Uncertainty

Uncertainty Plot Summary

Introduction

In a world obsessed with certainty and predictability, the creative journey demands we walk a different path. Whether you're an entrepreneur launching a venture, an artist developing your craft, or a leader innovating within an organization, you've likely felt that paralyzing sensation when facing the unknown. That moment when fear, doubt, and uncertainty threaten to derail your creative process before it even begins. Yet what if these uncomfortable feelings aren't obstacles but essential ingredients for extraordinary achievement? The most groundbreaking innovations, compelling art, and revolutionary businesses weren't born from perfect knowledge and guaranteed outcomes. They emerged from the courage to venture into uncharted territory, to embrace the questions rather than demanding immediate answers. This transformation—from fearing uncertainty to using it as fuel—represents the fundamental shift that separates ordinary creators from those who produce truly brilliant work.

Chapter 1: Build Certainty Anchors to Ground Your Creation

Certainty anchors serve as psychological bedrock in the tumultuous seas of creative work. These deliberate practices, routines, or rituals provide just enough stability to free your mind for the creative leaps required to produce extraordinary work. When everything else feels uncertain, these anchors give you the foundation needed to take risks and embrace the unknown with confidence. Randy Komisar exemplifies this approach. As a Silicon Valley legend who transitioned from lawyer to CEO to venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins, Komisar faced tremendous uncertainty at each career juncture. During our conversation, he revealed how his daily meditation practice became his certainty anchor: "When you step into ambiguity and uncertainty, when you surround yourself essentially with uncertainty without a life jacket, you still have to have a foundation, a core, a center." His spiritual practice became the keel that kept him centered while navigating uncharted waters. This pattern appears consistently among successful creators. Novelist CJ Lyons maintains unchanging routines for mundane daily tasks from laundry to lunch. Renowned choreographer Twyla Tharp described her rigid daily schedule—waking at 5:30 am, taking the same taxi to the gym, working with the same trainer, followed by shower, breakfast, calls, studio work, and reading—as essential to her creative life. "A dancer's life," she explained, "is all about repetition." For you to establish effective certainty anchors, first identify your creative orientation. Are you energized by generating big ideas or by refining and executing them? Most creators have a preference, and the side that doesn't align with your natural orientation will cause resistance. Well-structured rituals help overcome this resistance, creating momentum that carries you through the entire creative process. Consider working in focused bursts rather than extended marathons. Tony Schwartz, founder of The Energy Project, structured his writing into three ninety-minute sessions daily when creating "Be Excellent at Anything." Our brains become fatigued without proper breaks, affecting not only creativity but depleting willpower—the resource that helps us push through resistance. Working intensely for forty-five to ninety minutes followed by genuine recovery periods maintains your creative capacity and mental resilience. As you design your certainty anchors, remember they're not about restricting creativity but about providing the structure that makes breakthrough thinking possible. By establishing these touchpoints of predictability in your life and work, you create the secure foundation from which truly innovative ideas can take flight.

Chapter 2: Create Supportive Hives for Fearless Innovation

Creative hives—intentional communities of like-minded creators—can dramatically transform how you experience uncertainty and judgment. These environments level the playing field, normalizing the struggle and making feedback constructive rather than threatening, allowing everyone to take bolder creative risks. Consider the case of TechStars, the renowned tech accelerator in Boulder, Colorado. When co-founders David Cohen and Brad Feld created this program, they engineered an environment where ten teams of entrepreneurs would work together intensively for twelve weeks. These founding teams enter a shared space where transparency is mandatory—every team presents their progress weekly, making their successes and failures visible to everyone. This dynamic creates what Feld describes as a psychological "leveling of the playing field" where judgment becomes constructive feedback rather than threatening criticism. The power of this model is evident in its results. Reece Pacheco, co-founder of Shelby.TV and participant in TechStars New York, attributed their ability to evolve rapidly to the mentoring team they accessed—seasoned investors and entrepreneurs like Fred Wilson, Jerry Collona, and Karin Klein. These relationships helped them identify problems, pivot, and relaunch in a compressed timeframe, achieving what would have been nearly impossible in isolation. For solo creators, building your own supportive hive remains equally vital. Peter Wallace demonstrated this when he founded Brooklyn Artists Gym (BAG), a shared creative space in New York. After decades as a stage director, Wallace felt compelled to create a massive wave sculpture but lacked the skills, space, and funding. Rather than working alone, he created a community where artists could rent space, exchange ideas, and learn from each other. As Wallace explained, "The nature of this space is you have to be okay with it, sort of like the notion that you may be working around artists whom you perceive as further down the road from you...and taking that as an opportunity rather than oppression." To build your own creative hive, focus on five key elements: gather people questing at similar levels; encourage transparency about processes and outcomes; create a "zillion-sum game" where everyone's success lifts the entire community; demonstrate commitment to experimentation; and provide access to mentors and champions who understand your journey. Remember that not all creative communities are positive. Before committing to any hive, research its creative zeitgeist. Is it cutthroat or collaborative? Social or segregated? Will it leave you feeling pushed yet supported, or exposed and defeated? The right hive transforms judgment from something to be feared into feedback that fuels your growth.

Chapter 3: Transform Fear into Fuel for Creativity

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt—these emotional responses typically trigger paralysis, yet they're inevitable companions on any creative journey. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary creators isn't the absence of fear, but rather the ability to transform these emotions from obstacles into accelerants. John Winsor exemplifies this transformation. As founder of Victors & Spoils, a revolutionary advertising agency built around crowd-sourcing, Winsor repeatedly embraces endeavors defined by uncertainty. When not building companies, he's surfing big waves or helicopter skiing. Yet contrary to what you might assume, he feels fear intensely. The difference is how he experiences it: "When the risks are big, it's where I feel most alive. In a weird way, it's almost a meditative thing. When a lot's on the line, whether it's a big business deal or surfing a scary wave, I get so focused. Things slow down. The tiniest of details become alive." War author Sebastian Junger demonstrates a similar capacity. When embedded with soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, he channeled his fear into heightened awareness. "I just figured out how to disengage from my experience of the fear," he explained. "I start feeling it and then I could just unhook from it.... I was a climber for tree companies and I'm scared of heights, but I never got over my fear of heights. I just figured out how to not think about it." This fear alchemy isn't innate—it's learned through practice, particularly through attentional training (AT). Randy Komisar credits his daily meditation practice as providing the "keel" that keeps him centered amid uncertainty. Sonia Simone, partner at Copyblogger Media, describes how meditation taught her to "drop" limiting stories: "When you sit, you learn to drop. You still have states, and they still come up, and they're still very powerful...but it gives you the ability to feel it, and then say, 'Could I drop that? Maybe not the state but the story line.'" Attentional training takes many forms—mindfulness meditation, Transcendental Meditation, or even movement-based practices like trail running. The common element is focused awareness that creates physiological and psychological changes. Research conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital revealed that just eight weeks of mindfulness practice created measurable physical changes in the amygdala—the brain region responsible for fear and anxiety. To begin your practice, start small with just 3-5 minutes daily, gradually increasing as you become comfortable. Don't expect perfection—a wandering mind is part of the process. As filmmaker David Lynch explained about his Transcendental Meditation practice: "Anger and depression and sorrow, they're beautiful things in a story, but they're like a poison to the filmmaker, they're a poison to the painter, they're a poison to creativity." By developing this capacity to witness your fear without being consumed by it, you create space between stimulus and response—the space where creative brilliance can emerge.

Chapter 4: Train Your Brain for Peak Performance

Your brain is your primary creative tool, yet most creators neglect the practices that optimize cognitive function. By deliberately training your brain through specific techniques, you can dramatically enhance your ability to generate insights, maintain focus, and persevere through creative challenges. Exercise stands as perhaps the most underappreciated tool for enhancing creative capacity. Haruki Murakami, the acclaimed novelist, incorporates running ten kilometers or swimming fifteen hundred meters into his daily creative routine. In a Paris Review interview, he explained: "Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity." This isn't mere superstition—exercise creates profound neurochemical changes that directly impact creativity. Dr. John Ratey's research, detailed in his book "Spark," reveals how exercise affects not just physical health but brain chemistry and neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to rewire itself. A 2002 study by Stephen Ramocki found a significant relationship between vigorous aerobic exercise and creativity, with increases occurring immediately following exercise. David Blanchette's follow-up research confirmed that even moderate exercise yields creativity boosts that persist two hours after completion. These benefits extend beyond creativity to cognitive function more broadly. Professor Arthur Kramer discovered that daily aerobic exercise grows new brain cells, especially in the hippocampus (controlling memory and learning) and frontal lobes (responsible for executive function, planning, and decision-making). Moreover, exercise increases the size of the prefrontal cortex and facilitates its interaction with the amygdala—vital for managing the fear responses that often derail creative work. Another powerful brain-training technique is process simulation—a visualization approach focused on steps rather than outcomes. When researchers Shelley Taylor, Lien Pham, and colleagues tested this method against traditional outcome visualization, they found remarkable results. Students who visualized the steps needed to complete a project were more likely to begin on time, finish on time, and consider the assignment easier than those who visualized only successful completion. This approach works particularly well for creative projects where the final form remains unclear in early stages. Instead of trying to visualize a finished painting or business, focus on visualizing yourself taking the daily actions—sitting at your desk, opening your sketchbook, or making the calls necessary to move forward. Complement these practices by cultivating what Carol Dweck calls a "growth mindset"—the belief that your abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. This perspective transforms criticism from something to be feared into valuable information that accelerates your growth. To optimize your brain for creative work, combine these approaches: exercise regularly, practice process visualization before beginning work, adopt a growth mindset toward feedback, and structure your day around your natural energy rhythms.

Chapter 5: Cultivate a Growth Mindset for Greater Resilience

A growth mindset—the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—fundamentally transforms how you experience the uncertainty inherent in creative work. Rather than seeing challenges as threats to your identity, you recognize them as opportunities for expansion and improvement. Stanford professor Carol Dweck's groundbreaking research on mindset reveals two distinct approaches to ability and achievement. Those with a fixed mindset believe success comes from innate talent—you either have what it takes or you don't. In contrast, people with a growth mindset understand that work is the core driver of success and place less emphasis on genetics as a determining factor. This distinction profoundly affects how creators respond to uncertainty and judgment. When faced with evaluation or criticism, a person with a fixed mindset experiences it as a potential death knell—proof they don't have "the gift." They avoid challenges that might reveal their limitations and make excuses for not trying. In contrast, someone with a growth mindset views the same feedback as valuable information that guides their improvement journey. The impact of mindset extends beyond how we feel about criticism—it directly affects creative output. In Teresa Amabile's research at Harvard, artists with a fixed mindset produced work that was technically competent but less creative than those with a growth orientation. The fear of judgment literally stunted their creative expression. Fortunately, mindset isn't fixed at birth—it can be cultivated through conscious attention to your thought patterns and language. When first exposed to Dweck's work, I caught myself saying to my daughter, "Oh, sweety, that painting is so beautiful. You're so talented." Though seemingly innocent, such praise reinforces a fixed mindset by attributing success to talent rather than effort. I began instead to say things like, "I'm so proud of how hard you worked on this." The same principles apply to your self-talk. When you face a creative challenge, do you think "I'm just not good at this kind of thing" or "I haven't developed the skills for this yet"? The subtle shift from permanent traits to growth opportunities creates psychological space for improvement. This mindset shift doesn't happen overnight. It requires consistent attention to your internal narrative and deliberate reframing of challenges. When you encounter a creative obstacle, ask yourself: What can I learn from this? How might this difficulty help me improve? What specific skills could I develop to handle similar situations better in the future? By cultivating this growth-oriented perspective, you transform uncertainty from something to be endured into a necessary condition for learning and advancement. The fear of judgment loses its paralyzing power when you view feedback as information rather than indictment.

Chapter 6: Reframe Uncertainty as Creative Opportunity

How you tell the story of your creative journey determines whether uncertainty paralyzes or propels you. By consciously reframing uncertainty as opportunity rather than threat, you can transform the emotional experience of creation and unlock your best work. Deb Ng, Conference Director for BlogWorld and New Media Expo, faces enormous pressure managing the world's largest social media gathering. With thousands attending and every misstep potentially amplified across social media, the uncertainty could be crippling. Yet Ng maintains composure through deliberate reframing. When things go wrong, she doesn't see failures but valuable information for improving next year's event. Moreover, she keeps the alternative story line—returning to corporate publishing—vividly in mind, using it as fuel to embrace her current challenges. This approach, known as cognitive reappraisal in psychology, literally changes how your brain processes uncertainty. In a 2002 study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, researchers found that reframing activates the prefrontal cortex (the brain's regulation center) while decreasing activation in the amygdala (the fear center). You're experiencing the same circumstances but processing them differently. A particularly powerful reframe concerns what I call "going to zero"—the fear of extreme loss that haunts many creators. We often catastrophize potential failure, spinning doomsday scenarios where one setback leads to total ruin. This mental spinning amplifies anxiety and leads to paralysis. To counter this tendency, ask three critical questions that reframe the situation. First, "What if I go to zero?" Instead of imagining catastrophe, create a realistic picture of potential setbacks and, crucially, how you would recover. This alone disempowers much of the fear, as you realize almost everything is recoverable. J.K. Rowling spoke to this in her Harvard commencement speech, reflecting on hitting rock bottom before writing Harry Potter: "I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." The second question is equally important: "What if I do nothing?" For many creators, this overlooked question reveals the true horror scenario. There is no neutral in creative life—no sideways path. Without action, your health, relationships, passions, and capabilities slowly decline toward annihilation. The supposed safety of inaction is an illusion that masks slow deterioration. Finally, ask "What if I succeed?" Create a vivid vision of your desired outcome—what you're working on, with whom, where you are, how your day unfolds. For some, this picture can be quite specific; for others, it might focus on qualities and feelings. Either way, make this your predominant story line. By consciously adopting these reframes, you transform uncertainty from a source of paralysis into a catalyst for action. The circumstances haven't changed, but your relationship to them has fundamentally shifted.

Summary

The journey of creation is inherently uncertain. Whether you're building a business, crafting art, or reimagining an organization, the path forward will never be fully illuminated. What separates extraordinary creators from the rest isn't the absence of fear or doubt, but rather the ability to transform these emotions from obstacles into fuel. As Immanuel Wallerstein wisely observed, "Uncertainty is wondrous, and...certainty, were it to be real, would be moral death. If everything is uncertain, then the future is open to creativity, not merely human creativity but the creativity of all nature." The tools and practices explored throughout these pages—from certainty anchors and supportive communities to attentional training and deliberate reframing—offer practical ways to embrace uncertainty rather than run from it. They represent a holistic approach to creative resilience that honors both the struggle and possibility inherent in making something new. Today, choose one practice to implement immediately. Perhaps it's ten minutes of meditation, a brief exercise session, or simply reframing a current challenge as an opportunity for growth. The path to creative brilliance doesn't require perfection—it requires the courage to take that first uncertain step.

About Author

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Jonathan Fields

Jonathan Fields is a dad, husband, award-winning author, executive producer, and host of one of the top-ranked podcasts in the world, Good Life Project®. He's also the Founder of Spark Endeavors and creator of the Sparketypes®, a set of imprints and tools tapped by over 500,000 people to discover the work that makes them come alive.Jonathan has written a number of books on human potential and speaks globally to groups and organizations. His work has been featured widely in the media, including The New York Times, FastCompany, Oprah Magazine, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Inc., Elle, Allure, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and more.

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