Start With A Win - Take Back Your Time Through Organization

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Ría, the Founder and CEO of RíOrganize, is a SoCal native who is loving life in Texas as a wife, mother, and business owner. She's always had a knack for creativity, but it wasn't until becoming a mom of 3 that she began to appreciate the stress relief organization can offer, which was the foundation of her luxury home organization business. As someone who is messy by nature, Ría loves sharing her tools with others. As she says, “You don’t have to be born with it—organization can be learned, practiced and perfected.” Since starting RíOrganize, her company has helped thousands of families transform their spaces and has equipped each one with the tools and knowledge needed to make organization stick long after the team is gone. She has also grown a following on Instagram where she loves pulling the curtain and sharing behind the scenes of her family life. Ría shares about her journey from a naturally messy person to owning a nationwide company that helps others organize their homes. Organization was something she had to practice and teach herself. After getting married and having children, she realized how prioritizing organization actually gave her the freedom and ability to be a better wife, mom and professional.Ría started RíOrganize in 2016 as a side hustle after years in the commercial real estate industry. What started as a few jobs here and there for friends and family has now grown to a dozen employees and four locations across the country. She’s now had the opportunity to work with many celebrities, including Chrissy Teigen and James Charles. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter the money or fame, everyone needs organization in their life… It’s less about gifting people organization and more about giving people back their time.” Ría explains that the state of your home is going to affect you mentally. Organization systems and processes set you up for little wins throughout your day. Having systems dialed in are the most important part of that.She also shares that one of the most important things you can learn is knowing when you can’t do something by yourself. It’s what helped her business scale—like knowing that accounting was just not her thing and hiring someone to help with that instead!Episode Links:Instagram @RíOrganizehttps://www.RíOrganize.comOrder your copy of Start With A Win: Tools and Lessons to Create Personal and Business Success:https://www.startwithawin.com/bookConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. And coming to you from Denver, Colorado, home of Remax World Headquarters, it's Adam Kantos, CEO of Remax with Start With A Win. How you doing, Producer Mark? I'm doing so good. So good. All right. Staying organized in all that I do.

Yeah, I was just going to ask you, are you organized, man? Yeah, I would say this. And you're a right-brain to ask you, are you organized man? Yeah. I would say this as a right brain and you're a right brain person too, cause you're left-handed. I know that. So being creative, I feel like there's a sense of some disorganization, but there's a level of disorganization that I can handle, you know? And sometimes it's like a disorganized that I know exactly what is, where it is, where it's supposed to be. And so sometimes my wife tries to clean up and I'm like, Hey, Hey, Hey, I know where that is underneath that piece of paper behind that desk, you know? Like, so. I'll tell you, I you're yeah, I'm, I'm with you. I I'm creative, but yes, I,

I'll tell you, I live by this term. There's a place for everything and everything has its place. And, um, it drives me nuts when it's not there. It, it, I guess it goes back to the days when I was in the Marines or something like that. I don't know, but, um, I like to know where everything's at and I like it to be neat and tidy and not have extra stuff. And if I haven't used it in like three or four years or whatever, it's gone. And I just, I don't know. Do you think we should have an expert on and talk about this? You know what? I think we should. Welcome to the show, Rhea Safford. I love it. She's sitting there going, you guys are killing me. She's like, when are you going to bring me?? This is so disorganized.

No, oh my gosh. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you. Well, hey, thanks for being here on Start With a Win. And if you don't know who Rhea Safford is, she is a wife, a mom, a business owner, and she is the founder and CEO of Reorganize, spelled R-I-O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-E. Kind of a tip to your name a little bit, I would say, right? It's a luxury home organization business. Since starting Reorganize, her company has helped thousands of families transform their spaces and has equipped each one with the tools and knowledge needed to make organization stick long after the team is gone. Awesome.

We got questions for you, especially being in the real estate space, right? I mean, there's a lot of people who need to declutter before they get their listing photos taken. Gosh. And I'll tell you, there's nothing worse than going into a cluttered house, but that's your business. That's where you thrive, right? It's my business. And I will start with this. And this is something that I always like to share. And you guys, I mean, perfectly teed this up for me talking about right brain and, you know, being more creative. And the number one thing that I love to share is I am not naturally an organized person. That does not come easily to me. I'm way more the creative side. I'm way more into the space and the aesthetic. And this was something that I truly had to practice and teach myself and regularly keep showing up for myself

when it came to organization. And it was me learning all of these skills and able to implement systems in my own life that got me so psyched to help other people because it wasn't natural. And I feel like that's the most important thing that I love sharing because people just assume like, oh, your brain just thinks that way. And not at all. I don't put caps on things.

I don't close drawers. I'm a little bit of a walking nightmare. But there's a place for everything. So it helps that I have, you know, experience with both, both brains, if you will. I, I, that's such an interesting observation because I'll tell you when I was a kid, when I was little, um, I don't think you could walk across my bedroom floor without stepping on something. It was just, it was a disaster zone. And my parents would be like, clean up your room. So I'd take, and I would like do the bulldozer thing and push it all into the

closet and close doors. And it was just, it was horrible. And now I can't stand it when a sock is out of place in my sock drawer. So, I mean, can you unpack that a little bit? How do you go from I'm super disorganized and what is it in somebody's life that makes them flip that switch and go time to get organized? So that's so interesting because my room was honestly the same way. It was really bad. My mom wouldn't even go in there. Even my college roommates, all the way into college, I was that girl that you could not see the floor.

I was just messy. I wasn't dirty. I just, I didn't prioritize it. And I think that so much of it comes down to what you're prioritizing in your life in those seasons. You know, me living at home, you know, we were fortunate enough to have a housekeeper. Like these were just things I wasn't prioritizing for myself. Although my mom did get to the point that I wasn't allowed to get help from other people in my room because she found it very disrespectful, which I agree. But anyways, I digress. I feel like it's when you realize that that is something important for you to prioritize in your life. For me, it was getting married, having children. I mean, you accumulate

so much stuff during those early phases. And then it only grows from there that I realized pretty early on that if I didn't create actual systems that were going to help our home function seamlessly, I wasn't going to be my best self. I wasn't going to be the best wife, the best mom. And so that became a priority to me. It wasn't I didn't know how to do it. I didn't prioritize it. And I feel like that's the biggest part. And especially in times like today,

there's only so much that we have control over. And I feel like these last two years have taught us that. And to your point, I'm sure when you prioritized it more, that became something important to you and your routines as you grew up and had new passions and were just learning how you function best. But also you have complete control over your space and nobody can take that away from you.

And I think that there's something to be said for that. Oh, totally. It's fascinating when you look at somebody and you ask them, are you organized? And they kind of look at you weird like, in what way? But I think you hit the nail on the head several times. You mentioned the word systems and building these systems around your life. And I guess organizing is systems around your belongings, you know, and how they fit into your life. So I want to dig into that in a minute, but I want to take a step

back and talk about your business, your journey as an entrepreneur. How do you go from saying, okay, I want to help people organize to actually have a business, a real good business on helping people organize themselves to take us through that journey real quick. So crazy. So yeah, we're in a year five, six. I started this in 2016 by myself. Um, before, I was actually in commercial real estate. So I dabbled in the real estate world for a little bit. I started as my side hustle. I say it was for my target money. It was to help us cover mortgage. The biggest reason I took this leap was I knew the corporate world wasn't for me. I knew I wanted to be my own boss and I knew I wanted to help people. I wasn't even sure exactly what knew I wanted to be my own boss and I knew I wanted to help people. I wasn't even sure exactly what that was going to be,

but it happened to me in that phase of life where I had really figured something out. That light bulb just went off as far as the systems that I could create in my home and maintain. And I was interested if I could bring that to other people. Does that translate in someone else's home and learning about them? And this started so small, you know, going to mommy and me classes and, you know, gaining

a couple of clients here and there, you know, a pantry turned into a pantry and a closet turned into, you know, that plus a kid's room. And it started to like, I mean, the demand just started to blow up that my husband was like, you're really onto something here and you could have way quicker turnaround if you just start bringing people on. So my first hire was at the very end of 2017. And now we have 12 employees. We're in Los Angeles, Southern California, Austin and Dallas. It's been a heck of a ride I've learned so much I mean as you know I don't think you're ever done learning just about business and running a business and it's it's been really crazy the reach that this has had I prioritized Instagram pretty early on

in my career and I've always kind of talked like a million people were listening even when there wasn't. And, you know, I think there's a lot to be said for manifesting things, you know, wanting to be able to reach, you know, a celebrity. And now I honestly can't count the A-listers or, you know, athletes or billionaires that we've done. It's just been so fascinating to meet all these different types of people from all these different walks of life. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much money or fame or whatever their situation in life is, everybody needs organization. And it's been so cool to give that gift to people. But what someone really made me realize early on

was it was less that we were gifting people organization and more that we were giving them their time back. And I know you talk about how important time is and it's the one thing we can't get back. And it's really cool that our business helps gift that in some little way. It's just been awesome. I could talk about it forever, obviously.

No, this is an important aspect of, and we have so many entrepreneurs that listen to this show, just around the world in the real estate space, as well as in other industries and business leaders as well. And you're right. I mean, what's our goal in life? It's to create time and wealth so that we can create those experiences for ourselves and our loved ones that we've always wanted to experience. And you're right. I mean, you can have all the money in the world, but if you don't have any time, then I mean, yeah, you're, you're fundamentally poor if you, if you don't have time. And I guess what comes with the organization is this sense of happiness and order in your life. Do you see a change in people's psyche when you do an organizing job

for them? Oh my gosh. Yes. And even just my own, like what a difference it makes. And so many people talk about how, you know, the state of your home is going to affect you mentally. And it's something I've been sharing a lot lately because I really noticed it is my mental state has started to be a direct correlation of how I started to maintain my spaces. So things really started to fall off if I was just feeling like I wasn't on top of anything and I didn't have it together. But gosh, does my house look good when I am getting up right when I want to. Kids' lunches are made, notes are in there, uniforms are cleaned. All those little wins throughout my day make such a difference. And having systems dialed in is, I think, the most important part of that because it helps you stay happy and just

motivated throughout your day. But it's really, you know that it's right when it's not even a thought. Like my morning isn't like, gosh, my kitchen's so organized. It should just be that everything I needed to happen happened because I have a system in place. So Rhea, I have a question about about kind of the convergence of business and organizing, because you've had to learn a lot of organizational skills in order to scale your business. And I think there's a lot of crossover here that our entrepreneur listeners can take from this, as well as really anybody who works in business for that matter. What do you see as far as, you know, there's this structure, the systems, things like that. What did you take from your

organizing skills and drop those into your entrepreneurial endeavors? So I think two things really came to mind when you started talking about that. And the first one was as far as how organizing and business overlaps or more so professional organizing. One thing I learned early enough on that was so important was knowing what I don't know. And that's kind of what became so important for people to take that step for professional organization. Like that's kind of major. You're like, hey, can you come inside my house and see all my personal belongings? I really need help.

And we definitely don't take that lightly that people are trusting us to do that. But knowing when you can't do something yourself has been major. And I know that's not exactly what you were asking, but that was the first thing that really came to mind. Because I do think that that is one of the major things that helped us scale was me knowing accounting, not going to be my gig. All the little numbers and I'm not the calculations person. I'm not the detail person. And I don't think I mentioned this. My husband actually came on full time, October of 2020. So this is our whole life is reorganized. And it's been really exciting and bringing him on has, oh man, been so major. I think that there's obviously a balance with everything. I didn't just have to figure out

work-life balance. It was work-life and baby's balance, momming, all of that. And I feel like I'm still trying to get better every day. But I think creating true boundaries for yourself and trying to really be present in exactly what you're doing when you have to do it. I don't know if you can relate, but I feel like I've had plenty of days where I'm like, gosh, I feel like I was working all day long and didn't do anything. Like I have no clue what actually got done for my business that would convert into anything, any sort of numbers. And I feel like I didn't stop doing anything. And that really came down to me not being as organized on the work end of things.

I would just get so into the projects and those details that I wasn't paying attention to all the details of my business and really figuring out the different components of that and knowing when to prioritize certain things. I just, I do the best when I have a plan and I stick to it. And it's kind of just like my house, me personally having systems, but I'm not always putting everything back right where it goes. And that's the same with businesses. You can have your plan, you can have your day blocked perfectly, but you might not be putting all those pieces right where

they're supposed to go. And kind of with anything else, just you got to do better tomorrow. And eventually you incorporate these little habits where, okay, yes, like, you know, those blocks where I'm just going to be doing social media, I really only did social media. Those blocks where I'm going to be responding to emails, that's when I respond to emails, not all day long. You know, for me, everything was all day long. Obviously, if you're trying to do everything all day long, you're never going to get anything done, right? It seems like that is, you know, when you think about somebody who's organized versus somebody who's disorganized, that organized person is able to focus on getting things done when they need to be done and not putting them off until they all pile up. And then you've got this pile of little randomness that needs to

happen. And it seems like when you walk into a house that's really cluttered or you look in somebody's car and it looks like they're living out of it or whatever it might be, it's simply because they've got all this randomness piled up. They didn't throw away the wrapper to the cheeseburger and now it's with the drink container and it's with the bag from the grocery store or the dirty clothes. Things start compounding and creating that disorganization in our lives. You know, I'm assuming you don't walk into like a hoarder's house or something like that. You're probably dealing with, you know, general society, but you've probably seen some crazy stuff where people you're going, what do you do during the day? I've seen really crazy things. And early on, I mean, I was

grinding. I was like, anybody and everybody, let's do this. I'm so excited to just grow my portfolio, my clientele, word of mouth, all of that. And I learned very quickly that hoarders were not going to be for me. And not for a lack of caring, not for a lack of not being able to do something for them in that moment. But there was such a deeper psychological thing going on that I knew I couldn't help. No matter how much I could sit and talk with somebody. And one of my first clients, total hoarder. I mean, I know there's like the hoarder show and things are like totally nuts not that but you know giant you know uh workout equipment completely covered by things they didn't even know there was a treadmill under there type of thing and i remember being so emotional after

those sessions and she was so grateful and so happy, but I knew things were gonna go back. And that drove me crazy because there was something deeper. Like I knew she was gonna be able to maintain certain things, but when you're keeping any, I mean, any mark of a pen that your son did on a piece of paper

or things from kids' goodie bags seven years ago, that's something deeper than me. So I learned very quickly where my sweet spot was to be able to get quality products. And beautiful houses are a total bonus, of course, but our clients are very ready to get organized, but also have the means for us to do it right. I have a question for you then based upon, you know, just kind of what you're saying here. Because we have these two different ends of the spectrum, most people are in the middle of it, I would guess, and they want to get over to that.

I feel really comfortably organized type environment. What keeps them, and you mentioned people regressing back to being disorganized, and this is a problem in business as well, because the people who run around just busy with their hair on fire all day long, they never get their business done. And same thing happens in a disorganized household. And I truly believe, I really believe that how you are at home is how you will be in your business. And you look at everything from, you know, if they have a poor diet, they're going to have poor structural habits in their business as well. If they don't take care of their relationships in their personal life, their business relationships are going to

suck. So, I mean, the reality is how you live and organize your life personally will affect how you live and organize your life in your, your business world. What do you tell people to keep them from go from regressing back to being disorganized or allowing things to not be organized? Is there something you say to them? You don't say, all right, I'll see you in six months to do this again, which great. That's repeated business, but you don't want to do that. I mean, how do you keep them from going back? Is there something you talk to them about, or do you just kind of let life run its cycle? No, that's so right. I always tell them, as much as I want to come back here and spend time with you, you shouldn't have to call me not anytime soon. Because part of what we're doing is we're teaching the tools that we are

using ourselves to create these systems. We're learning about our clients to create something that really makes sense to them. And we're walking them through them, how we're folding it, why we're putting something somewhere. We're not just going and lining things up nicely. We're going in and understanding what their entire routines are and how those spaces can make sense. And also explaining this is what's behind what we just did. And so think about that for another space that maybe you're going to try to tackle on your own. And I think so much of it comes down to one, being ready to create those little habits that are going to make this something that's part of your regular routine. A big misconception is, oh, I had these professional

organizers come in. Why doesn't it just look like that all the time? There aren't fairies that are coming in and doing this for you. You have to be ready to maintain this yourself. And I love that you mentioned diet because I think that what we do parallels so much with someone's nutrition journey. One, I compare myself to the trainer that lost 100 pounds and kept it off for 10 years and I'm able to speak what worked for me. I wasn't just born this way. But also, it's the equivalent of being given a workout plan, being given a nutrition plan, being given all of the tools of what you need, but none of that happens if you don't do it. So at the end of the day, you need to prioritize organization and you need to show up for yourself or have enough money to have a whole staff of people that are doing it for you. And

that's the only way this is going to get done. And I know that we generally don't have B in that. It's typically, you got to figure it out and do it yourself. 99% of our clients, that is the situation. Me included. We've got to do it. I'm with you. I was picking things up before I hopped on the podcast here. So anyhow, I mean, you've given us a lot of gold here, Rhea. Where online can our listeners find you to do more research on your business and you personally? I know you said you were on Instagram. So where can we find you on the social medias and how can we learn more about your process? Yes. So I would say Instagram is our main platform, at Reorganize, R-I-O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-E. And then our website.

Our website shares a lot more about our offerings. We actually just relaunched virtual consults. So you don't have to have the budget for us to come in and do the big scale jobs that we do. It's for a much discounted price and it's open internationally. So it's a way for people to send in photos of spaces they want help with and to get instant game plans and shopping lists. And so that I'm really, really excited about because it can help so many more people. But yeah, Instagram and our website would be the best places for sure. Awesome. Everybody make sure you check out Rhea Safford's social

media accounts. And Rhea, I have one more question for you that I ask everybody that's on the show, and that is how do you start your day with a win? That would easily be my coffee. I think about my coffee before I go to bed at night. So my amazing husband prepares it for me and it is ready when I wake up and that is the best way to get me going for the day. Awesome. Rhea, thank you so much for sharing your organizing ideas, the systems, the background to your business with us. This is such an amazing interview. We appreciate you so much. Thanks for being on Start With A Win. Thank you so much, guys. Hey, and thank you for listening to Start With A Win. If you're ready to create personal and

business success, make sure to subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already, and head over to wherever you get your books and order Start With A Win, the book. For more great content, you can go to startwithawin.com and until next time, start with a win.