Amerika Young shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Amerika, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
I recently started taking ballroom dancing lessons. I grew up ice skating and stopped just after college and since then I haven’t had anything that allows me to artistically express myself through movement. I’ve had other strength and endurance activities over the years, but not anything artistic. I took a few ballroom classes after I quit ice skating, but I didn’t continue with it. For years, I have looked up dance studios in the area and their class schedules, but my previous career had an incredibly unpredictable schedule so I never made the commitment to take classes. It’s incredible, when an instructor asks if I know the steps to certain dances, I originally feet like deer in headlights, but as soon as we start moving, all the basic steps come flooding back in and I’m able to follow along without thinking too hard. My body takes over and says “I’ve got this”.
When people hear “ballroom” they usually think giant dresses and big waltz steps, but honestly my favorite is working on all the latin dances. Living in Florida, almost all the special events, parties and weddings play latin music of some kind so I’m enjoying learning dances that I can actually use in real life and not just in a classroom or on a stage.
Almost every area of my life and business I’m in charge of all the details at one time, but with ballroom dance I have to push my analytical mind to the back and let my artistic brain take over.
I laugh, sometimes in my private lessons the instructor will ask “What do you want to work on today?” I shrug my shoulders and say “Wherever you want to start” and I just go with it. At first the instructor probably thought I was a super indecisive person, but I clarified that it’s my job to take care of every detail for someone else and this is one of the few areas where someone else get’s to take the wheel and make some of the decisions. As I learn more technique within the dances, I’m sure I’ll narrow things down and decide which dances I want to focus on and which I’d rather leave alone. In the mean time I’m just having a blast.
One thing I love about dance is that it’s creativity that isn’t just seen, it’s actually felt. With my design business, I’ve created all my systems around the nervous system and what you feel when you walk into your space, not just how it looks. Dance is the ultimate tie into your nervous system, you feel it and you express it. The most important thing is to let go of any tension and don’t take yourself too seriously. If you flub up the steps, laugh and keep going.
It’s the activity I look forward to the most each week.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m the founder of The VividX House, a modern interior design studio that helps people create homes that feel refined, intentional, and aligned with who they’re becoming. My background is in luxury hospitality and private aviation, so I’ve always been drawn to environments that quietly support you without chaos or excess. That sense of emotional steadiness is what I now bring into interior design.
Inside The VividX House, I created the Space Edit Reset. It’s not about decluttering, organizing, or throwing things away. It’s about finding what truly belongs in your space and what doesn’t. Emotionally, visually, and practically. It helps you see your home through new eyes, reconnect with what supports you, and release what’s quietly keeping you stuck.
You can experience it through the Space Edit Reset Course if you want to do it on your own, or work with me through The Transformative Home Experience for a more personal, full-scale design journey. Either way, it’s a reset for both your home and your nervous system. It’s where order, calm, and beauty start working together again.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
I don’t think there was one single moment that shaped how I see the world. It’s something that’s unfolded over time through designing spaces and paying attention to what people live with every day.
When you’re growing up, people hand you their version of the world. Maybe you’re told that life is full of possibilities and that things will fall into place for you no matter what you do. Or maybe you’re told that life is difficult, that success is rare, or that you need to be realistic. Those stories stick and you buy them as truth or the only path. They quietly shape what you believe you’re capable of and what you think you’re allowed to have.
I see that same pattern show up in people’s homes. They’re surrounded by things they don’t truly like. Furniture that was handed down, décor that never felt like them, or gifts that carry other people’s taste. Some fill their rooms with what they think they should have because it looks right in someone else’s home or they didn’t really know what to buy so they went with the first thing they saw. Then they wonder why they feel stuck. Their space is holding someone else’s definition of comfort and success.
When I was a kid, I used to rearrange my room all the time. I’d move furniture until something finally clicked. Some setups were terrible, but every time I shifted things around, I learned what worked and what didn’t. I didn’t realize it then, but I was teaching myself how alignment feels. There’s a moment when your body relaxes and the room just feels right.
Now I notice that same feeling when I design for clients. I can walk into a space and tell when someone is living inside old beliefs or inherited expectations. They’ve never been given permission to design their home according to their own nervous system. They’re living in patterns that once kept them safe, not in environments that help them grow.
What I’ve learned is that there are always bigger possibilities than what we were first taught to believe. There is higher luxury, deeper comfort, and a more personal sense of belonging available when you stop settling for what’s familiar. People often stay in environments that don’t fit because the discomfort is familiar, and familiar feels easier than new.
For me, design has become a way of expanding capacity. It’s not about what you’re capable of. It’s about the capacity to receive more beauty, order, and possibility than your past allowed. Once that capacity to receive and hold grows, everything changes. The space shifts, the room lightens, and life starts to move again.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
If I could say one kind thing to my younger self, I’d tell her how enormous her capacity really is. Not just capability, but her capacity.
When you’re young, you don’t realize how much of the world gets built into you through other people’s words. A few comments, a tone, or even a look can shape how you see yourself for years. I remember certain conversations that planted limits in my mind, like invisible walls around what I believed was possible. After that, I learned to play small, to blend in, to stay under the radar.
For a long time, I lived that way. Quiet. Careful. Capable, but contained. Then when I met my husband, he kept saying something that completely stopped me in my tracks. He’d say, “Just be you.” It sounded simple, but to me it felt foreign. No one had ever said that to me. My whole life had been built around earning approval, keeping the peace, and making myself fit. The idea that being fully myself could ever be enough felt like speaking another language.
If I could go back to one moment, I’d choose that little girl around six or seven years old. I’d sit down at that table with her in that moment that has replayed in my head everyday since and tell her that she was made to carry something enormous, something that would reach the world. I’d tell her that her capacity is not too much, it’s exactly what God designed for the calling on her life. She was made to hold abundance, to create beauty that multiplies, to carry influence that stretches far beyond what she could imagine.
I’d tell her that it’s safe to hold more. More joy. More responsibility. More vision. More provision. She doesn’t need to shrink to be loved or quiet herself to be accepted. She was never meant to survive inside other people’s small thinking.
I’d remind her that what God built inside her is not ordinary. It’s expansive. It’s generational. It’s meant to pour into others. She was made for magnitude, not for maintenance.
That’s what I’d tell her. Not just to believe in herself, but to prepare to receive all that was already written for her. Because her capacity is the gift, and when she learns to hold it fully, everything around her will rise to meet it. Instead of just wishing I could go back and talk to my younger self, I have actively imagined the details of the two sided conversation and embraced it like I or she was really hearing it and letting it transform her life from then on. I believe we live according to the stories in our heads, and by actively walking through that conversation in my imagination helps me shift and improve the story I’m living according to today.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
I’d say yes, the public version of me is the real me. Honestly, it’s just easier that way. I don’t have to perform or switch into a different personality. What you see on camera is what you get in real life.
That doesn’t mean I’m “on” all the time. I definitely have different speeds. One minute I’m on the couch with a blanket and a chai latte watching a home-flipping show, and the next I’m turning on my camera to film a video. Both are real. Both are me.
The best confirmation of that has come from meeting people in person who’ve seen my videos online. Once, my husband and I were at a hotel restaurant in New York with a few friends. A woman walked up holding her phone with one of my paused videos on the screen. She smiled and said, “Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but is this you?” My heart just melted. I told her yes and invited her to sit down. We talked for a while, and it was such an easy, genuine conversation.
Another time, on a different trip, I posted in a local forum that I’d be at a certain café if anyone wanted to join me. I wasn’t doing a meet-and-greet or anything official, I just thought it would be nice to have company with people who share similar interests. One woman reached out and joined me for breakfast. We laughed, swapped stories, and talked shop for a bit. Before she left, she said she’d watched almost all my videos and that I was just as warm and expressive in person as I am online.
That moment meant a lot to me. It reminded me that staying authentic is worth it. The things I share, the way I talk, what I love, those aren’t a version I turn on for the internet. They’re part of who I am every day. And honestly, that’s what makes creating content sustainable for me. I don’t have to fake it. I just get to be myself. The same curiosity and honesty I bring to conversations are what drive how I design. When I talk about creating homes that reflect who you are, that’s not marketing language. That’s what I live.
The VividX House and the Space Edit Reset were both built from that same place of authenticity. I don’t believe in designing a life or a home that feels separate from who you really are. The more honest you are about what belongs, the more everything around you starts to line up.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
Absolutely yes, I’m doing what I was born to do.
That feels wild to say because not many people ever get to feel that kind of clarity. For years, I was circling around it without realizing it. But now, I can feel it. This is it.
When I was little, I was always decorating and rearranging my room. I’d move furniture until it felt right, hang pictures, and paint walls. My high school bedroom could have been in a magazine. I had a clear vision, and my trusted me to create it.
I started college in interior design and then switched to architecture. I loved the structure and problem-solving, and I was good at math, so my mom would ask, “Are you sure you don’t want to be an engineer?” Yes, I could have done that. But would it have filled me with life? Probably not.
After college, the housing market crashed and architects weren’t hiring, so I spent five years working for an engineer. Then I moved into private aviation and built an entire career there. It was exciting and refined, but I never stopped designing. I was always helping friends with their homes, rearranging spaces, and studying what made people feel at peace in a room. I tried home organizing for a while too, but that still missed the mark.
When I finally stepped out of aviation and gave myself room to breathe, I could see it clearly for the first time. This was never random. Interior design, especially design that works with the nervous system, is my through line. It’s what makes me come alive. It’s what I can do every single day and still feel excited to wake up to.
That clarity is what led me to create The VividX House and my signature process, the Space Edit Reset. It’s not about decluttering or perfection. It’s about rediscovering what truly belongs in your home and what doesn’t. Whether you live in a studio apartment or a mansion in West Palm Beach, this process changes how you experience your space.
So many people spend thousands of dollars decorating but still can’t relax in their own home. That’s because the nervous system knows the truth. It knows when a space supports you and when it doesn’t. The Space Edit Reset helps you align your home with who you are becoming. It’s not about stuff. It’s about belonging.
This work is more than design for me. It’s purpose. It’s legacy. It’s the thing I was created to do. And once you’ve found what you were born for, there’s no going back to being who the world told you to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.vividxhouse.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevividxhouse/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amerika-young/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVividXHouse
- Other: TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@the_vividx_house
Image Credits
(all photo credit is mine)
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
