"Be brutally honest with yourself about your weaknesses and lean into the aspects of your business where you fall short or avoid the work" with Kirstin Smith

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Kirstin Smith

Kirstin Smith

Kirstin Smith’s mission in life is to help as many women as possible reach their full potential, increase their self-confidence, and live a life they truly love. Kirstin has helped to build a successful gym in Houston, Texas over the past ten years and works virtually with busy, goal-oriented women who want to maximize their time, lose fat, gain muscle, and improve their mindset. Additionally, Kirstin works in real estate with her husband, where they own 68 rental properties. Kirstin lives in Houston, Texas, and is the proud (but often frazzled) mother to four young children, ages 18 months to 8 years.

Can you tell our readers about your background?

In 2008, my now husband and I moved to Houston, Texas so that I could pursue a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies. At the time, I was preparing for a career in the academic or the intelligence community. By 2012, when our first baby was born, I left the academic life and took the leap to become a stay-at-home-mom while playing a support role for a gym that we had just opened. Over the next 7 years, we grew our family by three additional children. During that same time, my husband and I established a successful real estate investment portfolio. While I had been peripherally involved in the brick-and-mortar gym we owned, I found myself gravitating to busy, goal-oriented women who struggled with post-partum fat loss and waning self-confidence. While I was already a certified trainer, I decided to pursue a nutrition certification and began offering virtual 1:1 coaching that emphasized sustainable nutrition habits, time management, and mindset work.

What inspired you to start your business?

  • Initially, I suffered from such imposter syndrome that the thought of owning my own business seemed almost absurd to me! Sure, I had helped build a successful gym and real estate company, but I thought of those endeavors as my husband’s businesses and thought of myself as *just* a stay-at-home mom. After our 4th baby was born in 2019, I got very serious about my fitness and nutrition and, before long, I had friends and neighbors reaching out for advice and support. In many ways, launching a coaching business happened in a completely organic way, spurred by Covid-reactions and an increased need for at-home fitness solutions. The more feedback that I received from the women that I was working with telling me they haven’t seen a certain number on the scale in over 10 years since their wedding, the more I realized how much it fueled me to see these women succeed and become healthier, more confident versions of themselves.

Where is your business based?

  • My home base is Houston, Texas, but I currently work with clients across the U.S.

How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?

  • My initial step was to set up a Facebook group where I posted daily at-home workouts. This was intended to motivate other stay-at-home moms (and later, those working from home due to Covid closures) to be active despite their limited time or equipment.

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?

  • The vast majority of people that I have worked with to date have been direct referrals or people who have found me via social media outlets.

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

  • Like so many other working moms in 2021, my biggest challenge is trying to get work done with four young kids at home all day! While I had hoped that schools would reopen and kids would be able to return to some level of normalcy, that just didn’t work out the way I had hoped and we made the decision to homeschool our older two school-aged kids. I’ve learned to fully embrace my calendar and time blocking while, at the same time, giving myself some grace when I feel like I’m not doing enough.

How do you stay focused?

  • My highest value work gets done first thing in the morning while I’m fresh, energized, and operating in a proactive rather than reactive mode. Once the kids are up, all bets are off! I plan in the evenings so I know my top 3 highest-priority items that need to get accomplished the following morning to “win my day.” When I am able to achieve those things, I am moving my business forward as well as giving myself a little “win” for the day and a sense of accomplishment that allows me to be a little more present with my kids during our homeschool lessons or with my husband during our weekly date night.

How do you differentiate your business from the competition?

  • In the health and fitness space, there is very little that I am instructing my clients on that has not been saying before ad nauseum. The science of energy balance equations and training methodologies like progressive overload doesn’t change with time like many of these “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days” type challenges or fad diets. I am very honest and direct with my clients; many of them are perfectly aware of what they should be eating, but the struggle is related to poor nutrition or health choices stemming from emotional eating, poor time management, and dealing with large amounts of stress. For many women who play a nurturing role to others all day, it can be very difficult to nurture themselves in a way that is healthy in the long term. Finding a coach who understands what your challenges are and can help equip you with tools to deal with those challenges creates a relationship based in respect and trust in the process. Considering I’ve done the yo-yo weight gain and loss from pregnancy, felt my own motivation plummet, and lost a great deal of confidence, I can relate to what many of my clients are struggling with.

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?

  • To be honest, my only marketing has occurred organically. I have not utilized any paid advertising up to this point.

What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

  • Be brutally honest with yourself about your weaknesses and lean into the aspects of your business where you fall short or avoid the work. For me, it’s knowing my numbers. Step one is acknowledging it and step two is owning it. It’s a commitment to get better every day.

What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?

  • My favorite app is Streaks, where you can set habits to track and gamify certain behaviors that you want to emphasize. I’m not a blog girl, but I do listen to a lot of podcasts while I work out. My two favorites are ‘Real AF’ with Andy Frisella (the CEO of 1st Phorm) and ‘Date Your Wife’ with Garrett J. White and his wife, Danielle. They are both very raw and unfiltered podcasts, so they’re not for the faint of heart! The former deals with business and current events while the latter deals with relationships and emphasizes the need to continuously choose your partner.

What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?

  • I am a firm believer in the value of coaching and that you don’t know what you don’t know. I have many blind spots when it comes to building my business, in part because of my self-imposed head trash about being *just* a mom and not an entrepreneur. For that reason, I am a member of a business coaching program and have coaches who help me to fill in my gaps and expand my skill sets.

Who is your business role model? Why?

  • I really admire the work being done by Natalie Jill. She’s a great example to women with injuries or those 40+ that your self-limiting beliefs and stories don’t have to define you. We’re never too old or too broken to write our own stories.

How do you balance work and life?

  • I’m not sure there is really ever a healthy work-life balance for business owners and entrepreneurs! I have found more peace as I leaned into the chaos of my life. Having my kids around full time has given me the opportunity to include them and expose them to aspects of my life that they wouldn’t see otherwise. It has allowed us to supplement their homeschool curricula with some incredibly valuable real-life lessons. And it’s a great feeling when your 6-year-old girl tells you she wants to start her own business!

What’s your favorite way to decompress?

  • We RV as a family. It serves a great forcing function to unplug and really be together. We get to see amazing sights, be active outdoors, and make memories.

What do you have planned for the next six months?

  • We’re going to RV as a family for the entire month of July. And, I’ll put this out there for accountability: I am currently working on a book about my experiences as a pseudo-unhappy housewife and how I transitioned into building a life that I love! I sincerely hope that my struggles and journey will help to inspire other women to realize that we don’t have to fit nicely into stay-at-home or working mom boxes; there’s no reason we can’t write our own stories, create meaningful impact, and make the most out of the time we’re given here.

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