It is a commonplace that life is uncertain. Blaise Pascal said it well more than 350 years ago: "We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end."

In a world where nothing is certain, one might ask, how can we act with conviction? But this question misses the point, by putting uncertainty and conviction in opposition. By conviction I mean confidently taking a course of action under the risk of being wrong. As I recently realized with some astonishment, this kind of conviction marks the path to meaning and success in an uncertain world.

This realization came to me after an uncertain situation that produced two opposing outcomes, and got me thinking about the technical, emotional and creative dimensions of the interaction between uncertainty and conviction.

An Opportunity To See Both Outcomes. The situation was a personal matter in which someone close to me wanted to take an action with which I disagreed. I stated my objections calmly and forcefully, but declined to take an available opportunity to enforce my preferred approach, because I accepted that my friend's point of view was not unreasonable in an uncertain situation. And indeed my friend went ahead and took her preferred approach, with which I disagreed.

But then she changed her mind, basically for the reasons that I had pressed. This was a great outcome, much better than it would have been to enforce my approach. And it was fundamentally because I accepted that the right course of action was uncertain, while defending my point of view with conviction.

The Technical Dimension: Risk Management. One simple reason that conviction helps under conditions of uncertainty is that a firm decision can produce an improved outcome. I am an avid sailor, and I often say that when sailing towards a rock, it may be difficult to know whether turning right or left is better, but either is preferable to no decision at all. More generally, this is about the distinction between uncertainty (which is the unknown itself) and risk (which depends upon how we manage the unknown). There is an excellent explanation of this distinction by Kelvin Stott here.

The Emotional Dimension: Confidence Is Self-Fulfilling. Conviction under uncertainty becomes more interesting and complex when we realize that honest and confident conviction is often self-fulfilling, because it builds conviction in others. Conviction is not a zero sum game. This was a primary effect in the incident with my friend described above. She was ultimately convinced (at least in part) by my conviction. Another example, about which I have written before, is the difference between anger and wrath, where the former is negative and damaging, and the latter involves constructive conviction.

The Creative Dimension: Meaning From Zero. Most fundamentally, conviction is about creating meaning where there is none. As British philosopher A C Grayling memorably said at a lecture I attended at St George's House in Windsor Castle, the meaning of life is obvious -- it is whatever meaning we choose to give to it. And therein lies the challenge: creating meaning where all is uncertain. As Peter Thiel has written in Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, starting with nothing (i.e. zero) and creating something new (i.e. one) is the fundamental challenge in entrepreneurship -- and I would say more broadly in life. Doing so usually requires great conviction.