Uncertainty = Opportunity
It’s human nature to fear the unknown. Both our native instincts and the attitudes of those around us tend to motivate us towards path of certainty and away from uncertainty.
We like certainty because it provides us with a framework of what to expect. We like to know whether our ideas will work, whether our decisions will pay off. We fear failure. There is much comfort in knowing that the decisions we make lead to our desired outcome nearly 100% of the time.
The problem with choosing paths of certainty is that they have limited upside. Everyone wants to pursue the best outcomes with the most certainty, and those outcomes will need to be distributed among all the participants. In other words, it’s easy for everyone to pursue an opportunity that they know with certainty is a good one. And therefore, everyone will, and everyone will also have a share of the upside.
In contrast, the paths with the most uncertainty will include those with the most upside. Of course, the caveat is that due to the uncertainty, some of these paths will will have poor outcomes. But so is the nature of the beast.
Startups are a good example of this. Good startups will be exploring an opportunity whose outcome is relatively uncertain. Often the opportunity will be uncertain because most people think it’s a bad one. If it ends up being a good one, the startup executes well, and the market exists, the upside is potentially massive.
And that’s the beautiful thing about paths of uncertainty. The lack of complete information available means that whoever can acquire information about the unchartered waters the fastest will have a significant advantage over everyone else. There’s also the fact that , because of human nature, most people won’t pursue paths of uncertainty in the first place.
There’s a lot to be learned from choosing paths of uncertainty. Perhaps most important is that you stop being afraid to fail. You realize failure is the predecessor to most ground breaking success.
As a medical school graduate choosing to defer the rest of my training in order to build my health care startup, I’m pursuing a path of relative uncertainty. The financial uncertainty of course being the most obvious. But I see tremendous upside in my career from the knowledge, skills and relationships I’m acquiring from this experience.
But most importantly, uncertainty is fun. There’s a real thrill in not knowing the outcome.