Welcome to the Pillars of Purpose podcast with your host, P.J. Crescenzo. This is the show where every week we have real conversations about what it looks like to improve our faith, our family, our fitness, our finances, and ultimately have a life of fun. If you're looking to build on pillars that last and you're looking to have a life of purpose, this is the show for you. Thanks for tuning in and look forward to today's episode. Welcome to the Pillars of Purpose podcast. Today, I have a great friend, an incredible entrepreneur, a husband, a father, my friend, Lane Sherman. Lane, in just five years in real estate, before the age of 30, has done roughly 100 million in sales, has done over 400 units, he has two children who are adorable, he's married, he gets after it on a daily basis with his physical health and with his fitness routine, and he's been a trusted partner and a great friend of mine for the last five years. So, Lane Sherman, welcome to Man, I'm blessed to be here. I mean, I'm just blessed to have the opportunity to, I mean, one work along your side each day, man. It's just been the foundation we've built Thank you for having me on. Yeah, my pleasure, bro. Foundation ties right into the show because it's all about the pillars you build on. So, bro, I don't even know the answer to this question. Let's start with why real estate? Like, how'd you get into real estate? What made you say yes? How'd you get into It's my favorite question, honestly. It's honestly how anyone gets in anything. So, why did I get into real estate? Graduated Coastal, you know, bachelor degree in business management, marketing. I jumped right into Timeshare, like I had done Timeshare as an internship my senior year of college, jumped right into it after college. Found I was terrible at it. I was absolutely terrible at it. I couldn't give away a Timeshare if I tried to. Like, if they came in with a bucket of money and said, I want to buy this, I literally could not sell it to them. What I did continue to hear, though, was you'd be a great realtor. You'd be a fantastic real estate agent. One guy that stuck in my head and then six, seven years later, it's still sticks in my head. I sat at that table and he said, I'm not going to buy this today, but I want to come down here in a few years and see you on a billboard selling real estate. And the craziest thing is, a few years later, we were on a billboard, one of the top real estate... One of the top teams in our MLS at this point. And that's one thing that sticks in my head. But I think it came to the point where I hit rock bottom. I would drive home from work. I'm not an emotional person. I would get emotional. I get upset. I get frustrated. I didn't have any money. My wife now was paying our bills for us because I physically could not make a living selling those products. It just wasn't for me, unfortunately. So, I mean, I'm very thankful for where we've gotten to. But I think everyone, when they hit a career, to really get to the top, I think you have to hit the bottom. I really think the bottom is what builds your foundation and builds your core. It builds what your goals are moving forward. And I think me driving home, it's like August 16th. 4.30 in the afternoon, I could barely put money in my gas tank. It was depressing. It was really depressing, honestly. I was bartending late at night. I was bouncing late at night. And I think it was a turning point for me. I woke up one day, I called my manager, and I said, I quit. I'm going to go do real estate. She laughed at me. She said, what do you mean you're going to do real estate? Who do you know? What are you going to do in real estate? I said, I don't know, but I'm going to go do real estate. And that next week, I jumped in my class online, started doing courses online and everything. I ended up getting my license right at the end of 2019, going into COVID, which was obviously a different challenge for us. But it was the day that I physically realized that I'm not going to proceed in life unless Wow. How often do you think back to either the timeshare moment, the gas tank, her laughing at you? How often do you reflect back on that season before you got into the real estate So anytime I hit a hard point in my life, anytime I hit a hard transaction, if I'm having a tough month, if, you know, just we hit a lot of just obstacles in life, you know, with the business that we're in right now. Every time I hit that, I remember why I'm here. I remember why my back's so far separated from that wall now, and why I wanna keep driving further and further away from that wall. So I call it my wall method. It's, I don't know if anyone's ever read Sir Hant, he calls that his wall method. Whereas what position in life made you so to your core sick that you want to separate yourself as further as possible for it. And that that's my that's my thing. I look back to every single time I hit that tough part What gave you the confidence to bet on yourself when you didn't have the resources to do it and didn't have the experience to do it? What gave you the ability to say yes and go all in I knew I could do it. I just I simply knew I could do it. I simply had the faith in myself. My wife now, Samantha, had the faith in me. I simply knew that I knew how to talk to people. I knew how to create relationships. I couldn't sell a product they didn't want, obviously, but I knew I could sell a product that somebody would love and a product that changes their life. And that's what I and that's when I said I have the confidence to do this. I know I'm young. I know I'm probably one of the younger people in this industry right now. But if you have the confidence and you know what you're speaking about and you know how to have those conversations, that's the confidence that really backed me at that point. Bro, that's So walk me through years one, two, three, four, like either, how did you shift? How did your identity shift of who you were in the industry? What you know about the craft? Walk me through what production looked like, like how different was it from going from timeshare, I can't fill up my gas tank, I'm taking classes online to, you know, almost 400 units later. What was that one, two, three, four year Year one and two in real estate are what's gonna decide if this is for you, if this is not for you. If you can get through years one and two and into year three, you're getting there, you're getting it through. My first year I sold one house, it was $85,000 and I made $760 my first year. Everyone would look at that and say, why did you stick with it? Because I knew I could. I knew I had the ability to. What I had at that time, I didn't have the right structure and foundation around me. So what I said after that end of that first year, I said, okay, I know this is still for me. I know I can still do this. Let's just find a different atmosphere to be around. Let's find a different company to mold my culture with. And that's what I did. I took a year or two. I ended up going over to Century 121 Stopper with Lance Stopper, one of the biggest heavy hitter listing agents in our market. He's great at what he does. And I joined forces with him. There, I met Desiree Rolls, my now partner. We've been working together side by side for about 5 years. But when you join a mentor that knows the ins and outs of this industry, and you're willing to grind day after day after day and show as many profits as it physically takes, even if it's giving up as much of commission as possible and taking that little piece right there, that experience, the repetitions are going to what helps grow you. And that's what helped grow me. I was willing to come in, cold call for 3 hours a day, show as many properties as physically possible. I had the tools and resources. Now, I just need to attack those tools and resources. So year 2, I think I closed right around about 25 properties year 2. Year 3 is when things really started to... transition for me. I started to really get a grasp of the industry. I started to get a really grasp of buyers and sellers side, getting very confident and comfortable speaking on both sides of things. And year three is when I actually decided, listen, I think I can do, I can do a team. I can, I can evolve what I've learned and other agents at this point. So I know early on is a lot of people like year three, you really developed a team. I was ready. I started it. So I developed a team at that point. We did 56 transactions, right about 20 million. Year four is when things just started to really capture itself. I started losing credit rolls about that. Year three is also when the market started to turn the other way. So as everybody's starting to fold and face the resistance of the market and go backwards and production dropping, year three is actually when you double your business. And then that was the first year of the market turning. Then the next year in the Year four, we did 86 transactions for 30 million. That was our best year, obviously, aside from what we're going to produce this year. But year four was one of our best years that we had. And what we did was the market was garbage. Scarvage. We wrote 8.5%, 8% rates, DSCR loans. I've had people call me like, I just got a quote at 9% for a DSCR. But what we did was we transitioned with the market. And I think that's what a lot of people miss from the market transitions is how do I adapt? How do I create success out of high interest rates? We transitioned to what we were focusing on. We focused a lot when the market was great on rentals and selling investors because rates were fantastic. I can't even tell you how many condos I sell at this point on one hand because we don't do a lot. We transitioned to where the market went at that point. So we transitioned a lot from sellers we would do mostly of, now we're 50-50 at this point because we wanted to adapt to where the market was at that point When was the moment that you realized, okay, I can make a career out of real estate? Was it year three or was it a specific moment, transaction, month I think when I hit my biggest month yet, it was February of year three. So that would have been 2022, February. I had one of my best months ever in my career. And I came home that day. I'm like, I love this. I just love this. It's like an adrenaline every single day that we're attacking new opportunities. We're having new conversations. I look at real estate and the career that we're in as just like an absolute adrenaline rush every single day. If you don't jolt out of bed, to go attack your career, you're not in the right career. If you don't wake up... I had a client today. This is actually the greatest, such a great story for today. I had a client today. She looked at me and she goes, how often do you... Because we were on the way to a closing. She goes, what do you work? Seven days a week? I said, probably 90, 100 hour weeks. That's usually average most time. She said, how do you do it? I said, because I love what I do. I said, when you love what you do, it's not work. You're every single day at the highest level. I mean, that's what happens as the time goes on. And that's great feedback. What, what advice would you give to somebody that's in their early twenties, mid twenties, they're trying to figure out how do I jolt out of bed? Cause I'm barely getting out of bed as is. That was me early on. Like I, like I had to get out of bed to win them. I would like, I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to be trying to strip your clothes. Like I would call out. I just wouldn't want to go in. I had no purpose. I had no motivation. I had no drive. Yeah. I got to put on a nice suit like this and put a tie on. It doesn't matter if you're putting that suit and tie on, if you don't love what you're going to do. So for me, for those people, find something that you absolutely love doing. Find a career that you absolutely feel that this is what you want to do in life. People take money into things so much in life. Yeah, money's great. Money buys us things, but it's not the root of happiness. It's not the root of where you're going to jolt out of bed each day. The jolt is going to be, I'm going to go wake up. I'm going to go sell five properties. I'm going to go make a difference on five different people's lives today. That's the most exciting part about it. It doesn't have to be real estate. It doesn't have to be mortgage. Whatever you feel your drive is in life, in your 20s, your 30s, if you're stuck somewhere, Find what makes you happy and absolutely double down, put everything you That's so good. So my takeaway from that is if you have no drive, you Absolutely. If you have no drive, you're just not in the right industry. You just haven't found All right. So I have a question, but I'm going to ask one question. Then I'll go to the next one. Who, who have you looked to as inspiration first five to six years in the business, whether it's digital influence, personal development, local mentors, local producers, who, who has been somebody that you've looked up to to just kind of keep your motor turning It's crazy because it's changed a lot in my career. That's the funny thing about it. You know, you have each part of your career that you transition through and you continue to grow with. I think that mentor and that person you looked up to changes a lot. You know, there's many points like in my career, like I said earlier, Lance Stopper, essentially 21 Stopper, that guy taught me how to cold call and to control a conversation. I give all my cold calling tasks what I've learned to Lance. Desiree Grohl is here, my partner at the company. I probably wouldn't be the buyer agent I am today if I didn't work with her so much. She is an absolute animal in this industry. And it really takes working with the best to be the best. It really does. People think that's crazy, but if you're not alongside people that are as good as you or better than you to make you better and to drive you further, you're not going to get there, unfortunately. But now that I'm sitting in my career, I took a step back a few months ago as PJ reached out to you and I said, How do I get to the next level? Why am I not at the next level right now? And the biggest thing is I needed somebody to push me. I needed somebody to kick me in my butt. I don't know if we can curse on here. I needed somebody to kick me in my butt and push me to that next level. Just like if we've ever been in sports in life, you know, if you've been a wrestler or a football player, a baseball player, we have a coach that coaches us. Now I have a coach that keeps me on track of what I'm doing and keeps my goals here instead of here at this Cause two things you just shared mentor, the power of having somebody that you can learn from to acquire skills and a coach, somebody that from a high level can ensure that you're heading in the right direction and you don't head on track. I mean, those two things, one mentor at one coach, it could be monetary. It could be. psychological, it could be physical. It's really physically impossible to No, 100%. It's about doing the work too. You can have a coach all day long and sit on your 30, 45 minute phone call, whatever it is, go through what you're going to do. But if you're not going to implement it, it's not going to transpire into something further that you actually want to grow with. So that's been huge. As I've really developed, it's looking to higher guidance and reading a lot. I've never read in my entire life, PJ. I can't even pick a book and read if I wanted to. But in the last two months, I've actually finished three books in two months. So, but it's got you here, won't get you there. So kudos for being in trouble. So what do you think prevents professionals from being willing to reinvent themselves and do the things that they've never done before? And what is allowing you to get uncomfortable and do the things you haven't done? You just said it. You just said it. They're comfortable. Those people that are stuck in a place like me this year, I wouldn't say I was comfortable, but I was, I could have probably said I was getting to that. I was comfortable. You know, it's like, yeah, we were on 30 million a year. We're selling a hundred, 80 to a hundred transactions. A lot of people will be stoked about that. It's fantastic. You get comfortable. And then you get just comfortable with moving along like that. But to really get to the next level and to double your business and to grow your team and to grow your company and to be number one, you have to be uncomfortable with creating new tasks. You have to be uncomfortable with stepping out of your comfort zone and having conversations that you don't want to have. You've got to get uncomfortable with diving into a luxury market that you've never been into. but you deserve to be there. The only way you're gonna get there is with just breaking through the fear of that no. And I think it's the biggest thing in our industries. Everyone's so scared of that no, but every time you get a no, there's gonna be one yes there Every no is just not yet. I'm like, you just forgot the letters. We're good. Yeah, exactly. All right, so I'm gonna transition into another pillar. What's trying to balance everything, man, it's so tough. It's like, there's literally not enough times in the day, there are 24 hours in the day. It's fantastic. At this point in my career, I'm learning that you got to utilize and you got to maximize every single second and minute that you physically get. Because when you get done, like we were talking before we got on, when we get done what we're doing now, we go home and our wheels still moving, it's just moving in a completely different direction at that point. So it's balancing your time, it's managing your time and understanding that your family, your home life is very, very important. You got to cherish that. And you got to create time for that as well, too. So if you don't create time for that, it's not That's so good, bro. I heard, um, so I was talking to a dad, five kids, the top recruiter in the mortgage base. And I'm saying, Hey, what's it like having five kids? He said, well, when I was young, I just determined that I was going to be busy during the day. And I was going to be busy at night. And when I just determined that I was always going to be busy, it didn't really faze me. I love that. Yep. It's like disappointment is always on the other side of unmet expectations. So we think we're going to come home and have a quiet night. You got diapers flying, toys flying, stuff banging against the wall. You expect complete chaos. Well, then you're exactly at Absolutely. That's it. As long as you know what you're getting into makes All right. So another question, another pillar, when did you Yeah. A little background about me. I mean, I actually started wrestling when I was four years old. Wow. Another little background about me when I was six to about. 12 years old, I was one of the top wrestlers in the entire East Coast of the United States. I wrestled in Penn State, Rec Hall. Unfortunately, I placed second. We won't talk too much about that. When I was seven years old, I was determined in life to always have... I wrestled baseball, football. I really got into weightlifting my freshman year of high school, when I was the 106-pound wrestler, and everyone was a lot bigger than I was. And my football coach was like, If you're gonna be a running back at this level, man, you gotta add some weight to you. So that's, I really committed to fitness. I mean, I, just like my real estate, I breathe and I live for fitness, eating healthy. I mean, cause it's like, it just makes you feel better. When you wake up in the morning, you start your day with a workout and then you go and attack your day, like your energy level and your drive is just so much further than your competition at that point. I mean, I do five, six days a week. It just depends on the kids. I try and eat healthy as I can. Depends on the kids. But fitness, it creates a mindset for people. It creates a mindset like we do in our business nowadays of how far can you push yourself? And when you have that mindset on that side of things and you bring it into business, your level of excelling How have you noticed the difference in your business when there's seasons when you're on track physically and you're crushing your workouts So yeah, I mean, it's night and day. I mean, I had a point in 2025 where I've gotten to the highest weight I've ever been at. I've never hit that weight, and I hit that in 2025. And I sat down, and I looked back, and I said, what am I doing wrong right now? My fitness was slacking. My eating was slacking. I enjoyed red wine a little bit too much and bourbon. And I look back, and I'm like, OK, what is this transitioning into? Not a great month right now. Not a great month. That's not a great quarter. You know, it's like, Hey, we still did good, but we didn't do great. And that's what it takes to really evolve in your businesses, look back and see your problems, see what you encountered, why it hurt your business and evolve from That's so good, bro. It's a quote that I've heard recently that I love is don't do anything. in less than an excellent fashion for there is no prize I want to put that on a poster in my office here. I love Anything in less than an excellent fashion. Okay. So, all right, so let's transition. I got another question. 2025 heading into 2026, if I'm a full-time real estate agent, you could go unit, so it doesn't have to be volume, or you can go volume. What should I be closing on a monthly basis? Because I think this is like dramatically a subjective topic. So just from your perspective, like if I'm a full-time real If you're a full-time real estate agent and you're not producing at least two or three deals a month, you're not working. I know two or three deals kind of sounds small to some people, but I mean, listen, two or three deals, you're doing three a month, that's All right. So if somebody says they're a full-time agent and they're not closing 24 to 36 units a month, what do you think that is attributed to? What's your work How much are you actually working? And it's like, I have a team, I have a team, obviously, and if they're coming to me and they're like, listen, we have a great month, what's your month look like? What's your day-to-day look like? What's your schedule look like? How were your prospecting hours? Where was your follow up at? Were you too lost in the transactions and not focused on going to get business? There's a lot of things to sit down and kind of digest and really dig deep into that and find out. It's first, What are you doing on a day-to-day basis to succeed? How many conversations with new people are you having day-to-day to succeed and to grow your business and to grow your units at that point? If you're not speaking to at least five new people a day, then you're not going to excel your business, unfortunately. You need to continue to want to speak to more people to grow your business, even if it's I read a book the other day. It's just so great. Ryan Serhant, the way he did certain things is amazing, but he would go up to pregnant women in the coffee shop and say, Hey, do you need more space to live? Who does that? You know, but it's like it's getting uncomfortable with just having a conversation. You have a conversation with that lady for five minutes. That's And it goes back to our- Who she connects you with, who she introduces you Exactly. It just goes back to the point of like we talked What are your non-negotiables? What are things that no matter how chaotic it gets, what best practices do you try to maintain or execute on to keep your level of production where it's Prospecting and follow-up. Prospecting and follow-up doesn't matter. So my assistant now knows that if I have a day and my schedule is getting booked up for the day, I usually put follow-up and prospect in my schedule. It's all always in my schedule, every single day. You'll look at my schedule, you'll see it there. If it's not there, she knows to implement it. She knows that when it's got four to five open today, you're prospecting right now. You're following up right now. If you're not going to- That's what I'm saying. If you don't time block, if I don't time block something, it's probably not going to happen, unfortunately, because I go off of a schedule. So time blocking I love that. What do you want to be known for? What do you, and I'll ask this two ways. What do you want to be known for in the industry? And what do you want to be known for when your career is over? I love Honestly, in the industry, man, I just, I want to be known for creating a team, growing a team that has just unmatched expectations, you know, just growing a team and a foundation where I'm truly giving as much as I can into every single agent that I have that I'm building in the industry. I want people to bring up my name and say, that's a great agent we'd love to work with. We had a great transaction together. He's personal. He's respectful. He has great character. Character and respect go a long way in all of our businesses and all of our industries that we're currently in right now. So that's the biggest thing I want to look back and be known for is, one, growing the number one team in this entire market right now as the youngest broker in the entire market. That's one of my largest goals right now. And it's not about the money. It's not about how many I sell. It's about how many families I can impact on the way, how many people I can truly touch and change their lives in the way of creating this absolute foundation. So for example, my team this year, our goal is to sell 133 transactions. That's not what we're going to do this year. Our goal is to help 133 families achieve homeownership. That's what our real goal is. It's not a transaction. It's an achievement. of somebody's largest asset and purchase in their entire life and treat it that way. Get me fired up, bro. I'm ready to sell. That's what I'm saying, dude. It's like, yeah, it's all about the way you change. Like when you ask for referrals, for example, Hey, we're going to, we want to sell 135, 33 transactions a year. Can you send me somebody? No. Hey Jim, I hope the family's been well. Our goal is to help 133 families achieve home ownership like this year. It's amazing. How would you feel about helping us along that path? It's just the way you say things That's so good, bro. What, what advice would you give to somebody? I just got my real estate license. I'm gearing up for 2026 and I want to make a hundred grand next year. What Find a company or a team that has a mentor. Literally find somebody and you can attach yourself to their hip and go with them. Find an excelling agent that is willing to bring you on and show you every single tool they had to succeed. I'm not talking about go to an agent that sold 10 transactions. That's not going to get you to where you want to be. Go to an agent or go to a company or interview as many teams as possible and find yourself somebody that is grinding every single day. They're selling 50 to 100 homes, whatever it is a year, but that is willing to take you on to show you every single tool to succeed. If I would have done that in year one, my year one wouldn't have looked like one transaction and $780. It would have looked like my year two and my year three. It would have continued, but I didn't do that, unfortunately. And it is what it is. We're not going to look at the past. We're going to build off the future. But if I were to go back and tell first year Lane what he should have done, He should have went out and found a mentor that really knew how to take him to a next level. And that's how you're going to grow in this industry, finding somebody that is the best or getting to be the best and just going with their What, so let me go back. What, how do you want to be known when it's all said and done? So your career's over, you put in 30 years. What, what do you want the final year to look like? 20 years from now when our kids are heading off to college and we're wrapping up the day, or maybe it's 40 years. Cause we're like, we're playing chickens out Exactly. What does it look like at the end? I want to be known for recreating the way that we do real estate. I want to know, I want to be known for the way that we recreate how we do it, the way we touch, the way we handle each transaction, the way we promote ourselves, the way we advertise ourselves. I want to change the way the real estate industry has been done and change it for the better. Making people look at sales as not a fear and as excitement. that you can really grow and you can create a completely different life for yourself than you ever expect. And that's what I really want to look back and be known for. Wow, I mean, honestly, Instagram guys, Instagram, I'm big on Instagram. You can connect me on Instagram, email, phone number. You can directly connect me on the phone as well, too. Probably All right. So I'll throw your Instagram in the bio when we drop the episode so everybody can throw you a follow. Final words of advice for anybody that's listening to this podcast, they're in their early 20s, they're in their early 30s. They haven't achieved the success that they want to achieve. They're trying to go to the next level. What's one mindset nugget or piece of advice you'd share with them if they're looking to really start investing in their pillars and Age is nothing, absolutely nothing. Don't look at where you're at in life, where your age at in life. If you're 20 or 30 or 40 or 50, commit to what you want to commit to. Commit to, like I talked about earlier, jolting yourself out of bed, wanting to succeed each day. Find a path that's going to excite you each day. Find a career that's really going to help you grow at the end of the day. We're in our 20s right now. Did I ever look back and think I'd be here in my 20s? Absolutely not. But it's the continued mindset and motivation and drive that's going to get you to that next level and to really get you to where you want to be. If you're stuck in a place right now and you're lost and you have no idea where it was, we've both been there. We've both been stuck in that place. What helped us get out of that place? Your friends, your family. If you don't have either of those, it's your mindset. It's your mindset to want to create something better for yourself. You know, it's, uh, you know, I didn't grow up in a, in any of this ever, you know, I would have never envisioned that I'd be where I'm at today, you know, having a team of agents and growing the way that we are. Um, you know, that's, that's not where I came from, but I don't want to be where I came from. I want to change the path of where I want to go in life. And I want to change the path of my family of where we want to go in life. And if you think that way every single day, when you wake up. your mindset's gonna change. The way you look at things is gonna change. And you're Bro, what an inspiration. This was awesome talking to you in this format. From one to 80 deals a year in less than four years, one of the fastest growing and most successful brokers in his market under the age of 30. Absolute stud, good friend. Lane, thanks for being on the show today. Love you, bro. Love it, man. Love you. Thanks for having me on, man. This is a blessing. Anyone else that gets this Thank you so much for joining today's episode of the Pillars of Purpose podcast. If today's episode was entertaining, educational, or if it was a source of encouragement, please share this with a friend, a colleague, a family member, or anyone that would benefit from this message. Please subscribe and stay tuned for future episodes. We look forward to bringing you value every week. Hope you guys have a blessed day, blessed week, and let's go.