“You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy” wrote Eric Hoffer.
Why is it that we can never get enough of stories? Is the story we tell about what happened in business the reality, or simply a fairy tale in our mind? Does ‘business enlightenment’ mean stepping back and asking who and what hears the story? What is latest gospel of uncertainty? Is there an ultimate business secret sauce?
From preaching VUCA to NAVI
Gospel of VUCA has been preached endlessly from the pulpits of business. VUCA is the idea that things are often volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. Now in 2026, latest incantation is a NAVI environment – meaning nonlinear, accelerating, volatile, and interconnected – a framework popularised by audit giant EY, describing todays confusing complexity.
Nonlinear— Change does not happen at a steady, predictable pace; instead, small triggers can lead to massive, disproportionate disruptions, or sudden tipping points.
Accelerating — The velocity of change, driven by rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and shifting geopolitical policies, leaves little time for traditional planning.
Volatile — Frequent, sharp swings in markets, weather, regulations, and public sentiment create a continuous state of shock rather than isolated crises.
Interconnected— Local events trigger global chain reactions, where a disruption in one sector (say energy or tariffs) cascades downstream into unexpected outcomes everywhere.
Information and knowledge has become a cheap commodity. But whether that is wisdom is another issue.
Artificial intelligence singularity is the point where AI surpasses human intelligence and can improve itself better than humans can. The first AI that can perform any intellectual task a human can, is known as artificial general intelligence where some experts believe it’s already here.
Are we addicted to fairy tales?
“People don’t buy the thing. They buy what the thing will do for them. In order for them to do that, you have to tell them a story,” advises author, Kindra Hall.
We are addicted to stories. The story is the narrative we tell about what has, or will happen. It’s not the reality, but more our interpretation of how we see things. Change the story, change the reality. Strange thing is everyone has a slightly different Alice in Wonderland-like story. Helps to take a step back and ask: Who is listening to all the business story telling?
Who is the ‘us’ that is listening?
Historian of the future, author of required reading, Nexus and Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari, points out the 3 different layers of what makes us “us” — hardware, software, and the experience of running it. Useful to create the distinction: brain, mind and consciousness.
Adult brain weighing in the range of 1.3 kg is the biological hardware made of neurons, chemicals, and electricity. A product of evolution, it is shaped by genetics and the environment. No brain equals no mind, means no consciousness. But the brain by itself isn’t thinking or feeling, it’s just the ‘machinery’.
Energy demanding, our gray matter represents 2–3 percent of total body weight, yet it can consume 25 percent of the body’s energy.
Our mind is the software that runs on the brain. Harari uses ‘mind’ to mean all the processes: thoughts, memories, emotions, beliefs, biases, stories, algorithms. It’s the information-processing system. Much of the mind works without us noticing.
Most of our decisions, fears, and social instincts are automated mental programmes that evolved to keep us Homo Sapiens alive and cooperative in large groups. We think we’re in control, but the mind is mostly running in the background. Harari talks about the mind as a ‘story factory’ saying “The mind constantly produces these stories, and they constantly come between me and reality.”
That voice in your head, talking to you right now, is the default programme running in your mind, designed for survival. But is that voice in your head, really you?
Consciousness is a mystery. For Harari, consciousness is when the mind becomes aware of itself. It’s the story the mind tells about what it’s doing.
A computer can have intelligence, problem-solving ability, without consciousness. Humans have both. Humans are conscious, AI systems are not. Intelligence, he argues, can be replicated and surpassed by machines, but consciousness, the ability to actually feel, remains uniquely biological, uniquely ours.
“The widespread assumption is that somehow, the brain produces the mind; somehow millions of neurons fire signals at one another create or produce consciousness, but we have no idea how or why this happens” writes Harari.
Knowing yourself is the ultimate secret sauce in business. Harari advises: “The real you is the consciousness that is constantly changing, the awareness that is watching this story. To know yourself means to take a step back from the story and observe what is happening in your mind and body in each moment without judgment.”
