Chris Felton: How To Achieve Unlimited Wealth | The Authors Unite Show #1000

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Authors Unite show. Today we have Chris Felton. He is a financial services entrepreneur and Amazon bestselling author. Who has helped thousands of people free themselves mentally and financially. So welcome to the show.

Great, great to be here, Tyler. Looking forward to, uh, having a great visit and helping a lot of people.

Yes, me too, man. Thanks for, uh, thanks for joining us. Um, so how I typically like to start these is, is kind of like the origin. So, um, let's go back real quick to like middle school, high school time. Did you think you would be doing anything like this when you were in middle school, high school? If yes, great. If not, what did you actually want to do or think you would be doing?

I don't— do you have people that actually thought they were going to be somewhere when they were in middle school or high school? Yeah, no, man, I— not at all, not even close. You know, I thought I was going to be— well, when I was in middle school, I thought I was going to be a professional athlete and Being 5'11" and slow, that didn't work out too good. And, you know, heading into college, I thought I'd be a football coach or, you know, an athletic coach. And, you know, where, you know, hand of God took me is totally crazy. So no, not vaguely even in this world of what we do and being an entrepreneur and how many people we've helped. And, um, yeah, so, so not at all.

And, and then, so what did you do before this? So obviously you have a book called Couples Money, and then you work with or started Wealth Wave. Um, but what, uh, before this, like, what were you doing? And then how did you kind of stumble or decide to work in the financial services?

Yeah, so I graduated Colorado State University with an accounting degree, and then I moved to Denver in 1993. So I'm actually 49. I turn 50 here in about a month.

Congrats.

And yeah, made it halfway there. And just, you know, got into work for one of the largest accounting firms in the world called Arthur Andersen from about '93 to 2000. And was doing what everyone else was doing, right? Climbing the corporate ladder, trading time for money, um, working 80, 90 hours a week, flying around the world, uh, you know, making $20,000 to $30,000 a year, you know, thinking I had the world by its tail. But then I had a kind of called a turning point week where I worked 120 hours in a 6-day period, almost missed, uh, Easter Sunday with my mom, who, uh, that was her like sacred holiday. And just looked to the guy that was 10 years ahead of me, was on his third marriage, he was making 7 figures, but he was, uh, you know, a hot dog away from a coronary. And, uh, kids didn't like him, uh, was never around, making big money, but, uh, had a lot of stress and had no life. And I was very easily heading that way. And so I took about a year on the side looking for entrepreneurial business opportunities. I was pretty frustrated with what was out there. It looked like a lot of risk, looked like a lot of, uh, you know, capital that I didn't have. No mentoring, no coaching, 80% of small businesses failing within the first 2 years. I'm a risk-adverse CPA. And, um, long and the short of it, I was pretty shut down to what was out there. And then I got introduced to, uh, you know, WealthWave, our financial services business, um, in, uh, you know, basically 1999, and saw the opportunity to help people learn how money works. And, um, and I started reading a book that I'm sure everyone's familiar with called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Oh yeah.

And, uh, what blew me away about that book as I was doing the search, Tyler, was everybody, all 500+ entrepreneurs that he spent his whole life interviewing in that book, they all— I thought they were after money only, but what I learned is they were actually after solving a big problem and helping people have a better life. And because of that, they got really, really wildly financially free because they solved a big problem. And so that's what I was looking for. I wanted to solve a big problem. And the problem we solved is teaching people how money works, because they don't know how money works. Uh, 96% of Americans are broke. But the other thing they had, Tyler, from Edison to Alexander Graham Bell to Woolworth to Wrigley to Vanderbilt to Rockefellers to 8 presidents, 5 prime ministers, All 500 of them had something that I did not have at that time, and that was actually dreams. The D word, right? That the other 96% of society, they don't really have dreams. And so, when the opportunity is presented to me, Not only did I see an opportunity to help a ton of people, which we have, but we're barely scratching the surface. I saw an opportunity to solve a big problem and, you know, have me and my family's dreams come true, which many, many have happened, and we just keep dreaming. So anyway, that's why I got involved in it 20-some years ago, and that's why I'm still in it after actually doing a lot of podcasts. Couple of these a week, uh, because I want to get the message out to people that, uh, if you want to change your life, you got to change how you think. And often as a result of that, you probably need to change your vehicle because, uh, it's probably not going to get you to your dreams and your ideal life that you really want. So what most people end up doing, Tyler, is they settle. And, uh, one of my wealthy mentors calls settling the most offensive word in the English language.

Yeah, I like that.

People settle, unfortunately.

So, big question, but I think it'll lead to great conversation, is how does money work?

How does money work? Well, um, there's a lot to that, and I'm happy to send out a complimentary book, uh, of, uh, the, the book my, uh, my business partners wrote called How Money Works: Stop Being a Sucker. Yeah, that, uh, so I'll give that information at the end. Anybody that emails me, I'll get an email, I'll get a book out to, but my business partners, uh, wrote that book, came out pre-pandemic. Um, and it was, uh, and in the book, Tyler, they said the number one economic problem in the world is the fact that people don't understand how money works. And so, um, from time value of money to compounding interest to people, you know, the name of the book is How Money Works: Stop Being a Sucker, to helping people get out of what we call the sucker cycle, right? Which money comes in and then everybody's after your money, right? And it sucks right back out of your life. Um, but the pandemic proved to us that people don't understand how money works. They don't understand budgeting, savings, cash flow management, debt management. They don't understand compound interest. They don't understand, you know, how much are they going to need. They can't define financial independence. They don't know what it looks like. And so, the timing of that book, that book became the number one selling financial book of 2020. It's on pace to be that for 2021. And my business partners have done over 150, uh, media interviews in the last 18 months, which is insane for a book.

Yeah.

Anyway, not talking about the book, but, but, uh, How Money Works, uh, we pretty much lay it out. Somebody can read in about an hour and a half. And the feedback we're getting, Tyler, is, uh, people learn more about how money works by reading that book than they ever have in their entire life because, uh, we don't learn this stuff in school. Our industry is pretty sketchy. Um, the less you know, the more they make. Think about that one. Right. So, uh, we, uh, we're on a mission to stamp out and eradicate financial illiteracy in the, in the United States. And, uh, getting that book into the hands of hundreds of millions of people is part of our game plan.

All right. So just for the podcast though, I guess What's like, and obviously, you can't share everything from the book, but like, what do you, let's start here. Like, what do you think is the biggest problem? So, you said 96% of people, I guess the biggest problem is that they just don't know how it works. But if you were to potentially try to answer the question, I guess, on the podcast, like in shorter, how would you go about helping people to, you know, because 96% is a ton. Um, there's only 4% of people that aren't broke in this country. Is that really true?

Yeah, it's totally true.

That's crazy.

Yeah, richest country on the planet and everybody retires broke.

Okay, so all right, there's a question. So why do you— why do they retire, uh, broke?

Well, the— I mean, we can go as deep as you want on, on this because this is probably a whole podcast in and of itself. It's all about your mentality. It's all about belief systems. And so the book that my wife and I wrote called Couples Money was really all about, um, the fact that I was a CPA, I was a financial advisor, but had somehow accumulated a quarter of a million dollars of unsecured debt heading into the Great Recession. And my wife marries a guy that she thinks is pretty smart, but, um, knows what to do, Tyler Wagner, but why is he not doing it? And the deep dive into that, I'll give you the 100,000-foot level, is my belief systems around money were super negative. And so the analogy I give is, I don't know if you golf or not, Tyler, but I'm a pretty average golfer. What's more important, the golf swing or the golf club?

Oh man, I guess I don't golf enough. I guess the club.

I don't know. Yeah. Well, it's actually the swing. Swing, right? So, if I could give you any kind of club, if you have a great swing, it's going to work. So, but what most people do in golf is they try to always change the golf club without changing the golf swing. Because it's work.

That makes sense.

When it comes to money, the golf club is the product, the solution, the how-to, but the golf swing is actually the mindset and the mentality around it. And you've probably heard 90% of lottery winners are dead broke or in jail inside of 10 years. Well, why is that? Why is it that athletes who grew up in poverty get these big NFL, NBA contracts, but the majority of them are broke later on in life? And it's because of this thing called your belief systems. And we get programmed around money at a very early age. My parents were broke. They ingrained in me that money was hard to make, hard to keep. Rich people were bad people. Um, we, we got these things. And so even though I was a CPA and a financial advisor, I carried those unchecked belief systems around until I was about 37. And what I realized was I knew what to do around money, Tyler. But why wasn't I doing it? Well, depending on how far you want to go with that, I had to do some work. And what I teach people how to do is how do you upgrade and uplevel your belief system so that it supports being wealthy. So the answer to the question is 96% of society has a negative view, limiting belief around money. And it doesn't matter Necessarily always what they do. They won't do it because their belief systems— unfortunately, I mean, belief systems are the star of the show, whether it's your health, relationships, money, spirituality, whatever. What you believe will outpicture in your life. And for most people, it's, uh, it's, it's a negative, it's a negative view. And I know what it looks like. I lived it for 37 years.

So yeah, let's dive deeper into it.

So how would you upgrade Yeah, well, um, I mean, the, the first is, you know, really understanding, um, you know, first I hired a, I hired a coach who was financially independent. Okay. Because really when it comes around money, I think first and foremost is what do you really, really, really, really, really, really want? And most people aren't very specific on what it is that they want. So for me, I was really clear about what financial independence looked like for me. I could define it by an income amount, a recurring income amount, a certain net worth, size of my business. So the first and foremost, Tyler, is most people don't have clarity on what it is that they want, right? And if you're driving your car and you don't tell Google where you're going, you don't really end up anywhere. So defining where you want to go, your point B from your point A, is the first thing that you need to understand. Second is getting someone that's there, right? That's at point B that can coach you. And that's what I did. I worked with a coach for 4, 4 and a half years. And the first thing we had to do was define my point A on what my belief systems were around money. And he said, you don't have a money problem, you have a money project. And you've had a certain belief system around money that's been there for decades. It's not going to just shift in, you know, 21 days. You got to do some work. Um, you got to read, uh, you, you need to, um, there's different technologies out there that can help you reprogram at a deep level. But point A, Tyler, was just getting a journal. Step 1, writing the word money down and writing down everything I believe about that word. And for me, it was mostly negative. And until my thinking around the word money shifted to being positive, right? To it not being hard, not being stressful, not being, you know, I can't keep it, I can't save it. All that stuff, all that limiting self-talk, doing the work to upgrade that, but really understanding that that was the key. 'Cause at that point, I couldn't have worked any harder to make it. Right? And the analogy I give, it's like running a marathon with like a bowling ball tied around your ankle. That's what these limiting beliefs are all about. So, doing a lot of work, a lot of personal growth, a lot of personal development to shift my thinking, to change the golf swing sort of thing. So to speak, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, it does. And I, well, I think you're definitely right because I think a lot of people's mindset too is just essentially try to make as much as they can so that they can get by basically, like it's very survival. And then they, when they keep running out, then the negative association with it just keeps reoccurring over and over and over again. Um, so yeah, I could see how that could happen. So then, you know, once you had— you said, uh, before too, like, you knew what to do with it, but you weren't doing it because of your mindset. So I guess, um, maybe we could walk through like a few scenarios, right? So like, let's just say somebody, uh, somebody has $100K or something just sitting around. Like, what would you— I guess it would depend on what their goal is, right? On what to do with it. You know what I mean? Like, I— or what did you mean, I guess, is a better question. When you said like you knew what to do with it, but your mindset wasn't there. So what did you know to do with it?

Well, the guy that's got the $100K laying around, his mindset's probably in a good spot, right? Um, because the 96% won't have $100,000. Yeah, and that was, that was actually the first goal that me and my wife set because we were at nothing and we had all this debt. And, and one of our mentors— see, my wife spent, you know, 2 and a half years flying around the country interviewing wildly financially independent couples. That's where the book Couples Money came from, the one that we wrote. Um, and it was all about clarity of a goal. So the $100,000, even though we had a quarter of a million dollars of debt, $100,000 goal was the first, was the first goal that we set. It's the best goal we've ever set in our lives. And the mentor said, you won't get debt-free until you can prove that you can save money. Um, because once you, once you have reserves, then you won't have to use your debt for savings and emergencies, right? You guys have to prove that you can save money. And then the difference, Tyler, is the people that my wife interviewed in the book, they said the goal that you're setting has to be, um, an emotional goal. So the world class, the ones that operate top 2 to 4%, they know that goal setting is emotional. Everyone else, the other 96%, think, think that goal setting is logical. Okay. And what I mean by that is you gotta have compelling reasons to move out of your comfort zone, right? Because the most difficult thing we do in our lives is pop outside of our comfort zone. And so to save $100,000, my wife and I had to sit down and go, okay, why do we care? That's the other thing. If you don't care about the goal, nothing's going to happen. So I was, I'm sick of fighting with her around money. That was right. Plus, there was so much stress on my wife. Um, it just, it was painful to watch and I was creating it. And also, you know, I just, Tyler, I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. Plus, I was sick of being broke. I was just sick of being broke. I was sick of stress. I was sick of watching, I mean, my family stressed around money. Everyone in my generation stressed around money. I'm like, you know what? Somebody's got to change this. It might as well be me. So what creates the gas for the plane to get off the ground is these compelling emotional reasons to actually move. So what happened is that goal became so compelling and it was so inspiring and motivating because we connected reasons almost always tied back to people. Um, the first thing I had to do, Tyler, was I had to quit spending small dollars. And, uh, if you ever heard the book Secrets of a Millionaire Mind written by T. Harv Eker, unbelievable book. Everyone that's listening should read that book. That, that was a game changer for me because he said in there, until you start managing the money that you have now well, you're not going to see anymore. Meaning if you can't take care of small dollars, You're never going to see the $100 grand. And so the clarity of the goal, the compelling emotional reasons, um, and the taking care of small dollars and really climbing Mount Everest one little small step at a time. Small steps are the key. And then me and my wife having a weekly check-in of where are we? I was trying to get to Mount Everest. It's $100,000. Where are we? Well, it got motivating, inspiring that we were just moving forward every single day. Just leave me— it was $100. It was inspiring. And so, um, that just understanding moment by moment, if I was going to go out and blow $200 on a happy hour, that was moving me further away from this goal that I committed to my wife that we were going to do together. It was almost like a slap in the face, right? Um, so you just could not get me to spend stupid small dollars on things that didn't matter.

Got it. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And that's a good starting point because, yeah, at the end of the day, if 96% of people can't save up to $100 grand, then it's a, it's a spending issue, uh, firstly. But then, uh, so, so then what, what happens after though? Like, say if you have, um, and I don't know, I guess $100 grand is probably not the best example. So say if you have like just $5 million cash just sitting there, what would you— if you were to sit down with somebody that has that, would you say, hey, look, what's your overall goal of like monthly cash flow? Um, like, what are your living expenses? And let's invest this so that you can, um, start to, uh, be able to live somewhat passively?

Yeah, I mean, it's not much different for $100,000 versus $5 million, right? It's, at the end of the day, it's all about, you know, I always say step one's clarity, right? What do you want and why do you want it? And, you know, I had a client in two weeks ago. He was worth, I mean, I spent a lot of time dealing with the other 96% of society, um, but the $12 million client, it was that question. It was like, what do you want? Why do you want it? And guess what? He just was good at money as far as he knew how to invest it, but he didn't know what he wanted, right? Um, he didn't have clarity. And, and so whether it's, it's, it's the 96% or it's the ultra wealthy Very few, Tyler, if you ask them, what do you really, really want? What are you aiming for? What's your number one financial goal? You know, they don't know it and they don't know why. They're just what I call unconsciously competent. This guy was unconsciously competent in accumulating money. Um, and so he had a lot more than $5 million, but he had no clarity of, you know, he's 51. He doesn't know what he wants out of his life. He doesn't know what he wants to to do. He doesn't even know what his dreams are. He's just in the weeds. And so step one is, okay, what do you want? And then based on what you want, yes. What's the kind of annual income that you need to, uh, you need to create to, um, to create that lifestyle and making sure that you have money that you never outlive. 'cause 61% of baby boomers are more afraid of outliving their money over dying. And real inflation's a lot more than what the government tells you.

So, oh yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. Tell, tell me more about that inflation.

Yeah, there's a, there's a, there's, there's a book out there. Uh, uh, it's, it's, it's, I mean, it's a more of a Christian-based book, but whether you're Christian or not, it doesn't really matter. You just need to read the book because it's one of the best economic explanations out there. And it's called Evangelpreneur, written by a guy named Josh Tolley. And, um, or, and you maybe you can Google it, I don't know. I mention this book all the time, but real inflation is, uh, is 10% annually. So if you actually go back and he's got the proof on it, real inflation is 10%. And Wage growth in the United States is 3%. So one of the things, one of the stories he talks about in the book was his neighbor who was in his 80s, you know, had an advisor that said, hey, save 10% of your income, pay off your house. And, and this is like in the '50s or '60s, I can't remember, but his, his Neighbor was making $5,000 a year, and the advisor said, if you have 30 times your annual income saved, you're going to be fine. Well, 30 times $5,000 is $150,000.

Yeah.

So what do you do? Save 10%, paid off his house, and then he comes to Josh and he's like, I got to sell my house because I can't afford the property taxes. The property taxes are way more than my old mortgage payment. And he said, Josh, what happened? He said, your advisor's a good guy, but what he didn't tell you about is, uh, real inflation is 10%. You don't have a shot being an employee. And, uh, you got 3% wages growth because your boss can't give you 10% wage growth. So You're playing a game you couldn't win. And, you know, I read that last fall, Tyler, and I try to scream from the rooftops on that. And in the book, the only way out of that is you got to become an entrepreneur. So if you're an employee, you just can't save enough, right? I, and, and, you know, I sat in front of a client in September and they're in their early 40s. And I'm like, okay, uh, you're on, you're making $100 grand a year, 30 times $100 grand is what, $3 million. So Tyler, if I told a 40-year-old that when they're 65, they're gonna have $3 million, what do you think they'd say? Hot damn, I've made it, right?

Okay. Yeah. I would be personally scared.

Well, but that's, that's, but You're probably a lot more financially literate than the other 96%. And I told them they're going to have $3 million when they're 65. They're like, oh my God, we're going to be multimillionaires. I'm like, that's the good news. The bad news is, um, you're going to be able to live off 60% of what you can't live on right now. So you're going to need more like $6 to $7 million and you're never going to get there being an employee. So I sat there for an hour and have worked with them since to help them launch an entrepreneurial business on the side to make more money. Because people have to make more money. They're not making enough money. They can't keep up with that inflation wave.

Yeah, it's so crazy. Um, I, I remember I read this book. It's a little bit But it talks about it. Have you ever heard of The Creature from Jekyll Island?

I've heard of it. I have not read it.

You should check that out. It's been a long time, so I can't even remember, honestly. But it talks about just how, like, basically money started and how, at the end of the day, not just inflation, but like tax and everything, it ends up being that they take 90% from you at the end of the day or something when you like, really look into it all and like all the little 1%, 2% things here and there, it's pretty fascinating. So, it's definitely worth checking out. So, really, second to last question for you is, can you tell us a little bit more about Wealth Wave? Do you own the company or work with the company?

Yeah, Wealth Wave is, it's a financial services entrepreneurial, you know, business platform that my business partner Tom Matthews started. And, um, I operate, you know, 17 different offices with, um, I got 200 agents spread out across the United States. We've got about 30,000 clients. Um, and, and basically that, that's where the book How Money Works: Stop Being a Sucker was launched. But our whole, our whole focus is just this mission of this conversation we're having. Is, you know, we need to educate the other 96% about these things that they just don't know about because they didn't learn it in school, and our industry doesn't want you to know. So we are on this, uh, you know, we call it an infinite game. We'll never get to the bottom of it, but this infinite game of educating as many people as we can about how money works. And so yes, it's an entrepreneurial platform based on financial education and getting the word out about financial literacy and how people need to level that up. But, uh, that's, that's what we do.

Yeah. Um, and then I guess lastly, if there's anything else that we didn't cover that you'd like to cover, uh, feel free to, to tell us now. And then, uh, let people know, like, websites, socials, like, where can they stay in touch?

Yeah, I know. I mean, I, I think, um I think we hit a bunch of it, Tyler, but at the end of the day, it's really about, you know, my coach was like, you know, if money was your friend, would money hang out with you? And when I asked him what that meant, he's like, so when I say the word money, what comes up? Well, frustration, anger, you know, I didn't like it, it was hard. And if you had a friend that was like that, You probably wouldn't be a friend with it, right? Money's a relationship. And based on the results you have around it, it's either a positive or negative relationship. And so to make it positive, you gotta look at it positive, right? If you wanna have a positive relationship with someone, you gotta start viewing it differently. And so, you know, the systems and the beliefs are huge, um, resources that, that I can help people with to start the conversation is, um, you can find me at howmoneyworks.com, uh, howmoneyworks.com/chrisfelton. And, um, there's a bunch of awesome material there. Uh, you can scroll down, uh, send me an email. I'll get a book in the mail to you. Uh, my wife and I have a website called couplesmoney.com. Couplesmoney.com. And, uh, lots of resources out there. That's one way that we can, uh, get in contact with us. I'm on Instagram at @chrisfelden1331. Um, you guys can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn. Um, but yeah, no, just here to help, man. This is, uh, what I want to do. And part of my purpose is, uh, to help people, uh, get out of their own way and have a better life financially and have dreams, right? It's good to have dreams. It's good to have something to shoot for. And one thing I know about dreams is the majority of them have to be financed. So I can help people figure out how to do that.

I like that. That's good. Well, very nice, man. Thank you again for coming on the show.

Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate the time.