Yo, what's up people? I'm your host Jay Will and I would like to welcome you to inspire guys people where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. This is episode 239, best things never happen. Maintaining faith in doubt.
Yo, so I'm excited to be here on this beautiful Saturday, kicking with your life. Best things never happen is a concept that I had started kicking around maybe eight years ago. And it's really the idea of what if everything I wanted in this life was really the best thing to never happen. I don't know if y'all are like me, man, or you going through life and you, you know, at different points in time if I'm being real, there was some things I wanted that probably, probably wasn't best for me.
You know what I'm saying? In the long term, maybe it was because I was younger, in a particular moment, maybe it was because I was just selfish, maybe it was just because I was not wise or experienced enough to look at the full spectrum and the full picture. And you know, the first thing I really wanna talk about is the reality of disappointment. And throughout this episode, you know, we'll talk about the reality of disappointment.
We'll kind of end up, you know, talking about how to overcome disappointment with faith, through faith and keep your faith, not with faith, but you know, while keeping your faith, I can talk people, I promise I can. So listen, if you like this content, please do like, share, subscribe, you know what I'm saying? Share it with somebody that you really think this might bless at the end of the day, we just kicking it. All right, so first things first, the reality of disappointment.
I know we live in this social media world where everybody's life just seems so amazing. Doesn't it, you know, we judge pretty much, we judge life off of how many followers people have. So if someone has a whole bunch of followers, we just kind of fill in the blanks and assume the rest of their life must be amazing. If your car is amazing or your job is amazing, or you look amazing, your spouse looks amazing, your children are cute.
We kind of just fill in the blanks and just think like, yo, you know what, the rest of their life must not be like mine, their life must be amazing. But there is a reality to disappointment. We all go through it. So don't believe the lies that you see out there, don't kind of be deceived by social media, or even people you might know in real life, and you know, you just don't know all of their business.
And it doesn't mean everybody life is messed up in its different levels to disappointment. So it doesn't mean that somebody who looks happy really isn't happy. You know, I don't think we should be going around like just being super negative, but it's about balancing the reality that, you know what, we all are experiencing some level of disappointment, right? And, you know, one of the weird things about life is that everybody's life doesn't go at the same pace.
So we tend to want to look at age as this determining factor or barometer of like, all right, how do I measure up to where I'm at versus where I'm supposed to be? But the reality of it is, you know, everybody's life just does not go at the same pace. Some people start off a lot rougher than others. And, you know, through those rough experiences, whatever they may be, sometimes that person develops a mindset or gains a different perspective.
Now this can be good and bad, right? Disappointments, especially early on, can create bitterness. So some people might experience a really rough life growing up and just through time become more bitter and rough on the outside. You know what I'm saying?
And maybe a little tougher to be vulnerable or to have hope or to have faith, right? And so sometimes we just got to respect the fact that we're all on this individual course of life. And, you know, the longer you live at some point, right? And it doesn't mean that it has to be horrible, not wishing nothing bad on people, but just you live long enough, you're going to have some level of disappointment.
Now the thing about it is sometimes the disappointment is external and it comes from people, relationships, friends, family, things you might have imagined. Like, yo, it's going to be like this. And then you start life goes on and it ends up not necessarily turning out the way you anticipated it for one reason or another. Sometimes, you know, if you like me, I've been a cause of some of my own disappointment in life.
And sometimes you don't measure up to what you thought you would be. You might have a tough moment. You might not react how you would have thought you would have reacted, you know, in a particular moment. Because it's easy to say what you would do if you'd never been there and then you might experience something.
And then maybe not act how you thought you would act. And sometimes that's tough to overcome, you know, the mindset of like, disappointing yourself, right? So there's all these various factors of disappointment, various levels of disappointment. But ultimately what we got to know is that everybody experiences it.
So none of us are exempt from some level of disappointment. And the reality of it is that can be challenging to deal with. I know for me, I've had challenging moments of dealing with disappointment because what happens is you get your hopes up. Like you really were expecting something to be a certain way.
And I'm going to share some of my disappointments with y'all a little bit later in this episode. But I'm just really trying to lay the foundation of the fact that the reality is that no matter how cute somebody is, no matter if somebody has a lot of money, no matter what it is about them, you know, they've experienced some level of disappointment. And I think that's just good to know for us to know, like you're not the only one, you're not alone. Sometimes I believe the enemy wants us to think like, yo, it's just me.
Why has this happened to me? I'm the only one that is, I'm any seven, eight billion people in the world. I don't know the actual number. But the reality of it is there's a lot of different people in the world.
Imagine if every person in the world wrote a book. Imagine of the stories and the experiences that, you know, would be found in there. And then sometimes like it might not to minimize your own issues, but it might cause you to have a different perspective around like, whoa, wait a minute. You know, although I'm disappointed, there's somebody going through something worse, right?
And so yeah, disappointment is realistic. And sometimes they shape us. I think we got to be careful with disappointment, not to allow it to make us bitter, not to allow it to cause us to have a victim mentality. Cause sometimes the experience is a disappointment can justify a person for a Harvard A.
Acting or Harvard A. Finland, you know what I'm saying? So that's the reality of disappointment. The second thing I want to discuss is disappointment is not the final destination.
I know like when you going through something, especially if it didn't turn out how you wanted to, it feels kind of final. It feels like, yo, now that this happened, I can never overcome it. Now that this happened, I can never get here. And look, I'm not saying, you know, there are not consequences and things in life.
But ultimately the overall point is that regardless of where you at, there is some level of hope that on the other side of your disappointment, right? On the other side of things, not working out quite how you want it to, there is hope for you to overcome that disappointment. And I think, you know, one of the things I've tried to do throughout my life is do a lot of reading because reading gives you different perspectives, especially reading other people's success stories. So I love reading business success stories and learning about business success stories, even through movies, there are some movies out there that's really dope.
The founder comes to mind the McDonald's story. And then there's this one, man, I don't want to, Anthony Mackie is the Samuel Jackson in there, the banker. I think it's called the banker. That's a really good one.
Those are two really good books, just understanding how people overcome failures and disappointment and different things. And the reason that I do that reading is because, look, I only have my life experience and then maybe I can pull on the ones around me, but I think it makes us a lot better when we could just pull on a lot more diverse experiences in life and try to have as much perspectives as possible as it relates to different lifestyles and not being in the echo chamber because I think these days, especially with social media and everything, it's easy just to be surrounded with people that think just like you, that live where you live, that's from where you're from, that have all your particular views. And then you kind of end up not really having a well-rounded perspective of life. So reading success stories is something that really has helped me just understand that disappointment isn't final, right?
And failure isn't final. So on the other side of that, it also can really lead to success when you think about it. So as an example, Colonel Sanders, I did a whole podcast episode. If you look in our archives on Colonel Sanders and his story, I actually think I talked about it in two shows, but like you think about KFC and that chicken that we are at some point, love and like or whatever, or at least have tasted, if you're not a chicken person, but at the end of the day, it's famous chicken, KFC and a biscuit soup.
And when you think about it, like if you look at his story, Colonel Sanders started cooking, having a master cooking at a young age because his father died. And so essentially he kind of had to step up and be the man of the house. And I'm talking seven, eight years old, he was cooking full meals for the family, right? Now you gotta understand the time in which he was living in, I don't remember if it was like 30s or 40s or something, but it was, you know, Colonel Sanders was pretty old in comparison to us.
So, you know, think about the disappointment that he might have experienced losing his father, think about the day and time that he lived in, where a kid had to step up, right? Like that would be crazy now. You wouldn't expect a seven-year-old, even though I'm sure it happens, right? But you wouldn't expect a seven-year-yearold to have to step up to the plate and be making full meals for their family while their mother is out at work.
But Colonel Sanders, through that experience, became a master chef. So just think about it, like, it's weird, right? If you don't have the disappointment of his father passing early and him having to carry this huge responsibility of being a chef for the family, then you probably don't ever get that chicken because maybe there's a love or a discovery of a love of, you know, cooking that happened throughout that process. If nothing else, just, you know, kind of enhancing your skillset, sharpen your tools, right?
And becoming better at something. And so that's an example of looking at other people's stories and reading their stories, just understanding like, yo, like, disappointment and failure are not final. And so again, rebooks, like, don't allow yourself to get caught up and not have other experiences out here. And what's the other thing I wanna do?
So now real quick, I wanna actually talk a little bit about best things never happen, which is this song from my latest project, This Time Is Different, and it's really wrapped up in covering everything we just discussed. But I wanna listen to the song a little bit, show a little bit of the video, and then maybe in a vulnerable fashion, share a little detail behind some of my disappointments. And then we're gonna close out with like, how do we overcome this disappointment? Cause we don't wanna be stuck in disappointment.
We don't wanna talk about disappointment in a way just to stay there, right? We trying to like lay a realistic foundation of what it is, but at the same time, the fact that, yo, it's a way out of that. So let me get to my screen. I'm gonna share my screen real quick.
All right, let me mute this. All right, yeah, that look good. It seems like the best things never happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The fast life, swerve it through heavy traffic, sounds as I'm blasting, just imagine guys are on the radio and it's a classic no. You know the best things ever happen? Or maybe it's the best thing for never happening? Maybe everything I wanted was the best thing for never happening.
Nah, this what I was thinking about. I wanted 20 inch rims on my 88 money car, low. Big speakers in the truck, no space for cargo. I wanna be the starting shootin' car, don't know whoop swerve, Lord knows I be called up in a hoop law.
My new car, I wanted a new car. That means I wanted stupid money, so much of it I don't know what to do with money. I wanted kids by the age of 24, maybe three or four. By the time that I was 34, little bit I know, that would never happen in my time in fake films and ghosts.
Then I went right there with a ruddy doves. Lord, please give me what it owes. Little mini-meas with the chubby robes, a prince and a prince, that's what I wanna vote. Is it in your will, Lord, I wanna know?
Do the best things never happen? Yes or no? It's such a struggle, you protect me from myself and I love you. At times I don't understand it, but I know I can trust you.
You owe me nothing, but still you gave me something. So if my only something is the something that you gave me and it's not a baby, I'd be crazy, not to be grateful, love it. I'll shout, not cove it. The fast life, swerve it through heavy traffic, the sound system blasting, just imagine.
Guys are on the radio, it's a classic, no. You know the best things never happen. Maybe it's the best thing to never happen. Maybe everything I wanted was the best thing to never happen.
All right, that was best things never happened, at least the first verse. So first of all, hopefully you enjoyed that. Shout out to Playa Park Films. I worked with them to create that visual.
It was a fun project that they created. I wrote out the script and kind of what I wanted to be happening, which is dope because it actually is a continuation of the last video I shot, slow down, where at the end of that video, I kind of walk out with the Omenac. Go watch that, check it out, subscribe to J-Will Music on YouTube. But thinking about best things never happen, let me kick it with you a little bit about this song and this idea then we're gonna close it out with how to overcome disappointment.
So first things first, that song was actually written and recorded eight years ago. So one of the aspects of my last project this time is there's this time travel element, where I'm traveling through time. And so I wanted to use songs. Like I have songs, I still got a couple more that are completely finished songs that I did years ago.
And for whatever reason, you just you're not feeling it, the concept doesn't match whatever you're doing. And this was one of those songs where I wrote and recorded this song seven, I think it was eight years ago. And so I decided to pull it into this project. So I led the idea of pulling this old recording in, but read beefed up the production and did some new things with the production.
And so to bring the future in, and one of the dope things he did was he used AI on the hook. So the singer on that song is actually AI, you know what I'm saying? So really excited about that. And then wanted to do some creative with the video, animation and things like that, where you have the two versions of myself one in present day, one from the future.
And the present day version is trying to catch the future version to give back this on and that. So anyway, all that being said, best things never happen. Some of the things I kick it about in the song, I start off the song and say, I wanted 20 inch rims on my 88 money, Carlo, big speakers in the trunk, no space for cargo. I wanna be the starting shooting guard on the hoop squad.
Lord knows I be caught up in that hoop law. My new car, one at a new car. That means I wanted stupid money, so much of it, I don't know what to do with the do with money, but I don't know if that income would have been a good outcome for real. I wanted kids by the age of 24, maybe three or four, by the time that I was 34, little did I know that would never happen in my time and fate comes and goes.
And now I'm rapping with a runny nose. Lord, please give me one of those little mini me's with the chubby rose, a prince and a princess. I want them both. Is it in your will Lord?
I wanna know do the best things ever happen. Yes or no, it's such a struggle. You protect me from myself and I love you. All right, my bad.
I just passed out. I didn't mean to do all that. Let's go back. Go back to the beginning.
I like that song. I'm doing that live. I'm doing that song live for sure. All right, I wanted 20 inch rims on my 88 money, Carlo.
So I had this 88 money, Carlo and college. It was a little bust. I'm not sure if we did the one in the video, but I really wanted 20s on that car. I wanted to be the starting shooting guard on the basketball team in high school and in college.
College I would have settled for the bench, to be honest. But my point is just starting off the song. This first verse is like, this is all real. These are things that I wanted in life.
Now, first of all, the 20 inch rims on the money, Carlo. Now I'm like, who cares? What was that? That was gonna be a waste of money.
I was gonna take some money that I didn't need to spend. I don't know, pay $1,500 for some rims or $2,000. Rims cost more than a car down here. Okay, so you see how sometimes you could be disappointed about something and it's like really, that's the best thing to never happen.
Like that is the best thing that never happened to me. The hoop squat. Now anybody who knows me knows I love basketball. D Riley, whatever, bro.
Yeah, yeah, bro. I said on this for eight years, I'm not gonna lie. Like completely finished eight years. I changed one line in this song this time around.
Everything else I recorded, I didn't rerecord nothing. It was eight years ago. I wanted to really play basketball. Like when I look back on it, like best thing that never happened to me.
At the end of the day, you know, I wanted to play basketball when you younger, you want the attention and you want all those things probably would have created a different person, you know, on the inside. And like I probably would have got caught up in more things than I needed to. And so I look back now and I'm like, yo, you know, thank God, the other thing really is, I think if I would have made it hoop in, it would have limited me. And so one thing about hoop and I really wanted to hoop, that's all I wanted to do.
But when I failed at hoop and I had to discover new ideas and new things, because I wasn't gonna just sit and do nothing. I've always been on the go, a do or doing something in my life. So, you know, I had to find other things. I had to lean more into music.
I leaned into fashion. Just other creative things that ultimately business was really the best discovery for me, you know, in my life from a professional standpoint. And you have a lot more longevity in business than sports. Not that sports look, sports are great, but the people who made it like shout out to them for sure.
Again, I wish I would have, but I didn't. So you have to deal with that disappointment and sometimes try to see the positive side. Now, here's the tough one, right? In this song, I rap about, you know, the fact that I wanted children.
And, you know, what did I say? Whew, I can't even get the bars out now. I wanted 20 inch rims on my 88 Monte Carlo, big speakers in the trunk, no space for cargo. I wanna be the starting shooting guard on hoop, I don't know who's gonna go on the hoop, my new car, I wanted a new car.
That means I want to stupid money so much of it. I don't know what to do with money, but I don't know what that income would have been a good outcome. Man, that's a big one right there. Like sometimes we want money, like you just want more and more money.
And it's like, with that income really be a good outcome for you. Like are you gonna be able to keep your focus and your mind on the lower if you're making the kind of money you wanna make? You know, you gotta think about that. I want the kids by the age of 24.
Now, when I say that, you know, it was a game we played in middle school. It was kind of like, I forgot what it was called, but it was like this game where you were like, I forgot even how I went. But ultimately you would say like, how would you want to be when you get married? How would you want to be when you have kids?
So on and so forth. So 24 was always the age since I've been a like really young, a young teen, like I always used to say 24. And I don't think it was no real reason behind that. That was just what I thought.
I don't know. At the time, if you 12, 24 seems far away. So I used to say, you know, 24, you know, I want to wife and kids and things like that. And I actually did get married at 24.
But, you know, hey, I wanted kids by the time that I was by the age of 24, maybe three or four about the time that I was 34. Little did I know. So in that 10 year span, I'm like, 24, 24, 34 sounds reasonable to me. Like I'm gonna have me, a couple of kids.
You know what I'm saying? Maybe three, maybe four, right? And then you start dealing with that disappointment. That's not easy.
That's different for everybody. How you manage that type of disappointment. Because what happens is as time goes on, more reality starts setting in, at least that it didn't happen in the time and that you thought it would happen, right? So then it's like, yo, like, oh man, I wanted to be a young father.
Like I don't want to be like older. And like I wouldn't picture and being older and having a kid. And so there's all the disappointment is deep. Like, and I'm not gonna get all into that.
But like there's layers and levels to that disappointment of thinking that I was gonna be a father, you know, at 24. And then like, whoa, having to realize like, yo, that didn't happen. Now this is more of a question. Did the best thing ever happen?
Like this song and this idea, some of it is about asking God questions, not questioning God, asking God questions. And it's a little different mentality. I believe when you ask God questions versus question God, but you know, I'm not here to dig into the depth of that. Ultimately it's like, yo, like maybe everything I wanted was the best thing that never happened, right?
Maybe I wanted this, but God wanted something else for me. Maybe has the situation somehow made me a better person? Has it shaped me in a way that maybe I can't even tell? That like going through this gave me a different perspective, maybe a humble me, right?
Who know? Like, cause if you get everything you want, like you probably not gonna be humble. If you just go through life getting everything you want all the time, you're probably gonna be a fairly arrogant person. And when you're trying to live for the Lord, that's not really ideal.
So I don't know, like maybe everything I wanted was the best thing to never happen. And then you know, I kind of in the verse with saying, you know, well, if even if you never didn't give me what I wanted, you've given me so much more and so much else. And this leads to my last point today. And that is we must overcome disappointment with gratefulness.
Look, God has done something in our lives. Like he's done something, no matter what the disappointment is, no matter how big or how small the disappointment is, and I am not here to minimize your disappointment. That's not what this is about. It's not about minimizing it.
It's about understanding it, realizing that we all have levels of it, but that still God has done something. And so for me it was like, yo, even though I have all these things that I wanted, all these, you know, relationships with family, friendships, things that like in my mind, we're going to go a certain way. And for a different reason, some, my own, some other people, like for various factors in life, you have disappointments, but you have to try to move on and grow beyond the disappointment. And I believe that the way we do that is by being grateful.
Because gratefulness is a mindset, right? It's about saying I'm a wake up and look at what God has done for me. I'm a wake up and look at the glass half full. And I genuinely believe the more that you focus on the fullness of the glass, the more you focus on what God has actually done in your life, the fact that you actually are, you know, coherent right now that you're watching or listening to this, that you woke up this morning.
Because we know there were people that haven't, some of people's loved ones, I see every day on social media, passing God rest their souls. And so it gives you a gratefulness just for the most simple things of like, you know what, I woke up today. And there's hope even in waking up. So faith is not about thinking that life is somehow perfect.
Following Christ is not about thinking that life on this earth is somehow perfect or, you know, we're better than everybody else because, you know, we've given our lives a Christ. It ain't about that. It's really about like, yo, I'm just like you, when I got these struggles, I got these things that I'm dealing with and I'm walking through this life, trying to figure out like, how do I carry these things or maybe I shouldn't and give them over to God? And how do I walk and live in peace, even though I'm disappointed?
Even though I have disappointments, how do I keep and maintain faith? And I believe that happens through gratefulness because it's hard to be disappointed while you're grateful. And so sometimes in moments of disappointment, I try to think of reasons to be grateful because it's hard to experience both of those feelings at the same exact time. And I believe that, you know, although disappointment is reality, if you allow yourself to fester in it and just sit and think on it, it could become bitter, you could become negative, you could become a person that thinks about what God hasn't done or what he doesn't do.
And I want to say this, I think, you know, look, I'm praying for people on social media because sometimes I wake up, I look on social media and I'm like, man, some people every single day, it's like they're living fully in some tragedy, fully in some trauma. Even if it's 5,000 miles away, it's like, yo, bro, like you're not God. You know, like when you, it's two things, it's kind of my Bruce Almighty movie with Jim Carrey when he was whatever blasphemous as ever, but the idea of like he's God and like, so he's not hearing everybody. I think about Superman, how Superman, you know, and hear everybody, whatever, all these mythological figures, but the idea of the fact that like, that's God's job.
Right, I'm not Superman, like bro, I understand there's things that happen in the world that matter. I understand there are important things, but I can't carry the burdens of all those things. And one of the things that I think we have to be careful of, some of us haven't even dealt with our own burdens and our own disappointments and given those to God and figured out how to walk through life. And I'm just being real, sometimes I'm looking at everybody like, how are y'all carrying every burden from every country and every political figure?
And I'm like, bro, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to find out that the best things never happen for me. I'm trying, and not in a selfish way, but meaning like, yo, how can I figure out what's happening in a country that I never been and I don't know the truth and I'm not in it, I'm not, I don't have the top secret confidential information. I can't live in that every day and I'm watching people live in that stress and that trauma every day. And I'm like, that has to be doing something to us.
Like for real, for real, like it has to be doing something. Yes, our overcome disappointment with gratefulness. But I'm like, yo, I'm looking at everybody. I'm like, this can't be normal.
Like you do realize that sometimes it takes 10, 20 years to figure out, to learn the results of like a study or a situation. And I look at the world today and I'm like, yo, we packed in in a five year period. We packed in a couple of elections. So you got 2020, you got the elections, you got the Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, you got COVID, then you pack in another election, you pack in January six at the Capitol, you pack in MAGA and you, I'm like, you packing in everything you hate about Trump, everything you hate about Biden.
And I'm looking at everybody and I'm like, bro, how y'all doing this? Like for real, for real, are you okay? Like, are you good? Because you do realize like not every fight is your burden.
Now we're called to pray. And some of us, I'm like, are we praying for the nation? Like, are we actually praying for the nation? And I get it, I hear it.
People like prayer don't work. People like, yeah, see that's that disappointment. That's that allowing yourself to become a victim, allowing yourself to become so bitter that you go through all of life, only seeing a negative. Only seeing a negative in other people.
Like you got Christians fighting each other for the silliest reasons. You have people wanting to control what other people think. And I'm like, yo, we just live in an extreme society that in 20 years they gonna do case studies and we gonna learn a lot. But the thing I always think about with that is by the time you get the results, the damage is gonna be done.
So it's better now to be grateful for what God has done in your life, to be grateful for life itself, to be grateful for the people in your life, for to be grateful for the opportunity to grow, right? And sometimes it's about just dusting yourself off and taking that first step. So look, if you like me and you've experienced disappointment, it's not always easy, but you gotta start somewhere. So I hope that you start that path with Jesus Christ and the beauty of repenting and giving our lives to him and confessing our sins and being forgiven is that we can give some of those, all of those disappointments to him and allow him to sort through us through our spirit.
But that takes time as well. There's not like a magical thing that happens overnight. And that takes learning and growing at the same time. So even though you may experience disappointments, I'm praying that you find a way to be grateful.
I appreciate everybody who checked us out today and who will check this out in the future. And if you like it, please do like, share, subscribe, appreciate the love. Y'all have an amazing day. And I'll find a way not to be disappointed, fam.
Find a way.