We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rai Smith . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rai below.

Rai, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

I definitely wish that I would have started earlier. I started unofficially in 2022 and officially this year but wish I would have just went for it in 2020 instead of being scared. I was fresh out of grad school but the idea kept eating at me so I decided to go for it. Starting sooner would have put me in a position help people sooner.

Rai, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Growing up, I always had a passion for helping people and I realized I got a young age. My original plan was to become a nurse and I was actually really good at all the classes to become a nurse, but when I got into nursing school, I walked in on the first day, and realized that this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I took a semester off, took some real estate classes, and I actually through that discovered my love of psychology from there. I decided to become a psychologist which also ended up not working out because I pivoted again and ended up going to get an MBA I always find myself counseling, my friends and my family or people coming and asking me for advice because I get really good advice. I am very levelheaded, but I just didn’t believe in myself to go forward. From that I ended up after grad school thinking about what to do next. I wanted to be a life coach but at this point I already had two masters and I just didn’t wanna go back to school. I found a course online or you can become a life coach and you take the certification exam after and I did that and it made me feel good to have like a professional backing behind it in the education behind it and I started from there. I am a life coach and I think what sets me apart from others is that one I am very personable too. I am not going to give you any advice that I have not followed through with myself and I am also very personable and the advice that I give. I want potential clients to know that they are in safe hands with me and then I am gonna give you the real. I will not just tell you things and make you feel better about yourself if that’s not what’s going to help you for your highest good.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I am honestly still growing my Instagram I originally had another account when I blogged a couple of years ago but when the pandemic happened I just stopped I suffered from depression like everybody else from the pandemic and I struggled. Today I still struggle with finding a balance between wanting to have a public social media account but then also still wanting my privacy but I do know that the people that do follow me they say that I’m very relatable and then also that I am real and I really appreciate that. My best advice is to just get on there and be yourself stop trying to be like everybody else that is on there because we need real people. We need real women on there who are representing and ones that are on there with a beat face and make up every day telling us, her life is great and they do not have any struggles. I believe you grow through your adversity, and many people can actually relate to the adversity versus having everything down so perfectly or being perfect.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I only have two people on staff right now, which are my assistant and then I have another life coach that I’m training under me. They have been with me since the beginning last year and the only thing that I can say is to make sure that you have people in your corner that you can actually trust and that are not jealous of you and trying to compete with you. That has been the biggest thing for me. I am very honest with my staff they know my expectations they know my heart and they know my vision and my goal and they share that with me and I do anything I can in return to help them achieve what they want to do so that helps me tremendously and them. Calendars have also been a really big help for me. I normally plan of two weeks to a month in advance so the beginning of the month before I will normally send everything out and they will come with me and tell me how this does not work for my schedule this does work for my schedule. I am just a very blunt, honest and upfront person so that really helps a lot. You are going to know where you stand with me. I also treat my staff like people. I do understand that they are my staff, but they are also people that have families that have goals and dreams of their own and I also take that into consideration and work around their schedule to because it is my business but at the end of the day when you find great people you do whatever you can to keep them and I pay really well so that helps too lol.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: foreverai_

Image Credits
Dress photos Berenice Gonzalez