TikTok Changed My Life
Dani Klarić was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. She is currently 22 years old living in Miami, FL as an interior decorator. Dani is well known for her TikTok videos where she creates interior decorating, fashion, lifestyle, and travel content. TikTok has opened the door for Dani to gain more exposure in her interior décor field and the opportunity for her to create her own design firm. As a content creator and business owner it can be challenging to manage all at once, read below as she shares her tips on how she has gotten to 870.3k+ followers on TikTok, inspiration to keep going when pursuing a dream, and her newest upcoming project.
1. You became a viral sensation with just a 60 second clip at the end of 2021 inspiring many on how Tik Tok changed the directory of your life. Your statement “At the age of 21 I could barely afford my rent, now I’m living in my dream apartment at just age 22” gave me chills because it shows how so much can change in a span of a year. What were some key steps you took to get to this point?
After spending years, chasing the finish line I finally came to the realization that you can’t fight the process. I spent most of my time thinking about what my life could be instead of focusing on what it currently was. So I told myself I had to start enjoying the process and as soon as I did, I started to see an improvement in myself and my life. Sometimes we underestimate the power of enjoying the process. Growth doesn’t happen by the physical achievement of the goal, it happens while working towards that goal. After realizing this, Some key points that really helped me achieve my goals were:
1. Reflecting consistently. Reflecting on yourself helps you develop your skills and review their effectiveness. Literally can’t stress enough how important this is!!!
2. Trial and error. Because every time time we fail at something, we give ourselves an opportunity to analyze and learn from that failure. Which then helps us make changes and improve the next time we try.
3. Keep a positive mindset. Number 2 will get hard if you don’t keep a positive mindset. Ever since I learned that keeping a positive mindset was SO important, I never let myself regret anything ever again. I now believe that there is always purpose, meaning and growth to be gained from whatever tough times we go through. Also, manifestation is a REAL thing. Being positive, only attracts positive and good energy into your life ;)
4. Discipline and consistency. This is a no-brainer. As long as there is discipline, there are results because discipline creates habits, habits make routines and routines become who you are daily. And if you’re a passionate hard worker every single day, there is no way you won’t succeed. Also, discipline keeps you consistent and consistency is KEY for being successful.
For example: As freelancers, we need to find ways to market ourselves in order to find clients. So once I saw that I could use social media as a tool to market myself, I decided to be consistent and post every single day. And as soon as I started, I grew over 100k followers in 28 days. Sot his ladies and gents is my proof that consistency works
2. The terms “creator” and “influencer” are classified different within world of digital media, you being a creator has led to influencing in various of ways allowing you to make a stream of income through social media. What advice would you give someone looking to pursue this as a career?
If you’re someone who’s interested in getting involved with the social media world my biggest advice would be to stay true to yourself. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget who you are when you spend your life on social media. And people are just always looking for something fresh and unique. There also needs to be lots of patience, especially in the beginning. Sometimes it can get very frustrating when you work really hard on a video, for it to not do well. But if you have patience and are consistent, eventually you will achieve everything you wanted and more. Lastly, some people reallllly underestimate the amount of work that goes into doing social media full-time. And I can admit, I was one of those people. Most people work a 9-5, Monday through Friday but as a content creator you are literally working a 9-12, every single day of the week. It’s incredibly time consuming and SO much hard work is involved but if you’re passionate and dedicated, it’s also an incredibly rewarding job.
3. What we as viewers see is just a skewed lens to the work you actually put in day to day, how do you stay motivated when things get tough ? What keeps you in a state of inspiration?
Being completely honest, just a constant reminder that I’m very lucky to be doing what I love as a job is enough to keep me going. There has been many times where I seriously felt like things couldn’t get any better but as soon as that happens, I remind myself of all the good things I’ve achieved and remember how grateful I am to have them. As long as you always keep a positive mindset, even when the worst happens, you’ll find a way to overcome it. You always need to focus on the positive, never the negative. ;)
4. How do you tap into your creative side to bring new ideas and standout from others within the creative design field?
I’ve always been someone who’s very appreciative of their surroundings. I like to see the beauty in everything and I mean that in the cheesiest way possible. Everything has its own uniqueness and charm, you just need to have the mind to see it. I’ve always been a person who is very appreciative of my roots. I always find myself always getting inspired by my Mexican and European culture. Ironic enough, I really think my style reflects that. Whenever you’re feeling uninspired or lost, its always good to go back to where you came from. Every time I do that, I end up finding and understanding myself even more.
5. 1 video changed your career path entirely as you responded to a comment “what’s your job?” and landed your first client. How does it feel to look back at the fact 1 post put you on the path to have your own design firm? What would you tell someone who is fearful of starting something-weather that be posting content on social media or following their dreams?
I think its absolutely mind blowing. The fact that one video changed my entire life is so crazy but so beautiful! I’ve always been someone who has been extremely appreciative of the social media world. I’m not lying when I tell you that I’ve been obsessed with it ever since I was young ~ but not in a unhealthy way I swear~ I just always thought it was cool that we get to live in a world where we have tools like social media to help us succeed and do things like follow our dreams. So if you’re someone who is chasing their dreams or if you’re a freelancer or even a small business owner just looking for clients, social media is your best friend. The amount of things that can be achieved with social media is absolutely mind blowing and i promise you’ll understand as soon as you start trying. Social media may look very intimidating and confusing at first, but once you start creating content and get the hang of it, I promise, you won’t regret a single thing!
6. When getting the opportunity to work on your first project for your portfolio, how did it feel to achieve that milestone?
It honestly didn’t even feel real at first. It was low-key very intimidating and scary. You would think you’d be extremely excited to hit this milestone but as soon as I got my first job I was re-thinking my entire existence lol. I was freaking out and asking myself questions like, “Dani do you even know what you’re doing? Do we know how to paint? What if the measurements are wrong? What if the furniture doesn’t fit? What if I ordered the wrong stuff?” The fact that someone trusted me enough to fly me across the U.S to decorate their house was mind boggling I’m not going to lie. But after spending 6 days painting and decorating and finally seeing the end result... There just isn’t a word to describe how I felt. It was relieving, yet beautiful and shocking. I don’t know, all I know is that I will always cherish that project and it will always be my favorite experience I’ve had as a decorator.
7. As stated online you shared that you are temporarily moving to San Francisco with your best friend Tay who works on a lot of DIY projects, to collaborate on transforming an empty space into a vintage clothing store. Your theme of choice for the interior will be “retro futurism”. That concept is very intriguing, what has inspired you two to pick this theme choice for your vintage clothing store?
The owner of the store, her name is Mel, she’s a very interesting and creative person. As soon as we spoke to her on the phone we knew she wanted something different. And for some reason, I’ve been obsessing over retro futurism and the space age style for quite some time. Tay and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to make something we’ve never gotten the chance to do before. Space age design is such a fun style because it’s literally what people in the 50s thought the future would look like. Space age incorporates lots of fun shapes, almost everything is curved and has no straight edges. Which I LOVE! They also use lots of fun and bold colors like red and orange. And for some reason, the thought of someone from the 50s sitting at their desk, drawing a sofa of what they thought it would look like in the future is so intriguing to me. But, Tay and I love to mix styles, so this store will definitely be inspired by this era but we’ll also be mixing it with our own personal styles as well. I’m so excited to see how this project turns out!!
8. How would you describe your interior decor style? And what inspires you to have this style while decorating?
My style is basically a mix of almost every era and style combined ~I just love every design style no joke~ But the closest words to describe my style would be “Vintage Eclectic.” Its very influenced by the Miami Art Deco era, which makes sense because I grew up here. And I also get most of my inspo from my Mexican and European culture. All of my love for color comes from growing up in Mexico and their extremely bold and colorful culture. Like seriously, my entire life growing up was extremely colorful.
9. If you had the opportunity to create the project of your dreams, what would that project be and where would it take place?
Dani’s motel. Well I don’t know if that’s what it would be called, I haven’t thought that far ahead but my dream has always been to buy and flip a vintage motel. Each room would have it’s own theme and personality. And it would be designed around the concept that people would be staying here for content and pictures. So that just means the entire motel will have to be very photogenic and aesthetic! I can’t wait to do this one day. It makes me so excited even just thinking about it!!
10. Traveling is a blessing as you get the opportunity to see the world and all the beauty it has to offer. How do you manage your interior decor career/business and content creation in your everyday life without feeling overwhelmed?
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t overwhelmed every once in a while. The content creation life is fairly new to me and I’m now just getting used to it. I’ve actually been working on this exact thing for a few weeks now. Being disciplined and keeping a schedule are two things that have really helped me manage two full time jobs. It sometimes gets hard to keep a schedule when your traveling but I realized that having a routine doesn’t always mean to do something crazy everyday. I came up with 3 simple things that I’m able to do at home or even when I’m traveling. For example:
1. Wake up at the same time every day
2. Mediate and 5-10 mins of yoga
3. Journal and write out your tasks for the day. These tasks seem so simple but I promise you, they are affective.
One really important thing I learned and low-key had to force myself to accept is that you can’t do everything by yourself. You need to let others help you. And it sounds silly, but it’s a serious thing people struggle with and I learned this the hard way.
Click Below To Access Dani’s Instagram & TikTok
