The Cliff Ravenscraft Show

For most of the past 20 years, I have thought of myself first and foremost as a podcaster when it comes to content creation. Recently, I was working on a project that caused me to go back through hundreds of blog posts I wrote between 2004 and 2014. I converted the entire archive into HTML, Markdown and even an EPUB that I can now read on my Kindle. As I started looking through all of that old wri...

Stephanie and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. Thirty years. As we thought about how we wanted to mark this milestone, I had the idea of sitting down together with 30 questions designed to help us reflect on the life we have built, the challenges we have navigated, the ways we have changed, and what we have learned about love and partnership along the way. Neither of us reviewed the...

Last weekend, I did something I had never done before. I drove a 15-foot U-Haul more than 1,000 miles from Northern Kentucky to Fort Worth, Texas, while pulling my daughter’s 2015 Toyota Corolla on a tow dolly. For weeks leading up to the trip, my mind was rehearsing everything that could possibly go wrong. What if I had to back up? Would I be able to navigate gas stations? Where would I park over...

Several months ago, I published an episode called “The Most Powerful Journaling Practice I’ve Ever Experienced.” Since then, I have continued using this practice every day, seven days a week. Over time, it has evolved into something much more structured, valuable, and revealing than I originally understood. PLAUD Note Pro Affiliate Link:  http://plaudus.sjv.io/en2jd6 Affiliate disclosure: If...

A few weeks ago, in Episode 827, I talked about attention, distraction, and intentionally subtracting the things that pull me away from what matters most. But removing external distractions doesn’t solve everything. I’ve discovered that some of my strongest distractions come from inside my own mind. A new idea appears. I remember something I need to do. I suddenly want to build something in Notion...

What if the answer you’re looking for isn’t missing? What if it is already right in front of you, but you can’t see it because you are looking for it in the wrong form? In this episode, I share a simple story about a phone holder that was sitting directly in front of my son. He genuinely could not see it because he was looking for the box it used to come in rather than the object itself. In this e...

This past week, I worked on something that I believe has the potential to profoundly shape the next season of my life. I created a personal manifesto. The idea came from chapter fifteen of Rich Litvin’s book, 100K Clients: How to Find Them, Coach Them and Keep Them . - Link To The Book In that chapter, Rich describes a manifesto as something far more than a list of goals, affirmations, or aspirati...

This past weekend, Stephanie and I had a very unexpected encounter at the park on the Fourth of July. We had no plans for the holiday weekend, which was unusual for us. Stephanie noticed that she had a very specific Fourth of July longing in her heart: grilled hot dogs, macaroni salad, watermelon, potato chips, and a simple picnic in the park. A little later in the day, after finishing a project I...

Over the past several weeks, I have become more aware than ever of just how valuable my attention is. In this episode, I talk about the importance of consciously choosing where I focus my attention, recognizing the distractions that pull me away from what matters most, and intentionally subtracting the things that create unnecessary open loops in my life and business. I share a recent conversation...

This past week, I attended Social Media Week Lima for the second year in a row. In this episode, I share a personal reflection on why I went, what I expected to experience, and what surprised me most. This is a reflection on how I think about live events, relationships, hallway conversations, front-row presence, peer connection, and the kinds of rooms that create meaningful transformation. For man...

This is one of the most raw, authentic, and transparent episodes I’ve recorded in quite some time. I originally had an outline for this episode, but after starting the recording several times, I decided to let go of the structure and simply speak from my heart. In this episode, I share some of the clarity that has been emerging through my daily logging and reflection practice. This process has bee...

In this episode, I share a lesson that came to me while spending a full day working on the landscaping in front of our home. What began as a simple Saturday project of trimming bushes quickly became a powerful metaphor for life and business. Some of the shrubs in our landscaping had grown far beyond their intended place. They were healthy in one sense, but they had become invasive, disproportionat...

Sometimes the next breakthrough does not require a new app, a new system, or a new strategy. Sometimes it comes from remembering a tool, rhythm, or practice that already worked for us in the past. In this episode, I share how rediscovering my Bose QuietComfort noise-canceling headphones and Focus@Will helped me return to a level of focus I had not experienced in quite some time. I had used this co...

In this episode, I share the newest evolution of my journaling practice and how it has become one of the most powerful tools I have experienced for pattern recognition, blind spot awareness, and personal transformation. I have been an avid journaler for many years. Journaling has always been a place where I process life, faith, emotion, business, relationships, decisions, desires, fears, and whate...

In this episode, I recorded while out for a walk just before leaving for Texas with Stephanie and McKenna to help McKenna find an apartment for law school. After several full weeks of travel, speaking, coaching, family milestones, and meaningful connections, I found myself reflecting on what it really means for my business to support the life I want to live. I have spent a lot of time building rel...

The past few weeks have been full. Full of meaningful conversations, travel, family celebrations, coaching sessions, podcast commitments, and opportunities I deeply value. After preparing for and speaking at Social Media Marketing World 2026, logging 116 meaningful connections, spending full days with friends and colleagues, traveling home, serving clients, celebrating McKenna’s graduation, attend...

This episode came from a pattern I’ve seen over and over again. So many people come to me asking for audience growth strategies. They’ve been podcasting for a while, they feel like they’ve hit a plateau, and they believe the answer is getting in front of more people. In this episode, I challenge that assumption. I share my own experience of going from a tiny audience to tens of thousands of listen...

In this episode, I reflect on a recent coaching conversation where someone told me they wanted conviction in what they are building and about the direction they were going. As soon as I heard that, I asked two simple questions: What are you building? And where are you going? What became clear is something I’ve seen over and over again. Many people want to feel certain about their path without ever...

Over the years, I’ve told my origin story in podcasting many times. I’ve shared how I got started, how things grew, and how this work eventually became my full-time career. But what you’ve almost never heard is this story told alongside Stephanie. Recently, Stephanie and I were invited to be guests on the Our Family Invests podcast with Mike Neubauer. And after the conversation, we both agreed. Th...

When I attend a conference, I have zero interest in collecting business cards or having surface-level conversations. I go with a very specific intention. I want to have at least 10 deep, meaningful conversations with people where there is real connection, real curiosity, and the potential to create something significant together. In this episode, I walk you through exactly how I approach those con...

This week, I found myself in the hot seat in my long-running mastermind group. It’s a space that has shaped so much of my life and business over the past 15 years. I came in with a clear intention. I want to fill both groups of the Next Level Mastermind within the next 90 days. At one point in the conversation, I said something out loud that immediately caught my attention. “I think there are only...

This episode wasn't planned out beforehand. No outline. No prep. No attempt to make it “valuable.” Just me hitting record and sharing what’s been on my mind and heart. I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of content I actually enjoy consuming. The kind where someone just shows up, talks, and lets you into their real experience of life. No performance. No polish. No filtering everything through...

In today’s episode, I’m sharing a replay of a conversation I had two years ago with Alex Freeman on the UpFlip podcast. When that interview first aired, it quickly became one of the most significant entry points into my world. For several months afterward, people were reaching out to me saying they had discovered my work through that interview. Many told me they had listened to the episode multipl...

Earlier this week I was a guest on Ken Freire’s podcast, and near the end of our conversation he asked me a question I’ve been asked many times over the years: “What legacy do you hope to leave behind?” Over the years, I’ve realized that legacy isn’t something I’m hoping to build someday in the future. It’s something that has already been unfolding through the conversations I’ve had, the encourage...

This episode did not start smoothly. In fact, this was the fifth time I hit record. No opening jingle. No outline. No clear sense of where I was going. Just a quiet Sunday afternoon and a question I’ve wrestled with many times over the last twenty years. Is there value in showing up when you don’t feel like you have something new, polished, or particularly compelling to say? I talk candidly about...