In this mastermind‑style coaching session, host Chris Prefontaine guides a small group of real‑estate investors (Jeff, Derek, Annette) through a deep dive on the mental blocks that keep them from closing deals and how to re‑engineer their mindset through vision‑setting. Jeff identifies a pervasive negative mindset that stalls his prospecting. Derek explains a structured vision‑writing process: start with a personal vision written in story‑form as if already true, avoid focusing on dollar amounts, and let the "why" drive actions. The group discusses the importance of reviewing the vision frequently, allowing it to evolve, and using it to counteract negative self‑talk. Chris reinforces that mindset is the primary barrier and that immersion in a supportive mastermind can flush it out. The conversation shifts to performance metrics, using a baseball batting‑average analogy to stress that losses are inevitable but a higher win‑to‑loss ratio is the goal. Derek and Chris stress celebrating every win—big or small—to sustain positive energy. Annette shares a recent breakthrough with an attorney, illustrating how collective problem‑solving clears roadblocks. The session ends with a brief promotional plug for smartrealestatecoach.com/getgoing and a reminder that a vision is a living document that should shift from material goals to purpose‑driven actions as investors mature.
Chapters
What you think your perceived blocks are. And I'd like to know things like maybe it's quarterly, maybe it's one for the whole year.
I don't know.
But what do you feel would move the needle the most? Is it this piece of skill set? Is it this piece of mindset? You know what? Let's explore this because it's the only thing stopping us is us, right? We all know that. I'm going to talk about that tonight. But I'd like to— the more I know about what's in your brain, then, Derek, the more we can help.
Mindset is my biggest piece right now. That's my biggest hurdle. And it's, you know, I'm trying to work on it daily. I'm trying to like start the mornings right. But I'm just in a sort of a negative mindset where, you know, is this going to work?
Is this—
am I going to get this deal sold? Is this going to be a good deal? When you do that, you just don't chase the deals like you should.
I agree. It's a common thing.
There's a billion deals out there. But, you know, I just, I just, I'm like, man, this market, this, you know, can't find the buyers. I can't, you know, so I'm like, I just keep getting in that, which is, you know, just part of the thing.
Jeff, Jeff, do you have a written vision for your personal life and your business?
Doing that right now, it's one of the things I think would help because My why is a little bit wishy-washy.
So I'm going to take a couple of minutes here. Chris, cut me off if you need to.
No, do it. I know. I know you wanted to do it tonight too, so hit it.
Well, this is the one thing that— so I led several national mastermind groups for the last half dozen years that, you know, it was my mastermind. I led it. And this is what we all got together on. every month and twice a year in person was just, it was, it's peer-to-peer mastermind. So everybody helps everybody, but it's all about figuring out your vision. And you got to start with a personal vision. And there's no right or wrong way to do your personal vision. Like for me, I write mine out in story form, but writing it out as if it's already happening, And when you do your vision, you do not— and this is hard, especially if you're engineer-brained— you do not want to think about how it's going to happen, how you're going to pay for it. You have to write it as if there's no obstacles. Okay? And you're going to figure out that to live your personal life, you may only have 20, 30 hours a week left for business, and you want to then establish your business vision to support your personal vision in the time that's left. And that doesn't happen overnight. Okay. But when you are reviewing your vision as often as possible, whether that's daily or 3 times a day or once a week, whatever is natural for you, You're going to see things that start to just happen. And I'll give you guys a great example. I had my vision for a long time that I wanted to coach, and I have coached and mentored other people and individually. But when Chris and I first met and we first, you know, started getting to know each other and then spent more time, you know, and obviously Chris offered this coaching position to me. I never sought that. Like, I didn't take any deliberate action. It was just a podcast that led to another podcast that led to conversations that led to us sitting here today. But it was in my vision. Okay, so you're going to see things that just start to happen. And the mindset part, Jeff, about am I going to find a buyer, am I going to find this in your vision, specifically in your personal and your business vision, right? You could be writing things like, You know, I bring in— and by the way, I don't like putting dollar amounts in my vision because if you say I want to make $1 million a year, well, why not $2 million? Why not $500,000? Right. It's not about the dollar amount. It's about what does that dollar get you? Right. What do you— the why is the more important part, not the how. But going back to your mindset, Jeff, the, the, the just telling yourself on a daily basis in your written vision that I am, I am helping people with their real estate problems. And that's the why the, the money will show up, the buyers will show up if you have that positive focus that you're helping people. Instead of having a vision of, well, I need to do 3 deals a month and I need to bring in $100,000 a month. And I, right, that's typically, that's not strong enough to keep you, keep your mindset moving forward positive. The negative creeps in and negative's always going to creep in.
And let me add to that, Derek, because this is the scary part. Opposite of what Derek said, Happens too. So I'll use Jeff because of that. But Jeff, you'll repel it if that's where your brain is. That's scary for all of us, every— with everything we do. But we gotta be— so you— so it takes immense immersion in what Derek's saying to flush that out.
Work.
That's why I talk about it's work.
Can, can I just ask you guys for Just candid opinion. If you had a group of people like that that were all focused on helping each other in a mastermind session, is that something that, that would get you guys fired up? Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.
Or sting.
Helpful, guys, that snippet there, because we're going to do more this afternoon. And I think it's great timing. And obviously, Jeff, it's not just you. It's a great time for all of us. It's a good time to revisit this shit. That's why I'm doing it tonight. A way of doing it. Yeah. Good stuff.
Look forward to it.
Awesome.
I was going to just quick say, Jeff, you're not alone. Last night was probably the most negative I'd been in a very long time because I had one of my takings go away and they decided now to relist via MLS. And it just, it wiped me out for like an hour and a half, 2 hours where I didn't pick up the phone.
Yeah.
Well, you guys think of it as a batting average in baseball, right? You get a— I'm not a big baseball fan, but at the end of the day, you're going to have losses. We're all going to have losses in business and in life. And it's all about having more wins than losses and having a good batting average. And it's just—
and knowing what your follow-up is and being okay with it.
And having more on deck. Yeah.
Yeah. Jeff, let me say it to you a while ago, like, you'll get there. I promise you, you'll get there. And so it's to the point where we communicate differently with sellers because we know that they all can't go. We communicate differently within our own ranks. We know they can't all— it's just, it's just a business being okay with it. I wish we could— I wish it was the opposite. 100% batting average. Yeah, it's not.
Yeah. Now that's, that's good to remember too, because, you know, even the deals that you think are going to be good or the sellers that you think are going to work out, you know, you just have to— I just have to keep in mind that they're all not going to. And, and that's okay. There's plenty of opportunity out there.
When the, when the one-offs hit you and they're home runs, you forget about those other ones.
Yeah. Well, and that's a great point, Chris. Don't forget to celebrate your wins, right? Because I remember the first deal I did in 2000, January 2004, we closed our first deal. And, you know, Tracy, my wife and I, we went out, we had dinner, we celebrated. Last week we had a closing, we had a $106,000 proceeds check. It was just another day. Yeah. Right? And honestly, the $106,000 was like, okay, great. But now this much has to go to marketing. This much has to go here. Right? Like, like you look at it now, it's just the business. But we should have celebrated that win. And we all need to do that, whether they're big or small. It doesn't matter if it's $500 or $5 million because we need that energy.
And this group and many in the high six group tends to Be very hot. We all tend to be very hot. We're drivers, right? So it doesn't happen. Annette, you had a big win because you had a big frustration, a big block with attorneys. Me and Derek were both helping you. We finally broke that. That's a big win. And you said it really nonchalantly. Yeah, we got it. We got an attorney last week and you just went on. That was big.
That actually— I was just going to say it completely cleared a huge roadblock for me.
Not sure where to get started? Go to smartrealestatecoach.com/getgoing for free books, strategy calls, and a whole bunch more. We're going to help you get going the wicked smart way. We've been after this for over a decade doing exactly that.
And the last thing I'll say on the vision part of it is you need— it's a living, breathing document. It needs to be updated. And because you'll start to get your wins and then you'll kind of rest on your laurels. And what most people do in their original vision, it's all about stuff. It's about the houses, the cars, the vacations, you know, that. And as you get further into, you know, your vision journey, it now starts becoming more about, you know, what can I do instead of what can I have? And that might just be helping others on a local level with things that have nothing to do with real estate, or it could be coaching. Whatever it is, right? But the point is you want to update, and this is a great time of year to do it.
