Childlike Wonder

Reclaim Your Spark: Why Childlike Wonder is Your Secret Success Weapon 🎈

What if the secret to breaking a "negative doom loop" was hidden in a 4-year-old’s red purse? We’re unboxing why hope fulfilled is a powerful psychological catalyst and how "adult practicality" leads to the Law of Habituation—where the miraculous becomes mundane.

Learn how to reclaim the "Zipper Moment" (that extra layer of unexpected joy) to fuel your personal development and positive thinking this year.

You will learn to:

• Identify "Zipper Moments": Trigger your brain’s reward system by finding the "extra" in every circumstance.
• Weaponize Your RAS: Use the "Gratitude is Glitter" technique to train your Reticular Activating System to scan for opportunity.
• Break Habituation: Use novelty and subtraction to stop taking your wins for granted.

Mindset Nuggets for Awe-Inspired Growth:

• Hope Fulfilled Builds Self-Trust: When clear desire meets a generous response, it ignites agency. Stop diluting your dreams with "practicality." (Believe in yourself).
• Gratitude is Glitter: Once it’s out, it’s everywhere. Specific gratitude (naming the why) acts as a magnet for more success.
• The Adult Purse Syndrome: Are you treating life as a "chore" or a "gift"? Shift from utility back to wonder.
• Subtraction for Novelty: To see the world anew, temporarily remove a convenience. Subtraction makes the ordinary vivid again. (Believe in your circumstances).
• Leadership through Curiosity: Immaturity is a trap, but childlike wonder is a leadership skill. Delight in progress, no matter how small.

Stop being a bystander to the magic in your life. Hit play to start spinning your success cycle upward!

How to reclaim childlike wonder, gratitude as a success tool, overcoming habituation, setting goals for 2026, building an upward success cycle.

• "How can I stay positive during the New Year?" Focus on "hope fulfilled." Name a specific wish, honor it, and look for the "zipper moment"—the unexpected extra joy in the result.
• "What is the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in mindset?" It is the brain's filter. Using the "Gratitude is Glitter" method trains your RAS to notice opportunities and beauty instead of threats and lack.

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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 From Doom Loop To Living Lucky
• 0:15 Christmas Joy Through A Child’s Eyes
• 2:19 Hope Fulfilled And Hidden Surprises
• 4:11 Cultivating Awe In Adult Life
• 5:25 Gratitude As Life’s Glitter
• 7:00 Habituation And Seeing Magic Again
• 8:45 Bringing Your Inner Four-Year-Old Forward
• 9:19 Closing And Invitation

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: 0:14

Good morning.

Jana Shelfer: 0:15

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

Jason Shelfer: 0:18

You are too.

Jana Shelfer: 0:20

I just asked Jason, what has been your favorite thing about Christmas this year? And your answer surprised me, I'm gonna say.

Jason Shelfer: 0:28

Right. Watching a four-year-old open a purse.

Jana Shelfer: 0:33

We got my niece, Evan. We got her just this little red purse. And when she opened it, the wonderment on her eyes, she was just enthralled by this purse.

Jason Shelfer: 0:48

She had wanted a purse for months. I was gonna say years, but it hasn't been years. She's wanted it for months.

Jana Shelfer: 0:54

She's only four years old.

Jason Shelfer: 0:55

She's been laser focused on it. Laser focused on wanting this purse.

Jana Shelfer: 0:59

Now, this was just the purse and her eyes, and she was so excited, and she I mean, she literally put the strap on it and then she put it on her shoulder. And then Jason said, look inside. And as soon as she opened it up and saw that this purse was full of money. I mean, granted, it was fake money, but it was pretty good fake money. It was really good fake money. It had credit cards in there, it had a wallet, sunglasses, a phone, a passport, some eyeshadow.

Jason Shelfer: 1:34

When she unzipped it, her eyes, I thought her eyes were literally gonna fall out of her head. And she she literally said, Oh my goodness.

Jana Shelfer: 1:47

And she was so, so excited. I I don't know if I've seen that kind of excitement from and it was so genuine. It was so genuine. And the thing was so cute to watch.

Jason Shelfer: 2:02

And it the beauty of it was like so, first of all, that initial spark like of purge. The the initial spark and joy of getting that thing that you want, that you had your laser, like that your laser focused on and hoping for. Like, hope fulfilled is a beautiful thing.

Jana Shelfer: 2:23

That is such a great jewel of this podcast. Say that again.

Jason Shelfer: 2:29

Hope fulfilled is a beautiful thing. And I I think we can all recognize that. Like we there's something that we're hoping for, there's something that we're wishing for, there's a dream out there. Now, at Christmas time for a four-year-old, you just have to kind of articulate your wish. And a lot of times your parents are gonna do what they can, or your your aunts and uncles will do what they can to make it come true.

Jana Shelfer: 2:52

Most of the time it's it's it's material things.

Jason Shelfer: 2:57

Yeah, it only it only takes $25, $30 to make that happen for me.

Jana Shelfer: 3:01

I mean, she also wanted her two front teeth, but that didn't quite happen. You know what I'm saying?

Jason Shelfer: 3:07

So funny.

Jana Shelfer: 3:07

Uh however, the material things um at Christmas time, it feels like that's that's the route that parents go.

Jason Shelfer: 3:16

And I and I understand not everybody can do that, but but there's the the point is is there's that one thing that we that we have a hope for that can happen and that we can make happen. And then that extra surprise when we dig a little bit deeper, when she pulled that zipper back and there was extra in it.

Jana Shelfer: 3:39

When there was a wallet inside and sunglasses, heart-shaped sunglasses.

Jason Shelfer: 3:44

Right? Like little little and that was kind of so to me, that's little nonsense stuff, and to her, it was everything in the world, it was everything, and there's so many things like a sunset has all that. Like you can be you can look at the sunset and be like, oh wow, that is magnificent. But then you can start being grateful for all the little things in it, like it can remind you of everything in your day. Okay, so what you're taking from this is It's kind of how we can just drag that childlike awe and wonderment and excitement into other aspects of an adult life.

Jana Shelfer: 4:23

Okay, I like it.

Jason Shelfer: 4:24

Because we lose that, we lose that childlike awe and wonderment, and that's I think that's where we we stop dreaming big and we stop make make believing and pretending and and living in that excitement of life.

Jana Shelfer: 4:39

For me, what I kind of got out of that is she was already super excited and happy, she would have been totally content with just the purse, right? And then when she and because she was living in that gratitude and that that state of I just want to say awesome, it's that state of awesome, like I got a purse, I'm so excited, I got a purse, and then to see her unzip it and and see what was in it, it felt like for me, it's kind of like gratitude, like you uh you say all the time that when you're grateful for what you have and what you get expect opportunities, it does, yes, it even starts to multiply, yeah.

Jason Shelfer: 5:26

It's like glitter, like once the glitter's out of the box, it's everywhere, and you will be finding it all over the place, like it'll start sparkling in your rec reticular activating system all throughout your house. Yes, and that's gratitude. Gratitude is the glitter of life, yeah. Like once you start practicing gratitude, which that's we should call it that gratitude. Once you start practicing gratitude, what'll happen is the things to be grateful for will be like glitter around the world. You'll start seeing it everywhere, and then you'll you'll constantly be reminded of just how amazing this world is that we live in, and that there's so much to be grateful for, and now we get that all in excitement on a regular basis.

Jana Shelfer: 6:11

I don't know how you come to the metaphors that you come to, but they they really are.

Jason Shelfer: 6:15

My brain is jacked up.

Jana Shelfer: 6:17

No, I don't mean it like that.

Jason Shelfer: 6:20

It's good, I love it.

Jana Shelfer: 6:21

You think of things that I any of us would think of, but I get it, I get it.

Jason Shelfer: 6:26

I tell you what, it works for me, and my I love my the life that I'm living. You often ask me what my purpose is, and I feel like I'm living it, and I feel like I would not want to trade this life for anything.

Jana Shelfer: 6:40

It's been a pretty magical holiday, I will say that. And spending it with four-year-olds helps me see the wonderment and the newness of life because I think as we get older, sometimes we can be like, oh, like I realize this is my 50th Christmas.

Jason Shelfer: 6:57

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 6:58

I've I heard you're talking about that with your dad. I've had 50 Christmases. I've spent all of them with my sister Jeanette and my parents. And uh, I don't know, seeing it through childlike eyes made me go, oh my gosh, this is really quite spectacular.

Jason Shelfer: 7:15

It's magical.

Jana Shelfer: 7:16

And I've been taking it a little bit for granted.

Jason Shelfer: 7:19

Oftentimes that's where it goes. We we end up, it's it's the um law of habituation, yeah, right? And Christmas only comes around once a year.

Jana Shelfer: 7:28

I when we went Christmas shopping a few days ago, I bought myself a purse. Do you think I acted like Evan acted today? No, I did not buy that purse and go, oh my goodness. I bought that purse and I I went we went out to eat, and I was like, I don't know if I even like this thing. Like it doesn't, it doesn't quite hold everything that I want, and it falls off of my lap.

Jason Shelfer: 7:53

Like, I seriously that was once Evan took all her stuff out, there's no way it all was going back in.

Jana Shelfer: 7:58

Oh, yeah.

Jason Shelfer: 7:59

Like that that's how much stuff was in her purse. There's no way it was one of those magically packed, factory-packed purses that had so much stuff in it, like a little compact with fake makeup, fake money, fake passport, fake lipstick, fake phone, jewelry, earrings, little clip on earrings. Craziness going on in there.

Jana Shelfer: 8:20

But I did not act in awe and wonderment when I got my purse.

Jason Shelfer: 8:24

I know.

Jana Shelfer: 8:25

I mean, I literally was like, oh yeah, I guess I'll buy this.

Jason Shelfer: 8:27

We turn it, we turn a lot of things that are that go on our to-do list into chores to get done.

Jana Shelfer: 8:33

Yeah, like I need a new bag. Right. So let me go buy one. I guess I'll settle for this one. I did not come at it with that same perspective of, oh my gosh, this is everything I've wanted. And more.

Jason Shelfer: 8:46

So excited.

Jana Shelfer: 8:47

And more. Oh my gosh. Okay, so that's our nugget for today.

Jason Shelfer: 8:52

So this is something that we might be able to take a little bit further and a little bit deeper into the new year. So into 2026, what if we just bring our four-year-old with us? Bring our inner four-year-old with us. Yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 9:06

And we might be surprised what that attracts. It might attract so much more.

Jason Shelfer: 9:12

It I think it'll definitely bring some more fun into the game.

Jana Shelfer: 9:15

Thanks for joining us.

Jason Shelfer: 9:16

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer: 9:17

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