About Us

TotalThriver was launched by Chris Fees in January 2012, with a vision of providing tools and resources for living a thriving life.  We focus specifically on the areas of fitness, finances, and faith, exploring the many relationships and interdependencies of these topics.

Chris is married to his beautiful and amazing wife, Michelle, with whom he leads his two young children.  Chris and Michelle reside in Shawnee, Kansas and attend Calvary Baptist Church in Lenexa, KS.  Chris has been a deacon at Calvary since January 2011.

Chris’s love of fitness began as a very young child, when his dad organized races between Chris and his two siblings, with staggered start lines based on age.  The spirit of competition fostered there served Chris well in the years to come, as he competed in various sports including tennis, football, baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, swimming, cross-country, judo, and rugby.  Chris attended Iowa State University, where he played rugby and continued to focus on strength training.  In 2011, Chris learned of CrossFit and began adopting many of its principles into his fitness regimen.

The advice given on this site should not be taken as professional, since Chris is not a personal trainer.  However, his credibility for the topic comes from the results he has achieved for himself.  These include a 235-pound clean and jerk, a 405-pound deadlift, and 111 burpees in 7 minutes.  Chris recently competed in the CrossFit Open, a fitness comptetition with 66,000 participants, and placed in the top third of competitors within his region.  Chris enjoys living an active lifestyle full of fun activities like wakeboarding, as shown in the following photo!

The financial teaching shared on this site is derived from many incredible authors and teachers on the subject, including Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, Don Fees, Curt Richards, Dan Miller, and many others.  Chris and Michelle have also discovered many of these principles personally, working to become free from their student loans, car loans, and credit card debt during the period from 2008 to 2010.  Today, they are debt free except the mortgage, which they are working very hard to get paid off!

We hope you are strengthened and encouraged by what you read here at TotalThriver, and if there’s any way we can be of service, please don’t hesitate to contact us by commenting on any page or post.