We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Charles S. Walker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Charles S. below.

Charles S., thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

The most important lesson that I learned at a prior job was to not get comfortable and be acceptable to change. If you’re comfortable then you’re not growing. If you can’t accept change then you can’t grow. I spent over 2 decades at one of my previous places of employment. During that tenure, I was only able to advance in my career once. I had gotten so good at my job that comfort sat in. It was to the point that I could almost move when and how I wanted. But once I was ready to change and grow, the company constantly blocked my growth based on the needs of the company. Those weren’t the exact words used but it was hinted around to. The skillset that I gained over the years was hard to replace. So I constantly got overlooked by lesser qualified candidates for every advancement position that I applied for. I was looking to grow and do what’s best for me but the company was doing what’s best for the company. So I had to make the best decision for myself and move on.
So now I live by my saying of “Comfort Kills”.
Comfort kills dreams. Comfort kills careers. Comfort kills goals. Comfort kills relationships. Comfort kills growth.
Are you comfortable?

Charles S., before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

If you don’t know me and/or have not read about me prior to this interview, I’d say I’m just a small town country guy living in a big city. I’m originally from the small town of Hartsville, SC. Right after high school, I moved to the Washington, DC area where I resided for 26 years. After graduating high school, I really had no idea of what I wanted to do in life. I kind of wanted to go to college but didn’t have the “know how” or correct guidance to do so. No one in my family had been to college at that time. I didn’t have guidance counselors guiding me in the right direction either. I wanted to go to the University of Hawaii. How do I get myself from this small town all the way to Hawaii with no guidance or finances? Imagine trying to figure that out by yourself as an 18 year old with no guidance.
I had to figure out my next move (which wasn’t a good one). To this day, I have never admitted this to my mom and she’s still probably going to be disappointed once she reads this but my brother and I started selling drugs with a few of our friends until the police jumped out on us one night. Fortunately most of us came out unscathed (except for one of our friends) who couldn’t/didn’t throw his product as we were running.
At that point I knew it was time to leave home and figure out my next move. I called my Aunt Vickie and asked if I could come stay with her until I could get myself together. She was like a second mother to me. She was living in Oxon Hill, MD at the time. Once she said yes, I immediately left and a new life began.
As soon as I moved up Maryland, I was able to secure my first job. In Maryland and DC is where I got my start in the Communications/Security/Technology fields. I’ve been working in these fields for almost 30 years now.
What sets me apart from most is that I have experience across multiple types of technologies and am very adaptable.
What I’m most proud of though is my recent venture into the acting world. It was something that I had never thought about pursuing. It was just something that I came across after moving to Georgia in 2020. It wasn’t until I found myself looking for a new job and was on LinkedIn searching jobs and connecting with people that I came across a guy named Darius Dennis. I saw that he was in the industry, so I asked him some questions and he shared quite a bit of information with me. I decided to try it. Lo and behold, I get a BG gig instantly. I got casted in a scene of Back in Action walking with Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz (which is now a deleted scene LOL). But that’s how my acting career started.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to unlearn was that I could be stable and grow. Being stable doesn’t equate to growth. We sometimes put so much emphasis on stability that we forget that we should continue to grow. I always felt stable at my job and being in the DC area was also my stability.
Moving away from the DC area allowed me to grow in both my career and personal life. I probably wouldn’t be where I am today without making this move.
I’m almost 100% sure that I wouldn’t be doing acting without the move.
I was so “comfortable” in DC with my people. But we all know that a lot of the time those close to you (friends and family) are not your biggest supporters. They can hinder you. They are most likely to criticize you or make sarcastic remarks before they encourage or congratulate you. So moving here I’m far enough away from the chatter that it doesn’t bother me and I can pursue dreams without hearing the unwanted comments.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an actor is being able to see myself on the big screen. I can always go back and watch and see myself doing what I never thought I’d see myself doing. No matter how big or small it is, I can say I did this and not too many people has.

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