From Insurance Agent to Podcasting Powerhouse: Cliff Ravenscraft's Journey of Transformation and Coaching Mastery

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Welcome back to Narrowing the Divide.

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Today's guest is Cliff Ravenscraft.

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I have had the pleasure of being connected to Cliff for a while and seeing some different things in his journey, and I've had the pleasure of working with him.

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As he's involved in coaching, I hired him to work with me on a few things that I was doing and to further develop my own coaching.

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So, cliff, there's your brief introduction.

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I'd love to welcome you to the show.

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Thank you for joining me.

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Well, Dan, I am super delighted to be a guest on your show.

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Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.

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I'm delighted to have this conversation.

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I'm looking forward to it.

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Hey, cliff, so I mentioned briefly, but you've been around the world, so to speak, with regards to the marketing side of things and now in the coaching side of things and marketing specifically, you were previously the podcast answer man.

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Now you're the mindset answer man.

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I would love for you to share for those who may have never heard of you or never met you.

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I would love for you to share for those who may have never heard of you or never met you.

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I'd love for you to share a bit about your journey to where you are today.

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Sure.

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So my journey professionally, I think, started before I became the podcast answer man.

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I was working as an insurance agent in a family-run insurance agency owned by my mom and dad, and it was started by my grandfather in 1937, I worked for them for 12 years.

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I was a licensed insurance agent, sold auto, home, commercial, life, health and business insurance Well, commercial and business are the same but anyway, sold all the insurances.

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I was incredibly wildly successful in that career and I had as much job security as any person on this planet could ever possibly dream of having and my dad has since retired.

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But if I would have stayed I would have taken over that agency.

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I was next in line and the personal income from doing that would be at least a million dollars a year Pretty easy.

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So I didn't stay in the family business.

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I gave up all of that job security so that I could pursue what I felt most called to do in this world, which, ironically, was not to be a podcast consultant.

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So what happened was at the same for 12 years, while I was an insurance agent, I was also for a decade an associate pastor of a church and I have always had a desire to be of service to others, to encourage others, to motivate, inspire others to live their lives and break free from anything they feel called to do that's holding them back from creating whatever it is they feel called to create in this world.

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And as a result of that, I was playing around with some technology back in 2005 called podcasting.

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It had just been a few months since it was invented.

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Being an early adopter of technology, I'm like, hey, it sounds like a lot of fun to create some content.

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And I gave it a little shot and my wife and I podcasted about a television show called Lost and by our third episode we had 27,000 subscribers.

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And now I had been blogging.

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Of course, before it was ever called blogging, I was hand coding HTML files and I called it my online web journal once the internet was invented and I had been blogging for more than a decade and I'd never had more than 300 people in a single month ever read or hear anything that I'd ever written up to that point.

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And here I am putting out a podcast episode about a television show and 27,000 people now have heard of this guy in Northern Kentucky.

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As a result of that, I started getting lots of emails related to some of the things that we were talking about in the show.

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So the show talked about had episodes like All Good Cowboys have Daddy Issues and there was Tabula Rasa starting over with A Clean Slate.

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There was Faith Elements and my wife and I would talk about how we are resonating with the various different elements and topics of the show.

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Emails started pouring in of the show.

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Email started pouring in.

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I started out initially responding and replying to every single email with a heartfelt response because the things they were sharing were very heartfelt.

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And eventually I got to the place where a lot of people were asking the same kind of questions and it occurred to me why don't I create other podcasts not devoted to loss to answer these questions?

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So over time I launched a few other podcasts, like Family from the Heart, business, tech Weekly, social Media, serenity, encouraging Others Through Christ, pursuing a Balanced Life.

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I mean, there have been a number of shows that I've created over the years and eventually it occurred to me, as an insurance agent, what would life be like if I could do this for a living instead of selling insurance, instead of taking over the family business, because this was the most life-giving thing I'd ever done in my life, and it was.

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For a while I thought I'd be a head pastor one day, but then I realized that I was of greater service and greater ministry to my community through my work as an insurance agent.

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So I had thought, well, maybe I'm just destined to be an insurance agent, but that's, by the way, head pastor of a church would limit me to a few hundred people because I was in the Nazarene church Like 500 people would have been a megachurch.

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Hundred people because I was in the Nazarene church Like 500 people would have been a mega church.

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As an insurance agent, I was limited to about 15,000, 16,000 people in my local community that were clients.

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But within my first year of podcasting, I'm reaching over 100,000 people with all of the different shows that I've launched and I'm like wow, I'm having much greater impact, much greater influence.

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This is what I would love to do.

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I would love to sit here and create content.

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I would love to answer questions.

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I'd love to share encouragement and just be that voice in people's lives to help them break free from the things holding them back.

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So here's what I want you to know is that that was always the dream, that was always the goal, that was my goal before I started in insurance.

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It was my goal before I became the podcast answer man.

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So eventually, in January 2008, I went full-time self-employed related to the podcast stuff.

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One of the streams of income, one of the brands, one of the podcasts that I had was called Podcast Answer man and I marketed myself as a technical consultant and coach.

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I can help you learn how to launch a podcast successfully, make it sound great all of that good stuff.

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I'm your guy.

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But I was also generating income from advertising and sponsors and things of that nature from our other content, and we also had a premium membership where people were paying $10 a month to have access to bonus shows that we would create.

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Over time it became very clear to me that the most profitable thing that was available was the podcast consulting and coaching, and over time I began to maximize the efficiency and the profitability of that side of the business and it got to the place where creating all that content became a little bit of a distraction from the amount of time that I could be helping people launch their shows and earning all this extra income.

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But, quite frankly, I was making lots of money.

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I definitely got to the place where my business was generating like a half million dollars a year and there's no overhead because it's just me teaching people online million dollars a year and there's no overhead because it's just me teaching people online.

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And I've personally trained more than 40 000 people how to launch a podcast.

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I have made tons of money, but I've lost my ability to do that thing that I most felt called to do.

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Quite frankly, I got to the place where I felt like answering people's technical questions related to podcasting was no different than you calling me up and saying hey, I know that you mailed me my proof of insurance cards last week.

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I am at the courthouse.

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I forgot to bring them.

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Can you fax them to me?

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And it's like.

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There were so many times where I'm like why am I sitting here faxing people proof of insurance cards?

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Is that really what I'm getting paid to do?

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And the other one was why am I sitting here answering this question about a buzzing noise in the back of somebody's voice?

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This is something other people could easily answer for them, troubleshoot for them.

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And there are such deeper issues that I want to be of support and encouragement to people with and that's why, ultimately, I ended up leaving Podcast Answer man behind and doing the mindset and business strategy coaching that I do today.

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Well, that explains so much, and I can see how that ties directly into what you most want to be doing in the world doing and answering those questions or fulfilling those requests, so to speak, that that didn't align with where you felt most called to be in the world.

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So that's fascinating.

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I've learned so much about you and that journey that I didn't know before.

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So thank you for sharing all of that.

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I'm curious, in just that bit of your journey and the shift into coaching, what have been some of the biggest challenges that have come up and your own personal growth as a result?

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Yeah, Well, the first thing that I feel led to say is the question about the shifting into coaching.

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I believe my shift into coaching began when I was 18 years old.

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So if you were to ask me, cliff, when did you start coaching?

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I was 18 years old.

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I was leading small group Bible studies.

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18 years old, I was leading small group Bible studies and I had, every week, a group of young adults who gathered together and we would talk about real issues of life.

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And even at 18 and 19 years old, I sat down with people and in two different cases I was called in to go and talk to somebody who had just told somebody else that they were about ready to kill themselves.

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So I mean, coaching has always been a part of my life and as a decade as a minister and then even as an insurance agent, talking with people on the phone whose daughter just got killed in a car accident, whose husband just committed suicide.

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I mean there's a lot of coaching I've been involved in over the world and I also want to suggest that, as the podcast answer man, the real value that I was doing was helping people overcome their fear of what would people think of me if I went out and told the world I'm a thought leader on a topic when there are so many other people who are more qualified and who have way more experience than I do, helping them overcome their limiting beliefs of imposter syndrome and also just all the other things.

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So I don't know that there was a transition into coaching per se, but what I will tap into in your question is what struggles have I faced along the way and that is the struggles that I faced along the way was through this whole journey is money, mindset, related items.

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That was a very big issue in the early days of my full-time self-employment back in 2008, 2009, 2010, early 2010,.

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I really struggled with some limiting beliefs about money.

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I believe that the more difficult the work that you do is, the more you earn, and so the opposite of that is, if what you're doing is easy, then you shouldn't get paid as much.

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Problem is is everything I was doing was easy and nothing I was doing was hard.

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So what did I do Subconsciously to earn money?

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I made everything that I was doing as difficult as I could make it.

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Wow, all right.

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So the other thing is is the let's see here the let's say the more difficult, the harder you work.

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Harder you work, the more you should get paid.

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The longer the hours you put in, the more you earn.

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So there are all of these beliefs about money, and every one of them manifested themselves in causing me to work around the clock and not charging enough and to be a responsible, profitable business owner.

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And so I really struggled.

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My first year in full-time self-employment I only made $11,000 in that income.

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We made more than that in the business.

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It paid for health insurance for my family and it paid for my CPA and it paid for all the business overhead, which is not much, but still it paid all of that and I actually wrote myself a paycheck for the final three months of the year and the total net after taxes was $11,000.

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But that's a whole lot less than I was making as an insurance agent.

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Yeah, and that first year I worked 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, without a single day off for the first nine months, wow.

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And then I decided to start taking Sundays off during the last three months of the year, in 2008.

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But the only way I could convince my employer to give me that one day a week off, my employer absolutely said listen, you're going to have to increase the number of hours that you work the other six days oh, by the way, my employer was me.

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So because my employer had all of these beliefs about money and you're going to be taking a day off, you need to add those up that you know those eight hours need to be tacked on to the other six days of the week.

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So as long as you're going to work that out, that's fine.

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Well, because of all of the emotional turmoil and the roller coaster I went on, I had some of the highest highs emotionally because I was doing the most satisfactory work in the world, the most fulfilling work.

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People's lives are being transformed.

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I have letters from people from all over the world, thank you cards, postcards.

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It's amazing what all started to roll in.

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But I also had the lowest lows.

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I was a single sole income earner.

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My wife was a stay-at-home mom and we had three young kids and I'm responsible for everything financially Wow.

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And I wasn't bringing in money for nine months Now from my career as an insurance agent.

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I had some savings and I had some bonus for the final year that I worked and then I tapped into a little bit of my retirement fund, but eventually it just got to the place where it's like, hey, you know, I've got to find some way to be profitable here.

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At the end of my first year, I celebrated with a 24-hour nonstop podcast marathon.

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I recorded 24 podcast episodes in 24 hours and I celebrated the end of that marathon in the hospital, where I almost died.

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I was there for two weeks.

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I had completely destroyed my gallbladder.

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I had gallstones all throughout, one stuck in my cystic duct, and I literally almost died, and it was because of all the stress that I was under, and it's because I had absolutely no clue about how to control or work with my emotions.

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I'd never been taught any of that stuff, so I didn't have the mindset understanding that I have today.

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I had a faith.

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I had a very strong belief system, and my belief system had hard Protestant work ethic involved, and I was an incredibly driven person.

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I was an intelligent person not emotionally intelligent, though, and that's the key.

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And so for me, while I'm great at sales, while I'm great at all of these different things, I'm good with technology.

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I have lots of skills, lots of talents, lots of abilities.

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Boy, you put all that together and I will out.

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Hard work anyone and I will succeed in ways that you never dreamed possible.

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But what I had never been taught is how to process my emotions, how to deal with limiting beliefs and all these things that are holding me back.

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I wasn't even aware that I had limiting beliefs.

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I thought my beliefs were pretty rock solid and were things that everyone should have the belief system that I have and until I realized that it's my beliefs and my lack of ability to understand how to process my emotions, my lack of ability to understand how to process my emotions that's what almost put me in the grave, almost.

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So I came out of that with a desire.

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It's like okay, I know for a fact, I'm on the right path when it comes to being full-time self-employed.

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I'm not going to go back to insurance, I'm not going to go back to being an employee.

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I do know that, but I know that I can't keep operating the way that I am now, and so I am absolutely committed to learning how other people succeed in this entrepreneurial world.

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And so I began to study and grow, and that's when I started reading books.

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Up till that point in my life, up until 2009,.

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Books up till that point in my life, up until 2009,.

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I'd probably read about eight to 10 books in my entire lifetime.

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Now, one of them was the Bible and I had tons of scriptures memorized and I'd read that thing several times through, but wasn't really a reader per se.

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But once I began this personal development journey, I began to consume books like nothing else.

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I began to study, think and Grow Rich over and over and over again.

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I immediately decided to participate in the Mastermind Principle and I had a client at the time.

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His name is Pat Flynn.

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Client at the time.

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His name is Pat Flynn, and in October 2010, I asked him if he wanted to be in a mastermind group with me.

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We started what is today known as the Green Room Mastermind and we just got off of our call just a few minutes ago.

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We've been meeting every single week since October 2010.

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Wow, so the mastermind group principle has radically transformed my life.

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I began to work with coaches and mentors, took courses, just studied everything that I could possibly study to learn how to grow personally and professionally, and most of it was all about strategy, technique and skill.

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And over time, I began to understand the emotional side of it, the mindset side, but that probably picked up in about 2016, when I was introduced to Tony Robbins, I was already having my mindset shift and I was already starting to see the world in a different way, but I still had not had anybody really tell me about what emotional intelligence is and is it possible to actually change how you feel in the given moment, and is it possible for you to change your beliefs so that in the future you're not triggered into those habitual negative emotional states, that stuff?

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I'd never heard anything like that, and if they were in the books that I was reading, it's kind of like that thing where when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

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I'm sure the teacher was there in some of those books, but it just wasn't resonating with me.

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I wasn't ready for it.

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But in June of 2016, my wife and I went to a Tony Robbins event down in Dallas, texas.

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Unleash the Power Within.

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We both walked on fire.

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That was amazing and we were introduced to the fact that you can control your emotional state with your physiology, your focus and your meaning or language, and we adopted all sorts of new techniques, strategies and frameworks that allowed us to explore our own reality, that we can actually create the way that we perceive the world, and I began to shift my identity, I began to shift my beliefs and as I did that, my entire experience of life changed.

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And after I was introduced to that, I'm like, okay, I now know how to succeed in business, but I also now know how to succeed in the emotional life.

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And really, for me, that's true success the emotional life and the end of suffering.

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And to realize that, wow, no, I don't need this constant chasing, one goal after the next goal, after the next goal, just to get a quick hit every now and then.

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I could literally wake up and have every single day be a life filled with peace, love, joy and abundance.

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And that's what I want my life to be like and I want to help others if they're interested.

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So powerful, cliff, and I resonate with so much that you've shared in there and in my own journey, I'd say you know a few years difference, of course, because I was in the military until 2017.

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But talk about being blindsided with things like limiting beliefs.

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I had no idea after being institutionalized in that experience and I use those words carefully but it's really institutionalized because I've been on this self-discovery journey since departing and being left to my own resources, if you will, and I knew I didn't want to go back to an experience like that.

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They want to go back to any kind of corporate environment where I might experience something like that again.

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So I've been on a similar path and, man, there's so much value in in the just the journey and and the challenges that you've shared with us along the way and what you've been able to learn and adopt and walking on fire.

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It still scares the heck out of me, by the way, but I see those videos and it's just, it blows me away and I know, um, having listened to you talk about the power to change our mindset, our beliefs and some of the other things along the way, that it's entirely possible and, man, I've been working on those pieces and I can attest to the value of both a mastermind or community, because I know that you have some great people in your network and I would attribute that probably to building community connections through your work and through pouring into people, serving them.

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I've experienced some of that as well and in fact I think that's how we were.

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Originally connected was through similar connections, and I know that the work you're doing right now is really helping people fast forward that process.

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Would you agree with that statement?

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Yeah, it's not that anybody can't do all of this on their own.

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It's just that if I look back at my journey, gosh, I'm thinking about what happened.

00:24:17.270 --> 00:24:42.162
Probably, if I never left insurance, I probably could have got by and everything would have been fine and all this other stuff because there was a lot of areas that I didn't quote unquote have to grow right, but when I decided to leave a lifetime of being an employee and then all of a sudden, now I'm going out and creating a business and I have no idea how to do this, I don't know what.

00:24:42.162 --> 00:24:47.020
I don't know over here and I'm just like I've got to put food on the table.

00:24:47.020 --> 00:24:54.203
I don't know how to handle all these depression and emotions and these low lows this is getting.

00:24:54.403 --> 00:24:58.353
I am somewhat out of control over here and I don't know what to do about it.

00:24:58.353 --> 00:25:07.823
Control over here and I don't know what to do about it.

00:25:07.823 --> 00:25:10.628
If I could have had somebody who does the type of coaching that I do today in 2009,.

00:25:10.628 --> 00:25:12.291
All right, so right.

00:25:12.291 --> 00:25:18.912
When I got out of the hospital, I'm like, okay, I know I'm going to continue this path, but I don't want to do it this way.

00:25:18.912 --> 00:25:42.249
If I could have hired me today as my coach, then I could have probably, I could have probably worked one-third the number of hours and made two or three times the amount of income, and all of it with no stress whatsoever.

00:25:44.434 --> 00:25:47.218
And that's I can't argue with that.

00:25:47.218 --> 00:25:55.023
I mean, that's a pretty powerful testament to what coaching can do for people if they're open to experiencing that.

00:25:55.023 --> 00:26:12.555
And yeah, I believe it would have changed a lot for me if I was smart enough, leaving the military to have said I need to coach, coach.

00:26:12.555 --> 00:26:29.150
So I have two very specific questions that I'd like to touch on, and then I want to get to talking a little bit about what you're working on currently and then what the future looks like for you near term, as far as what you see on the forefront for the work you're doing now, but podcasting, and coaching in particular.

00:26:29.150 --> 00:26:31.122
So, podcasting, what would you?

00:26:31.122 --> 00:26:44.842
What's one sentence, a piece of advice that you would give to someone who might be, you know, on the fence about starting their podcast and sharing their experience or their voice in whatever the topic may be?

00:26:46.355 --> 00:26:46.997
Definitely.

00:26:46.997 --> 00:27:06.079
If you have a passion or an area of expertise and some experience that you want to share with the world and you're thinking about launching a podcast, do not feel like you have to start a podcast that's going to go on for the next, you know, once a week, every week, for an indefinite period of time.

00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:08.305
That can seem quite daunting.

00:27:08.305 --> 00:27:20.601
What I would encourage you to do pick the topic for which you are going to podcast about, and then I would encourage you to create a table of contents.

00:27:20.601 --> 00:27:24.673
Just pretend that you're going to write a book on this subject.

00:27:24.673 --> 00:27:30.936
What are the 10 chapters that you would actually have in that book if you were writing a book?

00:27:30.936 --> 00:27:46.883
Now, instead of writing a book, what you're going to do is you're going to take those 10 topics and create an outline and speak into a microphone and share from your heart and your head, all of the experience, of everything you would want people to know.

00:27:47.463 --> 00:27:57.568
Create 10 podcast, podcast episodes, give it a name and get it some artwork and throw it onto the internet and you have a podcast.

00:27:57.568 --> 00:27:59.440
You, matter of fact, you can.

00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:10.538
You could actually wait until all 10 episodes are published, or you can start with the first one and publish it and release one a week, one a month for 10 months, for 10 weeks, whatever.

00:28:10.538 --> 00:28:22.869
It's completely up to you, but I would encourage you to just consider 10 episodes, and with the idea that I may never publish an 11th episode.

00:28:22.869 --> 00:28:25.615
It's just a standalone thing.

00:28:25.615 --> 00:28:33.890
And here's the great thing is, if you're just playing with the idea, why not put it on a free podcasting hosting service?

00:28:33.890 --> 00:28:41.902
So do a search, for I think it's called Spotify for Podcasters and it used to be known as Anchorfm.

00:28:41.902 --> 00:28:44.154
Were you going to say something, dan?

00:28:44.876 --> 00:28:48.166
I was going to say I think they're doing away with the free services.

00:29:09.635 --> 00:29:10.898
Okay, that just come up recently.

00:29:10.898 --> 00:29:12.163
So go and launch a podcast 10 episodes.

00:29:12.163 --> 00:29:12.904
Here's what I want to tell you.

00:29:12.904 --> 00:29:17.718
My wife and I created a podcast more than a decade ago about the Twilight Saga podcast.

00:29:17.718 --> 00:29:26.700
We haven't published an episode in a very long time and still today that podcast gets thousands of new subscribers.

00:29:26.700 --> 00:29:29.205
Who listens to every single episode?

00:29:29.967 --> 00:29:32.579
I created a podcast called Upgrade your Peer Group.

00:29:32.579 --> 00:29:35.307
You can find it, by the way, at upgradeyourpeergroupcom.

00:29:35.307 --> 00:29:45.445
There are only six podcast episodes, if I'm not mistaken, for that show, and that show has already generated was it $60,000 in revenue.

00:29:45.445 --> 00:29:51.924
And now, by the way, I've done nothing to market it, other than occasionally I drop a hint about it like that, like I just did.

00:29:51.924 --> 00:30:07.063
But what happened is my mastermind group is fifteen thousand dollars a year and so, uh, if immediately, four people heard those episodes, those six episodes, and signed up for the next level, mastermind, well, well, gosh, that's 30.

00:30:07.063 --> 00:30:08.707
Well, actually that was 60,000.

00:30:08.707 --> 00:30:14.369
So that's 60,000 right out of the gate, and two of them renewed for a second year.

00:30:14.369 --> 00:30:20.386
So that actually ended up being $90,000 in revenue from six podcast episodes.

00:30:22.175 --> 00:30:26.292
That's a pretty good reason to just put a podcast out there regardless.

00:30:26.634 --> 00:30:34.943
Yes, yeah, just consider it your audio book available for free to the world and maybe, just maybe, you might want to go and market it.

00:30:34.943 --> 00:30:36.708
A little note to self.

00:30:37.276 --> 00:30:37.717
Might help.

00:30:37.717 --> 00:30:41.303
That's outstanding, cliff.

00:30:41.303 --> 00:30:45.710
So on to the coaching question in particular.

00:30:45.710 --> 00:30:52.717
Coaching question in particular.

00:30:52.717 --> 00:30:57.728
What would be your best piece of advice for a coach who's maybe new to the world of one-on-one coaching as a business to encourage them?

00:30:59.316 --> 00:31:06.720
I would say, if you haven't done so, already read the book called the Prosperous Coach by Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin.

00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:15.768
And if you said, wow, I have read that, or if you even say I've read that two different times, I would encourage you to go get that book.

00:31:15.768 --> 00:31:22.288
Dig it up and study it like an owner's manual, study it like a college course.

00:31:22.288 --> 00:31:33.579
Implement all the things you haven't already implemented in this process, all the things you haven't already implemented in this process.

00:31:33.579 --> 00:31:44.701
I can tell you that I have a lot of sales experience more than 12 years actually 12 years as an insurance agent and then more than a decade as the podcast actually another 12 years if you think about the two years I was podcast answering before I went full time.

00:31:44.701 --> 00:31:56.365
So more than 12 years of sales and marketing and internet marketing and content marketing, traditional sales funnels, all of the pipelines and things like that.

00:31:56.365 --> 00:31:58.135
I have all of that experience.

00:31:58.616 --> 00:32:15.067
But nothing has ever transformed my ability to sell something like using the prosperous coach approach to creating clients, especially for high-ticket offer items, and that's mainly what I offer today is high-ticket offer items.

00:32:15.795 --> 00:32:26.851
So this process of connecting, inviting, creating and proposing it is so simple to do.

00:32:26.851 --> 00:32:43.336
There may be some things that aren't easy up front, but it's a very simple process and the best part about it, it is so perfectly aligned with how I like to show up in the world, where it's not all about the money, it's not all about I will serve you as long as you agree to pay me.

00:32:43.336 --> 00:32:47.603
It's like, hey, let me give you an example of who I am and what I do in the world.

00:32:47.603 --> 00:32:52.130
That way I don't have to sit here and try to explain to you what it would be like to have a coach.

00:32:52.130 --> 00:32:58.228
If you've never had a coach before, it's hard to explain it in a discovery call.

00:32:58.228 --> 00:33:10.876
Why don't I just go ahead and give you a full-blown of experiences of what it would be like if you were one of my highest paid clients and then invite them and ask them, say hey, would you like more of this?

00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:12.601
Wonderful.

00:33:12.601 --> 00:33:17.696
I love that and I absolutely agree that book is powerful.

00:33:17.696 --> 00:33:33.481
The process has shifted so much since I first encountered Rich Litvin and the Prosperous Coach and it's been a tremendous experience overall, but for me and the people I serve, so I definitely support that.

00:33:33.481 --> 00:33:42.125
Okay, so I would like to know a little bit more about what you're working on, what you're up to right now and what do you, what do you have on the horizon, cliff?

00:33:44.076 --> 00:33:51.308
So what I'm working on, work wise is my primary focus, is my own paid mastermind group.

00:33:51.308 --> 00:34:03.144
So I told you, I have a mastermind group that I've been doing since October 2010 with Pat Flynn and four other guys, so it's six of us total, but I also have a paid mastermind group.

00:34:03.144 --> 00:34:07.326
This is where people who are full-time self-employed business owners come together every week.

00:34:07.326 --> 00:34:12.101
Who are full-time self-employed business owners come together every week.

00:34:12.101 --> 00:34:24.277
We all share all of our experience, our education, our skills, talents, abilities, areas of expertise, resources, our network everything we have to offer we give freely to any and every other person in this group so that everyone is succeeding.

00:34:24.277 --> 00:34:27.623
So that is the Next Level Mastermind.

00:34:27.623 --> 00:34:34.324
It is a paid mastermind group and it is one of the highest priorities and some of the most fulfilling work I've ever done.

00:34:34.324 --> 00:34:49.547
So there's that, as you're aware, I do one-on-one coaching as well, and those who happen to be full-time self-employed, entrepreneurial path type people, people and their path happens to be coaching.

00:34:49.547 --> 00:35:12.119
I actually have a group coaching program called the Next Level Coaching Program, which is a weekly meeting for up to 90 minutes where I basically bring in some level of education, teaching, basically helping you master the Prosperous Coach Method for creating clients, the Prosperous Coach Method for Creating Clients.

00:35:12.119 --> 00:35:12.219
Also.

00:35:12.219 --> 00:35:15.027
I bring all of my knowledge and expertise in the other areas of sales and marketing as well.

00:35:15.027 --> 00:35:26.056
But I also not just teach you how to land your next clients, how to market yourself, put your message out there and attract these ideal clients.

00:35:26.056 --> 00:35:43.717
I also take all of the things that I've learned and studied and invested in learning the different frameworks, strategies, tools and techniques on how you, as a coach, can create lasting change and transformation in the lives of those that you coach.

00:35:43.717 --> 00:36:03.347
So I have I've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in learning how to increase my marketing, sales and also my coaching techniques side of who I am and what I'm doing, and I love to freely give that stuff away, which I do in various different podcasts.

00:36:03.875 --> 00:36:09.427
But I'm available to come in and laser focus on specifically where are you stuck.

00:36:09.427 --> 00:36:11.101
So I'll give you an example.

00:36:11.101 --> 00:36:15.085
Somebody will come in and say, okay, cliff, I'm very familiar with the Prosperous Coach Method.

00:36:15.085 --> 00:36:29.076
I am having a great time getting people into a first call, but when I invite them to a second call, here is where I get stuck and this is the problem that I see and I'm like, oh, and then I start asking them some questions.

00:36:29.076 --> 00:36:32.099
I pinpoint some things and like, ah, you missed this point.

00:36:32.099 --> 00:36:34.219
All right here, try this, go do this.

00:36:34.219 --> 00:36:35.782
And they come back a couple weeks.

00:36:35.782 --> 00:36:38.003
It's like, oh my gosh, that's so fixed everything.

00:36:38.003 --> 00:36:40.405
It's like I'm now never having.

00:36:40.405 --> 00:36:51.179
Now I'm at the proposal phase and I find myself getting tongue tied how do I overcome that?

00:36:51.179 --> 00:36:53.804
And it's like, so yeah, this is what I love to do.

00:36:53.804 --> 00:36:55.641
It's called the Next Level Coaching Program.

00:36:55.641 --> 00:37:01.902
You can learn about that over at cliffravenscraftcom and it says up in the nav menu are you a coach?

00:37:03.166 --> 00:37:03.547
Perfect.

00:37:03.547 --> 00:37:05.961
And what's on the horizon?

00:37:05.961 --> 00:37:06.262
Cliff.

00:37:07.476 --> 00:37:08.742
What's on the horizon?

00:37:08.742 --> 00:37:34.327
Well, the thing is, I want to continue to do more of the same things that I'm already doing everything that I just told you about, because I love my life and who are what's called early stage entrepreneurs.

00:37:34.327 --> 00:37:56.523
These are people who are currently full-time self-employed or just on the verge of becoming full-time self-employed, but they're not quite yet in a position where they're ready to invest at least $15,000 or more in a coaching relationship with me or in my mastermind group, and they're earning somewhere between $400 to as much as $3,500 a month on average.

00:37:56.523 --> 00:38:06.983
It's like I'm running into a lot of these people and, of course, I can bring them through the Prosperous Coach Method, and I have brought lots of them through and it's definitely helped.

00:38:06.983 --> 00:38:13.726
They're definitely seeing some improvement and they've gotten some forward momentum that they wouldn't have been able to get to so quickly on their own.

00:38:13.726 --> 00:38:25.525
But even that, it's going to be a runway of maybe at least six months to 18 months before they might be in a position for my high ticket offer, and so I haven't had anything for them.

00:38:25.565 --> 00:38:40.820
So one of the things that I've been thinking of much like I have the Next Level Coaching Program is I'm thinking about launching this early stage entrepreneur, a hybrid between a mastermind group and a group coaching program, and what the difference is.

00:38:40.820 --> 00:39:03.969
In a mastermind group, there's a little bit of an element where the other people in the group also share their expertise, their experience, their skills, talents and abilities, whereas in a group coaching program, somebody like myself would be the one with most of the experience in the room and I'd be the one who's really fielding the answers to the questions that you might have.

00:39:03.969 --> 00:39:31.516
But I'm looking to create something that might be a little bit of a nuance, of a little bit of a hybrid between those two, and I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of $500 a month, which is the same as what I'm currently charging for the Next Level coaching program, and maybe even a special deal if somebody signs up for both of them if they happen to be a coach happen to be a coach.

00:39:31.536 --> 00:39:31.936
That's fascinating.

00:39:31.936 --> 00:39:33.719
I love that concept and I think could be, probably will be extremely valuable.

00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:59.420
And I can say that, having worked with you both as a one-on-one coach and seeing your work and participating in the Next Level Coaching Program, and I'll just say that the benefit, one of the benefits there for me was hearing you know the questions and your advice, if you will to, or even your questions in response to what was coming up in those sessions.

00:39:59.420 --> 00:40:01.327
And I didn't.

00:40:01.327 --> 00:40:14.449
I hadn't been able to get through all of the content that's already existing inside of that program, so I can see how a hybrid approach would be extremely valuable.

00:40:14.449 --> 00:40:24.427
So, Cliff, if people want to know more about any of those programs, Cliff Ravenscraft, if I could talk, this would be a great podcast, wouldn't it?

00:40:24.427 --> 00:40:26.918
Cliffravenscraftcom?

00:40:26.918 --> 00:40:31.148
And look for the word coach at the top of the website.

00:40:31.148 --> 00:40:36.286
Anything else you want to leave as a parting note or parting advice?

00:40:37.054 --> 00:40:37.275
Yeah.

00:40:37.275 --> 00:40:38.878
So here's what I'd love to do.

00:40:38.878 --> 00:40:47.697
If this is the first time that you heard my voice and my story is just barely resonating with you, it's like I don't know that I really care to check out anything.

00:40:47.697 --> 00:40:49.282
Cliff's got going on for things.

00:40:49.282 --> 00:40:50.949
I'm just not sold on this guy yet.

00:40:50.949 --> 00:41:07.000
What I'd love to do is give you something for free and then, if you're interested and you liked that and it absolutely transforms your entire experience of life, I'd like to give you the rest of what it leads to for free, instead of paying the $197 for the course.

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:41.840
So here's the deal If you go to mindsetanswermancom slash free, this will take you to a landing page where you can put your name and email address and you'll get instant free access to an opening keynote address to the Free the Dream conference called All Beliefs have Consequences, and if you go through this one talk, you'll discover very clearly in one hour how to learn exactly what your limiting beliefs are that are holding you back from experiencing what you want to experience in life.

00:41:42.561 --> 00:41:43.422
It's a guaranteed.

00:41:43.422 --> 00:41:53.088
There's just a few questions you need to ask and if you answer these questions honestly and authentically, you will begin the process of discovering those limiting beliefs.

00:41:53.088 --> 00:41:55.543
That's the first thing to become aware of them.

00:41:55.543 --> 00:42:04.324
Number two you'll learn exactly how to discover the source of those beliefs, and this is important, so that you understand they're not yours.

00:42:04.324 --> 00:42:13.342
You never consciously chose most of these, and somebody else just gave them to you and you weren't even aware of it happening when it happened.

00:42:13.342 --> 00:42:15.407
So you're going to discover the source.

00:42:15.407 --> 00:42:34.585
The third thing that you're going to get is you're going to understand how to disassociate and break up with and leave behind those limiting beliefs, but none of that will help unless you actually then do the fourth thing, which is to learn how to condition an empowering alternative belief.

00:42:34.585 --> 00:42:39.559
You will be taught all of this, and this is just the 60-minute talk.

00:42:40.541 --> 00:42:51.860
If you go through this and you do what it talks about, you'll discover that you'll never be able to get new results in your life unless you change the actions that you're taking.

00:42:51.860 --> 00:42:59.451
You'll discover that you'll never be able to change the actions that you are taking in life unless you change how you think and feel.

00:42:59.451 --> 00:43:05.768
And you'll discover that you'll never be able to change how you think and feel unless you change what you believe.

00:43:05.768 --> 00:43:10.735
And this will teach you how to change what you believe and when you change what you believe and this will teach you how to change what you believe.

00:43:10.735 --> 00:43:26.242
And when you change what you will believe, you'll change how you habitually think and feel and you'll change what you habitually do, what actions you take, and you will change the habitual results you've been habitually getting.

00:43:26.855 --> 00:43:33.938
This will change your life forever and it's free at mindsetanswermancom.

00:43:33.938 --> 00:43:34.980
Slash free.

00:43:34.980 --> 00:43:45.282
Within 24 hours of signing up for that, you'll get an offer for $197 to buy the whole Free the Dream online course.

00:43:45.282 --> 00:44:03.128
If you mention Dan's podcast and send me an email cliff at cliffravenscraftcom and say, hey, cliff, I heard that I could get this course for free, I will go in and grant you access to the other seven videos that will teach you how to create change in your life forever.

00:44:05.536 --> 00:44:08.483
What a tremendously valuable offer that is.

00:44:08.483 --> 00:44:12.842
If you do nothing else, go sign up for the free one hour.

00:44:12.842 --> 00:44:18.202
Uh, free, the dream introductory presentation.

00:44:18.202 --> 00:44:19.344
Right, that was your opening.

00:44:19.344 --> 00:44:21.548
Yeah, that that's.

00:44:21.548 --> 00:44:26.503
That's a tremendous offer and I appreciate you giving that out here, cliff.

00:44:26.503 --> 00:44:38.548
Um, it's, there are so many places in this conversation that we could spend probably another hour together chatting about so I'm very grateful to have you today.

00:44:40.056 --> 00:44:46.809
It is my pleasure, Dan, and I thank you again for the opportunity to be a guest on your show.

00:44:46.809 --> 00:45:13.780
Every single time I'm invited to be a guest to know that there just might be one more person who heard something that I said and it resonates with them, and if they can be introduced to some life transformational insight that has radically altered my experience of life, it will have been worth it, and so thank you for gathering this audience and allowing me to speak to them.

00:45:13.780 --> 00:45:14.782
It's a gift.