Alex Montagano 0:02

Welcome to Action Solves Everything, the show for those who want to stop overthinking and start producing. I'm your host, Alex Montagano, broker, leader, and founder of Lockstep Realty. Around here, we believe movement creates momentum, clarity comes from doing, and the agents who take action are the ones who win. Every episode is built to help you grow your skills, your confidence, and your career. Now, let's get to work. Welcome to another episode of Action Solves Everything. We got an awesome guest in the house today, Daniel Leaper. He jumped in the real estate industry in 2018. I've been fortunate enough to have him working side by side with me since 2020. We'll touch a little bit on that story today, how we came to. But Daniel has absolutely crushed it with the development and growth of Lockstep Realty. He's been a pillar and a cornerstone of everything that we are today. He has recently made a change from leadership at Lockstep, where he sat for the last four years, into a new role of getting back into being a realtor, rolling up his sleeves and doing the hard work. Daniel, welcome to the show, man. What's up?

Daniel Leeper 1:20

Thanks for having me, Al. Feels good to be back.

Alex Montagano 1:23

Yeah, dude. Uh let's hit let's just dive right in, man. Rip the band-aid. You're back to being a realtor. Um and I got to give you your flowers, man. Five sales in 30 days of being an agent. How did you do it? What's going on?

Daniel Leeper 1:38

Um, I think that uh there's more to the more to that question than just like a quick answer. But basically, I think you and I um came to the same conclusion around the same time that it made sense for me to get back to what I was passionate about. Um, you know, when you do something you feel good about, your energy is positive, people can feel that. And it's not that I didn't love helping the lockstep agent room grow, but it just wasn't um wasn't rewarding me the way I thought it would. And so when I decided to come talk to you, hey, let's let's spend some time in your office, or you called me in and we sat down. Um, the conversation was actually pretty easy. Would you agree? I mean, it was natural.

Alex Montagano 2:18

Well, yeah, I mean, look, I think um an old line, we suffer more in imagination than in reality, right? So um I think look, you had given up a lot to get into the leadership role. We had designed a lot around some stuff for you to be the dad you wanted to be, the husband you wanted to be. And look, man, real estate doesn't care. As an for agents, it doesn't care. Like, and if you don't have boundaries around your business, it's really hard to do the parent thing right or to a to a level that people are really passionate about doing it. And being the spouse that you wanted to be. So when you jumped in that role, like as the role evolved, you had done a lot to support our agents, you were giving up personal business. And so I was always concerned like, hey, if this ever unwinds, there's a lot of decisions that we made that are hard to unwrap and hard to get back to like a solid baseline. So when I made a decision that I was gonna pull you aside and have the conversation just to see how you were feeling, I had finally just convinced myself that everything works out how it's supposed to, and if I feel it, you probably feel it. And funny enough, when I work with we used to work with buyers and sellers, anytime they ever signed a contract with me, I used to tell them, if I ever want to fire you, you probably already want to fire me. And everyone would laugh, but that's true, it's typically a mutual thing.

Daniel Leeper 3:39

So I stole that line from you. I use it now too.

Alex Montagano 3:41

When I when I asked you, hey man, how are you feeling? Are you loving your job? And you just looked at me and goes, I was gonna talk to you in four days.

Daniel Leeper 3:51

Yeah, I was able to get there. I needed to formulate a couple more thoughts, but it's the same thing. I was suffering more in imagination than reality, and I just didn't I didn't want to let anybody down, specifically you, but the team too. And like I was such a big part of what we were trying to all get toward, you know, the same goals, the same accomplishments. And so for for us, it was just like a matter of how do I do this the right way? I I didn't I didn't think I wouldn't be a lock step at the end of the conversation, but I also didn't know, and I that's not something I wanted, and I know and I I hear you, I know you're about to say, but it's also like you have to play those scenarios out in your head and figure out all right, if this goes this way, am I gonna be okay with the decisions that we're all making right now?

Alex Montagano 4:32

Yeah. Look, man, I think um it's been 33 days in your new role, um, and in my new role too, but just talk about what being an agent means to you. Because I think you haven't you wore it just a different hat for a long time. You get back in the seat and gangbusters, man. It's been it's exciting to watch and fun to be a part of because you're in the seat that you belong in, you are operating from a position of best self, and look, you didn't for a while. My fault, my selfish decisions of what we signed up for, but it's really neat to see it. So just talk about it, man. 33 days.

Daniel Leeper 5:14

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna uh leave, I tee myself up a little bit. So when I decided to leave journalism to become a real estate agent, it wasn't like uh something I knew I was gonna be good at, but what I did know is that I cared about like people and I wanted to use my skill set to to enjoy work again, right? And so my skill set is like how do I work with people, how do I help them, how do I work hard? And at the end of working hard, how do I have um you know enough income to support a family the way I want to support them, right? And so that's why I decided to give real estate a try in 2018. I just will give it a shot. And if it doesn't work, I'll pivot to something else. And fortunately for me, um, I've had a lot of people put their trust in me and I've and I've earned a lot of referrals and repeat clients, and I've earned your trust, I've earned lockstep's trust. And so um, when I decided to go back, it's it's interesting. I in the leadership role, I constantly talked and and taught and trained on the idea of like running a calendar. And you have to run your calendar to be the best version of yourself and to make sure that your clients are taken care of and stuff like that. Well, what happened is when I was in the leadership role, I was constantly being pulled in every which direction. And what happens is is as a result of that, um, the the goal was to have this great home life, to work normal hours in real estate, which you don't get to do very often, but then to be able to come home and be a great husband and a great dad and a great friend. And um in a leadership role and a calendar, sometimes that stuff gets turned on its head because of the need for your time. And so um now that I'm back in this role, I'm back into giving myself advice that I would have given any agent. You have to run a calendar, um, it has to be flexible, but through like a diligent day-to-day schedule, you're able to be more um flexible and able to uh react to the things that are important to you. And that includes my family, and that includes both of you know Max and Ben's school schedules and so on and so forth. So um to answer your question in a in a long roundabout way, I think my success is is that I'm I'm back to doing what I love. And I think when you do that, uh people recognize that and you get to be the best self and it comes with successes.

Alex Montagano 7:27

How um how are you handling some of the challenges of like evening showings or evening negotiations or counter offers or anything like that?

Daniel Leeper 7:36

Yeah, uh in this industry, again, um we have to communicate at a high level with our clients, but I think that you have to communicate at a high level with your spouse too. Um Steph works at a traditional job. She works Monday through Friday, uh actually Monday through Thursday and uh during the day. And so if I have evening showings or evening inspection response conversations or this, that, and the other, um I'm pretty comfortable telling my clients that I have certain hours where I can't work and certain hours when I can work. And Steph is kind of signed up for that too. And honestly, when I was deciding if I was gonna come talk to you, those conversations were had with her up front so that we could set expectations for what my schedule was gonna look like once we got on the other side of the conversation with you and me.

Alex Montagano 8:20

I want to get behind the importance of the communication and what that all looks like, especially around the idea of your spouse. I mean, look, I talk about a lot what my goals were when I jumped in the industry. And two of my big three were present present husband and present dad. And look, I'm home most every single night. Like, and that doesn't always mean present, unfortunately. It's a it's some it's a work in progress that you know we try to get better at all the time. But last night um, you know, I'm making a diligent effort right now to build my rental portfolio. I went out, found some options, and wrote three offers last night. And look, when you don't get in and write your own offers, like punching around in these sky slope and digic sign and all sorts of stuff, it's it's not something I'm familiar with. So like I'm trying to be home with the kids, but I'm trying to do this. And Maureen, Mikey, and Will are pulling on me and yelling at me, Dad, Dad, dad. And Maureen goes, Hey guys, dad's doing a little work. And Willow's like, What's he doing? And Maureen goes, buying houses. That's what he does. And it was like, it's really cool that my family can identify in in your family too. Like, hey, when dad is working, it's not like I would much rather be spending time with uh Michael and Willow and and Maureen. But sometimes duty calls as part of the dream that we're pursuing or the career and the life that we've built. And I just thought it was really neat to hear that's what he does. Like, this is how he works, this is how he supports our family. And it was like, hey, look, man, I I'm really fortunate. Maureen loves you, you love Maureen, all this stuff. It's like it's really cool that that's what I get at home every day. And it allows me to be best self. So, like Steph understanding your seat and Ben seeing you and Max growing up with a dad who works hard, like it's important for families to see that and recognize that. Man, I love that for you.

Daniel Leeper 10:26

Yeah, you said something that's pretty interesting there. Um they understood, right? Their understanding of what was happening last night. And there's always, in fact, probably every night, there could be something always that pulls you away from your family. Conversation with an agent on the team, or a conversation with an agent on the other side of a transaction, or what you're talking about with the writing of offers. There's always something, right? But I think the more confident you get in what you do, and the more often in what you do it, you can set boundaries for yourself that allows you to have a pretty flexible life. And you might have to punch out an email at nine o'clock before you turn the lights off, or you might need to tell a client, hey, I I can't talk tonight, but I'll be available at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. And I think that if you deliver that message with confidence and solutions, um most of the time that's going to be received pretty well by your family and your client list.

Alex Montagano 11:19

I think um finding a client list that respects that version of yourself. So, hey, Mr. Klein or Mrs. Klein, I'm unavailable to talk till the morning should be good enough for a lot of people. And like it doesn't need a I have this going on instead. It's just hey, I'm unavailable, I'm available tomorrow. And what I noticed the longer I did this career when I started creating boundaries for myself and for others and for my family, the respect for my clients got it was grew and grew and grew. So I think it's like important, like anyone that listens to this, if you're a realtor and you don't have boundaries, they have there are no boundaries for anybody to respect. So you get what you tolerate, right? So, like what you tolerate. And if you want somebody to respect your calendar and respect you at nine o'clock at night, let them know. Hey, this is when I'm available, this is when I'm not available. Congrats to you, dude, for drawing those lines early. Um, where are your clients coming from? Dude, five deals in 30 days. You can sell 60 houses in a year.

Daniel Leeper 12:24

2027 should be pretty crazy. Um, yeah, I think that um every every single one is a sphere deal. So either a past client or a referral. And um, I think it's important um for my business to lean into again what I'm good at. And I I'm all about relationships. What is one of our core value? No, relationships matter. And that goes within our industry, but also with our our our client base. And so five deals, all sphere, referrals, past clients, whatever it might be. And that feels good. It feels nice to know that I've done a good enough job that people are either calling me or sending their sister my way or or or whatever. And that's always and forever going to be my bread and butter, my pillar. Um, I pride myself on keeping up on that stuff, on the relationships, on answering the call, contractor referrals, whatever it might be. Um, it's just important to me, and it's a big reason why I do the job. Um we talk a lot about the Enneagram in the office. I'm a two, I'm a helper. That's my natural, like my natural inherent ability. And so if I can apply that to what I do for my profession every day, that it's that much better for for how I do things. Um yeah, five deals, it's great. I want I want to do more.

Alex Montagano 13:42

Um you had said you jumped in 2018, you're leaving the TV industry. Can you talk a little bit about that transition? Because I want to I want to lean in uh some more conversation or about around like your current success. But when you started, like what drew you to real estate?

Daniel Leeper 14:02

Well, I was in TV working 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. trying to I I didn't have kids yet, but trying to be a good partner, a good spouse, and you know, going to bed every night, or I'm sorry, going to bed every morning and my wife's getting up to go to work. It's it's a little it's a little weird, a little hard. And not not to mention I just wasn't making a lot of money. And so I started calling friends, family, people I really trusted and cared about that were gonna give me an honest response. And I was like, what should I do? Like, I can't keep going down this path. I don't necessarily want to go back to college. That seems like something I didn't want to do in my early 30s. And the common message to me was that I was wasting away at a desk job, essentially, like figure out a way to get out of a traditional desk job and get in front of people, pour into people, find a way to do that. And sales doesn't have to be like the slimy cliche, um, uh you know, that that it's portrayed or or considered in a lot of people's worlds. And so, how how do I change that narrative? How do I get into sales of some kind and do a good job at that and have a good reputation? And I mean, honestly, there's a pretty low barrier of entry to our our business. And so I was able to get my license while still working in television, and that allowed me to work, study, work, study, work, study. And then after a few months, that I was able to transition fully into this business. And um, as you know, the first year I started off with a small boutique brokerage. I spent exactly one year with them until I met you. And then um what I didn't know is I didn't have the mentorship, training, coaching, and resources here in Indianapolis that I needed to be successful, and it was it was genuinely a fake it till I make it type of thing. And then um you grabbed a hold of my career and it's been a rocket ship. You um I wouldn't say look, how many deals you sell in your first year?

Alex Montagano 16:03

Because I think 18 deals year one. How that ain't faking it till you're making it, that's making it in our industry. So how'd you how do you sell 18 houses your first year in the business? Talk about some of the stuff you were doing.

Daniel Leeper 16:15

I didn't have any distractions. I didn't have anybody who's telling me I needed to be somewhere. So every day I had goals of talking to as many people as possible about my new career. So I was dropping off lunch to my dentist, or I was joining a Dart League, or I was um talking to my wife's friends at gatherings. Her sorority sisters, for some reason, were a big part of my early success. Um, and then when you do a good job, those people tend to say your name in in front of rooms that might use you as well. And so um I didn't have paid leads my first year. It was all sphere. Um and I think I was reactive to pretty much anybody who needed my help, and I would run those down as fast as I could with no distraction. And you learn a lot on the fly doing it that way, but I'm not sure you learn like great habits being in a room where you're the only person who you're talking you're listening to.

Alex Montagano 17:12

So this is interesting. I was leading a training today, we were doing a role play session with a handful of agents in the room. They were asking questions like how do you learn how to do this? And I don't have the confidence to have these conversations like you do, and and and look, like they were like, How did you learn that? Or how did you learn to say that or deliver a message that way? And look, like at some point, like some of uh some things are skill based, but skills can always be practiced and learned and developed. And I told them I said, Look, there's a room of 17 agents at lockstep, you guys should talk to each other more. It's not text more, you shouldn't send more emails. You should go sit in a room and say, I'm having a challenging scenario, can we role play through it? Can we work through the challenges here that I'm struggling with? And look, like with anything in life, the more times you do something, the more the muscle builds. And so, you know, I remember when I started, I solved problems the best I knew how, but sometimes there was nobody there to help. And look, like that increases the likelihood of like burning a bridge, getting it wrong, screwing it up, but boy, do you learn fast that way. And, you know, it's like go to your peers and practice. Go to go to do that. And dude, if you're sitting at home by yourself grinding a business, one, it's fun for a while, it becomes a lonely journey. And two, like you just can't learn as fast. It's not an apples apples comparison of Daniel at lockstep at 20 in 2026 versus Daniel as an individual agent in 2026 out on his own doing his own thing with nobody else mentoring, coaching, supporting. One's not as purposeful either.

Daniel Leeper 18:58

Yeah, I look, I don't I don't need to rehash what you just said. I agree with all of it. But basically, my my message to anybody who's listening to this is that there's there's different ways to do this industry. And I'm not saying you have to agree with me, I'm not saying you have to agree with Alex, but what I will say is that if you can get out of your own bubble, whether it be you and your partner, whatever you by yourself, whatever it is, and get to a room full of people who work as hard as you do and are doing the same job as you at a high level, you are inevitably gonna sponge up information that you can apply to your business and become that much sharper and that much better. Um, if you're the best person in the room because you're the only person in the room, I'm not sure you're you're succeeding the way you think you are, the way you think you might be able to. Um, I'm always gonna be a team player. I think that there's just too many benefits to being around smart, sharp, motivated people to keep me going as well. And that's not just from a place of education, that that's a big part of it, but that's the motivation of getting the job done every day. Um, you can tell yourself a story to stay in bed all day. You can tell yourself a story to not prospect or not follow up or not show up for your clients that can be pretty detrimental to your long-term goals. And so I I'm not even in leadership, and I'm still at the office every morning at 8:30 after I drop my kids off because that's the place where I'm gonna find the most success and the most growth, most growth.

Alex Montagano 20:24

Well, I mean, look, like you get knocked on the mat. Sometimes it's hard to pick yourself up. And there's gotta be something if you have it in your life that pulls you up. Hey, that's great. But sometimes that something doesn't work, it's a somebody. And you know, sometimes it's your wife or your spouse, sometimes it's your kids, but sometimes it's your peer just coming in and giving you a little extra juice. Like, hey man, I just really appreciate this, or hey, I just wanted to let you know that. And it's like, oh man, I hadn't I didn't see that kind of like that was amazing. Um, and and I just think about it all the time. I couldn't agree more with your alignment on the idea of like if you're the smartest person in the room when you're in a room by yourself, like you're just that is not best self. It just isn't. It's an impot like it's an impossibility for that to be what best self is.

Daniel Leeper 21:16

We uh we have lockstep, and this is just kind of like a patting us on the back. We celebrate wins like both big and small. And the reason I say that is because some agents are at a different port in their careers where a small win of them might just be getting an agency agreement signed so that they're out showing houses this weekend for the first time in a while. And then we might have another agent who had a heck of a month and they sold four or five, six houses like we talked about earlier. And so, like those celebrations that bring you all right, you know what? I got this team behind me rallying around me, applauding my buyer's agency signature, like that's that's really cool, and that's what we do really, really well.

Alex Montagano 21:53

Yeah, I think it's interesting. Um when you start accomplishing success, if you're telling Telling people in your life, hey, I sold a I sold a house today, and then the next day you tell them, Hey, I sold a house today. It is a natural thing for the people that you share that with to be less excited when you sell three houses in a week than when you sold your first house ever, because you just sell many houses now. And so it's like hey, you sold your first house that's unbelievable. And so like when you take somebody who's brand new or needs to be lifted up, celebrating every single win, it gives perspective to the room of like where that person is in a journey. But additionally, you sell six, you know, we had an agent sell four house in a week last week, five house in a week, things like that. It's like it gives somebody else uh merit to the idea of like, hey, anything is really possible here. And look, I think it gives agents like something to strive for and how to dream bigger. Like it gives you something, it's like, man, I could do that. And to be pulled along that journey with others who are already doing it makes it a lot more fun.

Daniel Leeper 23:04

Yeah, but say you don't even have the pipeline to do something like that, okay? Like just a hypothetical world, you come to work every day and you're like, Man, how do they even have five clients, let alone five pendings? Well, we we've encouraged our room, and we do a good job of this of like he didn't just get those by existing, he went out and got those, or she she did this to earn that business. And so go sit with that person, hop in their passenger seat and ride along with them, listen to their phone calls, listen to the conversations because there's a skill set there that earned them that it wasn't like they just had it handed to them. And that's what a room full of achievers allows you to do from a from a uh not a new agent standpoint, but somebody who's just trying to level up in whatever way.

Alex Montagano 23:50

Um compound interest, ninth wonder of the world. Um is what they say. Compound interest of the ability to show up every single day. So, how did the agent get five deals in a week? They showed up every day for five weeks, five months, five years, over and over and over, no matter how bad, how hard, how challenging, how sick, how tired, whatever. That sustained level of commitment is how that stuff is built. And I think seeing that in our industry is something that is a monster eye-opener for so many agents that want to achieve success. Anyone that goes out there and does a great business in our industry, the agents on the side doing that type of business work incredibly hard. They have an incredible commitment to the craft, to their clients, to every to the profession, everything. And seeing that as an outsider, like I was fortunate enough to spend my birthday with a great friend of mine, John Murphy. We were in New York City together. That guy works hard. He works hard all the time. And it was an eye-opener to me. Like, he puts more in than I do how he does it. And it's like, man, kudos to him. Like, that is how he built it. And so it's like, if you're learning from others that are doing it at a higher scale than you or at a greater scale than you, you can observe that and make decisions around yourself of like, do I want those things? Am I willing to make that sacrifice? But if you never see it and never know, it's easy to just go, he got lucky. I don't even that I can't do that. That's not me. But if you look through the other lens and go, hey, that's possible, I can do that, or I'm willing, or that that aligns with my goals. I want to do it. It's how you get the mentorship to understand how to get there.

Daniel Leeper 25:35

Yeah, but it's also like if you're saying that about somebody, you're probably justifying why you don't have it. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. I'm not gonna sit and dog anybody, but like we know John works hard. We know other people work hard, we know what is earned versus what is you know given essentially. Um, and some people don't have the goals to work as hard as you or me or some other people do, and that's okay too. But there are ways to work within your goals, whatever your self-driven goals are annually, to be the best version of yourself in that transaction. So, say instead of doing 50 deals a year, you want to do 15 deals a year, whatever that is, be the best version of yourself in those 15 deals. And that's all the stuff we've talked about is still applicable to those 15 deals.

Alex Montagano 26:20

I would love to know uh like from your seat. Um, you know, there was 2018 Daniel that got in spry, young buck, green, hustling, um, you know, no family or no kids, step in the picture to today. Like would you change anything in how you got here? And uh what would today's Daniel tell 2018 Daniel?

Daniel Leeper 26:47

Oh man, that's a big question. Um I think that the common denominator of 2018 success and 2020 success is the work ethic. It's stuff we've already talked about kind of at length, so I'm not gonna really go down that road again. But what I think that has changed is the level of focus that I have and the level of organization that I have. So, what I tell a lot of the new agents who come to our room is let me see your calendar, let me see your email inbox, um, are you working with intentionality? Um, how do you prevent anybody from sliding through the cracks? How's your CRM? All those things point back to one thing, and it's like an organized daily task list that keeps you on tracks and keeps you focused to reach your goals. And so the work ethic of 2018, where I'm gonna get in the car and run out the door and be the first person to show house, the first person to write an offer, the first person to call the listing agent and figure out what it's gonna take, is the same as it was then as it is now. But I think that I've earned some respect in our industry for my phone calls to get answered. And I think I also have leveled up in my presentation, both in the way I look, act, email, talk, text, all that stuff, to um to confidently do this job at a higher level than I ever thought possible. And so I think that it goes back to like being a pros pro. So, like, how do you do that? Um it's it's hustles, hustle will get you a long way. But once you like polish that hustle up with the finer points, that's when you become a professional. How did you learn that? Uh you I mean, honestly, it's and I know that was like a one-word, like kind of a fun answer, but it's it's kind of real. Um, I think we taught each other a little bit about it, actually. You were already so entrenched in the industry, you had all the relationships that I needed, you had all the skill set that I wanted. So I got to learn a lot of about how to do this and how important it was to have relationships in the industry, and I inherited a lot of them from you. And then I got to see firsthand how don't take this the wrong way, how sloppy things could get, yeah, how I thought there's got to be a better way, and you were open-minded enough to to hear that feedback, and we learned together how to how to not only level up our business, but to teach, coach, and train locative agents on how to do it the right way.

Alex Montagano 29:20

Is that fair? I'll go um for the record. I used to forward DocuSign envelopes without an email that said subject line offer attached. That was how I did things. Um, so you didn't learn it all from me. But look, I think um we've talked about hey, this is what we do for lockstep agents, but I'm actually gonna take it further. I think it's a commitment of excellence for the rest of the industry. And I think one of the special things is like look, preferential treatment to every single lockstep agent. Hell yeah, like they're the best, they get everything, every single thing, no holds barred. The rest of the industry, you get a whole hell of a lot from us. And it's not just me, I don't that that's not what this is about, but it's like educating the person on the other end of the of the offer, it's supporting the agent to go, hey, look, here's why you didn't get the offer. If you're gonna write another one, this needs to get cleaned up. This would definitely help you. And I think that's something that just over time working as hard as we do in the industry, it's like this should be shared. And you do a really good job of that. Um, as you like have grown and learned and been open-minded to getting better, it's something that you bring a lot of folks along the way, and it's how you built so many great relationships in the industry as well.

Daniel Leeper 30:41

Would would you agree that once when you call somebody, so you call another agent who's not with our brokerage, that you've done a deal or five with, whatever it is, they get excited for that phone call. They're like, we know that we're gonna get somebody on the other side who knows what the heck they're doing, who's gonna get this all the way through, who's gonna who's gonna be the pro that we need on the other side of a deal. Because at the end of the day, this is a cooperative.

Alex Montagano 31:05

Yeah, look, it's um I think years ago, real estate was pitted as a side versus side. Um, you know, buyer versus side. Well, yeah, look, I I think um the COVID market changed that substantially because it was so taxing and hard on everybody emotionally. Uh, somebody's in my house, there's this crazy virus running wild, rampant across the world. How the hell are we supposed to act? But we're deemed essential, and interest rates are 2%. What the hell? We need to buy a house, mask up, gloves up, teamwork lights all the house. And as soon as people started working together on those things, it made the importance of working together amongst transactions, at least for me, um, more important than ever. So I think so much of that is like I think there has been a trend, and and maybe it's maybe it was always people working together. It certainly didn't feel that way for me. But uh look, I think now more than ever, there is like a substantial portion of the industry that does this job at an insanely high level with great professionalism. And then there's a smaller grouping um that gives us the bad rap that we have as realtors. Um they don't understand or they don't know. And and again, it's like they support the barrier to entry being low, and they give us a black eye. And and look, it makes it easy to be excellent in this business. And look, you had sent something to our team yesterday. It's like, here's all the stuff that's gone wrong for me around agency in the last week. I could sit here and piss and moan, or I can just work harder, control the things I control and and determine my own fate of what is controllable. And I look, I think that's the right way to look at it.

Daniel Leeper 32:52

You tell the team that message because you hope that they they can. Hey, I I'm having a rough week. Um, Daniel said last week he had a he had a rough week, and this is how he got through it, and they can apply a little bit of that mindset to what they're dealing with. Now, I'm not gonna give anybody access to our text thread on on this on this Zoom, but I I'll hit you up because I really get frustrated with some of the professionalism in our industry. And I know it's easy to like let that stuff get you down, but I think that for the most part, if you go about it the right way and you pick up the phone and call people and you have conversations, for the most part, I think you're gonna find somebody on the other side of the deal that's gonna that's gonna work it with you in as hard as you, and that's that's ultimately the goal here. Now, you're always gonna run into some knuckleheads, whether it be another agent, a goofball client, or you know, a contractor who's not fulfilling their obligation. Is that loud? No. Okay, good. I have a contractor outside right now, actually. Yeah, you're good. I apologize, it got a lot for a second. But my point in saying that is like it I mean, we've been talking for over a half hour, and the message just keeps going back to this. If you show up every day and do the job at a high level, um, you're gonna find success in a lot of different ways. It might be in more real estate transactions, but it might be more in relationships and getting deals to the closing table. Because a lot of the times you can get deals under contract but can't close them. And so these are the things that you have to work towards in a room full of high-producing agents that make you that much better and um you know push you to be better.

Alex Montagano 34:33

I um in 2013 I was experiencing my first level of success in the business. And uh I remember telling some folks who are like, how how are you what's going on? Like, what's changed for you? And and I remember very vividly. This industry is very easy, and I remember this, you know. So I'm like this young new guy in the industry, ignorant enough to say that. I said this is really interesting, this is really easy. If you show up, if you work really, really hard, you care about people, and you smile at them, it is incredible how much success you can have. And I still believe that. Are are there some ins and outs, or there's some nuances in the industry that you need to know? Yeah, but those are things that list that I gave you, showing up every day, caring about people, working really hard and smiling at people, you can control those every single day. No matter how poor of a day, no matter how shitty something is, if you do those, you control those. Those are all choices that you get to make. Um like that, it success ties to so much of that. It creates ease with clients, it creates relationships with people on the other end of the deal. It keeps the main things the main things, and it keeps the emotion out of deals that oftentimes gets in the way.

Daniel Leeper 35:51

And wouldn't you agree that people right now in 2026 are craving positivity?

Alex Montagano 35:57

Well, people need a I mean, look, we it it's because we're uh we're showered in negativity at uh at every single opportunity turn. You open up your phone, just click a news channel, get on ESPN, somebody's bitching about something. It's like, look, there's tell me about all the problems. Like, give me the story about the Good Samaritan that did something nice for somebody. Give me the story about a win where somebody did something for somebody else, or or there's something that's turned on its head that actually turned out to be better. Nobody cares, nobody gets that because it's like that's not the highlight. Doom and gloom sold to us every single day. It's bullshit, and we're forced to consume it all the time if we let it be that. So, yeah, dude, if you're the beacon of hope that sheds positivity and gives people a reason to smile or pats people on the back, your life and career will be nothing but a rocket ship. And and look, your internal happiness, if you're doing that for others, inherently you will be a much happier person.

Daniel Leeper 36:54

Yeah, and I think that I mean I mentioned earlier I'm an Innegram too, and if you know anything about that, um dangle that carrot of a smile and a happy client at the end of a transaction where they want to take a picture with the big key and write you a good review on online. Man, I'll I'll show up every day. That's I'll ride that cloud all day and all night, you know. Like that's that's what I that's why I like to do this. Of course, it's there's there's you know financial benefits to this industry. The harder you work, the more clients you help, the the more success you have, the you know, the better stuff you you can have for your family. But the day-to-day stuff is what really gets you going and what's really gets you out of bed.

Alex Montagano 37:29

Dude, I love that. Um where is 2026 Danny Boy headed? Like, let's hit on that a little bit.

Daniel Leeper 37:38

It's it's interesting you asked that. I was actually having a conversation with myself because I was at home this morning for a little bit, and I wasn't talking out a lot, I was just having some inner dialogue. But um, I I so I I created a I got into Claude. I know you would love to hear me say that. I got into Claude and I had a long conversation about Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time, you know, creating a calendar, um, all the things that I already know a lot about, but I wanted to set a schedule for myself that allowed me to work diligently in like 15 minutes or 30-minute increments on stuff that was important to me on a daily basis. So I create this calendar, and so far I've had a hard time sticking to it, not because I don't trust what I created, but because I'm then more reactionary than I normally am. So reacting to this client or reacting to this inspection response or reacting to this phone call. And um, to answer your question in a more direct way, I need to figure out now that I'm back in full-time agency shoes, um, how to maximize my day. When I was in leadership, you know this you don't have a minute to breathe. You're constantly jumping from meeting to conversation to I got to get back to that person. Oh, shoot, I gotta make this decision. Oh, you know, whatever it is. And in that, your day would go by in a in a flash. Whereas now it's up to me what my responsibilities are from the moment I get up to the time I pick up my kids from daycare, and then in the evenings after I put them down, you know, to go to sleep. And so 2026, what does it look like for me? I want to get back to what I'm good at, uh helping clients buy and sell houses, which look so far so good. Um, but also I want to get back to like creating um a plan and a schedule that is reflective of what I believe in and who I who who I taught all that stuff to. I want to be able to live the life that I was trying to teach the rest of our team on how to do that. And I think that there's some challenges with that, but I need to give myself a longer runway than like five or six weeks. And it's gonna take a little bit a while to adjust and tweak and make some changes, but guess what? I just said it. I'm in a room with a bunch of people who do this, and I'm gonna ask all the right questions and have some meetings with people and ask them, hey, how can I how can I make some adjustments to what I'm doing to be more successful? And um, that's the big benefit of being still in the room with you guys.

Alex Montagano 39:59

Love that, man. Um answer. Batch your calendar around specific sectors of the business.

Daniel Leeper 40:07

Yep.

Alex Montagano 40:07

Here's when I show houses, here's when I do contracts, here's when I have calls, here's when I prospect, here's when I dad, here's when I husband, here's when I soccer, music, yada yada.

Daniel Leeper 40:22

Yep.

Alex Montagano 40:22

Batch it that way and set your phone on do not disturb and don't give in.

Daniel Leeper 40:29

Yeah, I I'm I'm already seeing um I think we get we talked about this, so I'm not gonna go down this again, but I think we alarm that like a client might fire us if we can't talk at 5 30 p.m. That's just simply not the case. So I'm just setting boundaries and guardrails to make sure that I um don't go off the rails with my family life because it's it's why we do all this anyway.

Alex Montagano 40:53

Love your recognition of that. Um we wrap this with two good questions. Uh, question number one where can folks find you online? How do people find you or connect with you?

Daniel Leeper 41:04

Can I give the long answer?

Alex Montagano 41:06

Yeah.

Daniel Leeper 41:06

I'm mostly on Instagram. My handle is Daniel in Midtown for a reason. Um, I live in Midtown, I love Midtown. Um, I I I just landed here 12 years ago from Fort Wayne, didn't know anything about it. Um, Broad Ripple, Mertin Kessler, um Butler Tarkton, they're a part of my identity. And so a lot of my Instagram is gonna be uh real estate, but it's also gonna be my community that I eat, breathe, and sleep and genuinely love.

Alex Montagano 41:31

Love that. Daniel and Midtown. Um the last question. This podcast is called Action Solves Everything. Um, look, I'm a I'm a junkie for action. You know, it's like sometimes too much, but it's been a huge pillar of my success and and a cornerstone of how lockstep and many other things I'm a part of have been built. Um, it's fun watching you as somebody that's a killer action taker in our industry. But instead of me making the determination behind what that looks like, I would I would love to know uh what does taking action mean to you?

Daniel Leeper 42:06

Uh taking action to me, I think that um it goes back to goals. And if you have um if you have commitments to goals and you get up every day with diligent effort to reach those goals, that is that is action, right? But um you you should align those goals with what your what your spouse wants, what your family wants, um, how how you can get get to those goals. And I think for me, choosing to get up, choosing to have a calendar, choosing to have goals that are attainable, those are the things that require me to put focus energy into treating this as a career and not just like a day-to-day like hobby, job, whatever you want to call it. Um specific actions, I think we can create excuses for ourselves all the time to uh just take the day off. I won't I won't go to the gym as you as you as you say to me all the time, or I won't write that contract out, I won't call that client back. Um put yourself out there. You you might miss, you might not do a great job, but I think that you're always gonna learn from the effort you put into whatever you're trying to accomplish.

Alex Montagano 43:18

That was awesome. I um I tell people this you will believe whatever bullshit you will tell yourself. You're gonna sell 60 houses in 2027, you'll you'll do it.

Daniel Leeper 43:28

Can I add one more thing? Yeah, go ahead. This has been my mantra for two years. You know what I'm gonna say. You are the people you spend your time with. So if you spend your time with people who aren't lifting you up, aren't making you better, you better believe it. You're gonna be part of that group too. The moment you realize that, and the moment you make uh the moment you make a pivot and choose action towards whatever is gonna have a positive impact on your day-to-day, the moment you choose to work with people who have your best interests in mind, it's it's something you can't describe. It will it will make you better.

Alex Montagano 44:01

Dude, this was an awesome conversation. I could talk to you for hours. Um thank you so much for your time today and everything that you shared. Congrats on all your success. I'm grateful to call you a friend and somebody that's been a massive part of everything we've accomplished here at Lockstep. So thank you for that. And uh best of luck and much success ahead. Thanks for joining us today.

Daniel Leeper 44:20

I know this is evergreen, but happy 40th birthday.

Alex Montagano 44:23

Hey, thanks, brother. Thanks for listening to Action Solves Everything. If today's episode pushed you, challenged you, or helped you even take one step forward, send it to someone else who needs that same nudge. We all get better when we grow together. And if you're looking for a partnership that actually believes in coaching, collaboration, accountability, and actually becoming the best version of yourself, shoot me a message online at all social handles at Alex Montagano. That's A-L-E-X-M-O-N-T-A-G-A-N-O. Remember, success rewards the ones who move. Take action, and I'll see you on the next episode.