REWIND: Rapid Fire Feature: Rasheeda Gray of Grayspace Interiors

Hey Everyone! I'm continuing to highlight some fabulous women this March with another throwback Rapid Fire Feature: Rasheeda Gray of Grayspace Interiors.

 Rasheeda Gray chats with us about her transition from corporate marketing exec to CEO of her own design firm!

If you would like to be featured, or would like to recommend someone for a Rapid Fire Feature episode, send me an email or DM for more details!

Learn more about Rasheeda and her work here:
IG: @grayspaceinteriordesign
Website: Grayspace Interiors
Youtube: Grayspace Interior Design

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Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:01.496)
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Defining Your Life podcast, where we focus on living in our purpose, practicing presence, and activating our power in each moment. I'm Marsharelle, your resident pep talk provider, and I invite you to join me as we continue to learn, lift each other up, and strive to level up together. Because we are never finished defining our lives, and it takes a village, so let's build one. Stay tuned for the episode.

Speaker 2 (00:33.262)
Hey everyone, I hope that all is well that you are feeling good feeling accomplished and embracing all that this week has to offer. And today I come to you with another rapid fire feature very excited to be joined by Rashida gray of gray space interiors and i'm excited to have her on to share a little about her journey.

and how a series of transitions led and continue to lead her on the path she walks today. So welcome, Rashida.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Awesome. Awesome. I'm so excited to have you. So let's dive right in. How would you describe yourself in 30 seconds or less?

Okay, so I know this is rapid fire, so I'm just gonna give you some bullet points. But I would say I am first a wife, a mother, I'm a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a soror. And then professionally, I am a prior marketing executive. And currently, I am interior designer and CEO of Grayspace Interiors. And for the last seven years, we've provided full service and virtual design services.

Speaker 1 (01:50.296)
for our clients throughout Philadelphia and nationwide.

cannot believe that it's been seven years. That sounds insane to me. So I'm sure it sounds insane to you, but it's been wonderful to watch you blossom in this space. What prompted your love for interior design?

I would have to go way back and sort of identify where it came from, and so it didn't show up in the way that it is today. So i've always been a creative I would say my earliest recollection of creativity sort of surrounded it around our art, and so I thought I wanted to be a painter, when I was very young and explored that for a bit and then a ball into selling for about.

Two seconds. had that phase. And so I've always wanted to be a creative and I sort of found interior design by doing what I love so all alone did not realize that you know I love decorating I decorated my dorm room I decorated my first apartment.

I do.

Speaker 1 (03:09.292)
With what I had my bedroom as a child, so it showed up in many different ways throughout my life and it wasn't until I started to do some soul searching in my mid 30s that I discovered that it could be more than a hobby so. How I sort of fell in love with interior design, I can go into the story a little bit more if we have some time for that.

Right ahead of me, wanted to know, you know, after that love, when did you decide that this could really become a career for you?

Right. So it started in my mid thirties. I just had my second child, my daughter, Kennedy. And I, I don't know if it was like that life moment or what, but it prompted me to do some soul searching. And so here I am. And at that time I was assistant vice president of marketing and communications. And what I thought was my dream career of marketing.

And I didn't feel a sense of purpose and fulfillment. And so I really honestly started praying about it. I would spend time thinking about it. Like, what am I here to do? What is my purpose? It didn't feel like I was connected to marketing in that way in terms of purpose. And so I have a notebook from a conference that I went to in 2012 that I wrote.

I think that question was like what would you do if you were able to do something for free, what would it be and I wrote interior design and then I started writing out the names, the name of the company and I wrote something very close to great space, I have to go back and look. And so that was 2012 great space wasn't found in 2016 so while I was praying and trying to figure out my purpose, it was there the whole time. I was selling.

Speaker 1 (05:07.182)
My personal home, my husband and I, and I was told by the real estate agent that I needed to stage the home to sell. we were trying to save on expenses and money. And so I was like, well, I like design and decorating. Let me Google what staging means. So I Googled it. I did what the internet told me to do, which was sort of minimize the clutter, paint neutral colors, all the things. The real estate agent came back and her mind was blown. She was like, what did you guys do here? Like, this looks amazing.

mm Or we put the House on the market and it sold with the first buyer and three hours. Wow. So that was like okay well maybe. Yeah more than me just liking it maybe I do have some sort of talent here. And then we purchased the next house and we did renovations day and night and we meeting my husband and I. We both love doing it so much so that two weeks of vacation from our corporate job to renovate my house.

Laying floors painting walls and I was like, want to fix the rubber I love this and that's when I decided I should explore this further. went back to school for about six months to learn more about the industry in the midst of that I got my first client, so that is the summary of the story yeah.

What an awesome story. And obviously there's a lot more in there to unpack, but we just want to give folks a taste of how you got here. And so when you left your job, you know, I know a little bit of background, obviously your husband's an entrepreneur as well. So when you left your job, that meant that your household, you were a hundred percent entrepreneurial based. So what was that transition like for your family? Now that you all were, there was no, you know, paycheck to collect.

Change of schedule, you know all that.

Speaker 1 (06:58.252)
It took a lot of preparation. My husband owns an insurance agency and has for the last 12 years. So he's been an entrepreneur for a while now. And I would complain to him about work all the time. And what I've later figured out is that God was making me uncomfortable and make a move. But I would complain about work and I would say, you know, I'm really thinking about this design thing. And he's like, whatever you want to do, I support you.

I support you, I trust you, whatever you want to do. And I'm not a risk taker. Contrary to popular belief, I calculate a risk. He's much more of a risk taker than I am. And so I started to prepare for that. So the conversation was, OK, I need to have some sort of savings. It's honestly hard to say. People say, save two years worth of income or whatever the number is now. Yeah.

But I knew this is just me being honest. knew I wasn't a saver. I wasn't a great saver. And so I had some cash savings, but I also loaded up my 401k. I know I can't touch it. I was like, I'm going to max it out for the next two years. And so I saved or maxed out my 401k. I obtained lines of credit while I had employment. hired a business coach because I had

both my corporate salary, plus at this time I was side hustling with Grayspace. So the conversation within our family was, what do we need to do to prepare for this? What does that really look like? And then I started to sort of make strategic plans to do that, whether it was very intentional financial plans or get in my mind right for entrepreneurship by hiring a business coach.

Yeah, I'm glad you touched on that. No, because not everyone has the skill set, the discipline to be like, okay, I'm buckling down. I'm doing this for X amount of time, but you can still have a strategy based off of what your habits are like and things like that. And if you try to dig into it a little bit, then you can slowly transition into being more disciplined, you know, over time as you're practicing it. So that was, that was definitely important to touch on.

Speaker 1 (09:13.002)
I sort of live by this model of, how do say it? I'm trying to think of how it's said, but basically don't wait until it's perfect.

Yes, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Here we go. Yeah. And you know, you know, we're adults and I needed to be responsible, fiscally responsible. have children and a mortgage and all. But if I waited until I saved 12 months, 24 months of savings, would I've ever taken a leap? Maybe not. Yeah. You know, I did side hustle for three and a half years. So I did both jobs at sleep for three years. But.

I wanted to make sure there was a calculator risk. had the clientele. It was a proven business, all those things before making a leap.

That sounds like the marketing executive in you coming out, Rashida.

Speaker 1 (10:04.654)
Very much so. Very much so.

You know, gray space was about you. That was your dream. But you know, recently you and your husband opened new corporate offices for gray space interiors and gray space, great insurance agency. Excuse me. Did you always have this vision of building a family empire or did that just come about over time?

Well, I will say I never had the vision of me being an entrepreneur. So my initial answer to your question is no. I knew that I loved interior design. I knew that once I identified it was my purpose that I was going to treat it as such and be really intentional and treat it like a business from day one. And that's how I evolved into an entrepreneur. But as we started to, gosh, in church the other day,

And that to get off, it's related. The pastor said, as a family, we don't often get to work together and see us ourselves in our best light. We often are bringing in like the exhausted self at the end of

yes, that is so spot on.

Speaker 1 (11:17.13)
I'm like, I love what I do. There's passion. I'm excited. And like, I'm my best, one of my best selves when I'm working. And so I think it just became natural for us sort of with that spirit in mind, it became natural for us that we both were in industries that impacted the home. We sort of share, we always share like our goals and our dreams and our vision. And we found that real estate was a commonality in that.

So that's how the business has sort of evolved. It was a natural evolution. And then listen, we're in the same household, we're on the same team. We always say team gray. So like, let's make sure that we are working together by highlighting, you you stay in your lane and with your strengths and let's come together with both of our strengths to continue to build legacy for our family and for our communities that we work and serve in.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:14.146)
that, love that. So I know we're winding down, but I do want to ask you, since you started your business, there have been many transitions. What would you say is one of the greatest lessons you've learned and how to not lose yourself and lose sight of your greater goal in the midst of all of that?

So when I think about being an entrepreneur and just sort of staying true to myself and what I do, first, I would say I always go back to my why and purpose and why I've done this. And I truly believe that interior design impacts everyone's lives for the better. And so it's that mission in mind, the joy that we bring when someone walks into their newly designed home, that keeps me focused on that purpose.

And so I think that God has given me sort of this talent for that reason to fulfill that purpose. So I keep that in mind. And then secondly, because I love what I do, I often get like, like, enveloped or like overwhelmed in my work. You know, it's fun to me sometimes. And so, but I have a family and a husband and children and the life outside of this, that if I sort of have a proper balance, it makes me a better designer. So

I'd be more, I'm more intentional about making sure that I have a reasonable work life balance if there's such a thing as balance. But yeah, you just gotta be intentional about your time and your work and keep your eye at the forefront.

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, that was wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today. And can you please tell everyone where they can find you and how they can contact you for your services?

Speaker 1 (14:03.214)
Sure, so we are a great space interior design on all platforms, the internet interests, but great space interior design.com.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I just want to leave you all with a few words from Maria Robinson. Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. So I want to encourage you all to continue to embrace transitions in your life because change can be amazing. And by being willing to change, you could be in for an exciting journey, just like Rashida. So thanks so much for tuning in this week.

You know what to do if you've been enjoying the pod, share, review, and rate. And I look forward to chatting with you all again next week. Take care until then.