What If You're Only 25 Failures Away from Success?

25 Failures to Freedom: Your Path to Unstoppable Success Begins with Embracing Setbacks (Living Lucky® Podcast)

What if your greatest breakthrough is just a handful of "failures" away? On this game-changing Living Lucky® Podcastepisode, Jason and Jana Banana tackle your deepest fears about falling short by asking a powerful question: "If you knew you were 25 failures away from your goal, how fast would you want to get through those 25 failures?"

We expose the protective shields our egos build after embarrassment or rejection—whether from bombing on a stand-up stage, a painful water-skiing fall, or business setbacks. The truth we uncover is profoundly liberating: failure isn't permanent, quitting is. When you reframe failure as essential feedback and a necessary stepping stone, you strip away its power to paralyze you with fear.

Drawing on lessons from Thomas Edison's 10,000 attempts at the light bulb, we demonstrate that success rarely arrives without multiple tries, adjustments, and vital lessons learned. Hear personal stories from stand-up comedy, network marketing, stock trading, and even the challenging Camino de Santiago, proving how perseverance through discomfort leads to immense growth.

This episode is a masterclass in mindset shift and personal development, teaching you to view each setback as progress rather than defeat. Learn to dance with fear, celebrate every attempt, and embrace the journey, knowing that your greatest achievements might be just a few "failures" away. Stop letting the fear of imperfection hold you back! The most successful people aren't those who never failed—they're those who failed forward more times than you can imagine.

Ready to unlock your potential and start moving faster toward your dreams? Tune in and discover how to redefine your relationship with setbacks, cultivate resilience, and create an upward success cycle. Your ultimate success story is waiting just beyond your comfort zone!

How to overcome fear of failure? Is failure a step to success? The power of reframing setbacks. Thomas Edison's lesson on failure. How to build resilience and perseverance? What is "failing forward"? Motivation to keep trying after rejection. Mindset shifts for entrepreneurial success. Why successful people fail more often. What is the biggest obstacle to success? How many failures before success? Is quitting worse than f

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*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 start LivingLucky®.

Jason Shelfer (00:14):
Good morning.

Jana Shelfer (00:15):
I'm Jana, I'm Jason and we are Living Lucky®.
You are, too.
The power of the reframe oh,that's what we're talking about
today.

Jason Shelfer (00:25):
I love it Because Jason read this quote and it
said If you knew you were 25failures away from your goal,
how fast would you want to getthrough those 25 failures?

Jana Shelfer (00:37):
Oh my gosh, I would want to fail so quickly
and so hard just so that I couldget through the 25, because I
would know the success is Righton the other side?
Yes, and you tell me this rightwhen I decide I'm going to sign
up for another stand-up comedyclass.

Jason Shelfer (00:57):
Well, it struck me too.

Jana Shelfer (00:58):
Which, if any of you listen to our podcast, you
know that I've had some deepwounded failures when it comes
to stand-up comedy, which isjust a horrific feeling If
you've ever been on stage andyou are bombing your set and
your jokes are not flying andall of a sudden you're just full
of self-doubt uncertainty andto think you've only got 20 more

(01:22):
to go.
And you're just looking for anyway to get off that stage
without too much heckling.

Jason Shelfer (01:28):
With a little bit of dignity intact and this
happens to so many people is wedon't try things because we're
so scared of the failure and weknow in our soul that failure is
the way to success.

Jana Shelfer (01:41):
Yeah, we've learned before that there is no
failure, it's only feedback.

Jason Shelfer (01:47):
And as long as you're failing forward.

Jana Shelfer (01:49):
You're still progressing.
However, it hurts like a mofo,and there is something about
when you are wounded, a scabforms and then it's harder to
get up next time.
Yes, do you know what I'msaying?
100%.
There's like this shield thatwants to protect to get up next
time.
Yes, do you know what I'msaying?
100%, 100%.
There's like this shield thatwants to protect your pride and

(02:11):
your ego from having toexperience that again.

Jason Shelfer (02:14):
Yes, and our natural instinct is to protect
ourselves.
It's self-preservation.
So how do we, how do we acceptthis failure as just a kind of a
stepping stone, because no oneis good at anything the first
time.

Jana Shelfer (02:30):
I know, but I always want to be I want to be
the best.

Jason Shelfer (02:33):
Well, intellectually, I think in the
older we get, the moreintellectual we can get about
the idea of whatever we'retrying to accomplish and it
makes perfect sense in our heads.
Like I want to start waterskiing again but I have held
back because I'm like it's goingto be hard, I'm not going to
like I've made up the storyabout all the failures.

Jana Shelfer (02:54):
Or that one in particular.
Yes, right when.

Jason Shelfer (02:58):
I tore my hamstring.

Jana Shelfer (03:00):
Yeah, that was horrible.

Jason Shelfer (03:02):
And it's been eight years since I've been back
on skis.
So now when I look at okay,well, what if I knew that I was
only 10 failures away fromsuccess?
Or 25 failures away fromsuccess?
That puts it into like I cansee the other side of the
mountain, I can see the top ofthe mountain, I can get there.

Jana Shelfer (03:20):
Yeah, and it also is.
It kind of diminishes thefailure.
It says it's not permanent, ittakes the power away.

Jason Shelfer (03:28):
Yes, it says failure is not permanent, and
the truth is failure isn'tpermanent.
I know Quitting is permanent.

Jana Shelfer (03:37):
Oh okay, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing
bing.

Jason Shelfer (03:41):
That's crazy.
There's a little bell going offin my brain it says okay, so
why don't we just start trying?
Why don't we kind of getcurious and explore and allow
for the bumps and bruises?

Jana Shelfer (03:55):
It's okay, because I don't like to not be perfect.

Jason Shelfer (04:00):
I can relate.

Jana Shelfer (04:00):
I don't want to mess up my life On a real note.

Jason Shelfer (04:02):
I can relate.

Jana Shelfer (04:03):
I do not want to be the one that's like I'm the
one that made a mistake andscrewed up my life.

Jason Shelfer (04:09):
And for me.
So I don't get superembarrassed about anything, but
I also feel like I don't want towaste time.
So when I think of failure,like when I think of me skiing
I'm like, well, if I'm gonna notbe good at it for a month 25
times or 25 times, that's it.

Jana Shelfer (04:27):
That's several days of skiing oh, that's not
only several days, that'sseveral weeks, right being sore
and being on the couch and beingtaking some face plants.
You know all kinds of thingsit's gonna hurt yeah, I know 25,
you're helping you're helpingright now.

Jason Shelfer (04:41):
I appreciate it, but the thing is knowing that I
can get through it if I thinkabout it in the sense that
everyone falls when they start.
Everyone does this and it'sjust okay.
Well, how many times do I haveto do that?
Knowing that there's an end insight makes it palatable.

Jana Shelfer (05:01):
Do you remember when you and I got involved with
this company and it was one ofthose companies where you had to
get your friends involved inthe company?

Jason Shelfer (05:12):
Do you remember that it was kind of a network?
Yeah, it had to be somethingsimilar to network marketing.
Yeah.

Jana Shelfer (05:17):
And I remember saying I love your company.
And I remember saying I loveyour company, I just don't want
to have to go convince myfriends to get on board.
And the leader of that groupsaid you know what, Jana?
I want you to go out and get asmany no's as you possibly can.

Jason Shelfer (05:37):
I want you to go out and get as many rejections.

Jana Shelfer (05:38):
The goal is to get rejections as you possibly can,
and if you can get 25rejections, then I'll never ask
you to do this again.
And by golly, like one of thefirst people I asked, they were
like this sounds great.

Jason Shelfer (05:56):
Jana, because it was good.

Jana Shelfer (05:58):
I want to know more and I was like, oh wait,
you're supposed to reject me.

Jason Shelfer (06:02):
Yeah, I'm looking for no's right now.
I'm looking for 25 rejections.

Jana Shelfer (06:06):
That's what I'm looking for.

Jason Shelfer (06:08):
Yeah, you're failing me in my failures.
Huh, damn it.

Jana Shelfer (06:15):
Oh, but I feel like this is such a great
reframe.

Jason Shelfer (06:18):
You know, because there's so many times in life
where Well, we tell ourselvesthis story that failure is going
to last forever.

Jana Shelfer (06:27):
Yeah, and that is going to hurt and that we're not
going to recover.
However, we are, we're here now, and we're here now.

Jason Shelfer (06:34):
I wonder if part of that is the fact that we know
there's always room forprogress, so there's always room
to grow more.
So does it feel like failurewill always be there because
we're always stepping a littlebit further outside of our
comfort zone every time andwe're going to get bounced back.

(06:55):
It will be that two stepsforward, one step back.

Jana Shelfer (06:58):
Yeah, it's like the or you just sound like Paula
Abdul Just as far as one stepback, but it's kind of like like
I've learned this lesson in thestock market as well.

Jason Shelfer (07:09):
Right, that's where it hurts A stock market
does not continuously go upforever and ever and ever.

Jana Shelfer (07:15):
Eventually it's going to correct itself a little
bit.

Jason Shelfer (07:20):
Yeah, it's going to push back.

Jana Shelfer (07:21):
Knowing that, okay , if we go two steps forward,
we're probably going to come onestep back and we'd still want a
little.

Jason Shelfer (07:29):
Yeah, yes, but what do we do?
We look at how much could Ihave won?

Jana Shelfer (07:34):
if I stayed in.
I know that's why.

Jason Shelfer (07:37):
How much could I have won if I got out earlier?

Jana Shelfer (07:40):
I feel like some of the greatest life lessons
have come from learning to tradein the stock market, learning
about options.
It will bring out everypsychological every feeling,
every emotion that you have everhad.
All of your trauma will comeout when you start trading in
the stock market.

Jason Shelfer (07:58):
Because the pocketbook is where it hurts.

Jana Shelfer (08:02):
Oh my gosh, which is a limiting belief.
That is a limiting belief.
However, we've heard thatbefore, right?

Jason Shelfer (08:09):
That is where we feel it.
We've heard that before.
Right, that is where we feel it.
That's where a lot of us feel,like I won't exist if I lose it
all, or if I lose X amount, okay, but it's just a tool, it's
just.
I mean, it's back to this thing.
If you knew you're going tofail 25 times before you reached
your goal but you would reachyour goal how quickly would you

(08:31):
invite?

Jana Shelfer (08:32):
that failure.
So if I knew I could lose 10pounds after going to the gym 25
times, I would be all over it.
I would be all over.
I'd be like, okay, I just needto go to the gym 25 times.
However, it doesn't feel likethere's that certainty at the
end of 25 failures.

Jason Shelfer (08:50):
Well, there's not the certainty after the first
one, there's not the certaintyafter the second one.
Well, there's not the certaintyafter the first one, there's
not the certainty after thesecond one, there's not the
certainty after the third onebut there's not even certainty.

Jana Shelfer (08:57):
After 25 times I could go to stand-up comedy.
I could get up on stage 25times and totally fail, fall on
my face, leave there going.
Oh my god, that was just.

Jason Shelfer (09:08):
Horrible.
I got radishes thrown at me.

Jana Shelfer (09:13):
And what if Jana doesn't figure out how?

Jason Shelfer (09:19):
to overcome, I think by doing it over and, over
and over again, you figure itout.
You do, I would bet.
I'm 98% sure that by doing itover and over and over again,
you figure it out, and over andover again, you figure it out
and you do become the expert.

Jana Shelfer (09:37):
You do yes, if you do it long enough.

Jason Shelfer (09:39):
It's like Edison with the light bulb.
I mean it was 10,000 tries.

Jana Shelfer (09:45):
Yeah, not 25, 10,000.

Jason Shelfer (09:46):
So his coach came in and said Thomas, what if
you're only 9,900 tries awayfrom getting this thing?

Jana Shelfer (09:54):
99.
9,999 tries.

Jason Shelfer (09:58):
He goes.
Oh, so you're telling methere's a chance.

Jana Shelfer (10:01):
That's exactly it, and that's what he did, so he
kept going.

Jason Shelfer (10:05):
And then it built from there.
So he built on his success fromthere.

Jana Shelfer (10:11):
There's something here.
I mean.
I feel like those that aresuper successful in life.
If you really sit down and talkto them, they say well, you're
seeing my success, you have noidea how many?
Times I have failed in order toget here.

Jason Shelfer (10:26):
Yes.
So the whole point of this isinstead of running from fear,
invite it into the game, dancewith it, dance with it Dance
with the fear.
Let it step all over your toesif that's what's going to happen
.

Jana Shelfer (10:40):
Oh, it's all good.
I don't know if I like thatit's just part of it.

Jason Shelfer (10:44):
It's just part of the dance Until you learn to
put your feet in the right spot.

Jana Shelfer (10:49):
Oh, or kick it out of the way, right spot, oh, or
kick it out of the way.

Jason Shelfer (10:57):
Kick it All right .
Let's wrap it up.
Read the quote again.
If you knew you were 25failures away from your goal,
how fast would you want to getthrough those 25 failures?

Jana Shelfer (11:03):
25 failures away from your goal.
Now, we're not guaranteeingthat the goal is the 26th try.
No, it could be 50.

Jason Shelfer (11:13):
However, it could be 16.

Jana Shelfer (11:14):
If you can start looking at all the progress you
make every time you show up.

Jason Shelfer (11:20):
Notice your little wins along the way to
give you the wind in your sail25 tries, 25 tries away.
Yeah.
So think big, think what youwant in life and say, okay, well
, let me just try this, let metry it for 25 times and I
guarantee you you will learnenough in those 25 tries to get

(11:41):
better, significantly better onyour 26th.

Jana Shelfer (11:44):
And then you will feel Then it starts getting
closer and closer and closer,like hey, now that I've come
this far, closer and closer,like hey, now that I've come
this far from this plateau,let's try 25 more times.

Jason Shelfer (11:55):
I didn't bring myself this far, to stop here.

Jana Shelfer (11:58):
To stop right now.

Jason Shelfer (11:59):
That's right.

Jana Shelfer (12:00):
Oh, that's such a good quote as well.
I think I'm a quote whore.

Jason Shelfer (12:06):
I've come to this realization.
Give it to me, baby.
I love quotes.
I love quotes too.

Jana Shelfer (12:10):
Oh gosh, Tell me more, Tell me more oh you sound
like grease.
I feed off of all of thoseaffirmations.
Okay, so think about this Ifyou have a dream out there, you
may be 25 failed attempts awayfrom succeeding.

Jason Shelfer (12:29):
So fun.
That's a much better thoughtthan thinking I'm a failure.
I'll always fail.

Jana Shelfer (12:34):
And that's the problem is that sometimes we
think failure is indefinite.

Jason Shelfer (12:38):
Yes.

Jana Shelfer (12:39):
However, the way you just phrased that, it makes
me think okay, you know what.
There's a couple things thatmaybe I've given up on that.
I should keep trying, becauseyou know what I may be closer to
gold than what I think.

Jason Shelfer (12:55):
This is a lesson that I learned on the Camino de
Santiago and I know we'veprobably given a lot of examples
in here, but there were so manytimes I wanted to quit and it
was literally just put one footin front of the other, like I
felt I got lost, I took thewrong path.
I was so lonely, it hurt, youhad blisters, I had blisters,
but I said you know what?
One foot in front of the other.

(13:16):
And that's really what this issaying Just figure out that next
best step and don't worry aboutthe failures.
Failures are going to come,they're going to happen, but you
grow from that.

Jana Shelfer (13:29):
In fact, we're going to chalk it up as success.
If we fail, we succeed.

Jason Shelfer (13:34):
Yes, because you've just gotten closer to
success.
I'm in for that.
We're talking in circles now.

Jana Shelfer (13:41):
Thanks for joining us.
Keep Living Lucky®.
Go out and fail today Don'tfail yourself.
Bye-bye.
If the idea of Living Lucky®appeals to you, visit us at www.
LivingLucky.
com.