Where Happiness Goes to Die

Where Happiness Goes to Die: The Power of Appreciation (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Is your happiness dying? On this powerful Living Lucky® Podcast episode, Jason and Jana Banana Shelfer reveal a profound truth: "Lack of appreciation is where your happiness goes to die." Dive deep into how your perception dictates your reality and why focusing on what you lack creates a "doom loop of negativity."

Using the iconic Good Will Hunting scene, discover how shifting your focus from missed opportunities to gained blessings (like Robin Williams' character) can instantly transform your mindset and experience. We candidly explore the dangers of "comparisonitis" on social media and how it subtly tells your subconscious, "You don't have enough."

Learn from Napoleon Hill's wisdom that true happiness is "wanting everything you already have," and embrace Lisa Nichols' brilliant metaphor: gratitude isn't just positive thinking, it's the fertilizer for all your dreams and potential. This episode challenges you to find humor and appreciation in life's challenges as they unfold, rather than waiting years for the punchline.

Jan shares a personal story of finding joy in past Paralympic team tribulations, demonstrating how embracing the journey – challenges and all – creates profound personal development. The ultimate takeaway? What you appreciate, appreciates. This isn't just philosophy; it's a direct path to an upward success cycle and abundance.

Ready to break free from the comparison trap, cultivate profound gratitude, and start living with unstoppable joy? Tune in for actionable self-help insights that will transform your reality. Discover the power of appreciation and start Living Lucky®!

• How to increase happiness with appreciation?
• The power of gratitude in personal development.
• How to stop comparing yourself to others?
• Understanding the "doom loop of negativity."
• Napoleon Hill quotes on happiness and appreciation. Lisa Nichols on gratitude and potential. Finding joy in difficult times. What you appreciate, appreciates meaning. Self-help tips for cultivating gratitude. Transforming your reality with appreciation. What kills happiness? What is the power of appreciation? How does comparison affect happiness? Is gratitude a fertilizer for dreams? How can I f

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*Previously Recorded

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking the Negativity Doom Loop
• 1:35 Good Will Hunting Wisdom
• 3:25 Compariditis and Social Media Traps
• 5:17 Joy as Power: Changing Perspective
• 7:45 Finding Humor in Life's Journey
• 11:50 Appreciate What You Have

Transcript

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®. Good morning, I'm Jan, I'm Jason and we are Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer: 0:18

You are too Lack of appreciation is where your happiness goes to die.

Jason Shelfer: 0:25

Wow.

Jana Shelfer: 0:26

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom I mean, that was my pinball, that was your fireworks.

Jason Shelfer: 0:31

I mean we are in the month of July.

Jana Shelfer: 0:33

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 0:34

So fireworks are appropriate.

Jana Shelfer: 0:35

I was thinking more of the pinball balls. Okay, yeah, Like whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop Jackpot.

Jason Shelfer: 0:39

Yes, that's when you cash out right, that's right, because you got three cherries all the way across. Oh, that's funny.

Jana Shelfer: 0:46

Lack of appreciation is where your happiness goes to die. And the reason we're talking about this today is because yesterday I was talking to my old teammate we're practicing our speech that we're going to make, and Jason overheard in the other room how happy I was and how we were reminiscing about the old days and the good times.

Jason Shelfer: 1:12

Yeah, it was a beautiful journey and watching you piece together all these little nuggets of the journey you went through on this Olympic 12 years that you spent to get gold in Greece, and it reminded me of the scene from Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon and oh we love this movie. Matt Damon and Robin Williams are discussing. I just got goosebumps.

Jana Shelfer: 1:37

Robin Williams plays the counselor slash mentor.

Jason Shelfer: 1:42

Yeah, and I think he was a teacher and also was he a therapist. Yeah, a little bit of both, or maybe I'm confusing a movie where he was the teacher. So he was a therapist in Good Will Hunting, but he's talking about meeting his wife and his wife died. But he had tickets to game six of a world series which the Red Sox were playing.

Jana Shelfer: 2:03

Which he had camped out all night with his friends to get these tickets.

Jason Shelfer: 2:06

Yes, but he didn't go to the game.

Jana Shelfer: 2:08

And he gave his ticket away.

Jason Shelfer: 2:10

And Will or Matt Damon is saying you didn't go to the game, how do you not go to this game, game six of the world series? And he's like I don't regret it a bit Like this is where I met my wife. This is like, and Robin Williams talks about how this was the most beautiful experience of his life. He didn't even know her, but he, he, this, he found the joy in everything that he did and he said whereas many times we find fault in the choices that we made. Yeah so when?

Jana Shelfer: 2:40

really, if we just look at the appreciation of all the choices that we have made in our life, it fills us with this awe 100%.

Jason Shelfer: 2:51

So Matt Damon was focused on what Robin Williams missed.

Jana Shelfer: 2:55

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 2:56

And Robin Williams was focused on everything that he gained.

Jana Shelfer: 2:59

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 3:00

And so that's where the lack of appreciation in our current path is, where we lose our happiness, robin Williams is saying yeah, because we get compariditis. Comparisonitis, comparisonitis. Thank you, compariditis. If you want to shorten it.

Jana Shelfer: 3:16

It's not a made up word.

Jason Shelfer: 3:17

That's a Bill Furbish word, I think. Okay, that's our ski coach.

Jana Shelfer: 3:20

Comparisonitis and you start looking at everyone around you. I mean I say this every time I go on social media. In fact, sometimes I go radio silent on social media for years, Just so you don't have to look at it, at a time, just because it feels to me when I start scrolling or when things start popping up, I think, huh, I'm not sure this is Well.

Jason Shelfer: 3:44

I think our tendency sometimes is to see what's available and say why not me? Yet? Right, there's something inside me that tends to go to.

Jana Shelfer: 3:59

everyone else is getting it and for some reason I'm missing some big piece to the puzzle.

Jason Shelfer: 4:03

Right. And so when we say I want it, our subconscious is saying I don't have it. And instead of when you're in your gratitude journals and when you're in this place of gratitude, like high intensity gratitude, then you are filling yourself with. I have massive abundance.

Jana Shelfer: 4:30

Right delusion like oh my God, look at everything I've done and I've created and all the wonderful people that have come to my path, and it's almost this overflow of.

Jason Shelfer: 4:42

So which energy feels better? So that's what I'm going to ask, because I would submit that when we are in that feeling of overflow and that energy of wow, my life is incredible, yes, we show up significantly differently than oh my gosh, nothing's working out. I don't have it yet. I missed the ball game.

Jana Shelfer: 5:06

Yeah, I missed the greatest baseball catch of all time.

Jason Shelfer: 5:12

I could have been a contender.

Jana Shelfer: 5:13

I could have, should have, would have. Yeah, if I had to do it all again. There's a massive difference.

Jason Shelfer: 5:20

So, when we seek to find that joy and the peace in our current journey because everything happens for a reason we are all in this spiritual curriculum every single day. And what if we say I'm on the right path on my own personal pace and I'm learning it as I go and it's okay?

Jana Shelfer: 5:42

Yeah, you know, I remember I think it was Napoleon Hill said that true happiness is when you want everything you already have. That true happiness is when you want everything you already have, and really all he's saying was change your perspective to appreciate where you are now and sometimes, when we're experiencing it, we can start focusing on the worry or the uncertainty or the doubt or the-.

Jason Shelfer: 6:13

All the negative aspects of it.

Jana Shelfer: 6:14

Yes, and I don't even want to call them negative aspects, because there is sometimes an energy that can be motivating in those states, so let's not call it negative, let's say, let's just get curious about the wholeness of it.

Jason Shelfer: 6:28

Yes, and that's one of Because is there a negative or a positive? Yes, but it's how we, what our perspective is on it, or perception, perception.

Jana Shelfer: 6:39

Perspective perception. Really, that's what it all comes down to and when you realize that you have the power to change your feelings about things or just choose new feelings.

Jason Shelfer: 6:50

I love that you said power, because if you're feeling disempowered, then you have the opportunity to change your perception or perspective, to get the power back. And if you want the power back, I submit that if you find the gratitude and the joy that is going to recharge you and give you power into the situation, it really is the most obvious tool that we have and yet it feels so simple and so almost beneath us.

Jana Shelfer: 7:22

At times it's childish, it feels kindergarten.

Jason Shelfer: 7:25

Yes, it seems childish and it's often one of the most ignored thing, because we think it needs to be money, it needs to be influence, it needs to be all these things. However, gratitude, appreciation, joy is an amplifier that will actually create all those other things.

Jana Shelfer: 7:42

Yes, it's almost. We see it over and, over and over again. I heard Lisa Nichols speak one time and she said in the garden, you've got all of these skills and all of this potential and all of these dreams right. However, the fertilizer in that garden is gratitude right, and just being grateful for where you are and what's happening now, in the present moment.

Jason Shelfer: 8:13

Wow, that's so big. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And the thing is we see this, and the beauty of it is is we see it over and, over and over and again, but a lot of times you see it in hindsight. You see it right behind you, in the shadow. And how do we bring that shadow? How do we get in the 12 o'clock sun, where the sun is right over us? And we see it right in the present moment, so we can take the most advantage of it.

Jana Shelfer: 8:45

Oh, this is really profound, thank you. Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves to appreciate the journey.

Jason Shelfer: 8:47

Yeah, Because what you appreciate appreciates. And how would you like I?

Jana Shelfer: 8:51

know, and that is a little bit scary to me because I think, gosh, what? If I appreciate the trials and tribulations that I'm having now, then I'm going to create even more of that. So I have to be careful, even though they say you know it's in the struggle that-. Growth happens, yes, I'm like I don't want to appreciate it too much.

Jason Shelfer: 9:13

I don't want to grow too much Well, so it just felt so fun for me because I was out sitting on the couch checking my stocks.

Jana Shelfer: 9:24

Oh, I thought you were going to say jacking off, oh my gosh.

Jason Shelfer: 9:27

Checking my stocks. What did you?

Jana Shelfer: 9:28

say oh checking.

Jason Shelfer: 9:29

I was checking my stocks.

Jana Shelfer: 9:31

Okay, thank you.

Jason Shelfer: 9:32

Let's clarify that one On the couch yesterday while you and Stephanie were going over your speech for the Paralympic and Olympic Hall of Fame.

Jana Shelfer: 9:39

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 9:40

And it just my heart, like I stopped looking at my screen for a few minutes and I just enjoyed that moment.

Jana Shelfer: 9:47

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 9:48

Of the laughter, the memories, all these things, and I was like this just feels like a beautiful, wonderful journey, yeah, which obviously it is, because it landed you in the Hall of Fame.

Jana Shelfer: 10:00

Right, but it was also. I mean, it was fun to just reminisce of how we used to travel in these giant horse trailers, because we would need extra room for all of our wheelchairs. All the equipment and the coach would only get out one wheelchair and say everybody has to take turns using this one wheelchair to go to the bathroom.

Jason Shelfer: 10:20

I am not unloading this whole trailer.

Jana Shelfer: 10:22

Right, and just those little moments that made us laugh.

Jason Shelfer: 10:27

And the funny thing is though I bet it wasn't super funny at the time it wasn't Like you're going, I need to pee now, Go get my chair, and I don't want everyone else peeing in my chair while they're away, and he was like there's only one handicapped stall anyway, right.

Jason Shelfer: 10:43

But everyone's like I just want to get off the bus, I want my freedom, all this thing. So if we could have taken the time to find the joy, then it would have been a different experience in that moment, and this is exactly what we're talking about. Oh, my gosh, in that moment, and this is exactly what we're talking about. So in hindsight, we can find that joy, we can find the humor. It's like how can we laugh at the joke while we're in it instead of 25 years down the road?

Jana Shelfer: 11:08

You have used that quote many times, just in our everyday conversations. But you're like laugh at the joke while we're in it and then I sit there and go. Are we in a joke?

Jason Shelfer: 11:18

We're always in a joke Did.

Jana Shelfer: 11:20

I not get the punchline. Did that one go over my?

Jason Shelfer: 11:23

head, Sometimes the worst times of our life. We're actually just in a joke of our own spiritual curriculum. We're in a joke of our own making. It's just going to take 20 years for the punchline to hit.

Jana Shelfer: 11:34

Oh my gosh. There used to be a saying if you can't take the joke, If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Jason Shelfer: 11:42

That's a whole different thing.

Jana Shelfer: 11:45

All right, so let's wrap this up. We started with saying appreciate. The lack of appreciation is the death of happiness.

Jason Shelfer: 11:52

Yes, where happiness goes to die.

Jana Shelfer: 11:55

So the opposite of that is, the more we appreciate, the more we start tuning in to the happiness that we already have.

Jason Shelfer: 12:03

Yeah, so big Thank you.

Jana Shelfer: 12:05

I love it.

Jason Shelfer: 12:06

Thanks for joining us Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer: 12:08

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