PP 070: Discovering your Potential, Prosperity & Purpose with “Coach” Frederick West

Quick Show Notes from Episode with “Coach” Frederick West:

“Coach” Frederick West joins Kim Sutton to share his entrepreneurial journey and to describe how he can help you find your Potential, your Prosperity and your Purpose as a Christian Life & Business Coach and Founder of Life Faith First. 

Connect With “Coach” Frederick West:

Look Faith First
Facebook
Twitter

Resources Mentioned

Purpose Development Call

Episode Transcription

Kim: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and today I am thrilled to have my great friend and business coach, Coach Frederick West, from Look Faith First. Hey Coach, how you doing?

“Coach” Frederick West: I am very blessed as always, my dear. I excited to be part of this. I remember having many conversations about this and so really it’s exciting to even be a part of it and to see it grow the way that it has.

Kim: Listeners, Coach West and I have known each other for just shy of two years and I can’t believe how fast those two years have flown by, but Coach has seen my highs and my lows and everything in between. And would it be fair to say that there has been a roller coaster, although this is not an episode about me. It’s supposed to be about you.

“Coach” Frederick West: I would say the entrepreneurial journey is a roller coaster and that’s kind of a part of the journey itself. There’s a group that I’m part of here locally, they call it E-Venture and “E” stands for Entrepreneurial Venture because there are roller coasters.

“Coach” Frederick West: There are times where you’re high, you have a great amount of certainty, a great amount clarity, a great amount of success. And I mean life is just coming so easy. You barely even recognize the challenges you’re dealing with. And there are other times where reality really hits you and you are really pushing uphill and it’s about riding your bike, it’s about saying we’re not at the top of my head and make sure if I’m going back down, I’m peddling hearts, I get right back up the next one. So yeah, that’s part of it.

Kim: Oh, I absolutely love that. How come you haven’t used that one?

“Coach” Frederick West: I just hadn’t had the time, you know it’s gotta be relevant situationally, it’s got to be appropriate. When “don’t worry, it was coming and it is still may”, when it is relevant, it’s very relevant to keep again, when you’re a little kid, you don’t learn until you’re 10 or 11 or 12 that you could fly down the hill and put your hands up, put your feet up, but then at the bottom of that hill, it stinks going back up at the next one. You’ll learn to pedal, you learn to get faster and the next hill is faster than that.

Kim: I think I just learned it. It took me all these years to learn that because I was like (laugh) —- Hello. OK, so now that I know that I need to keep on pedaling all the way down in the hill they keep on going back up, let’s get back to you. I would love for you to share your journey with the audience and share your own entrepreneurial journey. Coach, tell the audience about you.

“Coach” Frederick West: Sure, my journey started a little earlier than most people’s because I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. When I was four or five, six years old, my parents owned multiple businesses. They owned car lots. Actually a couple in Ohio, a couple close to you. They owned restaurants. They owned cleaning companies and electrical companies at different things and even antique stores. So I mean there’s this real blend of being around business and it was interesting for me because something’s really served me as far as working in the business world and some things worked against me, which I learned later on in life. But you know, as the oldest of three boys going through that childhood, I would be the first one to do special things for the business.

“Coach” Frederick West: So I was the first furniture mover that wasn’t one of the adults and I was one of the first ones that worked at the counter as an adult. I was one of the first ones to answer the phone calls and do the sales and everything else. And again, I just had this appreciation because I’m surrounded by adults.

“Coach” Frederick West: Quite often, I didn’t know about going out and playing all the time in childhood, that’s not what you do in an entrepreneurial family. They recruit you early on because they need support.

“Coach” Frederick West: So, through that journey I had an appreciation for small business and saw a lot of things my parents did right. So a lot of the things my parents didn’t do that was in their best interest. And it was unfortunate but by the time I was 17, 18 years old and I was ready to go out and venture the world, the opportunities of those businesses were no longer there, a lot of bad decisions put them in a situation where they had to go back to work for the man and then never call him the man.

“Coach” Frederick West: But I’ve learned that since, and it was very interesting for me because you get that entrepreneurial spirit when you’re younger and that’s what you think you’re going to do. It’s kind of interesting to go into an entry level and start from the bottom up somewhere. It didn’t take long for me to find out that I was not a good match for the regular business environment, in the traditional business environment, because one good thing that was going for me was when I went to work, I went to work.

“Coach” Frederick West: When I was there, there was no sitting down, there was no sleep and there was no – I mean it was about putting it all in because that’s what we did. We put it all in and we made sure we got things done. We didn’t worry about credit, you know, because in a small business, especially in a family run business, credit doesn’t matter because everyone benefits when the right things are done, everyone benefits from it.

“Coach” Frederick West: But some of the things I didn’t learn as well was about the politics. You know, I didn’t learn that there was a pecking order as it were. I didn’t learn about the credit and the fact that if you work too hard, people didn’t appreciate getting the work done. They appreciated this hierarchical order of things and they’re always worried about who’s going to do this? and who’s going to do that ? and how they looked? and it just really caused a lot of confusion.

“Coach” Frederick West: So I went through a lot of jobs during my teens and twenties trying to find something that’s like – “OK, where can I really apply my skills and apply that mindset? Let’s get it done!” And I found out that really the only place that was available for me was sales and consulting.

“Coach” Frederick West: For a couple years, I was trying to find my niche where I was going to be a consultant and I did some things in the more traditional sales world. I did car sales and different things, I covered the B2C – business to consumer. I found where I was getting the most fulfilled and I found where I was making the biggest impact was the B2B, and so in, let’s see, from 2003 to 2008, I was in the financial services industry, which in 2003 was a great place to be. By 2005 it was even better. But by 2007 – 2008 it wasn’t doing as well. And so even though B2C, I still found a way to be B2B because I was helping businesses with their 401Ks and everything else get just leaning towards business.

“Coach” Frederick West: But then 2008 just all came down. And I think this happened to a lot of entrepreneurs in 2008, 2009 timeframe, where it just seemed like overnight everything dried up in financial services specifically. We have three things that we offered.

“Coach” Frederick West: Number one, we offer mortgages. Well obviously in that timeframe, mortgages were not where you want to be. The two reasons you know, one – people were no longer qualifying for the houses that they used to, but two – the banks were very hesitant to even lend money out. And so that was pretty much taken off the table.

“Coach” Frederick West: The second one was investments, and investments weren’t doing really well right there because obviously the market was crashing and so people were very scared to invest in the market. And again, I couldn’t blame them. And so that pretty much took all those options off the table.

“Coach” Frederick West: And then the third one was insurance. And ,generally speaking, you know, insurance is for those with discretionary income. Now people look at insurance as an option in their homes. And I mean we could argue whether that should be an option or not, but the reality is if you’ve got to keep your electric on or if you got to pay insurance, well the electric right now is more important because you know, your, your family needs to be able to live in the home that you have. So I understood what happened there.

“Coach” Frederick West: So I went back to my roots. I said, all right, let me just, let’s just go back to business consulting and I did some sales consulting, and I actually ended up with a smaller company that did website development and design and they were emerging. I mean they had a great, great technology, but if you know anything about web, oh never mind, Kim, you do. Yeah, web companies as far as client experience as far as client schedules, as far as you know, that there’s interpersonal communication skills. They were a little lacking.

“Coach” Frederick West: So I ended up partnering with him and while I was partnered him, I was going to a networking event and I met a gentleman who- I cannot, I cannot recall his name now, but he told me he was a business coach and I said: “Oh, OK, what does that even mean?” I, at least at that time had not been exposed to it and we’re talking about 2009. So I would say that the trend towards the idea of coaching really didn’t emerge yet. And so the, the idea of having a coach, which was different than a consultant then was still just emerging.

It was just, still wasn’t, you know, wasn’t mainstream yet. And so I said, well, you know, let’s, let’s get together, you know, I work with businesses, you work with businesses, this could be a great match. And we sat down in my office in Portsmouth and I shared with him what I did, which most people understand website design and development. They understand how that works, you know, our, I guess our application of it was a little different. We did an assessment, you know, we really try to find out what the client was trying to do as far as who they are trying to attract and so he liked our consultative approach to it, which of course is what I brought to the company, but then I asked him what he did and it was interesting because he had described something that had been on my heart pretty much since I’ve been in my parents businesses.

Again, I had witnessed the great things they did to support their prosperity and the prosperity of people around them. But I also witnessed a lot of the things they did that hurt them. And so with that appreciation, I always wanted the opportunity to help small businesses. So this is basically what you described to me. This was 10:30 second pitch, whatever you want to call it, said, well, you know, most business owners, they’re really good tradesmen, which means a really, really good at what they do. However, when it comes to the different business elements, you know, systems and processes, that’s where they struggle. And so what I do is I support them in the business, actually meant to support their overall growth and it was like the heavens opened up. It was like angels singing. It was a profound experience where, because honestly up to that point, I never heard of somebody who supported business owners in that way and I instantly fell in love my, as they fell in love to the point where I mean, I, I could barely contain myself, you know, come home to talk to my wife. And I mean at that point I think we only had seven children.. so —

Kim: Yes, yes, I heard that right..

“Coach” Frederick West: yeah, I only had seven at that time. All right. And then let me also say that during that time, you know, 2008-2009, it just happened. So I was concerned about going to my wife and saying I want to do something else other than work for the guy that I’m working for, you know, who had partnered with me, who I was. I was actually making money with that company where, you know, this, there was a lot of uncertainty all around our lives at that point. And so, I mean, I was, I was, you know, somewhat fearful, but it just, it felt right to go teller. So I, I come into the door and she sees I’m pretty excited and so she thinks, you know, I made a sale that because, you know, when you’re in sales, you get real excited and make a sale and she goes: “What’s going on? What happened?” And you know, she really wanted to celebrate with me. And the first words that came out of my mouth, I believe was: “I found it!” And that obviously caused us a kind of a state of confusion because she’s thinking, OK, sales come and she’s thinking, you know, you know, money’s coming. But yeah, exactly. And I say: “I found it” – “Excuse me. You found what?” I said. And I explained to her, you know, my experience with this guy one on one and explain to her that I didn’t get a sale that day, but I explained to her what this guy had done and how he did it. And she goes: “That is it. Absolutely!”

Now you always have those moments where you just need that confirmation that you’re heading in the right direction. And that was one of those moments for me when she supported the idea of me potentially leaving the people I was working for where we didn’t have any savings that was all gone, you know, at that point, but to go ahead and pursue this career, which neither one of us knew anything about, it was an amazing moment because she, she just, she saw the congruency and who I was. She said: “OK, yes, that is, that is what you were meant to do” So interestingly enough, I, I kept the job that I had, but I was engaging with the guy constantly. I said: “All right, so how’d you do? What’d you do?” And he had actually bought a franchise and the franchise was – Growth Coach and I explored Growth Coach and the, you know, the investment or that was, you know, it’s around $80,000 to get their franchise. And there was another one that was pretty big–

Kim: Is it really Coach, I have no idea..

“Coach” Frederick West: Oh, yeah – Growth Coach and that was back then. So I can only imagine what it is now. Right, so it’s $80,000 and then I explored some other one’s – Action Coach. Action Coach is one of the bigger ones in the nation. It was $120,000 and I said, OK, that’s a pretty big investment. Well let me go ahead and find out because I’m a huge fan of the franchise model because if they already have the systems in place and you can automate it, that means it accelerates your learning curve and accelerates your impact. You benefit from their marketing. I’m so I’m a big fan of the franchise model if it’s available, but there are conditions with the franchise model that I am not as big a fan of. One of them being the territories. So I was, you know, engaging with this person about Growth Coach and Action Coach. And unfortunately the area that I lived in at the time for 20 years were both taken and I said: “OK, so I had these established relationships. Have these people that I know here in this area. If I wanted to go coach them, what would I have to do?” And both organizations, more or less said, well you would have to go to the representative of that area in between you and then what have to work out some type of arrangement where you coach them for some type of compensation I said: “All right, so I understand that. I understand territories, but you’re telling me that at the pace of it to coach people, I already have a relationship with” God, I have a challenge with that had a big challenge with that, especially since the closest coaching availability for me was over 45 minutes to an hour away. So I could not coach anyone within, you know, within a 45 minute drive. Second Challenge I had was – I said: “Well, you know, I go in there, I build this business. If for some reason I’m not impressed with how you support us as a franchise, what are my options?” And they say: “Well, you know, you would obviously no longer be able to use our brand or any of our material” And I said: “I understand that” “So what you would also forfeit all your contracts.” I said: “You mean the leads you provide?” they to said “NO! Every lead that you have for us, you would forfeit and you would have a two year non-compete to not coach with them or interact with them.” I said: “That’s going to be a problem too because you’re talking about me taking personal relationships. I already have. I introduced them to a company and then they had a established relationship with them before you’re telling me I can’t coach them. OK.” So I went back to my wife and I said: “Babe, I don’t know what the franchise is, where we want to go on there. I’m basically paying somebody $80,000, $120,000 for them to get clients that I have personal relationships with and I can’t coach in our backyard so we may have to do this thing on our own.”

And so I began to research on – just dug in everywhere I possibly could and I was learning about what coaching was. I was learning about systems and processes. I was learned about sales processes, which I get. I had already had some experience with through my consulting and consulting years and through the entrepreneurial childhood that I had, but I was really. I wanted to. There’s a difference between theory. There’s a difference between a witness and then application to facilitation, so I’m getting that application to facilitation part of it together and from that “ESI” was born which is “Enterprise Solutions, International Meeting Business Answers for Everyone.” You see that? Yeah. It was nice and then also my wife who happens to be a trekkie, big Dork, trekkie girl who loves the idea of enterprise.

Kim: (laugh)

“Coach” Frederick West: You can’t laugh at on the thing.. shhh.. (laugh)

Kim: I can laugh though this is Positive Productivity Podcast, your wife is welcome.. (laugh)

“Coach” Frederick West: (laugh) so you can laugh all you want..

Kim: I got your back. Claire…

“Coach” Frederick West: She said, she said she’s got your back. So it was a couple years in and we had actually developed a really good reputation. We had moderate success. We are growing, we are emerging. But when, when somebody asked about a business coach in the areas that I frequented, I always came up in the initial conversations always and I actually got the attention of somebody who’s now a close personal friend who worked with the Anthony Robbins Organization and this was back in 2012 initially, maybe 11, like 2011, 2012 initially.

And you know, our relationship had, had continued to grow. And it’s interesting when you went to first see me, he wanted to size me up as a coach, right? Because he works with Anthony Robbins Organization and the Robins is one of the most impactful, successful coaching organizations in the country. And so somebody had told him that: “Hey, we’re having this coach come in, and he’s going to do this presentation on NLP!” which happens to be a big part of Anthony Robbins Model. And so he went to size me up. He’s like: “Oh, you know, some guy over here says – coach is doing NLP. Let me go check it out.” You know, I don’t know if he went to size it up to entertain himself or if he just evaluating talent, but nonetheless throughout the presentation he was impressed. He said: “Oh, you know, that’s a different spin on it, but I think you have a great grasp on their linguistic programming. That was, it was kinda cool.” And so from that butted a great relationship and we, you know, got opportunities to, to do some great things in the community twice. We did firewalk, we did one for a kind of a grand opening of a farmer’s market or local produce market and it was great to just have everybody come around and do the firewall and I really set myself up. I’ll tell this story real quick too. So you need to be careful in the positions you’ve put yourself in. So he said: “Hey, I’m going to do this firewalk. I need something to warm this up and our model is to have somebody else do this. You gotta do a warm up. And then I warmed them up to go out there. Do you have any good content?” And I said: “Yeah, I’ve got great content for it. I got this thing called, you know, tapping into the unlimited, you know, motivation through fire” or something. I can’t remember. It was a limit of fire motivation or something. I say” “It’s perfect because it’s about fires, about motivation. Let me go in there” and I go into there, I do this presentation and it did indeed do well. But I realized at the end of it, because you know, I had this great line and said: “Well listen, you guys, tonight is not about walking on fire. It’s about walking through something that sets you up beyond the fire.” And you know, Michael, who was my friend was, he loved it. He was like: “Man, that’s just, it was so good.” And I realized that that time it’s like, you know what, I’m going to have to go first.

Now. I don’t know why it did not impress upon my. I don’t know why did not come to mind that not only was I going to have to walk on fire that night, but I was going to have to walk first with projecting nothing but confidence because you know, if, if the guy who speaking about fire has hesitation in front of a fire, what does that mean for everybody else? So I was like: “Oh crap, I’m walking tonight. I’ve never done this before. I didn’t prepare myself at all, but the Idea, I’m just, I’m doing a presentation and I’ve got to show so much confidence going through that”. Everyone else is like: “Yeah! Let’s do it too!” So I’m like: “Oh, I’m walking through fire” and swagger to the front and nobody could see me sweat. And Luckily I’m in front of the line, right? So nobody could see me sweat and I, I’m really walking fire right now.

OK, OK, yes, I got conviction. Let’s do this. And uh, and I trust, you know, trust Michael, he is, he’s going to take care of me. He knows I have kids, right? And so he’s going to take care of me. And uh, he just said” “Do this” and I said: “Alright, I’ll do this” and I walked through fire. And what I was told by everybody else afterwards is that I did it with such conviction that I gave them the confidence to go through to. They had no hesitation. So evidently I performed well. But, uh, that was actually a really cool moment and this is, it’s interesting is as good as my relationship was with Michael before and after that event, he really started taking me seriously as a coach. He starts saying: “OK, you know, this is somebody that I could rely on here locally” And so we had another, you know, event come up and if somebody else wanted to do a fire walk. And so he asked me to do the same presentation there and I was, I was a little bit more prepared this time, right? Because I’ve done it before. But, you know, I always want to stretch myself because that’s what we do. So I told my wife I said: “Babe, you gotta come to because, walking through fire was a great experience. You need to do it” and I said: “You know what? I think the kids need to do it too”. Oh Yeah, oh yeah.

Kim: So we have known each other for two years, but I never heard this story before, and oh my goodness.

“Coach” Frederick West: Oh yeah, it’s awesome. So, so we’re there and uh, this one’s done it a church and I had the same presentation. We have room, you know, I think between 70 and 80 people and we’re going out there and they’ve got the drums going and of course I’m on the leader again because I’m the one that’s onstage and I’m the one that pushes them through. So I’m the example and I’ve done it before, so it’s no problem. Let me go. I go through the fire and I told my wife: “Alright, it’s your turn” So she sees me go through it and she ended up going through it and we said, you know what, what type of opportunity we’re going to have to give our kids an experience to do this again, which is not going to have that opportunity. So I can’t remember how many of our kids went through.

[inaudible]

Coach Frederick: She was four at the time. Right. So yeah, we had all of her kids at the time, all seven of them. [inaudible] So April was three or four years old, right. And she walked through fire, right. And she did it because she saw all the other siblings do it and then Michael has said: “That was the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen” because we actually had somebody who was eighty years older walk through fire that day too. And so we had an eighty year gap between the youngest and oldest walk through fire that night. It was a great, great experience and that’s kind of what closed out 2012. And so in 2012 the Robin’s organization was in transition. They had recognized that there was an underserved market when it came to business and so they were looking for business coaches, you know, coaches that had specific acumen towards business. And after that event Michael was like: “You know what, you would absolutely fit in with what we’re doing, put in an application” So I put an application with the Robin’s organization didn’t end up getting a call back right away I would say at all. But that’s OK. Right. So I didn’t get a call back and I was like” “Alright, life life will continue, life will go on” and then it was then that hit me that, you know, another underserved market is the Christian market when it comes to coaches and I just had this idea and I remember as I’m waiting for the word to come back from Robin’s, I remember reaching out to Michael and say: “Hey Michael, have you ever thought about doing, you know, like a faith based coaching company, you know, and he’s like, you know what you’re to talk about. I see a need for it” And then you know, it just, it’s one of those things that, you know, you text somebody and you’d get a lower response back about four or five months go by and Michael approaches me again and he goes: “Hey Fred, I asked you to do this in 2012 and this is the beginning of 2013 now because I actually do this last year, but I need you to put another application to Robbins” and honestly, I, I initially turned around and said: “Listen, I just – didn’t even call me last time, didn’t have the courtesy to let me know that they didn’t want my application. So why am I, why am I going to engage with them? I mean, it’s obviously, you know, I didn’t even get the eagles.” “No, listen, trust me, this is why I need you to do.” I said: “Alright” and a couple of months ago by only two, and I get a call from Michael and this was in April, and he goes: “Listen Fred, what’s going on? – Last time we did this last year, we ended up with 50 60 coaches while we were trying to build the business department. And what we found out was, even though they were great coaches, they did not speak the lingo. They didn’t have the acumen, we need for business. And so unfortunately they were great coaches that were able to do some things with them. But as far as how we want it to apply them to help these business owners, it’s not working out. We need people who have business experience” I said: “OK, that’s good to know, so why are you calling me” He goes: “This is what we’re going to bring 50 more people into this organization and we’ve already selected 30 of them. So we have 20 spots left and we have about 40 people who are eligible for these spots that we have in there and you’re one of the 40 that are good for the 20. I’m going to share something with you because this is what excluded you last time” He said: “You know, I love you. You know, as a brother known each other a long time” and you always, you always worry when somebody starts a conversation like that, right? You’re like: “Oh God, the hammers get ready” Alright he goes: “You know I love you, but we have a brand and what are you talking about? The Anthony Robbins organization, if you didn’t know, they really started with the traditional coaching things, you know, as far as coaching people through different addictions. So you had, you know, you had drug addictions, you have alcohol addictions yet smoking addictions and you had white. Right?” And at that time I weighed 340 pounds, big boy, and you know, God, you know, God bless it other than the fact that I looked fatty, I mean I look at the pictures of me now and are looking at the pictures of me then now, and I can’t believe how big I looked because I when I look into a mirror. I didn’t look that big. You know what I mean? But I mean three-inch 40 pounds, you can’t really say you’re small and they had a brand. And to bring on a coach to go on stage and any capacity looking the way I did would be a brand conflict. And that was in business. I understood that. And so what he said was: “I can’t tell you you have to lose weight, but I will tell you that was one of the considerations is how you would, you would represent the brand last time” he said: “So I can add to your application that this is a journey you’re willing to take on.” And it was right around my birthday. My birthday’s on tax day, April fifteenth. By the way, if anybody has it, you know, once a wished me, happy birthday, feel free to Look Faith First. Now go ahead. Wish me happy birthday because you have to celebrate tax day, right? Because everybody else is upset. They gotta get money. So I figured it should be something to celebrate. Big celebrate with me. But um, you know, having that moment I said it was right next to my birthday and I said: “It’s time!” you know, I was 35. I think it was just getting ready to turn 35, just turned 35, like one or two days around it. And it was just, we realized that even though at that point I had not had any serious health challenges to my weight. I mean I had some, some minor things, but you know, I wasn’t a diabetic. I didn’t have high blood pressure and made the traditional things. I came in, I was at 35 being that big. I was, I was begging for, you know, I was going to get ready to become a statistic in the wrong way.

And I said: “Alright, yeah, I’m willing to make that change.” And so I ended up partnering with the Anthony Robbins Organization and it was really interesting because I cannot speak well enough about my experience there. They are truly the best coaches in the world. Their master coaches. Um, and again, my, my friend Michael, they are exceptional. And so I went through the advanced skills training for coaches with Robin’s organization and something else happened during that summer. So I’m working in Robin’s going through coaching. I’m becoming a better coach, just overall better coach. But in 2013, the, it just seemed like the Christian faith was under attack, which is something that’s very important to me now was very, you know, it was something I paid attention to then, I have them and I didn’t take as much ownership of 2013, I call myself a Christian. I didn’t ever everything Christian, but even even with ESI, you know, enterprise solutions international, I use foundationally Christian concepts to motivate employees and create processes and to the integrity selling.

And so I did all these things, had kind of a, a route in faith, but I never really advertised it that way. I never packaged it that way. It was just like this stuff works. And in 2013 in the summer, Hobby Lobby was getting sued because they didn’t want to pay for a board of contraceptives. There are 20 contraceptives that were mandatory in Obamacare and 16 of them were non abortive and they said: “Well we have no problem paying for these 16, but the four that are board of, we refuse to pay for. We’re not saying you can’t do it. We don’t have the right to tell people what they can and cannot purchase. But our money will not be going towards the end up going to the supreme court. No.” In addition, there was a baker in Oregon that said that they chose not to make a cake for a gay wedding. And you know, people can talk about whether that was, you know, they’re right or not. I’ve seen people refuse service for far lower reasons then that you know, I mean, you know not to be funny, but even Seinfeld, you know: “No soup for you because you talked in line. Right?” And so to have something as important as their faith be the reason why. You know what, I’ll support anything you want your bar Mitzvah, your birthday. I do a superbowl party, you know, I’ll make a cake for anything you want, but I cannot support this. They got sued and lost over a hundred thousand dollars in a lawsuit and chick-filet at the time the owner, Dan Cathy who will take it over for his father Truett, was asked because this is a hot topic during that summer – What are your personal beliefs on traditional marriage? And because most people know that AAA is a Christian company, he said, well, I believe in traditional marriage, so you know, I, I know other people could do what they want, but what I see is marriage between man and a woman and even though he had never denied service based off of that, never denied hiring based on that. Never denied promotion based off of it. Even though it never impacted his business in any way because of his personal beliefs, they boycotted the stores and it was a moment of reflection for me. It was, you know: “Lord, why aren’t you protecting your people?” I mean, as far as I can tell, I don’t think you want companies to pay for abortions, and I don’t want you to. You know, you want people deny you in public and I doubt you would want people to support things that are against the foundations of our faith. We love everyone, but we could choose not to participate in the sin, but you’re letting them be attacked. You’re leaving them out there to be vulnerable. Why aren’t you doing anything? You’d be really careful because when you, when you put God out there like that, you say: “Why aren’t you doing anything?” Sometimes the answer you get back isn’t nice. My answer was: “Why aren’t you?” and what that meant at the time was. I mean, again, I’ve been blessed with this business experience in this business acumen. I’ve been blessed with the entrepreneurial childhood I had. I’ve been blessed with this additional education as far as coaching because you know, in addition to being the Robbins, I also went to the International Coaching Academy and have my certification from there, so I had all this exposure to to business and coaching, but I chose to do it in a secular way. I, in addition, had refused to say that, you know – God was the driver of my business and it was just intolerable. I said: ‘I honestly, I didn’t like the answer because I felt really bad because I was scared.” The answer is I was scared for two reasons.

“Coach” Frederick West:  Number one, I knew there would be a challenge in growing my business if I shrunk my market and to say, you’re Christian anything. Look, there are three businesses that are getting punished for it right now, so you know, I add what is already a slowly emerging market, meaning coaching, and I put another requisite on it saying faith that that puts my family at risk.

“Coach” Frederick West: In addition, I had recognized that some of the, the biggest religious leaders, they were constantly under attack. I mean, I believe in the enemy and they were constantly under attack and a lot of times they weren’t going to be able to attack the head, you know, it’s they attack the kids, they attack the family. And I said: “Man, what risk do I put my family at that point?” We, uh, let me see. I don’t think we’d had number eight. Yeah, that Claire was pregnant with number eight then. And so I went to her just like I did before and I said: “Babe, I’ll tell Ya, you know, witnessing all this.” And she witnessed it with me. It’s like she didn’t know what was going on and said: “babe, I just ask God why he was letting on this happen and the answer I got back was – why are you? And I think I’m supposed to open up a coaching firm for Christian business owners.” And again, you know, you need those little confirmations life. My wife gave me just a, a, an answer that still resonates with me, which is: “That, that’s it. That’s what was missing.”

And so I’m expecting you’ll have going into there, kind of a discussion kind of: “Ooh, that’s a big decision.” You don’t kind of know a little bit of a back and forth of: “Why I will come to this decision?” But instead it was just like before when I came home all excited, you know: “I found it.” She goes: “That’s what was missing.” I said: “What do you mean?” She goes: “For the longest time I knew you were supposed to be doing something different and when you brought coaching, I absolutely knew that’s what you were supposed to do. But these last five years, something was missing. I didn’t know what it was and this is it, this is what’s missing, this is what you need to do.” And again, very shocked. I said: “OK, well, what does that look like? And so we had to think of a name and we had to say, OK, you know, what, what’s, what’s the foundation of who we are? What’s the foundation of our beliefs, you know, foundation to our beliefs is that the growing, emerging, successful, prosperous Christian market is the best thing for this world. Because the things we’re asked to do with our charity, things asked to do with our example, the things we’re asked to do with our impact, that’s how we changed the world, is to have this thriving Christian business community. And so how did we get this thriving Christian business community? Well, we’d need to Christian consumer community to take ownership of it and recognize that their dollar has power at every dollar they have and they spend it in a place with a Christian business that the Christian business has called the do the right thing with that because we know plenty of other businesses that have no calling and don’t do the right things.”

And so we came up with – Look Faith First, kind of a buy local. That was the whole idea because I had help I locals at that point. We’re just here regionally and I was like, you know: “You can still treat it like a buy local because what you’re doing is you’re asking people to change their buying behaviors in a way to support a cause while our buy local is by Christian. So Look Faith First, give a fellow Christian brother or sister an opportunity to gain your business and the under-perform, at least you gave them the opportunity or even if you didn’t give them to a point where you gave me the opportunity, but you just consider them just just being open to being intentional with every dollar you had to make a profound change. And so Look Faith First. I actually, it’s interesting. I believe in like 2015 was about a year after that decision. 2015 is when you and I had connected in. Was it 2014?

Kim: No, March of 2013, or 15, I mean, right….

“Coach” Frederick West: Yup 2015, that was about a year after we had you know, connected where I’m still forming what that foundation look like. And as a result, you’ve seen what’s happened. I mean we just, they’re just all kinds of things that we’re now able to offer. I mean, it’s amazing. You know, how much clarity comes to you and how much conviction comes to you and how much certainty comes to you when you’re more authentic now. And I really felt that authenticity as far as – this is who we are supposed to be, – this is who I am supposed to be and my clients felt it. I mean, you know, we’ve, we’ve had clients who have, who have benefited in massive ways through it because you know, I’m able to talk about things about, for example, like purpose. And that’s really why I love the idea of your show. I mean, you guys talking about purpose law here, at least you talk a lot about purpose here and it’s having that purpose and aligned with that purpose and having conviction towards that purpose that allows you to be a little bit bolder and allows you to be a little bit more creative and be a little bit more explorative. I think that’s a word. So, you know, it’s, I don’t know, I mean–

Kim: –waiting for Claire to tell you if it’s the right word… (laugh)

“Coach” Frederick West: Yeah. She just, she just smiled so I’m going to get away with it. So. But yeah, I mean it’s, it’s amazing once you’re that in light of what you’re supposed to do because things just seem to come easy. The things that you say there’s no hesitation in it and you feel you feel good in it and you feel genuine and feeling genuinely feeling authentic and feel purpose driven is just an exceptional felling. So central experience. So I’m sorry my. My story was long, but you asked a good question.

Kim: No I really hope through Christ all Things are Possible it was inspiring to the audience where Christian or non non religious or any other, of any other religious belief that being true and not hiding from your face while you’re running your business is really beneficial. And I’m going to jump in here Coach with a little bit of the story of how we met, what you were looking for, marketing support as you were releasing your book God’s Business. This is going to be in the show notes, which again, listeners you can find at TheKimSutton.com/PP070. So we started working together, but one I remember one of the most poignant is that a good word, a questions. When we first spoke, you asked me about my beliefs and this was something that I had just realized, I needed to be more honest about myself. And while I hadn’t brought it into my business yet, I did let you know that I was Christian. And what had led to that was just two months prior to us meeting, I had had the twins (in January). In March, which was the month when we met (in March of 2015), I came back to work. I love what I did, but I came back with no clients, no team, and I was scared out of my mind. I didn’t know where I was going into business. And I spoke with my husband who is my biggest supporter as you know. And I told him I was scared because I wasn’t getting jobs. He said don’t ask God for jobs, ask Him for an opportunity. And that’s what I did. I think it was probably within about a week that we met, we started working together. Well, maybe it all happened at the same time that our relationship went both ways, me supporting you and you supporting me, and one of the earliest questions that you asked me was: “Where’s God in Your Business?” Because he wasn’t there at all and I explained that I was afraid about offending people with my faith and I realized very quickly that I couldn’t. That was not fair to God and to myself to be afraid of my faith because if I’m really going to be faithful than I can’t be afraid of it. And that weekend I shared my faith on my website, right on SuttonStrategicSolutions.com, which I realize is not normally the website that I’m sharing here on positive productivity podcast. But that’s where all my business surfaces are. But right on the about page, I put that – Through Christ all Things are Possible. I realized that my motto needed to go onto the about page Through Christ all Things are Possible and immediately the business started turning around and you saw that growth. It was almost scary growth because while he was becoming a lot more aware of my faith and how to bring God into the business, I wasn’t really enlightened yet with my true purpose in what I needed to be doing. So while I was bringing in – to be totally honest – way too many clients and I grew my team way too fast – I was taking on projects that weren’t aligned with me and weren’t aligned with the company. So that is the journey that you have seen until I would say mid 2016, end of 2016 when I really became clear on what I was doing and it constantly amazes me. So now here we are almost two years later, your book has published and again that’s going to be in the show notes and Look Faith First, it’s just blossomed. I mean your Facebook page has grown from zero to how many thousand people.

“Coach” Frederick West: We have over 3000 now. And you were a big part of that. So I’m going to give you credit where credit’s due. But yeah, I mean you were, you were a big part of that. So yeah, we’re up to 3,000 people on that now, you know, where we’re sending out to a list of 6 – 7,000 something like that. So yeah, I mean we’re, we’re seeing, we’re seeing a great amount of opportunity and exposure and I would say impact coming from, from what we do now. Absolutely.

Kim: Just in the last month, listeners, we’re recording this in January, but it’s still going to be relevant for months and months to come in. If it’s God’s purpose for or just in the last month, the purpose development call through Look Faith First has has re launched. Do you want, can you share about that?

“Coach” Frederick West: Sure. And so you know, I’ll talk about the purpose behind it. No. At first, you know, I actually had had the same conflicts that most other people do when they combine their faith in their business, which is, you know, when you put your ministry as part of your business, you now in a sense have extra duties or responsibilities that go with it, have responsibilities and duties to my family. But now since my business administrator, I responsibilities and duties to make the impact that God want us to make. And so, you know, I remember talking to my wife and saying: “Babe, I just, I feel like, you know, most people can’t afford what we do, but they need the impact now. Most people can’t. But I’ve been given this gift for God and so for me to, to limit this gift, he’s given me to only the people who can afford me. I just, I don’t think that’s fair to the ministry. I don’t think that’s fair as far as being a good steward of the gifts. So I’ve got to find something” and it’s so, you know, we had talked about your getaway sessions sessions here and I actually took on a couple, you know, what I called charity cases where you know, there are people that are most definitely in need and didn’t have the financial resources to be able to afford us, but you know, we will lead to what we do with other big impact. But unfortunately, no, it was interesting. It was their habits that put them in that situation. So the coaching, the things that are having direct coaching, they still were not applying the things they need to apply and so they need more coaching than just the select of support I was giving them and I was like: “OK, I can’t take on too many of these because it’s taken away from clients that you know, that support my now family of 10.”

So last year we did kind of an initial soft launch of the PVC call with the idea that if I were to offer a call and not charge for it, I just say: “You know what, God, if you want somebody to benefit from the gifts you’ve given me, just bring them to the call. I will give a 110% everything I’ve got to that call so that they’re able to benefit for, they are able to, to be blessed by it. But at the same time, this allows me the opportunity to do the things I need to do to support my family with this ministry also.” And uh, we did a couple of calls and there was again, there was something missing. And I think there were several things, you know, one, I think we had some technology challenges, how we were able to promote it and everything else. I think we’re really limited with that. Second, I feel like that, you know, the language of different things that we’re using. The vision was, was very large, but it wasn’t big enough like I didn’t know what we were trying to accomplish and I didn’t know what that would look like, you know what I mean? I knew where to look like on an individual basis, but on a community basis and a large basis, I wasn’t really sure what it was supposed to look like and that kind of came through where it was almost for a person rather than an entire community. And since then, you know, things like path, they’ll have really calm where know that has to do with purpose, action, talent and harmony. And we say, OK, you know, those are the things that we’re trying to accomplish as a community. You know, we have a community that has a definite path, you know, passionate and they know what their purposes and they live with purpose and they take action when they’re supposed to take action and they leverage and utilize the talents they’ve been given and they look and seek this harmonious relationship between their faith and their business. Man that the world changes right there. And so now that we have that focus on, I said, OK, we need to resurrect that call. And something else that comes to me during that time, which I had researched several years ago, which were the seven cultural mountains that influence society and I said: “Another challenge is – I’m going to help people with business and it’s great to help people with business, but that only serves a limited amount of people at all, only has a limited impact. We need to find a way to have a bigger impact.”

And so I looked at the seven cultural mountains and I said, you know, my wife and I quite often are approached with: “When are you guys going to have the show?” You know, of course when you have 10 kids right there, like, oh yeah, there’s that, uh, that family that, you know. Yes, yes. The Duggar’s and yeah, they don’t ever know the name of it. They didn’t prepare us to John and Kate plus eight. Well, thank God, right. You know, they always say you need to, you know, you guys need to do a show like this, you need to do something like this. And I was like: “You know, why, why don’t we do something for the home too, I mean I married 17 years, which I didn’t think that much of an abnormality, but it is evidently abnormal least for my generation to be submitted to the same woman for 17 years. I do have 10 children. We do have a single income that comes into a home. So we had to be good stewards of the gifts that we have. I am somebody who had lost a hundred pounds when I was with Robin’s. So I really, there are lot of personal experience as a personal success that I had that could contribute to the community in a personal way.” So said: “You know, this year when we launch it, let me go ahead and do both. Let me go ahead and have a business call. And the business call is the third Wednesday of, or sorry, third Tuesday of every month. And you can go to LookFaithFirst.com, go to the calendar and see, know that call and get the log-in details there. But, um, you know, we do on the third Tuesday we do that. And then on the second Thursday we do the PDC home call, which has to do everything about the home. It’s a family relationships, fitness, finance and faith in the home. So you know, with our, our first call being last week got a great great response from it, you know, with your support, even though we, we found that the best part of that call was actually the coaching moment. So we split up the call in two ways, you know, one way we have this instructional and it’s good to give people ideas and tools and things like that to support themselves. But the second half of the call is a coaching moment where we take somebody from the audience and I coached them live and I will tell you it’s a little bit of anxiety around it because there, there are certain things you have to do their one, it’s, you got to truncate at coaching session. So you bring what you know for a lot of people could be an hour, even 45 minutes. You bring it down to 20 minutes and there’s, you know, you want to be able to do that because of the other people that are on the call. So there was that concern in addition, you have to provide value for the person volunteering because you’d hate for them to put themselves out there like that. It’d be vulnerable and not received value for that. And then the third thing is it had to be relevant had to be relevant there are lights on there. And so doing that. There was, you know, there’s concern of – what are we opening up when we did this, but the one we did last week, from what I’ve heard from everybody, it was the best part of the call, you know, not that they didn’t appreciate the instruction, they liked it, but it just, it felt very real and very authentic and very relatable to everyone on the call to hear that coaching moment. And so we’re excited to continue that part going forward. We’re excited because tonight is our PDC business call because it is the third Tuesday in March when this ends up coming out. I mean, you know, we, you know, we expect to have it on the second Thursday and the, the third Tuesday then, and uh, it will really excited about the prospect of it and the impact it’s going to happen.

Kim: I know you’re, you’re hoping to share previous calls in evergreen form in the future, but I do have to share that. I think the most Aha moment for me during last week’s Home Call was the fact that my husband and I are not spending really any time with each other without technology except when we are on our way to sleep.

Every other single moment during our day has some type of technology or children and in those rare moments and we only have half the kids that we do. But in those rare moments when we get out, we still even have the smart phone on the table and it’s not meant to be disrespectful to each other, but it has just become a part of our life.

So coach, I just want to circle back around for a moment because I remember when we started talking originally, one of my big Aha moments with you was that as, as a Christian business owner, that does not mean that we cannot, number one – be profitable in our business. And number two – it doesn’t have to be a small profit, you know, God has bestowed gifts upon us to grow our business as you know, as large as we can and hopefully give back to, to our community and to the world in general. But there’s numerous times in the Bible, you know, that it’s OK to make money. It’s OK to be wealthy. Can you address that for a moment?

“Coach” Frederick West: Sure, sure. And so, I mean, this was a great conflict for a lot of business owners, a lot of people who, you know, who are challenged with that harmonious relationship. And that’s why path and part of that is harmony between faith and business is because this is a great conflict. And we, we, we call them the misguided beliefs and there are three of them are.

Number one – has to do with scarcity. You know, there’s a belief that if I have others have not, and as Christians we’re not supposed to take away from others. And so there’s a concern that if I, if I, if I take too much, I acquire too much that I’m taking away from others and that’s just, that goes against who I am and so I don’t want to take too much and we’re always very hesitant about growing our businesses.

And then you have – the belief about profitability and so we’re not supposed to be profitable, you know, and what we do is we live our profitability, but unfortunately when we limit our profitability, in essence we are limiting our impact. I mean there are so many charities in the world that need money and I know plenty of charities that get a lot of money that don’t do the right things with it.

“Coach” Frederick West: I mean, you know, I won’t get political here, but let’s just say a lot of our political folks, they’re the ones that have the charities to told to do a lot with it. But you know, you know, you have these, you know, the Catholic Charities and the YMCA and a lot of these charities that genuinely try to do the right things for our communities and our families know you have a flu pantries at churches and you have mission trips. And I mean who, I mean I can go on and on and on and on about all these, you know, salvation army, I mean just all these things are out there and they need money or they need to know the things that cost money.

“Coach” Frederick West: And so if we, if we limit our profitability, where do we accumulate the resources that we need to make that impact?

“Coach” Frederick West: So another thing that really changed that for me was, you know, if you read throughout the old and New Testament, good discipleship and good honor to God is almost always rewarded with prosperity. You know, it’s really interesting, you know, when the, when the biggest stories that represent that is – Solomon. So with Solomon was recruited as a young boy, he was asked, you know, to tell God what he wished from God. You know how he wanted God to bless his kingdom, and he said: “You know, Lord, I only wished for the wisdom to do right by you. I only wish for the wisdom to do right by the blessings that you get, and the opportunity that I’m getting” and God was so impressed by that. He said: “You know, you could’ve asked me to destroy your enemies as many of his fathers had been done before you could have asked me for great wealth as many of his followers had done before, but instead, because he asked for wisdom” God said: “Not only will give you the wisdom that you see, but I will give you the, you know, I will give you the favor and the wealth and all the things that come with it. You could do the right things with that wisdom.” And that story always stuck out with because I’m thinking: “OK, you know, this is where God shows that wealth is not a bad thing.

“Coach” Frederick West: Profitability is not a bad thing. He just wants us to be wise with it. He wants us to be good stewards of it.” See, even even with the stories that talk about the rich man, you know, going into hell and everything else, it was always because of what they did with their wealth. You know, they talked about, you know, with one word and said, you know, it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, you know, with that, you know, that’s an often quoted verse. Well, the reason why is because the story they told about the rich we had before that was he was a man who wouldn’t even give his scraps office table to the poor and had no appreciation for the struggles of the poor and lived a rich life, but a selfish life. That’s why he had the challenge. Not because he is rich, but because of the behavior that came with it.

“Coach” Frederick West: You know, they talk about, you know, money is the root of all evil and that is another misquoted scripture. What is this? The love of money is the root of all evil because the love of money creates more pursuit of money, which creates a selfishness which we were just talking about. And so, you know, I guess one of the foundational things of, Look Faith First and really of what we’re trying to do as a community, say wealth and profitability is a great thing as long as we’re hyper intentional with it, as long as we honor it and treat it as the gift that God gave us and do the right things with it. When we acquire it, he wants to give it to us, uh, in abundance. If that’s what we’re going to do with it. We just need to have the discipline and the relationship that makes sure that we do.

Kim: That’s also huge and I know this is something that we have discussed in my coaching because I, for the longest time, and I have to say that this year I think it’s finally switched, but I’m not going to say that it’s a 100% switch, but my goals are purpose focused. Finally, rather than the profit.

“Coach” Frederick West: That’s a big, big transition. I mean, you do the right things and you’re purpose driven. You will be taken care of. Now I’m not gonna say it’s not going to be a bumpy road. It’s going to come with turns. You’re going to have those hills like we were talking about before, you know where you’re riding your bike and you ride your bike up that first hill and you’re feeling great and he started going down the hill and you just ride it rather than keep pedaling, you’re gonna end up at the bottom of the hill and you’re going to struggle going back up, but you ride through it and you keep that momentum. The next hill becomes easier in the next hill becomes easier. Then at some point the hills, you know, they, they just become part of the journey and it really just not have the effect on you that that first hill does. So no, I mean that’s again, that’s a great, great place to start and that’s what I, you know, that’s one of the three foundational things that I talk about with motivation as far as my coaching. Is there three elements, and we’ve talked about this. I mean you, you’ve been integral in helping me at least design the tools to supplement this, but it starts with purpose. It goes to the belief and it goes to the environment that you’re in and so you know, purpose is one of the foundational, if not the most foundational part of all of it because with purpose, it gives us permission to do things that sometimes aren’t logical but field right in and have the impact in the indigo with grace and to go with blessing and to go with favor and say: “You know what? I’m doing the right things” and it’s interesting when you start doing the right things, even though sometimes those right things don’t really make a lot of sense. You receive gifts in favor and opportunity as a result of it and you just really can’t explain it other than it’s a confirmation that yes, you’re doing the right things right now.

Kim: Since we started working together. All the different communities that I hadn’t known were out there. Maybe they weren’t even out there when we started working together, but I have seen so many big people become more transparent about their faith and their business and in general, I’ve seen a lot more people become a lot more transparent about all aspects of their life. And their business struggles on social media and it’s been very refreshing to finally see people be more authentic and less scared about being, you know, huge successes in boasting all the time rather than really being who they are and being proud to show who they are. And I hope that’s something that, you know, listeners, regardless of what your spiritual background is, I hope that this is definitely something that you hear out of our episode today is transparency and authenticity is very important in your business, no matter what your background and you can follow your passion and still be profitable and if you’re a Christian or Jewish or whatever your religious background is, and you find a way to bring it all together into your business. Good for you.

“Coach” Frederick West: So what else can I do to support your community? And um,

Kim: You can share where people can find you online, and this will be on the show notes.

“Coach” Frederick West: Sounds great. So obviously our website, which is pretty, the easiest way to get ahold of us would be at www.LookFaithFirst.com are we also have a Facebook page which we mentioned before, which is, you know, it’s a lot more active now. We have a lot of great content coming on there. You will probably see our YouTube page and because we’re doing the PDC call twice a month at the very least we see regular updates with those, but we see opportunities for even more videos. For example, you know we did a 12 days of excellence to end last year and we got some very positive reviews on that as far as setting people up for success and excellence in 2017. So yeah so just look up – Look Faith First then where you’ll find us in a multitude of ways.

Kim: Coach, thank you so much for coming on today. I have loved hearing all the different parts of your story that I didn’t even know about and enjoyed hearing even the parts of your story that I hadn’t heard before. It’s been outstanding.

“Coach” Frederick West: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. In a final thought for everyone. You know, I in my book when I, when I signed my books for people and at the end of every email I have a statement that I share with people to, to really, you know, move them on their way with, you know, fulfillment and happiness. And that’s, you know, I urge everyone to live, work and love with purpose. It’s the secret of it all.