We recently connected with Lilianne Steckel and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Lilianne thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
Passion, drive and courage are key for being successful. When you own your own company, every bump in the road and mistake reflects back on you and without the passion and drive to continue, it can be very stressful and discouraging at times. Fear presents itself quite often along the journey, so a solid dose of continual courage is needed! Not every day is a win, but if you are passionate enough about what you are doing-nothing will stop you.
Lilianne, 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 grew up in Los Angeles and we would often visit with a family friend who was a famous interior designer named Tony Duquette. What a talent! He would let me explore his estate and encourage my creativity. I think seeing his wild design sense really impacted me when I was younger. I decided to take my first interior design class in high school and everything seemed to click into place. Next was my bachelors in San Diego and then I went to Florence, Italy to do a master course for Interior Design. It has always made me happy to express myself through design and to connect with people over spaces. I turned that passion into my current firm 10 years ago in Austin, TX.
I have always loved to travel and am a huge hotel lover. I originally thought, I only want to design hotels, bars and restaurants. haha! But as time has showed me, it turns out I just love designing spaces that people get to enjoy. So I design a lot of commercial spaces from coffee shops to climbing gyms to breweries to hair salons. We love doing residential design as well. It flexes a different part of my brain and I am a strong believer that we are all continually learning and growing! Taking on unique projects or working around challenges to create a unique space is so expansive!
We love creating and connecting to others and the community. We strive to make each project feel intrinsic to its owners or brand. We love that a project is also a reflection of us, but we don’t prioritize that and prefer the connection to the owners to be the loudest voice.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I think being a creative is so rewarding each day! One of the most rewarding aspects is the amount of self awareness and growth that I have experienced going through the ups and downs of owning a creative business and consistently putting my ideas out there. It is so vulnerable to show your ideas and be proud of them even when people don’t jump up and down and scream out how much they love them! But coming up with things in your mind and then being able to walk through them later with friends is seriously cool and so rewarding!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Resilience was actually one of my key words that I was dedicated to working on for many, many years! I feel like I only just truly tapped into it. We have had lots of stories where resilience was key, but we will just share the one.
We were set to move into an office space in early 2020 and were reviewing the lease when Covid hit. We had a full time employee and worked out of my home office. We made the decision to wait on the office until there was more clarity with what was going on in the world. We didn’t realize how long or painful that period of time would be for all of us in so many ways. I paid my employee the whole time, only having to lower her hours for a short period and we continued to work. I didn’t pay myself and went through my savings to keep everything going. We had almost every client paying their invoices late, we were working from home and sometimes from two different rooms in my home to stay distanced and we were having to do everything remote except for a couple of projects where we still had to meet on site. Those projects consistently had people testing positive and we felt constantly at risk. After over a year, we ramped our work back up, hired another employee, found an office and begin to level back out.
That time reminded me that setbacks and challenges are only temporary and what you choose to do with them is the most important part. Resilience is about courage, faith that it’s going to work out and the ability to continue to work hard and support your passions. I am grateful for that time now because it taught me so much, but it sure was tough to go through!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.liliannesteckel.com
- Instagram: @designlil
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LilianneSteckelInteriorDesign
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liliannesteckel/
Image Credits
Project Photography by Andrea Calo Headshot by Alison Narro