Insights with Joe Pane

In Episode 116 of Insights, I wanted to explore something I believe sits underneath so much of human behaviour, leadership, stress and emotional wellbeing:Our relationship with uncertainty.But this time, I wanted to go deeper.In this conversation, I unpack the five levels of uncertainty through the lens of behavioural profiling and emotional fitness. We explore why some people move toward challenge while others retreat from it, why uncertainty energises some personalities and overwhelms others, and how our behavioural patterns shape the way we respond to pressure, discomfort and change.This episode is not about putting people into boxes.It is about building awareness.Because once we understand that people experience uncertainty differently, we begin to communicate differently, lead differently and relate differently.We stop asking:“What’s wrong with them?”And we start asking:“What might uncertainty feel like through their lens?”I also explore the difference between variety, adventure, challenge, problems and crisis, and how each level changes the emotional flavour of uncertainty.My hope is that this episode helps you better understand yourself, the people around you, and the patterns that emerge when life becomes uncertain.Because emotional fitness is not about avoiding uncertainty.It is about learning how to move through it with greater clarity, flexibility and self awareness.If this message resonates with you, come and join me in the upcoming free training on ⁠www.joepane.com.au

Emotions flavour every part of our experience. Emotions are our psychological engine room driving the meaning and connection into the experience of any moment in time. If emotions are the engine room and our expectations are the fuel source. If our expectation of any event or moment in time is far exceeded by our experience, we feel emotions ranging from joy to full blown ecstasy. If our expectations fall well short of our experience, we feel anything from disappointment to full blown depressive moods. If our expectations are met, we will feel anything from indifferent to sweetly satisfied. It is incredible how something so simple is so powerful.Expectations exist on both macro and micro levels. On a macro level we have a broad expectation of how our life might look like by the time we are 30, 40 or 50 and so on. Whether we are aware of it or not, how we are feeling about ourselves, and life overall can be hugely influenced by comparing expectations with the reality of our experience. For example, if I thought that by age 40 I would be married with children and I am single with no kids, my experience fails to meet the expectation I had set, so overall I will feel dissatisfaction (to say the least) of my life overall. On the other. The emotional difficultly has been created by two things. 1. Expectations and 2. Attachment to how it ‘should ‘ be.Very little know Russian philosopher, Vadim Zeland, author of ‘Reality Transurfing” shares with us that most of our problems would not be experienced as problems if we lowered our expectations and relaxed our attachments. Lowering expectations does not mean lowering your standards.In fact, by raising our expectations we are open to lowering our standards. The reason this is true is because the higher the expectations the more rigid we feel about how things should be. Raising expectations creates an attachment to outcome. We say to ourselves, ‘oh by the time I’m 40 I am going to be a multimillionaire’, you have created an attachment to how things should be. Anything short of being a multimillionaire at 40 will create an environment devoid of joy. However, if we lower our expectations of our financial status at 40 and relax attachments, we now leave the world of how it should be and enter the world of how it could be. The moment we enter the world of ‘could be’ we open ourselves up to a world of new possibilities. Whether we become a multimillionaire or not by age 40, will not negatively impact how we will feel about ourselves at 40. Lowering expectations and relaxing attachments helps us let go of comparing ourselves to others, comparing our current experience to past experiences, and helps us let go of rigid belief systems. The world of ‘could’ releases the lid that the world of ‘should’ can bring. The world of ‘could’ be can be embraced with a healthy divine curiosity, whereas the world of ‘should’ can be is devoid of all curiosity and new possibilities.Love -Joe -----------------------------------------------------Register for the upcoming free trainings ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.joepane.com.au⁠⁠-----------------------------------------------------Let's connect ⁠⁠⁠⁠@joepaneinsights⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@joepaneinsights

Behind the scenes to letting go, is what we decide to focus on and what we make it mean. Are we focused on problem or solution? On what we have or what we are missing? The past or the future? Here is another question I have personally found to be very useful as well. How this a problem for me right now in this moment? We can only view the past or the future from right now in this moment. Nobody has ever been to the past or the future. Sure, we can think about it but we can’t go there because all we have is this moment in time, right now. All moments are just moments in time and will pass. This is because the now is not everlasting, it is ever-present. This is a crucial distinction. The ever-present is continually changing. Nothing stays still, the good, the bad and even the ordinary. Let’s enjoy the adventures of the ever-present moment and what these precious moments keep transforming or experience to. --------------------------------Register for the upcoming free trainings⁠⁠⁠⁠www.joepane.com.au⁠⁠-----------------------------------------------------Let's connect ⁠⁠⁠⁠@joepaneinsights⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@joepaneinsights

As 2025 fast approaches, we once again face a new chapter in all our lives. We have become the accumulation of all choices, decisions, and actions we have and have not taken. Naturally this will continue into 2025 and beyond. When we don’t make that choice or decision, we cannot see what lies beyond it. Often when faced with significant decisions which will impact our lives and life direction, we can become guilty staying still. Our ego’s addiction to certainty comes to the fore and can complicate choice points. The ego’s favourite tool is fear. It loves engaging in the ‘what if’ talk, dealing in inuendo and hypotheticals, of which the majority will never come to fruition. When the ego is driving the bus, it prefers to stick to well known routes. When our spirit or soul drives the bus, we embrace the adventure of the unknown. We go down roads which have never existed. Carl Jung identified that we can live in one of two worlds. Those two worlds are the conventional world or the special world. The conventional world has clear path, and you simply do what everyone else is doing. This world is riddled in certainty, safety, comfort, predictability and familiarity. Whilst we all love these various flavours of comfort, we cannot grow in this environment. If we don’t grow, we fail to keep up with who we are becoming and will struggle to handle the next level of the game, that is our lives. For us to grow we need challenge, resistance, problem, adventures and so on. Contrary to the conventional world, the special world has no path, it has no direction and there is nobody there to tell you what to do. Sure, as we journey further into the special world, we will inevitably meet mentors and guides, but only we can take the step. There is no elevator to the top of Mt Everest. We have guides but they can’t climb it for us. The special world requires us to make choices, new decisions and commit to our chosen direction. In this world we can change path anytime, because all paths lead to our realised potential. In the special world our path is created as we move, just as a snail leaves a trail behind. It does not wait for the trail to appear because it doesn’t exist. We cannot see beyond a choice we haven’t made, unless we make that choice and commit. -------------------------------- Register for the upcoming free trainings ⁠⁠⁠www.joepane.com.au⁠ ----------------------------------------------------- Let's connect ⁠⁠⁠@joepaneinsights⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@joepaneinsights

Emotional fitness is measured by the quality of our relationship with uncertainty. It is a psychological preparedness for the pressures, stresses and challenges our professional and personal lives inevitably bring. Uncertainty is a precursory seed for growth. Growth is a perpetual need of the human condition. In other words, it has been the challenges we have needed to navigate which have given us the most significant growth points. Facing and embracing uncertainty is not only a prerequisite for our growth, but it also prepares us for the next level of our lives. Next level of responsibilities, obligations and skillsets needed to thrive and survive. It is highly likely that the 2005 version of us would struggle to handle the responsibilities, obligations, and skillsets we need to handle our 2024 version of ourselves. Our 2024 version of ourselves may struggle to handle the 2035 responsibilities, obligations and skillsets needed in our lives then. We will need to grow into the 2035 version of ourselves. Uncertainty, in its many forms, will need to be embraced to get there. Therefore, uncertainty is part of the very fabric of life. Without it we cannot grow and keep up with our lives’ demands. Our level of emotional fitness is crucial to how well we navigate life’s challenges. It is important to realize that we can proactively work on improving our emotional fitness, just like moving and exercising our bodies improves our physical fitness. Here are 5 ways we can improve our emotional fitness. 1. Do something physically hard. Naturally this is very subjective. Do an ice bath, run a marathon, or even participate in your local park run to beat your time (park run is a free 5km fun run held every Saturday morning all year round. Research has continually shown that physical exertion improves our capacity to navigate the psychological pressures life will bring. 2. Practice acceptance. When facing any form of difficulty our life brings, the worse thing we can do is avoid, reject, or try to go around the issue. The sooner we accept and embrace it the sooner we can navigate through it effectively. Carl Jung once said “We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses it.” We can practice acceptance with the little everyday things that may go wrong, for example, a friend cancels a catch up. Practice accepting it immediately without lolling around in disappointment. 3. Practice the art of conscious meaning making. Emotions don’t respond to facts. They respond to the meaning we give the facts. Next time you feel a negative or heavy emotion, ask yourself, ‘what meaning have I just given what I have just experienced?’ Changing the meaning changes the emotion which in turn changes our experience. 4. Create a clean and healthy perspective. Our mind is all we have. When we get caught up in the dramas of life, has anyone ever said to you something like, ‘you just need to get things into perspective!’ When things get tough, we need a clean and healthy big picture view of our situation. In other words, we will need a healthy perspective to lean on. This is created by having a continual connection to gratitude and appreciation. There is always something to appreciate and be grateful for. 5. Simple rituals to set up our day. Rituals create predictability, comfort, and certainty. We all need a base of certainty to effectively operate in the world. This increases our emotional fitness because we will be psychologically in a much better place to handle the pressures or stresses of our day. Our emotional fitness plays a crucial role in maintaining our mental health levels at a functional and resourceful level. By consciously working on improving our emotional fitness we will be much better prepared for when we need to navigate those difficult days, or months. ------------- To register for the Free Masterclass go to www.joepane.com.au