Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason and Jana Banana

The Gift of Adversity

• Jana and Jason Shelfer • Season 8 • Episode 42

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Unlock Your Extraordinary Destiny: Why Hardships Are Your Hidden Advantage

Ever wonder if the challenges you're facing are more than just obstacles? In this powerful episode of the Living Lucky® Podcast, we reveal the profound truth: your greatest hardships are often preparing you for your most extraordinary destiny.

Inspired by a powerful C.S. Lewis quote, we dive deep into how adversity isn't a punishment, but a curriculum designed to equip you for greatness. Through personal insights and the captivating story of Netflix's "The Queen's Gambit," we explore how those "holes in our canoe" can paradoxically become the very sources of our strength and uniqueness.

Here’s what you’ll discover:

  • The C.S. Lewis Secret: Hardships & Your Extraordinary Destiny: Understand why your struggles are not roadblocks, but vital preparations.
  • Beyond Circumstances: Defining Who You Are, Not Just Where You Are: Learn to separate your current situation from your inherent potential.
  • The Queen's Gambit Effect: Turning Trauma into Triumph: Discover how even profound adversity can forge exceptional abilities.
  • Victim or Victor: The Power of Your Choice: Understand the critical decision you face when challenges arise and how to choose championship over victimhood.
  • Reframing Failure: Seeing Growth in Every Setback: Learn to view problems as opportunities for development, just like a skier learns through falls.
  • The Behind-the-Scenes Advantage: Your Hidden Work Will Shine: Discover how your consistent effort during tough times builds the foundation for future success.
  • The Road Is Adversity: Embracing Challenges as Your Path: Understand that the journey to extraordinary achievement is paved with, not just alongside, difficulties.
  • How adversity can be transformed into strength.
  • Seeing failures as essential for growth.
  • Embracing challenges as the very path to success.

Ready to unlock your extraordinary destiny? Reach out to us: https://calendly.com/jason-livinglucky/30min

How to find strength in adversity, How to overcome challenges and grow, How to develop a resilient mindset, How to find your extraordinary destiny through challenges, How does adversity build strength?, How to overcome life's challenges?, How to develop resilience

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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

Jana Shelfer:

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

Jason Shelfer:

I'm Jason and we are Living Lucky® you are too.

Jana Shelfer:

We're talking about. Adversity is an advantage.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes.

Jana Shelfer:

I say this all the time. However, Jason read a quote.

Jason Shelfer:

By CS Lewis. It says hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.

Jana Shelfer:

And when he read it, I literally sat up and went bling bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling.

Jason Shelfer:

It hits home. It's like sometimes we hear these quotes and it's by a different person, but it's around the same idea and it just hits you in your soul because it's-.

Jana Shelfer:

I said that's what I've been trying to say.

Jason Shelfer:

And it makes me think back to your TED Talk about radical gratitude, that's exactly what I was trying to say.

Jana Shelfer:

He just articulated it.

Jason Shelfer:

In a short sentence.

Jana Shelfer:

In one sentence.

Jason Shelfer:

Here's my TED Talk. Hardships often prepare ordinary people for extraordinary destiny. Hello, thank you very much. I'm here all week.

Jana Shelfer:

And that's why, when we say we're Living Lucky®, we're all Living Lucky® and it doesn't matter where you are in your journey, because some people are like, yeah, but, and then they start rattling off where they're at in their life and Jason and I often say, well, that's not who you are, that's where you are.

Jason Shelfer:

That's where you are and what you're experiencing, and you've created that experience for yourself.

Jana Shelfer:

And when you learn how to wrap your head around, those experiences are actually working in your favor, because they are preparing you for greatness that other people will never experience.

Jason Shelfer:

It's literally your trip through your own curriculum of life, and that is when you start. There's so many sayings about enjoy the process or enjoy the journey. The journey's the gift. All these sayings and hardships are going to be part of it. It's either you can let them put you in a valley, put you in a hole, or you can be objective about them, learn from them, ask what's great about this and allow them to help you build the mountain you're climbing.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay, so let's put this in. Let's stop talking about us. We love to do that, if you notice.

Jason Shelfer:

Well, it is us and we're working through things most of the time, but this just hit in a way that was evident.

Jana Shelfer:

We were watching the Queen's Gambit. Now, the reason we are watching this is because Jason's nephew is really into chess right now, and he's really good. He's really great. The last time we saw him he was like Uncle Jason, let's play chess.

Jason Shelfer:

Let me see if I can beat you in five moves.

Jana Shelfer:

No, I know nothing about chess, do you know? I mean, I did not grow up playing chess, I grew up playing checkers.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, and you're great at checkers.

Jana Shelfer:

I did not grow up playing chess. I do not know what the pieces mean. I know nothing about any of the strategies. I still don't know the rules.

Jason Shelfer:

There was a time where I played chess a lot.

Jana Shelfer:

Yeah, In fact, when I first met you, you took me to your parents' house for Thanksgiving and your father had a chess set that was just out, out and about.

Jason Shelfer:

We're sophisticated like that.

Jana Shelfer:

Yeah, you were.

Jana Shelfer:

And.

Jason Shelfer:

I was like oh that's different we might be country bumpkins, but we moved to the city and got us a chess set.

Jana Shelfer:

I'm like, wow, you all have a chess set sitting out, that's right.

Jana Shelfer:

Like that's high society We've made it girl. And it was one that you know.

Jason Shelfer:

You put a move here and then you know, then you walk away, you walk away, you go have your coffee the next day. It's the month-long chess game. It is that's right With yourself.

Jana Shelfer:

That's right, that's funny, you forget which side you're on, anyway. So we decided to watch the Queen's Gambit and as we're watching this, this redheaded girl I don't know why I decided to add that little detail, but I did. She faced a lot of hardship as a child. Her mother committed suicide while she was in the car and this girl just happened to survive.

Jason Shelfer:

Live and unscathed yeah.

Jana Shelfer:

And so then she became an orphan, and while she was at the orphanage, the orphanage actually drugged the kids gave them tranquilizers yes, and so then she became hooked on drugs, basically, right, that became part of her story, it became part of her identity.

Jason Shelfer:

This helps me be the person that I am, which is weird.

Jana Shelfer:

It just felt like people came in and out of her life and she struggled with relationships. She just always had almost like a hole in her canoe If that's the way.

Jason Shelfer:

That's a pretty good little analogy. I feel like I might be rubbing off on you because you're having these little visuals of like how can I, how can I make this come across the way it feels? Right, that was the way it felt to me Like.

Jana Shelfer:

it felt like she would always try to put her life together. And there was just always a gaping hole in her life somehow, where the energy would drain out in a way. Well, I think it was a gaping hole that um grew her resilience and her experience and and how to overcome like being an overcomer, and the other part of that is she always, you know, she never quite fit in with the other kids she was different, her mind worked differently, she acted differently and and that also became part of her story.

Jason Shelfer:

Well, that can be. You can look at that as a hardship, or you can look at that as a uniqueness, as a strength, as a superhero power. Yeah, like, don't swim in the current, create your current.

Jana Shelfer:

And so, anyway, as her story developed and her life developed, she became a world-renowned chess player.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, a master.

Jana Shelfer:

And not only a champion, but one of the first female champions and one of the first to beat the Russians.

Jason Shelfer:

Oh, those Ruskies, those Ruskies.

Jana Shelfer:

Careful. We want Russia to download our podcast. We want Russia to download it. You are downloading them and I thank you for that.

Jason Shelfer:

We have several Russian downloads.

Jana Shelfer:

So her story as she grew and evolved into the person she became. Her life actually was a lot. I mean, her experiences that she had were very unique and grandiose compared to the town that she grew up in and a lot of the people that she wanted and aspired to be like as she was growing up.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, even a lot of the orphans. So these are other orphans and I think where that comes in is we always have the option of looking at these hardships, these opportunities of adversity. We can say how is this weighing me down, how is this beating me up, how is this destroying my life? Or we can say how is this making me better?

Jana Shelfer:

How is this?

Jason Shelfer:

helping me grow and where can I lean into my greatness? Because it's like anything that happens we can choose to lay down or we can choose to get up and go.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes. And time and time again. I've said it in my own life adversity has only made me better. It has trained. It has given me the opportunity to train my mind, to train my emotions, to train everything about me my willpower, my and, like you said, my resilience, my perseverance, my tenacity, my grit my grind my discipline Is that people like winners, like people like the idea of winning.

Jason Shelfer:

So when people, when you see someone that goes through adversity because we all go through adversity and they get up and go forward, like it's that fail forward, Like it shows it's that inspiration that says I might be able to do that also.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes.

Jason Shelfer:

And you see the rewards easier in other people Like it's like you'd see a boxer get knocked down, like almost knocked out.

Jana Shelfer:

I get knocked down, but I get up again.

Jason Shelfer:

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Never going to keep me down, yeah.

Jana Shelfer:

We never know the words.

Jason Shelfer:

I think that's why that song is so like, because people feel like I get knocked down and I get up again. But how are we getting up again? Are we getting up again? And are we still wearing that coat or that veil of victimhood? Or are we saying, no, I'm a champion, I'm going to be extraordinary and I'm going to continue to get back up until I realize my destiny.

Jana Shelfer:

Oh, I needed this today. I so needed this. I think it's like when we go skiing yeah, I've been knocked down a few times, literally and you just brought up skiing Literally, while I've been skiing, I've been knocked down to the point where-. Dozens of times, hundreds of times, even yesterday where I was like I don't know where my ski is, I don't know which way the sky is.

Jason Shelfer:

I've got these little stars floating around my head here in the water.

Jana Shelfer:

And Jason's driving around going. Are you okay? Are you okay? I don't know yet why am I even doing this, yeah?

Jason Shelfer:

and so, and that's one of those things. But we look at people that have been skiing for years and we just, and they're doing amazing things like they're setting world records.

Jason Shelfer:

they're, they're, um, doing moves that no one's ever done before and you don't see all the times they got knocked out. Like you don't see all the times they got knocked out, like you don't see all the times that they were shaped. They were literally in the exact same position, going I don't know if I'm okay, I don't know why I'm doing this, like they have. They have the same exact conversation with themselves. And then they got up and they and they said you know what? I probably learned something there and I'm going to get better. And then it looks like it looks so smooth and fluid when they do it.

Jana Shelfer:

And we often don't see the discipline, the consistency, we don't see the hard work.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, there's no overnight success.

Jana Shelfer:

The sweat, the tears, everything that's behind the scenes. My dad once said what you do behind the scenes will one day be seen publicly. What you do every day while people are not watching will one day-.

Jason Shelfer:

You will one day get credit for that in your success.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, yes, and that's that's the key. He said it so much wiser.

Jana Shelfer:

He said it kind of like uh, cs Lewis yeah.

Jason Shelfer:

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for extraordinary destiny, and that's, I think, that's what our souls really um want, and what they crave is that, um it's just so much.

Jana Shelfer:

it's hard, though, sometimes to remember that it's almost like we need to print that out and post that on our wall.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, it's just a reminder.

Jana Shelfer:

Yeah, why don't we do that?

Jason Shelfer:

If it were up to Jason, we would have our walls, our whole house would be painted in quotes, because they're just simple little reminders of what we know, and I believe that our soul knows. All these things that have been said over the years, and all they are, are just these little micro insights from people who have thought deeply yes and then a lot of introspection and said, oh, I get it, that's, that's one of the keys and we know this inherently in our soul.

Jason Shelfer:

but we forget because, like you say, we get busy being busy, we get busy in. You say we get busy being busy, we get busy in that growth track, we get busy practicing skiing and we'll realize the growth. But we could realize it so much more if we had that, if we set the intention first and said I remember this. Now I remember that the road to success is adversity, it is failures. I'm not going to be perfect right out of the gate.

Jana Shelfer:

The road to success is adversity, the road is adversity, the road is the challenge. Lean into the challenge. So if you, right now, are having any sort of problem, any sort of struggle, any sort of any sort of conflict, why isn't this working for me? Any sort of conflict, feeling that you're just beating your head going. You're literally putting your hands up to the sky going why, why, Guess what. The universe is working in your favor.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer:

It's a gift.

Jason Shelfer:

You're growing in the right direction.

Jana Shelfer:

It's a gift. It's a gift and you should be in hindsight in years to come. You're going to be looking back, going, thank you.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, but I think this is also the truth that five years from now, you can look back at that time and say, wow, look how much I've grown. And you'll still feel those feelings until you decide that I'm going to adjust these feelings Because now, wherever you grow to, you'll have this new capacity to believe in your potential even more.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay, that's a whole nother podcast.

Jason Shelfer:

That is another podcast, let's keep that one, but just remember that hardships prepare you and they create your resilience, your grit, your determination all the things that you need to be the most successful and extraordinary person that you're meant to be.

Jana Shelfer:

Say the quote one last time. This is by CS Lewis. Say it word for word.

Jason Shelfer:

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.

Jana Shelfer:

I believe you have an extraordinary destiny.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer:

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