Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason and Jana Banana

Facing Financial Uncertainty TOGETHER

• Jana and Jason Shelfer • Season 8 • Episode 45

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Break Free From Financial Fear: Your Guide to Thriving in Uncertain Times

Struggling with the constant drumbeat of financial anxiety? You're not just observing it – you might be inadvertently amplifying it. Join Jason and Jana on this essential Living Lucky® Podcast episode to learn how to break free from this cycle and actively cultivate financial resilience and opportunity. We'll equip you with practical techniques to challenge fear-based thinking and build a more empowering outlook on your financial journey.

For couples facing financial pressures, discover how to navigate different perspectives blame and towards collaborative solutions. Understand that your seemingly small, daily financial choices have a significant cumulative impact on both your financial well-being and your relationship.

Tap into your innate resilience and the universe's consistent support. This episode reminds you that challenges forge strength. By intentionally choosing a "lucky" mindset, you shift from victim to victor, transforming financial obstacles into powerful opportunities for personal and collective growth.

Here’s what you’ll discover:

  • The "Financial Boogeyman": How Fear Creates the Reality You Dread: Understand how focusing on scarcity amplifies anxiety.
  • Challenge Your Fear: Finding Evidence for an Empowering Perspective: Learn to question negative narratives and build a more positive outlook.
  • Thriving Together: Navigating Finances as a Couple Without Blame: Discover how to approach different spending styles with understanding and teamwork.
  • The Power of Micro Moments: Small Decisions, Extraordinary Results: Understand how daily financial choices compound over time.
  • Adversity as Your Ally: How Hard Times Forge Strength and Resilience: Learn to view challenges as opportunities for personal growth.
  • The "Lucky" Mindset: Creating a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Abundance: Discover how choosing to feel fortunate can shift your reality.
  • Your Innate Resilience: Remembering You've Made It This Far: Tap into the confidence that comes from past successes.


  • How constant worry creates a bigger "financial boogeyman."
  • The importance of finding evidence that contradicts your financial fears.
  • Why couples must approach money issues as a united team.
  • How small, daily financial decisions have a huge impact.

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The 4 pillars of Living Lucky
Believe in yourself
Believe in the people around you
Believe in your circumstances and
Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Jana Shelfer:

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:

Good morning.

Jana Shelfer:

I'm Jana, I'm Jason and we are living. Lucky you are too, the stocks are up.

Jana Shelfer:

The stocks are down.

Jason Shelfer:

It's a good day. The stocks are down. It's a bad day.

Jana Shelfer:

Right, the tariffs are happening. Oh no they're not.

Jana Shelfer:

The tariffs are not happening. We're going to pull it back. Let's pause.

Jason Shelfer:

Let's hold.

Jana Shelfer:

Gosh, save your money, hoard your money, sell off your stocks. Oh gosh, there's no jobs, there's in the financial spectrum.

Jason Shelfer:

Right.

Jana Shelfer:

That people are actually almost afraid to go to the grocery store at times.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, right, and people are talking about how expensive things are and is my income going up. There's a lot of uncertainty, there's a lot of fear. You know what?

Jana Shelfer:

That's a good point. I have noticed that, in fact, I started noticing this at Thanksgiving. Every conversation that we started having, people were starting to say, oh, but things are so expensive.

Jason Shelfer:

Yep.

Jana Shelfer:

It's just so expensive.

Jason Shelfer:

I love your Southern accent. Everybody was saying that.

Jana Shelfer:

Everything's just so expensive.

Jason Shelfer:

It's just bless my heart.

Jana Shelfer:

I mean, Things are just not what they used to be right and I I just thought, wow, we have just I don't know what reality we're living in right now, which I mean I do understand what reality we're living in so it's a perspective. Get me wrong, we all have these different perspectives, but it made me feel like you know, when I was younger, and my grandma would often say oh, things are just so expensive. Do you know what I'm saying?

Jason Shelfer:

Is it a perspective that we often will take when we feel uncertainty, when we're trying to save those types of things?

Jana Shelfer:

Yeah, and I just want to tell people, you know, fear is contagious.

Jason Shelfer:

Oh, you create a bigger boogeyman.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, it's one of those things where, as we talk about it, as we build the evidence for it, we believe it more. It's coming after us and it's affecting us.

Jana Shelfer:

And I also want to say that the more we live into that fear, the more we create it.

Jason Shelfer:

That's gosh, that's huge.

Jana Shelfer:

That is so big.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, I mean, it's thinking about the child that's in the bedroom and it's dark and they start building this boogeyman under the bed. You know it's the more. And then if the adult comes in and goes, oh yeah, there's a boogeyman under the bed and it's probably going to get you when you close your eyes, like that fear is going to exacerbate, it's going to get so debilitating that you end up creating this boogeyman that gets you in the middle of the night.

Jana Shelfer:

Now, I don't want to diminish, though, what people are feeling.

Jason Shelfer:

Well, it's a noticing of this is real, the thought? I think it's a noticing of the thought. Is it real? Is it always real? Is it ever present, or can I find evidence of the opposite? And then how do I build the evidence of the opposite? And then how do I build those evidences of the evidence of the opposite? Yeah, I had a client the other yesterday, yeah, that they lost their. They're in South Africa and they're in. They lost their water for four days.

Jana Shelfer:

Oh gosh.

Jason Shelfer:

She's a single mom four kids.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay.

Jason Shelfer:

And her attitude about it was her individual attitude with working with me. Was you know what? I can either focus on the lack of water.

Jana Shelfer:

Right.

Jason Shelfer:

And what everybody else was doing was focusing on the lack of water, and they were panicking. They were blaming every like. They were blaming the government, they were blaming the businesses, they were blaming all these people about what was going on. Okay, think of water as money flow. So when the economy is, when you, when people are saying that there's no money flow like it's, things are expensive and all this, we can either react in that fear and start blaming who we believe is responsible for the changes, responsible for the lack of money, the expensive items and all this, or we can say what is the most empowering thing for me, or what is the most empowering thing for my family, so that we can move fluidly and gracefully and also mentally excited maybe not excited, but very intentionally through this problem, because it's going to resolve itself or I will get through it. We don't realize how resilient we are and that we will make things happen for ourselves, but you can't do it when you're living in this blame, and it's everybody else is affecting me.

Jana Shelfer:

That is so great, Jason, because I guess my whole point to this podcast is that we went to dinner with some friends and it felt like there was a lot of tension in the air because people were very, very worried about their finances. And I just want to say have a little faith.

Jason Shelfer:

Oh, faith is such a good word.

Jana Shelfer:

Not only in yourselves, but in America, in the economy, in the. This too shall pass and we've made it this far. And yes, you study history and you see that there are ups and downs and the other part is, and it always bounces back. It always goes down, yes, but it always comes back.

Jason Shelfer:

And one of the other beautiful things that we've really dived into is that adversity creates strength. Yes, you know so, when this passes, if you feel like it's a hard time and you have the right attitude about it, even If you don't have the right attitude about it, it will create a stronger person If you allow yourself to persist.

Jana Shelfer:

Think of it as an opportunity.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, thank you.

Jana Shelfer:

That's where, when you start getting to that next level in life, you start thinking of these challenges including financial challenges, financial hardships as opportunities to grow.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, and then that so hard times create strong people. It's so true and it's just one of those things, and you may not even be aware of your growth. However, if you can in the moment, in the hard time, in what you've considered a hard time, explore that thought and start saying how is this helping me grow, how is this making me stronger, Then you get more empowered, more agency about yourself, and then you get to move through it with the grace that my client did in South Africa.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, and then I also want to just piggyback on here. Is that the way you handle this as a couple? Says a lot about your relationship as a couple says a lot about your relationship.

Jason Shelfer:

Because in a couple, in a relationship, there's still going to be two perspectives.

Jana Shelfer:

Typically there is, and here's the thing is you have to say we're a team. Yes, right, you do. You have to say we're a team, We've got each other's back.

Jason Shelfer:

We both want to be going in the same direction.

Jana Shelfer:

We are going in the same direction. We are going in the same direction and that means if one spouse spends a little more money or doesn't bring in as much money or is somehow maybe not spending the money in the right allocation or not saving in the right allocation or not being as responsible as the other one would like, and these are all just perspectives. These are all just perspectives.

Jason Shelfer:

Both parties are doing the best they can in their current physical, emotional, physical states. It is important, though, to know that we're not blaming or shaming, and it's about understanding where each party what each perspective is trying to communicate and how they're trying to react and respond in this, and then once you get that understanding of each other, then you get to build a bridge over the obstacle or through the obstacle.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, you know, it's like one couple from our dinner party. The wife wanted to spend money on herself really getting her nails done, getting her hair done.

Jason Shelfer:

Wanting to feel like there are still some luxuries in life on herself really getting her nails done, getting her hair done, wanting to feel like, just there's, there are still some luxuries in life and those aren't those aren't like. It wasn't like going out and buying a McLaren or Maserati.

Jana Shelfer:

No, but it's not cheap either. It's not cheap either. Try getting your hair highlighted Right All the time.

Jason Shelfer:

That's one of my big things, so, and that's a very big point. So your haircuts are like what my haircuts are $20, $15. Oh yeah, they used to be like $6.

Jana Shelfer:

A woman's haircut A woman's haircut is like your dry cleaning, it's over $100 usually.

Jason Shelfer:

And I've seen some big hair bills, but it's okay. Like in the grand scheme of things, we understand each other and we both want to feel A that we are showing up as our best.

Jana Shelfer:

Yeah, Well, and that's just it. It is, you know, that haircut that for that, for this couple that was at dinner. That makes her feel good.

Jason Shelfer:

And what happens? When we feel good, we show up good, better, better, yes, and then we get better results in life yes.

Jana Shelfer:

And so it's finding that balance of and I understand, you know you don't want to go into debt because of your nails, you know.

Jason Shelfer:

You don't want to sacrifice the children eating like those types of things? Right the basic necessities. Well, I don't want to sacrifice the children eating like those types of things. Right the basic necessities I don't know.

Jana Shelfer:

I've seen a few children at disney world lately.

Jason Shelfer:

I'm like, wow, put them on a forced diet they've been eating too many twinkies gosh, that's. That's a different podcast about the quality of food right now, and we can talk deeply about that too.

Jana Shelfer:

Oh anyway. So the way we handle it, the way we go about it, the way we come up with a plan of action, yeah, For me it comes back to a lot of like the way we handle adversity or situations.

Jason Shelfer:

I love the fact that we come and huddle up several times a day. I know, I don't know how that really started, but I do feel that it started a very, very advantageous thing it's been huge for me and I think where it started physically for me, like if I was going to put a time point in it, it was when you said are we acting, Are we being extraordinary people in those micro moments when we have the opportunity to make a decision extraordinary?

Jason Shelfer:

people in those micro moments when we have the opportunity to make a decision. Yeah, and that was like that hit me, because I was like I want to be, have an extraordinary life, but I'm not making the extraordinary decisions in some of those micro moments, which is kind of building a gap between me and extraordinary. Those little micro moments end up being an hour a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade.

Jason Shelfer:

A lifetime is made up of my little small moments. A decade, a lifetime is made up of my little small moments. And so when we come back together and huddle up and I'm not a sports person, but I understand this theory of football, so if we're all going towards the end zone together, we need to huddle up and have a plan each time and an intention and say, okay, are we doing well, what might we do differently and how might we be more effective?

Jason Shelfer:

And then also how lucky am I? Because I am so lucky you are. We all are Right.

Jana Shelfer:

Everyone is.

Jason Shelfer:

And that's a perspective. If they just take time to realize it and when you feel lucky, you show up lucky and then you get luckier results.

Jana Shelfer:

It just snowballs.

Jason Shelfer:

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Jana Shelfer:

It really is In a good way, in the good momentum way.

Jason Shelfer:

That's right.

Jana Shelfer:

All right. Well, I know that a lot of people right now are facing financial uncertainty. We are as well. I mean, Jason and I both left corporate world and so we've been entrepreneurs and sometimes, you know, being an entrepreneur.

Jason Shelfer:

There are plenty of challenges that you have to deal with the whole aspect of those challenges together or as yourself if you're a solopreneur.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, I mean getting your own insurance, and you know, there's just a lot of things that it's like, wow, we weren't expecting that.

Jason Shelfer:

Right Cost a whole nother tax bill from your accountant for the business.

Jana Shelfer:

So it's been a challenge and I will say that it it has tested us at times.

Jason Shelfer:

It is, it's been the adversity that has made us the strong people that we are.

Jana Shelfer:

However, I just always not only want to remind us, but everyone that's listening to this you've made it this far in life and the universe only gives you what you can handle, and so you look back okay, I've made it this far, and that gives you the confidence to know that you can make it through whatever comes and you can make it to whatever comes and you can make it to wherever you want to go and you just need to follow that.

Jana Shelfer:

Some people call it faith, some people call it intuition, some people call it destiny right just just follow, follow, follow that gut feeling.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes.

Jana Shelfer:

You've got this.

Jason Shelfer:

And it's about you talk about all the time Knowing.

Jana Shelfer:

there's a knowing. There's a knowing.

Jason Shelfer:

It's the feeling. So, if you're feeling the fear, just get curious about it and decide what you would like to feel and what that fear is teaching you, because that's it. And then, once you have that new feeling of where you would like to be feeling, then it gives you the confidence to step forward in the faith that you brought up with that new feeling, which will produce new results.

Jana Shelfer:

Oh, so good. Okay, we're going to stop there. Thank you for joining us, keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer:

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