How to Turn Any Dream Into Reality with Cliff Ravenscraft

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like My First Million. Today, we'll be breaking down how to turn any dream into reality. To drop these value bombs, I brought Cliff Ravenscraft into EO Fire Studios. Cliff is a master business coach, mentor, and speaker. He's dedicated to helping you overcome limiting beliefs and behaviors to live your dream life and pursue your true calling and was the leader of the first mastermind I ever joined back in 2012, the podcast mastermind.

0:40And today, Fire Nation, we'll be talking about turning your dream into reality, a step-by-step process, what actions to take when you lack clarity, and what happens if you achieve less than desirable results, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Cliff and our sponsors. Sales Evangelist, hosted by my friend, Donald Kelly, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now.

1:15A recent episode you should definitely check out is the five ways to do daily outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought of giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training, where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. Cliff, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:55Wow, I love that. So first of all, welcome or thank you for allowing me to be here again. What is this, number four or five? I think it's number five, brother. That's awesome. I'm so excited to be here. As far as something that might be an unpopular opinion about success, I believe that truly you already are a success. And quite frankly, you don't really need to do anything. You don't have to accomplish anything about what the world will tell you what success truly is, for you to be happier, for you to have more peace, for you to experience more love and acceptance and worthiness and abundance.

2:36I believe every single ounce of that is fully in you, and it's a part of who you are. And as far as I'm concerned, as long as you're doing every day what you chose to do, that is my definition of success. With that being said, I super love high achievement and I love creating goals that are way out there and I love doing those things. And achieving dreams, making dreams or achieving goals and making dreams become a reality is what I'm all about. However, achieving goals and making dreams a reality does not make me any more of a success than I am already. I love that mindset because Fire Nation, 400 trillion to one.

3:18Those are the odds of you existing in this world right now, being able to hear our voices right now. So you are already a winner. You are already successful because you are here. You have all the opportunity in the world to do amazing things. And of course, if you're listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire, you've chosen to surround yourself with some pretty awesome people like Cliff and the other amazing guests I bring on every single day. But today's focus is all about turning any dream into a reality. So I want to start off with a bang. Why, Cliff? Why do most people fail to turn their business dreams into a reality?

3:58I think the answer to that question, there are four different answers. Number one, most people don't know what they want. They think they do, and they say, I want to make a million dollars this year. That's not really what pretty much anyone truly wants. They want really what a million dollars would allow them to do. And if I were to say, can you give me 10 ways your life would be better if you had a million dollars and explain to me exactly, number two, why you must have that million dollars? So, number one, do you know what you truly want? What's underlying behind that desired dream? So, a lot of people don't achieve their dreams because they think their dream is to earn a million dollars in one year in their business.

4:42but really what they want is something deeper and they don't have a conscious awareness of what they want. And if you don't get the conscious awareness of what you want at the soul level or the deep persona level of what's driving that desire, then what you'll go after is just this number figure. And here's what most people do is they, if they do get to a million dollars, they're still not satisfied because it still hasn't satiated what they truly want underneath of that. So the reason why most people don't turn dreams into reality, they don't have clarity about exactly what they want. They've not taken the time to decide why they must have it.

5:26And then if they even go that far, they struggle with a belief that it's even possible. And maybe they're somehow not worthy. and the fourth reason is they fail. They actually fear failure or they fear success. I'll give you a perfect example. I was just talking to a coaching client the other day and she says, Cliff, it's been me and my business partner for the last six years, actually seven years. We just celebrated seven years and it's time for us to scale this thing up. We're ready to hire our first employee, but I've got, I just can't get myself to take the action. And I said, well, what are your fears?

6:03Well, the first fear is that right now we have great cash flow, but I'm afraid that as soon as we hire a salesperson that we'll lose clients, we won't be able to pay the person. And I said, okay, is there any other fears? And it's like, yeah, the other fear is that if we get a salesperson and they're too good, our company will grow too quickly and we won't be able to keep up. Those are the first four reasons I think why most people fail to achieve their dreams. Number one, you have to know what you want. Number two, you've got to know why it is that you want that thing. And number three, you must believe that it's possible.

6:39Fire Nation, I really hope you're having some mindset shifts here because this should be resonating with a lot of people right now who are having trouble with one, two, three, or maybe all four of these. I mean, do you truly know what you want? Why you must have it? Are you struggling with worthiness? Are you having a fear of failure? Or by the way, this happens, a fear of success. A hundred percent happens out there. And there's one thing I want to make on this first point. Do you know what you truly want? Like I'm a big college basketball fan. It's like my one true sports passion. I follow my college, Providence College, religiously.

7:13Off season, I'm tracking the recruits. Long story short, we got a new coach. This guy's 34 years old, the youngest high major coach in all of college basketball. And he says something that so resonated with me on this. He said, you know what? My goal was to make the NBA. And you know what? Throughout high school, college, and beyond, I did all the things I needed to do to make the NBA. Because I thought that's what I truly wanted. But guess what? I made the NBA. That's where it all ended. That was where my goal ended. So within a year or two, he was out. He was out and he was kind of back on the street, so to speak, no longer in the NBA, because he had achieved his goal.

7:51He said, my real goal, what I truly should have wanted was to have a long and prosperous career in the NBA, making multiple all-star teams and maybe winning a championship and having MVP awards. That should have been the goal because then he would have been able to keep striving and striving. So he missed the mark on what he truly wanted. And you need to think, Fire Nation, are you missing the mark on what you truly want? Because like Cliff's example of the million dollars, believe me, because I've had this experience, you get to the million dollars. And if that's your goal, you're like, well, this isn't the end all be all.

8:23I'm not all of a sudden just skipping around for joy, being happy all the time, because that's not really what it's all about. What do I truly want? And you've talked a lot about this already, Cliff, but I want to really dive even deeper in to some clear steps that can help us in the pursuit of our dreams. Absolutely. So I have an entire 11-step formula. We've already uncovered the first three. So know what you want, know why you want it, and you have to believe that it's possible. And if you want, I can tell you all. Actually, it's a 10-step formula for how to achieve any goal. There's a bonus step that I could give you.

9:00You want me to just lay them all out for you? Let's lay it out, brother. All right. So real quickly, I'll just go through them, and we can touch on each of these at a deeper level as much as you want to go. So number four is to decide that you must have it. And to make a decision is to literally kill any other option other than the achievement of that thing. The word decide, the root word CID in Latin is to kill. Another word for decide is you've made a decision, right? And the root word of scission is to cut. So when a doctor makes an incision, they're making a cut. So if you've made a decision, you have decided that you are cutting off any other outcome in your mind.

9:45I must have this. I will do whatever it takes. Step number five is write it down, and we can talk about the importance of that. Number six is to place your goals where you can see them, or some people call it visualization. I could tell you some stories about that. Number seven is to tell other people about your goals, and that oftentimes leads to an uncovering or an enlightening of the path ahead moving forward. We can talk about step number eight, taking massive action right now and always and how to create a map to your destination. And a map I got from Tony Robbins, he calls it his massive action plan and how to come up with the actions you should take.

10:26And step number nine, evaluating your results. And number 10, the final step is to change your approach as often as necessary until you have achieved that dream. Fire Nation, this is fire. And I'm not going to forget about the bonus. We are going to circle back to that at some point. We're going to go through a couple of these in more detail because there's so many critical things that I know Cliff is going to unveil as we chat about this when we get back from thanking our sponsors. The new year is upon us, and that means new goals, more growth, and upgrading your day-to-day workflow. While most sales folk are stuck in the mud of manual scheduling, digging into data, and tracking down leads, let me share with you a better way to win so you can crush your Q1.

11:08The new HubSpot Sales Hub is smart sales software for today's multitasking reps. It's built to help you manage every stage of your sales pipeline with ease. It's filled with easy-to-use and powerful tools that make closing deals and collaborating across departments a breeze. Sales Hub is an all-in-one platform for things like converting contacts into customers and accelerating sales with smarter sequences. Plus, you can supercharge your work with AI-powered apps like ChatSpot. ChatSpot combines the power of ChatGPT in your HubSpot Smart CRM to give you a gen AI-powered personal assistance. How's that for upgrading your workflow?

11:39Bottom line, Sales Hub is focused on helping you work smarter, not harder, so you can get after all those other New Year's goals, close more deals, and get on track for your best Q1 yet. Explore the new HubSpot sales hub and AI tools like ChatSpot at HubSpot.com slash sales. When you're running a business with multiple team members in multiple locations, staying on the same page can be tough. Document updates, spreadsheet calculations, and knowing whether you're working on the most up-to-date version of a project can result in wasted time and frustration. But with Coda, you and your team will always be on the same page, literally, by bringing together the best of documents, spreadsheets, and apps into one platform.

12:20Coda stops you ping-ponging between different tabs and tools. I checked out Coda's Team Hub tutorial, and I love how you can bring all the important docs for your team together in one place and customize the entire experience. Now's the perfect time to get started with Coda, especially its extensive planning capabilities. Manage your planning cycles, set and measure OKRs, communicate and collaborate on documents and roadmaps, and access hundreds of templates in Coda's gallery. If you want a platform that empowers your team to collaborate effectively and focus on shared goals, you can get started with Coda today for free.

12:52Head over to coda.io slash fire. That's coda.io slash fire to get started for free, coda.io forward slash fire. Do you have a message inside that you know is meant to be shared with the world? Giving a TEDx talk is one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world and Thought Leader can help you get there. Thought Leader is a speaker coaching company that has helped over 550 and counting coaches, speakers, entrepreneurs, authors, and experts land TEDx Talks. Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EO Fire guest.

13:34You might be thinking a TEDx Talk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that is going to teach you how to land a TEDx Talk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for his free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's thought-leader.com slash fire. All right, Fire Nation, we're back. And listen, decide you must have it.

14:10Write it down. Place goals where you can see them. Tell others about goals. Take a massive action. Have that map, massive action plan. Evaluate your results. Change your approach if needed. These are all critical. These are all step-by-step processes. But I want to start with the one that really kind of jumped out to me because I just feel like this is something that very few people do. So let's talk about it deeper. And that's number six. Place goals where you can see them. Talk about that, Cliff. So the idea here is visualization. It's keeping a mental or in some cases a physical image, and that's exactly what I'm promoting, having a physical representation of your dream or goal.

14:55Back in the old days, people used to create what's called vision boards. They would go and get some display – what is that? The science fair paper from school, and they would put cutouts of images from a magazine representing the things that they want to be a part of their life. And a lot of people have thought about that as woo-woo. I might have even been one of those people that kind of felt that was a little weird back in the early days when everybody was talking about visualize this, visualize this. But it really hit home for me, John, in this story. I had done a Day with Cliff mentoring package, and at the time I was only charging$7 ,500.

15:32You'd come and spend eight hours with me here in my home studio, and I would mentor you for eight hours. That afternoon, this one client, his name is Chris, he says we were going to lunch. And as we were driving, I said, it's a good thing my daughter didn't need or Stephanie didn't need to go anywhere today. Otherwise, we would have had an Uber to lunch. And he says, oh, yeah, why is that? I said, well, I just gave my car to my daughter because she's got her license and she's driving her brother and sister to school. And I decided, you know, do I need a car? Well, I work from home and I just thought I'm not a car guy.

16:06He says, you're not a car guy? He says, you've got to have a dream car, Cliff. If there's anybody that is all about dreams, how can you not have a dream car? And I said, okay, if I had a dream car, it would be a 1970s, let's just say 73, 74, classic Volkswagen Beetle. And he's like, tell me more. I said, well, when I was a little kid, my aunt had one of these. And I remember riding around in it with my dad driving me. And I remember the smell of the car. And then as I was growing up, I had friends who had one of these, and they made a big deal about the fact that I'm sitting there and they say, hey, Cliff, try to put it in reverse.

16:41And they wouldn't tell me the secret of how to put it in reverse. But I just remember having this fascination with classic Volkswagen Beetles. And, of course, when I was a kid, I would watch Herbie. And I told him – and so I'm telling Chris as we're on our way to lunch. I said, every time I've ever passed a classic Volkswagen Beetle for sale on the road, on the side of the road, I've always stopped. Even if the car had no hood or doors or seats in it, I would still stop and say, hey, let me take a look at this car you got for sale. So he sat there and goes, how much would one of those cost? And I said, well, I've done research.

17:17Because I'm not a car guy, I don't know how to work on cars. I'd have to hire somebody else to take care of it. So I'd want one in really good condition that I just get in, turn the key, and I can reliably expect it to start. And I want it to be good physical condition. And I said, I've looked, those are somewhere between seven to$10 ,000. So we have this conversation. The day goes by. About four or five days later, I get a package on the front porch of my house. And inside of it is a one 20 second scale, die cast aluminum classic 1973 Volkswagen Beetle the bonnet on the front opens up the doors actually open up and close and there was this note card says Cliff thank you so much for helping me create a plan for my dream to become a reality I hope this car get moves you in the direction of creating your dream or turning your dream into a reality so that little die cast car sat on my desk every single day for about 10 days until this happened.

18:21Now for 10 days, the first thing that I do is I'm playing with this car. I'm rolling it across my desk. I'm opening up the door. I'm opening up the bonnet. I'm literally feeling what it would be like if I actually had one of these. And on the 10th day, it occurred to me, wait a second. I just made in one day what it would cost for me to have this car. And so I immediately went to Facebook Marketplace and I said, is there any classic Volkswagen Beetles within 50 miles? And there was one from a car dealership and it had just been purchased from an auction down in Dallas, Texas, a 1974 classic Volkswagen Beetle with only 5 ,000 miles on the engine, completely fully restored and modified as a show car.

19:14And it was available for$9 ,750. And I went and bought it that afternoon. I never would have turned the dream of having a classic Volkswagen Beetle into a reality if it had not sat in front of me for 10 days. Fire Nation, I hope you're recognizing what can happen when you literally place goals where you can see them. I mean, it just brings me back like seven years ago when I launched the Freedom Journal, everybody was like, John, this is the digital age. Why are you making a physical journal? I said, because I want it on your nightstand. So when you wake up in the morning, you see it, you do it.

19:52When you go to bed at night, you see it, you do it. You need to place goals where you can see them, Fire Nation, for the reason that Cliff just shared. Now, there's a lot of other exciting things that you talked about, telling other people about your goals for that accountability, about evaluating the results, changing your approach. But I want to spend a couple minutes right now about the MAP, Massive Action Plan. Talk about that, Cliff. So one of the things that people struggle with when they're setting out for their goals, they're like, ah, I don't even know how I would even make that possible.

20:23And it's important to understand that I would encourage you, if you're struggling to turn a dream into reality, that you not even give a thought about what actions would be required for you to turn that into reality until you have nailed the first four steps. You have to know what it is that you want, why you want it, believe that it's possible, even if you have no idea right now how it could ever happen. And you also must first make the decision you will have it. After you do that, once you've done those four steps and you really truly have made that emotional decision, this is mine, I will have it.

21:06I will do whatever it takes. Once you've done that, the action plan will become available. And here's how you can jumpstart it. It's the map, the massive action plan. It's a real simple set of questions. Here's the first one. What's one, two, or three actions I can take within the next 24 hours that will get me closer to the realization of this dream, no matter how small of a step that may seem. So what's one, two, or three things that I can do within 24 hours? Write those three things down as a bullet point. All right, next question. What's one, two, or three actions I can take within the next seven days?

21:48So now you're going to expand your subconscious mind to give you some things that are more realistic to do over the course of the next week. Write down one, two, or three things. Here's the third question. What's one, two, or three things that I can do within the next 90 days? Write those down. Next question. What's one, two, or three things that I could do within the next six months? And then the final question. What's one, two, or three things that I can do within the next year? Once you have that now, it doesn't matter how small those steps are. The important thing is that you actually start taking action now.

22:31And as soon as you start taking action now, you have broke the inertia issue and you will gain momentum. And every little step will build and build and build momentum until ultimately you will be carried towards your goal. Fire Nation, time always goes by so fast with Cliff because he's such a masterful storyteller. He just knows how to drop value bomb after value bomb. So I want to end with a note that to me, Cliff, is pretty important because a lot of people, they listen to you, they listen to me, they listen to these great interviews that are out there on the internet, and they get these awesome ideas and strategies.

23:14But sometimes they aim for that moon and they miss the mark. So let's let our listeners know what happens if we get less than desirable results. Here's the situation. If you get less than desirable results, what you just got are results. And the results you get are always, without fail, there will never be a time that this is not true. The results you will end up getting are perfect for the system that you had created. So if your results that you're getting, if you've missed the moon or whatever the case may be, all you have to do is make a commitment to evaluate the results that you got and then change the approach, change the system, create new different creative ways of going after it or try it again.

24:03Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it's just the wrong timing. But whatever I would say is that if you have not yet reached your desired destination, you remember you made a decision. I will have this. So keep at it. As long as you've got breath in your lungs, keep the dream alive and keep the momentum going. Cliff, we started with a bang. Let's end with a bang. I had promised my listeners that we would loop back and close the loop about that number 11 bonus. What is that? The number 11 bonus is how to get further faster with less trial and error, and it's called role modeling. Find somebody who is already experiencing and living out the reality of the dream for which you desire to create in your own life.

24:54Now, this person who is a role model, Some of the hesitation when I've brought up role models with clients in the past, they're like, Cliff, I just don't understand. I can't find anybody who's a good role model for me. I'm like, that doesn't compute for me. What do you mean? And they say, well, sure, there are people out there who are doing this, but I just don't like their personality or I don't like how they show up here. I don't like their language over here. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Here's the situation. Find somebody who has already achieved what it is you want to achieve, and that person can effectively be a role model.

25:27It's not that you're trying to duplicate or mimic or bring in all of their character traits and everything. You don't want to be a model of that person. You don't want to be a mirror of that person. But what you want to do is find somebody who's already done a lot of trial and error, testing different things that worked and didn't work, and people who can actually show you the way. It's like, oh, you trying to do that? Yes, I can help you. They may not have the best marriage. They may not have the best language on a stage or something like that, but they can still be an incredible role model for that one specific thing that they are succeeding at that you have a dream of succeeding at.

26:07And so you could just go and learn and study that person. If you can't develop a relationship one-on-one with that individual, chances are you can at least find out all sorts of things about them if they happen to have interviews that they've done or – there's a number of ways that you can find to learn from those people. How did they get what they have that you so desire? And if you will become a student of what they've done to get there, then you can shortcut the entire process by decades. Cliff, if Fire Nation wants to hear more, needs to hear more, must hear more from you, what's the best way that they can connect with you and everything you have going on?