We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sam Qavah John a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Sam Qavah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I learned by taking leaps. Leaps of faith. Into the unknown. Unknown places. Unknown goals. Unknown ambitions. With each of those leaps, I evolved into the creative that I am today and created the untapped potential for who I can be through deliberate and oftentimes unexpected leaps. With every step, I wanted to be the best. I wanted to emulate the artists I had been inspired by. From Hugh Jackman to Emma Stone to Dick Van Dyke. Once I had fought for my shot at my dream, there was nothing anyone or anything could do to stop me from making it my top priority to learn everything I could from every book on the subject, every professor and artist I had the opportunity to share space with, and every resource that I had access to. When I love something, I go all in and when I came to SCAD to pursue the dream of being a performer, I took every chance I could to fail tremendously and never stop learning.
When I was a little boy, I wasn’t given a lot of time, love, and attention, and as it often does with performers, that void drove me to the stage. I was always a performer. I loved making people laugh and for the longest time it was what gave me any kind of sense of value and purpose. That, of course, changed over the course of my career and my personal growth. I learned as an actor, author, and as a citizen of this world. I knew that I would outwork every other person in the room and give each opportunity my all. I had to be so bold and willing to fail over and over again and built up a steady showcase of work and a showroom of achievements. I loved the learning aspect of it all because every time I went into any classroom, set, or workshop, my goal was to step back, take a moment, acknowledge the blessing to learn with and from other creatives, and then use those resources and the tools I acquired to begin telling my own compelling stories.
Knowing what I know now, I don’t think there is anything I could have done to speed up my learning process but, I would tell myself to sit in the discomfort of what feels like a mistake, error, mess-up, or all-round poor showing. I would remind him to sit in that frustration and confusion and to take so much more out of each slip-up, out of each failure because in all honesty, it was the failures that shaped my work, today. It was those failures and successes that enabled me to grow into the creative professional I am and the art of failing up is something that I love learning about and implementing in my life as a creative but also in my role as an Operations Manager at SCAD Story. Celebrating the wins and celebrating the losses allowed me to be gracious and humble in failure and be proud and grateful in success while learning as much as I can from both possible outcomes.
The skill of humility and the ability to set aside my ego were paramount. Growing up, I had a hard time swinging between a state of heightened pride or of deep insecurity. There was no middle ground and so, oftentimes that affected my ability to engage in learning. I had role models that I began mirroring (John Cena, Joseph Anoa’i) and their ability to maintain a posture of humility while taking pride in their work is what I strive for, now. Whenever I have learned the most in an experience, it was because I believed I had the right to be there and I was content not being the best in the room. As long as I showed up, was early, had a sense of belonging, and gave everything I had that day to my instructor, the material, and my colleagues, I knew I had not only done what I set out to do but had raised the bar for what could be expected of me.
For a very long time, I stood in my own way. My negative view of self, my inability to separate personal and professional feedback, and the constant addictive tendencies that threw me off my game and inhibited who I could be eventually led me to a life that was straight-edge and abstinent. In doing so, I let go of the things that for the longest time, held me back as a student, as a creative, and as a human being. At our core, humans are learners. We learn, adapt, evolve, and grow and once I tackled the things that were preventing me from reaching who I wanted to be at the core of my humanity, everything else fell into place. It wasn’t easy and it took a lot of work but that work turned me into the professional storyteller and lifetime learner that I am today and that is a gift I will never stop being grateful for.
Sam Qavah, 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?
I got into my industries through an unquenchable fire to show up, show out, and raise the bar of what was expected of me. I entered every industry with no connections and no experience. And I did what I needed to do. Build content. Choose the fields, find the points of passion, scale those mountains, and find ways to engage with my audience and consumers. I chose the fields of performance, writing, education, business strategy, and content creation. With each of these fields, I had no idea what I was doing when I first started. I simply started and have accumulated a wealth of content, published 2 books (The 3rd is on the way!), written, directed, and performed a one-man-show, developed a foundational thesis for a revolutionary business strategy, and have worked in museums and education across the world. I truly had to push and force my way in through the doors of these industries. Nothing would be handed to me and I grew more and more okay with that. I kept creating and I kept making and I kept finding avenues to share my work. As I continued this arduous process, more and more people began engaging with it all, relating to the raw and unfiltered nature of my works and their ability to draw people in and cover them with a sense of comfort and the motivation to move towards what could be.
I go above and beyond to create a plethora of offerings for my clientele. I seek to explore all the channels for growth in the content I am already creating and the branching opportunities to create new and bold content for a range of categories. I specialize in writing, performance pieces, curriculums, business strategy plans, and advising/mentoring/consultancy work. If I meet a client who wants something from me that I don’t know how to do yet, you can rest assured that I will figure out not only a way to do it but the best way to do it and make it my top desire to learn and then execute the project to the highest level possible. I solve the problem of putting words to the lived-out experience. I give room for clients to take the things they can’t describe, do their best to tell me what it brings it out in them and craft a narrative that is not only compelling but true to the source. In my mentoring services, I hope to step into and elevate every person I work with. My goal is not to create a sense of dependency, but to help them help themselves. Give them the tools, give them the understanding, and give them the confidence to leap into the deep end, and scratch and claw with all the things they already have plus the tools I help them develop so they can swim. In my own projects, every element needs to be grounded in honesty and realism. If for a second I feel myself leaning into presenting a certain way, I know that the project is beginning to lose its heading and will not be reflective of what I want it to be and what my audience deserves. Everything I do is grounded in realism and vulnerability.
There is too much content out there that doesn’t take itself seriously and more power to them. I take my content very seriously. Every piece is meant to be deliberate, consistent and unapologetically visceral and that sets me apart from my colleagues. Of course, I review and refine my work but no, I don’t filter it through a sieve of societal acceptance. I am most proud of my one-man show Yours Faithfully that I wrote, directed and performed and my upcoming book: The Invisible Thread. They are testaments to my evolution as an artist, a creative professional, and a human being.
My clients know that they are receiving 110% of my effort with every project and endeavor. They know they are working with a consummate professional who will go above and beyond time and time again to create content that elevates them and their brand identity. Every project is done with a keen sense of being a part of this shared and incredibly challenging yet beautiful human experience and they can walk away from any project that they commission me for knowing that the quality of the work is second to none and there is a piece of my heart, body, mind, and soul within the very construct of the work.
I seek to serve the art. First and always. I take on the posture of servitude and pride in the work I produce and the man I am working towards becoming and all my work stems from that core mentality and outlook.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding thing about being a professional storyteller is my ability to serve people, serve the arts, and be a humble reflection of my creator and my God and Savior, Jesus Christ, the ultimate artist and creator. With each step of my journey that brought me to where I am now, I consistently noticed a growth in the way I created my works. Every breath that went into the works was calculated and served a purpose. I always dreamt of being a creative and so, to take a step back and realize that I did what I set out to do makes it such a beautiful reflection.
It reminds me that I did what I set out to do. I took the worst hand I could have been dealt and created a body of work and a life for myself that I can happily say is more than I could have ever imagined or dreamt of. When I wanted everything to stop and I had no hope left in the world, the arts saved me. La La Land saved me. This Is Us saved me. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone saved me. And now, here I stand, with a life devoted to servicing the arts and creating works of art that bring hope and joy into someone else’s life halfway around the world.
I am blessed beyond measure and I may not be rich in the conventional sense of the word but I believe that I am the richest person in the world because of this gift… this honor… this privilege and this blessing.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
March 29th, 2020: I was alone. I was afraid. I didn’t know where to go or who to turn to. I was all alone in a land where I didn’t know anyone. I had no idea what to do. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought to myself, “I hate myself…” I hated everything about me and I was going to call it quits. I had been abandoned by everyone I loved. I was broken. And, I could have let it all go. And sunk to the bottom. But… I had a choice. I was blessed to have a choice. I chose life. I lost 130 pounds in 9 months. I entered and committed to the EMDR (a mental health treatment), and committed to a new relationship with God. I started a new journey of sobriety and abstinence and the 12 steps brought me the most peace I’ve ever known. I wrote and published my first book, created and released over 300 (now 600) personal projects and made it my life’s work and goal to lead with love and help people feel and know that they are seen, heard, and loved as I learn to love myself.
There are multiple timelines where my story stops. At the age of 14, 15, 18, 21, 24, and 25. The fact that I am still breathing and living the richest, fullest, and most beautiful life I could have ever imagined for myself is a testament to resilience and the never-failing nature of my God and Savior. I live, love, breathe, and create all as a testament to his love and the life he has blessed me with through his sacrifice and death on the cross for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thecreativearray.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qavahcreates/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100081940939679
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-johnvg/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyUk6CX0ORd9mpYBzYaeeOA
- Other: https://linktr.ee/thecreativearray Full Portfolio
https://linktr.ee/60islesserthan1 Book 1
https://linktr.ee/fragmentsofhope Book 2
Image Credits
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
SCAD
SCAD Museum of Art