We recently connected with DeQwan Young and have shared our conversation below.
DeQwan, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
I’m very hopeful. I wake up hoping for opportunities, hoping for a better day, hoping for a better life. I grew up glued to the tv and was fascinated by superhero stories. The hero always had a desire to save, they did they right thing, but most importantly, they had hope for a better day. It’s a principle I always gravitated towards because it brings out the best in me.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a filmmaker. I recently graduated from film school and have made a few documentaries, with plans to release my first feature film, The Beast by 2025. It’s the story of the real-life Rocky Balboa, Brian Minto, a man who quit his day job to pursue a career in boxing. Brian was a former division 2 football player who dropped out and ended up taking a job at Armstrong Cable as a line worker. One Christmas, he tried his hand at boxing to make some extra Christmas money. At the age of 27, turned that one victory into a 15+ year career, fighting on ESPN, HBO and more, while also winning multiple heavyweight championships.
I was privileged to shoot his final fight in Butler, PA on September 17th, 2016, which is the subject of my next documentary The Beast: The Final Fight, which I will be releasing in December.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I played football for close to 20 years of my life and it taught me accountability, determination, and will. Everything is a process. I’ve failed time and time again, until I stopped failing. The feedback I got and always gave myself was to be better than the last play. Once I had enough experience, I started to see the game differently and it became a matter of repetition. If you do something enough you can master it, and if you can master one thing, you can master anything through process.
The best thing you can do is believe in yourself. You should applaud yourself for just showing up everyday, because that is the toughest part of this existence. Some people don’t show up at all, not for others, not even for themselves. I know that when I show up, I’m going to give my best effort, and that to me is success, no matter the outcome. I don’t have a fear of ridicule, nor a fear of failure, because I know that if I give it my best effort, and just show up, I believe I can do great things.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
Letting go of expectations on how things are supposed to go. I think everything I do is a home run. I started my production company in the summer of 2013 and over that time, I’ve help generate one million dollars in revenue for a company, I curated content for a YouTube channel that generated over 100 million views from my videos alone, I’ve worked with Ronda Rousey, I’ve created media that has made it’s mark on the world, and it still hasn’t gotten me the recognition I feel I deserved. I’m always stuck wanting more, after each endeavor and for the longest time, it left me unfulfilled. I enjoy creating and creating has given me a life that I truly enjoy. I’m happy and it’s because I have released my expectations on how I think things are supposed to go, and just enjoy the ride
Contact Info:
- Website: http://deqwanyoung.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/q3_media
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QMedia3
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Q3_Media
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@QwalitySports/videos
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/@qwalityfilms/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@Qwality_TV
Image Credits
Pierre Davis Photography
