Welcome to Untangle, the podcast from Muse, the brain-sensing headband that helps you meditate and sleep and meditation studio, the five-star app.

I'm Patricia Carpice.

Check out the muse headband, as always at choosemuse.com.

Today's guest is Andrea Small.

Andrea is a design leader, strategist, educator, and former Stanford

University D-School Teaching Fellow. We discuss her book, Navigating Ambiguity, Creating

Opportunity in a World of Unknowns. The timing is perfect for this book, as many of us

personally, professionally, and in the world at large, are dealing

with unknowns. We talk about the differences between ambiguity and uncertainty and how we can

embrace the discomfort of the unknown to create new, innovative, and creative possibilities.

She invites us to lean into not knowing, to be more open to being

surprised. The inside cover of the book says it perfectly. The book shows you how to surrender

control by being adaptable, curious, and unbiased, as well as resourceful, tenacious, and

courageous. I felt the book had a lot to teach us beyond its original intention for

design and education. So much of it can be applied to anything we do or any problem we want to solve.

Now, here's Andrea. Andrea, it's so great to have you on Untangle today. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much for

having me. This is a really great honor. Yeah. Your book, Navigating Ambiguity, Creating Opportunity in a World of Unknowns,

for some reason just hit me at exactly the right time. And I felt like I looked at it as almost the

answer to everything. It was such an interesting read. But I'm going to read this one quote

that is in the beginning of the book, just so people understand, have a little context.

But the design process presents a series of steps.

But in real life, it's rarely this neat.

...