A Call to Clarity - What Sidney Poitier Teaches Us about Living with Focus
In this motivational video, Chrystal Hurst introduces herself and her multi‑platform presence (YouTube, Facebook, podcast, Inner Circle membership, coaching cohorts, and a planner product) before using the newly released Sidney Poitier biopic as a springboard to discuss intentional living. She highlights Poitier’s historic achievements and, more importantly, his deliberate career choices—refusing stereotypical roles, prioritizing long‑term impact over short‑term gain, and viewing his work as a service to his community. Hurst weaves a tree‑pruning metaphor to illustrate how we must regularly cut away “branches” (projects, habits, commitments) that distract from our core purpose. She shares personal struggles with focus, procrastination, and decision‑making (e.g., delaying her own book, the LASIK vs. bifocal analogy) to model vulnerability. Throughout, she offers concrete resources: an Inner Circle community, upcoming coaching cohorts, and a physical/digital planner designed to help viewers translate vision into daily action. Spiritual grounding is emphasized via references to God’s word, memorizing Scripture, and aligning character with calling. The video concludes with a call to viewers to identify their “yeses” and “nos,” decide how they want to be remembered, and engage with the offered resources, while also watching the Poitier film.
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So if you haven't heard, there is a movie out about Sidney Poitier. Haven't heard about it? And what does Sidney Poitier have to do with you? Well, I have a thing or two I'd like to say about that. Here we go. Hi, my name is Chrystal Hurst, and I'm here every week releasing a video on YouTube and Facebook so that you and I can both be encouraged to live our lives well. So if you're watching on YouTube and you're not subscribed, subscribe right now. What are you waiting for? Be sure to hit the like button and make sure you turn notifications on so anytime I go live, because sometimes I do it just to have a little fun and foolery out there, you won't miss it. If you're on Facebook, make sure you're following the Facebook page so you don't miss it there either. I'm here because I really think sometimes we just need someone to come along and encourage us to live life well. We know we want to live our lives well. None of us wants to live a jacked up life, right? But at the same time, we find ourselves in jacked up circumstances, times where we feel a little low in energy or motivation, times where we are not quite sure what to do, times where we just need someone else who is maybe a little bit further down the road to say, this is how we do it, and to get us going or to spiral us forward. I do that a variety of ways. Of course, I'm here on YouTube or Facebook, but if you didn't already know, there's a whole podcast. Um, this content is also available on audio, but also there are whole conversations mentions whole interviews that happen on my podcast. So whether you're an Apple Podcast person or Google Stitcher person or Spotify person, you can listen to me alone, solo, or interviews over there. And if you're not listening, you're only getting half the fun. But I'm here today doing these things on video and releasing podcasts because I believe that I'm supposed to be. Because trust me, some days, y'all, I'm like, why are you doing all this? So why are you doing all of this? Oh, and that's not it. There's also a whole membership. You're watching this video because there are women who are in my inner circle who join me every Monday morning for what you're about to see. But before you see what you're about to see, we've been on here for an hour already with lots of fun and foolery, talking about Biscoff cookies on American Airlines and all kinds of things. But I'll save that for in the circle. Um, if you like what you get here and you want more, then think about joining the Inner Circle. The doors are always open, and we're about to embark upon our fourth quarter, our fourth quarter, uh, where we have great content coming. Also, the women who are in the Inner Circle know that they are helping us to support what we do here every day. The Inner Circle is actually a part of my calling, and I know this because when I was in my 20s, I wrote down on a piece of paper when I was setting goals with Franklin Covey— does anybody remember Franklin Covey? Is anybody like a Franklin Covey person? Did you go to the Franklin Covey store? I did. I spent all all that money on those Franklin Covey planners. I'm a planner girl, what can I say? But I wrote in the goal setting section about what I saw in my future. And one of the things that I wrote down that I didn't really see, or see clearly, but I did see, was that I wanted to be a woman who would be willing to stand up in front of other women and to teach them, to teach them how to live life well, to share my wisdom, to share how you can live life so you live it with little to no regret, to make wise decisions, to make your time count. And I wrote this down, and at one point I thought, I'm going to teach about money, y'all. I used to work in money management, and I actually still have my notes from my course on investing that I taught years ago, notes from a course I taught about budgeting years ago. And maybe one day I'll teach a little bit about that. But what I know now is that my calling is bigger than that. It's not just about teaching about money. That just happened to be what I knew about at the time. My calling is to teach about any thing that I feel that I have learned or amassed enough experience with to say, listen, uh, listen to someone who's a little bit further than you. Let me share my knowledge with you. It also is a part of my calling to lend my platform, the platform size that it is now, and I don't have the biggest platform, but it's not tiny, to share that with other women who maybe have expertise, callings, gifting, experience, equipping in areas that I don't, and to say, here, My girls need you in the Inner Circle. The people that are watching me on YouTube or Facebook, they need you. And so I do that by virtue of the podcast and by virtue of special content that we only make available in the Inner Circle. I do all this because I know deeply this is what I'm supposed to do, very deeply. What does it look like for you to do what you're supposed to do? What does it look like when the dreams that you have for your life, the main thing develops branches and arms and fringe things, but you remain clear on your calling. Well, Sidney Poitier has a movie that has just now been put out by Apple. I'm going to tell you, I can't endorse the movie. I haven't seen it. What I can do is endorse the person and endorse the life. He did a lot of things very, very well. So if you haven't heard about this movie and you want a little bit of history with a little bit of storytelling, um, I love that Oprah Winfrey is very excited about this film because not only is she a producer of content that supports people that have been historically, in our current day, excellent at what they do, uh, but she also was Sidney's friend. And she talks about that on social media. If you have not been following her, you can check out her comments there. But the reason why this got my attention is because in one of her articles she said, I want them to get to know Sidney, the essence of who he was beyond being an actor, that he was a father, that he was a friend. She wants them to understand that he's not just a famous name to know, but that he is a person of character and deliberation who lived life with intentionality so that they might learn from that. If you don't know much about him, I know that depending on your age, you may or may not, um, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor as a first African-American person, first Black actor in 1963. This was after he started out in 1950. 50, starring in a film called No Way Out. But the thing is, he wasn't just an actor. An actor was the main thing that he was doing. He understood that the root of him being an actor that spread into the branches of all of the things that he could now speak into, be a part of, that he could lead the way for— it was not just about him. He is quoted in an article from The New York Times. It says, it's a choice. It's a clear choice. Mr. Poitier said of his film parts in a 1967 interview. If the fabric of the society were different, I would scream to high heaven to play villains and to deal with different images of Negro life that would be more dimensional. But I'll be, hmm, if I do that at this stage of the game. He understood that there was a game and that the branches of the tree from the root that he'd planted covered more than where he started and that they would spread further than he could ever go. In another article, the LA Times back in January, Mark Olsen said, you have to appreciate the complexity of the decisions that he had to make as a film artist about what projects he would and wouldn't take, what projects he would take and turn down, to think about what it meant for him to feel tremendous responsibility to represent a whole race of people in the American context. He was very intentional about bringing dignity to each role that he had, and he understood that his calling was not just about him. And that meant that he had to make decisions. Let me tell you what we can learn about this man, Sidney Poitier. And I plan to watch the movie. I hope you do too. I want you to understand that your calling will require you to make the commitment of hard decisions. This is also where I am right now in my life, looking at what I have to do. I've mentioned this before many times inside of the Inner Circle, sometimes outside. There's a book that has my name on it right now. My publisher is so great, and they're waiting very patiently for me to get to it. There's a lot of reasons why I'm delaying. Um, some of those are being busy with other projects. Some of those are my own procrastination because of things I don't want to write or things I don't want to say out loud. Pruned. But am I supposed to do it or not? And if I am, then that means carving out and crafting, making the decisions about which things should be pruned so that the whole thing can be healthy, so that the whole thing can be alive, that it can be well. I have trees right now in my backyard that need pruning. I've watched one of the branches that gets longer and longer. I remember thinking how much great shade this one particular large branch of a tree in our backyard provides. And it dawned on me, now that we've been here for 3 summers— it's our 3rd summer in our 2nd year, closing out our 2nd year— that these branches are getting longer and longer. And at some point, they may get so heavy that they could break off and hurt someone. I have children, my own children, my grandchildren, my nieces and nephews that run around in my backyard, and I don't want a branch to fall because I've seen some branches fall and hit someone and cause damage. So that means in order for me to have safety, in order for me to make sure that the tree is doing what it's supposed to do and only that, no more, no less, I have to cut. I have to prune. I have to trim. And I don't wanna do it because the branch is so lovely and it provides so much shade. And I love seeing that branch get longer and longer and almost be a few feet from the ground where I can walk by and just rub my hand across the leaves. But that tree has a bigger purpose, and having a branch that hangs too low, even if it's beautiful, is not a part of it. Sometimes, y'all, we have to look at what we're supposed to do and make decisions about the roles that we're going to play. Some of the roles that we are wanting to play that could be more dimensional to our lives, that could bring more shade, stretch further, are not the roles we're supposed to play right now. Another thing, we've been getting multiple quotes from people who have been by in our yard to tell us which branches, in addition to that one, we should cut or not. And she says, "Look, you wanna cut that one, it's dead." And I'm like, "Is it?" And she had to show me even how a tree branch that is bearing a few green leaves, what it looks like when it's dead. And you don't want a dead branch hanging on in a live tree. It will take the nutrients that need to go to the other branches. Sydney Poitier understood that there were nutrients that needed to go to certain branches, and that meant that every branch couldn't make it or couldn't stay. I want to ask you, what are you willing to do in life because of your calling, your purpose, your character, the compassion that you want to operate within this world, the conduct that you want to mark your days on this earth? What are you willing to focus on and what are you willing to cut? And listen, I am not a focuser. It is very difficult for me to focus on things, but I'll tell you, you have to make a decision. Listen, y'all, I went to the eye doctor and I still have great enough vision to not operate with eyeglasses. At 29 years of age, I had LASIK done and I loved it. I'm so glad I did it. I thought the day after that I was going to be blind. I was seeing blurry and I thought, oh my gosh, what have I done? And then the next morning and the next morning after that and the next morning after that, it just got clearer and clearer and clearer. And then I realized I don't need glasses anymore, ever. But my doctor said, "I won't be able to save you from needing bifocals." I was like, "What?" So here I am, 50 years old, I don't need bifocals, but I have noticed driving at night that things are a little blurry in the distance. So I went recently and went ahead, my prescription hadn't changed, but I don't like driving at night with things being a little blurry. So the doctor gave me eyeglasses and she said, "Now these These are just to create, uh, the— solve a problem of your farsightedness. But when I correct your farsightedness, it's going to create a nearsightedness problem. Well, that sucks. You know, here I am, I can read everything just fine, and now to correct distant vision, I have to make a choice about nearsighted vision. Often that's what happens. In order to operate with a long-term view, you have to let the things that are in your short-term view not be as clear of your focus as the things that are longer term. And you have to choose which one are you going to focus on, because you can't focus on everything at the same time. Hey, let me butt in real quick just to make sure you know about two very important things. Number one, what I'm here doing week in and week out is basically mentoring. I love making sure that I'm sharing the knowledge I've gained in life with you. But there's another way that you can get mentoring or coaching in areas that will be helpful in your growth. We provide the opportunity to have coaches, groups of 12 that are led by a woman I know who is wise, skilled, or experienced in an area. And our new coaching cohorts for the fall of 2022 are kicking off soon. You can find out more about that at chrystalevanshurst.com/coaching. We've got dating and marriage. And spiritual authority, writing and speaking, managing difficult relationships. So if those are areas that sound like help you need, go to chrystalevanshurst.com/coaching. The other thing you need to know is before you saw this video recorded, there was like an hour of fun and foolery with my inner circle. Those are women who ongoingly want to support what we do to create content here and also want to spend a little extra time receiving mentoring from me. Does that sound interesting to you? Go to chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle. All right, now back to today's mentoring video. Sidney operated with a long-term view, and even when he had the opportunity to make it about him, the money he could make right now in the near term, the roles that he could have right now in the near term, the notoriety that he could have right now in the near term, he made decisions with a longer term view. He decided who he wanted to be, and he operated that way. He decided to build bridges and open doors. He refused to do anything that was stereotypical, even if that would be good for his own near-term success, because he understood that there was something bigger than him. You got to decide who you're supposed to be. Now, the good news is, when we think about calling and purpose, that's very overwhelming because we think about what it looks like for people to have that when it comes to notoriety, what it looks like for them to be on a stage, what it looks like for them to be famous, what it looks like for them to have crystal clear vision and crystal clear, uh, clarity about what they are, and for that to also be evident to everyone else. But let me tell you, clarity about your character and your calling, your purpose, your compassion, your conduct, it doesn't have to be rocket science. When I think about what I know about motherhood. My mother had crystal clear clarity. There were decisions that she made about her life, about what she was and was not going to do in certain seasons, because her clarity was that her family came first. And I know when I was a little girl, my mother was working. She stopped working because I was always sick. She had to keep taking days off of work in order to be home with me, and so they just called it and stayed home and made the financial sacrifice that that required. She had clarity. That was not about her being on a billboard or having her name in lights, but she said, this is where I'm supposed to be, this comes first, and so I'll make the decisions accordingly. Sometimes the decisions that you need to make about who you're supposed to be are really basic. They're very simple. You look at God's word, you want to walk in obedience, you want to walk in holiness and righteousness, and obedience is the way you get yourself in line. Sometimes it's very simple that, you know, you're supposed to be a person of character. So the things that you're doing on your job, you're not going to be the person who goes along with the flow and does what everybody else is doing because you want to be a person of character, even if that makes you a person who's on the outer edge. You decide that you're going to be committed to finishing the projects that you've started because you know that God has laid them on your heart. And if you don't do them, and if you get carried away by the everyday, even if the everyday is fine for everyone else, that working on that job and doing that is what you need to pay bills, but you also need to carve out and create in the cracks with the artwork that God has given you, the book that God has given you to write, or the photographs that God wants you to organize, or the meals that God wants you to plan, or the books that God wants you to read to your children, or the time that you need to spend getting to know your spouse better, or the investment that you're going to make in friends by hosting a Friendsgiving this year. What is it? What's on your heart to do? Sometimes we think about calling as this big thing and you have to be on a stage to achieve anything. No, character and calling starts with who you are when no one's looking, actually, and the decisions that you're going to make to be who you're supposed to be. It's practical. It's who you are consistently, not confusing the grace for doing what you can do with the grace and responsibility of doing what you should do. It's about spiritual disciplines and not being dependent on being spoon-fed by by others. Listen, you want to grow in the knowledge of God? You want to stop guessing what he wants you to know? That means you have to prioritize getting to know him. That's the decision that you want to make if you want to understand your basic calling and purpose that God has given you. You can't hear more clearly about your calling if you're not hearing from the one who can give it. It means you have to decide with the goals and the plans that you have, not just to talk about the goals but to make decisions and to backwards engineer into today what you're supposed to do today to make that happen. You say that you want to actually write a song. Okay, well, today, are you sitting down and making the space to write down the words that you hear, to pick out a tune on the piano? One of the reasons why I'm so committed to showing up here is because I realize that some of us need encouragement for finishing what we start. We need motivation for completing the goals that we have in our hearts. I understand that. But I also know that if you have a goal and you don't have a plan for it, then it's just a wish. Um, we've had a planner. We actually still have a digital planner in our store. The physical planner will be coming out in a few weeks. We're really excited about that. The reason why we have it, because that seems like a fringe thing for me to do, is because people say to me all the time, Chrystal Hurst, how do you plan your time? How do you manage your responsibility? How do you focus on things first? Well, y'all, it's not hard. But it also isn't easy. It's not hard to do. It isn't easy to be committed to doing it consistently. Who you want to be as it relates to your character, who you want to be as it relates to your goals, who you want to be as it relates to the legacy that you will leave. I told my husband one day, we were talking about the grandkids coming over, because of course when they come, they leave a mess. And I said, hun, you have to decide, you want them to remember you or not. Because it's the consistency of them coming over and being with us that will sear the memory of us in their mind. What are you gonna do differently? Sidney Poitier said, there's some roles I'm not gonna take. There's some roles that would be great to take, but I'm gonna say no. There are some things that are growing out of what I'm doing. They want to give me this role and I'm gonna clip that. I'm not going to take that. Just because it's sprouting doesn't mean I have to nurture it and feed it or replant it. Sometimes, and this is me, I feel totally convicted for this, the best way for you to grow is to prune. The best way for you to say yes is to say no. The best way for you to be immortalized and remembered is to decide what you're going to be remembered for. Again, Oprah said, I want people to know who he was. Not just what he did, but the essence of who he was and what made him the man that we know and remember. We are studying the book of James right now at church. My sister and I are alternating Wednesday nights. One Wednesday night I'm teaching, the next Wednesday night, the two weeks later, she's hosting a discussion. We are walking through what it practically means to walk out our faith. And one of the things that we're doing is memorizing the first chapter of the book of James. I issued a challenge to the women at our church to do that. Why? Because it's one thing to know that kind of, sort of the Bible says, it's a whole nother thing to hide God's word in your heart. Who do you want to be? A person who can share scripture off the top of your head because you know it down deep in your soul, or the person who doesn't know what it is and you're constantly dependent on being spoon-fed by other people? Sidney Poitier had to learn lines in order to do his role. In order to play his role, he had to internalize and memorize the lines that someone had written. Ooh, that's good. And in order for him to adequately do his job, he had to take to heart and know for sure the lines that he was given to play, to say, to interact with. A good actor in a movie or on Broadway for sure, there are no shortcuts on Broadway. We can't cut for commercial break. You gotta keep that show going on. They don't just know their lines. They know the lines of the person that they're talking to, what they say right before they cut in. You have to know your lines, and you won't know them if you don't study them. I believe that God has given everybody a calling and a purpose, if nothing else, just to learn his word and walk in obedience. Learning God's word will save you a ton of heartache, and it will save you time. But you can't expect that you will be able to play your role well if you don't know your lines. You can't expect to know what he wants you to do in a moment. You can't move forward in having the emotions in a moment, of having the actions in a moment. You You can't move forward with knowing where to position your body in a moment if you don't even know what the lines are. We get to all of the other stuff, the external stuff, before doing the internal work. You have to do the internal work to write down your goals and then to map out how you get there. There's a process. I believe in my process. I'm willing to share it. But there are so many planners, y'all, so many things online. Go Google, how do I plan my day? Stop living and just showing up and speaking as if whatever I say in this play is okay. It's not. There are lines written, there are plans written. And for the goals and dreams that God has put in your heart, make the time to write them down so that you can see what they are clearly and live them out. You want to be a person of character, spiritual character, mental fortitude, soulful strength? You have to do the work, make the decisions. Know what to water and know what to prune. The reason why he's immortalized and will forever be is because he was a first in so many ways. But I believe what Oprah said, that it's the essence of who he was that aligned with the decisions that he made that resulted in our memory of him. You get information, but even though God gives you the information, he wants to partner with you He wants to partner with you. He gave information to Noah to build the ark, but Noah had to do it. He gave information to the people in the Old Testament about building the temple, but they had to build the temple. He gives information to birds to build nests and bees to build honeycombs, but listen, they have to do the building. You want to know what your lines are? You get your script from the maker, you study your lines well, and then you show up and you do the work. When you think about each of those examples, those are the things that those groups of people or those living beings are known for. They're not known for everything. They're known for the thing that God called them to. So what is your thing? What is your thing right now in this season? It could be motherhood. It could be your work, being excellent at work. It could be school. It could be your dream of being an actress or an actor. It could be a lot of things— starting your own business, losing weight. What is the vision that you have for you that burns in your heart? Don't think it got there on accident. Every dream that you have is born in something God put in you. You got to ask him, is this dream of my own doing, or is it rooted in something else he wants for me? But it's rooted in something God put in you, so figure out what that is. And then align your character, your conduct, align your speech, align your compassion to the goals that God has put in front of you. God doesn't need you, but he sure does want to partner with you. I've heard someone say, you find out where God is flowing, you find out where the water is going, and you just get in the boat and get in the water. And do you paddle? Yes. But it's so much harder to live your life paddling against the current. What is the current at work in your life that speaks to the calling and the direction of your life? Get in the water, find out what God is doing, and paddle with the forward-moving motion. That's what Sidney did. He desired to be an actor, but he got in the water. What is already happening? Civil rights movement is happening. What already matters? That people of color are seen in a dignified limelight. That's the water I'm getting in. What am I called to do? To be a voice to be remembered. And so we remember him. And I want to know if the people and places where you are the most engaged and involved will remember you for what you show up and water the root of you, the branches that belong and the branches that don't, knowing when to cut and when to water, when to prune and when to press forward. This is the work of life. And if you're doing this work and often feel overwhelmed or even confused, it's okay. It's okay. I never said growing the tree would be easy, but what we do know is a good tree provides much shade, shade that other people can enjoy, beauty that other people can admire, and history that we can see because of the width and the girth of that trunk of that tree. So you gotta decide who you're gonna be. That's the bottom line. You have to decide how you wanna be remembered. You have to decide what character you'll hold onto despite the circumstances of the culture. And you have to make hard decisions about where your yeses will go and where you will also give your nos. It's time to decide. For me too. For me too. And I'm here for it. I believe that you can, and I believe that you will. I'd love for you to tell me in the comments, where do you have to give some yeses right now, and where do you have to give some nos? What are the things you need to prune? What are the things you need to cut so that you can flourish not just for you but for the others whose lives you will touch. Cuz everybody gives yeses and nos. If you're here and you're alive, you're growing. But I want you to grow in the direction that really matters, okay? And while you're at it, go watch the movie. Let me know what you think about that too. All right, y'all.
