I set out to write a book about something I thought I understood. **Creativity**. As a product designer by training, this was a natural choice—something close to my heart. After all, I’d spent the last twenty years making things. I learned the craft of upholstery in Italy, designed teak furniture in Java, prototyped bunk beds in India, built wheelchairs in Korea, and developed LED lighting in China. I’ve designed flagship stores for French luxury brands, helped 3D-print concept cars, and led corporate innovation programs. It sounds like a tidy, well-planned career. It wasn’t. Much of my work has been revised, rejected, or outright dismissed. Clients have laughed in my face, walked out of meetings, and, once, fired me over dinner. My career has been anything but linear—fits and starts, triumphs and disasters, mostly the latter. But somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened: I began to see a **link between creativity and uncertainty**. At first, it was just a hunch, an itch at the back of my mind. But I couldn’t ignore it. Following that vague feeling turned out to be one of the most surprising and defining decisions of my life. The discovery that puzzled me was this: creative professionals—whether designers, artists, or inventors—seem to share a peculiar trait. They have an unusually high tolerance for ambiguity and an openness to new experiences. Whether they realize it or not, they’ve internalized a simple but profound truth: to create anything original, **you must step into the unknown**. You have to navigate unpredictable terrain, and the best of them don’t just tolerate uncertainty—they seek it out. Psychologists have known this for a while. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research, for instance, explored how creative minds thrive in uncertain conditions. But I had a nagging sense that this connection went far beyond creativity. It wasn’t just artists and designers—it was everywhere. So I started asking questions. I interviewed scientists, corporate strategists, economists, investors, architects, and educators about their relationship with uncertainty. Their responses were strikingly similar: they all recognized its importance, but few could define it, let alone articulate how to handle it. Uncertainty seemed like a **shadowy presence**—undeniably there, but hard to grasp. **And thus, my obsession was born**. I spent the next few years deep in the trenches—interviewing more people, devouring every book, article, research paper, and blog on uncertainty I could find. My life slowly began to orbit around this idea. I scrutinised it like a bug in a jar, developed frameworks, and explored the fields of academia and business where uncertainty plays a defining role. This book is the result of that journey. A captain’s log of my ongoing voyage across the vast and unpredictable seas of uncertainty. [[Who this book is for|Next page]]