Grace Under Pressure

Grace Under Pressure: Turning Setback into Team Strength (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Grace Under Pressure: Crisis to Competitive Edge 🥇 (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Dream slide out of reach? Our visually impaired teammate, Katie, broke her ankle weeks before World Championships. She flipped the doom loop by returning on crutches, choosing grace and humor.

This self-help episode reveals the power of response over reaction in crisis. Her composure didn't heal her bone, but restored belief in the team. Learn why cheering is a competitive advantage.

We share the simple game that trains this mindset: your blueprint for resilience and mental toughness when knocked off course.

Actionable Nuggets & Takeaways:

• Response Over Reaction: Life is 10% event, 90% response. Katie chose to serve the team with grace and humor, proving spirit is contagious.
• The Cheerleader Advantage: The Rock, Paper, Scissors with a twist game trains your mindset to switch from victim mode to other-focus. Cheering is a competitive edge that builds team strength.
• The Crisis Choice Point: When delayed, choose usefulness. Katie's injury was a temporary benching; she stayed in the game by adding value.
• Response Rituals: For pressure, use the 3-step sequence: Ground in breath, name the feeling, pick a pro-social action.
• The Leadership Paradox: Resilience is built on generosity and an unbroken tone under pain. Ask: "How can I add value right now?"

Steal this blueprint for mental toughness and win by how you show up!

• How to respond to a setback instead of reacting. The power of grace and humor under pressure. Simple games to train a team-first mindset. How to turn loss into fuel for others. Building mental toughness rituals.The cheerleader advantage in competition. How one person's composure changes a team.
• "What is the 10 percent event, 90 percent response idea?"
• "How do I move from victim mode to a team-first mindset after a failure?"
• "What is a simple game to practice resilience and cheering?"
• "How can one person's compo

Transcript

Turning Negativity Into Momentum

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 0:14

Good morning!

Jana Shelfer 0:16

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

USA Ski Camp And The Injury

Jason Shelfer 0:19

You are too.

Jana Shelfer 0:20

If you joined us for Morning Coffee this morning, you've probably heard that we have been at USA Ski Camp the past several days. And one of our team members, Katie, who is a visually impaired skier, she fell and broke her ankle. Yes. Now we are 17 days out to leaving to Australia for the world championships. And so as you can imagine, this is gonna put a damper on her plants.

Jason Shelfer 0:51

It's a devastating injury on the team. Probably one of the worst times to have an injury like this.

Awe For Katie’s Return And Humor

Jana Shelfer 0:56

She is one of the highest scorers on our team. So it really was a devastating thing that happened on Saturday morning. Now, she is taken to the hospital and she spends the day getting x-rays and all sorts of doctor visits, and she's on medicine. And what made me just so in awe of Katie Mawby is that at five o'clock she comes back to the ski lake and she cheers and roots for everyone else. Like she's been she's gone through this entire thing.

Jason Shelfer 1:38

She crutches up.

Jana Shelfer 1:39

She does. She comes back on crutches and she's got this big old cast thing on her foot, and she comes back to the lake to spend time with the team.

Jason Shelfer 1:51

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 1:53

I was in awe because I already know if something like that happened to me, it it I would be in a bad mood, and I would say, you know what, I'm just going to bed.

Jason Shelfer 2:02

Yeah. Well, and it was it was just endearing. Like when you asked her, hey, are you any pain, in any pain? Her answer was, you know, there's a lot of emotional pain going on right now.

Character In Crisis And Response

Jana Shelfer 2:13

But then she used humor. Yes. And she said, I actually pulled an Aric Fine. And I'm like, an Aric Fine. And she goes, Yeah, he's a skier that used to be on the team. And he came to camp one day to train for the world competition and he broke his ankle. So she had such a little sense of humor about this. And I just found it so awe-inspiring. I I came home and I said, you know what? I want to be like Katie Mawby.

Jason Shelfer 2:41

That's right. Not that I want to get injured, but you know, there's a saying certain things. When when your dream gets pulled a little bit further away from you, or when when you're after a goal, what are you after, Jana? You know, when you're after something and someone something happens that takes you further away from it. Yes. It can feel devastating.

Jana Shelfer 3:04

But how do you think that's a good thing?

Jason Shelfer 3:04

How do you respond in the moment?

Jana Shelfer 3:06

Says so much about your character and your uh just all of those characteristics that we that aren't tangible.

Jason Shelfer 3:17

And that we hope that we can be, right? In that moment. It's like, are we gonna are we gonna just tumble down the mountain, or do we get a foothold in it and say, I'm bigger than this?

Jana Shelfer 3:31

I am bigger than the things that happen. I'm bigger than my my circumstances.

Jason Shelfer 3:35

And now I get to actually be the biggest supporter, the biggest cheerleader of the team that's going forward.

Jana Shelfer 3:41

There's a saying that says it's it's 10% of what happens and 90% of how you react.

Jason Shelfer 3:50

Yes, so big.

Jana Shelfer 3:51

And I'm not sure who said that. I did, I made that up. I mean, I've heard it in many, many conferences, in many books.

Jason Shelfer 3:58

I've heard it Confucius say. I don't think it was Confucius.

Jana Shelfer 4:03

But anyway, it's so true. And she taught me a little.

Jason Shelfer 4:08

I just uh she gave a very living example of that in the moment.

Jana Shelfer 4:13

She did.

Jason Shelfer 4:14

Because that was a 10% thing that happened.

Jana Shelfer 4:19

It's part of the sport, it happens.

The Rock Paper Scissors Cheer Game

Jason Shelfer 4:21

And her reaction was it it built the her her response in that moment gave the team legs to stand on. So her leg, her leg was gone, and her response gave the team more legs to stand on. You know, which is which was amazing.

Jana Shelfer 4:37

Jason and I have often run workshops and conferences and whatnot. And there's this little game that we sometimes play before we start one of our talks, and it's it's literally the rock, paper, scissors game. Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 4:51

And the way you start it is we're gonna do 250 people in a room, and you play rock, paper, scissors with everything.

Jana Shelfer 4:56

Yes, we're like turn to the person beside you, you're gonna play rock, paper, scissors. Now, if you get if you get beat, you are now the person that beat you, you are their biggest cheerleader.

Jason Shelfer 5:09

Yes, and it's so funny.

Jana Shelfer 5:11

It is amazing how the energy in the room will rise to this level that you've never seen before. And it's all because I mean, a lot of times when we get beat or our dreams or the rug might be taken out from underneath our feet, we get into this almost victim mentality.

Jason Shelfer 5:31

Yeah, and it's funny how we'll we'll start training ourselves to start getting in this victim mentality over the smallest losses.

Jana Shelfer 5:38

Yes, like like this is like rock, paper, scissors, right? However, if you if you go into it with the mindset, you know, no matter what happens, I am rooting and encouraging other people.

Jason Shelfer 5:50

My role in this world is to be light for others, yes, and also recognizing that just being in the game is is a is a win. Now, how do I get back in the game again?

Respect, Resilience, And Team Spirit

Jana Shelfer 6:05

I just gained so much respect. And literally, this weekend was the first time that I had actually spent time with Katie, but she is seriously one of my uh she made such a profound impact on me this weekend, and it was because she broke her ankle, and the way she showed up after that whole event happened was literally life-changing for me.

Jason Shelfer 6:32

Yeah, it's it's funny because it you could be, hey, you're such an inspiration, or I I it's really fascinating to me watching you ski, watching you trick ski, do all these things, like the bat blaster when she's listening to the beeps on how she does her slalomer. I mean, it's amazing, all these things, but there's a huge there's a bigger impact when you watch someone that's chasing their dream get hit by a truck, basically.

Jana Shelfer 6:58

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 6:58

And then they say, you know what? This is gonna slow me down. It happens. And she's been a she's been on team USA for years. Like we had another uh skier that came out and has been skiing with Katie since they were 18, and that that person is in their uh mid-40s now.

Jana Shelfer 7:14

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 7:15

So they've been competing with Katie for for years, and you learn this like, you know what, injuries are gonna happen when you're a competitive athlete.

Jana Shelfer 7:25

You know, there was a grace, there was a charisma, there was a I I can't even put it into words. It just was something that when I saw it with my own eyes, I was like, that is special.

Making Special Contagious And Closing

Jason Shelfer 7:40

That's a great word for it. And how do how do we help take some of that specialness and how do we create more of it? And how do we offer more of that to the people around us?

Jana Shelfer 7:51

Love it. Thanks for joining us today.

Jason Shelfer 7:53

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer 7:54

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