Most people like to compartmentalize their work and home lives, but Realtor Angela Goldstein isn’t most people.
The Bethesda, Maryland resident is the co-owner of Northgate Realty with her husband, Lee, and with 30 years of combined real estate experience, the two define their business by the friendships they form with their clients.
With their personal life and private life so intertwined, the couple is constantly having to balance work and home life, but they find joy in the hustle. Even on the couple’s March honeymoon, relaxing on the beach, the two took a couple business calls: “We both understand that real estate happens, any time, any moment. So rather than getting upset, we just embrace it. It’s just part of our lives,” she says.
When the couple isn’t busy selling homes, they’re spending time with their four children in their blended family: Jared, 24, Sofia, 19, Valentina, 16, and Oliver, 6.
How do you balance a professional and personal relationship with your husband?
I can’t tell you how in sync and in harmony and peace we are every day.
Communication is number one. I’ve learned through him how to communicate better, how to express my needs. And at the end of the day, we always have a powwow: How did the day go? And how can we improve?
And then, more importantly, we both understand that we are different, and we respect our different opinions. We are really secure in each other’s relationship, where we can allow ourselves to have differences in opinions and we can still get along.
What is one challenge of being married to your business partner?
When we were both on vacation, we were both gone! The challenge would be when we both need to be at a place…but somehow we make it work.
I guess sticking to the schedule, respecting the home life — while we’re working, let’s not focus on the laundry. House distractions, keeping those at bay so that we can focus on work, that’s a challenge. That’s an everyday challenge for sure.
How do you set boundaries between your work life and your family life?
I feel like as we learn more and more, we continue to evolve in that area. There’s the kids being home during COVID, when they’re off at school—all of that can disrupt the flow. And also, we have four dogs at home, in our house.
But I think we all have the same goal— that we want a peaceful house, we want to succeed. The kids understand that when we’re in the office, we’re in the office, and we respect that time.
We also have just started using it this year— it’s been really helping—but we also create block schedules for ourselves. It’s been doing wonders for us, where we actually respect our time. ‘Okay, this is work time, and this is family time,’ because obviously, we work from home, too. Other than going out to see clients and houses, most of the time, we’re here.
What is a lesson that you hope your kids learn from you?
I think that lesson is that you can do anything you put your mind into doing, as long as you’re doing it for the good of everybody. As long as your intentions are good.
I hope that they see that there are ways to make a living in the world and be happy at the same time. You don’t have to get on that hamster wheel if you don’t want to. There’s other ways.
What advice would you give to other parents who own their own business?
Time management has been a big thing for us: Putting everything on the calendar, having an organized system of sorts.
I use something called the Productivity Planner, which is, basically, every morning, I have a list of [things] that I need to do for the most important [tasks], and I don’t make that list too big. I keep it to five things. And that’s the maximum: I do five things. And I feel like I can check them off my list, and then I feel more accomplished than if I had a list of 25 things and then I never feel like I actually do a single one.
What is your family’s favorite …
Meal
I make the best tortilla soup. That’s a winner for everybody.
Activity
Get together and eat. Have dinner together. We don’t get to see Jared, Lee’s son, all the time because he lives at his own apartment now. And my daughter’s in college (one of them), so just being able to get together for dinner.
TV Show
“[The] Big Bang Theory” is probably on in our house all day long.
Vacation Spot
I want to say Palm Springs because that was where we just got married, and we loved it so much.
