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Intro/Outro (00:08):
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 Dr. Nick Oswald, PhD, bioscientist and founder of Bitesize Bio.

Nick Oswald (00:38):
Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Happy Scientist podcast. This is the place to be if you want to become a happier, healthy, and more productive scientist. I'm Nick Oswald the founder of bitesizebio.Com and today we will be drawing on the wisdom of Mr. Kenneth Vogt, the Bitesize Bio team coach, and founder of the executive mentoring company Vera Claritas. Today, and in other Happy Scientist podcast episodes you get to benefit from his Yoda-like words of wisdom to help you increase your performance, enjoyment, and success in the lab. Last time we talked about how to cope with the parts of your job that you don't like. But today we're looking on the bright side and looking at all of the things there are to love about the lab. Okay. Ken, tell us about things, all of the things there are to love about the lab.

Kenneth Vogt (01:30):
Well, I'll tell you what's gonna happen here. And I, I didn't give Nick any heads up on this, but Nick's gonna tell you a lot about the things that love about the lab, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna lead him in. And the reason we're doing this is kind of as an antidote for what we're talking about last time. Cause the fact is that, you know, there, there may be things that you have hated about your job, but there are lots of things to love about your job too. And sometimes they get forgotten or lost or hidden behind the things that have, have bothered you. So being reminded of all the good things that are available to you in the lab can be very helpful to you. It's it changes your focus, you and, and it's a productive thing to do to look at the things that are working for you, the things that are supporting you and, and realizing, you know, if it wasn't for all this stuff, you wouldn't be able to do what you, what you do and, and the possibilities for, for what you could achieve would be so, so restricted.

Kenneth Vogt (02:34):
And if you think back in time, you don't have to think back very far. It could be, you know, hundreds of years, it could be decades only. It could be even single digit years. There are things you can do today that you couldn't have done even a few years ago because of all the supports that are there for you. So we're gonna look at a couple different ways of seeing what's beneficial in the lab. So I wanna, I wanna put some stakes in the ground. So we're gonna talk about the structure of the lab, the things that are available to you in that way. We're gonna talk about the mindset of, of laboratory work and scientific work. We're gonna talk about the history of the operations you may be working with, and we're gonna talk about the future that's available to the operations you work with. And so within all those things, there's a number of different things that are supporting you. So let, let's start off by talking about structure and to begin with, to my mind, an obvious thing is equipment. You know, when I was a kid, when I thought about science, I thought about Bunsen burners and test tubes. But now

Nick Oswald (03:49):
One, once I I took my two, my two cousins who were, they were a lot younger, they were much younger. They were must, I was doing my PhD and they must have been about eight or nine or something like that, maybe that age. And they were begging to come into the lab. So I took them in one Saturday, so they could have a look around and they were really disappointed that there were no bats as in, you know, flying mice.

Kenneth Vogt (04:14):
Oh boy,

Nick Oswald (04:17):
I think they were watching some Dexter laboratory or something like that. And yeah. So, yeah. So it's an interesting that you would start there with the what's good about, I suppose you're talking about the lab, not a, not being a scientist. So things a lot about the lab, the equipment, the machines that go ping as Monty Python used to say. And we used to say that a lot. I mean, it goes to the the, kind of the root of your day to day life as a scientist at the bench is that you've got lots of technical you know, you need to build lots of technical knowhow and ability. You need to know how to use various pieces of equipment and use them well. And, and that those pieces of equipment and the reagents that go into them and the concepts behind them are increasingly build increasingly on increasingly complex ideas and inventions.

Nick Oswald (05:18):
And so that you have so much power, you have generations of, of deductive power if you like, at your fingertips, in a lot of those machines, or not so much the machines, but, you know, in some cases, machines, but on other pieces cases, piece of equipment that's an exciting thing you get to wield that, you know even doing you know, running an SDS-PAGE gel gen a relatively simple you know, technique. That wouldn't have been possible unless you had you, you without the generations of chemists and, and who before, you know, in the early days of molecular biology and so on, they figured out how to do that and package it in such a way that you can just run it off you know, multiple gels a day, it doesn't take you, you know, weeks to set the whole thing up and you know, figure it out and everything like that, that sort of thing standing on the shoulders of giants is what kind of excited me in that regard. But then you have the technical co the technical challenge of getting to grips with it, being able to do it well, being able to produce reliable you know, use them reliably and, and well, and then teach other people which is also for me a great part of it is, is being able to spread that know how

Kenneth Vogt (06:41):
Well, I think you're, you're making a really good point that, you know, you gotta invest in these, these advantages, you know, you gotta put your time into it, you gotta gain some skills. You gotta bother to learn how to use certain things or to learn about the availability of things so that you can love it. You know, I never even heard of reagents or, or assays before Bitesize Bio. When I did hear about them, I was like, holy cow, I had no idea that what could be out there. Then I learned about some things like pipettes that I thought, okay, I can't believe there are companies that, I mean, there are multiple companies that, that are, you know, making millions and millions of dollars because these things, while so small are so important. And so, you know, they're so useful across the board. So, you know, you've got that available to you.

Kenneth Vogt (07:36):
You don't have to reinvent that wheel. You know, fire's already been invented, it's done and you get to use it. So in adding on top of that structure, and, and this kind of ties into what you were just saying, Nick, there are things to learn about it. Well, where do you learn about things? Well, you learn about things from people. And so the fact is you have other people you could draw and, you know, you may have, you know, a PI that that can, that is really helping you. And you may have, you may have a lab manager, that's, that's just been there, done that you, you may have just to have colleagues that are willing to share their experience. And that again is extremely helpful and, and that can make your, your job so much more enjoyable that you have people to work with that are teaching you things that are, that are willing to help you with things. And well, hopefully you're doing the same thing for others because there's a, there's a saying there's more joy in giving than in receiving. So, you know, you can be part of that, that personnel structure that is making lab such a good place to work.

Nick Oswald (08:42):
Yeah. I mean the bottom line is that in, in virtually all scientific sort of settings or scientific research settings, you're working in a group or in a, if in a wider, in a community, even depending on what the setup is, where everyone can learn something from each other. Because you know, there are a lot of techniques to go around. There are a lot of things to, to learn and and helping each other is, is the, the fastest way to, to propagate that and, and doing it on a quid pro quo basis. So you are helping each other is, is a, is quite an unusual situation to be in because you know, in, in the world, in terms of, you know jobs that you could be doing, you know, is that it's literally learning, literally learning all the time is, is that's your job learning how the, you know, how, whatever it is you're studying works or whatever the, you know, your objective is learning how to in add more and more kind of bringing new techniques, get them to work better.

Nick Oswald (10:00):
What's happening in other areas in the field, you know, what are other people's research showing and so on you, you can, you can help each other. You can help people you every day. And that is really binding, you know you can, can be a really binding experience and make it really worthwhile depending on how you look at it. You can go in and be hung up on the fact, the experiments that aren't working, the people who are annoying you that you don't click with or whatever. The fact that you feel isolated in your, in your lab, because you don't have, you know, your direct the people directly closest to you, aren't, you know, your in your lab, aren't supporting you, but you can always go wider. You know, you can go wider and go into other labs and support and get get support. You can go on internet and get support

Nick Oswald (10:53):
Can and get support that that's, that's why Bitesize Bio is there to provide a layer of that. But that is for me is one of the special things about science is, is not, is that you're, it's people who have, you know, they're in there for different reasons, but they're all pushing for the same goal. And that goal is quite, is quite a, is a big, well understanding the world and the universe. That is kinda the biggest goal. There is really. And you know, we, it's a specific angle on understanding the, the universe, but everybody's pushing for that. And, you know, that's quite a, quite a place to be if you look at it like that, and sometimes stopping and looking at that wider picture helps the, you know, the gripes that you have about individuals to melt away a little bit, when you get, you take that wider perspective.

Kenneth Vogt (11:46):
Right? So you know what we've been talking here about, about the advantages of the mindset in the lab that are, that make, make it a good experience. So lemme, let me just put a few put a few bumpers around that areas where you can see it. For instance, it's great to have management now. And at some point, some people are like, man, I hate having a boss. Tell me what to do really, do you really hate, or isn't it good that there's somebody that's taking on that responsibility and covering that stuff. And they're going to those meetings you don't have to go to, and they're worrying about the funding and they're, you know, they're worrying about stuff. So you don't have to worry about it. Now it's not to say that you couldn't do that. You could, you know, you may be well qualified to do that, but it would take you away from the parts that you really wanna do. So having that management structure there is very useful. You know, Nick, you've talked quite a bit about the, the opportunity for collegiality in the lab. And I think you know, of course there's, there are people that are competitive, that that's true in any, in any field, but the collegiality of science is, is renowned and it stands out compared to many other fields. And so you're very fortunate to have that collegiality in this business that you may not have if you were in a different business.

Kenneth Vogt (13:13):
Another thing that's useful as you you've talked about is the, the of things like objectives and, and procedures and methods. The fact that it's already been done, that it's been written down that there's, there's a structure there that you can draw on. You don't have to reinvent that wheel. You know, there's a safe way to do X there's a clean way to do Y. It's already been figured out, you know, everyone else

Nick Oswald (13:38):
Already did the mouth pipetting so you don't have to do it.

Kenneth Vogt (13:43):
You know, I, I had a, I don't, I don't have any experience in the lab with that. However, I used to work with somebody who was a chemist and he talked about experience three. He had where he was, this was when he was in, still in university. He was mouth pipetting something. And it was some kind of some kind of bacteria. Now it was a bacteria that wouldn't necessarily hurt you, except he pretty much ingested a, you know a, a thousand times what any human would normally encounter. And, you know, he took it into his mouth. So he, he literally grabbed some, some, some nearby acid and put it in his mouth and burned his mouth. You know, I was like, like, holy cow. And you're, you know, he said, but I didn't know what would happen. You know, he said, but you didn't know what happened with the acid either, you know, and yeah. And, you know, it was fortunate. It was I guess it was a lung born back, you know, a bacteria that might affect your lungs. And he took it into his mouth, but he didn't apparently didn't breathe enough of it in that it even got him sick. So, but he did have to deal with having burned his own mouth.

Nick Oswald (14:58):
Well, now that now health and safety would not allow you to even get into anywhere near that situation. So there's, there's a good reason for

Kenneth Vogt (15:06):
This is this guy looking back, he's the kind of guy who would've broke the health and safety rules to do the kind of garbage that would've got him into this fix.

Nick Oswald (15:15):
Yeah. But you would, you would, you wouldn't, if you tried to mouth pipette bacteria in the lab about 10 people would jump on you and and stop you now and where it was. Well, that's the culture, the culture, it's not just the, it's not just the health and safety it's the culture has changed. Oh yeah. And yeah, so that's my experience of it anyway, is that people,

Kenneth Vogt (15:37):
Well, that's good to hear.

Nick Oswald (15:39):
So

Kenneth Vogt (15:40):
It's hard to, it's hard to imagine how dangerous a lab could be. If, if there wasn't this kind of protocol in place, you know,

Nick Oswald (15:46):
There are certainly a million ways to kill yourself or someone else in a lab, it has to be said, or permanently damaged. There you go. Ubut anyway,

Kenneth Vogt (15:55):
Yeah, there's, there's, there's one other thing about mindset. I wanted to comment on too, that you have, even with all the restrictions of procedures and methods and protocols and 10 people that will jump you for doing the wrong thing, you have a freedom in the lab that is, which is not common in many other fields. You have to, you know, if you're in engineering, you're not allowed to think outside of the box hardly. I mean, you you're really swimming upstream if you try to do that. Whereas in science, you're encouraged to think outside of the box, you're, you're applauded for thinking outside of the box, not saying that doesn't come with some some danger as it were you know, you, it is riskier, but at least you get the option. You have, you have the option to be free.

Nick Oswald (16:48):
Yeah. I mean, literally your job as a scientist is to creatively ask questions about biology in this case, a, an aspect of biology and these, you know, these procedures and machines and equipment and reagents are tools that you use. And there's, as you said, Ken, there's codified ways to, to use them that help you to get better results with less risk to yourself or, or others. But the bottom line is that, is that your job is to solve problems, answer questions. And, and especially as a young, you know, when you start off, depending on the lab, you're in, it can feel quite restrictive because you're told what questions to ask and how to ask them. But as you go up the, you know, as you earn the right to do so you increasingly get more and more freedom to do that.

Nick Oswald (17:40):
But even, even as you know, first, you know, first day in the lab, you have more freedom over to exercise to express yourself than you do. You know, I, I went from stacking cans on a shelf. There's not much freedom in that because you told what to do and when to do it and, and, and what has to be done. And then you go next day, I have a problem to solve, and I'm told basically how to do it. And and then I get on with it and start learning. You know, that's a much, that's a big jump in freedom. And it's important to appreciate that.

Kenneth Vogt (18:17):
And the one thing that's, that's come to mind for me lately, cuz there's been so much questioning of science and I think, well, science is about questioning, but that's just half of the equation. You question. So as to get answers, the answers are, are the important part and you're the ones who get to come up with the answers. It's pretty cool.

Nick Oswald (18:40):
It's, it's certainly a, yeah, that's a whole other episode,

Kenneth Vogt (18:47):
But yeah, yeah,

Nick Oswald (18:47):
It is. But, but bottom line is that is that you in a, you know, you're, you're inside a, you're doing this, you know, you're operating with freedom, but inside a structure that has been created for you over decades that mean that you're, that you can, you know, that things can move faster than they ever have, you know? Yeah, again, just look at, look at where the tools were to answer these questions 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, and, and see how how, you know, how advanced, how advanced your, your, how advanced your, your, the, the tools that your fingertips actually are.

Kenneth Vogt (19:31):
Yeah, well, that, that segue ways into the next thing I wanted to talk about. That is the history of all this. And so it's the history of your lab, the history of the, maybe the the institution, your lab is associated with the, the other associations you have that, that, that, you know, your lab may be linked to other labs. Those associations go back, maybe go back for, for decades or even longer. And, and there's a lot of depth there, and there's a lot to draw on there. A lots of, a lot of foundation that you can build on. Another thing it's almost a dirty topic for some people, but the funding, you know, it's that matters to, to quote the old song. But the fact is a lot of funding has been put toward science. I mean, literally hundreds of millions of dollars. And without that, you, you wouldn't have been able to do the things you've done and the, you know, the things you've built on it wouldn't

Nick Oswald (20:34):
That's interesting because the, I mean, the whole, as a, as a rebellious 20, 30 year old the my, I kind of, I don't bristled against that, that, you know, the, the whole funding aspect and the, and all the structures and all the, you know, all the, you know, as you've written, the, the legacy that associations and so on the history that's there, but actually looking at it, you need money to do this work, right? These questions need to be answered, or it's in our, all of our benefits to answer these questions. It's science is an imperfect tool, but it's the best we've got the org, the way that's science is organized you know, to date is the best that we've got. You know, you can criticize say where it's good and where it's bad, you know, where it works, where it doesn't, but it's the best we've got, you need money to go in there.

Nick Oswald (21:34):
You know, to flow in there to make that research happen, to, to make, you know, to, to fund it. That's the best system we have. So the money's got to go in there and the management and the associations and all that are, are what help to make sure that the money goes to the best possible flows in the best possible way for the outcomes we want using the, the imperfect systems and tools that we have at the moment. So you know, it's, again, I'm talking to my, my younger self as you often do end up doing with these things, but it's just, it's, it's all there for a reason. And, you know, just because you can pick holes in, in the methodology or the, you know, or the structure of the setup doesn't mean that, that there's a better way to do it.

Kenneth Vogt (22:20):
Right. And, you know, some, some of the funding is driven by call it capitalistic outlooks, which is often focused, done. What have you done for me lately? You know, what have you produced this quarter? You know, it's pretty short term thinking, but it's, but it's short term thinking at the end of the line, it's like, how do we now create something practical that can get into the marketplace, but there is plenty of funding happening for basic research for things that are not looking for a direct product at this moment that, that are foundational and be built on. And that is not true in a much of the rest of the world when it comes to where money gets spent. It's we don't usually spend money on things outside of science that don't have direct line between investment and return on investment. Whereas in science, it is not only acceptable.

Kenneth Vogt (23:18):
It's, it's considered to be a necessity that there has to be at least some of the research being funded. That is that kind of basic research. And those of you who are involved in that kind of research, God bless you, you're doing you're, you're doing amazing things that we don't even know what's gonna come from it. But we do know that when you do it, the next person along can look at that and go, I can build on that. And I mean, it's happened over and over and over again. So, you know, I, I think about easy example in my mind is CRISPR. The basic research that happened before CRISPR became possible. We didn't even know what, why would you wanna know that? Why would you wanna map the human genome? Why would we bother with that? You know, well, guess what, now we know why we bothered with it.

Nick Oswald (24:09):
Well, all, all the, all of the I mean, geez, if you take it back, the, the, the research that was required to allow CRISPR to happen, it, it just goes back to extremely basic research, you know, very basics of you know the, the molecular biology of a cell, you know, for example, and, and the chemical technique, chemistry technique, chemical techniques that were you know, invented to, to explore that molecular molecular biology, it's, it goes way back, cuz you tend to think of where the CRISPR, the stuff that enabled CRISPR, the research that enabled CRISPR is the, you know, the, the, the stage before it was invented, but it's not, it goes way, way, way, way, way back. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, and it's important. It's just an, it's maybe an obvious thing, but it's, it's an important distinction to highlight to yourself.

Nick Oswald (25:03):
I think, you know, regardless of what you're doing it, it still, it's just patiently adding to the building blocks that we know, and then we see what happens, but I still don't think that it is easy to decry that capitalist funded research as well. That's also, I, I think it's, I think it's a common thing that, that that's decried. And I think that, again, it's an imperfect system, but it's the best that we have to make certain things happen. So yeah, I think it's all good. That's, that's the and it's all, it's all the best that we, the best approach that we we know of to do this stuff. So,

Kenneth Vogt (25:41):
So in, in the show notes Nick, you commented on where I mentioned associations and, and legacy, but I mean them as two different things, associations, I meant more as like your labs being associated with another lab or perhaps associated with a hospital or, or with a cancer research Institute or something like that. You know, those, that, that's what I meant by associations with legacy. I mean, your lab, your lab itself may have a legacy. Your lab may be the place that first developed X, you know, you might have been in the, the lab, the first developed CRISPR, I don't know, but you know, that legacy is very valuable, you know, it's very,

Nick Oswald (26:24):
What, what about if you were the person who taught the you know, the, one of the people that made the key breakthrough in CRISPR? What if you were the person who taught that person how to pipette,

Kenneth Vogt (26:36):
Right.

Nick Oswald (26:37):
You know what I mean? It it's all, you know, the, it's easy to focus on the one, the people who are at the top of the pile there, but there's so many people underneath them that, that are equally as I seem to be in kind of a, some sort of I don't know, I don't know what the word is. Some kind of love and peace mode at the moment, right?

Kenneth Vogt (27:03):
Some people, you know, they, they want attention. They, they want their name associated with something other people. They really don't care about that. That's, that's not the part that's valuable to them. They're, they're glad they got to participate in it. But if nobody knows they participated, they're still satisfied about it. And in some ways that's a lot easier. If, if I have to be known for my association with CRISPR, that's a much higher bar than just having the self-satisfaction to know that I was part of what made it possible, by the way, I'm not applying this to me personally, right now, I had nothing to do with CRISPR.

Nick Oswald (27:38):
Definitely not.

Kenneth Vogt (27:42):
So, and so now, then, so history's the past, but now let's talk about the future there because of the lab that you're associated with, there are all kinds of possibilities, all kinds of opportunities that are, that are available to you and maybe they're available right now. There are things you can do. There are maybe new assignments or new roles that you could take on, or maybe they're maybe they're years down the road, but they're, they're gonna be there because you're already associated with that lab. And you're putting in your time now, and once you've done that, well, then the next phase will open up for you. You know? So there there's so much, so much future that comes out of the lab that you're associated with. And it doesn't matter if your lab is world renowned for something, or if it's just toiling there in the darkness, cuz you know, there's still output and that output gets fed into the rest of the system.

Kenneth Vogt (28:44):
And you know, again, just again, it comes down to what do you wanna be a part of? Maybe you like being in the background maybe you wanna be in the forefront. Well, you, you can choose accordingly and you can assess where you're at right now, what, what your lab is like for that. But if it's, if it's hitting on, on the things that matter to you, awesome. Make sure you take note of that, have some gratitude and appreciation for what's available to you. What's in front of you, what you're able to, to build on top of, and you're gonna be a lot happier and we want you to be happy as a scientist. So that's basically my wrap up for today.

Nick Oswald (29:25):
Well, I would just say in closing that one of the thi the things that we, the ways that we've approached this today is taking different views. It's really easy to get. You know, you know, you're, you're working in the lab everyday. You, you, you walk the same route to work or drive the same route to work you get in it's the routine. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is is the really zoomed out view of what, you know, your tiny part in this huge endeavor, you know, and then everything in between and, and those different views help you to, it's helpful for me anyway, to it's helpful to, to look at it from all these different directions to see what there is to be, you know, excited to be part of. And you know, what, what the benefits to you part, part of that are as well. And that, that just helps to float all boats for me, that kind of approach.

Kenneth Vogt (30:27):
Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm grateful and appreciative that I get to help a bunch of scientists do things that I can't do. It's amazing

Nick Oswald (30:36):
Me too. Cause I can't do those things

Kenneth Vogt (30:41):
Well there we have it.

Nick Oswald (30:42):
So. Okay. Thank you. Very much for listening in and again, that's a good episode. Thanks for dropping that on me, Ken. That was interesting. Yeah.

Kenneth Vogt (30:51):
Thank you. You stepped right up too. Well done, Nick.

Nick Oswald (30:54):
Thank you. All right. Before we go, a reminder to look at bitesizebio.com/thehappyscientist for all of our other episodes, we're on, this is number 49, I think. So there's lots of stuff in there to look at. If you're, if you're, you're just joining this podcast, especially, and, and you, you enjoyed it. You think it might be useful. If that is you, then we would encourage you to go back to episodes one to nine to talk to look at those podcasts that talk about foundational principles like human needs, core mindsets and charisma factors, which are quite useful to us to have in your in your, in your toolbox for, you know, increasing your enjoyment of life as a scientist in your effect effectiveness. And the other last piece of housekeeping is to if you enjoy the podcast, head over to facebook.com/thehappyscientistclub and join us there and that you can connect with us and let us know how, what, what your was and what you're grateful for and, and all that stuff. And we'll see you in there. So again, thank you Ken, for a great episode,

Kenneth Vogt (32:11):
You

Nick Oswald (32:12):
And we'll see you all again, next time.

Kenneth Vogt (32:15):
Bye. Now

Intro/Outro (32:21):
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