Monica Austin, a Design Synergist and maker of beautiful intuitive design!
I want to help you distill your best ideas and bring them to life.
My design business really doesn’t cross much with my watercolor painting…and I have zero social media presence. 100% of my clients in design, are by word of mouth!
Learn more about Monica here:
If you are an entrepreneur, what motivated you to start your own business?
I was working for an Architecture and Design Firm in NYC, but moved to Texas to get married. It wouldn’t have worked well with the dynamics of NY employer to stay on with them, so I switched so self-employed and contract based work at that time. I fell in love with the flexibility of running of my own business, setting my own hours, and only taking the projects and clients that I shared a purpose with. After a year or so doing that solo, I started to build my team. Primarily so I could share the lifestyle with other women!!
What does success mean to you?
Some people define it as Freedom…but to me? Success is doing what I want, when I want, with whom I want. Specifically in the design space, that means doing the jobs that are beautiful AND purposeful, during hours I set, with a team and clients I’ve hand picked. It’s a dream, daily!! My creative? It connects people, it builds people up, it simplified complex information for the user. I work from home, and get to be PRESENT with my young children. I get to sit on the porch every morning with my coffee and watch them play. I get to sit in the grass and show them the world first hand. And we paint together, emotions for me, pure joy for them.
What is your mantra or favorite saying? (If it's a known quote, please let us know who said it first!)
But what if I could?
What failure taught you the most about life or business? What was the lesson?
The failure that has taught me the most about life, is ongoing, like the layers of an onion. The failure? Thinking I can do it (anything) on my own. Literally every aspect of life is better together with other people. Building teams from unique strengths, building relationships with opposite dedication and skills, building projects with unfettered creative input from all the minds. Even the hardest seasons when everything falls apart are better with a friend to lean on, and a mentor to learn from.
What's your favorite book - fiction or non-fiction! - in the past year?
The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community by Curt Thompson
If you could teach the world one five-minute lesson, what would it be?
That there is beauty to be found in EVERY failure, every struggle, every dark place…and that we shouldn’t run from pain, but face it in order to find the beauty in it.
Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently when you were first starting out?
I would have built a team alongside me MUCH sooner!
What does women's empowerment look like to you in action?
Seeing women where they are, and building a team based on the unique strengths they bring to the table.
What would you tell 19-year-old YOU?
SLOW down, don’t try to stuff the pain, be still long enough to feel it and find the good in it.
What will 86-year-old you want you to know TODAY?
That I will never regret a moment that I spent walking with someone and helping them see the beauty wherever they are.
Does anyone call you by a nickname? What is it?
My siblings call me Nanee…it’s my 4th brother’s “toddler” way of saying my name, and it just never wore off!
Congrats! You just met a Genie in a Bottle. You get three wishes. One can be worth $0-100, one is worth $100,000, and one is worth $100 million. What are your wishes?
$0-$100: $100 in pennies, for my kids $100,000: pay off the mortgage…so I can use that monthly payment amount exclusively to travel $100,000,000: invest it, live off the interest, and spend ALL my time designing / doing art for causes that deeply move and heal people, and use the extra funds beyond lifestyle expenses to be able to employ others to do the same!
What is your favorite place for our audience to reach you?
Email: [email protected] and then we’ll get on a zoom call, it’s the closest to face to face!
What is your favorite quote? (It can be yours or from someone that you look up to.)
But what if I could?
