Leor Zlotnik is the founder of LZ Interiors, a luxury interior design studio known for its detail-driven approach to residential and commercial spaces. Before starting the firm, Zlotnik worked at Goldman Sachs, then left that path to build a design business from the ground up as a single mom. Below, Zlotnik talks about what success actually means, and how that definition has changed over time.
How do you personally define success?
For me, success is spiritual, emotional, and creative alignment. That sounds abstract, so let me put it plainly: it’s the feeling that what I’m doing with my time matches what I actually value. I can point to plenty of external markers, a finished project, a happy client, but none of those mean much if I got there feeling disconnected from why I started. Alignment is the real test. If my work, my instincts, and my daily choices are pointing the same direction, that’s success, even on a slow week.
Was there a moment you realized your old definition of success wasn’t working anymore?
Leaving Goldman Sachs was that moment. I had a role that plenty of people would call successful by any conventional measure. But building a design business on the side, and eventually choosing it full time, taught me that success isn’t just about the strength of a resume. It’s about whether the work is actually yours. Once I felt that gap between what looked good on paper and what felt right day to day, I couldn’t unsee it.
How did being a single mom change how you measure success?
It made me a lot less patient with vanity metrics. When you’re building a business from scratch while raising a child on your own, you don’t have time to chase things that don’t matter. Every hour has to count for something real, whether that’s revenue, a client relationship, or time with my kid. Success became less about how things looked from the outside and more about whether the foundation underneath was actually solid.
Do you think success looks different in the design industry than in other fields?
I think design has a particular trap: it’s a visual business, so it’s tempting to measure success purely by how a room photographs. But a beautiful photo doesn’t tell you if the client’s water pressure works, if the materials will hold up in five years, or if they overpaid for something a smarter sourcing decision could have fixed. Real success in this industry means the space still works, still feels right, long after the photographer has left.
What’s a success habit you rely on that other people might not expect?
I check in with myself before I check in with the project. If I’m not emotionally and creatively steady, I can’t make good calls for a client. So before I look at a floor plan or a material sample, I ask myself honestly how aligned I feel that day. It’s a small thing, but skipping it shows up later in bigger ways, usually as a decision made from stress instead of clarity.
How do you know when a project has actually succeeded?
Beyond the obvious, that the client loves the outcome, I ask whether the process protected them. Did they understand what they were buying? Did they avoid the costly mistakes that so many people fall into with a big renovation or build? Success means the beauty and the substance arrived together.
Has your definition of success changed as your business has grown?
It’s gotten more specific, not less demanding. Early on, success was survival: could I make this work at all, on my own, with no safety net. Now it’s about consistency. Can I keep that same emotional and creative alignment even as the stakes get higher and the projects get bigger? That’s a harder question than the one I started with, but I’d rather keep asking it than settle for an easier answer.