LIFE11-TheWork
[Daphne]
And we're live. We're live. Here we are doing our show.
[Cliff]
So, Daphne, you know, I was so excited about this show that I woke up yesterday at 7.30 in the morning to start prepping for it, thinking it was just a few hours away. So, I guess I kind of supposed that there was a daylight savings day instead of daylight savings hour.
[Daphne]
I gotta be honest with you, I did not know anything about daylight savings time until Bridget, my spouse, said, you know, tonight the clocks change. And I'm like, what? I guess I live under a rock now.
That's what I do.
[Cliff]
Yeah, I'm very aware of this because I have clients all over the world. So, I have to send out messages and say, hey, just so you know, for most of you, for the next week and a half to two weeks, however, before, between you, when you change your daylight savings times, we just changed. So, and then I have to remind them a couple of weeks when it's theirs.
[Daphne]
That's good. Does it impact you at all? We're gonna just talk about- No!
[Cliff]
There's no such thing as time anyway. It's all construct. I'm just here in the present now.
[Daphne]
Totally agree. Couldn't agree more, except when I was like, what am I getting? How am I gonna make up for this extra hour?
It's the sleeping. It's the sleeping.
[Cliff]
So, how do you feel when you hold on to that belief?
[Daphne]
Not good. Not good. It's not helpful at all.
Can you know for sure it's true? That was really good. Yeah.
Do you know it's true that if you don't get enough sleep, you're gonna be a lunatic? That's a great segue. So, we are talking about, well, I wanna say we're gonna talk about a couple of things on this show.
We are absolutely today gonna talk about the work of Byron Katie, which is just, was life-changing to me when I was exposed to her work. And we're talking about questions because I think at the end of the day, you know, the quality of the questions we ask determines the quality of our consciousness, which I think determines the quality of our life, in my experience. So, but Byron Katie nails it with a question.
So, we're gonna talk a lot about that today on the show. And these are the tools and tricks, I like to call them, right? Tips, tricks, tools to live a great life.
That's what we're doing on the Adventure Game Podcast.
[Announcer]
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]
I was dancing over here.
[Daphne]
It's so jazzy.
[Cliff]
It is jazzy. I didn't listen to the words today though.
[Daphne]
I didn't either. What was I doing? What were we doing instead?
What was I doing?
[Cliff]
I was pulling up my Byron Katie insights, the four main insights that I wanted to make sure that I got a chance to squeeze into our conversation today.
[Daphne]
That's fantastic. I did, I was looking at our outline.
[Cliff]
There we go. See, we were just, we were so present with the fact that we are about ready to create meaningful content that we couldn't be distracted by mere words in an intro.
[Daphne]
That's exactly right. We couldn't be. That's good reframing.
Let's just reframe it. Yeah, we were both, I was prepping. I was, I was like, okay, just make sure, you know, you got what you need here.
We're good. We're good. Keeps us on track just a little bit.
So, um, we are going to talk about, I want to open first just with the idea of questions. You know, what questions we're asking, how we're just in general in our life. I think, and I don't know if this is true for you, Cliff, but I think when I watch myself doing things, you know, the doing that I'm doing, the being that I'm being there underneath it, there's this question probably that I'm trying to answer.
And one of the questions that I've lived in for a really long time, I've been obsessed with this since I was probably eight, I think for some reason, I have this memory of just how do I like live a great life? How do I get the most out of this thing? You know, it's, it's a question that has, I have been obsessed with it at a very young age.
And if I look at a thread in my life from the time, yeah, I was just very young. I was very interested in philosophy at a very young age. I was interested in the world religions at a very young age, the wisdom traditions.
And that thread has just followed me my whole life. So when I look, go ahead.
[Cliff]
No, you finish your statement.
[Daphne]
So when I looked at, yeah, when I looked at sort of what, what is that theme that seems to be following me? Like, what, what am I, what am I after? Like, what am I trying to do?
You know, this idea of seeking or looking, you know, into the future or looking for what, like, what was I trying to accomplish? And then that's when it hit me. I'm like, oh, you're just wanting to like, live a really great life.
Like, what is this? How do you do this? Right.
So, you know, great question. How do I, how does one do that? And then I got familiar with the idea of less powerful questions.
For example, why is this happening to me? Entertaining.
[Cliff]
Not, not, not a fun question to ask. Although any question you ever ask your subconscious mind, little hint, little tip. It is required to give you answers.
So any question you ever ask, answers will be forthcoming and be careful what you ask for.
[Daphne]
Yeah. I mean, and when you even try on, you know, when you try and like, why is this happening to me? Like even when you try on that question, it feels, it feels not great.
Right.
[Cliff]
Yeah. What, try, try this one on for size. Why am I such a terrible father?
Why do I always screw up as a husband?
[Daphne]
Yeah. Why can't I get it together? So a couple pieces of that question.
The first one is the word why we'll get into this. I want to get into this really important. There's just that, that word alone comes with a lot of, we'll call it baggage, comes with a lot of baggage.
And yeah. And one of the things that we've started to understand more about our mind and how our minds work, we really, we really will understand why that question is not a very powerful question. So that's what we're talking about.
The main theme, I want to spend a little time on questions. And as a coach questions are sort of the place where we play a lot and live a lot. And then we're going to talk about the work of Byron Katie.
And she comes, yeah, she comes to her approach through four questions, which we're going to explore on the show.
[Cliff]
So that's what six, because I'm going to add her to that. She sometimes throws that. I love so much.
[Daphne]
Yes. There's the four and then the two and she has what she calls it, her turnaround, which is the best. I agree with you.
[Cliff]
Okay. So there's a turnaround. So then eight, there's still two more that she doesn't, that she throws in every now and then eight questions.
No, 10. So Daphne, before, before we jump straight in, just share something that came up with, for me, as you were introducing your connectedness, going back to childhood with questions.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
I so resonated with it in a very big way, except for the fact that I immediately found myself a little jealous about the fact that you knew what philosophy was from other world perspectives and world religions. Because when I was a kid, I also was very much grounded in the world of asking questions, being curious because as a child, I was always given doctrinal statements by which I was asked to commit and agree to for life, for eternity. So for me, the thought of even entertaining anyone else's thoughts about, let's just say a God or a creator, that was forbidden and even evil and sinful and dangerous.
So that's one of the things that I recall as a kid being told, stay away from anybody else who teaches anything different than what we teach about this Bible, this God, this religious lifestyle that we live. So I remember being like statement, statement, statement. Interesting thing though, I go to a Catholic school.
My family's not Catholic. I'm not Catholic, but I go to a Catholic school, first, seventh grade, sitting in religious education, going to mass every Friday. I'm not allowed to participate in the sacraments of anything that's going on there.
And then on the weekends, because my mom and dad don't go to church either, I'm going to church with all my friends to vacation Bible school during the summers. Yeah, that's right. And then going to Sunday school classes with all the different friends.
But your parents didn't go to church? Nope. So I went to Lutheran, no, I went to Lutheran churches.
I went to Baptist churches. I went to Methodist churches. I went to Pentecostal churches, assembly of God churches.
I went to all the churches and guess what? They were all giving me statements, statement, statement, statement, statement, statement. And they were all different statements about the same thing.
And so I grew up with lots of questions.
[Daphne]
Oh, but you had a lot of questions, but it wasn't necessarily strongly encouraged that you asked them.
[Cliff]
My questions were, well, first of all, it was never taught to me, don't ask questions. Sure. Nobody ever said those things, but it was very much implied that we have the answers and these are the answers that you should live by.
So questions somehow were by default, you know, discarded, you know, or discouraged.
[Daphne]
Well, there wasn't an open curiosity there. Like you were going to be told this is what you do. You could be curious around that topic, but there wasn't an answer.
[Cliff]
No, no, no, no, no, no. Daphne, that's not my upbringing. There was not a, there is, this is the exact truth and this is exactly how you think about it.
And in fact, we don't want you to think about it. We just want you to memorize it. And we would like you to actually be able to repeat it word for word, exactly like this.
And I'm not kidding you. Let's recite this doctrinal statement together.
[Daphne]
Wow. Wow. Yeah.
So not my experience.
[Cliff]
I know, but the thing is, is that my, there was a part of me that was always wanting to question. Now, if I, I didn't, I didn't know until, until 2020 that it was, I'm not kidding you. I'm literally in my late forties when I finally discover for myself that it's okay to explore what other people around the world in different spiritual paths believe about God.
It took me that long for me to have the, give myself the freedom to start asking questions. So anyway, I just, I just wanted to share that with you because I think there might be some people who listen, who resonate with that. It's like, wow, it's okay to ask questions.
And what came up for me and the reason why I share all of that Daphne is because for too much of my life, I've been convinced that I know the truth and this ties into Byron Katie. I know the truth. I have the, I've been taught these things, whether it been by somebody who is an expert in the field or my own life experience, the things that I've witnessed, I have come to the conclusion that what is true.
And so therefore I, in every single time I've done that, I've lived a life of suffering and pain. But every time I've started asking questions, I start to free myself.
[Daphne]
Yeah, absolutely. I mean that, thank you, because that's the essence of what this is all about. And you know, I want to say Cliff, I don't, I don't know that that experience that you have had about feeling certain, is that foreign?
I mean, I was like, as you said, as you said that, I was, I too have the experience of feeling very certain, you know, without any of the religious background or the indoctrination of anything formally, say it formally, okay, that you've described. I can absolutely find the in myself where I feel 110% certain about quote, and this is like my favorite line, the way it is. And I think there's something, and I appreciate everything you're saying about, you know, your background and going through, you know, seeing how you've come to the world and your questions.
I appreciate all of that. And at the same time, I can find that place in myself where I'm certain, I know the answer. This is how you do it.
You don't do it the other way. Oh my gosh, you know, that's where all the judgment criticism comes from. It's where all of the identity making comes from.
The beauty, I think, is that we're getting a sense of exactly what you got to, which is when that starts to cause us suffering. And I think it is completely, totally great to be certain until it isn't.
[Cliff]
I'll tell you a place where it brought up a lot of suffering is when I came into my marriage with Stephanie and I had some very certain feelings about what it meant for a husband and wife to have a relationship with one another together. And Stephanie had different thoughts about what that looked like.
[Daphne]
They always do.
[Cliff]
That caused a few issues in the first several months of our marriage. It was interesting to see somebody else who is certain about something different than I'm certain about.
[Daphne]
Yeah, isn't it? It's great. It's great.
If you're open to learning, you can find out a lot of things about yourself. But you hit the nail on the head. What happens when we start living in a space of certainty?
And then how does that drive? I think these things loop back on each other, but how does that drive our ability to ask questions or not? And curiosity and certainty do not hold hands real well.
Learning and curiosity do, but certainty and curiosity, they're on two different playgrounds, so to speak. So it can be very tricky when you feel certain. Your quality of your questions really take a backseat, if you're even available to ask any questions when you're certain.
And I think that's where the why question comes from. I'll come back to this because when I think about how certain I am and the opposite, and this is what tends to happen. So I get certain about the way something should be.
Keyword is should. And then life isn't showing up that way. And so the only question I get access to is like, why?
Why isn't this thing doing what I want it to do? Why isn't this going the way that I want it to go? And our quality of our questions just completely take a backseat.
So I think that's how the certainty, and I can kind of frame all this out, but I think that's sort of how it works. And when our consciousness, you mentioned earlier about the subconscious part of us, when that subconscious is looping in the background, our old patterns are looping in the background, and we have that desire for certainty, then we get taken away from the quality of questions and the freedom that we can experience.
[Cliff]
I want to close the loop on something that I kind of just brought up earlier, because I think our conversation might take a little different direction than this loop when it comes to questions. And so the quality of our questions determines the quality of our life is a quote that I've heard many times attributed to Tony Robbins, which is the same as what you opened up. You just said the quality of our questions determines the level of our consciousness, which determines the quality of our life, which I love that distinction determines the level of our consciousness.
And those who understand what that means, it's an incredibly powerful truth that we live by. So, but the closing, the loop that I want to talk about is the quality of the question. So if you, for me, if I just have a complete breakdown with one of my children, for example, and I'm like, I come away from that feeling like, oh man, I totally screwed that up.
Why am I such a terrible dad? Why do I always do this? Now, if I default to that question, here's what's going to happen.
I'm going to have a bullet point list of all of my flaws, all of my failures, all of my past, all of the things that could go wrong. And quite frankly, my level of consciousness is not going to be elevated. It may only be dragged through the mud and keep me down there.
Whereas if instead I was, if I could just ask a better question, and that is, hey, based upon this scenario and what it is, what could I do moving forward that would improve this situation if it were to happen again? What do I desire right now for my child, whether it's my daughter or my son, to feel? And what steps can I take to move towards that?
These are better questions than, because you might be thinking, well, why am I such a terrible father? You might be thinking that you're asking that. Okay.
When I, let me, instead of saying you, when I used to ask that question, why am I such a terrible father? I literally thought that it was a good question because what I'm seeking to do is to find out what my weaknesses are so that I can overcome them. And I thought that that would be a powerful way of self-reflection.
But the only thing that I realized is that when I got into the answers to those questions, it was only making me feel worse. Yeah. And they weren't all true.
[Daphne]
No. And, you know, your ego will only tolerate that for so long before you will, I don't know if you have this experience, but I have, I will go the exact 180 from that. So why am I, why am I such a bad person?
I'll only run that so long before I go the other direction and go, well, you're not, you're actually really great. And it's everyone else that screwed up. It'll only tolerate that for so long.
And so you're just ping-ponging back and forth and you don't get to the sweet spot, which are the questions you just stated. What do I really want in this situation? Like, what can I learn from this?
What am I discovering about this? You know, and one of my favorite questions is what do I really want? I mean, at the end of the day, that is just, and boy, when you get under that question, what do I really want?
Joy, a loving relationship with whoever, fill in the blank that I care about, you know, is the arguing then the way that I go to get that? And you start to live in a space that is recognizing the choices that you're making. It's a wild ride.
So yeah, I mean, your ego will only tolerate. I wanted to catch that because we just, and you'll just ping-pong all day long. Yeah.
[Cliff]
And, and, and just to wrap it up, just the next time you find yourself in a situation, appear at your thoughts and ask your, and look and say, what questions am I asking myself? What questions appear on my, in my mind? And I would encourage you to document them, write them down and, and see those questions because they will, they will tell you what your experience of life will be for the next several minutes, hours, week, days, weeks, months.
[Daphne]
The other, the other lurking, by the way, these are the, and I am digging a little bit into the more subconscious part of this, that there's always a question we're trying to answer. How am I right about this? That's often lurking.
It's always underneath, like, how am I right about this? How do I get this person to see how right I am?
[Cliff]
Well, that is kind of what I've learned is the role of the ego, if you will, or the subconscious mind is to be in alignment with what we believe to be true. Because we have been taught that it's not a very good thing to be a dishonest person. And so the greatest force in our persona is to remain faithful and aligned with what we believe to be true.
And so we're always looking for alignment with our belief about the things that we're certain of.
[Daphne]
Yeah. Which totally makes sense. I mean, there, there can be a real, again, when we talked about this on our episode, two episodes ago, when we do the persona one, I don't know, two, two episodes ago, go back and listen to it.
And in it, there's some utility there, right? I mean, I think that, and this is really, I think an important, because I think we can drift into Byron Katie's work now, but this is a really important point that I want to make, that this is about when we find ourselves suffering, which is totally optional. It is totally optional.
I mean, you know, it is a choice about how much suffering you want to do in a day. You get to choose that. So, you know, I think we can use some of these tools and I think Byron Katie's tools in particular to really help us sort through when we catch ourselves suffering.
And then we'll find ourselves creating these narratives, stories, my favorite, that really contribute to us just not living a great life, not really enjoying ourselves, yeah, not being at peace. So, let's dive in a little bit more specifically to Byron Katie, shall we?
[Cliff]
I would love to.
[Daphne]
All right, let's do it. So, I will give a little history here. I was first exposed to Byron Katie's work, I believe it was in 2008.
I think that's right. And got familiar with one of her books and then went to a three-day retreat with her that one of my friends organized and got to really experience her in person. She, and you can look up her history, she's all over the internet.
We'll put references in the show notes today. But she is a person who, as she would describe it, these are my words, not hers, but seems like she's went through a little bit of a psychological break in a way, you know, and she tells the story pretty readily. And you can find that in her work.
But, you know, she went through just this opening in her mind, that's how I would describe it. And was able to see the world very differently. And prior to that, had been doing a lot of suffering, as she describes it.
So, you know, her history is very interesting. And she came up with these four questions. And essentially at the root of this process is the ability to question your own thinking.
And in her case, it was her own thinking. To really see that one of the major ways that she was creating suffering in her life was believing her own thoughts. Just radical, right?
So I was exposed to this back in 2008. And it really landed for me that there is just, there are these stories that we're telling ourselves about the past and about the future. Now, I knew enough about the mind at that point to know that that is what it does.
When it's, you know, we talk about being present. Essentially, what we're describing is the ability to be here now and to catch, I think more so to catch when our mind has run off into the future. And when we have gone too far into the past.
And if in my experience, if you pay attention to that, if we spend too much time in the future, we typically experience quite a bit of anxiety. And too much time in the past, we will typically start to have an experience of regret. Like sort of this, it's sort of an interesting thing that the mind does.
So the idea of being present becomes really, really helpful. She, I think, nailed it. When it came to just seeing what your thoughts are doing, how you're creating the suffering, and then asking yourself a series of questions to start really questioning it.
So that's the essence of what we're going to talk about. And she has some questions. Now, I know you have some notes, Cliff, and I sent you a few videos to watch as well, which are sort of my.
[Cliff]
So I would love to give my background on my introduction to Byron Katie. Okay. So I was first introduced to Byron Katie way back.
Gosh, it must've gone all the way back to the summer of 2023. Okay. So last year.
And I was working with...
[Daphne]
My mind is like, wasn't that just a year ago?
[Cliff]
I was working with this client. Her name is Daphne. And she was telling me how much she really, she was telling me about her thinking about going to this week-long workshop with Byron Katie.
And I'm like, tell me more. Yeah. You're like, what?
So I love, you gotta bring some fun to a show.
[Daphne]
This is serious.
[Cliff]
I know. I told you. Okay.
[Daphne]
It's called Life Ultimate Adventure Seriousness.
[Cliff]
Yes.
[Daphne]
Yes. Yeah. Okay.
[Cliff]
So I immediately went and purchased the book, Loving What Is, I think is what it's called. Yeah. By Byron Katie.
And I decided that I would introduce it to Stephanie to see if she has any interest in this work. So we started listening to the audio book together on one car ride. Stephanie really enjoyed it, but because it was a book we were listening to together, I didn't want to continue on without her.
And Stephanie has interests in all these different other places. And I never got to the place where I said, hey, do you want to pick up where we left off and continue on? So while I was...
I actually listened to probably the introduction, first chapter, and then the second chapter where there's starting to be some interactions.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
I heard all of that, or yeah, interactions, whatever we're going to call it, where she's doing the work with people. And then I watched maybe one video on YouTube back in the day, back last summer. And that was it.
And it's like, okay, I really see what she's getting at here. I love this. This seems incredibly valuable.
And I'm looking forward to finishing this book with Stephanie and learning more. We never picked it up since then. Until last week, you said, hey, why don't, after we were finished the show, we always work together to talk about the things that we're going to do the next week.
And you said, hey, I'd like to talk about Byron Katie next week. I'm like, great. So you sent me a link to four different YouTube videos, anywhere between 28 minutes to about an hour.
And I watched all four of those Friday night.
[Daphne]
Wow.
[Cliff]
And I absolutely loved it. All four of them were absolutely amazing. And then I talked to Stephanie.
I said, hey, I hope you don't mind, but I think I'm going to go ahead and start reading this book again. And I went back to the beginning and I'm actually right now in the book, Loving What Is, exactly where Stephanie and I left off. So I'm right to where I was.
But then I went to, is it called thework.com and I printed off all of our free documents.
[Daphne]
And let me just say, she does call her process the work. Like it's the work. Yeah.
Just I did not call that out. That's what she calls it. Yes.
Okay. So you printed the documents.
[Cliff]
I printed the documents. And then I was like, I wonder if Katie has, or no, somewhere in her website, I found out she actually has a podcast. Yeah.
And so she has a podcast and it's called At Home With Byron Katie. And there are 146 episodes and I've listened to five of them already.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
Each of them are her doing the work with one person, which by the way, listening to her do the work with a person, whether it's in this podcast or on YouTube videos is so far different than reading a narration in a book of the work. The book does it no justice at all. I agree.
Had I actually seen more of these interactions or heard more of these real life conversations, I don't think I could have stopped where I did in the book. So I share all of that to share my experience of where I'm at at this point. And I'm pretty heavy into the work.
I've actually used it in three different coaching conversations already.
[Daphne]
Cliff, that is one of the many things I love about you. You find, and I did know, I mean, I think I feel like I know you relatively well. And I had a feeling that you would love getting further into it.
And I knew we'd talked about it in the past too, so it wasn't completely foreign to you, but yeah. And I agree with you also that watching her work with people, her books are great. I mean, it does help to have a little bit of a foundation of like, what does she mean by the work?
What are these four questions? But watching her do the work with people, it is life-changing. It is life-changing, I think.
[Cliff]
In the book, Loving What Is, the introduction by her current husband and the first chapter, there are some basis that is just like, okay, to really understand what I'm doing here and this is all about, here are some things that you need to know as the foundation. So first of all, the whole idea of accepting what is as being perfect and that the universe is here as a supportive, is here for you. And every person is your teacher.
Every person is a reflection of your thoughts. And so there's so many great foundational principles that don't make a whole lot of sense. I mean, I caught on to some of it before I read what the foundations are.
I, matter of fact, by actually listening to her, she weaves in those foundational beliefs in conversation. But the book solidified my understanding of the foundation, the principles.
[Daphne]
Yeah. And the other thing I love about her books too, Loving What Is and then Who Would You Be Without Your Story is the other one that I would recommend. We'll put all this in the show notes.
You also get her pithy little wisdom statements that I just find so like the question, who would you be without your story? And she has hundreds of them and they get peppered in, you know, throughout the book too, when you're reading it, which I think is really great. So there's, I think she actually, at this point has a whole book of sort of quotes and things that she said.
Her husband, by the way, is a, he wrote one of the best translated, and I can't remember when they, when they got married, but best recognized translated versions of the Tao actually.
[Cliff]
Oh, great. I would love to read that.
[Daphne]
Yeah. He has an incredible background with a lot of Eastern tradition, Eastern philosophies. I have no idea their story about how they met, but he, yeah, it's great.
So yes, she comes with these pithy statements. I would highly recommend watching her videos on YouTube. I will put in the show notes, as a matter of fact, the four that I sent you so people can watch them if they like, which are my, I mean, there's hundreds.
I don't know how many I've watched. I probably have watched hundreds of them. Those were the four.
Those are the four that stick out the most to me that I thought were great.
[Cliff]
So, so before you, before you go, Daphne, it's funny that you've mentioned that her husband has written a very awesome translation of the Tao. I wrote down loving my, so my first thing on my document that I pulled up while we were doing the intro, loving what is, accepting things for what they are. Katie often says, I love reality.
So basically I love what is right. And then I wrote down, it reminds me of going with the Tao from Tao Te Ching. So just, isn't that interesting that you're telling me that her husband has written a, and I just finished, I just finished an 84 day workshop on the Tao Te Ching.
And so it was amazing. It was an incredible translation in Insight Timer. It was one of the courses.
It was amazing. So I'm going to look up the translation of her husband because I am a huge fan of the Tao.
[Daphne]
Yeah. I think you would really enjoy it. It's really great.
And for those of you that don't know, Insight Timer is an app. I don't know if we mentioned it on the show. We're just going to talk about all the tools today.
[Cliff]
InsightTimer.com. It is a free app. There are millions of people all over the world that use this app.
And there's always tens of thousands of people on at any given moment of the day, all of them there for quiet mindfulness, meditation, reflective kind of activities.
[Daphne]
And teachers of all paths too, I think.
[Cliff]
All paths.
[Daphne]
You just did that on Insight Timer. So yes. Let's see here.
So diving into her, into what she calls the work, it's, I guess we'll get into, let's do the mechanics part of it first. Like let's talk about what are the, well, how many questions have we come up with? What are the four core questions?
We'll start there. And then maybe we can kind of just go through a couple examples of the questions, or I can talk about my experience with the questions, but I thought we could walk through that first. And again, highly recommend that going back and watching some of the videos for you that's listening to us and getting acquainted with her.
But I think you'll find some value in what we're talking about today anyway. So four questions. Number one.
[Cliff]
Well, the first thing before you get into the questions, the first thing that you want to do is think of a time when you were incredibly stressed out, frustrated, angry, upset, hurt, offended. Think of a time like that and just write that down. What was that experience?
And let me add to that.
[Daphne]
It is really helpful if you make it with another person first.
[Cliff]
Yes. You can do the work on yourself later.
[Daphne]
Yeah. That's harder. Yes.
[Cliff]
Yeah.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
So it says in this situation, who angers, confuses, hurts, saddens, or disappoints you and why? And so you literally want to do a fill in the blank. I am insert your negative emotional state with insert the name of another person because and then write down the reason why you're angry with that person.
[Daphne]
Yes.
[Cliff]
All right. Now, once you have that down. Oh, you know, another thing to do, Daphne, is also to say what you want them to do.
This person should this. I want this person to fill in the blank.
[Daphne]
Yes.
[Cliff]
Write that down. There's more. But then these four questions make sense.
But I wanted to because the questions don't make sense unless you realize what are you asking the questions of. So now you're really angry with a person for some reason and you really think they should or you want them to fill in the blank. Now ask these questions.
[Daphne]
Yes. So I am really annoyed with Sally. It's making this up.
I'm really annoyed with Sally. She is always asking me to do things I don't want to do. She shows up unannounced at my house.
She is very controlling. And last Friday, she showed up and expected me to go out with her at nine o'clock at night. I don't know who the Sally person is, but this is really great.
[Cliff]
Well, let's do this instead. I'm going to have an unnamed person. We're just going to call him Bob.
All right. Because I don't like to deal with hypotheticals. I really connect with real life stuff.
So I'm going to give a real life thing. OK. So last last week, I had a person who emailed me after having a first 90 minute coaching session with me.
[Daphne]
OK.
[Cliff]
And it was an incredibly powerful call. Just literally changed the way the person was seeing the world. There were some action insights and actions they said they were going to take.
I invited them to a second completely complimentary 90 minute coaching session with me. And forty five minutes before the second call, that person emails me and says, hey, let's cancel today. I've determined that I'm not ready for coaching and this isn't a good time for me.
And so that what comes up at times is and in the scenario, it's like, ah, this I'm frustrated that this person would cancel just that. I mean, he's known for the last two weeks that we've had the scheduled. Right.
He's had to have known that for the last four or five days that he's not ready to move forward. He's got all these. He is so disrespectful.
The fact that he would cancel just minutes before. Now I have no ability for me to fill this slot with anybody else. This actually is going to cost me money.
This is I mean, this person just doesn't respect me.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
So now let's go with that one. Let's talk about Bob. I'm all ready, Daphne.
[Daphne]
Let's do it. So one of the things that there are several threads that I could have pulled on there. Right.
One, Bob doesn't respect me. You kind of gave me the full. That was really nice.
Also, there was a belief that there's no way I can fill this.
[Cliff]
Yeah.
[Daphne]
There's also he's known for for two weeks that we had this. Right. So so we could just I could pull any of those, but let's stay with he doesn't respect me.
I think that's a really good one. So Bob doesn't respect you. And so the first question that is asked in the work is, is it true?
Is it true that Bob doesn't respect you? So, yeah, this is really critical. Answer honestly.
If what if you were to believe that Bob really didn't respect you, the idea here isn't to try to convince yourself in the first question anyway or convince yourself of anything at any point, but to really just answer the question honestly. Bob doesn't respect you. Is it true?
And it's a yes or no answer.
[Cliff]
It's a yes or no answer. And the one thing that I've learned from Byron when she's doing this, it's important for me to not have this third party. I'm away.
You know, I'm away from the situation and I see it from a greater perspective right now because right now I definitely everything I just said is untrue. Exactly. But what I loved about what what Byron Patey says before you answer these questions, I want you to be in a meditative state.
I want you to go back to that moment when those thoughts arose in that moment. Was it true? Yeah.
And so in that moment, the first question, you know, is it true that this person is disrespecting me? And probably it actually in that moment, the answer is yes.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
He's totally this is I feel disrespected right now. Yeah.
[Daphne]
And typically when she's working with people, they are still stuck in that, you know, they're still believing. Right. So I understand that we're we are going to go back and kind of rewind this just a little bit.
So, yeah, Bob is disrespecting me or Bob is disrespectful or is disrespecting me. Is it true? And in that moment, the answer probably would have been yes.
Yeah. So then the next question is, OK, so is it true? Yes or no?
And it's a yes or no answer. Then the next question is, can you absolutely know 100 percent that Bob is disrespecting you? Can you know, can you be 100 percent certain?
[Cliff]
And this I love this question because it does and it's a yes or no question. And it definitely is something that makes you reflect at a much deeper level. And the reality, I've heard people say yes to the second question.
[Daphne]
They can.
[Cliff]
And if you're still stuck, that's still going to be. And it is true for you. Yes, it is true for you.
But but it depends on how how you can how if you can take the persona off, if you can take the ego off for just a moment. And in that scenario, I would easily be able to get to this place like, well, no, I can't know for certain that this person is disrespecting me.
[Daphne]
That's right.
[Cliff]
There could be a number there could be a number of reasons why this person is doing this that has nothing to do with me at all.
[Daphne]
That's right. That's right. Or that Bob is disrespectful, you know, kind of kind of two different flavors.
Right. So, yeah. So can you know can you know for certain 100 percent?
And the answer would be I when I check in with myself, I cannot be 100 percent certain that that's what's happening. OK. Or it could be true.
Maybe you're like, yeah, I'm 100 percent certain. It's like, that's fine.
[Cliff]
It's not the first time Bob has done this to me.
[Daphne]
And he does it all the time. That's great. So then you get to the third question.
Who, and she asked this in a couple of different ways. So I'm going to do it in a couple of different ways, because I think they they're they're both valuable. But the essence of the question is the same.
Who do you become when you believe that thought Bob is disrespecting you?
[Cliff]
Hmm. And the answer to that question is I become resentful. I become angry.
I instantly judge that person and see them in a negative light. I instantly do not want anything more to do with this person. This person is somebody that I I distance myself.
Those are just a few of the things that I do and and how I how I show up as a result of holding on to that truth, if you will.
[Daphne]
Yeah, that's so good. And the other way she asked the question is, how do you react when you believe that thought? I love that.
[Cliff]
Yeah, I did. Yeah, I just I distance myself. I I become cold.
My responses like, you know, are not as flowing with genuine relational connection. I I I I break the connection of my soul to that person's soul.
[Daphne]
That's good. That's a good one. That's a good way to do it.
Come up with a recipe. And then the fourth question she asks then. So so there's no, by the way, I just want to and this is very important.
There's no motivation here to get yourself to believe or do anything differently. As a matter of fact, I would encourage if you're listening and when you watch her do the work, if you go through these practices, don't attempt to do that because your mind will not like it and it will just fight you anyway. So the idea is just to come to the questions and simply ask them and see what answers come through.
Right. Answer very honestly and openly. All right.
So the fourth question then is, who would you be? So the third question was, who do you become? How do you react?
And then the fourth question is, who would you be without that thought? And the example, one of the examples somewhere that she gives is sort of you just imagine that you could go into this operating system, if you will, and you could just remove the chip that that holds on to that thought. Thought is just who would you be without that thought?
That Bob is disrespectful.
[Cliff]
Yeah. And if in that case, I would definitely, I wouldn't feel disrespected. I would feel like this is not personal.
I would feel a little bit more open to what's come up in Bob's life, what's going through his mind, what fears is Bob experiencing that's caused him to shy away from growth. I'd have a whole lot more openness to what's going on in Bob's world.
[Daphne]
Yeah. And to your own, right? To your own world.
Like what's going on in my world? I'm over here in Bob's business. By the way, it's another one of my favorite quotes of her.
So she says, there's three types of business, her business. And if we were talking to her business, my business, and God's business. She's like, anytime you get into somebody else's business, you're going to suffer.
So yeah, you would be, what I heard was you would have a certain level of curiosity. That would be the word that I would use. You'd be interested in like, wow, I wonder what is going on for Bob?
Like, what is this about? I wonder what is going on for me? So immediately at that point, what we were talking about earlier, the certainty about Bob being disrespectful, it's gone.
It's not even that it takes a back seat. It's just gone, right?
[Cliff]
So here are those two additional questions, Daphne, that came in. One is the first question is, let's see here. Can you see any reason to drop this thought?
Can you see any reason why it would be beneficial to you to drop this thought that Bob is resentful? And it's like, can you think of any other reason to drop it? Even if it's true, but can you see any reason why dropping the thought and not attaching to it would be true?
And the other question is, can you see one stress-free reason to hold onto the thought? Can you think of one reason that does not cause stress for holding onto that thought? And I'll tell you what, those two questions bring so much clarity.
[Daphne]
And I love it when she asks those questions. One of the things I love is people, you can watch people when she's working. It's almost like, if I imagined a soundtrack playing, it's almost like you hear a record scratch.
And mine too, when I've gone through those questions, it's sort of, your mind kind of, it's like, what? It's like, yeah, can you see any reason to keep this thought around and to keep believing it? I'm like, well, no, when I have this thought and I'm believing it, I am stressed out.
I'm disconnected. I'm angry. I'm annoyed.
I'm not peaceful. I'm not calm. And here I am believing this thought, right?
And we'll get to another part of this that I think is important. So yes. So she'll pepper in those questions.
So now the other, I don't know, do you want to get into the turnaround? Because this is really- Yeah, let's do the turnaround. Okay.
All right. So this is where it gets really dicey and really fun. So we've gone through the four questions.
Okay. Is it true? Can you absolutely know with 100% certainty that the belief that you're having is true?
And then who do you become or how do you react when you have that thought and you believe it? And then who would you be without that thought? Just that alone is enough.
Who would you be if you let go of that thought? The next part of the process then, this is sort of the bonus part of it, is to then ask yourself how the opposite of your belief could be just as true or truer than your real original belief. So this is where the real works.
So in your case, we would ask, how could the opposite of Bob is disrespecting me or Bob is disrespectful, whatever flavor we want to play with here, how could the opposite of that be just as true or truer than Bob is disrespecting me?
[Cliff]
Yeah. Because I've seen this work so many times, it's very easy for me to see two immediate turnarounds. One, I am disrespecting Bob.
And number two, I am disrespecting myself.
[Daphne]
Those are really good. So how is the opposite? So if the belief was Bob is disrespecting me, then the opposite would be Bob is not disrespecting me.
How can that be just as true or truer? And you just came up with two of them. So what was the first one?
[Cliff]
Well, the first one is I am disrespecting Bob.
[Daphne]
Yeah. Let's talk about that. How could it be just as true that in that scenario?
[Cliff]
Bob could. Yeah, for me, Bob could be disrespecting me. He could be completely careless about the fact that maybe he's known for three or four days, but waited to 45 minutes before the call to cancel me.
And he could have even known that this is the way that I do things and that this could end up costing me a lot of money because of the way that I bring about doing certain things. And maybe Bob is consciously aware of that. Maybe Bob just didn't care.
And maybe he is disrespecting. Let's just say. But what is true when I say Bob is disrespectful and I'm having these hurtful and angry feelings is that I'm actually disrespecting Bob.
I'm disrespecting. I am not having respect for his emotional state. I'm not having any respect for his level of consciousness, which I'm not having any respect for the fact that Bob's always doing the best that he can with where he's at and what he's got to work with.
I'm not doing the I'm not. There's a lot of things about Bob's life that I'm not respecting. And so therefore, it is true or even truer that I am disrespecting Bob.
[Daphne]
Yeah, that's so good. And now let's do the one Bob is not disrespecting me. Let's do that one.
How could that be just as true?
[Cliff]
Well, yeah, it could be just as true that Bob is not disrespecting me in that Bob hasn't thought about. I mean, it's not that he knows how this impacts me. And he's not.
It's like, listen, you know, in a way, he might be thinking, you know, you know what? I'm going to. He just made the decision 45 minutes before the call.
Why don't I cancel this conversation? And I'm I don't want to take up Cliff's time. He's given me 90 minutes.
And this is my way of saying, Cliff, go do something with your 90 minutes. I'm certainly not a good fit for the type of coaching that you offer. I'm not at a place.
And in a way, that's his way of showing respect.
[Daphne]
Yeah, he was. I mean, could you imagine if he showed up for 90 minute coaching session with you and he had no desire to be there? Yeah.
Right. Like, exactly. So the whole point of this section of the work is to turn.
[Cliff]
By the way, I wouldn't have stopped there. I would I would have gone to how am I because because I think there's a there are three turnarounds. So we've covered the two.
The third one is I'm just disrespecting myself.
[Daphne]
Yeah, let's do that one.
[Cliff]
You know, it's like in a way. And how could I how could that be true or truer if it were? And I'm disrespecting myself by getting upset about the fact that somebody who doesn't want coaching right now chose to not be coached by me.
It's like, you know what? I want to coach you. I would.
Well, it's like, well, gosh, if this person knows this and this, a more respectful thing for me to do with some is, number one, to respect their wishes to not be coached.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
And to go and respect myself by using that 90 minutes to go find and network and invite people who are interested in being coaching. That'd be the most respectful thing I could do for myself. But no, I'm choosing to be upset right now about a story that I don't even know to be true.
And that's not that is not very respectful of myself.
[Daphne]
No, probably not. Now I so so that so four questions and then the turn around. Okay.
I do want to call out one thing that you started to say that I do think is relevant. And I'm going to come back to this again. I've sort of stated it earlier.
I'm gonna state it again. So I think it's important. This isn't at the essence of this.
There are two parts. One, we don't really know what's going on for Bob, right? We really don't know.
We haven't asked him. And, and we have made up a story, a storyline that is Bob is disrespecting me that is causing us to suffer. It does not mean by the way, that maybe you would decide I love Bob and he's canceled two times.
And therefore I, I will tell Bob, I'm not going to be available, right? It doesn't mean that you simply acquiesce or go into what I call a pattern of resignation. And there's a, there is a very big difference between resignation and surrender.
Okay. So it doesn't mean that we are just resigned that we just, everything is, you know, we don't take care of things. We don't take any action in our life.
You know, we just, people just walk on us like we're a doormat. That isn't what this is saying. And I think it's very important because you said something Cliff, like, I don't know, maybe he is, I have no idea.
Maybe he is a disrespectful jerk. I don't know. I have no idea.
What I do know is that when I hang on to the thought that he's disrespecting, disrespecting me or being disrespectful, I suffer. And I'm willing to look at that thought and that belief that is creating the suffering. I'm willing to look at the opposite of that to see how that, the opposite could just be, could be true to free myself from the suffering I am creating over here.
So, and you may very well get to some other actions. You may go back to Bob and say, Hey, you know, I, I, I noticed I disappointed myself and, um, you know, I'll be available to you later, or I'll never be available to you again. I don't know.
I'm just making nine. I'm making this up at this point, but I wanted to, I want to call that out because I think that is where this work can, um, people can really misconstrue the essence of what is being talked about and, and what the experience can look like when you go through this process. So I just wanted to call that out.
Yeah.
[Cliff]
Yeah. And I would love to share it because, because I'm not dealing with a hypothetical, this is a real life situation that happened with Bob, although Bob's not the person's name last week. And I wasn't necessarily as familiar with the work in these questions specifically prior to the scenario, you know, um, for the long time, but I have been working through what's what I, this is a version of self-inquiry, uh, finding out what's at the heart of going, what's going on with this emotional state.
And so I recognize as soon as I got the text messages, like, Hey, Cliff, hate to do this, man. I need to reschedule. Actually this, the scenario was slightly different.
It's like, uh, it's like, Hey, I, I've got a lot of things going on today and there's just no way I'm going to be able to make this time. I'd like to reschedule. Yeah.
And, and, and, and a part of it is like, Oh, and that was the trigger. It's like, I, Hey, I'm, I'm not going to be able to make it today. 45 minutes before I'm not going to be able to make it today.
And I'd like to reschedule. It's just like, and that's what I'd like to reschedule. This is just the assumption that, uh, that you can just 45 minutes before a 90 minute call, just take up another 90 minute block at some point.
[Daphne]
I got news for you, buddy. It ain't going to happen.
[Cliff]
So, so I, I did, I did sit down and I went through my own version of the work. Cause I did, I, it wasn't until Friday evening that I was sitting here watching all this Byron Katie stuff. I probably could have shown up in an even more incredibly powerful way.
But what I did do is I did recognize, wait a second, this isn't personal. This isn't about this and stuff like this, but here's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to let this person say, Hey, listen, I am not available to reschedule our time.
If you are available today, I'm going to keep our call at three 30. I will be there. And if you are able to show up, I will serve you incredibly powerfully.
If you don't show up, I will simply cancel out the meeting about five or 10 minutes into the call and there will be no hard feelings whatsoever. I'm not able to reschedule another 90 minute complimentary session, but this in no way will impact our friendship, our relationship moving forward. As far as I'm concerned, I'll never think again that you had done this, you know, that you had canceled this meeting.
So please don't, don't worry about it. It's just that if at any point in the future, I have another 90 minute block of time and stuff like that, maybe I'll reach out to you. But right now I'm currently pursuing some other people and that's, I don't know exactly how I word it, but it's something late related to that nature.
And so I did get to the place where it's like, listen, this isn't, this person's not disrespecting me. This is not all of this. It's not personal.
It's all this other stuff, but here's what I'd like to have. You know, what do I desire? I desire to, um, work with people in 90 minute sessions who do show up in spite of how busy their life is.
People who do want to do this. It's like, this is what I want. And, and so it's like, okay, you know, this is not that big of a deal.
And in fact, it was a gift to know it beforehand and I can actually work this time and do other things.
[Daphne]
Well, and he revealed to you that he was not ready, you know, he emotionally, whatever, I'm putting words in his mouth, obviously, but you know, whatever, at the end of the day, I'm not ready. I'm not available for this.
[Cliff]
By the way, I don't know if Bob's ever listening to this, but I do want to, I'm confused. I am confusing Bob and Bill because actually what I did is I could, I actually combined Bob and Bill. Cause I actually had two people last week that canceled.
One was Bill who says, I'm not emotionally ready. Uh, and then the other one was Bob who canceled, you know, and says, listen, I'm, I'm really busy today and I need to get this done before the end of the day. And, you know, so, but anyway, I have Sally and Stacey.
So the thing is though, is that in that moment, the, it's like, wow, I'm, I call myself today, the mindset answer, man. And how did I get triggered into this, this emotional state of judgment and, and hurt. And you know, it's like, it's, Oh, that's what it is.
I have these beliefs that people shouldn't do these things.
[Daphne]
Yes. Thank you. Okay.
That's where I wanted to go next. So underneath it, when, and you said it at the top of the show, one of her other statements is she's a lover of reality. And when you really understand the is-ness, what is happening in the is-ness that things are simply, if you, if you were able to just use a video camera and just record on a video camera, there's just an is-ness.
These moments are just passing one by one, one after the next. Right. And when we start living in story and we start shooting on things like this should or should not be happening, we immediately are going to lose that argument.
[Cliff]
We're going to, this is immediately, this is where we are immediately resisting the Dow.
[Daphne]
Yes, we are going to lose. And, you know, and that's where she has all these great statements. Just, you know, she, she, I'm trying to think of one of them because she'll just be like, you'll, uh, when you fight reality, you'll lose, but only 100% of the time.
[Cliff]
Yes. But only all the time.
[Daphne]
But only all the time. I love that. I know.
It's so great. She has so many. So, you know, if we look at the thought, you know, one of the thoughts could have been, we'll use Bob, the example, Bob, Bill, Bill, Bob on Bill, Bob.
[Cliff]
I can, I can tell you the, the example that hits me is clients should never cancel a session. And if they do cancel a session, they should always do it at least three days in advance, unless there is a personal emergency, such as my, uh, I'm bleeding or I need to take a child or a husband or wife to the hospital. I mean, come on people.
[Daphne]
And even then you're going to be sitting in a waiting room and I both know you're not going to get back there right away. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
So there's a, I mean, you can even get even. And so this is when, when you look at your beliefs, this is when the work and I don't encourage people to start because I think it's much easier to do it when you have a conflict with another person, but this is where you can start to then get into your belief. Like, so you have an underlying, forget about Bob.
You have an underlying belief that clients should fill in the blank.
[Cliff]
Shouldn't. Yes. Clients should show up on time for every meeting and clients should never cancel or reschedule.
[Daphne]
Excellent. And so then, yeah, they should never cancel. So clients should never cancel.
So now you can do the work on that. Is it true? Can you absolutely know that it's true?
Who do you become when you have that thought and they cancel?
[Cliff]
Yep.
[Daphne]
Right. And so you can do the work on yourself then. This was a great example, by the way, you can do the work then on your own beliefs.
I just don't encourage people to start there necessarily because you're, it just, the mind is just, it's just a tricky little thing. It just will try to convince you that you're right. So it's easier to do it.
We can see it a little bit easier when there's another person involved, but anyway, you can question your own thoughts, your own beliefs. Like, is it true? And again, you may have a, let me get into this.
You may have a preference that right in this case, this example, that clients give you three days notice or something. I may have a preference that my friend gives me a little bit more of a heads up and just doesn't show up unannounced. Right.
But when I get stuck in the belief and I can ask for that preference, I can, I'm sure you do that with your clients, right? I can make it known that that's my preference. I can campaign for that to be, you know, for everyone in my life to know that that's my preference.
However, when I'm believing that it should be that way and life doesn't show up that way, I'm going to be in trouble.
[Cliff]
Yeah. Yeah. That's a formula.
That is, that is the formula for unhappiness. When your life conditions do not equal the way you think things ought to be.
[Daphne]
Yes. Yes, exactly. Maybe we should just do a whole show on that.
How to make yourself unhappy. Yeah. How to do it while we're sort of showing it.
So yeah. So that is Byron Katie's, the work she goes by Kate. It is.
Yes.
[Cliff]
Yeah. It is incredibly powerful. I, I love these questions so much and I see how I have been, I, I would say much of the same source where Katie got this, where Byron Katie got this naturally also came to me through my journey of, of I'll say self realization.
She uses that language a lot as well.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
And cause I have found myself a couple of years ago, all of a sudden, just one day, this is just like Katie talks about in her, in the open of her book where it was 1989 or something like that. She was in a halfway house and she just like had a life of suffering and then boom, she's this super happy person and like nothing in life can bother her. And I experienced it was in 20, it was in 2020, 29, no, it's 2019.
All of a sudden I went from living a life of a lot of suffering and anxiety and fear and worry and doubt. And just, I woke up one day with an overwhelming amount of peace, joy, abundance, love, nothing could go wrong. And I'm like, what's wrong?
I can't figure out how I was living like that. And I started to question everything. I looked at my calendar.
I'm like, I want to delete the list, delete this, delete this. I went into free the dream conference, uh, 2019. It was the second annual free the dream conference that Stephanie and I did.
And I'm like, I wonder what life would be like if I didn't do this conference after this year. It's like, I wonder how much of my identity is tied to this path right now and my sense of wellbeing. How much of this was to drive my ego?
Not to question, not that there isn't any good intention, but how much of this was a path that was more for the ego and its significance than other paths that are equally afforded to me moving forward. And what many people don't know, Daphne, is I decided to shut down free the dream before the pandemic ever happened.
[Daphne]
Yeah. Isn't that interesting?
[Cliff]
It's like, listen, I don't need this. Um, and the reason why I don't need it is there are other routes that are less quote unquote, ego driven that allow me to do the work I want to do. And it creates a lot less suffering as a result.
It just, it would be, my life would be so much more peaceful and easy and it would flow. I can see clearly exactly what I should do. I want to work with a handful of clients.
I want to work with a small group of these people. And that way I would do that at such a level financially, it would provide margin and it would give me tons of free time to study, to grow, to reflect, to, to, and be more present with my wife, my kids, and all of my friends. And I could create as much content as I want.
It's like, wow. And Daphne, I experienced that for like, I experienced that state of being for months before I got triggered back into one of the old ways. And then, but then what happened was as soon as I would get triggered out of that, I immediately knew from within what to do.
And for me, that was first, I'm going to go into a short moment of meditation. And then after that, I felt like I'm going to go to my journal. And I immediately started writing my journal and I'd never heard of the judge your neighbor worksheet by Byron Katie.
So I'm just like, so, and I would write a letter to God, God, here's what's going on as if you need to know, but let me give you all the details. This is what happens. My, my dog is in, my dog has eaten a dryer sheet and is in the vet and chances are he may not make it and he may die.
And I'm not feeling great about this. And, and on top of that, I'm sensing an overwhelming sense of anxiety and fear and worry. And also a lot of guilt about the fact that I may be more upset with the financial cost of him eating this dog sheet than the fact that he might die.
And it's like that, that it's like, and so I'm just writing down all of my emotions. And then what I did is I would always write, but, but this is what I know is true.
[Daphne]
Yeah.
[Cliff]
And then I would just start writing and things would flow out of me that were not from my ego story.
[Daphne]
Does that make sense? Totally makes sense.
[Cliff]
Totally makes sense. It's like, here's what I know to be true. I love my dog.
And I know that he's beaten. He's got people to care for him. I know that I know that if, if, if he can make it through this, then, then he's got the best care possible.
I know that if it, if there's a bill associated with this, that there'll be plenty of opportunities for me to do what's necessary to financially be able to do this on top of the other things financially that have happened. There's never been a time in my life where my needs were not met, where financially I was unable to pay the bills. I, there's no reason for me to believe that that's going to change here when I'm 50 years old or whatever, 49 years old or whatever, and all this stuff.
And, and I would just, I would just have this self-inquiry and self-reflection and this truth that's outside of the story would come out. And that was my own version of the work back in the day.
[Daphne]
Yeah. And I think what's so valuable, Cliff, around this, you know, we're giving, we're giving like the, what I said, you know, early on, like the tools, the tips, the tricks, all the things that we have found. Journaling is absolutely one of them.
It is absolutely one of them. And it's Pennebaker's work, it's from one of the universities in Texas, I think, who really solidified that, you know, that he would, I mean, he would have people write about just horrible, dreadful things that had happened to them. And then they would look at sort of what happened with their illness rate, what happened with their, just the quality of their life over a period of time.
So yeah, it's a real thing. And I think what you're really bringing into the fore is like, there's some version of this that we may be doing anyway. And there, and I think this is the other big part of this.
There are many, many tools. There are, you know, one of my teachers used to say is there are a thousand skillful means, right, to living this great life. And this is one of them.
So yeah, I really appreciate you share that. I love journaling as well. And, you know, getting to those truths, you know, sort of what I call our internal knowing, right, can be really, really helpful.
And I think that's what Byron Katie's work really does.
[Cliff]
Well, I just want to say how much I appreciate you, Daphne, introducing me to this in the summer of last year, but also in preparation for this, I definitely see how I'm going to be more intentional in some cases with the right people specifically doing the work as it's stated. And certainly with other clients who aren't ready for as much as the, you know, the directed path of this. And they were like, what's this all about?
I definitely see ways that I can actually incorporate the work in a way that is going to work within any normal conversation I'm having with somebody about any situation they're experiencing in their life or business.
[Daphne]
Well, thank you. And I appreciate you too. One of the things I love about you, Cliff, there are many, many, many things, but one in particular is your ability to just grab on.
Like I knew when I sent you those videos, I'm like, he is going to grab on. Now, first of all, I had a sense that you were going to really love them, but I'm like, I guarantee he will grab on to this. He will have notes.
He will be all prepared and know what he's talking about.
[Cliff]
It's so true.
[Daphne]
I do appreciate the value so much. I do want to say a little bit of, we'll give some announcements here. I do want to say a little bit about next week's show.
Can I, about the cards?
[Cliff]
Sure.
[Daphne]
Okay. So we are going to do a really fun show next week and I hope you will join us. Cliff has how many cards do you have?
[Cliff]
Oh, I haven't counted, but I'd say close to a hundred.
[Daphne]
Okay. Close to a hundred cards that he has made that have questions on them. Most of them are questions.
[Cliff]
Some are affirmations, I think, but you have questions. Yes. So actually the question card is actually the smallest stack.
All right. But we'll explain it more next week, what they all are.
[Daphne]
Long story short, we're going to pull a card. We don't know what it's going to say and we are going to discuss it. I think we'll decide next week, but I think we'll discuss one card for maybe 10 minutes or something, or just when we feel like we've discussed it enough.
But the show is going to be based on the cards, the magic cards, and we're just going to pick a card and we're just going to talk.
[Cliff]
I love that. I love that.
[Daphne]
And they're all coaching cards. They're all grounded in this game of life, what we're talking about things. So they're not like just random cards.
What's your favorite ice cream?
[Cliff]
Although nothing like that. This is all stuff that gets to the heart of creating what we want to create in the world and breaking free from anything and everything that we believe that stands in the way of us creating whatever it is we want to create.
[Daphne]
There we go. Well said. So you can find us.
We're going to wrap up the show. You can find us at chooseyourownadventurepodcast.com. Feel free to leave us a voice message.
If you have questions or you have things that you would like us to cover on the show, we would love to hear from you. We enjoy it so much.
[Cliff]
Can I put a call to action in?
[Daphne]
Yes.
[Cliff]
So I want to just throw out there, if you are a full-time self-employed business owner or you're a senior leader in a business, I am offering, I'm doing something right now, I'm going through, I'm doing 100 powerful coaching conversations in 90 days. That's eight 90-minute complimentary one-on-one sessions. That's eight sessions per week for 13 weeks.
If anybody is out there, if you're a full-time self-employed business owner or you're a corporate leader of any level up there, these are the people that I serve best. This would be my gift to you, no strings attached, no expectation, no obligation you ever become a client, only a slight obligation that you actually commit to coming to the call that you schedule.
[Daphne]
We know his preference, everyone. If you're listening, please do not cancel at the last minute.
[Cliff]
However, if you are interested, this would be my gift to you. Seriously, it's a full-blown 90-minute one-on-one coaching experience with me. All you need to do is email me cliff at cliffravenscraft.com, put free coaching session in the subject line and mention this podcast.
[Daphne]
There we go. That's it. That's it.
Simple. Highly recommend it, by the way. Can I do a second call of action for you?
Yeah, please. I would highly recommend that if you are an individual business owner, you're getting ready to start your business or you've been at it for a bit and it's not going great or it is going great, either one, I would highly recommend, and I don't know if you're doing this right now, so forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn. I would highly recommend a day with Cliff.
I have done it twice now, and I want to tell you the clarity. I find that, and even when I've coached people too, I don't do individual business owners coaching like you do, but the clarity is invaluable. If you're really ready for that level, I would contact Cliff.
I would put in the podcast if you want. I don't care, but I would highly recommend that you get a day with Cliff, and you will not regret it. It is worth every minute and every penny to do that, so I just wanted to put that out there.
I've done it twice.
[Cliff]
Stephanie's done it twice, and I've done it with a handful of people, so definitely, yeah, Cliff at CliffRavenscraft.com, day with Cliff in the subject line or free coaching session. Actually, we'll probably start off with a free coaching session, and then you can decide after that if you want to do that. However, you don't have to.
If you don't mention day with Cliff, you're getting a free complimentary session, and my commitment to you if you don't mention day with Cliff is that there will be no mention of how you could ever pay me for coaching during that first complimentary coaching session.
[Daphne]
That's right. That's right. Okay, great.
Well, we're going to end it there.
[Cliff]
Thank you, Daphne.
[Daphne]
You're welcome, Cliff. We're going to end it right there.
[Cliff]
Let's go do the lurk.
[Daphne]
Yep. Be with us next week. We're going to have a really good time.
I'm excited about it. Bye.
