Get Started

Chris Prefontaine is the Chairman and Founder of Smart Real Estate Coach®, a 4x best-selling author, podcast host, and 3-time Inc. 5000 honoree. Through his Wicked Smart® Community, he’s helped investors across North America close hundreds of real estate deals — all without using their own cash or credit. After weathering 9/11, the 2008 crash, and COVID, Chris rebuilt a resilient business model built to thrive in any market. Today, his mission is to empower driven individuals to become confident, "Wicked Smart" investors — no matter where they’re starting from.

 

 

In this episode, Jason and Chris discuss:

  • How Chris rebuilt his real estate business after the 2008 crash using “terms” deals
  • What it means to buy real estate using creative financing strategies
  • Three powerful methods: Owner Financing, Lease Purchase, and Subject-To deals
  • Why market conditions don’t matter when you learn how to pivot with strategy
  • Chris's “Three Paydays” system and how it creates consistent cash flow

Key Takeaways:

  • Buying real estate “on terms” gives investors the ability to acquire properties without relying on traditional financing. No credit checks, large down payments, or bank approvals are required—making it a powerful strategy for anyone starting from scratch.
  • Principal-only payments through owner financing offer a smart path to build equity fast. This approach increases monthly cash flow and minimizes interest expenses, especially valuable in today’s high-rate environment.
  • Success in any market comes down to knowing where to focus and being able to pivot. When one lead source dries up, there's always another list or niche to explore—what matters is adaptability.
  • A committed and aligned team can be the difference between staying stuck and scaling a business. Chris credits his company’s growth to surrounding himself with people who complement his strengths.
  • Long-term commitment trumps quick wins. Choosing a niche, you believe in and sticking with it—without distractions—for 3 to 7 years is what ultimately creates lasting success.

 


“Pick a niche, pick someone you can get behind, and then put the blinders on for three to seven years. That’s where the real breakthroughs happen—when you stop chasing shiny objects and stay committed.”

- Chris Prefontaine

Connect with Shawn Nelson:

Grab Your Free Books from Chris: https://www.wickedsmartbooks.com/jason 

Free Real Estate Masterclass by Chris: https://wickedsmartacademy.com/mastersclass 

Website: https://smartrealestatecoach.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisprefontaine/ 

 



Connect with Steve and Jason:

 

Listen to the podcast here:

 

Chris Prefontaine- Wicked Smart Real Estate

Hello and welcome everybody to this episode of The Insight Interviews. My guest today is really a fun one for me, because, gosh, I was raised, at least professionally, by some of this guy's predecessors, and we haven't even talked about that, but today's episode is Chris Prefontaine. Chris is the chairman and founder of Smart Real Estate Coach. He's a bestselling author and a Forbes business council member. He also leads one of the fastest growing companies in real estate. In other words, when it comes to real estate, this dude knows his stuff. Chris, welcome to the show.

Oh, thanks so much, Jason, glad to be here. Hopefully we can impart some cool nuggets for everybody.

We're going to get to some nuggets. Real estate's one of my favorite topics. So, we're going to get there. I'm going to ask you a question that we ask every guest, or at least the opening question of every guest, which faces us in a particular direction that I find is a good launch point for us, which is, as you and I engage each other this morning, June 2025, who or what are you especially grateful for Chris?

I'd say family, for sure. I've been married 39 years this August. So, without that strength, I can tell you, with all the bumps, and we might get into some of the bumps today, there's 0% chance that I could have made it through. So, that's number one. Number two, my team. I grew up as a solopreneur, like so many people listening, perhaps, and then the team took it to the level of, you know, you mentioned the fastest growing Inc. 5000, all that stuff. Well, that wasn't me. I never know how to scale. I love doing deals. They were responsible for that, as well as my son. So, yeah, family and team right now, super important.

Why real estate for you?

I grew up, my dad was not in real estate, but he was in the welding supply and industrial gas business, which he took over from his father. It was a tiny little thing, and he built it to the largest in New England. But the tie here is, he built his own brick and mortar buildings personally and leased them back to his company. I remember being around 10 years old going, he's explaining this to me., and I'm going, well, what do you mean? Like you're that and you're here, like, I don't understand how that works, but over the years, I do the same thing now. So that's how I learned it. And then he'd network with people that would like find raw land and engineer, and he was just that type of person. So, I got the itch in the way before it's a political issue. When Trump's book came out in 80’s, I was in my apartment, just got married in ‘86 I think it was, and yeah, I read his book, and I just got the itch for real estate. I went to college, right? But always had the itch for real estate.

Yeah, yeah. Makes, makes a ton of sense. You've got a thing that you teach people all around the country, and it's called buying real estate on terms. What exactly do you mean by that? Like, take me as if I didn't understand that, as if I was a kindergartener. Take our listeners through exactly what you mean by that.

Yeah, and I'll tell you how it was born, just for context. So, I got crushed in ’08, and so many people listening probably did too, and from ‘08 till 2012, unfortunately, in hindsight, I was just in my head space, thinking it was me and I can't do this, and blah, blah, blah, even though I had been in the real estate industry already 17 years, I thought ah, I guess I can't do this. So on terms meant I came out of that after I got my head out of the way, and a couple of mentors, slash people I looked up to said, you gotta, like, go do your thing. And I said, well, I can't. I got no credit. I'm in the negative, and I have no cash. So, the way out was to buy, I called it real estate on your terms, because I had to design it. And the design I did was, I will buy things like, owner financing, lease purchase, subject to existing financing, those three ways. I couldn't buy any other way. I don't care what happened. I wasn't financeable. So that's how that was born. Real estate on your terms, it's creative real estate, right? But Jason, I mean, that predated banking. It wasn't like I created it, I just designed what worked for me and then the coaching company came later when I said, all right, let's wrap this around a support system, right? That's how that all happened.

Okay, so, that's how that's how it was born. Thank you. Out of necessity, and a lot of people that that we interviewed, that's the case, right? Like there was a thing, there was a challenge, and well, there was no other choice but to do it this way. So, if you were going to stick in real estate, it sounds like you needed to do it that way. Now let's get to defining it. Help us understand and I think a lot of our listeners are investors in real estate themselves, so they kind of get it, but what is your definition of buying on your terms? What do you mean by that?

It would be only buying those three ways that I mentioned because owner financing sub two and lease purchase do not require banks, do not require large amounts of down payment and do not require me or you to sign personally on a loan. That's the biggie. Those are the kind of like, the criteria I set up, and so that's what it means, specifically not doing those things. Now, fast forward to today, right? We're into this now, since 2012 that's been a lot of years. My credit's fine, I'm debt free, so things have turned around, but I still, to this day, buy the same way. I'll never go back there. Not after that experience, anyway.

Sure, sure. So, with those three techniques, would you mind just taking us a flyover over each one of those three, and what you mean, and then we'll figure out where we want to dive in after I listen to you explain those three?

Yeah, you can pick one or two then we can get deeper. So, 10,000 foot view, owner financing probably be my favorite and still in any market, for us anyway, because it can mean a lot, it means we're looking for free and clear owners. That's about a third of the properties United States, ballpark. If they're free and clear, they're not stressed, presumably, financially anyway. They want their price, and we can usually get our term. What's more important about that niche for the fly over here is we will structure 99% of the time payments to them that are principal only. That's huge, especially right now, where banking rates are kind of precluding you from doing a lot of deals.

That's right.

So, that’s a cool niche. The owner financing, free and clear. So, we would take ownership. There's a distinction I'll talk about in one of the other ones. Subject to existing financing, also a nice one, because that means I'm buying someone's property, the loan is staying in their name as the guarantor. I will never be a guarantor, so I didn't say assume. I'm buying the property, the loan staying in their name, and I make payments on their behalf, and my trust or my entity owns it. Now, why is that cool right now? Well, we're buying properties weekly in our community and in our family team. We still do it. 2.5 to 5% interest rates. Well, you're not seeing those in the near term, at least, I don't think so. So, if you just learn creative real estate, to learn that method to go buy your family a house, right? Either one of those methods, that's a win, right? If you don't even do it as a business. And third is you, you don't take ownership, you just control it, and that's a lease purchase. The lease purchase just means, let me paint a picture so it's easier. So, I buy your house, you owe 200 grand, and I say, let's agree on 300. I'm just giving an example. You're not stretching, sort of in the middle. You're not debt free, you're not behind or anything, you just want to protect your 100 grand equity, I'm going to lease that from you with a definitive on or before purchase date of, say, 36 months and I'm going to protect that 100 grand. That's the relationship with the seller. So, I benefit from all principal pay down throughout the term and all those things, but the seller is just going to sit back and wait. I take overall responsibilities. I cloud title so they don't sell it off on me, but I don't
own it.

Okay, okay. Your favorite one you said is what?

Owner financing, then sub two, then lease purchase.

So, right now, and I know that there's specialty situations right now, but I hear a lot of people in my head, as you're as you're talking, I hear people going, how do you even find those? Like, all I know how to do is go find a house, buy it outright, and get a loan, and if I can't get a loan, then I go get hard money or something like that. But you haven't mentioned any of that so far. So how does that happen, especially today, which I want to get to today's market, but let's go through that answer first. You say you're buying weekly, so how are you finding them?

Yeah, spot on, and that is the biggest question we get. And the second piece of that is, how do you convince them, right? So, let's talk about both. Okay, so you can buy a list nowadays, unless you're in Canada. There's restrictions there. But in United States, you could buy a list of literally anything. We tinker with lists. So, I can go out and say, give me all free and clear properties in these zip codes. I can also say, give me all those that are maybe delinquent on taxes. Give me all those that are maybe out of state owners. I love those types of lists. So, the answer is a list. Secondly, the way we teach the wicked smart community when they have a virtual assistant calling on say expired and for sale by owners, people relate to those, right? For rent by owner too. They will run across free and clear on accident, but you can also hone in and buy the lists. Just talk to free and clear people, because, again, they're a pleasure to speak with, because they're not in a hurry. They'll tell you, I'm not in a hurry. Most investors want to get 60 or 70 cents on the dollar, and I tell them, nope. I can get your market value long as I get my term. And just to clarify, any asset class, Jason, because I teach single family, so people don't get a shiny object syndrome, but I bought my building this way, I buy four to 10 units this way. And yes, no money down, owner financing, principal only payments. It’s magical, the principal pay down feature. So that's how you find them.

Lists, okay, okay, and so, you're working lists. Gosh, we may go different places here. Talk more about the magic of what you're saying principle only and not interest and who gets the interest, when and how much is it? Talk me through that.

Yeah, there's the question and it comes up all the time. Even my senior attorney didn't know this, but my CPA had a school on it and that is, they think that you have to have imputed interest. There are some assets in some price ranges that you have to have interest built in. You can't do interest principal only. When we do principal only, let's say, same example, your house is 300 grand, I'm buying it from you. You didn't get 300 grand on the open market, you're free and clear. I'm going to structure monthly payments to, let's just say 1000 bucks. That $1,000 is coming directly off the 300. There is no interest. There is no interest going to anyone. So, when I go fill that home, we can talk about it later, but someone's paying me more than 1000 a month. I'm paying the seller their $1,000 monthly payment that I promised, and I'm gonna have a balloon at someday in the future, no less than 48 months. My building was 20 years, but you have this term somewhere between four years and 20 years, typically.

Okay, carry that example forward. What's happening with the seller, and how and when do they either get whole or how are they winning in this? Explain that side of it as well.

Sure, though, I'll go win first. Different answers for different people. One is price. That's a simple one, right? We get in their price. The building was on for 550, I said, I'll give you a 50. I said, I'll give you 550 as long as I get my term and we walk, we talk to the term. Now, how do they win other than that? Well, some people do that, like the guy I bought the building from, said, Chris, they don't get it. The realtors are coming in with offers, I don't want it cashed out for two reasons. Estate planning, his wife and his son, he since passed, so he probably was planning. And secondly is taxing. He said, I don't want to get wacked with capital gains up front. So, he kind of kicks that down the road to perhaps when he's in a lower tax bracket and he gets payments. So those are the main reasons that the free and clear like doing this. Listen, I talked to a guy just last night. One of my students found someone. He said, Chris, I have this guy as a portfolio, and he was intimidated. He said, can you call him? That's what we do. I said, yeah, I'll call. This guy was terrific to deal with. He said, Chris, I don't want people chasing through my properties. I own nothing. I got five of them. I got friends that also don't want to have people chasing through and they're debt free. I can probably refer you. It was a great call.

There you go.

He was super entrepreneurial. And he said, I love what you guys are doing. So, some people just want that route, and they want the cash flow every month.

Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay, tell me right now, and I do want to get into the market, but tell me right now, what are one or two recent examples, and you just gave us one there, but what are some of your favorite deals that are happening right now, in 2025, in this market?

Do you want me to give you an owner financing one?

No, well, I want you to give me not what's in your books, but like, deals that are happening. Like, tell us a story about Mr. Jones or this house in this area. Like, for our listeners that are driving to work right now, they're washing the dishes, I want to hear like a tangible example that our listeners can sink their teeth into.

Yeah, life events come to mind. So let me tell you, I got a bunch of them. So, one comes to mind, divorce down by Cape Cod resort area. They probably watch too many HD TV shows and rehab this house with credit cards. So okay, now they get a divorce. It is not amicable. One is on the mortgage. One is on the deed. They're behind four grand. Not too bad. So, because they didn't let it slip too far, they got a hold of us. They tried to sell in the open market, just to paint the whole picture, a realtor couldn't sell it for like four and a quarter. They owe like 380 something, I think it was. So, we said, Okay, guys, you're four grand behind. Like, if you go another month, you're gonna start getting notices, obviously, by most banks, so we'll buy your house subject to the existing loan staying in place. Now, picture what they're facing. Their credit's been dinged. The person that's on the loan, they're gonna face foreclosure soon, and they racked up credit card debt that's not going to go away unless they file bankruptcy, right? So, they had a mess on their hands. We took over the property only after procuring our buyer, and we were able to catch it up. We're able to make installments on the credit card to solve that issue. The whole is just solving problems. That's all it is. And so I don't know if that nailed your question, but that's a scenario.

Yeah, the whole buying on your terms. And you start off with a list, so if you're looking, let's say your first one is finding the people that own, free and clear, and you're telling us that there's a third of the people, a third of the real estate owners own their home free and clear, you're already narrowing it down. And then what you're doing is coming in and looking to solve problems.

Exactly.

You're looking to solve their problem. And if you can make out at the same time, then it truly is a win, win.

Solve a problem for the type of people that I just described, and then for the free and clear, you're usually either solving a problem or more accurately wording is helping them accomplish a goal that the conventional markets not. The guy I bought the building from had a four by eight sign, Jason, it wasn't unknown. They call it the million-dollar mile, like BJs and all these stores there, and people coming in with cash offers, it said For Sale By Owner, Owner Financing. It was pretty clear. So, I just walked in and met him. I didn't know him.

Tell us more about that deal. How did it all come about?

Yeah, that was a little different. So, it's not a bad one to talk about, because that that broke the rule of principle only. I'll tell you how. So, he was the largest, one of the largest land owners on the island. We live on a three-town island here. I said, “We do principal only”, which wasn't in his wheelhouse. He's like, what are you talking about? So, what we did for a win win, he appreciated it. He said, I like math, Chris. I appreciate what you're doing. So, we came up with this 18 months. I got principal only on a commercial building. At the 18 month point to satisfy his need, he wanted some interest. We took the balance, we gave it a 5.2% interest rate, amortized it over 30 years and a 20-year balloon. So, we both won, big time, and he felt comfortable with that. And again, I think he knew something was up, because he passed away during the process, and his wife received the checks.

I see, yeah, that is a that's a win, right there. There's a lot going on in real estate right now and kind of like you said with your story about 2008 and all that, there's always a lot going on in real estate, right? I guess I have perspective around that, but, man, there are some things, whether it's, hey, seems like the young people can't afford housing anymore, and the rates are, you know, super high right now. It's not affordable. In some markets, there's no inventory. In other markets, there's just too much inventory. As you are helping people across the country, I mean, you have a vantage point that a lot of us don't have, because we're typically focused in our local market. What are your thoughts on today's market? Like, where we are?

Yeah, you're right. We are, like a microcosm of society, because I get to peer into different markets, the ones that are active anyway in my community, I get to see what they're doing. And you're also spot on with the different like, when people say, how's the market doing? Well, which? Florida's suffering right now, other places are booming. So, here's the overlaying answer, I think. When you protect yourself with longer terms, because that's how we buy, in my opinion, you're fine because if you ask anyone and Google it, you'll say, okay, in any 10 year look back, was the market appreciating over 10 years? Yeah, you're usually fine. So, I want to make sure that the community is protected with long enough terms. Not always 10, I'm just saying long enough. Secondly, here's the general answer. When you learn creative real estate, real estate on your terms, when you truly have that skill set, you don't care what the market's doing up, down or sideways, it's just what pond Am I fishing in during this market? Example, Covid hits. A month before covid, we were about average. The community was bringing in about 10 to 12 properties a month. That's about average in the community, not counting our own business. Then Covid hits. Before the market was hot, hot, hot, which everybody knows it got, it was like turmoil and uncertainty for about a month. That was March of 2020. In March of 2020, we doubled. We took in like 23 properties in the community, and then we thought of taking, but it's just under agreement. So, we were getting them from where for sale by owners expires, easy. When the market got hot, hot, hot, could you call for sale by owner? By the time you did, it was sold.

Yeah.

It's just a different pond. So, you might fish in a private list, like free and clear, or you might fish in the expire, you know, it's just a matter of what pond you're fishing in at that point. And you can niche search that in whatever niche you want in the list. So short answer is, once you learn it, you don't care what the market is, you know how to pivot, you're not going all the media said it's bad, you know? Because the media is always screaming, they're always incorrect. You block them out, which I'm telling you when to do, and you go, where am I going next? And just talk to people that that have been there, like in our community, people have been there. But it's not just our community and your community, but any community has people that have navigated storms, go talk to them. You'll find the same or similar answer, my opinion.

Yeah. So okay, that's a look at where we are right now, and what I'm hearing from you, if I'm summarizing that, is, yeah, there are weird things in the market, but there's always upon deficient. You might just need to pivot a little bit during that period of time, and then something else, the rates will go down, and something will be more favorable over here. So you go, okay, I'll, I'll take my line out of that pond, and I'll put it in this pond over there. And it sounds like you and your group and your community are really good at pivoting.


Yeah, you know, let me say something that kind of tops all that off. With a new list we just got our fingers on that's private to us, and that it's called distress. So, I'm going, well, that's just probably pre foreclosure, something like that. And everybody works on that list. It's competitive. This distress list kind of predates that. This distress list is pulling the data of people falling behind on utilities, rent, medical, car, things of that, even insurance, pre major list. You're like, you're jumping ahead of the line and chatting with these people ahead of time. So, I don't care what market you're in, they need help. It's off market stuff. So, people go, well, Chris, my market's hot right now. I don't know if this term stuff will work. Well, yeah, it will, because you're not buying on market stuff, you're buying off market.

Yeah, very interesting, because you're working list of people in their home free and clear. Or if you have a list, like you said, that distress list, you're calling people that might not even be thinking about selling their home, but you're at least starting a conversation to solve it when they are.

On their radar.

Yeah, yeah. Really good. Okay, that's where we are today with real estate. With the environment that we're in these days, with interest rates, with AI, with technology, whatever, where do you see the real estate industry going? Like, what's on the horizon for us when you look out.


I think, and again, if you and I knew, we wouldn't be on the show, right?

No, I get it. But dude, you’re the expert, man, I'm asking you.

So, yeah, buying us going to buy an island before we figure all this out. Yeah, a couple things. So, I was a licensed Realtor for years in the 90s, before I sold to Coldwell Banker in 2000 and if I compare that to investor, I wanted that to be part of the answer here, because I think the realtor space is getting super tightened and all kinds of constraints. Everyone knows, everyone hears what's going on in the press, right? And who knows what'll happen. I'm just saying it's getting tightened in a lot of ways. The investor side, people aren't going to stop. Let's talk about newly married let's just say. people aren't going to stop getting married and buying houses. So, we know that's going to always exist no matter what the market is. And if we know that, we're not dealing with commissions, we're not dealing with agencies, we’re not doing any of that junk. We're buying property. And so, I don't think that'll go away. It is getting easier because of technology and AI. We're incorporating AI, for example, to critique our students’ calls instead of us doing hours and hours and hours of labor. So, I mean, things like that are going to help the investor side of things, big time, I think, and then the turmoil and the interest rates and the changes and the political stuff, all that stuff's gonna continue for the foreseeable future. It's just gonna be when. So again, go back to what I said earlier, with where the market is going, nobody knows, but why not get proficient, get comfortable, get confident with how to pivot? That's it. I'll keep going back to that. And then, again, I think the investor side is only going to grow stronger, where some of the other things might shrink, unfortunately. And that would be mortgage brokers, realtors, things of that nature.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Becoming very good at pivoting sounds like it's important. What I'm also extracting from your answer there, Chris, and maybe you can tell me if right wrong or expand on it is focus on right now as well. Like, there's so many people like you say, with the news or whatever, if they don't block it out, oh my gosh, the sky is falling. Yeah, but right now, this experience right here with your list, or the people that you're talking about, like, there might be a deal or two in front of you, I don't know. How about focusing on that and just doing that right now? So, like, what's in front of you right now.

Yeah, I should put a number to that. That's a good point, because let's say you're listening right now, and you go, all right, well, let's say, I want to leave my job, like, what is the opportunity, right? Or if I'm an investor now, and I tack this on, what's the opportunity? Our deals range between 45,000-350,000 per deal, all three paydays, we call it. We trademark that now. So why am I bringing that up relative to the market? Well, how many of those do you need? I don't know. Everybody's different listening, but how many of those do you need? Those types of deals? Let's go low end. Let's go 50 grand a deal. That'd be low in our community. So, if you had 50 grand deals, how many those do you need this year? Really, think about it. Like, you don't need 50, most people. You need probably a handful to change your financial situation for good. And that was where I was coming out of the crash, and that's why we trademark certain things and set that infrastructure up. So, just know that when, context wise, when Jason I are talking.

So, okay, dive into that a little bit more. When I was reading your material, I saw the three payday deal. Talk more about that, like, explain that to us, please.

Yeah. So, one of the things I didn't mention when it came out of the crash that I wanted to kind of redo or rewrite or re-engineer, was, granted it was good money all those years, but in real estate, too often it's transactional. So, I built a home, or I sold a home when I was a broker, or I did a flip, or my wife did a raise the roof project, great, but those are all one paydays. So, every January, I literally remember getting to January, Jason, going, this stinks. I gotta, like redo all those numbers this year
it all over again. So coming out of the crash, right? Okay, fine. I'm gonna jump in the trenches. My wife encouraged me to, but I'm never gonna be on the transactional proverbial treadmill. So, the three paydays act like this. We exit our properties, mostly for the sake of this basic level we're talking about here, rent to own, and our goal is to cash the rent to own buyers out. Who are rent to own buyers? Rent to own buyers are, I just left corporate America and I started on my own business. I'm not financeable. I don't care how much money I made. Or I had a credit ding, I'm not financeable, I gotta fix that. Or I changed jobs. I need seasoning again for a couple of years. So those are ideal buyers. And where do the paydays come in? Well, if they're an ideal buyer, they just can't buy yet. They're not financeable yet but they have a down payment. So, they come in with 20, 30, 40 grand. Our average is like 28 to 32. That's our payday. One, it's nonrefundable. It's their deposit that they'll get credit for, but it's nonrefundable. Pay Day One. Payday two, I'm paying something in the example I gave earlier, $1,000 a month to you as my seller, I'm collecting from them, say 1500. That's their rent to own, until they get financing. They've got a pathway here to get mortgage ready.

Margin is payday two.

The third payday is really cool, because of what we talked about earlier. It's all of the principal pay down we were talking about throughout the three years, let's say, or four years, and any markup. So that's where, if you add all those three things up, they run from 45 grand to 350 grand. And I own a financing deal. It's usually the higher end, because it's all principal going down fast.

Makes sense. Makes sense. Nice. As you and I start to think about wrapping up here, Chris, is there anything that I haven't asked you, in light of what we've talked about so far, that would be important for our audience to know?

Probably not what you didn't ask, because your questions are awesome, and I love the flow. Thank you. I would add this to what we talked about, though. I'm biased to creative a real estate clearly, right? So, let's say you're gonna start a business, open a restaurant, whatever you do. I have three simple things, that I think are easy to say, harder to do. One, pick a niche. So, let's just go to real estate. Pick a niche in real estate. There are so many cool ones. Very profitable ones and fun ones. Pick one that you can get behind. Like in our case, it's a lot of win, win, win. We're not predatory. We don't try to stay up. We literally are win, win, win. So, if that fits you, great. Pick it. The second, pick someone, a community, in our case it would be the community or one of the coaches or me, but pick someone that you can get behind. And here's what I mean by that, though. You and I both know people that have succeeded, but at the expense of relationships, family, kids, whatever. That's not someone I personally want to get behind, but you pick it. You pick something you can get behind. They are where you want to be, but I'm saying in every aspect. Health, for example, family, everything. That's me. That's what I would pick. You pick yours. Third is the toughest one. Third is put the blinders on for three to seven years and not get distracted by shiny objects. I'm sure you remember Brian Tracy, right? Brian was on my podcast during Covid. He was 82 then yeah, and I gave him my theory on this as the host of my own podcast, usually people agree with you. They go, yeah, I agree with you, Chris. He said, as my guest, he said, nope, it's not three years. I said, what do you mean? So now he's challenging me for the first hour.

Good, good.

He said, it's seven. And he said, let me tell you why, Chris. He said, two or three years. I don't care what you're starting, you're gonna suck. Two or three years, you're gonna feel adequate. In the last two or so, you'll break through financial when you don’t get distracted. So, I go three to seven now, so I don't go seven if I don't go my three.

Sure. And you know what's interesting about that, Chris? There aree's exceptions to those rules, but those are typically the loud minority. So, oh, you don't need seven years. You can do this quick, whatever, you know, three-minutee minute abs, you know, type of thing, or whatever it is, or there is somebody that just shot out of the gun, you know, quickly and whatever, but that's not the majority. The majority is what you and Brian Tracy talked about, and so I love that advice. It is hard, and you referred to it earlier, about the shiny objects. Oh, well, I can just use AI and hurry up and do. Maybe there are 3% of the people where that is the case, but for the bell curve, the most of us, and Iconsider myself part of the bell curve and we all are to some degree. It's probably a longer time frame.

Yeah, I had a guy in a boot camp last week here in my office. We run private little hands-onds on ones, and he said to me, just in a conversation, he said, yeah, Chris, I tried this other niche, and I didn't really like the phone calls. And I said, oh, how long ago? Thinking he's me means, like two years ago. He says, last month. I won't tell you his name, but I said, oay, you just gave me a major red flag. If you're in this office with me, my private conference room, I you need to be telling me you're going to commit to at least three years. This is going to be a waste of your time. That's how blunt we are, because why waste time?

That's right. Yeah, so good. Chris, I have a feeling people are going to want to reach out to you as a result of our conversation. How do people do that?

I'm big on free, because of all the noise. You know, everybody gets marketed to these get rich quick, like you said, and get it tomorrow. So, I want to give you some free stuff. Go to wickedsmartbooks.com/Jason, and it's not one of those offers that says free books and, and then put in 10 bucks for shipping. It's free. We're going to send it from this office.

 

Free free.

Yeah, hard copies, and you might get some goodies in there too. So that'll be the couple of two out of the four books I think are kind of the foundational ones. And then if you want, I did a workshop, and nobody's bugging you, you're on it by yourself, and it's about 30 minutes. It's smartrealestatecoach.com/mastersclass. And you'll get a nice little overview of what we talked about.


I'll make sure that those links are in the show notes. And yeah, again, I have a feeling people will be reaching out to you. Chris, I feel like we could go on and on. I appreciate the quickness and the snippets there. And heck, I'll be going to those links. I want to know more. So, thank you for your insights. Thank you for your time. Thanks for what you're doing out in the world. It sounds like what you're doing is not just a good deal for you and your students, but you're doing the win win win thing. Always appreciate that. So, thanks for your time today. Thanks for your expertise and what you're doing.

Thank you. Appreciate you.


                                                                                                             ---

Thanks for reading. If you got any value at all from this episode, a little nugget all the way up to some big, huge insight, please do us a solid by subscribing, recommending, rating, and reviewing us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google. That stuff matters to us, and it allows us to continue interviewing more awesome people.


Important Links
, , , ,

Lead Magnet

  • First cool thing
  • Second cool thing
  • Third cool thing
Download