We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Raema Mauriello a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Raema, appreciate you joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

I served in the Navy between 2000-2004. I didn’t have an assigned job title when I joined and the group I was in was asked if any of us wanted to train to become a search and rescue swimmer, because each ship needed a certain number to be certified for deployment. I looked around the room and nobody raised their hand, and I knew how to swim so I figured I could at least try and get the qualification. Training to even get accepted into the school was difficult, but I passed the tests and was able to attend the school. When I arrived I was the only girl in my class and the training was brutal. Each week we were there people would voluntarily drop out of the class because it was too hard, but I refused to quit. I wanted prove everyone who didn’t think I could graduate because I was the smallest one, wrong. A class of 25 became a class of 8, and I became one of seven women who had ever graduated that program (at that time).

This lesson showed me that I am capable of more then I thought, when quitting stops becoming an option the potential to achieve seemingly impossible things becomes possible. People can believe in us, but they can’t achieve greatness for us. We are the only ones who can make the decision to try. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t but I don’t want to look back on my life and regret not at least trying. If it doesn’t work, then I learned a lesson for next time but we can’t allow failure or the fear of failure to paralyze us. Life is too short to not at least try

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello, I’m Raema aka “Gifty Gal.” I am a gift curator and it’s the most fun job I’ve ever had. When I tell people what I do I usually get the follow up question “what is a gift curator?” In simplest terms, I put gifts together for people and on behalf of people. I have always loved giving gift to people personally and it really began with baby shower gifts. When I was pregnant with my first child we couldn’t afford things for him and a very kind and generous woman gave us all of her baby things her child grew out of. In that moment I made a promise to myself I would always generously give to others having a baby to pay it forward. So, I would collect baby items and fill big baskets full of stuff and it grew over time until one day I had four baby showers in one month I was attending and my husband came into my office, saw the baskets on the floor and said “you should do this as a business.”

It had honestly never occurred to me this could ever be a business, who would pay someone to put gifts together for them? I wasn’t aware there was a market for this. Well, apparently there is a market for this. I started the business in November of 2021, became and LLC January of 2022 and exploded in the corporate space.

I curate a lot of gifts for people on sales and send gifts to prospects or current customers and clients. I love getting to be their secret weapon to help them get a meeting scheduled or to send celebratory gifts when a deal closes. I curate closing gifts for a bunch of agents in DFW and ship them all over the country. Holidays are fun because I get to do custom Easter baskets, Mother’s Day gifts, anniversaries, Christmas…if you celebrate it I’ve probably done a gift for it. I’ve even been entrusted to put together gifts for those who have lost a loved one.

I feel so honored to be trusted with such a personal and important part of people’s lives and I love the creative aspect of each gift, making sure they are curated with the recipient in mind

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

My business is built strictly on my reputation, and it grows by word of mouth and referrals. I think my ability to help people in sales and customer relations takes a very important part of their job off their plate so they can focus on other things. I have relieved the stress of trying to think of a gift, buy it and deliver it, from them. Why spend your time doing something that stresses you out when I can do it for you?

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

One of the books I always recommend to others, in any stage in their career is “Extreme Ownership.” I am a firm believer that in order to become the best leader or the best team member we have to constantly take accountability for our own decisions (good or bad) and be ready to quickly pivot and solve problems in order to innovate and grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.giftygal.co
• Instagram: @gifty.gal
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/giftygaltx?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raema-mauriello-747970118
• Youtube: @giftygal

Image Credits
7 Seconds Media