Wrong Friends at the Right Time

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Embark on a voyage with me, Willie Robbins III, affectionately known as Pastor Will, as we traverse the vibrant streets of LA and the ever-twisting paths of the film industry, all through a lens of faith and self-discovery. I've packed my bags and dreams, leaving behind Nashville's familiar hum for Rancho Cucamonga's promise, seeking to carve my niche in the world of acting and filmmaking. This episode peels back the curtain on the challenges and triumphs of adapting to a new city, the unforeseen COVID-19 storm, and how the art of connection and storytelling remains at the heart of it all.

Life in Hollywood is a tapestry woven with threads of ambition, rivalry, and collaboration. Through my encounters with industry peers, the sting of jealousy, and the weight of first impressions, I've gleaned wisdom crucial for both personal growth and professional endeavors. As a director, I've navigated the choppy waters of asserting experience while retaining humility, and I've learned the hard way that miscommunication and power struggles can take a toll on even the most passionate of projects. Yet, it's in these moments that the true character is not just revealed but refined.

In a world rife with toxic relationships and the relentless pursuit of success, I've discovered that spiritual guidance is my compass, steering me away from the seductive glare of Hollywood and towards a more authentic expression of my craft within the indie scene. As we wrap up this episode, I offer a reflection on the biblical story of the healed blind man from Bethsaida, reminding us of the significance of moving forward with the vision that the Lord grants us, undeterred by the snares that once caught us. Join me in finding the light in life's lessons and scripture on this pilgrimage with Christ—a journey that fuels the soul.

Episode Transcript

Will Robbins (00:00):
Is it possible to have the wrong friends at the
right time?
What's going on?
Everybody?
It's Willie Robbins III, akaPastor Will.

(00:22):
Welcome to the SoulFuel podcast.
This is episode four.
I'm coming from a place ofexperience.
When I left Nashville,tennessee, to pursue my dream in
filmmaking and Hollywood and inmoving, I didn't know anybody.

(00:48):
I was in California with afamily member.
My wife and I drove to LosAngeles, rancho Cucamonga to be
exact.
I didn't know that was a realplace.
I thought it was just in nextFriday, but it's a real place.
We drove and then took us about27 hours the whole ride.

(01:10):
Right, I drove the majority ofthe way because I was excited,
and if you listen to a previousepisode, I talk about my
frustration with church and howI didn't really care to be in
that environment anymore.
I love the Lord, always lovethe Lord, but I just felt that
it was time for me to pursue mydreams in filmmaking and

(01:31):
directing and even acting.
And so, after some months pass,in 2020, covid hits, we hit the
road, we get to California.
Covid hits, we hit the road, weget to California.
I am taking a subsidized companyleave of absence and I was

(02:08):
working for an airline, and soit was easy for me to fly my
wife back to Tennessee while Iwas in California.
So, while in California, I'mstaying with a family member,
paying for a room to stay withthem because my Airbnb canceled.
They were scared, so theycanceled, and it was
understandable because COVID hadstarted going super hard in
April of 2020.
And so, as I was getting usedto being in california and

(02:29):
driving around and getting lostin different places, I thought
it was really cool.
You know, I had been to losangeles before, but where I was
staying in rancho cucamonga wasabout 45, 40 to 45 minutes away
from burbank, and 45, 40 to 45minutes away from Burbank and,

(02:53):
uh, downtown Los Angeles.
And so, just to spare all ofthe unnecessary details of
staying, we pretty much knowthat we were in a stay-at-home
order, couldn't really goanywhere.
Uh, the gym was open.
There was a couple of thingsthat were still open, just
essential, essential places wereopen, and I was spending time
with my cousin, we wererecording music and, and I was

(03:14):
being creative.
I wrote a screenplay.
I finished a screenplay that Iwanted to get back into acting,
to exercise what I'm good at.
I've always been a decent actor.
Well, let the people who cameout to my shows, to the stage

(03:38):
plays that I did around the city, even some of the films that
I've done or been in or whatnot,I've been decent.
So, as a director, I wanted tobe better, and the only way to
get better is to get into themind of an actor, to delve into
the mind of an actor even morethan I already had already done,

(04:01):
because I was.
You know, once you're an actor,you you're always an actor.
The chops never leave.
It's kind of like riding a bike, right, um.
So I get into this uh class.
It was a friend of mine in LA,uh, and I knew him from
Tennessee.
He's originally from Detroit,tennessee, he's originally from

(04:24):
Detroit Shout out to my brother,um, but he had been in LA.
He, his wife and his daughter,who's an actress, a phenomenal
young actress, uh, moved thereback in 2015.
Right, and they ended upstaying and, um, they were kind
of like my muse, like theyreally inspired me.
You know, they uh, uh weren'trich or anything like that, but

(04:46):
they they went because theirdaughter had a dream and they
were very supportive and veryprotective.
And so, um, I, through him, meta acting teacher, acting coach,
who was the coach to Tyrese,kelly Rowland and all of these

(05:07):
things.
So I went into that class andthey had very phenomenal talent
there, people from all over, allover the states, people who
were aspiring to be actors,people who really wanted it, and
so they were out here in thisacting class.
And it's crazy, y'all, becauseCOVID is happening, covid is

(05:29):
happening, but yet there is anacting class that is happening
during COVID, and I think thiswas around August, september,
and so I started taking thedrive.
Um, and so I started taking thedrive, I enrolled in the class

(05:52):
and, uh, because my buddy, uhharold I could say his name,
harold he was already locked inwith the uh teacher and
everything, and he was shootingsome content prior to uh, covet
hitting and covet doing what itdid, and so he was.
He introduced me to the guy andin order to really get into
that circle, so to speak, I hadto pay to take the class, and so

(06:17):
I had no problem with itbecause I wanted to take an
acting class anyway.
So I pay to take the actingclass and everybody in there is
cool as people from Jacksonville, people from Atlanta, people
from Chicago, philly, and it wasa dope experience and, after

(06:41):
being alone for so long, now I'mtalking to my wife and things
of that nature throughout mytime in California.
We're talking every day.

(07:11):
When I was in the acting class,I zoned out because I was around
people who spoke my language.
Right, they, we, we breatheacting we.
We love story, right, andthat's why I love reading the
Bible now, because I'm able totake my gift and my talent and
apply it to scripture inbringing characters to life.
And so, uh, it's, it's alwaysbeen in me, right, it's always
been in me.
So while I'm watching thesepeople, we would do these

(07:32):
improvisation warm-ups.
We had all these differenttypes of warm-ups where we had
to learn scenes from othermovies but we had to make
different choices than theactors made in the actual movie.
I'll never forget I did a scenewith a young lady from, I can't

(07:57):
think of the movie LeonardoDiCaprio, and Basically, he
spazzes out in the scene, hegoes crazy.
I think we all had the optionsto pick one, and so I picked the
most difficult scene and wekilled it, like, I mean, I got
some notes on what I could havedid better, but we kind of
killed it.
And so each, each and everyclass was on a Thursday night.
So every third and this isThursday night when I'm

(08:18):
recording.
That's crazy, but each classwas on a Thursday night and I
just remember after, like beingshut up in the room all day and
you know, I had to kick in withmy cousin and working out.
I wanted to be around my people,my people when I say my people,
I mean my acting people and sowe're.

(08:40):
You know, every time I showedup I was just like I was like I
was excited.
I'd never been that excitedbefore I take that back, I was
always excited to go to actingclass.
In high school.
I had acting class in highschool.
Even theater rehearsal I usedto.
I love the process.
I love the process as an actorin preparing for something, and

(09:01):
so, um, I love the challenge of,uh, memorizing scripts and
lines and things, and so thatwas always fun to me, that was
always fun.
And so, after showing up, timeafter time, um, we started, I
started getting cool witheverybody.
Certain people were I'm notgonna say any names, but certain

(09:22):
, because some of them are likepopping now but some of these
guys that were in the class,they were super cool.
Some were a little seem stuckup, but you had to get to know
them for them to kind of breakout of their shell, and so I you

(09:42):
know, and this is what Ilearned about me.
This is one of the things that Ilearned about me is that when
I'm around I should say when Iwas, because this is past tense,
because, being deeper in christ, mind you, I need you to
understand my mindset inchristianity and my faith at
this point.
Like I love the lord but I lovemy dream more.
Can I just be honest?
I like I love the Lord but Ilove my dream more.

(10:05):
Can I just be honest?
I really I love the idea of mebeing in LA more than serving
the Lord.
And I've been a preacher since2010,.
2010,.
January, I accepted my call tothe ministry and I preached my
first sermon in February.

(10:26):
My trial sermon was in likeFebruary or something like that
and I gave my life to Christ.
2009, december 31st Watch nightservice.
If anybody knows what watchnight service is, you know what
I'm talking about.
So I was kind of burned out andjaded on church and I talked

(10:48):
about I talked about this inepisode two.
Um, I was kind of jaded on itand so I was good on that.
Like I, I I love the Lord.
Like I, I I worship and adoreyou.
All that know kind of kind of.
So this is again what I learnedabout me.

(11:10):
In this moment I didn't.
I didn't really catch on to ituntil after all of this stuff
went down.
All of the all of these thingshappen.
I learned that when I'm aroundpeople that do what I love, I
try to hold back and downplay myskill and my talent, while at

(11:39):
the same time trying to make itknown.
I hope that makes sense.
I would try to make it knownbecause I didn't want to be a
turnoff to anybody Like, yeah,he think he blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.
I didn't want anybody to thinkthat.
I didn't want anybody to thinkthat.
So I would kind of downplay myskill, my talent.

(12:00):
But when it was time to show up,I felt like now I feel like I
was doing too much, like, for Ifeel like I was doing too much
like.
I said, like this is this, isthis project, oh, oh.
And then I did this one, andthen I did this one, and then I

(12:22):
did this, oh oh, and check outthis one.
And I was just doing too much,like laying it on thick, as they
say.
And so nobody ever expressed aproblem with that.
Nobody ever did.
And so whatever you are notaware of, you won't fix it.

(12:43):
Whatever you're not aware ofyou won't fix it.
Whatever you're not aware of,you won't fix it.
And so I never fixed it.
But I'm moving forward and I'mprogressing in relationship
building relationships.
I met some people that werefrom my hometown, some people
that I met through othertalented individuals that I knew

(13:05):
, um, and we were kind of, wewere like passing each other
through, like the people we knew, if that makes sense.
And so finally we get to aplace and a point where we want
to make a project.
Everybody wants to make aproject, and so here I am trying

(13:29):
to, and what I didn't realizeis that most of these, most of
these people, are younger thanme.
Most of these people areyounger than me, um, by about
two, three, four or five years,like probably two to five years
younger than me, um, and I havea different life, I have a

(13:52):
different background.
Right, I know better, I knowabout not being unequally yoked
with unbelievers.
Not, you know, I, I know, and Iwasn't sure I think that it was
up in the air that theybelieved in God, that they, that
they uh had some type ofrelationship or, as far as we

(14:15):
know, as far as I knew, and soit came time to do a project and
there was this one individual.
There was this one individualwho, um, has been on some stuff,
been in some, been in someprojects, and he, he was a cool

(14:35):
guy.
He was a cool guy and then heinvites me to his place.
He had a place like downtown la, and so I go, he, you know, he
was a heavy smoker, right, andhe would put it out, you know,
respectfully, he would put itout, like I said, he had a, he
had a, he had a good heart.
What I thought he had a goodheart, um, and that's not to say

(14:56):
that he doesn't because of whathappened.
But he invites me over and youknow, I'll never forget he was
like playing.
He was playing Call of Duty andhe was more into Call of Duty
than his guests and I was hisguest and he had a studio
apartment, so it wasn't like noroom, like it's like when you

(15:19):
sit in his living room.
You're sitting in his room.
It's like the pull out couchand all of that.
It was a, it was a nice littlesituation for a bachelor, right,
and so, um, but I'm over there,you know, we kicking it um, and
finally we, we, we talk, wetalk, um acting or whatever, and

(15:43):
um, and he apologized for, like, not being more of a better, a
better host and I was like, no,you're good, you're good, you're
good.
And so we just talked, wetalked acting and we talked, you
know, he's, I guess we justhe's just trying to get to know
me and I'm trying to get to knowhim and I'm just like, okay,
cool, you seem like a cool dude.
So, um, he lets me know, likehe has his ways of letting me

(16:04):
know that, um, he's cool withcertain people, certain actors,
um, a particular actor fromliving single.
He actually talked to theperson on the phone and I go
again not saying no names, um,but he talked to them on the
phone and, um, he saw all of mywork.

(16:25):
He thought I was dope, you know.
And then, you know, he evenbegan to talk about some of the
people that were in in the class, some of the people, one guy
that was, I mean, like ahead ofthe class, like he had been like
hardcore acting.
And and, by the way, this isthe guy who I've seen.

(16:49):
I was watching Netflix andrandomly saw dude and I had shot
him a text.
I was like, bro,congratulations, you know,
because I didn't I don't keep upwith him like that, but he was,
you know.
I mean, he's top tier, like atop tier, top tier, like a top
tier actor.
Right, he's a top tier actorand so I'm, I'm, I'm, he's.

(17:09):
He starts to talk about thisindividual and I'm like, ok, and
it's, and it's kind of negative.
He says they're from the samearea and I'm like, ok, all right
, cool, you know, I'm just I'mnot really you know, I'm like
I'm not really reading itbecause I didn't know either one
of them like that.
But I didn't know either one ofthem like that.
But I knew that the other guywho would also do the warm ups
in class, he was really cool andI really took to him because he

(17:30):
took his craft super serious.
He took it super serious and so, knowing that he took it
serious, you know I had like alike a high respect for him.
It's not that I respected himmore than anybody else, they
were both like all everybody inthe class were dope actors, but
he just like really stood out asa filmmaker.
I'm like man, I got I want towork with him, um, I even want

(17:52):
to act with him, um, but so he'she's talking about him and I'm
like that's kind of crazy, likehe knows him, but he's telling
me somebody he don't really know, that well, he's talking about
this guy and so I never saidanything about it, I just I took
it in, and then he tells methat he was, um, jealous of me

(18:15):
and he said it in a playfulmanner.
He says it in a playful mannerand I'm like like, okay, man,
you crazy, you crazy.
You're like, no, for real,because you got a good voice and
you know what I'm saying.
You can act you cold with thecamera, like for real.
And again I laugh it off.

(18:37):
I don't think nothing about it,but he said something right
there.
He said something right there.
There's a point.
Let me stop right there andtell you, when somebody, what
Maya Angelou said.
She said when somebody showsyou who they really are, believe
them.

(18:59):
Jesus said that you will knowthem by their what, by their
fruit.
That's a.
That's a listen.
If you're listening to thispodcast and you're taking notes.
Listen, take, take a note thatfirst what Jesus said.
Take what Jesus said first.
You should know them by theirfruit.
But how can you know them bytheir fruit when you're blinded
by what you want?

(19:19):
How can you know them by theirflute, when you're by their
fruit, when you're blinded by byyour own desire to achieve and
build a relationship with peoplethat you shouldn't even be in,
in, in, in contact with peoplewho you don't even need to be

(19:44):
around, not saying you can't becool because I was encountering
and and dealing with thesepeople in the class.
That's different.
You got to deal with people atwork.
You gotta, you gotta.
You know there's some peopleyou you have to deal with in the
way that you deal with them.
But it's different whenever yougo outside of what you know so

(20:07):
that you can build some kind ofcomfort level, you ignore all of
the red flags, and that's whatI did.
I ignored the red flag.
I ignored that.
He said that he was jealous ofme.
I took it as a joke.
I took it as a joke.

(20:29):
I should have believed him.
I should have believed him, butI didn't.
So we move on.
We start doing the projectagain to spare all the minute

(20:52):
details.
We go on in class and then someissues sprout up in class.
You know some he say she saygoing on, I ain't got nothing to
do with that.
I didn't have anything to dowith that.
Um, when it was one time theteacher, one of our instructors
said, was just like just pickthe time to kind of go off on

(21:14):
some people because evidentlysomebody was talking about the
class and it definitely wasn'tme because I didn't talk to
nobody about anything.
But I made a comment when allthe students came together.
It was like after class I knowhow y'all do after came together
.
It was like after class.
Y'all know how y'all do afterchurch.
But we did this after class.
You know, some of y'all didthat after class when you had

(21:35):
little classes and workshops.
Afterwards we talked about itand I gave my two cents on what
I felt about what was said inthe class and that was that.
And everybody else was talkingas they were, that and everybody

(21:56):
else was talking as they were.
And so, um, moving on from there, we advanced to deciding that
we're going to do a project thatfinally.
So we all gather over thisindividual's house and, um, we
all talk about.
You know, throw story ideas outthere, we throw them at the
wall.
He had this dry erase wall andso we were throwing ideas and he
was writing them down on thething and so he just became like

(22:18):
the ringleader of everything.
And that was fine because heknew everybody, everybody knew
him and he had a little bit ofyou know, he had some experience
.
He done worked on some TV showsand stuff like that.
So you know, it is what it isand so I'm trying my best to be
humble, but none of these peoplehave ever made a project before

(22:39):
.
None of them had any experienceat making a film.
At this point, I was probablythis is 2020, so at this point,
I was probably at 15 short filmsunder my belt, probably more
than that, some that won't eversee the light of day, some that

(23:00):
just got scrapped.
I was in, I had, I had, I hadfilms under my belt, I had
projects under my belt, and soit was hard to be in that
situation and I hear a bunch ofpeople who've never made
anything before talk about theprocess.
Do you know how frustratingthat is?

(23:23):
It's like a baker sitting therelistening to a bunch of people
that specialize in eating cakes,talk about making one.
I hope y'all get what I'mtrying to say, because here I am

(23:45):
, I'm a baker, I'm like yo, I'vebeen doing this, but I'm trying
not to take control, I'm tryingnot to say, hey, yeah, well,
you got to do it like this, yougot to shoot like this.
Because the fact of the matteris and I talk about this with my
brother in film all the timeit's like actors think they know
the process, until it's time tomake one, until it's time to

(24:08):
make a film, like you don't knowwhat you know, like you don't
know what, just because youstand in front of a camera, you
don't know what it takes to getthe correct shot, like
continuity, the editing, likeyou're thinking about the edit
while you're shooting.
Right, I'm even thinking aboutthis whole thing while we're
coming up with an idea for thescript, and so, as we're still

(24:31):
trying to come up with the ideafor the script, um, everybody
starts talking about it, andthen there's a writer in the
room, right, she's, she'swritten some things, and so, um,
you know the again, they don'treally know who I am and I'm
trying not to.
You know, throw, throw my powerout.
I, you know, I'm not trying todo that, because that's that's
not cool, you don't.
You know, throw, throw my powerout.
I, you know, I'm not trying todo that, because that's that's

(24:52):
not cool, you don't, you know.
And I and I'm again, I'm fairlynew, I'm new to the group, I'm
the new one to the group.
Everybody else been there forlike two years or a year at this
point, um, and so I'm only likeseven months into being at six
months into being in LA, right.
And so, um, I'm trying to.
You know, I want to be cool, Iwant to be cool.

(25:12):
And so they start deciding who'sgoing to do what.
And I wanted to direct.
I wanted to direct because Iwanted to do a project already,
right, and just use some of theactors in the class because I
was a director, I'm a filmmaker,right.
So I'm like, okay, the class,because I was a director, I'm a
filmmaker, right.
So I'm like, okay, that's whatI'm gonna do.

(25:34):
And so they start voting, right.
And here's where some of thejealousy comes out.
And I knew it right away.
It was another red flag.
I knew it.
The jealousy came out, but itcame out.
I knew it.
The jealousy came out.
But it came out.
And see, here's the thing aboutjealousy.
Y'all Jealousy doesn't alwayslook like the obvious.

(25:55):
It doesn't always look like,well, why he got to do, why she
got to do that Well, why theygot to, why, well, why no.
Sometimes you can see it in themost subtle way.
So while everybody's sayingwhat they want to do, mostly
everybody in the room are actors.
Nobody's ever really producedanything except me in the room,
in this particular room, right.

(26:17):
And so when it came to writing,I write too, right, but I don't
specialize in it.
I'm good at it now, but I don'tspecialize in it.
There's a writer in the room,but there are also other people
that want to write as well.
So the thing was here's how Isaw the jealousy play out real

(26:42):
subtly Was when it was time topick a writer to say who's going
to write it.
He automatically chose old girlto write and I was like, okay,
cool, it wasn't no, when nobodygonna vote.
But then it it was time to likeall right, who's gonna direct?
I'm clearly the only person inthe room with directing

(27:03):
experience.
So he sits at the board waiting.
He waits, he waits for peopleto oppose.
I.
I raised my hand.
I said I, I can direct.
It's like okay, we'll want todirect anybody.
Everybody agree with that whoall agree he waits.
I'm like yo for real, like y'alldon't even have, like I can't

(27:27):
even say, I don't even want tosay it, I don't even want to say
man, y'all ain't got noexperience.
I don't want to say thatbecause I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna look bad and I'm gonnaleave a bad taste in people's
mouths.
And that's not who I am.
And again, I'm new to the group.
I'm new to the group, so I wait.

(27:49):
And then everybody weighs inand everybody says, yeah, I'm
good with that.
And everybody's kind of like,like oh yeah, I mean, yeah, you
can direct, I'm cool.
Like yeah, like they're notsure or something.
I'm like, wait, I'm not famousor nothing, but I'm like I ain't
, I don't suck at what I do,like Like I'm good at what I do.

(28:12):
I got a I and I had a featurefilm.
I had a feature film.
I still my feature film is onTubi to this day and Amazon
prime and I'm like I did thatmajority.
I did that by myself.
Right, I had some help here andthere, but for the most part.
It was just me, my sound guyand my actors, and I was it, it,

(28:34):
you know.
And I'm like yo, I gotexperience in making a whole
movie and and I told and most ofthem knew this because when I
met them again, remember I Itold y'all I showed them some of
my work and they were like, ohokay, cool, cool, yeah, yeah,
man, you good, you good.
But everybody had like like this, this shitty direct, I ain't.
And then one of them was like Iain't never seen will direct,
like I ain't seen will work.

(28:54):
And I'm like what, like forreal, like we doing that, this
was crazy.
And so I take it all in and I'm, I'm taking it because I'm like
, yeah, maybe you know they,maybe they don't know, they
don't know.
So we move on, it's like allright.
And then he finally decideswe'll direct him, all right,
cool.
And in the middle of all ofthis we get some investors.

(29:18):
There are people that come intothe project and, uh, the guy who
we get to be cinematographer ismy buddy, it is my homie, um,
who I said, who I, who I met theacting coach through, uh, my
buddy, harold, like I, we, youknow.
And so we get him to dp becauseI know, like we, we locked in,

(29:41):
we work, we.
We work plenty of times.
Before I had a web series innashville, um, the trauma web
series, troma.
Um, he shot some of my season,my season two of that, and so,
you know, we locked in.
It's like again, he's like mybrother, like when I got to la,
his family literally became myfamily, even our families, like

(30:04):
we, we had my son's 13thbirthday was in their backyard.
You know, they always invitedus over.
It was always so shout out tothem, shout out to the hall
family.
They have been for real, likefamily, for real, for real, um,
and so we got him to shoot andhe was with me for whatever you
know.
And some things went down, suchas them starting to do

(30:30):
pre-production, thepre-production process, without
the director.
And I started to grow irritatedwith this because I know the
process and the director ispretty much in charge of the of
the production.
And so it's not that I was softspoken, it was that I was

(30:52):
trying not to step on nobody'stoes in saying what I know.
Now, mind you, all of these,most of these people, are
writers and actors, like writersand actors, and I want to say
want to be producers, butaspiring producers, right.
And so this lady gets involvedand she's seen my work, she's

(31:13):
seen my work, she falls in lovewith my work, with, with the
things that I've done.
And so, um, after thingsprogress, and I just I'll just
keep this part short, becauseafter things progress, the guy
who says he's the producer, whosaid he was jealous of me, the

(31:38):
leader of it, all kind ofspearheading everything right,
he keeps doing things.
It seems like he keeps doingthings on purpose, because he
thinks the producer is supposedto choose wardrobe and all of
these things.
And so I end up having aproblem with that and I end up
voicing my opinion on it andletting him know, like, how it's

(31:58):
supposed to go.
And he was like, well, Ithought, I thought, and so my
buddy Harold, he's, he's, he's,he's a, uh, he's an older guy.
I ain't that much older he's, Ithink he, I think he pushing, I
think he in his 40s, like late40s, I'm not sure, harold, if
you listen to this, I don't knowhow old you are, brother, I
just know you, you, you you'reolder than me, but um, um, so he

(32:24):
was the one that was explainingto this individual that no, the
director is the.
The director is supposed to pickthe colors and all of this, the
color palette and all that.
And he's like, oh, oh, he'strying to play stupid now, but
the thing is he just didn't wantme to be in charge.
Why?
Because it rooted back to whathe said, told you, everything is
rooted, y'all.
Everything is like the, the,the red flags are always there,

(32:49):
but again, I chose to ignore it.
I should have never did theproject to begin with.
So it gets so bad to the pointwhere I'm getting so frustrated
that they are picking wardrobe,they're picking locations
without me, they're doing allthese things without the
director.
And I wasn't trying to likethrow my weight around.
I'm just like bro, that's nothow it works.
I'm just like bro, that's nothow it works.

(33:15):
And if you want me to direct andand be artistic in a vision,
it's, it's, it becomes my vision, it's her vision.
She wrote the script, I workwith her and changing some
things because of the locationthat we had, and so they didn't
want to change anything.
And I kept trying to like say,okay, we got to cut this out.
We got to cut this out becauseI'm aware of time, I had David E
Talbert, a Hollywood director,as a, as as a mentor, and one

(33:37):
thing he always told me, whenthe times that I did talk to him
, he said always make your day,always make your day, because
the studios will try to find anyreason for them to blame you
for coming in over budgetbecause you didn't make your day
.
To make your day.
For those of you that don'tknow anything about that, it
just simply means whatever youplan to shoot, make sure you

(33:59):
shoot all of it, make sure it'sall shot.
And so I want to make my day,and so they didn't want to cut
things out.
And what ended up happening wasI ended up backing out of the
project because they weren'tlistening.
I had to.
And so the guy who I told you Iadmired the actor from the

(34:27):
class you know I told him aboutI call him just to see you know
cause I felt like I needed somereinforcements to back me up, to
let me know that I did theright thing.
I, I, first of all, I talked tomy my, my, my, my, homie, um,
um, harold.
I asked him.
I said I said, hey, man, youthink.
He said man.

(34:47):
He said nah, do it.
You try to tell them you can't.
I mean that's it, you know, andI'm with you If you don't do it
, I ain't doing it.
And I was like all right man,and I felt bad about it because
I didn't want to quit, but Ijust, I was just frustrated with
them not listening, likespecifically him.
And so when I told him I backedout of the project, he puts

(35:10):
everything I said in a chainemail with all the actors in it,
everybody from the class that'sin the project.
He puts all of them in it,because I can't even remember
how I said I quit, matter offact, I think I still got the
emails, but I can't remember howI said I quit.

(35:30):
But I didn't disrespect nobody.
I said man, I'm going to haveto respectfully bow out because
this ain't I mean, this is notwhat I'm used to, this is not
how it goes.
And so he calls me, goescompletely bananas on the phone,
cussing and everything Mind you, I have not used the cuss word
because I'm still safe but I'mnot realizing that I'm in a

(35:59):
backslidden state Because Iforced myself into a group of
people that I had no businessreally being that close to.
So he goes off and then whilehe's going off, like he stops,
he kind of slows down and he'slike man, I don't mean to yell
at you, you're a grown man orwhatever, but blah, blah, blah,

(36:19):
blah, how you gonna leave theproject, blah, blah.
And so the executive producercalls me and she's like Will
listen?
I really said yes to financingbecause of you, I saw your work.
Yes to financing because of you, I saw your work and you
impressed me.
So I need you.
You can't back out.
And I was like I want to do it,I really do, but they're not

(36:40):
listening and I tell her theprocess and she's like oh, okay,
okay, okay, if she heard me,I'm not sure.
But they also had some otherthings going on where they
wanted to look like Hollywood.
They wanted to have the wholevideo village and all of these
things.
So we was going back and forth.
So my DP, my buddy Harold, wasgoing through it with them on on

(37:00):
video village trying to dostuff that that didn't need to,
because that's that justincreases the budget and that
takes away from the money.
That really all of the moneywas supposed to go on screen,
but they wanted things that, um,that was just gonna look a
certain way but it wasn't gonnareally produce a better film and

(37:22):
so, um, I back out and she, shetalked, she, she talked, kind
of talks me back into it.
And I told her, I told her, Ilet her know.
And then, like I said, I calledBuddy, a dude who he knew, who
he was friends with for a longtime, and I asked him.
He said he told me, you knowwhat, nothing wrong with what I

(37:43):
did, he said.
He said I did kind of put himin the bind because you know,
it's kind of last minute,because I quit the week before
the shoot and they wasn't ready,they wasn't ready, and then
finally I decided, all right,I'm going to do it.
That was my mistake when I cameback to it, because my first
feeling, the thing that I didthat I didn't want to do, was

(38:06):
what I was supposed to do.
Let me ask you that question,and I want y'all to leave it
down in the comments of this, ofthe review of this, of this
episode have you ever made theright decision?
The first time, and because ofemotions and feelings and other

(38:27):
people's feelings and yourreputation, you went back to it
and you recanted or you or youreneged on your first decision,
which was the right decision.
Have you ever done that?
Well, this is what I did.
I actually ended up going backto the project, and when I go
back to the project now, it's a.
It's a certain kind of feel, isspirits Right?

(38:49):
Certain kind of feel.
It's spirits right.
It's spirits because he saidsomething smart about me to
everybody in the email chat, inthe email thread, and so now
people looking at me crazybecause I quit seven days before
the shoot, which I canunderstand if they felt some

(39:09):
type of way, but at the sametime, they would have to
understand where I'm coming from, because everything that I was
telling him he was like put, hekept.
He also kept telling me.
He said put it in the group,the group email.
No, I'm talking to you, theproducer, this ain't for them,
this ain't for the actors, thisis for you, you in charge.
Charge in terms of seeing fit,seeing the production through

(39:34):
that it gets made.
I'm just in charge of thevision of it.
You're in charge of the, the,the business side and the
logistics, not me.
So I want, I'm talking to youand and when he kept doing that,
that's what pushed me toquitting.
That's that.
That's what pushed me toquitting.

(39:54):
That's exactly what pushed meinto quitting the project,
because he kept trying to get meto say it to everybody what I
was against, and it wasn't foreverybody, it was just for him
and the EP.
I put her in the email threadas well.
So he basically badmouths me tothe actors in the email thread
as well.
So he basically bad mouths meto the, to the actors in a group
thread, in a group email.

(40:16):
And basically I'm sure thatthere was some further
conversation because when I saidyes and I returned to the
project, me and my buddy, youknow, my buddy Harold we
returned to the project and it'sjust, you know, it's a spirit

(40:40):
you know I'm dealing with kindof like these little, some
people act regular, some peoplewasn't phased, but then there
was some people that were actinga little funny.
I can say that and you know,because one of my things and
here's another point, here'sanother point that I learned
about me I wanted to be liked.
I wanted to be liked.

(41:04):
I didn't want anybody todislike me.
I didn't want anybody todislike me.
So I made the decision ofquitting.

(41:24):
I made the decision of quittingbecause it was the right thing
to do to me.
It was the right thing to do tome.
It was the right thing to do tome, you know.

(41:45):
So when I went back to it again,everybody, you know, some
people was acting weird.
Some people was acting funny toit.
Again, everybody, you know,some people was acting weird.
Some people was acting funny.
Um, and then he pulls me to theside.
They had a gathering, I thinkit was, was it Thanksgiving?
I can't remember.
It was some kind of gathering,some holiday toward, you know,

(42:08):
the last couple months of theyear, and so it was a weird vibe
.
It was a weird vibe and so hepulls me to the side.

(42:30):
He says they will kind of talkto you for a second.
I go and talk to him and hebasically, you know, he don't
even really apologize for whathe did, for how he talked to me.
But guess what I do?
I apologize, I apologize, Iapologize, I apologize.

(42:55):
Why did you apologize?
Well, I apologize for puttinghim in the bind.
I apologize for quitting at thelast minute.
I apologize for quitting at thelast minute.
And so he plays this moment asif he had to talk people.

(43:15):
Man, this is crazy.
He.
He was talking to me like thisis exactly what he said.
He was like well, I had toconvince everybody to let you
back in.
To direct what hey, I had toconvince everybody to let you in

(43:43):
after you, you know you, justyou let.
He said it did something to me,you know, and I had to convince
everybody.
You know that.
You know, we, all, you know wehaving issues and stuff like
that, I was like, wow, first ofall, it was probably a lie.
Secondly, it was probably himtrying to make them feel a

(44:10):
certain way.
I can't really speak to that,but I'm just going off what he
told me, right, and so I'm like,okay, I understand that, but
that made me feel some kind ofway.
Now I'm uncomfortable, now Ihate that.
I said that I came back becauseI don't like for people to make
it seem like now, regardless ofme wanting to be cool with

(44:31):
everybody, it's one thing I donot like.
Don't try to make me feel likeI'm begging to come back.
That's not what happened.
I literally just said I'll goahead and do it.
There was no, no, no, well, wedon't know.

(44:53):
We, we gotta, we gotta, wegotta find that.
We gotta see what everybodyelse think it wasn't on.
None of that.
I just said I come back, andthat was the end of it.
But here you telling mesomething different and you
making me feel like I beg tocome back.
Or it was there, it was offtheir say so that I came back.
No, the ep wanted me to comeback.
The executive producer, who wasputting up some of the money

(45:16):
for wanted me to come back, andI I one of the things that
really made me come back was thepeople.
It was the people I didn't wantto do them folks like that.
It wasn't, it wasn't in me tosay, oh, I quit, forget all
y'all.
No, I was.
That was that was the reasonwhy I didn't say I didn't jump

(45:38):
off earlier when I should haveRight, and so, again, I go on
through it.
So that was, that was.
One thing I learned about me isthat I wanted to be light, and
not just that I cared aboutpeople.
I cared about their time, Icared about their craft, I cared
about what they were trying todo as well.

(45:58):
So I said I don't want to.
You know, let me just go on anddo it.
And so I also offered to editthe edit the film as well.
So I was already doing too muchoff the rip because I wanted to
be light.
And, and not only that, Iwanted to edit the film because
I directed the film and myfriend was shooting the film and
I know how he shoots and wework well together, right?

(46:19):
So there was no, it wasn'tgoing to be difficult for me,
because if I direct the filmit's easier for me to edit it,
right.
And so, long story short, y'all,we ended up doing the film and,
um, remember, I told y'all Iwas, we was trying to, I was
trying to get them to cut pagesand cut scenes, but they didn't

(46:42):
want to do it.
So we started shooting the filmin a high rise.
I can't tell you where it wasand whose place it was and all
of that, but we start shootingin a high rise.
The high rise is not written inthe script.
The script is a is a cabin.
In the script there are thingsthat happen specifically in a
cabin.

(47:02):
But how can you do that whenyou're 44 to 50 floors high in a
, a, in a, in a high-end, luxurycondo?
How can you do what's in acabin in a high-rise?
It's impossible.
So of course there were a lot ofthings that had to be cut out,

(47:22):
but they still didn't want tocut it out.
So guess what happened?
We spent two days shooting inthis place and we didn't.
I didn't get to make my daywhen I told them upfront what to
do.
Even my buddy.
He was like hey, you know, yougot to cut this, you got to cut
this, you got to cut that.
They didn't want to do it, andso everything doesn't get shot.
And then we come up on early wehours in the morning when we

(47:46):
supposed to be out of the place,out of the location, and we're
still shooting.
Why?
Because, again, they didn'twant to take anything out, and
so I was like man, see, I shouldhave stayed off, because now
they have a reason to blame mefor why everything didn't get
shot.

(48:06):
Again, I didn't do it, it wasnot fault, and this individual
that was calling the shots wasplaying on set, so much so that
my buddy, he had to go off onhim.
He had to let him knowsomething real professional,
like hey, man, I'm sitting here,you sitting up here playing.
He was making faces on theother, on the other actors.

(48:27):
It was an over-the-shouldershot and we were over his
shoulder and he was making theactor laugh and we like yo, come
on, we pressing for time, butthen they turn around when the
project is over and they blameme for the, for the unfinished
project.
So I, finally, we finally getto the end of the shoot.

(48:47):
Everybody's exhausted.
I'm even more exhausted becauseI know this film is not going
to work.
And me and me and mycinematographer, we're talking,
we're like man, hey, if we justdo this and we cut this and we
make this, this, this could be acool little reel to get a
feature made, but it ain't gonnamake sense as a, as a short

(49:07):
right now.
So again, and I'm getting, andI'm going somewhere with this,
y'all, I'm going somewhere withthis.
So we finish.
They see it's looking good.
I had a shot list and everything.
I was prepared.
We finished the shoot because,as a matter of fact, we were

(49:29):
shooting with two cameras and Iwas trying to simplify some
stuff by doing some oners.
Those of you that know film,you know I was doing some
wonders.
I was trying to be creativewhile being limited, and so I
specialize in making things fornothing.
Making not uh, making uh,something out of nothing.
You know, praise god for thatability, but we go on right and

(49:55):
we were supposed to get someb-roll of the city of la and you
know, we didn't ever get achance to do that because I I
wanted to cut what we had, right.
And so after this y'all, I hearnothing else from anybody.
There was a friend of his thatmade music out of Atlanta that

(50:16):
he wanted to put the music inthe film and I'm like, okay,
cool, I listen to it.
I'm like, okay, cool, it fits,I'll put it in this, in this
club part, or whatever.
And it was weeks before I heardback from anybody.
While I'm editing, I'm in theediting phase, and meanwhile

(50:37):
we're going to class, we'regoing to acting class.
Everybody still got that littleweird about them because of
everything that went down, andso I'm not hearing nothing from
anybody.
I'm not hearing nothing fromanybody.
I'm not hearing anything fromanybody, right?

(50:59):
And so I even talked to thewriter Nothing, right, nothing.
And so I feel like they feelsome type of way about me
because we didn't get to finish.
But that wasn't my fault, right?

(51:23):
I'm literally, I'm tellingy'all verbatim everything that
happened and one of the details,let me.
Let me add this because when Ifinally heard from him, he asked
me for the drive to back up thefootage.
He asked me for the drive toback up the footage.

(51:44):
Now, if somebody is in themiddle of editing, it is the
editor's job to back up thefootage.
It is even a DIT's job to backup the footage on set.
But we didn't have none of thatright.
So there's no footage backed up, but I'm editing now.

(52:05):
So you want me to stop editingso that I can give you the drive
to make a backup?
No, sir, that's not how thatworks.
But because you're the producer, I close out the project on my
iMac and I take the drive toacting class and I give it to

(52:32):
one of the actors to give it tohim to acting class and I give
it to one of the actors to giveit to him.
And so it took me aboutprobably a week before I got it
back.
So now you put you, you, youput me at a part.
Now I can't edit because all ofthe footage is there and I
didn't save the footage nowhereelse because it you know you
save space when you edit fromthe drive if there's more space

(52:53):
on.
And so he made a copy andeventually they got it back to
me and then I didn't hearanything else for about a month.
I wanted to say two months, butI don't think it was that long,
I think it was about a monthmaybe and finally I put together
a cut.
It was about a 14-minute cut.
It was a 27, 25-page script, or20 page script that I was

(53:15):
trying to get chopped down toabout 15, but we didn't finish
all of it.
We didn't finish all of, wedidn't finish shooting every
single thing that we needed toshoot.
Right, it was a lot of timewasted, a lot of planning going
on.
We didn't get to finish.
And so I get a phone call whileI'm doing instacart.

(53:35):
Right, I get a phone call whileI'm doing instacart and I had
asked a question already before,before this phone call, before

(53:57):
this phone call let me back upbefore this phone call that I
got, um, we were filmingsomething and one of the actors
I want.
I was talking to one of theactors and I had just I just
casually asked did they getsomebody else to edit the film?
Now, the reason I want to knowthis is because of what I know,

(54:21):
if it see.
This is why.
This is why, when you don'tbelong in a circle, don't put
yourself in circles you don'tbelong in.
Don't do it, because theirunderstanding it's not gonna
always be your understanding.
This is almost equivalent tobeing unequally yoked with

(54:41):
unbelievers.
Instead, you're being unequallyyoked with people who don't
know nothing about what you door even how to do what you do,
because these problems wouldhave never happened had, first
of all, jealousy not been at theroot of the relationship to

(55:02):
begin with.
But I ignored all of that forthe sake of having actor friends
in LA, right.
So I asked and they was like,and the individual was like no,

(55:23):
I don't, I don't think, I don'tthink so, I don't think they, I
don't think they got anybody toedit it, because that's all I
can think.
I.
I'm thinking like that becauseyou had a problem with me.
Everybody's acting kind of funnyand weird on set Some, some
people, not everybody because Iknow, you know, you know you
ever walked into a room and youknow somebody and they've been

(55:44):
talking about you like that.
There's a vibe that comes withthat.
I don't care what nobody says.
There is a vibe that comes withwalking into a room or dealing
with people that have hadsomething to say, or somebody in
the room has something bad tosay about you.
They didn't correct it, neitherdid they.
They may not have even saidanything, but the fact remains

(56:05):
is that they said something orthat they heard something, and
everybody's acting weird, and sothat was that is what I was
getting the entire time, evenwhile we were shooting like
everybody's acting weird, and sothat is what I was getting the
entire time, even while we wereshooting.
Like everybody was acting cool,but it was like some people, it
was like a fake cool.
And so, when you ask for thedrive after we've already had
this issue, I'm thinking you gotsomebody else to edit on the

(56:31):
side because you don't know whatI'm going to do.
You think I'm going to sabotage.
I don't know what I'm gonna do.
You think I'm gonna sabotage.
Oh, I don't know what in theworld they were thinking, but
that's what I felt.
And so when she told me that, Iwas like, okay, so I got the
drive back, I edit.
And then they called me out theblue.
Now now it's about 30 days lateror so, and they called me out
the blue.
Talking about, you know, thefilm should have been done by
now.
Where?

(56:51):
Where's the project?
You just asked me to give youthe drive.
It took you a week to get itback to me.
I gave it to him on thatthursday.
I got it back, probably thatnext thursday, right?
And so, um, yeah, like it was,it was crazy.

(57:11):
It was, it was crazy.
And so they're asking me aboutit and I'm like, okay, I'm not
done yet.
And so this is when I get thephone call while I'm doing
instacart and they're basicallyasking me, they're basically
saying, um, you know where thefilm at?

(57:34):
Then they got, they got thisother guy on the phone was a
good guy.
Uh, uh, he's a.
He's a.
I consider him a friend to thisday.
Um, but they get him on thephone as a mediator, as if I've
been a problem.
Like they get a mediator on thephone like a, a fair voice.
I'm like, so what?
Y'all calling the gang up on me?
So it's like two people, likeone person on the phone.

(57:55):
There's one person on the phone.
It's like it's two people onthe same phone and he's on his
own phone, this individual thatyelled at me, right, so he does
it again on this call talkingabout how the film's supposed to
be done.
I'm like who, who you talking tolike now, now, now I'm getting
upset, now I'm getting out of.

(58:15):
Like now I'm like, man, I knowwhere you live, bro.
You like like you can get thesehands, and I don't even fight
like that for real, like I don'teven say for real, like I
wouldn't even say for real, butI don't fight.
But the way that thateverything that we did, every
like I got a smooth, I got asmooth man, I got a smooth pimp,

(58:37):
smack or punch, like in me atthis point, because y'all
calling me to check me onsomething that I've been trying
to be in contact with y'allabout, but y'all kept like
curving me with one-word answers, one-word text messages.
I was even sending them, uh,pictures, like I'm good at

(58:58):
photoshop too, so I was sendingthem, um, um photos.
I mean, uh, I was sending themscreenshots of potential posters
and they saying stuff like Idon't love it.
I'm like, okay, I don't evenknow to take, I don't know how
to take.
None of this at this point,because y'all already had a
problem with me.
So my homie was telling me man,you know what, don't edit,

(59:24):
nothing else, just just, justgive him, just give him the
drive back.
He said don't edit nothing else.
But they on the phone checkingme talking about the, the.
We shot the film.
This time it's supposed to bedone.
Did you even get the b-rollthat you, that y'all said y'all
was gonna get?
I said no, we didn't get theb-roll because there was other
things that I had to do for thefilm.

(59:46):
And so, like I, I found myselfanswering him, like he, my boss,
like I got, I didn't get paidfor none of this.
They weren't paying me.
I was happy to do it because itwas a mutual thing.
Like we, I loved it.
So the other actresses, theother actors, uh, the writer and

(01:00:10):
the other actors, they, theychime in with him and agree with
him like it has been a longtime.
And then, because I, I gave thema cut but it didn't look, it
wasn't really done, because itwas a lot of stuff that we
didn't get to shoot.
We had to skip it.
And so they was like, well, Imean, it looked good, but it's
just like the story don't makesense.

(01:00:31):
No, duh, we didn't shoot somestuff because y'all wouldn't
listen.
That's the purpose of rewrites.
But then nobody want to listen.
So guess what they did?
They pinned the unsuccess ofthat film on me, had everybody
in the pro, everybody that wason the project, had something to
do with the project looking atme like, well, will, what

(01:00:54):
happened to the film?
And then guess what they did?
They turned around, theyscrapped it, but I'm sure they
took it and I'm sure they tookpieces of it and they like
pieces.
I know they like pieces of it.
I know because I'm good at whatI do.
No cockiness, no arrogance, butI'm good at what I do.

(01:01:17):
No, no cockiness, no arrogance,but I'm good at filmmaking.
I'm a filmmaker.
I might be a pastor now I knowI might do, I might do a lot of
other things I mean make musicbut I'm a filmmaker like I'm
good at it, like let's, let's,let's not.
I'm not gonna kid myself, I'mnot gonna lie.
With all confidence I say thatall my bragging and boasting is
in the lord because he's the onethat gave me the gift.
But I'm good at it.

(01:01:37):
I'm an award-winning filmmaker.
And here are people who have noawards, no type of filmmaking
background, only standing infront of a camera, looking
pretty, and you're gonna tell mehow to do it.
And you're going to tell me howto do it.
Never been, can't tell going tohow to get there, but somehow

(01:02:01):
people do it, and so that got meout of my character.
So it leads me to my main pointin a text that I want to read
to you.
I know that was a lot, y'all,but y'all bear with me.

(01:02:23):
There was a blind man in thebook of Mark, chapter eight, and
I saw myself as the blind manbecause I came across this text
at what like after, and Irealized that I was actually far
from God.
I, I was actually, I was reallyfar from God, so I made the
wrong friends at the right time.

(01:02:44):
Why was it the right time,though?
Because, from jump, I was neversupposed to be in that
situation.
Wasn't wrong for me to be inthe acting class.
It wasn't wrong for me tobefriend people.
It wasn't wrong for me to be inthe acting class.
It wasn't wrong for me tobefriend people.
It wasn't wrong for me to becool with people, but it was
wrong for me to try to fit in.

(01:03:04):
It was wrong for me to try toshow my stuff, because, in the
end, it caused me drama.
It caused me stuff that Ididn't even ask for.
So, while the outcome of thesituation wasn't my fault me

(01:03:28):
going through, it was my faultand I found myself as a blind
man in Bethsaida, such as theblind man here in this text.
In Mark, chapter 8, starting atverse 22 in the NASB, it says
and they came to Bethsaida andthey brought a blind man to
Jesus and implored him to touchhim.
Taking the blind man by thehand, jesus brought him out of

(01:03:53):
the village and, after spittingon his eyes and laying his hands
on him, he asked the man, doyou see anything?
And the man looks up and hesays I see men, for I see them
like trees walking around, treeswalking around.

(01:04:14):
This is interesting because theman's sight is not fully
restored.
But let's go back.
Let's go back.
He's a blind man in Bethsaida.

(01:04:38):
Bethsaida is a place where Jesusdidn't like to go.
Woe unto Bethsaida.
He's done many things, heworked many miracles and yet
they didn't believe.
So basically, this blind manwas in the land of unbelievers.
And here's how I understoodthis text is because when he the
the first step of the, thefirst step of deliverance, the
first step of deliverance wasfor the man to be to take the

(01:05:00):
hand of Jesus.
And Jesus pulls him out of thevillage.
He pulls him out of this toxictown Full of toxic people.
And some people preach this andsay that thank God for some
people, thank God for friends,that'll take you to Jesus.
Well, I don't quite believethat they were believers,

(01:05:25):
because of what Jesus said aboutBethsaida and the fact that
this man goes blind.
I believe that these werepeople that just wanted to see
what Jesus could do.
They just wanted to see that hecould open up blinded eyes.
And so Jesus takes him by thehand, pulls him out of the

(01:05:51):
village and, after spitting onhis eyes, see, for me, the spit
represents washing.
The spit represents the spiritit does.
It represents the spirit why?
Because when he touches him,the man can't see fully, but he

(01:06:14):
can see something.
And what it uh intrigues meabout this text is that the man
says I see men as trees walkingaround.
If you've been blind the wholetime, which scripture does not
tell us that this man was blindfrom birth?
This means that he went blindfrom being at Bethsaida.

(01:06:35):
So Bethsaida and the toxicenvironment that he was in,
around toxic people, blinded hisvision.
So now, the only way to be ableto see again and the only way
to be able to see how you gotinto that situation is that he

(01:06:59):
spits on the man's eyes.
He spits, he says I see menwalking in his trees.
Wait a minute, if you wereblind your whole life, how do
you know what trees look like?
How do you know what trees looklike?
He says I see men as treeswalking.

(01:07:20):
So that's the interesting partabout it is that, right, you
could see before, but you werein a place where you did not
belong and it destroyed yourvision.
The scripture says in the oldTestament for my people perish
for a lack of knowledge.
That's one.
And then it says for without avision, the people perish.

(01:07:42):
What is the vision?
The vision ain't ain't, ain'tain't what people try to make it
to be.
When they say, write the visionand make it plain it's this,
that's.
That's not the vision.
The vision that the lack ofvision people perish is their
lack of vision of keeping theireyes on the most high God.

(01:08:04):
And when you don't keep youreyes on the Lord, you perish.
And so here we find a blind manwho is delivered by Jesus, by
him taking his hand and pullinghim out of the village, spitting
on his eyes.
Spiritual, this is a spiritualmove right here, here, because
this is the first time.
This is.
What's amazing about this textis that you don't see this in
any other gospel.
You don't see this in Matthew,you don't see this in Luke and

(01:08:27):
you definitely won't see it inJohn, but you only see this in
Mark.
He spits on his eyes and he sayswhat do you see?
He says I see me in his treeswalking.
Okay, so you weren't blind.
Always you could see before.
So now I need you to see whatyou really were supposed to see,

(01:08:51):
so that you wouldn't have beenin the situation that you were
in in that village.
You would have never made it tothat village if you could see
what you see now.
And this is before his sight isclear.
Why does he say I see men astrees walking.
Why does Jesus only partiallyheal him?

(01:09:14):
I see men as trees walking.
Why does Jesus only partiallyheal him?
Because the first, the truehealing, was the first healing
that happened, and it's the samething to this day.
The first true healing thathappens for all of us is that he
saves our souls when we convert, that he heals our souls, it

(01:09:35):
says, and by his stripes we arehealed.
That's not talking about,that's not talking about your
body, that's talking about yoursoul.
By his stripes we are healed.
So when he spits on the man'seyes, the man the man was seeing
spiritually, because Jesuswould later say that you would
know them by their fruit.
I said this earlier you wouldknow them by their fruit.
And what do fruit grow on Trees?

(01:09:56):
So, in other words, jesus wassaying I need you to see people
for who they are, by their fruit, so that you will not end up in
a blind space doing things thatyou have no business doing.
And that's why I said I foundmyself with the wrong friends at

(01:10:18):
the right time, because Ibrought it upon my self, because
I had a desire to be liked, Ihad a desire to have community.
And so, after he sees men liketrees walking around verse 25,

(01:10:42):
it says then again, he laid hishands on his eyes and he looked
intently and was restored andbegan to see everything clearly.
I like how King James versionKJV says this.
It says that he began to seeevery man clearly See.
When you have spiritual sightand you know somebody by their

(01:11:06):
fruit, you can see them clearly,see.
I was dazed by the idea of thiscommunity.
I was dazed by the idea of thiscommunity.
I was dazed by the idea ofpeople knowing what I could do,
what I was good at.
I was under that.
Because I was under that, itcaused me to walk into a village

(01:11:32):
and lose my sight.
So eventually I praise Godbecause I came out.
I came out and because of itI'm better.
I learned a lot of bad thingsabout myself that caused me to

(01:11:53):
be in those situations.
So I can talk about bad friends.
I can talk about people whomean you no good.
I could talk about getting ridof toxic, toxic people.
I'm cool with some.
I wouldn't say I'm cool withthem, but I'm cordial like I
don't have.
I don't hold nothing againstanybody and I had to forgive
them, even though they didn'task for forgiveness.
You got to be see.

(01:12:14):
That's a whole nother episode.
I ain't gonna go into that.
But I had to forgive them sothat I could move on and really
be okay with being treated likethat.
Because I got yelled at on thatphone like he was my dad and he
was younger than me and I wasso ready I was so ready to put
my hands on him, whether hecould fight, good or not.
I wasn't worried about that.
You weren't gonna talk to melike that.

(01:12:35):
So that that was flesh.
Flesh, begin to rise up.
You can't, you can't afford tobe around people who's going?
Who's going, who's going to dotheir best to to uh, to try to
resuscitate the flesh.
It is the job of the devil todo cpr on your flesh.
Because as we live in Christand walk in the spirit, we are

(01:12:58):
dead to the flesh.
We're dead to sin.
We're dead to all of that.
We're dead to getting angry,ready to fight.
We suppose we listen, all ofthat is done away with.
We're dead to sin.
We are alive in Christ.
So that that.
So, because we are alive inChrist, we're supposed to walk
in the spirit, so that youcannot do what you want.
That's what Galatians, chapterfive says.

(01:13:19):
You can't do what you want, andso you know.
I thank God that that otherbrother was on the phone,
because he made me so mad too,because at the time, every time
I got ready to come back back,well, I was about to drop the
n-bomb and everything every timeI got ready to talk over him.

(01:13:41):
He would never let me over talkthem, but he would let them
over talk me, and I couldn'tfigure that out for the life of
me.
I was upset with him for a longtime.
I was like, how would you notlet me get what I need to say
out?
And I never asked him thatquestion.
I just had to learn from theHoly Spirit in that moment that
it wasn't meant for you to sayhe said he blocked, he blocked.

(01:14:02):
He was there.
He probably didn't even knowwhat he was doing and he was
probably being biased in themoment, didn't even realize it,
because he knew them longer thanhe knew me.
But he probably didn't knowthat the Lord was using him to
to keep me from saying somethingthat was going to destroy my

(01:14:22):
reputation for even this momenttoday when, if some of them
heard he's a pastor, they cansay, oh, I believe it.
Oh, I believe it Cause I never,I never told him oh, I was a
preacher.
I wanted all that to be likethis is 2020, like I was.
I wanted that to be like comeon, bro, like don't even.

(01:14:44):
I ain't telling nobody that buteventually, at about the end of
2020, I ended up repenting andgetting back right with the Lord
because I realized, man, Ican't do what everybody else can
do, and when you are a child ofGod, there's just a lot of
things that you can't do.

(01:15:04):
This is why scripture wouldtell us in 1 John that to not
love the world, neither love thethings that are in the world.
For all that is in the world isthe lust of the eyes, the lust
of the flesh and the pride oflife, and if anybody loves the
world, the love of the father isnot in them.
That's why I had to take a stepback and my love, my desire to

(01:15:32):
want to be in Hollywood orHollyweird just kind of
dissolved because I spent enoughtime out there in the
atmosphere.
And while I love the weather, Iwould love to move back, but
not for film, not for theindustry, because I could have
the industry in my backyard.
I'm good at what I do.
I don need, I don't need, Idon't need, I don't need nobody

(01:15:56):
in terms of like studios andmajor help to.
I don't see the luck, for thelove of the, love of money is
the root of all evil.
I'm not willing to do anythingthat's gonna ask me to sacrifice
my morals for a paycheck, andI'm not saying that everybody
has to do that to be there, butI'm not.
It just wasn't in me, no moreI'm.

(01:16:23):
I love the indie scene.
I love doing things on my on myown with a group of people that
want to work together, want toget stuff done.
So, but, listen, I hope that yougot something out of this
episode because it was truly alesson.
And listen, hope that you gotsomething out of this episode,
um, because it was truly alesson.
And listen, I pray, I.
I got to a point to where Ireally, I really prayed for them
.
You know, I really prayed forthem and there's no love lost.

(01:16:43):
If they called me today or orsent me a message today, I would
message back.
I don't have anything againstthem.
To this day, like I reallydon't against them to this day,
like I really don't.
I really don't.
I wonder, for the longest, whydid I get you?
And I played victim for it forfor, uh, with that situation for
probably about two, threemonths, and it did bother me for

(01:17:05):
for a while.
It bothered me because I wasreally trying to figure out,
like, what did I do?
Like, really, what did I?
And what I did was too much.
I tried to insert myself intosomething that I wasn't supposed
to be in.
So, again, I pray that I saidsomething that helps you.

(01:17:32):
I'm not sure how long thisepisode is, I think it's over an
hour, but you're not in aBethsaida, because the way that
I see Bethsaida, he begins afterhe lays his hand on the blind
man, the, the now can, and hesees everything clearly.
Verse 26 says thing clearly.

(01:17:57):
Verse 26 says and he sent himto his home saying do not even
enter the village, go back towhere I just brought you out of,
don't go back to the placewhere you lost your vision.
So make sure that if the Lordhas spit on your eyes, that you

(01:18:26):
are doing it carefully, becausethe devil is always looking for
us to slip up and mess up, andif you walk in the spirit,
you'll be all right, all right.
So this concludes, um, thisepisode of the soul fuel podcast

(01:18:48):
.
Again, this is the pit stop foryou to get gassed up, for your
soul soul to get gassed up foryour journey in this life with
Christ.
And so, again, I want you toshare this episode with somebody
.
Go download it on everyplatforms available on Apple

(01:19:11):
Podcasts, iheartradio, amazonMusic Deezer, wherever you
listen to podcasts.
All right, I want you to sharethis, share this, share this and
share this, right, and ifyou're watching this on YouTube,
hit that subscribe button,because there's way much more

(01:19:32):
coming your way.
All right, god bless you.
It's Will.
Signing out Peace.