Build Your Energy Ecosystem

Ambition isn't your problem. The reality is you are trying to scale your life inside an unmanaged energy ecosystem that is quietly running you into the ground.

High-achievers frequently misdiagnose their internal burnout as a lack of discipline. When your current landscape feels heavy, your default response is to double down on achievement—stacking your calendar with massive new goals, degrees, and responsibilities. But if you refuse to run a clinical energy audit, you will mistake a desperate craving for a better environment for a new tactical milestone. You end up chasing a massive corporate credential only to realize the day-to-day administrative checklist feels like an absolute set of shackles.

In this transparent, high-octane conversation inside the Living Lucky® studio, Jana and Jason break down a wild real-time experiment. On a total whim between heats at a recent swim competition, Jana applied to a swanky, oceanfront Florida MBA program. But after getting accepted under her maiden name from 20 years ago (Jana Stump), the sudden administrative weight of required accounting, finance, and statistics classes triggered an absolute middle-of-the-night anxiety spiral. Through deep, raw partner coaching, they unpack why she didn't actually want a degree—she wanted the proximity to hope, creation, and future possibility.

Inside:

• Want-To vs. Have-To Energy: The exact biological feedback loops that turn an exciting vision into an emotional anchor the second it transforms into an obligation checklist.
• The Tesla Charging Protocol: How to utilize "Energy Tourism" by intentionally dropping your body into high-vibrational cities like Miami, Atlanta, or Austin to re-amp your charge.
• The 8:30 A.M. Executive Reset: The exact six-word question Jana used to completely flip an early morning team meeting with Indonesia from sluggish static to total creation mode.
• The Aesthetic Hair Highlight Hack: Why minor physical presentation updates systematically alter your subconscious frequency and change how you hold yourself in elite spaces.

Stop forcing yourself to endure an environment that makes you feel dead inside. If you are ready to identify what your soul is actually craving, stop funding goals you don't want, and reverse engineer a daily ecosystem that breeds momentum, hit play now.

Listen now, subscribe, and audit your ecosystem before your day gets hijacked.

NUGGETS

• You can want a feeling without buying the entire package. Stop committing yourself to multi-thousand-dollar credentials when all your soul actually craves is the environment of future possibility.
• Dread is the ultimate diagnostic tool for misalignment. If a goal that "should" excite you makes you wake up at 2 A.M. feeling handcuffed, your spirit is rejecting the execution path.
• Energy is a contagious virus you must catch on purpose. If your local environment feels stagnant, you must execute immediate energy tourism, dropping yourself onto creative campuses and high-velocity rooms to boost your range.
• Education is cheap; proximity is the actual asset. In a modern world where technical data is free on YouTube, the only reason to change rooms is to gain access to people who are actively building a future.
• Happiness is an active administrative decision. Waiting around to feel vibrant before you run your morning operations ensures you execute bad choices; you must select your frequency before the meeting starts.
  
  
• managing personal energy ecosystem coaching
• difference between want to and have to energy
• energy tourism for business motivation
• how to do an emotional energy audit
• team leadership morning mindset reset tools
• why do successful goals suddenly feel heavy
• how to find inspiring environments as an entrepreneur
• how to stop forcing yourself through dread
• using lifestyle changes to alter daily mood
• choosing happiness on purpose during team meetings
• why high achievers seek out fear to feel alive

Questions:

What is an "energy ecosystem" in performance and mindset coaching? An energy ecosystem is the holistic network of environmental inputs, relationships, physical spaces, language habits, and self-presentation choices that collectively dictate an individual's baseline emotional frequency. Because energy directly impacts decision-making and creative problem-solving, elite performance requires treating your environment as a curated asset rather than a passive condition.

What is "Energy Tourism" and how does it prevent entrepreneurial burnout? Energy Tourism is a strategic mindset intervention where an individual intentionally travels to and immerses themselves in high-vibrational, forward-thinking environments—such as universities, creative tech hubs, or rapidly evolving cities like Miami and Austin. Much like a charging station boosts a vehicle's range, this practice deliberately exposes the individual to collective hope and possibility, resetting their motivation metrics.

How does separating "want-to" energy from "have-to" energy improve task prioritization? Separating these energies allows high-achievers to identify the root cause of chronic fatigue. "Want-to" energy stems from creative alignment and intrinsic desire, which expands spatial capacity and builds momentum. Conversely, "have-to" energy operates purely on external obligation and compliance, which triggers the brain's survival mechanisms, induces decision fatigue, and turns a performance milestone into a psychological anchor.

• The Ecosystem Frame: Defining the parameters of your energetic territory Jason and Jana kick off the studio session with a raw, comedic breakdown of the word ecosystem. Learn why treating your daily environment like a biological habitat completely changes how you filter static.
• The Swim Meet Application: Jana casually buys a ticket to a private business school Wrestling with options between heats at a swimming event, Jana applies for a swanky oceanfront MBA program on a complete whim. Discover the hyper-impulsive nature of high-achieving behavior patterns.
• The Handcuff Realization: Waking up at 2 A.M. to a checklist of corporate prerequisites The initial spark of acceptance flips into severe emotional weight as finance, accounting, and statistics requirements drop into the inbox. Learn how to diagnose when a goal transforms into a personal shackle.
• The Brutal Conversation: Partner coaching inside the administrative loop Dismantling the false prestige of a title. Jason forces Jana to run a clinical energy audit on why she is aggressively signing up for finance homework when her real corporate goal is to hire a world-class CFO.
• Seeking Out Fear: Why everyday stability can make an elite performer feel dead inside Jana drops a vulnerable confession regarding why she seeks out high-stakes anxiety triggers. Discover the true origin story behind the Living Lucky® methodology and how momentum heals depression.
• Excursion Architecture: Translating the university quad vibe into everyday lifestyle design Analyzing why adults love watching college students make instruments on the grass. Learn how the collective promise for the future functions as an absolute performance drug for burnt-out executives.
• Energy Tourism: Using Miami, Atlanta, and Austin like a network of Tesla charging stops Abandoning the classroom to capture the actual frequency of execution. Jason and Jana chart a dynamic new travel path to manually inject high-vibrational city cultures straight back into their media company.

Check out the blog that accompanies this episode at https://www.startlivinglucky.com/blog/build-your-energy-ecosystem-energy-tourism-amp-want-to-vs-have-to-metrics-s11-e8

energy ecosystems, want-to metrics, baseline audits, proximity tracking, energy tourism, marital alignment, relationship capital, presentation frameworks, the four-minute formula, living lucky struc

Transcript

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Create A Life You Crave

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 too. Energy.

Jason Shelfer 0:22

That's energy.

What An Energy Ecosystem Means

Jana Shelfer 0:24

We're talking about our energy ecosystem today.

Jason Shelfer 0:28

That is such a fun term. Energy ecosystem.

Jana Shelfer 0:32

Say that five times.

Jason Shelfer 0:33

Who thinks about their energy as an ecosystem or where they live, like the environment they're in as being an energetic space?

Jana Applies For An MBA

Jana Shelfer 0:43

So let me just tell you how this all evolved. I applied for grad school. Okay.

Jason Shelfer 0:52

Now this is such a couple credits away.

Jana Shelfer 0:54

This is such a Janna thing to do. Okay. This happened when I literally was at the swim meet uh a month ago.

Jason Shelfer 1:02

I've got another hundred thousand dollars of spin.

Jana Shelfer 1:05

And I was in between, in between heats. And I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna Google uh getting my MBA and where can I get it? And I found this private school here in Florida that looked super swanky and it's on the ocean. And their mascot is the sharks.

Jason Shelfer 1:25

Let's go surfing, surfing safari.

Jana Shelfer 1:28

They're part of the Hezinga Business School. And I thought, you know what? If I had some business education, I could really take Living Lucky to the next level. So I went ahead and I applied. And not only did I apply, but it has been a whole thing. Like they came back and they were like, okay, we need your transcripts, and now we need a resume, and now we need um a recommendation. So I had to like go through all these steps.

Jason Shelfer 1:57

Are any of you teachers still alive?

Jana Shelfer 1:58

I know. Like I haven't been in school and I don't know how long. Oh, and here's another thing. They sent my transcript from college, and it is Jana Stump, which is my maiden name.

Jason Shelfer 2:12

Whose identity are you stealing, girl?

Jana Shelfer 2:14

And the college kept coming back to me saying it you're it's due and we haven't received it yet. And I said, I sent it last week. It is there. I got the receipt that they sent it.

Jason Shelfer 2:26

They keep sending me some somebody else.

Jana Shelfer 2:28

And then we realized that, oh, it's the difference in names. And I'm like, oh yeah, my name has changed. That that happened 20 years ago.

Jason Shelfer 2:36

Some people get married uh in a 20-year period.

Jana Shelfer 2:40

So it's been a whole thing, and it, I must say, it has diverted my attention because that is just who I am and what I do. Now I get accepted, believe it or not. I get accepted to this school, and now it it's time to start enrolling. So I go through all this checklist of talking to an advisor and getting enrolled in the school, getting my email and all of the software that I need for this and and talking, you know, about the credits that I don't have, which I don't have accounting and financing and statistics, right? These were classes that I didn't need in journalism.

Jason Shelfer 3:27

Journalism and communication.

When Excitement Turns Into Shackles

Jana Shelfer 3:29

And as I started going through this whole process, it started feeling very heavy. And in fact, it almost started feeling like shackles.

Jason Shelfer 3:40

Like hang like you're getting handcuffed and or put into a box of have-to-dos.

Jana Shelfer 3:46

And every night I was waking up in the middle of the night going, oh my God, like I have so much to do for this MBA. And it just started feeling energetically, it started draining me.

Jason Shelfer 4:01

So knowing all the things that we're building in the business, all the things that we, all the fun things that we're doing with the skiing, with the dancing, the the travel that we do, and then bringing in something that once was exciting and now it's turned into almost an anchor.

Jana Shelfer 4:19

Yes. And so there was something in my soul. I so I meditated over this. I meditated over this morning after morning. Okay, what is it that's happening here? Because I felt really torn, felt really torn because there was something that was so exciting about this campus, and there was something so exciting. I mean, even when I got on the website and I started getting my student ID, and I found that there's a group that's meeting on the quad and they're making instruments, and then they're gonna perform a song at three o'clock. I was like, Oh, I want to be there.

Jason Shelfer 4:57

That's right. Let's see what happens.

Jana Shelfer 4:58

And there was something inside my soul that was like, this is lighting me up.

Jason Shelfer 5:03

However, sounds like my people.

Jana Shelfer 5:05

However, whenever I'd get that email, you still haven't met with your academic advisor, and you still haven't paid your tuition, and you still haven't done this and this and this. It felt almost like a have to.

Jason Shelfer 5:19

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 5:20

Which is a different energy. So I had these conflicting energies happening, and you and I had a really brutal conversation yesterday.

Jason Shelfer 5:31

I think it was just it was more powerful than brutal.

Jana Shelfer 5:34

No, it was brutally honest.

Jason Shelfer 5:36

Well, it was just what kind of look behind what we're what we're wanting and what what the real desire was. And I think the immediate thing you said was is I the energy, that feel, that creationism, all all the going back to college,

The Real Desire Under The Goal

Jason Shelfer 5:57

there was something that lit up my soul.

Jana Shelfer 6:00

You know, we always say pay attention to your energy, take an energy audit. And there was something that was lighting me up in a way, making me feel alive in a way that I hadn't felt in so long. Because when people are going off to college, they are full of possibility, they are dreaming and they are so full of hope.

Jason Shelfer 6:25

One of the other things is they're they're full of fear. And they're doing it anyway.

Jana Shelfer 6:32

And for me, that that is a feeling I like. Yeah. I like that feeling. Okay, so now now you've got me doubting my decision. No. Now I'm thinking, oh, you know what? I should step into it even more.

Jason Shelfer 6:47

I don't I don't think it's it's that you should step into it more because we can find this anywhere. There's a and it's something about the creationism. It's it's almost something I think we feel when we go on vacation.

Jana Shelfer 6:58

See, I seek out fear. I seek it out because it makes me feel alive in a way that I just don't in my everyday life. I in fact, if I'm to be completely transparent, sometimes in my everyday life I feel a little dead. I do. Well, I I mean I do. I and that's been a whole maybe the the reason that I started Living Lucky® was because I felt dead inside.

Jason Shelfer 7:32

Well, I think that's why a lot of people come to us, is because they're like, I don't know what it is that I want and how to move towards it. Because that's it's that momentum that we build that that kind of starts building this new energetic feeling that we get to kind of live in and create.

Jana Shelfer 7:52

So I guess where I'm going with this, Jason, is I had a conflicting energetic feeling inside where I really there was a part of me that felt so alive and so excited in pursuing this. There was also a part of me that felt this is the last thing I need right now because it's going to divert me from everything we have built. It's also going to take me away from my financial goals. I've been doing so well building my financial goals, and now all of a sudden I'm gonna blow it and go in in debt and trying to pay for this swanky private school. And the other thing is I'm not sure I was meant to study finance and accounting. It just it's it's it's usually sounded great, and I was like, yeah, I need that for my business. However, if I'm really to be brutally honest, I want to get to a point where I'm successful enough that I can hire a CFO to do all of that for me.

Jason Shelfer 9:07

Know enough to recognize if someone's doing it incorrectly, but also afford someone to do it for you.

Jana Shelfer 9:17

So Jason and I had some brutal conversations yesterday, and we did some really deep life coaching. And what we realized is underneath the going back to school and getting my MBA was really a desire to be on a campus, to be in a luxurious university around kids or people who are full of dreams.

Jason Shelfer 9:55

Dreams, creation, um, promise for the future.

Jana Shelfer 9:59

Excited. People who are excited about life. I long for that.

Jason Shelfer 10:04

Yeah. And I there's there are pockets of that all around. Like there's pot like going on a cruise is a is almost that feeling of what is that next destination? What are we what are the excursions we're going on? And that's kind of that whole university experience is what what are we going? What's that next stage of life?

Jana Shelfer 10:27

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 10:28

What am I going to be doing in the next stage of life? And now we've got people in a four-year system of what's my next year and what's the next stage of my life gonna look like? What's that next excursion? You know, so it's and there's in every day I think on a college campus is what is tomorrow? And what does tomorrow look like? And what's what are we gonna create for ourselves in tomorrow?

Jana Shelfer 10:53

So after Jason and I did this deep work yesterday, what we realized is I don't Jana doesn't really want to get her MBA. Yeah, you don't need to get it. What Jana is really longing for is the environment, the people, the connections. I feel like the education is something that just comes when you are running a business.

Speaker 1 11:21

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 11:22

And it's also something you pretty much these days can get on YouTube if you search long enough. And you can get just being in the room with people, and by asking the right questions. However, I did realize that we came up with a plan yesterday that we are going to really intentionally start changing our environment and putting ourselves in these do kind of like energy energy

Energy Tourism And New Environments

Jana Shelfer 11:53

tourism. Yes. Which I think I need. I definitely need energy.

Jason Shelfer 11:59

And because energy is contagious, we can go and infect ourselves in different areas because we we do have great energy. I but it's we can go out and kind of re-amp our charges almost like a Tesla stops at a gas station and charges up. We stop by a university. I mean, getting that extra differentness that's that's us but outside of us to kind of change the flavor a little bit and then bring that back and start adding to the creation.

Jana Shelfer 12:37

There was something about this school that I applied to. There was something about it was down south, Florida, and it was on the ocean, and there was something swanky about it. So there were it. You got a little slime. I often say, I just want to go to Miami. Like Miami feels very city and very ocean y and very, I just I love Miami.

Jason Shelfer 13:04

Yeah, it's there's a there's like this kind of creation vibe going on down there. Yeah, it's almost always reinventing itself somewhere, and I I kind of crave that right now.

Jana Shelfer 13:15

I crave that that frequency.

Jason Shelfer 13:19

Well, we're gonna start going between Miami and uh Atlanta more, and maybe we'll maybe we'll start heading out to Austin. Austin has that kind of vibe, I think. Austin's really busy, yeah. I think everywhere's busy.

People Places Language And Clothing

Jana Shelfer 13:33

We're kind of in the middle of So I guess our point for this podcast is that you can create your own energy ecosystem. That's right. And you can do that by the people you choose to be around.

Jason Shelfer 13:47

Massive. The places you choose to go, the language you choose to use, the language you choose to use, even the clothes you choose to wear, the way you hold yourself, because that shows people how you interpret life and and what you are accept into your personal space.

Jana Shelfer 14:09

I mean, I even got like a little highlight in my hair this week. And it has changed the way I feel, it changes the way I feel, and the way you feel changes the way you show up, and it all is a loop.

Jason Shelfer 14:30

Start with the way you feel or choose the way you want to feel and figure out what does it take for me to get that? Like what are the questions that lead me

Choosing Happiness On Purpose

Jason Shelfer 14:39

towards that?

Jana Shelfer 14:39

In fact, it's funny you bring that up because this morning, I don't think either of us were feeling uh really that vibrant, and we had a very early morning meeting with our team, with our virtual team that's over in Indonesia, so we're uh completely on different time zones. So it was extremely early, and right before it started, I looked at Jason and I said, Are we gonna choose to be happy today? Because I think it will make our day go much, much better. And you said, Absolutely.

Jason Shelfer 15:15

Yep, and and it it changed the course of the meeting.

Jana Shelfer 15:19

Everything, everything already, and it's only 8 30. It's all up to you.

Closing And Where To Find Us

Jana Shelfer 15:33

Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 1 15:34

Keep Living Lucky®, but if the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com.