it. And
that idea of like really aligning our life, like no,
I believe I'm going to make it. I believe, you know,
whatever the situation is that you may be in, I'm
believing that this is what's going to happen, and this
is what God's going to do. So I'm going to
And some people might call me delusional, you know, like, oh,

(01:20:47):
that's a delusional thought. Well, yeah, it might be, but
I'm still believing and I'm still going to let my life.
If somebody looks at my life, I want them to
see faith. I mean that's for me personally, that's you know.
I was like, if you watch me here, you follow me,
and you don't see faith, then don't follow me. It's
not just in what I say. I'm just saying in
terms of how I live, how I move, what I'm doing.

(01:21:09):
I want you to see that I am truly out
here living what I'm talking about because I do believe
in that hope.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
We could take a tangent on that right now and
one of the sermons that I saw you deliver on
the blind man who followed Jesus being unable to see
but they were already following.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
Instead, I'm going to ask you about a quote that
I don't see my little sheet in front of me,
but instead I see it on your right arm. Oh yeah,
we go to this did Devon and I go to
the same gym.

Speaker 3 (01:21:36):
That's right, that's right, he just has a better looking tattoo.
What are the two words on your right arm? Love winds?

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
What does that quote name?

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
Interestingly enough, when Megan and I were on our you
know book tour for the Weight. When I would sign
our book, I would always sign Love wins. And you know,
I got this tattooed probably two months before the divorce,
and it was just a reminder I knew it was happening. Yeah,

(01:22:08):
I knew it was happening. And so for me, it
was just a reminder that no matter what, no matter what,
love wins at the end of the day. And that
is love of self, love of God, love of others.
And I believe when I you know, the way, I
kind of look at love as love means well being.
So if I love someone, then I am committed to

(01:22:31):
their well being. Their well being is important to me.
So for me, when I think about love winning, it's like,
at the end of the day, that is the only
way to navigate the challenges of life. And if anything, spiritually,
the enemy does not want us to love, right you

(01:22:51):
go back tomorrow. Other King, It's like, man, you know,
you talked about love being the most powerful force in
the universe, and it's true. God is love. So for me,
right this on my arm, even in a moment when
love was seemingly not working, I wanted to be reminded
that even in the face of divorce, that love is

(01:23:14):
still gonna win.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
Von Franklin. We have seven questions that tether all of
our mighty guests together. Okay, they're called the Living's Fired seven.
So let's roll man, as love wins and guides.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
Just forward. What's been the most impactful book.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
You've ever read?

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
Oh, the most impactful book I've ever read would probably
be The Game of Life and How to Play It
by Florence Scovel Shinn. Tell me about it, oh man,
This book is deep. Man. She basically talks about, you know,

(01:23:53):
use the Scripture and talks about what it means to
understand who you are, what it means to believe, what
it means to manifest, what it means to understand, like
so much of our external world is because of what's
going on our internal world. Like it just it's a
When I read the book, I was like, whoa this is?

(01:24:13):
It was like I felt like I was just you know,
awakening because I was really learning, like, oh wow, a
lot of what can happen in life has a lot
to do my belief system, you know, in the scripture
talks about it, you know, according to your faith being
unto you but that book really brings that to life.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
What's one positive characteristic or one trait that you possess
as a young boy growing up in Oakland that you
wish you exhibited as brilliantly today in.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
La Oh Man, I was very what's the word? I
was really not that I'm not now, but do it.
I was really bold and very I just didn't, you know,
I just but I'm like, man, but did I was?

Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
But I was more tear free in that way.

Speaker 3 (01:24:55):
Like for example, this was not when I was a kid,
but once I got to Hollywood and I was interning.
We were the Benny Medina, who I was working for
at the time as an intern. Me and the other
assistants were in the office very late one night preparing
him for a trip that he was going on to

(01:25:16):
he was, I think travel overseas and me Michael Jackson,
and it was probably like midnight. We were finally he
was done. He was going to go to the airport,
and right there at that moment, I said, hey, you know,
do you mind if I pray for you for traveling mercies?
And he was like what, I was like, what do
you want to pray for you for traveling mercy, like, okay,
so if we all got in a prayer circle, I said, okay,
everybody whole hand, you know, did it? And so you know,

(01:25:38):
I say, wow, I was just bold, you know, And
now I probably may be like, well, let me think
about that, and is how is that going to come across?
And that kind of thing. So just being bold and
carefree is something that I was, and I may even
after even you asked me asking me this questions, I
might have to really get back to that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
You do. If you're beautiful condo where you and I
are recording this catches fire and all living things are out,
and you have an opportunity of coming back in here
and grabbing one item, one physical thing, what would you
grab onto and little back outside with.

Speaker 3 (01:26:14):
I mean in my phone. I mean that's probably truthfully, like,
that's probably the only thing that I would be needing
because also again, I mean we're just having an honest conversation,
like everything in here is predominantly new, because most of

(01:26:37):
my personal things are still in storage from when Megan
and I moved out, So you know.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
Talk about that then, So the storage unit catches fire,
oh my, and all living things are out and you
have an opportunity of running in there because you're right,
this is kind of so.

Speaker 3 (01:26:54):
Clean and see that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
I don't know what has intrinsic value. So when that
in that storage unit, Man, it just caught grab onto
one thing. What's the one thing you would.

Speaker 3 (01:27:04):
Grab with some intrinsic value? What would I grab? Probably?
I think I still have it. There was a handkerchief
that my uncle used to baptize me. Yeah, and I've
had that. You know, no.

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
Offense to your first answer, I just like the second.

Speaker 3 (01:27:27):
Someone.

Speaker 1 (01:27:27):
Yeah, man, the phone burn Yeah, I'll pick you up.
We'll go eighteens. But that's get the handkerchief.

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
Let's get the handkerchief.

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):
Yeah, man, I'm emotional thinking about it. Wow, you are
having an opportunity of hanging out on a bench on
a gorgeous day and having a long conversation with anybody
living or deceased.

Speaker 3 (01:27:48):
Yeah, who would you like to be seated? See you?
Oh man, Mom and Ali? I would love love that.
It's like again going back to Boldness. I just watch
his videos. He was just so bold, so bold, and
so larger than life. It's so grounded at the same
time and entirely charismatic. Uh yeah, I would just I'd

(01:28:13):
love to talk to them. That to me would be
the conversation. And obviously, like you know, I mean, I
would say probably even before that, h Jesus, like Jesus,
you know, let's sit down on this bitch.

Speaker 1 (01:28:25):
It's good, right, right, right right?

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
You know we both of them, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
So, yeah, what's the best advice Jesus, Ali, your parents
will smith anybody else ever gave you. So the best
advice to Von Franklin ever received.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
Is hmmm, that's a good question. I've gotten so much
good advice. And one of those statements that comes up
is my aunt Donna, who was kind of like a
second mom to me. She would always say, never burn
a bridge, because you never know when you have to
cross it again. That's in your book, and I really
have lived by that, and it has been so true.

(01:29:06):
It's been so true, Like there were situations and circumstances
that I could have justifiably at that time burned and
I didn't. And who knew years later that would be
in bridge I have to cross and the bridge was
still intact because I didn't destroy it. And that also
is like a corollary to the other part of it,
which is how you start out, how you gonna end up.

(01:29:28):
And here's what I'm Here's what I My interpretation was
was just like people don't remember a good start, they
only remember how it ended. Period. And so if you
burn a bridge, the last impression that someone's gonna have,
they're not going to think about how great it was started.
They're going to think about how it ended. And their

(01:29:50):
perception of you is not going to be about the start.
It's going to be about the ending. So if you
started well, you got to end.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
Well, what advice would you give yourself at age twenty?
So go back to that junior at USC what wisdom? Man?

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
Yeah? Man, listen, you're gonna be fine. You better have
some fun. You better have fun, you know what I mean?
Like you just listen. Look at your boy John Olearry.
Look he had no college. Man, go have some fun. Okay,
he's all right.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
You will not be seated here right now?

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
Man. Yeah, that's what I would really say. Have fun, enjoy, enjoy,
because I at twenty years old, I was focused. I
was and there's nothing wrong. You could still be focused
and have fun. But I think I didn't really give
enough space for me to just be and to just
live and learn and explore and enjoy. So that's what

(01:30:43):
I would say. I would say, relaxed, have fun. It's
all gonna be fine.

Speaker 1 (01:30:46):
We almost made a question number seven. It has been
said Devon Franklin that all great people can have their
lives summed up in one sentence. How would you like yours?

Speaker 3 (01:30:56):
Is read? Who said that?

Speaker 1 (01:30:58):
And John f he's the one that heard those words
during the Cuban missile crisis. And I forget who it was,
whether it was RFK or someone else, but they said,
mister president, all lives can be summed up in one sentence.

Speaker 3 (01:31:11):
This is your for a moment, define it man. That
one sentence for me would be faith works. That would
be it because I think if if someone were to
look at my life, you know, and really take one
thing away one sentence, like wow, faith really does work.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
Devon Franklin, faith works, love wins. You're my friend. I
look up to you, I respect you, and I know
that your best should to come.

Speaker 3 (01:31:41):
Thank you, my brother, appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (01:31:43):
My friends. This is the great Divon Franklin. He is
a phenomenal producer, author, speaker, pastor, brother, friend, actor, and
I think here's that one yet and I feel supremely
fortunate to call you my friend like life. So my friends,
tuning in. What a story for this time and until

(01:32:06):
next time, faith works, love wins, and the best ship
to come. Ay Man, my friends, I told you on
the front side of the conversation you were gonna love
the conversation with Nurse Roy aka Devon Franklin. He is
a phenomenal producer, He's an incredible human being, and he
does a simply outstanding job of bringing my hero, this

(01:32:27):
nurse named Roy to life on the big screen. Speaking
to life on the big screen, do you know that
you can get your tickets to the big screen showing
theaters around the country and beyond by visiting me online
at soul on Fire movie dot com. That's right, you
can get yours right now. The film comes out live

(01:32:48):
October tenth and theaters around the country and beyond. Go
to soul on firemovie dot com find out where it's
playing in your area. Make sure you secure your seats
right now. And if you want to be inspired, not
only for yourself, but for those that you hang out with,
that you raise, that you live with, that you work
out with, that you work next to that you worship with.

(01:33:10):
What better opportunity than right now to grab a seat
or two, or ten or fifty to come into the
theater as you are and leave my friends an hour
and forty two minutes later, transformed for good. Go to
the website right now, get your tickets. It's Soul on
Fire movie dot com. And to ensure that you have

(01:33:31):
access to all of these podcasts as they drop wherever
you are tuning into this episode, why not like follow
subscribe so that each progressive podcast that drops you'll have
access to My friends. I want to thank you for
being part of our live inspired podcast movement. I want
to thank you for joining us during this conversation, and
I want to remind you that the foundation is firm,

(01:33:53):
that God is still God, and that the best is
yet to come. So for this time and until next time,
my name is John O'Leary. Today is your day. What
a gift. Live with your Soul on Fire. Do you

(01:34:19):
ever feel depleted by the negativity on the marketplace and
in the headlines? My friend, my name is John O'Leary,
and I certainly endo it from time to time today,
but I certainly did as a nine year old boy
after getting burned on one undred percent of my body.
And yet that story of struggle has been in the end.
On October tenth this year, in theaters around the country
and around the.

Speaker 6 (01:34:39):
World, a film rolls into those theaters called Soul on Fire.
It is the true story of how God uses all
things and all people for his perfect purposes.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
Miracles still happen, my friends. Check it out Soul on
firemovie dot com.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

24/7 News: The Latest

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Relentless Hope with John O'Leary Part 3

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

24/7 News: The Latest

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Relentless Hope with John O'Leary Part 3

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark