Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason and Jana Banana

Dreamwork Makes The Team Work

• Jana and Jason Shelfer • Season 8 • Episode 46

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Teamwork Unleashes the Extraordinary (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Witness the inspiring power of collective effort! Join Jason & Jana Banana at an adaptive ski camp, where resilient athletes and dedicated supporters create "magic on water." Discover how teamwork shatters limitations, turning individual challenges into shared triumphs. Learn the vital principles of collaboration, resilience, and the profound joy of achieving the seemingly impossible – together.

This episode reveals how a "we" mindset unlocks extraordinary results, from navigating complex logistics to overcoming unexpected hurdles like gators and broken equipment. Experience the upward spiral of progress fueled by mutual support and shared learning. Ultimately, understand how embracing "level three fun" – the deep satisfaction of collective achievement – transforms individuals and makes legends.

Level Three Fun: noun. A deeply satisfying and transformative experience derived from the collective pursuit and overcoming of significant challenges alongside others. It transcends mere amusement or individual achievement, fostering profound connection, mutual growth, and the creation of enduring memories and a shared sense of accomplishment.

  • Shared Purpose
  • Resilient Teamwork
  • Growth Through Adversity
  • Lasting Impact

Teamwork multiplies potential. Shared challenges build powerful resilience. Collaboration fuels exponential growth. A "we'll make it work" attitude conquers anything. Discover the magic of achieving the extraordinary, together!

teamwork, collaboration, adaptive athletes, resilience, overcoming obstacles, shared goals, collective effort, support systems, personal development, Shepherd Center, Living Lucky, Adaptive Waterskiing, Jason Shelfer, Jana Banana Shelfer, Best Podcast, Best Life Coaches, Anything Is Possible

  • How to build a strong team.
  • The importance of teamwork in achieving goals.
  • How to overcome challenges as a team.
  • What makes a team successful.
  • The benefits of collaboration in personal development.
  • How to foster a "we" mindset.
  • Stories of teamwork overcoming adversity.
  • "Why is teamwork important?"
  • "How can collaboration help you achieve more?"
  • "How to build a strong and effective team?"
  • "What are the benefits of working together?"
  • "How can a te

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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®.

Jana Shelfer:

Good morning.

Jana Shelfer:

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

Jana Shelfer:

We're in the middle of ski camp. It's Friday, it's day five of ski camp and I told Jason this morning. I said, if you ever want to know what it feels like to be a 50 year old woman on day five of ski camp, this is it?

Jason Shelfer:

Everything's hurting right now, but it feels so good.

Jana Shelfer:

It's all that hurt, that feels good yeah.

Jason Shelfer:

I'm feeling it and I'm not skiing so much, but I'm there, I'm going through the motions and I'm doing things.

Jana Shelfer:

I want to say I think you are the MVP teammate. What and that's what I want to talk about today is that it takes a team. It takes a team. It does and it doesn't matter what you're doing in life, it takes a team.

Jason Shelfer:

It does, and it doesn't matter what you're doing in life, it takes a team. Yeah, well, it's that. Being in a silo, like are separating yourself and thinking it's all me, is just a very hard way to go through life. I remember being in that situation 20 years ago and I felt like every day was a battle on the battlefield In a silo.

Jana Shelfer:

Well, just kind of separating myself and thinking like I can do it all myself yeah, it's not a team like and you can do it all by yourself, but it's a hard and lonely road.

Jason Shelfer:

You may travel fast, but you won't travel far and I think also there's a there's something in that that you don't give recognition and appreciation for all the people that have influenced you, all the people that have poured into you, like where your ideas came from. Because if you were just by yourself, like, and it was all a singular effort, you would go so slow.

Jana Shelfer:

So let me just get to what I am really wanting to talk about. We have a team that has been sponsored by the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. It's a ski team that we've kind of formed on our own little organically or yes, and we have three, four disabled skiers that are all training together and we are all doing our best to make each other better yes and in that we have two or three, mostly two able-bodied people, which, jason, is one and kathy and kathy, which is the wife of bill.

Jana Shelfer:

Bill is our coach and I just feel like, even though our team is small, we have all of the bases covered and when I I say that you should see us working, it is like a machine and it is really, really fun to watch, because we have had people come, and when I say people, like we had a guest come to sit in the boat with us and he needed some help getting in the boat because he's a paraplegic that's been in a wheelchair for over 40 years now and he's got a bad shoulder.

Jana Shelfer:

And he has a bad shoulder.

Jason Shelfer:

When you depend on your arms and you've got a bad shoulder, that makes for very tougher times.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, and so just watching Jason and Kathy help get him in the boat and then and this isn't like getting in and out of boats, it's not easy when you're on a dock that's seven feet over the water and the water's wavy.

Jason Shelfer:

There's a lot more than getting someone from one chair to another in a house, than getting someone around the glass windshield and onto the bench and into a moving boat, so it's interesting. I love that you pointed out if you got objective and watched it because, we have figured a lot of things out, and the first tries are never perfect.

Jana Shelfer:

This is the third ski camp that we have done now in the last two months and it has taken us a while and sometimes we are not the most efficient with our time, but if you look at how far we've come it is really amazing. And then to watch how all of this works. So Bill is a quadriplegic and he is not only our coach but he is the boat driver, so he usually gets in the boat first and he gets over. You know he scoots over and just to watch him scoot on the and how quickly it happens right and that always blows me away.

Jana Shelfer:

I'm like bill, just gets himself there and then how, you know, we get in our skis and how the the able-bodied people get in and they're throwing the rope and there's just so many components to the machine, if, if, that makes sense.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer:

And then we're always facing challenges, like there have been a couple gators in the water, not dangerous gators. And so we have to have someone on gator watch. Now that sounds like oh my gosh, are you for real?

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, I am for real. Well, you've got to think how tasty and tender a quadriplegic or a paraplegic would be in the water right and we probably wouldn't even feel it.

Jana Shelfer:

That's the other thing. All bones, all bones I've grown a scaly tail I know, todd got in the water yesterday and his his leg was all bloody from just the week of well, just from being uh skiing hard, yes, like banging on his shins and I was like you know gators love the blood todd you gotta be careful, give them a taste.

Jana Shelfer:

Give them a taste so we always have one person on gator watch. Now, this particular lake that we're on has planes that are landing and taking off, so we have to have somebody that's on plane watch.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, those planes are coming in and taking off every 15 minutes.

Jana Shelfer:

Because there's a school, they're aquatic planes. Aquatic planes, and there's a school right there, which that adds a whole nother complexity to this whole thing.

Jason Shelfer:

Right, yes, so you're watching the Gators, you're watching the planes and you're watching the skier.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay. So now here's the other thing. So we have people who can mostly only use their upper extremities, right, they're paralyzed and they're skiing in the water. So if they fall or if they crash, if they somehow come out of their ski, it's kind of a process to get back in the ski, because we strap ourselves in and there's a lot that goes into getting back in and getting situated.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, getting prepared for the next try, the next set yes, yes, okay.

Jana Shelfer:

So all of this is happening and it just feels like we've got people who are covering all the bases, like I said, then we have to have somebody that is videotaping. That's the next thing, because we have to go back and we have to study what we're doing, right?

Jason Shelfer:

and what we can improve on.

Jana Shelfer:

Study the game, and so we've had to make you know different arrangements on how we can make our videotaping better and how we can actually attach our video camera to the rope so that it actually moves with the skier as they go back and forth.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, it's studying the process, and video is one of the most beautiful ways that you can get objective about something after it's done.

Jana Shelfer:

Now, with our equipment, there's always adjustments that need to be made and whether it's moving our foot plate one inch forward or one inch back, moving our cage, which is what we sit in one inch forward, one inch back adjusting the upholstery. Maybe we need to tighten it a bit so that our butts are a little higher, which will make all the difference when you're going over that wake. I know it sounds like such a minute little detail, but it has such a big difference. Detail, but it has such a big difference.

Jana Shelfer:

So we have to carry all of these tools and the thing is, when you're working with tools over the water, it never fails something goes in the drink something's gonna go down something's gonna fall in the drink and then we have to have magnets so that we can tie them to a rope and somehow fish out our tools that we drop, which I think that's fun.

Jason Shelfer:

It's frustrating and it's fun, but when I let go of the frustration and it's just a it will, I will find it because I know where it went.

Jana Shelfer:

Eventually we'll find it.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, but it turns into like I let go of the frustration and just let it kind of be a peaceful process.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, and I don't know why I got hung up on that, but it's kind of like fishing you can go out to fish or you can go out to catch, but if you just go out to have fun and peacefulness on the water, it changes the experience. Well, I have to say, yesterday the rope got caught up in a buoy and when we tried to get the rope rope over the buoy, the buoy came out. So then we had to take time out and go fix the buoy. So jason was the one that was elected I was to dive down and fix the buoy.

Jana Shelfer:

Now we're all on the boat going. This shouldn't be hard. I don't understand.

Jason Shelfer:

You're in the wrong spot I was tanking so long. If you were in the right spot, it'd be easier and quicker.

Jana Shelfer:

It's right there, yeah, and you have to imagine that this water is murky.

Jason Shelfer:

And I'm also at a very different perspective.

Jana Shelfer:

So I am in the water and you are over the water and he's trying to feel with his feet, first of all so that as he dives down he can kind of know approximately where he's at or what he's looking for. And so we had to do that. And then, plus, we needed all of the supplies to fix the buoy, which is this rubber tubing, and we needed scissors, and we needed all of the supplies to fix the buoy, which is this rubber tubing, and we needed scissors and we needed zip ties I mean, I'm telling you it is just a process.

Jana Shelfer:

And then of course, we come back to the, the boat lift and on the dock and the boat lift breaks, it won't work right. And so then in order, we're like okay, now what?

Jason Shelfer:

Then you call it Now what? Then?

Jana Shelfer:

luckily we had a different team available that was very mechanical, very fix it-ish, all of a sudden, we have this group of friends and volunteers that literally said hey, we got your back, we'll be there today, because we were thinking well, we can't just leave the boat floating in the water, because we've already taken buoys and we've surrounded the dock to help protect the boat. I mean, it's just been a process of overcoming challenges all day long, and the great blessing of all of this is that we are all paraplegics and disabled people, so in some ways we have been trained to overcome adversity, overcome challenges in our daily lives.

Jason Shelfer:

It's almost like the universe, god, the world life has given us this resilience, perseverance, tenacity to do this sport and I think it all started with that first choice of I can either decide no, I'm not going to go forward, or I can decide whatever it takes. I'm going to figure it out because there's always a possibility to get there. There's always a way. And watching just this, I got goosebumps right now because watching the team over the last couple of ski camps and even the progression from like day one, like when showed up on day one and now today is day five, the progression day one wasn't pretty Like. We got there, we had to kind of talk it out, we had to get everything going, but then each day got more fluid, more together, more efficient.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, and we start almost anticipating the needs of our teammates.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes.

Jana Shelfer:

To the point where, you know, yesterday we had guests come and I was like hey, you want some chicken. It wasn't great chicken, you want to get in the boat.

Jason Shelfer:

We can figure it out.

Jana Shelfer:

We'll figure it out, we'll make it work. We would love to have more people with us.

Jason Shelfer:

We'll make it work, and I think that's the takeaway is we'll make it work, we'll make it work, and it's not a I'll make it work, it's a we will make it work.

Jana Shelfer:

It's we. We are a team, and it's not only the people that are there in the boat. We've got people who have poured into us outside, and one is the Shepherd Center.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, so we're in Florida. The Shepherd Center is in Atlanta. People who have given us equipment, people who have, and they're pouring in by faith the Shepherd Center, because they don't know that we're down here. We can show them the video and things like that, but they haven't requested it. They just know that what we're doing is heart-centered and works in tangent with their mission and values. Yes, and that's a beautiful thing, like everything has come together so well, so fluidly, and I know that the next ski camp will start from a new plateau.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, it's almost like every time we come together the ceiling becomes the floor.

Jana Shelfer:

Practice makes progress.

Jana Shelfer:

Every time on the water we get a little bit better.

Jason Shelfer:

I watch from and y'all are getting so much better. It's incredible.

Jana Shelfer:

And thanks to Bill Furbish, who is our captain, he's our coach and he is really the knowledge and the expertise behind everything that we're learning His wife, kathy, who has been gosh. She's just been solid.

Jason Shelfer:

And she's a physical therapist or has training in physical therapy, which helps the mechanics of how we move people and how we make transfers and things like that, and she's a great skier, which is cool, so she has her own way of giving pointers and relaying information about that.

Jana Shelfer:

And then plus. I just feel like the athletes that we have attracted have such great I want to say attitudes.

Jason Shelfer:

Attitudes, potential discipline.

Jana Shelfer:

Consistency, hard work, determination, inspiration. I say fearlessness.

Jason Shelfer:

But there's there's a moment of fear out there because I can see it like I was getting panicky yesterday a little bit really, yeah, just in some times, because the speed of the boat, the like I've seen, crashes before. So I let the path. I was trying to drag the past in the present. But then when I let go of that and realized wow, everything is working out so beautifully like it's, it was amazing, like the progress that was made and and the where we landed was so powerful and it helped me recognize that, hey, if we don't live in that fear, if we live in the what might be like on the empowerment side, the potential, yes, the possibilities, things get exponentially better and they move exponentially faster, and I know this as a coach.

Jason Shelfer:

but sometimes when you're in it, it's very hard to let go of some of the lesser emotions.

Jana Shelfer:

I just want to end with one last thing there's different kinds of fun.

Jana Shelfer:

There's level one fun and there's level two fun.

Jason Shelfer:

Or level three fun.

Jana Shelfer:

And I think level three fun is when you are setting a challenge, setting a goal, and everybody works together to reach that goal. To me, we all become better versions of ourselves.

Jason Shelfer:

And virgins of ourselves.

Jana Shelfer:

I didn't mean to say that and I knew you were going to catch that.

Jason Shelfer:

I'm going to call it out we become better virgins of ourselves.

Jana Shelfer:

And to me that level three, fun, is my favorite.

Jason Shelfer:

Well, that's the fun that lasts. That's the fun that just doesn't sit there for a moment. It's one that you carry with you and tell stories about 10 years later.

Jana Shelfer:

It's the level that makes legends.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, oh, so big. Thanks for joining us Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer:

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