Survival, Gratitude, And The Grit We Forget We Have

Survival, Gratitude, & The Grit We Forget We Have: Lessons from 127 Hours 

Aaron Ralston's survival saga is a masterclass in resilience and grit, transforming a doom loop into an upward success cycle with mindset shifts.

This self-help episode reveals the deeper lessons: counting small wins for momentum, how surrender clears mental space, and why a vivid vision unlocks strength when willpower thins.

Hear his epiphanies on gratitude and the discovery that you are much more limitless than you know. Steal these practices to go one more minute and turn constraints into creative solutions.

Actionable Nuggets & Takeaways:

• The Core of Resilience: Replace the doom loop by counting small, real wins. This shifts attention to what works, fueling momentum.
• Surrender is Not Quitting: Acceptance is making space. Ralston found peace, clearing mental space to act. Surrender is a reset switch for purpose.
• Vision as Catalyst: A vivid vision (future son) unlocked strength. Specific, felt visualization helps manifest possibility and action.
• Gratitude as Clarity: Gratitude is an attention filter. Naming what matters sharpens priorities and edits life to its truest lines.
• Limitless Strength: You are more limitless than you think. Your mind will often give up before your body will. Go one more minute to push limits.
• Imperfect Tools: Progress tolerates imperfection. Use the tool you have (dull knife). Let constraints guide creative solutions.
• Reframing Question: When facing a boulder, ask: What can I still control? Your ceiling becomes your new floor through small, iterative steps.

Steal these lessons to reorganize what you believe about your limits and build unstoppable momentum!

Lessons from Aaron Ralston 127 Hours.

• How to turn a doom loop into an upward success cycle.
• Surrender vs. quitting in personal development.
• Using vivid visualization to overcome adversity.
• How to find strength when your mind gives up.
• The secret to limitless human potential.
• How does surrender help in decision-making during a crisis?
• What is the impor

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Believe in the people around you
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Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Episode Transcript

Jana Shelfer (00:00):
Are you ready to create a life you crave?
Let's spin that doom loop ofnegativity into an upward
success cycle and startLiving Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer (00:14):
Good morning.
I'm Jana Shelfer.
I'm Jason.

Jana Shelfer (00:17):
And we are Living Lucky®.
You are too.
We had the opportunity ofhearing Aaron Ralston speak last
night.
Now you're thinking, who isAaron Ralston?

Jason Shelfer (00:29):
Who is that?

Jana Shelfer (00:31):
You might recognize him because he was
played by James Franco.

Jason Shelfer (00:36):
Oh, James Franco.

Jana Shelfer (00:37):
In the movie 127 Hours.

Jason Shelfer (00:41):
That's funny.

Jana Shelfer (00:42):
What?

Jason Shelfer (00:42):
Because last night I was talking to people
and I was like, Jake Gillenhall.
Aren't they the same people?

Jana Shelfer (00:53):
No, he was played by This is me and names.
He was played by James Franco.
And the movie and AaronRalson's story is that he was a
mountaineer.
He was a climber, and he wentout for a hike one day.

Jason Shelfer (01:08):
And he pulled a Gilligan's Island.

Jana Shelfer (01:11):
What do you mean by that?

Jason Shelfer (01:12):
He went out on a three-hour tour.

Jana Shelfer (01:14):
Which turned into a much longer tour.

Jason Shelfer (01:16):
Yes.

Jana Shelfer (01:17):
He got his arm stuck in a crevice, and he was
stuck there for a hundred andtwenty-seven hours.
Hence the name of the movie.

Jason Shelfer (01:30):
Yeah.
Crazy.

Jana Shelfer (01:32):
And he was literally at his the last straw.

Jason Shelfer (01:38):
Yeah.
Like he was he should hetheoretically should have died
three days prior, but he endedup cutting his arm off.

Jana Shelfer (01:48):
Yes.

Jason Shelfer (01:49):
With a knife that wasn't sharp enough to do it.

Jana Shelfer (01:52):
Yes.
No, that it was like a butterknife.

Jason Shelfer (01:55):
Yeah.
Literally.
And he had already dulled thething by trying to chip away at
the boulder that was trapped hisarm.

Jana Shelfer (02:01):
Yes.

Jason Shelfer (02:02):
That's that's crazy.
So it spent two days likegnawing away at this boulder and
ended up with a whittled-awayknife.

Jana Shelfer (02:10):
So in other words, he wasn't really able the knife
was not sharp enough to cut hisarm.
So he had to break his arm inorder to get the knife through.
And then once he broke it, herealized that your arm has two
bones.
Two bones, not just one.
So he broke it once and then hehad to break it again.

(02:33):
And then as he was starting tocut, he realized that there's a
nerve.

Jason Shelfer (02:38):
Big big old nerve that runs down the center of
your arm.

Jana Shelfer (02:41):
But he just kept persevering.

Jason Shelfer (02:44):
Yes.

Jana Shelfer (02:44):
And in this, he really had a spiritual
experience because he found astrength inside him that he
didn't realize he had.

Jason Shelfer (02:54):
Yeah.
There were, I think there werewhat I got from the talk was
there were two major epiphaniesthat that came to him.
And one, because he came out ofit very grateful.
And this it reminded me verymuch of your TEDx.
Obliving Lucky.
Of Living Lucky®, radicalgratitude.
And um, so he he said he cameout of it with a huge smile.

(03:14):
And whether you could see it inthe picture that he took or
not, I imagine that when you'regoing through all that, it's
hard to smile when you're in thestorm.

Jana Shelfer (03:25):
Yeah, but you you've got to be somewhat proud
of yourself for figuring out alot of things.
Oh my gosh.
Right?

Jason Shelfer (03:31):
Yeah, just so knowing that you've crossed the
finish line, right?
So whether just knowing thatyou've made it completely
depleted, exhausted, bleeding,like crying and without an arm.
Yes.
So but the fact that you'vegotten there, and that's that's
the thing.
I didn't know that I could getthis far, but is is a win.

Jana Shelfer (03:55):
Yeah.

Jason Shelfer (03:56):
And that's one of the things that he's he talked
about.
Like he he got out, his armsdecap he's he's cut off his arm,
he's bleeding out, he's lost umtwo or three pints of blood,
and we don't have that manypints of blood in our body.
I don't know what the medicalamount is, but he's bleeding
out.
He has an eight-mile walk toget back to his truck in the

(04:16):
middle of the desert nowhere.
And he doesn't know that he'sgonna make it, but he's like,
I've made it this far, it's awin.
I I kind of I've conquered theboulder, I've conquered the
steps behind me, and he's happy.
He's content.
And one of the so the two bigthings that he he recognized in
there, those epiphanies were oneis what's important to me in

(04:40):
life.
He had sent videos to hisfamily, like his his his close
friends, his close circle tosay, Hey, you know what?
I love you guys.
This, these are the importantthings about you that I love.
These are what I want you toremember about me.
Kind of that epitaph moment.
And then he also um had thatmoment of recognition of just

(05:03):
how much grit and resilience andhow much he was able to get
through.

Jana Shelfer (05:09):
You don't know how strong you are until you're
faced with adversity, which iswhy adversity is such a gift.
And like you said, when you'rein it, sometimes you don't see
that perspective.

Jason Shelfer (05:20):
Yeah, you think this is it.
And you don't ever want to knowhow far you can what you can
endure.
You don't want to know what ismy limit, but it's nice to know
in your back pocket, what if Icould go one more day?
What if I could go one moreminute?
So that's the like it pushedhis limits.

Jana Shelfer (05:40):
Yeah, you and then he realized how limitless he
really is.

Jason Shelfer (05:44):
Yes, that's the thing is we are s we are much
more limitless than we giveourselves credit for.
Our mind will often give upbefore our body will.
And his he admits that his mindgave up.
And he had that moment where hehad an out-of-body experience,
and then he had this vision ofhis his son in the future.

Jana Shelfer (06:07):
Yeah, that was crazy, right?
Yes, it was almost like he timetraveled.

Jason Shelfer (06:12):
Yes, and and because he had that vision, he
so he manifested all this stuff.
Because he I mean, you thinkyou okay, I can't know, but you
you've done all this, so youwould say, well, he may have,
yes.
He could have astrophysic tointo his future and said, Okay,
this is my son.
I believe because what hedescribed was the picture of

(06:36):
what he created.
Yes.
And we and we do There's a lothere.

Jana Shelfer (06:41):
You might have to read this as well.

Jason Shelfer (06:43):
And I apologize because but but I see you do
this all the time when you saythis is what we're creating, and
and then I just see it kind ofcome into our life like a like a
wave.
And and he goes, I know I'm notsupposed to die here because
I'm being hugged by my son inthe future, which gave him that
instant burst, and then he'slike, Okay, this is what I have

(07:03):
to do, and starts, and theneverything starts coming
together.
But he had said he was at peacewith being done in that moment.
And then and then thingsstarted beginning, like there
was a new beginning to the quoteunquote escape from the
boulder.

Jana Shelfer (07:22):
That is so good because sometimes I feel in life
we get to a point where we haveto be willing to let it go.
Yeah, in order to recreate tofind that new beginning.

Jason Shelfer (07:37):
Yeah.
And it's and it was a just abeautiful kind of circle.

Jana Shelfer (07:41):
It's almost making space emotionally and mentally.
That's big spiritually.

Jason Shelfer (07:47):
So when you just said it's making space
emotionally, it reminded me ofall the times you say it's it's
it's allowing for that newfeeling.

Jana Shelfer (07:55):
Uh-huh.

Jason Shelfer (07:56):
Like, what is the feeling that you want?

Jana Shelfer (07:58):
Yes.

Jason Shelfer (07:58):
Because when you allow for the feeling that you
want to come in, you get toexperience that feeling.

Jana Shelfer (08:04):
I just have to say, he told his story so
poetically, and he had the roomcaptivated in living the moment
with him.

Jason Shelfer (08:16):
Yeah, it was that it was that ride through the
desert, ride through the canyonson the little go-kart, or or
however you were taking thatride with him.
But it was that it was youremotional roller coaster ride
through the canyons.

Jana Shelfer (08:29):
Yes.
In fact, just talking about itagain, I'm kind of getting
getting chills because he hadthere were so many lessons that
were wrapped up in his simplestory, but yet not so simple at
all.

Jason Shelfer (08:45):
Yeah.
And then we all walk away witha book.

Jana Shelfer (08:49):
Yes.
I Jason's making fun of mebecause on our way out, he was
like, Here, would you like mybook?
I'll sign it for you.
And I was like, No, thank you.
And it wasn't because I didn'twant his book, it was because I
I didn't have any money on me.
And I was like, I don't, Ican't pay for this right now.
So I gotta go.

Jason Shelfer (09:08):
It's like my husband's in charge of our
library.

Jana Shelfer (09:10):
And here he wanted to give it to us as a gift, and
I didn't know that.
So I feel badly that I I kindof said no.
I denied his giving.
Anyway, Aaron Ralston, 127hours.
It was great to hear him inperson, and I'm sure we will be

(09:31):
reading his book, and we mayeven rewatch the movie.
Yeah, I think so.
127 hours.

Jason Shelfer (09:37):
He's Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer (09:38):
Have a great day.

Jason Shelfer (09:39):
Talk to you soon.
Keep looking lucky.
Bye bye.

Jana Shelfer (09:42):
If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you,
visit us at LivingLucky.com.