In high school I played basketball, and on the way out of the locker room every one of us slapped the sign over the door. Every game. Hundreds of times.
I have no idea what it said.
I've thought about it a lot this week, and nothing. Whatever it was, it worked well enough that I slapped it without reading it for four years.
The sign over the door Jana and I walk out of every morning now says, "Make today so awesome yesterday gets jealous." On the episode I said everybody should have one that just says "feel good now," like the "Believe" sign in Ted Lasso. Slap it on the way out.
Which led Jana to ask whether that's also why guys on sports teams slap each other's butts.
I told her I was never a butt slapper. I did not want my butt getting slapped. She said that explains a lot. Then she said, "We're gonna get canceled," and told me to reel it in.
I reeled it in. Mostly.
The radio station
Most of you know Jana as Jana Banana from her years on Real Radio 104.1 and The Philips Phile. She interned there in 2003 and 2004 and ended up spending twelve years on that show, four hours a day, five days a week. So when she says your feelings work like a radio station, she's speaking from the booth.
She put it this way. Your thoughts are the signal you send out. This is what I want to experience, this is how I want to grow, this is how I want to contribute. But the way you feel right now is the frequency you're broadcasting on. And what comes back to you depends on the frequency, not just the signal.
You can say all the right words. If you're broadcasting stress, that's the station people pick up.
Jana calls this science. I've been married to her for more than twenty years, so I know what she means. She means it's something she's watched work in people so many times that it might as well be. I'll put it this way. Whether or not there's anything to the frequency part, people feel how you feel before they hear what you say. And how you feel changes what you notice, how you talk, and what you're willing to try. That part I'd bet on.
Then there's the detail I can't get past. In twelve years on that show, Jana never mentioned her disability. Not once, until the last thirty minutes of the day she resigned in 2015. Thousands of people listened to her every day for over a decade and had no idea she used a wheelchair.
They weren't reacting to what they could see. They couldn't see anything. They were reacting to how she showed up.
I liked this idea enough that I wrote a whole book around it. The Quiet Space uses the radio the whole way through: the static, the dial, who's been turning it, and how to set your own station and keep it on the air. I dedicated it to Jana, and the first line of the dedication is that she spent twelve years teaching a whole city how to tune in to her.
Shake it off
Jana and I were in a group conversation not long ago that skipped the small talk and went straight down. Sorrow, loss, pain, fear. No safety rope. We both came out of it carrying something that wasn't ours.
Jana came home and did a smudge ceremony. She smudged herself. I suggested we smudge the house, the car, and possibly the neighborhood. She decided herself was enough.
Her point wasn't to stay away from people who are hurting. It was the opposite. She wants to be able to keep showing up for them without soaking up all their residual goo, which is the technical term.
Some of you are not smudgers. That's fine. You've still heard people say "shake it off," and that's the same idea. Notice what you picked up. Don't pretend it isn't there. Then shake it off and choose how you want to feel next.
You don't attract what you want
This is the part we use most in our coaching.
People come to us looking for a partner, and we ask them what they want. They make a list. Kind. Fit. Emotionally mature. Shows up with real vitality. Listens. The list gets long.
Then we give it back to them and say, "Great. Now go become everything on it."
You don't attract what you want. You attract who you are.
And there's a catch, which matters. That doesn't mean act like those things for a week. It means become them. Who do I have to grow into to be someone who's compassionate, who's caring, who really listens? That takes longer than a week. It's also the only version that works.
I know this one from the inside. A few weeks ago I wrote about the checklist I used to carry around, the one that trained me to spot what was wrong with every person I met. What I didn't say then is what happened right before I met Jana.
I'd stopped looking. I'd become somebody who didn't need someone. Successful, confident, independent, happy on my own. You know how they say chasing a butterfly just makes it fly away? I'd stopped chasing.
And that's who Jana met.
Feel rich for the price of a coffee
The same thing works for the bigger dreams.
A lot of people say, "I want a luxury lifestyle, but I can't afford it right now." Fair enough. Nobody's telling you to go spend ten thousand dollars you don't have.
But you can feel it now. A really good piece of chocolate. Or my favorite: go sit in the nicest hotel lobby you can find, order a coffee or don't, and open your journal.
I've done this all over. Hotel lobbies, museums, yacht clubs. The service lobby of a luxury car dealership is surprisingly great. Not for long. Thirty minutes. A snack and a few sentences. Just enough to soak it in.
I once journaled at Gran Pacifica, but I was staying there, so I don't think that counts.
Gran Pacifica, Nicaragua. I was staying there, so this doesn't count.
Jason Shelfer smiling over his shoulder from a wooden chair, journal in his lap, with palm trees and the ocean behind him at sunrise.
Sit there and write down our morning questions, the 4-Minute Luck Activation Formula. What do I want to experience? How do I want to grow? How do I want to contribute? How lucky am I? Asking those in a room where somebody is polishing the brass changes the answers. You start writing like a person who belongs there, and then you start walking around like one.
01 Pick a beautiful place. A hotel lobby, a museum, a park, a nice coffee bar.
02 Give it thirty minutes. Bring your journal and a pen.
03 Soak it in for a minute before you write anything.
04 Ask: What do I want to experience? How do I want to grow? How do I want to contribute? How lucky am I?
05 Walk out the way you'd walk out if you belonged there. You do.
I may have taken this further than most. I feel like I live on vacation. I know how that sounds. But in my phone's GPS, our home address is saved as "Club Med."
It's not a joke to me. Every time I drive home, the screen tells me I'm headed to Club Med. And by the time I pull in the driveway, I mostly believe it.
Feel good now
That's the whole thing, really. Three words.
Most people run their lives in the other order. Once I get the promotion, once I find the person, once the money's in the account, then I'll feel good. But you're broadcasting the whole time you wait. And what you're broadcasting while you wait is "not yet."
Feel good now. Then go find out what tunes in.
At night, run the other side, the 4-Minute Reflection Formula. What did I do well? What MIGHT I have done differently? How will I be more effective or efficient next time? How lucky am I? Morning questions going in, evening questions coming out. That's the Living Lucky® Loop, and there's no wrong way to run it. A whole day, one meeting, or thirty minutes in a hotel lobby.
The Living Lucky® Practice
Exercise: Make a list of what you want in a partner, a job, or a client. Then circle the three you most need to become yourself.
Reflection question: What frequency was I broadcasting today, before I said a word?
Journal prompt: Where am I waiting to feel good until something changes, and what could I do to feel that way now?
Action: This week, take your journal somewhere a little nicer than you're used to. Thirty minutes. Run the four morning questions there.
Questions people ask about this
What does "feel good now" mean?
It means not waiting for your circumstances to change before you let yourself feel good. How you feel shapes how you show up, what you notice, and how people respond to you, so feeling good first tends to make the good things easier to reach.
Can people really sense your energy?
Most of us pick up on other people's moods quickly, often before a word is said. Tone, posture, and attention give a lot away. You don't have to believe anything mystical to see that how you feel changes how people respond to you.
What does "you attract who you are" mean?
It means the people and opportunities you draw in tend to match who you actually are, not who you're hoping to find. If you want a kind, steady partner, the work is becoming kind and steady yourself, for real and not as an act.
How do I get rid of negative energy after a hard conversation?
Notice what you picked up and admit it's there. Then do something to shake it off: a walk, music, a shower, a few deep breaths, or whatever ritual works for you. The point is to choose your next feeling instead of carrying someone else's home.
How can I feel abundant without spending money?
Put yourself in a beautiful place for a short time. Sit in a nice hotel lobby with a coffee and your journal, or savor something small and really good. Then write down what you want to experience. The feeling is free, and it changes how you write and how you act afterward.
How do the 4-Minute Formulas fit with this?
The morning questions, the 4-Minute Luck Activation Formula, set your signal: what you want to experience, how you want to grow, and how you want to contribute. Feeling good while you ask them sets your frequency. The evening questions, the 4-Minute Reflection Formula, show you what came back.
If you want help tuning your frequency, in your business or in your relationships, that's what our coaching is for, at livinglucky.com. Our journals and books, including The Quiet Space, are on Amazon under Jana and Jason Shelfer, and at livinglucky.com. Take one to a hotel lobby. And subscribe to our YouTube channel for more of this.
Hear the whole conversation on the Living Lucky® Podcast with Jana and Jason Shelfer, Season 11, Episode 55: "How to Change Your Energy (And Attract Anything)."
So slap the sign on your way out. Whatever it says.
We Create Our Luck®.
