In this insightful episode of 'The High Profit Event Show,' host Rudy Rodriguez interviews Nick Prefontaine, the founder of Common Goal. We begin with Nick sharing his story of resilience and determination. When Nick was 14, he went through a life-threatening ski accident that put him into a coma. The journey of his road to recovery, full of challenges, shows how adversity can be used as a powerful motivator in life and business.

As the conversation progresses, Nick introduces listeners to his STEP system, a unique methodology borne out of his personal experiences. This system, an acronym for Support, Trust, Energy, and Persistence, is not just a tool for personal development but also a strategic approach for event leadership. The STEP system is expanded as the episode continues, showing how the principles of the system can be applied to overcoming challenges in the event industry. Nick shares the importance of having a support system, building trust, maintaining high energy levels, and the value of persistence in organizing and leading successful events.

The episode dives deeper into the practical application of these principles. Nick shares insights on how event leaders can use their challenges as stepping stones for growth. The conversation also covers the importance of resilience when adversity happens and the impact of mindset in creating success. The episode concludes with Nick highlighting the importance of taking the first steps, trusting the process, and persistently moving forward, providing insights for event professionals and individuals facing life’s challenges.

Want to connect with Nick?

Free STEP System Guide: https://nickprefontaine.com/step

Common Goal Website: https://nickprefontaine.com/

Smart Real Estate Coach website: https://smartrealestatecoach.com/

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nick.prefontaine.7

Welcome to the next episode. Today, we have a great guest, Mr. Nick Prefontaine. Welcome to the show, sir.

Rudy, I'm so excited to be here. I've been looking forward to this all week.

You know what, Nick? I've been looking for this for like the last 12 months. I know we've been going back and forth wanting to find the time together, but we've both been so busy. Nonetheless, now is the perfect time, and I'm grateful you're here with us and our audience today. I want to share a few things about Nick so as you're listening to this, you lean in and be like, yes, I need to listen to this episode. One, Nick is a three times bestselling author, and he was named top motivational speaker by Yahoo Finance in 2022. He's a speaker, founder, and CEO of a company called Common Goal, which you'll hear about today. He also uses the STEP system to lead clients through any sort of trauma, including leading events, which he has a lot of experience in, and making it to the other side. Nick, you've also been featured in Brains Media, Sway, and Authority Magazine. Quite honestly, man, you have a really interesting story of adversity that you overcame at a young age of 14, which I look forward to hearing from you. You're part of a family business that has been doing events in the real estate education space for a long time, very successful. You've helped a lot of students and investors build real estate businesses. You've used events as a core part of that business model. So you have a lot of background, a lot of context to share with our audience today, and we really look forward to having you on. So welcome, sir.

So, as I said, I'm so excited to be here.

Nick, tell us a little bit about your background. I know you mentioned that at 14, you had a pretty life-threatening accident. I'd love to hear a little about that and how that's led you to where you're at today in your life.

Sure. So it all goes back to that fateful day back when I was 14 at Ski Club with my friends. We got to the mountain and because we were ready, we got ready on the bus, headed straight for the top. Then going up the chairlift, Rudy, we noticed that it was very icy because it had been raining. So people were wiping out everywhere. However, that didn't stop us. The chairlift actually went right over that terrain park and I saw it. As soon as I saw it, it was the biggest jump in the terrain park. I was like, oh yeah, I'm definitely hitting that. So I got to the top, took a breath of that crisp winter air, buckled into my snowboard and charged towards that jump with all my speed. Then going up to the jump, I caught the edge of my snowboard on the snow going up the jump. That kind of threw me off balance.

I was told that I landed on my head.

I wasn't wearing a helmet.

Something I later learned was that my goggles that I had on were the only protection that my head had. I was told that with each impact, not only the initial impacts, but also as I kept hitting my head and rolling down the mountain, my goggles kept moving, pushing each blow. Also, they wanted to bring a helicopter to the mountain to rush me to the hospital. However, they couldn't because it was too windy. So they had to send in an ambulance. Out of all the paramedics in the area, there was only one who could intubate right in the spot. I needed that to be able to breathe. He was one of the paramedics that showed up to the mountain that day.

Then upon arriving at the hospital, I was immediately placed in the ICU, the intensive care unit. My parents were in the room with me. I was obviously out for the count, resting in a coma in my hospital room. The doctors would come into my room to share progress updates on how I was doing. As you can imagine, the updates were more negative and more negative and more negative, at least in the early going, than anything else. They had to give them the worst case scenario. So the doctors walked into my room where I was in the coma, and they started to share the prognosis with my parents.

My parents said, no, no, not in front of him. I was so fortunate that they did this. That was the third thing. It was my goggles, the right paramedic being there, and then my parents had the foresight to stop the doctors when they started to share the news to them. They said, not in front of him, because they understood that even though I was in a coma, Rudy, I was still taking information. So they made them step outside. Once outside, that's where they shared it with them . Look, he's in a coma. Even if he comes out of his coma, he's probably not going to be able to walk, talk, or eat on his own again.

They thanked the doctors for the information. Then what this did was allow me to treat it like any other situation. I didn't know any of this. Subconsciously or unconsciously or consciously. I didn't know any of this. So what this enabled me to do is a month later, so I was in a coma, it was a partially induced coma for three weeks. I really don't remember a month. So a month later, as soon as I was able to get my faculties about me and really realize what was going on, it enabled me to get up, do the best I could, and kept getting better every day.

I unknowingly utilized a system to accomplish this. That's a STEP system. STEP is an acronym that stands for support. You have to make sure you have your support lined up right at the start. This is going to have you falling back on relationships that you built prior to your setback. Then T is trust. You have to trust that. I'm just going over a 10,000 foot view. If anyone's interested at the end, I can give them a way that they can download the STEP ebook for free. But then T of the STEP acronym is trust. Trust that once you've taken your first step, your next step is always going to be available to you. Then E in the STEP system is energy. Maintaining your energy allows your body's natural ability to be able to heal itself. Finally, P is persistence. Once you've taken your first step, keep getting up every day and taking your next step, no matter how small. By continuing to move forward every day, you are building an unstoppable momentum. Then we all have doubts. So I always like to share this story. During the hospital, it was long days for me. I would have double sessions of physical, occupational, and speech therapy. So at one of my lunches, I remember I was in a wheelchair with my mom, who was with me.

She was part of my support system every day.

I was looking around at the situation. I just couldn't figure it out. I turned to her and I said, Mom, am I ever going to be able to walk again?

She didn't even hesitate. She said, of course you are. That's what we're doing here. So you can get everything back and we can go home. This allowed me, Rudy, to keep moving forward. The reason I bring this up, we all have doubts. So people hear my story and they're like, oh, easy for you. You got in an accident and you ended up running out of the hospital. Well, not easy for me. Of course, I'm human, just like anyone else. I have doubts. I had doubts then. Look, I'm human now. I'm not a robot. I continue to have doubts. So if you fast forward a little bit, fast forward less than 60 days later, I did run out of the hospital.

Then after doing that, it wasn't like my work was done. I had to continue to go to outpatient therapy for another six months, along with being tutored all summer long, five days a week in order to continue on to high school with the rest of my classmates. Rudy, looking back on it, it's a little surreal that only 18 months later, I got my start in real estate. So you can probably relate to this when you're younger. Time is compressed. So if you look at like 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, even two years, that seems like a lifetime.

However, in reality, it's not that long. So it's kind of crazy to me to look back now to say only 18 months later, after finishing rehab from my cell warning accident, I got my start in real estate knocking on pre-foreclosure doors. So homeowners that have received the notice of default letter from the bank. I did that all throughout high school, and then after high school, I got my real estate license, started selling real estate as a realtor, helping buyers and sellers. Then after six years, full time, my dad came to me with the idea. He was an investor at the time, and came to me with the idea of, hey, can you help me market all these properties that I'm getting under contract? I was reluctant at first, but he asked a few times and I finally said yes. Then that turned into helping all the buyers that were responding to that marketing. Over the course of a year, my income kind of shifted to 90% with him and I was making only 10% as a realtor. So it really didn't make sense for me to keep my real estate license anymore. Then that led me to what I'm doing today, which is working with people that are going through a life challenge or a trauma, helping them get through to the other side and to be able to thrive with the rest of their lives. So I've always had this voice in the back of my head that's been telling me whatever I'm doing, no matter how successful, I'm being that.

You really have to be speaking, telling your story from stage and helping others that are going through a traumatic event, get through to the other side and thrive with the rest of their lives. I've always naturally gravitated towards that. I've always naturally done it. Over the past few years, my work with my mentor, Tricia, has really helped me to start and launch my company, Common Goal, where that's exactly what we're doing. So with that, I will take my step down off my soapbox. If you have any questions, feel free, fire away.

Thank you, Nick, for sharing that, man. I appreciate you sharing your experience with your snowboard accident at 14 and not knowing in the hospital if you were going to live or not. Thankfully you had that support around you to take care of you and make sure that you didn't think you knew that you were going to live. At least you believed you were. Then three weeks after being in a coma, finally coming out of that and then eventually 18 months later hitting the ground running literally with knocking on doors and getting into your real estate career, which I know that you've had a very successful career in real estate and now helping others with the same process that you realize, that you've gone through yourself, the STEP method. So support, trust, energy and persistence. That's what I wrote down as the STEP method. Nick, how do you feel that our audience, who are event leaders, and I know you and your family have done several events, how do you feel that this system applies to them as an event leader? Like, some of the common challenges that event leaders have, getting butts in seats, getting people to show up, getting people to engage, getting people to buy their next program or enroll in the next thing. How do you feel the STEP system can address some of those challenges that event leaders face?

Sure, we still feel that we feel this way to this day, and that's that whenever you're starting a new venture, whether it's a new event that you're building towards or you're launching a new business like I've done myself or you're going through any kind of life challenge, you want to make sure you get your support lined up right from the start. That can be connecting with mentors. In my case, I've done that in several instances, connected with a mentor who's been there before, who's done it, who's done what I want to achieve. Then once you get that mentor, that coach, following them to the letter of the law, what they're saying you should do, just lockstep everything they're saying. You want to be following that. Once you get that support lined up now, it's not only the mentor, the coach, but it's also all the other staff, because you can't you can't run an event on your own. You're going to need to get all of your other support staff on board and lined up right from the start. So that's the most important thing. Since we've developed this step system, this is something that I've unknowingly used to really conquer anything and accomplish anything in my life. I've just unconsciously done it. It really wasn't until a mentor pointed it out to me. She said, all right, so you ran out of the hospital after your snowboarding accident and being in a coma.

How like how? I said, I don't know, I just got up and did it. She goes, yeah, it's not good enough. How? She kept asking me. I think she went like seven or nine layers deep, finally to the point where I was like, I don't know, this is frustrating. However, once she was able to pull it out of me, and that's what we teach out of the STEP system. I really am able to apply it to anything in my life.

With event leaders, it's no different. So once you get your support lined up right from the start, you're more apt to trust that your next step is always going to be available to you. This comes up with anything. So a lot of people have trouble getting started and they don't know where to start. However, it's always available if you're looking for it. If as long as you get your support lined up, your next step is always going to be available to you and you have to trust that. Then finally, P is persistence. Once you've taken your first step, keep getting up every day and taking your next step. This is no different than any success in any persistence training that you've seen is you have to keep going. It's the same in any business, any venture you're starting. You have to keep going because the difference, what separates success and failure, is failure is the people that stop and just get to a point where they're not seeing any result, not seeing any progress. So they just stop. As long as you keep going, as long as you keep your P, your persistence up, there's no stopping you, there's no such thing as failure.

Thank you, Nick, I appreciate the reiteration, the review of the STEP process. I can share a couple of quick ways that I see the STEP process applies to an event leader. As you mentioned, support. I'm actually hosting an event myself here in Los Cabos, Mexico, in February of 2024. It's going to be focused around AI and applying it to business as well as sales skills and improving skills when it comes to enrollment. Immediately when I said I was going to do this event, I realized, and by the way, I had done an event. I supported, I've done events basically once per year for the last five years. I've also supported dozens of other small business owners in their events and their enrollment processes. So I realized they had the same advice I'd give someone else. I need to take my own advice, which is to get support. So I immediately jumped on a call with my coach. I had a two hour coaching session and I just talked through it with him like, hey, this is the event that I'm doing. What do you think? He has four decades of experience. So he was very quickly able to help me think through the potential landmines and roadblocks. He also gave me a little blessing like, yeah, I think you've got something good on your hands. I think that's going to work. Time is going to work. All of those thoughts. I was like, great. Just because I had that conversation with my mentor that had that support, even though I wasn't changing anything I'm doing, he just reviewed my plan and essentially kind of gave me his blessing. That gave me a tremendous amount of confidence and certainty to move forward and run. Within a few days, I've already halfway sold out the event. Because I took the time, went to plan, but also to get the support around it. It is in a way it's mostly emotional support.

That's exactly what it is.

I know I got this guy here and he said I'm going to do okay. He's done hundreds of events, and has four decades of experience. He says it's going to be fine.

Exactly.

As far as trust goes, where I see that shown up for me in this specific event experience is I think it takes a level of trust to do an event, period. You're creating something in the future that, no matter what kind of event you do, there are costs associated with it. There are hard costs. Renting a place. I'm renting a retreat center here in Cabo, securing vendors, the planning time for me and my team, the hours that that takes, and not knowing really when I put on the counter if for sure it's going to work, people are going to come or if I'm going to make money whatsoever. So just trusting that vision for the event and just knowing whether or not it's actually going to work, but believing that it's going to work. Trusting myself. But also building that trust with myself. I took the time to do some interviews. I interviewed past attendees who are going to be invited back. I interviewed prospective attendees, really getting a good sense for where they're at, what their challenges are, what they want to get in their businesses as well. I built that trust by checking in with people and checking in with myself like that. I got to a point where I had enough trust and certainty along with support where I felt confident this was going to work. As far as energy goes, events themselves require a tremendous amount of energy. In fact, I interviewed a guest here last year. It was the number one episode on our podcast. His name was Dr. Barry. He's known as Dr. B. He's an energy expert. He's a source energy expert. He went to China and studied with the family that's been working with the emperors longest around energy sources.

He's a fascinating guy. We talked about energy and maintaining energy at an event. For those of you who listen to this episode, I recommend going to that episode to listen. It was really unique and great. This idea that it's important you have to keep the energy up, especially when it comes to doing an event, especially before, during and even after the event. I would actually say this is probably maybe the most important thing when it comes to the event. Once you have the event in motion, what do I need to do to keep the energy up? I believe an event essentially is the transference of energy. It's my energy and my vision being transferred to other human beings and raising their energy and their awareness and consciousness and skill set. So maintaining energy, I can see that play with this upcoming event and persistence. I'm two months and a couple of weeks away from the event now, but I know that, every single day I need to do something to promote the event, to plan the event, to prepare for the event. Because if I don't, it's going to creep up on me, it's going to be a couple of weeks prior and I'm going to be freaking out. I know that as long as I persistently take action towards it on a daily basis, it's nothing to worry about. It's all going to come together. So that's how I can see the STEP method in my own life and also with an event that I also have coming up. Any comments on that?

Absolutely. No, I just love it. The reason when you were telling me how I am ok. So you asked me how I see this applying the three things that I see the STEP system applying for event leaders. The reason I left out energy is because when you're doing an event, I guess if you think of it, an event has its own energy and you have to make sure you're taking care of your energy or else you're not going to be able to have that transference of energy to the attendees and to the people participating in the event. So I still to this day go in and get a tree massage, which is by a Taoist energy healer, Tai Chi and Qigong master that I've been seeing for over 10 years. I go and get a tree massage and cupping from him once a month to keep my energy high. Then another one is a myofascial release massage that I get once a month to keep my energy high. I do those things, those two things once a month, Rudy, so that I'm able to keep my energy high and so that I'm able to impact and lead people to the highest degree possible. If you and I practice what I preach, because if you don't have your energy, how can you expect to influence and impact and lead other people? I think you said so yourself, you have to make sure you're keeping your energy high and taking care of your energy.

A hundred percent, man, a hundred percent, which reminds me, I'm going to be scheduling some of those things you just mentioned, massages and spas before the event and absolutely after the event as well to make sure that I'm in the best physical shape as well as energy to bring to people. So this is a good conversation. Good reminder. Thank you, Nick. You have a great resource for our audience you mentioned at the beginning, we'd like to share that with our audience right now. How can they learn more about you and what you do?

So if anything about my story, I know we didn't go in depth, but if anything about my real estate story and how we're buying and selling homes creatively on terms, as you like to call them, and creating up to three paydays per deal instead of just one payday rings true to you and you're curious about that, you can check out our website, smartrealestatecoach.com. If you scroll down, you can get registered for a free masterclass that's going to teach you all about how we buy and sell in terms and also our trademark three payday system. Then if you're interested at all in the STEP system and learning more about that, because what Rudy and I covered today was just a ten thousand foot view. I didn't even touch on it. Just a high level overview. If you're interested in more, you can go to my website and download the STEP system, the whole STEP system for free today. So that's nickprefontaine.com/step. That's going to teach you all about support, trust, energy and persistence. When you download that, that's going to help you take your first step today.

Awesome, and thank you so much for sharing that with us, and we'll be sure to include that in the show notes for this as well, so you can scroll down and click on the link once you're listening to this or depending on where you watch this. It's been a pleasure to be with you today. Do you have any final comments for our audience before we wrap up?

Rudy, thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance here. I would say to anyone, regardless of what you're starting, if you're starting a new venture, a new business, you're going through a life challenge or you're starting out the planning of an event. Once you take your first step, your next step is always going to be available to you. Trust it.

Trust it, just take that next step and trust it. I like that. I like that metaphor. Thank you, Nick, for being with us, brother. With that being said, we'll go ahead and call it a wrap.