How to Overcome CONFIRMATION Bias

Most people would say, I just lost my job, I can't because... And you know what she did instead? She did similar to what I did after the crash. She said, I'm gonna find a way so that I can pour everything I have into the High Six Associate Program experience, if you will. Welcome to this week's Motivational Monday. It's Chris Prefontaine. You know, I'm sitting on, roughly speaking, since the February of '08 crash, I'm bringing you back a bit here historically, I'm sitting on what, about 17 years ago as of the time of this filming. And to this day, and if I look back in my notes, this is how this came about, I was looking through my journal, I still for the last several, decade let's say, hear people saying things like, and this might be you and this is not an arrow I'm shooting at you, but I want to get you thinking today on this Motivational Monday. I hear people saying things like, my area, my price range, But I might want to get this build done, or I have this financing done, or my spouse just lost their job. And I literally hear this every week. At the same exact time, I hear people saying the same statement, but they end it with, with, because of that, I'm taking action. Example, we had a High 6 member join us recently. She lost her job a few weeks ago. Most people would say, I just lost my job, I can't because... I can't because... And you know what she did instead? She did similar to what I did after the crash. She said, I'm going to find a way so that I can pour everything I have into the High 6 Associate Program experience, if you will. So if you catch yourself saying, yeah, but my price range, yeah, but the time of my life, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, please do a gut check. Because in 2012, after 4 years of doing that exact same thing, so I understand where you are, I did it for 4 years from February of '08 to February of '12. I just decided. And after I decided, I jumped into the terms real estate as best I could at the time because I was still putting all the pieces together. We hadn't trademarked the 3 Paydays yet, but I just dove in. In the first 6 months, did about 12 or 13 deals. That was a complete game changer. Instead, I could have kept my head in the sand and complained and blamed everybody else. In 2005, I remember that I specifically sat and had breakfast with a gentleman who mentioned the concept of a mentor of his doing condominium conversions, taking multifamily buildings and turning them into condos. I executed and decided right then, had no clue what— how it was going to go, but I decided right then. And the reason I'm sharing these stories with you is not to say look at me, but to say look, I was exactly where some of you are, and what I did is I just decided. And just decided to go forward. Because what we can get caught up in very easy, I did it for 4 years, is what we call confirmation bias. It's all over the internet, Google it. I've done some pieces on it, there's some big names that have done pieces on it. It's not anyone's material, it's called confirmation bias. And what it means is you will seek, you will look and seek things that confirm how you already think and feel and make decisions. So you might hear me saying something, hear others saying something, What you'll do is if you're doubting yourself and you're not wanting to take action, you're not wanting to just decide as I said, you're not wanting to say experience the levels of associate we have and maybe other programs you're looking at, I don't know, it doesn't matter. My point is you will sometimes seek confirmation of what you're trying to decide versus seeking someone that'll pull you outside of your bubble, pull you outside of your comfort zone and allow you to see much bigger. That's what I did at that breakfast meeting when I decided to go into the condominium conversion business, and that's what I did after 4 years of having my head in my sand when my wife said, you need to get out of your own way, and another mentor said, you need to get out of your own way. You didn't take the market down. You gotta get to work. You gotta do what you do best. Get to work. So it's interesting. I can go on and on about that. Here are 2 questions I invite you to ask yourself this week, and they might be a good thing to revisit over and over again. What am I not seeing based on the confirmation bias now? This is why I came up with these. What am I not seeing that so-and-so is seeing and that has allowed them to change their life? So you put a name in there. You can use my name, use anyone you want. What am I not seeing that blank is seeing that allowed them to change their life and increase their lifestyle and change their pocketbook, et cetera, et cetera? Lesson 1, okay? Second question is, and this came from a buddy of mine, Ed Rush, ex-fighter pilot, spoke at our events, did a killer course with us that you still can get called Secret Weapon. Talks to you about how to talk to people and sort of the influencing conversations. And this question he encouraged our community to ask themselves is, what would easy look like? Like my area, my price range, my job, my kids, my this, my that. Okay, well, what would it look like if it were easy? Let's just flip that on its head a little bit. Now, here's what I wanted to share with you that I did as I wrap up this week's Motivational Monday, right? I said to you that I decided and I committed and I didn't look for obstacles. Instead, I just said, who are the people that have done this? And then I reached out to them. Now, I didn't do it for 4 years, so don't get me wrong. I wasn't, okay, I did that day one. I'm sharing with you not a way not to waste 4 years of your life, right? And second, I seeked ways to be resourceful, to just go out. I still had no credit, I had no credibility, I had no cash in the bank, but I knew I needed to go to point B. And to go to point B, I joined a coaching program. And when I committed to the coaching program, I had zero, zero clue on how I was going to finance it because I didn't have a credit card, I couldn't apply for credit, my credit was in the toilet in the low 500s. I don't even know if it goes that low. It's got to be— maybe it's even lower than that because it was as low as it can go. I reached out to several people to make a long story short, and out of the 5 or so people I called, the 3rd one said, let me get back to you, and then ended up saying, yep, I have faith in you, Chris. Let's get after this. And what I offered him was, look, I'm going to join this coaching program. It's $25,000. I don't have it. If you put that up, I will give you back a 3rd of the profit on my deals until you have 100% return. $50,000. Now guys, if you say that with confidence and you execute on the plan and you bring someone to the table that knows what the heck the path will be, who would say no to you on that? So then we decide, we go, okay, we got this plan, we're gonna do it no matter what, we're not gonna worry about the confirmation bias, we're not gonna worry about the how, we're gonna decide honestly and truthfully where we are today, we're gonna decide where we wanna go ultimately, and then together we're gonna fill in the blanks, rip out the obstacles, and literally clear your pathway to get that done. Now the other thing I did, I said there were only 2 things, the 3rd thing is I seeked next level coaches. So next level, I remember going through the business, Smart Real Estate Coach, and I had been a solopreneur like so many of you for so many years, and I thought, okay, how do we actually scale? Well, how about if we go find someone that scaled, right? So as I got out of the doldrums and the crap that I was in, I just started using that concept over and over again the same way. It was tough to make at the beginning, then it became, well, why don't I just find someone that did that? Guess what I just described going through this process with you? I basically described what your experience can, will, should be with the Smart Real Estate Coach experience you can have. You can pick which experience, but with the Wicked Smart Community, you will experience what I just said. You will go, all right, I'm challenged with this in my life. Could be personal, could be physical, could be real estate related, doesn't matter. Find someone in the community because we have, we're like a microcosm of society now. There's 140 or whatever associates, You could find someone in the community that's where you want to be, that has gone through what you want to go through, etc., etc. Now, is it easy? No, it's freaking hard. But where else can you go? Think about it. Where else can you go and start a business or buy a franchise and have such limited overhead on a monthly basis the way we run the biz and have such huge upside potential when you're talking the trademarked 3 Payday System running between $45,000 and $350,000 per deal? Where else could you get that? Without some major stress, some major partners, some major bank loans, etc., etc. I don't know too many places. I'm sure there are a few, but I don't know too many people, too many places. Now you're gonna see stories in our community about people like Rick Aviati, people like Rusty, people like Mike. These guys are coaches now. You're gonna see how their story came from zero, full-time job, found a way to juggle that, found a way to strategize that, got out of their job, and they don't regret a bit of it. In fact, They're looking back going, that was super cool, I'm so glad I did it. I promise you, you will regret every second if you don't engage. At some point you're gonna go, oh, I wished I had. Oh, so-and-so's lucky they did. There are some multiple waves going on now in the real estate industry, and it'll always continually do this, which is one constant about real estate is it constantly changes. So as these waves are going on, why not tap into a community? I don't care if it's us or not, tap into a community. that allows you to understand and learn how to properly navigate inside of these different waves, right? It's all they are. You're riding waves. Some are crashing, some are just starting. You're just navigating those. Why not learn from someone who's gone through that? Our community has done that. I've been at this 33+ years as of the filming, and there are still weekly, certainly monthly and quarterly lessons that come my way. I can't wait to talk to you. I can't wait to meet you. Get yourself on if you haven't yet, the next Wicked Smart Sit Down. We've been running these things since like 2017 or '18. They take place every single Thursday on Zoom, and they're free for you. And secondly, I would tell you, if you want to get in the trenches and roll up your sleeves and really get to know who we are, come into our In the Trenches Bootcamp. It's private. It's free at every level in the company. You come into our private office in Newport, Rhode Island. You hang out with myself, my son Nick, my son-in-law Zach, and one of our coaches. One of them is always here. They either drive or fly in. And there's only 10 or 12 we let in the conference room. That's pretty hands-on, guys. You bring leads, you're gonna leave with deals. This is a Motivational Monday. I want you to see some light here that we are in the trenches. We want you in the trenches. We want you in the conference room with us. To learn more about that, go to smartrealestatecoach.com/ittbootcamp. Look forward to seeing you soon.