Mastering Uncertainty with Rich Diviney

What would it look like for you to perform at your best? For Navy SEALs, success isn't only a result of relentless training in shooting, skydiving, or combat—though they are experts at those things. The real secret is that they use their innate human capabilities to turn the stress of uncertain and complex situations to their advantage. In today's episode, I'm joined by former Navy SEAL commander and author Rich Diviney to talk about how we can become masters of uncertainty and the strategies we can use to unlock our optimum performance.

About Rich Diviney

Rich is a bestselling author, leadership and human performance expert, and retired Navy SEAL commander. Rich spent more than 20 years in the military and over thirteen deployments overseas. Since retiring, Rich has focused on sharing his knowledge with business leaders, focusing on leadership strategy and optimal performance techniques.

Why did you write "Masters of Uncertainty?

Masters of Uncertainty is the book that I've always wanted to write. I've spent the last few decades, throughout my time in the Navy Seals and since retiring, considering what it takes to become a master of uncertainty. This book serves as a prequel to my other book, Attributes, and builds on and elaborates on some of those themes.

How did the Bin Laden mission encapsulate the essence of mastering uncertainty?

Most of the SEAL's missions are confidential, but luckily, a lot of what happened in the Bin Laden mission is public knowledge. The SEALs had to prepare quickly, so they went to a site where they conducted multiple rehearsals. They knew exactly what they were going to do. They practiced it down to the steps off the helicopter. As soon as they hit the target, the plan went out the window because the helicopter crashed. Suddenly, they had to modify the plan, and they did it seamlessly.

As they went through the mission, things were happening that they didn't anticipate, and problems were being faced that they didn't anticipate having to solve. So it was a stark and well-known example of a very well-planned thing going not as planned quite rapidly. Yet the outcome is also known. The guys got their target, and everybody came home uninjured. I think it's a testament to the SEALs as a team and my buddies who did the OP. But the idea is that it's not just a SEAL thing. It's a human thing. SEALs are human beings. And these are human things that we can understand and do ourselves.

How much of that is innate, and how much of it is learned?

Yeah, there's a difference between preparation and uncertainty. You can't necessarily prepare for uncertainty. That's a little bit of a dichotomy there. Preparation and planning allow you to map out some contingencies that decrease the amount of uncertainty you're likely to face. So I'm always for planning, but you should not over plan. You say, what are the one, two, or three things that might happen? Let's make sure we know what we're going to do if that happens. That takes it out of the uncertain realm and says, if this happens, we know exactly what we're going to do.

How did your perspective on uncertainty shift throughout your career as a SEAL?

It was more of a realization that there are different types of uncertainty. I break it into two types: anticipated and unanticipated. The unanticipated hits all of us every day to some degree. But then there's the planned or anticipated uncertainty. That's when we deliberately step into an environment outside of our comfort zone and, in some cases, outside of our control. As a kid, I had plenty of time to think through my decisions and face some uncertainty. But when I chose to be a Navy SEAL, I chose to step outside my comfort zone and into uncertainty. Throughout training, I got better and better at dealing with that uncertainty. The better I got, the more confident I became that I could handle things I didn't anticipate.

Take me through this predictability paradigm. Why is this problematic for our performance?

We crave and thrive certainty. And our brains crave it, too. Our brains are constantly trying to understand our environment. When we don't understand our environment, we get uncomfortable. There's nothing wrong with that. But the other thing that's going on is that we have created a predictable day-to-day when you compare it to our ancestors' day-to-day lives. So, we start to believe that everything will happen as planned, and that's what I call the predictability paradigm. However, that is not true. Uncertainty is inevitable. The key to it is to learn how to move through it and thrive in it.

The good news is that once people read the book, they realize they have actually done this before. I want people to see where they have embraced uncertainty, what strategies they used, and how they can do it again. Instead of fearing uncertainty, it can actually create an advantage. I want people to be able to use uncertainty to accomplish new things in their lives.

Could you talk about the Duration, Pathway, Outcome (DPO) framework?

We have to understand that neurologically, our brains are constantly making sense of our environment based on several factors, but the primary three are duration, pathway, outcome. In other words, how long is this going to last? What is my route in, out, or through? And then what's the outcome? What's the end state here? If we are in the absence of one or more of those factors, we find ourselves in anxiety. If we're in the absence of one, it's mild; two, it's moderate; and then three, it's severe. This concept is called moving horizons. The way you gain control is you pick a horizon and, therefore, create your own duration, pathway, and outcome. Moving horizons is the process of picking a horizon, creating a DPO, moving to that, and doing it repeatedly until one of three outcomes occurs. You move through the uncertainty altogether, you learn enough to ease some of the discomfort, or you accomplish the goal.

Talk to us about the difference between peak performance and optimal performance. Peak is, by definition, an apex. There are a lot of people chasing peak, and they want to be peak all the time. However, there's only one place you can go from an apex, and that's downward, right? The other thing about peak is that peak often has to be planned for, scheduled for, or prepared for. A professional football player plans and schedules his entire week so he can peak for three hours on Sunday. We don't get to do that in regular life. We have to perform with what we've got and be optimal performers. Optimal performance means I'm going to do the very best in the moment, whatever the best looks like in the moment. Now, sometimes our best in the moment looks like peak. But sometimes our best in the moment is quite literally, I am head down slogging it out, going step by step because that's all I have right now, and it's dirty, gritty, ugly, and hard. That is still performing optimally.

The Role of Dopamine in Setting Horizons

Dopamine is not necessarily a reward chemical; it's a motivation chemical. Dopamine tells us what is good and that we should keep doing it. Dopamine gives us juice when we accomplish a goal, and it also helps us get up and keep going. If we pick a horizon that is too large, we will run out of dopamine and quit. If you don't pick a long enough horizon, it won't be enough to give you a dopamine jolt. These horizons are very subjective based on the person and the environment. Intense environments require us to have shorter horizons. Part of the mastery process is recognizing when your horizon was too long or too short and choosing differently the next time.

Application Activities:

1. Think about a time when you faced uncertainty. How did you respond? What did you feel physically? What were you thinking? What is something that you learned about yourself during that process? Did you use the horizon method to overcome it? If so, how?

2. Think about an uncertainty that your team is facing right now. Help your team set a horizon so they know when they can expect to feel some relief. For example, if your team is in a busy season where they are down a team member and expected to work overtime to compensate, help them understand the hiring timeline. Show them the plan to incorporate a new team member and an approximate time they can expect work to return to normal. When possible, involve your team in setting this horizon and get feedback about whether it feels encouraging or discouraging.

Resources Referenced

"The Attributes" Rich Diviney

"Masters of Uncertainty" Rich Diviney

"The Art of Learning" Josh Waitskin

Connect with Rich Diviney

https://theattributes.com/

Instagram: @rich_diviney

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richdiviney/