Key Takeaways
- Uncertainty is not a problem to be solved. It is the environment in which entrepreneurship happens.
- The anxiety of uncertainty is different from the information that uncertainty provides.
- Developing genuine comfort with uncertainty is a trainable skill, not a fixed trait.
Entrepreneurship is conducted almost entirely in conditions of uncertainty. The product might work. The market might be ready. The team might be the right one. The timing might be right. None of these are knowable in advance, and the founder who needs certainty before acting will find that the certainty they want never arrives before the opportunity does.
The Distinction Between Uncertainty and Anxiety
Uncertainty is an epistemic condition: you do not have enough information to know the outcome. Anxiety is an emotional response to that condition. The two are related but not identical, and the relationship between them can be changed. You cannot always change the uncertainty. You can change the emotional response to it through deliberate practice.
The Practice Saim Uses
The specific practice Saim Abbasi has found most useful for managing uncertainty is explicitly naming the decision he does not know how to make, writing down what information would change his decision if he had it, and then deciding whether that information is obtainable in a useful timeframe. If it is, he waits for it. If it is not, he makes the best decision available with what he has and moves forward without looking back at the unobtainable information.
"You will not know if it worked until it works or it does not. The discomfort of that not-knowing is the price of doing something interesting."