We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Taylor Shiff a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Taylor thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

Growing up, I was always encouraged to share my ideas. My parents both have entrepreneurial spirits and had side businesses when I was a kid. I have a very distinct memory of watching my dad create the prototype for the product he sold. It was a back scratcher with a golfing glove as the scratcher. He crafted the prototype from modeling clay in our living room, and then went on to sell thousands of them through large retailers. So when I came up with the idea to do Taylor Lee Design on the side, they were really supportive. They taught me not only what it means to have a hard work ethic but also how to persevere through the tougher parts of being a business owner. Through the long hours or the stressful orders, I try to always go back to why I chose to do this and readjust my business model as I go to make it work for me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Taylor Lee Design is an online retailer that creates custom and personalized glassware and mugs. I picked up calligraphy a while back, and I decided it would be cool to try to make gifts with this new skill. I’ve always found gift-giving so hard. It’s one of those activities that makes you question everything you know about the people you love. One moment you think you know everything about them. The next, it’s like your brain decided to dump all files on what that person’s favorite things are, where they shop, and even what they like.

So I decided to keep it simple. I make mugs and glasses that revolve around the basic traits of the people you love — that you’ll never forget and will never go out of style. There are pint glasses with their home state, mugs with a photo of their pet, and cocktail glasses with their name handwritten. I try to create products that your friends and family will actually use. Think functional yet meaningful. These gifts are nothing like those mass-produced items from giant retailers. They won’t sit in the corner collecting dust – or worse: be re-gifted because you really missed the mark that bad.

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

Working hard and long hours always leads to success. For one thing, it’s unsustainable. Especially when you are running a side business, it’s important to maintain boundaries. That means establishing realistic goals and timetables. It means saying not saying yes to every request. And sometimes it means stepping away for a bit. In the past few years that I’ve been running this business, there have been times when I have been able to put a lot of effort into this business and times when I haven’t. No matter how long I decide to keep the shop open, I will not consider it a failure when it comes time to close it up. Every single sale, great review, referral, or even Instagram message has made it worth it. To me, it’s already been a success. I achieve my mission every time someone chooses Taylor Lee Design to give their loved ones a personal, handmade gift.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In the last few years, resilience has been a word that has really resonated with me. Up until recently, I was someone who always had to think ten steps ahead in everything. Once when I was a kid, I asked one of my friends if she ever thought about the person she was going to marry someday, and she said, “Not really. I’m ten.” That was the first time I realized I was a bit more forward-thinking than some of my peers. But it could also be debilitating when things didn’t turn out as planned. A few years ago, a pretty life-changing event happened in my personal life that made me feel like my whole future got knocked off course.

My business came to an almost complete halt because I had so much going on in my life. And when it comes to big life changes, I tend to go all in. At a time when I felt like I was drowning in my personal life, I bought a house, switched career paths, got a puppy, and pretty much started from scratch. It was the first time in my life that I stopped thinking so far ahead. I just lived in the moment, trying to keep my head above water. Eventually, I had the capacity to start working on my business again. And the best part was that I no longer carried the stress of where I thought my business had to be or what would happen if I closed it down someday. I learned to just enjoy where it is at in this moment, and that gave me a lot of peace.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.taylorleedesign.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/taylorleedesign
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taylorleedesign/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tshiff/