From ACL Injury to Top Real Estate Agent | Hidden Foundations Ep. 3

In this episode of Hidden Foundations, Kendall Schoenrock sits down with Andrea Desy Edrei to explore how childhood exposure to business, years of dinner-table dealmaking, and a major ACL injury at NYU helped shape the way she leads today. What started as a multigenerational real estate upbringing eventually became a career built on negotiation, resilience, relationship-building, and the ability to read people well.

Andrea shares how her parents brought her into the world of real estate early, how sports shaped her ability to handle pressure, and why tearing her ACL ended up expanding her view of what her life could become beyond basketball. She also talks about New York, 9/11, her pivot into real estate full time, and what it takes to build a high-performing team and culture in a relationship-driven business. If you care about entrepreneurship, leadership, family influence, and the hidden patterns that shape success, this conversation is for you.

Chapters:
00:54 Meet Andrea
01:15 Growing Up in a Real Estate Family
07:08 What Makes Andrea a Top Performer
09:39 Dinner Table Deals and Early Business Lessons
19:38 The ACL Injury That Changed Everything
24:24 From 9/11 to Real Estate
33:19 Sports, Business Resilience, and Family Balance


Hidden Foundations is a weekly podcast hosted by entrepreneur and investor Kendall Schoenrock, examining how family systems, early adversity, and childhood dynamics quietly shape high-performing adults. Each conversation uncovers the “invisible wiring” behind resilience, ambition, leadership, and grit — told through candid stories from entrepreneurs, athletes, creators, and leaders.

Guided by the thesis that strength is forged early at home, the show uses a consistent framework to explore emotional environments, money narratives, family roles, conflict patterns, and early challenges. Every episode delivers at least one practical, repeatable insight for parents, leaders, and anyone seeking to understand how greatness is built long before it’s visible.

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Website: https://kendallschoenrock.com/
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#HiddenFoundations #RealEstate #Leadership

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I ended up blowing up my knee and tearing my ACL on a a fast break. So was not able to play play in the national championship game. I had to kind of watch from the sidelines. Even though it was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to me at at 18. It ended up kind of setting me up for seeing life besides an outside of sports and basketball.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

You're one of the highest performing agents. What makes you special?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

My dad's just like, you are not sitting on your behind all summer and college is expensive and you're gonna go and get your real estate license. You don't necessarily need all of the money in the world to do something really great. You just need to really believe in yourself and surround yourself with wonderful people.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Hidden Foundations podcast. Today I'm joined with Andrea Edry, who is a real estate professional outside of the main line in Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Talk to me about how your parents got you started in real estate and how that that launched your career.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

So I had always been helping both of my my parents. My mom, um, her family had independent brokerages, and my dad was a developer, broker, land acquisitioner, and um I didn't really have a choice. You know, I was kind of like always, you know, with one or uh or both of them. And it was something that I always had an interest in, but never necessarily saw myself, you know, doing it long term or could have, you know, had other grandiose plans of what my life was going to look like. And um even though I was always with my mom and she when she was selling and doing open houses and sitting model, um, model properties uh or going to meeting business and planning meetings with cities and townships with my dad, um, it wasn't until my freshman year of college when I basically I tore my ACL in our final four game. Um, and I had to come home that summer to rehab and you know do surgery and and what have you. And my my dad's just like, you are not sitting, you know, on your behind all summer. And, you know, college is expensive and you're gonna go and get your real estate license. And I was like, that was not really what I wanted to hear my first summer coming home from college. I was ready to kind of, you know, maybe have a little fun and and see my friends. But um, I, you know, it was right when I turned 18 and got my real estate license that summer. And um really one of the best things that I think ever happened to me because it just put my um my career path. I ended up, you know, obviously falling into it. But, you know, at 18, it's it's not really how you want to spend your summer.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Sure, sure. So when you're you're you're now running a real estate business outside of Philadelphia, are you leaning into the lessons that your parents taught you when you were 18, that young, or growing up in that real estate home? Talk to me about what they showed you and how you're leveraging that into your current operation.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, well, real estate back then was done a lot differently. You know, no social media. Um, you couldn't text people, you know, you had to really like go and and nurture the relationship. My, my dad, um, because he was a land acquisitioner as well in in development, he had to really nurture relationships with people that farmers or people that own large tracts of land and were had generational ties. Um, and a lot of those deals took, you know, years, decades to kind of do. So you I really learned how you kind of have to, you know, you people, it's not just like, hey, I have an offer, sign on the dotted line. A lot of this, um, and it still is is very relationship-driven, right? Like people really have to like you and you have to kind of get to know them. You have to be able to connect. Um, I mean, he's still doing deals with people he had been in discussions with 30 years ago that never sold their properties and now the kids have it. Um, my mom was on the other side where she was actually selling the real estate, the new homes and what have you. And that was like a whole other type of skill set in terms of design and working with people from the ground up, picking out floor plans and tiles and, you know, different finish levels. Um, and you kind of got ingrained in some of their personal life. So, um, as well as getting to know their families, the kids, everybody. So it was really um looking back now, it's it's probably one of the the greatest skills, um, especially since we're in an age where everyone wants to text and you know, you you don't have that that social skill set.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Do you think the the the majority of that came from your father or your mother, or was it a blend?

SPEAKER_01 5:05

They are both talkers, so you know. Um no, definitely a blend.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Definitely a blend.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

When you're dealing with so you're obviously listing very expensive homes that normally come with um very unique owners because each home is different. How do you deal with those strong personalities? And what was it about how your parents set you up during those early years that impacts your ability to navigate strong personalities?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

We do have a lot of strong personalities. We have a lot of people there, you know, they're brilliant, um, that are, you know, super successful and hard to argue with. So uh a lot of what we do, you have to be a good listener and you have to really be a problem solver. Um a lot of our properties like that we do represent, whether it's in, you know, Philadelphia, the main line, Bucks County, the shore, there aren't comps for these homes because they are unique and they're, you know, one of ones. Um so you, you know, you again, it kind of goes back to the relationship, just trying to earn the trust of that client that you you do know what you're talking about and you're not just trying to sell them up the river. And, you know, it's um it's a partnership when you're listing somebody's house. Um, and you always want to get the highest price that you can for your client. And it's hard because not everybody gets every penny out that they put into a home. Um so I think a lot of it is just really understanding what their pain points are, what is the the catalyst for selling? A lot of people don't have to sell, right? So it's not sometimes it doesn't even come down to price, it comes down to terms or making sure that that next owner of the property is they're the steward of that property. It's like passing the baton over and making sure it's a good fit because it's personal. It shouldn't be, but it does become personal and emotional.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah. So you're one of the highest performing agents. What makes you special? What sets you apart from the competition?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Um I think obviously having grown up in the industry uh certainly gave me an edge when I got into the business full-time at an early age. It allowed me to compete with a lot of the older agents that had been doing been doing it for a long time. Um, having lived outside of Philadelphia and not being from Philadelphia, understanding kind of what it takes when people are moving in or out of an area, um, and understanding like, you know, there's a lot of different people in this world and being able to connect with, trying to connect with a little bit of everybody. Uh and the other big thing is just making sure that you surround yourself with people that are, you know, as intelligent or more so. Ideally, you're surrounding yourself with people that are smarter and and better than you are. You have a good team. It's not, I can't do what I do without it's a really good team around me.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

So that's team cultivation. And so you're obviously looking for that and setting that culture. Um walk me through how you've set that up in your your current team and what you're looking for in terms of your team members or how you're cultivating their talents.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

So everybody kind of has a role, much like a basketball team or a football team. There's, I like to kind of think of myself as the quarterback. Um, and we have, you know, several people that are just our full-time team that, you know, social media, someone's doing social media full-time. We have an in-house videographer. That's all they do. They're not a third-party company that's coming in. They only work for us. They understand the brand, they understand the personality of the agents, um, the objective, um, how each of our homes really, to your point earlier, is is a reflection of the owner. So all of our listings we like to consider basically their own brand, because some of them are one-of-ones. Um, but making sure that you have people that have certain roles, like you can't be great at everything. What are you really good at? Kind of staying in your lane and focusing on that. And then, yeah, we have wonderful agents that are experts in their respective neighborhoods or towns or geographic areas that, you know, aren't trying to to sell, you know, Greenland to uh to somebody based uh, you know, in Gladwin.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah, certainly. Certainly. So let me rewind and go back to uh your teenage years. So if you think back to dinner time, uh, and obviously you're uh as an athlete, you're navigating all of your sports obligations. Did you discuss business at the dinner table with your parents?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Constantly.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

All the time.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

All the time.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Um my parents were both always talking about the deals. Um, because back then, you know, like we didn't have people weren't emailing, you couldn't text. So when you are in real estate, you're basically, I mean, it's always been that way. You're like a doctor, you're available 24-7. So whenever that phone rang, it chances are in our house, it was, you know, either another broker calling or a developer or a client, somebody kind of calling to to talk to one of my parents about what was going on. And um, and they both were um working in the same space. So, you know, my dad was always talking about the land that they were trying to acquire and just what was going on with the the township or or zoning. And my mom um was always kind of sharing with what was going on with trying to build somebody a custom home and having the, you know, the wife hate what the husband had just picked out. Um, so it was, you know, two ends, two different ends of of the real estate spectrum. But a lot of it, you know, there's um there was a lot of conversation just about the art of the deal too. How do you get something from the infant stages, whether it's like offer to closing or buying a piece of land to development?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

So if you think about the lessons that you observe between your parents, was it a deliberate decision on their end to bring you into those conversations or did they happen just in front of you and you observed it? Was it a teaching moment or was it deliberate?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Oh, I I have, like I said, two parents that both like to talk and um maybe slightly narcissistic, so um with what they were doing. Um I think it, you know, they both had parents that were also had their own businesses. So it was, you know, it family time was really kind of just sharing with what was going on in your life. And I think sometimes like when you when you do work full time and you're passionate about what you do, it's hard to almost separate your sure, your life from, you know, from your work. So it was um, I don't know if it was necessarily deliberate, but fortunately it was interesting to me. So it what didn't it wasn't like they were speaking Mandarin and I couldn't understand.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Right. Right. Um, are there any specific projects that jump out at you that your dad worked on when you were younger that you're really proud of or that that stick out as a powerful learning moment?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah, there was um one farmer in particular that he still, you know, 40 plus years later, still kind of working with. And um they had this amazing family business, multi-generational farm, and all the kids worked on the farm, and um he kind of got to a point where the kids like wanted to go off and essentially didn't want to carry the torch of being farmers, you know, they found other interest and um being able to sell that to somebody else, not for development, but actually find another farmer to actually kind of preserve that and um keep it intact for, you know, for the unforeseeable future. They did a lot of deals where they were trading land, which I always found interesting and figuring out how to do a development deal. How do you trade land, but then also keep open space and create parks and you know, so the legacy of who owned that property doesn't just vanish with, you know, a new subdivision going up. Um, those were always interesting deals to me. So there was a lot of a lot of farmland in, you know, suburban Detroit back then.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah. So it sounds like one of the skills that you observed and then you're applying in your your current deals, uh, are understanding the motivating factors of the the seller or the the other side of the table and figuring out what their drivers are, specifically when money or the the in number necessarily isn't the driving factor. Um do you see that play out in your your current deals as a key differentiator on why you're so successful now?

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah, I think it, you know, when you're selling homes, especially homes that people built from, you know, the ground up or raise their families in, they want to know that that next person is going to enjoy living there as much and is going to love the house and, you know, be able to kind of carry on that the same traditions and the same memories. Um, which is, you know, it it shouldn't be so personal, but it's easy to understand because it's, you know, it becomes such a part of of the family of the lifestyle of uh of who that owner is. And, you know, at the end of the day, you're basically pairing people together, right? Like you're either pairing a buyer with the perfect house or the seller with the perfect price and terms, or finding like who that match, you're like a matchmaker, um, and figuring out like, okay, this family is or this individual buyer is um is going to love this property just as much. Doesn't happen all the time, of course. Sometimes we can who the person who's selling it has the exact opposite lifestyle and you know background than the buyer, and that's also equally as you know as interesting too.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah. Yeah. So think back to uh the you uh talked a lot about sports. Um what sports were you active in? What sports did you play in college, and how did that sports journey impact bring with a school?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

So in high school, um I was involved with basketball, volleyball, and softball, um, which was great. So, you know, as a freshman, it was a varsity starter on all three sports, which was, you know, which was the seniors hated. So I it it it you know, it was kind of um it I had to learn how to get along and and try and not be threatening to seniors who kind of may have had some entitlement issues or, you know, weren't um so keen on having a a younger player come in and taking minutes away. Um and when I went to college, um I decided like I my primary focus really became basketball at some point in high school. It was just a lot to kind of juggle, uh, even though I I did love volleyball. I've been playing basketball a lot longer. So that kind of was always always my outlet, um, especially being the youngest of four kids. It's a lot easier to go in the backyard and shoot some hoose by yourself than, you know, go and play volleyball, or you can't really play softball by yourself. True. Um, so when my focus became basketball, I really was at that time, junior year in in high school, focusing on certain programs that really had a certain educational background because, you know, back then we didn't have the WNBA. And then um, education was always a really big factor for me. And I I didn't want to go to a little, a little school. I wanted to kind of like have a big city experience and kind of push myself outside of my comfort level. And um I after visiting probably 80 colleges um on different, you know, visits or excursions with my parents, the very last school I visited was NYU. And I had never been to New York before. And it was just something clicked. It was like the last, I hadn't even considered it, but I had a you know a free trip out there and we were like, let's let's go out check out New York for a weekend. And um I just knew like that's I knew that's was my comment. It clicked. Yeah, it totally clicked.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

My mother was distraught. Any fear or anxiety with going to the city as uh an 18-year-old?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

I mean, you know, I didn't really know much about the city at that time. It's not like I lived in an area where we could just go in on a weekend. Um, had never been there before. So only thing I knew about it was what you had seen on TV. But it just seemed like more of a an adventure, um, which was exciting to me. You know, I love the fact that there was people from all walks of life. Everybody didn't look like me. It was, you know, very, very diverse. Um, it was exciting, like, you know, you can just learn something just walking down the street, hear five different languages if you really like listen closely.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah. You said your mother was distraught. Is that because they wanted you to stay local?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

I think she always thought I was probably gonna end up at University of Michigan. Um just because it was, you know, good school and close to home. So it wasn't. You said you visited 80 schools, or you mean it it was elaborate.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

It was a lot.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

And they were different schools, you know, they were like some of them weren't um they were near large cities, but they weren't necessarily in the heart of one of the largest cities on the planet. Um and there was a lot going on in, you know, in in New York back then as there there is today, but it was it was a little jarring for her, I think. And the fact that she couldn't just get in her car and drive and see me for the weekend, I had to get on a plane. It was uh, you know, it wasn't really her her ideal, but it worked out.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

So walk me through freshman year, you show up at NYU, you're playing basketball, team is very successful, you make it to the final four. The final four game is in New York. Tell me what happens.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

I think it was the last minute of of the game. Um and we were either tied or down by two, and um I ended up blowing up my knee and tearing my ACL on a a fast break. And um embarrass well, maybe not embarrassing myself, but you know, having a a pretty serious injury in front of a whole auditorium full of people, and um was not able to obviously play in the uh we won, so was not able to play play in the national championship game. I had to kind of watch from the sidelines. Yeah. But that kind of was like a pivotal moment for me because it kind of um, even though it was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to me at at 18, it ended up kind of setting me up for seeing life besides and outside of sports and and basketball.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah. Talk to me about your headspace during that moment and then immediately after as we're watching the championship game play out. Um, what were you feeling? Did you know that it was a catastrophic knee injury? I mean, that you're terrible.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Not really. I mean, I knew I was gonna be out, but I we didn't know that it was necessarily, you know, um a torn ACL at the time. Um, you know, like when you work so hard, obviously you want to be able to participate in the national championship game, but it was just a wonderful experience being there and still seeing, you know, the team win and we won at home, which was even better. Yeah. Um, that doesn't really happen a whole lot. So being able to to have been a part of it until basically the last game was just, you know, it was most people don't get that opportunity or that experience.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

And you say that that injury was ended up being one of the best things that could have happened to you. Why?

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Um, well, that summer I went home to have knee surgery and rehab and then had to get my real estate license. But when I was rehabbing the the following year, my sophomore year, um, I had to sit out for the first the first part of the season. um I just started to kind of push myself again outside of my little comfort zone. And I wasn't in the gym all the time. I was kind of starting to explore the city a little bit more. And I just met some amazing people. You know, New York's one of those places where you can be grabbing a cup of coffee and you end up talking to someone who just won, you know, Nobel Peace Prize or just, you know, won a Pulitzer. And um I started to see myself more than just a student athlete. I just kind of like, all right, there's a whole world here that I can basically do whatever I want. I can be whatever I want. I don't just have to be one thing. Um then I can make my impact in, you know, in other ways, not just on on the basketball court. Because I had never really been injured before. So that was kind of like all right well, what does this look like, you know?

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Right. So it was the injury that gave you the space to go explore the other things. And through the other opportunities that you experienced in New York, you realized that it wasn't always about basketball.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah, for sure. I mean it just you see the opportunities that you have you can you want to work on Wall Street, you want to work in film, you want to whatever you want to do there was New York is that place where you can find something, right? No matter what your your interest level is um and you're just surrounded by people that are I still like so fascinating. Yeah. Um and from everywhere, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I lived in New York for a year and I I just loved how I felt like I was on I was a day before the news I would be walking I would see something we were by the UN and then that night on the news they would talk about it or I would run into somebody just randomly bump into somebody famous on the street and it's like oh yeah they're working on this project and you saw it before it hit the traditional media and I always just I just love that that uh the time there.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

And the energy right and then there's nothing like it. So yeah I um was I had a lot of fun my sophomore year the first but I didn't have to travel with the team so I got to kind of hang back was able to go out at night and you know meet friends that weren't just um you know from from the sports world and it's just it was great.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Bridge the gap from your time at NYU to starting your own firm what's that look like um well I I didn't get into real estate until after 9-11.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

So I was interning with um ABC Disney and then um during college and I got hired basically my senior year, my last semester of my senior year. So I was working with them for a couple years after college and then after 9-11 um we had lived downtown a couple blocks from the World Trade Center and got displaced, tried moving uptown for a year and then ended up pivoting and moving to Philadelphia um which was never you know uh was never you know on the part of the plan, but ended up being a part of the plan just because of the status of the world changing. And when I moved to Philadelphia in 2003, that's when uh I basically decided to finally put that real estate license to work. And I got out of you know being in like the television network space um was kind of over having to commute. I was doing the reverse commute from Philly to New York yeah every day which is not fun. Um and just saying like all right I've got this real estate license I might as well really kind of do a deep dive and and see if it's you know it's a good fit for me.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Yeah. And what is it about the art of the deal pulling the deal together that really drives you um I think there's a challenge of it.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

I always like to know that you know we have certain deals where the sellers are you know just want to get it done maybe they're a little bit more motivated. I love kind of trying to to push things a little bit just to see how much we can really get for our client whether it's on the buy side or the sell side um I like that like going back and forth negotiating there's you know some people don't like to negotiate because it can be stressful, it's time consuming, but I love just kind of knowing at the end of the day that the buyer got either the best deal or the you know the most fair deal and the seller really was able to kind of optimize their their price even if they don't always get their terms. And just knowing that like ever both sides are happy like it's you know they're never going to always be as equally happy but if they are both satisfied and they feel good about either buying or selling I mean that's a win. I don't like it when people feel like they you know they gave the house away or they were overpaying. It's not really it's not a great feeling for any of us. Talk to me about your new you started a new uh company um what's that look like why why the the the partnership were walk me through the decision making on how that came about um so it was uh during COVID um it was time for me to to kind of make a change and really do my own thing and not have uh partnership you know just really kind of being in control of uh being able to captain my own ship I had never really had that before I was either working for a really big brokerage or I had partners and um had a lot of red tape or different personalities and I my last arrangement I was the only female partner so it's kind of just felt like I was always odd man out. Um and a lot of the agents weren't entirely happy with the with the arrangement I knew that they were looking at other brokerages in order to kind of continue their their real estate careers. And um there was a point for me that I knew like if I didn't make a change with what we were doing as an organization and find another opportunity that they were just going to go off and they were going to find their own opportunities on their own. So um it was really important to me to really find a new brokerage that kind of gave us autonomy to really you know run our business, um plug into and amplify what we were doing here pretty successfully as a small group. And in 2003 to 2023 we um launched Surhamp Pennsylvania under Ryan Surhant. So that was really was exciting it was only a brokerage that had been around for a few years. I love the energy around it was basically a startup versus being with a very traditional brokerage where you could have the best idea in the world but it would never go anywhere. Right. Or you could have the best business but you couldn't really make an impact. You couldn't there was you know no room for change because of um you know because of red tape or because of how large a lot of these brokerages have have become um and we had a great opportunity to to keep growing that brand and and um creating some really great wins and some opportunities for our agents and trying to do something different.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

What have you learned from working your time working with Ryan?

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Ryan's an outlier I mean he's just it's very rare to have a CEO of a company who is still also in production. I mean at the end of the day, you know he's still he's still a you know a broker he's still doing deals he's still you know speaking to buyers and sellers and developers and he knows what it what it means to try and function at a very high level to be successful. He's extremely thoughtful, thought provoking he's really diligent I mean he's is totally structured um and you know there's a reason why he's the best there's a reason why he's the most famous broker on the planet and probably will be for time to come. So he's really the only guy that came from being an agent to really launching his own brokerage. Most other CEOs in his position they were you know they weren't necessarily in production or they came from other other backgrounds but he's um he's extremely real so it's it's been wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Are there any specific nuggets that you've taken away from that journey so far where you want to pass it to your son or you would that would be applicable to my daughters?

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Yeah so I think you know if I had the opportunity to have launched Sir Hemp Pennsylvania earlier, I, you know, I wish it I had that opportunity earlier. I think a lot of times we kind of get stuck in like how is this going to affect me? How much work is this going to be you know what is that how does that look what the life work balance I mean I wish I would have done it sooner. You know it's kind of like looking back hindsight to 2020 and um it's easy to get like stuck in your comfort zone and still be successful but really being able to see yourself and knowing that you can take it to the next level right like you can you don't necessarily need all of the money in the world to do something really great. You just need to really believe in yourself and surround yourself with wonderful people that you trust that you can kind of give autonomy to that you know are going to have your back and you know for us like I think that's a big component of of why we are so successful because everybody really has each other's back at the end of the day and you know there's always somebody there that's going to catch you if you fall.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Yeah. How do you build that culture?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Um it I think it starts from from the top so we have a wonderful CEO um with Ryan in New York and then you know locally here in Pennsylvania everyone's really really close. We have a lot of collaboration and just um you know for me I was never the type of agent only had our you know our former team I want everyone to be able to leverage the success that I've had over the last 23 years and being able to kind of like you know take that and run with it and try and build their own success. Like you know you don't have to reinvent the wheel you don't necessarily have to always start from from the bottom. So if I can kind of help them get new business or get business that they wouldn't have necessarily gotten on their own without feeling like it's you know we don't really advertise how much we're selling because at the end of the day it's really about like how are we doing as individuals which feed into that whole collective so you know you have to support people you have to kind of just always let them know that you're there for them. You'll you'll do whatever they need you to do within reason. Yeah provided it's legal um and just kind of you know we all need to be reminded but we have a great group.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Do you think for you the time you spent in sports and the stress the emotional capacity to go into an NCAA tournament or the final four or a key game that resiliency gave you the courage to branch out into your own business and now lead your team to to do this next adventure.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

For sure. Yeah I mean there was you know um throwing off having that pressure of like having to win and you know being a a role player um on a team you know sometimes you have a great game sometimes you don't but finding you know the person that's going to be able to you know maybe score more points it's it's very much like that in in real estate too. So you know sometimes um someone has a great month and someone else doesn't. So you have to kind of figure out like what's what's working and everyone's got to work together. So you know from the whole back end like you know operations has to work with marketing has to work with social. The agents kind of all have to be able to um celebrate wins and leverage wins that we're all doing as a whole um and just kind of like be champions for each other. So it's it's a big piece.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Do you think the sports allow set you up with the skill set to navigate the pressure? For sure. And is that what carries you to be a top performing real estate professional now because you're you're comfortable under pressure?

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Yeah I think it it helps like you know sometimes you lose a deal it's like losing a game or sometimes you lose a client and it's very much that same way. So it's it's kind of like how do you rebound from those losses and turn those losses into wins. So you know like when one door closes another one opens hopefully two more open um and just you know not you you can't dwell on it. You can't beat yourself up just like you know if you're you're in a tournament you're not going to win everything but just figuring out like if you do lose something how do you how do you turn that into a win right? Yeah. How do you like figure it out and and and do better next time.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

How do you balance the obligations of running the business with the family life? And obviously it takes away time from your son. Walk me through how you navigate that.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

I'm still navigating it uh I haven't quite cracked that code so if if you have a any pointers I'm I'm certainly open to it. Um but I think everyone's balance is different. Like it's you know my balance what works for me is not necessarily going to work for for somebody else but being able to kind of give yourself the grace if you you know on our business if I tell my husband I'm gonna be home at six he knows most likely that's probably going to be 630 or 7 just because of you know the nature of our business but being able to give yourself some grace um you can't be all things to all people. But it is important to really carve out that family time or or be present, which is also hard because our our phones are always going off and getting blown up and you know being text or called but um you know you can set the expectations too. I think if you know some of our clients know like hey I'm you know I'm out of pocket from from this time to that time, they don't necessarily need to know if it's because you're doing something with your son or if you're with other clients, right? It's just being able to set the expectation and not trying to to wear too many hats. I did that early on in my career and it's um there's you know such thing as overpromising and and under delivering I think as you get older you kind of realize like there's a way to set expectations whether it's with your clients or your kids with um you know how much you can you can do both physically and mentally your son's relatively young what three or four years old are he's four.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Do you believe that you're going to be transparent and open about deals that you're working on kind of like your parents were with you? Is that going to be a deliberate decision you make or are you just going to continue to work in in his uh presence and and uh have him pick up on it as you did I mean I I think the kids today are so exposed.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

You can't protect them from everything. Um the one thing that I like to protect him from is like the angry clients, you know, or some of the more more challenging ones um just so he, you know, not always always hearing the, you know, the unpleasant conversations when you're you know maybe not bringing somebody the best news but um no I think he's he's pretty much in tune to a lot of what's going on. Does he totally understand it? No, but you know he knows what the word negotiate means. He knows what leverage means he you know he knows uh he knows those big big words right now um multiple offers yeah commission you know so yeah hopefully he can use that to whatever he wants to do in his life.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Right. It's a done deal that's a good one that we talked about that before. Um so you know I think it's really interesting when when you're talking about um deliberate decisions with kids you know we just closed an acquisition of a property in Kansas City and one of the things I did was I I sat down with the the documents and I showed my my daughters you know this is what the bank's gonna do here's why it's set up this way and I'm not expecting them to comprehend everything but I want them to understand that there's structure to this and that when it's time to pull a deal together this is the way we have to navigate or this is the way that well I chose to navigate and here's my why um so I know that they can lean into that potentially later and and you know it's that was a deliberate decision. But I'm struggling with how much I should expose or hide um because I don't want to always be on but I don't want to cover up either because I think there's valuable lessons and uh the the balance of exposure.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

For sure. Yeah that's you know you want them to be more successful than you. And I think if my parents weren't always talking about deals or what was going on I like that for me was the greatest internship that I could have ever had because I was exposed to it without necessarily having to work but just being in that environment. And there was a you know a lot of lessons that came from it. So um that I didn't necessarily appreciate back then. Um but you know you you can also expose your kids too much, you can also protect them from too much.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

So how do you deal with conflict? How how did there was let me back up when you observe conflict as a teenager, how did that impact how you deal with conflict now? And are you attempting to shelter your son from conflict?

SPEAKER_01 40:27

No, look, you can't avoid conflict as much as we all like to try it conflict is just it's you know it's it's necessary in any aspect of our life. I think I have gotten better trying to problem solve instead of you know it's very easy to go down the rabbit hole and become you know make things more than what they are but at the end of the day you have to like really focus on the solution not the problem. So conflict is inevitable. I mean we walking down the street and there's conflict and it has nothing to do with you but somehow you end up right in the middle of it. Um and you know you can't avoid it. I think if you understand how to navigate through it it just it helps you to you know navigate through most other things. So it's um not making it more than what it really is, right? Because everything, you know, most things have there is some type of solution if you focus on the solution not the conflict.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

You know one of the things we launched at my business are are what we call our our fundamental behaviors. And we have 31 and each week we highlight different fundamental behavior. And one of my favorite behaviors that we highlight is practice blameless problem solving. Because oftentimes a problem will come up and what I've noticed is that we're really quick to attack or to blame somebody but that actually doesn't help solve the problem solve the problem first and then after the problem solved you can go back and analyze how the system broke to set that up did you see uh conflict when when you were growing up and how did your parents handle conflict?

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Well when I was growing up the conflict tended to be between the two of them so how did that impact you that's that's really what I was asking. Yeah um and you know being most times the only child in the in the house having older siblings who are already gone um I basically became the mediator the negotiator between whatever was going on with uh with the two of them um personally or emotionally and um I think that kind of it you know it forced me to grow up a little bit maybe too early or be overexposed to to things but then it also helped me kind of figure out like okay there's conflict here there's some uncomfortable emotions going on um how do you bridge that gap? How do you like bring these two planets you know these two these two forces into back into you know the same galaxy again. I think that helped me a lot now is just dealing with with clients like you know that whether it's you know the sellers aren't on the same page or the sellers and the buyers are on different pages.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

So are there any specific tactics that you that you observed from when you were younger that you actively apply when you have a client or a s a client and a spouse that aren't eye to eye?

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Yeah I mean I think um well my parents it was I don't know if you've ever seen um uh War of the Roses but that was very much uh you know kind of like what it was and just figuring out how to have the same message to two different people but say Saying different things. So a lot of it's, you know, delivery. Um, and also a lot of it uh is kind of figuring out what most people get upset about something, but there's something else going on. There's like yes, there's something else underlying that may have happened three weeks ago. So just being able to kind of um, I think it read people pretty well. Um especially because my parents had two different personalities, entirely different personalities. And um it's I kind of understand, you know, different mindsets and emotions and um sometimes, you know, what what what it the something appears is not really as it as it truly is.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Yeah. You know, when we talk about emotional deflection, I one of the things I do with with my daughters is when we go out to eat, I'll let them calculate the tip. So it's the whole process of credit card, calculate the tip, do the math, put a signature. And uh my youngest had asked to have a sleepover with one of her friends. And we'd gotten the bill. And right as she started to do the math, my wife got a text message that the friend had couldn't sleep over. And so my youngest got the bad news that her friend couldn't sleep over, and it upset her. And then she made a math mistake because she was distracted about the sleepover. And so I said, Listen, like wait a second. I know that you're upset that your friend can't sleep over, but if you're gonna do this, we have to get it right. So come back and do the math. And so she was working through it and she got really upset with me. And I said, I understand that you're upset with me because your friend can't sleep over, and you're upset with me because I'm correcting your math, but I'm not the problem here. Let's work this together, let's solve the problem, let's do the math. And then I'm walking her out to the work truck. I said, understand that what you just experienced was emotional deflection. You're pissed off because your friend can't come over, but you made a mistake. So those are connected. So let's not deflect. And it's okay that you're upset, but you just have to figure that out. And like I really wish, man, like it would have been so powerful for me when I was 11 to start to understand that. Uh, because it wasn't until I was 40 and started to really work on mental fitness that I started to realize that oh yeah, like I I do that all the time at work, right? Something happens and I I'm not emotionally stable over on one side because something else happened over here. For sure. It's really challenging. Something that I've deliberately tried to work on recently because that's it's hard. It's hard. So uh are you excited for the entrepreneurship journey? And would you want your son to also be an entrepreneur, or are you gonna let him find that out?

SPEAKER_01 47:08

Yeah, it's you know, well I have my my theories on what you know he's gonna end up doing with his his life. It probably will be something very different than you know, the journey I've I've you know chosen for myself in a good way. Um I think he's capable of a lot more than, you know, um what I've been able to do. So I'm you know, I'm I'm very hopeful and excited to see what he does. I think entrepreneurship is great, um as long as you can handle a lot like creating a structure, right? Like it's not necessarily for everybody. Some people can thrive stepping into an organization that already has, you know, that foundation built. Um, for me, I kind of liked, you know, the ability of like putting pieces together and kind of seeing what works. Um he's either gonna be, you know, an engineer, a plumber, or an electrician. So we'll we'll see what he does with the you know, entrepreneurship and that. Maybe he'll invent a new type of, you know, electrical system or plumbing system or hyperbridge. I don't know. It's um, I don't think he's he's fallen into real estate, but I could be wrong. My parents probably said the same thing about me. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Where can people find you online? Where can they interact with you?

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Our we have a couple different websites. Our our main company website here for Pennsylvania is societyselect.com. Um, so all of our property listings are there, our solds, information about our team. Um, Instagram is at Society Select as well. That's our company site, obviously surhant.com. And then personally, my Instagram is Andrea Daisy Edry at Andrea Daisy Edry. Um, but yeah, our website's probably the best place to go. And we would love to hear from all of your viewers out there about how we can help them with their real estate needs.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

I love it. Well, thank you so much for the conversation. I really really enjoyed it. Uh, one of the easy things that you can do to help us get the word out is like, comment, subscribe, share the word, um, and so we can have more conversations just like this and uncover some more hidden foundations. Thanks for joining us.