In this talk, Chris Prefontaine urges entrepreneurs and real‑estate professionals to commit to a single business niche for at least three years, warning against the habit of constantly "drilling wells"—switching niches before any meaningful results appear. He emphasizes the importance of joining a supportive community and finding a mentor whose values and life experience align with one’s own, noting that such fit helps the lessons "bleed off" into daily practice. Prefontaine references a conversation with Brian Tracy, who argues for an even longer seven‑year commitment, illustrating how short‑term success can be misleading. Throughout, he blends personal anecdotes, a metaphor about well‑drilling, and a call‑to‑action directing listeners to smartrealestatecoach.com/getgoing for free books, strategy calls, and other resources that embody his "wicked smart" approach.
Chapters
I wrote drilling wells. That was my last thing. Because in this room, there were, oh man, at least 5 of you had said out publicly or to me, yeah, I've looked at other niches or I've tried other niches. And some of them were recent. I'm like, okay, I'm thinking last night, it is no different than you running around drilling wells and never hitting water. If you're trying, because a bunch of people from the Regus do this a lot, not necessarily us, but we do it a lot. We see it a lot. Just drilling wells, like never staying with something for 3 years or so. Right? It happens. You see it in the rooms. And I would just encourage you, I'm biased to this niche, but I would encourage you, whatever niche it is, stay with it for 3 years. Don't say you tinkered with it for this long or 2 months or 6, even a year. It's not enough. I'm just telling you, it's not enough for you to be happy with the financial end results. Not enough. And you may have heard me say on podcasts, a lot of you guys came from podcasts. So after you pick your niche, if this is it, perfect. Congrats. And then you find a community. If it's us, great. I'm not so naive to think it's only us, but if it's us, great. And I always say, pick a community that, that is what you can feel well-rounded. Like, can you find a mentor right now that has screwed up their whole life, but they're successful in business? Yeah. You can, right? For me, that's not a fit. But so I always say, pick someone that you can fit with, that you're comfortable being like them in every aspect, because that's how it's going to bleed off, right? So we're very family-oriented. That's not for everybody. Right. So whatever it is. And the third piece of this puzzle is that 3-year blindness. 3 years. 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. Does anyone follow Brian Tracy? He's in his 80s now. Does anyone follow Brian Tracy? No. Anyone else? No one else knows Brian Tracy? Okay. I'm not known for anything, but just know of him. What about the Irish guy there? The Top of the Morning to You guy? I know. Go to LinkedIn. Who's the Irish guy? Lucky Charms guy? Yeah. Mr. Rogers. I don't know. Anyway, my point was with Brian Tracy on my podcast, I said to him, and usually they don't argue with me, I just say my point. They go, yeah, you're right, Chris. And I said, 3-year, that 3-year thing. And he said, no, it's 7 years. I don't care what business you're in. He said 7 years. Because he said 2 or 3 years, you're going to suck. 2 years, you'll feel like, okay, I'm making adequate money at this. So now you're like in year 5, and then you'll feel like you really had a breakthrough. That was his philosophy. And he said, I've been broke and I've been very wealthy, and that's what reality is. So I want to share that with you guys so we don't get caught drilling wells.
