We were lucky to catch up with Alexander Catedral recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Alexander thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, let’s jump into one of the most exciting parts of starting a new venture – how did you get your first client who was not a friend or family?
I love telling this story! I was 20 years old. It was my junior year in college and in order to graduate, I moved from Peoria, AZ to Grove City, PA for an internship with a church my brother helped start. I came to help the church with audio and visuals. After getting my hours, my pastor/mentor at the time kept telling me that I should start a business with my photo and video work. It was hard for me to believe or even consider, I didn’t go to school for video, but for audio production. I remember clear as day, he called me one night after a chamber of commerce mixer, and he said “Bro, I think I just got you your first video gig. It’s a newly million dollar renovated restaurant called “Echo”. They have one chef and they only serve dinner. What do you think about charging $250 for a one minute commercial highlighting their restaurant? We’re going to have a meeting with them this weekend at 8am.”
I’ll never forget the feeling of excitement and fear after hearing that. I remember the night before the meeting, I was upstairs in the church with my brother crying because of all the insecurities and fear I was feeling. I remember telling him, “Bro who am I to shoot a commercial for a business like this and much less charge $250? I didn’t go to school for this, I didn’t do any formal training, and I am not qualified one bit. How am I supposed to talk to the owner tomorrow and convince them I can do it when I don’t even believe I can?” He heard me out, comforted me, and then encouraged me. He reminded me that I’ve already been doing this for years. He reminded me of my journey and how far I had come. From my first camera, with blurry and out of focus photos and video to then. He reminded me how I started a record label/community of artists (Persevering Destiny) that had over 20-30 artists involved. He reminded me that we did our own music videos, kickstarter videos, and commercials. He reminded me of all the vlogs and random creative videos I created. He said “Bro, you got this. It doesn’t matter if you went to school or not, you’ve been doing this for a long time now! Create a short one minute reel of your work, and show it to them tomorrow.” I went home and looked through my footage over the past four years. I edited until 5am and met with the owner three hours later.
We hopped in an old silver van on a cold spring PA morning. It was my mentor, my brother, and myself. I remember walking into the beautifully renovated building, in pristine condition, tall ceilings, white floors, beautiful decor. There were huge glass windows to a vault of an exposed vast wine collection. We met the owner, sat on an elevated platform with a couch and two sofa seats. I was terrified. I pulled up the video reel I created and I began to show her. My heart was pounding. I was trying to fight off all the fear and insecurities, while simultaneously proud of my work. As soon as it was finished, the first thing she said to me was: “You know, I went to this university here in Pittsburgh. I graduated with a photojournalism degree.” My internal dialogue started going crazy, I thought to myself “she’s about to grill me! This is how it all ends for me. She’s about to tell me how terrible I am…” I literally was beginning to sweat, and my heart dropped. Then she proceeded to say, “I graduated with a photojournalism degree, and honestly, if any of my professors saw this, they would’ve said you had everything from lighting to composition, pacing and rhythm. I love it! Let’s do it. When can we start?” In my head, I WAS BLOWN AWAY! In shock! I couldn’t believe what just came out of her mouth. I kept my composure and I said, oh I am so glad! Thank you so much for saying that. We would love to get started as soon as possible. My mentor and her talked over the details and they then showed us around and gave us a tour.
On the way home, I realized that she didn’t have to say any of that. God answered my prayer and spoke directly into my fears, my doubts, and my insecurities. He put me in front of someone that had the credibility to speak into it, and then specifically used professors to speak to the doubt of not going to school. She specifically called out all the things that I was good at, the same things that were hard for me to believe. This was a life changing moment, something I hold on to still now, and for the rest of my life. You may not always be ready or prepared. You probably will be nervous and scared most of the time, but there’s always an invitation to face those fears. All we have to do is show up, continue to put in the work, prepare, and have faith that where you face the most resistance and fear, is most likely the direction you should be heading. One of my favorite quotes right now is from “Never Split The Difference” by Chris Voss. “When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to your highest level of preparation.”
Do your part, do your due diligence, and just show up. Then you get to see how God shows up too!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Alexander Catedral. I am the founder of Catedral Collective. We’re a video production company that specializes in telling companies’ stories through documentary style filmmaking. We do this through exclusive introduction videos, team videos, training videos, mini documentary series, as well as short and full length documentaries. We tell these stories through the lenses of the Founders, CEO’s, Business Owners, and anyone who is essential to the companies’ vision and culture. We understand how hard it is to be an entrepreneur and how difficult it is to build a business. We hold these stories sacred, and we make sure it’s told in a way that is personal, filled with empathy, authenticity, and passion. We found that filming from the founders perspective helps companies build trust with their target audience, helps retain employees, and help attract new talent.
We’re Catedral Collective and we bring humanity back into business!
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I am a big dreamer and visionary type of person! All my life I had the biggest dreams to accomplish the most outlandish and seemingly impossible things. However, 20 months ago we had our first little boy and my whole perspective changed. At the moment, Catedral Collective is the sole income earner for our family, and there is a lot riding on it. It’s a lot of hard work, failing, learning, getting back up, constant uncertainty, and pressure, but it’s all totally worth it. I am so thankful because I love every single part of the process! Also though, at the end of the day I can’t wait to be done! I can’t wait to go home, ring the doorbell and see my little boy open the door, with the biggest smile on his face while running to me with arms open wide.
My wife and my son, my family, is everything to me. At the end of the day that’s what drives me, it’s them. I want to leave something for my son, and I want to bring him along as I do it so he doesn’t lose his father in the process. I hope he can learn and see different ways he can serve others and serve his family all at the same time. Ultimately, I just want to be a good husband and a good dad to my kiddo. I want him to know, that although things seem impossible, it’s always worth trying. I want him to know I tried and I never gave up. But if I stopped, it wasn’t because I gave up, it’s because it wasn’t serving its purpose anymore. If it isn’t serving others and not serving my family (by allowing the freedom to spend time with my family), it’s not worth it anymore. It’s not about never giving up, but knowing when to stop. There’s so much more to life than success and dreams. It’s your family that matters. It is all about relationships. It’s true, family is blood but it’s also who you make it, and who you call home.
In a practical business sense, my mission has always been to find a way for my art and creativity to provide for my family. I also hope by the way we create and interact with those we work and collaborate with, we make a positive and long lasting impact. I hope we find and tell stories that will impact others, but also I hope each person knows we value and hold their stories sacred. I always say you can’t value anyone else’s story if you don’t know how to value your own.
I hope as I do all of this, my homies and my family see it’s possible. Actually, to any interested, I’d like to hire them so they see it’s possible and hopefully they learn to carry that same value for people and story. By hiring them, the goal would be to help enable them to do it for themselves. The crazy part for me is after 12 years of doing this business myself, this past year of 2022, I did get to pay my homies to create! I’m getting to see that dream come to life.
Yes, I want to create a multimillion dollar company, but my friends, my family, my son, and the relationships I make on the way is why I do everything and anything. It’s what I feel I was designed to do.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I never realized how important mindset was in starting a business and creating. I wish I read or listened to more audio books sooner. I also wish I invested into coaches sooner. I currently have two coaches, Matt Johnston and Michael Kim. Matt Johnston and his program PVC (Peak Video Creators) shifted my mentality from being just an artist (filmmaker) to functioning as an actual business. Matt and his program helped me grow my business more than 4x. Michael has been someone who has helped me truly transform my mindset, and ultimately help me face the darkness. He helped me confront my fears, insecurities, and the resistance I was experiencing. I also just have amazing friends that are basically my mentors to help me in this journey. The best investment is the investment in yourself. If you can get low and put your ego aside, there are so many people around you that you can learn from and grow with. At the end of the day, your best resources are your relationships. I wish I put my ego aside earlier. Don’t get in your own way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.catedralcollective.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catedral_collective/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CatedralCollective/
Image Credits
Catedral Collective