We recently connected with Christian Normandia and have shared our conversation below.

Christian, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

I would say if I were starting over, what I would do differently is that I probably wouldn’t have left my 9-5 so soon to start the company. While I don’t think I left at the worst time, I certainly made things harder on myself by leaving when I did. A good rule of thumb for when to consider making the full leap would be to get as close as you can to your current income from your business as you do your 9-5 before leaving.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve taken away from it all is that Murphy’s Law is no joke. There will be unforeseen circumstances you will come across that will seek to stagger you, derail you, and outright stop you from progressing along your path. Without financial backup, it can become tough to get by. This idea of entrepreneurship has been so romanticized by social media that people can’t wait to quit their job and post about their new business with no real plan on how it’s all going to work. While you don’t need to have every single detail figured out, having some semblance of financial stability makes the road you’re traveling much smoother to navigate.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born in Melbourne, FL and grew up in the neighboring city of Palm Bay. Growing up, my parents were pastors of an all-Hispanic church, and my dad was a musician who would tour the church circuit and perform in various locations between Florida, Puerto Rico, and South America. Growing up with a pastor/musician in the family ingrained in me concepts of leadership and art. I think what pushed me to become a performer early on was listening to my dad do radio interviews as a kid, as well as watching him perform live on stages.

At 15, I began learning how to break (break-dance), and by 22, I had joined Fighting Gravity from America’s Got Talent Season 5 and began touring different cities and countries around the world with them (something I would do for the next ten years or so). During that time, I had taken a liking to videography and photography and would spend my downtime creating content for myself and others within the performing arts community between Palm Bay and Orlando, FL.

Eventually, I began to realize that I was going to need to have a plan in place for whatever my future held for me outside of dance. So, I started spending time between my 9-5 jobs with my mentor and business partner, Marlon Hightower, at his studio, Motiv. This led to the creation of our first business, elsE Collective, a multimedia and branding agency that specializes in commercial content creation, featuring our own artistic spin on it all. It’s been off to the races ever since, as they say.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Back when I was breaking, I thought it would be my entire life (and for a time, it was). But one thing they don’t teach you in the dance industry is how to cope with real life off the stage, and as you get older, the reality of it all starts to set in. I know so many performers in their mid-20s, late 20s, and 30s who know nothing about credit, taxes, acquiring a home, personal finances, etc., and that’s honestly scary.

When the reality of my ignorance set in, I began to do my research into the things I needed to know in order to function as an adult outside the industry. I want to be clear that I am still on a journey of discovery when it comes to properly “adulting,” but I feel like I’ve gotten a pretty good grasp on things over these past few years.

Anyway, once I realized that I was getting older and couldn’t break forever, I took stock of my other talents and passions. I began seeking those who were stronger than me in those fields to spend time around and learn from them, and that’s when I ran into my mentor, Marlon. I had met him during my dance days because his daughter, Marlee, and I performed under the same team for a time, but we had lost touch for the better part of 7 years or so.

Once I decided I needed to make a move, I reached out to him, and he invited me to start hanging around the studio. I guess, to summarize the whole thing, it’s important to always look into your future and identify when a pivot needs to happen. Once there, identify who you need to be around or where you need to be in order to initiate the growth you need in your new field.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson we were taught early on in the dance scene, and the art world at large, is that “money isn’t everything”, and to “not do things for the money”. While that is true to a certain extent, we were never taught that it is extremely important, and without it, you will struggle through every step of your artistic journey no matter the field. As I progressed through my craft and began learning from my mentor, I began to see that to make a career out of any artistic field, one has to have some competence with finances, even to reference my story about having to pivot, it was a lack of financial understanding that forced the pivot to begin with. A starving artist only sounds good on paper.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elsecollective.com/
• Instagram: @dontdoitchris
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
• Twitter: @dontdoitchris
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfgKmHUSAlF7bZBl_UVwqOQ
• Other: elsE Collective IG – @_elsecollective

Image Credits
Juan Betancourt