LIFE010-ProblemFocused
[Cliff]
And I think we're live.
[Daphne]
We're live. Here we are. Yay!
Yay! Well, Cliff, I was really thinking about all my problems this morning.
[Cliff]
You know, I found that if we just focus on our problems, they'll probably eventually go away.
[Daphne]
Yeah, I just keep obsessing.
[Cliff]
I tried that for decades of my life and it just didn't seem to work out.
[Daphne]
Yeah, I think about my problems. I talk about my problems. I sleep on my problems.
I sleep on it. I wake up in the morning. They're still there.
I can't figure it out.
[Cliff]
Well, the interesting thing is I have to remember my problems when I wake up in the morning. It's like, hmm, I'm feeling really good right now. That's unique.
Oh, that's why I forgot about my problem. I should probably pick that back up.
[Daphne]
That's a real experience, by the way.
[Cliff]
I know it is.
[Daphne]
Yeah. Well, let's get this show started and then we can talk more about our problems.
[Cliff]
Welcome to Life, the ultimate choose your own adventure game with hosts Cliff Ravenscraft and Daphne Scott. Join this dynamic duo as they explore the profound concept of life as a thrilling adventure, blending ancient wisdom and modern psychology. Embrace the joy of living with presence, creativity, and playfulness.
It's time to navigate the game of life together. Are you ready to play? Let the adventure begin.
[Cliff]
So, Daphne, which word stood out to you this morning in our intro?
[Daphne]
Right at the end, let the adventure begin.
[Cliff]
All right. I love it. For me, the profound concept of life as a thrilling adventure.
[Daphne]
It's so profound. The profound concept of life.
[Cliff]
It's a profound concept of life.
[Daphne]
We don't know what it really means. It's an enigma. It's a riddle.
All right. Well, let's get the show. Let's talk about this topic.
We are going to talk about essentially being problem focused versus solution focused. And in the spirit of what we want to create, but we're going to talk about the obstacles. Why does it seem like there are so many obstacles to this ability to create?
And we're blending a little bit from the show last week where we spent our time talking about identity and how we identify with things. And Cliff, I think it was your toss to somehow let into being problem focused. But we're going to unpack a little bit of these obstacles, which part of our, you know, who we see ourselves as, how we see ourselves.
It fits in really well with the idea of identity. And then what happens when we get very focused on problems that can lead into our identity and how what we put our attention on actually grows. To use someone's famous quote.
I have no idea where that came from. The quote. So that's what we're talking about today.
And in the spirit of supporting people to how do we work with these things? How do we work with these obstacles? How do we overcome them to create the life that we truly want to be creating?
That is also a very profound experience.
[Cliff]
You know, it's interesting because Daphne is the one who has chosen the topic for today. And I looked at the whole outline of the show. And it's so funny how you and I just have such different ways of what we like hone in on because I looked at the topic and I'm like, wow, today is all about what do you want to create and what does it take to create it?
And with just a little slight emphasis of the problem of staying focused on what we don't want and what we don't want to create. And that becomes the obstacle, which we're actually saying the same thing. But I'm coming into this where I'm like, hmm, today I'm ready to talk about what is it that you want to create?
What is it that you want your life to be?
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
Forget your old mask. Take it off. And if you could just be anything you want in the world, if you could have anything you want in the world, what is that?
What would life be like if fill in the blank? Yeah. Let that be a drum for you.
All right.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
I'm excited to see where we go with this.
[Daphne]
Me too. And Cliff, that question is such a powerful question. I think when I've sat in that question, like, what do I really want to create?
What do I want in my life? And I don't know if you remember a moment and I remember this. I remember with my old software, my old operating system, someone would pose that question and I'd get really excited.
I'm like, yeah, what do I want to create? And then I could feel, I could feel this like, yeah, but you can't do that. That's crazy.
That seems unrealistic. Get real. No one can simply do that.
And what I recognized was that there was an old identity in there for me. There was this, I could be this thing, but I didn't get to be that thing. So I could be who I was in that moment or I could be my past.
I didn't get to become a future version of myself. So I don't know if you remember and ever had an experience like that, but that was some of the essence of what I was getting at with today's show too. It's much more alive, by the way, to talk about what we want to create.
[Cliff]
So I'll share with you one, and I know that I probably mentioned it in the last episode or certainly in one of the previous episodes of this podcast. And that is I'm an insurance agent for, let's just say, 12 years of my life. And for the last year and a half, I've been podcasting as a hobby just for fun.
But I'm reaching hundreds of thousands of people around the world doing what I most feel called to do in this world, which is to entertain, educate, encourage, and inspire other people. The only thing is though, is that while I have figured out a way to earn about $2,000 to $3,000 a month, it's not enough for me to replace my incredibly lucrative income from being an insurance agent, selling auto, home, life, health, and business insurance. That's what I'm known for.
That's what brings in the revenue. And I'm the sole income earner of our family. So I'm financially responsible for my wife and our three kids and taking care of everything.
And here I was secretly having this dream. What would life be like if I could actually do this podcasting stuff instead of insurance? And quite frankly, I felt guilt and shame of just having the thought of that.
Yes. Yes. The problem for me was, who do you think you are that's not responsible?
There are people out there saying that there's already people, layoffs are like crazy. There's all sorts of financial predictions that we're hitting next to the next market crash, which this was 2007. I'm thinking of leaving.
January 2008 is when I actually went full-time self-employed. And you know what happened in 2008 in the world.
[Daphne]
Oh, yeah.
[Cliff]
So I knew that this was coming. There's predictions anyway. People were being laid off left and right.
I had the greatest job security in the world. And here I am wanting to go and pursue my hobby, not to mention the fact that my hobby, everybody who was in the early adopter phase with me in the hobby, they were all predicting that podcast had peaked and it was dead as an industry. And it's like, listen, I just see something else and I want it.
But I will tell you, I had a lot of obstacles in my mind that just this does not commute. I can't see how this is possible. There's a time when I had that very real in my life.
[Daphne]
Yeah, me too. I had a very secure gig. I was a physical therapist.
If I was a physical therapist today, I'd probably never be without a job. Probably there's a shortage of them and all the rational arguments. And I think that they sound rational in our head.
And we can connect the dots in our head. And yet, I think this is where the problem part of this comes in. And yet, when we look at what is it that I'm grinding against the grain on?
What is it that's leading to, and you talked about last week, Cliff, this sort of depressive moment that you had, that, by the way, I loved only lasted a week.
[Cliff]
Yes.
[Daphne]
Like, oh my gosh, it was horrible. How long were you like that? You're like, one week.
[Cliff]
One week. I couldn't handle it any longer.
[Daphne]
But what am I grinding against the grain on here? And we make all of these out of fear, I think. And all these rationalizations for staying right where we are.
And that makes sense. When you say things to me like, I'm the main income earner. I'm the one who is generating the food for our family and paying our bills.
And all of those things make sense rationally. However, I imagine, and this is my experience too, I still felt like there was something grinding. There was this moment, just this deep dissatisfaction with how I was living my life.
And I think that's the trap that people get caught in, coupled with what you described was also your identity, how you saw yourself, right? As the main income earner, as, you know, all I'm sure there's, as an insurance salesman. I think I remember you saying also that it was your father's, it was a family business.
[Cliff]
Yep.
[Daphne]
Right? So all the identity parts that get tied in there. I was a physical therapist.
Well, I've spent all this money on my degree. I've practiced. I'm a partner in the company.
I'm, you know, I could just keep going and going. All the reasons for not exploring something else and not getting to, well, what is it that I really want to create? What is, and staying focused on the problem, which is, well, one of the problems is, you know, I have so many emails.
I can't keep up with the amount of work that I have. If only I could switch this. And then I started down the road of the if only statements.
If only this would change. If only this person were different. If only I could spend more time doing this.
If only, and that wasn't the solution. I mean, again, it was still staying very focused on the problem, not getting to the solution of if my life could look exactly how I want it to look, what would that be like? What would it look like?
What would I be doing? Where would I be spending my time? And so fear starts to take over, right?
Fear and then the identity of who I thought I was. And working through those obstacles, I think, is really the essence of what we're talking about today.
[Cliff]
Yeah, and for me, what helped get outside of that, so I was very much problem focused in those days. I'm the single income earner. I'm responsible for taking care of this family.
I am next in line to take over this business that my grandfather started. I'm to take this over for my dad when he retires. I'm responsible for his maybe continued prosperity and financial well-being by owning this business and continuing it on.
I mean, there's all sorts of things. And not to mention the fact that I was focused on the people are getting laid off. And there are friends of mine who, quite frankly, have been unemployed for the last nine months to the last year and a half.
And here I am with an incredibly profitable, incredibly secure job. And I want to leave it to go pursue a hobby, which most people think is going into a field that is already dead or is dying on the vine. And so it's like those were the problems that I was focused on.
And as I kept all of that internal, because I didn't tell anybody about this dream for, I don't know, it was at least weeks, if not months. But when I first started talking about it, I began to talk about it to people who also shared my limiting beliefs about what's possible and stay in your lane and stay with what's responsible. And so, sure enough, I shared it with a handful of people who came up with the same obstacles and the same problems with my dream.
And it's kind of like the... I started to... Just by telling them, I started to...
I was like the crab in the pot of boiling water. I started crawling up to get out of the pot. And I talked to somebody who pulled me back down.
But interestingly, though, Daphne, I actually got into communication with crabs that had never been put in a pot of boiling water. Yes. They were out free in this fresh water.
And it's like, wow, what's going on out there? It's like, Cliff, I don't know how you got into that pot. I've never been employed in my life.
I've never been in a hot pot of boiling water.
[Daphne]
Isn't that wild?
[Cliff]
By the way, not to say that being employed is that you're in a pot of hot boiling water. But for me, this is my own personal experience.
[Daphne]
Yeah. Which, by the way, isn't about being employed or not being employed. It was more about...
Right. You were in a pot of boiling water. Let's touch on this.
It's so important. And I'm skipping ahead a little bit because I want to build up more of the concepts here of what we're talking about. However, who we associate with really matters.
Yes. And it's not lost on me that when I have a limiting belief about something, doesn't matter what it's, if I have a limiting belief, I will unconsciously go find the people to talk to about what I want to create who will feed back to me my own limiting beliefs. It's fascinating.
Careful, right? It was being projected back to you.
[Cliff]
Therefore... And I believe, Daphne, that that somehow is a protection mechanism because the idea that I'm ready to go do something new that I don't have a record of success with, there's some fear associated with that. I'm going to lose my identity.
And my ego is designed to protect me by what's predictable and what is known. And it's like saying, hey, no, no, no, no. So yeah, I'm driven to go find people who will embrace my fears, talk me off the ledge and say, stay here, wear it safe.
Yes. And so it's kind of a protection mechanism.
[Daphne]
I think that's actually very true. And so who we hang out with, who can support us, people who have also walked the path can be really helpful. And to not be overly...
I'm always leery of people who are overly enthusiastic with me as well. I want people with some level of discernment, however, recognizing that I want to move into this new area. It is an unknown.
And having the people around us to go, yeah, I can't see a reason why you wouldn't do it. Have you thought about this? Did you consider that?
What would be your next steps? Having people around us who can be very positive and supportive in that way at the same time, having high levels of discernment and their own sagacity or wisdom intact can be really helpful. I would recommend it if you are about to step into a new space and go on a new journey with yourself and go into your next career, whatever, it doesn't matter.
Whatever the new thing is for you, finding those people who can be supportive in that way and not feed into your own limiting beliefs is worth the time and effort.
[Cliff]
So as I'm hearing that, Daphne, the old me would have said, it's like, okay, this is all great. I hear that advice. It sounds to me like what you want to do is you want to exclude all the people who are rationally thinking and you want to exclude all of those people from your life.
And you only want people to give you this feedback that is positive and nurtures your new idea and all this other stuff. And so quite frankly, you're just creating your own feedback loop of positivity and this Pollyanna way of seeing the world. And that just doesn't seem logical and it seems like it could be quite dangerous.
Yeah, could be. That's the old me.
[Daphne]
Well, actually, and when you listen to what I said, really what it says, I want my friends to be people who will give me honest feedback and input. I want that. As a matter of fact, I think it's invaluable.
At the same time, I also want people in my life who will say, yeah, have you thought about this? What do you think about that? What would be, I play a game with myself and with a couple of my friends where they're thinking about something new and I'm like, I cannot see one reason why you wouldn't do X.
Cannot see one reason why you wouldn't do it. Let's talk about all the pitfalls. If you're willing to accept all the pitfalls and have plans and consider what may come of this, perfect, because there's always going to be something that's not going to go the way that we planned.
That's just the way it works. However, when you can anticipate some of that to some degree, then it becomes less scary and you can move in those directions. So, you know, really, I want people around me to have a level of discernment.
I want people around me who have walked the path before, which is really helpful. And that do have a certain mindset that says, yeah, let's stay focused on the solutions here. You're going to run into this roadblock.
I've experienced this roadblock before. Let's talk about what the solutions are to keep moving forward.
[Cliff]
So here's something that's the nuance and I'm sure most people have already picked up on this, but they say that your life is the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. So for me, my life was primarily spent with other people who had been an employee their entire lifetime. And here I wanted to go into this field where I was going to be full time self-employed.
So what I have is in my mind is I'm having conversations with people initially with people who have the mindset of I'm always got a secure paycheck. I just show up as long as I do my work and I do well and I work hard, then I get a paycheck and it's I provide for my family. There's really no risk here.
That's the mindset anyway. Yeah. And I and at the time, my life was primarily made up of those people.
So as I said, I shared what with what I was going on and what I did get is their honest feedback, but their honest feedback was based upon their experience of life and their perception of the world.
[Daphne]
Yes.
[Cliff]
So so what I've determined is I do like the idea. There's this great scripture in the Bible that says plans fail for a lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed. So I do like the idea of going out and get the advice and seek the wisdom of multiple different groups of people about certain things to weigh for yourself what decision you're going to go in.
But while I do love honest feedback, I like honest people sharing what they honestly believe. I actually also have to consider myself what is their limitations on their beliefs based upon their experience. Absolutely.
And that's what so the nuance and you brought this out, but I want people to share their experience of what's possible. This is what I've done. This is how I see it.
This is an obstacle came and what you're alluding to and what I just want to make sure nobody misses. Go find people who have done what it is you want to do. Somebody who has already traveled that path.
And in my world, we call this upgrading your peer group. Yeah, so it's like, it's like, listen, it might be nice to introduce into my three to five people that I spend the most time with. If I'm looking to go in this direction, I might want to be very intentional about finding three to five people who are full time self-employed.
Yes, who have been doing this for a couple of years or their entire life and start actually hearing from them. Not to the exclusion of the other, but to start really weighing the pros and the cons and making a decision here. And that's when ultimately things did turn around for me when I eventually started to talk to these people called entrepreneurs.
And I'm like, I didn't realize there were people out there who had never had a day job in their life. It's like, what? Tell me more about this world experience.
I've never heard of such a thing. It shows you how naive I was in life at the time. It's like, of course, I'm going to be an employee my whole life, except for the fact that, wait a second, my grandfather started his own business.
My dad now owns his own business and I'm next in line to own my own business. Isn't it crazy that I still had the mindset of an employee?
[Daphne]
I mean, when you break it down that way, yeah. Because, well, in some of it is you had never done it before, right?
[Cliff]
I had never done it before.
[Daphne]
You've never done it before. So thanks for calling it out. So upgrading your peer group, as you would say, and understanding if you're embarking on something new, it's helpful.
Again, logical thinking, really. It's helpful to find the people who have done it before. You probably can share some experience, but you will be just getting, if you don't, you're only going to be getting the perspective of people who have never done it before and have very rational reasons for not doing so.
So, yes.
[Cliff]
And they have your well-being at heart. Absolutely. And their belief is what you're doing is going to be painful and it's going to be tragic for you and your family.
And it's their love for you that causes them to want to discourage you from your path.
[Daphne]
Yeah. And quite candidly, I think their own... I'm not supposed to put words in other people's mouths, but I'm going to.
And actually, I'll say I'm going to put words in my own mouth. When I have noticed I've done that to people, when someone presents something to me, I'm trying to think of a specific example. Oh, one of my friends was going to get married.
And I remembered thinking, and it was my own fear about being in an unknown space of that level of commitment at the time. I was in my 20s. It was my own projection of my own life, my own life experience also that was happening.
So, I think that can become true for any of us when we sort of see somebody doing something that we've been unwilling to do or it feels new and unique to us that our fear can also take over and we can sort of be voicing that out of our own consciousness as well. So, just something else to consider.
[Cliff]
Can I share a quote with you from the book A Boy's Life by Robert McCammon? Yes. I've never read this book before, by the way, but I love this quote.
The folks who did the production for our Free the Dream conference, which you spoke at in 2018, you remember Matt and Lauren Brady. When I told them about the concept for Free the Dream, they said, oh, have you read this book? This quote kind of just is the essence of why you're creating this conference.
Here's what quote she gave me. It says, see, this is my opinion. We are all, we all start out knowing magic.
We are all born with whirlwinds, forest fires and comets inside of us. We are born able to sing to the birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls.
We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrowed and told to be responsible, to act our age, told to grow up for God's sake. And you know why we were told that?
Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth. And because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad at what they'd allowed to wither in themselves.
[Daphne]
Oh, that's a beautiful quote. Where's that from again?
[Cliff]
It's from a book called Boy's Life by Robert McCammond. Well, I love it.
[Daphne]
That's very nice.
[Cliff]
Yeah.
[Daphne]
Yeah, it's good. And again, who knows, right? I mean, when I think our own consciousness is what we want to take care of most.
So finding people who have walked the path and paying attention to how we're believing and what we're thinking about is really what saves the day for us. That's why we're doing this podcast. So I want to shift just a little bit and I'm going to walk back just a couple steps.
Because Cliff, I think it's really important that we talk about being problem focused versus solution focused. And that we get into this a little bit because this is one of the other obstacles that starts to happen when we're trying to find our way through the, you know, or navigate, I guess, through the roadblocks that can get in the way of what we want to create in our life. So let's talk about how, and you said this on our last episode, when you're working with clients, one of the things, and this is absolutely true for me, one of the things I will hear a lot when I'm coaching anyone is, I don't want to experience X anymore.
I don't want this. Okay, so let's talk about where our mind goes. What is it that we just focus on?
I don't want to experience this anymore. And I have my thought.
[Cliff]
Yeah, so I don't know where you want to go on this. So when I have clients come to me, they're like, listen, okay, here's the big problem that I keep facing over and over again. It's a cycle.
It's a pattern. It's a history. It's a habit, whatever the case is, or I keep having this issue.
It always happens this way. And here's the problem. And I just want to get out of this problem.
I need to get away from this problem. This problem is the reason why I am suffering in life. And it's all about the problem.
The problem, the problem, the problem, the problem.
[Daphne]
Over and over again.
[Cliff]
Exactly. And so one of the things that I do, and I'm going to clearly telegraph where we're going is I'm immediately saying, okay, if that problem did not exist in your life, what would you be experiencing? If you could have anything, if you could just wave a magic wand in it and have anything you want, tell me what it is.
And it's amazing how many people, when I give them these things, they hover back to the problem of what the problem is and why the problem keeps them from this. And what I discovered, and I believe this is the correlation, I began to study meditation. I began to study hypnotherapy.
And through those different things that I began to study, I learned a lot about brainwave states. Yes. And high range beta brainwave states is also known as, it can be fight or flight.
So what happens is when we're focused on a problem, when we're focused on a pain, when we're focused on a perceived threat to our life, our brain is so hyper-engaged and our brainwave activity is so intense that what's going on is we are in a fight or flight. We're trying to survive mode. Yes.
And what I've discovered through my study is that that cuts us off from the prefrontal cortex part of our brain, which is where our creative thinking happens. Our solutions come from the ability to creatively come up with ideas. But that part of our brain is not accessible when we are in fight or flight.
And so if you are so hyper-focused on your problem and you've got yourself so worked up and your brain is so chugging on this, you're literally in a survival state of being. And because of that, you have no access to see a possibility or a pathway ahead. It's kind of like you're literally blind.
You can't see anything other than what you're currently experiencing. Because right now your body, your brain is trying to save you from this perceived threat. And it's looking all over.
How do we get rid of this threat? That is like, let's survive here. Don't worry about food right now.
Don't worry about your... Don't worry about your... What is that called?
Your immune system. Don't worry about any of that. We will lose everything we need to lose to save our physical existence right now.
And that's what happens when we are consistently problem-focused. We compound it. We amplify the image.
And when we amplify the image, we're amplifying those brainwave states and keeping it in that high range beta. So that's one of the things that I've learned.
[Daphne]
Yeah. And I think that is absolutely in my experience and from all the studying I've done with science. That is what our brain does.
Our prefrontal cortex goes offline when we feel we are being threatened by anything. It doesn't matter. Our identity feels threatened, which a lot of it is our identity feels threatened.
Mostly we want control, right? We want to feel like we can navigate the world with some level of predictability. And when things are going on in our environment that feels unpredictable or feels threatening to us, that's exactly what we do.
We go after the security and we want control. We want approval, all of these sorts of different pieces.
[Cliff]
So we cut... What came up for me, Daphne, what came up for me as you said that our identity is being threatened. Yeah.
And in the same way, at some level, our life itself is being threatened. Yes. Because we talked about last week that so much of our ego and our identity is us molding the way we interface with others to be accepted by them.
And so what happens if I show up with a different way of perceiving or being in the world that is not acceptable to others? And if they're responsible for, let's just say my paycheck, or they're responsible for buying my product or service, or they're responsible for this or that, all of a sudden my life and livelihood could be at very high risk. And so it's not just a perceived thing in many people's minds.
This is a very logical, my life is in danger by perceiving a different identity for myself other than the group that I've currently integrated with.
[Daphne]
Yeah. Thank you for saying that because that is one of the things as we talk about navigating this life and making these changes. That's one of the things I like to call out is there is a very, it's illusory and yet real.
It's a sort of the conventional way of seeing things and the conventional reality. And then there is a deeper reality, which is what we're really talking about in a lot of our conversations. So I like to hold both experiences as true and still how do we work through it?
How do we navigate it? How do we live? How do we navigate this fear of losing people's approval?
How do we navigate this fear of thinking that we're gonna lose all of our security and all of our control? These fears arise and how do we work through that and navigate around it? And then what happens when we become, and I wanna bring in one of the other theories I have about when I listen to people argue for their limitations and talk about just the problems.
We also have this belief. And I think when you asked the question, it was so great. We have the belief that if we remove a negative, it automatically assumes the positive.
That if I remove this job out of my life, that I automatically will experience a life of ease and joy and peace and calm. And I can't tell you what an illusion that becomes. Because what you talked about with the consciousness cliff, because often where we're making the decision from, even when we get to a decision of like, I've gotta leave my job.
Oftentimes people are making that choice from a state of fear, right? They're removing what is the perceived problem. But again, haven't gotten to the creation side of things.
Haven't gotten to what do I really ultimately wanna create? Because the reality could become, it could become that what you wanna create in your life actually ends up meaning that you stay in your current role. That you stay in your current position.
That you find a path that you are unaware of that can allow you to stay in your role and have the life that you want. But when we're not focused on what we wanna create, we start removing the perceived problem, thinking that that will get us what we want. And in some instances, it does not, if that makes sense.
Because the consciousness that's making the decision is the exact consciousness that created the problem in the first place. Yes.
[Cliff]
Yeah. Yes. And if you don't change the consciousness, you will experience the same problem but in a different circumstance, hands down.
Because the consciousness will create it elsewhere. It's whatever your mind is focused on, where energy goes or where focus goes, energy goes and you will create something new. So if you feel like you're so problem focused and this is the biggest problem here and the reason for my problem is that I have this employer and for my case, if that would have, it's like and then I'm gonna go over here and I'm gonna be self-employed and I'm gonna have all the freedom, all the financial things and you're just gonna find yourself.
The consciousness has not changed and you will create a different version of your suffering everywhere you go.
[Daphne]
Yes. So this is where I'm leading into the identity. So let's talk about this just a little bit.
And I have an exercise that we'll share towards the end of the show on this but let's talk about. So if Cliff saw himself or if I saw myself as I am always going to be an employee, we'll just use this as an example. I think it's a good one.
I'm always going to be a physical therapist. I'm always going to be fill in the blank. Then that limits all of the choices that I have.
I could easily have gone out and started my own business and found myself six months to a year later back doing that same role, right? My consulting business would have failed miserably probably because I saw myself as a person who was going to remain an employee and remain in that identity, remain this licensed physical therapist, remain this person who treats patients, remain this fill in the blank. I'm picking a very specific identity here but I would find myself and then I would find myself still being called into that identity, still being called into that role and not be able to shift myself around it versus seeing the identity of I am actually different than that.
I am a person who works with people's mindset. I am a person who integrates cultures. I am a person who fill in the blank on all of the other things and other parts of the identity.
And we've talked about this and I think it was a... I can't remember how long ago but I think it was a real important part when I was working on getting my health back to where I wanted it to be. I think this is when you and I talked about it.
This would have been years ago now. But how I saw myself, that I see myself as a person who was... I'll say it this way, who was an athlete.
And I had an experience this last December where I had been running quite a bit and I developed a stress fracture. And I remember the moment I was sitting in the doctor's office to get this diagnosed and I suspected what it was and thinking, oh, I'm a runner, now I can't run. And I had just this moment, this voice came out of nowhere and it said, is that really true?
And I had this reframe of actually, I'm an athlete. In a conversation you and I had, I think this was so many years ago, that you and I had had, came flashing back. And what I said was, actually, I'm an athlete, which means that I could run, I could swim, I could ride a bicycle, I can do...
I could walk, I could still walk at the time. I can do a million different things that actually fill in the blank on the athletic side of my life. I'm not, quote, just a runner, right, unquote to myself.
Right? So it was that moment of just reframing and thinking about how I was seeing myself because when I thought of myself simply as a person who ran and now I have the stress fracture, my body's gonna require some healing time, that became a very limiting, limiting way of existing in that moment. And I saw this path of just, you know, now what?
Now you're gonna do nothing? Because you can't run, you're a runner, now you can't run. So there was just this moment and I went through the same thing, this moment of reframing that and seeing the identity that I had created.
And I went through the same thing when I left my professional career as a physical therapist years ago, years and years ago. And it kept, you know, what I kind of like said, sloughing off, right? I mentioned on a couple episodes where my license was coming due and I'm like, oh, I'm not gonna renew that at this point, you know?
So just the sloughing off of sort of this way of seeing ourselves. So I think you probably went through a similar thing when you were the insurance salesman.
[Cliff]
Well, I did. Well, staying on the theme of I'm self-employed and as an employee, that's how I provide for my family. I work hard.
And as long as I show up and put a number of hours in, this is what it means for me. These are all the things that I do and this is my identity and this is how I provide for my family. Now, January 1st, 2008 comes along, I am now full-time, self-employed, I'm a business owner.
But if you would have asked me, if I was in a room, actually this happened, I can't remember where I was. I don't know if it was an in-person event or a virtual event, but they said, who here owns their own business? Or who here is a business owner?
And I remember looking and everybody's hands go up and I'm like, oh, wow, that's amazing. I did not raise my hand. I don't know what it was, but I did not consciously, in my mind, it had not connected that I own my own business.
I'm self-employed. I'm an employee. It's still there.
This is like for at least the first nine to 12 months of my business. I'll give you a perfect example of this. In 2010, after a very difficult and challenging self-created first year, I had to make it very hard because the harder you work, the more you earn.
Yes. That was my belief.
[Daphne]
Yes.
[Cliff]
And so I lived into my identity fully. I almost died in the hospital in January 2009. And after I got out of that, I'm like, I need to really do something about my physical fitness and health.
I started to commit to this thing called 10,000 steps a day. I'm going to start getting physically active. I'm going to go out.
And every day I'm committed to walking 10,000 steps. And here I was, it's spring, it's 75 degrees. There's not a cloud in the sky.
It's all blue and sunshine. It's 11 o'clock in the morning and I'm out listening to the birds sing as I'm out for my walk for the next hour and a half. And it was all great until I was recording some podcasts every now and then.
And I'm like, hi guys here. I know I should be working right now and blah, blah, blah. And I'm sitting here, quote unquote, trying to defend why I'm out here walking in the middle of my workday when I should be grinding behind a desk.
And I hope that you'll forgive me for being here. I bet. Most inspiring podcast ever.
But I used to record a lot of audio journal podcasts while out for a walk. And in fact, I look back, Daphne, and I'm wondering how many of those I recorded because I literally felt that if I'm at least recording content, I'm working and I'm not being lazy as an employee.
[Daphne]
Yeah, that's so good. That's really good. The thought just came to me with some of these experiments that companies have done with the 40 hour work week idea, which I don't even know where that came from.
I'm sure there's some 40 hour idea.
[Cliff]
They said it was the Rockefellers and the factory workers and during the industrial age or something like that.
[Daphne]
Yeah, and just decided, landed on 40, I guess.
[Cliff]
Well, yeah, which actually was a major life improvement for the factory workers of the day.
[Daphne]
That's right, because it was like 80 hours.
[Cliff]
Because they were working much more than that before.
[Daphne]
And so the companies, just in the spirit of looking at belief systems, the companies are like, we're just going to do like a six hour work day or a four hour or the companies that are just as productive, they get just as much done. It doesn't have to be, quote, hard work. I mean, it's so great that you can look back on that and see like, I wonder how many of those I did from a consciousness of, I have to be working.
[Cliff]
Yeah, I know for a fact, I felt guilty any time between the, if I was not physically working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., anything other than taking a break for lunch and no more than 30 to 45 minutes, maybe an hour if I'm going to be extravagant, but only if there's plenty of financial income just flowing in, which at the time I made sure to keep out from a consciousness level.
[Daphne]
I didn't want too much income coming in.
[Cliff]
Unconsciously, I didn't. At the time, I had a belief that the more you hate what you do, the more you should get paid to do it. I literally had that belief.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
And if you have that belief, then the opposite of that is the more you love what you do, you should just do it for free to serve others. And of course, that kind of came a little bit from my ministry background of these gifts that you have, you should just give freely. And so here I was, my entire career at this point is me just doing what I most love to do in the world.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
Yeah. It's very easy for me to see in hindsight. I did not know any of this at the time.
[Daphne]
Yes. Well, and I think that's the beautiful point all the more that we want to work with people who have walked the path in that way, right? Because now you can see it and you're very aware of the pitfalls.
And so let's go into that. I think that's the next place to go here is how do we work with this? How do we...
I'm a person who I'm thinking is wanting to make these changes. I'm wanting to walk in a new way. I'm wanting to show up in a new identity.
I have an exercise that I want to share that I did years and years ago. It came from my dear friend, Diana Chapman. And I'm not sure where she got it from.
But I took a piece of paper and I put a line down the center of the paper. So I had two columns. And in one column, it was titled, I am.
And in the right, we'll say the left column was I am. The right column, I titled, I am not. And you take 10, try to come up with 10 positive qualities that you have about yourself.
And you write, I am. So I started with, I am funny. I am intelligent.
I am, you know, I forget what they all are. The rest of them. And then on the I am not side, I write then the opposite of that.
So if I am humorous, I do not get to be serious. Or if I am intelligent, I do not get to be, we'll say, stupid. And I tried to come up with really good adjectives.
And what the exercise, the essence of the exercise, and you can do this in a lot of different ways, but the essence of the exercise was to show and demonstrate how I X'd out certain parts of my identity. So that, for example, if I said something in which I would be feeling stupid or made to look stupid, that would threaten me so deeply because I saw myself as a person who at the time saw herself as intelligent, wise, whatever the word was. So I started to get a sense of very clearly how I was incapable of accepting parts of myself and accepting all of the nuances of who I could be in any minute.
So you can do this, right? I am a, you can just look at your own narratives. I am a person who only gets to experience a certain income level, right?
I'm a $50,000 a year earner or $70,000 a year earner. Therefore, I cannot be a person who generates, I'll use your example, who generates a quarter of a million dollars for themselves every year. Right?
I am an employee. Therefore, I am not self-employed as an example. So you can do this in a lot of different ways.
And I think it really helps. It helped me see how I was creating or had created sort of this, I am this, I am not that. And I can start to break those patterns to say, well, you know, and question it.
Like, is that really true? And of course, there are plenty of times I can be stupid and then welcome that and accept it. So that's one exercise.
And I know Cliff, last week, we talked about one exercise that you wanted to bring into the 50 things exercise. I think that's what you called it.
[Cliff]
So eventually we get to that.
[Daphne]
But I just wonder, it popped into my mind. So I wanted to remind you.
[Cliff]
Do you want me to bring it in now? Yeah.
[Daphne]
Yeah, let's do it.
[Cliff]
Okay, great. So yeah, the 50 things I want exercise. So a lot of people who come to me, they share with me what they don't want.
Yes. And as I mentioned before, they have a very challenging time getting out of their focus on what they don't want and where they're struggling. And I said, if you could have anything, what do you want?
And so what I do is I give them an assignment that seemingly seems unrelated to anything that we've talked about. But I do ask them, I say, I'm going to need you to set aside probably at least two hours for this exercise. And here's what I need you to do.
I need you to get a piece of paper and on it, I want you to write from the top to the bottom, one through 25, flip it over and do 26 through 50. And then at the top of the front page, I want you to write 50 things I want. Now, here's the caveat.
You are going to ask yourself, what do I want in my life? It can be a thing. It can be an experience.
It could be a feeling, emotion. It could be anything, anything you want. The only thing is, is when you do this exercise, you cannot ask yourself, is this selfish?
Is this materialistic? What would people think of me if I had this on a list of things that I want? You cannot judge anything.
If it comes to your mind, it must be written. That's the caveat. So, and it was only after I did this with a handful of people that I realized I needed to give the next instructions.
It's like, listen, you need to, most people, from my experience, they get to about 20 to 30 items and they're stuck. Stay there. Do not get up from this space.
More will come if you sit. So, stay there. Set it for two hours.
And after two hours, you got 37 items. That's perfectly fine. Come back a day and a half later and fill in the rest.
Or as you're going throughout your days, come back and add it. But don't stop this assignment is to come up with 50 things that you desire. So, that's the first thing.
And what we're doing there is helping people give themselves freedom to allow all those things that they've suppressed and repressed that I shouldn't want this and this is bad and all this other stuff. It allows all of this stuff to float to the surface. The next step is to take another sheet of paper and write one through 10.
And then at the top of that, you're gonna say my top 10 dreams. And so, what I encourage people to do is to actually look at their list of 50 things and say, hey, is there anything on this list that should be in my top 10 dreams? It's not important that these be in order.
But if you see something on the list that should be in your top 10, put it there. And then if you all of a sudden, you're like you're going through and as you're doing this, some additional thing you want comes to your mind that should be on your top 10 but it wasn't on the original list. Put it on the top 10 and write it as a 51st or a 55th item.
It doesn't matter. So, now you have your 50 things you want. You have your top 10 dreams.
And then what I want you to do is create another list, one through three. This is the only one that's in order of priority. And it's called your top three goals.
Your top three goals. So, you look at your top 10 and say what's most important. Put that number one.
Then with the nine remaining, you put that number two. The eight remaining, you put that as number three. So, now you know 50 things that you want in life.
You know what your top 10 dreams are and you know what your top three goals are. And by the end of this exercise, your focus is so far away from your problems. Yes.
And you have brought your brainwave states into a much more peaceful state of consciousness. And through this exercise, you're gaining access to that prefrontal cortex, that creative side of yourself. And you're tapping into the internal function of who you are and what your creativity and what you want to express in the world.
And this is all beginning to flow and you start to have real clarity about who you are. If you begin to have clarity about who you are and what you want to be in this world.
[Daphne]
Yeah. And what is possible. And then after that, you'll feel really great for about five minutes.
And then fear will come back. And it will tell you there's no way this is possible. And that's why you have a coach, my friends.
That's why you have people around you to help you navigate that experience. And it will recycle itself. I want to just put that out there.
That exercise is so powerful. I think I remember the first time I did it. I think my list, I think I got to 22 before my brain just went, this is crazy cakes.
There's no way. But then I did get to 50. Now, the last time I did this was last...
I like to do it at the end of the year too. You can do it anytime. But I did at the end of the year before I looked at my goals for this year.
And I got to 57, which was pretty impressive. Now, some of the things I will admit, some of the things were from the list before. So there was some of that, but yeah, 57 things.
So it is possible. It is possible.
[Cliff]
It is possible. And there are a couple of things about this assignment that is pretty interesting. One, Dr. Gail Matthews from some university in California did a study where she came up with the result that you're 42% more likely to have anything on that list manifest just by simply having the act of writing it down on a piece of paper or in a document. And that's even if you did nothing else towards intentionally making it happen. It just shows up. And I think there's so much about the fact that we just gave our permission to label something a want.
Something that we gave ourself permission to have as a desire. And the thing is the opportunity to have that has been around us the whole time. But when we actually gave ourself permission to actually see the opportunity, then we begin to actually entertain the idea of taking that opportunity on for ourselves.
[Daphne]
Well, which is the essence of when we talk about being problem-focused versus solution-focused. I mean, it is the essence of our brain cannot think in a negative. Meaning if I say, I want to avoid a pink elephant, what my mind is gonna see first is the pink elephant.
And it wants to go that direction. So then it has to take another step to say, avoid this. Which I think is when you talked about the protective mechanism, Cliff, with our identity and also just with fear, I think that becomes some of the protective mechanism too.
Like we just will look for the, we're just gonna go to what our mind is drawn to. Because if I do stay focused on a problem, the idea is that I'll get away from it, right? That fits, that makes sense to me.
And I think that's very, very rational and very real. That being said though, when we're focused on just the problem because we have to take two steps, it's inefficient. And our brain and our bodies don't like inefficient.
So to think more in a state of what do I wanna create? Now our attention goes that direction. We're not even thinking about the problem.
Our attention is being guided to go in a different direction. And they've proven this in studies before too. I'll have to find a couple of them to cite.
But one idea is that if you say to yourself, I want to drive a green Prius, and this is coming back to the comment you just made about, this possibility has been around us always. If I say, I want to own and drive a green Prius, guess what I will see on the street all day long?
[Cliff]
They're everywhere.
[Daphne]
They're everywhere, exactly. And I never noticed them before.
[Cliff]
The crazy thing is, I've never seen them before.
[Daphne]
Yes, yes. And people have had this experience. You know, people will call it sort of a, what is it like serendipity, right?
Or I just had this with, as you know, I'm moving into my next career as a professional musician. And I'm sitting at this very lovely dinner. It was Valentine's day.
And this woman comes in and she's carrying her equipment and she's playing the harp. And singing and playing the harp to all these modern day songs, like arrangements that I just would never even think would work on the harp. She has this beautiful voice.
And I had the thought, wow, I think if she had some really light percussion, that might sound really cool. You know, like there's a cajon, it's a really cool, like, you know, it's a box you sit on and play. Anyway, so I introduced myself.
I went right up to her and introduced myself. I said, hey, have you ever thought about putting percussion? She's like, you know, as a matter of fact, I have.
And I said, well, here's my name, my phone number. And the whole point, we're gonna get together and play music. But the whole point of that is that I don't know if it was a year ago and I didn't, and I wasn't wiring my brain to say, okay, I want to create an environment of professional musicians.
I want to engage with professional musicians. I want to be, this is where I'm headed. I don't know that I ever, I probably would have noticed her beautiful voice and probably would have noticed the music because I love music.
However, I definitely wouldn't have been thinking, wow, I wonder if this would, if she would be interested in this. I wonder if this would, and I've played the drums for 30 years, by the way. I've been a percussionist.
So that's not new, but I don't think that I would have been thinking in that way. And the minute, right? The minute that I dialed that in, I'm like, oh, here it is.
[Cliff]
Which is fair. Yeah, well, and that's exactly it. And from my perspective of where I saw through this whole process is prior to giving yourself permission to say, I want to actually create a career as a paid musician.
This is what I want. I want to be a paid percussionist. And okay, along with that, I've determined that it would be nice to have in my network of influence, my friends, my peers, the people that I spend the most time with, who are all people who are actually being paid for their gift with an instrument.
And all of the associated things that you want along with that. And then now that's what you want. Prior to actually saying, this is what I want.
You could have gone, if you had not done, let's just say that version, whatever version of the 50 things I want exercise and determine this is what I want. You would have gone, as you said, you would have noticed the beautiful music. You probably would have been compelled to go up and tell that person how much you appreciated their music and stuff of that nature.
And as a percussionist, you may have say, hey, you should really think about the potential of adding a little percussion to that or something. Have you ever thought about that? It would have just been a topic of conversation, but it would not have been something where you would have said, I wonder if this was somebody who could be a part of my professional musician network.
I wonder if this is something we could maybe even collaborate on. Those things would not have existed in your potential outline or timeline of things of possibility for you as an identity, had you not identified the one at first.
[Daphne]
Totally. That's exactly right. And seen and been able to see myself in that light, create the environment for myself mentally, emotionally, in my own consciousness first.
And to say, that's what I want. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
[Cliff]
I've had this show up for myself. There have been times where I'm like, man, I really have an idea in my mind who my favorite clients that I've worked with. You're obviously at the top of my list.
And I'm like, you know what? Who are some other people I'd like to have as coaching clients?
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
And I started writing down a list of very prominent people's names. And there was a part of me, it's like, oh, who am I? These people are this and blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, well, no.
[Daphne]
I can't do that.
[Cliff]
This is no matter how much success anyone has had, we all are limited to our own perception of what's possible. We're all limited to the way that we're currently seeing the world. And anytime somebody is there to help you see something outside of the box, you're current or outside of the lens, you're currently using to view the world, that's helpful.
And I know I can bring a ton of value, even to the most popular people on this list. And what's funny was, I'm like, huh, I wonder what I could do to actually influence them potentially becoming this. And I'm starting to do collaborations and live videos and other projects and things of that nature.
And then we're having little one-off conversations when we're not live. And lo and behold, some of those people are my clients today as a result of just, huh, what would it be like to have somebody like that as a client?
[Daphne]
Yeah, isn't that great? And what would it be like to have this person in my life? And what would it be like to associate this way?
But again, you have to be willing to ask the question and then work through this. What do I want? Yeah, what do I want?
What are the things on my list? What do I really want? What do I want in my life?
And I think that's the essence of the whole thing. And then recognize just these roadblocks, these little blocks, they're not permanent. And I think that's the other part of this, you know, the whole essence of this episode is they're not permanent.
They will show up. Fear will show up. Your prefrontal cortex will go offline.
You will start to see yourself in the old way. And it will take a second to just simply keep shifting and navigating that and then get the support that you need to really make those things become a reality for you.
[Cliff]
Yeah, absolutely. The interesting thing about the identity here is, you know, I am an employee. I wasn't always an employee.
I wasn't distant. It's not like I had to choose this route. There weren't any other options.
I was not born an employee. There are some conspiracy theories out there that we're not going to go into. Anyway, so the whole thing is that I'm not, employee isn't my identity.
You know, insurance agent wasn't my identity. These are all roles. These are all masks that I've chosen to put on.
It's like they were very, some of them were not very conscious decisions at the time. They were just, it's like, it seems like the next thing to do. And other people presented a lot of masks for me to put on and said, I think you should really put this mask on.
And a lot of them seem to get me some things that I was told that I should want. And I found that all of a sudden over time, there are many masks that I'm having that just quite frankly, I'm living the dreams of other people that they had for me. Does that make sense?
Totally, totally makes sense. And I'm like, wow. And at some point I had to ask myself, is it okay to even want these things for myself?
And that's sometimes the first hurdle people need to get over is the idea, why does it take somebody so long to come up with 50 things that you want? And some people, they have some level of belief that wanting this is selfish and that it means that you having something that others don't and all this other stuff that you're taking away this and who do you think you are? And it's just like, there's so much to overcome there.
But if you can actually understand that your identity in this world, all these things that you currently say, I am, I am this, I am that, I am that. How many of those did you consciously choose for yourself?
[Daphne]
Yeah, like my name? Evidently I've chosen to keep it. I did still, people seem to still be calling me Daphne most of the time.
Yeah, I think that's such a great question, Cliff, is just seeing like, how much of it did you really intentionally choose to begin with? Yeah.
[Cliff]
Yeah, and the idea and the concept that we can choose new identity.
[Daphne]
Yes.
[Cliff]
I always found it interesting in the Bible, for example, when Abram was given a new name, Abraham, which means this. And even in the Hindu faith, there are people who grew up like, I think Mukunda was Paramahansa Yogananda's original name. I think it was Mukunda or something like that.
I always found it interesting that when people like, you know what, especially in the spiritual paths, there's a number of spiritual traditions that when you decide I'm going down this path as my identity, as a spiritual person, I give up my old identity and I assume this new name and this new identity. And what I love about that is it's not something that is limited to our spiritual lives. We can literally choose identities for ourself.
[Daphne]
Yes.
[Cliff]
We can choose new paths. We can choose new desires. And if you want to, you could change your name, but you don't have to.
That's the thing.
[Daphne]
Yeah, I know several people who have actually have changed their names.
[Cliff]
So my dad, so my stepdad, who was my stepdad from the time I was five years old, is now my dad because he adopted me after my biological dad had passed away. Okay. And he came to me and says, listen, you know, I want to know if you would be interested.
I'd love to adopt you and make it official that you're my son legally. That way, you know, if anything happens to me, there's no question between you and your, you know, your brother and your sister. It's just, you know, are you interested?
I said, dad, I'd love that. I said, the only thing is, is there's something inside of me, and I hope that you wouldn't be offended, but I'd want to keep my last name. Because typically when you're adopted, you would change your last name to their last name.
Yeah. He says, I'm not offended at all. I said, there's a part of me there.
If I think about this, number one, I've been in business for so many years, and I've built a name and reputation and a brand around Ravenscraft. Number two, I think Ravenscraft is a really cool name. A really cool last name.
I mean... And not to mention the fact that while I love you so much, I still also want to honor and respect the love and the influence that my biological dad has had in my life to keep that name. And so it was an interesting dialogue.
And if you think about that, there is an identity. I literally had the opportunity to change my last name. Yeah.
[Daphne]
Yeah, you really did. And to let go of whatever that Ravenscraft meant at the time, right?
[Cliff]
Yeah.
[Daphne]
You could have done that and chose not to. But how intentional. And what a great demonstration of the identity and how you made an intentional decision to, hey, there is something around this that means something to me.
And that's the other part of this. Once you get clear about that, you can say, well, this part does mean something to me for right now. And I'd like to keep that name.
Yeah.
[Cliff]
And it is an awesome last name. Thank you. My daughter, Megan.
[Daphne]
By the way, you have intentionally chosen now.
[Cliff]
I have intentionally chosen it. So by the way, my daughter, Megan, hated Ravenscraft when she was a kid. Really?
She absolutely hated it. That's great. I'd have to bring her on sometime to tell you or let you have a conversation.
But I said, I promise you, Megan, one day you're going to hear nonstop how awesome your name is. And of course, when she started to go to college and all this, it's like, oh, that's the coolest name ever. So by the way, Megan just got married to a man with the last name Johnson.
And so she gets married. Now it's time to change her name. And what she did is she changed her middle name from Renee to Ravenscraft.
So now she's Megan Ravenscraft Johnson.
[Daphne]
So she did keep it.
[Cliff]
She decided to keep it.
[Daphne]
My middle name is Renee, by the way. Is it? Yeah, it is.
Awesome. It's interesting. Yeah, I'm keeping it for right now.
I might change it. Maybe I'll change my middle name to Ravenscraft just because it's a cool name.
[Cliff]
You know what I love about this is this ties into that choose your own adventure. Life is a choose your own adventure. What do you want?
Yeah.
[Daphne]
What do you want? What do you want to create? Really?
Really? What do you want to create? And I think that's really the essence of it.
We're going to end with this quote from Einstein, because why not?
[Cliff]
I saw this quote. It's so good.
[Daphne]
You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it. So you'll find this quote in different iterations. I think there's one that's like you cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.
I think it's getting at the same thing. But yes, you cannot. So that's the essence of what we're talking about in shifting the consciousness.
And do the exercises. They're really helpful. I think you'll like them.
[Cliff]
And it's saying exactly the same thing. You cannot. What is it?
You cannot change.
[Daphne]
You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.
[Cliff]
You cannot solve a problem with the same level of brainwaves that created it.
[Daphne]
Yes. Yeah. That's going to be.
[Cliff]
Or perceived it.
[Daphne]
Perceived or perceived it. Yeah. Perceived.
I think that's probably better that perceived it as a problem. I think it's probably even better. We'll just keep building on Einstein's quote.
Because why not? You are after all. Who am I to challenge Einstein?
All right. Well, let's wrap up the show. What do you say?
[Cliff]
How are we going to do it?
[Daphne]
First of all, let's let's let people know where to find you. You can find Cliff at Cliff Ravenscraft dot com. You can find me at Daphne hyphen Scott dot com.
And you can also find the podcast at choose your own adventure podcast dot com. You can leave us a voice message if you like. If you have questions or you'd like us to expand on anything, please feel free to reach out to us.
And please reach out to Cliff. He is really working with entrepreneurs and business owners and also coaches. I think Cliff, this is something we have not mentioned.
If you are a coach, if you are considering becoming a coach, if you are working to build your business as a coach, Cliff absolutely wants to talk to you and be with you to support you on that journey. And Cliff, I think you have a few mastermind groups that you're running now, too. I wanted to mention or one of your.
[Cliff]
There are two different things that I'm running. One is a mastermind group for full time self-employed business owners who feel alone out in the world. Like they carry all of the risks.
They're responsible for all the decisions that not only impact their own life, but if they have employees, the lives and families of so many other people. And if you ever feel like it's lonely at the top and you wish there are some other people who really understood the kind of decisions you face and the risks you take on a day by day basis. I've created an environment for the last seven years where people get together every single week.
Small group of no more than 10 to 12 people. Currently, there are eight in the group. And we get together every week for 90 minutes to give one person in a hot seat 70 minutes of focus where you benefit from the education, the experience, areas of expertise, skills, talents and abilities, influence, impact of all of the other people in the group to help weigh in on the things that you're facing in your personal and or professional life.
And you can learn more about that at nextlevelmastermind.info, that's somebody else's mastermind, but nextlevelmastermind.info. The other one is for people who are coaches. If you have had a ton of experience in the coaching space, whether it's in ministry, in the corporate world or anything else where you've literally devoted yourself to impacting and influencing other people's lives, and you're looking to actually turn that into a full-time self-employed coaching practice, and you'd like to do it profitably. I actually discovered this book called The Prosperous Coach by Steve Chandler and Rich Lidfin.
I have since mastered that process. And today I help other people master this process as well as other frameworks, tools and strategies. So I created something called the Next Level Coaching Program, which I don't have a sales page for right now.
But if you email me, coachingprogramatcliffatcliffravenscraft.com, I'd love to discuss more about that with you and help you turn your full-time self-employed coaching practice into something that's profitable to you and allows you to impact so many people's lives in a powerful way.
[Daphne]
Thank you for sharing all that. Much better than I could, but yes, reach out to Cliff. All right.
With that, we're going to wrap it up. Thanks for being with us today. And we look forward to more exciting conversation in this great adventure we call life.
Bye, everybody.
