This is the Happy Scientist Podcast.
Each episode is designed to make you more focused,
more productive, and more satisfied in the lab.
You can find us online@bitesizebio.com
slash happy scientist.
Your hosts are Kenneth Vo, founder
of the Executive coaching firm, Vera Claritas, and Dr.
Nick Oswald, PhD Bioscientist and Founder Bite-size bio.
Hello, this is not Nick Oswald welcoming you
to this bite-size bio webinar with Tom Warwick,
content creator at bitesize.
Today we have a live episode of the EPIs podcast.
If you become a happier, healthier,
productive scientist in the right place.
With me, as always, is the Bitesize bio teams. Mr. Mr.
Kenneth. In these sessions, we from Ken,
mostly on principles that would help shape you for a happier
and more successful career.
And along the way, I'll pitch in
with points from my personal experience as a scientist.
If you have any questions, put them into the questions box
on the side of your screen and I'll put them to Ken today.
We'll be discussing how
to motivate yourself in scientific research.
Alright, well, Tom, I'm sure glad you're here. Thank you.
Because in this, this topic, how to motivate yourself,
I'm an expert on that in scientific research.
I need a little support. So here you are.
So I, I refreshed myself on your LinkedIn profile
and your resume, and I saw something
and I thought, he's a structural biologist.
That's really cool. I wonder what that means.
So maybe you can give us your, uh, your potted bio.
Okay. Yeah. Well, a minute. I'm content creator here.
So I create
and edit, uh, portion of the, the written copy you see on,
on bite-sized bio website and that we put out.
But in a past life, as Ken says,
I was a structural biologist, which basically means trying
to elucidate the 3D structures of, uh, biomolecules.
Ah, I did this via X-ray Crystalography,
but you can do it by microscopy, which I'm sure a lot
of our audience is familiar with.
So this is like the three D structures of proteins, uh,
membranes, you name it, basically.
Um, and it was quite the challenge.
It's quite grueling, but there's some amazing technology.
Cool. Okay.
I noticed too that, uh, you mentioned being a chemist, which
I've also noted a lot
of biologists seem to be afraid of chemistry.
So the fact that, that you are an expert on both at once,
that's, that's also quite useful.
Sure, sure. It's, that was quite grueling too.
It was a long time ago. But yeah, I've retained some of it
and it certainly comes in handy now, um, right.
Useful as a structural biologist as well, to sort
of have a chemical understanding of biosystems.
Um,
Sure, that makes sense.
So folks out there,
you may wonder like, well, what happened to Nick?
Well, nothing happened to Nick. Nick is fine.
It's just a, as, as Tom pointed out, he,
he is involved in a lot of content creation,
but he is also involved in some of the content you see that,
that announces this podcast, for instance.
And so he often does the, the intros, uh, that you see in,
in, uh, in print based on notes I gave him, well,
for this particular one,
what he wrote was better than what I sent him.
And I thought, this is interesting.
Then he commented that, that this is a topic
that he's personally passionate about.
And they're like, well, that's, that does it, Nick,
you're setting this one out.
Tom's gotta come on the podcast with me
so we could talk about this.
So that's what we're gonna do today.
And, uh, we will, we will have a little back
and forth from our different perspectives,
and hopefully you'll find some things that you can take away
that will, that will help you.
So the, our last episode we talked about what if
your love of science is starting to wane?
And that is something that'd be worth looking
back to, if that's true for you.
This is kind of the next step after that.
Let's, let's presume you've rekindled your love for science,
but you still gotta actually get in there and do it.
So how do you motivate yourself to do this hard work?
And it is hard. Yeah.
It, it may not be, you know, backbreaking,
but it's definitely mentally hard and, and that matters.
And so we want you to keep doing it
because, uh, so many of you invest, have invested
so much time in education and, and, and in the lab.
And that would be a great loss
for the industry, for mankind.
If you stop doing it, we want you to keep doing it.
So we're gonna talk about ways that you can,
you can motivate yourself and, and keep yourself in the game
and keep yourself, uh, you know,
at your highest possible level.
So, I wanna start with the idea of tell the story.
You're doing interesting things that many
of the rest of us aren't doing.
And it's why, you know,
someone like me can ask someone like Tom, like,
what does it mean to be a structural biologist?
I don't know, that's kind of interesting.
I wanna know about that. Or, and you're also a chemist.
How is that possible? You know, you might look at that
and go, oh, who wants to hear about that?
But people do want to hear about it.
And so start telling people what you're working on,
and you'll find some people their eyes glaze over and or,
or they just go, well, that's all over my head.
You know, like, they don't even wanna try to understand it,
but, but other people won't do that.
And, and they'll go, wait a minute, this is,
this is new to me.
I, I would like to know more now that, that may be,
you know, people in your family that may be, you know,
people at the coffee shop that you can,
you can definitely engage with people
who are outside of science.
And it's not a bad idea for you
to tell tell people like that.
What's what you're up to because you have to simplify it.
'cause you have to boil it down.
And you learn a great deal yourself when you,
when you're teaching others and,
and, you know, granted, you're not trying to get them up
to being your peer, but you,
but it is useful to get them, to get them engaged enough
to know, hey, what this guy does is useful
and it matters and it's helpful.
And you'll get that feedback from
people and that feels good.
And that can be motivating.
So when, when other people are, are interested in what we do
and, and are impressed with what we do, on top of that,
um, it's not just the people that don't know what's going on
that you talk to, you know, talk
to the people you're working with, you know, the, the people
that are engaged in
what you're engaged in also have insights.
And there can be a, an interchange
of encouragement, as it were.
So, you know, you wanna, you wanna keep people that are on,
on your team or adjacent to your team, engaged and involved,
and that's good for you and it's good for them.
And the notion of it being motivating to them is also useful
because it's not just about you.
You, you are in a collaborative environment
and so you, you can give energy to others,
but you can also receive it from others.
And there, you know, there's a,
the rising tide floats all boats right now.
Another thing you can do is maybe it's not just talking
about what you're working on now,
but talking about what you've worked on before.
And especially if you've got some kind of success story
or he had some kind of eureka moment, um, those are,
you know, those don't happen every day.
And so when they do happen, they really,
they're really special.
So you wanna recapture those moments
and relive those moments.
'cause that'll remind you, oh yeah, this is why I work
so hard to get to this point, point.
This is why I stayed up all those late nights in university,
and this is why I come into the lab early,
because this kind of thing can happen.
Another, another group of people you can talk to are, um,
are things you can think you can talk about are things
that are prospects for the future.
What future research might you be involved in?
What possibilities are there Now, maybe it's not funded yet,
maybe you don't have a grant for it.
Um, so that's not sure,
but you know, if you start talking about things,
then they start to become real.
And if you don't talk about things, they don't become real.
Everything, everything starts as a thought.
Any, any tangible thing in your life started
as a thought in somebody's head.
And maybe a thought in your head, maybe some things
that you have now are because you had a thought
and you just kept going with that.
So, so you should spend some of your time engaged
and things that are not yet there,
but will happen in the future,
or could happen in the future.
And so whoever you're talking to about this stuff, um,
listen, also, when people have questions, respond to them,
give them answers and, and understand.
Some people are gonna ask stupid questions
because they're, I mean, not stupid ignorant questions,
let's put it that way, because they just don't know, uh,
other people, um, their questions will sh will get,
will help you gauge their level of, of, uh,
attention right now.
You know, if they're asking questions like, well,
I just told you how that works,
or I just told you that part.
Well now you know, you don't have their attention yet.
And now granted, you can blame that on them.
Or you can look at yourself and say, you know,
am I doing a good job of communicating this
because I wanna be fully engaged?
If I'm fully engaged again, that'll,
that'll help me motivate myself and we can go forward.
So, uh, another, another way
of looking at this is if you're talking about people,
insiders, fellow scientists, um, that you're, you're talking
to, well, obviously you wanna engage
with them on a deeper level than you would with, you know,
a relative or a friend that's not in the same field.
But even among scientists, they can be in different fields.
And so it's, and you, you, I'm sure you're engaged
with some scientists that are not exactly in your field.
You may be a specialist in your area.
Well, they don't know everything about
what you're doing then,
but at least they have a, they have a foundation
that you can build on.
So take advantage of that. Make use of it.
It's like what, uh, you know,
Tom Tom was talking about earlier,
that understanding chemistry was, is useful
for structural biology.
Well, that makes sense.
And if, if he's talking to somebody who has understanding
of one or the other, he can use that as a bridge
to help explain things.
And again, every time you are engaged in a conversation,
you're building your own motivational muscle,
you're, you're part of it.
And at some point you're gonna go, okay, it's time
for this conversation to end
and for me to get back to the lab
and get, get this thing moving forward.
So you, you wanna go to the, you wanna go that way and,
and, and use these things as tools.
You could look at this thing. Well, I'm just, I'm just
faking myself out here.
I'm, I'm, I'm just manipulating myself, but yes you are.
And why not?
Just to jump in there, Ken.
Yeah, there are, there are always tangential benefits to
what, uh, what you're doing in your research.
And during my PhD experience, I was
massively demotivated at times.
But now looking back, you know, it's clear to me that
the chemistry benefit of, you know, the structural biology,
the structural biology benefits, what I do now.
And I couldn't be doing this job without those.
And that's really easy to see in retrospect.
But, uh, I wish I could have thought upon
that more at the time, rather than just get,
get quite glummed down about my research.
So it's, it's something, it's, it's,
it's something worth thinking on.
And, you know, I I think, I think
that can be motivational too,
Right? Well, yeah.
So there's two parts of this.
There's the, do you bother to think about it,
but then will you take action on those thoughts?
So sometimes it's just in your own quiet moments, you have
to realize, oh, I gotta,
I gotta get myself more in the game.
But other times you jump in
and just start telling people about stuff
and you'll find not only do you engage
them, you engage yourself.
So you see, you said something interesting there a moment
ago about, about being demotivated.
And that's, that is an interesting word
because it implies that you used to be motivated
and then you had a moment where you're demotivated
where your motivation has been taken away.
Well that's, that's worth examination.
And they're like, what, what happened? Why, why now?
Why at this moment is my motivation lacking?
What's changed? And sometimes you look at that
and go, well, I'm just, I'm just overworked right now,
or I'm just tired, or, or this particular thing.
I actually never was motivated about it.
It's good to recognize the difference as opposed to when,
uh, this used to excite me.
Now it doesn't. Um, so that, that, uh,
that self-examination
and that bothering to be aware
of your own state is really, really valuable.
And, you know,
if you're constantly feeling demotivated there,
there may be something structurally wrong for you, you know,
something that you need to address in your life.
And, you know, maybe you have,
maybe there's some health issues to look at.
Maybe there's, maybe there's some mental health issues
to look at, but maybe it's just, you know,
I gotta stop sleeping four hours a night.
I, I gotta stop eating out of the vending machine. You know?
Um, because everything else can be perfect.
And you wonder, why am I, why am I demotivated?
Well, it's 'cause you don't feel physically good.
So be part of the game, go to the gym, you know?
Um, it's a, it's amazing the difference.
Those things that seem totally outside of
what you're doing can matter.
It's true. When I was in the lab, you know, I friends
who encouraged to do enormously healthy habits,
stuff I wouldn't normally do, largely being outdoors.
Mm-Hmm. It's interesting you say that
because it was, when they left, I guess, you know,
that's, that's when it got harder.
So, you know, just looking at the people around you
as well is, is, is appreciating the people
around you is is something,
Yeah, Benefit from
Two useful topics with, you know,
sometimes you can't choose the people that are around you.
You, you've been assigned a team
and you gotta work with who you got.
But, um, other times you can go, you know what, this person,
this person at every turn is just a downer.
All they see is problems. All, all they do is complain.
All all they do is find fault. You know?
Well, if you can remove such an influence in your life,
by all means do so.
Um, sometimes though, you can help that kind of person.
Maybe they're complaining 'cause they're, they're tired
or they're not getting some
of the same good advice you got from your friends.
Well, maybe you can share that and help,
help lift them up too.
So, yeah, I, I realize this,
the topic we're talking about today is about how
to motivate yourself,
but motivating others can also motivate you
because you, you tend to, you tend to start
to believe your own story, you know, which is good if, if,
if it's a positive story.
So another thing you can do
is you can look at, well, why has science been working out?
And, you know, things that have worked, succeeded, new,
new things have been discovered.
If you, you can re excite yourself
by examining those things.
What, what is it I could be doing that had, you know, like
what has been done before?
And there's lots of places to look for
that kind of inspiration.
Um, there, there's so much that has been written
about science and in science and from science.
I mean, there, there's tons to draw.
So you can start with just, you know, academic works when,
when you really dig into something else that has succeeded,
that it is tangential to what you're doing,
or maybe it proceeds
what you're really currently working on, well, well,
then you can say, man, I, I wanna be a part of this.
I, I wanna, I wanna be the guy that discovers
that next thing or, or figures out this, this next thing.
Another thing that I always felt was interesting, you know,
my whole life is to look at biographies of people
who have done the kind of things you would like to do
and see what happened in their life.
And, and often when you, when you examine those biographies,
you realize they had down times,
they had things that went wrong.
They had opportunities snatched away from them.
And, and yet they kept pushing. And, and they work.
They worked through those things and they made it happen.
You may also find too that there are some, there are some
nonfiction works out there that are, they're not maybe
academic level, they're just kind of a fun level.
But there's some, there are some great scientists
who have written accessible books
that could be read by anybody.
Well, for you, it's, it could be just a guilty pleasure.
'cause if somebody's writing about, about quantum physics
and you're familiar with that, if somebody's writing about,
um, you know, cell biology for the masses, you may look at
that and go, well, I know all that stuff.
But to have somebody talk about it in an engaging way
and in a simplified way, um, it's just,
it's just easy for you to consume.
And again, it reminds you of the, of all the fun stuff.
And when something that is written, they can pack in a lot
of stuff because they're not giving a lot of explanation.
So they can go, well, there's this and there's this, this,
and then there's this, and then there's this.
And it reminds you of all the things
that got you interested in all this in the first place
and that, that have motivated you in the past
and you can reuse your motivation.
You know, it's not like you have to every day get up
and go, okay, why should I do this today?
Well, you can do it for the same reason
you did it yesterday.
You know, it's fine.
You know, go ahead and use those things.
Another interesting thing you can look at is fiction.
Like fiction. How, how can that help?
But there's, I mean, there's tons of fiction out there
that is science related, science adjacent,
shoot, there's science fiction.
Um, again, it's motivating.
And some of this stuff is so fanciful and fantastic.
It reminds you of how, how much blue sky is left out there.
It's like, man, we are not done with this.
There is plenty more to do, plenty more to learn,
plenty more to discover and, and why not be part of it?
In addition to all that, think all the other media
that we have available to us there.
Yeah. Get on Netflix, there's tons of documentaries
that are, are scientifically
focused and they're interesting.
And then of course there are whole movies that,
that get into topics.
And I mean, some of them are, you know, Jurassic Park,
fancy full, uh,
but others, they're, you know, they may be historical.
Um, they may be, um, at least based in history.
And, and those things can be very interesting too.
And then you, again, we realize I could be part of this.
They could be making a movie about me in the future,
you know, wouldn't that be cool?
So, so why not?
Why not engage yourself
and what's available about
where science has been working out?
And even some of the dystopian stuff can be interesting
because there's things to learn from it.
Sorry, just to jump in there, Ken. Yeah.
Again, and go one step further. You say dystopian.
Um, but you know, sometimes we can find ourselves wondering,
you know, what's the point?
Especially when our work is often focused on such minutia.
And then you mentioned Netflix and social media,
and I often found engaging with content that, you know,
I disagree with that can be in, you know,
really inspiring as well.
You know, if you think, if you think something,
if something contradicts
or takes a shot at something, you hold dear,
you know, whatever topic.
Mm-Hmm. That sure is how, you know,
makes you realize the benefit of what you're doing.
Yeah. I think that's ever more true, you know, in, in,
in the age of disinformation
For sure.
And too can also point out, here's a problem I wanna solve.
And, and some of these, some
of these dystopian themes have been, here's
what happened when they didn't bother
to solve the problem, you know?
Yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of opportunity there.
Um, I was recently a guest on another podcast
called the AI Optimist
with a good friend of mine, Declan Dunn.
And, we'll, we'll link up to that at some point here too.
The notion of being an AI optimist.
It's a little contrarian these days.
There's been a lot of talk about the dangers of ai,
but he is looking at it from the standpoint of, well,
how do we make good use of it?
Not just, um, not to ignore the warnings or,
or not see the, the potential dangers,
but what good can we, can we use this for?
How can we push things forward
and shoot, we even use AI bite-sized bio for some, you know,
that helps us with some of the content we create.
So it, it definitely can be used for good.
We can still be aware of the bad.
And the same thing is true if everything y'all are doing
science, science is often dangerous.
I mean, and, and even if it's, you know, in biology, I mean,
you're dealing with living things
and things that can die that you may not want to die.
You know? So, um, even at that level, you know,
maybe you don't have any feelings about that bacteria
and that Petri dish, but you still don't want it to die.
So, um, we can, we can,
we can be engaged in that way also.
So another thing to think about is you have a social circle,
and science is a very collaborative, uh, way of,
of operating in life.
And that's not true of every industry or every business.
Collaboration is a big deal for y'all.
And, you know, and I sometimes I'm almost afraid
to use the word social anymore
because people automatically finish it with media.
But I'm not talking about social media.
I'm talking about actually being social.
Now that's not to say you can't be so actual
actually social on social media,
but when you have opportunities to interact
with other people that are, are engaged in the same kind
of things that you're engaged in, you can,
you can draw on their excitement and,
and you can, you can leapfrog each other on things
that you've learned by sharing those, sharing those,
those moments of inspiration
and those moments of, of, you know,
the eureka moments as it were.
And it, there, there's great opportunity there just
with your peers and you, maybe peers
that you actually physically get together with people that,
you know, in the same lab or something like that.
Maybe people you see at conferences,
maybe you don't see 'em all the time,
but you get to see 'em.
But there are other people. You may never actually
be in the same physical place, but
because we've got all this great connectivity
you are interacting with, um, so make those use
of those interactions to help keep yourself motivated.
So there's one other thing that, that,
that I wanna talk about in the end is
that is the idea of mentorship.
A mentor can really help you that way.
'cause they've been down this road, they've had
high points in low points.
They, they know what happens
and they know how they got out of them.
Um, so you should take advantage of that.
And maybe they're available in your lab or in your company,
and, but they're also curious
and creative people just like you.
So, so they, they know the environment
and they've built skills, you know, both
at the bench, but also in the en the
environment and of science.
They, they, they deal with the same pro.
They've dealt with the same problems
you've dealt with in the past.
The culture of the field of your lab itself, you know,
they, they have figured some things out
and they can share them with you.
And sometimes just getting that pressure off you,
your motivation was already there.
You just needed to not be under so much pressure.
And it frees you then just to, to then go, okay,
I don't have to think about the politics here right now.
I can just focus on what I'm, what I'm in, researching
what I'm investigating.
And that makes things so much better for you.
And with mentoring as well, it's a good opportunity
to look back and reflect on
what you have achieved rather than
what you've got left to achieve.
Often focus on what's coming up, what's coming up,
what's next, you know, what do I need to experiment?
Do I need to do, you know,
what job am I gonna get when this 10 years over?
Um, and it can be easy to forget that, you know,
you've built up a huge repertoire of knowledge and expertise
and, you know, younger colleagues,
less experienced people do benefit from that.
You know, it's, it's really easy to trivialize
how far you, you'll have.
Oh, for sure. Yeah.
So mentoring, you know, swing the pendulum
and do other way, so to speak. Right.
Well, and it goes both ways.
You, you can seek mentorship, but, but it's quite possible.
You're already at the point where you could be someone's
mentor and it's worth bothering to do that.
I, I realize it could take more time and more energy,
but when you're giving back like that, you'd be surprised
how, how energizing it can be for you.
And when you see somebody who's young and fresh
and excited, you know, it feels good.
You remember, oh yeah, I was like that.
You know, and I could still be like that. You know, why not?
Alright, well that's basically
what I had prepared to say about this.
Is there anything you'd like to add, Tom?
Well, I was, I was thinking it's very easy to, you know,
to get hung up on what we're doing, become,
become singular focused on it.
But, and I guessing, I mean this in terms of
how much you make science a central part of your identity
and how much time you spend thinking about it when,
when you're not at work and Mm-hmm.
An important learning process for me was realizing,
you know, I do better work when I don't put
my science at the center of it.
You know, I guess putting it tritely a change
is as good as a rest.
Now, unfortunately, when you put this into play
in an academic setting, it can open yourself up
to accusations of being, you know,
disinterested or not bothered.
For me, and I'm just speaking for myself here,
that was always ironic because I knew if I,
I focused on it more, I would do less of a good job,
you know, realizing that I needed that freedom
to explore other ins, uh, interests.
Mm-Hmm. That was more motivational.
And I, it's honors as individuals to sort of think about
that, you know, on the flip side, I know people who worked
kinda like six and a half days a week and we're fine with it
and thrived on it, you know,
but it's not necessarily better, you know, it's merely
what works works for you.
And that, that is gives me pause for thought anyway.
Right. You know, my, in my personal background, I worked
with engineers more than scientists
as far as my day-to-Day work.
And I've found that they,
like scientists can be very hardworking
and work many, many hours,
but there's a couple guys that
they had guitars in their, in their cubicles
and, you know,
at a certain point every day they'd be playing guitar.
Now it's an electric guitar
that they got plugged in their own hair
through their own headphones.
So it's not like they're screaming metal
out to the rest of the office.
Um, and,
and two, they, they would, late at night,
these guys would all stop and all start playing carmageddon.
This was back in the day.
But that was, you know, they created a culture like that
and they, that brought them together and they won.
You know, they were, they didn't play that game
until like 11:00 PM so it was motivating to keep,
to stay in the office until car getin time, you know,
so they, they had their, their advantages from that now,
but too, I did, I also did see people that worked too hard
and, and burn themselves out.
So you've gotta learn how to balance that.
And it's like you were saying, some people need to have more
outside interest than others.
Some people can keep their nose to the grindstone
and they can work 70 hour weeks and they're fine with it.
Other people, 40 hours is enough. Thank you very much.
I have other interests in my life,
but those other interests play back into
their scientific life.
A a another point I was thinking of
before coming in, you know, into this, in, into this um,
podcast, was how do you separate us?
So I'll backtrack so we all work on something.
I'm sure the audience works on something that, you know,
it might be statistically impossible
that you're gonna achieve it.
You know, if it's a big scientific problem.
Like for me, I was trying to solve the structures
of membrane proteins notoriously hard.
You know, they're not so in water, they don't crystallize.
Um, and how do you divorce that
improbability from your own view of yourself as a scientist?
Because the easy conclusion, the facile conclusion is,
you know, it's not work, therefore I'm bad.
And I feel like that that's a, that's a conclusion
that's easy to draw in in research.
I dunno why, but it is.
But I necessarily think it's, think it's that way.
The two aren't necessarily connected many times.
It's, it's a function of how many things you'll try in the,
in the, in the time that you have, you know, and sure.
Don't, don't let people tell you otherwise.
Yeah. It, it's, it's done right heroic to, to,
to take on things where you're likely to fail over and over
and over again before you maybe
succeed it.
And it's not worthless.
It's not useless to have those failures
because they're, they're still documented.
It's, it's still feeding the body of knowledge.
This is some, this is not the way to get there.
This is something that doesn't work.
This is something that only gets this far
and then hits this barrier,
but it revealed the next barrier.
That's, that is highly useful.
And you know, we do, we do tend
to wrap our self image into the work we do.
And if the work doesn't
have some definable success, we may not feel good.
But it's, what are you defining as success?
You know, is it, uh, it only counts if I
win, win a Nobel Prize.
You know, come on there.
There's plenty of small wins that are worthwhile.
And, and you can use that for motivation too.
And you can bet the Nobel Prize prize winner
and the very big scientists, you know,
I'm sure they were just inclined
to celebrate their own achievements too at some point.
I think that goes, you know, I think
that goes right from working on the
seemingly most trivial scientific problems, the things
that do lead to awards, um, for
Example. Yeah. Or are they, they
stumble into it, you know?
Oh, oh yeah. They find things
Serendipity. We've not even touched
upon that little Yeah,
that little gem.
But just, just, just about that.
I was just reading, uh,
before coming into this, um,
an astronaut Christina cooker name is, she holds the record
for the longest, you know, uh, time in space
by a woman working in space
on the International Space Station.
And it says in the article, her impulse was
to downplay the milestone
before a former colleague reminded her
that her achievement might give people a sense of
greater possibilities.
You know, and she's an astronaut on the, you know,
Naar tennis mission, and even she, you know,
thinks it's trivial what she does.
So I think it, it's almost ubiquitous that temptation
to downplay, maybe it's connected to scientists being
naturally introvert that, I dunno, I suspect
that's some part of it, but it's not always, yeah.
It's not always a good thing to do.
You know, celebrate your achievements coming
full circle with what we started.
Yeah. We, we've, we've talked about imposter syndrome on
the podcast on several occasions.
We had one episode. That's what it was.
That's was the sole topic.
And you know, it, it is easy to forget that, that
you're not normal in a good way.
That is, you've achieved a high level
and yeah, granted, you're used to being there now,
but not many people are, are are there with you.
So give yourself a little credit.
And, you know, it's not about being arrogant, you know,
patting yourself on the back,
but you know, if you gotta win, celebrate the win.
It's, it's why not?
Yeah. Not i's gonna celebrate it for you.
That's, uh, something I've learned.
You really have to make that happen.
Well, a lot of people won't even understand it well
enough to celebrate it with you.
They didn't, they won't realize it's celebratory
Also with what you do. You'll
be working on some cool technology
that becomes trivialized through your exposure to it.
Looking back at what I didn't know, I gotta go to
particle accelerator synchrotrons,
and it seemed really tri at the time.
Yeah. I was at world class, you know, science facilities
and I'll never do it, never do it again.
I've changed careers now, but I'm grateful that experience
because I think people will never see.
Exactly. And you don't know that it's never,
we'll see, It's not over yet.
It was something I noticed in, in the world
of software development, which, which everybody's used
to on the receiving end,
but the version that you're using right now, uh,
that's not the version the engineers are working on.
They're working on the next version.
There's on, on
supporting people on the current version.
And then there's another group of engineers
who are working on supporting people
who are not using the current version,
are using older versions for whatever reason.
Um, and you can look at that
and say, well, wouldn't you hate that job?
Because you don't get to do any of the cool new stuff.
Like, you know, there's, there are solutions available
at every level and,
and you get to participate in, in wherever you are.
And you know what, in the moment, maybe you,
this isn't your preferred space.
You're working on something that's not terribly exciting
to you, but it's, well, it's gotta be done.
This is part of the grant.
I I'm junior in the lab, whatever it is, fine.
Pay your dues and get yourself in a position to
where you do have more options.
And that, again, that's can be motivating too.
That's why you're dumping the trash and swooping the floor.
And there's a flip side to that, being junior is
that everything's new.
The techniques, you know, are new
or, you know, software engineering as you say.
So I came over from a core chemistry background.
Molecular biology absolutely blew my mind.
You know, the idea that, and express antibiotic resistance
genes to select, you know, plasmids, which is bread
and butter, most people in the bioscience lab.
It, it was amazing. You know, it blew me away.
I remember the first time I heard about CRISPR
and I'm like, oh my God, that is unbelievable.
And come to find out it's being used all the time.
Or, or I mentioned to Nick at one point about cloning,
how that just seemed like, you know, space, age,
science fiction is like, actually it's kind
of easy. We do it all the time.
It's funny putting it like that, isn't it?
You think all the people working on CRISPR just stick to the
of it because they're so overexpose? Yeah,
Exactly.
But you know, when you're new to it, it's new to you. Yeah.
So awesome. You, you can use that too.
A lot of this, it, it may seem like we're kind
of faking ourselves out, kind of manipulating ourselves,
but it's done with the best of intentions.
So it's okay. It's okay to tell yourself a, a,
a useful story.
And if it helps you move forward,
you recognize it's still just a story, but it's okay.
As long as you maintain solid good intent.
That's, that's, that's your best friend.
When it comes to motivation, get your intent straight.
Motivation will follow.
So don't forget folks, if you have any questions,
feel free to post them in the question
section on the side of your screen.
But I've got a few questions, Ken.
Yeah, you've touched some
of already, but maybe you can elaborate.
So, Mm-Hmm. Do you think it's always obvious when your
motivation levels are dropping?
You know, often we're suffering from tunnel vision
and it can be, it can be a steady thing
and perhaps, you know,
uh, and what would the telltale signs be if you, you know,
if your motivation are waning?
Yeah. Well, I, I'll first comment on the solution
and, uh, we'll take that apart.
The solution is awareness.
Just being aware of what're up to what you're feeling,
what's what is happening
around you makes all the difference.
And that's when it'll, you'll,
you'll see it showing up like, why am I tired?
Oh yeah, because I'm bored. Why am I bored?
Because this is interesting, you know,
and then you start to, to see where, what's
at the base of it all.
And these things are worthy of investigation.
And I'm, I'm not saying you should do that all,
all day long, because that takes you off track
of actually accomplishing things.
But, but periodically you
should just check in with yourself.
How am I doing? How does this feel?
How, what, what do I enjoy about this?
What could be better about it?
Um, look at both sides
and, you know, dry mg from the, the things
that you already like about it,
but when you see something that's lacking, well now,
you know, to take a look at that.
Can I do something about that?
And sometimes when you look at something,
you realize there's nothing I can do about this.
That the, the task is the task.
The grant is for what it's for. The pi is not going away.
They're gonna keep pushing for what they want. Okay?
That's the environment. Accept it when,
when you fight against that, when you resist it, it,
it costs a lot of energy and it can demotivate you
and in a serious way.
Is there anything I can add there?
No, I dunno. I think that's, that's fairly comprehensive.
So I think this resonate with a lot of people.
So you could be the most motivated person in the world,
but one is, if you find yourself an environment where a lot
of your colleagues that you know, the downbeat
or motivated that can kind of chip away at yourself,
what would you recommend to stay resilient and can,
and, you know, should you try and reach out
and up the general motivation of the lamb or,
Yeah, it's a matter of recognizing levels.
So it's just like, well, people are a little downer here.
Well, you know what? Suck it up buttercup, work it out.
Be an example of being more upbeat.
Uh, but in other cases, you look at it
and go, this place is a cesspool.
This, this place is a disaster.
And you have to look at that and go, you know what?
Maybe I need to make a change now.
You don't wanna go straight there every time,
and maybe, maybe in your lifetime you will never go there.
You'll never think I have to get outta here.
But at a certain point you can look
at things and go, you know what?
This, this is an unfixable place.
This environment is too damaged
for me to do what I need to do.
And it isn't even a matter of judgment, you know, I mean,
of judging other people saying, oh, the,
the environment is bad in a moral sense.
It's the, the environment is bad for me.
And recognizing the difference is quite useful.
No, yeah, I agree.
Um, it's just, yeah, my experience, it can be hard,
you know, and a lot of scientists, maybe all of us,
you know, fear, fear of failure is a big motivation.
We don't like to quit on things. Mm-Hmm.
A lot of people will stick out their tenure, you know,
for the completion is sake and very noble aims.
But at some point the rubber does hit the road if you're in
a, you know, a really awful, really awful
environment. Right.
And we, we've had several episodes talking about this from
different directions.
Um, you know, like in an example, I is you Tom,
that you were, you were in a lab,
but now you're in a, you're in an adjacent area.
You're, you're involved with scientific content.
What could only be done by somebody with your kind
of experience and background,
but it's a choice that you made
for this point in your career.
And hopefully it's been a happy change from
what you did last and what you did last.
You probably enjoyed until you it
was time to move on, you know?
Yeah,
No, it's, it's, it's very much the case.
Um, deciding what you wanna do in perpetuity as well for me.
Yeah. Crystallizing memory proteins for a living,
but that doesn't make it a worth, you know,
worthless pursuit of doing it was very useful.
Yeah. It's, it's like what happens in business,
some businesses, our pop-up businesses, right?
They, there's an opportunity, they take it, they take it
to the end, and then they shut it
down and move on to the next thing.
Others are far more permanent.
Now you gotta look at how you wanna structure your career,
you know, for some people taking,
taking short-term opportunities, opportunities
and maximizing them repeatedly is a career
plan for other people.
It's, I want to get into, I want to get into this lab,
or I wanna stay in the lab.
I've always been in until I retire with a gold watch. Fine.
You know, that's, that is perfectly viable. Also.
Um, it's just what we wanna watch out for is like, you know
what, all I care about is tenure.
I, it's, it doesn't matter.
This place sucks, but tenure is worth it.
So, you know, do you really want that
to be your career path?
Now, I won't even say that it's a wrong choice,
but I'm saying, if you're gonna make that choice,
make it on purpose, make it with your eyes open.
I'll second that and say, that was
something I came to realize.
I was on that on the academic road,
and I didn't,
I couldn't see myself in a PI position for many reasons.
That's, that's another conversation.
But if you don't want that, I, I began to ask myself, do I,
you know, is it worthwhile me staying in research?
Because in the end, I've just become a very expensive
postdoc researcher, you know?
Yeah. Very expensive to be employed.
So that was part of the motivation for leaving. Yeah.
But like you say, it has to be a personal,
personal decision, but it's
quite empowering when you make it.
Oh, for sure. And,
and yeah, you can judge for yourself too, of
what are the factors that really matter?
You know, is it, is there some moral imperative in your
choice for some people that really, that is top of,
top of mind Mm-Hmm.
For other people like this, this is just numbers.
You know, I, I will, I will advance better on this path,
or I will, I will earn more of a living on this path.
And there's nothing wrong with that either.
Taking care of your family is a noble, noble cause.
And if you can do it and still be in science, well cool.
If your top priority isn't, I want to be,
you know, Dr.
Jonas Sauk, I wanna, I wanna,
I wanna discover the next cheerio.
I mean, whatever it is, you know, um, for some people
that is absolutely what they want and, and power to them
because it's hard to, to, to be a discoverer.
It's hard to go into that great unknown.
And if you can stay motivated for that,
God bless, please do.
Because we need you. There
aren't that many people that can do that.
On, on, on that note, I mean, I, I, I don't have any more,
uh, questions to put Canada,
if you have anything else you wanna say or
No, I think that was a well-rounded discussion.
I, I'm so thrilled that, that we got to do this together,
Tommy, you know, we, we should
Do It again. We, we only crossed
paths occasionally
here at Bite-sized bio.
So it's, it's, it's awesome when we do
Ships in the night or Harley's comment or something.
Yeah. Okay. So I think we'll call it, uh,
call it there today, folks.
Um, thanks Ken for your insight
and thanks everybody in the audience, uh,
whether the Alive Now or watching on Demand in the future.
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Happy scientists. Until then, uh, good luck in your research
and goodbye from all of us, including Mr.
Miyagi, Kenneth,
And maybe we'll hear from Tom again in the future.
I hope so. Bye now.
Bye.
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