Episode 156: Treating Your Money Disorder with Chellie Campbell – Transcript
Rennie Gabriel 00:09
Hi folks, welcome to Episode 156 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast. This is where we speak about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information and provide inspiration around your business and your money. I'm your host, Rennie Gabriel. In past episodes, we spoke about how to understand the numbers from your business, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in 5 to 10 seconds, what determines how close you are to Complete Financial Choice®, and how to run your business without being in your business. And last week, we had Michael Brenner, who wrote the book, Mean People Suck, based on his experiences in marketing, and he is a great marketing professional. Today we have as our guest, Chellie Campbell. I first met Chellie over 20 years ago, when I took a financial stress reduction workshop from her. Chellie treats money disorders, spending bulimia and income anorexia. She has been teaching financial stress reduction principles for 33 years, and has written three books, including The Wealthy Spirit, a page-a-day book, which is also a popular Facebook group. Chellie, welcome to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast.
Chellie Campbell 01:36
Thank you so much for having me today, Rennie. It's just delicious to talk with you.
Rennie Gabriel 01:42
Yeah, it's about time we did this, I think.
Chellie Campbell 01:44
Yeah.
Rennie Gabriel 01:46
So okay, got an idea what you're doing. Tell me why you're doing it.
Chellie Campbell 01:53
Oh, well, I owned a bookkeeping service back in the 80s. I had actually been hired to run it. And it was so small, it was just one other person and me. And I thought - this is a dead end unless I build this thing. So I went out to network and get more clients. I hired four more bookkeepers that year. And the owners said, You act like an owner, we think you should be one. So here's 20% of the business. And I went, Oh! That's when the light bulb about being a business owner went on for me. And so I built it, I became an equal partner, and then I bought them out. And I was working with all of these people on their money. I had 13 employees there at the end. And I'm looking at it, and I'm going, people don't get it. They don't know what's profitable. This little thing they're doing over here is taking way too much time and they're not making any money on it. And this thing over here is so simple and they're making a fortune in margins. I've got to tell them. So I started calling my, instead of just turning over documents, I started calling these people, my clients and saying, You know, I think you're missing something and pull out the financial statement - let me show you. And three people in the same week said, You should teach this. And I went, Ah, I should, because there's this big gap in knowledge. Financial Literacy isn't taught in our school system. What's up with that? And people just make all these mistakes, and they don't know how to budget. But I had to make it fun. I couldn't make it just, 'let me tell you about budgeting. And here's the numbers. You can't spend money on that or that, and you can't have any fun'. I said, I want to put the fun back in "funds". So I say like budget stands for, Baby U Deserve Getting Every Thing.
Rennie Gabriel 03:56
Hmm . . . Love it.
Chellie Campbell 03:58
Yeah, maybe not all today.
Rennie Gabriel 04:00
Yeah.
Chellie Campbell 04:00
So I have a couple of budgets, you know, low, medium, and high. Each budget is just for one month, like this month, that's sort of medium. So we're not going to do a lot of overspending. We're going to save some. Maybe on low budget, you don't get your haircut, you let it grow long. You know, you only go to the therapist twice instead of five times. So you know, and then what's the goal budget? Because most people never look at that. They'll look at low and they'll look at medium but they don't look at like, What's your goal. When your dream is really coming through how much money is that going to be? And what are you going to spend it on? Uh, huh.
Rennie Gabriel 04:43
That's terrific. And it's so funny too, when you're talking about, you know, spending a lot of time at something with a low return, I remember I did this when I had a book publishing company, and I had also been investing in apartment buildings. And when I did the analysis for myself, I found out I was earning $1.50 per hour in the book publishing, but $750 an hour in real estate investing.
Chellie Campbell 05:13
Yes.
Rennie Gabriel 05:14
So I decided to close the publishing company.
Chellie Campbell 05:16
Hello! I know, right? It's like, I have published three books. I did the whole nine yards. I went to a seminar by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, who did the Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Rennie Gabriel 05:30
Oh, yeah.
Chellie Campbell 05:31
So I follow the instructions. I got an agent in New York, and you got a publisher, Sourcebooks - they're a very big deal now - and they were much smaller then. But I realized that I was only going to make $1 a book. Okay, a $1 a book. So where you really make money as a self-help or financial author is people want to come take your class or study with you or . . .
Rennie Gabriel 06:01
Right, or hire you personally? Yes.
Chellie Campbell 06:04
Exactly. So that's where the money was. So I looked at the book as really kind of a . . .
Rennie Gabriel 06:11
A business card.
Chellie Campbell 06:12
An advertising piece.
Rennie Gabriel 06:13
Yeah.
Chellie Campbell 06:14
It's a marketing piece. But the reason I wrote that book, The Wealthy Spirit, a page-a-day for every day of the year, is because I love to teach by story. So I tell stories out the Yin Yang. And I thought, I'll tell a story, every page, which I thought was a brilliant idea until I had written 100, and I had 265 more to do. But I really knew I was doing small workshops in my home, and we didn't have Zoom then - I couldn't reach a million people. And I thought, well, I know some things that really work I was having extraordinary results from the people who took my class. They were like, quitting their dead-end jobs and opening businesses and bringing in checks by the end of eight weeks. And I was going, I need to share. There are people who need this. So I wrote the book, really, just to share. And I was surprised that, you know, I look at Suze Orman who was on Oprah and she sold a million books, and I thought it was a failure. And then my publisher called me after a year, and she said, Okay, Chellie, this is great. And we're ready for your next book. And I said, What? I didn't think this did very well. And she said, Oh, my God, you don't know. She said, The average book in America sells 500 copies. And then she said, Our magic number is 10,000. If you can sell 10,000 books, we're profitable with you, and we want you to do it again. And so far, you've sold 12,000 books. And I went, Oh, I didn't sell... I didn't know
Rennie Gabriel 08:01
That is so cool. That, and I got to tell you, the stories you also send out in your email, so someone's not on your list, they need to join it. The one you sent about Superman and Chris Reeve. . .
Chellie Campbell 08:13
Oh.
Rennie Gabriel 08:14
I had to give to my wife because she's suffering with some back issues right now, and very depressed. And I'm asking her to read that email from you right now.
Chellie Campbell 08:27
Oh, I'm so glad. That's what I do it for. I just want to . . . there's lots of good news. There's lots of positive things you can think and positive actions you can take. And I was taught growing up to play the "glad game". Which means when something bad happens, okay, you can cry for a minute, but then you got to remember all the things that are still good. I can go to the grocery store, and there's groceries there and I can afford to buy them. And I have a car and I have a roof over my head. And you know, I just turn around any bad vibes pretty quickly.
Rennie Gabriel 09:05
Yeah, that is so important. Well, now, you're probably aware that I donate 100% of the profits from the work that I do to charity. And one of them is at the top of my homepage called, Shelter to Soldier. But, is there a particular charity that you support and tell me what they do?
Chellie Campbell 09:24
Well, I like The Midnight Mission - downtown Los Angeles. And they're helping the homeless and they're helping people who don't have enough to eat. And I've just been an admirer of their work for so many years. That's my charity of choice and I'm always . . . well, they sent me a little letter, you know, it's Thanksgiving coming up. Yes. Here's some money. So I love that.
Rennie Gabriel 09:50
Terrific. Well, tell me who your target market or markets are.
Chellie Campbell 09:55
You know, my target market these days is a little different and I'm not doing as many workshops. I do them once in a while, but my main game is to be on Facebook, and do a 10-minute video every morning, Monday through Friday, from the pages of, The Wealthy Spirit. Now that came out 21 years ago in 2002. So many things have changed, like social media. So I give background information, I give updated tips, and it's fun. And it's for anybody in a business that wants to make money, or is somebody who's thinking about a business or somebody that wants to have a job, or somebody that wants to work for a charity, or somebody who has relatives that need to be making more money. You know, it's just for people who are maybe even reluctant to do the positive thinking, but they're really professionals at the negative thinking. And I have to get them out of that if they're willing to do the work to change, which isn't hard, but you got to do it. You've got to do positive affirmations every day. I'm sorry, you're thinking negative ones 60,000 times a day. So it's just a little switch, and it'll feel uncomfortable to begin with, but that's a sign that you really need it.
Rennie Gabriel 11:18
It's so funny, too, because I'm thinking it sounds like when you're talking about who the target market is, it's probably limited to people who have to handle money.
Chellie Campbell 11:27
Yes. And it's limited to people who have a sense, at least an idea that the power of positive thinking can work. Now, faith without works is dead, as they say. So you can't just do wishful thinking, you know, some people say affirmations don't work they're just wishful thinking. No, they're preparation for stepping out and taking action.
Rennie Gabriel 11:55
Yes, action. Yes.
Chellie Campbell 11:57
Action, is it. But action, if you don't think positive, you're going to have disasters.
Rennie Gabriel 12:02
Yeah, yeah. I say this often to a lot of people, including my wife, that our words are powerful. And the words you're using will impact the results that you produce. So if you're saying things won't work out, you're actually designing it to not work out. If you're saying the help I need will show up, or this can work out. I mean, then you're setting yourself up for the success. As long as like you said, you're taking the actions.
Chellie Campbell 12:31
Well, the way I say it to people who just want to do wishful thinking of affirmations, you know, saying the affirmation and wait for the money to come. I go, Well, that's good. But how many affirmations would you have to say, in front of a piano before you can play it?
Rennie Gabriel 12:51
That's great, great example, because I could say, you know, thousands, and I still won't be able to play that thing.
Chellie Campbell 12:57
That's right. I took piano lessons for four years, and I really was not good at it. And I didn't like it. So I went to my mom finally and said, How about I double up on ballet lessons and skip the piano? Because that's what I really love. And she said, Okay.
Rennie Gabriel 13:17
Well, okay, next question is two-part. It's, what would you say was your biggest failure, personal or business, and what insight did you gain from it?
Chellie Campbell 13:28
Oh, this is a good story. So I had this big bookkeeping service. I had 13 employees. I bought my partners out. Nine months later, the biggest client we had that was 75% of my income left with two weeks notice. Oh, honey, big time failure. I had to layoff 10 people right away. I still had a business but it was so much smaller. I was on the hook for bank loans and equipment loans. And the rent. Oh my god, that was the biggest bill $4,500 a month. And I had fired all these people, all these desks were empty. Nobody was sitting there and I couldn't afford it. And I didn't know what to do. I hadn't taken any business classes in college. I studied acting. I was an actor for my first career - okay? So I went to the landlords, I call them in and I said, Let me tell you what's happened. And I said it just like I said it to you. And I said, $4,500 a month I cannot do. And if you're going to hold me to this lease, I understand but I'm going to have to go under. And this darling man looked at me and he said, Well, we don't want you to go under. How much space do you need and what can you afford? And he tore up that lease and wrote a new one for $800 a month. And then I went, oh my god, he was so wonderful, maybe everybody else will be wonderful. Wouldn't that be wonderful. Well, I always say take a banker to lunch, get to know your banker, you know. So I called up my banker and I said, Mike, let me tell you what's happening. And he said, Oh, my dear. I said this loan for 500 a month, I'm not going to be able to do it. He said, Let me get back to you. Calls me an hour later, he says, Okay, I rewrote the loan over a longer period of time. I lowered your interest rates, and the payments will be 200 a month. Can you do that? I said, Yes. I mean, I made a deal with everybody, the local office supply store, whatever, whatever and I saved the business. Now, I've saved it for like five years, and I'm paying off loans and debt - I borrowed a lot of money. And then we hit a recession and my head bookkeeper went into business for herself and took half my clients with her. And then I can't make the payments on the loans. And they were calling every day. So my attorney said, You got to see my friend, the bankruptcy attorney. I went, Oh, how can I do that? I'm president of a women's national organization, the LA chapter. I run a bookkeeping service, and I'm teaching financial stress reduction workshops. How humiliating is that? But then the bankruptcy attorney said, Chellie, the laws were written for people like you who's encountered a strange set of circumstances and you need a clean slate. And they were . . . I tried to sell my condo, but they were selling units like mine for 90,000 and I owed 160,000. So I filed bankruptcy, total shame for six months. And then I was teaching a class and a young couple said, They were thinking about bankruptcy, and I made a suggestion. And this man turned to me and he said, How would you know? You've never experienced something like this. And I went, Okay, I've got to tell the truth. And I said, Well, actually, I filed bankruptcy six months ago, and the whole class went, Uh! And I looked around and I said, sometimes bad things happen and you do the best you can. Do you know, the average millionaire files bankruptcy 3.5 times. You don't have to beat yourself up. It's a business decision. You make it and then you vow to do better. What can you do better? Well, don't have one client, your whole ballgame.
Rennie Gabriel 17:35
That sounds like a tremendous insight where one client is 75% of your business. That's like having a job and getting fired.
Chellie Campbell 17:43
Yes, exactly. And so you know what, at that point, all those people at the end of the class came over and hugged me, and thanked me for sharing. And one woman said, I've been beating myself up for 10 years for filing bankruptcy in similar circumstances. She said, You just gave me permission to be okay, again. Well maybe that's why it happened.
Rennie Gabriel 18:10
Yeah. And I don't have the statistics for millionaires that you quoted, but I could have filed for bankruptcy back in my 30s. I mean, I had nothing. I scraped by. You know, I paid stuff back. But the reality was, it was a choice. I can file because I qualified. Or I can try and dig myself out of it. Which I did because other people cooperated.
Chellie Campbell 18:36
Well, I tried for five years and it wasn't happening.
Rennie Gabriel 18:41
Yeah. Yeah.
Chellie Campbell 18:41
And then my income got slashed again, I just said, There's really nothing else I can do here.
Rennie Gabriel 18:48
Here's the last question because the people listening will probably want to reach out to you. Is there something that you can offer my listeners or if they're on YouTube, my viewers, for them to get a hold of you?
Chellie Campbell 19:00
Absolutely. My name is Chellie. It's spelled c h e l l i e. My website is chellie.com. My email is chellie@chellie.com. So if you can spell my first name, you've got me forever. Now, on my website, I have a download for free. My top 14 Absolutely Amazing Abundance Affirmations. They're gold and people have sworn to me, they just made all kinds of difference in their lives. They got clients immediately, they paid off loans. I actually got my publisher, because I gave my editor this list of affirmations, she wanted to take them out of the book.
Rennie Gabriel 19:42
Oh!
Chellie Campbell 19:43
Yeah. She said everybody knows about that already. I said, Are you doing them? She said, No. I said, Do these. She called me back and she says, I can't believe what's happening. I'm getting money out of the air. So do those. And then if you'd like to join my group where I do a 10 minute video every day on Facebook, you can do it for $7 for 30 days. You need this discount code which is "dolphingold", all one word.
Rennie Gabriel 20:12
Tell you what, email that to me and I'll put it in the show notes and then people can just click on it.
Chellie Campbell 20:17
I will do it. Thank you so much.
Rennie Gabriel 20:20
You're welcome. And Chellie, I want to thank you for being on the Wealth On Any Income show.
Chellie Campbell 20:26
Thank you so much for having me, Rennie. It's been just delightful talking with you today.
Rennie Gabriel 20:31
It's always great to talk to you. And to those who are listening or watching, if you'd like to know how books, movies and Society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is, then log on to wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx. You'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free 9-Step Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice® and Philanthropy, and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or your money. And probably it'd be a good idea to get that list of 14 prosperity affirmations from Chellie. And if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth, and donate to the causes that touch your heart, please check out our affordable program, Wealth with Purpose. To my listeners, thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast on your favorite platform, and please rate, review and subscribe. Until next week, be prosperous. Bye bye for now.
