I tried a course about dealing with uncertainty used by Google and Netflix. This is how I'd used the techniques it taught me within hours of the course starting

Sam Conniff, the founder and presenter of "Uncertainty Experts."
Courtesy of Sam Conniff

"Uncertainty Experts" is a three-part interactive documentary that costs $134 to stream live.
The course has been completed by employees of companies like Google, Netflix, and Nike.
Insider's Kiera Fields took the course. These are the tools she learned and how they worked for her.

Over the past year, uncertainty has felt more present and threatening. Even the best-laid plans can now be derailed by a positive COVID-19 test or a swift change in government regulations.

I was contacted by Sam Conniff in October and asked whether I wanted to participate in his new experimental seminar called "Uncertainty Experts." Conniff is a British entrepreneur and author. His book "Be More Pirate: Or How to Take on the World and Win" was featured in Oprah's Book Club in 2019.

I didn't know any of Conniff's accolades. After scrolling through his website and seeing glowing reviews of his workshops from Google and Warner Bros, I thought: If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

The part seminar, part docuseries consisted of three-hour-long episodes, broadcast live to an online audience. The series calls itself "the world's first interactive documentary, scientifically proven to increase resilience and decrease anxiety."

Before the first episode, I filled out an online survey to set a baseline for my ability to handle uncertainty. I ranked whether I strongly agreed to strongly disagreed with statements like "I dislike questions which can be answered in many different ways" or "I feel uncomfortable when I don't understand the reason why an event occurred in my life."

We were emailed our profile before the first seminar telling us what our scores were on topics like "desire for predictability," "decisiveness," or "close-mindedness." If you scored above 10, you were less comfortable with uncertainty. This would be used to compare our results at the end of the series.

I scored 10 or above on everything except close-mindedness

After filling out the initial survey, I watched each episode of the three-part series, which were broadcast a week apart at 9 a.m. GMT in November. Conniff presented each episode on a virtual livestream in front of a green screen that had corresponding videos and images playing on it.

Often a QR code would pop up behind him that you had to scan with your phone. A question would appear on your device related to what he was discussing.

Conniff would ask us to conjure a memory of fear, and then the question would require quickly typing the physical reactions we identify with that emotion. After each episode, our answers were emailed to us so we could reflect on them.

The hour also featured recorded interviews between Conniff and his "uncertainty experts" — people who had overcome massive hurdles and dealt with extreme situations of uncertainty — to help illustrate the points he was making. They included Karl Lokko, a chairman of a VC firm who used to be a gang member, and Morgan Godvin, a heroin addict who went to prison and then turned her life around. She now studies law and works for JSTOR Daily as an editor.

These people would share their tips on handling common reactions to uncertainty such as fear, confusion, or feeling frozen or stuck.

The "experts" had all seemed to achieve higher self-awareness and therefore control over their internal reactions to uncertainty by using different coping mechanisms.

The first episode was about fear

We heard how people who struggle to regulate their feelings often seek safety behaviors to make themselves feel calm again: drinking, avoiding the problem, throwing themselves into their work — all of which can release dopamine to calm the central nervous system and make them feel safe.

Conniff and the experts led us through different exercises to better regulate emotions in the face of uncertainty. The first was to summon a feeling of gratitude by picturing something we were grateful for. This works both as a way to distract from the thing we were feeling anxious about and encourage a sensation of relaxation mirroring the physical effects of dopamine.

Another expert suggested imagining how much worse it would feel if we didn't act or confront a given situation and using that feeling to inspire action.

Later that day, after watching the episode, I was due to have a meeting with my boss to discuss the outcome of my six-month fellowship at Insider and whether I would get a full-time job afterward. I was extremely nervous, so I tried each of these tactics.

First, I imagined how I would feel if I handled the situation poorly by getting emotional. The regret I would feel making a bad impression on someone I had looked up to. The survey I'd done suggested my emotional regulation wasn't expert level, which just stressed me out more.

The second method was much more successful. I began listing in my head all the aspects of the job I was grateful for having learned already and what I had achieved so far.

This immediately calmed me down and gave me something to focus my racing thoughts on

There were still butterflies in my stomach, but my hands weren't shaking, and my heart rate had slowed.

I didn't find out whether I was going to get the job in that meeting. But because I was able to calm down using tools from the documentary, I could think more clearly and ask pertinent questions to better prepare for when that discussion came.

After the final episode, we were asked to fill out an exit survey to compare to our initial survey.

My emotional reactions had improved by 8%, and the group average was 12%. I had managed to reduce my need for closure by 14.52%, while the group's average reduction was 21%.

Although I don't return to the lessons daily, they did make me more aware of my high aversion to risk and uncertainty compared with my fellow viewers.

Since the final survey, I have been trying to push myself into situations I feel are outside my comfort zone, especially at work. I will speak up more often in meetings, jump on calls rather than relying on emails or Slack, and have in-person coffees, COVID regulations permitting.

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