In first grade, I learned how to tell stories to get attention from my classmates. In middle school, I seized every chance to perform: sports, bands, writing, acting. I was addicted to connecting with audiences. I loved how their bodies stilled when I hooked their focus. I dreamed of a life entertaining.

Adulthood crushed that dream. As a senior in college, I learned my value would soon be reduced to my LinkedIn title and salary. I went to work at Google for four years, which gave me status outside the building, but I found the corporate world to be dehumanizing. I quit the tech industry out of self-preservation.

But I couldn’t survive long in New York without income. I lived in a 300 feet studio apartment and slept on my mattress on the floor. I wore all black to keep my wardrobe cheap. I became half-nocturnal like the cats that hide under double-parked cars in every Brooklyn neighborhood. I stayed up all night, thinking about how to get money.

I needed cash. That’s when my dream crept back in, in spring 2016. I would write a TV series and sell it to be rich.

Trying to make it as a screenwriter

I Googled: “How to write a TV pilot” and carried my laptop in a little gray bag everyday from Park Slope to Baba Cool coffee shop in Fort Greene. I started to write my TV pilot about a young, Black loner coming of age in New York City.

I scoured production company websites and emailed rough drafts of my pilot to strangers, hoping someone would “discover” me.

While my friends earned promotions and fancy new LinkedIn titles, I missed weddings and birthday parties because travel was expensive and I was embarrassed by how I was falling behind. People shoved condescending advice at me.

One friend demanded I go to business school. “You’re ruining your life!” she said.

Meanwhile, I faced a flurry of slammed doors as I pitched myself to suits at shoddy industry networking events. Each rejection made me more sneering. I was like a New York stray. Skinny. Unclaimed. Always bracing for judgment.

I met Spike Lee in that state.

It was late summer, 2016, and I was polishing my TV pilot at Baba Cool. I loved the scary thrill I felt cranking in that coffee shop, going all in on my silly dream.

Baba Cool was across the street from Spike’s studio, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. I recognized Spike immediately. He was sitting across the promenade, crouched like a cricket, wearing thick-framed red glasses, a Knicks hat and bracelets adorned with skulls.

I darted for him instinctively. Spike looked up at me when I broke his personal bubble. His eyes were gentle. I was a literal guy off the street with intense, baggy eyes. But he welcomed me.

I spewed. I told Spike I went to Morehouse College like he did. He directed me to sit and interrogated me for 20 minutes like a concerned uncle. He asked what I was doing in life and why I was dressed like I was going to rob a bank. I felt weightless. The car horns dulled in my ears.

I told Spike about everything in my life except my TV pilot. I was used to rejection from suits but I couldn’t face rejection from Spike Lee. Spike gave me his email address and released me. I retreated back into my uncertain life and he disappeared into his iconic chambers across the street.

Working with Spike Lee

My cycle continued: wake up late, apply black uniform, write for hours, wander New York, sleep on the mattress.

When I finished writing my TV pilot, I sprayed it out to more strangers but I still didn’t send it to Spike. I was avoiding his opinion, or worse, his apathy.

I was getting a haircut when I got a call from an unknown number. Spike. He had gotten his hands on my pilot and wanted to discuss it immediately. I was shocked.

We met at 40 Acres and sat at a long table backdropped by a giant mural of young Denzel Washington in Mo Betta’ Blues. Spike talked me through his notes on my script and asked if I wanted to take the project to Hollywood together to sell it to a network. I felt like I was floating.

When we returned to New York, he gave me an office in 40 Acres, slipped me the BlackKklansmen script and brought me into editing rooms to learn the filmmaking process.

I got to see Spike, the human. We yelled in frustration as New York taxis sped past us, two Black men standing in the cold rain at night.

Moments later, two women pulled up beside us and pointed at Spike, snapping their fingers, trying to remember his name.

“Yup, it’s me!” he called out. “Tyler Perry!” We howled in laughter as they drove away.

What I learned from Spike Lee

Spike gave me his time and expertise. He gave me a presence to stand beside, so gatekeepers wouldn’t block me.

But he never gave me money. Thank God. When I fell behind on bills, I called Spike, panicking. He knew I was going to ask for cash. He stopped me.

He spoke with authority. He said my gift for writing was so powerful that I would always be able to feed myself. My breathing slowed. I regained calm.

He gave me confidence in my craft. Most powerful Hollywood producers keep a fiefdom of creative underlings. Spike didn’t want me to become a barnacle. He opened the industry doors, walked me inside and told me to go on my own. Freedom.

The big networks turned us down in early 2017, and my time with Spike ended.

I moved my things out of 40 Acres but I now had legs in the industry. I had met the decision-makers. They knew my name. They knew my writing. They knew I was coming.

Spike’s co-sign gave me credibility that elevated how producers and executives responded to me. They valued my ideas. They valued me. And I put that value to use.

After Spike walked away, I sold my series to BET. Then I sold a book, another TV series, and a movie. I wrote for Issa Rae’s Rap S***. I produced an Audible Original podcast—Direct Deposit: What Happens When Black People Get Rich.

Maybe none of that would have happened if I hadn’t met Spike that day on the promenade. Maybe I’d still be in Baba Cool, scared, skinny, dressed in all black, praying for a scrap to fall my way. All I know is that now I’m feeding myself, just as Spike said I would.

Chad Sanders is a screenwriter and author, and host of the new podcast Direct Deposit: What Happens When Black People Get Rich, which is available to stream now.

All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.