It Starts With A Question

The quality of your life is bounded by the quality of the questions you ask your subconscious.

Most high-performers live in a state of unexamined mental self-sabotage. When an unexpected obstacle, a business setback, or a relationship friction hits, their default reflex is to ask disempowering queries like "What is wrong with me?", "Why do I always mess things up?", or "Why can't people just get along?" Your brain operates like an obedient search engine: the moment you submit a disempowering prompt, your Reticular Activating System (RAS) immediately scans reality to build a rock-solid case proving you are a failure. You end up stacking evidence for your worst fears while walking right past high-value solutions.

In this transformative, high-vibrational episode of the Living Lucky® Podcast, Jana and Jason expose the hidden mechanics of self-talk, subconscious filters, and cognitive reframing. Jana revisits her foundational 1990 rehab journal prompt after a paralyzing car accident—shifting her internal compass from "Why me, Lord?" to "How lucky am I?"—to demonstrate how targeted questions alter your neurological compass. Together, they break down why big, grandiose affirmations often trigger aggressive internal "doubt speech," and why asking "lucky questions" bypasses the ego's defense systems to build authentic, undeniable confidence.

Inside:

• The Subconscious Assignment Rule: How your brain treats every internal question as a mandatory search task, systematically hunting for real-world proof to validate your focus.
• The Reticular Activating System (RAS) Filter: The exact neurological mechanics that determine whether you filter reality for conflict and failure or growth and opportunity.
• The Relationship Insecurity Loop: A real-world case study of a client whose disempowering queries ("Why is he better than me?") actively manufactured the exact relational chaos he feared.
• The Magic Trick Divergence: Why managing your attention works exactly like stage magic—and how asking better questions diverts your focus away from toxic static toward high-value targets.
• Why Lucky Questions Beat Affirmations: How asking "How am I moving toward my goal?" bypasses the internal bullsh*t detector that shuts down traditional "I am rich" affirmations.

Stop assigning your brain the task of finding out what is wrong with you. If you are ready to stop running disempowering search queries, deploy the ultimate cognitive circuit breaker, and point your focus toward real-world momentum, hit play now.

Listen to the audio, watch the video broadcast, subscribe, and ask yourself your first lucky question today.

NUGGETS

• Your brain is an obedient search engine. If you ask it why you fail, it will construct an unassailable case for your incompetence; if you ask it how to win, it will discover the pathway.
• Affirmations fight the ego; questions invite the journey. Stating a massive conclusion ("I am a billionaire") triggers doubt speech, while asking a lucky question ("How am I building wealth today?") invites subconscious problem-solving.
• Attention is a magician's trick. Where your attention goes, your energy flows and your reality grows—asking better questions is simply managing your own stage focus.
• Insecurity is fueled by disempowering search queries. Asking why someone else is better than you forces your mind to stack evidence of your own inadequacy, creating the exact distance you fear.
• why affirmations fail vs empowering questions
• cognitive reframing tools for anxiety
• overcoming relationship insecurity self talk
• why does my brain focus on negative things
• difference between affirmations and lucky questions
• how to reframe internal doubt speech
• using questions to change subconscious focus
• overcoming why me mindset after trauma
• how the reticular activating system filters reality
• hypnotherapy tools for self talk reframing

Questions:

Why do empowering questions often work better than positive affirmations? Empowering questions work better than positive affirmations because they bypass the brain's internal "doubt speech" filter. When an individual states a bold affirmation that contradicts their current reality (e.g., "I am wealthy" while in debt), the subconscious rejects the statement as a lie. Conversely, an empowering question (e.g., "How can I generate more value today?") framing the objective as a search assignment, prompting the mind to find actionable solutions without triggering psychological resistance.

What is the role of the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in self-talk? The Reticular Activating System (RAS) acts as the brain's primary data filter, sifting through millions of daily sensory inputs to highlight information that aligns with an individual's core beliefs and focus. If a person asks disempowering questions, the RAS tunes into evidence of failure, rejection, and limitation. When prompted with empowering questions, the RAS recalibrates to highlight opportunities, resources, and evidence of progress.

How does asking "How lucky am I?" assist in trauma recovery and cognitive reframing? Asking "How lucky am I?" functions as an immediate cognitive pattern interrupt during trauma recovery. Instead of allowing the mind to default to disempowering survival queries (such as "Why did this happen to me?"), the prompt directs the Reticular Activating System to scan the immediate environment for remaining assets, uncompromised capabilities, and support systems, laying the groundwork for radical gratitude and active resilience.

• Same Event, Different Outcomes: The core secret of life's directional compass Jana and Jason kick off the studio session analyzing why two people face the exact same trial and yield opposite results. Discover why life is simply a continuous sequence of internal search queries.
• Dumpster Questions: How "What's wrong with me?" destroys your baseline Jason reflects on his youth and the destructive nature of disempowering self-talk. Learn how asking why you always mess up forces your brain to build an undeniable case against your own worth.
• Tony Robbins Logic: Life as a series of subconscious assignments Jana breaks down a core lesson from Tony Robbins. Learn how internal queries dictate your immediate choices, actions, and overall vibrational frequency.
• The 1990 Compass Reset: "How lucky am I?" inside the rehab hospital Revisiting Jana's life-altering spinal cord injury at age 15. Learn how a single journal prompt shifted her attention away from devastating loss and toward uncompromised future possibility.
• Catching the Hidden Voices: Listening for the quiet questions draining your energy Jason exposes the continuous background chatter running in the male mind. Discover how to catch disempowering internal chatter before it drains your executive focus.
• Why Affirmations Fail: Overcoming internal "Doubt Speech" and fear Jason reveals why standing in front of the mirror saying "I am a billionaire" caused his internal detector to declare him a liar—and how switching to lucky questions unlocked immediate progress.

Get the full blog for this podcast at https://www.startlivinglucky.com/blog/the-hidden-question-running-your-life-and-how-to-change-it

🏷️ reticular activating system, subconscious prompts, disempowering self talk, hypnotherapy insights, better questions better life, cognitive reframing, doubt speech override, the four-minute formula, living lucky frameworks

Transcript

Same Event, Different Outcomes

Jana Shelfer 0:00

Have you ever noticed that two people can experience the exact same event and come away with an entirely different outcome? Why is that? It's all about the questions we ask. I'm Jana. I'm Jason. And we are living lucky. You are

Better Questions, Better Life

Jana Shelfer 0:32

too. Today we're talking about better questions equals a better life.

Jason Shelfer 0:37

Oh, that's so good. It all starts with a question. I remember so many times in my youth and growing up when I would say, Gosh, what's wrong with me?

Jana Shelfer 0:47

Oh, don't say that.

Jason Shelfer 0:48

You know?

Jana Shelfer 0:48

June, that is that question will take you right into the dumpster.

Jason Shelfer 0:53

There's that. So that's when I remember. And then why can't I get this right? Or why am I screwing things up? And what would happen is looking back, examining all that, was I would find things that were wrong with me all the time.

Jana Shelfer 1:11

So it always life has a way of teaching you what you need to learn.

Jason Shelfer 1:16

Finding those answers for myself. Right? I know this now.

Jana Shelfer 1:23

No, it can be better, but it is right.

Jason Shelfer 1:28

We can always find something to improve. There's always there's always room for growth, expansion, evolution, you know, all learning and learning. But what I was I was asking myself horrible questions. When I would say, Why do I always mess things up? or why can't I figure this out? My brain would go and find those reasons. You're not smart enough. You you have a habit of it. It was crazy. And I had no idea that these questions were leading me into that path of really not thinking well of myself.

Jana Shelfer 2:05

Tony Robbins once taught me, he said, Jana, the questions, life is just a series of questions. It literally is a series of questions. We have we experience something and then we ponder and we ask questions, which will lead us to make a decision in the path, and then and then we come up on something else and we ask another question. It's just a series of questions. We're constantly asking and answering a series of questions. That's what dictates our actions.

Jason Shelfer 2:40

It's kind of it's it's weird because we are kind of exploratory beings. And it's exploration is searching, it's finding a way somewhere, whether it's in a conversation, whether it's in a thought, anything. So when we ask those questions, it puts us in a direction.

Jana Shelfer 3:01

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 3:01

And when we when we get directional, our brains are gonna look for answers along that directional path.

Jana Shelfer 3:09

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 3:09

So when we get asking, yes, yes, preach, preach this way.

Jana Shelfer 3:15

Right.

Jason Shelfer 3:15

So when we're asking our ourselves these questions, shouting John over here. When we ask ourselves these questions, our brains are built to look for the answers to the questions that we ask because we say, This is this is what I want to explore right now.

Jana Shelfer 3:30

It is that simple. Ask yourself better questions, and you will lead your life into a higher, more vibrant frequency.

Jason Shelfer 3:42

When

“How Lucky Am I” After Trauma

Jason Shelfer 3:43

when you started talking about the back in 1990, yeah, with the how lucky am I and how that shifted things for you, because it took you from the the looking for or thinking about what you had lost to to everything you had available.

Jana Shelfer 3:56

Just to recap, we talked about this in our last podcast, but just to recap, when I was 15 years old, I was in a car accident, and early on in the process, I was at a rehab hospital and a quadriplegic asked me to scratch his nose. When I did, when I reached up and scratched his nose for him, he said, You have no idea how lucky you are. That question alone just it imprinted in my brain. And when I went to bed that night, instead of uh, you know, instead of almost crying and whining to God, I asked myself in my journal, how lucky am I? And it just slightly shifted my mindset, my perspective into a better path for me.

Jason Shelfer 4:46

It shifted your directional compass.

Jana Shelfer 4:48

One that was looking for opportunities instead of focusing on everything that I had lost. Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 4:56

So the the question probably before is why did this happen to me?

Jana Shelfer 5:00

Like what's Why me, Lord? Oh, why me? How many times have we asked ourselves?

Jason Shelfer 5:06

What have I lost? Like all the all these the disempowering questions. And when we find the empowering questions, the lucky questions, then we start finding the luck. You know, when we ask the empowering questions, then we start finding the empowerment.

Jana Shelfer 5:22

It's it's like magic.

Jason Shelfer 5:24

Because our brain, excuse me, our brain is just gonna go out there and find it.

Jana Shelfer 5:30

It's almost like our brain will always prove us right. So that is something that I learned. Jason and I both got our hypnotherapy certifications because we wanted to kind of understand what was behind the curtain. And we, I mean, we have I love we have so many certifications.

Jason Shelfer 5:48

I love defining it as behind the curtain because oftentimes we I was acting on in a way that like I felt like I was in charge of my life. But then when we went through the hypnotherapy, I realized that a lot of the things I'm doing, I'm just doing.

Jana Shelfer 6:06

Do you have a frog in your throat?

Jason Shelfer 6:08

Sometimes, so I'm drinking bone broth right now. Oh, and sometimes when I drink bone broth.

Jana Shelfer 6:13

People always wonder what's in the cup.

Jason Shelfer 6:15

What's in the cup, Ross?

Jana Shelfer 6:16

Chat GPT is like, I love it that you carry a bowl on set. I was like, it's not a bowl. It's my coffee.

Jason Shelfer 6:23

It's either coffee, it's water, it's bone broth.

Jana Shelfer 6:25

It's either for me, it's either coffee, warm water with lemon and ginger, or BCA's. That's my new thing. It's to put my supplements in here and sip on it like it's it's coffee. Yeah, like it's an experience.

Jason Shelfer 6:41

It is an experience.

Jana Shelfer 6:42

And for Jason, it's bone broth. Bone broth or coffee. Bone broth, which it just feels like I'm eating dinner while we sit here and talk.

Jason Shelfer 6:51

I don't know. I love it. It's uh, but for some reason this morning, it's there's a reaction in my mouth.

Jana Shelfer 6:57

It's you're getting you're getting a little GERD.

Jason Shelfer 7:00

Oh my good. Oh my good.

Jana Shelfer 7:03

Okay, so we're talking about better questions equals a better quality of life. And so many times we ask ourselves questions. What is wrong with me? Why can't I do this? Why am I not smart enough? Why am I not skinny enough?

Jason Shelfer 7:19

Why am I not Why are these people idiots? Why are these people that's one of the big ones? Why isn't why can't we all get along? Hello? Oh, yeah.

Jana Shelfer 7:29

As soon as you ask, why can't we all just get along? For some reason, what the universe hears is ooh, they like living in conflict.

Jason Shelfer 7:40

Yeah, what's the re why are why are there come why is there a reason for conflict?

Jana Shelfer 7:44

Isn't that funny? And our subconscious minds will always prove us correct. Well always prove us right.

Jason Shelfer 7:53

Our reticular activating system's gonna go out there and look for the evidence of well, why can't people get along? I mean, if you And then we'll stack that evidence

Your Brain Hunts For Proof

Jason Shelfer 8:02

up.

Jana Shelfer 8:02

Jason and I were working with a couple last night, and the male had insecurities when it came to their relationship, and he would literally ask himself the question you know, why does she like them more than me? Am I not worthy of her love? Why like why am I not enough? The questions that he would ask himself, I'm like Why is he better than me? No wonder you are creating your reality. That that is the aha right there. You create your reality, and you do it by not only your thoughts, but the feelings that you attach to it.

Jason Shelfer 8:44

Well, and oftentimes these these thoughts and these feelings are are being brought from something in the past. And we talked about that two or three podcasts ago where it's like unpack your baggage.

Jana Shelfer 8:56

Uh-huh.

Jason Shelfer 8:57

Like you just came from a trip, you're here in the present now. So you've come from the past to now. So examine what you've still got in your trunk or still got in the in the in the bags. I got quite a bit too much. And say, okay, well, is what I have in my bags right now.

Jana Shelfer 9:15

But I can't let it go. I just can't.

Jason Shelfer 9:18

Right. Is it what I want to wear today and going forward?

Jana Shelfer 9:22

Or is it what I want to carry for the rest of my life? Because that takes energy.

Jason Shelfer 9:27

It

Catching The Hidden Inner Questions

Jason Shelfer 9:28

does. It takes such energy. And a lot of times we're also not quite aware of these questions. Because sometimes we get tired of this voice in our head. Like if you're like me, that voice is always talking. It's always saying something. Even when we're sitting on the couch and you say, What are you thinking about? I might not be paying attention to the voice, but it's always going.

Jana Shelfer 9:48

Uh-huh.

Jason Shelfer 9:48

So I'll say, nothing. You know, I'm I'm not thinking about really anything, but the voice is saying something.

Jana Shelfer 9:54

That's a typical man answer. Don't you think, oh yeah, nothing. Not thinking about anything.

Jason Shelfer 9:58

Janna's always listening to her voice. She's like, let me just tell you, I'm thinking about the grocery list. I'm thinking about this. I'm thinking about what we're doing tomorrow. I'm thinking about what we did yesterday.

Jana Shelfer 10:05

For me, I have to meditate just to stop thinking.

Jason Shelfer 10:09

Right?

Jana Shelfer 10:09

And even in my meditations, I'm like, oop, there we go again. I'm thinking.

Jason Shelfer 10:13

There I go again. That's one of our favorite phrases. But it's a it's one of those amazing little things that sometimes we don't hear the questions that we're asking ourselves until we start saying, okay, let me listen for this question that I'm asking myself. And then we'll start hearing, oh wow, I'm asking disempowering questions. Let me think of a better question.

Jana Shelfer 10:36

Ask yourself empowering questions. That I feel like we need to just say that five times. Ask yourself empowering questions. Questions that empower you. Go ahead.

Jason Shelfer 10:50

Ask yourself empowering questions. If it doesn't feel like it gives you energy, it doesn't give you power, change the question around. Just reconfigure it to where it's an empowering, affirming question.

Jana Shelfer 11:04

And it is that simple. And you will start noticing your life goes it's almost like you are the magician and you are leading the audience, which is also you, into focusing on a different thing.

Attention Works Like A Magic Trick

Jana Shelfer 11:21

You know, I just bought this magic kit for my nephew. I hope he's not listening because that's supposed to be a surprise. And as I'm, you know, reading through learning the magic tricks because I want to be able to teach him the magic tricks so that he doesn't have to learn that on his own. I have realized magic is simply just diverting attention.

Jason Shelfer 11:47

Oh.

Jana Shelfer 11:48

That's what it is.

Jason Shelfer 11:49

How often are we having our attention diverted? And with getting diverted by these bad questions.

Jana Shelfer 11:53

And that's exactly what it is with ourselves. If we ask ourselves better questions, it just slightly moves our awareness, our focus, our attention, our energy into a different direction. And where your energy goes, your attention flows.

Jason Shelfer 12:11

Your life flows. This

Why Questions Beat Affirmations

Jason Shelfer 12:13

is the other thing. So the the lucky questions or the empowering questions, the better questions changed everything for me because one of the things we started with was affirmations.

Jana Shelfer 12:24

Uh-huh.

Jason Shelfer 12:24

And uh the affirmations, I first of all, when I heard about affirmations and when we started studying affirmations, I loved them. I love the idea, stand in front of the mirror, say the affirmations.

Jana Shelfer 12:36

But you really have to look yourself in the eye in order for it to really take hold. But even just saying it does a little a a little bit of work. It and I I and incantations, if you're actually chanting it, like while you do something, like for me, you know, just rolling down the sidewalk, I hear the kchung, ka chunk, kachunk of my wheels hitting the cracks of the sidewalk. And if I can start saying something, uh I get better and better every day in every way. I get better and better and better every day in every way. Because what we he what we consume consumes us. It starts to mold us.

Jason Shelfer 13:17

That goes back to what we are is what what we are what we eat. So and what that means is we are what we consume, whether it's through visual, through auditory, through eating, through just being around people.

Jana Shelfer 13:33

We should do a whole podcast on that because that is huge.

Jason Shelfer 13:36

And what I was saying about the affirmations is sometimes I would have an affirmation that was so big, I would hear the question in my head going, Who are you kidding?

Jana Shelfer 13:49

Oh, that's doubt speech.

Jason Shelfer 13:52

And then I would hear, you are straight up lying to yourself. Because that's fear. Like when I would say, You're a billionaire. Like, like I was living in my future self because I know it's coming, but my brain would shut it off completely and say, No, that's 100% not true. And then it would declare me a liar.

Jana Shelfer 14:16

Oh my gosh, Jason. You have some work to do with that inner voice.

Jason Shelfer 14:20

The thing is, these empowering questions, these lucky questions, don't have any condemnation behind them. They don't have any judgment behind them. They say, How am I moving towards being a billionaire?

Jana Shelfer 14:33

Okay, so that's that's a little more advanced. But I start looking for evidence of that path. That is true. And we will do a maybe a deeper dive on how to reframe those into what we call lucky

Practice, Reframes, And Closing

Jana Shelfer 14:48

questions. So today's podcast is really just the foundation. The questions you ask yourself will either be empowering or disempowering. And then in a future podcast, Jason and I will actually show you and teach you how you can chunk that question down, reframe it into leading you into exactly what you want. And where you want to go, and where you want to go. That's a maybe a more advanced skill, and one that we we've done workshops around. And if you'd like to maybe even get into one of our courses, that's a better way of learning that because it is more of an advanced skill.

Jason Shelfer 15:30

And it's a practice, it takes time, it's not something that happens overnight. But the more we work towards these lucky questions or empowering questions, your life will change dramatically.

Jana Shelfer 15:43

How lucky am I?

Jason Shelfer 15:45

Start with that one because it's powerful.

Jana Shelfer 15:47

Thanks for joining.

Jason Shelfer 15:48

Keep living luck.

Jana Shelfer 15:49

Bye bye.