Book Club featuring Chris Felton

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hey

george grombacher 0:15
what’s up? This is George G and A time is right. Welcome to our monthly book club and welcome our author, the strong and powerful Chris Felton. Chris, are you ready to do this? I am ready, brother. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to have you back on the show. Chris is a financial services entrepreneurs, speaker, Best Selling Author, his newest book is Think and Grow you get out of your own way and level up your life. Chris, tell us a little about your personal life more about your work and what motivated you to put pen to paper.

Chris Felton 0:44
Yep, 51 year old in Denver, Colorado, been a financial services entrepreneur for the last 23 years and have grown a great national business

murdered my second and last wife in 2006. And we wrote a book called couples money, which you and I talked about last time I was on but basically just you know, how we went from financial disaster to financial prosperity and independence and, and then been inspired to just get out my new book that I’ve been writing for the last 12 months and grind in like, I’ve never grinded before my friend and but excited to get the message out because I think it’s gonna help a lot of people. Oh, amen. So thinking grow, you get out of your own way and level up your life? Sounds like it’s more than just money.

Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, I mean, I have always been an entrepreneur, I’ve

I know what it’s like to be stuck. I don’t know if you’ve ever been stuck for sure. But living in you know, fear, doubt worry. I know what it feels like, you know, that you’re doing everything possible. You feel like you’re doing everything possible and like, nothing changes. Or, or gets worse, right. It’s, it’s Bill Murray and Groundhog Day. And, and I was just I was such a mess in so many areas of my life. And, and I’ve coached a lot of people on getting unstuck, but it’s, it’s, it’s painful to watch people get so stuck, that they just kind of give up and quit. Because it feels like the thing to do. And then they just, you know, they kind of get down in their lives, and they just have a lot of regrets. And it just is I was so close to doing that. But, you know, I chose that I chose another way I knew I had to grow. I knew I had to do things differently. So I went all in on my personal growth and my personal development and is I think it’s an author Mel Robbins, one of my favorite quotes is, you know, it doesn’t work overnight, but it works over time.

Unknown Speaker 2:59
That focus on growth and development just, you know, transformed my life. So that’s, that’s what the books about is basically me throwing myself under the bus

Unknown Speaker 3:09
a multitude of times and sharing how stuck I was, but actually, hey, here’s, here’s what I did differently. Here’s some steps. And then here’s how it changed. And so lots of lots of practical stuff, lots of personal stories, and I share my dirty laundry to hopefully inspire people that they can do it too. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And from my experience, the more vulnerable that I can be with people, that’s usually when my message actually gets across to people. So I appreciate that.

george grombacher 3:41
Said you’re close to giving up what is that? What what would that have met?

Chris Felton 3:48
Oh, I mean, I it would have been, it would have been disastrous. It’s actually it’s chapter in my book, it’s called quitters relief is a lie.

Unknown Speaker 4:00
So quitters relief is a lie. And it’s kind of like that, you know, that rubber band that gets stretched and stretched and stretched and stretched and then you take the tension off and you kind of pull back and you come back and just right as you’re ready to have a breakthrough you a lot of people just quit and pull back and the mentality is a half to do that again. You know, and you feel that initial relief.

Unknown Speaker 4:26
But then,

Unknown Speaker 4:29
like a sugar crash

Unknown Speaker 4:34
is

Unknown Speaker 4:37
you know, self esteem and there’s a crash and confidence in you, you crash and then it’s not a good thing and then quitting becomes really easy. So I fortunately

Unknown Speaker 4:51
caught myself before I quit and I talked about some of the steps I took to keep moving forward even though I didn’t want to

Unknown Speaker 5:01
You know, you hear about how people will give up. And it’s like, darkest before the dawn, you give up when you’re so close to finishing it. Is that sort of what you’re, is that something you’ve experienced? Except you didn’t give up? You kept going through? Yeah, I mean, it’s Yeah, services entrepreneur, I’m in the Great Recession. My wife is pissed. I mean, I just, I was bleeding money every month. I mean, it was it was, it was pretty dark George. I mean, it was, it was really bad. But I just,

Unknown Speaker 5:36
you know, it’s another chapter in the book, I call it the line in the sand moment where I just kind of drew a line in the sand. And I just told myself, you know, what, I’m done with this. I’m done with, I’m done with living this way, you know, because that’s the problem. When you’re in that environment.

Unknown Speaker 5:53
You start getting used to dysfunction

Unknown Speaker 5:57
starts becoming familiar. And you start tolerating it. And it was just there was such a heavy price that others were paying. And that was actually was snapped me out of it was holy cow, man, like, I’m paying a price. My kids were small, I lived on the other side of the country. I hadn’t seen them in almost a year, my wife, I mean, the stress her health, my health. I mean, it was there was just a multitude of people that were paying such a heavy price, George, and that’s what kind of snapped me out of it. I’m like, Hmm, I’m kind of the common theme here to all these issues. And, but but it was very empowering to just draw that line in the sand in the moment and look, my wife in the eye, and I just said, Hey, we will never be back here again.

Unknown Speaker 6:49
And I kept my word, thank God.

Unknown Speaker 6:53
And we made, we made a pretty amazing move, which, which I’m grateful for. Nice, well, well done. Recognition of it, and then actually taking action and coming out the other side, I think that’s awesome. And, you know, the more stories like that, that we can hear that other people are going through it that it’s possible for us to do it as well. So you make the decision to write the book, and you’ve got lots of personal experience to draw from good, bad, ugly.

Unknown Speaker 7:21
How do you then distill it down and say, okay, like, I could write a book about, you know, I could write a 5000 page book, but nobody, nobody probably wants to read that. How did you decide which which areas to focus on?

Unknown Speaker 7:34
Yeah, I mean, I, I got, I got mentored by a guy named Steve Siebold. I don’t know, I probably talked about him last time. Maybe George George, Steve’s, a personal development guru, sold over 3 million books. He’s actually that he called me, you know, in 2021, he was like, I’ve heard you speak forever, man. Like, you need to write a book.

Unknown Speaker 7:56
And so it’s actually his direction. So the way I started, it was all he’s like, just write all your write your personal history.

Unknown Speaker 8:06
And then from that we pulled, you know, the best concepts, the best stories,

Unknown Speaker 8:13
which was counterintuitive to you know, I’m a recovered CPA, right? Left Brain guy, and I’m like, Oh, I gotta teach, teach, teach, teach teach is like, no, actually, it’s the stories, they’re gonna remember my friend. So we need to start with the stories, and then build the content from the stories. And so and so that’s what we did. So it was just the most transformational stories,

Unknown Speaker 8:36
that that, you know, the problem I wanted to solve was helping people get unstuck. And so it was my top stories of, of how I got unstuck. And it’s, you know, it was around money and relationships and spirituality, and, you know, business and sales, and I was just stuck in so many areas of my life, and

Unknown Speaker 8:57
I, you know, just kind of share what I did. So, I’m excited, excited to get it out, and get in people’s hands, because I really believe it’s gonna make a big impact. I love it. And certainly, it’s a very natural thing. Very human to sort of want to zero in on a problem and say, Okay, I really need to work on my relationship with my partner, and or now I’m going to work on my money. When in reality, you probably it serves us to take a more comprehensive for lack of a better term, holistic view at everything.

Unknown Speaker 9:32
Yeah, I mean, it does. But one of the things I had to get pretty focused on was was my money issues and my money, beliefs and all that and, and it’s one of my favorite quotes of Billy Graham, you know, once you get your attitude straight around money, it helps straighten out every area of your life.

Unknown Speaker 9:50
Billy Graham said that, and by changing my belief systems around money, it actually bled into

Unknown Speaker 10:00
I like that quote, could not have been more perfect for me. Because I had to work on forgiveness I had to work on.

Unknown Speaker 10:09
You know, I had just had to work on judgment and resentment. And I mean, all these massive battery drainers that we have in our lives. And by understanding that, that was how I was going to create wealth was by working on those things, then it actually it bled into a lot of other areas. And so like, like I said, that quote, could not have been more appropriate for me, because it did it really did love love Georgia, pretty much every area of my life. So

Unknown Speaker 10:44
it’s the classic physician heal thyself, right.

Unknown Speaker 10:49
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So I hear you our experience, you know, having having helped 1000s upon 1000s of people over the course of a 20 year career, and struggling with some big things, forgiveness, judgment, resentment around money. And that’s something that I have to think, Chris, that 90 99% of us struggle with, because money is just such a challenging thing in our society. Maybe it always has been maybe it’s true in every society.

Unknown Speaker 11:22
Yeah, I mean, I’ve done a lot of a lot of podcasts, a lot of podcasts national, I mean, yeah, it’s it’s an issue everywhere, and you know, money is neutral, and what we add to money, our mentality is what is what happens. And

Unknown Speaker 11:36
unfortunately, you know, we’re programmed with limiting beliefs around money at an early age, we don’t have a fighting chance, because we have to, we have to take on the garbage of, you know, those that influence us.

Unknown Speaker 11:51
And then society just programs us that, you know, money’s not money’s bad, and, you know, political cycles. It’s like, oh, they don’t pay their taxes. And you know, all that. Garbage, movies, villainize it anyway, so.

Unknown Speaker 12:06
And studies show that

Unknown Speaker 12:09
most of you know, the top one to 5% of of net worth and wealth, like they had the same battles. But at some point, in me, it was in my late 30s, I had to kind of call BS on it and just examine how these beliefs had been handed down for generations in my family that created a lot of broke,

Unknown Speaker 12:32
you know, had to call a timeout and say, Okay, why am I buying this stuff? Because based on results, it’s not serving me very well. What Why am I? Why am I buying into this? And so that’s, that’s the work I did. And that’s what a lot of people that move up in that level, they have to have to examine it, and they got to replace it and upgrade their belief systems or, or, or pay the consequences, unfortunately.

Unknown Speaker 12:58
How did you figure I figured, like, Well, look, what what triggered you the line in the sand? You’re like, Okay, enough, I cannot continue this any longer. I need to move forward. But then how did you figure out that you needed to dig into your, your existing and limiting beliefs about money? Well, I mean, it’s, you know, we’ve been through some crazy stuff, the last few years, the pandemic, and, and it’s this, you know, this, this outside in approach to life just doesn’t work very well, where it’s, oh, well, that’s happening. And then therefore, that’s going to make me feel a certain way. And that’s going to dictate my thinking. And that’s going to fuel more of this, you know, Joe Dispenza calls it a negative feedback loop where you’re just in this loop. And that is what really creates stuck. And so that’s how I was unconsciously living for decades. And then finally, it was like, I gotta figure out how this dude is creating these results, because I was getting pretty speeches, George, on your thinking, create your world and did it and he did. And it was all BS. It was all for show, right? I mean, I was just trying to look like the smart guy in the room. But I was like, Hmm, maybe I should attend my own lecture.

Unknown Speaker 14:13
Lesson, listen, and listen to this, like, Oh, well. And then my coach always said, based on results.

Unknown Speaker 14:23
What must you be thinking and that was my commitment to my wife. She’s like, okay, we’re staying together. We’re not getting divorced. We’re gonna figure this out. And she’s like, What are you going to do about it? I’m like, I’m going to figure out how my thinking keeps creating this. And so, you know, it was a relationship to the results of my life. And most people don’t have a relationship to results. They live in delusion, right. One of my favorite quotes is optimism and delusion sleeping in the same bed together. Right. And that was, that was me. I was very optimistic but super delusional because I didn’t want to look at my life.

Unknown Speaker 15:01
because we don’t want to look at our lives because we don’t want to feel bad about ourselves. And so if we don’t look at it, then it gets worse than we don’t want to look at it and just, it spirals out of control. So it was, you know, I had a coach that put a mirror in front of me and saying, Hey, do you like these results?

Unknown Speaker 15:17
Now

Unknown Speaker 15:19
probably need to change. But

Unknown Speaker 15:22
and that’s kind of the overall theme of the book is you got to be willing to change. You have to do the work. But it’s worth it.

Unknown Speaker 15:32
I love it.

Unknown Speaker 15:34
So I think you said that you wrote a book of 2006. And it’s been a couple of years since then, walk me through the process that you use to actually actually get this book written?

Unknown Speaker 15:46
Yeah, well, I mean, 2006 is when we got married. And then my wife and I wrote our book in 2011. That was couples money and then thinking grow, you started late 2021, November 2021. And then it’s, it’s done. So that was about 1213 month. process. But were you asking about that, that reoccur? Yeah, I’m just I’m, I’m really interested in the actual process. If it’s done daily, if you said we’re gonna allocate this much time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, it’s it, I think, I mean, everyone’s got a book. And, um, you probably heard everyone says that, but I think, you know, the process of having a mentor that really knows what they’re doing. And he said, Write your personal history, because a lot of people are like, you know, because I was thinking, I’m like, Well, you know, I got all this content on social media, and I’ll just hire a ghost writer. And he’s like, No, that’s, that’s dumb. Because if you’re writing, and like me, if you say a little prayer to be guided, before you write amazing things flow through you, and when you start writing your personal history, George, I’m like, Oh, my God, that that happened in junior high, like, I almost quit basketball, because I didn’t think I was going to make the team like that came up. But in that moment, I shifted right, all this stuff came up where I was going to quit, and a hand of God or wherever you want to call it, but I shifted, if I wouldn’t have gone through the process of writing my personal history, none of that stuff would have came up. And so these were, so these stories didn’t make the book. But it definitely flushed out some some things. But I mean, I’m, I’m an early riser, but I just, you know, whether it was 15 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day, sometimes it’s 45 minutes a day, I’d work on a concept.

Unknown Speaker 17:48
And, and then the process, you know, with Steve, once again, he’s sold three and a half million books, he’s made 20 million in speaking fees, and the guy’s just world class.

Unknown Speaker 17:58
He just wants to so I’d send it over. And I thought it was awesome. And he’s like, it’s not that good. It’s too much. Like it’s got to be simple. He’s like, we got to get the word simple. When people read it. And when you read my book, George, you’ll see it. It’s got to be simple. It’s gotta flow. There can’t be fluff. There can’t be this can’t. It’s gotta flow. Chris. It’s got to be easy to read, flow, easy to read, flow, easy read, flow, easy to read. So he drilled that into my mind. So So I was just sent a couple of concepts every two weeks, and then he would, you know, send it back and and we just, we took our time, and he said, You should grind on the first draft. He’s like, a lot of people throw out a first draft, a rewrite in the second draft. He’s like, No, the second, third, fourth, fifth draft should be simple to do. You grind on the first so we spent probably eight months on the first draft.

Unknown Speaker 18:51
Nice foot. Yeah. Anyway, I don’t know if that was too much detail. not perfect. But yeah, it was. It was I was grateful that I had him. Yeah, for sure. I love it.

Unknown Speaker 19:03
Well, Chris, thank you so much for coming back on. Congratulations on on getting your back against the wall. And and and starting to swing and coming out the other side. And congratulations on the book. Where can people pick up their own copy of get out of your own way? Or I’m sorry, thinking grow you get out of your own way and level up your life? Yeah, think grow you think grow, you know and sign their thing grow you.com. And then

Unknown Speaker 19:35
Chris felton.me is, is another place to do it. And people can learn more about my journey, how to reach out speaker workshops. I’m working on the workshops right now, I probably have five to seven workshops I can do based on this book. So

Unknown Speaker 19:53
it’s written in such a format that if anyone’s looking for speakers or workshops, I can literally send them the Book and they can go hey,

Unknown Speaker 20:01
Can you? You know, can you come in and talk these three or four concepts and make it specific for our crew so Steve had me write in such a way that I can custom tailor talks to fit people’s audience’s needs. So anyway, love it.

Unknown Speaker 20:18
Well, if you enjoyed as much as I did show Chris your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend that also appreciates good ideas, pick up your copy of thinking grow you at Think Grow you.com You can also go to Chris Felton, CH ri s fel t o n dot M E, and get your copy and keep your eye out for the the resources that Chris has coming out. And if you’ve got an organization or company, that you’re looking for a great speaker that be opportunities for the workshops there as well. Thanks again, Chris. George. Thanks, man. Appreciate you as always, and until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai