PP 252: What If’s with Cliff Ravenscraft

Cliff enjoys a lucrative career as an insurance agent for their family business. In 2005, Cliff began podcasting as a hobby and was widely known as the Podcast Answer Man. In January of 2008, he finally left the corporate world to pursue his passion. Today, he serves as a business mentor and life coach, helping others transition from their unfulfilling day job to the life of their dreams.

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Kim Sutton: Welcome to the Positive Productivity Podcast, Episode 252. The Positive Productivity Podcast was created to empower entrepreneurs to achieve and appreciate personal and professional success. I’m your host, Kim Sutton, and if you’re ready, let’s jump into today’s episode.

Today’s episode is with my mentor, the awesome Cliff Ravenscraft. And before we jump in, I just wanted to give you a heads up. And a reminder that positive productivity does not always mean perfection. On the day of this recording, I was battling the flu and bronchitis and Cliff was so awesome to come on, despite my coughing and everything that I was going through health wise, and then he stuck with me through numerous tech issues. In fact, this recording was provided by Cliff, who was so graciously recording on his end during the interview as well, during our chat Cliff gives amazing insight as to what his journey as an entrepreneur has looked like over the past 10 years. And I hope you are as inspired as I am always by Cliff and his stories and his insight.

Welcome back to another episode of positive productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and I’m so thrilled that you’re here to join us today. And I’m equally, no, that’s not even equally, it’s not even a good word for that, even more thrilled, Cliff does that work? To introduce our guest today, Cliff Ravenscraft. Listeners you may know Cliff as the podcast Answer Man. But I’ve gotten to know Cliff a bit more through his next level studio. Cliff, I would love if you would jump right in and introduce yourself and tell listeners a little bit about what this transition is look like and where you’ve come from.

Cliff Ravenscraft: Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on here Kim. It’s honor here on my side as well. I guess we’ll start with podcast Answer Man. About 12, no 10 years ago, it was actually just over 12 years ago, I started podcasting as a hobby. And at the time, I was working as an insurance agent in a family run Insurance Agency owned by my parents, which was started by my grandparents. So there was an expectation that I was going to live the life of an employee in that family run business until one day I might take it over if my dad would ever retire. But anyway, what happened was I never had a passion, a true passion for insurance sales. I did discover a passion for sales, but not necessarily insurance sales. I was more motivated by the Ministry side of things of serving people and selling people on the ideas that they could make their lives better. That’s that’s really what I love to sell. And I guess I did a little bit of that in insurance. But what happened was, I guess it was December 2005. I started podcasting as a hobby. I’ve always been a tech geek. And as a result of that I was introduced to the technology of podcasting in the summer of 2005, subscribed to a bunch of different shows it was brand new, at the time, very difficult for people to actually consume a podcast. You had to know all about RSS. You had to have special software. If you wanted to take it mobile with you, you actually had to do a lot of work to actually get every single episode you wanted to take with you somewhere. It was kind of a challenge back in the old days, but us early adopter tech geeks loved it. And I stopped listening to talk radio, I started listening to podcast content about things that I loved. And one of the things that I started to love was the TV show, Lost, which my wife introduced me to. And so much so that I wondered if there was a podcast about the TV show Lost. And I went out and searched, searched turns out there were five different podcasts about the TV show Lost in I think it was probably right around late October, early November. And I subscribed to all five of them listened to all five every single week. And each episode of each podcast was at least an hour. So that just gives you an idea of how much content I was consuming. And that was on top of my tech shows and pretty much every early adopter of podcasting had listened to the daily source code with Adam Curry. I think it was required listening at the time. So I was just consumed with podcast consumption. And I started to blog about this TV show Lost based upon the theories and stuff that I heard from these different podcasts. I started to develop my own theories. And one day there was this one podcast from Hawaii, it was called The Transmission and they had a feedback hotline where you could record audio and send them an audio piece of feedback and they might play it in their show.

Cliff Ravenscraft: So I had written this blog post on my blog, which was ravenscraft.org at the time. And by the way that blog on average usually would get somewhere around 100 visitors per month in December, actually, no, that was late November 2005. And I wrote this elaborate theory called the Thomas theory about this TV show. And I had screencaptures from the show to prove it and all kinds of different things, it was pretty awesome. And I recorded a three and a half minute summary. And I said to myself, I was like, there’s no way anybody’s gonna be placed three and a half minutes of me talking it as voice feedback on the show. I know this is overdoing it. But I sent it to them anyway, via email. And lo and behold, the very next weekend, they actually played my entire three and a half minute audio clip. And I can’t begin to tell you what happened inside of me when I heard my own voice being played through somebody else’s produced show. Now, looking back, I realized this is just a married couple in Hawaii, who was sitting down putting stuff together in front of a computer. But for me, I remember as a kid calling into the radio station and requesting a song and then they pre record that and then you go listen, you call all your friends real quick and say turn on the radio and, and then you hear your voice played back over the radio. Have you ever experienced that as a kid Kim?

Kim Sutton: Actually, I would hope that my friends would turn off the radio. But yeah, I would call it.

Cliff Ravenscraft: So I just thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And next thing you know, of course, they said you guys, the reason why we’re playing this three and a half minute clip, you have to go check out Cliffs blog over Ravenscraft.org. And what I didn’t know at the time is that he had 10s of 1000s of subscribers, he and his wife. And my blog readership went from about 100 visitors per month to just over 1000 per day. And ew.com, which is Entertainment Weekly did an entire feature on their website after they heard my theory on that podcast. And that’s what got me started. So what happened was here I am playing around as a hobby, you know, just leaving voice feedback, blogging, because I had been blogging since 1996. And obviously from 1996 to 2005, I’m getting 100 visitors per month. Now I’m 1000 visitors a day. And so people started commenting, they said, “Oh my gosh, Cliff, I heard your voice on the audio feedback. You should do your own podcast.” And then Ryan and Jen, from the transmission said, “Cliff, everybody’s been leaving us incredible feedback. They all want us to tell you, you need to create your own podcast.” And of course, it didn’t take a whole lot to stroke my ego, right? So I started to investigate, what would it be? What would it take for me to launch a podcast. Being the tech guy that I am, I went out and did some research and I purchased or I downloaded some free software called Audacity. I learned about RSS feed. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t a ton of difference in the RSS code from HTML code, which I had been hand coding all along anyway. So that was a pretty easy thing for me to pick up. So I hand coded my own RSS feed. And I didn’t know anything about recording my voice. So I went out to Best Buy and this is right when USB headsets were starting to come out. But those things were like 150 bucks at the time. So I found this USB headset for $35, or note, a headset with a little boom mic off to the side, it was not USB for $35 and on the end that goes into your computer, it was to 1/8 inch plugs. So one was the plug into headphone jack and one plugged into this the microphone jack on your computer. And I recorded my very first podcast, it was called Generally Speaking. And the reason it was called Generally Speaking is because I said to myself, nobody’s gonna really, I mean, sure a handful of people have told me I should create my own podcast. But what would I actually podcast about if I was going to do a podcast. And there are three main passions that I had, there was technology but there are already people out there that knew so much more about technology and being that podcasting, in the early days of podcasting about even though there were only maybe 100 plus podcasts at the time, and the overwhelming majority of them were tech podcasts, and they were created by people who I looked up to. So I felt like I’m not worthy of creating a tech podcast that anybody would listen to. Now, the second passion that I had, of course, I told you about the TV show last, right. But there were already five other podcasts out there that if you listen to all five of them, that’s at least anywhere between five to eight hours a week of consumption material already available. So sure, I might be able to do a theory every now and then but nobody’s really going to tune in and listen to me talk about the TV show Lost every week when there’s five other shows. So I’m not going to do a Lost podcast. And there’s only one other real major passion I had, which was my Christian faith. And there was one other faction of people who had jumped on the podcast wagon, or at least they were starting to anyway. And that was a long time Christian Radio Broadcaster. So you think about Chuck Swindoll and Ravi Zacharias and Tony Evans, that all of these people have been on the radio for 30, 40 years, all of a sudden, these guys are now taking their stuff to a podcast. I’m like, okay, there’s no way I could compete with those guys. So what am I going to do, I’m going to create a podcast called Generally Speaking. And the idea was that I would just create a podcast where I talk about anything and everything that I’m passionate about. And I would probably just limit it to the three things that I’ve mentioned. And so what I told people in my very first episodes, like, listen, here’s the thing. I’m going to talk about technology, faith, and the TV show Lost in this podcast. But I realized some of you might be interested in one or more and not the other, so here’s how I’m going to do it. I’m only going to talk about one topic per episode, and that topic will be labeled in the title. So if you see it, episode number two says Lost and then the title, then if you’re not interested in Lost, just delete that episode and same thing if it says faith, hyphen, then the title. If you’re not interested in me talking about faith and just delete that episode, but only listen to the episodes that start with the topic. I thought it was a brilliant idea.

Kim Sutton: I’m not gonna argue with that. Cliff I have, sorry to interrupt you. How often were you podcasting when you started this?

Cliff Ravenscraft: Well, I guess I was podcasting on a weekly basis. Well, this was my first episode. So I put it out. And what happened was I didn’t the introduction, told them about it. And then I put it out there, or actually, after I introduced the the thing I said now, in the first episode, I’m going to talk about Lost, and I had over 500 people download the first episode. And what happened was, I was blown away by that I thought maybe five people would download it. But over 500 people downloaded the first episode. And I started getting emails, like the very next day, and comments the very next day. And all of those people said, “Listen, I don’t care about technology. I don’t care about faith. All I want to hear is you talk about this TV show that we all love so much, will you please only do a Lost podcast?” And so I went to my wife and I said, “Oh my gosh, they want to Lost podcast.” And I asked her, I said do you want to do this with me? And so she said yes. And so I went out and got some other gear so that we could record two of us together. And I came back with episode number two. And I said, “Hello, everybody. Welcome to the weekly Lost edition of the Generally Speaking production network.” So I already knew I was going to create more podcasts because I still wanted to talk about technology, I still wanted to talk about faith. But I realized that this audience out there that found me through this three and a half minute audio comment. They had no interest in me talking about those other things. They wanted to hear me talk about the TV show Lost from my perspective, in spite of the fact that we’re already five other shows. That’s how I got started, my wife and I recorded our second podcast episode, solo, or together, and we put it out. And then after the second episode went out there, a guy reached out to me and said, “Hey, Cliff, we Lost podcasters have gotten together and we created a combined feed called the Lost Podcast Network. We’ve been doing it for over five months now, we would like to invite you to syndicate your show, because we want to give the opportunity for true Lost fans to be able to subscribe to one feed, and get every single Lost podcast available. Now we’re not asking you to promote us or anything like that. We just want to help you grow your audience be and also make it easy for true Lost fans to get everything. You can still have your own feed, all that stuff. We’re just giving you the option to syndicate with us.” And I said that sounds awesome. So I put our third episode out. And by our third episode, as a result of the audience they already built for that feed. Our third podcast episode reached 27,000 subscribers. Which never happens. Andbut but that’s how we got our start in podcasting. And next thing you know, here I am an insurance agent, a guy that’s a relatively unknown personality in Northern Kentucky. A guy who has been blogging for almost 10 years, with 100 views per month on his blog, and all of a sudden now I have a worldwide audience of 27,000 people after three weeks of podcasting. And to say that I was bit by the bug is quite an understatement. The thing is, though, is I was not prepared for it. It caused me to grow in a lot of ways, and yeah. Let’s just say I’ve grown a lot since then. If you go back, matter of fact, you can go Kim, I don’t think you’ve ever heard of this. But if you go to iTunes, or the Apple Music, or Apple podcast directory, I encourage you to look for weekly Lost podcast and look for the one it’ll say the artist is Cliff and Stephanie Ravenscraft, and go into the reviews. And then you might have the option depending on what platform you’re on, and how often they change the program. But you might be able to go in and sort it by most critical. And if you want to just laugh for about an hour and a half read the most critical and know that most of the things that are written there are actually true. We really were that bad. But we were, but if you go and look at them, you know, it was rated by the most praiseworthy or whatever. As crazy as it may sound, everything written there was absolutely true as well. Does that make sense?

Kim Sutton: Oh, it absolutely makes sense.

Cliff Ravenscraft: So let me and I know this is a long story, but bear with me because this this is so important to the transition. All right, because I know the question is the transition. But this origin story is so important to how I got started, that it’ll all make sense for anybody who knows me as the podcast Answer Man.

Kim Sutton: Cliff before you transition on. I do have two questions. Number one, was your website taken down with all that traffic?

Cliff Ravenscraft: Matter of fact, I logged in after episode three went live, it was three hours after I published, because I was hosting the mp3 files on my own server. And three hours later, I started getting lots of emails and people said, Cliff, I’m trying to download your podcast, I’m trying to go to your website, but it’s not there. It says account suspended. And so I’m like account suspended. So I called my web host up and I’m like, why is my account suspended? They said, well, something’s happened. Because it must be have some kind of denial service attack or something’s going on here because it’s just eating through bandwidth like crazy. And by the way, before we suspended your account, you owe us $3,500. And they wiped out the $3,500. They said there it’s obviously some sort of error on our end, so we’re going to forgive the $3,500. But we’ve got to figure this thing out. Of course, I knew exactly what it was after it happened. And I explained it to them. And they said, “Dude, get the mp3 files off of our servers and right now.” And I said, “Well, you have to activate my site. Let me fix the RSS feed.” And I remember at the time I was starting to research and of course, this was just a hobby, right? So and of course, they didn’t have podcast hosting services, yet those did not exist. So I found this place called archive.org, which allowed you to host your files for free. And I used that for a little while and then I finally found some, I think it was just about a few months later, Libsyn L-I-B-S-Y-N liberated syndication came along. They were one of the very first podcast media hosting companies out there. And they understood what was going on. They understood the future of this thing. And then I listen, we’re gonna provide you flat fee per month, unlimited bandwidth. We’re just going to limit how much you can store or upload each month based upon how you pay. So that’s the first question. Yes, I did get shut down. What’s the second question?

Kim Sutton: What was the lottery number?

Cliff Ravenscraft: 4815162342.

Kim Sutton: Okay, I just had to ask. I was. And third question, and I’m sure this will come in a little bit into the transition. Did you like how the show ended?

Cliff Ravenscraft: I did not hate it, but I was disappointed.

Kim Sutton: I’m right there with you.

Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah. There are some people that hated it. I felt like it was a little bit of a letdown. But then again, I don’t know how much you followed the producers of the show. For example, they had their own official Lost podcast, and I listened to them and every interview that they ever did anywhere in publication, I’ve read every single interview and I believe that they are responsible for the total letdown that the finale was because of the way they promoted it in the beginning. When season three came around, and they they lobbied for the network to give them an end date, so that they could tell the story and not just keep spinning it out of control to where this becomes, you know, unwieldy. They actually had a black box and inside the black box was locked up the final scene and if that’s seen was what they were talking about, I was totally let down.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. Yeah, I haven’t read any of these blog articles, or and I didn’t follow their podcast, but I would have to agree. If that was what was locked in their black box, that would have been a letdown. I don’t know if I’ve shared this on the positive productivity podcast before but the first podcast that I ever listened to was a Bitter Pill with Dan Klass, who was a high school friend of my brothers. Do you know Dan?

Cliff Ravenscraft: Just through acquaintance. I mean, we were both early podcasters so anybody who was podcasting in 2005, and 2006, we all know each other.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. So I never thought that I could podcast back then. Nor did I really have a desire to because I was scared to get behind a mic of any kind. Cliff, when I was a junior in high school, I ran for some class office, and I had my speech all prepared. And I was all ready, but when I got behind the microphone, in the principal’s office, not even in front of a crowd. When I got behind the microphone, my voice started shaking so bad that the whole school and I’m talking 1800 kids thought I was crying. I don’t know what it was. So from that year, and I’ll just put a date on it, 1995, all the way up through after I met my husband in 2010. I was scared to get behind a microphone of any sort, because I was afraid that my voice would start shaking again. And I don’t know what it was that day. But anyway, Dan, part of his intro is how he’s broadcasting from his podcasting studio in the garage of his house that is underneath the air traffic line in LA. And so I always thought, Oh, my gosh, you know, I can’t podcast because I need a whole studio. Well, here I am. I’m in my office. Definitely not a studio surrounded by kids toys. I’m underneath the helicopter path, but yeah, I guess I’ve moved on right. As have so many other people that logical barriers aren’t there anymore.

Cliff Ravenscraft: 385,000 people have moved on and said, you know what my message is important enough.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely. listeners, if you’re thinking about it, stop thinking start doing.

Cliff Ravenscraft: Absolutely.

Kim Sutton: Cliff, I love your stories every time I hear them, whether in our mastermind, or on your podcast or Facebook. So keep on going.

Cliff Ravenscraft: All right. So here’s what happened. So I’m sitting here, remember my Christian faith is very important to me, right? And one thing I haven’t discussed with you in the podcast yet is that not only was I an insurance agent, I was also an associate pastor in a church. So I had been doing that, I guess, probably since 1996. And, yeah, so actually, that would have been about 10 years at the time, as well. Anyway, so I’m an associate pastor, and my goal and my mission in life and my calling, I felt would be that one day I would be a full time pastor. And the only reason I say that is because that’s what the leaders of that institution told me when I told them I felt this calling to serve God with my entire life, like to serve people, to incur and actually, the one word that has ever stood out to me, and it’s almost something that I believe that God gave me is an EOTC, Encourage Others Through Christ. If you look at me on Twitter, I’m Cliff EOTC, if you look at me on YouTube, I’m Cliff EOTC. I’ve had Cliff EOTC since the earliest days of the internet.

Kim Sutton: I always wondered where they came from.

Cliff Ravenscraft: Yep. It stands for Cliff Encourage Others Through Christ. And that’s always been my username in those platforms. So anyway, so that gives you a little bit more of a backstory. So here I am, I’m podcasting as a hobby. I’m selling insurance, you know, auto, home, life, health, and business insurance, during the day. I’m working as an associate pastor on the nights and weekends. This is my life. I have a stay at home wife with three young kids under the age of eight. And here I am podcasting as a hobby about the TV show Lost. And what happened was this TV show Lost had a lot of interesting themes. So for example, there was one episode titled All Good Cowboys Have Daddy Issues. Now, my wife and I both come from broken marriages. So my mom and my biological dad divorced when I was a young kid, and my mom remarried to my stepdad who is now my adopted dad. That’s a whole nother story for another time. But anyway, then my wife, Stephanie, her mom and dad divorced when she was young, and her mom’s been remarried quite a few times and her dad’s even been remarried a couple more times. And so we both had daddy issues, you know, just our own daddy issues. And so what happened was this episode came out. And here we are as a Christian married couple talking about daddy issues, and we’re talking about our own kids. And I should start sharing authentically about how I’m concerned about how my kids are gonna have daddy issues. And we joked around that we were actually saving for, I think we said, you know, most parents are saving for college funds, we’re saving for their counseling. So you know, just making jokes like that, and it just connected like in resonated with our audience in ways that we just never would have imagined. And we were just kind of being joking but we were very, very authentic and very real, and very much ourselves. Half of our audience loved it, half of our audience absolutely despised it, because we would get really far off topic. I mean, we would go way off topic. And I enjoyed it, because it was an outlet for me, podcasting was just an outlet. And it was an opportunity to talk with my wife about something that I’m passionate about and we were just having fun. This wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about anything else. I was extremely well paid as an insurance agent. So then all of a sudden, there’s an episode called tabula rasa, which is it’s it’s translated clean slate, starting over with a clean slate. And obviously, that’s a very easy thing for us to talk about and the fact that, you know, we’ve all made mistakes, and we always have the opportunity to start over with a clean slate. And that’s, of course, a theme in the show, this TV show Lost is showing the characters in the show, and it’s in the backstories is all of the things that they’ve done in the past, all the things that they’re not proud of, you know, Kate with why was she in handcuffs? And, you know, why was she being escorted by a marshal and all this other stuff. They have this opportunity on the island, everyone can start over with a clean slate, and we were talking about how, you know, different areas of our lives. And again, we’d get off topic, and but we would just have fun with it. And then of course, there was a Mr. Eko, do you remember Mr. Eko?

Kim Sutton: I do.

Cliff Ravenscraft: So they have this guy who is a Catholic priest and we’re told that– we’re given his backstory. And there’s an episode well, first of all, there’s an entire episode about baptizing baby Aaron. And, of course, that gave us an opportunity to talk about baptism. Now, there are five other podcasts out there that are talking about the TV show Lost. And I can promise you, we were the only ones who had the theological perspective on baptism, you know. And of course, 60% of our audience were Christian, because I actually surveyed them at one point. So 60% of our audience were Christian. They totally were like, Oh, my gosh, that was the best podcast episode out of all the podcasts about the episode. And and 40% absolutely. It’s like, Man, I wish I could just get off the face stuff and Bible thumping and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, whatever. Gosh, it was so much to deal with at the time. Anyway, but then there was the 23rd Psalm and that’s the one that really just started to open things up because the 23rd Psalm, do you remember that episode?

Kim Sutton: And I don’t.

Cliff Ravenscraft: So the 23rd Psalm was an entire episode where, believe it or not, the focus of this was Mr. Eko it recites the 23rd Psalm. Yey, through I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you go back and look that episode up and watch it, and then as he’s quoting the Bible verse from the 23rd Psalm, you’ll actually see that he reversed two of the lines and we did an entire episode on what that actually could mean. I mean, obviously this is intentional, right? They don’t just accidentally miss quote a Bible scripture on this TV show. Nothing on this show is done by accident. And so we just had so much fun with that. But then there was just all this other stuff that we talked about in the TV show. And what happened was, it just gave us this opportunity to communicate to the world who Stephanie and I were our marriage, our thoughts on life, our worldview and there were a ton of people who absolutely hated us for it. But there were literally 10s of 1000s of people around the world who absolutely loved what we were doing, and wanted more of it. And the biggest thing that happened, Kim, and this is where the transition comes in, okay. So the biggest thing that happened was, as a result of us talking about our lives so openly, our faith so openly, we started getting hundreds of emails a week from people around the world. And these emails were people like, “Hey, I have a question for you. I’ve been dealing with this my entire life. And it’s so refreshing to see a Christian couple watching a secular TV show and never in my life that I have ever dreamed, there would be another Christian who would be so free and open, and who could enjoy a secular television show and laugh. I’ve never heard in all my time within the church. I’d never heard anyone laugh with joy about worldly things.” And so what happened was people are like, Can you answer this question for me? Can you answer that question for me? And people would start pouring out their lives, like they would tell me in an email, “Cliff, I’m really struggling with this. I’m really, what do you think about this.” And all of a sudden, I’m actually, after doing 10 years of ministry inside the church as an associate pastor, for the first time in my own ministry, if you will, of encouraging others, I felt like I was having true, genuine, authentic, real conversations that went straight to the heart of the matter that wasn’t us trying to pretend were anything more than who we were.

Kim Sutton: Wow.

Cliff Ravenscraft: And that’s what appealed to me most about podcasting. And I’ll tell this one story real quickly that, you know, I actually ended up leaving one church and went to a different church, it was a bit of a mega church, if you will. Mega church in our area, by the way, has about 5000 members. And so I was a part of small group ministry in this church. And they said, “Hey, Cliff, we want you to participate. We want to get you in as a deacon within our church, so that we can have voting power, you know, for our ministry.” I’m like, okay, that’s not how that stuff supposed to work. And I said, I’m looking at the gifts of the deacon that, you know, I just don’t feel called to that. And I said, well, in our denomination before you can become an elder, which we clearly agree that that’s where your true calling is. To become an elder in our congregation, you have to be a deacon first. And I’m like, well, what’s the requirements of being a deacon? Well, you have to be a deacon for two years, you have to attend every single service. You have to go on rotation to distribute communion to shut ins and you also have to be available during the winter to help shovel snow off the sidewalks for all this, you know, throughout the services. By the way, they had three weekend services. And I’m like, Wait a second, I’m already leading small group Bible study in our home, I’m already actually doing leadership of eight other small group Bible study leaders. So I’m pastoring this small leaders of these groups. I’m already attending church once a week, and you want me to attend two more services? I said, there’s no way. They said, well, Cliff, what do you what are you doing in all your free time? And I says, Well, you know, I work. I have a wife and I have three kids. And I do all of this. And by the way, I was doing all of that volunteer. I was not paid for any of that. And so and then I said, and I have this podcast thing. And I had actually the week before, suggested that our congregation, big congregation, it could benefit from having a podcast of the weekly sermon. They said, Yeah, we’ve been thinking about that. But when we do that, we kind of want to do that with excellence. Which basically said, you know, we’re gonna look for a professional when we when we’re ready to do that. And of course, I had already helped a couple 100 people launch a podcast at that time. And when it all came down to it seems to me like you could totally pull this off if you would just stop that podcasting hobby. It sounds like that’s a bit of a distraction for you. Maybe you need to pray about where your priorities are and where God’s calling you.

Kim Sutton: Ouch.

Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah. And I’m like, seriously? I was, you know, very much involved in just the being respectful of your elders and all the stuff and the leaders. And I actually came home and did some soul searching, and I felt guilty, you know, I go off, you know, that’s how typically things work in that scenario. So I came home, I feel a lot of condemnation and a lot of guilt and I started to question my motives for everything. And sure I’m having some fun with this podcast and stuff. And yeah, I feel like I’m really having an impact in people’s lives, but is this just my own ego get in the way. And of course, again, go read those most critical things. You’ll hear that I had a bit of an ego issue back then, you know, but just playing around, but still, I had an ego issue back then. And so I thought, you know, maybe these guys are right, maybe this is a distraction. So I actually quit podcasting. I don’t know if you knew that.

Kim Sutton: I did. But I didn’t know the backstory well.

Cliff Ravenscraft: So I quit podcasting. And I quit for one week. And what happened was, after I quit, I went to work the next day. But the thing is, is usually I would get to work early. But the very next day, after I quit podcasting, I literally stayed in bed until I only had 10 minutes to get to work, and I jumped out of bed, brushed my teeth, put my clothes on, and I made it to work in time. Now I lived within three minutes walking distance, but I drove there, so it only took me a minute to get there. So but the thing is, is I slept as late as I could, I was there, I was lethargic, I didn’t do any work at all. The only thing I could think of all day long while I was at the office, the only thing I could think of was how many hours before I can go home and go to bed. I wasn’t thinking about my wife. I wasn’t thinking about my kids. And in my email inbox, I would check it every now and then. And I would see all these emails coming in from people asking me questions and I’m like, I need to just say no to that. And after at the end of my workday, I would go as early as I can leave, I’d go home, I didn’t even eat dinner. I just went home and I went to bed and I slept in as late as I could the next morning. And that pretty much happened that entire week. And then I decided okay, no I can’t do this. I have to podcast. And so I fired my podcasting microphone backup and I said, Okay, I’m back. And I went into those leaders of the church and I said, Hey, guys, remember you told me to pray about this and see if my priorities were out of line, if there’s some things that I need to cut back on in my life. And you guys were absolutely right. After a week long, week and a half of soul searching, man I am so glad you guys brought this up to me, by the way effective immediately I am withdrawing, I am resigning from all positions within this church. My wife, myself, our family, we’re leaving, we’re going to find a different church. But you are absolutely right. I was being distracted. And what I was being distracted by was the work that I’m doing here. I feel like my true calling and ministry is through the podcasting that I’m doing. Thank you so much for getting me straight on that. I appreciate it. And then I left.

Kim Sutton: Oh my gosh! Did you see how many jaws dropped?

Cliff Ravenscraft: Oh, well, I mean, I stayed through the whole conversation, of course, they thought I was making a mistake. They thought I would be back blah, blah, blah, all of that stuff. But I mean, it’s not like I said, you know, it wasn’t as as blunt as that. But it for in my mind that’s the way I felt, you know, it was it was definitely more diplomatic than that. And you know, but it just felt like there was just so much guilt and condemnation that they were pouring on me. And it’s just like, it just it wasn’t right. They were trying to get me to align with where they wanted to go. And so I knew it was time for me to leave that and that took a lot of growth inside of me to be able to handle that. And and that was a part of the journey. But what that did for me, Kim is it helped me to understand something that I absolutely at that time was convinced that my calling in life was to be involved in a devotion to Christian ministry, okay, up until that point, I had been taught that the only way to pursue that is through an elder position and ultimately the head pastor is the highest that you’re going to get in whatever denomination I had been a part of. However, for me, my eyes were being open to the idea that ministry doesn’t have to look anything like the traditional model. That ministry can look a little bit more like what you see in the New Testament where people just average everyday ordinary, normal people with normal business lives and other occupations could just naturally be a part of encouraging other people through their faith and prompted by their faith, and to do so without ulterior motives and that just started a whole new journey inside of me, which by the way, I launched a podcast called about the church, which was a weekly podcast, my wife and I created another show, which ultimately came out to be called Family From The Heart, which we did for 10 years on a weekly basis. And we just started to create content that would encourage and inspire and entertain and encourage people to become more of who God created them to be and that’s where my heart was. And ultimately, it got to the place where after about 18 months of podcasting as a hobby, I started to ask myself the question, I wonder what life would be like if I did this for a living instead. And by this for a living, I meant putting our message out into the world. And when I started to share that publicly, I had some people who are listening to our podcast and I say, “Hey, I’m an entrepreneur, I’ve never been an employee, you could totally do this Cliff, here are three things that I think you could do extremely well.” And I had already had people asking me to teach them how to podcast, at that point, I’d already had people convincing me to let them pay me to teach them how to podcast. And so I knew that at this point, I’m making a couple of $1,000 a month from my podcasting endeavors. And I started to get these conversations with these entrepreneurs, these people who are self-employed, and every time I would come home and tell my wife about it, and the more I fell in love with what was happening through podcasting. The impact I was having through this internet communication model, if you will, the more I started to see my day job as an insurance agent as a distraction. Does that make sense?

Kim Sutton: That absolutely makes sense.

Cliff Ravenscraft: So basically, what happened was, I get to the place where I used to work 55, 60 hours a week as an insurance agent. And I’d work about 20 hours a week doing podcasting on the side, and I used to do church stuff. But then I left the church stuff, and I was doing 55 to 60 hours a week as an insurance agent and then I was doing about 30 to 35 hours of podcast stuff. And podcast stuff, by the way does not mean preparing for our podcast episode recording an episode and publishing an episode. It also has everything to do with interacting with hundreds of people around the world every single week. And for me, that was the greatest part of it. The content was a passion of mine. Getting behind the microphone and talking was a passion of mine. All of that definitely a passion. But it was the connection with hundreds of people around the world on a weekly basis that was absolutely driving this passion. The fact that we were having such a profound, powerful positive impact in people’s lives. And long story short of actually not not short at all, but what happened was, I got to the place where I started working just the minimum of 40 hours a week. I’m working 50 hours a week devoted to the podcast stuff. I’m making several 1000s of dollars per month. And I started having really bad negative attitude towards my day job. Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t just a distraction. It was just like, it was like the ball and chain, it was just weighing me down. And the environment started to getting toxic. You know, I love my mom and dad, I love my sister. But it was just me, myself, my sister, my mom and my dad in this insurance agency. And there are times when being with your mom and dad and your sister every single day and having a very large agency, as far as number of clients, but a very small agency as the number of employees that actually manage all those people. It wasn’t always fun. And so I came home one day after a string of bad days and this one was like the– this was the big daddy of bad days. And my wife that day, it was September 2007, I came home she goes, “Okay, that’s it.” And I said, “What?” She says, “Tomorrow, you’re going in, you’re telling your dad that you quit. You’re putting your notice in.”  And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” And she’s like, we both know that this is what God’s calling you to do. You already are making this amount of money. Just imagine if you weren’t distracted by this and look at how many hours you’re working per week. This is weighing you down. You’ve had all these people tell you that you can make it doing this. I believe them. You know in your heart you believe them and if you don’t you know in your heart that God’s going to make this work out. You have to go in and give your dad your notice tomorrow. You have to quit. And we talked about it for about 25 30 minutes. And then it just became clear. It’s like, yeah, that really is the only option, isn’t it? And she says, yeah. So the next morning, I was going to go in and put my 90 day notice in but before we went to bed that night, what do we do? Before I even tell my dad, we record a podcast episode, and I publish it immediately announcing to the world that the very next day, I’m going in to talk to my dad, and I’m going to give him my 90 day notice. And so I had to put it out there for all of these 1000s of people around the world to know because that way I’m not going to back out of doing it. And I was so scared. And I went and saw my dad and he told me, “Dude, I’ve been waiting for months for you to come in and tell me you’re ready to leave.” And I’m like, really? He goes, Yeah. It’s very clear that when you’re here, you’re not here. It’s been that way for quite some time now. And you have to go do this. And I’m like, What do you mean? He goes, you have to go do this. Because you can’t go through life wondering what if. And my dad had a story of when he left the insurance agency when his dad owned it, and he started his own entrepreneurial journey, he went out and started a grocery store in laundromat in a very bad neighborhood. It didn’t work out so great. But he goes, man, you know what I grew and I learned so much back then. And I for me, it reminded me of the opportunity and what I loved about insurance and I now I’m here. And I don’t have to ever ask myself, Well, what if I would have done that? Because I went out and did it. I learned what it was like in another field. And also I took what was great from that experience, and it helps me now. Now as a business owner, I’m able to be more profitable and more successful in my business here as an insurance agent. So you can’t ever allow yourself to say what if you, you have to go do this. There’s no if’s, and’s, or but’s. This is the right decision. He says, Cliff, you know, of course, he’s been my dad since I was like five years old. He says, you know, since you were a kid, you’re taking electronic things apart and computer stuff apart and the ministry stuff that you do. This is such a clear, I mean, it’s such a clear path for you. And by this point, he’s actually, my dad’s already very close friends with big huge multi deca millionaires and stuff like that. And he says, the most successful people I know have a story just like the story that you have lived out over the last 10 to 20 years of your life. And here’s what I want to tell you. My dad told me, he says, if this thing doesn’t work out, you can always come back here. But I’m going to tell you right now you never will. He goes, I have absolutely zero doubt whatsoever that you are going to succeed ultimately. It’s not going to be easy, but you’re going to succeed. And you know how much money you can make here if you stay and I retire and you take over the agency, right? And I said, Yep, and trust me, that’s a lot of money. And he says, but I want to tell you all ultimately, down the road, eventually, you’ll make 10 times more money doing what it is that you’re going to go and do and where that will lead you then you could ever dream of making here because your heart is not in it here. And I was absolutely shocked. I thought my dad was going to be like, do you know what you’re giving up? Do you know how many people would, but no, my dad’s like, this is the obvious thing. And thus began my 90 day notice and that 90 days was a drudge, let me tell you, I hated being there every single one of those 90 days. But I also had, like all this fear and anxiety about what I was going to do, how was I going to make money? I mean, I had ideas, but they were just ideas, mostly. And I had some track record, but not enough to replace my income as an insurance agent. And I had no idea what it took to run a business. But now I’m on this path of entrepreneurship. I remember one day, just like totally flipping out, my wife and I were watching TV, not the TV show Lost, but we were watching TV. And just like out of nowhere came this overwhelming sense of depression just like what have I done. This anxiety of I’ve just ruined my life, my kids are going to be taken away from us, my wife’s gonna leave me good. It’s like we’re gonna lose our house. We’re gonna lose everything. I mean, it just like the the worst you could possibly imagine that’s all that could go through my head at the time. And I just remember freaking out like non-stop and I was, of course, me, I’m very authentic. I have this one podcast at the time called Pursuing a Balanced Life. Kim, I don’t know if you know this, but over the past 12 years, I’ve done 30 different podcasts with over 3700 podcast episodes. So

Kim Sutton: I can’t even imagine cliff.

Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah. So I’ve documented all of this stuff. I’ve got all of this stuff documented back then. But I started sharing with my audience. I’m so freaked out. And so people would say, Cliff, I’d get on a call and talk with you. I’d like to encourage you and talk to your dad and maybe you can work out a transition plan, your dad loves you, there’s absolutely no way he’s not going to let you do this. What you do is you work with your dad for three days a week, and the other two days plus the weekend, you work on building the business, that’d be a great transition. You do that for three months, you’re solid, you’re good to go. So I went to my dad, and he says, absolutely not. And I’m like, what everybody told me you were gonna let me do this. I didn’t say that. But he says, absolutely not. He says you can’t serve to masters, your heart’s not here, you hated it here. And you know, the thing is, is you either need to give 100% of your attention to building that and making it work or you need to give that up and put 100% of your attention here and making this work. You cannot have your heart divided between the two. You choose one and you focus on it. That is one thing that I learned from my entrepreneurial, self-employed dad, that looking back was one of the smartest things he ever did for me. And I will tell you, Kim, the first year of my business was the most difficult year financially we’d ever had. I did not get paid. My business made enough money to pay for all of its overhead, paid for all the health insurance benefits for my family. But myself, my business never made paid me a paycheck for the first nine months. And for the first nine months, I worked seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day without a single pay off. But I absolutely loved what I was doing. I was filled with fulfillment and joy throughout the entire process. And over the couple years, I tried different monetization strategies. We created lots of content, as I told you, we had a membership program where if you pay $10 a month, you get access to every episode of all these different shows that we were launching, that got up to the place where it was generating $28,000 a year I was making more than that teaching people how to podcast and plus I had some advertising and sponsorship and I had some affiliate income and all this other stuff. But when it all came down to it, what happened was the natural path for me was the podcast coaching and consulting side. And as a result of that, that side of the income was just the most, it was the easiest, it was the one that actually grew the fastest, and it seemed to have unlimited potential. And over the past 12 years, I’ve taught more than 35,000 people how to launch a podcast. And that has been extremely profitable over the years. But the only thing is, though, is I never left my career in insurance to become a podcast coach and consultant. Do you see what I’m saying?

Kim Sutton: I hear what you’re saying.

Cliff Ravenscraft: I left my career in insurance because creating content and just being out there and putting a message into the world and actually communicating with people was having a powerful and positive impact on people’s lives. So I already knew from the earliest days that my greatest calling, my mission in life is to entertain, encourage, educate and inspire. Actually, it’s entertaining, educating, encouraging, and inspiring. And all of that why am I entertaining them to get their attention to just well just to get their attention and to educate to communicate information in a way that they understand it in a way that actually resonates with them that they can grasp. I can take some of the most complex concepts and teach it to somebody in a way that they understand that even if they have no prior experience. You know what, like, wow, that totally makes sense to me. I’ve been trying to learn this for months. And so I love to educate and then I love to encourage, encouraging others, right? And then I love to inspire people but what is it that I’m trying to inspire them to do? It’s not encouraging, inspire people to become Christian, that used to be my motives many many years ago. But my motives today, when I say encouraging others through Christ, I just mean that Christ is very much– Jesus is very much a part of who I am and why I am doing what I do. But I no longer have ulterior motives of whether or not I will invest in somebody based upon whether or not they will validate my worldview or have the potential of one day validating my worldview. That was the old Cliff Ravenscraft. But encouraging others through Christ just means that here I am authentically this is me. I am motivated by my faith to serve all humanity, to serve all people, to entertain all people, to educate all people, to encourage all people, to inspire all people, and to do what? To help them become more of who they were created to be.

Cliff Ravenscraft: And that, for me is not the ulterior motive, I don’t have the end result in mind of everybody’s going to be converted. For me, I don’t care who you are, what your lifestyle is, if I can entertain, educate, encourage, and inspire you and help you take just one step closer to becoming of more of who you were created to be, then I feel like that brings fulfillment to my life. And so–

Kim Sutton: Cliff I already shared with you my 12 year old son Robert and I were listening to you just a few days ago and you were telling a story about how you and Stephanie would be going through your couch cushions and I think this was before you started podcasting, even maybe in the story, and you would be trying to find Penny so you could buy gas, and you would be rolling them up.

Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah. That was when we first got married. That was before ministry, before insurance, all of that.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. Well, Robert looks over at me, because listeners, Dave and I and my family have had our struggles, that would be saying it very nicely. But Robert looks over and he says, Mom, we don’t know what that’s like, chuckle chuckle and he says, this guy’s really inspiring. He’s like, I want to listen to him more. So from and I’m sure there’s plenty under 12 who hear you as well. But yeah, Roberts a fan. I’m a fan, you know.

Cliff Ravenscraft: I appreciate that. And over the years, I’ve heard that over and over and over again. And so much so that I’ve come to believe it myself that wow. And so what happened was I’m making, let me just say this, my first year in business was like a miserable mess financially. But we were still profitable the first year in our business, just because the payroll was pretty light. But the second year was not as miserable, but it was still nothing close to what I had as an insurance agent. But once I started honing in and said, Okay, well, let’s just make all the money from teaching people how to podcast, well, then all of a sudden, my income started to skyrocket. I mean, there was three different years that my income doubled. And it’s always gone up, up, up and up. And so we’ve gotten to the place where today we live very, very comfortably and we have some pretty amazing things. But the last eight years, I would say that, well 85% of my income came from one particular product called podcasting A to Z teaching people how to podcast and that was just that alone was $240,000 a year. And I got to the place where teaching that course and answering people’s questions about what microphone and what plug and answering all these questions of why is this broken? Why is my artwork not showing up? I realized it was a part of what was allowing me to connect with these some of these people on a deeper level. But you know, and what allowed me to do it for so long was I am helping people get their message out into the world, which I absolutely loved. And for every 20 to 40 students that I had that took podcasting A to Z where I was coaching them for four weeks, I always had two or three students that would allow me to do more, which means that I was able to mentor them and coach them and come alongside them and expand their mindset about who they were and what they’re able to achieve in this world and help them you know, basically become more of who they were created to be. And so I always had one, two or three students in every four week session. But a majority of my time was answering mind numbing questions that practically anybody in the technology could answer for them. And I’m like, I started asking myself the question again, it’s funny because it’s 10 years after I left my career in insurance, it was 10 years into my career in insurance when I asked myself, I wonder what life would be like if I didn’t do insurance, and I could do podcasting full time. And it was 10 years into my podcasting full time, you know, building a business around podcasting full time. 10 years into that, that I started asking myself the question, I wonder what life would be like if I could make a living and I wasn’t making a living by teaching people the technical aspects of podcasting. But instead, I was actually making a living by entertaining, educating, encouraging and inspiring people. Now still educating, but not basically around the same thing, the same 25 to 30 questions from 35,000 people that I’ve done. It’s the same 30 or 40 questions, right? The’re very few new questions that could come up as it relates to why isn’t my podcast working. And when you do that, for 35,000 people is like, Oh, my gosh, if I never answer a technical question related to podcasting again, I’d be okay with that.

So that is the response to the very first question you asked me in this interview, Kim. That’s what’s led to the transition. And today, back in September 2017, after 10 years, or after eight years of doing podcasting A to Z, my most profitable thing in my business, I completely shut it off cold turkey, and decided that I wanted to mentor and coach people through the process of leaving their unfulfilling day job, and creating an online business that allows them to do the work that they love,  and to live the life that they were created to live.

Kim Sutton: That’s so beautiful. And I don’t know, that doesn’t seem very eloquent coming from somebody who normally has a lot more to say, but I can’t explain or I can’t say any more than that. That’s so beautiful. And I have to say that even as an entrepreneur who left her full time job five years ago, I mean, it’s really easy, I mean, very much similar to what you were just talking about. I left my full time job and started the business for not necessarily the right reasons. I mean, well, it was the right reason at the time, right? To make money help support my family, but it wasn’t necessarily what was pulling at my heartstrings. So now five years in realizing what does pull at the heartstrings, and I see so many similarities because I mean, I realized that well, this is maybe not a similarity. But I realized that so much more has happened in my business when I become more transparent, more authentic, stop worrying about what I think everybody wants to hear.

Cliff Ravenscraft: Absolutely. It’s one of my favorite things that I tell podcasters is like, listen, you know, so many people say, well, survey your audience and ask them what they want. And it’s like, No, absolutely not. And, and trust me, I get a lot of negative feedback, I say, create the content that you want to create, and the right audience that wants to hear it will find you.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. One of my earliest episodes was finding fortune and misfortune and it was talking about two of our cats fame and fortune, they’d had a fight. I was trying to leave the house and they had flown onto the bathroom counter and flipped a whole bag of makeup into the toilet. But you know, we find fortune and misfortune. That just happens to be the name of one of my cats. And there’s an opportunity out of everything. What really inspired me was, and I just had to share with you what really inspired me about one of your most recent podcast episodes and listeners, it’s going to be a month or so before this episode goes out. But I’ll make sure to link to it in the show notes which you can find it thekimsutton.com/pp252. You were sharing how there were months that went by when either you or Stephanie would be crying about the money that came in, or didn’t come in. And that was the struggle, and we had that, it was always me, my husband, my husband only cries at weddings and when babies are born. But that first month, or that first year in our business, our tax return showed a total income of $5,000 for the whole year and the second year, it doubled but hey, listeners, you can do the math. I mean, well, a little more than doubled. It went up to 12,000. But by that point, there were already five of us in the house. It was a struggle. But I knew that we just had to keep on keeping on. And it’s doubled again and I can’t wait to see 2018 and beyond is going to be amazingly incredible.

Cliff Ravenscraft: It is and in the cool thing that I’ve learned is and by the way,  my experience, your experience, it’s not uncommon. Very few people are comfortable enough to actually speak it out loud. You know that, Oh my gosh, I’ve been working seven days a week around the clock and I’ve been doing it for two years and I’ve only made 5000 12,000 whatever. That story is not so uncommon, but a lot of people won’t say it because a lot of people would hear that and say, Man that is so irresponsible, you’re a failure, why don’t you go back and get a job. This is ridiculous. Bla bla bla bla bla. But here’s what I happen to know from the people that I’m connected to, I’m connected to some people who are, to say they’re millionaires is an understatement. I mean, they have lots of money. And the thing that I know about every single one of them is they have a story similar to ours. And if you get down and you talk with them, they’re very real, very authentic, and they’ll share with you their story. I mean, Dan Miller’s talked about in his podcast many times about the fact that at one point, he owned a health club, and the bank called his note right at the real estate market crash. And as a result of that, I think he owed, it might have been 230,000, or 130,000, I can’t remember. But it was in the hundreds of 1000s of dollars in taxes and money that he owed the IRS. And there’s just no way you could go out and “get a day job” and pay that back. And of course, his principles wouldn’t allow him to do bankruptcy or whatever. And so he went out, and he did the next thing that he would do, he would create businesses, and he would put food on the table, and eventually, he paid it all back and then some. Today, he’s known around the world as a guy who’s written a New York Times best-selling book called 48 Days to the Work and Life You Love. It sold many, many millions of copies and has transformed the lives of tons of people, including myself. And there are so many people with that story. And so that’s what I love about my story, in my experience, and what and I think Kim, the fact that you’re doing this podcast, I know that you’re gonna help people with this as well, is when I left my career in insurance, really the only thing, the one marketable product that I had to offer was let me teach you how to podcast but not just the technical stuff but let me tell you about the heart of podcasting. Let me tell you how to be truly successful with podcasting. And let me explain to you why being truly successful with podcasting has nothing to do with how many subscribers you have, and has nothing to do with where you’re ranked in iTunes. So I made a great living doing that for so many years. But the reality is that when I left my current insurance, I obviously could not have made any money at all as a business coach, because I had no idea what I was doing. But now after 10 years of building this business, and now it’s an extremely profitable business, and also as a result of just the amazing networking that I’ve done, and the people that I’m connected with. Now what I know about business, boy, if I had me in my life, in 2008, I might still have a gallbladder, which we didn’t get into. But let’s just say that the year of 2008, my first year in business was so stressful that at the end of the year, I had a massive gall bladder attack with tons of stones, and they took my gallbladder out. I was in the hospital for two weeks and almost died. So yes, that was a part of my first year in business as well. But the thing is, is now when I think about it, it’s like, wow, before, over those first several years, my marketable skill was teaching people all the things that I had learned and known about creating a successful podcast with helping them understand the definition of success that I meant. And then over the course of these 10 years, like Wow, now I can actually go in and help people who are looking to leave the unfulfilling day jobs, specifically working with people who created a blog, who created a podcast, a YouTube channel who has written a book and those people have put their message out into the world kind of like me just recording that first podcast as a hobby. And then all of a sudden, that message goes out and people are saying, wow, I’d love to connect with you more, can you help me more and seeing the powerful and positive impact they’re having in people’s lives. And then all of a sudden, people are saying, wow, I’m very successful financially in my day job, which by the way, was my story. I was extremely financially successful as an insurance agent. But I was unfulfilled. And I did not realize how unfulfilled I was until I found something truly fulfilling. And then where I am today is like, man, I want to take all those people who are anywhere from asking themselves the question and specifically, I want to start with people who have the thought in their head right now, but they’ve never yet spoken it out loud, because they’re afraid to do so. And that question is, I wonder what life would be like, if I could do this instead? All I want to start working with people there, all the way up to where people are like where you’re at Kim, and that’s, I’ve been building my business for five years. I’ve struggled so much. I’m starting to see some success. But there are some things that I know about five years in and the sort of success that you’re starting to see, there are some things that I’ve learned over the last three to five years that boy, I think somebody like you Kim, who has already been generating income, there are just a couple different mindset shifts that I could introduce you to that once you get these concepts in your mind, you will actually change your standard of what you expect from life and expect from your business. And it will radically alter– it will shortcut your next five steps in your business. Instead of taking five years to get where I am, you could get there in the next one to two years. And that’s what I love about where I am today and what I’m doing today.

Kim Sutton: Sign me up.

Cliff Ravenscraft: You already did.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, I already did. Full disclosure listeners, I am part of Cliff’s next level mastermind, which is completely incredible. And what is it now three months?

Cliff Ravenscraft: Three months in.

Kim Sutton: I have seen those mind shifts like I would have never believed. I almost made up a word there. Like I would have never believed possible just four months ago.

Cliff Ravenscraft: It’s incredible. There is so we have a total of 10 people in the next level mastermind. And within the first hot seat of over half of the people I’ve seen massive, drastic mindset shifts that have completely altered the course that they were on in their business. And that is like, it brings you joy to my heart, and I’m like, this is what I wanted to do when I left my career in insurance. Although I just didn’t have the experience to do it yet. And so I’m thankful for all of the heartache and all the struggle and all the learning and education that I’ve been given through the school of hard knocks and everything else and all the great generous people in my life that have poured into me and encouraged me and gave me valuable advice over the years. And yeah, it just gets me fired up about what the next 10 years of my life is going to be like.

Kim Sutton: What would you like to see in 10 years?

Cliff Ravenscraft: I’m going to share with you a vision that I have, and I think you’ve probably heard this if you’ve listened to anything recently for me. But I’m going to give you a vision. And I don’t know that I would actually say this is something that I want for myself, but I’m going to give you a vision and I think it may happen within 10 years. And that is I have a vision that I will be going down the path of somebody like Tony Robbins and that I have a vision that there will be one day that I will be standing on a stage in a stadium in front of 10s of 1000s of people who came there to hear me communicate to them some sort of message. And I used to weird me out that I had this vision, I would only talk to my very closest friends, the people who I knew wouldn’t like, you know, laugh at me. But they encouraged me. And then I started to share it with like some strangers that I would meet every now and then. And I remember the first time I shared it outside of my friend circle was in New Zealand. So I was at a dinner party, invited to a dinner party with some people that I’d never met before. I just met them while I was on a business trip to New Zealand doing a speaking gig. And I figured, Okay, I’m gonna try this out on an audience of people who don’t know me all that well. And just based upon what they saw as my speaking on the stage at the Asia Pacific podcast conference, and then having just communicated with them, because literally, these people just knew of me, but they didn’t know anything really about me. And so at the time, I said to them, I said, listen at about, I have this vision of 20, you know, 10 to 20 years from now of me being on a stage in front of 10s of 1000s of people. And every single person in the room. I think there’s like eight people in the room. Every single person in the room says yeah, I totally see that. And I’m like, What? And I’m like, yeah, Cliff I totally see that. As a matter of fact, and then by the end of that evening, every single one of those people said Cliff, the first stadium event that you do, I’m buying a ticket. And I’m like, wow. And so I started telling other people about this and ever since I’ve been telling people about this vision, every single person that I’ve told have said yes, and when that happens, I will be there. And I’m like this is great. So now I just realized all I needed to do is tell 35 55000 people and have this conversation with that many people and get them all to commit to being there when I actually reserve a stadium and do the thing, right? Well, anyway–

Kim Sutton: I’m here nodding. Like you can see it. I’m like, yeah, sign me up. I’ll be there and I’ll bring the whole family. There’s how many tickets sold?

Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah. And so many people have told me that. And in a way, it’s hitting me like with those early conversations when I said, Guys, what would life be like, if I could create a career for myself outside of insurance? And I would have conversation Cliff, you could totally lose, I totally see this. And it’s kind of like those things. It’s starting to sink in. And so it’s at the place now where I believe it. I honestly believe it will happen. Remember, you asked the question, you know, what would you like your life? Is that what I would really like for my life to be like, the old Cliff like early day, Cliff Ravenscraft? You’re the one who if you read those most critical reviews of the Lost podcast that guy? Yes, he would totally want that. But I don’t. Honestly, it’s like, I do, but I don’t. I do for the fame,  but I don’t for the fame. I know enough about that lifestyle to know what comes along, at least some of what comes along with it. You know, so I’m already what some people would call a big fish in a small pond. So if I go to a conference, for example, where there’s 5000 people and the conference is completely 100% focused on podcasting. I can tell you from experience, I need, what do they call that person. It’s not a bouncer, there’s a term for it. But you need a person–

Kim Sutton: Not a bouncer like security?

Cliff Ravenscraft: It’s not security, either. There’s an actual name for it. But it’s a person that basically walks with you everywhere you go and make sure that you get to places where you need to be. And so I’ll give you an example I know these people out there. But I do know it. I just can’t think of it. But I’ll give you an example. So I needed it. I was the actual director of podcasting for New Media Expo, and 1000s of people there. And I had put together the entire podcasting track. And the thing is, is all these people from around the world who had been listening to me and you imagine I helped 35,000 people launch a podcast, right? So a lot of people would love to have a five to 10 minute conversation with me, a couple 1000 people would love to have a five to 10 minute conversation with me. Now you do the math over a three day period. It doesn’t work out. I’m a people pleaser. Well, I’m a recovering, okay, I am a recovered people pleaser. But at the time, I was like, how can I say no to anybody? And the problem is I couldn’t walk anywhere. And so I found this friend of mine and I said, “Matt, I need to go to the bathroom. Can you help me get there?” And he said sure. And so basically he plowed away through and in even then we got stopped like four different times and and Matts like I’m sorry, Cliff has somebody where he needs to be. I’m going to come back in just a few minutes. If you’ll wait here, I will get your name and we’ll make sure that there’s a time where you can connect with Cliff. It was crazy. And so the thing is it’s literally like a football thing. So I’ve got all these Hey, Cliff, hey, Cliff, and Matt was just like, I’m sorry. He’s got to be somewhere and it’s okay, cool. I’ll catch you later. And of course, I’m being pulled along and I’m like, Oh, I will connect to it. I’ll be at my talk. So I’ll see you later. So he’s pulling me in. He’s taking me all the way to the bathroom. And then jokingly he says, Cliff, do you want me to go in with you? And I said, No, I think I got it from here. So I’m about ready to explode. I have to pee. Okay. I am about ready to explode. It has been an hour and a half at that point since I first had to go. And he says, “Do you need me to go in with you?” And I said, “No, I think I’m fine.” And so I walk into the bathroom and I’m not kidding you a guy had just finished washing his hands, thankfully. And he was drying his hands under the dryer and he sees me walk in he just oh my gosh, I’m so excited. Thank you so much. I got to tell you– in 30 minutes in the bathroom. I’m not kidding you. When I’m thinking about what I’m thinking of this is a tiny conference and to get to the place where 35 to 50,000 people would come that’s Tony Robbins level of stuff and I just imagine what life must be like for Tony Robbins and his wife. When I went to a Tony Robbins event, and Stephanie and I went down, it was June of 2016. And we’re in Dallas, Texas and 1000s upon 1000s people, there’s no way that Tony and his wife could walk down the street in Dallas, Texas, without 1000s of people, hundreds of people lining up to take pictures and selfies with him. The thing is Tony’s very generous, he would do it and all this stuff. And most people are respectful, right? But my wife is very protective of her time with me, rightfully so. And I will tell you, my wife, she doesn’t like it when people come up while we’re having a conversation. And just like barging in and saying, I’m so sorry, but I have to say, Hi, I got to tell you this story. And can we take a picture and then they hand my wife their phone and say, well, you take a picture of us. And she dislikes it just a little bit more when it’s a very attractive woman. So you see where I’m going with this right?

Kim Sutton: Yeah. I can see where you’re going with it.

Cliff Ravenscraft: And so there’s a different time when I’m speaking at a platform conference for Michael Hyatt. And we’re not even taking a direct flight from Cincinnati to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Instead, we fly to Denver, and then we do a connecting flight. We’re getting on a connecting flight, literally boarding the plane. And this very attractive woman comes up and says, “Oh my gosh, is that Cliff Ravenscraft.” Literally, we’re trying to get on a plane, you know how people are rushed into like, blah, blah, blah. And this very attractive woman says, I’m sorry everyone, I know you’re going to be upset about this. But you gotta wait. I have to have a selfie with Cliff Ravenscraft. This is the podcast Answer Man. This is on a connecting plane. People are just now waiting to get on and put their luggage up in the rack and sit down. And she’s holding up everyone shoves her phone into my wife’s hand and says, we take a selfie with us. And literally, she’s like all over, you know, and my wife is like livid. She’s like, ah, and so when I asked like, man, if this happens, and trust me, I understand this is a very small pond. It just so happens that she happened to be going to the same conference where I was speaking, and she knew who I was. And so Kim, do I want to be that there’s so much of me that wants to be there not just for the fame. Because I mean, I’d be inauthentic if I told you that there wasn’t just a little part of me that wants it for the fame, right? But man, the idea that I could actually ever be in a place where my influence with my message, my desire to entertain, educate, encourage and inspire, could be at such a level that if I hosted an event at an at a stadium that 35 to 50,000 people come. It’s not just fame but the mere fact that would ever even be remotely possible that I could have that much impact in the world would blows my mind. And so yeah, I kind of want it but at the same time, I know all the other stuff, all that other stuff comes with it. And not to mention the fact that, gosh, there’s one person that spends at least five hours a week to go out of his way to do hateful mean things to me on the internet. And that’s just one and I know that when you get up to a certain level, if you stand for anything, death threats are gonna come, all of those. And the other thing is, to be at that level, there’s a lot of things that have to happen inside of me. Today, Cliff Ravenscraft is not the person who can handle all of that. And for me to be able to become that person, there’s a lot of painful growth. And I’m talking emotionally. I feel like I’m a pretty decent human being. But trust me, we all have a lot to work to do, right? And I think for me to get to that place, there’s a lot of painful growth and things that I’m going to need to admit to and stretch to grow and become more responsible in certain areas of my life. And I’ve already seen a lot of that happen over the last two years since I started having this vision. And the crazy thing is is I’ve already started taking steps towards it. So for example, I started hosting live events here in my home and people have been coming in it’s been selling out 14 tickets at a time because I have a space that a trending space that will hold 15 or 14 people. And then this September, I’m hosting my first 300 person event, which for me is huge right now. But at the same time I see that 300 person event as my first or my next step towards walking toward this thing. So, Kim, I don’t know that I want it, but it seems to be the destination I’m walking towards without knowing exactly– well, I do know why, but I don’t know. Anyway, but that’s the answer to the question.

Kim Sutton: I love the answer to the question. And I had to share, I was part of a podcasting event myself this past September. And there was a mastermind day for the icons the last day of the event. And, well, I’m just gonna put the name out there, Steve Walsh’s new media summit. And he was asking how he could have made it better because it was the first time and some of the lady icons, myself included, requested that the next time that maybe there’ll be a bathroom, or restroom just for the icons. Because similar situation we would be going in, in our rare opportunities to use the ladies room. And we would have participants trying to pitch us over the restroom stalls. And I won’t call it embarrassing. Everybody pees. But it’s pretty uncomfortable when you’re sitting there trying to go pee and somebody is trying to pitch you on why they should be on your show while you’re trying to go pee. And one other thing, my husband, he’s an independent video game developer working on his first game, or first games. And we’ve talked before about, you know, do we ever want to leave the area and we’re not too far from you, Cliff, we’re just outside of Dayton, Ohio. And one thing that’s come up over and over again is, No. Because it’s so nice and quiet here. We can move out to the country. And if we need to put a wall up around our house, but we can still go to the store. Can you still go to the store Cliff?

Cliff Ravenscraft: I can. So there’s a story in the Bible where it says a prophet is never welcome in his own hometown. And so I’m not really a big deal here in my local area. It’s changed a little bit over the last two years. But most people are like they’re doing a really good job of making sure that my ego does not inflate too much around here. Yeah. And some of that’s been intentional, some of it I’ve intentionally not marketed myself to people in my own local area just because, you know, I like to have the ability to just sit back and relax. And one of the things I roll into Franklin, Tennessee, at least two to four times a year. And Franklin Tennessee is where many of my closest friends and online business mentors people like Michael Hyatt, Dan Miller and Ken Davis and a bunch of other amazing people like Andy Traub, and Jeff Goins, and Grant Baldwin and all these other I mean, it is the mecca of for a lot of people there, San Diego.  There’s Franklin, Tennessee, there’s a lot of hot spots where people in our world exists in large numbers. And I go down to Franklin and I will tell you, I can go down there for three days and never have a minute alone if I want. I’m an introvert, by the way. But if I wanted to, I’d never spend a minute alone and I mean, I could literally go 24 hours a day non stop, and people would want to do something. And I love the idea of coming home after a couple of days in Franklin and saying, Okay, I’m by myself again, I can recharge. And people say you should move down here. I will never ever, ever move to Franklin, or any other place where all of these people know who I am and want to hang out with me and buy me meals and all that stuff. And it sounds crazy but I like to just be alone. I like to be with my wife. I like to be with my kids. I like to sit back and relax and think a lot, consume a lot of content and create a lot of content.

Kim Sutton: Amen. I’m right there with you. So I have a couple last questions. Thank you by the way for being so generous with your time today. This has been absolutely amazing. What’s the last podcast you listened to?

Cliff Ravenscraft: Ray Edwards. The Ray Edwards show and was titled New Year Now What?

Kim Sutton: I love it. I haven’t listened to that one yet. But it is coming up. What are two other podcasts that you subscribe to?

Cliff Ravenscraft: Two other podcasts that I subscribe to, How I Built This is one of my favorite. Although I only listened to How I Built This is from NPR. And it’s guy Roz is the Podcast Producer. And he interviews people about how they built their mega-popular, mega-successful businesses. The only thing is, though, is I only listened to episodes of businesses that I consider to be, intriguing to me. So there was Samuel Adams, the guy who built Samuel Adams, that is definitely a must listen to the episode. The guy who created five-hour energy drink, that’s a must listen to the episode. There’s the guy who’s responsible for the creation of the Power Rangers. That is a must listen to the episode. Gosh, what are some other ones? I will tell you, it’s usually only two out of maybe one or two out of every 10 episodes that they released that they have a company that I’ve heard of, or that I’m intrigued by. And so I skipped practically every episode, but I download any ones and the one thing I hate is that they go a long time without producing a new episode, and then all of a sudden a new episode shows up and it’s a replay. I hate that. Anyway, How I Built This is great when they have a good episode and there are a handful of them. And the ones that I mentioned are ones I would definitely point out. And by the way, something I learned about all of those is my favorite story. that seems to be a connecting thread between all of them is I love all of the stories that I’ve done, I would say a majority of them were people who created another one Southwest Airlines, definitely a must. But I would say almost all of them have this story of where the business that today is worth hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, all almost all of them the guys who started them had absolutely no clue about anything related to that industry. So if you go to the five-hour energy drink, you’ll hear it there. The Southwest Airlines story, you’ll hear it there. This guy and what they say is one of the things that contributed to their success was number one, that they absolutely knew nothing about the industry that they went into. And therefore they didn’t know what wouldn’t work. So that’s number one. And number two, there is more than one of the people that were interviewed that said, No, when we started this and we didn’t know what we were doing. We absolutely were intentional about not hiring consultants, because we did not want to be told what doesn’t work. So it’s just like, I love the freshness of that and so many unique things. So one other podcasts that I subscribe to? I’ll tell you The God Journey. The God Journey is an amazing podcast by Wayne Jacobson and Brad Cummings. And it’s a podcast for those who are living a faith filled life in relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the institutional, traditional form of Christianity.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I haven’t heard of that one yet.

Cliff Ravenscraft: It’s called The God Journey. The God Journey.

Kim Sutton: I am going to have to go check that one out. It’s not helping my podcasts subscription list. Cliff, how many hours of sleep to get a night?

Cliff Ravenscraft: A minimum of six and I try to get somewhere between six to nine.

Kim Sutton: Do you wake up with an alarm?

Cliff Ravenscraft: I do.

Kim Sutton: What does it sound like?

Cliff Ravenscraft: It sounds like my phone making half a beep before I shut it off before my wife getting too angry with me.

Kim Sutton: I’ve actually turned off my alarm because now I wake up every morning to mama I got to go pee

Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah. I wake up to an alarm and the alarm is set for a minimum of six hours after I’ve gone to bed. So if I go to bed at 12:00 at night then there’s no way I will ever get up before 6 am and many times my favorite time to go to bed believe it or not is 8 pm. That’s my favorite bedtime. I very rarely get to go to bed at 8:00 sometimes it’s 9 pm, on average, I would say most nights I’m in bed by 10 o’clock. But if I can work it out, I would be in bed at 8:00 every single night.

Kim Sutton: Cliff, 8:00 is my favorite bedtime because that’s what my kids go to bed. And by the way, I just had to share a quick story. I don’t think I’ve shared this when I’m on the podcast before. listeners and cCiff, my three littles share a bedroom that’s right across the hall from my bedroom. And we had to turn their doorknob around, because they kept on locking us out of their bedroom, that the child safety locks don’t work because they hang like monkeys and they fly off. So we turn their doorknob around. And we have a bedtime ritual where my husband and I and my two sons, we all go in there and give them hugs and kisses and put them down to sleep because the littles are four, and then the twins will be three in a month. So we all go in there one night to put them down to bed and we get done. And we realize we’re locked in. One of those littles had blocked us all into the bedroom. So we actually had to put my son Robert out the window to run around the house and let us all out. So that’s why we’ll get woken up by mama or Dad, I gotta go pee. It’s because we have to actually lock them into their room. Because these littles they’re amazing, we love them, but if we let them loose in the house, we’re gonna wake up with sharpie all over or with five rolls of toilet paper in the toilet. But yeah, completely not podcast related, I know but actually, it gives some quiet time for podcast recording first thing in the morning as well. Cliff this has been completely amazing. Thank you so much again. For listeners who haven’t found you on the internet, which is surprising to me, if you haven’t yet listeners, where can they go and find you and get in touch and get to know more?

Cliff Ravenscraft: The easiest place is CliffRavenscraft.com or you can type in podcastanswerman.com, either one will take you to exactly the same place. So which one is easiest for you to remember or spell CliffRavenscraft.com or podcastanswerman.com.

Kim Sutton: Fabulous. Listeners, the links and the podcast that Cliff has talked about and any of the books be in the show notes which you can find it at thekimsutton.com/pp252. Cliff, do you and last piece of parting advice or golden nugget that you can offer to listeners?

Cliff Ravenscraft: My advice is this, is to ask yourself, Is there something that I feel called to do in this world that I’m not currently doing? And allow yourself to wrestle with that and if it causes you to say, Hmm, I wonder is there any way that I can make a living doing that. I doesn’t always for everyone mean that you’re going to have to go out and create your own business. Many people it does, but for other people it just– my parting advice is this, I believe too many people are in a career today whether they’re financially successful or not. But a lot of people out there, unfortunately, are spending a majority of their waking hours unfulfilled doing work that they don’t love and my parting advice is to evaluate, Is there anything you can do to change how you spend a majority of your life so that you can spend that life fulfilled, and that I believe will lead you more towards the life that you were created to live.

Kim Sutton: Today’s episode of the positive productivity podcast is brought to you by the positive productivity pod created to empower entrepreneurs to achieve and appreciate personal and professional success without burnout. The pod offers weekly group coaching sessions, online courses, a private member community and tons more. To learn more about the pod and to sign up, visit positiveproductivitypod.com. See you on the inside.