Does Your Science Box You In?
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 at bitesizebio.com/happyscientist. Your hosts are Kenneth Vogt, founder of the executive coaching firm, Vera Claritas, and doctor Nick Oswald, PhD, bioscientist, and founder of bite size bio.
Nick Oswald:Hello. This is Nick Oswald welcoming you to this Bite Size Bio webinar, which today is a live episode of the Happy Scientist podcast. If you want to become a happier, healthier, and more productive scientist, you are in the right place. With me, as always, is mister Kenneth Vogt. In these sessions, we will hear from Ken mostly on principles that will help shape you for a happier and a more successful career.
Nick Oswald:And along the way, I'll pitch in with points from my personal experience as a scientist and from working with Ken. If you have any questions along the way, put them into the questions box that appears on the right side of your screen, and I'll put them to Ken. And today, we will be asking, does your science box you in? Okay, Ken. Take it away.
Kenneth Vogt:Alright. I I wanna add that today, especially, there's gonna be a lot of input from Nick because I'm gonna ask him a lot of questions. Because the this notion of having a particular perspective is one I'm familiar with, but, you know, I don't work in the lab. And so there there are 3 points that are on the screen right now that, that I want that I wanna key on, the idea of, you know, are your ideas fresh? Is your mind open?
Kenneth Vogt:Is your attitude healthy? And how that actually applies in the lab. Because, I mean, of course, it applies all throughout your life, but, and having a good well, not a good perspective isn't so much my point, but having a useful perspective is a good idea. The first thing we have to recognize is that we we do have a perspective. And we might wanna think about what that is by definition.
Kenneth Vogt:And I was I was looking at the dictionary definition for perspective, and the first definition isn't about kind of perspective I'm talking about here, but it is interesting. So here it is. Perspective is the art of drawing solid objects on a 2 dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point. Now this is very familiar to us. It's familiar from the state, from how we observe the world, but it's also familiar with this this artistic rendition here.
Kenneth Vogt:We've seen this kind of thing done, and we recognize it. And when you see something drawn that is, without question, 2 dimensional, and yet you observe it as a three-dimensional rendering, you are using a perspective. And and the artist actually had some say over what perspective you you would have, and and that's that's what this drawing is is showing you an example of. It's showing you where the perspective points might be. And I remember learning this in in art class in high school, and it just kinda blew my mind.
Kenneth Vogt:And you start to recognize that it is it is normal. It is how we observe the world. Now let's talk about the definition of perspective that I wanted to bring bring to this call today. That's the second one. It's perspective as a particular attitude toward or a way of regarding something, a point of view.
Kenneth Vogt:Now you might think that that sounds restrictive, and in some ways, it can be, but it also allows you to key in on something. So if we go back to that that thing we talked about on the last slide, keeping your ideas fresh, maybe the answer is to change your perspective. To keep your mind open is to recognize that the perspective that you commonly have is not the only one. And having, you know, and having your your science be healthy may well require you to change your perspective. So, Nick, I'll put this to you.
Kenneth Vogt:Have you ever had a situation in the lab where you were required to change your perspective? Anything come to mind there?
Nick Oswald:Well, I have not been in the lab for quite a long time, but I have. I so I'm not gonna talk about something specific. But for me, the one of the main if I look at the one of the main contours of where where this thing could get tangled up, the perspective, it's the fact that you when you're in the lab, you're doing science. Science is a particular way of examining a question, And but on a personal level, in parallel, you have a motivation to get an an to get an answer, and you sometimes have a motivation to get an answer that would work for the bigger picture that you that you are personally looking forward to make your paper or whatever. Mhmm.
Nick Oswald:And that if it's quite easy to get a path down that direction where you're just looking for the result, not you're just looking for the result. Your primary perspective is I need to get this result.
Kenneth Vogt:Mhmm.
Nick Oswald:And in that case, you need to keep flipping yourself out of out of that personal perspective and into the the scientific perspective, which is asking the question in the correct way and just seeing what happens.
Kenneth Vogt:Right.
Nick Oswald:So that that would be one of the major path major things pathings that I would have seen of myself and of other people in in a lab situation.
Kenneth Vogt:Sure. And and it's it's possible to have a really negative, motivation. You know? You're you're wanting to please your funder. That that could be, something that would really, really torque your perspective.
Kenneth Vogt:Or it could be selfish. I want a result to turn out a certain way because I've already put in all of this effort. I've put out papers on this topic. And if I get a different result, I'm gonna have to change my view. I'm gonna have to admit I missed something in the past, and we don't wanna do that.
Kenneth Vogt:You know? But it isn't always all that negative. It may just be that this is familiar. I'm I'm used to looking at it this way, and to change your perspective feels a little scary or maybe a little painful. Or it forces you to enter into the unknown, which is not a comfortable place.
Kenneth Vogt:And, you know, so there's there's all kinds of reasons why you might not wanna change your perspective. Now there are other times when your perspective is is gonna be forced to change. Circumstances or or, you know, just data is gonna make you have to change your perspective. Something happens that doesn't make sense in the lab, at least from your present perspective, you're gonna have to get out of that that perspective to understand how is it possible that I got these results. Now, obviously, sometimes it's possible because something went wrong, something got corrupted, something something that was supposed to be kept out got in, you know, contamination, just just outside outside influences that that you were trying to control for and the control failed.
Kenneth Vogt:Alright. All that's fine, but it will require you to recognize your perspective's gotta shift. Now well, let me let me move to the next slide because I wanna I wanna talk about this idea of viewpoint versus perspective because they're not exactly the same. Viewpoint is, in some ways, kind of an application of perspective. And I like this little illustration because both both individuals here are arguing for the truth, because they're looking at it.
Kenneth Vogt:They have data that that supports their viewpoint, But it is important to recognize that our viewpoints are often dealing with limited information. And so shifting our perspective may still make sense. You know, I think science is often its highest objective is to uncover what is true, and that is a laudable goal. But it is important to recognize that we do not have access to all data. We don't see everything at all times, and so we have to recognize that the conclusions that we draw sometimes may make sense for our subset of what is true and may not make sense for the whole of what is true.
Kenneth Vogt:And that's that's that's what recommends this notion of of recognizing that perspective may may be worthwhile to shift. So if we start to learn the importance for adopting different perspectives on our research, then then you realize there's there's other possibilities. It opens things up. This kinda goes back to that idea of keeping your ideas fresh. When you recognize that it could be seen a different way, that may trigger your that may trigger your imagination to consider what are the other possibilities, what else could happen.
Kenneth Vogt:Now your mind, of course, has to be open for that to happen. If you wanna you know, if you if you've been working with some people and, man, they're so creative and they've always got great new ideas and you're thinking, why can't I have that? Well, the answer is first, open up your mind. Give it a chance. There's there's gotta you gotta you have to allow for the possibility of something unusual to be there, something new to show up.
Kenneth Vogt:You know, this this will impact what you discover, and it'll impact what possibilities you see because, you know, there's a series of things going on all the time. This possibility opens up this idea, which opens up this possibility, which opens up this idea, and sometimes it's it's a couple of things down the line before you get there. But if you can keep yourself open to the possibility that my present viewpoint is not the truth, doesn't mean that you're wrong, Doesn't mean you're a liar. You know, it just means there's more. There's more to know.
Kenneth Vogt:And of course, you know, science is all about gaining knowledge. We're you you're observing you're observing the observable world, but you gotta observe. And you have to you have to be dispassionate about those those observations. Be open to the possibility that there's another way to see it. And if you do that, then you then you will be able to see it.
Kenneth Vogt:And and I'm sure you've all had that experience where you had a limited view of the world, and it was just the way you saw it, the way you saw it, the way you saw it, and then one day you just broke out of that and everything got bigger, Everything got better. Everything got clearer because you were willing to consider the possibility that things aren't as chiseled and granite as as, they may have first appeared. And sometimes we we cling to that because, well, it it just would be simpler if if the world was simple, if it if everything was plain. But after a while, we kinda get that beat out of us because, you know, we we see from evidence that the world is not simple, that things are not always plain, and things don't always follow the same set of simplistic rules. And if you can allow for the fact that that is possible, well, then you can see other things, and you can actually use the anomalies to your advantage.
Kenneth Vogt:There are sometimes when you you can create an environment where something isn't normal, but in that abnormal environment, you can get a particular kind of result, and I and, you know, I think I'll I think it would be accurate to say a lot of science that is exactly what it's about. It's about creating something abnormal that changes the result. So I will, I will pause for a moment here and let you get a word in, Nick.
Nick Oswald:Just something that you said there just kind of sparked something for me. It's always been I always thought it was a bit of a peculiarity about science was that, and it's just a kind of it's a mind trap in a way As we talk about so much about what we know, and we we talk up what we know, what we've discovered, you know, the breakthroughs on all that. And that of course, we do that because we're we're proud of that and we're excited about it and so on. But what that I always think lays the trap of falling into thinking you know more than you don't know. And, of course, we we don't we don't know more than we know, if you know what I mean.
Nick Oswald:Yeah. If you that's
Kenneth Vogt:We often don't even know what we don't know.
Nick Oswald:Exactly. Right? And so and so one of the flips is the it's the useful thing that you're talking about here and we've been talking about is flipping between perspectives. Because staying in one perspective, okay, this is what I need personally. I need to get the result.
Nick Oswald:That's fine. Okay. That drives you one way, but then you flip out it and go bigger picture. What does this am I looking at this from a pure scientific methodology point of view? Am I asking this in the right way?
Nick Oswald:Am I being neutral and all that? That's another flip. Another flip is instead of looking at what you know and what you think is gonna happen next based on you know or what you think would be a good question to ask based on what you know is flipping that around and saying, well, what don't we know? What might be the absolute left field here that I you know, that that would looking at it that way, it makes your imagination work in a different way. Mhmm.
Nick Oswald:And then you it'll it'll it'll give you other ways to look at the problem or ways to look at the possibilities. And, again, I think it's the I I I think that, overall, what we're talking about here is is having a flexible perspective. Is that right? Mhmm.
Kenneth Vogt:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And that's that's not always comfortable, you know, because it it does force us out of the familiar, and, you know, we like familiar. So I wanna I wanna move on to an
Nick Oswald:an analogy Before you say that, actually, before we go to the next thing, the it's not just about familiar. Well, it's one thing is familiar, but there also is that there's a trend because there's pressures in science to get results. Sure. There's pressures from all around. And so being results driven, for example, is one external pressure that, especially if you're inexperienced Mhmm.
Nick Oswald:Then, then you will tend to succumb to, and and that can easily become more and more your fixed perspective is getting results. And even if you're more experienced, sometimes you're just under so much pressure to get, you know, to to get what you need that that becomes the dominant perspective, and it's difficult to flip out into these other ones.
Kenneth Vogt:Sure. Well and, you make a good point there that there there are a variety of reasons why anyone holds a particular perspective and why we hold a perspective. It it isn't necessarily because, you know, you're, you know, unwilling to change or you're narrow minded. There are all kinds of forces that are that are bearing down on us at any given moment, and we're gonna respond to them, and it makes sense.
Nick Oswald:Yep.
Kenneth Vogt:So so let me let me step back a little bit though to talk about the starting points for perspectives. This illustration here that's on the screen may be familiar to folks. It's a it's an old Buddhist story about what happened when a bunch of blind men, encountered an elephant. And because, you know, one walked up to the tail, and one walked up to the tusk, and one walked up to the trunk, and one walked up to the side, They all had different perspectives. Well, you know, it's like this.
Kenneth Vogt:It's like that. None of them were wrong, but all of them were limited. And there was nothing there was nothing that they were failing to do, but they did lack vision. And that lack of vision caused them to see things a certain way. And in the in the telling of the tale, they all just made declarative statements.
Kenneth Vogt:It's like a rope. It's like a snake. It's like a sword. Instead of, it appears to be like, it it might be like this. The part you know, they they didn't acknowledge that there are other possibilities, and that's the that's kind of the the point that you have to be at.
Kenneth Vogt:Are you open to considering other perspectives, and can you hold more than one perspective at the same time? That is not intellectually necessarily easy to do, but, you know, y'all didn't sign up for an easy job intellectually if you're, you know, lab based scientists. You're you're doing hard intellectual work, and one of the skills that is worth gaining is being able to hold more than one perspective at the same time. And if you if you do that, then then you don't get passed, then you don't find yourself stuck in ruts. And to to go back to the point you were making a little bit ago, Nick, it also can explain why is this particular perspective so compelling, and can I can I allow myself to be uncomfortable enough to consider a perspective that doesn't look at it from that viewpoint?
Kenneth Vogt:And it may be that it's something you're just doing privately in your own head. Right? Or it may be that now in this paper, I have to make both I have to make case for both scenarios. You know? I've gotta I've gotta talk about what the the funder would like to be true, but I also have to talk about what the funder would like to not be true because I have evidence of the part they don't like.
Kenneth Vogt:And and, you know, you don't you don't wanna you don't wanna play fast and loose with your data, obviously, but you you do wanna consider all sides. And, you know, there is such a thing as risk management. In a risk management, you'd wanna consider the the outlier data. You'll wanna consider the stuff that doesn't support the main perspective, but it does introduce some question about it. And and opening those questions up may lead to further research and may lead down rabbit holes that are worth going down.
Kenneth Vogt:You know? It but even if you're not gonna pursue those things, just saying them out loud gets it on the table. And maybe it'll be pursued by other people, but maybe it's just a matter of, it's it's an adherence to to honesty. It's an adherence to to, you know, it's a higher character. We don't we don't call something 2 +2 equals 4 when it's not that certain that 2+2 equals 4.
Kenneth Vogt:2+2 equals 4 most of the time. And and we can say that we can say that with integrity, and and do that. Now, I mean, there are some things that they're always gonna be they always equal 4. And and, you know, we do wanna note that too. But especially in biology, things are are analog.
Kenneth Vogt:They're not so digital. They're not necessarily so perfect. We're talking about probabilities rather than certainties, and, you know, and that's that's useful to recognize.
Nick Oswald:I think one way of looking at this as well, though, is is, just noting down some stuff. Now this is off the top of my head, so Mhmm. It might not be exactly right. But one of the it strikes me that one of the things that that is inherent in being a scientist is that there are you talked about scientists as an science as an intellectual pursuit. It is.
Nick Oswald:Right? But so intellect, that means you need the ability to commute com compute and, you know, act intelligently or think intelligently. But you also have to have motivation. Right? It's, you have to have rigor.
Nick Oswald:You have create you have to have creativity, and you have to be able to tell a story about what your research is seeing overall. And each of those, intellect, motivation intellectual approach, motivational approach and discipline, creative approach using your imagination, rigor, and storytelling, All of those require it require you to take a different perspective, and so you must be able to flip between them.
Kenneth Vogt:Mhmm.
Nick Oswald:And, and having one of those as the dominant, if you're if having one of those as the dominant will will make your life more difficult as a sinus, I think, if you if you stick in 1 or 2 of them. If you can get the 360, then, then that is gonna make it much easier for you to be a rounded scientist. And I don't think that's a perfect list. Again, that was off the top of my head, but that is the sort of rounded, open perspective that you you actually need, to be able to cover all facets of the job as a of a scientist, I think.
Kenneth Vogt:Sure. And if you consider the you know, your fellow scientists that you most admire, that you that you have the most confidence in, they have the broadest possible perspective. And and I'll bet in most cases, most of them would not claim that their perspective is the whole truth. They, you know, they may know know the the state of their science better than than anyone, and yet they know it can be known better. And that's that's how we we keep pushing forward.
Kenneth Vogt:And we recognize that I am naturally coming from a limited perspective. It's I'm I am starting from where I am. You know? That's that's always the case. And we may have spent years years going down a certain path, and and now we're quite, we're quite connected to it.
Kenneth Vogt:And so we have to make it a point to shake ourselves out of that. And And I'm sure you know people like that, that somebody early on, they had some great insight. They had they've made some great discovery, and now their whole career is just about that. And they're they're they're a one trick pony, and that's all they talk about, and that's how they see everything. And everything gets measured through that that lens, and that is limiting.
Kenneth Vogt:And whereas, you know, other folks when they've had those early things, they didn't allow those early successes to to stylize them. They they kept their options open. So I wanna talk about 2 ways that that could go wrong. One is by tunnel vision and the other is by siloing. And they're in some ways the same thing, but they're they offer the perspective from from 2 different directions.
Kenneth Vogt:1 is about, you know, backwards versus forwards, another is up versus down. So tunnel vision is when when you look at everything only from a narrow perspective, and there's only one way through. And you have to go that way. The solution to this is always that way. That could be very narrowing.
Kenneth Vogt:The siloing is a little different. Siloing is when you get stuck in a particular discipline, say. If you yeah. It's like talking about the difference between how a biologist sees something and how a chemist sees something. It's a silo.
Kenneth Vogt:If you if you only ever look at it through one of those perspectives, if you only ever look at it mathematically, if you only ever look at it statistically, if you only ever look at it, through in terms of of viability. And and then we miss out on on the underlying layers. Those are those are limitations to one's perspective. And and we all find ourselves caught up in this on occasion. It happens.
Kenneth Vogt:You know? It's just good to recognize on the right now, okay, I'm I've got tunnel vision. Right now, I'm kinda siloed. And then and then we start to see there's a way to look outside of that. It's funny.
Kenneth Vogt:When I was I was putting these slides together, those silos that are there on a farm, Where I grew up, there were silos like that all over the place. And and, you know, it just made sense to have have silos. You had a place to store grain, and and it was you know, it kept it safe and kept it kept it, you know, stored for long periods of time as useful. The siloing can be helpful to you and that, you know, you've got a deep perspective in in your area of expertise that is useful. But it's still right there.
Kenneth Vogt:You know, you can't feed the cows out of the silo. You got you're gonna have to pull it out of the silo and spread it around where the livestock can get to it. Yeah. I don't have as much experience with tunnels, but, some folks may have grown up in places where there were caves or where there were mines. And it does change your perspective because you're you are closed in.
Kenneth Vogt:And sometimes it's dark and scary. And, the to me, the the notion of tunnel vision is is a lot more frightening because I think most of us would not like to be accused of having tunnel vision. But being accused of of of being siloed is not quite as scary. And in fact, we may feel like it's not my fault. I I was put over here in this department, and I'm told to what to do, and I have to do it this way.
Kenneth Vogt:And it's just how it is. Or or they hired me so that I would be that statistician. That's why I'm here. I'm supposed to look at it that way. And that's that's all fine to recognize that that's the what's happening, and that's how it is.
Kenneth Vogt:And so it'll happen, sometimes you will be in a setting where you're presenting it from a particular viewpoint, and other people are pushing back. And you gotta recognize that that's okay. It was good that you could present it from the viewpoint you are coming from, but it's also good that others could take issue with things because they are seeing things from another perspective and they're supposed to. And this allows for collaboration. It it it frees you up because, like, you know, I can focus on this part of it because Bob is focusing on that and Sarah is focusing on that, and I don't have to focus on that.
Kenneth Vogt:That they got it covered, and you can work together as a team. And you can go deep in each of your own areas, which is great. But you also obviously can learn from Bob, and you can learn from Sarah. And it can inform how you look at the, you know, the data that you have and and the conclusions that you're drawing. So, you know, don't be afraid to do that.
Kenneth Vogt:And not not just afraid, but take advantage of it. Use it as an opportunity. It it'll only broaden your your horizons. So here's here's another interesting thing to consider. Since you do have a perspective and sometimes it's a very select perspective, a single perspective.
Kenneth Vogt:Is it still possible to be innovative? Is it still possible that new things can be discovered, from this particular perspective, maybe even fairly called limited perspective? And the answer is yes. Sometimes limiting your perspective allows you to focus, and that's how you find do you see patterns because you're you're really focused on only this part of what's going on here. And so you will see things that somebody who's taking a broader view might not notice.
Kenneth Vogt:It isn't that they're failing to look. It's just that you're laser focused. You're you're, you know that that's why there's microscopes. Right? So that you can look very, very closely at things.
Kenneth Vogt:And sometimes that is indeed a source of innovation. So I guess my point is here. I'm not looking down on perspectives. I'm not looking down on viewpoints or, they have their purpose. But it is important that you know that you're coming from this perspective.
Kenneth Vogt:You're coming from from this viewpoint so that you you know the you know the restrictions. You know the parts that are taken out of that view. Does there some things that you just you can't you can't know unless you look that close, but you do need to know that, you know, in this situation where, you know, you know, you're working in the cryo lab, and at this temperature, this is what happens. So it's really important to know what the temperature was at which that happens. Right?
Kenneth Vogt:That's part of the perspective is to know the limitations that are the defining characteristics of that perspective. Let me pause again here and let you speak up, Nick.
Nick Oswald:Yep. I think this is, I think it's this is shaping up to be quite an interesting chat, actually. I'm just noting down some perspectives that I have had a a experience in which kind of allow flip and allow or allowed me to flip and and get really, you know, get a really different perspective, which informed my, you know, how I approach the problem. So for example, I worked as a with with only biologists for a long time, and then I moved to somewhere where I was working with lots of chemists. And that allowed me to take on the the chemist's perspective of the same problem.
Nick Oswald:And, I was looking at, in enzymatic catalysis using enzymes to make chemical reactions happen. The way that biologists look at that is completely different from the way chemists look at that, and both of them can help help inform each other. But as a biologist, you look at it in one way, and then as a chemist, you look at it in another way. I had an experience where I was a newbie coming into a pro into a company where they were trying to solve a particular problem. There was lots of very experienced people in there.
Nick Oswald:And I came in. They talked about the problem, and I saw a flaw in the in the strategy only because I was new. Mhmm. And it turned out to be the what they were looking for to change it, and that was an you know, it's just an an innocent perspective, if you know, or a naive perspective. You could the different perspective is being in a comfortable situation where you don't need to make something happen.
Nick Oswald:You can just keep ticking along. Or being in a pressurized sit situation where you must make something happen, And those give you a different perspectives. And then the one that I talked about before about, about in the lab looking to answer a question, or are you looking in the lab looking to get a result? And both of those are different perspectives. I think that's a it's and as you said, it's just worth noting where you are, what perspective you have in the lab at the moment, in in your work or whatever you're doing.
Nick Oswald:This can be in any discipline, really.
Kenneth Vogt:Sure.
Nick Oswald:And what are some other perspectives that you could flip to that could inform what you're doing? And you can always go back to the one you had in the beginning as well. You know? Yeah. Exactly.
Kenneth Vogt:Yeah. What that leads into the next slide pretty well. You know, sometimes it's actually time to switch, to to switch perspectives. And so what happens? Are you willing to do that?
Kenneth Vogt:And, you know, there may well be ramifications and some of them may not be so pleasant. Some of them, you know, maybe there's no scientific impact, but there's political impact. You know, there's social impact. So all those have to be considered. You you know, if you're gonna change perspectives, you you're better off to do it mindfully, to be aware that this is what's happening here.
Kenneth Vogt:If you find yourself just sliding into it or being pressured into it, it may not be a very smooth transition. So, you know, you wanna be able to do this. Switching perspectives is gonna make you immensely more capable and more rounded as a scientist. And something you just said, Nick, about about your experience there there back in the lab when you were new to to an operation points out something that if you're a newbie, if you are younger and less experienced, it doesn't mean you don't have valuable observations. And sometimes it is good for you to speak up.
Kenneth Vogt:Sometimes you need to be you need to be the little boy that says, hey. The emperor has no clothes. You know? And others weren't weren't brave enough to say it, or they were so pathed socially or or, you know, politically that they just couldn't do it. And you actually give folks, like, that cover and then they can take the ball from there.
Kenneth Vogt:So understand you don't have to solve every problem. But if you have a perspective that sees, you know, sees a risk, that sees a flaw, If you can't if you can voice it, if you can communicate it, it may well be that others then will pick up on that and take it to the next step. Even if you don't know what the next step would be, you might see a problem and have no idea how to solve it. That doesn't mean others won't know how to solve it if they become aware that there's a problem. And what you add is that you're the person that points out there's something to look at here.
Kenneth Vogt:So, you know, don't don't be afraid to to be engaged, whatever level you're at. Now, and I will grant you that there you know, there's protocol, there's there's a proper way to introduce things, you know, you don't wanna just be a bull in a china shop, but, look for your opportunities to make contributions even if the only contribution that you can offer at the moment is to say something's wrong. It's okay. That's a perspective, and it's a useful perspective, especially when it's true. Even if it's not true, though, sometimes bringing it up allows the opportunity to point for someone else who's experienced to point out this is why this isn't broken and why it's okay, and it's a learning opportunity.
Kenneth Vogt:So
Nick Oswald:Yeah. I would also say I've been in the situation where I've not been the newbie, and a newbie has kind of been reeling off ideas that, yeah, I had that 5 years ago. You know?
Kenneth Vogt:And it's like, you
Nick Oswald:know, so it's so but you must have as a as a an experienced person, you must give those people the the room to get those ideas out because it's a good thought exercise for them, but also they might just come up with a gem that something you haven't thought about because you're looking at at it in a different way.
Kenneth Vogt:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So be willing to switch up whether you're you're new or you're experienced and because we we just don't know what's gonna happen next, what opportunities that, it will raise. So that was that was everything I, wanted to cover today.
Kenneth Vogt:Is there anything else, Nick, you had you wanted to bring up?
Nick Oswald:Yeah. So just one other thing this might be pointing out the obvious, but, we're talking about you know, this this podcast and Bite Size Bio in general aims to help scientists in the lab and beyond. So I was just thinking about, how you apply this idea of perspective to your you know, this can also be applied to wider areas of your life. You know, how do you look at things on it? What's your habitual way of looking at things, and is there a different way to look at it?
Nick Oswald:And, for example, you could your habitual way of looking at life could be looking at what you don't have and how to get it. And instead of that, you could flip it to, well, what if you trained yourself or just stop to consider, well, what about what you do have instead of what you, just focusing on what you don't have? You know? And then that's that's where gratitude comes from, I guess. Yeah.
Nick Oswald:And, what about, instead of habitually focusing on what you want, focus on what you need. And then how much of that you already have? You know? It's just it's just perspectives, and it and it's just so easy to to to forget that we all are programmed with certain perspectives or we've habitually taken on certain perspectives. And that We've programmed ourselves with it in many ways.
Nick Oswald:Yeah. And and that really sets our world views. And so what we're talking about here is like a kaleidoscope. You can click around to different perspectives in the lab and your life and, and, you know, see lots more colors.
Kenneth Vogt:Yeah. Well, see, I told you, Nick was gonna have a lot to say on this topic, so proved to be so.
Nick Oswald:Well, I didn't know, but you opened up my perspective there.
Kenneth Vogt:Alright. Excellent. Thank you, Nick.
Nick Oswald:Okay. Thank you, Ken, for for another very interesting topic. I don't know how you keep coming up with them. And thank you to the audience for listening.
Kenneth Vogt:Keep my perspectives open.
Nick Oswald:Oh, okay. There you go. And thanks to you all for listening in, whether that was live today or on the on demand later. If you've enjoyed the content, please subscribe to the Happy Science on Your Favourite podcast platform, and let your friends know, your colleagues know about this so that they can also benefit. We'll become having, some other episodes coming up in the near future.
Nick Oswald:You can check those out at events.bitesizebio.com. And until then, until next time, good luck in your research, and goodbye from all of us at Bite Size Bio. Bye.
Nick Oswald:The Happy Scientist is brought to you by Bite Size Bio, your mentor in the lab. Bite Size Bio features thousands of articles and webinars contributed by hundreds of PhD scientists and scientific companies who freely offer their hard won wisdom and solutions to the bite sized bio community.
