Aidey’s Story
Client Success Concierge
“One of my earliest dreams was to fly.”
My father used to put me on his shoulders and the whole room would drop away underneath me.
I should have been getting ready for school.
Instead I was in the middle of the room, jumping, trying to get my parents to look at me.
My father would be pulling on his work clothes — he was a mechanical engineer, and nothing he owned for work stayed clean for long. My mother would be putting on her uniform, sharp, already halfway out the door to go be useful to somebody. Both of them moving. Me in the background, hair uncombed, doing everything I could to be noticed.
Some mornings my father would stop, reach back, and put me up on his shoulders. The whole room would drop away underneath me and I would be flying over it.
My father made me feel like I could fly.
My mother showed me what you are supposed to do once you get somewhere. She taught at a school for children with special needs, and for most of those children she was the best part of the day. Their families had money and not much else to give them. My mother was what they had. I did not understand what that meant until I was much older, but it is the one thing I believe without any qualification: when someone is a light in your life, it goes a long way.
Put those two things together and you get what I wanted to be. A pilot. Not really for the planes — I wanted to help people get where they were going.
It did not happen. My eyesight closed that door, and I found out early enough to understand there was no version of trying harder that would open it. That was the first real disappointment of my life, and for a while I did not know what came next.
What got me moving again was remembering my father in that room, lifting me up over everything. He would not have stopped there. So I stopped looking at the door that had closed and started looking for the one beside it.
I went to college. I dropped out. I am not going to dress that up — it was the hardest decision I have made, and I do not regret it. It taught me the thing my parents had been showing me all along without saying it: be patient, and keep moving.
What never changed was the reason underneath. I still wanted to help people get where they were going. It just turned out the destination is not always a city.
Sometimes it is a smaller house, because the stairs have become too much. Sometimes it is another state, because someone’s mother is sick. Sometimes a marriage has ended, or a parent has died, and the house is the last thing standing between a person and the next part of their life.
Nobody sells a house for no reason. There is a story behind every one, and you cannot tell anybody what they should do until you know it.
That is why I joined The Concierge Agency rather than somewhere else. This company is built around understanding a person’s situation first and then helping them choose between real options — selling traditionally, selling as-is, taking a cash offer, or repairing the house first and paying for it after it sells. Not one answer for everybody. Not pressure. We educate people first, and some of them decide not to sell at all, and that is a fine outcome.
I am usually the first voice you will hear from us. I am not going to pitch you. I am going to ask, and then I am going to listen, and then — if I have done this right — I will point you toward the answer that is right for you.
I do not measure my work by how many calls I make. I measure it by whether the person on the other end hung up knowing more than when they picked up.
With Gratitude,
Aidey Ahmed
Client Success Concierge
About Travell
Travell Eiland is a Broker Associate and REALTOR® with The Concierge Agency at Samson Properties, and an Emmy award-winning former TV news anchor and investigative journalist. He is a Certified Real Estate Negotiator and Certified Listing Specialist, known for a structured, story-driven approach to complex selling and buying situations across Prince George’s County, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia.
Meet Travell