Exit The Matrix with Me Experiment: Guest: ETM With Me: Joe Pane | Uncertainty Is Not the Enemy, ...

Welcome to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success with your host Jane Slack-Smith, where we celebrate the incredible journeys of individuals who've transcended their limitations and achieved extraordinary success.

Hello and welcome back to Exit the Matrix with me, this crazy, uh, book research experiment, and I am so excited this week to have Joe Payne with me. Joe, welcome.

Thanks, Jane. How are you?

Oh, you know what, for someone who I've just met in the last, you know, day or so, I have to say that when I reached out to a couple of people and said, I'm stuck in this point in the book with what holds people back, and a mutual friend of ours, Karen, said, ooh, I know the person you should speak to. And I checked you out on LinkedIn. I'm like, how to overcome uncertain or deal with uncertainty and an emotion coach for, you know, decades. I'm like, this is the man I have to talk to because I think that it's easy for someone to write a book or come up with a training or a course and go, okay, you just have to do this, go for it, without acknowledging what could come up for us. So I, I'm just so keen to talk to you and I want to know what's an emotion coach. Tell me, what's that? I wanna get that outta the way first of all.

[Speaker] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's emotional fitness. So emotional, so based on the last year, couple decades of my work, I've designed what's called the Emotional Fitness Formula. And the Emotional Fitness Formula has one core mission. And that mission is to transform our relationship with uncertainty. That's it. And that's deep because transforming our relationship with uncertainty means that we can grow so we can embrace the next level of whatever life brings. So as Ray Kroc said all those years ago, you're either green and growing or ripe and rotting. You know, everything in nature is either breathing out or breathing in, expanding out, expanding in. Your skills are getting better or they're getting worse. Nothing stays still. Everything's gotta move in one direction or another. And, um, so uncertainty is something that I encourage people to see as an invitation rather than something to fear. Because as an invitation, it's something that puts you on the road to growth. Nothing can grow without obstacles, without stress, without pressure, without some flavor of uncertainty, whether it's a challenge or an adventure you decide to go on, or, you know, making a decision that's a little bit different to whatever your normal sort of road has been. Um, so that's the essence of what emotional fitness is.

Oh my God, like, I could just stop now and like sit in this for the next couple of days because what you've just dropped, so many things that are fascinate me. As soon as you say emotional fitness leads to, I guess, this relationship with uncertainty, that I've never heard it laid out like that before. And I guess when I think about the emotions that we have and if our thoughts and feelings are made-up constructs of stories and experiences that we've had in the past and We know our mind and our brain from caveman time is set up to be a prediction kind of machine that says, if you go here, lion will jump out, you will die. If you scroll on Facebook and say something that's against what everyone else thinks, they will hate you and you will die. Like this, I've never actually thought of uncertainty being like a pathway to growth, but also a trigger that comes from the emotional, the awareness of the emotions that come up. Like, talk to me about that, because that emotion to uncertainty is just like a huge difference.

Yeah, I love it. So, so uncertainty is a fabric of life. It's, it's, uh, it's part of the matrix, no pun intended. It's part of the whole thing. So probably the best way I can thoroughly explore this with you and answer your questions as well is I'll, I'll give you a helicopter ride over the top of the Emotional Fitness Formula itself, which is, which has got 5 fundamental focus points, um, all in order of poundage. So starting from the first one, which I'll share with you in a sec, the first one is the most powerful one, all the way to the least powerful, but the last one is still pretty strong. So the first focus point of emotional fitness has to be identity. You know, the single most powerful force in the human condition, as many have said. What in EFF— EFF means Emotional Fitness Formula— in the EFF, we define, or I define— and when I say we, I've got a community of people that I've accredited in this space as coaches, and that's why when I say we, that's what I mean. But in creating this, I define identity as what we allow ourselves to be defined by. And in my book, I share how what defines us owns us, which means that what defines us owns our entire psychological landscape. And that has all kinds of ripple effects, good, bad, or indifferent, the whole shebang. Um, and within—

can I just ask about that? Does that— does that mean that if we give our power or our identity to others' opinions of us, then we are less powerful? And that's why this is possibly the most powerful thing. If we own our identity, who we are, as we are in all our imperfection and claim ourselves as our sovereign agent in life, then that gives us the most power. But if we lose that to someone else, that also takes the most power from us.

Absolutely accurate. Would you like me to give you an identity adventure, Jane?

Oh, please, please.

Journey.

Oh my God, what am I going to find out?

So, um, a lot of my work is inspired very strongly by one of my psychological heroes, who is Carl Jung. And Jung was a classic mystic, had many near-death experiences, had insights into the other side of the veil. Um, also, of course, is the creator of psychoanalytic psychology, contributed massively to the movement of human behavior by identifying universal behaviors and patterns like, you know, thinker versus feeler, extrovert versus introvert, and a whole bunch of other things. But something that Jung, uh, something obscure from Jung's work that not many people seem to know about, based on my experience of delivering this work everywhere.

And you're a psychologist, so you've studied this.

Yeah. Well, in my psychology degree back in the '90s, there was no Jungian psychology in my work, but it was just, yeah, that was a whole, that's a whole nother story. But, um, he identifies, uh, 4 unique universal identity phases that we all go through. All businesses go through them, individuals go through them, uh, relationships go through them. You can't avoid these 4 stages and 4 phases. So what I've done is I've just put my own take on this based on my, well, not just the experience of being in my own business for 20 years, but also just living life, being married for 30 years and, you know, kids and life, life experience. And as I share with a lot of my clients, I reckon you gotta live at least a couple of decades with responsibilities to really start to learn who you are, right? You can't, a 21-year-old's got no idea. And I'm happy to say that to any 21-year-old in the room. But, uh, that's a whole other conversation. Um, so, um, pardon me, my phone. Um, so what Jung spoke about was the first stage we all go through is what's— he spoke in archetypical language. So the first archetypical stage is the stage of the athlete. And the athlete is defined— and this is the thing, every stage is defined by different things— the athlete is defined by their material possessions and their body, their physicality. So they hang their— all their psychological hats on people's opinions of what they think of their apartment, my car, my hair, my look, my walk, my talk, my body image. So the core driving question at this stage of our identity development is, what do you think of me? What do you think of my shirt? What do you think of my room? What do you think of— this is not a real room anyway, but what do you think of, you know, all these different things? So, and this is typically what happens to most of us, um, you know, in those stages of teenagehood going into our 20s.

Yeah.

Then as our responsibilities expand, we transform, we shift. And this happens, this happens organically, it happens unconsciously. This is not— you don't sit at your desk and say, I'm now ready for stage 2 of my identity development. It just doesn't happen that way. Your life changes. And how do you know it's actually changing to the next stage is a question I get asked very often. And one of the ways that you know is the things that previously excited you or you place value on cease to have value and cease to excite you. And now you move on to a different level of being or a different level of consciousness or a different level of identity. And the next stage that we all walk into somehow is what's called the archetype of the warrior, the warrior hunter. And this is where most people in Western society spend most of their time for the next couple of decades. In their 20s, 30s, and 40s, even into their 50s, where we're heavily defined by our results. So the results I'm getting in my business, the results I'm getting in my financial, you know, how much money I'm making, results in how am I going with my kids and my family and my sons and my wife and the whole shebang. How's my home in comparison to other people? It's the core driving question of this existence here is what can I get? And it sounds really negative, but it's actually not. It's get the wisdom.

What can I get so I can show?

So it's, it's, it's get the wisdom, get the skill, get the experience, get the girl, get the guy, get the house.

Is it for show or is it for personal?

Both. It's both.

It is for both.

Oh, it's both. So getting the wisdom, getting the skill, getting the experiences for self, but getting the girl, getting the guy, get the house, get the car, get the whatever, that's all external. Um, so the results in this— so the, the challenge with this stage, and this is where this is a strong statement, but I found it's reasonably accurate, is that in the combination of athlete archetype and warrior archetype, because you don't leave the other one behind, that integrates into warrior. It integrates. So you still have a bit of a sensitivity toward people's opinion of your car, your house, your hair, your whatever, in combination with what am I building here? It's a building phase. The warrior stage is a building phase. And combined together, using the wonderful language of Wayne Dyer, I call this, these two combinations, the ambition-driven world, which is, which is egocentric. And, um, so strong statement, and this, this is the strong statement I want to make, and that is that—

go for it, Joe, I'm ready, I'm ready.

I, I believe all anxiety and depression in the world, outside of some clinical exceptions, anxiety and depression live in the ambition-driven world, not in the next world that I'm going to share with you in a moment. So here is where all the problems are, because we, we become anxious in terms of whether we're keeping up, keeping up with the bills, keeping up with the— yes, the Joneses, but also keeping up with where we think we should be in comparison to our friends. Um, especially, you know, in that sort of phase of 40 to 55 years of age where there's a lot of that going on, where there's, there's expectations that either get failed to get met or get exceeded or do get met. And that's, um, we'll explore that if we get time in a moment. But these first two stages is where the bulk of Western society sits. So they're defined by the results and, and still have a, um, a link with the archetype of athlete. The point I wanna make here is that what defines us, we grow hypersensitive to. There's a hypersensitivity to it. And, and the, and so if I'm defined by the results I'm getting in my business, I have a hypersensitivity connected, attached to the outcome I'm getting in my business, which means, um, that I will take my wins and my losses extremely personally, which means that when I am— when I take a hit of some kind or a loss of some kind, it starts to affect my relationship with uncertainty in a very unresourceful way, because I'm, I'm going to be taking time to get over it, to get over myself, because I'm taking it so personally. So whatever— and that's why the statement is true when we say that identity is the single most powerful force in the human condition, because it owns that much of our psychology. This is of course a reflection of these first two stages.

Can I just pull you back there?

Please.

You linked uncertainty to performance. So I follow you when you're like, okay, if I'm linked to the success of my business, then if it's great, I'm feeling good. If it's bad, I'm feeling bad. The uncertainty doesn't come with the results. Uncertainty comes before you get the results. So does that mean we're living in uncertainty because we've connected ourselves to the business all the time.

We're chipping away in a very negative way to our relationship with uncertainty when we take our losses and wins, especially our losses, very personally. So in other words, we, we start to create these negative anchors in the way that we've— if something's not going our way because we're taking it personally, it starts— our self-esteem starts taking a hit, our belief in self starts taking a hit, we start minimizing ourselves, we start— the ego in this land of, uh, archetype of athlete and warrior, the ego is in charge. The ego is completely in charge. Um, and, and this is an important point to realize because everything that the ego is, you are not. So the ego is nothing more, nothing less than a complex survival mechanism designed to keep us alive in this physical world with all of its rules, you know, laws of the universe, like, you know, gravity and things like that. So, um, a lot of people in Western society come into psychological trouble or emotional, uh, you know, trouble or illnesses of different kinds and whatever ways that issues show up in our lives or in our bodies or in our relationships because we're stuck in this ambition-driven world where the power is outsourced to the outside. I am defining how well I'm doing based on comparison to other people. And if you continue living like that, um, you know, it really starts to tear down and affect your spirit, your energy, your vibe, the whole thing.

So does this mean that— so if you define the ego as a construct of societal rules, cultural rules, you know, the way that we should be doing things, conformity, comfort, familiar, then we can't be in uncertainty when we're in the ego.

You, you can't, uh, experience a resourceful relationship with uncertainty when you are a slave to the ego, which is the voices existing in our heads, right? Because the ego is heavily addicted to certainty and control.

It wants everything to remain uncertainty. Then if we're saying a resourceful relationship with uncertainty, can you give me uncertainty?

And it's, and it's so— I— that's a great question. So uncertainty comes in many— so there's a spectrum of uncertainty. There's a whole spectrum from macro to micro. The micro version of uncertainty is very minor, like in the form of variety, finding different ways to get to the office, you know, going to the local running group, you know, I'm going to take a different road today. It's just that's very minor. All the way through to adventures you might go on. You might go decide to go on a holiday to a place in the world and the culture in the world you've never been exposed to. So it's an adventure, it's a bit of fun. There's also, uh, conscious invitations to uncertainty in the form of challenge. You might decide to run a marathon or do something like that to challenge you. Then you've got all the way to the other end, the macro, which is where life situations or life circumstances, uh, put you in a crisis point. When you get to a crisis point where— and my definition of crisis is certainly not the definition that's in the dictionary, but my definition in my work of crisis is when something that you care deeply about has come to an end. Whether it's the end of a career, the end of a relationship, or some aspect of yourself that has died because of something finishing.

Sorry, Jane, your identity.

Yes, because— and it gets to a point, and this is what happened to me. Now what's interesting is, even though I've got the psych background, I worked in the field of rehab counseling for a few years in the manufacturing industry at Ford Motor Company, uh, I have experienced two significant 2 significant crisis points where I was in a psychological revolving door and I didn't know which exit to leave. Like, I kept revolving back and then going, no, I can't go back. So I'll give you an example of real life stuff. So I was working, so I spent all these years at uni and then I got this job. I was lucky to get this job in the '90s in Melbourne, uh, at Ford Motor Company in Geelong, uh, in, in Melbourne. Um, I worked in Geelong later, but anyway, in the manufacturing industry. I was thrown into the deep end of the pool. This was 1994. I was on like a $45,000 package plus bonuses— and not bonuses, plus super and blah blah blah. My friends are saying, oh my God, your package is worth 50 grand, that's amazing! Like, 1995, 25 years of age. So the money was like, wow. And then, um, but the job was so not wow because I was involved in, um, I had my caseload of people I was looking after, and, uh, to help someone get back to work who had an injury, I had to deal with the politics of the, of the, of the shop steward, the union, the on-site medical center, the on-site insurance company, the area manager, the local supervisor. All these people had their own agendas. And then I didn't know, because I was so ignorant, that 80% of my caseload were malingerers. They were just taking advantage of WorkCover. So I was working around these agendas and toxicity for 2 years, and I, and I Got to a point where I remember walking through the cafeteria at Ford Motor Company. I had this moment of, this can't be how it is, can't, can't continue. I cannot work like this for the next 30 years, 20 years, whatever it's gonna be. I just can't. And I had no idea what to do with myself. Um, and I, I knew clearly, like most people, this is a pattern in, in, in human behavior that I've seen a lot. Most people are very clear on what they don't want and they've got no idea what they do want.

So your crisis was this career I've chosen, this time I've invested, this this, you know, 4 years or plus at uni. This is not me. Like, yeah.

So that's like, oh my God. So what am I? Who am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? Um, at that point I was about to, um, I know Savannah and I had just been married. We just purchased a house and the mortgage and all the responsibilities come with that. And, um, my local, my, my, there was a fellow rehab counselor sitting next to me. I remember he was on my left-hand side. We shared an office. And he had just sold his house and he was rabbiting on like in a very positive, beautiful way how wonderful his agent was and how he not only sold his house but he went and prospected and found him another property to move into with his wife and it was effortless, it was wonderful, this guy's amazing, you know, he's very different to all these other people I've dealt with and I thought, who's this? And I asked all these questions and I ended up finding out who is, who the coach and the trainer was of this person, of this agent Long and the short of it is I didn't know what to do. So I went and applied for a job at a local real estate agency to work in residential real estate sales. And they put me through the wringer. Like they said, well, we need to make sure that you are— well, they didn't say it like this. I'm ad-libbing, but they were saying essentially, they were saying, can you sell stuff? We need to make sure that you're a fair dinker. We need to make sure that you're truly committed. So he said to me, this man, he said, he's a wonderful man. We're still friends to this day. He said to me, we need you to go and knock on doors and find leads. And I thought with my psychology background, I thought he was talking metaphorically.

I didn't think it was literal. I thought, this is an interesting analogy.

Yeah, what an interesting analogy. What does that mean? And he saw I was confused and he was saying that you literally need to go out in the street, knock on doors. And I was so desperate to move away from the situation at Ford that I was willing to just try anything that was, that I could just, you know, I've always had this belief. I'm not a practicing, I'm not a practicing Catholic, but I was brought up in a Catholic school. I remember one of the priests that we had as a teacher way back in year 7 said to us, God will never put you in a position that you can't handle. And so I was knocking doors going, you can handle this because if you couldn't, you wouldn't be here.

Hello, just a quick message. I hope you're enjoying this podcast bonus session. Now, if you have heard this interview, then you're probably sitting in there going, what is this all about? Well, this is all about my Exit the Matrix experiment. Now, I decided to write a book because I'm really interested in how do we go from the existence that we have now to exiting the matrix and living with intention from our hearts, following our heart's desires, but also creating abundance in all areas of our lives. And hence, whilst I've been researching this book, I thought, this is a really solitary journey. I want people to come on this journey with me. And hence I've got this very special group. Now come and join me. The first month for founders is free. And if you decide Stay fantastic. So what I'm doing is I'm interviewing incredible people. I'm getting insights about what's this awakening that people are getting, you know, what is the exit the matrix kind of sliding door moment for them. Now I've obviously run this podcast for over a year now and I have more than 30 stories, but I'm also interested in those people who are in this transformational space who are actually not just awakening themselves and they're awakening others. What is the mechanism? As Bashar talks about it, it's the permission slip? Are they going through astrology or meditation or yoga or breathwork? Are they just going within and getting a sense of what's really going on? So that's what all the Exit the Matrix experience is about. I'm going to let you get back to the interview, but if you want to join me, go to exitthematrix.today/etmwithme, which stands for Exit the Matrix with Me. So that's exitthematrix.today/etmwithme. Sign up. I'd love for you to come along. I'm creating courses. There's currently courses in there around 4D gratitude. There's more courses to come. I'm creating custom GPTs on how you can exit the matrix and helping you uncover what lies beneath your subconscious and holding you back. And also other custom GPTs that I'm sure you're going to love. And most of the speakers are actually really motivating me. So I'm creating courses. I'm creating ebooks. I'm creating experiments you can try. I'm creating tools that you can use. And I'm also writing a book. So at some stage I'll get to writing the book. At this moment, it's just all about the research. And I hope you choose to join me because I'm really excited about this experiment. So I'll get back to the interview now. Enjoy yourself. And, uh, as always, here's to your success. And, um, long and the short of it is we have positive stories from our past. You know, we, we often do dwell on these terrible stories that we've got running, but we do have some of these little positive stories. I'm glad you shared that. Thank you.

Yeah, no, thank you. So the long and the short of it is, because it was an adventure in that alone, my God, that was, that was massive uncertainty for me knocking on doors cold. And the long and the short of it is I found a couple of people who wanted to sell their house and I provided those leads to the office and, and I had to sit a little test and a few other little things and I got the job and I ended up working in sales for 7 years. Prospect, like I spent 15 months building my database and then, you know, working off that really for the next 5 or 6 years after that. And, and I was, and I was purely ensconced deeply in the ambition-driven world. I was a warrior. I was an athlete, archetypically speaking. I was, I was getting excited at buying my first fancy car. I was excited at buying our second house and moving from our first house. I was excited at all these things were out-of-body experiences like, oh my God, that's amazing. Awards, rewards, significance, attention, winning, losing the challenges, all that sort of stuff. And then one day, Jane, And when I say one day, it didn't happen in one day. It happened in the space of like a 6-month, 12-month period. I started noticing an energetic and emotional disengagement with all these things. It's like, so what's going on? Why doesn't it excite me? Why don't— why am— why am I interested in buying another car? Why am I interested in buying another, you know, apartment or whatever? Why am I— why I'm just disengaged? And I remember walking with my wife Silvana one night. We're just walking one evening and I said, do you think I'm getting depressed? Like, what's going on? And, um, you know, she didn't know. She was actually quite worried but not saying that at the time. I said, I don't know, nothing interests me right now. Like, this whole life that we've created is great. I love you, I love us, I love all this, but I have no interest in this. And, you know, winning another, you know, thing or getting more business and cranking it up and the hustle and the winning and the challenging and And, um, I had no idea what to do. I was— that, that is a psychological revolving door.

And can I just ask, I've got two questions that are burning for me right this moment because I know we're about to go into the next archetype. The first one is, did you at that time recognize it was a similar feeling to that first crisis point of walking through the cafeteria?

Yeah, it was, except the difference is that I, this, that's a great question. The difference was significant because the first time I was leaving hell, I hated that. I hated Ford Motor Company.

Yeah.

Uh, it was hell going into potentially something that's exciting and challenging and healthy for me.

Mm.

I enjoyed my time in real estate. I, I've, I'm still friends with people whose houses I've sold like 30 freaking years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And one of them is one of my great friends, you know, amazing. Like it was, it was beautiful, Jane. The whole 7 years was wonderful. It's like I'm happy and now I'm not. Yeah. Why can't I get happy about something that's beautiful?

Mm-hmm.

That was, that was scary. That was different.

So the second question is burning for me because my husband, uh, suggests I collect mentors quite a lot and I find them in unusual places. So you, what I love about your story about this guy talking about selling his house is that you didn't go, give me the real estate agent's name. You went, Who's his mentor? Yeah. Did you then engage that mentor to help you in your real estate business?

Uh, I did. I did. I can't remember how it all, how I navigated that, but I found out that this fellow had lots of offices. He was doing these trainings of this philosophy of doing everything in a certain way. And, um, and I somehow found out, I can't remember how, but a local office literally that was like a few kilometers from my house seemed to work the same way as this agent that my colleague was telling me about. And I just inquired. I literally went up to the office and inquired with them. Pardon me, this phone.

So you did get to work with that trainer and they—

well, and that trainer ended up becoming a client when I started my coaching business many, many, many, many years later. It was quite funny. It was like it was a complete circle. But It's scary, Jane, when you've fallen out of love with something that you loved and you don't know why. And I didn't know anything about this conversation that we're having right now. It did not exist in my plane of awareness back in, uh, you know, this was 2003. And then what happened was one weekend, one of Savannah's friends was over for, um, for lunch or something, and, uh, and this particular friend of hers who's still a dear friend of ours today, was unusually perky and excited. And I said, what's going on? Have you met a new man? What's going on? Why are you so excited? She goes, I did this incredible retreat on the weekend, this meditation retreat. It was residential. We stayed there overnight. We did all these exercises, met all these amazing people. And she was rapping along to Khatima, and she was so excited. I said, who are these people? Because it was the first time I noticed in many, many months some spark.

And, um, I want what she's having. Yeah.

So I, uh, and but this is, this is 2003. So people's websites back then were pretty basic and she put me onto the website of these people and I looked them up. Um, I gave them a call and I essentially said to them, do you have any jobs going? And they said no. And then these words came out of my mouth, Jane, that I wish I had paused time so I could open my mouth again and reverse the words back in because I said to them, I'll come and work for you for nothing if you're willing to consider me. And, um, and we had a series of meetings and they took me on board.

These, this Mary, most people would say, I wanna sign up for your next retreat. Where did it come from that went, give me a job?

Like, yeah, because I, I wanted more than just you ahead, right? Yeah. I wanted to do more than just a, a course. I wanted to be, you know, surrounded by that. Yeah. Yeah. And Jane Slack-Smith-Smith-Smith, that led me on one of the greatest years of my life that also ripple-affected onto my wife who followed the path. Where effectively I didn't know I was in this until someone said to me, I'd never heard of the word sabbatical. Someone said, oh, you're on a sabbatical. And I said, what the heck is that? And they said, when you're taking time off to get your shit together because you got no idea what to do with yourself. And I said, oh my God, I'm on a sabbatical.

I thought it was like a study sabbatical, like you're doing an internship in Italy for some reason. Alright.

So in these 15 months, I got to do one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life. Now I've done marathons and races and stuff. I'm a physical sort of person and I've done all sorts of stuff like that. But the most difficult thing I have ever done was during, during this, these 15 months, I did lots of experiential retreat work. One of them was a vision quest that was 5 days. And that vision quest based on ancient American Indian tradition, um, was where we got to a site. This is over in Melbourne, in the, uh, the ranges, in near Halls Gap. Um, I forget what it's called, the name's escaping me, but Grampians. Grampians. Thank you. And, um, the— we were met there by a shaman, a fair dinkum shaman. There was 20 of us. It was a fair dinkum camp, which means no running water, no electricity, no nothing. It was just us in the forest. And our gear, our tent stuff. And we slept there the first night. Then the next morning, and we sort of knew this in advance, what was gonna sort of happen. They put us into a sweat lodge, which was for about 45 minutes, an incredibly hot sweat lodge that where you go around in a circle and you express gratitude for something. And there was people fainting. It was very extreme and it was to cleanse us. And then we exited the sweat lodge and then you had to go out into the bush, claim a spot, create a medicine wheel out of sticks and stones. The medicine wheel cannot be bigger in diameter than the height of your body because you're now going to spend, uh, just with 10 liters of water and nothing else and layers of clothes because it gets cold in November. It was November, I remember, in Grampians. It gets down to 5 degrees and up to 20 degrees. There's 10 liters of water, whistle around your neck in case you panic, and you have to sit there for 72 hours and just be. No sleeping, no reading. You're not allowed to have any watches, phones, books, diaries, journals, pens, papers, nothing. Just you and the trees, man. And I was there for 72 hours. After about 36, 40 hours, something like that, I had no idea how long it was. You go into an altered state of consciousness because you haven't slept, you haven't eaten, you're just drinking water. Um, and you start seeing all these different things. And I had some incredible, ineffable, indescribable experiences. And that's a whole other story into itself. And then what happened was after those 72 hours, we had to walk back to base camp, which wasn't that far. And we all sat in a circle with a shaman, and this guy was incredibly intuitive, and he would just, uh, elicit all this information from all of us, like good stuff. And I just had this genuine feeling on the inside that if I was to use my current terminology of emotional fitness, my relationship with uncertainty had completely transformed. Because from there I felt I can do anything. And I don't mean that from an ego point. I mean that from a soul point. It's like whatever life gives me, It's okay, you're gonna be able to go through it. And, and, and this was one of many experiential retreats I did during the sabbatical, 7-day silent retreats, breathwork. I mean, all the stuff that these days is more, more well known. And I didn't know that I had just entered through the doorway of the third stage of identity. And this, in my work, I call this— I'll tell you what the archetype is in a second based on Jung's work. But this is the doorway into a new world. I was exiting the ambition-driven world and I was walking into the meaning-driven world. So exiting egocentricity, entering into heart-centricity. It's scary as all heck. It is different. There is no control, there is no certainty. It's, it's pure trust and faith.

Yeah, very different.

And Jung described this as the archetype of the statesperson, and this is where your core driving question all the way back to athlete, which was, what do you think of me? Which evolved into, what can I get as I'm building my life? That evolves into statesperson, which is, what can I give? And now we become defined by legacy rather than our results and our wins and our victories and all the stuff that we're doing. And we're no longer as defined by our body and material possessions. We're defined by legacy. We start focusing now the meaning-driven world. And you said this beautifully before, Jane, I don't know if you remember this, you said something about becoming fulfilled. Because the ambition-driven world, we get sold on the story that have a bit more of this and have a bit more of that and you'll get happy. In the meaning-driven world, the meaning-driven world is not about happiness, it's about fulfillment, it's about living life deep. As Earl Nightingale said all those years ago, stop living life fast and start living life deep. That was his way of saying transition into the meaning-driven world. Now the thing is that when you're in the meaning-driven world, there's still the fourth phase to come, which I'll tell you about in a tick. But in that state, uh, I was— as I walked into that world, I was at the end of my sabbatical, 15 months in. I was running out of money. My wife was starting to become, understandably, a little bit impatient. I was like, come on, we've got responsibilities. Um, we didn't have that kind of conversation. She's just phenomenal as a support. But, you know, in mutual respect to this, you know, I have to pull my weight. So I went back to my old job in real estate. And guess what, Jane Slack-Smith? It's like trying to put the bloody toothpaste back into the tube. It just, you can't do it. So I lasted about 8 or 9 months and then that was the, that was, that was me in the revolving door still. And then I pushed into the meaning-driven world fully. And in February 2006, I started my own consultancy training slash coaching business, which was as scary as all heck with all the uncertainty that, that, that brought at the time. And, and that was, that was 19, nearly 20 years ago. So now what I had to work on for the next 5 years from 2006 to 2010, 11, 12 was, and this is the key thing and I teach this in my emotional fitness work. Is you can't stay in the meaning-driven world only unless you've got money, right? If you want to live in Australia or any of these places like this, you need money, you need cash flow. So you have to integrate ambition into meaning and find ways to make money in a meaningful way that is completely aligned to your soul, to your values and who you are, rather compared to just going to do that job because it gives you, you know, $100 an hour. Like, no, it's having the courage to go and find your unique expression into the world and make money in a meaningful way. That's the meaning-driven world. That's the entrée, the entry into it. So the way that all this integrates is that I had to then go back to athlete when I started my business because I have to start looking after my body. As I said to, I've said to thousands of coaches who I've trained over the years, I've said, you've got to work out what energizes your system. Like what kind of diet, what kind of lifestyle, what kind of movement. You gotta work out your body like you've been given this machine. You, you, you're a Mini, you're a race car, you're a four-wheel drive. You gotta work out what kind of thing you are so you can work out how to manage this thing. So I integrated, um, health and vitality into ambition. So I had to have the warrior re-engaged because what, what did I, I had to go networking, I had to go and build a new set of relationships and do all the grunt work, which was actually grunt work is not really the right word, but it's getting out there and getting amongst it.

Yeah.

So I had to get all that, that's integrating ambition into meaning. And now, and now, um, here we are, um, you know, what are we? This is my 20th year and we're well and truly integrated. Um, Savannah and I are 55 and we're like, Okay, if I was working, I said to Sylvia the other day, I said if I was working a traditional job 9 to 5 or 7 to 7 or whatever it is, and it was a job that was not really of my heart, we'd be in a position now to retire. What would you do then for the rest of your life at the young age of 55? Right. So, but we can't retire now because, and I don't wanna retire cuz I love how, um, Wayne Dyer died on his feet. I love how Zig Ziglar died on his feet. I love how Um, uh, there's a couple other people who I admire in this space who literally kept working, presenting, making a difference, all that, until their bodies couldn't do it anymore. I love that. So now what takes a lot of my time— not a lot of my time— what takes up a lot of my awareness, that's a better way of saying it, is a divine level of curiosity about the fourth stage of identity. And Jung said these first 3 stages that I've just described, they're all egocentric. Even the legacy one is egocentric. The statesperson one is still egocentric. It's just, it's healthier version of it. The 4th stage is the archetype of the spirit. This is where we move away from egocentric to like egocentric sort of base identity to existential identity.

Yeah.

And this is where we start becoming divinely curious about universal intelligence, consciousness, God, Christ, whatever you want to call it, that is driving— like Wayne Dyer said all those years ago, the, the intelligence that is seeing everything through your eyes, Jane, is identical to the intelligence that opens a rose. It's the same thing. And so then my interest started shifting into near-death experience case study research, and, um, Wait a second, wait a second.

I feel— can I just like reflect back to you? Because I just feel that you've just like told my life story, right? Right.

I haven't covered the other 4 focus points yet.

I know, right? I was like, I hope you've got some more time because I'm just going to give you a little, a little glimpse, which was grew up Catholic, beautiful relationship with, with that religion, but you know, had was always taught the spiritual side. Mum was, you know, allowing us to converse with fairies down the corner and quoting Eckhart Tolle to us in the '80s. And I am— today's my half birthday, so I'm 54 and a half today. Ah, so very similar to your age. And I went through an experience probably in explosives, in mining industry, as the first female to work underground. Everyone went on strike, yada yada. Went to a mine site where my first performance review, which I was so excited about because I'm up at 5 AM down at the workshops trying to work out why these 240-ton trucks aren't working and no one else is trying to work out the utilization improvements, and I've like cracked the code, worked out what's going on, like delivered this whole big thing. And my first performance review, they decided not to include me in, and they came back and they said the, the only thing that I needed to improve on was to wear a smaller jumper because the Japanese Owners, when they come on site, are so intrigued to seeing a girl there, they want to see that I look like a girl. And I was at that mine and I went and saw the HR manager and said, I'm sure this is not right. And they said, no, but we've got this video they sent over from America about sexual inclusion and diversification. We don't want to— we don't want to waste the time for the men, but you can watch it if you want. And I was like, maybe not my mine site. So I moved to a different mine site, went into explosives, had a great time. So I had that kind of cafeteria experience where I went to my own farewell party. They gave me the present and I was like, I'm gonna drop this to the jeweler and turn it into something I want. And I'm leaving town, like I'm never coming back. So I had that. And then I had that, you know, created the property portfolio. I need to save people. I wanna create something in real estate. So went into the real estate thing in 2005, 20 years ago. So had started that business. And then have had been on a very similar path and seeing people go through not being able to replicate what I think is replicatable. There's a blueprint. What's holding them back? What's happening? You know, went to Mindvalley University in Estonia with my 10-year-old, which I saw in your profile. You've got twin boys born 2008. My son was born 2008.

I'm like, oh my God, what dates, Jane?

I know, uh, well, it was his half birthday last, um, last weekend, so 18th of November.

Of November, right. Okay. Okay. And my boys are June 3rd. They're Geminis. I know nothing about astrology, but I know that they're Geminis and they're twins. That's all I know.

Oh, Scorpios. They're twins. Gemini. That works. So very similar. And then I've been on this kind of quest. I didn't go near death, but I've been like, there's something else, and started working with a coach and intuition and high consciousness. But that whole, the appreciation I've had on some recent retreats, one with the neuroscientist last year and then one through an alchemy coach and then recently through, you know, 15 different world leaders in a retreat, which included sound healing and tantra and yoga and all of these meditations and just the simplicity of that expression of, of understanding your, this is an, if I die now, I'm fine. Like I'm complete. Like the rest is a gift and I'm looking for the divine outside. But as Neville Goddard says, you know, the Bible talks about, I am the divine. And if I see I am the divine and I see we're all stardust, you're the divine or just me on a different timeline. Like I'm, investigating epigenetics. And like, if a woman's born with all the eggs in her womb already, and so I was in my mother when she was in my grandmother, therefore the experiences they had make sense that they're replicated on me. Like, all of this type of interaction and the quantum and, and looking at string theory and entanglement, it's like, if we're all entangled, that makes sense to me. When my mum says, I've been praying for you, I'm like, well, that's kind of the entanglement theory. Like, so I have this sense of The divine is in all of us, and that, you know, that divine curiosity of, you know, what's possible and how can I make this bigger contribution, live from my heart, create abundance, and not have to think from lack. I want wealth, I want relationships, I want whatever it is, the house by the pool with the pool, but I'm sitting there going, I have that. I am someone who is abundant, and you act it from it first, which is essentially what I heard you say. And then a lot of the people I've been speaking to, you know, gratitude is always brought up and the emotion of the connection of be it before you are it. And the things that you're speaking— and even, you know, one of the speakers, people I spoke to week 13, and we, we explored soul contracts, and she this week did a destiny retrieval for me, which sounds like your grampian experience. She's a shaman. She was taught through the people from Peru, her shamanic insights. But we went through the Tree of Life and grabbed what my destiny is in the world. Those experiences, and even Jem, who I spoke to last week, who talked about his experiences in India for many years and having a sweat lodge experience that changed everything for him. Like, there's so many similarities to the people I'm speaking to of what was the awareness of the awakening, but then also the techniques that they use that I find extraordinary. And I kind of reflecting on what you're saying all the way up to my story, and you know, like near-death experience, I'm like, whoa, okay, this is completely not where I've been before. I know people have had them. My mum has had them, had the near-death scene herself, had her, her, her, um, her you know, people appear to her. My grandfather had people appear as they were dying. My cousin had— like, I've got that in the family. But, and I was terrified as a child that they'd turn— someone to turn up to me when they were about to die. It was like my biggest fear. But you've been researching this, and you've gone down this curious divinity kind of consciousness connection through near-death. So over to you.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so, um, Nothing. So what— okay, where do I begin with this? It was just the other evening, literally Saturday night, where ad hoc I was catching up on Saturday morning with a, with a, with a fellow who I'd— he'd been in one of my training rooms, um, back in 2008, and he, and he's working with a company, uh, it's a foundation, a charity group called Peace of Mind Foundation. They're, they're, they're a charity group focusing on brain cancer. And, um, they— and I was catching up with him and he said, um, come and talk to us tonight, come and talk to these guys. And there was 30 men all with brain cancer, a lot of them terminal, if most of them. And, you know, half the room probably won't be with us in a couple of years' time, um, ranging from 28 years of age to 62. Most of them were in their 40s. And, um, and, and I said, what, what other speakers have you had there? And he said, I've had, um, I had this, I had this guy about your age who was a runner like you, and he said his story was that he collapsed on the beach while running, uh, had some massive heart attack, lost sight of both eyes, and then had a heart transplant. And he came and spoke to us. I said, Kevin, uh, and he spoke about all these other speakers had all these horrendous physical, uh, experiences. I said, Kevin, who am I to come and talk to these guys? Because I am the opposite of all of that. I've had no problems. I've never had any, like, I'm vital, I'm healthy, I'm this, I'm whatever. And he goes, mate, just come and share your soul, like what you do for a living, because he knows all my work, right? And I said, okay. So I sat there thinking, what am I going to talk to them about? Back to near death, because it's like, what, what are, what is a near death experience? So near death experience is when your cardiovascular system and brain functioning actually cease, your body actually ceases to, to, to breathe, it's dead. And you come back to life, you're somehow revived, and you have a conscious memory of what you experienced on the other side of the veil.

And this challenge— this is it not a near-death experience, it's a death experience, so it's a re-life experience?

I guess you could call it that. Um, but what's fascinating about this, Jane, is that one of the grandfather research near-death experiences, a fellow called Dr. Raymond Moody, who in 1975 wrote a book called Life After Life, that book has been updated many, many times. The man has interviewed over 20,000 near-death experience cases. And then I've got some other resources of people who have interviewed— there's one particular lady, her name escapes me, she's interviewed over 10,000 near-death over a period of a couple of decades as well. There are two— there are lots of themes that come through, Jane, and there's two main themes that come through that at this stage of my life, not that I'm old, but at this stage of life has brought me immense peace of mind and joy and incredible deep, deep gratitude and appreciation. And what it is, is the two themes are— first thing, these are the two most common themes that show up— is people have a conscious memory that whatever they were talking to, the universal intelligence, whatever they were, whatever it was, this divine, this divinity, It didn't even— it wasn't even in the awareness of the connection. There was no highlights of the trophies you've won and the victories you've had and the wins and the losses, and you had a 5-bedroom house and you achieved this and la la. That wasn't even in the scope of awareness. Yeah, it all came down to 2 questions, which is what I shared with these, uh, these, these, uh, these Amazing man with brain cancer. So it comes down to two questions. These two questions seem to pop up in a lot of these near-death experience awarenesses that people bring back to their lives. First question is— and these two questions, Jane, these, these— I swear to you with every fiber of my being, every soul in my— every, every everything I've got, that this is all that matters. The first question is, how well Have you loved? And the second question is, how well have you allowed yourself to be loved? That's one thing that's pretty mega. That's that. The other theme which blows my mind, you and I, I'm sure, in fact I'm pretty 100%, you and I have got people in our lives that we love intensely. And the unconditional love I have for my sons, my wife, like, I would kill for them, die for them, do anything for them if it meant that that's what I had to do. You've got people in your life like that too, I'm sure.

Yeah.

And, and one of the fears I have is, well, if you're on your deathbed and you know that you're dying, it's like, oh my God, I'm leaving I'm leaving my wife, I'm leaving my best mate. It's like, oh, is that this concern? A lot of the near-death experience people share the same story, their fears of leaving people behind. And when they go to the other side, they experience this ineffable divine love that is so ecstatic and of a frequency level that is beyond the earth and beyond description. There is no English word that even barely points in the direction of what we're talking about. And they have zero interest, Jane, in coming back to the people that they just described that they would want to love and be with forever. Because the love on the other side is of such a— it's just a— it's not even a parallel universe. It's something that is beyond, beyond, beyond. There's no words. There's nothing that comes close to it. And And this is the thing, this is not just one case study. We're talking tens of thousands of people who have said the same effing thing. And it's like, okay, here we are in the third stage of identity at the Statesperson stage. We're making money in a meaningful way. We've successfully integrated ambition into meaning. We're looking after our bodies and respect our bodies, uh, looking after the money side, respecting that, whatever your philosophy is of getting financial stability and security, that's taken care of. When Statesperson phase working at contribution and connection, making a difference, having an impact. Phenomenal. Good on you. Well done. And now it's like, tell me about this spirit thing. Like, because this model, I've described it to you in a very linear way, but it's not linear. We're moving around it all the time. I actually believe that the spirit part sits behind the other 3 stages. In fact, the other 3 stages can't exist without the spirit. And, um, so when I hear and read story after story after all these last— this last decade that I've been looking into all this stuff, and it's like they all say the same bloody thing. Wow. One person— I hope I'm not being crass and saying it like this, Jane, and you can delete this if you want to— but it's like one case study described it like this. She said, the closest I can possibly come in languaging anything, just to give you a smithering of an idea of what we're— what I experienced, she said, this particular woman, She said, think of the most intense orgasm you've ever had, and you're staying at that peak all the time, and now 100x it. Your body wouldn't be able to handle it.

No. And your body doesn't have to, does it?

That's what— no, that's why you don't have a body. That's what it is on the other side. So Ram Dass used to always say death is completely safe. Um, you know, Alan Watts used to always say You've come from the mystery, you're going back to the mystery. What's your problem? What are you afraid of? Yeah. And it's like, so this brings a joy to my daily experience of living that I just sometimes will just giggle at nothing. And, and I will run under trees and just— David Hawkins used to always say, the tree knows who you are more than you know who you are. And, um, Do you know David Hawkins, Dr. David Hawkins, used to say— I love this, I don't actually know what this means, but it just makes everything tingle when I repeat these words of his. He says, just live your life like a prayer. Yeah, isn't that beautiful?

Yeah, it makes sense without any sense.

Yeah. So, um, there's something really funny here.

I'm, I'm seeing regularly trying to catch leaves under trees. Like, autumn I love. I spend a lot of time in Carlton Gardens looking up trying to catch trees, but I tell you, I catch leaves. But I tell you something that I've found, this profound experience with tree leaf catching for many years, and that is there's always a wiggly leaf. And this is not a leaf that is wiggling because it's about to fall. Others will fall. This is not a leaf that is subject to a breeze that the others, they're the same, but there's always a wiggly leaf.

What is that?

I, I don't know, but I love it. And as soon as I see it, I'm just like, that's the—

Jane, I've got tingles. You just saying that, I've got tingles because we're on acreage here in Noosa, we're in the Noosa Interland, and there's always a, like, there's no wind and then there's something wiggling like a leaf, like you just said.

It's a wiggly leaf. I have this wiggly leaf theory that it's just like, it's just like a little bit of divinity going Yeah, we're here.

Yeah.

Could it be a fairy? Could it be the divine? Could it be the breath of life? I don't know. But there's— I always look out for those wiggly leaves. And I think we go through life so fast and we're trying to seek the next thing. And it's this kind of removing it. And so what I, what I really love about what you're talking about here is that there's that saying, um, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. And we have this kind of experience of the other side, but in actual fact, it's where we began.

Yeah.

So, you know, if we have this appreciation that there is this— we came as an essence to have— maybe we have a soul contract to learn a lesson or to have a human experience, to, you know, have an experience that allows us to grow or learn or impact or be that person for the other person, at the end, we're just going back to where we were. So it makes such beautiful sense to me that this is a beautiful destination. And if we live our lives going, we've got the bookends that say that we are the essence, we are the divine, we have love, we are love, you know, everything happens through us, for us, rather than to us. And experiences the wiggly leaf going, this is so incredible.

I'm so happy that you said that because I, I, that's, I've experienced that uniquely. It's like you It's interesting. One thing I learned in working with the, the Peace of Mind Foundation is the voluntary assisted death laws in Victoria only— so out of all the people that get permission to go through with that, only 40% go through with it. Isn't that interesting? You just said everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. It's, it's like reminding me of— I found that—

leaving the people behind.

Yeah, yeah, it's probably that. But, um, something else I want to share with you here that I think is important for our listeners, I believe, is that when I teach this kind of work, the risk is that someone— some people start spiritually bypassing, as I say, this new terminology that came out a few years ago, where it's like everything is an illusion. So I'll start taking my hands off the wheel and I'll just, you know, live in that kind of, um, disconnection from responsibility kind of life. And what I want to say here is that with the emotional fitness work, is that the more sensitive and light you become around the awareness of divinity, the deeper you must immerse in the experiences of life. The deeper you have to be as a parent the deeper you need to be in your awareness when you're walking down the supermarket aisle and seeing a complete stranger on the other side and you acknowledge their existence with a smile and nod, the more deeply you get involved in the passing of a parent. So in other words, you get into the game here fully, even though you know that there's this other thing that's going on. Because what can happen is people can say, and I, I was guilty of this after my sabbatical, was like, Oh, I know all this stuff. I've done vision quests. I've done, um, you know, the silent retreats. I've done da da da da da. And, and there's a spiritual ego that starts to be created. Mm-hmm. I didn't know that this was going on in me.

Superiority also. You don't know what I know, but I have this kind of inner, hmm.

It's awful. And I remember my wife pulling me on this really hard when I said something to someone that was just completely disrespectful around that kind of superiority. And I was like, come on, man. So now it's like, because when you, when you enter the meaning-driven world in this work that I'm describing, you exit the egocentric world of ambition, but you're also entering a world where once you're in it properly, the meaning-driven world, you've got nothing to prove and nothing to defend. You're just living your life like a prayer where you are an expression of love and you inspire people by who you're becoming. And this is where anxiety and depression don't exist in the meaning-driven world like they do in the ambition-driven world, because in the meaning-driven world we're defining ourselves by who we're becoming and who we want to be. So there's an awareness of, am I nudging myself closer to love, or am I nudging myself closer to fear? Which direction am I heading in? It's like tapping into the work of, you know, Lao Tzu with the Tao Te Ching. Wayne Dyer's translation of that is pretty much, which way are you heading? You're moving toward the mystery and toward love, or are you reacting to the world dramatically, defending yourself, which means you're heading back toward ego. So that's That's an interesting aspect of this, these identity stages. But that's only the first focus point of the emotional.

Do you think if you go like, you know how we talk about, you know, good and bad being on the same level? If we're talking fear and love on the same level, we're still in the vibration of that where this spirit is above. Like you notice that that's what it is. You just, you're either in the vibration and allowing yourself, we're in, in the spirit, you just see it for what it is.

Well, what's, what's fascinating about what you just shared there, Jane, is if you think of the, uh, the cross, the Christian cross, the cross, the cross that Jesus died on. And I'm not religious, as I say, but this is fascinating, is that what, what that symbolizes, apparently, and I agree with this, is that the cross, that the path that's parallel is the, is the ego platform. It's the love at one end, fear at the other end. It's like water. At one end it's steam, and at certain temperatures at the other end it's ice. It's just that the conditions change and the expression of that water is different. The expression of the ego is different. But then there's that part of the cross that goes up and down. That's the depth. And that's the immersion into the joy and the gift of life. And having an awareness also, it's like a radical level of humility where you go, the ego is aware that its end is coming, meaning that whenever our body stops breathing, and what's actually driving all of this is something that is a complete mystery to all of us. And that's where we're heading. So back to where we were. So it's It's a fascinating conversation and there's so much more we can talk about with that. But I do want to just touch points on the other 4.

I know we got to, we got to point 1.

Yeah. And there's so many bits I haven't told you about with idea.

I know I was sitting here like going, yes.

Yeah.

I need more points.

So, so that's the first part of the Emotional Fitness Formula. I'm not gonna, I'll be, I'll be short.

I was trying to say something about, I heard this guy David, oh man, I call him Gilliam. He's been teaching the Kabbalian for, for years. And he said something the other day. That I heard on the weekend that I went, ooh, and it's kind, it's very similar to what you just shared, but it was prayer is actually a transmission that allows a vessel of whatever it is, God's source, universe essence to hear. And it's not a, it's not a negotiation. I'll do this if you do that. It's not a conversation. It's just a vessel to hold the transmission. And I was like, Oh, I like that. So when you're talking about living your life as a prayer, it's just like transmission, transmission.

It's beautiful. When I was walking into the room with those men on Saturday night, and still not sure what I'm gonna— what I was gonna sort of share with them, I just, I silently said to myself, just allow this to be— allow me to be an instrument of peace.

Yeah.

However that's expressed. And it was wonderful. It was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful evening.

Focus point number 2, Joe, let's go for it.

Focus point number 2 is what we call life stages, which is tapping into something I've already covered briefly. So life stages is, um, the, the journey from ambition to meaning. It's the journey that we've touched on through identity. So life stages is understanding where you're at on, in the spectrum of ambition, moving toward meaning and integrating ambition into meaning. So that's a whole nother thing. Um, the third one is values, uh, of which—

people don't hit all the life stages, do they?

No, no, no, no.

You can get stuck in the revolving door. Say again? You can get stuck in the revolving door.

You can, you can. And also, by the way, those life stages and also those phases of identity, which we haven't got time to delve into here, can be applied directly to business as well, which I've done many times in my corporate retreats.

We can refer people to your book. I'm sure it's in the book, right?

Yeah, it's in the book. It's in the book. So yeah, the third focus point is values. So in Emotional Fitness, we define a value as an emotional compass. Values misunderstood. A value is an adjective, not a noun. It's, it's a, a value is an expression of an activity that brings you joy. It sings to your soul. And often, as I describe in the book, people confuse values with morals. The moral compass and the emotional compass of values are two different things. You know, like your moral is like your temperature gauge and your values is your fuel gauge. Two completely different aspects of your dashboard. And, and there's a whole thing in there that I describe about how critical it is to transform or keep transforming and evolving your relationship with uncertainty. You need to be embracing activities in your week that actually bring you joy in the form of a meaningful hobby or a meaningful routine that bring you joy. And for me, that's running. It brings me immense joy. So that helps me navigate any pressures that sometimes come with just living life and, and having a business and all that kind of stuff.

How do you link that to uncertainty? Something that brings you joy?

Yeah, great question. So when I started, to give an example, when I started my business, um, I went from the certainty of a, of a, uh, salary every month, cuz even when I was in real estate, I was on a salary with bonuses. So every month I knew there was some, you know, what money was coming in to not knowing where the next $500 was coming from. So the uncertainty was through the roof. What enabled me to navigate the uncertainty then was to have my meaningful hobby, which was my running. It's been with me for a long time, which actually gave me something psychologically, energetically, and emotionally to look forward to on a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with the running group. And then I could navigate whatever mystery was going to be— I was gonna be experiencing on the Monday where I had to go to my first or second networking event or do my first ever speech or talk at a group and you know, which is scaring the heck out of me. But in the back of my mind, like, well, at least tomorrow morning you've got this to look forward to.

So it's an anchor of certainty to joy.

It is. And it's also what I call, um, um, a sense of hope. Not, not hope as in I'm wishing, hoping. Hope in terms of having something to look forward to that organically just lights you up.

A positive expectation of, you know, a known result of joy.

Yeah, exactly. And, and that means you can handle the uncertainty of today because you know that the good thing is coming after that. But if you don't have anything to look forward to in your week— is a slang way of saying it— um, and you've got all this stuff that you've got challenges to get through, it's bloody hard. But if you've got something to look forward to every week that brings you joy, that operates independently of whatever the challenges you're facing, um, it really does make a massive difference in how effectively you can navigate uncertainty. Emotional fitness is not about reducing uncertainty. It's about giving you clarity of direction and how to navigate uncertainty. It's still difficult. It's just that you know how to navigate it. A marathon is still difficult if you're fit versus unfit. You still gotta navigate through it. So, um, that's really important point, Jane, because sometimes people think, oh, if I become emotionally fit, does that mean uncertainty goes away or reduced? No, it actually, in funny ways, it actually turns out.

And I guess it, it, I'm just thinking like people who, you know, I've put the down payment on the big overseas European holiday and it's in 6 months, it's in 5 months, it's in 4 months, it's in 3 months. I experience it, I come home and there's almost like a depression. There's nothing to look forward to.

Yes.

So, so we have to have something always to have that, that joy or that excitement or that, you know, destination.

Exactly. What you've described is what I share in, um, it's what you've described as an example of what I call macro hope. So macro hope is maybe something like, like a big trip that you're looking forward to in December or whenever it is. But the micro hope is where the sustainability is. Having a meaningful hobby that brings you joy on a weekly basis a number of times, um, that's micro hope. So you're feeling good every week about that thing, that the joy that that's bringing you, uh, and then you have the macro hope on top of that. And when you've got micro hope and macro hope working together, that downside after the big holiday is not, it's just not experienced as extremely. So yeah.

Okay. Focus point number 3. We're gonna speed through these because obviously focus point number 2 could have gone on for hours. I can see the threads.

Yeah. So one was identity, second was life stage, third was values. The fourth one is emotional flexibility. So all I'm gonna say about emotions is that emotions don't respond to facts. Emotions only respond to the meaning that you give the facts. So we are meaning-making machines, whether we know or whether we don't. And, uh, the quality of our— how we interpret an experience will determine how we feel about it. And, um, that's a big part of the emotional flexibility. And there's a whole framework of thought systems within that to teach people how to manage their emotions, especially during difficult times. And a lot of that's got to do with connecting with gratitude and appreciation. And then the 5th and final focus point is perspective. So our perspective is our psychological big picture view of life. It's our philosophy of living. It's really, really important that we create, build, and maintain a clean and healthy perspective to lean on when things get tough. Uh, we've, we've all been told at some point, hey, you gotta get things into perspective that, you know, we get caught up in the weeds of drama. We need to sometimes come up to the, to the view from the top to see the bigger picture. In order to minimize the impact of this drama that we're caught up in, that we've, uh, you know, amplified unnecessarily. And, um, and the, the fastest way to build a healthy, strong, clean perspective is to know how to instantly access gratitude and appreciation. So having that—

it's really the HeartMath method, isn't it? You talked about the, um, the heart transplants and near-death experiences, and I think The thing that really struck me about the research of the HeartMath Institute was how, you know, we've been doing heart transplants since 1960, and it wasn't until 1980 that they worked out that they're giving transplants to people that are coming up with memories. And then they found the 40,000 neuro cells in the heart that are actually retaining the memory of that person. And if we go from the heart first and do that that, you know, 3-minute type of connection, we create the network that has our heart leading our head. I mean, but when I'm thinking about these 5 stages, if I go back, the first 2 are very, um, earthed. They're the experiences. And the 3rd is the focus of the destination, the compass, the values. And the 4th and the 5th is when elevate to having awareness that is, it's not fear or love, it's just an expression on a different frequency. It's not, um, my emotion is fear because I heard the dog bark because I had a memory of being bitten as a child, and someone else hears the dog bark and goes, I had a great dog when I was a child, I can't wait to pat it. It is just our interpretation based on experiences that we've had And the experiences from neuroscience have kind of proven that we made it all up anyhow. Half of the stories have been changed. So that perspective just gives us a lightened, um, a lightened, I guess, view of how things happen. And it, it sounds to me it's, it's all about catching yourself in the moment of going How am I going to respond to this? How am— how does this emotion or this situation or, or this, um, uncertainty turn up and trigger me to go to the familiar? Where I can see this as a mechanism for me to going, wait, there's uncertainty here, and that's the thing that's driving me to be triggered, and therefore I can choose a different way.

Essentially, not that I'm minimizing what you're saying at all, but it's self-awareness.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Okay, so where are you coming from and where you want to go?

Yeah, yeah.

And where are you?

Yeah.

And he's the— he's the interesting thing about that is that if we bring spirit in, it's always there. We're not— it's not a destination for us. As you say, it sits behind it all.

The sun has always been there. The clouds just have to part. The clouds are like the ego. The sun's always there. You don't— it's like the Statue of David thing we started with our conversation, I think, prior to this recording where, you know, he— Da Vinci was saying he just, he just chipped off what was not David and you got left with David. And, uh, yeah, so that's— there's so many layers to this, but that's, um, well, that's a very detailed helicopter ride over the top.

I, I so appreciate this because, and I'm sure, you know, from a, a research point of view, it gives me a lot of comfort that so many learned people over decades of learning, and, you know, that I've spoken to, it all comes back to an absolute awareness of where you are and where you've come from that has driven where you are and how you're making your choices and where you want to go. And gratitude and love actually are the linchpin for everything.

Everything. Without it, I don't know how you'd live, really.

I know, right? Okay. Well, what's the name of your book, Joe? So we can, how do people reach out?

Yeah, it's called Courage to Be You. It's a guide to mastering uncertainty. That's the subtitle. So Courage to Be You is the main title. Yeah, the website joeparner.com.au is the website. And yeah, I'm on LinkedIn and all the main socials at @joeparnerinsights. There's a podcast that I have called Insights, which is just simply the episodes are, uh, 15, 20-minute insights that I give on the human condition, all these different types. There's, um, well, over 100 episodes there available on all the platforms. And, um, that's pretty much it.

Oh yeah, that's it. I'm sure, I'm sure we'll be talking again. Look, I really, I really appreciate your time and you've given me a lot of I feel like I can really conclude this messy middle stage now because you've really given me a framework of understanding, even though it's so small compared to the depth of work that you do with EFF. But it gives a framework of a conclusion. And the conclusion for me and the comfort is that when we go back to source, we're on this journey and we can make it easy or hard. And it's a choice of how we do that. Our choice and we are the sovereign, you know, controller of what we do. But the end destination is just— I mean, if I'm thinking 100x orgasm, I'm just like, I'm happy all the time, right? I'm like, if that's where it ends up, then this is, um, you know, this is an incredible ride and we enjoy the ride, but we also know that we're safe in the destination.

Yeah, 100%. 100%.

Okay, well, Joe Panay, I really appreciate your time and, um, yeah, you've given me so much to contemplate. I'm definitely going to go and check out the podcast in itself. But yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Jane. I appreciate you having me.

And as always, here's to your success. Bye for now. Bye-bye, banana pie. Bye-bye, banana pie. Bye-bye, banana pie.

Thank you for listening to Exit the Matrix. Stories of Success. Make sure you subscribe to future episodes at www.exitthematrix.io. Until next time, here's to your success.