A high need for certainty indicates a lack of robustness in a person's life.

“It's a kind of fragility to need a lot of certainty because what you're saying is I can't deal with something that I can't anticipate.”

Developing the cognitive flexibility to live in ambiguity is the most important skill in the 21st century because nothing survives contact with reality.

“I think as a result developing kind of the cognitive flexibility to live in ambiguity is probably more important than it's ever been.”

Accepting uncertainty is beneficial because it prevents mindlessness and fosters freedom.

“certainty makes you mindless and uncertainty is the rule that's not the exception everything is changing everything looks different from different perspectives and we're holding it still”

Uncertainty is the primary driver of anxiety in the modern world because many people lack the nervous system resilience to tolerate it due to unresolved childhood experiences.

“I think it's uncertainty. You know, we've all we've grown our our our our species has grown in uncertainty, but now we're so distracted by our phones, the the wherewithal we we would have used to be able to deal with the uncertainty in the past, all our our cash is full.”

Dr. Maya Shankar claims that human beings are neurologically hardwired to be averse to uncertainty, which leads them to over-index on their ability to control their life outcomes.

“Human beings seem fundamentally hardwired to have an extreme aversion to uncertainty. But the universe, the world, life is fundamentally uncertain. And it is our discomfort with uncertainty that gives rise to all of these control issues or our overindexing on our ability to control life outcomes.”

Doubt and uncertainty should be viewed as positive signals that provide an opportunity to learn, grow, and become more capable rather than as signs of personal failure or incompetence.

“But one of the things I try to help people see is that that experience of doubt can also be a positive. It's a signal that we don't know. That means it's an opportunity to learn.”