Recognition 20 Years Later

Recognition 20 Years Later: The Art of Receiving Praise & Owning Your Impact (Living Lucky® Podcast)

What happens when you achieve the highest honor, yet still struggle to receive the praise? On this powerful Living Lucky® Podcast episode, Jana Banana shares her raw, personal reflections from her Olympic Paralympic Hall of Fame induction alongside legends like Serena Williams. She reveals the universal paradox: craving recognition while secretly deflecting the very appreciation we desperately seek.

Dive into the internal conflict of receiving validation and accepting your own self-worth. We explore why it's so challenging to say "thank you" for acknowledgment, from international accolades to simply wanting appreciation for daily efforts. Discover how even high-achievers like Paralympic snowboarder Amy Purdy question their impact, reminding us that the desire to make a difference and be seen is deeply human.

This episode crystallizes a profound truth: everything you do matters. Every choice, every authentic action creates ripples, whether recognized immediately or decades later. Learn why "people talk about you, not to you" and the immense power of giving specific, heartfelt appreciation to others.

Through practical self-help insights, including the vital role of gratitude, this conversation empowers you to acknowledge the significance of your daily contributions. Break free from imposter syndrome and the limiting beliefthat your efforts aren't enough. Your choices today are building your legacy, long before any public acknowledgment.

Ready to transform how you give and receive recognition? Tune in for essential personal development and life coaching principles that will help you fully embrace your impact and Live Lucky® with unwavering self-confidence.

• Why do I struggle to receive compliments?
• The importance of validating others.
• How to overcome imposter syndrome and self-doubt?
• Does what I do really matter?
• Building a legacy through daily choices.
• Gratitude practices for self-acknowledgment.
• Personal development for self-acceptance.
• The power of recognizing your own impact.
• "Why is it hard to accept recognition?"
• How can I better receive compliments? Does my work truly make a difference? What is imposter syndrom

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Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Chapters

• 0:00 Olympic Hall of Fame Induction
• 1:05 Impact and Recognition
• 2:28 The Struggle of Receiving Appreciation
• 5:21 Recognition: What Matters in Life
• 10:33 Daily Choices and Living Lucky

Transcript

Jana Shelfer: 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®. Good morning. I'm Jana, I'm Jason and we are Living Lucky®. You are too. We've had VIP treatment for the last three, four days.

Jason Shelfer: 0:23

Four days, yes, and now.

Jana Shelfer: 0:25

I'm like someone go get my coffee.

Jason Shelfer: 0:28

Someone bring me my grapes.

Jana Shelfer: 0:30

Carry my luggage.

Jason Shelfer: 0:32

It has been incredible. It's been just an incredible weekend, and what we're talking about is Jana was inducted into the Olympic Paralympic Hall of Fame over the weekend. Class of 2025. Yes.

Jana Shelfer: 0:46

Alongside Serena Williams, Carrie Walsh, Bodie Miller, Allison Felix.

Jason Shelfer: 0:52

Gabby Douglas.

Jana Shelfer: 0:53

Gabby Douglas, Phil Knight, Coach K I mean, it's just been an incredible group of people and not to forget my teammates from the 2004 Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team Gold Medalists yes.

Jason Shelfer: 1:10

And it changed me. There was something in there, because oftentimes we go through life and we're doing the best we can and I'm sure as an Olympic athlete at the elite level, you feel like, okay, well, I've got a job to do, I'm going to do my best and my my best is to get gold. Well, there can't be a like this striving to be in the hall of fame, like there's no um, I guess goal line to say one day I hope to be. I mean, I guess you can hope that, but it's not something that you could perform to do, it's something that so many people have to vote on, and so it goes through this crazy process that is out of the wheelhouse of control, and so to have that come back around 21 years later and to be a part of that, it's nice to be recognized.

Jason Shelfer: 2:05

That's where I'm getting to, that's the simplicity of it all and sometimes I don't think we understand how we're affecting the world that we're in on a daily basis as people and it just it kind of puts that bigger picture out there. Okay, we can see it in others, but where can we see that in just ourselves as a daily life?

Jana Shelfer: 2:25

So Amy Purdy, who is a Paralympian, Three-time. Paralympian. You may have seen her on Dancing with the Stars. She's a double amputee snowboarder, now she's a speaker and she has influenced my life so much Over the last 10 years I would say she has been. I saw her speak at the Oprah conference. I thought she was phenomenal, phenomenal you get a speaker and you get a speaker, and I also saw that she was on Dancing with the Stars, which I know had an impact on why I wanted to start taking ballroom dance lessons?

Jason Shelfer: 3:01

Well, I would assume so, because you keep saying I want to be on Dancing with the Stars. I do.

Jana Shelfer: 3:07

Anyway, I was telling her she was one of the-.

Jason Shelfer: 3:10

Influences MCs, mcs, okay, yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 3:12

Yeah, she was one that would introduce the inductees this weekend, and so, as I started talking to her, telling her that she has completely impacted my life, I want to be a speaker like she is. Do you know what I'm saying?

Jason Shelfer: 3:29

Yeah, like she's had an effect, I started telling her how much she has inspired me.

Jana Shelfer: 3:35

And she even said you know, it's so nice to hear that because sometimes I go through life doing my thing and I don't realize if I'm actually Making a difference, Hitting'm actually making a difference hitting home, making a difference.

Jason Shelfer: 3:48

Yeah, and I think that's that's where we oftentimes fall, and oftentimes the people that are making a huge difference, people just assume they already know and that's why, like, I think you make a huge difference and people aren't going to tell you that because they're like, well, sure, she knows it. Like we're like people talk about you in ancillary conversations, so they talk about you, not to you, and they say, oh, she's such an inspiration, oh, she does this. I mean, they're writing magazine articles and newspaper articles and they're doing news stories about you and so, yes, you are also doing this, but people don't come to you and say, jana, let me just walk you through the specifics of where you touched my life. And that was one of the beautiful moments where I got to actually kind of sit back in the corner and watch you and Amy Purdy have this conversation for like 25, 30 minutes, right, and you got to just kind of walk through specifics of the A's and B's of hey, amy, this is where you've impacted me.

Jason Shelfer: 4:53

And this is where you're kind of throwing the lead out and saying, hey, I'm going to go catch that. Yes, I want to follow you here.

Jana Shelfer: 5:02

And when she said to me oh my gosh, it's just so nice to hear that that's exactly what this whole weekend was for me.

Jason Shelfer: 5:09

It was just so nice to be recognized and and for people to to lift, lift me up, yeah and I felt the gratitude I and I was hoping that you would feel that too, because I I feel so blessed to be around you, like you've lifted me up okay, but let's be real about this too let's be real, because even though it was such a fantastic weekend and logistically things could not have gone better, I mean aside from a few problems but I mean, it was just so great.

Jana Shelfer: 5:48

However, I did have an internal struggle of receiving Accepting yeah, yeah of receiving, accepting, yeah, yeah, so that that's something that people I know people struggle with this challenge. I think most of us struggle with because there's something inside you that's like so wait a minute, we want it yeah and we don't like we don't want to accept it yeah, it's like we want to know it's available but we don't want to take it.

Jason Shelfer: 6:17

Yeah, it's like we want to know it's available but we don't want to take it. Why is that? It's a weird. It's just one of those weird things, I think, and it's getting. So there's an area of is it humility? Yeah, being humble and saying you know what? I didn't even know that I wanted it, but I do want it, and it's just to say you know what job well done it's, so that I can say I can give myself a rest for a moment and say you know what?

Jana Shelfer: 6:49

I've done it, it's worth it and I can keep going. It's almost like fuel in the tank. Okay, so let's put this into the perspective of anyone listening to this. You may be going through your everyday life and you may be saying gosh.

Jason Shelfer: 6:58

I just want my husband to say thank you for doing the laundry every damn day and these are the things.

Jana Shelfer: 7:08

So it's just the attaboys and then when your husband finally says, hey, thank you so much for doing the laundry, you're like oh, it was nothing like you almost dismiss it because it's hard to receive. That, am I right?

Jason Shelfer: 7:23

because we love doing it, but we also want the appreciation.

Jana Shelfer: 7:27

We just want to know that we're being recognized for our efforts but when we do get recognized, then there's there's a whole nother set of issues that start coming up Because now that I have been recognized, Then it's like, oh my gosh, am I worthy of this?

Jason Shelfer: 7:41

Right.

Jana Shelfer: 7:42

Am I an imposter?

Jason Shelfer: 7:43

syndrome, or did I really need it?

Jana Shelfer: 7:46

Am I overshining right now?

Jason Shelfer: 7:48

Do I need?

Jana Shelfer: 7:48

to turn down my shine a little bit.

Jason Shelfer: 7:50

It's like, was it me not recognized? That it was being recognized, oh my gosh, you know what I'm saying.

Jana Shelfer: 7:58

You've just confused me. I don't even know what we're talking about.

Jason Shelfer: 8:01

I might have confused myself, but it's a weird little dichotomy in there. But I think we all want to know that when we get up in the morning we're doing something that is making a difference that matters. I mean, it was the crossover, Olympian.

Jana Shelfer: 8:18

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 8:18

That's when she's like. One of the things that this signifies is that all the running that I've done mattered.

Jana Shelfer: 8:26

Yeah, like that when she said that, like my, my heartstrings just kind of just went oh yeah, because you know so many of us, even people who aren't athletes, we go to the gym or we try to-.

Jason Shelfer: 8:41

We go to the office every day.

Jana Shelfer: 8:42

We do that 20-minute workout because we think, okay, this is going to make me healthy, I'm going to get an ab.

Jason Shelfer: 8:48

I'm going to lose a pound to fit in a dress or fit in a pair of slacks, and it's almost like some-.

Jana Shelfer: 8:55

Then you go to your doctor's appointment and the doctor says you know what? You have low blood pressure. That's the, that's the payoff.

Jason Shelfer: 9:02

Right. But it's nice to have that publicly Right At 100% and and I think that's where, like, I work so well off of positive, positive recognition.

Jana Shelfer: 9:13

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 9:14

Like don't beat like I'm beating myself up on the inside sometimes anyway, and especially if it doesn't go well but tell me what I did well and then I'll fix the things that I didn't do well. You know what I'm saying. So these, like something like a being inducted to the hall of fame, says you have, so you've got so many chits and attaboys.

Jana Shelfer: 9:35

What did you just say? So many, what Chits like chits of.

Jason Shelfer: 9:45

Hey, you did well.

Jana Shelfer: 9:46

Here's a chit. I do not know that word, maybe I made it up, maybe it's a Southern thing, I don't know that.

Jason Shelfer: 9:49

So you've got so many credits of doing well and achievements that we're going to recognize you on the grander scale and you will go down in history. So it's a, and that's, I think everybody wants to be remembered.

Jana Shelfer: 10:03

Okay, so how can we change the way we think and the way we feel so that receiving that recognition?

Jason Shelfer: 10:13

I think, and this is, and I could be totally wrong, but I think just recognizing that what you do matters, and what you do matters always.

Jana Shelfer: 10:23

So let's stick to that. In your everyday life, what you do on a day-to-day timeframe matters. It all matters, everything. Your choices matter, everything matters.

Jason Shelfer: 10:36

And that's why I love your gratitude practice, because that's one of those things that kind of like gratitude almost is like this root system that brings everything back in, everything back into home and it feeds in, so you can start finding what's in what, where the matter is in it, and say, oh gosh, I'm so grateful for that because, like, I'm so grateful for this, just just because of it led to this, or you can always find something positive and the positivity is where the growth is. You know, that's that's what we are grateful for, is what we can build with and that's progress. That's that's, that's what matter, is that's what or that's what matters, okay.

Jason Shelfer: 11:28

I got a little tongue-tied.

Jana Shelfer: 11:30

Yes, I don't even. I'm just in a daze. It's been a four-day of dazeness.

Jason Shelfer: 11:35

Yeah, and we have a lot to be grateful for and a lot to gratitude on, so it was a fantastic weekend. I feel absolutely like I'm Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer: 11:46

I'm on cloud nine right now, so let's tie this up into a nice little button.

Jason Shelfer: 11:50

Yeah, right now. So let's tie this up into a nice little button. Yeah, so recognize that every choice, those micro moments of life, we're making choices, all of them matter. We don't have to put a huge amount of weight in it, but all of them matter. And you matter by getting up and being in the world every day. Sometimes it may take 20 years for people to get the recognition for it, but you can also recognize or to acknowledge it. To acknowledge it, but you can acknowledge it daily in a gratitude practice.

Jana Shelfer: 12:18

Thank you, jason, thanks for joining us.

Jason Shelfer: 12:20

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer: 12:21

Bye-bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at www. LivingLucky. com.