We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Malik McCrea a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Malik , thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
I would have to say that the best way that I can overcome the very constant and corporeal state of imposter syndrome is by working in spite of it, and moving with direction. Like wading through a waste deep bog, I plant my intention and move towards that destination, doing my best to disregard the trepidations that weigh on each of my steps. It helps to know that some of the world’s most creative and profound minds have suffered from similar self limitations, so I take pride in the fact that I’m in good company. With the multitude of platforms that social media has given to all who might want one, it’s still extremely difficult to see or think outside of one’s own mind. Leaving us to dwell in a state of insecurity that can exacerbate our egos into overdrive. The ego; by design, exists to unconsciously protect. That protection doesn’t necessarily mean it has our best interest in mind. Sometimes that protection can come in the form of an internal conflict with those insecurities that can deter ownership of our accomplishments. I learn to embrace the struggle with those voices, recognizing that they keep me current, and let me know that I’m moving into a territory that is consumed by discomfort. An ultimate discomfort that is necessary to realize a lifestyle I myself have never lived before. Therefore, until the day that particular lifestyle becomes my surrounding reality, onward we move.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
When I was a kid; no more than 4 or 5 years old, my mother had these rows of PVC Vertical Blind Slats laid on the ground in our hallway upstairs. I remember putting my tiny feet into her house slippers and walking on the slats like they were tight ropes or something. At the time I wasn’t old enough to contextualize what I was thinking, but looking back now I remember a feeling that could be only be described as me telling myself; “this would make a great opening shot in a movie or something…” This is the earliest memory I can attribute to the path that I still walk today. Filmmaking will always be a passion of mine, I can’t exactly tell you what draws me to it, but theres just something about the opportunity to make sense of the world around me through the medium of film that will always and forever be a potent indicator of the lifestyle I will endlessly pursue. The thing about a career in film however, it is a very “get in where you fit in” kind of institution. Rarely; and I do mean rarely, do you find yourself in a position to pave your own way to the extent of complete auteurship. Those outcomes are reserved for a bold and deserving few. There are no wanted ads for directors, or “seeking auteur” posts on LinkedIn. There’s an overtly daunting quality behind pursuing something as alluring and all consuming as a career in film. Something that thousands, if not millions of other people; ones who look just like you and ones who don’t that want the exact same thing to which you’ve committed your own life. You have to keep this in mind as you get in line in hopes that one day you will shine in such a way that a lane opens up that is yours and yours alone. That is the path that I walk to this day. Currently that path finds me in Los Angeles for the last ten years of my life, and in the spirit of getting in where I fit in I’m proud to say I’ve made many a strides towards that ultimate goal. Be it working my way into and almost out of the mailroom of the United Talent Agency, or directing short form videos for an internet new media company owned by Time Warner. Crafting music videos for countless dreamers with an affinity for song. Or coordinating for a talk show about the Walking Dead for two seasons after countless summers as a PA, and sending my mother screenshots of my name in the credits at the end of each episode. However I could be involved is all I ever cared about. I learned quickly this is not a quitter’s game, and to make your dream a reality in this field takes a dedication to self reliance and encouragement of unfathomable magnitude. Today, I’m writing to you from my office on the Westchester Campus of Loyola Marymount University at the School of Film and Television. The path has led me to a somewhat steadier position of helping the next generation make their own sense of the world around them in hopes to be what I too still want to become. I can’t tell you where the path ends, or where it leads after today even, but there will always be irons in the fire. Until the day one of those irons can be forged into an instrument that only I can wield, I continue to walk this path in pursuit of becoming an esteemed and established auteur, whom people go out of their ways to work with.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Patience jumps ahead of the line when I think about the answers to this question. It is not only a virtue, but a language that one needs to be fluent in if the pursuit of anything is involved. If you can’t sit with the stillness of where you are, then tomorrow will likely be a point of contention if given the chance to be. I for one am not fluent in patience, far from it in fact. I have been applying myself to be more so as the years unfurl. There’s a sense of peace that comes with the idea that what is for you, will be yours. The maintenance and service of this ideal, is crucial to your well being, and how centered you are in this world we inhabit.
Action also comes to mind. Patience without action is like waiting to feel the water on your back while your head is in the sand. While I do feel like it should be guided by patience, it is equally as crucial to the accomplishment of one’s goals. There are few things in this life we can actually control, one of those things is how we choose to move through it. Passive approaches; while calculated and safe, rarely produce the results akin to our personal desired outcome. Action is ownership, it is our signature and our primary means of life education beyond scholarly exploits. Learn as you go is a term you may have heard before. Out of those four words, which one stands out to you the most? It’s the word GO for me.
Finally, appreciation has to round it out for me, again something I myself have to remind myself to evoke. As goal oriented beings, a lot of our time is spent looking towards the future, and over analyzing what may lay in our wake. Rarely do we take the time to sit and ruminate on the present, which as cliche as it might sound; is truly a gift. It is the barometer upon which all notions are measured, holding steady in the most truth we can find ourselves in. We certainly may lie to ourselves and others but the present is incapable of doing so given that it is equally fleeting and somehow everlasting. As you’re reading these words right now you are in your present, by the time you’ve read the last word (which I truly thank you if you’ve even read this far) it will be in the past. If we held our present to the same high regard as we do our futures, and treated it with the same care that we wished we did to our past endeavors; the possibilities would be endless in what such a centered mind could yield.
Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
To be completely honest with you I can say that I struggle deeply with disillusionment a lot lately. Imagine for a moment if you will, that there’s this room inside of a large house that you’ve always wanted to be in. You see people go in and out of this room, some leave on their own, and some might even be thrown out of it. But for as long as YOU can remember, being on the inside of that room is all that you’ve ever wanted to do with your life. As you get older you start to make significant steps to being in that room. You get close enough to the house and suddenly you start to recognize some of the faces that are walking through the door, on their way to that very room. Friends of yours, acquaintances that you’ve crossed paths with, people you’ve admired from afar, all getting their opportunity to step through those doors and into that room. Luck would have it that you find yourself on the front porch of that large house, just close enough to peak into that room and see all the lights and colors, and what your mind is telling can only be bliss on the inside. Then you find yourself inside of the house, and you are closer to that room than you have ever been. You can hear whats going on inside, and feel the vibrations of sounds as you place your hand on the door.
Suddenly as people start to leave that room, they don’t look as happy. Some are down right embarrassed, broken even. Every time someone goes in or out you catch a glimpse of what’s inside for yourself, and being this close you start to realize the colors aren’t as bright as you though they were, and the bliss you convinced yourself was all around is nowhere to be found. Instead, theres broken glass, spilled drinks, and tears of people who only god knows what they had to do just to stand in there. This is how I feel about the film/entertainment industry sometimes, and where I find myself feeling about it currently. I’m disillusioned by the idea that my happiness has been tied to being apart of this for the better part of my adult like, how much I’ve latched my own joy and thrill for a life worth living to that particular outcome. I have yet to be in that room, but I’ve been close for many years now. What I can say is that I am working on finding fulfillment. A fulfillment that exists regardless of if I make my way into that room or not, because don’t get me wrong; I still want to be inside of that room. But I want to have and maintain as much of what makes me who I am as intact as humanly possible while I’m in there.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spikeleek/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/malik.mccrea.58/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malikmccrea/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWnAQ4vmEkE&list=PLRjlb5j5pJ9VES3n_5X7DLxZ3tJgk-pxj
