Denzel Washington On Legacy, Wife & Purpose | NXT Chapter With T.D. Jakes

I've said it before, you never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. You can't take it with you. Oh, right. You know, no matter, on your last day, it doesn't matter how much money you have. So that, you know, the Egyptians tried to take it with them. Right. Yeah, all they got was raw, right? Right. So. Hello everybody, I'm T.D. Jakes. And I'm extremely glad to have you here at my next chapter podcast. It is so exciting and so fulfilling that you're going to listen in today and learn something that may change your life or change your perspective as I present to you none other than being comfortable in Denzel, Washington. Today, I'm joined by a man whose talent has inspired generations. An Academy Award-winning actor, director, and storyteller. But beyond the accolades, Denzel, Washington is a man anchored in faith, family, and service. In this conversation, we talk about staying grounded when fame and fortune is trying to pull you away from what truly matters, why less is more, and the power of having a strong partner. And he closes with a heartfelt prayer that reminds us where our strength really comes from. Chapter 1, Stay Grounded Chapter 1, Stay Grounded I think there's a whole section of people that didn't come to hear me, they came to see me. I'm going to thank you back to many, many occasions you and I have been in conversation. You might not remember this. You're having breakfast, I think we were in Atlanta. Four seasons. At the Four Seasons. He's just sitting there having breakfast like people. And I came down there to have breakfast. I walked past, I thought. He said, Denzel, Washington. And we entered into a conversation that I sat down and we enjoyed it. We had great fellowship and great fun. And you've always been a very touchable down-to-earth person who seems to pay little attention to all the tremendous accolades that have been afforded to you. Is that part of the secret sauce that has kept you grounded and added to the longevity of your career that you did not allow the hype to inflate the way you see yourself? My mother, God rest her soul, she made it to 97. She, yeah, she just passed this past year and she owned a beauty shop, a beauty parlor. Excuse me. Okay, beauty parlor. She owned a beauty parlor, not a salon, a beauty parlor. And I had done one or two things and I'm feeling myself. And I came in, I said, Ma, did you think all of this was going to happen? And, you know, I was, she said, what did you say? All the people been praying for you. She started calling me superstar. So she said, okay, superstar, why don't you grab that bucket and go clean them window superstar? When you finish with that superstar. So I got the message, you know, I got the message. That grounding is something that's rare today. We see people rise up like Xenus and then crash like nuclear bombs. You have the added advantage of looking back over decades and decades of being relevant. Longivity is important to success. When you start talking about longevity, there are many, many people out here who want to have longevity, regardless of their profession, whether it is in corporate America, whether it's in the faith realm, whether it's on the stage. Longivity on the stage, I tell people the lights are bright, but the heat is hot. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's been hot. It's been hot on that stage. Many, many people who started with you melted. How did you make it? How do I what? How did you make it? By the grace of God. I mean, I don't take any credit for it. It's nothing I did as special, you know. I've been knocked down a few pegs and recognized it, but I just didn't put me first. I just put God first and he's carried me through the ups and the many downs, you know, the things you hear about and the things you don't hear about. You know, when you think about that, we were at Telenperi Studios for the dedication of the Telenperi Studios and we were talking this Sunday morning, I spoke, I talked about the difference between people who walk through a door, which is an opportunity and other people who turn that door into a platform through which other people are able to access their dreams without question. You have had many doors open to you, but you have also created many platforms and introduced to the world many, many talented gifted people without which your influence would not have happened. You didn't have to go that extra mile to do that. You could have enjoyed the limelight of the door and walked away. Is there a sense of fulfillment that you get out of creating that platform or is it purely from a business perspective? I love seeing other people do well, always have. I grew up in the Boys Club, now the Boys and Girls Club, and I was a counselor there and I came up in the club, that first as a camper and then as a counselor. And I always enjoyed seeing other people do well. It's interesting that I ended up in this business where it appears that you're out front. That's not even my nature, actually. You know, the funny thing about it is when you think about when the public thinks about you, they think of you as an actor. When I think about you, not only as an actor and an entertainer, not only as an icon in our community, but I also see you as a businessman because what the public doesn't realize is that entertainment is a business. And you have been successful not only at acting on screen, which a lot of people do. You have been successful at the business of entertainment. Can you talk to me about the business aspect? I tell people all the time, they call it show business. They should call it business show. No business, no next show. Absolutely. Simple as that. Explain it. No business, no next show. And you know, you have to deliver. I mean, it is a business. It's a dollars and cents business. And you have to deliver. And you have to know your worth. And you have to be able to negotiate from the perspective of knowing your own value. If other people know the value to want you, but you don't know the value to know who you are yourself, it would appear to me it would be quite difficult to be successful. If you don't at least have some sense of the equity that has accrued behind your brand and consequently negotiate from the leverage of understanding that equity. At what point did it hit you that I am worth more than how I'm being handled and how did you negotiate into the next stream of opportunities without allowing people to prostitute what God had given you? I'm just not, I'm just that guy, you know, I'm not scared to say no, you know, and you have to say no sometimes, you know. And it's the nose that I've said that have really gotten me, you know, I don't know wherever I am now professionally and the money really didn't scare me. You know, I've said it before you never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. You can't take it with you. You know, no matter on your last day, it doesn't matter how much money you have. So that that that you know the Egyptians tried to take it with them. Right. Yeah, all they got was Rob. Right. So so you but you can leave it here. Yeah. And I'm not just talking about the money. I'm talking about what God has blessed me with. I can I can leave here. You know, and and that's that's what's important to me is to at this point in my life just to be in that number. You you appear on a lot of platforms a professor when he entered the president of the college when the introduction beginning to talk about you started on stage not too long ago. My wife and I flew up to New York and saw you on stage. Iceman coming season. But you will you see Julie 15 years ago. Yeah, it will. 17 years ago. Time flies. Time flies. Yes. That was just another day to be that that's a blur. You you walked out on that stage and you were back at home again back where you started from number one. What made you go back to the stage and did it? Did what nostalgic for you to be on that stage? More than that or as much as that is the foundation had to get back to the you know, like here on on stage. The audience will tell you that night. Right. Right now they feel about you and and and you know, it's a humbling experience and I just wanted to get back to the to the to the foundation between 1990 and 2005. I was doing the best I could to help my wife to raise our kids and they were at an age where I couldn't leave California for weeks at a time. You know, because you can't commute when you're when you're doing a show on Broadway. So I just chose not to do to do any plays on Broadway for about 15 years. Chapter 2 less is more. When I saw you in the car getting ready to leave the hotel in New Orleans, I think you were shooting safe room. Safe house. Safe house at the time. To me that was an amazing movie largely because of the scenes that had no words. My view the greatest actors I have ever seen are people who can convey messages without script. And you are absolutely amazing and convey. No, thank you. That is good. You know, people don't understand the hardest thing to do as an actor is to listen. Hardest thing to do as a human being. It's to listen. So to be quiet and actually not do a whole lot. You know, we think over the camera is on. I got to act it up. Less is actually more. Less is actually more. Please write that down. Less is more. One of the big mistakes that I think that church actors make is that they go overboard. The real pros understand that less is more. If it feels good to you, it probably isn't any good. That's the truth. If you feel so good about yourself, then you're too self-aware. So you're probably not as good as you think because you're too busy thinking, yeah, I'm acting now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. And it shows. It shows to the audience. I was sitting there screaming at the TV set because I was just mesmerized. In fact, I teased you about it. I told you that you died so well that I was ready to commit your body to the ground in that scene. In safe house? Yes. You know what? That's my favorite death of mine. Yo, you died, Negro. That and training day. That was the two of my favorite deaths. I started saying ashes to ashes. It was much easier than I thought. The brother was dead, okay? This guy died for like five minutes. He just died. I see people die all the time. I thought he was dead. I got my rose. I got my sash. And I started to force my stand and tell him to part of brother's past from death. He was gone. And you said to me at the time, you said, I died too well. Now they're trying to do a sequel. Can you give me that? Yes, sir. And we left about it. And we talked about it. It was an amazing thing. I think you're right. When you think of Antoine Fisher, you introduced... Thank you. What was amazing? Not only did you... You produced it. You directed it. You brought new talent to the stage that we had not known. I think he delivered one of his greatest performances up under I'm like, Derek, Derek Luke. And people don't realize a young woman in there by the name of Viola Davis. Listen, I was coming down. Oh, you was getting up. Yeah, I realized Viola Davis got her star playing his mother. She plays her, his mother in the scene in that. No lines. No lines, no lines. No, she has one line. You want something to eat. Yeah. That's all she says. You want something to eat. But can't nobody outcry Viola Davis. Listen, baby girl can cry. She can cry until I start crying. I don't even know what I'm crying about. How did you cast those two unheard of people and then direct them in a way that you got the best out of them? Because now the reason I ask this question, whether you are in film or interested in entertainment, this is really about how do you get the best out of the people you choose in the position you hold. So don't just listen from an entertaining aspect, but from an informational aspect to understand, how do you choose people who are going to play a role in your organization, A, and B, how do you get the best out of them, should help every leader, every pastor, every manager, every entrepreneur in this room. Because some of the time we suffer because we got the wrong cast, we hired the wrong people. Some of the times we suffer because we have the right people, but we lack the ability to get the best out of them. You have to do both of them in order to be successful. Teach us how to do that. Get out of the way. It's easy to say, but hard to do. I can't play the part. Derek played the part. Viola played the part. Sometimes we want to do it all. Get out of the way. Get out of the way. That's a modest answer. It's a, I'm not gonna let you off that easy. Okay. Because anybody can get out of the way. We can get out of the way. We can get out of the way. I understand that you are saying not to try to make the actor be you, but that ignores the fact that you had to select somebody who had that thing in them. How do you look at someone and see in them things that has yet to be unearthed out of them? When I'm casting, I always tell the casting people, I only need one. I only needed one Viola Davis. I didn't need 10. So, and I know it when I see it. And I know it when I haven't seen it. So when it walks in the room, then when she walked in the room, I knew. So, and I knew. So it's a gut thing. It's an instinct thing more than, I look for this, this, this, this, this. It's not a checklist. You know, I think I know what good acting is. Yeah, you gotta know what good acting is. You gotta know what you're looking for, which is a note worth taking. You gotta know what you're looking for, because I think a lot of times, we don't know what we're looking for. We're interviewing people, but we know the job description. We know the title, but we don't know the temperament, the talent, and how well they will fit into the continuity of our organization. So we have to be able to do that. So we hire people who have the right education, but they are toxic in the organization. Are you hearing what I'm saying? You have to know what the temperament is that you're looking for. Again, you'll know it when you see it, but whether you know it or not, you are casting in your office, in your church, in your choir, in your leadership, anybody coming to congregation, I don't care. But whoever's gonna be on the team, I already know what temperament a person I need in that team, and I'm not just looking at their bio. I'm looking at their body language, their personality, their work ethic, how congenial they are with people, how sensitive they are. I don't need a drama queen running a conference. I don't need you creating problems. I need you solving problems. And so I can clearly delineate what I'm looking for in an individual. He has a list of criteria, and he's saying that he knows in his head that he's looking for an actor, and that he will know it when he sees it. You cannot regulate that over to somebody else. Nelson Mandela said, a leader like a shepherd sends the fast nimble sheep out front so that the rest will follow, not realizing they're all being led. From behind. So a leader leads quietly from behind. You don't have to jump out front, and I don't have to out act everybody, and we want to do it all. Don't get out the way, let me show you. But that was pretty good advice from Mr. Mandela. Yeah, I would think so. I would think so. Chapter three, faith. When you start thinking about August Wilson, the body of his work, the magnitude of his impact on the Broadway stage, off-Broadway stage, at a time that black people were not being recognized, the body of his work ended up in your hands of which fences is one deposit. What made you make the... Yeah, give it up for fences. What made you make the decision to buy the body of his work, or to own the body? The family came to me. The family came. Yeah, his widow, Kastanza said, we'd like you to take care of August's plays for us and make films. I said, I'm just a man for the job. So that's what I'm doing. What made you give that answer? Because it's the truth. What did somebody say was, said you're not conceited, you're convinced. Yeah. I mean, I'm not bragging. I mean, I was the right one in the right place at the right time, with the right power in the right position to get things done. And you got them done. I'm getting them done. I'm getting them done. One by one, you're getting them done. And then, what made you make the decision to keep so much of his original cast and take them from the stage to the screen? These are decisions. What I'm asking him is, how do you make decisions? Because that has a lot to do with defining the success of your leadership. How do you make decisions? And some people hold positions, but delegate decisions. Say that again. Some people hold positions, but delegate decisions. And while I want everybody's input into the decision, my style of leadership, the final decision is gonna be mine. Okay, I welcome your input. I'm not a dictator. I wanna hear your input. And I will adjust my decision if your information shifts the outcome. But at the end of the day, I don't want people making decisions that I have to live with. Because at the end of the day, it's not gonna be your name in the paper. It's gonna be mine. That's correct. And I want to know. Correct. Am I right about it? Yes, you are. They're not gonna write about your staff. They're gonna write about you. And they're not gonna attack your staff. They're gonna attack you. They don't know the name of your staff. They're gonna come after you. And so you wanna be in... You wanna hire people that are smart enough that they bring you brilliant ideas. But you have to decide, are those brilliant ideas worth the consequences of those ideas? In my world, that's how I do it. In your world, what made you make the decision to keep these people who had never been on screen as far as I know, had always been on stage and yet you brought them on stage. And then I'm gonna tell you what they told me about you. You talking about fences now? Fences. I'm still talking about fences. Because they were great actors. Viola Davis, Steven McKinley Henderson, Michael T. Whim. They were all great actors. And I'm loyal. We got the success that we had on stage together. Why should I... Now we had to recast a little girl. Because she... And one other part, because the kid grew up. But... They do that. Yeah, they do that. They got it. Funny how that works. Yeah, it is. Relieving, actually. They keep coming back, though. Mine are here, so I won't come in. Now... You brought them to the stage. I interviewed them while I was doing a talk show in Hollywood. This is what they told me about you. They told me that you were as much a director, producer, as you were a pastor. They said you started every morning with prayer. Right. They said they were spiritually enriched up under your leadership because of your consciousness of God. Well... Thank you. Yeah. Now, look, I've been on the set a few times myself, not nearly, nearly, nearly, nearly what you've done. But it is not normal to start the day with prayer. It's not... No. I didn't hear what you said. It's not normal to start the day with prayer. Well, I don't know what other people do, but... I mean, on the set, I'm not talking about in your personal life to have the boldness of faith to bring a crew together and say, let's pray before we start. I'm not seeing a lot of people do that in Hollywood. Where are we? What town we in? Ori and Charlotte. You know, it's funny. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah, Ori and Charlotte. People talk about Hollywood. Like it's a place where evil things happen. Los Angeles is a city. There's no place called Hollywood. We don't all get together and have Hollywood. It have Hollywood meetings. Yeah. Hollywood is the street in Los Angeles. I'm in the movie business. Right. I'm not in the Hollywood... I don't even know what the Hollywood business is. Right. I don't know how to do that. I make movies. I do plays. I direct and... That's... That being said, and that is absolutely true. And I've been on both sides of the street. I don't demonize what is called, quote, unquote, Hollywood. I'm just saying in the course of doing business, every person in business brings a cast together and has prayer. True. That doesn't happen. Why does that happen with you? Because I was raised right... I don't know. You know, my father was a minister. I know your father was a minister. Father was a minister. He's a PK, y'all. Give it up, PKs. Church of God in Christ. Church of God in Christ. Yeah. My mother grew up in... Well, folks not old enough. Kelly Temple in New York City. Okay. My mother grew up in that church. See you at home. I see. Evidently being raised in the faith that you still are involved in the faith. You still have been a loyal supporter of West Angeles. You've done some amazing things down through the years. You have helped Bishop Blake in amazing ways. You have helped many people start and launch their careers. You have financed historically black colleges. You have been extremely philanthropic. You have a different rhythm in your soul. Is that coming from your faith? That's sad that you say that. Have to even say that. Because that's what we all should do. Yeah. It shouldn't be. There's nothing exceptional about... Should. Should. Emphasis on the word should. But you know, without sitting here talking to me, that that is exceptional. That very few people have the kind of temperament, especially that lasts that long and started that young. We have not seen you. We seen you do sexy things, but we have not seen your body. You have not prostituted yourself in any film at any time. Oh, you haven't seen all the movies then. You ain't seen... Yeah. You ain't seen... I saw you down to your drawers, but I don't recall. Okay, let's keep it real. I did a little bump in the grind. I did a little bump in the grind, but you never... Yeah. That's terrible. Yeah. I did this out of the tape. We're going to keep it real for a minute. You didn't put your everything out there, let me say it like that, to get a role. Why didn't you? And are you glad you did it? I had a mentor in college my senior year when I really just started acting. And he talked to me about never having to compromise myself. And I remembered that. That that wasn't necessary. And I got that guy... I mean, I've just been blessed beyond measure. I found out early in college that I had this unique ability. And things that were happening in my life... I don't know if some people maybe have heard me talk about a woman prophesied. When I was 20 years old, she said, boy, you're going to travel the world and preach to millions of people. She didn't say you're going to be famous. She didn't say you're going to win Oscars. She didn't say any of those things. She said, you know, you are going to travel. By the way, I was flunging out of college. I had a 1.7 grade point average. I was in my mother's beauty shop. And the reason I was in her beauty shop was because I was not in school. I was not in school that semester. And this woman, Miss Ruth Green, had this prophecy that is coming true. Uh-huh. It's coming true. It's coming true. I talked to you on the phone, and I tell you that I believe that you have something down inside of you beyond acting from a spiritual perspective that is awakening. If you agree with that, tell us what that feels like. And that has shown up in your work. It has shown up off camera. What is evolving in you now from a spiritual perspective? It's just that. It's evolving. You know? I remember talking to Bishop Blake years ago. I said, well, you know what you do? Should I become a preacher? Should I? He said, no, no, you have your pulpit. You know? And use it. So I do have a... Everybody talks about a platform. I got a pretty, I guess, big platform or whatever you call it. Yeah. You got a pretty big platform. Yeah. So I try to use it for good. Use it for good. Use it for good. Use it for good. Chuchet Four, a great way. One buffet says that if a man toward the autumn of his life, and this is a poor quote of it, but pretty close, has still maintained the respect and love of the people who matter most, he is a successful man. You live and work in an industry where the falling apart of the home is the headlines of the week, and people swap in relationships all the time. It is a very difficult thing to be who you are and still be a father and still be a husband. And yet somehow you have been graced that the people who matter most still respect you. Tell us how. I have a great wife. That's the answer. Listen, bro. I have a great, great, listen, my wife is from right here, North Carolina. She was a child prodigy. She was the van clobber and competitor, one of the world's best young pianists at nine years old. She was the first black woman that was supposed to be Miss North Carolina at a time when they couldn't let a black person be. She had gotten, whatever, Miss Runner-Up or First Runner-Up, they couldn't even let her be First Runner-Up because if Miss North Carolina fell out, she couldn't go to all the places. In this state, yeah, yeah. So her father was an educator. They had one of the top, this was back in segregation, before integration, they had one of the top schools in North Carolina, the top debating team. One of the best schools in North Carolina was an old black school from Newton, North Carolina. Wow. Yeah. I think that's such a great answer. It's one that I could really relate to having a great wife has a lot to do with whether you make it to the store. And it's always nice when she's cute, but it's not nice when she's cute and not great. Got a witness somewhere in there. So a word up to the fellows, a lot of times you have more emphasis on cute than great, but what makes the relationship sustainable is great rather than cute. And I think that one of the problems that we have with longevity is that it is expensive to be a great woman. In a world where women spend billions of dollars looking cute, it is more expensive to be a great woman because a great woman absorbs a lot of shock, a lot of sorrow, a lot of pain. A great woman bites her tongue at times that other women speak their mind. It is expensive to be a great woman to know when to speak and when to shut up and go the other way. A lot of women who started clapping when he said that you have to really do inventory, is he talking about you? Because I really do think a lot of the credit goes to holding things together. And something fair is probably not right, but it still is true to having a great woman. We come up sometimes to get the bow, but really the woman is the glue, at least at my house. Serena is the glue. She is the glue and the staples and the safety pins and the stitches and everything else. I kid you not. My wife is consistent. She made breakfast every morning for the children. They had a little Bible study every morning. She drove them to school every morning. So when I was out running, making the movies, killing the line and bringing the meat home, Serena cooked that. She was doing that. It might be our generation, but I can take your statement and put it right on Serena, having prayer with the kids every morning, making sure everybody got something to eat and still doing her day and still doing her thing and still building her business and still went back and got her a degree and still supportive of me and still got her hair done. You have to be a bad woman to be a great woman. Multitalented. In fact, a great woman is a corporation in one person. She is a corporation all by herself. If you are a great woman, you are a corporation. Whether you start a business or not, you are a complete corporation. Give yourselves a hand if you think you are a great woman. Let me say this to the guys out there. You got to have vision to see potential. Instead of, well, I ain't working right now. Let me go over here. Let me go over here. Let me go over here. You know, I helped my wife's pedigree. She raised me up out to get her a little bit. I had one foot in the street. So it's a balance. It's a balance. Tell the truth, Shave the Devil. I'm with you. I was throwing rocks at the penitentiary now. No question. The thing about it is at different stages of life, you raise each other. At different stages of life, you parent your partner, depending on what is going on at that particular moment. And people have given up on parenting their partner because it has become popular to replace rather than to develop. Chapter five, get out of the way. How much of who you are affects what you do? Let me say it like that. I don't know. I mean, I don't examine myself. Really? No. No, I don't, you know, I know where I got it from. I know what I'm supposed to do with it. And that's good enough for me. I don't keep notes, sort of, you know, talk to myself too much about it. I try to get out of the way. You try to get out. I try to get out of the way. Yeah. You know, man goes down to the ocean, tries to fit all the knowledge of the ocean into his little brain instead of just jumping into water and enjoying himself. Faith is jumping into water. Ego is, if I don't understand it, it doesn't exist. You think we can reduce everything to our level of understanding is ego on steroid. How dare any of us, I know what's best. Oh, really? Okay. Good luck. Yeah. You know, three times since we've been talking, you have said get out of the way. Oh, yeah? Okay. And if I had to entitle this talk, this master class, I would have to call it get out of the way. And that is so simple and yet so profound and yet so difficult to do because often we worship at the shrine of our own point of view. Say that again. We worship at the shrine of our own point of view. Yes. Wow. Yeah. It ain't gonna be impressive or something, I said. Come on now. Give me a break. But really, I do think that that is actually, that is idolatry at its highest form is to think that the way that you see it is the way that it is. What I try to do with my life is to understand your perspective. While other people talk about what you do, I always wonder why. I always want to empathize even with my enemy to make sure that my enemy is not a friend in disguise or somebody who has been hurt in such a way that they react in a way that yes, wounded me, but not intentionally. I try not to smack a patient. Pastor A.R. Hard talks about that when people come to him or come at him or at anyone with anger. First thing you ask is, who hurt you? Yeah. Because that's usually where it... He's brilliant. Yeah, that's my man. Yeah, he's brilliant. Who hurt you? That is not generally the first thing we ask when we are offended. But it might be a good takeaway to take with you from this meeting. Instead of deciding, I don't deal with her, I don't like him, I can't stand them. They're angry, they're stupid, they're hateful, they're demonic. Maybe the first question to ask is, who hurt you? Because I think it's easier to love things you understand. And if you can begin to understand the other person's perspective, it changes how you pray for them, it changes how you handle them. And it most importantly leaves the door open. The most amazing thing, I'm appreciative of that, the most amazing thing about the Prodigal Son, story to me, it's not the Prodigal Son, I know what it is to drift away. I also know what it is to be the elder brother and stay and feel ignored. I stayed in one ministry for seven years and only preached twice and my big job was to clean the baptism pools. So I understand the elder brother, I understand the Prodigal Son because I have gone on a few adventures in my life. I'll keep them to myself, but I have. But the star of the text is the father because he left the door open for the son to come home. And I find very few people in life leave the door open for change. Chapter six, passing the baton. You have in a lot of ways left the door open for other people to come behind you, for other people to experience change, for other people to have careers. You talked about the level of training that you have. I talked about the level of training, the scholarships that you've given to other people that created massive careers. His name escapes me right now. The guy who played in Black Panther, everybody. Chad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting you mentioned that because I was about to tell a story about it. Tell a story about it. No, I was on Broadway. And they had a screening of Black Panther. So I told Ryan Coogler, the director, that I was going to come. So I snuck in because I didn't want to deal with the red carpet. I'm a low-key person. I'm going to take pictures and all that. So I went in the back way and Ryan Coogler and Chad were there talking. And he's like, oh, you're just the person I wanted to see. I said, yeah, I want to see you too because he owed me some money. But when I sat in the audience, when I sat in the audience and watched that film, I understood that the baton had been passed. You know, I looked at the, I said, boy, these young boys are gone. Yeah. To the tune of a billion dollars that movie ended up making. I said, they're gone now. You know, when you run a relay race and you hand the baton off, you don't stop. As soon as you hand it off, you run behind the person. So I handed it off and I'm running behind them. But I know I'm not going to make it all the way around the track. Now none of us knew that Chad was. That's good right there. That's good right there. That's good right there. That's good right there. I'm ready to go over and throw $20 on the altar because of that. But I had to, I had to, when I watched the movie, I had to shed a tear. I mean, I sat there and I shed a tear. I'm like, these young boys are gone. You know, not make anything out of myself, but Sidney took it a certain distance. I took it a certain distance and now they gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They gone. And I think it. My son's one of them. Yeah. Yeah. My family's one of them. Yeah. That's the greatest feeling in the world. When you. And my daughter, remember I said so. Yeah. Olivia Washington, just remember I said so. Yeah. Yeah. My sister. To be at this stage now and not be jealous. To be at this stage and not be in this, to be at this stage and be glad to see younger men and women coming up and grabbing that baton while you are yet running. You are not angry or jealous or competing with them. You're kind of running to make sure they're okay. Go, go, go. I enjoy. Coaching who's next more than being who's next. Yeah. Me too. Me too. That stage I find is not always prevalent in our generation because some in our generation are still wrestling with who am I outside of what I do. And if I am not this, then I don't see a role, but I see a clear path. I'm happy to be Timothy's Paul. I'm happy to be Ruth Naomi. I'm happy to be Elisha's Elijah because I know what it is to be young and run and have no one to talk to and have no safe place to lay your head and have nobody to pull me over into the corner and say, don't slap nobody at all stage. Did you see them? You need somebody and you're not really a father until you care enough to chew me out. And you're not really a son until you can be chewed out and still come back to my arms and understand father love doesn't sound like mama love. And we have a generation of people who have been raised to the tune of a mama love. And they don't, anytime you say something harsh, they see you as an enemy and react and fight you rather than to understand. It takes energy to care. It takes energy to argue. It takes energy to confront you. You could have sat in your seat at the Oscars and let that go down, but you got out of your seat and... No, I couldn't have sat in my seat. No way I could have sat in my seat. No way you could sit in your seat and tell me why. That's just not who I am. That's not who you are. And that's exactly my point. You just proved my point. That's not who I am. You understand who you are and you're comfortable enough in your own skin that you're concerned when another runner trips. That's exactly my point. First of all, it's good to see you. Good to be seen by you. Friend of mine used to say that. I used to love that. Anytime somebody would say, good to see you, so good to be seen by you. Yeah, it is good. It's good to see you. After the Oscars, after all the stuff you went through, after everything you handled, to jump on a plane, to fly out here on the red out with no sleep and come up on the stage to talk to a group of people that you don't need and you didn't have to, is absolutely stellar. I want to thank you for that. This is the, I don't know if I said it up when I was up here, man gives the award, God gives the reward. This is the reward for me. Really? You know, awards are good, but this is better. This is food for me. Good. It's food for us. Is it not food for us? I hope it doesn't put you on the spot really, but I'm going to put you on the spot and I only ask you to do this because you do it every morning for your cast and your crew. I am not going to ask you to close this. Let's bow our heads. Let's bow our heads. Dear Father in Heaven, we thank you. We know that to whom much is given, much is expected, much is required, and we know that you require from each and every one of us our undivided love for you. You are our beacon of light in this darkness, and we say thank you and thank you and thank you and thank you and thank you, not just for what you've done, but what you are going to do, what we can't see. Thank you for guiding our steps. Thank you for protecting us when we're getting here and when we leave here today. Just thank you for all that you've done, and I pray and I know that out there in this audience, I just feel the people in this audience, Lord. I feel them, Lord. I feel them, Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I feel them, Lord, and I know that you want to touch them all. I pray that something we set up here touches them and makes their relationship with you stronger, better, tighter, more loving. These things we ask in your son's name, and we pray and we know, we know, we know, and we thank you. Amen. Amen. You just got prayed for by the one and only Denzel Washington. Come on. Well, thank you, my friend. It's my pleasure. My pleasure. Hey, everybody. I want to thank you. It's my pleasure. My pleasure. Hey, everybody. I want to take this time to thank you for watching the next chapter podcast. If this conversation inspired you, helped you, reflect on an idea or spark something new inside of you, make sure to like, comment, and subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. Remember, life isn't about how you begin. It's about how you're pretty strong. So start your next chapter without right here every week.