From Chaos to Calm

From Chaos to Calm: Transform Your Meltdowns into Breakthroughs with Teamwork (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Ever felt a small mishap trigger a full-blown "everything is wrong" spiral? You're not alone! On this candid Living Lucky® Podcast episode, Jason and Jana Banana pull back the curtain on a recent travel morning chaos: a missing microphone cord, a forgotten time zone, and a near-meltdown minutes before going live.

This episode is a masterclass in personal development and relationship resilience. We reveal how easily the mind slips into catastrophic thinking under pressure ("everything is lost!"), using absolute language that amplifies stress. But the real "nugget of wisdom" comes from how we navigated it: transforming potential conflict into powerful teamwork.

Discover how conscious practice in examining thought patterns and maintaining a "teammate mentality" can turn disaster into collaborative problem-solving. Hear how this chaotic morning sparked simple solutions, like dedicated equipment storage, and illuminated our growth from past relationship dynamics—even a brief stint with reality TV showed us the pitfalls of turning against each other.

Life rarely goes to plan, but your response reveals everything about your mindset. This episode empowers you with self-help tools to transform doom spirals into growth opportunities, showing you how to dissolve limiting beliefs and cultivate positive thinking even when chaos strikes. Being "lucky" isn't about perfect circumstances; it's about perfect teamwork through imperfect situations.

Ready to shift your approach and turn challenges into triumphs? Tune in and learn how to show up as a united front, double your problem-solving power, and cultivate unwavering inner strength for a more harmonious life. Your journey from chaos to calm starts here!

• How to stop catastrophic thinking?
• Building relationship resilience under stress.
• Effective communication in a crisis.
• Turning negative thoughts into positive action.
• Self-help strategies for overwhelm. The power of teamwork in personal life. How to improve problem-solving skills in relationships. Life coaching tips for managing unexpected challenges. What is catastrophic thinking and how to stop it? How can teamwork improve relationship problems? How do you stay calm under pressure? What are practical

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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

Chapters

• 0:00 Good Morning and Housing Hopping
• 1:21 Equipment Crisis and Time Crunch
• 3:39 Examining Thoughts After the Dust Settles
• 5:49 Travel Organization Solutions
• 8:20 Being Teammates Through Challenges
• 10:41 Living Lucky Despite Mishaps

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®.

Jason Shelfer: 0:15

Good morning.

Jana Shelfer: 0:16

I'm Jana, I'm Jason and we are Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer: 0:20

You are too.

Jana Shelfer: 0:21

We've been house hopping.

Jason Shelfer: 0:23

House and hotel hopping for four days straight, for the last four or five days. Yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 0:28

And so we have a lot of stuff in our car.

Jason Shelfer: 0:33

Baggage.

Jana Shelfer: 0:36

That's so funny because, in life, we carry around baggage, don't we Right yeah. So this morning, which is Monday, we decided we're going to have our Facebook coffee group that we have virtually we do it every Monday. However, the first thing that happened is we wake up and I'm like, oh Jason, we didn't think about the time change.

Jason Shelfer: 0:58

We're in a different time zone.

Jana Shelfer: 1:00

So all of a sudden, when we thought we had an hour and 20 minutes, we had- 20 minutes. Less than 20 minutes.

Jason Shelfer: 1:06

To make coffee. Set up the system Get dressed. Get the mics, get dressed.

Jana Shelfer: 1:10

Get the sleep out of our eyes.

Jason Shelfer: 1:11

I didn't even get dressed or get the sleep out of my eyes.

Jana Shelfer: 1:14

Go run out to the car to get all the equipment and Jason comes in and he sets everything up, says I can't find the microphone cord. Yep, just says I can't find the microphone cord.

Jason Shelfer: 1:24

Yep, just, the cord had fallen out of the bottom of the mic.

Jana Shelfer: 1:27

Now we go into.

Jason Shelfer: 1:29

I went into like everything is lost mode because I knew where I put it, I knew where it should be, yes, and I started telling myself everything is out of place, everything is lost, like literally catastrophizing.

Jana Shelfer: 1:44

You went from one to 10.

Jason Shelfer: 1:46

Yeah, I did, quickly I did, and I don't know if it's just the compounding effect of the stress.

Jana Shelfer: 1:53

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 1:53

Of the driving, the hours in the car, the packing, the unpacking.

Jana Shelfer: 2:01

But because it's not my norm, but also the time crunch, jason is normally the happy-go-lucky.

Jason Shelfer: 2:04

Hey, we'll work itself out, yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 2:06

It's okay if we don't have a cord, we'll just go through our phone.

Jason Shelfer: 2:09

I was watching the timer countdown and it was like a bomb. I felt like a bomb was going to go off, because we go live every Monday at 6.55. Our time in the East Coast, and here we are in the middle of America. We're only an hour difference. It's not like we're out in Colorado two hours difference. But I couldn't find the cord and then I couldn't find my hairbrush, so I was like, well, obviously that's lost too. It's permanently gone.

Jana Shelfer: 2:36

I'm going to have to replace all that. Everything is lost, yeah everything is gone.

Jason Shelfer: 2:39

Everything's lost, so now my reticular activating system has just wiped everything clean.

Jana Shelfer: 2:43

So we're not only catastrophizing, but we are putting everything under the umbrella.

Jason Shelfer: 2:49

We're making absolutes.

Jana Shelfer: 2:50

We're using words like everything.

Jason Shelfer: 2:53

Yes, it was crazy.

Jana Shelfer: 2:54

Must be lost.

Jason Shelfer: 2:55

I went back and I was just thinking of my thoughts after we decided, okay, we're just going to pause and we're not going to go, we went live and then we said you know what?

Jana Shelfer: 3:04

It was absolutely horrible.

Jason Shelfer: 3:06

It was a disaster, but we did show up. We were a couple minutes late we said good morning and we said goodbye you had jason's hair, literally I look like a rooster, like um, like a rooster with a mohawk, like I wake up beautiful, I will admit I'm wearing the same clothes that I wore last night. Like what's closest I know.

Jana Shelfer: 3:25

I literally was like I need clothes, but you look beautiful. Well, thank you, but anyway. So I guess the reason that I want to talk about this is because sometimes, when things don't quite go the way we plan, our reaction says it all right.

Jason Shelfer: 3:42

Especially when you're in a time crunch. So that time is like this, this factor, that that pressurizes the system.

Jana Shelfer: 3:52

I'm so glad you're aware of this, because normally when we get into situations like this, I feel like I'm the one that kind of needs the top down.

Jason Shelfer: 4:04

Yeah, like you're usually the calm, cool and collected one. Well, it's just fun, because the more you get in the practice of examining your thoughts, yes, it's the more time you get to say, okay, what was going on in that situation? And I had a moment because, after all, the dust settled.

Jana Shelfer: 4:24

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 4:24

And after we had made the decision, okay, you know what it didn't work out and we can't go back and change that, right. But I got to just kind of sit with myself and say, okay, well, what went on? And I went through the three questions that we asked in our head what went well? Yeah, a, we made the trip safely. I went through all that and I said, what might I have done differently? And you came up with several solutions to make sure that we don't have this issue next time we travel Right, which was great. It's just and they're simple.

Jana Shelfer: 4:56

I know, so immediately I went into okay, I'm going to clean out a basket or a bin so that we can put all of the equipment, digital equipment, which is the and keep that in one singular place. Because Jason has a tendency. This is absolutely adorable of you. However, it's not the way the majority of the world would work. Jason has a tendency to wrap the computer and the cord in his underpants.

Jason Shelfer: 5:26

No, I wrap the microphone, so it's the microphone and the camera. I will wrap in something like my pants or shirts so that they don't get damaged while we're traveling, yeah, so what you're doing is you're just utilizing what we already have what we already have and the protective mechanism.

Jason Shelfer: 5:43

But what we can do is just get a small case for the, the mic and the camera yeah, that's and that and be done with it, and put that into the larger case with all the equipment so when, when we were missing a cord, we literally started going through-.

Jana Shelfer: 5:55

Everything Our socks and our-.

Jason Shelfer: 5:58

Dirty clothes Like our dock kits that have our that sounds disgusting.

Jana Shelfer: 6:03

That we wrap our podcast equipment in our dirty clothes.

Jason Shelfer: 6:06

Well, it's not in a dirty clothes, but I was like, well, how, what, if Like, could it have gotten in there? You know I was like it's lost, so it's not where it should be. I mean, we've literally loaded and unloaded the car dozens of times All over the country, well, from the middle of the country to the east coast.

Jana Shelfer: 6:28

In the last five days we've been to South Carolina, kentucky, tennessee.

Jason Shelfer: 6:32

Illinois.

Jana Shelfer: 6:33

Missouri, illinois, tennessee, illinois, missouri, illinois, kansas, oh my, goodness.

Jason Shelfer: 6:38

So it's in and out and one of the things is I was like we don't need the electrical equipment or the technical equipment every stop, but also I don't want to leave it in the car.

Jana Shelfer: 6:51

So we come on here, we talk about what we're going through and then we try to give practical tools and solutions, and what's so great about Jason and I is that we both keep each other accountable. So we both are at the point where we realize we're human as well and we both have been educated in the tools to use, and so when we keep each other accountable, it feels like usually one teammate kind of rises.

Jason Shelfer: 7:21

I love that you said teammate, because that's when I put a pin in it. I look at it and say the difference between now and 15 years ago is we know that we're on the same team. The problem is external and when we have these, like when I get into the pressure cooker and I'm about to just blow up, we don't start getting crazy on each other. We're like, okay, let's take a breath, let's work, let's huddle up. So we huddle up so much and I love it. Like I think a lot of people forget that they're on the same team and we're trying to get to the same end point, same goal line.

Jana Shelfer: 8:04

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 8:05

And the problem becomes internal between the two people instead of external. You're right.

Jana Shelfer: 8:12

And then, because you can solve any external, problem Years ago, when Jason and I were tapped to do a reality TV show and we tried this for not very long, but we tried going.

Jason Shelfer: 8:29

We'll give it a shot, like, if you want us, we'll, we'll try.

Jana Shelfer: 8:32

And it seemed like we got ourselves in situations where we quickly turned on on each and a lot of got that we were teammates and I quickly said we're going to pull the plug on this because I do not want to air this laundry in front of the world, Right.

Jason Shelfer: 8:49

We're going to end up those people and the thing is that's what sells. And I think that sells because people somewhat relate to it.

Jana Shelfer: 8:56

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 8:58

And they're like thank God, I don't have that catastrophe. I've got my own catastrophe, but I don't have that catastrophe and really we don't have any catastrophe outside of what we're making. Oh, that's so true and it's crazy because, like recognizing this now, like we work through anything and everything together, we really do, which doubles the power towards solving the problem, not to pat our own backs, but I'll pat our backs.

Jason Shelfer: 9:21

We've worked really hard to it's, it's been a process consciously, and that's going through that whole examining our thoughts, examining and feelings. Yeah, like what am I feeling? What's what's creating that, or what am I telling myself about it, and then how might it be different? Or how, how, how do we work towards this together? I'd even started between what do we want to do and then how do we like, if we both want something different, how do we work up? So that we meet up, not compromise in the middle.

Jana Shelfer: 9:49

Oh, this is so good. This is so good Now, just so for anyone listening. We really didn't get the outcome we were looking for this morning.

Jason Shelfer: 9:59

Correct.

Jana Shelfer: 9:59

We tried going live for about three minutes and it just kind of felt like.

Jason Shelfer: 10:08

It's like sex that out. No, we don't cut things out here, we're real it.

Jana Shelfer: 10:13

Just it felt like it. It just wasn't working. So we tried to say hello to people and then I was like I'm taking this down because it doesn't really feel useful.

Jason Shelfer: 10:25

Right, it was like pointless space being taken up, and we don't want that. We don't want just pointless space. We would like to show up with purpose and meaning, like we do in life, yeah, and value Okay.

Jana Shelfer: 10:40

Well, I'm really proud of us that we did have some light bulb moments, and I guess what the point of this whole podcast is is when you do find yourself in a situation where life isn't going the way you think it should or the way you planned in your head, because that happens that's. That's called life, that's called life, how you react, how you show up, how you communicate, how can you be a better teammate?

Jason Shelfer: 11:06

So much and thank you for being an amazing teammate this morning.

Jana Shelfer: 11:09

You're welcome. I'll take the VIP this morning.

Jana Shelfer: 11:14

Have a great day. Thank you for joining us.

Jason Shelfer: 11:16

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer: 11:17

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