Staying the Course vs. Starting Over

[Seth Williams]

I'm reading a book right now called How Will You Measure Your Life by Christensen, Allworth and Dillon. It's a pretty good book, chocked full of interesting things for business owners to think long and hard about.

The authors bring up an interesting point in the first half of the book. Apparently, 93% of companies who were successful had to abandon their original strategy and pursue another one. The only reason they made it in the end, was because they had enough money leftover (after their initial failure), to re-direct the course of their business and approach things in a completely different way.

I know there are a lot of investors out there who spend years trying to accomplish their goals and for MANY of them, it just never seems to pan out. At the same time, I know that real estate is generally a "get wealthy slowly" kind of business (significant wealth and retirement doesn't happen overnight).

So this got me thinking - how long do you think a investor should stick with their chosen niche before they see results? If someone is working hard and they don't see substantial gains after X number of months/years, when is it time to go back to the drawing board and start over with a completely different strategy?