Meet Xavier Mcknight

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Xavier Mcknight a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Xavier, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

I didn’t overcome imposter syndrome, I just embraced the feeling. If I don’t feel like one, I might be in the wrong room. In order to progress I have to surround myself with people more accomplished and wiser than me and just do what i need to do. Imposter syndrome is an intrinsic thing, its my own doubt and believed limitations. But there no better feeling than breaking your believed limits.

The best advice I ever received was from a 24 year old stoner in skinny jeans at a skatepark. I was trying to learn to drop-in ( slamming your board at a angle into the ramp to ride down) and I been falling all day( all summer) and he told me to just say “Fuck it”. For some reason this stuck with me and I said Fuck it and immediately fell off my board. But I did it again and again, ignoring the fear of failure and eventually I wasn’t falling, I was riding around the skatepark.

I kept that mentality with everything I do now. Doubts if I can lead in this stage play, “F’it”, doubts about writing and producing an action thriller, “F it” etc. Its my explicit version of the Nike slogan. It doesn’t negate imposter syndrome but it does help me deal with the imposter paralysis. It keeps me in progression and unafraid of failing because eventually I will ride the ramp.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m a storyteller in all forms. I’m the founder of the upstart film company Knightlifefilms and also an actor, writer and sometime producer. My goal is to tell unique and interesting stories that connects to an audience on an emotional level.

I been a story teller since about third grade. My first short story was a slasher similar to Scream and Halloween. Throughout the years my writing shifted throughout various forms from short stories, to comics, to poetry, to plays to film. One thing that stayed consistent however is the joy I get when I release these stories from my imagination.

I hope everyone who watches, like and follow will support the creation of authentic art.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

You’ll have to be ambitious, humble and tenacious. There are plenty of other qualities that assisted in my journey but I believe these three to be the most essential to growth and development as a creator.

Be ambitious- you have to want it, I learned that nothing is given to you, sometimes you got to take the opportunity.
Be Humble- Kendrick Lamar said it best, you’ll have to accept that you’ll need training, that you’re not perfect off the back and that even the greats stay in class.
Be tenacious- Its a long journey, we will hear NO a lot more than we hear Yes. If we get discourage and quit, we may never get to the yes; we never get to the heights we were supposed to achieve.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Deciding where to pull the time from to complete these acts of artistic expressions. There 24 hours in a day and it never feels like its enough. Once you separate time for the day job, family, working out and travel, sometimes unfortunately those creation hours are borrowed from your sleeping time. If you don’t give in to it, you may end of day dreaming about it anyways. So finding that balance is always a challenge.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.threads.net/@xavier_mcknight16?xmt=AQGzpVO5LaAFLh6IlVYfHqQ8x-rp8G__vM25rSKBkVQztic
• Youtube: https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FAKbmkR2X9yc%3Fsi%3D85cP-ZsxT1vSGnuk%26fbclid%3DPAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZwAB1iSNgQR7ZqZkuNk0ZeJwuEXgFSCFAfeM_sTyi5o8J7Zt69vLYt–A_aem_vVXu39pZFzDVS46ic3UKGQ&e=AT17R-4n2hvX3y5A8lisamupr-i5yPa6IxU5LAQeli9rg_arKblBjfUxPAWGbOO6eRdMz4ZKefZrj_zamf6O3fc4sB2kIREkzPD5aSgiTyRqmeCQWSridQ