Turning Uncertainty into an Advantage
How can you begin turning uncertainty into an advantage? In this episode of Incorporating Superpowers, host Justin Recla welcomes guest Ursula Eysin to the show. Ursula is the CEO of the company Red Swan, working alongside a training modality called Scenario Process which utilizes scenario-based situations in order to help achieve success. If you want to be a global leader, and learn how to start turning uncertainty into an advantage, this episode is for you! Tune in today!
Justin Recla:
Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today, we’re gonna be talking about something that I know is on everybody’s mind. It’s in everybody’s heart. It’s the concept of uncertainty. Because basic folks’ last three years have been pretty much a giant shitshow worldwide. And everything that we thought we knew, isn’t what we thought it is, it isn’t what it was, and we don’t know what it’s going to be. And so the entire world is sitting in a place of uncertainty. So today, we’re going to be talking about how to turn uncertainty into an advantage. My guest today is Ursula Eysin. She is the CEO of Red Swan. And we’re gonna be talking about a methodology that the military has used, and can help you in your business in your life, on Turning Uncertainty into an Advantage. Welcome to the show.
Ursula Eysin:
Thank you very much, Justin, for this very generous introduction. And thank you so much for having me on.
Justin Recla:
Absolutely. So usually, you have been in this modality for a bit this methodology of if I were to use my own vernacular, it’s like forward visioning. And then seeing how you get to the Ford vision makes why you make the decisions that you make, right, it is truly a superpower in this scenario-based model methodology that you do. Talk to me a little bit more about the methodology behind Red Swan.
Ursula Eysin:
Yeah, we are. Our main focus is the development of future scenarios, not to try to predict the future because that actually would be a very powerless situation, if you try to predict the future, it’s more about framing, shaping, and creating the future. And for that, I use a process which is called future scenario thinking of future scenario planning. It was invented, as you mentioned, by the military as so many strategic processes. It was invented by the US Air Force already in the 1940s. And what did they want to know they wanted to know what the enemy might do. And what we see in all our scenarios is actually that human behavior is among the most uncertain things we can imagine. As much as we want to, we cannot control other people. So they found out well, we cannot predict what the enemy will do. So let’s think of different scenarios. And this is how they came up with the methodology. First, they gathered driving forces for the specific question, in this case, what would the enemy do? What are their driving forces? How would they move forward? What would move them what would not move them? What can we do about that, then they actually saw some certain trends. But in scenarios, we do not actually work with certain trends, you should never exhaust yourself by focusing on things you cannot change. So we are actually sorting out things that are already certain and cannot be changed anymore. What we really like is uncertainty in this process, we think uncertainty is the realm of opportunity, the realm where you can co-create the desired future with others. So then you choose the critical uncertainties of the future, as we call it, and form different scenarios with that, usually, it’s about four scenarios, and some of them are good, some of them are bad. And also very interesting. People might think, well, let’s just take the good scenarios and think about how we got there. Actually, that’s not how the human mind works. We are much more creative in bad scenarios. So I like to work with the bad scenarios, you know, if you tell someone, oh, if you change a little bit in your life, you could gain a lot of things and you will live a wonderful life, people usually will say, Oh, no, I have to change something for that I’d rather not change anything. But if you tell them if you do not do that, you will lose your wife, your house, your dog, and your car, then then they are ready to talk and they will change something. So actually, it’s very interesting that usually, we have more bad scenarios and good scenarios, but that also is not a bad thing. It’s not about the doom and gloom of the future. It’s actually really about taking the bull by the horns and changing things now so that you can live in a positive future tomorrow.
Justin Recla:
I love that, to me, it’s helping people see accountability for the choices that they make and then playing them out. Right, if you continue to they, do this. They let’s just play this out and how it looks. Okay. Yeah. Do you want that? Yes or no? No, then make a different choice. Right? it’s an extreme personal responsibility. It’s self-dominion in every aspect of our life. I absolutely love it.
Ursula Eysin:
I love how you summarize that as actually perfect. It’s about taking responsibility, accountability for your own life, and playing these scenarios out, acting them out really to the end, and we are looking like 1020 30 years in the future. And why do we do that, usually people when they think one year ahead, already think they know what is going to happen. So we do not think that we can like predict the future, as I said, 1020 is 30 years ahead, but it’s much easier to imagine everything you can imagine and enables kind of out-of-the-box thinking. So that’s why we usually look like 1020 30 years into the future. And it’s usually really, really useful for people and you can kind of predict what could happen. As an example, we conducted future scenarios. It was called Next Generation internet, the internet for people in 2014 by the Austrian Ministry of technology already in 2018. And we gathered a lot of experts from different areas like aI experts, psychologists, sociologists, economists, young people, artists, architects, and all kinds of people. And together actually, we created four very interesting scenarios. And one of them was called the unconscious prisoners’ scenario, or scenario in which in one kind, or the other in one way or another people were imprisoned, were isolated from each other, and technology was controlling all of them. So we were most concerned about that not happening. But actually, it was kind of what happened later in 2020. So if you take a bunch of different people with different perspectives, and let them think about the future, they might have a clue about what might happen.
Justin Recla:
And I love that because that it’s, it’s understanding that you can’t change the future. But if you can take control of yourself and know that the decisions that you make are towards a specific purpose, to avoid a specific outcome, or to create a specific outcome, then that puts all of the power back into you. And removes the uncertainty because you know, the decisions you’re going to make folks, this is stuff that you understanding this right here is essential. This is some of the foundational stuff that we teach to prepare exorcists is amazing because I love seeing the reflection, Ursula, thank you, first and foremost, because this is part of why we left government because we implemented these processes when we training our agents. And we would throw all sorts of scenarios out for them, that they would have to navigate, that they could not predict. But the one thing that they could predict was themselves and understanding the mission so they knew what decisions they have to make, folks, this stuff is essential if you’re going to survive the transition that we are going through right now at a global level. Personally, I want to dive down this rabbit hole with you a little bit further on the back end of the conversation here. But before we do before we go on break, I know you have something special to share with our listeners. Where can people go find more information about you?
Ursula Eysin:
You can find me on www.RedSwan.at and also on my substack which is https://coderedbyredswan.substack.com/. And I would like to offer the first three listeners who join my substack a free future scenario session with me free 90-minute futures in a recession with me. So I say it again. It’s https://coderedbyredswan.substack.com/.Â
Justin Recla:
Fantastic, folks. Go take a look at what Ursula is up to over at Red Swan and stay with us because we’re gonna get back we’re going to explore this even further as to what this means for you and your business. Moving forward. We’ll be right back.
For the best listening experience, download the Superpower Network App
Podcast: Play in new window
