Episode 145
Navigating change by mastering uncertainty
Taking the entrepreneurial path requires taking risks. And the rewards we'll encounter are never certain.
The choices we make create real consequences for our livelihood. And it can be hard to get over the feeling that we're imposters as we face the uncertainty over whether we've made the right ones.
This episode features an enlightening story – the personal and entrepreneurial journey of Sam Conniff, author and founder of Uncertainty Experts.
As someone who previously struggled with imposter syndrome, today he stands as a passionate advocate for embracing and mastering uncertainty.
This episode follows Sam's journey of building a startup, learn how he studied a global need – the universal discomfort with uncertainty – and created a lucrative business out of it.
Links
Transcript
For anyone listening to this, 'cause we also, uh, turn this into a podcast.
Carlos:So if they've stumbled across this particular episode, they don't know you, um, specifically Sam, uh, it'd be good to just get a bit of a potted history of, uh, yourself.
Carlos:Um, maybe start off with the work that you're doing now, just an overview and then maybe some milestones that got you to this place.
Sam:so currently I'm leading the world's largest ever piece of research into the human impact of uncertainty.
Sam:Um, I didn't, you know, that sounds very clear now.
Sam:It wasn't clear two years ago.
Sam:It was a great big disaster show, um, that happened in my kitchen, mid lockdown, in a very difficult moment of life and experiencing uncertainty and someone who has advocated change.
Sam:I realized I was dealing very badly with the change that had befall me.
Sam:And so I went seeking, uh, guidance and advice and examples of people who are good at uncertainty and, and found them and in telling their stories and, and trying to understand the science that sits behind them inadvertently creates something called the uncertainty experts.
Sam:I'm sure we'll come back to that, uh, a bit, but it's in one part a kind of online course meets an interactive documentary with really now well evidenced increases in people's uncertainty tolerance.
Sam:And my guess is that this is a community that already have a high uncertainty tolerance.
Sam:And so we'll intuitively know that uncertainty can be a really generative space and it can be a really exhaustive space.
Sam:And we show up every day trying to deal with the.
Sam:acumatic truth, that uncertainty in startups and entrepreneurship will always go together.
Sam:And sometimes that becomes limiting and sometimes it becomes liberating.
Sam:And this, this program that we're running is giving people the tools so they can step into the positive more often than the negative impacts of un uncertainty.
Sam:and hopefully we can come back and talk about uncertainty experts specifically.
Sam:So that's where we currently are and it's very interesting.
Sam:It's really triggering a ton of imposter syndrome for me because I'm, I'm technically a scientist, and academia and education is definitely not a place I've always felt comfortable.
Sam:But it's also the really wonderful bit.
Sam:We're a very, very small team.
Sam:We're very united around an idea.
Sam:Uh, we're still in that bit when everyone's kind of doing everything, but we're also finding our roles.
Sam:And, you know, and I think that's the, the gift of startups that, you know, when you've had it, that there's very few other bits of life where you have that experience with other human beings on the cusp of an idea.
Sam:And you are inflow and you are really connected and you're, it's fun and there's that sense of camaraderie.
Sam:and then prior to that I wrote a book, which was kind of supposed to be me stepping out.
Sam:I didn't think I wanted to do another Startup.
Sam:and I think it's a fairly classic move, isn't it, to go write a book about all your ideas.
Sam:But for me it was, I, I, I've lived for a long time by that line.
Sam:If you wanna know what you should do next, you should know what scares you most.
Sam:And I was always taken by the idea of writing.
Sam:I've always loved writing.
Sam:and the real reason for it was, uh, I'd run a social enterprise called Liberty for 15 years.
Sam:It was all about change and how do you create change, particularly for groups of young people who were largely excluded from aspects of society.
Sam:But our mechanism was to create a, a marketing agency, uh, ostensibly, but we opened up the doors.
Sam:So it was a big warehouse of a marketing agency that looked to our clients like any other marketing agency full of Apple Max and exposed brickwork.
Sam:Uh, but the, the interesting bit was this, the engine room was all these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of extremely talented young people who might have been excluded from school or single parents or whatever their, marginalized experience had been.
Sam:And we gave them an opportunity to really, really, really shine.
Sam:And, uh, I'm still in touch with many of them whose careers have gone on to extraordinary and beautiful things.
Sam:and then before that, uh, it was really kind of in my teens and I set up a couple of businesses that were more, you know, I didn't really, didn't know where I was going.
Sam:A phone called, don't panic.
Sam:Which still exists now as a BAFTA winning content agency.
Sam:Um, but back then we were doing nightclubs, flyers and raves and, and that's really where it all very, very much began.
Sam:I spent half my, my teenage years being a chef and half of them putting on raves in car parks.
Sam:And I know a lot of entrepreneurs who started out in a similar, it's a very good, um, training ground for a lot of the stuff that we go onto.
Sam:It's creative in a very open space, uh, where I really found myself.
Carlos:I just wanted to mention to those of you listening now or watching live, we're gonna be sharing a, a link.
Carlos:To, uh, Sam's course uncertainty experts.
Carlos:He, he's been, very generous enough to give us, uh, a discount code for as well.
Carlos:So we'll be sharing that towards the end of the call.
Carlos:So if you are more curious about learning, more about uncertainty or your relationship to it, then uh, we'll we've got something for you.
Carlos:Um, before we dive into the uncertainty bit, I, I was curious about Liberty, because one of the things that I've experienced and kind of in terms of the people I've met doing the Happy, Startup, School and just helping people start businesses, you know, we talk about make
Carlos:money, do good, be happy, there's this kind of, uh, social purpose aspect to or kind of beneficial impact aspect to the work they wanna do.
Carlos:And sometimes we hear about really complicated ideas, you know, to that wanna generate impact.
Carlos:And the way you describe Liberty is like it's a marketing agency.
Carlos:And, and I was just curious about that approach in terms of.
Carlos:you know, how that was a benefit for having very simple kind of commercial value proposition, but with that had an underpinning of social impact and how that might have been a challenge as well.
Sam:I think there's a lot of different reasons why people wanna do good.
Sam:I like the I idea that make money, do good, be happy, and I like the idea that we try to make sure that they can all balance equally, but I don't think they can balance equally.
Sam:I think it's more complicated than that.
Sam:And I think we also have to look beyond this idea to why we have such a low baseline of expectation anyway.
Sam:Why on earth is that a new idea?
Sam:Like, or why on earth is that a radical idea?
Sam:And, and it seems to be a radical idea.
Sam:And how do we let, systems get to a place where the notion that making money and being bad was, was kind of an acceptable thing, and yet that has become the, the norm.
Sam:So isn't it interesting that make money, do good, be happy, should be a radical counter-cultural idea?
Sam:What does that suggest?
Sam:The actual baseline and expectation is, um, make money and do bad.
Sam:Um, but I think that is the case.
Sam:And I think we fall into camps.
Sam:I don't think we always understand how strong the current of the system is in terms of its prejudices.
Sam:There are some which are more apparent if we, uh, the arguments around, uh, pay equality for example.
Sam:You know, still the expectation is 200 years until that, that might happen, or the, the understanding of racial injustice within capitalist structures.
Sam:But they are more, more, more present the underlying.
Sam:bias of it is, it is, is a, is a tendency for the system to justify itself.
Sam:And that's why I think this stuff becomes really interesting.
Sam:Like sy systematic change.
Sam:Why do we think it's falls upon businesses to do good in the world?
Sam:Well, is that because we don't believe that the system itself or the, or the policy frameworks or the society can do it?
Sam:and I, so I think we are asking really interesting questions that are far more profound than just that upon on each of us as individuals.
Sam:And I think it's really useful to, to just have that as the backdrop to the conversation.
Sam:My, my firm belief is the answers that society needs are not gonna come from the places that we normally look.
Sam:I think the role of the Startup is massively overlooked in terms of its future social contribution.
Sam:I think some of the best leaders in politics over the last 20 years have left.
Sam:I think the same is true of charity.
Sam:I think people who've worked at the, the foreground of those, all those institutions recognize their diminishing potential for impact.
Sam:And I see some of the best problem solving minds.
Sam:In the world at the moment are in a Startup space.
Sam:So I think it's no surprise that overall Startup culture has become much more purpose driven and, and purpose orientated.
Sam:And I also think with the advent of, of technology, the, the notion that a Startup is about a business plan and a bank manager and things that are external to you have dropped away.
Sam:And it's more likely that your business, your passion, your, your, your endeavor, your adventure is much more connected to who you're as an individual.
Sam:So once again, another, another reason for it.
Sam:So, uh, this is something that I felt deeply 30 years ago, and so to me it makes a lot of sense that that's the, the place that we're kind of emerging into.
Sam:But back then to now, that's what I think is the interesting backdrop that I think we're part of a.
Sam:Uh, a necessary zeitgeist.
Sam:I think it's a trend that's not gonna diminish, and I think some of the big solutions that we're looking for over the next five years are gonna come from this community.
Sam:Not to put too much pressure on you all, but how important I think you're, and how important this message is within a group like this.
Sam:Um, but back then, 30 years ago, the idea of, you know, the social enterprise wasn't a really well established term.
Sam:There was no B Corp.
Sam:this language was pretty vague and, and, and unusual.
Sam:And actually we were taken less seriously in pitches and presentations when we started talking about purpose.
Sam:So we had to find a narrative that worked on, on both ends.
Sam:And because our particular purpose then was creating a platform for inner city kids to get taken seriously and given opportunities, we would be immediately bracketed in people's minds.
Sam:You know, oh, well this is for, you know, naughty black from Brixton.
Sam:This is, oh, we're gonna do our, our bit of good.
Sam:That tithe mentality that good is 10% of your time, effort, or, or budget, is the bit that we really, really wanted to change.
Sam:So a Trojan horse style approach is what really appealed to us.
Sam:And I think it's, it's ing your line because it was so important that we, it's very common or it was very common that a social purpose business would be tolerated for having a less good product.
Sam:And I think the opportunity is to be a premium business.
Sam:And you are a premium business because you have better talent because they're coordinated around a, a more meaningful outcome.
Sam:We are profitable and strong because we have customers who are more loyal and that becomes, uh, you know, are good, is a strategic imperative and benefit.
Sam:And that I think is the flip that we were going through and we were at the early stages of that.
Sam:So it was very hard to say.
Sam:So, you know, presenting as a marketing agency and presenting as a award-winning successful marketing agency, it was really necessary to get taken seriously.
Sam:So when we were into a client environment, we could kind of reveal the good that we did and it would be embedded.
Carlos:I mean it was hearing the very pragmatic approach with presenting as a marketing agency, right?
Carlos:If we are going to get in the door, we need to be able to talk the language that people need to hear in order for them to listen.
Carlos:Uh, and at the same time, I love the Trojan horse of approach and this ability to.
Carlos:Sneak purpose in through the back door, which I don't think is necessary as much these days.
Carlos:It feels like being able to tell a story of the good that you're doing, I, in an authentic way seems for at least the people in the sphere I'm in these days seems to add premium.
Carlos:There's a purpose premium added bit these days.
Carlos:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carlos:I mean, this
Sam:is before any, I mean, there wasn't a social enterprise didn't exist as a, as a term we are talking about when new labor was still a positive phrase.
Sam:I mean, it was a long time ago and before the updates of the companies act, which allowed for the, community understanding and, and environmental impact, um, aspects of it.
Sam:to be really honest, the arrogance of me at the time, I thought I'd invented a new dawn in business like I really did.
Sam:I thought, and I was so passionate about it, like, no, no, no.
Sam:We are gonna make brilliant work and we're gonna make a huge difference and we're gonna make money and this is the future.
Sam:And then I got, uh, I remember getting asked to do an article or speak to the, an article about social enterprise and this growing movement and, and how did I feel about the third sector?
Sam:And I felt like I'd been a relegated 'cause third sector was such a terrible term.
Sam:Why are we third when we should be out in the front and be like, oh, crikey, there's loads of others who are in this space as well.
Sam:Um, and, and, and then when you suddenly become part of something and you, and you recognize it, it was wonderful.
Sam:And then suddenly when you realize you were kind of seen as, I don't know, nice guys, you know, and that's such a patronizing term when you are almost working doubly hard because you've got these multiple bottom lines that you're at least trying to consider and multiple objectives and ethical, uh, wrangling that you're going through in your decisions.
Sam:You know, it's a quami.
Sam:much more difficult than just making decisions based on the bottom line.
Sam:And so I think.
Sam:I think entrepreneurship is an act of identity anyway.
Sam:And I think when you add a degree of social entrepreneurship to it, it's an act of not just identity, but ethics.
Sam:And so it's a very interesting experience as a human being to explore who you are, uh, as part of it.
Carlos:Making money, doing good.
Carlos:I feel like a natural transition to being happy.
Carlos:And when I think of uncertainty, I think of anxiety.
Carlos:I think of fear.
Carlos:Um, and so, and you know, you, you were just talking about the wrangling, the extra wrangling.
Carlos:I've gotta think not only about the bottom line, I've gotta think about the ethics of this, you know, the, the purpose of this, the impact of this, and there's this, I'm starting to just feel this sense of overwhelm around it.
Sam:Yep.
Carlos:So I'm curious to hear about, and, and, and inherently as a Startup.
Carlos:Shit happens.
Carlos:You don't have, you're not opening a McDonald's, you don't have a script to work from.
Carlos:You're making it up as you go along.
Carlos:I'd be curious to hear that, how that experience of uncertainty and maybe your own relationship to it moved.
Carlos:You, maybe steered you towards diving a bit more deep into this work.
Sam:alright, let's start with that.
Sam:Make, make, make money.
Sam:Do good.
Sam:Do they, do those two things make you happy?
Sam:or, or is it the case as I think is often the case, that the target is, you know, five grand and then the target's 10 grand, the target's 20 grand, on achieving the target.
Sam:There isn't, or it's very rare that there's this immense sense of Happiness.
Sam:You know, the target is to get to the end of the first year.
Sam:The target is to employ people.
Sam:The target is to win that client.
Sam:Does do, do the people in this conversation experience a profound sense of Happiness when they actually reach it?
Sam:I'm not sure we do.
Sam:Right?
Sam:And then when we do good, right?
Sam:So whatever that good is, we've helped that organization, we've built that, you know, community project, we've invested that, money.
Sam:Is that the moment at which we then feel happy?
Sam:And again, I'm not sure.
Sam:It's, there's evidence around this, you know, the, the reward chemical that we get in our system.
Sam:Dopamine is an anticipatory chemical.
Sam:It's released into our body and the anticipation of the outcome, not on the release of the outcome.
Sam:And everyone here would've done that.
Sam:You know, we worked for a year on something.
Sam:Actually, the creation of it, the dreaming of it, the planning of it, the upheaval of it, that's the joyful part.
Sam:And then you get there and all of a sudden you feel a bit flat and so you're gonna get drunk or something.
Sam:So, you know, to try and maintain the high that you've got.
Sam:'cause we don't know what to do when we, when we achieve it.
Sam:So I, I, I think that Happiness very often is counterintuitively related to problems and problem solving.
Sam:That's the bit that really makes us happy.
Sam:and so that's probably why making money, because it's a problem to solve and doing good, those things do make us happy.
Sam:It's not necessarily the achievement of it.
Sam:And that's my segue into uncertainty because it's that will it, won't it, the, the, the greater the degree of unlikelihood, the more there is a dopamine anticipation reward.
Sam:You know, if you're like, 90%, I'm gonna get this done.
Sam:Yeah.
Sam:You know, it's kind of enjoyable.
Sam:It's 90%, I'm not gonna get it done.
Sam:Pretty hectic, you know, and I'm alive and there's something going on.
Sam:So, I think I've, therefore naturally sailed towards the UNC and, uh, liberty was a world of uncertainty because, because it had an open door to young people with a, with a very specific invitation to kids who'd been in trouble.
Sam:So there were days you'd have kids come in, who'd been gang involved, kids who'd come in with weapons, kids who'd come in, who'd been on, you know, a variety of substances, kids who'd been thrown outta the house.
Sam:So, you know, you.
Sam:You experienced chaos fairly regularly, but you also experienced, as everybody here will know, you know, so often in a Startup journey, the, the rug is pulled from under you again and then again, and then again, you know?
Sam:Um, and it's very often in those moments that we, we have the breakthroughs or the, you know, you discover the strength that you didn't know you had, and it's from that, that you build and do things that others think are so impossible.
Sam:And you all know that people look at what we do and think, God, I could never do that.
Sam:And the truth is, you could, you just, you just dunno what you're possible of, what's the line?
Sam:You dunno what you, you're made of until you've had the stuffing knocked out of you.
Sam:Um, so I, I think I had an idea towards the notion that uncertainty could be this positive place.
Sam:My, my book was very much about encouraging people to step into a place of change.
Sam:And I did that with a, uh, a naivety.
Sam:And when I started hearing from hundreds and then thousands of readers who, uh, telling me, great, I've left my job.
Sam:Read your book.
Sam:Loved it.
Sam:I've, I've finished my career and I'm now starting a social enterprise with no money.
Sam:Thanks, thanks for, and I got really nervous.
Sam:And, uh, wait a minute.
Sam:Stop.
Sam:You know, there's kind of, I wrote it for myself, and then obviously felt very, very proud that the people were taking the step.
Sam:But when you step into the unknown, that's really the scariest bit, and that's why uncertainty is it's thought of as the fundamental human fear, the unknown.
Sam:And, and that's because in early, really, really, um, formative times, there's these kind of four conditions that we needed.
Sam:Shelter, uh, social groups, sustenance, and then survival.
Sam:Um, shelter, sustenance, social groups have all become easier over time.
Sam:But the triggers that make us feel that we're at threat are still, um, activated by notifications on your phone, bad news headlines, you know, of, of particular frequency, of siren.
Sam:And then just the endless stuff that seems to go wrong on a daily basis.
Sam:So our capacity for, for uncertainty is very often diminished at the point at which the experience of uncertainty is increased.
Sam:The, the World Uncertainty Index tells us this is the most uncertain time in human history.
Sam:Um, yet of course that's so subjective.
Sam:It must have always been for every generation third time they'd experienced.
Sam:But, um, then if you saw the news last week, the atomic doomsday clock, uh, the metaphorical clock where the hands, when the hands reach midnight, humanity arrives at its destruction.
Sam:Not to get too cheery for this time on a Friday.
Sam:Um, but ever since the 1950s, an objective panel of international scientists have met every three months to, to move these hands around.
Sam:And we're now at 90 seconds to midnight, which is, uh, closer than the Sue Canal crisis, closer than any of the, um, previous conflicts.
Sam:And that's due to both the combination of AI and conflict in the Middle East and the Ukraine and, and a number of other things.
Sam:Point being, we're not prepared for the moment that we're in.
Sam:You know, we're beyond evolution.
Sam:Evolution doesn't make predictions, evolution doesn't make predictions, and no one could predict how uncertain this was gonna be.
Sam:And we don't have the internal navigation systems for it.
Sam:And it's why anxiety is so high, and it's why we can feel this level of fatigue.
Sam:Um, it's why so many people are turning away from the kind of systems and solutions that are at hand and feel pretty helpless in the face of the big problems that we've got.
Sam:And, and that's how I felt in pandemic.
Sam:I'd got divorced, um, just before lockdown happened.
Sam:Uh, I was earning my entire, uh, world from public speaking that this book had got me into a place of, and that all came to a close, obviously.
Sam:Um, and so I escalated into a place of debt that I'd never been in in my life.
Sam:Um, and to hit proper crippling debt in your mid forties with two kids.
Sam:And, you know, a number of, you know, significant, I mean, everybody had their difficulties in it.
Sam:So I'm not com competing or, or belittling anyone else's experience, but mine washed me away and I got a depression diagnosis.
Sam:It was all the D's, debt, depression, divorce, drinking.
Sam:Um, and, and I got so frustrated by the narrative of the time of leadership that it just was backward looking narratives build back better.
Sam:uh, new normals, you know, this total non admission that the system wasn't working anyway.
Sam:It was riven with such inequality, um, that we're gonna pretend that things were better before we should, we should aim for that.
Sam:That, and made me angry.
Sam:And so I went.
Sam:And also I, I was very, I felt borderline hypocrite that people were asking me to use this message I'd had for change to help them with change.
Sam:But really I didn't feel able to deal with the change that had come to my door.
Sam:I ended up getting an actual depression diagnosis and sat there trying to do homeschooling.
Sam:bought I was applying for insolvency, applying for a job for the first time in my life.
Sam:And felt a complete loss.
Sam:I didn't feel able to meet the requests I was getting for advice around change.
Sam:And I felt like a failure and a hypocrite and bloody awful.
Sam:And I took advice from one of my mentors, which is in, in times like these to get strength, give strength.
Sam:And so I started putting time up, uh, to volunteer for other entrepreneurs.
Sam:If I, if I couldn't help myself, perhaps I can help them.
Sam:You know, I've got some experience here.
Sam:And particularly I sent out to the networks of young people through my Liberty days.
Sam:Um, and what I found was I've got two groups, the young people that I've mentored before, and they'd had, as I mentioned, the, you know, pretty challenging upbringing.
Sam:And they were fine.
Sam:They were kind of like reaching out to me saying, are you okay?
Sam:You know, and asking me some practical strategic things.
Sam:But largely they'd pivoted pretty well into the pandemic.
Sam:And then there was a bunch of people, more my Pearse, and they were like, God, I'm having an awful time.
Sam:This is really difficult.
Sam:I, I, I saw your message and can, can we have some coaching time?
Sam:And it became very stark.
Sam:The people whose life experience was of uncertainty were handling the present uncertainty in a very different way.
Sam:And people whose idea of success was certainty were handling it in a, in a really different way.
Sam:There was something that was affecting the underpinning of their identity and their ideals of the world and, and everything that their career had brought 'em to, or their journey brought 'em to at this point.
Sam:And so it just kind of began to dawn on me.
Sam:And I, I wrote a couple of articles.
Sam:I started doing more in-depth interview with the ex-gang guys that I'd worked with, the ex refugees who are now CEOs.
Sam:And the lessons from those articles were so consistent that suddenly I felt like I was onto a panel.
Sam:And you look out into the UK and at time.
Sam:There are like 12 million people living in poverty.
Sam:There's 1.2 million single parents in the same situation I was in.
Sam:There's uh, something like 4 million people with a depression diagnosis.
Sam:There were 240,000 people believed to be in gangs.
Sam:You know, there's a lot of uncertainty that people are living through just to get to the end of the week and the success that they have to achieve the navigation, the, the ambiguous morality and legality and the definition of what success means and the tenacity that is required to get to the end of the week, neither arrested and supporting those who love you and you support.
Sam:Right?
Sam:And, and, and those gray conditions.
Sam:And then at the same time, the cabinet office that we had making decisions that all of our lives was made up of only three career paths.
Sam:80% of them were either from law or finance background.
Sam:And just suddenly it hit me like we haven't got the skills for uncertainty in the places that we need them yet.
Sam:They're around us all the time.
Sam:And that was it.
Sam:So I started doing interviews with people who I thought were, I termed uncertainty experts 'cause they had the lived experience for it.
Sam:And to qualify that experience in a way that others might find morally, you know, difficult.
Sam:I par partnered up with the Decision Making and Uncertainty Center, which is a particularly niche laboratory, uh, university College London, that's within their brain sciences team.
Sam:And they've been studying since the financial collapse, how individuals might make better decisions in a time of uncertainty.
Sam:And this beautiful thing happened where I showed them all of my interviews and they could say, great, that lines up exactly with embodied cognition, negativity bias, emotional regulation, safety behaviors, interception, all these kind of key skills in neuroscience that they'd really locked onto that the, the tools navigating uncertainty.
Sam:So that's how we brought it to the world.
Sam:A set of stories that people can watch, listen, and learn from.
Sam:And then a bunch of scientific tools that are really well evidenced that sit behind them.
Sam:So you can, you can believe in it and you can turn it into so impractical that you can, you can work with And then, uh, I'd had this idea and I was gonna, I was gonna write it as a book and I, I got offered a book deal verbally, and then my publisher got signed off sick.
Sam:Uh, and then I was gonna write it as an online course, and I did an online course about online courses.
Sam:And then all I could learn was the statistics of how few people finish online courses.
Sam:And then I was doing it as a, as a kind of webinar.
Sam:And I, and I built this screen, so I was doing it on a green screen.
Sam:I was trying to do anything that wasn't just doing another bloody zoom call.
Sam:And one of the comments said, this is the best documentary I've ever seen.
Sam:I thought documentary.
Sam:That's, that's interesting.
Sam:Um, that'd be really cool.
Sam:I'd like to do that.
Sam:So I did a, the documentary course and then that was it.
Sam:I, I had this idea and, you know, I can see some interesting comments talking about chaos and passion.
Sam:And so I know the things that really, um, make me excited.
Sam:So I said, this is it in six weeks and I put tickets on sale in six weeks.
Sam:I'm gonna launch the world's first interactive documentary, scientifically proven to increase uncertainty tolerance.
Sam:There's only 500 places.
Sam:I think I was selling them for 50 quid a place.
Sam:and I literally downloaded the life of my iser, my kids savings and put it into this thing and gave myself six weeks to make this thing work.
Sam:'cause that was the, that was the runway.
Sam:And six weeks later we launched the Uncertainty Experts.
Sam:And it's been growing as a business ever since.
Carlos:We're gonna talk a bit more about the course, in a bit.
Carlos:just wanted to get some, but there's a button now visible if you are interested in finding out more about this innovative approach to education.
Carlos:For me, that's how it's coming across.
Sam:No, I'll, I'll say, you know, we, we've tried to price this rightly and, and, and fairly the, the main feedback we get from people is it's, it's, life changing.
Sam:It's probably the, the most consistently phrased word we use.
Sam:But, we're aware that the people that we're trying to help are people in uncertainty.
Sam:So there is a, there is an honesty box, um, of about 80% off.
Sam:So if anyone on the call is actually in a difficult situation, isn't generating revenue is between careers, it's considering, you know, as an entrepreneur going through redundancy or whatever it is, we've got spaces for absolutely any and all conditions whatsoever.
Carlos:Brilliant.
Carlos:Thank you.
Carlos:I'm really generous of you and Yeah, and, and speaks again to the doing good aspect of all of this work.
Laurence:so yeah, I suppose, well we've been business for colors for, what, 20 years in different guise.
Laurence:And you, I, I would say you've come more from the scientific background, so.
Laurence:Seeking evidence, I think in terms of where the future is for us as a business, as a partnership.
Laurence:Um, I think I've always come at it from, I think, and again, this uncertainty is a big word, isn't it, in terms of, you know, what we mean by it.
Laurence:But for me, I've only ever had one job, maybe a bit like Sam, not, not, not often been employed.
Laurence:And when I was in that job, it was only 10 months.
Laurence:I could see my future, and it looked certain and I was terrified by it.
Laurence:I was actually terrified by the idea of certainty rather than uncertainty.
Laurence:And again, I was 22 or something, so it wasn't like I had a lot to lose.
Laurence:Um, but for me, seeing my life planned out before me, particularly in a, in a job that I didn't particularly enjoy, or I certainly didn't enjoy the path I could see ahead of me in terms of the people that were above me and my bosses and their Pearse.
Laurence:So I think that was terrifying for me.
Laurence:Um, so for me, stepping out into the unknown of running my own business, which at the time was just going freelance and teaching myself how to design websites.
Laurence:Me and you got together and we set up our studio and it, you know, it kind of flowed from there, but I wouldn't ever see, say that we've had a clear plan.
Laurence:It's just kind of evolved.
Laurence:Um, and so I would say with me, my relationship is really enjoying the thrill of uncertainty, but over time also enjoying some safe ground within it.
Laurence:So as we've run the Happy Startup School, so the first five years was a lot of just scrapping to find out what works, what doesn't, what feedback are we getting?
Laurence:Like Sam's thing about, Ooh, documentary, someone says something and then it feeds into how you describe it yourself.
Laurence:So this idea of co-creating, rather than just trying to work it out on your own and come out, we've got this proven thing that works.
Laurence:So I think my relationship with it has been almost going too far to, let's just follow our intuition and go with that and see what that takes us.
Laurence:And as it turns out, to, uh, took us to.
Laurence:Having to make the money work a bit like Sam, like, okay, now we nearly need to make this work as a business, not just as a nice idea.
Laurence:and so then I think really getting back to basics really in terms of what is this thing we're building and how can we put in some foundations that mean yes, there's still a bit of play within it and a bit of uncertainty, but also if we do this and we do this, then we're okay.
Laurence:So I think for me it's finding that balance between being able to predict what's next and then just being able to adapt as well to what the world has for us.
Laurence:So for example, when Covid hit, we had to scrapple our events and like a lot of people, so then having to pivot everything online, um, I don't think we'd have been able to do that three years before.
Laurence:I think that would've been us gone, whereas I think we were able to adapt.
Laurence:And like you said, Sam probably navigate it better than most people who were in a salaried job because we were used to a lot of uncertainty that we'd chosen to take on rather than one that came from the outside.
Carlos:I
Carlos:was, um, taken before Sam, when you're talking about
Carlos:in my head, what I have is this kind of, this hit, you know, if it's too easy, you don't get that feeling, that rush.
Carlos:If it's 90% uncertain and you manage to do what you need to do, the dopamine hit is harder.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Or stronger.
Carlos:And it, on one hand it reminded me of near Al's booked book Hooked and this idea of variable rewards.
Sam:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:And how when you are on that wheel of variable rewards, there's like this nearly addictive quality to the uncertainty.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:So that pulls us forward.
Carlos:That has novelty.
Carlos:That's interesting experience.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:And, and, and on the flip side, because there is this tension for me around safety and uncertainty.
Carlos:I lived a very privileged life.
Carlos:I think I never had any kind of feeling of uncertainty as a child.
Carlos:Um, even as an adult, even as a student, I always knew there was a level of safety, which then for me, I think my tolerance to uncertainty was a lot higher, was a lot lower, I should say.
Sam:Yeah.
Carlos:Because I hadn't had a lived experience, I didn't necessarily build the same level of resilience to maybe minor levels of uncertainty, but it was just like, oh, will it happen?
Carlos:Will it work?
Carlos:And so there's a, a suffering in that.
Carlos:There's like an expectation of, oh, it should be safe, but the reality doesn't feel safe.
Carlos:And so,
Sam:oh,
Carlos:I'm frozen.
Carlos:I dunno what to do next.
Carlos:So, yeah.
Carlos:As someone who, in a sense has been lucky enough not to experience levels of uncertainty life, and you are talking to people in this world who, who are living it on a daily basis.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:How am I gonna put food on the table?
Carlos:What's more even get paid or whatever it is.
Carlos:Or even like get back home.
Sam:Yep.
Carlos:And that resilience.
Carlos:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:Tolerance.
Carlos:I'm not sure that, that, that builds for them so that they can then tackle other, well just carry on with life versus someone who has lived with stability.
Carlos:Feels a need.
Carlos:Actually, I need to change.
Carlos:I need to do something different.
Carlos:But then has to step into uncertainty.
Carlos:And then what that then evokes is a feeling of like, can I do this?
Carlos:Is this okay?
Carlos:And then maybe retreats.
Carlos:And I think what I'm trying to get is like, if we got people to do your course, would that mean they would be much more able to deal with actually starting this new business and actually breaking away from this well-trodden path that is making them miserable, but finding some level of Happiness in that space of ambiguity and uncertainty.
Sam:one of the things that really surprised me about this whole experience was how rooted it is in emotion.
Sam:So the principle fear that uncertainty creates in people is fear.
Sam:We've had over 20,000 people go through the program.
Sam:We ask every single one of them how uncertainty makes them feel.
Sam:And it's a very specific question.
Sam:If you ask people what they think about uncertainty, largely they'll all come to the notion that it can be a good and a bad place.
Sam:If you ask them how they feel about emotion, 97% of the responses that we received are a negative adjective.
Sam:So when we start grouping those, um, the first group is, makes me worried, sleepless, anxious, fretful.
Sam:We call that fear.
Sam:The second group was, it makes me indecisive.
Sam:It makes me feel circular, it makes me confused.
Sam:We called that fog and the third group was, it makes me feel stuck.
Sam:Purposeless lost my mojo.
Sam:Met, we called that stasis.
Sam:So fear, fog, and stasis are the three underlying conditions.
Sam:So if we take uncertainty to the human level beneath the symptoms that we might be thinking about, whether it's yeah, hybrid working or the changing economy, or the number of elections, there's gonna be this year, like the underlying bit.
Sam:It's a feeling and it doesn't feel very good.
Sam:So whether that's the subjective uncertainty of somebody who doesn't know whether they're gonna get back home, or somebody who's avoiding a, a, a meeting that they don't wanna have this afternoon, you know, a conflict with their co-founder, uh, having to address a client who's late on a payment, whatever, whatever the very
Sam:large spectrum of uncertainty is, everybody on the call knows what that feeling is, and it doesn't feel nice, but it makes you scared or stuck or a bit confused.
Sam:These are the human, uh, emotions of it.
Sam:And, and it's in that space that this, this work begins to be really useful because it, we teach, uh, emotional regulation.
Sam:We teach the idea that uncertainty is an autonomic response.
Sam:So before your brain has even engaged in problem solving, your body, your alert systems have picked up on what's seen as a threat.
Sam:Uncertainty is perceived as a threat almost universally.
Sam:And the opportunity to shift that is what's known as uncertainty tolerance.
Sam:And that affects the, the kind of the, the gateway.
Sam:You know, if you, if there's a, if there was a dormant on your brain, if there was a bouncer on your brain, and when these new experiences come in and it gets to decide whether it's coming in or not, that is uncertainty tolerance and an FMRI scan that measures the blood flow in your brain.
Sam:Fear and excitement show up in exactly the same way.
Sam:So our opportunity is to try to increase our response to uncertainty as an excited one, which is in the entrepreneur's experience, more likely because they, you know, from what we've seen, entrepreneurs have tend to have a higher uncertainty tolerance.
Sam:And that means something really interesting happens.
Sam:Uncertainty shown in numerous studies to push brains into a heightened state of arousal and an optimum state for learning.
Sam:Because you are, you're on high alert, right?
Sam:You see more colors, you pick up more senses.
Sam:You know, you all know this.
Sam:If you've ever been in a crash or, or a moment, time slows down.
Sam:You pick up more.
Sam:You can literally take on board more information, but you can't stay there for long.
Sam:We've also been the other place where uncertainty triggers and we'll do anything to get out of it.
Sam:If you're in a moment of fright, if something's given you a real shock, your problem solving capacity reduces by about 35%.
Sam:You know, you wanna get out of any kind of threat situation.
Sam:And this speaks to the human condition, which is typically always attract or avoid.
Sam:And that's how we go round life, you know, in the most basic kind of form.
Sam:And what we do, what this course, uh, achieves, I believe, and, and the evidence backs this up, is that we create a third state, which is about staying available.
Sam:So rather than oscillating between attract and avoiders, I'm going through the day.
Sam:I like that.
Sam:I don't like that, you know, which is a kind of quite binary and can be quite exhausting.
Sam:An ability to go, I don't know, you know, and that perhaps doubt isn't always universally bad.
Sam:Perhaps doubt allows to replace a discovery.
Sam:Perhaps I don't feel like I need to always have the answers to this, because otherwise I'm not living up to whatever ideas of entrepreneurship or leadership that I've presented to myself.
Sam:And it's quite difficult because I think it's very hard to say, I don't know.
Sam:In a, in a, in a, in an inspiring way.
Sam:And, you know, no one really wants to hear, I don't know, as a response, because the Laurence's point, you know, that'd be quite exhausting.
Sam:We try to create pockets of certainty, to give us safe spaces, but sometimes they're a fake safe.
Sam:there's a really clear study that, um, gives people the option between a, a synthesized experience of uncertainty online, or the chance of giving themselves an electric shock.
Sam:And far and away about 90% of human beings would prefer to give themselves.
Sam:We, we, and there's lots of studies of this in medical conditions and diagnosis, we prefer pain.
Sam:We prefer a negative diagnosis.
Sam:We prefer anything than staying in a state of the unknown.
Sam:People are again and again, they prefer to know their pain's two hours late than just know that it might be late.
Sam:Like, we'll do anything to avoid it.
Sam:We will con ourselves that an old idea, an old relationship, some bad thing we've done before, is better than spending time in the unknown.
Sam:And so that's the space.
Sam:And if we can hold that space, it becomes a generative space, I guess, that everyone here, the, the best work of their lives, the most exciting stuff that we've done, the career points that we still tell people about, had a relationship with being in the uncertain, you know, where that, where that inflection curve was a higher percentage of unlikely outcome.
Sam:' cause there's a degree of aliveness to it.
Carlos:do you have a meditation practice?
Carlos:Is this something in terms of your own?
Carlos:Well, I'm thinking about is just being able to sit with awareness rather than judgment and action.
Sam:Um, I, I'm gonna a meditation course tomorrow morning, actually.
Sam:Um, I, I didn't, this work has taught me an awful lot about that.
Sam:There is a, there is a notion, uh, here's an interesting word that I think people will find useful.
Sam:It's called interoception.
Sam:Um, it's the eighth sense.
Sam:The, the five well-known senses are all external, sight, smell, sound, taste, touch.
Sam:Um, and then we have the eighth sense interception, which is our ability to interpret the internal signals.
Sam:So kids have bad interception, they dunno if they need a we or they're nervous, right?
Sam:We on the whole people with really great interception can diagnose illness.
Sam:Do you know what that emotion is in your chest right now?
Sam:Do you know what?
Sam:That, you know, if we, if we, if you think about the afternoon and what you've gotta do, do you know what that feeling is in your tummy that suddenly emerges?
Sam:There's, uh, millions of data points going on.
Sam:Our on, I think there's actually 50 million data points in your body, uh, that can process at the same speed that you can do about 50 in your brain.
Sam:So this, it's, it's, it's called embodied cognition.
Sam:And it's thought to be the most radical idea in neuroscience because it means that you effectively have two brains, two decision making centers.
Sam:And everything that we all know about saying we trust our gut is actually incredibly well evidenced.
Sam:Um, but before this work, I was like the least embodied person you'd ever meet, and I didn't like that.
Sam:I used that Ken Robinson phrase, you know, my body is just a vehicle to get my brain to the next meeting.
Sam:and this has taught me really, really universally that, there are two states and it's psychobiological and the emotions that I think very often or in my experience, we grew up thought thinking perhaps was something either a weakness or something we had to watch out for are, are all data points
Sam:that can help us make the best decisions, particularly when the rational and available information that our brains might seek isn't forthcoming.
Carlos:That's exactly the answer I was looking for.
Carlos:Thank you.
Carlos:Um, it kind of, for me, just links as well to this question from Jonathan.
Carlos:Um, he's wondering how can we prepare young people for uncertainty in their present and later lives?
Carlos:And it sounds like while we educate more use schools, fill kids with knowledge, they don't necessarily give them these skills.
Carlos:Like even this idea of embodied cognition and interception, interception, I should say.
Sam:this is breaking news.
Sam:Uh, yes.
Sam:Jonathan, 15 years, I, I ran Liberty.
Sam:Liberty and we very much focused on young people.
Sam:Um, so they've always been a part of my life and I've probably learned more from those young people.
Sam:Probably than I ever gave them.
Sam:uh, and every time we've run the uncertainty experts, we ask every cohort, where do you think this work could be of best use?
Sam:and universally people say young people because of those moments, right?
Sam:Either leaving school or starting university, beginning your first, uh, career, some of the tough decisions with an epidemic of anxiety facing young people internationally, and the importance of young people and the future of society.
Sam:You know, being able, you know, without student activism, without, without a, a, a challenging youth demographic, without the newness of culture, without a new take on what's gone before, without the rebellion that's necessary of the kids who grow up and will replace us, um, without a sense and an ability to bravely explore the unknown, we're in big trouble.
Sam:And very sadly, from the evidence that we see, the the lowest uncertainty tolerance that come into our program are the under 20 fives, which chemically shouldn't be, shouldn't be possible.
Sam:It's the other way around.
Sam:However, uh, three weeks ago we secured a sponsor, a backer to explore making uncertainty experts for young people.
Sam:And so it would be a, a similar methodology, but I narrate uncertainty experts and talk about divorce and life fucking the life experiences of a mid forties, uh, entrepreneur.
Sam:So, we'll replace me.
Sam:Um, some of our uncertainty experts will feel very, very relevant, but one or two, we might wanna replace some of the language.
Sam:Um, we are looking at different partners and platforms from TikTok and others.
Sam:So if anybody is interested or anyone is working in the domain of youth and youth development or has a particular interest in whether they're thinking about the course or otherwise, um, there's gonna be a bit of an open call from us for, for collaboration and inspiration.
Sam:Um, we are beginning on this February cohort, which is the next one.
Sam:There's gonna be a group of young people on there just testing it out and giving feedback.
Sam:Um, and we are, we give away free places to teachers and NHS workers and.
Sam:Again, and again, the teachers are saying the same things.
Sam:We're gonna do something in tandem with education and young people.
Sam:So yes, Jonathan, I think you've, you've really hit the nail on the head.
Sam:We, we are still searching for the place that this work can have the greatest impact beyond the individuals and organizations, um, that we're doing it with.
Sam:And, and we think young people is probably the answer.
Carlos:And so, um, it sounds like you're on this, is it tipping point, just upward curve.
Carlos:Now things are moving in a, in a, in a direction that has momentum.
Carlos:What, what does the future hold for you or what No, no.
Carlos:Let's start again.
Carlos:What do you wish for the future to hold for you, or are you very present and mindful and accepting of whatever comes?
Sam:I think someone asked the, the question.
Sam:I mean, what's the difference between uncertainty and risk?
Sam:I.
Sam:I think we're in a moment where we need to imagine the unimaginable.
Sam:Chances are by virtue of heuristics and rules of thumb, when we think about the future, we think about updated versions of what we've seen before, and very often that's what innovation is.
Sam:We'll mash two things together and give 'em a slightly better name.
Sam:and looking out at the level of interconnected crises and complexity that we face.
Sam:As I said at the beginning, I think, I think some of the big answers that we are seeking will come from, communities like this and an ability to think beyond the unthinkable, right?
Sam:to get into the impossible and the improbable, and very excited by that notion.
Sam:Uncertainty tolerance has a profound effect in election campaigns.
Sam:We are more susceptible to binary arguments and extremist tendencies to fake news, you know, and this is a very difficult time for us to hold that this is a generation who might live through.
Sam:Change that hasn't been seen in multiple lifetimes.
Sam:You know, where some aspects of things that we believed in and held onto have to, you know, we have to accept they're not working and they're gonna have to come to some kind of, close to ideas have collapse, you know, multiple societies, faces, and, um, you know, what was the, the, the news headline two nights ago?
Sam:We are the pre-war generation.
Sam:Like, you know, these aren't, these aren't loosely made suggestions by the various heads of nato.
Sam:Um, so the changes afoot, and that should be a good thing.
Sam:That should be a good thing.
Sam:But if we approach it with fear, well, we know what, what can happen there.
Sam:We've got enough demonstrations from the last few years of what fear-based response to change leads to.
Sam:So how do we lean into this change that's coming and know that yes, although there might be some upheaval, there might be some ruins and there's likely to be difficulty.
Sam:How do we step through that and imagine what we haven't seen before as a better version than what we've got now?
Sam:And then how do we make that, how do, how do all the skills of entrepreneurship taking ideas and manifesting them into reality with, with all that we've got, how does that come to bear?
Sam:And, and I hope this work has a role to play in that imagining a better, better future and a better version than we've seen yet.
Carlos:I think you've answered this question just now, but I dunno if you can articulate it more succinctly.
Carlos:One of the things that we, wanna help people do is get this sense, answer the question, what is your work to do within the scope of everything and all the impact that we can create in the world and all the problems that we can solve.
Carlos:Being able to be in that place like this is my work to do, and there's a sense of focus and clarity within the uncertainty of what else, what could happen with it.
Carlos:Do you feel, uh, there's a way for you to articulate that these days succinctly?
Sam:Yeah.
Sam:I think the thing that I'm uniquely good at is allowing people to step past the limiting beliefs they have.
Sam:And I didn't know that, but a year ago coming out of depression, I did a course and one of the first things we had to do in the course was write to 20 people that we trust and ask them what our, our, our unique ability was.
Sam:I recommend this as an exercise to any of you out there in a place of doubt.
Sam:Um, and you have to ask people that you, you undeniably couldn't, you know, you respect them enough that you're gonna have to listen to their opinion.
Sam:And 20 people sent back the same thing and they said when they, you know, whether it's been books or getting on stage or, or talks or mentoring or whatever it is.
Sam:a capacity to help people see beyond the things that they allow to hold 'em back.
Sam:And I never thought about it like that.
Sam:I never thought myself as teacher, uh, you know, as opposed to entrepreneur.
Sam:Now I think I see them together.
Sam:I see people who've gone through liberty in the mentoring work we've done, or come out the uncertainty experts and they, it's not necessarily so bold as they believe in themselves or they've discovered what they might be.
Sam:But by God they've let go of some of that shit.
Sam:None of us really need to drag around with us.
Sam:Mm-Hmm.
Sam:And knowing myself the benefit of what it can be like to put some of that down.
Sam:Yeah.
Sam:It feels really good.
Sam:I'm very glad to hear that from people and, uh, I'm going to listen to that and I'm not gonna deny that or let my Impost syndrome get over that.
Sam:I'm gonna continue in that direction.
Carlos:so
Carlos:what does that mean to you now in terms of how you act, um, in the work and thinking about future and doing things?
Carlos:Does that give you a particular sense of a direction or life or,
Sam:yeah, it does.
Sam:Um, I think, uh, attention and truth are the two kind of words that are around me.
Sam:Uh, I think I've often thought about attention as like a productivity thing and focus, and I bet everybody here has gone around the same level of tools and websites and tricks and stuff to try and, you know, eek more focus out the day.
Sam:And it is in this work that I realized my issue was more that I was ignoring the things that I was distracting myself from and my discomfort with myself and the, the, the lack of belief in myself was, was tricky.
Sam:And as this thing went from being like a pie in the sky idea and my usual kind of like savior complex, this is gonna be great to actually being on the precipice of success, I realized that I'm way more scared of success than I'm a failure.
Sam:Quite comfortable in failure.
Sam:Quite like the idea of, you know.
Sam:Person who has good ideas and gets close to them, and, you know, that's great and really inspiring, terrified of the idea of having to actually live up to success.
Sam:and so realizing actually a lot of my attention issues are because I choose distraction from that, which I'm scared of.
Sam:And that's why I kind of, where I read it, the answers you seek are and the work that you avoid.
Sam:Um, and that leads me to truth and, and what a really weird and radical idea is to be true most of the time to yourself and to the things you believe in and, and for, I think most of us, we don't know what that is.
Sam:They're trying to get, trying to get to that.
Sam:Um, they feel like quite scary things to do.
Sam:And so, as I said at the beginning, that which scares you is probably a direction in which you should face.
Laurence:I think we need another circle on our Venn diagram of be happy, make money, do good, truth follow your truth.
Laurence:think just this relationship between uncertainty and fear is a big one.
Laurence:You know, the downside of uncertainty and tolerance, particularly like you said in election year, um, in most of the world.
Laurence:that just highlights for me the importance of this.
Laurence:It's not just like, oh, wouldn't it be great to just have a nice relationship to uncertainty?
Laurence:But actually, yeah, what's the cost of doing nothing essentially with this work that's really hit me And yeah, having two kids, two teenagers, moving into choosing what subjects to to learn.
Laurence:It strikes me that this should be something on the curriculum.
Laurence:I mean, it's just, there's so many things that should be on the curriculum that aren't, but this strikes me as.
Laurence:Particularly when they get career advice, which often isn't really fit for the, the world we're living in.
Laurence:I just kind of get a sense of
Sam:Oh,
Laurence:just yeah.
Laurence:To get demoralized because it's, um, it's not a true picture of what the world is and what the world of work needs.
Laurence:And so yeah, I would love my kids to develop a stronger relationship with uncertainty and, um, yeah.
Laurence:I'm really curious to see where that project ends up.
Carlos:I think for I was really curious about this work around neuroception interception and embodied cognition.
Carlos:They lovely scientific words that.
Carlos:About listening to your gut, which I have struggled with, uh, for a long time.
Carlos:I'm, uh, very wedded to my brain and being able to see all the angles and to analyze.
Carlos:I even recently my wife showed me a, a tool called Future Circles, and it's just a way of mapping out the future based on contingencies.
Carlos:And suddenly you've got this massive map of what could the future go.
Carlos:And it's just overwhelming.
Carlos:And like you're saying, Sam, is, you can't analyze that necessarily in a way that you can predict what's gonna happen.
Carlos:And so taking away the, the need not to predict, but I think that's connected really to, uh, this idea of resilience and where is safety for me.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Lovely book.
Carlos:How to create that in whatever situation.
Carlos:And this, I think you talked about.
Carlos:There's either go one way or the other way, act or not, or go attract or act to
Sam:avoid, avoid, act, avoid.
Sam:Yeah.
Carlos:And to just be able to sit in the middle.
Sam:Be available.
Sam:Be available.
Carlos:That word really hit home.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Being available.
Sam:a final thought on that, on that thing, right?
Sam:The gut instinct and, and there's science behind it, which is really reassuring, but it's still the same thing.
Sam:Um, the brain and the gut predict in different ways.
Sam:The brain is a prediction machine, um, but the gut predicts very differently because the gut doesn't do abstract concepts like time.
Sam:So you'll experience gut instinct about a memory as you will in a dream as well as you will in the present.
Sam:So gut instinct is shown to be as equally accurate in a future state.
Sam:So whilst it's almost impossible to know what's gonna happen next week, it's possible to know how you'll feel if you consider the different scenarios.
Sam:So if you are waiting on a piece of news for next week and you really deeply imagine that not going well and it going well.
Sam:And if you imagine it, you embody it, you synthesize it, you, you, you bring it to life.
Sam:You literally paint it.
Sam:You can experience the same gut instinct and, and, and gut instinct can be pretty indistinct, right?
Sam:That doesn't feel right.
Sam:Well, that does feel right, but you can rely on that gut instinct about a synthesized future state.
Sam:It is an excellent future prediction tool, because the abstract concept of time doesn't come into account when it's cut.
Carlos:I feel like we're verging on woo woo now.
Sam:in if the science, uh, science helps, uh, Carlos, that's called conviction, narrative Theory, and it's proposed by the decision making and uncertainty center.
Sam:It's peer reviewed and published.
Laurence:Can you two get a room?
