How to tackle uncertainty

Timestamps 

00:00:00: Introduction 
00:03:14: Sam's journey into uncertainty 
00:05:02: The science of uncertainty 
00:06:57: The Uncertainty Experiment 
00:10:36: The 2019 Yale report 
00:11:27: Details of the experiment 
00:14:38: Embodied Cognition 
00:16:58: Interoception 
00:17:50: Relating the finding to individuals and to groups 
00:21:27: Counterintuitive role modelling 
00:22:51: Recommended reading on uncertainty 
00:24:37: How to get involved in the Uncertainty Experiment 
00:25:25: Career advice 
00:28:04: A short clip from the Uncertainty Experts 
 
Interview Transcription 

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah Ellis and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we discuss a different topic to do with work and share some ideas, actions and advice that we hope will help you and us to navigate our Squiggly Careers with that little bit more confidence and control.   

For the next few weeks, you've got a break from Helen and I as instead, we have our fourth Ask the Expert series, which I'm so excited about.  We're covering a really great range of really relevant topics with just brilliant people who really know their stuff, and we're going to be talking about Time, Influence, Storytelling, Success and Leadership; and we're starting the series talking about Uncertainty, with writer and all-round creator, Sam Conniff, and scientist, Katherine Templar Lewis. 

Sam and Katherine have been collaborating on something called The Uncertainty Experts, which started as an experiment designed to see if they could help people to increase resilience and decrease anxiety, through a three-part interactive documentary.  I took part in the pilot earlier this year and can tell you, it's like no other learning experience that I've ever had before, and it really works; and not just for me.  It's actually been very rigorously reviewed by scientists, and they've been able to show that it does really have a positive impact in terms of being able to find our way through uncertainty. 

If you want to get involved in their first launch series now that they've done their pilot, you can sign up now.  They're doing the next three-part series in November.  We'll add the link to the show notes, and if you use the code, "Squiggly", you get a bit of an extra discount too, so it's worth having a look at that.  At that end of the podcast, there's a bit of a chance to get some extra borrowed brilliance, because you're going to hear a very short clip, just a minute or show, from one of the Uncertainty experts, who will share a glimpse into their personal story, and these are people who've gone from being gang leaders to business leaders, refugees who've gone on to become CEOs; and you'll also hear Katherine almost interpreting their stories into insights about how our brains work when we are faced with uncertainty and how, if we approach uncertainty in the right way, we can increase so many things: our empathy, our decision-making and our problem-solving.  So, it's worth staying on to the end to listen to that. 

So, Sam, Katherine, thank you so much for joining us today on the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I am really looking forward to our conversation! 

Sam Conniff: Thanks, Sarah, very much indeed for having us.  It's very nice to see you again. 

Katherine Templar Lewis: Yeah, it's wonderful to be here, thank you. 

Sarah Ellis: So, today's episode is all about uncertainty and I don't think we need to spend much time persuading people that uncertainty is part of our careers, part of our working world and to be honest, even more than that, has been part of all of our lives over the past 18 months.  So, I think it's one of those areas that people intuitively know is important; but equally, at the same time as I've been thinking about this this week, it is hard to know what to do with that knowledge. 

We know that uncertainty is almost just ever-present, but then figuring out how to navigate that uncertainty and what to do about it actually feels really hard.  So, I'm looking forward to diving into that a bit more today.  So, maybe let's start with what prompted your interest, Sam, perhaps you want to start us off with why was uncertainty was top of mind for you; and then, where's that led you to this point of really starting to think about what can we do to navigate uncertainty a bit better? 

Sam Conniff: I would have said that I was pretty good at uncertainty.  A lot of my life's been about challenge and about new ideas and trying to do things differently and why we know each other, and certainly being a fan of the whole concept of Squiggly Careers, I advocate not taking necessarily the linear path.  But I was at a place about two years ago, well a year and a half ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, where I'd just managed to get through this huge period of uncertainty of career change, of huge personal change with divorce and just an awful lot, and this new career had just about formed, and I literally just allowed myself to celebrate, the thing you never do. 

Then, all of a sudden, it went off a cliff.  And over two weeks, like many people, I saw my entire income for the year, all the bookings, everything disappear and this rising sense of panic come up, and just on the lookout for leadership.  Leadership is something that interests me anyway, and I just couldn't see it, neither in the daily briefings, nor in many organisations, and I didn't know where to turn.  I tried to get strength by giving strength and reached out to young entrepreneurs that I'd spent -- my work was very much involved around young people, and I offered to do mentoring sessions for their businesses.  

In the inspiration I drew from them, and a lot of my work, the young people and being around kids in the justice system or refugees, I came across a level of leadership and resilience and adaptiveness, and suddenly I found my source of inspiration.  And I wrote a Medium piece about it, because I was so lifted by some of their insights from time in prison or elsewhere.  I called it Uncertainty Experts, and it went off and got spread around the world, and suddenly I'd found a new pathway and a new area of exploration in leadership and uncertainty. 

Sarah Ellis: And so, Katherine, amongst other things, you are a scientist of multiple things.  You have got an overwhelmingly Squiggly and impressive CV at the same time.  I'd love you to just talk to our listeners a little bit about how do our brains respond to uncertainty; almost the science behind uncertainty, so we can start to just understand it a bit better, alongside all of our personal experiences of knowing that just intuitively, this feels hard? 

Katherine Templar Lewis: Absolutely.  And it is hard.  I came to uncertainty from a professional and personal view.  I'd been a trans-discipline scientist, I'd been in and out of different science labs, and also into the creative arts, and I'm a highly anxious person who's permanently throwing myself off the cliff into the unknown.  I thought there's got to be a better way.  So, a lot of my research started to look at this idea of anxiety and this idea that it was rising, it was a pandemic for this current COVID pandemic. 

What we realised is actually, anxiety is a symptom of the way that the brain reacts to uncertainty and uncertainty is the cause.  And our brains are what's called Coding Machines.  A lot of my work now is looking at this neuroscience, where we're permanently trying to keep ourselves safe, where not necessarily our brains don't want us to be creative, they want us to be safe, which means they often block us.  And when uncertain things come up, there's a bit of a fork in the road, and some people, most people, they have a fear response, which can limit you and you want to avoid it and shy away from uncertainty. 

Some people seem to have this superhero power, where they don't trigger a fear response, or they know how to manage it and they stay calm.  Once you do that, suddenly your brain goes, "Okay, there's nothing to be scared of.  What can we do here?"  That's this sudden space to creativity and innovation.  Then, it really does go through this process, me and Sam discovered, on this journey of fear/fog/stasis, and it's all about your reaction to uncertainty, which is inherent.  And I realised through my research that actually, that's something you can change. 

Sarah Ellis: So, perhaps let's talk now a bit about this Uncertainty Experiment that you've run, what you've learn from that and what our listeners can learn, and what they might start to be thinking about for themselves, if they want to be those people that choose to opt in to uncertainty in a positive and a useful way that does unlock some of these really helpful things that we all need in work today, like creativity, like the ability to have a sense, I guess, of feeling in control, which is often one of the those things in Squiggly Careers that can feel really hard. 

Katherine Templar Lewis: Who wants to start? 

Sam Conniff: The thing that you taught me at the beginning was some of the constructs and ways that we measured it, and that's kind of what we use to prove how you can make a difference. 

Katherine Templar Lewis: And I think a lot of our time, we're just reacting subconsciously to things in habitual ways that we've learnt.  And learning, neuroplasticity is one of my all-time favourite things in the brain.  It's wonderful and you know that at any age, the brain can literally grow new pathways and reorganise the roadways inside it, to learn new modes of thinking and behaving and acting, and anyone can do it. 

That's where we really realised how our approach to uncertainty is different amongst everybody.  And there's actually a scientific scale, called Our Tolerance to Uncertainty, and that has different dimensions, like how risk averse you are, how much you need things to be closed and not ambiguous; and you can test people for this.  So actually, what we started to do was, if we can test people and we know that through neuroplasticity, we can actually help people relearn, rather than reacting and a habitual avoidant pathway being afraid of uncertainty, which then starts to hardwire that response; we're very used to not liking uncertainty, taking a step back and then we become used to doing that because it feels safe; what you actually need to do, ironically, is just start taking steps towards uncertainty.  Then when the brain realises that nothing really bad happens, and in fact actually sometimes really good things happen, then you start to rewire your brain towards that pathway, and then that becomes the habit. 

So we were, right, how do we take all the stories, which are very powerful learning sources in themselves, how do we look at what the neuroscience behind it is, and then weave that into the episodes and interact as almost a documentary, which is also, and it's become now the world's largest experiment in uncertainty, because we're testing people at the beginning, and the end, and six weeks later on their need for closure and uncertainty tolerance in a scientific manner, and we've done this all with researchers at UCL. 

It was kind of remarkable actually.  I don't think anyone expected it to work so well and to be scientifically shown that people have shifted across this time.  We were, "My God, we really have invented something amazing!" 

Sam Conniff: Yeah, I'm still learning to believe it!  I've really learnt through this.  I was struggling with this real sense of uncertainty; I was succumbing to panic.  I was in the most vulnerable financial state of my adult life and I've gone through a few things, I've started a few different businesses, I thought I'd seen it.  And, the advice that I got from the individuals, the first prisoners, then this woman who'd been inside, then an incredible scientist who transitioned gender, then a guy who'd been in a Prison of War; bit by bit, these bits of advice just stayed with me. 

So, that point about what we learn, they all had, in different ways, the same piece of advice which is, "How do you increase [what I didn't know then] what's called your Tolerance to Uncertainty?"  But on a daily basis, how do you get comfortable with the uncomfortable; what are the exercises that you can do?  You can describe the brain as a muscle; how do you strengthen that muscle and its ability not to run away and not to try to protect you with avoidance techniques, but to lean into it? 

This was a lovely dance that began to happen.  I had this next incredible story, and can this be true?  And Katherine would come back and say, "Well, here's a Yale report from 2019 which proves that in a state of uncertainty, if you can hold on to that state of uncertainty, and this is something that anybody can practise doing; when you feel that flush, when you feel there's conflict in that meeting and you want to shut it down and you so want it to stop, if you can stay in that space a little longer, the pathways in your brain will light up and it's a state of heightened arousal.  

So, the Yale report shows this is one of the best states of mind that you can be in for information gathering, for learning.  But we wouldn't want to stay in that state normally; you want to move away from it.  But if you can, you can begin to practise it, you realise suddenly how much information you can absorb when high arousal no longer feels like panic, but just high arousal.  So, these patterns began to really overlap with each other, and that's when we felt that we had something that we had to try and test out with a live audience. 

Sarah Ellis: So perhaps, Sam, this would be a really good point just to briefly explain to listeners what this Uncertainty Experiment is that you've run so far and what your plans are for it next, because we've alluded to it and I think we've brought it to life actually through our conversation so far, but I just want to make sure that everybody listening is really clear about what was that almost scientific experiment that you have done, and what you learnt, and then where you might take it? 

Sam Conniff: Uncertainty Experts is a three-part interactive and immersive documentary.  We've piloted it and we're going to run it again in November on a much larger scale, the world's largest experiment in uncertainty.  You look at it from an outside point of view, and it should hopefully look and feel as much like a Netflix documentary as anything else, and each episode tackles these three big areas: fear, then fog, then stasis; and each episode, you'll meet three Uncertainty Experts, who will describe their really clear coping strategies for turning fear into action and fog into creativity and how to move beyond stasis. 

As you meet each of the Uncertainty Experts, provocations and prompts for reflection are sent to your phone, because in my experience, all of these sessions and learning that we're doing at home, it's really hard to get that same thoughtfulness that we might have when we met in person.  And as you respond to those, your information goes into a backend system that we've designed with some of the lead researchers at UCL.  That connects to a scientific survey that you do at the beginning of the show and at the end of the three episodes.  Together, that builds your uncertainty profile, so you'll get a score to your uncertainty tolerance at the beginning and the end.   

There are subset measures in there for decisiveness, open-mindedness, discomfort with ambiguity, and many other things that then relate to the leadership skills of the 21st Century, from interoception to empathy.  So, you get a profile at the end with recommendations, guidance and advice as to what you can do.  Then, between each one of the episodes, Katherine stars in a kind of miniseries of explainer content, where she breaks down some of the concepts that we've seen in the show, and a series of links and other opportunities for reflection.   

It's part documentary, it is part science experiment, it's part immersive workshop and learning experience and what we saw surprised everyone.  The guys at UCL put three really robust scientific evaluations in place, one around emotions, one around attitudes and one around risk-taking in real life, and we got a statistically significant increase in all three, which makes it one of the most successful psychological interventions that they've run, they said; and then we ran the measure again at six weeks and not only had the increases held, but they'd increased. 

So, there's apparently a long-term benefit across all of these measures and the simple output is how do you, as an individual, and that ladders up to you, as a team, get better at turning all this uncertainty we face into opportunity. 

Sarah Ellis: And, with the work that you've both done so far, so almost coming really at uncertainty from very different starting points and perspectives and understanding, what have you found out so far that has surprised you the most? 

Sam Conniff: For me, a huge part of this is the dual intelligence that a human being has for decision-making.  I did not know this at all, but Katherine taught me this; I'll leave you to describe interoception, because it's the word I think you give it as well.  But it's this idea that there's this thought called Embodied Cognition, and it's thought to be the most radical concept in cognitive science, and it is fundamentally that you've got two decision-making frameworks.   

One is what we shorthand call, your gut; but there are as many receptors in your stomach connected to the rest of your body, in fact more than your brain's ever going to have access to, and they make decisions all the time.  They make decisions for you about where you should go, where you should stop, what you can reach, who you can trust.  All of this is going on, and our ability to make decisions in a dual sense is the one place that human beings can still completely outcompete any kind of technology.  AI can outthink us, can outplay us at chess, can out-predict any kind of model if you just put human intelligence against computer intelligence.  But if you put human's dual intelligence, your emotional and cognitive intelligence working together at once, and this notion of embodied cognition, there's no technology that can touch how sophisticated we are.   

I had no idea.  I'm a person that walks around not really aware of what their body's doing to try and get my brain to the next location, and what I've learned about being slightly more in touch with these two processes, my decision-making, my confidence in decision-making, particularly in really uncertain moments, when rational available information's disappeared, to really feel better judgement coming, because I can sense how I'm going to feel about it as well as how I think about it, is transformational. 

Katherine Templar Lewis: Yeah, I think it was from a science point of view, and also human point of view, what was really surprising starting this project, I came at it from quite a geeky angle, wanting to test things out in real life; but it was how many people put their hand up.  They were like, "I get really anxious with uncertainty".  It was as if everyone wanted to really admit it.  I think we just assumed that that was how the world is, uncertainty's scary, and then you reframe it as uncertainty's not scary; it's how we react. 

Then you hit this barrier where you go, "I can't just buck up, can I?  These are real reactions I'm having in my body", and that's where the science really helped me and I love watching it help other people in that, it's okay, everyone, we don't just need to be told to buck up, what we can actually do is to learn the ways to master our mind and take control, and our brain is just trying to keep us safe and it's just gone down the wrong pathway.  If we can just bring it back, and not only that, but then we can absolutely unleash this superpower, and I've always loved humans; I think we're incredible the things we can do, and I think this point in time, where we need to do incredible things more than ever, and we have totally got this, and it starts on that individual level. 

I think Sam also mention interoception, which is the word which I can't spell, I can scarcely say, but I've been studying it, doing a lot of research projects around it.  Interoception, by the end of the year, it will be everywhere.  It's facing your gut feeling, which we've always split the mind and the body and told ourselves that you can't be rational and emotional; but if you knock out the emotional part of someone's brain, they can't even decide what to have for breakfast.  And we don't listen to our body.   

Actually, what science is showing us is that we have all these signals, from butterflies in our stomach to a racing heart that we've separated from decision-making.  Actually, they're really good informers of how we're reacting to things and a really good starting point to help regulate your emotional reactions.  Everyone can learn what's called "interoceptive accuracy and awareness", and people can learn to include and improve it.  Then, not only do you have your mind, but you have your whole body helping you make the right decisions. 

Sarah Ellis: If somebody is listening now and they are experiencing a lot of uncertainty in where they work, that feels very out of control; so, I think there's you as an individual, what you can do, and you're developing lots of these skills and exercises that will help people, which is brilliant, and that's all about taking ownership and control.   

If you are sitting in an organisation where everything is changing and there are restructures all over the place and you're not quite sure what it's going to look like, maybe you're not sure if your job's going to exist in the same way, do the things that you have found through the first Uncertainty Expert series and the bigger Uncertainty Experiment that you're finding, do these things help you in that context; or is it much more about you as an individual, how you respond to the uncertainty that's immediately around you?  Does that distinction make sense and does that feel unfair? 

Sam Conniff: I can go with, at the end of the third episode of the pilot series, the audience refused to let go and they insisted on some kind of community.  So, at the end of that episode, we formed a WhatsApp group and could count out immediately it was 250.  So, I've had the benefit of watching a group explore all of this stuff.  There are dozens, literally dozens of examples of people changing their careers as a result, people starting businesses.  

Very often, the stories we've heard have been about standing up to someone at work, which could feel relatively small, but for the individual that's going through it, we all know how huge that is; to a career change that a woman was unable to do, to leave an environment or change something in a culture, so to have a difficult conversation with a colleague.  So, the application of this stuff, the practical application of this stuff has been phenomenal, which makes me very happy, because the last thing I want to do is just do something that's momentarily inspirational.  This is a moment at which we know further uncertainty is certain, we know that the world is going to rely on us responding to it.   

There's lots of studies to say low tolerance to uncertainty leads to less cohesion, and even a higher susceptibility for populist politics and conspiracy theories.  When we all have a higher tolerance for uncertainty, we're able to get along with one another better, you're able to sit with ideas that are uncomfortable to you, work with people who are different to you.  So, the application in organisations and really in society, at the moment that we really need this collaborative approach and to be able to move beyond being pushed into binaries so that we can exist in nuance and try and work out better solutions than the one we've got, is essential. 

So, I think it's exactly the right question, because that's where my now longer-term ambitions for what it can do for people and for organisations and society are really coming from. 

Katherine Templar Lewis: And I think I just completely agree with that from the science.  I think it's very tempting in times of big uncertainty, especially around work and things that are happening right now, to try and make things certain and try and control the environment around you, and that's never going to work, because uncertainty is just inherent around us.  

What you can do is actually mask your fear response, put yourself in a position where you're not reacting, but being able to make proactive steps towards; and that's the control, you have the control of you and where your next step is.  That actually can be incredibly empowering.  What we saw as well, over the course of this series, was that people's self-efficacy, how much they believed in themselves, went up as well, and that's incredibly important to how you go forward in the world. 

The last thing which is rather wonderful is that people who are more tolerant of uncertainty are better collaborators.  They're better collaborators because they're more open to new ideas and different ideas, and they're better able to deal with those when shifts in ideas and perspectives come along.  So, the rather wonderful thing about it is that within the working environment, you suddenly become better teammates as well.  And that again ladders up to whether it's a teammate, or the person you're in a relationship with at home, through to the way we need to band together as a society to face some of the challenges.  So, I think it's really applicable at every level really. 

Sam Conniff: One of the bits of advice that stays with me here is from Dr Ming, who's one of the Uncertainty Experts who went through huge uncertainty, from near suicidal depression to gender transition.  She now works in the talent and workspace an awful lot and has done research involving millions of data sets.  And one of the ways that she's proven again and again that you can increase your tolerance to uncertainty in a work environment is something called Counterintuitive Role Modelling.   

What that fundamentally means is, when we feel unsafe, we are drawn towards people who we recognise, "I'm not enjoying myself at work at the moment, this is really difficult", and you see it in small kids; they will all hang out in little clusters that look and sound like them.  So, we do it the same way ourselves.  But if you can find someone, and this is her term, Dr Ming's term, who "violates your stereotypes, who really violates your stereotypes, makes you feel uncomfortable, you know you disagree with and you spend time with them consistently, you will rewire how you view the world.  Have lunch with them every day, have a coffee, check in, and you will begin to see everything differently, and it's how we work as human beings, it's the cause of osmosis, it's the social patterns that we form. 

So, normally when we look for role models, we will look for people for whom we want to be, not for people for whom we feel uncomfortable with.  But by spending time with those people, that's one of the most fundamental ways that human beings learn without sitting down with paper and pen, but from another person.  And she thinks it can take up to two years, but over time it fundamentally rewires your outlook. 

Sarah Ellis: So, I'll ask you in a second how people can get involved in the Uncertainty Experiment, if they'd like to, having listened to today; but before that, I wondered if there was one thing that you would recommend listeners read, watch or listen to, to learn more about uncertainty, if you've peaked people's interest and they're now, "I want to dive into this a bit deeper", where would you point people to, and we'll make sure that we include it in today's show notes? 

Katherine Templar Lewis: I mean, from my point, I've got reams of papers that I've been collating if you're really one of these bedtime readers!  But I'll tell you one of the interesting things of this project.  I've certainly been studying some different disciplines and those disciplines didn't talk, and a lot of my work is about getting different people to talk to each other.  So, we've collated a lot of the information, translated it in various ways from the excerpts that I've done, from the Medium blogs that are really good that Sam has done, to just finding some accessible papers and articles.  And a lot of this is on the website as things that we want to make really accessible to people and more engaging than most traditional papers! 

Sam Conniff: One of the ways when we were doing the initial research, we were still in full lockdown, and so Katherine would send these papers and I'd try and make sense of them, and I'd send her a note and then she'd send me these hilarious voice notes when she's between a meeting, swearing and just making me laugh!  But what we ended up doing was using these voice notes as some of the interim content between the episodes, because it helped me really get my head around it.  So, if it helps, I'll share some of those with you for people who are interested in interoception or some of the other concepts, because she really has a gift for communicating them. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that would be great.  So, perhaps maybe you could pick two or three of the key ideas that we have talked about today, and we could all benefit from some of those voice notes.  So, yeah, maybe whether it's the negativity bias, or a couple of those other areas, I think that would be great. 

So, if people listening do want to get involved in the Uncertainty Experiment, how can they; where should they go? 

Sam Conniff: They can just google "Uncertainty Experts"; it's the only thing of its kind out there.  You'll find your way to it pretty quickly.  The site is live, series one is going to be in November.  You can buy tickets now.  If you've had a really tough time, there are some super discounts for like 10% of the price, because I've got a lot of people who've had a year like me.  We've put on a Squiggly code on there as well, so if you put "Squiggly" in, you'll get 30% off whatever ticket price is on there, because we're big fans of all the squiggles, and that's it really.  

Just come and sign up.  Once you're signed up, you'll start receiving various bits of content we've described, like the voice notes from Katherine, some of the research we've done, some of the articles, so that by the time the series comes, you'll then undertake the full scientific surveys and then you'll be able to watch all three episodes and all the content that site between them. 

Sarah Ellis: And we finish all of our guest episodes by asking the same question: what is your one piece of career advice that you would share with our listeners?  It can be your own advice; it can be advice you've had from other people that you've found really useful; but just some final words of wisdom from you both. 

Katherine Templar Lewis: What I've learnt this year, I think, is about I realise that myself as well, I'm not as kind to myself as I should be about how hard forging careers are, especially in an uncertain world, especially when trying to do something a bit different.  Actually, acknowledge that it's hard and congratulate yourself for it. 

Actually, it's funny, because one of my favourite Uncertainty Experts says something which I come back to again and again and again, Morgan Godvin, an amazing woman.  She says, "The right thing to do is almost always the hardest thing to do", and I see that as not as anything to be anxious about, but yes, it is and congratulate yourself for even taking those steps, because it is hard and we need to also acknowledge that to ourselves, that we're pretty amazing people. 

Sam Conniff: I feel very grateful for this project and experiment.  It really has been the advice and insights.  I've so enjoyed doing the interviews; they saved me.  But the thing that's really stuck with me at the moment is an insight that came from the audience.  So, 500 people went through the pilot.  When asked what their greatest fear was, over 80% of people said, "Fear of failure".  In the third episode, people were asked, "What's the one thing in life that you least want to regret?" and again similarly high, like 87%, was, "Missed opportunity".  That just stopped me in my tracks, because the one thing that's going to lead you if you're considering careers, Squiggly Careers, or making moves, the one thing that's going to make you miss an opportunity is fear of failure. 

Within that least question, "What do you not want to look back and regret?" next to nobody said failure.  So, we present it as this fear that's going to stop us; yet if we allow it, it's going to lead to the biggest regret of our lives.  And when we're going to look back, failure was never going to be the thing that should have stopped us.  In taking the big risks that I've taken to try to bring this project to life; that fact, that stat that's come from so many human beings has really, really helped me. 

Sarah Ellis: Thank you for listening to today's episode, I hope you found it useful.  Next week, you can hear my conversation with Oliver Burkeman, where together we'll be discussing Time and how to use it.  And, as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, we're going to finish today's episode with a very short clip from one of the Uncertainty Experts, so you can really get a feel for the work that Sam and Katherine are doing; a great example to borrow some brilliance from people that you might not get the opportunity normally to learn from, so I'd really recommend investing two more minutes of your time to hear what they've got to say.  Here we go. 

"Katherine Templar Lewis: Hello, I'm Katherine Templar Lewis and I'm the lead scientist on the Uncertainty Experts.  Karl Loko was once heralded as London's number one gang leader, but like all Uncertainty Experts, the strategies they once learned in the shadows, they now use as leading lights.  Karl is now a community leader, consultant, brushing shoulders with the Markles, the Bransons, and here's his take on the positive impact of uncertainty. 

"Karl Loko: You know, for me, uncertainty is the only place where you become more pliable and things are more pliable.  When you're certain, you know the formation, you know the pattern.  Uncertainty, yes, is uncomfortable, but that discomfort is generating within you a heightened awareness, allowing you to see what you couldn't previously see, acknowledge what you wouldn't previously acknowledge, and that means that you can create what you couldn't previously create, because now you know more, so you can do more; you see more, so you can be more. 

"Katherine Templar Lewis: What Karl's describing is known as "neuroplasticity" and Karl's right.  It will enable you to do, to see, to be more.  Neuroplasticity is amazing.  It's the ability of the brain to form new pathways and cells, to reorganise its connections, especially in response to learning or new experiences.  In short, it's the ability for your brain to rewire itself. 

"Now, we used to think this was only possible when we were children, but it's not; it can happen to us all our lives.  That means we can learn new skills, we can learn new habits, new ways to think about the world and behave; it just takes some practice and repetition.  Because the problem is, we get stuck in a mindset where we try to avoid uncertainty, and that becomes our habitual reaction, be it denial, overcontrol, avoidance, so you have to have the will to embrace uncertainty, to step towards it.  And when you do, and the more you do, the easier it becomes, because these new pathways will become hardwired and you will adopt this mindset of growth. 

"What emerged from the audience data in response to Uncertainty Experts showed changes not just in skillsets, but in mindsets.  We saw actual neuroplasticity."