Reset Your Mind to Change the Trajectory of Your Life with ‘The Mindset Answer Man’ Cliff Ravenscraft

Cliff is a business coach, mentor, and speaker. He helps people bring their dream into reality and live their life to the fullest, doing what they love the most.  

In this episode, Cliff shares his story about how he found his path in life and his purpose and mission in this world.

Cliff talks about how he thought that being a full-time pastor would allow him to be of service to others. But being of service to a small number of people made him question what other things he could do to serve more people.

Since then, he has focused on helping his parents in their insurance family business that helps thousands of thousands of people who are experiencing adversity in their life.

After that, he started a podcast with his wife. Little did he know that it will be a huge success, and they gained hundreds of thousands of viewers in just a year. He also began a workshop to help people also launch their podcasts.

But this isn’t enough, as Cliff still wants to find the best way to do his mission in life which is to serve others. And so he now worked as a business mentor to guide his clients through their journey and make their dreams come true.

Cliff Ravenscraft talks to Dr Brad about how he made a commitment to begin living. He decided to tackle his health and fitness, and changed his mindset as well as other aspects of his life.

Cliff Ravenscraft’s story is a motivational, inspiring, and influential of a person who continually finds the best path in his life, and follows the mission of his life, which is to be of service to other people. 

Episode 238 of The Beyond Adversity Podcast is a must-listen for anyone who is still finding their purpose and mission in life. Those who are eager to change their lives and fulfil their desired dreams whatever it takes.

“The Beyond Adversity Podcast with Dr Brad Miller is published weekly with the mission of helping people “Grow Through What They Go Through” as they navigate adversity and discover their promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose. 

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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CliffRavenscraft 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliffravenscraft/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cliffeotc/ 

Transcript
Brad Miller::

We welcome you to this podcast. I'm Dr. Brad Miller. Glad to be with you, and we

Brad Miller::

are certainly glad to be with the Mindset Answer Man today.

Brad Miller::

His name is Cliff Ravenscraft. Cliff, welcome to our conversation today.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Brad, I am delighted to have this opportunity to connect with you at a deeper level

Cliff Ravenscraft::

and also to be exposed to your audience. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Brad Miller::

Well, it's great, and we've known each other for a few years, and I've certainly been

Brad Miller::

aware about your work, the podcast Answer Man, and many other levels. And I've

Brad Miller::

been involved with some personal workshops that you've led, but I also know the

Brad Miller::

last several years, you have been focused on mindset. The Mindset Answer Man,

Brad Miller::

and particularly how that is a part of the training, coaching, and influence of people

Brad Miller::

going through transitions. And that leads me to think that you've gone through

Brad Miller::

some transitions yourself and that you've had some pivotal moments. Can we talk

Brad Miller::

about that for just a minute? Some of the pivotal changes you made, particularly as

Brad Miller::

they relate to profound transformation.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Well, a number of them come to mind, and I'll try to cover them briefly,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

and if you want me to go in-depth on any of these, feel free to lead me in that

Cliff Ravenscraft::

direction. So a couple of major pivotal directions back in 1996, I had just started

Cliff Ravenscraft::

working for my family's business, which was an independent insurance agency.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

It was started by my grandfather in 1930. My mom and dad owned it at the time

Cliff Ravenscraft::

when I started working there in 1996. They hired me to help them set up a

Cliff Ravenscraft::

computer network to become digital in their agency. So I had a lot of skills

Cliff Ravenscraft::

with computers and stuff like that.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And I said, listen. I will gladly work for the family business as long as you agree to

Cliff Ravenscraft::

two things. Number one, you'll never force me to get my life insurance license, my

Cliff Ravenscraft::

health insurance license, or auto and home and business insurance license cause I

Cliff Ravenscraft::

have no desire to stay in this business. I'm coming here to do what you've asked me

Cliff Ravenscraft::

to do, set up your computer systems, and I will work here for as long as you want

Cliff Ravenscraft::

until I'm offered an opportunity to become a full-time pastor.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Going all the way back to when I was 18 years old, I felt a calling in my life. I want to

Cliff Ravenscraft::

minister to others. I want to be of service to others. I want to encourage others. I'd

Cliff Ravenscraft::

already been leading bible study groups from the time I was 18 years old, leading

Cliff Ravenscraft::

small groups of young adults at that time, all the way up through all these years.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And in 1996, if you're going to ask me what I would like to do for a living, my answer

Cliff Ravenscraft::

would be a ministry to others. Service to others. Well, being from Northern

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Kentucky in my background, the limited exposure I had to career opportunities,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

the one person I chose to speak about this feeling was my pastor at the time.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And he says, Cliff, you are obviously called to be a full-time pastor. And he's like,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

why don't we go before the church board? Let them ask you some questions.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

You can tell them your story, your heart.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And sure enough, I did that. They confirmed, Cliff, you're definitely supposed to be

Cliff Ravenscraft::

an elder in the church. You're meant to be a pastor. This is God's calling on your life.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And that is the direction I was heading, even though I worked at my family's

Cliff Ravenscraft::

insurance agency. My mission, my passion, everything I thought was that I was

Cliff Ravenscraft::

going to be a full-time pastor.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I ended up being an associate pastor for 10 years while still working in the

Cliff Ravenscraft::

insurance office. But over time, there was a pivot where I no longer wanted to be a

Cliff Ravenscraft::

full-time pastor if I was given the opportunity. It's about a 99.999% certainty I would

Cliff Ravenscraft::

never accept such an offer. Instead, I believe that my greatest ministry is happening

Cliff Ravenscraft::

right here in this little insurance agency in Northern Kentucky, where I am of the

Cliff Ravenscraft::

greatest service, council, encouragement and support to about 15 to 16,000

Cliff Ravenscraft::

clients in my geographic region.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And so the transformation, Brad, was realizing that I've spent a decade over here as

Cliff Ravenscraft::

an associate pastor. Preaching, leading Bible studies, and having a handful of

Cliff Ravenscraft::

meaningful conversations here and there. There were some pretty incredible

Cliff Ravenscraft::

things I had the opportunity to be of support to others. But the opportunity

Cliff Ravenscraft::

seemed very few and far between. The membership of our church was about

Cliff Ravenscraft::

200 people, so the opportunities were somewhat limited. Whereas, as I said,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

15 to 16,000 people in the insurance agency, I'm often the first person somebody

Cliff Ravenscraft::

calls when their child is just killed in a car accident or their house is burned to

Cliff Ravenscraft::

the ground or there's a tornado that just came through.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

You talk about an opportunity to be of support, care, empathy, and love to an

Cliff Ravenscraft::

individual that was happening to me. That kind of experience, at least on a

Cliff Ravenscraft::

quarterly basis and sometimes a monthly basis depending on what was going on.

Brad Miller::

Being in insurance, you were dealing with real-life drama, upfront and center.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Yeah. And as associate pastor, I was dealing with real-life drama. With a pool of 200

Cliff Ravenscraft::

people, the opportunities to use the kind of support I can give were somewhat

Cliff Ravenscraft::

limited. And even if I were to become a pastor of a megachurch in my area, a

Cliff Ravenscraft::

megachurch would be 5,000 people. And here have actively 15,000 clients who are

Cliff Ravenscraft::

going to call me when something terrible goes wrong in their life on all fronts

Cliff Ravenscraft::

because, by this point, I had become licensed for auto, home, business, life, and

Cliff Ravenscraft::

health insurance. So if anything happens with your home, anything happens in an

Cliff Ravenscraft::

auto, anything that happens with your health, or if somebody dies in your family,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I'm usually going to be the person your call.

Brad Miller::

So that was your calling at that moment, was in the insured's agency.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

At that moment.

Brad Miller::

So something happened, something transitioned out of that then.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I want to just say that the first transition, just in case anybody didn't pick it up,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

the first massive transition transformation was this belief that I used to believe

Cliff Ravenscraft::

that my calling had to be done within this thing called official ministry.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

In the institution. And now, I see that my greatest calling, which is being of service

Cliff Ravenscraft::

to others, is just having a life devoted to being of service to others. I now made the

Cliff Ravenscraft::

transition to insurance work. This, I see as my calling.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I see this as my mission. Insurance wasn't my mission. Insurance wasn't my calling,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

but being of service always has been. It just went from, I'm going to fulfil that

Cliff Ravenscraft::

calling through the pastor role. And now, I'm fulfilling it as an insurance agent role,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

which led to the next transformation. Tell me if you're ready for me to go.

Brad Miller::

Let's go. Let's kind of give kind of a flyover, if you will, of these major points that

Brad Miller::

we're going to go a little deeper into when something strikes me here.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

So what happened was I started podcasting as a hobby with my wife about a

Cliff Ravenscraft::

television show of all things. The TV show was lost, and I had already been a tech

Cliff Ravenscraft::

geek. I am an earlier doctor of new technology, and podcasting was relatively new,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

and one thing led to another. I launched this podcast with my wife. We ended up

Cliff Ravenscraft::

having 27,000 subscribers around the world by our third podcast episode.

Brad Miller::

Holy cow. And this is the early days of podcasting when it wasn't

Brad Miller::

prevalent like it is now.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Yep. And within a year, we launched other podcasts about other television shows.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

People started asking us questions about the themes and some of the things we

Cliff Ravenscraft::

were sharing about our personal lives in these podcast episodes. So we created a

Cliff Ravenscraft::

podcast related to business, family, and faith. We had lots of shows and grew our

Cliff Ravenscraft::

audience to over a hundred thousand, ultimately growing to hundreds of thousand.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

So Brad, what is my calling? What is my mission, my purpose? To be of service to

Cliff Ravenscraft::

others. And just like there was once a day when I realized that the role of head

Cliff Ravenscraft::

pastor would be too much of a limit for what I feel called to be in this world. An

Cliff Ravenscraft::

insurance agent in Northern Kentucky with 15,000 seems to be a greater

Cliff Ravenscraft::

opportunity to live out my calling.

Brad Miller::

So you found you found a bit of your big why, but now you're finding your house

Brad Miller::

here. And they go to different channels here. Okay. I'm with you. Thank you.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And now all of a sudden, I'm faced with this thing where I'm now able to reach

Cliff Ravenscraft::

hundreds of thousands of people around the world every single week. But

Cliff Ravenscraft::

yet I am devoting a majority of my working time to 40 to 50 hours a week.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

To serve only 15,000 people and quite frankly, what I was saying before,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

those opportunities to have those meaningful conversations, they were

Cliff Ravenscraft::

once a quarter, occasionally, once a month.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Most of my day as an insurance agent is filling out paperwork,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

doing quotes on different coverage options and faxing proof of insurance

Cliff Ravenscraft::

cards to people who refuse to take their copies to the courthouse with them.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And I'm like, why am I doing this?

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And so I began to have another dream, and that dream was, wow. I wonder what

Cliff Ravenscraft::

life would be like if I could go over here and do this mission, this calling of being of

Cliff Ravenscraft::

service to others, entertaining, educating, encouraging, and inspiring others to

Cliff Ravenscraft::

break free from anything holding them back from living the life they feel God calling

Cliff Ravenscraft::

them to live. If I could do that for hundreds of thousands of people, I wonder if

Cliff Ravenscraft::

there's a way to make a living doing that. And that was the next major transition.

Brad Miller::

And yet those leaps of faith in overcoming fear as well. And that's the theme I'd like

Brad Miller::

to touch with you here is how faith and fear come into play as you talk about these

Brad Miller::

transitions. But please keep going.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

The next transition that led me into this thing here, and if you're listening by audio,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I'm pointing to a little logo on my microphone, and it says Podcast Answer Man. At

Cliff Ravenscraft::

the time, I had a limiting belief that people wouldn't pay me for encouraging

Cliff Ravenscraft::

conversations, but they'd pay me to teach them something tangible. Some like,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I don't have a podcast, and I can teach you how to have a podcast. So I created

Cliff Ravenscraft::

the podcast Answer Man, became a podcast consultant and coach, and ultimately

Cliff Ravenscraft::

ended up training more than 40,000 people how to launch a podcast, generating

Cliff Ravenscraft::

million dollars in revenue from doing so. And after about a decade, I realized

Cliff Ravenscraft::

again that I'd painted myself into a corner.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I still have this massive opportunity to talk about things that are important in life,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

but here I am, answering people's technical questions. Hey, what microphone

Cliff Ravenscraft::

should I use? How do I get rid of this buzzing noise from my podcast audio?

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And I'm like, is this the best use of my time answering all these questions?

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I know I get paid incredibly well for it, but I want to have these meaningful life

Cliff Ravenscraft::

transformative conversations.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And I'm getting more opportunities as the podcast answer man as I was as the

Cliff Ravenscraft::

insurance guy. I wanted to make a change, but I still had some significant issues

Cliff Ravenscraft::

and one of the big things that happened to me, sitting behind a microphone all the

Cliff Ravenscraft::

time, not being physically active, I'd gotten to the place where I was weighing

Cliff Ravenscraft::

almost 300 pounds, and I was very unhealthy, very physically un inactive, did not

Cliff Ravenscraft::

eat well at all, had lots of stress throughout all this time, trying to manage the

Cliff Ravenscraft::

marketing ups and downs of clients coming in, and am I going to be able to make

Cliff Ravenscraft::

enough money to pay the bills this month?

Cliff Ravenscraft::

There was a lot of that in the early days, and it wrecked my health. And so one of

Cliff Ravenscraft::

the things that I knew that I wanted to make a transformation is to go from an

Cliff Ravenscraft::

incredibly unhealthy, unfit individual into living more in alignment with

Cliff Ravenscraft::

what I feel called to live. And so in November 2014, I made a commitment

Cliff Ravenscraft::

to begin living. So I know that sounds crazy. I love that. I love that. Begin living.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And so, I'm just trying to think of this one quote. It's like everybody's

Cliff Ravenscraft::

going to die, but not everyone will live.

Brad Miller::

Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's great. I've heard it before, but I can't put

Brad Miller::

my finger on who the quote is from.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

The quote is a little bit more eloquent than that, but that's the heart of it. And what

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I realize is I have not been fully living, living fully alive, utilizing what really motivates

Cliff Ravenscraft::

me in and everything I've been settling for the things that, you know, bring in the

Cliff Ravenscraft::

money, okay. The things that bring in financial certainty, but I. I, I've let so many

Cliff Ravenscraft::

other areas of my life slide. And so November 2014, I decided to first tackle my

Cliff Ravenscraft::

health and fitness, and then I would use whatever I learned there to implement in

Cliff Ravenscraft::

all of my other areas of life. And sure enough, it wasn't strategy, it wasn't technique

Cliff Ravenscraft::

about how I can lose. There's a million books out there, they will all tell you how to

Cliff Ravenscraft::

do it. Sure. What I had to do is I had to change my mindset. I had made a decision I

Cliff Ravenscraft::

was gonna work out six days a week, every week for the rest of my life, and I was, I

Cliff Ravenscraft::

was just gonna be done with this wrestling, with all of this stuff.

Brad Miller::

The particular, the physical part, it really doesn't change for anybody. Your physical

Brad Miller::

makeup, for your physiology. It's what you do with it. You know?

Brad Miller::

You just have to focus and get it.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Yeah. And so I, I began to learn a lot about mindset. Just just how to change, how I

Cliff Ravenscraft::

feel and how I think about certain things like working out and about, you know,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

eating and all these other things.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Sure. And as soon as I learned the mindset, Stuff. All of a sudden, my

Cliff Ravenscraft::

experience of life started to change. So, for example, back then, November 2014,

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I weighed almost 300 pounds. Today I've lost over a hundred pounds and

Cliff Ravenscraft::

put on over 20 pounds of muscle as a result of that. And here, I think

Cliff Ravenscraft::

we're going on seven, eight years.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I, you could do the math on 2014 to 2022. But anyway, I have maintained this new

Cliff Ravenscraft::

lifestyle. For this long, it's like, and it's all mindset. It's not that I haven't had

Cliff Ravenscraft::

any hiccups along the way, but and so what all of a sudden I'm like, wow.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And, I'm like, I wonder if I can apply this to being a dad. I wonder if I can

Cliff Ravenscraft::

apply these mindset things to being a business owner.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I wonder if I can mi apply this to my relationship with my wife and other

Cliff Ravenscraft::

people in my community. And, all of a sudden I started, began to see my entire

Cliff Ravenscraft::

life, every area of mine. I radically transformed because of the way that I was

Cliff Ravenscraft::

thinking and feeling about each of those aspects of my life. I, I used to, I used to

Cliff Ravenscraft::

joke and, and wear as a badge of honour, just how far I'd gotten in life.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And I've hardly ever read a book. You know, this is prior to, like, 2012, and like, you

Cliff Ravenscraft::

know, people talk about reading these books. Books are. Today, I'm currently in.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

This sounds crazy. I could show you on my Kindle, which is over there. Yeah. I'm in

Cliff Ravenscraft::

the middle right now of reading 129 different books.

Brad Miller::

So you're into them, you're reading consecutive consecutively.

Brad Miller::

You mean over the course of a year goal or you're into them right now?

Cliff Ravenscraft::

They're like I'm in the middle. I mean, I'm somewhere between the beginning.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

I've already started and I haven't yet finished 129 books.

Brad Miller::

Wow. Now, some people, some people read, of course, just take a

Brad Miller::

pull of excerpt out and just let's where they've read. Is that what

Brad Miller::

you do or do you try to read the whole book eventually?

Cliff Ravenscraft::

Uh, I don't ever feel obligated to read an entire book. Okay. From beginning to end.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

As long as I open a book and I found something of value, I might

Cliff Ravenscraft::

actually get into it. And read like five paragraphs. I don't even finish

Cliff Ravenscraft::

the chapter, but man, if that five paragraphs just spoke to me, I'm gonna

Cliff Ravenscraft::

go pull out my journal, and I'm gonna journal about it.

Brad Miller::

That's, that's my process really. With all these books you see behind me, I try to

Brad Miller::

pull out what I need or apply. Sometimes it's just the title occasionally

Cliff Ravenscraft::

yeah. And so, and, and, but then, the thing that I'm getting at here is I have

Cliff Ravenscraft::

completed now, just within the last five years, probably about 300 books.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

And I'm in the midst of reading 129 currently right now, and I probably have about

Cliff Ravenscraft::

over a hundred that I haven't started yet, but they're all sitting there on my Kindle

Cliff Ravenscraft::

or on my bookshelf here. And the reason why I bring this up, is not to brag, but just

Cliff Ravenscraft::

to say that the way I used to think and feel about reading caused me to never

Cliff Ravenscraft::

read books, but I changed how I think and feel about.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

and now I have an insatiable desire to read for hours every day.

Cliff Ravenscraft::

So there's, that's what I'm trying to get at here. If, if you wanna know

Cliff Ravenscraft::

what is the transformation and how did I get beyond the fear? Cuz I know

Cliff Ravenscraft::

that's where you want to go. Sure. It's about how I think.