Nathan Furr
Appearances
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Well, you know, think about it, you know, 10,000 years ago, there wasn't a lot to be gained from going far from your normal routine, right? You know, you're probably going to get lost, get hungry, get eaten, get something, you know, you're And so over a million years, our brains wired us to fear uncertainty, but something fundamental has changed. And that is we no longer live in that environment.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
In fact, we live in an environment where actually there's a lot of benefits to stepping into the unknown, taking a risk. We've created a safe environment for ourselves physically, and then technology has lowered all the barriers to create new things and transact and interact. So we actually live in a realm of immense possibility, but with wiring for something that's different.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And for me, my interest in this came because I've been interviewing innovators for 20 years. And I noticed something about them. And that is that we see the thing they create. We see the possibility. We see the innovation. We see all that great stuff. But there's a part of that story we never talk about. And that is that they all had to first face some unknowns. They had to step into the dark.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
They had to take a risk. And I was so curious because I wouldn't say I'm naturally good at that. And so I wanted the possibility piece. I could see that that was only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin was the uncertainty. So I wanted to know how could I get better at facing this uncertainty, overcoming this evolutionary wiring that we all have.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Yeah, it's actually, this is a well-known effect in the psychology literature called worst case scenario. We naturally do it. And that is, we tend as humans to just devolve, I hate to use that word, but devolve in our thinking into a very binary view of the world. So, take your example. You got this big job interview. You're excited about it.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
What happens is you build it up in your mind as the pivotal event in your life that everything else depends on, which is of course not true. And to prove it to you, look back in your life and You know, how many of those decisions like, you know, really mattered that you made every single day? You know, not very many. Yet we have lots of tries, lots of chances. That's the truth.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
But then we then we look at the situation. We say, oh, my gosh, if I don't get it, it'll be so terrible. And so we we tend to adopt this binary thinking with a very fuzzy worst case scenario. And I think what innovators do, one of the things I learned they do really well is they actually think much broader than that. They actually see there's a lot of possibilities here.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
I don't get the job, but I get an interview the next day for a job I like even more. And then they assign probabilities to that. And then they also unpack the worst case scenario. Anyway, the point is, often we obsess about the worst case scenario. It's often not as bad as we think. And it rarely, rarely actually happens. Sometimes it does.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And I want to acknowledge that for people, but it rarely turns out the way. I mean, Michel de Montaigne was a very famous philosopher. And he said, most of the terrible misfortunes in my life never happened to me.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Well, let me say this. My collaborator, who is an applied neuroscientist, summarizes the field by saying everything in life is a function of genes, how you were born, experience, what happened to you, and learning. Those three factors. So some people do come a little bit more predisposed to that, or they grew up in, let's say, a family environment where...
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
The world was basically a safe place, or maybe it wasn't a safe place. They learned to face uncertainty, whatever it may be. But it's very clear we can learn this. And I guess what I would add to that is just when I look at innovators, people sometimes say, oh, they're so different.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And I guess I feel like having done this research now, I kind of feel like they just learned a secret that the rest of us haven't learned. And that is... You know, sometimes you take a risk and it doesn't work out. But on average, if you're taking thoughtful risks, it leads to such a more interesting, exciting life. And what I see in them is almost an energy or an enthusiasm or an addiction
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
to that new thing. And I've gotten there myself, as somebody who, again, who struggles a bit with it now to being like, where's the next uncertainty, because I realized that's what makes life rich and vivid and interesting, worth living where you do your best work. And so I think they've just learned that secret. And that uncertainty, possibility are two sides of the same coin.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And when you spend your whole life running away from uncertainty, you also also spend your life running away from possibility.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Oh, it's terrible. That's a terrible world. And I actually take great. comfort in a very idiosyncratic principle from quantum physics, which is called the uncertainty principle, which is this idea that the more precisely you measure the velocity of a particle, the less precisely you can measure its position and vice versa.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And what it says to me is that the universe itself, some fundamental building block level has some fundamental uncertainty in it. And I love that because otherwise, we could build a world with enough computing power and enough machines that everything gets predicted and deterministic, and that would be a horrible place to live in. It would be so boring. It would be so constricting.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And we need uncertainty. We forget that. In fact, one of my favorite interviews was with the head of a major gambling organization. And he said, oh, you know what we call what we do in gambling? We call it reverse insurance. And our prime customer is that person who we just made the mistake we just talked about, which is everything in their life is so boring.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
They've made it so certain that they will come to us and they will pay us for the chance that something different could happen. And I just think that illustrates that need, that tension we have. So we have this evolutionary wiring for, you know, we're afraid of uncertainty and we seek certainty, but if we follow that too far, we create a really boring life.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
So one of my colleagues, it was when he did his dissertation at Harvard, went and studied some of the world's top chefs and the most innovative chefs in the world. And what he found is they would actually sometimes purposely make things more uncertain. as an effort to increase their innovation. So they'd shake it up and they'd open three restaurants in three different geographies at the same time.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Or right when they're supposed to be redesigning the menu, they rip out the kitchen because it allows them to unfreeze the rules and habits and roles they've been operating on. So you've got to judge, what situation am I in? Am I freaking out? Well, that's a great time to reduce uncertainty. Are we having a hard time escaping the trap of the old ways we're doing things?
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Well, that might be a place where you need to inject some uncertainty.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
The first thing to do is we call reframe. My thesis and my argument to you is that in life, uncertainty and possibility are two sides of the same coin, whether it's planned or unplanned. If it's planned, you want to do something new, there's uncertainty attached to that.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
If something happened to you that feels really uncertainty, it feels terrible, but there's probably some possibility still to be pulled out of it.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I got to see how many leaders responded to this uncertainty. And there were some leaders who framed it in terms of the uncertainty. They said things like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened. This is worse than the Great Depression. And what do you think happened to everybody inside that organization? They started freaking out.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
They started feeling anxiety. And And all the energy, and you may have been in this situation and an organization where this happened, all the energy that could have gone to doing something about it, a lot of that went down the drain as anxiety and checking your bank account and should I get another job and all that kind of stuff.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
By contrast, I love the example of how Brian Chesky, who's the CEO of Airbnb, framed it. Now, they lost 80% of their business in eight weeks. If anybody had the right to say, this is the worst thing that ever happened, it was them. But how did he frame it? He said, yeah, this is a crisis, but this is our moment. Great companies are forged in moments of crisis.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
This is our chance to show what we're really made of. When I say that, how do you feel? You feel differently. You feel ready to take action. And so in your own life, whatever happens to you for yourself, and Brian Chesky talks about the hardest thing to manage at that moment was his own emotions, his own reaction.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
So something happens to you or something happens to the people you're leading, a team you're leading, or your family, whatever it may be. How do you see the possibility, not just the uncertainty, and frame it in terms of the possibilities?
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And there are. disasters and we want to acknowledge that and so it's kind of like making the best of the situation so um when we think about it i mean i would i do want to say there are three other categories of things to do beside reframing i mean reframing is very cognitive um there is second you want to you can prepare in advance so this is about priming uh
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
for the events so that when it happens, whatever it is, you're calmer in the face of that. The third is do. Taking action is one of the best ways to resolve uncertainty, and there are better ways to take action than others.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
like for example breaking something uncertain down into a series of small experiments and then lastly four which is sustain which is to acknowledge that there are setbacks and frustrations in uncertainty and how do we sustain ourselves uh acknowledge the emotions acknowledge the reality and and face that with courage
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Absolutely. And, you know, there's great research that supports the value of taking action on uncertainty, that the best way to do it is to take something big, thorny and complex and break it down into a small experiment. And you say, well, how does that play out? You can do that in life and business. You know, you've got a new job offer.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Well, you know, what would it look like to try it out for three years or a year? It makes the decision a lot less kind of you know, permanent. Another thing is there's great research that shows you may feel, by the way, you may feel like, well, it sounds great to take action, but I don't have everything I need. I don't have all the resources I need, all the time, the money, whatever it may be.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
But there's a whole domain in my field that we call bricolage, which is this idea that the way entrepreneurs and innovators really operate is they just get started with what they have at hand, like make do. Bricolage is literally make do with what you have and And get started and start learning. And actually, sometimes that's the path to success.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And so I would really emphasize the importance of action in most circumstances. There are some cases where it's good to wait a little bit. One trap you can fall into is you feel so anxious in the face of uncertainty that you'll grab for what we call premature certainty. You'll grab for the suboptimal thing that feels certain when you really just need to like...
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Say, I have to wait for this uncertainty to resolve. So how do I take good actions? How do I be learning? How do I be testing? How do I be trying? But realize that I don't have to make a decision today, maybe, because that might be forcing it. And so there's a wisdom. There's a little bit of art in the science as well about recognizing the right time to act.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Yeah, and I am hoping as we practice these skills, and I've seen it myself, we build up our tolerance for uncertainty. If you think of a thermometer, there's a certain amount of heat that you feel in any situation. But as you build up your uncertainty ability, you actually get the capacity to tolerate a little higher heat. What that means is that we have this old saying, no risk, no reward.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
That's really the essence of the idea. How do we tolerate the risk so we can get the reward? You'll get more rewards. The other way I think about it, if I wish people could take away one thing, we call it transilliance, which is an idea from an old word from my field of technology strategy, which is about this moment of phase shift.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
So think about the moment that water becomes steam or an iron ingot melts and becomes molten. It's this phase shift moment. And to acknowledge that as overwhelming as uncertainty can feel, that it is possible to be transilliant, which is to take that thing and to transform it and say, well, what's the possibility that could happen here?
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And I think everybody's had that experience where you're like going down a dark, you know, dark pathway and things aren't going well and you flip it in your mind or you do something and it like changes in an instant. And so I guess I would say I hope people walk away from this saying instead of uncertainty, how do I avoid it? It's so terrible. This is awful to say, OK, this is what is.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And how can I, how can this make me stronger? How can this make me better? And that's the Transilient moment. That question leads to the, and I think that Transilience is what's beyond resilience. Resilience is like, you can take a punch and stay standing. I want you to take that punch and like be stronger.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
That's a common, by the way, a common psychological bias we have where we think the next decision will determine everything. But one way to unpick that for yourself is to look back at your life. And I'd say in the last week or the last year, how many decisions did you make?
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
how many of those were really completely irreversible, like, you know, and even sometimes when something goes different than you expected, you know, I told you about, I applied to jobs, I got turned down from all of them. That was one of the greatest learning moments of my life and led to the next success.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
And I guess I would say my view is that life is a highway with many, many on-ramps and that it is a myth to think there's only one on-ramp. And I can't tell you how many people I talk to, well, if you dig down deep and you find a failure, that is often their moment of transformation as well. And this is even at a wide scope.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
So Randy Comisar, one of the legends of Silicon Valley, when he says, what makes Silicon Valley different from the rest of the world? It's not smarter people. It's not more money. It's not all that. He says the attitude towards failure. He said, look back at some of our greatest successes. They're almost always rooted in failure if you dig deep enough. And so, you know, what's failure?
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
What's success? What's the optimum? Life is a freeway with many, many on ramps.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
Yeah, yeah, it's a fun topic. So, cool. Thank you.
Something You Should Know
How Your Mind Changes Over Time & The Upside of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
When you spend your whole life running away from uncertainty, you also spend your life running away from possibility. You know, sometimes you take a risk and it doesn't work out. But on average, if you're taking thoughtful risks, it leads to such a more interesting, exciting life.