The Loneliness Epidemic

Feeling Stuck & Socially Starved? Recharge Your Life with the Power of Connection (Listen Now!)

Ever feel like you're on a self-improvement treadmill, chasing goals but missing out on real connection? You're not alone. In this episode of Living Lucky®, Jason & Jana Banana ditch the routine and rediscover the magic of spontaneous social encounters.

But here's the shocker: They uncover a disturbing trend: Americans, especially men, singles, and teens, are socializing less and less.  Is this a recipe for a lonely society?

This episode is your antidote!

• Socializing for Success: Jason and Jana reveal how face-to-face connection isn't just fun, it's a critical ingredient for personal growth. Discover why surrounding yourself with positive people can fuel your self-improvement journey.
• The "Hello" Challenge: Ready to break free from your social bubble? Join Jason and Jana's Spring Challenge: Talk to a stranger every day for a week! It's a simple yet powerful way to reignite your social life and open yourself to new possibilities.
• The Community Catalyst: Feeling overwhelmed on your entrepreneurial adventure? Living Lucky® takes you inside RevRoad, a vibrant incubator that proves the power of community in fueling business success.
• Living Lucky®, Not Lonely: Learn how to strike the perfect balance between personal development and social connection. This episode is packed with actionable tips and inspiring stories to help you create a life that's both fulfilling and rich in connection.

Ready to ditch the isolation and embrace the power of "Living Lucky®?"  Press play and get ready to be inspired!

P.S.  Looking for more ways to supercharge your social life? Share your experiences and connect with the Living Lucky® community!

RevRoad, Social Connection, Personal Growth, Self-Improvement, Relationships, Loneliness, Community, Challenge, Entrepreneurship, Business Success, Living Lucky®, Jason Shelfer, Jana Banana, Jana Shelfer

#selfimprovement #personalgrowth #relationships #socialconnection #community #Loneliness #mentalhealth #LivingLuckyPodcast #menshealth #singleslife #teenagers #entrepreneurlife #RevRoad #hellochallenge #livinglucky

Transcript

Reframing Socialization for Personal Growth

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 0:15

Good morning.

Jana Shelfer 0:17

I'm Jana.

Jason Shelfer 0:18

Jason.

Jana Shelfer 0:18

And I've got morning voice. Yay, we went out last night.

Jason Shelfer 0:23

We partied hardy, we did. We partiedy, we did.

Jana Shelfer 0:26

We partied. Oh my gosh, I feel so old at that, like literally.

Jason Shelfer 0:30

We stayed up till 10 o'clock.

Jana Shelfer 0:32

We did.

Jana Shelfer 0:36

It is so funny. I read a study that said people are not socializing in person anymore. Yeah, and as soon as I read the study, I said Jason, that's us. We do not go out at night. Now, part of that is because in the last several years, if you've been following us, you know that we are on a mission to become the best versions of ourselves, and part of that best version of ourselves is we take sleep very seriously. We take our morning routines very, very seriously, so we get up very, very early. However, we have realized that one of our blind spots has been letting our social life fall to the wayside.

Jason Shelfer 1:24

And I think part of that is the kind of the entertainment side of social life, because we do get out with people and we have elevated the rooms that we're in but we haven't taken that the night step or the evening step of just casual socializing Instead of like learning a higher level of conversation. So socializing that we do during the day, right when we are in self-development in breakout rooms.

Jana Shelfer 1:56

Right.

Jason Shelfer 1:57

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 1:57

So it was really fun for me. I don't know about you.

Jason Shelfer 2:01

I had a blast. I had so much fun. I love the people that we met.

Jana Shelfer 2:04

Like I said, I woke up this morning and my voice is hoarse. Is this what you call a hoarse voice? Why don't we call this hoarse voice?

Jason Shelfer 2:12

I think it's because it was the talking and we had to talk so loud because there had to be what? 200 people in the room.

Jana Shelfer 2:18

Yes, plus, I loved this venue. This venue was downtown and it felt very city-like, didn't it?

Jason Shelfer 2:25

It was beautiful.

Jana Shelfer 2:26

It was swanky, yes, and they had artwork on the walls that felt very I just loved it.

Jason Shelfer 2:35

This had to be like 30-foot ceilings.

Jana Shelfer 2:37

Oh my God, I loved it so much. It was a two-level.

Jason Shelfer 2:42

So the stage area, the ballroom area, had a balcony and all that, so it was just beautiful and an amazing place to hang out. I want to go have more events there.

Jana Shelfer 2:51

I do too. I was sitting. As soon as we walked in. I thought I want to have an event there. And then, right as we walked in, they had this really amazing car. What was the car for?

Jason Shelfer 3:03

I still don't know why that car was there, but because that's part of one of the either the bank, one of the funding agencies or one of the tech agencies, that is, was represented by rev road. It was one of the suv by I think it's by Tesla.

Jana Shelfer 3:22

Oh, okay, okay, Well, at any rate. It was incredible there was this really funky vehicle?

Jason Shelfer 3:29

And it was a lot bigger than I thought, because it looks bigger in person than it does on the back of an 18-wheeler car transport.

Jana Shelfer 3:36

Oh yeah, in fact some guy came over. Now that you're refreshing my memory, you're jogging my memory, you're refreshing my memory, you're jogging my memory. I talked to this guy and he said that his company was the one that sponsored that really cool techie car out front. And I said you know, as soon as we got here, my husband was so enthralled with that car that we actually stopped traffic on the sidewalk. We blocked a cyclist and people. I was like, oh my gosh, jason, you have to like let these people through. And then I said but my husband's always been so enthralled with things on wheels. And then I went, boom, and he busted out laughing. He was like I have to remember that one that's funny.

Jason Shelfer 4:22

Yeah, and I have.

Jana Shelfer 4:24

Yes, anyway. So that was pretty cool.

Jason Shelfer 4:28

But then, as we walked in, it was for a company, it was a launching, yeah, an amazing company called Rev Road that it really just is an incubator for entrepreneurs and businesses.

Jana Shelfer 4:42

It's a revenue. I don't quite understand what.

Jason Shelfer 4:46

I'm talking about right now. They provide all these ancillary services that a lot of times when you're growing your company you can grow it up to like a million dollars you hit these plateaus where you're like I'm hitting the ceiling, I can't grow any further. Well, sometimes you just need a CEO, like someone outside of the business that's not the founder, that has that same level of thinking, or maybe you need a chief financial officer. You need some type of support, and Rev Road has the depth and the capital to provide all these levels of support to really scale a business. What they do is I think I don't know their full business model, but they just charge you a percentage of the revenue that they generate.

Jana Shelfer 5:28

I hear you.

Jason Shelfer 5:29

Which is amazing, because you're like, that's almost like your sales force or whatever, and if they're going to grow you, yeah, I'll gladly give up a piece of the money that I don't already have.

Jana Shelfer 5:41

Yeah, oh well. Anyway, it just was a really, really great night. Now, the reason I bring this up is because I read that socialization for Americans has dropped significantly over the years. In fact, I have the exact statistics here For men, it has dropped 30% Wow, wow, 30%. For single people it has dropped 35%, and for 45 and for teens it's dropped 45%. So people are not socializing in person, people do not have close friends.

Jason Shelfer 6:27

So what they're doing, then is they're coming home from school or coming home from work and basically getting on the couch and escaping school or coming home from work and basically getting on the couch and escaping, and I am guilty of this.

Jana Shelfer 6:37

I have fallen into this pattern, and I'm not sure why. Because we live in. We live in a neighborhood that literally. I mean we have nature all around us, we have a lake in our backyard and yet when I am done with my work day, I feel like I need just a little bit of escape time and it's almost like I just want to numb out of my mind and meditation. Yes, I love meditating, but I almost want that mind numbing TV nothingness, it's TV. There's a comfortness of television where you get on the couch and there's that heating blanket. For me, I like to turn the air down and put on my heating blanket and Netflix or some sort of streaming, and it could be just a. You know a comedian up there, maybe jokes that I've even already heard. I just want to just numb out and not think about anything.

Jason Shelfer 7:50

And I hear you saying numb out, but I think of us watching comedians on the television and there's an intent there about getting laughter, because when we do put it in, we put in hard days or put it in all in on the court every day. That's true, and we just keep giving, giving, giving. And maybe we just need to reframe the social setting as a way to get back instead of a way to show up and give.

Jason Shelfer 8:19

Now we're going to show up fully still but reframe it, as I'm not doing this to really to give, but to kind of get back Like it's just so good because last night I loved it and it was so interesting meeting all these people and understanding what they do. I don't know that I really talk that much. My voice isn't crazy. People didn't ask me a lot of questions. They asked you questions all night long.

Jana Shelfer 8:49

But no, no, no, no, no. I didn't really talk about myself. I don't think I told people really what I did at all. It was me asking them what they did, and then I would try to ask them more.

Jason Shelfer 9:04

Yeah. It was you're right, I felt like.

Jana Shelfer 9:08

I feel like maybe they were entertaining me, but I was being a curious.

Jason Shelfer 9:14

And I guarantee you that they left thinking, oh, I really like that janna, and they don't even know what janna does, because when you want to, it goes back to that saying if you want to be interesting, be interested. Yeah, like, if you want to be understood, understand the understand. I think we really just asked a lot of questions last night and got to meet a lot of really incredible people and I think one of the other things is that everyone has something incredible and unique about them, regardless of what they're doing or what their station in life is right now and when we can dive into that. It just allows us kind of let the world be our television. But I do also believe in downtime. So I'm not going to say let's go out every night, because I did feel it this morning staying up late, I know, I know we both did.

Jana Shelfer 10:09

We both did. Oh, that's interesting. But I guess my whole point is as a society, are we putting up walls Because this will have a butterfly effect If we aren't actively socializing? There are ramifications that come from that.

Jason Shelfer 10:34

Well, it's like the texting, the Netflix. Well, it's been a slow burn.

Jana Shelfer 10:40

It's been a slow burn because it started out texting. We started texting and that was easier than having to pick up the phone and have those.

Jason Shelfer 10:49

Hear a voice.

Jana Shelfer 10:50

Yeah, it's like oh, I'll just text Are they going to answer?

Jason Shelfer 10:53

Are they not going to answer. I got to think of a message. Yeah, you know it's like oh, I'll just text Are they going to answer? Are they not going to answer. I got to think of a message and then it became more comfortable to just text.

Jana Shelfer 10:58

And so now, when we do have the need to pick up the phone and actually call and talk to someone, it kind of feels a little uncomfortable. Yeah, and then you know now, sometimes when there's a choice of whether do you just want to meet over Zoom or do you want to, actually meet in the office.

Jason Shelfer 11:23

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 11:24

It's kind of like well, let's just meet over.

Jason Shelfer 11:26

Zoom. Who wants to get dressed and drive somewhere? I can get dressed half my body and be on Zoom.

Jana Shelfer 11:31

Right, and so we're kind of it's been a slippery slope. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

Jason Shelfer 11:38

And I think part of it is just be intentional. That's why so many people talk about being in a group like a men's group or a women's group, and you don't realize the value of it until you get in it and start making connections. And you mentioned something earlier about just the homogeny of your thought process and not being a more well-rounded person, because you're only seeing things through your own perspective over and over and again every single day and the law of habituation is going to just really get you rutted in, rutted into that and then it's hard to start reconnecting.

Jana Shelfer 12:18

I also feel men. I'm concerned about men because men, I feel, have a hard time socializing anyway. They don't talk about their feelings, they just talk about they may go out and watch the game together.

Jason Shelfer 12:36

They sit side by side. I play a round of golf Right and don't talk about anything.

Jana Shelfer 12:40

And if they are doing less and less of that, then what's happening is they are at home with their families, with their wives, and they are either ruminating about their work life, or they are being told what to do at home, or they are being hurt. They're hearing what they didn't get done on that honeydew list and I feel like there's a lot of stirring.

Jana Shelfer 13:09

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 13:10

Yeah, and a lot of stirring, like mixing up that emotional soup that is not going to go anywhere. It's like in a pressure cooker, because if you're not feeling it, if you're not expressing it in a way that is healthy, a healthy way, and processing it, it does. It turns into a pressure cooker and, like this soup of mixed emotions that you don't know what to do with, and just like you talk about with the beach ball, when you're not letting it out or when you're not processing it and dealing with it, it is going to come up and bust you in the face, or you're going to word vomit or get loud on someone that you love.

Jana Shelfer 13:49

Yeah, when he uses the beach ball. I often talk about trying to hold a beach ball underwater and eventually it just pops up.

Jason Shelfer 13:57

It's popping out of the water and it's coming up with some force.

Socialize, Make Friends, Say Hello

Jana Shelfer 14:00

All right, that's all we've got today. Thank you so much. Get out, socialize, make a new friend, say hello to a stranger. That is our tangible step Every day this week, let's talk to a stranger. Oh, that sounds fun.

Jason Shelfer 14:17

Can you do that? I know, are you up for the challenge. I'll find a stranger.

Jana Shelfer 14:21

Every day talk to a stranger. Let's get out and socialize. Let's make that a spring challenge.

Jason Shelfer 14:29

I love. It All right, keep Living Lucky®. Bye-bye.

Jana Shelfer 14:33

If the idea of living lucky appeals to you, visit us at www. livinglucky. com.