Winning Your Inner Battles

Winning Your Inner Battles: The Reversible Code to Flip Vice into Power (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Every heavy emotion is a signal, not a sentence. This self-help episode decodes the "Vice Code" and flips it to unlock emotional agency and accelerated personal development.

Read it in reverse: Ambition kills laziness, Wisdom kills anger, Dreams kill fear.

We share the mindset shift: stop being the victim of your feelings. Learn how to use jealousy as a compass, turn anger into wisdom, and earn unbreakable confidence through tiny, kept promises.

Actionable Nuggets & Takeaways:

• The Reversible Code: Every vice has a ready antidote. Choose the opposite (confidence, ambition, growth) to neutralize the negative feeling and launch an upward success cycle.
• Jealousy is Your Compass: Treat jealousy as data. It points to a desire that needs naming. Clarity is power—name what you actually want, and energy follows decision (the "Airline Counter Metaphor").
• Mastery is Agency: Emotional mastery is choosing your response, not numbing the feels. Use wisdom to check the stories ("I'm the underdog") that manufacture anger.
• The Pacing Strategy: Reject the sprint-and-crash cycle. Adopt the sustainable 400-meter pace to keep ambition alive without burnout.
• Confidence is Earned: Confidence kills doubt by stacking tiny, kept promises to yourself. Track momentum, not perfection, to build unbreakable self-trust.
• Gratitude as Proof: Gratitude is perception training, helping you spot what's working to shrink fear and humble ego.

Choose your antidote today. Master your emotions, rewrite your story, and watch your life turn upward.
How to turn jealousy into motivation. The reversible code for emotional mastery. How to set a sustainable pace for ambition. Wisdom kills anger: mastering emotional responses. Building confidence through tiny, kept promises. The airline counter metaphor for clarity. How to stop feeling like an underdog. "What is the Reversible Vice Code for personal development?" "How do you use jealousy as a compass instead of a vice?" "What is the difference between emotional mastery and numbing feelings?" "How can I apply an athlete's pacing strategy to my ambition?" "What is the quickest way to build self-confidence and kill doubt?"

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

From Doom Loop To Upward Cycle

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 Jana. I'm Jason. And we are Living Lucky®. You are two.

The Vice List And Its Reverse

Jana Shelfer 0:20

I saw this meme and it really struck a chord with me. I want to read it to everybody and just try to visualize this as you are listening to me speak. Laziness kills ambition. Anger kills wisdom. Fear kills dreams. Ego kills growth. Jealousy kills peace. And doubt kills confidence. And then the very last sentence says, now read this right to left.

Jason Shelfer 0:54

Oh, so real quick, right to left, that's ambition kills laziness, wisdom kills anger, dreams kills fear, growth kills ego, peace kills jealousy, and confidence kills doubt.

Jana Shelfer 1:12

I I have said so many times we all have this vice inside us. And it's when you step into the other side of the teeter-totter that you overcome or get to that next level of the video game. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Jason Shelfer 1:29

Yes, 100%. And it's I I keep feeling this over and over through different levels of growth, which is really weird and something that I have to play with over and over and over again.

Jana Shelfer 1:41

The two that really get me are I hate to say this out loud, but jealousy

Jealousy As A Compass

Jana Shelfer 1:50

seems to bubble up in my life. And right when I think, okay, you know what? I'm in a good place. I'm I'm at peace within. Then all of a sudden, it's like I get to that next level, and there it is again. There it is again. It's like I see other people and I'm like, oh, I want that. I want that. And and in a way, jealousy has also almost been a motivator or something that inspires me deep within. Almost like a fuel. Yes, because it it instead of getting into those dark feelings of jealousy, it makes me realize, oh, wait a minute, my soul wants something over here. So let's get curious about it.

Jason Shelfer 2:38

That's that's a very powerful awareness because you jealousy can lend you into that. I don't have it, it's not available for me. And you can start packing this poundage onto you that keeps you stuck and still. However, you've said, what is this teaching me? What how what is this giving me? What is this showing me? Yes. And then you say, it just shows me that I want this more.

Jana Shelfer 3:05

Yes. In fact, so many times, okay, so I have this coach named Robin Banks. I know that's his real name. He's from South Africa. What are you doing today? I'm Robin Banks. He always says, Jana, what are you after? What are you after? What are you after? And what he's really saying is, Jana, what do you want? What do you want? And there's something deep in my soul that I'm like, I don't know what I want. But when it comes, I'll know. So it's like I know what I don't want. Right. However, if you if you

Anger, Stories, And Self-Mastery

Jana Shelfer 3:40

go, let's just use, I always like to use the airport as an example. If you go up to the counter and say, I know where I don't want to fly today, they're gonna look at you and say, go to the end of the line until you know where you want to go and what you want.

Jason Shelfer 3:54

Otherwise, we can take you to a thousand or a million different places.

Jana Shelfer 3:58

And they're not gonna stand there and go through all the options. Well, do you want to go to Portland today? Do you want to go to London? Do you want to go to Kansas? And I can sit there and go, no, no, that's not it. But when you say it, I'll know. So, anyway, that's where jealousy sometimes has been almost an indicator or a compass for me. How about for you?

Jason Shelfer 4:22

That's big. So there's two that pop up for me over and over, and one of them is wisdom and anger.

Jana Shelfer 4:27

Okay.

Jason Shelfer 4:28

Like there's a there's this thing that I tell myself, like, I will get angry about things because I'll start telling the story about why something should piss me off in my head.

Jana Shelfer 4:39

Interesting.

Jason Shelfer 4:40

However, I know that I'm telling the story and I'm kind of making up all these little things that aren't fully full truths.

Jana Shelfer 4:49

I've been married to you for 20 years. I would say anger is not something that bubbles up, at least. I don't let it out.

Jason Shelfer 4:59

Outer world. No, and but I used to. I used to, it used to just kind of come out like it's a weird thing. So there's this old um saying about if so if you're walking down the hallway with a cup of coffee in your hand and somebody bumps you, yeah, what and you you spill your coffee, right? Okay, why do you spill your coffee?

Jana Shelfer 5:18

Because it's full of coffee.

Jason Shelfer 5:19

Because your coffee's in your cup. Well, I had anger in me, and that's what would come out. And the anger that was in me was just the story that I was telling myself that people are against me, that I'm uh the underdog, that I have to fight for what I want, all these things. And there was a shift, and also I had to prove myself being worthy. Like there was there was a lot in there, and I just felt like I felt like a victim, is what it was, and I was tired of it.

Jana Shelfer 5:48

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 5:48

So I was constantly fighting. Okay, it felt like a fight. And this was it's tiring when life feels like a fight, right? Yeah. So I had all this anger.

Jana Shelfer 6:00

Even boxers only go, what, 18 rounds?

Jason Shelfer 6:03

Right. And this and and looking back, I felt like that was my life. Okay. But so then I just there was a story that changed in me, and it comes along with a lot of this, like the confidence, the growth, the peace. Um, but what happened was there's a shift, and I just started changing that story, but I recognized, okay, I just I need to recognize that I'm I'm a different person today. Like I've grown, I have different wisdom, and I cannot, I don't need to be angry about certain things. And also, I can I'm not the I'm not at the whim of my emotions. I get to use my emotions to direct me.

Jana Shelfer 6:40

You know, I feel like once we get to a place in our life where we realize we are the master of our emotions. Now, that does not mean to not feel the feels. Right. Because you want to feel your emotions. However, sometimes it just comes down to a choice. Do you know what I'm saying? Like we we experience something and we we do have a a choice of either feeling this way about it or this way about it.

Jason Shelfer 7:07

Well, you can either master your emotions or your emotions can master you. Yeah. Like you can be the you can be, and I think we get to actually create the life that we want instead of succumb to the life that we we tell ourselves the story about or we feel is happening. I don't know. We get to create that feeling. We get to choose it. You do know. We I do know.

Jana Shelfer 7:31

You just you just said, I don't know, but you do know.

Jason Shelfer 7:33

It's uh because I I don't

Laziness, Ambition, And Pace

Jason Shelfer 7:35

remember everything about that old experience. It's this new experience of knowing that I know everything is is really brand new and exciting. And sometimes I do fall in the little anger pit.

Jana Shelfer 7:49

Okay, what's the other one that you said there's two that laziness and ambition.

Jason Shelfer 7:53

Oh my gosh, I hate that that's my other one, but I will I will go out and I will achieve big things, and then I'm like, I deserve a rest.

Jana Shelfer 8:03

Yeah, I do that too, Jesus.

Jason Shelfer 8:06

Give me a break now.

Jana Shelfer 8:07

In fact, I kind of feel like that has been as of recent, maybe our biggest challenge because we we both kind of feed off of each other and we both say, you know what, I deserve a break right now.

Jason Shelfer 8:23

And we're doing huge things, but it does, it is kind of a momentum killer, and it might just be finding that that that really great pace in life.

Jana Shelfer 8:36

I know this morning, it's funny you say that because this morning during my meditation, I literally was thinking about sprinters, specifically Flow Joe, who I've always loved Flojo.

Jason Shelfer 8:48

Is that because you're making your wheels?

Jana Shelfer 8:49

I'm making a wheel and it's gonna be Flojo inspired. And so I was thinking about sprinters and how sprinters, even in their workouts, you know, they they sprint really hard and then they take a break. Then they take a break. And I just started thinking about myself, and I was like, you know, maybe I need to maybe get on that 400 pace instead of the the 100 meter or the 200 meter, maybe I need to get on more of a 400-meter pace to where I'm not like totally going balls to the wall, and then I need to, I need to lay down and rest.

Jason Shelfer 9:29

But the thing, so I love that, and it's just saying, where do I, what pace do I want to be at right now in life? Yeah. Because we can choose that as well. And that's big because we have been doing like we just talked about this in the car. We've talked about this several times in the last two weeks about how amazing our life is and how wonderful our life is.

Jana Shelfer 9:49

And we don't we're not you're not saying that in a braggadocious way. It's it's just realized.

Jason Shelfer 9:55

We look at 20 years ago or 15 years ago, and then we look at today, we look at last year.

Jana Shelfer 10:00

Well, even 20 years ago was great too. Right. But it's living in gratitude, it's finding what's right, it's looking for what's right instead of what's relevant.

Jason Shelfer 10:08

And when we think about this pace, I mean, when we look at the skiing, because that's what we've talked about most relevant recently in our podcast. In the last year, we've gone from you're competing in the first ever competition to now going to Australia for worlds and breaking world records.

Jana Shelfer 10:25

I've competed in six or seven competitions.

Jason Shelfer 10:28

Able body competitions.

Jana Shelfer 10:29

That's a lot in one year.

Jason Shelfer 10:32

And now, and so there's been this training schedule and and and plus all the other things in life that we're doing.

Jana Shelfer 10:38

I know. Right?

Jason Shelfer 10:39

So there has been this season of the sprints.

Jana Shelfer 10:44

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 10:44

And sometimes we haven't taken our breaks between.

Jana Shelfer 10:47

So I get I think I challenge us both then. When we do start saying, Oh my god, I feel so lazy right now. I just want to lay down and rest. It we do need to remember. We should go back and listen to our rest and recovery is a part of the process. Oh my gosh. Life. Why do we make it harder than it needs to be sometimes? Right.

Jason Shelfer 11:13

And our bodies and our our souls will tell us what's going on, but sometimes we just need to be curious about that too.

Antidotes, Gratitude, And Closing

Jana Shelfer 11:20

Oh my gosh. Okay. So once again, there's always an ant antidote to your vice. I sound like a superhero right now, but laziness kills ambition, ambition kills laziness. Oh, anger kills wisdom, wisdom kills anger. Fear kills dreams. Dreams kill fear. Ego kills growth, growth kills ego, jealousy kills peace, peace kills jealousy, doubt kills confidence, and confidence will kill your doubt. Oh, my love it, I love it. Thanks for joining us.

Jason Shelfer 12:02

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer 12:03

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