494 - Why Unfinished People Make The Most Trustworthy Teachers

Cliff Ravenscraft (0:00): In the past couple of weeks, I've been having several conversations with folks who are on the verge of making a decision on whether or not they're going to launch a podcast. One of them originally came to me because they were looking for a strategy on how to get booked successfully on other people's podcasts. And in this conversation, this individual told me that one of the things that had been suggested to him was starting your own show, putting your own voice out there. And ironically, this individual began to share a lot of fear that maybe, just maybe, I don't know that I have enough confidence in my own experience and all of these other things to to just get behind the mic. I I I just like I feel like there's so many more things I need to achieve to accomplish before I would ever launch my own podcast.

Cliff Ravenscraft (1:26): And the thought occurred to me, and I actually said it out loud, I'm like, why would anyone else invite you to be a guest on their podcast if you don't have the confidence to invite yourself on your own podcast. Now I will tell you that there was a little bit of silence after I had said that. And I will tell you this individual has a podcast today. So that definitely stirred some things up. We uncovered some beliefs.

Cliff Ravenscraft (2:04): And one of the things that was said is, you know, here's the thing, Cliff. I always wanna do things with the highest levels of integrity. And I can't just jump in and create any kind of content around lifestyle until I've sorted my own lifestyle out. I sat with that for just a moment, and then I blurted out something else. I said, you know, if you wait for you to get your lifestyle sorted out, you'll never have a lifestyle podcast.

Cliff Ravenscraft (2:44): I often ask for permission when I'm working with somebody in a coaching capacity, and I say, listen. I'm I'm gonna ask you for permission, may I be your coach? And before you say yes, what I'm asking is can I say things to you or ask you questions that will challenge how you think at the deepest level? And I do not proceed any further unless the answer to that question is yes. By the way, it's only happened once, but one person said no.

Cliff Ravenscraft (3:19): And I'm like, great. Do you just wanna chat about the weather? Do you have other things you wanna do with your time? Because we're not gonna do any coaching here today. Seriously, I I I refused to coach that person because I didn't have permission to challenge the way this person was thinking.

Cliff Ravenscraft (3:39): That did not happen with this individual. But anyway, what I have noticed, and it comes up a lot, and has been coming up even more frequently lately, ever since I've brought back Podcast Answer Man, and more and more people are coming back to me once again because they're like, Cliff, I heard that it's okay to reach out to you and ask you questions about launching a podcast. I'm like, absolutely, ask away. Let's talk about it. And what I found is that, you know, most people are not gonna say it directly, but what they're really saying is, you know, I need to have it all figured out before I'm allowed to teach anything.

Cliff Ravenscraft (4:16): I kinda have to master this. I have to I have to have lots of experience or at least I need more experience than I currently have. Another thing they say often is I need more credentials. I I'm not certified. By the way, my favorite part is when I'm working with somebody who's building a coaching business or wants to build a coaching business, and I love that I'm four or five months into a one year coaching agreement where they're paying me $15,000 for the year for one ninety minute call per month and they tell me that they can't quite have the courage to ask people to come into coaching sessions and or they're struggling to make a proposal at a certain rate because they don't feel qualified because they're not certified in anything.

Cliff Ravenscraft (5:15): And meanwhile, let me just tell you, I don't bring anybody into a paid coaching relationship that doesn't have tons of experience, tons of skills, talents, abilities in that area. And by the way, they they are very much compensated at a very high level doing exactly those things, just they're doing it currently as an employee instead of full time self employed. So they're making this transition. So so these are people who are already doing everything that but yet it's like, Cliff, I just don't know that I should be I I don't think I'm eligible. I don't think I'm credible as a paid coach because I'm not certified.

Cliff Ravenscraft (5:59): And then my favorite thing to say is like, well, wait a second. You do realize that you are coaching with me in a paid coaching capacity. Is that correct? Yes. I love our conversations.

Cliff Ravenscraft (6:12): Every every time we have a conversation, I I have major clarity about my next steps. So many insights. I've learned more about myself in the last few months than I have probably in the last ten years. This is amazing. I said, well, one of the most interesting things is that you've never once, in all of the leading up to, before I ever proposed to you, I gave you two full blown experiences of my coaching as my gift to you, and then I just simply asked you, would you like more of this?

Cliff Ravenscraft (6:45): And you said, absolutely, yes, I definitely want more of this. And then we proceeded and we're a few months into our coaching relationship. I said, would it be surprising to you to know that I have not graduated from any university, I have no degree, and as far as coaching is concerned, I have zero certifications. And they're like, really? And I'm like, really?

Cliff Ravenscraft (7:19): But that hasn't kept me from generating millions of dollars over the last eighteen years in my business? And it's silent for a moment, and we have some conversation. But, again, people feel like I have to have it all figured out. I need more experience than I currently have. I need credentials, more credentials.

Cliff Ravenscraft (7:43): Matter of fact, the the number of people who actually they they're credentialed up. Right? They have so many letters after their name. They are so far more credentialed than I am, and yet they never questioned for a second whether or not it was going to be worth it worth it for them to hire me and pay me for this coaching package, and yet they feel like they need more credentials. It just happens.

Cliff Ravenscraft (8:13): They feel like, oh man, I just need to feel more confident. And one of the things I'll just share with you real quickly is confidence is never what is necessary for you to get started in something. In fact, you can't even ever get to the place of starting something new or developing something like getting into paid coaching with confidence. If you've never done it before, confidence comes after you have moved past all of your fears, all of your worries, all of your doubts, you've taken action anyway, and then all of a sudden people start to experience transformation and you start seeing success and your worst fears didn't come true. Or maybe some of your fears did come true and they weren't nearly as bad as you thought.

Cliff Ravenscraft (9:04): And over time, you do things enough and eventually you develop confidence. But you don't need to feel more confident to get started. All you need is courage. So just keep that in mind. But anyway, the the the overall thing, I just need to be further along.

Cliff Ravenscraft (9:25): And if you just wait until you're complete, you just I'm sorry, but is there ever a day when you're complete? When when you have finished growing? You get where I'm going with that. Anyway, I was in another conversation recently. This one is somebody who is going to be attending my workshop at Social Media Marketing World in about a week and a half from now.

Cliff Ravenscraft (9:53): I've reached out every to everybody using the conference app. The the Whova app tells me, here are the people who have RSVP'd that they are coming to your ninety minute workshop on podcasting. And one of the things that I've been doing is as people RSVP, I send them a little message inside of the conference app and says, hey, I just wanted to say that I noticed that you are RSVP'd to attend my session. I'm honored that you'll be attending. I have a question for you.

Cliff Ravenscraft (10:23): What are you most hoping to get out of the session? Is there anything in particular that you are hoping that I will include in the session that would be valuable for you? And this has led to a lot of wonderful conversations. And one of those conversations started out and then I asked a couple of questions as a follow-up. And then this person told me this, I would like to translate a particular area of expertise into a separate revenue stream.

Cliff Ravenscraft (10:58): I'll give you a little background. I do work with very large organizations. It's a pay for my time kind of job. I would like a long term exit strategy where I can share this expertise and generate passive income. However, I have two main hesitations.

Cliff Ravenscraft (11:23): Actually, there were three. I'm just leaving the first one out because I don't don't wanna have any identifying information in here about this individual. So we'll skip hesitation number one, but the second invitation is I know nothing about podcasting and the fear of something untested and unfamiliar is real. The third hesitation is, I don't doubt my credentials but touting myself as an expert feels uncomfortable and unnatural to me. And then this individual asks, can I be authentic to my personality and be successful as a podcaster?

Cliff Ravenscraft (12:07): Well, first of all, the answer to that final question is, yes. And in fact, being authentic to your personality is the key to your success as a podcaster, but that's not the topic here today. I'll come back to this not knowing anything about podcasting and the fear of something untested and unfamiliar. But right here, I wanna speak to this person that states that they don't doubt their credentials, but the idea of touting themself as an expert feels uncomfortable and unnatural. And to that I have two questions.

Cliff Ravenscraft (12:51): What if the goal isn't to position yourself as an expert? And what if you show up as someone who is simply paying attention? What if you get behind the mic and you just say, here's what I'm noticing. Here's what I'm learning. Here are some things that have been changing for me as I go along this journey.

Cliff Ravenscraft (13:30): If you just simply shared those things and only those things in your podcast episodes, that alone would be valuable. You see, when I launched Podcast Answer Man, I basically shared this is who I am, this is where I've been, this is where I am right now, and these are my dreams, hopes, and plans for the future. Now the great thing about this podcast is you could go all the way back to episode number one and listen to it for yourself. In fact, if this topic is resonating with you, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to episode number one. In fact, it may be worthy of your time, effort, and energy to pause this episode, go back and listen to episode number one, or at least the first twenty, thirty minutes of it, or heck, go ahead and listen to the whole thing.

Cliff Ravenscraft (14:43): I haven't done it in years. But anyway, go listen to it. And then when you are finished, come back here. This is episode four ninety four, and click play and pick this episode up right here where you left off. Now, admittedly, I haven't listened to episode number one in many years.

Cliff Ravenscraft (15:07): But here's how I remember it in my mind right now when I started the podcast. It was something along the lines of, well, hello everyone. My name is Cliff Ravenscraft and welcome to this brand new podcast, the Podcast Answer Man. I had I've been podcasting for about one year now. I started podcasting about the television show Lost, and through some amazing circumstances, I grew a sizable audience right out of the gate.

Cliff Ravenscraft (15:38): It blew me away, and I got hooked. And I, through certain reasons that I'll explain, I ended up launching several other podcasts to the point where now I have I forget how many podcasts I had at the time, but it's been a year and I've produced a lot of shows. I'm producing about seven or more episodes a week, every week, and I absolutely love podcasting. Now when I started, I struggled immensely with all of these technical issues and all this other stuff. I've learned a lot of things along the way.

Cliff Ravenscraft (16:13): There's still a lot of improvement on my end that I need to do. But, you know what? Here's where I am. One of the things that's happened a lot lately is people have come to me and asked me, Cliff, how are you producing so much content? And, what tools are you using?

Cliff Ravenscraft (16:31): What what software are you using? How did you do that? How do you do this? And I figure, you know what? I've been copying and pasting and sending emails to people, and and I figure, well, maybe I should just create a podcast where I answer people's questions and the same questions seem to be coming up, and I can record entire episodes on it and then send them a link to the episode and say, hey, listen to this.

Cliff Ravenscraft (16:56): See if it answers your question to a degree that you're satisfied with. And after listening to this episode where I've attempted to answer that question, if you still have questions, reach out to me. That's that's kind of the idea of this podcast that I'm launching. Now let me talk about the the brand name of Podcast Answer Man. You see, I don't necessarily claim to have all of the answers.

Cliff Ravenscraft (17:25): Now I will tell you, I've become so passionate about podcasting that I've devoted a lot of hours. In fact, I think you'll be hard pressed to find many people, if anyone, who is as passionate about podcasting as I am. And chances are if you were to submit me questions to, to answer about podcasting, there's likely going to be questions that you will ask that I do not have the answers to. However, I am somebody who is willing to go and find those answers. I know that answers to those questions are out there.

Cliff Ravenscraft (18:00): I can and will go find them. And the best part is having me go find them instead of you go find them. It may take me a few minutes, a few hours, maybe even a few days. But eventually, I will have found the answer. Come here.

Cliff Ravenscraft (18:19): Share it. And the best part is I will get a return on investment of that time, effort, and energy because I will have provided the answer for you, and then it will have been documented, and each time that question comes up in the future, I already have the answer, and I become more valuable. And that that's so podcast answer man, it's I I just want you to know, I'm not the I am not somebody who has all of the answers. I'm just the guy that you can go when you have a question that you want answered related to Podcast Answer Man. That's why this show is called Podcast Answer Man.

Cliff Ravenscraft (18:56): Do you see how when I mean, I it it that it was far more eloquent than episode one was. I'm I'm certain of it. But here's what I will tell you. Did I position myself as an expert? No.

Cliff Ravenscraft (19:11): I said this is who I am. I'm Cliff Ravenscraft. I'm this guy in Northern Kentucky. Here's how I got started in podcasting. This is how things took off.

Cliff Ravenscraft (19:20): I didn't really plan it all out. It kinda just fell into my lap, and this is what I've been doing. This is where I am right now, and here's what I'm experiencing. That's why I'm launching this show. And by the way, and here's that fourth item, these are my hopes, dreams, and plans for the future.

Cliff Ravenscraft (19:35): Now I do know in that first episode of this podcast, I said something like, wouldn't it be cool if maybe at some point in the future, I don't know if it was five to ten years down the road, what if I were to be able to make a living doing podcast consulting and coaching instead of taking over the family insurance business that my grandfather started in 1937 where I am next in line to take it over from my mom and dad. I've been working in insurance for the last twelve years and I'm next in line to take it over. And I gotta tell you, what I've experienced in podcasting over the last twelve months, I've begun to ask myself what what would life be like if I did this for a living instead of that. I don't know that that's actually possible. It might be a pipe dream, but hey, I am just sharing with you it is a dream of mine.

Cliff Ravenscraft (20:33): Whether it's it's not necessarily something I'm currently pursuing. It seems like pie in the sky to me, but I there's a part of me that hopes that one day this would be possible, as as crazy as that is. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. This is the podcast answer, man. I'm here to answer some questions.

Cliff Ravenscraft (20:54): By the way, let's start off by answering some common questions that I get. And I'm again, I it's been a very long time since I listened to episode one, and chances are some of you, maybe even you, has just gone and finished it, and so you know what I said. But you get the gist. What you don't position yourself as an expert, but all you do is just say this is who I am, this is where I've been and how I got here, this is actually where I am right now, and this is where I plan to go moving forward. These are my hopes, these are my dreams, these are my plans for the future, and I'm gonna document the process as we go.

Cliff Ravenscraft (21:38): And you know what happened? Over time, other people began to tout me as an expert in the podcasting space. And over even more time, I became very comfortable positioning myself as an expert in the space. At one point, it was just absolutely undeniable. It was just clear.

Cliff Ravenscraft (22:05): I mean, that I had had so many different elevations in in the the podcast industry is like, oh, oh my gosh. This really is my life. And by the way, for those that don't know this, so I in episode one, said, wouldn't it be I mean, this may be crazy, but wouldn't it be cool if one day I could do this for a living? It was twelve months later and I left my day job and I've been full time self employed since. But I wasn't positioning myself as some sort of expert, and if you go back, listen By the way, think about this.

Cliff Ravenscraft (22:47): For those of you who went back and listened to episode number one, keep in mind, I had already been podcasting for a full year. I had already produced well over a 100 episode, maybe even a few 100 episodes. One of my shows was daily. Actually, multiple shows at some point was daily. But but even with all of that, lots and lots and lots of hours, hundreds of hours of content behind the microphone before episode one of podcast Answer Man was recorded.

Cliff Ravenscraft (23:29): And listen to my communication style then compared to what you're hearing in this episode. You see, so many people wanna launch a podcast and sound as confident and clear and and carry the ability to communicate like this in episode number one. And it's never happened. Now, I can tell you I have had a couple of people who have launched a podcast in episode number one. They sounded confident, clear, bold, didn't need lots of edits, didn't have lots of filler words.

Cliff Ravenscraft (24:23): By the way, this podcast episode right here, episode four ninety four, I refused to do any edits on this episode. So there have been nothing has been edited out of this episode. This is what I call a live to drive episode. So the fact that there hasn't been ums and ahs all throughout is not because I edited them out, it's because I don't do them anymore. But back then, I did.

Cliff Ravenscraft (25:00): And if you heard any in that first episode, that's after I edited the show. You see, you don't have to wait until you're finished to start a podcast. In fact, unfinished people are often more trustworthy. It's unfinished people who still remember what it feels like to be right there where the average listener is now. Unfinished people don't oversimplify the process.

Cliff Ravenscraft (25:50): And unfinished people are not trying to protect some sort of identity, persona, or ego that says, I have it all together. I've got it all figured out. I am the go to authority that has all of your answers. You know, I I actually think that there's a kind of clarity that only exists if you're an unfinished person. There are certain people who will only resonate with somebody who is just a little further along than they are.

Cliff Ravenscraft (26:33): I've oftentimes taught a lot of things that I learned from Tony Robbins, and I would hesitate to share those things until somebody says, Cliff, I'm glad you're sharing them because quite frankly, I don't resonate with Tony Robbins. He seems so unapproachable to me. He seems so this. It doesn't I don't feel like he experiences any of the things that I face in my life. He seems so far above and beyond.

Cliff Ravenscraft (27:00): And and that's not to say anything negative about you, but I you share enough of your story to know that your life isn't so different from mine. And and I get this sense that, man, when you talk about these things and you talk about them from experience, you're not just sharing an idea, you're talking about how you learned it and have applied it and integrated and and and tested it out for yourself and what your experiences were and how you evolved with it. And I watched and I saw the impact, I saw the influence and you're teaching me. And because I've witnessed it in you, somebody who's not so far ahead of me, it's given me hope. There's something that exists in that that that will only resonate if you are that unfinished person.

Cliff Ravenscraft (27:54): You know, I'll speak real quickly to that other hesitation. The person that said, I know nothing about podcasting and the fear of something untested and unfamiliar is real. Now I know this speaks a lot to maybe the presumption that I'm going to develop passive income from producing content and there seems to be a lot of promise out there from a lot of other people that says that you can create a podcast and you can bring in ad revenue and sponsors and all of these other things. And I'm not saying those things aren't possible but the average person is not going to be able to leave the trading my time for money, day job things that you've got going on and and do that. And thankfully, this person did say, I'm looking for, what was the phrase?

Cliff Ravenscraft (28:46): Let me go back and says, I'm looking for a long term exit strategy. And that's great because I think a podcast for most people who don't already have a massive audience, it is a long term exit strategy. And it doesn't have to be as long as you think it is unless you wait until you're comfortable to produce the content. If you're waiting until you're polished and perfect, you're not gonna produce content or you're gonna do something terrible, which is to go out and have all of these AI tools create things that's gonna like, oh my gosh. Now this is highly valuable.

Cliff Ravenscraft (29:27): This stuff that just came out of ChatGPT or Claude or Perplexity or whoever you're using for your AI tools, man, this is brilliant. Yes. I the this entire outline, wow. I know all of this is true because I've been in this space. This is this is brilliant.

Cliff Ravenscraft (29:46): I am now gonna hit record and I'm gonna read this. And you could think that you're polished. You could get really excited about that, but boy, the more you try to pretend to be that expert having it all together and all figured out, you're just losing the the benefit of being the unfinished person. Yeah. You see, podcasting is not a skill that you're going to master before you start it.

Cliff Ravenscraft (30:22): One of my dear friends, Pat Flynn, he has achieved so much success since he launched his podcast. And when he and I started working together, he he had already experienced massive success beyond what most people could imagine with his blog, Smart Passive Income. But one of the things that he put off for a very long time was launching his own podcast, and he was afraid to put his voice out there. He was very insecure in how he sounded. Now I'm not saying anything that Pat hasn't told many times on stage, but he has shared that I helped him overcome that impostor syndrome and that that fear of putting his voice out there.

Cliff Ravenscraft (31:18): And just like Pat, just like myself, and just like everyone else out there, our first episodes weren't anywhere near what our content today sounds like. You see, podcasting is a skill that you learn by doing it badly for a while. And you have to be willing to get it wrong, to make mistakes. And I highly encourage you to not delete those episodes. Leave them in the archives.

Cliff Ravenscraft (31:53): One day you'll thank me for that. You'll still cringe when you go back and listen to it yourself, but it will be very valuable when other people come to you for some encouragement and they tell you how, you know, I just don't feel like I have what it takes to get started, and you're gonna say, you know what? Go listen to what I did in my first few episodes. Here's the thing. If you were to go and start a podcast this week, I encourage you just to record one episode, not seven to 10 episodes so you have a bunch of them at launch so you can get your download numbers up.

Cliff Ravenscraft (32:29): No. Go record one episode about something that you're currently working through, Some obstacle that you're overcoming. Some hurdle that you're jumping over. And then when you speak about that in your podcast, I want you to speak to somebody who is the version of you from six months ago. And don't try to be so comprehensive that you got everything fill figured out and all of that other stuff.

Cliff Ravenscraft (33:04): Just simply be honest about what you're facing, what you're learning, what you're experiencing, and talk about your plan that you intend to implement in the days ahead and make a commitment to come back again next week and talk about your results in a very honest way. That would be enough for one episode. The one thing I will tell you is that if you're waiting until you feel finished, you'll be waiting forever. But if you'll be willing to speak while you're still in the midst of figuring it out, you just might be exactly the voice that someone else needs to hear right now. If this episode resonates with you, I need to hear from you.

Cliff Ravenscraft (34:12): My email address is cliff@cliffravenscraft.com. It's in the show notes. Let me know what this episode has inspired within you. I can't wait to hear from you. Until next time, I encourage you to take everything you do to the next level.