Simone Stolzoff

And I think increasingly the leaders and the people I look up to the most are the people that

understand what they know, understand what bets they're making, and understand what they don't know, and are able to communicate all three of those things clearly to their employees.

I think one of the best things that employees can do, particularly early career employees, is...

test things through hypotheses and prototypes, which is to say that as opposed to going to your boss and saying, hey, like, what do you think I should do about this side of the other thing?

Be like, hey, here is my example of what cold email I might send to that prudential business lead that we're looking for.

Or, hey, I've really been thinking about how we might be able to change this policy in the company.

And I wrote up a V1 of what this looks like.

It's much easier to give your boss something to react to and not feel so attached to it as an employee saying this is my best guess or this is my hypothesis.

And really treat it like you are a scientist, having a hypothesis, running a test, seeing how that test goes and then being able to adapt over time.

It comes back to this idea that we have a natural tendency to look at uncertainty as a threat, but we can see that potential that comes from uncertainty.

And curiosity is really the thing that I think unlocks that.

If we have something happen to us, we can be more like the farmer and say, maybe yes, maybe no.

Research shows that we have this natural tendency to get into a fight, flight, or freeze response when we are in an uncertain situation.

And that's why so often we reach for the safe bet, which might not necessarily be the right bet or the optimal bet.

But when we're able to look at that uncertainty with curiosity, when we're able to ground ourselves and take a step back, we're literally able to see possibilities that we can't see when we're in that narrow fight, flight, or freeze response mode.

The researchers call it approach mode.

When we're able to approach uncertainty with a sense of wonder or curiosity, it allows us to see it as the birthplace of possibility and not just the source of our potential doom.

One of them is inspiration, particularly through art.

I love listening to new music, watching movies, and particularly with an eye towards originality.

I love people that do things unlike anyone has ever done them before.