Build it Strong: Become the Boss of a Life You Love

BY KELLI SZLUKA

The secret to success is committing to building strength — mental, physical, and professional. The process isn’t always easy or quick, but it seems to me that there’s no better way to get to your goals.

From a young age, I knew I wanted to be the boss. I watched my father and family own and run a hardware store, and I accepted the effort, care, and even the stress that went into it. Since I was excessively creative as a child — and not at all interested in hardware (or math!) — I wasn’t entirely sure when or how I’d be able to express my entrepreneurial gene. 

Discovering the Beauty of Visual Communication

After years of painting, drawing, and creating, I headed off to art school absolutely certain that my adult life would revolve around my creativity. Soon after I got to college, I turned away from painting and drawing, and, instead, discovered a love for fonts and letter forms.

Suddenly, I became aware of the beauty of strong visual communication. I saw bad design out in the world and felt compelled to fix it. I knew it was my calling to improve logos and visual design elements to elevate brands and make everything more appealing. As I committed to honing my skills and building my knowledge of design techniques, paper stocks and PMS swatches, a career path began to emerge. 

After graduation, I still wanted to be the boss, but I knew I wasn’t ready. I had a lot of learning to do, so I began working for others in hopes of gaining enough real-world experience to eventually set out on my own. My work took me from coast to coast working for agencies and television networks. I made many contacts and soaked in every experience during long days and late nights. I knew I was paying my dues and expanding my design repertoire. In fact, I eventually began building my freelance career while I still maintained a full-time day job, preparing for my eventual transition.

Building a Career and Life that I Love

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In 2011, Kelli & Company, Inc. was launched. After a decade working for others, I was finally the boss I always knew I would be. While I was building the client roster of my small business, I was also building my married life— and we intended to build a family, too. That’s a lot of building. But, goals have always kept me focused.

As my husband and I embarked on our new life together, we kept our friendships and family bonds strong. When the time came, I was able to lean on all of these connections as I dealt with fertility issues, pregnancy loss, and eventual motherhood to two little miracles. 

Maintaining Emotional and Professional Wellness

If you know me, you know I’m all about building physical strength as well as mental strength. Exercise is and always has been a stress-reliever for me, so you can find me lifting heavy and pushing my physical limits 6 days a week. As a working mother — especially an entrepreneur — it isn’t always easy to carve out guilt-free time to care for yourself, so you have to make it a non-negotiable part of your schedule.

Like all other commitments to building strength, I am reminded that my health is a key factor in my ability to maintain emotional and professional wellness for my family and my clients. Our family of four is now well-entrenched in our routine, which includes healthy foods and plenty of physical activity, and we’re all better for it.

Just like a well-managed business, I believe the tasks of modern life need to be delegated for efficiency (and sanity). I’ve accepted that I’m not a superhero. And you should, too. Micromanaging everything is a recipe for disaster. Instead, commit to surrounding yourself with the right people for the jobs required. This will free you up to be present in your own life and have some much-needed fun along the way. Otherwise, what’s the point? 

Personally, I can fully enjoy taking my kids on an outing when I’m not worried about whether the laundry has been folded. My husband and I can attend a friend’s wedding when we know our children will be well looked after. I can commit to a crazy client deadline by knowing my husband will handle dinner and bath time and vice versa. That’s the balance we’ve found. 

Maintaining Boundaries and Balance

When you’re a wife, mom and entrepreneur — with a growing business full of clients you care about — you also need to commit to building and maintaining boundaries. Sometimes you have to say no. Sometimes you may even have to part ways with an employee or a client if the relationship isn’t working. It happens, but it doesn’t have to feel catastrophic. Recognize that you’re both clearing the way for a better relationship to replace the one that’s ending. 

Building strength and resilience will come with growing pains, and occasional course-correction. That’s normal. If you can release the need to be everything to everyone, and recognize that building a dream is a marathon, not a sprint, it’s well within your power to combine all the best parts of who you are in order to become the boss of a life you love.

ABOUT KELLI SZLUKA

Owning design software doesn’t make one a graphic designer any more than owning a pen makes one a writer. Luckily, trained and true graphic designers like Kelli Szluka are available to help your brand put its best foot forward.

Kelli’s diverse and vast east and west coast chops include inspired design brilliance for everything from major television networks (We tv, AMC Networks, History Channel, FX, Lifetime, EPIX, CNN) to motorcycle customization companies, to cosmetics manufacturers — with logos, websites, and custom letter-pressed stationery thrown in for good measure. Face it: it’s not every day you find a classically trained print designer who is as comfortable designing key art for We tv’s newest reality TV show as she is designing a sales training guide for Toyota.

Across all her boutique agency’s work, Kelli harnesses the value and impact of proper typography, image use, and composition both in print and digital media and isn’t shy about discussing with a client what will and won’t work and why. She listens; she gets it; and then she delivers enthusiastically, on time and on budget. It’s no wonder why nearly every client is a repeat client, and most of them want to buy her dinner.

Kelli has designed Emmy® and Golden Globe® campaigns while winning several awards herself, including two Promax/BDA awards; having two original wedding invitation designs chosen for the OUTPUT Design Regional creative competition in Albany, New York; and having her wedding stationery designs featured on www.stylemepretty.com. With recognition rolling in like thunder, Kelli was an obvious choice to be honored in her alma mater’s annual alumni show.

When she’s not making magic for clients, you’ll probably find her hitting her local Crossfit gym, refurbishing unique furniture finds, and spending time with her adorable children, Riley & Reed. Kelli is the girlfriend you call to share tapas and wine; the wife who’s happy to watch a game with her man; and the creative powerhouse who seems to clairvoyantly know what you need before you even articulate what you want.

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