What If Success Is The Experience You Choose To Have

Your scoreboard is lying to you. We went to Cincinnati for a bucket list swim meet and left with a masterclass in radical reframing. If you looked at our weekend on paper, it was a "disaster": car trouble, a hotel parking lot crime scene, and a dead-last finish in the pool. But in the world of Living Lucky®, we don’t let the circumstances write the script.

In this high-density episode, Jason and Jana Banana reveal how to transform a "messy" reality into an upward success cycle. We break down why placing last is actually elite-level data and how to pivot from "Did I win?" to "Who am I becoming?"

You will discover:

• The "5-1" Revelation: Why age is just a data point, not a barrier to entry.
• The Vitality ROI: Why health is the "hidden fuel" for your career, wealth, and relationships.
• The Shriners Connection: How being a "looking glass" for others creates an ultimate win.
• The "Start Unprepared" Rule: Why readiness is a myth and "falling forward" builds world-class grit.
• Soil vs. Spoil: Why nourishing your body changes how the world perceives your value.

Stop waiting for perfect conditions. Your spiritual curriculum only requires you to show up. Whether you’re facing a career pivot or a health crisis, learn to find the purpose in the detour.

Hit play and turn your setbacks into your greatest setup.

KEY NUGGETS

• Action Creates Readiness: Confidence is the result of participation, not a prerequisite.
• Competitions are Rest Stops: A race is just a checkpoint on the road to your healthiest self.
• The Vitality Spillover: Physical "ROI" shows up in your finances, your marriage, and your presence.
• Contribution > Competition: Asking "How can I help?" instantly breaks the doom loop of self-judgment.
• The Mirror Effect: Showing up in your truth expands what is possible for everyone watching.

How do I overcome the fear of finishing last? .

Why is it important to start before you feel ready? 

self-help, personal development, limiting beliefs, mindset coaching, positive thinking, how to stop self-judgment, overcoming failure in sports, starting over after 50, building physical vitality, resilience mindset hacks, Living Lucky podcast.

Transcript

Creating An Upward Success Cycle

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®.

Jason Shelfer 0:14

Good morning.

Jana Shelfer 0:15

I'm Jana. I'm Jason. And we are Living Lucky®. You are T. All the way from Cincinnati.

Jason Shelfer 0:21

W K R P in Cincinnati. That's a callback.

Jana Shelfer 0:26

Did you watch that when you were younger?

Jason Shelfer 0:28

Wasn't um who was the blonde bombshell in that? I don't remember.

Jana Shelfer 0:33

Thanks for putting me on the spot. Lonnie Anderson.

Jason Shelfer 0:36

Lonnie Anderson. I had a poster of her in my bedroom. Did she?

Jana Shelfer 0:39

I did. I did. I liked her.

Jason Shelfer 0:40

Well, she and she dated Bert Reynolds, I think. Or she was in a movie with Bert Reynolds.

Jana Shelfer 0:44

We have a pass with Bert.

Jason Shelfer 0:46

Yes.

Jana Shelfer 0:46

You know that he dated uh Jason's aunt.

Jason Shelfer 0:49

A great aunt.

Jana Shelfer 0:50

They were college sweethearts.

Jason Shelfer 0:52

College sweethearts. But back to Cincinnati.

Cincinnati Swim Meet And Hard Luck

Jana Shelfer 0:55

Yes, we are in Cincinnati for a swim meet. Now, I would love to get on here and tell you we dominated. We were awesome. We were great. That's not the case. We came in last.

Jason Shelfer 1:07

Well, it was, but it was an experience. And that was the key because you're supposed to say we placed.

Jana Shelfer 1:12

We placed. And then I say we placed last. Because we always look for the best.

Jason Shelfer 1:18

We always look for the best. The goal was to check off a bucket list experience.

Jana Shelfer 1:23

Yes. But some people might say that this weekend was not a positive one for us. Our car broke down. We woke up this morning. There were police in the hotel because there was a there were car break-ins overnight out in the out in the parking lot. That literally just waved at the hotel cameras saying, Hey, come catch me if you can.

Jason Shelfer 1:49

Look at me. I'm breaking into cars.

Jana Shelfer 1:52

We entered this competition. I was not prepared. I was I literally just came to see what it was about and to experience and to get classified. I needed to get classified.

Jason Shelfer 2:07

Well, we had we had a list of things that the reasons we wanted to be in the competition. And classification was one of them to understand what are these competitions about and what are they like.

Jana Shelfer 2:19

But there's actually a deeper why.

The Deeper Why Behind Competing

Jason Shelfer 2:21

Yes.

Jana Shelfer 2:21

The deeper why is that I want energy and I want vitality and I want better health.

Jason Shelfer 2:31

Yes.

Jana Shelfer 2:32

And that is why I wanted to start swimming. I also want to start finding groups of friends in Orlando that like to do the same activities that I want to do and that we can do together.

Jason Shelfer 2:47

Yes. And doing things.

Jana Shelfer 2:48

There's so many, so many values there.

Jason Shelfer 2:50

So many values. And what does it look like to move towards the healthiest version of ourselves? Because that pours over into every other version of ourselves.

Jana Shelfer 3:01

So what I'm getting at is some people might look at this weekend and say, oh my gosh, you guys are crazy. What a waste of time, money, resources, energy. You drove all the way to Cincinnati to come in last place.

Jason Shelfer 3:19

We placed.

Jana Shelfer 3:22

And to see what it was all about, when you probably could have just watched a couple YouTube videos.

Jason Shelfer 3:27

The thing is, one of the one of the things is when we ask ourselves, what do we want to experience? We got everything that we wanted to experience out of the situation. And that's the key is when we said, what is it that we really want to experience here? And we labeled it. We listened, we listed it out, and we said, these are the things that we would like to experience. Then we said, Well, how do we want to grow in this? And we listed those things out. And we got every single thing out of that experience that we where we wanted to grow. Yes. Every single thing.

Jana Shelfer 4:02

I know. I it was data for me. It was a wake-up call. And then it was a wake-up call to see how much growth is possible.

Jason Shelfer 4:10

Right? So now we say, okay, we were able to say, where are we in this growth process and what are our elements of growth to move forward?

Laughing At Labels And Finding Purpose

Jana Shelfer 4:20

I want to stop you right there because the next question that I know you're going to ask is how can I contribute? And it here's a little funny thing that happened during the competition. I saw my lane assignment, and then I saw next to my name was like a I thought it was a classification, and my classification was five-one. And I thought, huh, that's crazy. The person to my right, their lane, their classification was one five. And I thought, okay, how come mine is five one and theirs is one five? The person to my left, their classification was one zero. So I pulled over the official and I'm like, can you explain this to me? Like how this works? What does this classification mean? And you know, why is mine five and theirs is one? And the official said, That's your age.

Jason Shelfer 5:14

Yeah, that's not the classification. You're 51, that person is 15, the other one is 10.

Jana Shelfer 5:21

So that just gave me such a giggle. I'm like, oh my God, I'm 40 years older than the person I'm competing against. That is funny. And I just got such a bust out over that. However, then I started thinking, how can I contribute? Yes. And it turned out the little gal that was to my left, she's in the commercials for the Shriners hospitals. Her name is Annie. You would totally recognize her if you see her on cute as a button. Cute as a button.

Jason Shelfer 5:50

And personality for days.

Jana Shelfer 5:52

Oh my gosh. And as I started talking to these two girls, I realized they like to do crafts. And so we started making bracelets together. And it dawned on me, I can make a difference in just being here because I'm a looking glass for them. They probably don't see a lot of women who have been in wheelchairs for 35 years.

Jason Shelfer 6:19

And also that have been successful, been in successfully, happily married, creating careers, happily married, three-time Paralympian. So you've got this long resume, and you have this ability to start anytime in whatever you want, and also not be ready.

Start Before You Feel Ready

Jason Shelfer 6:39

So you see, we talked about not being quote unquote prepared for this swim meet. But how often do we say, I'll I'll do it, quote unquote, when I'm ready? And sometimes we just need to start.

Jana Shelfer 6:55

Just start, and you will you will get ready as you go.

Jason Shelfer 6:58

Ready shows up, or maybe it never shows up, but you you start growing through the process of showing up. Oh, just and there's something crazy about that. Like we don't, we're not ready to walk when we start walking as kids. We just start trying.

Jana Shelfer 7:15

We start walking and falling.

Jason Shelfer 7:16

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 7:17

And as we fall, we start learning.

Jason Shelfer 7:19

You learn, and then you say, okay, well, this is where I am. I just placed, you know, I took I took a step and I fell over. Like everybody else around me is walking.

Jana Shelfer 7:28

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 7:28

I don't understand. I just keep falling over.

Jana Shelfer 7:31

I will say that was the longest race of my life. Thank gosh, right before we started, they told me I could actually during the freestyle, I could do any stroke I wanted. I didn't know that until 10 seconds before they thought you had to do the American crawl or whatever.

Jason Shelfer 7:48

I don't even know the names of the swimming strokes, but as your coach, that's horrible, right?

Jana Shelfer 7:53

And the official said, no, it's freestyle. You can do any stroke you want. You could doggy paddle if you wanted. I was like, thank God, because I'm out of breath. I need to just roll on my back for a minute. Roll over and breathe. Need to take a rest during this.

Jason Shelfer 8:07

It reminds me of every single triathlon we've done. Like halfway through the swim, I'm like, I'm gonna drown out here. I am literally gonna drown.

Jana Shelfer 8:15

Swimming puts you to the test, though. Yeah. And these kids, they would not only race in the morning, they'd go back to the hotel room, they would swim. Swim and play in the pool. And then we would race again in the evenings. So there were actually two competitions each day. I'm like, wow.

Jason Shelfer 8:37

Oh, to be young again. But swimming will do.

Jana Shelfer 8:40

That's the reason that I wanted to start swimming.

Jason Shelfer 8:43

100%.

Jana Shelfer 8:44

Is to get that vitality.

Jason Shelfer 8:46

And that, and so that's what's going to come.

Redefining Winning Through Health

Jana Shelfer 8:49

So stepping into that, you have to surround yourself with vitality and energy.

Jason Shelfer 8:55

And this is what, regardless of what you want in life, it's labeling. Okay, what is it? What's the bigger picture? It's not about do I want to win a competition. The competition is a is a rest area on the highway to the end goal.

Jana Shelfer 9:09

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 9:10

So it's it's the competition, competitions are designed to have a first, second, third place, people that don't quote unquote win the competition. But if you label the competition as the end goal, then there's going to be a problem in your mentality, in your emotions, and all that. But if you say my end goal is to be the healthiest version of myself, or my end goal is to create a better version of myself.

Jana Shelfer 9:37

Because I I truly believe deep in my core, if I feel healthy, I will show up better in every area of my life.

Jason Shelfer 9:47

And that proves itself over and over again. Every time that we invest in our health and invest in the way we feel and look, physically, we show up differently and it affects every area of our life.

Jana Shelfer 9:59

It does. It affects our finances, it affects our friends, it affects our sex life, it affects our speaking, our speaking. I mean, I don't want to say it has nothing to do with the way we look, because it does, because we are showing up differently. We are more confident inside.

Jason Shelfer 10:24

Yes. And regardless of how, like we are confident inside all the time, but people see it differently.

Jana Shelfer 10:30

Yes. We see it differently, we feel it differently.

Jason Shelfer 10:34

Well, it's because our our our staggers different. At a cellular level, our bodies are recognizing it and saying, I understand, I feel it. Like if they're saying, I'm alive in here and I've got places to go and people to see.

Jana Shelfer 10:48

There's also something in nourishing. When you nourish, think of a garden. When you really nourish the soil and you tend to the garden, the vegetables grow healthier and the flowers grow more beautiful and voluptuous. Yes. And that's what happens to our bodies when we pour love into ourselves, we show up differently.

Jason Shelfer 11:17

100%.

Jana Shelfer 11:18

So thanks for joining us.

Jason Shelfer 11:19

Keep living

Closing And How To Connect

Jason Shelfer 11:20

lucky.

Jana Shelfer 11:20

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