We were lucky to catch up with Marcus Knight recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marcus, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I knew very early on that I was always creative. From a very young age, I had assembled Broadway musicals in my brain. I was a keynote speaker for my action figures and Lego sets. I was creating full productions on Microsoft PowerPoint, with animations and soundtracks included. I was showing my friends short stories I had written in minutes. I was watching and consuming TV and movies that were made up of fun, fantastical stories that transported me to different realms, different universes, and different timelines. In every space that I was a part of, my brain went creativity first. How can I make this better? How can I make it look nice? How can I effectively tell a story? I knew that no matter where I went, whether it was a church setting, whether it was in higher education, whether it was in a small business, or a non-profit organization – that the ideas of creativity and innovation would help uplift the brands that I would be connected to. And having that background as a creative, as someone who has done theater, choir, hosting, directing and so much more, has come in handy time after time.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello, dear reader! My name is Marcus Knight – I am currently 25 years old living in Nashville, Tennessee, and working as a digital marketing specialist for a nonprofit organization that specializes in helping women, people of color, and veteran business owners scale and profit from their businesses. The true answer to this question is this: I don’t know if I’m in the midst of my true creative work or not. I believe that every season is a stepping stone to somewhere else, and right now, I’m just in the season where I’m trying to figure out where my gifts are best used and also collecting the “infinity stones of experience” if you will, dipping into different industries and learning all that I can from every single one of them. I graduated from Belmont University in 2023 and since then, I have worked in higher education, marketing agencies, and now, non-profits, each showing me something different than the last. The running throughline with all of these different jobs is that my overarching goal was and still is to take whatever the mission and vision was of the space I occupied and translate it creatively to as many people as possible. I got into this addictive hamster wheel of telling stories well when I realized that people were not getting the impact that they were looking for because they were results-driven or profit-driven, maybe even status-driven – but amongst all this, they were veering away from the people that they served. I truly believe that the more you get to know people’s stories and their humanity, the more you get the greatest return on your investment.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Something that non-creators must know about the life that I’m choosing to live is that my journey is not linear. It’s called a journey for a reason. Not a road or a staircase but a journey, a path that is full of twists and turns, pivots and pauses. But creativity requires that. It requires that each and every single day, we make a committed, daily, intentional choice to accept what occurs throughout that day. There’s no typical schedule. There’s no steady ebb or flow. It will look messy, and it will not make sense sometimes – and that’s okay because the creativity that pours out of that journey will be the most authentic. It will be the most transformational. It will be the most empathetic…and it will lead to some of the greatest change. I come from a family of medical nerds: my mom a physical therapist, my dad spending decades as a medical coder for a hospital, and my sister going into psychology. And here I am, the boy who loves musical theater and graphic design and who wants to be a famous social media influencer one day. The truth of the matter is that our world and our society do not exist without storytellers. Take away the creative and you get robots. You get zeros and ones coding every single thing that we think, eat, say or do. You get artificial instead of relatable, standard instead of exception, mundane instead of magical. Take away the creative and you realize how bland and stagnant the world really can be. So to the non-creative, in the friendliest tone I can write this – be grateful that we’re here.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way. I am a social media addict, and I’m not afraid to say it. I am such a big fan of everything that goes on regarding social media because it really has changed generations of people. What used to be just a quick way to update friends about what we’re eating for lunch or a vacation spot has now become our source of news of entertainment, connection, scandal, education and so much more. I am by no means famous on any social media platform – sitting currently at a couple of thousand followers on most platforms, and a couple of hundred subscribers on YouTube, but I will say out of all the content that I made, the content that resonates with people are the ones related to what’s going on in the world and in culture. People want to make sense of the things that they’re experiencing and it helps when a person that they know is giving a well-educated or well-thought response to said thing. For me, those things have always been centered around personal development, racial justice or just fun content altogether. Nevertheless, everybody has their niche, and the more that you can lean into it and present information in a creative way, the more likely you are to get somebody’s attention and earn a faithful fan. Somebody once said that you really only need a couple of hundred true fans that can be your base by which everything else succeeds. Yes, it’s good to have a whole bunch of followers but that dedicated group of people who will buy all your products, attend all your events, listen to all your podcasts, and wear all of your merch will change your life forever. My goal before 2030 is to build that tribe, to get my message, face, and name out there more, and really submit my space in the personal development, lifestyle creator, and public speaker circle.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.marcustheknight.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcustheknight/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcuskeonknight/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@marcustheknight

Image Credits

Christian Becker, Candice Nichole, Jadon Frederick and Andrew Langenstein