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Sybil Geddes
Sybil Geddes
Title: Real Estate Agent, Gibson Sotheby’s South End
Age: 38
Experience: 5 months
After 15 years as a professional ballet dancer and a couple of ACL surgeries, Sybil Geddes was pondering a change of career when her mother-in-law suggested real estate. What began as a passing suggestion stuck with her. She thought it would be great to connect people with the spaces that resonate with them, so she got her license and is now doing rentals Gibson Sotheby’s South End office and sales in the Cambridge office.
Q: Do you still perform?
A: I’m not performing now. I hope to, though. I’d like to go back and do some guestings, but it won’t be my full-time job any more. It’s a real sea change to go from professional ballet to real estate. Jennifer Gelfand [Church] at Keller Williams in Boston was a principal at Boston Ballet and decided to go into real estate and was very successful. She was a little bit of a beacon for me.
Q: Was that the plan?
A: No, I spent last year recovering from an ACL reconstruction. It was my second. I had my left knee done in 2007 and last year I had my right knee done, so clearly it was time to start thinking about a new direction. Luckily, I’m about 85 percent recovered right now. I spent that year doing physical therapy, training, reading and trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. It was very difficult – ballet is so all-consuming, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The bar is pretty high, so I wondered, “What’s going to follow this?” I toyed with the idea of going back to grad school, I toyed with arts management, but the idea to get into real estate was my mother-in-law’s. She said, “You know, Sybil, you might really enjoy real estate.” Until then, it hadn’t really been on my radar as an option. I wasn’t enraptured with the idea right away, but it kept percolating. I got my license and I like acquiring new skills anyway. That’s what did it.
Q: Gibson Sotheby’s is known for hiring primarily experienced agents and Cambridge is a very competitive market. How are you finding it?
A: I sent a letter and a resume to one of the owners and we kept in touch, [then we] met and we totally hit it off. I felt a genuine rapport. Soon after that I got to meet a few top agents in the Back Bay office and I was going to maybe become an assistant, and they hired me. It was the people who drew me here. My intuition was that this would be a good fit. I’m training with Lara Gordon, who runs the Cambridgeville blog, as well as doing rentals in the Back Bay office. It’s been very exciting. I’m really grateful to be here. The people are amazing. Especially since I’m new, you can just walk into this office and start learning from everyone around you by osmosis. There’s a great energy here. They just came up with a lovely motto in the past couple of weeks – “Lead with generosity.” Lara is highly analytical and really fun, so for me, that’s a great combination. I’m so lucky to get to dive into the deep end of the pool.
Now that things are getting busier on both ends, I’ve had a range of clients. I’ve had clients looking for a $1,300 rental and clients at the absolute top end, so it’s been really interesting and fun. I like that breadth of clients and people. One thing that’s been challenging, and similar to ballet, is that in ballet, you can’t walk away from your instrument, because it’s you. And you can’t get outside of yourself, but you never get out of it. Real estate isn’t quite the same, but you’re on 24/7 and constantly trying to provide good service and at the same time, hone your craft.
Q: What about the competitive nature of the business?
A: I’ve brushed up against some of that when dealing with other agents, but I haven’t experienced it in earnest. Ballet is super competitive, maybe more than real estate. I have to be true to myself. I’m pretty kind and open, and I never want to change that. Now, I’m not super-competitive, but if I’m forced to compete, then I know how to win. In ballet, if I have to do something, I can do it. I work very well under pressure. In big auditions, a number of times, I was suddenly able to do something I wasn’t able to do the day before. Competition doesn’t bother me and doesn’t scare me, but I’m not actively engaged in the process of finding it. In ballet, I didn’t try to be better than anyone else, I just tried to be best I could be. I can bring my game, but it’s not my natural mode. I can produce when pushed. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot and be in the fray. That’s fine.
Q: What did you learn in ballet that has helped you in real estate?
A: Discipline is a big one. I’m still trying to figure out how that will work for me. Another thing is the performance aspect of it. One thing that is different for me is that ballet isn’t really verbal. You don’t talk about what you’re about to do. Even in an audition, you don’t really speak, you just do it. In this field, there’s a lot more talking about what’s going to happen. That’s different for me.
Q: What is it like going from a field where you are confident and successful to starting over in something brand new?
A: It’s actually been sort of fun. I like expanding my mind and I don’t mind being the person who needs to ask a lot of questions. I don’t mind being humbled. It’s good to expand. This is definitely an exercise in expansion. I think it’s more difficult than I thought. Certainly in this market, a lot of people have grand expectations and that can be challenging, to manage buyers’ expectations. Otherwise, it’s been positive.
Geddes’ Top Five Favorite Things:
- Being with her husband
- Effortless moments on stage
- Hiking in Nepal
- Swimming in bioluminescence
- Good Bordeuax
