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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.

Hello. This is not Nick Oswald welcoming you to this Bite Size Bio webinar with Tom Warwick, content creator here at Bite Size Bio. Today, we have a live episode of the Happy Scientist podcast. If you want to become a happier, healthier, and more productive scientist, you're in the right place. With me, as always, is the Bite Size Bio team's mister Miyagi, mister Kenneth Vogt.

In these sessions, we hear from Ken mostly on principles that 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 and working with Ken. If you have any questions along the way, please put them into the questions box on the side of your screen, and I'll put them to Ken. Today, we will be discussing what gets you up in the morning to do science, why knowing the reason matters. So, Ken, over to you.

Right.

Well, hey, Tom. Good to good to have you on the call with us again.

Yeah. I know. It's good to be it's good to be back. They're always fun. They're always lively.

Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about this question. What gets you up in the morning to do science? This is not a question for me.

Most of the most of the time, the the question that's the the header for this, I'm gonna answer for you. But this is a question you have to answer for me, and I'm not saying this to Tom. I'm saying this to you, the you, the listeners. Why do you get up in the morning? What are you doing this for?

What happened? How'd you get here? There's there's plenty of people that didn't choose to do this, but you did, and you're doing it. So what the answer to that question is gonna come from is getting some clarity on your own motivations. Where where did it come from for you?

And it's gonna be a different answer for different people, and some of you may think some of these answers don't look like they're, the best of intentions, but, you know, they are what they are. Others will think, well, they have a very high and mighty, reason for doing what they do, and and they might think others aren't as pure about it as they are. But you know what? We're solving multiple problems in any given moment. So don't don't be too hard on yourself if your answer to this isn't perfection.

You may have an answer that's perfectly fine, and the measure will be, does it keep you in the game? Does it does it keep you moving forward? Does it keep you engaged? And perhaps your motives get more and more pure over time.

It's interesting, Ken, because I thought you were gonna spin that question back around at me like you've done before. So I I I was thinking about this before, before coming on to, you know, the the podcast. So I think about what gets me up in the morning, take the science out of it. You know, ask the broader question first. And, well, practically speaking, people people rely on me.

Right? Colleagues and my skills and experience. Friends and family rely me for, you know, support. And both of those are reciprocal. You know, I'm grateful for my friends, my partner, and my family that, you know, they get up in the morning too because I need them and Ditto for my colleagues.

And I guess you can take from that we're all part of something a little bit bigger than ourselves. I know it sounds cheesy. And for better or for worse, you know, sometimes it can be a headache being embroiled with other people.

So I

think the idea of being involved with something bigger than yourself, enables us to do what I think most people, especially scientists, would include among their reasons for getting up in the morning. Mhmm. And that is to make, a positive contribute contribution to society.

Sure.

None of us can do that alone, I don't think. But in science, this obviously sits side by side with the idea that our net contributions are perhaps very small. Mhmm. In science, in particular, this can be painful because we rub alongside quite closely with people who can make quite big contributions in our field. And you don't get this in other sectors and other walks of life.

For example, my friends aren't, like, great philanthropists or technical innovators or political animals, who who affect massive change. But in science, in particular, it's not uncommon, so I have extremely element colleagues of colleagues, sorry, and and colleagues of colleagues

Mhmm.

And, you know, in whose shadow we perceive to sit. But to bring it back to the why, I think that's missing the point. I think the point is you can do whatever you want to make that that net positive contribution if that's your, you know, that motivation for getting up and and doing science.

Yeah. Well, let me let I'm gonna go to the next slide because I wanna take this apart a bit. And and I still wanna ask you the question, not just what gets you up in the morning, but what's he gets you up to do science, you personally? Because you're still engaged in science, but we'll come back to that.

Sure. Okay. I thought my answer would save you because it was nice and broad, but fair enough. So

the question you can ask yourself anyone can ask themselves, am I clear about this? Do I know why I'm doing what I'm doing? Why? Why are you engaged in science? And this is the rhetorical question to the audience.

So here's a couple of things that may help you with this. Clarity is where it stops being, you know, vague. It's like I I have got a crystal clear picture of why I'm doing what I'm doing. What's the advantage of clarity? Well, first off, it helps you meet challenges because the fact is, when you start getting into some things, it starts getting hard.

In some cases, it may start to get murky. At least the data is murky, but that doesn't mean you're murky. You still know what you're about. You still know what you're after. That kind of clarity will help you keep going through those things.

What about setbacks? Well, if you have setbacks, clarity, again, helps you overcome that because, again, you've got a notion of where I'm headed with this. I know why I'm doing it. I know what the outcome is I'm looking for. In the broad, long term picture of of having clarity on why you're doing sciences, it's gonna it will guide your career.

You know, it's gonna it's gonna help you with your professional growth. It's gonna point out to you areas that are weak, where you need to get support, or you need to get perhaps more training, or you need to get more skilled, or you need to make better connections. Clarity will make all the difference for all of that stuff. So clarity is kind of a hot button issue for me personally. I really, really like to come looping back to that in anything we're talking about.

I wanna be clear in what I'm talking about, and I want you to be clear what I've been talking about. You don't always have to agree with me, but I want you to I want you to understand my point, and you can understand and go, yeah. I don't buy that. You know, fine. Go there, but at least do it from a point of clarity instead of, it doesn't feel good.

I didn't like that answer. You know? No. Let's let's have some clarity on what's going on with this because, you know, doing science specifically, it's hard. You I don't I don't care what kind of scientist you are.

It is not an easy job. Now that may be, for a lot of you, the part of the appeal. You don't want to be working at the toll booth. You know? You you do wanna engage your brain.

Yeah. So that's it's part of the upside, but, having this clarity, you you can you can say for yourself, well, which kind of clarity is most important to me? Do I need to be worried about my my career? Do I need to be focused on on challenges and and and getting things done effectively? Do I need to be able to get over problems when they arise?

You know, you'll know for yourself. That's not to say you may not have all of these things going on. And it's great because clarity is one of those beautiful one size fits all tools. If you can be clear about many things, everything else gets clear, and it and it becomes obvious to others too. You become somebody that others will rely on and can go to for advice and mentorship.

And in your field, we need people like that because not just anybody can do that. I cannot mentor you at the bench. I personally, I'm not a scientist. I can't do it. I just don't I wouldn't know what to tell you.

So having somebody like you out there that can do that for other people, I mean, it's tremendously valuable.

So I'll give you a

a moment to, to chime in there and opine if you'd like, Tom.

Yeah. Well, I figured I figured, you know, you'd asked me about science in particular. Mhmm. And it's easy for me to think I don't do science any, you know, anymore now, but that's not it's simply not true. This job is it's science adjacent.

I work with scientists every day, and I still analyze data in a scientific way, which brings me towards alternative careers for scientists, which I don't want to go into at this stage. So back to why do I have to do science and why did I choose to do science for a degree, for example. For a long time, it was, I I don't know. I wasn't clear on it. Just like the abstract, of the episode, you know, the importance of knowing why it can be extremely helpful to stay happy in your in in in your chosen career path, but I just wasn't.

So during my graduate studies that I don't know gradually morphed into, you know, I like doing research, and it kinda went back and forth back and forth between those two vague viewpoints. And I think it's extremely normal for us to be ambivalent about why we do science. I think a lot of the audience will relate to that. But you just mentioned clarity. Towards the end of my graduate studies, I began to think about what sort of job I wanted, what I could see myself doing.

And that obviously involves a bit of self reflection. Mhmm. And I came to the realization personally that I'm doing science now because I was good at passing exams,

you

know, and good with numbers. I've been on the course to this point, you know, doing science for quite some time. So taking honest honest assessment of how things were at the time, not many of my colleagues were my friends throughout the PhD in uni. That's not sad in our friends. But for some reason, there there was something within me that felt like I needed to keep, the other scientists around me

Mhmm.

Distance. And I think that's because by the end of the day, I just had enough of science and scientists and the stuff they talk about. I cared enough to do my research and do a good job at it, but it never felt much more like a job, whether whether I was studying or actually in a in a science job. Incidentally, I think the emotional detachment can make you a better researcher, but that's prone to being mistaken for not caring. But, you know, okay.

So I cared a bit less about the work I was doing than my peers. I didn't undermine what I was doing, but it made me think about my longevity, in academia, how far up the academic ladder could I realistically get.

Right.

Now being a good problem solver and good with numbers, that makes me a great bench researcher. You know, I was good at it, and I still would be good if I was back in the lab. But could I be a bench researcher forever? Well, you certainly can do. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I know people have.

Practically, I think in the end, you become a very experienced but, you know, expensive to employ postdoc. But I think I'd enjoy a career at the bench scientist if I found an interesting project, and b, I could have a permanent work contract. Now academia couldn't offer me that, so I don't think I was ever gonna be happy, you know, climbing that academic career path. Mhmm. So instantly, no.

One of my reasons for doing science ruled out some stuff that probably made me unhappy in the long run despite the fact that I'm intellectually, you know, cut out for it.

Mhmm.

So what came next? Well, one thing that dissatisfied me was the pressure of doing research. So when the opportunities came up, I applied and got a a a lab tech job, where I could still problem solve and help people out and still mentor people. I still contribute just, you know, to research, but just not in a not in a spearhead capacity. And I loved it.

You know? And if this job at my side's by, I hadn't come up. I'd still be doing that now. And the inspiration to do that came from some serious reflection on what I wasn't enjoying about a career path in academia and trying to see what my future looked like within it. Was it self limiting?

Yeah. Well, what you're describing here is someone who sought clarity, found it, then used that to make some choices about, well,

where do

I go from here, which which segues in well to what I wanted to talk about next. So a lot of people, when they get to this juncture, they realize they don't have clarity, and I just don't even know how to get it if I I don't know what I'm doing here. Why did I how did I end up in this place? And for different people, it's gonna be different reasons. For some people, it'll be immediately clear to them.

I'm here because I'm passionate about this. I love biology. I love living things. I, you know, I love keeping things alive. You know, that part stands out for them.

Now if you have that, awesome, but that's not always what it is. For some people, it's a step back from that.

You know,

the the nuts and bolts of biology is interesting, but what they really wanna do is see an application of that. They wanna make an impact in the world. They wanna change something. They wanna fix something big. You know, they wanna cure cancer.

They I mean, that's like that's a meme for solving a big problem in the world, right? Well, in in the world of biology, it's it's actually real. People actually do that, and maybe you're one of those people or maybe it's something else and maybe maybe it's not that something that giantly broad, but it still has it will make a big impact. You may help with something that will solve, you know, thousands of pea problems for thousands of people, and maybe it keeps them alive. Maybe it just makes their life more pleasant.

And I say just as if that isn't a big accomplishment. That that kind of impact matters to a lot of people, and maybe that's one of the reasons why you're doing science. Now for others, it could be something as simple as, you know, it's a paycheck and it's a good paycheck, so, you know, and I'm taking care of my family. There is nothing wrong with that as a motivation. It's just not gonna it's probably not gonna win you a Nobel Prize, but

Yeah. Yeah.

You can show up for work every day, do your job, and get the paycheck, and that's that is a fine trade off.

What what what you mentioned there, Ken, they kinda sound like, you know, the the the 2 extremes, but there's a lot in the middle ground. So

Oh, yeah.

For example, I could never work in retail because I'm just not a people's person. I'm not a I'm not a misanthrope, but, you know, I'd I'd fumble if I was, you know, at checkout, talk to people all day. So, for example, a sort of covert benefit that a science job can bring is, you know, you you are quite independent. You know, you're left largely to your own devices. Okay.

You have you have lab meetings, and, you know, you have a supervisor, but your job is is not public facing. And that's something I relished, you know, in in academia even though there are broader, you know, reasons why I didn't like it. And I I think what being wise to those sort of covert benefits at least help you cope with setbacks whether or not they're enough to make you stay long term or they impact your career choices, I don't know. That's a deeply, that's a deeply personal thing.

Well, if you have if you get clear on which of these things really are good are positive triggers for you, if it really, really matters to you that you're gonna make an impact in the world and you have a job where you're going in every day, doing your job, working with decent people, you got good equipment, but it doesn't give you that fulfillment of having an impact, that's going to be a problem for you. If you're somebody that what you want is a good environment to work in, and I don't care if I'm solving a very small, very narrow problem that nobody else ever hears about, If that matters to you, great. Go for that. If it's I I just have to be working with zebrafish. I'm I'm just all about that.

Yeah. Okay. Great. You know? And and maybe that looks a little odd to somebody from the outside, but who cares?

You know? If that's what's driving you, great. And if it's like, I'm here because this is a stable lab, it's got great management, it's got good programs for mentorship, You know, it's building a solid career for me. Awesome. That that's completely fine.

Impact is an interesting one as well. That's something I personally went back and forwards on. So, you know, when I finished my master's, started my PhD, got my first postdoc, I relished the idea that I was doing pure research, you know, contributing to the body of knowledge or however you wanna however you wanna slice it up. Mhmm. But then I started thinking, you know, how much of this research is is is translational?

Is it is it, you know, is it really making that much of a difference? I'm happy just putting it out there, that research, to be access accessible by anyone who wishes to.

Or Yeah. It's true. If you don't get a feedback on it, maybe you don't feel the impact.

That that that's right. So then I was thinking, well, would I be happier, you know, working at a a clinical research organization, for example, or, you know, in industrial science, which seemed to me to be perhaps more efficient and more translational. And I I I've I've never tried it. I've only imagined, you know, imagined being in one book. I think you would sacrifice the creative freedom that you have to approach research problems that you get in academia.

So while it's perhaps less efficient if you were to work for a a clinical research organization, they from from all my friends say, you know, they have a set of assays they do to screen for therapeutics, and

and you

you you carry them out, and you liaise with chemists to optimize them. And they do the synthetic chemistry. Whereas in in a a university, you know, you can, with within reason, you can bring in as many techniques and approaches as you want to solve problems. So you're both up against 2 other things there. 1 is how much are you how happy or or how comfortable are you doing, you know, commercial research versus, pro bono for once or another word, you know, whatever you do in in universities?

And then also, it butts up against creativity. So, you know, more commercial work seems to me less creative. Now it's up it's up to the individual where one draws that line.

Sure.

But it's an interesting thing to ponder. I don't I have nothing wrong with commercial work per se, and I always you know, now I see it as a more efficient engine to to to net, yeah, you know, net change in the world. But it's, of course, picking out the organizations that you're comfortable with the even the morality of, you know, because it is for profit research at the end of the day.

Yeah. Well, I mean, what you're talking about reminds me of what it was like in my career in computer science, you know, when I was younger. At the beginning, you know, I learned low level languages, you know, which would be similar to basic research, you know, assembly language, for instance, but the problem is you write an assembly code and it does very esoteric things, whereas I got much more interested in what are called applications. That is, the software that humans touch. It's the stuff that regular people use because there I saw the impact, and for me personally, that's what I needed.

Now, that was not to say that the people I knew that were assembly programmers weren't freaking brilliant, and they had to be because it was hard. You know? Right. But I was far more satisfied doing what I was doing, and, you know, and I did did not care if the super nerdy assembly programmers looked down on me for doing applications. Somebody needed to do it.

It was important work, valuable work, and it was commercially valuable, which for me, again, checked the box.

Yeah.

I wanted to make money.

That's fair enough. Right? It seems to be a bit of, it's anathema to a lot of scientists. It's a bit of an evil to want to commercialize one's ideas. Now it's it's a personal opinion.

It's not right or wrong, but I see it as it's not

right or wrong. Hilarious about that?

Go on.

No. I was gonna say I'm sorry to interrupt, but a lot of people in in spiritual communities are very anti money. They're like, wow. The the woo woo spiritualists are on the same page with the hardcore scientists. Come on, folks.

I guess it's the it's the ground between having research public available versus for profit. I'm not sure they're quite the same. But inevitably, commercial companies, you know, they'll keep the research to them selves. Now that it's not necessarily the same as it being for profit, but those two things are rarely untied in the, you know, in the in the private sector, understandably so.

Yeah. We're seeing more and more, though, of that model being broken. It used to be, you know, everything was driven by greed and control, but, like, you know, Tesla put out a bunch of their patents out into the world for free. Yeah. Really, really valuable patents out in the world for free.

In a, in a very narrow area, there's a a special, table saw, you know, that's used by woodworkers

Yeah.

Where they developed a technology that causes the blade to stop if it touches flesh, and I mean stop immediately to where instead of losing a finger, you get a scratch. They just put that technology out for free, and it was changing the whole world. I mean, there's all kinds of legislation going on to make regular table saws without this technology illegal.

You

know? And so they just said, you know what? We're gonna let our competitors use it. So Well,

it'd be interesting if if, for example, therapeutic development was much, you know, much more like that. And but even in even in academia, you know, people work in isolation. You have your competitor groups. Right? So it's still you still see the the idea of working in isolation rearing its head.

Although, I I I love the the notion of a 100 monkeys, and perhaps you've,

pretty sure. With it. Okay. Well, there

was a a group of monkeys in Japan, you know, where they would live that live near these hot springs, and these are an island, so they're isolated groups of monkeys. And a certain group of monkeys recognized that they could they could wash some of their food off in these springs. And once, you know, they they, you know, they taught each other in the group, but once they learned it, monkeys on other islands started to learn to do it, just no contact. And we've seen that happen plenty in science, where somebody comes up with, your your regal level discovery, and somebody on the other side of the world does too.

And Yeah.

Perhaps there's contact between them, but often there wasn't. You know? So it's gonna get out there one way or the other. Sooner or later, we're gonna break this model of just clutching everything to our own chest greedily and realize, you know, that it's gonna go it's gonna get out one way or the other. So what you wanna do is get in front of it.

Yeah. And at any given moment, we don't you know, you don't have to be the only one that knows how something works. You just have to be the the one who knows just a little bit better than the next guy, the one who has an application when no one else has it. There's plenty of ways to be one step ahead of this without having to to shut down the sharing of knowledge. So that kind of leads me to my next point, and that is your purpose.

You know, sometimes we look at that word and go, oh, come on. Really? I have to have a purpose about assays? Really? But, yeah, you kinda do, because a purpose gives you some guiding principles.

It helps you determine how you're gonna approach things. It helps you deal with challenges. And whether sometimes you have major challenges, you know, should I stay in this line of research at all? Should I, you know, like what you were describing earlier, Tom, in your own personal career. And then there's minor challenges, just like, man, do I need to put up with this?

Do I need to start mentoring somebody, or do I need to get them out of my lab? You know? Yeah. You know, things like that. And then, 2, there's always setbacks, and setbacks could be technical.

They could be, you know, why are these experiments failing? I don't know what we're doing wrong. Or it could be the setback is, well, your funding just got cut to to 3rd, you know, and you have to figure out a new way to solve whatever problems you're choosing to solve.

Purpose is an interesting one as well because when you think of it, one's mind tends to go straight towards something lofty, you know, some sort of more encompassing philosophy, but, you know, you execute the small tasks with purpose as well.

Oh, absolutely.

So Yeah.

I mean, not everybody is that kind of, you know, contemplate your navel kind of person. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be efficient. Now, I will argue it would be better to be optimized, but efficient is better than inefficient. And sometimes that is what people's primary focus is, and that's perfectly fine. It takes all kinds.

I was once asked in a a postdoc interview. One of the best qualities of research you could have was, and that my answer at the time was, know what you can say of your data, and what what you can't. I think that's what makes you a good scientist. Now with regards to purpose, I think that's because I'm I like to execute tasks extremely well. Maybe I'm not a perfectionist.

Maybe I am. This brings me to another point. Here in this job, I can be a perfectionist, do things well, and it's it's it's rewarded. You know? Clients are happy.

Whereas in academia, I'm not sure it was more of it was more of a delay because of the nature of the work I was doing. I didn't you know, I couldn't I couldn't labor over over everything and execute it as well as I as I wanted to do and explore all the avenues to to to get my research done because there was a time constraint on on on our research project. Yeah. This brings brings me to another point about being about being clear on your reason matters. There's a saying that you get the politicians you deserve, but I also think it's true you get the jobs you deserve.

Using myself as an example, I applied to so many post post doc jobs even though earlier I said that, you know, I didn't want didn't want to go down that career. Well, the reality is at the time, I needed the money. And, you know, I got barely any any interviews. And I think, you know, deep down, the fact that I didn't wanna go down this career path, it must have shown through or or something because, you know, the the amount of in you know, feedback I got back from writing interviews and writing, yeah, writing interviews. Sorry.

You know, follow ups was was was so much so much higher. I just think it's uncanny, and it kind of pushes you down almost a fatalistic route where, you know, I I got this job, so I'm I'm happy with it now. But I don't think that's true. You tend to get you tend to get the job you want. And if you're clear on what you want, you know, you can you can you you can target the jobs you apply for if you're at that crucial stage of your career.

Yeah. I mean, there's there's kind of a a perpendicular thing going on here. There's you can use your purpose to help you reflect on your professional success, but that's kind of in the job you already have. Purpose can also help you focus on the best career choices.

Mhmm.

So knowing that it's time to make a change is a really important thing, and purpose can help you be clear on that. And then once you know it's time to make a change, now choosing what to change to. Very important that you you make the best possible choices. So you know?

Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And just to put some numbers to that, the point you've just made and the point I made originally, you know, I must have applied to 2 dozen postdoc jobs. Now I know they're hard to get. Whereas, you know, I applied to 2 lab tech jobs.

Got the second one. I've applied to one writing job. Well, I didn't even apply to this one. You know? I just I just got it because of my my way in.

So it's interesting. You know? I mean, obviously, they got the function of time, my CV builds, and you've got how these how hard these individual jobs are are to get. But not nonetheless, I think, you know, if you're clear about the choice you want to make in your career, because you're you know why you do science or what it is you want out of your job, it makes you so much more likely to execute that interview well, prepare for it well, and and and succeed.

Sure. So, again, I wanna flip to the dark side of this and think about the notion of dispassion. Maybe you've gotten to a point where I just don't have that fire in my belly, and it's just not there, And maybe it's gone. Maybe it was there and now it's not there. Maybe it never was there.

And people worry about that because they think in the moment of I'm just a poster boy for dispassion, I must be in the wrong thing. Maybe I should just get out of this entirely. But it doesn't have to be like that. It could be that, first off, maybe it's just a phase. It's been hard lately.

You struggled with some problems that, once they're solved, won't be there anymore. Well, then you can take another look at things. Now it's not a matter of dispassion. It's a matter of I wasn't gonna get worked up about stuff that was just temporary. You know, that's one possibility of dispassion.

Yeah. No. I I agree. Sorry, Kenneth. Jump in there just to invite our audience members to ask some questions, and I do want to follow-up on your point.

So

Okay. Is there

anyone in the audience who wants to ask anything? Yeah. I'll put them to Ken, or I'll try and answer them if you've got anything. So feel free to post questions. But, yeah, just on that, Ken, I think if you're vague on your reasons why you do science or you're dispassionate, it can actually blind you to things you might not be enjoying or at the very least, you know, make you more acquiescent.

And I think that's important because a lot of the scientists I've met must and I include myself in this. We don't like change. You know, we're introverts. We're kind of a demure. You know, we're not sort of we tend to be risk averse anyway, which make is more of a barrier to, you know, affecting change in one's personal life or professional life.

So I think you have to weigh that against it as well. And, you know, like you say, it might just be a phase, but if it's not, you know, try and I don't rec rec recognize that sometimes it is good to take some risks.

Not only good. It's necessary. The fact is life has changed. It's it's how you know when you're looking at a petri dish. If it's not moving, it's probably dead.

You know? Yeah. It's gotta be changing. It's there's gotta be something happening.

Sure. Yeah. Well, I was when when I changed jobs, you know, because it was it's probably well, it wasn't easier to stay in academia in in, when it when it came to getting postdocs, but decided to go through that process of interviewing fellows and not getting them. You know, I was unemployed for for such a long time, and I wonder if I'd, you know, been aware of things earlier. Could I have gone through that phase of my life a bit more efficiently?

That's all I shoulda, woulda, coulda. You know? Here I am now, things are hunky dory, and, you know, that's kind of the the point. If you if you can realize that, you can maybe avoid these periods where you where you don't waste time because you always learn something, obviously. You know, all the experiences are valuable.

But in retrospect, I probably wouldn't have bothered applying for so many post op jobs because why? You know, I didn't didn't want them. Should've gone straight to something else.

Yeah. Well, sometimes we have to do that because we feel like we have to pay our dues. Sure. Like, I gotta go through the motions at least. I gotta act like I care.

Yeah. Well, that goes back to what I was saying earlier that I was always quite a dispassionate researcher, and that gets mistaken a lot for not, not caring, which is not true because I was Oh, no. I was really good at what I did, but it's a there's a culture of having to show that you're emotionally invested, you know, like, a 100% of the time around the clock. And it's I think it's an open secret, that culture. But, you know, going home and forget about it and getting on with your life, going, you know, going away rock climbing or whatever for the weekend and not being in the lab, you know, that that sort of forgetting about what you do help you refreshes you for the next week.

It's an obvious point when you say it, but I'm not sure how many people I met who lived it, even though I think they'd be the 1st to agree with me.

Well, it's a commitment to live that. You know? Yeah. So a lot of folks are like, I'm already over committed. You know?

I can't I can't also during the rock climbing gym. Yeah. I can't do it. That's

true. That is true. Yeah. No. It's it's, Yeah.

I've not thought about it that way.

Yeah. But there's there's one final point I wanna make about this notion of dispassion. Maybe, in your case, it is a sign that you need to do something different, that you are somehow misaligned with what you really want from life. Now don't let that scare you. Like, oh, no.

You mean I'm you mean I'm gonna quit being a biologist, and I'm gonna have to go become a waiter? No. You won't. It's not like that, I mean, unless you really wanna become a waiter, but chances are once you recognize and are willing to say, I'm misaligned. This is what I'm doing right now is not making me happy.

It's not fulfilling me. It's not satisfying me. It's not taking me forward. Well, then you can start asking questions, well, it would. What might solve this?

And it could be sometimes as simple as, I just need to work in a different lab. I need a different role in the lab. I actually wanna go back to to university. I wanna I wanna work on another postdoc. Whatever.

It can then shine a light on what's possible. So dispassion isn't necessarily a sign that something is wrong, but it can often be a sign that it's time to do something different. And fine. And, you know, who knows what'll happen? Who knows what new opportunities will wander across your field of vision because now your eyes are open?

And if we feel trapped in something, that's never a good feeling. But if you feel like you have possibilities, then who knows? Who knows what will happen next?

So Sorry, Ken. I would add to that. You know? Mhmm. Spend time reflecting on what makes you had or, sorry, sad or happy or motivated or burnt out at work.

You know? Mhmm. It's a reflection exercise. And I try to think about the other skills you have that would be need to be integrated with your science skill set in in your ideal job and then imagine yourself in it. So, for example, what what blew me out out about working in academia that maybe not want to get up and do science was institutes were too institutional.

You know, I like science. I like empirical work, but I couldn't work with solely other scientists all, you know, all day every day because it was I found it undermining my other my my other interests. Whereas this job, for example, is it I'm working as a lab tech. Was it like that? You know?

I got to work with and do get to work with people with different skill sets. I work with podcast producers, for example. Mhmm. Or the CEO of a company who's no longer a scientist. You know?

But then I just got different experiences that personally enrich me. But, you know, some people, they love science to the point where they, you know, they're happy being completely immersed in it. And, you know Yeah. That's probably a good sign that the academic route is is good is good for you.

Absolutely. And we need people like that. If you're one of those people, keep going. You're doing great.

I know. I was aware I don't bring enough balance to these discussions because I you know, we ought to have somewhat we ought to have an academic in as well, you know, for a balance of a balance of opinions. It's not it's not it's not, you know, purely negative. I'm just giving my personal experiences. It's not it's not a better or worse thing.

It's it's about what motivates you.

Yeah. Well, I I tend to present a contrarian view on purpose because, you know, a lot of the a lot of the, the audience here, they are immersed in science. They are surrounded by scientists. I'm trying to give them a voice from the wildernesses or, you know, there are some other thing ways to think about this because if all you see is people that are nose to the grindstone and, you know, just ride and die

Yeah.

You know, you may not realize there's there are other possibilities, and they don't necessarily and they often don't require you to change, I mean, to make a massive change. You don't have to get out of science. We want you to stay in science. We need people that are science adjacent also just like we need people that are engaged at the lab.

Yeah. I couldn't I couldn't agree more. It's a wholesome note wholesome note on which I think you'll you'll wrap this up.

Yeah. Alright. Well, that that wraps up what I wanted to cover today. Is there anything else we wanted to talk about, Tom?

No. I'm just looking down my notes. I think I've covered everything. There's no questions from our audience. If anybody wants to chime in, they can.

If there's anything you feel we've not covered. Now I've covered the main points I wanted to, you know, to cover. Just flip things on their head, ask, you know, what else would you be doing? What what would make you happy? And speak to people who do your idol, you know,

know gonna do it. Just, you know, what what if? What in in in a different universe, what would I do?

Exactly. And then speak to people who do do it in reality Mhmm. And say, would you, you know, would would you be happy in their shoes? That's that's a good that's a good start.

Yeah. That that's a good point. Sometimes we get fantasies about things. So wouldn't it be great if if I just did this and, you know, it's I think people that have started restaurants thought that, wouldn't it be great to just cook all day? Yeah.

Until you cook all day, you find out.

Yeah. Exactly. And if it was a choice between being a restaurant or going back to academia, I'm straight back in the labs because I could not be I could not run a restaurant. There's too much conflict in that for me. Yeah.

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