Uncertainty is Not the Enemy

Today's episode is about learning to sit with uncertainty. The episode opens with a discussion of listener questions on how to handle risk, the ingredients of a great apology, and why people stay loyal to relationships and organizations that quietly drain them. Then Brené and Adam turn to uncertainty – how our brains are wired for a threat response, what intolerance of uncertainty actually is, and why it can drive people toward authoritarian leaders. You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop). 0:00 - Introduction and Guest Questions 3:20 - Is Risk Something to Review or Reveal 13:40 - Why do People Stay Loyal to Bad Relationships? 22:28 - Strategies for Apologizing and Repair 32:33 - Is Uncertainty a Strength or Deficit for Leaders? 40:15 - Intolerance for Uncertainty 52:00 - Terror Management Theory and our Response to Uncertainty 59:50 - How Can We Manage Uncertainty 1:05:00 - Closing Show Notes: Capabilities, Cognition and Inertia: Evidence from Digital Imaging - Tripsas and Gavetti, 2000, Harvard Business School (Polaroid Study) The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth - Amy Edmondson, 2019, Book Is it Safe to Speak Up at Work? - Adam Grant and Amy Edmonson, July 2021, Worklife with Adam Grant Podcast Anchored, Aligned, Accountable: A Framework for Transcending Bullsh*t and Transforming Our Lives and Work (Foreword by Brené Brown) - Aiko Bethea, 2026, Book Predicting Exit Voice Loyalty and Neglect - Withey and Cooper, 1989, Administrative Science Quarterly Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States - Albert Hirschman,1970, Book The Decision Lab: System Justification Theory The Secrets of a Great Apology - Adam Grant and Beth Polin, 2025, WorkLife with Adam Grant Podcast The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships - Harriet Lerner, 2025, Book I’m Sorry: How to Apologize and Why It Matters, Part 1 of 2 - Brené Brown and Harriet Lerner, 2020, Unlocking Us with Brene Brown Podcast Conclave - Robert Harris, 2016, Book A Comprehensive Analysis of COVID-19 Misinformation, Public Health Impacts, and Communication Strategies: Scoping Review - Kisa, 2024, Journal of Medical Internet Research Into the Unknown: A Review and Synthesis of Contemporary Models Involving Uncertainty - Carleton, 2016, Journal of Anxiety Disorders Conceptual Models of Generalized Anxiety Disorder - Fisher and Wells, 2011, Psychiatric Annals The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans - Maya Shankar, 2026, Book Aftereffects of Stress on Human Performance and Social Behavior: A Review of Research and Theory - Cohen (Includes the work of Glass and Singer), 1980, Carnegie Mellon Research University Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions on Uncertainty Avoidance Compensatory Conviction in the Face of Personal Uncertainty: Going to Extremes and Being Oneself - Mcgregor et al., 2001, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Are Needs to Manage Uncertainty and Threat Associated With Political Conservatism or Ideological Extremity? - Jost et al, 2007, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin The Causes and Consequences of a Need For Self-esteem: A Terror Management Theory - Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986, Book chapter Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immuninity - Sander van der Linden, 2023, Book Utterly Humbled by Mystery - Richard Rohr, 2006, NPR Morning Edition Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:45Adam Grant?

  Welcome to The Curiosity Shop. A show from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

• 1:54Brené Brown?

  Hi, everyone. I'm Brené Brown.

• 1:56Adam Grant?

  And I'm Adam Grant.

• 1:58Brené Brown?

  We're going to talk today, Adam, about the word ringing in the halls of every organization that I am walking through at this point.

• 2:08Adam Grant?

  Which is?

• 2:09Brené Brown?

  Uncertainty. This is uncertainty.

• 2:12Adam Grant?

  Are you sure?

• 2:12Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I'm 100% certain that uncertainty is the level of uncertainty and the velocity of change right now is tough.

• 2:25Adam Grant?

  Not just in organizations, but people are grappling with it in everyday life. The world is in flux.

• 2:31Brené Brown?

  The world is in flux. So why don't we do this? We'll start with some listener questions. We had many questions come in through social media. I think you grabbed some off Spotify. Let's dig into some of the questions that we received and unpack some of the answers. And also, I want to say shout out to some of the learning. I mean, I really learned some stuff from these conversations, so I'm grateful for that. Let's do that for the first half, and then we will springboard from one of the questions into the second half of the podcast today on uncertainty.

• 3:04Adam Grant?

  I mean, there's no faster way to a diver's heart than to use the word "springboard."

• 3:09Brené Brown?

  I mean,

• 3:09Adam Grant?

  I'm in.

• 3:09Brené Brown?

  I mean, I was just trying to make your day. Okay.

• 3:12Adam Grant?

  Done. Day made.

• 3:13Brené Brown?

  Day made. Okay. So I posted on LinkedIn one of our takeaways from our episode, was it episode two? We talked about pre-mortems, and we talked about pre-mortems as a risk assessment tool. So we are launching a project, and we ask ourselves during the launch, hey, if it's six months or a year from now, and this thing's gone to shit, what will we be talking about then? And why can't we talk about it now? And what should we be talking about now? And we actually did in episode two, our own pre-mortem on our podcast. So I posted this. Why are you laughing?

• 3:55Adam Grant?

  Well, one, because we're still here.

• 3:57Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I mean, we have made it.

• 3:58Adam Grant?

  So far, so good.

• 3:59Brené Brown?

  So far, so good. It was helpful.

• 4:01Adam Grant?

  And two, well, I found it helpful, too. And it really did lead me thinking, this should happen in every important relationship, not just in work decisions. I think that new parents should talk about what are the things that are most likely to screw up our kids in two, in five, in 10 years? And how do we avoid that? And I just, I just love how universal the, the fear of failing is. And I love this as a tool to try to prevent failure by anticipating some of the things you could have prevented.

• 4:31Brené Brown?

  Yeah, and I love that, like, I love the two questions that I use a lot in a pre-mortem because one of them is, what should we be talking about? And the other one is, why aren't we talking about it right now? And I got to tell you, the people who work in risk are big fans of the pre-mortem and the LinkedIn, all the risk assessment people are like, now you're speaking my language. I did a quick qualitative analysis of the comments that came in. And there was a question that Stephen, who is an executive and leadership coach, we got into a conversation and it got the most kind of like, yes, please take this to the episode. We want to hear you and Adam talk about this. So I'm going to read it.

• 5:15Brené Brown?

  It's going to take a minute or so to get through it, but I think it's a really important framing. So Stephen writes, what stood out to me, and this is in our podcast, episode two, is how often teams treat risk as something to review instead of something to reveal. I've seen leaders wait until the post-mortem, not because they don't care, but because naming risk early feels like slowing momentum or questioning the plan. But underneath that, it's usually something deeper, protecting confidence in the room. The shift happens when risk becomes a shared language, not a personal judgment. That's when teams stop managing perception and start building real traction. In my experience, the best pre-mortems aren't about predicting failure. They're about creating enough safety for people to say what they already know, but haven't said yet.

• 6:00Brené Brown?

  I'm curious, where do you see the real friction show up more in identifying the risks or in creating the space where people say, feel safe enough to speak them out loud? Let me say that again, because it's really...

• 6:16Brené Brown?

  We know that we know from the research and we know from our own experiences. I mean, I do this all day, all day long for years. I'm, I'm with senior teams facilitating these. We know there's friction around a premortem. Steven's question, where does it show up more in identifying the risks or creating the space where people feel safe enough to speak them out loud? This question of is it really new information that you're excavating in a premortem? Or is it psychological safety that you're built? You know, where is the real friction? This was the question. I mean, across 80% of the comments.

• 7:00Adam Grant?

  Can I, can I just vote for both right off the bat?

• 7:03Brené Brown?

  A hundred percent. So that's actually how I answered him because I want to say, and there were some people with whom I disagreed in the comments who said, it's nothing but psychological safety. The friction is all about, everybody already knows what the risks are and no one is saying it. And because the friction is just about the room is not safe enough. And I absolutely, wholeheartedly disagree.

• 7:36Brené Brown?

  I think a good premortem is about excavating new information that requires new skills that very few leaders have today because the world is new. And those are the skills of peeking around the corner, anticipatory thinking, situational awareness, temporal awareness, systems thinking, critical thinking. I would say if in a good premortem, you are building these skills, they're not strong muscles, you're doing it as a team and it cannot be done without psychological safety.

• 8:16Brené Brown?

  You're building both at the same time, which is why these are best done, probably facilitated. What do you think?

• 8:23Adam Grant?

  I, I think that, I mean, that, that's so well put. I think it reminds me of one of the first projects I ever did as a, as a young organizational psychologist was studying a bookstore you probably remember called Borders.

• 8:38Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Adam Grant?

  I watched that company go out of business. And there may have been people in the company who saw Amazon coming. But it was not on the radar as a major risk. And I've thought so many times, if they had the skills to do the pre-mortem, people would have been very comfortable saying, hey, what if this all goes digital? What if, what if physical bookstores are not even necessary anymore? Which I don't agree with, by the way, it's a premise. I'm glad we have physical bookstores. I think there's a place for them in the world. But it wasn't, the problem there, I don't think, was a lack of psychological safety. I think they had the safety.

• 9:23Adam Grant?

  And they just had a lot of people locked into the mindset that books are physical objects that you want to go and browse in a store. And there's a, there's a study of Polaroid going down the same road. They, they just could not let go of, this is a Tripsis and Gavetti paper, where they do a deep dive into what went wrong at Polaroid. And people could not let go of the business model that we sell film. Like, they had digital imaging technology. They knew how to build digital cameras. But they couldn't embrace the change that was underfoot. And they, you know, they failed because of it.

• 10:04Adam Grant?

  And so, you know, obviously, if you can't get people to feel comfortable speaking up because they're afraid they're going to damage their reputations or their relationships or risk their careers, that is a psychological safety challenge. But surmounting the psychological safety problem is not enough in and of itself to get all of the new ideas on the table that, that raise problems then that lead to new solutions.

• 10:28Brené Brown?

  I mean.

• 10:28Adam Grant?

  So I think I'm agreeing with you.

• 10:29Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I think we're, I think we're in agreement. I think one of the things that is interesting, Steve and I had this big, long thread. One of the things that he asked, he says, I'm curious how you approach the balance, the psychological safety and skills balance at the C level. Do you intentionally develop anticipatory thinking and psychological safety in parallel? Or have you seen one reliably unlock the other first? And I'm going to get very practical right now. And, and people won't love it. And that's great. I think it's because I was an athlete and I think it's because I do a lot of work in sports

• 11:11Brené Brown?

  that I approach this in a very practical way, which is this. If you want to play to win, whatever it is that you're trying to win, market share, you know, competitive advantage, stock, I mean, like, you know, impact if you're an NGO or nonprofit, do a lot of work there. If you want to win, you must create an environment of productive challenge. You must want to win more than you want to protect your ego. Period. So I do not come in first with psychological safety or the skills.

• 11:56Brené Brown?

  I come in outcome focused with performance. What is it that you want to do? Increase organic growth, you know, whatever your thing is. Then let's talk about two things. What does it look like to play to win? And secondly, what does it look like to play not to lose? And let me tell you what teams do who play not to lose. There's no productive challenge. They, they, they, they don't have hard conversations. They allow negative contagion, you know? And so for me, it's about, it's almost design thinking. It's almost tell me what's keeping you up at night. Tell me what's on your heart and mind and tell me what winning looks like.

• 12:39Brené Brown?

  And then I will tell you the collection of skillsets, mindsets and behaviors that we're going to need to see in this room for that to happen.

• 12:46Adam Grant?

  I think what's so effective about that is you're then, you're not pitching them on a culture change or a set of practices that, that you're passionate about that they need to adopt.

• 12:58Brené Brown?

  No.

• 12:59Adam Grant?

  You are finding out what their goals are.

• 13:00Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 13:01Adam Grant?

  And then helping them solve the, you're basically helping them clear the obstacles that are in the middle of their path to their goal.

• 13:07Brené Brown?

  Yeah, and it's, I think it's really interesting because.

• 13:13Brené Brown?

  I'm gonna do a shout out right now for two people in tandem, actually. Amy Edmiston's work on psychological safety, I think, is you can't have high performance without it. And I also want to shout out Ika Bethia's new book, Anchored, Aligned, and Accountable, because I think it's a tool for building it. I think, you know, having a team that's anchored in their values, cares about the alignment between, and this is a big one in pre-mortems, cares about the alignment between intention and impact, meaning I'm trying to engage in task conflict and make us better, but I've moved over to

• 13:57Brené Brown?

  emotional conflict and been shitty to you, and now I'm gonna make a repair for that because it gets in the way of winning. And then last is accountable to each other. One of the things that we didn't talk about when we talked about pre-mortems that came up a lot in the comments that I really loved was a pre-mortem really increases team ownership of the project, you know? And so, you know, to Amy Edmiston, who put the concept of psychological safety out into the world, and then to Ika, who's got new work coming as a coach and a facilitator about how she builds it tactically, this is playing to win to me.

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• 16:11Adam Grant?

  Well, that actually is a good segue to one of our other questions.

• 16:14Brené Brown?

  I love it. I love a segue. Nicely done.

• 16:18Adam Grant?

  This is, this is a question that, this is one of my most thought-provoking and popular comments. This came in from Eva, who works in customer success. And she's asking about why people continue to stay committed to organizations, to relationships that lack psychological safety and that might be crushing their souls a little bit. So she says, "I'd be curious to hear a conversation about why people stay loyal to systems that quietly exhaust them. Many people can clearly see when something in their environment no longer aligns with their values or even their well-being. Yet, instead of leaving or confronting it, they adapt to it and sometimes even end up defending it.

• 17:01Adam Grant?

  What psychological forces make us protect structures that are slowly draining us?"

• 17:08Adam Grant?

  I thought this was a profound question. Thank you, Eva.

• 17:11Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I hear it all. I hear it very often and I've got, I can't, you go first.

• 17:16Adam Grant?

  All right, I'm more curious about what you're gonna say than what I'm gonna say. I already know what I'm gonna say.

• 17:20Brené Brown?

  I know what I'm gonna say too, but I'm very curious about what you're gonna say.

• 17:25Adam Grant?

  All right, I'll kick us off. So, the first thing that came to mind on this was, I was thinking about the classic Hirschman framework that Whedon Cooper then elaborated. Exit, voice, loyalty, neglect.

• 17:38Brené Brown?

  Wait, wait, say that again. Exit?

• 17:41Adam Grant?

  Exit, voice, loyalty, neglect.

• 17:43Brené Brown?

  Okay, oh yeah, okay.

• 17:45Adam Grant?

  Those are four possible responses to dissatisfaction. If you're unhappy in a relationship, in a job, in a country for that matter. Exit is you leave. Voice is you speak up and try to change it and fix it. Loyalty is you bite your tongue and you do your best. Anyway, and neglect is you do the bare minimum to not blow it up. That's like the office space response for those who are fans. I think that for a lot of people, what happens is they feel trapped. They're in a relationship that they don't feel they can leave. They're in a job where they don't think they have alternatives. And so exit is just not an option.

• 18:28Adam Grant?

  And there's not enough psychological safety to voice. They think that it might damage the relationship or it might lose them their job. And so they don't speak up, or they've tried and their voice has fallen on deaf ears. And so people start cycling through their options and they're basically left with loyalty or neglect. And for many people, loyalty is a matter of integrity. I am not the kind of person who half-asses it. I'm not the kind of person who does the bare minimum. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna keep giving this organization my all. And at that point, what kicks in is cognitive dissonance. And you get what psychologists like John Jost and Mazurin Benagji have called system justification. Where the more that you show loyalty to the person or the organization,

• 19:13Adam Grant?

  the more you are persuading yourself, I care, this is important to me. And the more trapped you are in the sense that, but I've invested so much. I now have all these sunk costs.

• 19:25Adam Grant?

  Brene, I'm really curious to hear your reaction to this. I just want to overlay, I have become convinced recently that there is a gender difference in this tendency. There's a pretty sizable body of evidence that women are more likely to internalize distress and say, well, this is on me. This is my problem. And therefore, I just need to, you know, I need to keep trying to solve it or fix it in my life, but I still owe something to the organization or the other person. I have a duty of care. I have a duty of responsibility. Whereas men are more likely to externalize problems and say, you know what? That's not the right person. That's not the right job. That's not the right organization for me. I'm out. Over to you.

• 20:10Brené Brown?

  Okay. I don't think this is gender. I think it's experiential, maybe. So, but maybe gender too. So Eva, right? That's who asked. So, one thing I would say is when we observe, I would say exit, voice, loyalty, or neglect. I would say there, I would add something to this. And I would say necessity. And so I'm reminded of so many things when I think about that question. The first thing I'm reminded of is like a personal story for me. When my parents, my whole family life like blew up like a cartoon where you just have

• 20:55Brené Brown?

  one of those things and you're like, shh. It just kind of blew up. And I found myself in school and putting myself through school, no money, broke, no real support from my parents who were just both like, our whole family was just dissolving. And at some point, you know, I sold my car to pay tuition. I took a bus to wait tables. I cleaned houses on the weekend and I waited tables at a place that was probably one of the most abusive places I've ever worked. Like the kind where the restaurant manager would throw you up against the wall if you dropped a plate or something.

• 21:36Brené Brown?

  And it wasn't about like, I couldn't exit. Like, that's how I paid my rent. That's how I paid my tuition. That's how I couldn't exit. Voice was dangerous. I wasn't loyal. I hated them. And neglect wasn't really an option because it was too scary if you didn't do your job well. And so I think when we see someone in that situation, if the question, if the answer consideration set is exit, voice, loyalty, or neglect, I think we're forgetting about, you know, I'm a single mom. My kid has leukemia.

• 22:21Brené Brown?

  This is my health insurance. And I can't leave. The job market is not favorable. And a paycheck is a priority. So I think the most important thing I would say to this question is, and Eva demonstrated this in the question, get curious rather than judgmental. Because the question, whenever I hear the question as a social worker, why didn't, why don't you leave? I go directly to my work in domestic violence and sexual assault, where women in that position know that the majority of people who are killed in that position are killed while leaving. You know, and so people don't leave for a lot of reasons, which is why my favorite question is,

• 23:04Brené Brown?

  you know, tell me about what's going on and what does support from me look like? Because I think there are, and it does get gendered very quickly, but it's not just women who have to put food on the table and have health insurance for a sick kid or a million other reasons. But I think getting curious about people's thinking and people's lived experiences is the most important thing when I see this. And sometimes it is real desperation and a lack of choices. And related to that, too, I think I would add another one, which one is just, you know, economic reality I would add to the list.

• 23:47Brené Brown?

  But I'd also add to the list some combination of privilege and agency. Like, I think about if my, one of my children was caught in a position, bartending and waiting tables that I was caught in. They would never have to stay there more than five minutes because I am a safety net for them.

• 24:09Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 24:09Brené Brown?

  And I think in today's employment environment, it's hard to find a job right now. I mean, it's really hard depending on what your skill set is and your industry is. So I think this is when our commitment to curiosity really pays off.

• 24:24Adam Grant?

  All right, should we go to the next question?

• 24:26Brené Brown?

  Yeah, let's do it. A really beautiful question about the apologizing. The person wrote, I know the apologies between you and Adam were personal. Is there anything you can tell us about repair that we could learn from? Is there any, are there any like toolkits or ideas about repair that could be helpful? And I think we're both bringing one to the table, so you go first.

• 24:53Adam Grant?

  All right. So I've learned a lot from Beth Polin's research on what I've come to think of as the five Rs.

• 25:00Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 25:00Adam Grant?

  Of an apology, which are regret, rationale, responsibility, repentance, and repair.

• 25:09Adam Grant?

  So regret is basically showing remorse. And that's the typical, I'm so sorry that, you know, I made you feel this way, or I'm so sorry that happened. That turns out, though, in the research to be less important than some of the other components.

• 25:24Brené Brown?

  Ooh.

• 25:25Adam Grant?

  I think the rationale, the rationale is kind of table stakes to explain what you were thinking or, you know, why you made the mistake you did. But the part that I think most people overlook that really matters is responsibility. Saying this is on me.

• 25:41Adam Grant?

  Either I caused the problem or I contributed to the problem. Or, you know, I, I don't even know what caused the problem, but I am, I am taking responsibility for preventing it from happening again. And I think that that goes to repentance, which is basically making a commitment to do better. I love the saying, the best apology is changed behavior.

• 26:03Brené Brown?

  Yeah, me too.

• 26:03Adam Grant?

  And. You're almost there when you've expressed regret, you've given your rationale, and you've taken responsibility and repented. But ultimately, repair is demonstrating that you mean it all by not committing another offense and failing to change your actions. And to me, if you do those things, you've shown that you take really seriously the offense or the impact of your actions, and you are sincere about your desire to make it right. And I think if I could pick two, I would say I want responsibility and repair. I want you to say, here's what I own that I did wrong or that I need to change, and

• 26:45Adam Grant?

  then I want you to prove it through following through and actually walking your talk.

• 26:52Brené Brown?

  I agree on all counts. And I am bringing to the conversation Harriet Lerner's work. Harriet Lerner was a clinician at Mininger for many, many, many, many years. And she actually, funnily enough, she wrote the first kind of self-reflection psychology book I ever read called The Dance of Anger. And my mom gave it to me as a cassette, a cassette on, you know, like a book on tape. And I remember getting it in the mail, and it's, you know, The Dance of Anger. And I was like, I don't know. And then a month later, did you read it? No. Did you listen to it yet? No. And then now it's like, oh, okay, I get it. She, I did a two-part interview with her on Unlocking Us.

• 27:33Brené Brown?

  And she has kind of nine essential ingredients of a true apology. I want to go through them pretty quickly, but they're going to line up very much with the research you're talking about. One, I hate this part. It does not include the word but. Get your but out of the way. That's a hard one for me sometimes, but it doesn't include the word but. Keeps the focus on your actions and not on the other person's response. Includes an offer of reparation or restitution that fits the situation. It does not overdo, which I think is really interesting. Does not get caught up in who's more to blame or who started it. Requires that you do your best to avoid a repeat of performance.

• 28:17Brené Brown?

  It should never serve to silence, which I think is really interesting. Have you ever been on the receiving end of apology that was very meant, very much meant to just like, and that's the final word?

• 28:28Adam Grant?

  We're done here.

• 28:29Brené Brown?

  Yeah, we're done here.

• 28:29Adam Grant?

  I don't ever want to speak to this again.

• 28:30Brené Brown?

  Right, right. Eight, it shouldn't be offered to make you feel better if it risks making the hurt party feel worse. God, this is complicated and really good. And then nine, does not ask the hurt party to do anything, not even to forgive.

• 28:49Adam Grant?

  Yes. Yes.

• 28:51Brené Brown?

  What do you think?

• 28:53Adam Grant?

  I mean, the complementarity is great, but the one, well, two things. One, I think the but is such an important qualifier. And two, that last one, there is, there is a, there's a sixth R in the apology research, which is a request for forgiveness. And that has always bothered me because I don't think you should be asking something of the person you're, you're trying to make amends to.

• 29:18Brené Brown?

  Agree.

• 29:19Adam Grant?

  You're putting the burden on them. I think it's up to you to earn their forgiveness, but you shouldn't be seeking it. You should try to make it right because it's the right thing to do.

• 29:29Brené Brown?

  Okay, I gotta tell you a really funny story.

• 29:35Brené Brown?

  You gotta watch this shit with your own kids. Let me tell you why. We were very conscious when Ellen and Charlie were little that they would apologize to one another, to, you know, we would apologize to them. I did not grow up with parents who apologized. So we were very, Steve and I were both very quick to apologize to our kids. And one of the things we taught our kids was to never say that's okay, but to say, thank you.

• 30:09Brené Brown?

  And I never thought much about it, except like, look at me, PBS, NPR mom, you know, like that, you know, giving myself a pat on the back and, you know. And then one day I really got frustrated with one of my kids and I knocked on their door and I was like, I, I came to apologize. I got scared and I can get scary when I'm scared and that's not okay. And I apologize how, for how I showed up in that conversation. It was not helpful and it did not honestly convey my excitement about you trying this new thing. And my kid looked right at me, looked right at me and said, thank you. I was like, what the shit? What do you?

• 30:54Brené Brown?

  I was like, wait, what? I was so dumbfounded. I was like, wait, this is the part where you go, that's okay, mom. I totally get it. You just, you know, you got some mama bear in you sometimes and, you know, nothing. Just a solemn, like this, this is what I do in the whole time. Mm hmm. Okay. Thank you. I was like, fucking grounded for a month.

• 31:23Adam Grant?

  You got no validation.

• 31:24Brené Brown?

  No, no.

• 31:25Adam Grant?

  No acceptance there whatsoever. That's so funny. You know, we, we've had a similar conversation in our family. And it's, what's hit me that I never had thought about going in, which might be missing from both of our favorite apology frameworks is I think when people, when people come in with that's okay, what the apologizer is really looking for is a we're okay.

• 31:53Brené Brown?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:55Adam Grant?

  And I think that distinction is so important. I want to, when, when I have wronged someone, including when I wronged you, Brene, I don't want you to tell me that was okay. It wasn't okay. I'm not okay with the impact that I had. But I do want to know that we're okay and that we can still respect each other and like each other despite the mistake that I made.

• 32:15Brené Brown?

  But you know what? I do think that is, I do think that is asking the hurt party to, because I think there have been times where I have had an apology, I've given an apology to someone and I've literally asked, are we okay? And I've had that person say, not quite yet.

• 32:35Adam Grant?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:36Brené Brown?

  And so, and so I think that. I am looking for we're okay, but I don't get to dictate the timeline for that. So I just think the, I, I think the, I appreciate the apology. Thank you. I will tell you, it's hard to hear. Like, I, I do think there's an, I don't know. I really wanted to respond with, well, you're grounded, you little smart ass. But, um, but I was actually so proud. It's like when your kids beat you at sports, you're either like, I'm going to beat you and I feel great. Or you just beat me and hey, I raised you. Either way, I'm awesome. So great.

• 33:11Adam Grant?

  Yeah. It, it, it does, it does feel like a rejection a little bit though. And I wonder if, I wonder if a modification of it is to say something to the effect of, I hope we'll be okay.

• 33:25Brené Brown?

  No, I still think that's putting too much on someone. And I actually don't think it's a rejection. I actually think it is when, when my, when they looked back at me and said, thank you. I think it just left me sitting in my own accountability. And like, I think half my family are very, you know, half of us are very fast processors. Great. Let's go grab some Chinese food. And the other half are like, it's going to be a while before I'm okay. And, and that's my timeline in my call.

• 33:55Adam Grant?

  As it should be.

• 33:56Brené Brown?

  Yeah. No, I, okay. It was a great question. So I'm, I'm glad.

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• 35:05Speaker 07

  Hi, it's Phoebe Judge, host of Criminal. I'm going on tour. If you like hearing me tell stories about people, well, I've decided to tell stories about my life and the people I love.

• 35:17Speaker 08

  A letter was left carelessly around, so I was sort of caught red-handed.

• 35:22Speaker 07

  It's a show about secrets and forgiveness. I hope you'll come to see it. Find all our tour dates and get tickets at thisiscriminal.com/live.

• 35:34Brené Brown?

  Last question is from Cecile, and boy, this is going to put us right in an area where we see the world differently. Are you ready?

• 35:45Adam Grant?

  I'm ready.

• 35:45Brené Brown?

  Okay. Back on LinkedIn, Cecile wrote, "Looking forward to the new podcast. How about this for a topic? Does great leadership require the courage to remain uncertain? And how do we show our uncertainty or hide it? And does it depend?" She writes, and I love this because it's one of my favorite quotes from a book. She said, "Here's the context for this. In Robert Harris's novel, Conclave, the dean of the College of Cardinals gives an opening sermon where he warned that certainty can be dangerous in matters of faith because it closes the mind." I love this quote from Conclave. I mean, I was so excited to see it on LinkedIn because I always think it's like a secret

• 36:30Brené Brown?

  quote that only I'm obsessed with. But I will, let me read the quote to you. "My brothers and sisters, in the course of a long life in the service of our mother, the church, let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance."

• 36:54Brené Brown?

  It goes on with this, this line goes on to, it concludes the quote, "Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and there was no doubt, there would be no mystery and therefore no need for faith."

• 37:10Brené Brown?

  I love Cecile's question about whether the ability to be in uncertainty is a strength or a deficit for a leader. I actually love the mysteries of faith, but I am not sure, and I want to ask you this as the org psychologist that you are. I'm not sure that we're neurobiologically hardwired for the amount of uncertainty we're facing right now. I want all your thoughts. I want your thoughts.

• 37:35Adam Grant?

  This is such a great topic.

• 37:37Brené Brown?

  I know. I want your thoughts on faith is only faith when it walks hand in hand with doubt.

• 37:45Brené Brown?

  And I want your thoughts on our hardwiring for certainty.

• 37:50Adam Grant?

  Well, I'm not qualified to weigh in on the first one because I don't know anything about faith.

• 37:55Brené Brown?

  Were you raised agnostic or atheist or just not, religion was not a big part?

• 38:03Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I just, I just don't remember thinking much about it, talking much about it.

• 38:07Brené Brown?

  Got it.

• 38:08Adam Grant?

  I, I think the second part though, I have a fair amount, I have a reasonable amount of knowledge on, but you can calibrate me. So I'm not convinced.

• 38:21Brené Brown?

  Sorry, I love that throwback to the last episode on metacognition. We're calibrating each other. I like it, go.

• 38:27Adam Grant?

  Bring it on. You always calibrate me. And I think that's, that's one of the most fun things about learning from you.

• 38:33Brené Brown?

  Same.

• 38:34Adam Grant?

  Is you are, you are not shy about saying, ah, nope, nope. I don't think you got that right.

• 38:39Brené Brown?

  No, neither are you and I, it would be so boring if we were.

• 38:42Adam Grant?

  True. So I think we are absolutely hardwired for the level of uncertainty we're experiencing. I actually think we're hardwired for much more uncertainty than we're experiencing. I mean, can you imagine, if you think about where our hardwiring comes from, right? In our evolutionary history, imagine.

• 39:00Adam Grant?

  Like not knowing at any moment in daily life, if if there was going to be, you know, a creature emerging from the jungle that would attack you, not knowing if all of a sudden the heavens would send a tsunami or an earthquake to destroy your, you know, your, your entire life. I think not only were there threats that we just had no tools and and systems to deal with, but we didn't even understand what was causing them. Like, think about all the diseases that people just died of. And they didn't know that germs were a thing. They didn't know that you needed, you needed to avoid eating certain plants, right? There was tremendous uncertainty in daily life, and you could just be fine one moment

• 39:45Adam Grant?

  and die the next moment and have no idea what the cause was going to be. And I think we live in a much more certain, much more predictable world now than the world we were hardwired in. And so I would diagnose the problem differently.

• 39:59Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 40:00Adam Grant?

  But let me pause there. I'm really curious to hear your reaction.

• 40:02Brené Brown?

  No, keep going. I don't, I, I, I'm, I'm absorbing.

• 40:07Adam Grant?

  Okay. So I guess my, my differential, the, the different lens I would bring to this is to say, I think we actually, what we lack is not the wiring, but rather the practice in dealing with uncertainty. Precisely because we have built a world that shields us from it,

• 40:27Adam Grant?

  that anytime there is a problem, we know where to turn. I think it's why so many people struggled with COVID. Is all of a sudden, you weren't sure if you could trust your doctor, maybe for the first time in your life. Or, you know, maybe when you've dealt with that in the past, you at least knew where to go for a second opinion, and you knew what specialists to see. And now you weren't even sure if those people were accurate. And I think that what we're facing now is a tension between our hardwiring, which is very much primed to respond to threats, and our experience, which doesn't necessarily equip us to deal with the kinds of threats and the sources of uncertainty that we're now facing,

• 41:11Adam Grant?

  which would include AI, climate change, political instability and turbulence, and what have I forgotten?

• 41:21Brené Brown?

  I am really taking this in. I, okay, I, I, yeah, I have like-

• 41:26Adam Grant?

  Pause cast, here it is.

• 41:28Brené Brown?

  Yeah, the pause cast. Um.

• 41:32Brené Brown?

  Okay, so I want to walk through what your thinking is. It's really interesting to me. We, can we agree, can we go to the, can we go to some underlying assumptions and, and start to see where things take different paths? Because I'm not as, I, I'm, I'm, I think there's a lot of merit in what you're saying, actually. And for some reason, it doesn't feel as opposed to, I, I, I want to understand where the differences and where the similarities lie. So can we agree that the brain, that our brains are wired to treat uncertainty as a threat? And that-

• 42:10Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 42:10Brené Brown?

  That ambiguity activates the same neural stress response as danger, as physical danger? That ambiguity and physical danger are very similar in terms of our threat response to it?

• 42:22Adam Grant?

  Yes, with the caveat that there are pretty strong individual differences. So if we allow for the fact that there, there's a personality trait or two-

• 42:30Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 42:30Adam Grant?

  That will lead some people to not treat uncertainty as a threat. Yeah, I think on average, yes.

• 42:37Brené Brown?

  So let's talk about intolerance of uncertainty. Are you familiar with that field? Okay. Oh, boy. Did y'all see that look? I hope y'all caught that look. Aaron, I want you to do a double zoom in on that look. That's the, that, that is the, no, no, no, that is the frickin' Adam Grant, oh, yeah, let's go. You want to dance? You want to talk intolerance of uncertainty? You want to talk, uh, you know, rubbish show? Like, let's, like, let's go. Okay, I, I know that look. I love this look. Okay, so let's just walk people through it. So intolerance of uncertainty, a measurable cognitive vulnerability, not a personality weakness, right?

• 43:15Brené Brown?

  That there is an intolerance for uncertainty and that it drives a lot of the anxiety spectrum, right? Way in, go ahead.

• 43:26Adam Grant?

  Yes, and it's, it's so pervasive that for people who have a strong intolerance for uncertainty, they would actually rather hear bad news or criticism than just not know.

• 43:42Adam Grant?

  Certain negative information is more reassuring to them than uncertain, possibly positive information, which tells me this goes really deep. Who would rather be told they sucked than just not get feedback? Somebody who does not like uncertainty.

• 43:57Brené Brown?

  Hey, um, I'd rather have bad news, I'd rather have bad news and no news. I mean, that's like, that's the whole thing. I mean, I just did, um, we did a fun kind of launch for Maya Shankar's new book. And she was referencing, um, some uncertainty research about whether, you probably know this research, I don't know it that well, um, but I relate to it. Where you had a choice of there's a 50 50% chance you'd get a shock or 100% chance that you'd get a shock. The majority of people chose the 100% chance.

• 44:28Adam Grant?

  The 100.

• 44:29Brené Brown?

  Of course, me too, me too.

• 44:30Adam Grant?

  Yeah, because in the 50 50, you suffer twice, right?

• 44:32Brené Brown?

  Yes, but what would you pick?

• 44:35Adam Grant?

  I think it depends on how severe the shock is.

• 44:37Brené Brown?

  Okay, let's just say it's tolerable but uncomfortable.

• 44:39Adam Grant?

  The shock is bad, you go for the 50 50.

• 44:40Brené Brown?

  They'll say it's uncomfortable but tolerable. I mean, you're not going to get any other shit through a human subject, so let's say.

• 44:47Adam Grant?

  I think old me would have chosen the 100 and I hope new me would choose the 50 50.

• 44:51Brené Brown?

  So you have some empathy for people that'd rather have bad news.

• 44:55Adam Grant?

  Oh, yeah, I think I might, I mean, I might still be one of them. I've been one of them for a lot of my life, for sure. You?

• 45:03Brené Brown?

  I don't think, I think when you get to my age, you've lived through enough bad news that you'll roll the dice with the 50 50. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just think waiting one more day for the callback

• 45:18Brené Brown?

  is really tough. But it's not as tough as, you know, you're not going to be put out of your misery with a really terrible call at nine o'clock on Monday. That's always going to be worse than a five o'clock at Tuesday call that was good news. You know, so I think I have aged into some tolerance, but not in a, not from like becoming smarter, just having lived through some more bad news.

• 45:47Adam Grant?

  You are tracking with the lifespan development trends where as people move from their twenties toward their 50s and 60s, they do tend to be a little more comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity over time. And I think you're right, there's something to the life experience there. I also want to know, can we accelerate that? Can we help people become more comfortable with uncertainty when they are in their twenties?

• 46:12Brené Brown?

  Okay. So, given that we come from, given that we understand, we do believe that our brains are wired to create, to perceive uncertainty as a threat. And barring some personality differences, we can experience the same kind of neural stress response to physical danger as we do to ambiguity or not knowing. I'm trying to make sense of the comparison from a biological evolutionary perspective that you're saying to today. And I'll, and I'll tell you why, like, is there any cultural relevance, like, back then,

• 46:54Brené Brown?

  like, you knew, like, 50% of your family is gonna, you know, be dinner for something? And today, we're sold a bill of goods that human life should be happy and certain? And is that part of capitalism and marketing? And so, are there other cultural forces at play today that make uncertainty... Wait, let me, let me think about this. Are there cultural forces today that make uncertainty more difficult because certainty is positioned as an acquirable privilege?

• 47:34Adam Grant?

  Wow.

• 47:34Brené Brown?

  That if you're wealthy enough, smart enough, white enough, straight enough, male enough, like, that you can privilege your way, that it is possible to be a human and privilege your way into a certain life? It's a big question.

• 47:52Adam Grant?

  Yeah, it is. I, you know, it's, it's interesting. I was, I was going somewhere similar, which is, I think that, you know, in the past, if we rewind a lot of industrial revolution progress and understanding in the world, I think that uncertainty was expected and accepted.

• 48:12Adam Grant?

  And now there's an increasingly common assumption that I will not have to deal with unpredictability in my life. And when that assumption is violated, it's very uncomfortable. I see this all the time with our students who, if you talk about the bill they were sold, the bill they were sold is like every generation before you, you're going to be better off than your parents were.

• 48:35Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Adam Grant?

  And all of a sudden confronting the uncertainty of, I don't know if I'm gonna find a job when I was supposed to have a better job than my parents, Scott. What is that? That's not right. That's not fair. How am I supposed to thrive and survive in that world? And I think that that is hugely threatening against the backdrop of those expectations that it was going to be predictable, certain. And let me say another word that I think is core to what the problem is, which is controllable.

• 49:04Brené Brown?

  Yes, controllable.

• 49:07Adam Grant?

  I don't actually think that what people are looking for is certainty or predictability. I think what they're looking for is control and uncertainty threatens their ability to feel like they are in charge of their destiny.

• 49:20Brené Brown?

  God, it's like, it's like, I'm just, I don't know why the first thing that pops up for me, it's gonna be random and you have to promise me if I say it out loud, we're not gonna go on a rabbit trail. But the first, okay, the first thing that comes up for me, when you say, when you're, when you're talking about the relationship between certainty and uncertainty and control, is how, how enmeshed the relationship is between addiction and shame, that researchers really have a hard time temporally understanding which comes first. But I feel like that, I just have that same feeling when you talk about control and uncertainty. Like, it's just, it's like, are they, are they

• 50:00Brené Brown?

  the same things and which came first? And what do we need more of? It's almost so inextricably connected. And I don't want to lose the point either that, but say,

• 50:12Adam Grant?

  No, no, go ahead.

• 50:13Brené Brown?

  Okay, I don't want to lose the point either that, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a storytelling mechanism that I, I think about all the time, which is world building. You know, so when you're going to tell a story, especially a fiction story, you build the world first. So like, if you're going to tell the story of Lord of the Rings, you know, you've got the hero's journey, but first you build the world. So everyone understands the world in which the protagonist is acting and, and, you know, I think part of, part of today, the world building is if you do everything right, you can have less uncertainty and more control. And, and it plays into, it plays into everything.

• 50:54Brené Brown?

  I mean, the way everything is marketed, advertising, it plays into politics, which I want to get into. But the world building today leverages that, the human brain and our threats and our fears around control and uncertainty. Do you agree?

• 51:15Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I do. And I think, I, I think the, the thing that jumps out at me about control being a really important piece of this puzzle is, I think about the, the classic Glass and Singer experiments with, with stress, where people are blasted with these uncomfortably loud bursts of noise. And you, this is exactly in the range that you were describing earlier of it's tolerable, but it is definitely not pleasant. And in, in, in one version of these experiments, people are given a button they could press. And they find the blast of noise less unpleasant, even though they never pressed the button. Because they knew they could control.

• 52:00Brené Brown?

  Oh, my God, those people, those people are Texans. That's a Texas woman. That is, those are Texas women. And I'm going to tell you, those are Texas women. I'm going to tell you why. This is why I hold my purse while I'm on the side of a stage before they call my name out to talk to 8,000 people. I need to have my pocketbook and an exit strategy if you want me to do something at all times. I'm not, I've never run, but I need my pocketbook or my purse, whatever y'all call it, purse. And I need an exit strategy and I won't use it. But if you don't give it to me, fuck you, I'm leaving.

• 52:36Adam Grant?

  And that's, I think, you reacting not just to the uncertainty, but to the threat to control.

• 52:41Brené Brown?

  I mean, have you checked out Texas Men recently? Yeah. Like, I mean, there are some good ones, but there are some not great ones. So, yes, like, okay, so they do better if they have an off-ramp.

• 52:57Adam Grant?

  Yeah, even if they don't use it, just knowing I could press the button to shield myself from the noise is enough to help me cope with the, ugh, that's not good. But also the uncertainty of, but I don't know when it's going to come, and I don't know exactly how loud it's going to be. And maybe, you know, I think you're right. It may be that the desire for control leads us to dislike uncertainty. It may be that the desire for some degree of certainty leads us to dislike a lack of control. Having control might be the most important antidote that we have to the sense of uncertainty that people are struggling with.

• 53:37Brené Brown?

  Yes, I mean, just give me my pocketbook and a protein bar and a Diet Coke. I will all be up for anything, but I'm going to have my own money. I'm going to have my own protein bar, and I'm going to have my own Diet Coke, and then we'll see how it goes. But at any point, I can tuck and roll and go. Like, that is just, I mean, why are you laughing?

• 54:00Adam Grant?

  Don't roll if the Diet Coke is open.

• 54:03Brené Brown?

  No, I will always save the Diet Coke. So, okay, so let me, this is so interesting. I want to read this research to you. This is from Hofstadts Cultural Dimensions on Uncertainty Avoidance, which I love a cross-cultural study. Okay, yeah. You are looking like you are gunning for a conversation. I like it. I'm in your territory here. I love it. So, the principle is that, and this is true across cultures, many cultures. His research, Hofstadts' research, found that entire societies are organized around managing uncertainty through religion, law, and technology.

• 54:43Brené Brown?

  Okay, I'm gonna go on now and I'm gonna move, I'm gonna move from Hofstadt into compensatory control theory, which I love, which is because-

• 54:49Adam Grant?

  Ah, McGregor.

• 54:50Brené Brown?

  Yes, because this is a part of terror management theory. So, okay, so let me just back it up. So let me just, we'll have, in order to not like nerd out on y'all, like what just happened? Example 1A, Adam Grant.

• 55:04Adam Grant?

  You're just, you're just citing, like, you went right from, you went right from organizational behavior to psychology. You're, you are, you're in the center of my, my world.

• 55:15Brené Brown?

  In your universe, okay.

• 55:16Adam Grant?

  Welcome to my playground.

• 55:17Brené Brown?

  Welcome. I think this is where the weirdos live and think. I like it. But I'm gonna, we're gonna put all the references in the notes, the show notes. Our, our team member Paul is amazing at doing that, so he will hook you up if you want to nerd out. Okay. So Hofstadt's research says that entire societies organize around managing uncertainty through religion, law, and technology. When uncertainty spikes, this is now going into control, kind of compensatory control theory. When uncertainty spikes, economic threat, loss of control, humiliation, mortality reminders, mortality reminders happening everywhere right now, this, the psychological demand for certainty

• 56:01Brené Brown?

  does not just increase, it accelerates.

• 56:08Brené Brown?

  And this is huge. This is, is it Jost? I always pronounce this researcher's names Jost.

• 56:15Adam Grant?

  Jost.

• 56:15Brené Brown?

  Yeah, Jost. This is universal. No ideology, education level, or income bracket is immune. So we try to create certainty in societies with religion, law, and technology. When uncertainty spikes, the demand for certainty then just go up. It accelerates. And this is universal, across ideologies, education levels, and income brackets. What clusterfuckery does this set us up for politically?

• 56:51Adam Grant?

  I mean, this is, this is the world we're seeing right now. What we're, I think it explains a lot of the polarization and extremism that we've been tracking across countries, which is in response to increasing levels of uncertainty. One, you get what McGregor called defensive zeal, which is this kind of, it's a compensatory conviction response where, okay, the, the world is, is unstable and I'm not sure what's going to happen, so I am going to cling to an ideology. I am going to cling to a political tribe that gives me a sense of coherence and order.

• 57:24Brené Brown?

  Like a buoy in a notion.

• 57:25Adam Grant?

  And, yeah, that's a, I think that's a great metaphor for it. And I won't let it go because it is my survival raft. I think the other thing it gives us is something we didn't touch on in our conversation about narcissistic leadership in our third episode, which is, this is under uncertainty, that's when people gravitate toward authoritarians and narcissists who peddle certainty, who promise that they have all the answers, who are basically, they're charlatans and snake oil salespeople. And yet, they are more appealing to people, this is some brand new research that's come out in the last year or so, that leadership, authoritarian leadership, leadership that's

• 58:10Adam Grant?

  high certainty, is more appealing to people who have low self-esteem, who are searching for somebody that will make them feel like, yeah, I can handle the challenges, we are in good hands. And it's almost like it's, they're, they're getting, they're getting lulled into a false sense of security and safety by people who are overconfident and persuading them that, like, yeah, yeah, like, I, I will take care of everything, as opposed to just accepting, like, the world is complex, it's messy, we're not sure exactly what's going to happen.

• 58:45Brené Brown?

  Oh my God. Yeah.

• 58:48Adam Grant?

  Sound familiar?

• 58:49Brené Brown?

  Yes. No, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about the research term mortality salience. Do you know this work? Terror Management Theory, Greenberg and Solomon and

• 59:00Adam Grant?

  And Pazinski, don't forget.

• 59:01Brené Brown?

  Yes, and Pazinski. You are so scary when it comes to these things. Like, where were you when I was getting my PhD? I would have been like, let me just pontificate here. And if you could just attach every idea to some peer reviewed. Um, okay. So this is terror management that I think is interesting. When reminded of death or existential threat, people cling harder to leaders who promise protection and meeting and meaning. Let me read it again. This is Terror Management Theory. When reminded of death or existential threat, people cling harder to leaders who promise protection and meaning. This is mortality salience. Oh my God. Listen, I mean, I mean,

• 59:44Adam Grant?

  I mean,

• 59:46Brené Brown?

  God. This is happening. This is happening. I mean, this is like a lot of people clinging to their buoy in the shit soup. Amanda Brown, 2026.

• 1:00:06Brené Brown?

  Oh, okay. Let's just do this.

• 1:00:09Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:00:10Brené Brown?

  Go ahead.

• 1:00:11Adam Grant?

  I do, I do, I do, I do want to caveat that some of the terror management findings have failed to replicate

• 1:00:17Brené Brown?

  Same one.

• 1:00:17Adam Grant?

  in the last few years. Uh, well, there, there have been, I mean, obviously, social psychology has undergone, you know, what's been called a replication crisis. And I think underpowered studies that, you know, didn't have big enough sample sizes or, you know, in some cases were, you know, were not well designed, have not stood up to scrutiny when, you know, replicated many, many times with larger pools of participants. But I think that this particular effect seems to be robust. That when people are facing a threat, whether it's to their lives or their livelihoods, they will gravitate toward people who offer them a false sense of certainty and security.

• 1:01:02Adam Grant?

  And I think that is, it's dangerous in terms of who we let run our workplaces. It's dangerous in terms of who we let run our countries. And it's something that we don't have great societal solutions to. It's like, well, lower the threat level. Good luck with that one. How are we going to solve that at a country or a societal scale? So, Brene, I want to ask you, as a social worker, how do you think about what we can do in our own lives and in the local systems that we actually do have influence over, with our teams, with our families, to manage the uncertainty level so that it doesn't become an overwhelming threat?

• 1:01:43Brené Brown?

  So I think the two things that come up for me that are both kind of research-based right off the bat is critical thinking education and everything that this administration has banned. Critical theory, critical thinking. I think that there is, there are a lot, I think there's evidence that to be able to think critically and through a systems theory lens, like we used to teach our students, follow the money. You know, just, you know, it's, I think some critical thinking. I think intellectual humility. I also think building connection and community. So I think when community connection and community trust is high, I think we're less,

• 1:02:27Brené Brown?

  our susceptibility is lower when we have levels of community trust. This is an idea that I didn't, I had never heard of, and I'm so, interesting, I really hope you know it. Do you know inoculation and prebunking?

• 1:02:40Adam Grant?

  As a way to fight disinformation?

• 1:02:43Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:02:44Adam Grant?

  Yes, I'm thinking of Sander van der Linden, for example?

• 1:02:47Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:02:49Brené Brown?

  Yes, I don't know how you do that. It's wild to me. So, learning to recognize manipulation techniques, not just specific false claims, before you're exposed to them. So, I think the studies that I came across and read, and I'm gonna fully just say I just read abstracts, and then next, I read the top and the bottom, which I know is dangerous in itself, but this idea that not to teach people the content of what false ideas are, but to help, to teach pre-bunking by teaching them most common ways misinformation is distributed. What do you know about it? Tell us about it, because it's, like, I want my kids to have this. I want this.

• 1:03:30Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I mean, some of this is, is basic media literacy training, right, to interrogate sources, as opposed to just accepting them. To have, to have standards of evidence, and say, okay, let me, let me see, like, is this claim backed by, you know, a randomized controlled trial, or by a longitudinal study? If not, it might just be someone's opinion. I think that we spend so much time putting out, like, little fires, as opposed to zooming out and asking, like, what is causing the forest fire? Right? The, the problem that we need to solve is not, like, there's a specific piece of misinformation that people are buying into. It's that people lack the tools to evaluate information accurately.

• 1:04:13Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:04:13Adam Grant?

  And also, sometimes they lack the motivation to evaluate it accurately. There was, there was some research that Jay Van Bevel turned me on to, showing that you could get people to be less likely to spread fake news, demonstrably false information, on, on social media, just by prompting them to consider, is this true? And that people weren't, like, by default, they weren't thinking about, like, is this accurate? They, they were thinking about, could this be true? Or is this interesting? Is this going to get me likes and shares? And so they just kind of instinctively posted it, or reposted it. And just getting them to pause and reflect, and ask the question, is this true, was enough to reduce the rate

• 1:04:56Adam Grant?

  of, of spreading bad information. And so I think that this is partially a skill problem, it's partially a motivation problem.

• 1:05:05Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I mean, the algorithms are not, don't reward truth and complexity. The algorithms reward misinformation, vitriol.

• 1:05:17Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I mean, it's just, I think it's, I think it's, it's, and I will say that like, AI and unskilled users of AI, AI can be so sycophantic that you can really go in. And I will just, I mean, I think I've told you this before, we did all of the lit review with human researchers and a parallel team that was using just AI for the lit review. And 60 to 70% of the sources, including a source that said, had Brown and Grant as an MIT Sloan was

• 1:05:54Adam Grant?

  We've never written together.

• 1:05:56Brené Brown?

  Was completely a hallucination. And AI gave the same weight to a real peer reviewed academic article as it did, you know, Reddit user, I got a new boat.

• 1:06:08Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 1:06:09Brené Brown?

  You know, and so I think this is an interesting conversation. We're the end of time. I do want to thank the people who are writing in questions and comments and, you know, taking the time just to say, to give feedback on the podcast, which we're, we love and we're open to, and also, you know, writing things like, hey, I want you to go deeper here, or I disagree with this, can y'all revisit it and think about this perspective? I'm so grateful for that. I love, I miss community of discourse and debate and ideas, because it's not, it's harder to find these days. So I'm grateful for that. What are you grateful for today?

• 1:06:49Adam Grant?

  Oh, well, I, I don't want to be redundant, but I, I'm actually grateful to have an audience of people with us and a partner in, what's the opposite of crime? In attempting to offer something useful to the world.

• 1:07:05Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Adam Grant?

  A partner in detective work, whatever it is, who don't take uncertainty as a threat, but take it as an occasion for curiosity. And I think that that's part of what this show is about. I think that it's so easy to cling to the comfort of certainty and ignore the discomfort of doubt. But I think doubt is where the learning happens. And it's often the engine of curiosity.

• 1:07:34Brené Brown?

  Yeah, 100%.

• 1:07:35Adam Grant?

  We need more of it.

• 1:07:36Brené Brown?

  I know that you're not a faith person, but can I just share one quote before we go by one of my faith mentors, Father Richard Rohr? I thought it just reminded me of us a little bit. He writes, this is Richard Rohr's writing, "My scientist friends have come up with things like principles of uncertainty and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories, but many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution, and clarity, while thinking that we are the people of faith. How strange that the very word faith has come to mean its opposite." It's interesting. We can agree on that, I think.

• 1:08:12Adam Grant?

  I did not expect to get my now new favorite take on scientific thinking and uncertainty from a religious figure.

• 1:08:21Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21Adam Grant?

  Well played.

• 1:08:22Brené Brown?

  Richard Rohr. All right, I'll see you next time. The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brené Brown Education and Research Group and Granted Productions. You can subscribe to The Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app.

• 1:08:36Adam Grant?

  We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

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