
Kenneth Vogt
Executive Coach, Vera Claritas
Appears in 61 Episodes
Work and Well-Being in Science
#61 — Join us on the latest episode of The Happy Scientist podcast for a conversation with Dr. Brandon Vaidyanathan, Associate Professor at the Catholic University of ...

Dropping Grudges Will Change Your Life. Trust Us.
#60 — Have you been wronged? Are you righteously indignant? Are you that most popular of characters today: a Victim? In this episode, we will give you the keys to set ...

The Importance Of Questioning The Status Quo
#59 — “It’s always been done that way.” Maybe that works for double-entry accounting (which hasn’t changed in a thousand years), but not in the lab. We humans may love...

The Importance Of Unlinking Your Identity From Your Work
Rene Descartes famously wrote, “I think therefore I am.” Have you cleverly upgraded that to “I science therefore I am”? It turns out that might not be the shining achi...

What You Can do to Improve Yourself and Your Science
Remember when you were a wide-eyed child and you dreamed of being the person who would invent some world-changing gizmo? You had lots of ideas back then. But now that ...

How to Become Senior Managing Editor for Bitesize Bio
this episode, we interview the Ph.D. pharmacologist and biocurator, who became Senior Managing Editor for Bitesize Bio, Dr. Adam Pawson. How did he escape the lab, and...

How to Do Labwork with Minimum Stress
Is your lab a pressure cooker? You’re not a pot roast, so such an environment is not for you. But can you do anything about it? Fortunately, yes! This episode will unp...

How to Hotwire Your To-do List for Maximum Progress
In this episode, we will offer you a simple test that will clarify the proper priority for any item on your to-do list – or reveal that it shouldn’t be on your list at...

There’s No Such Thing As a Comfort Zone
Who was that wise, compassionate, brilliant person who decided for you what is comfortable and what isn’t? Oh, they weren’t so wise, compassionate, or brilliant? And t...

What Can Science Learn from Other Disciplines?
Maybe you think there is too much to know about science without having to incorporate other fields. In fact, your own sub-sub-specialty is overwhelming enough! But thi...

The Risks of Having to Be Right
Unless we’re wrong, having to be right all the time will lead to lots of problems. (See what we did there?) In this episode, we will explore the risky nature of needin...

I Hate Math (and Organic Chemistry and Applied Physics)
Early on, you discovered you liked science class better than other classes, say composition, or history, or literature. There is nothing wrong with preferences. You ma...

Things to Love About the Lab
While it’s easy to complain about what’s lacking, it’s productive to focus on what’s going for you, what’s working for you, and what’s supporting you. Awareness of the...

Coping With The Parts of Your Job You Hate
If it wasn’t for the tasks, the people, the bureaucracy or the pressure, you would love your job. After all, no other careers have these demands… Hmm, perhaps your exp...

How to See Your Blind Spots
And the blind shall see! It’s easy to acknowledge we don’t know everything but it can be hard to admit we don’t know when things get specific. It’s even harder when we...

How to Reason With the Unreasonable
Ah, reason. It can be so comforting. But to the uninitiated it can be quite frightening. In this episode, learn how to spread your hard won reason without causing a pa...

Can There Be Freedom In Science?
Freedom has been associated with politics, philosophy, lifestyle, morality, relationships, even guns. But what about science? In this episode, we will posit the import...

Something Better Than Work—Life Balance
Ah, the elusive fantasy of work — life balance. Think about it, can you name anyone who consistently delivers on it? If you have ever experienced a magical moment that...

How to Deal with Burnout
In this episode, we will decide whether you need a break, a nap, a vacation, a new job, or a new career. You don't have to burn the candle at both ends to make a succe...

Let’s Talk About That Voice In Your Head
Do you have someone chattering at you all day long and that someone is you? If so, you're in good company. This is the common human condition. Sometimes though it feel...

Do You Listen?
If your closest friends were instructed to list your three most prominent qualities, would “good listener” be among them? If not, tune in to this episode to learn how ...

Does Humility Harm Your Career?
In this episode, which was recorded live, you'll learn how to properly wield humility—and still get credit where credit is due. How on earth will people ever know how ...

The Difference Between Efficiency and Optimization
In this episode, which was recorded live, you'll discover more about what it takes to go from being merely efficient to optimized. Have you ever been accused of being ...

What Constitutes a Happy Scientist?
In this episode, which was recorded live, you'll discover how to do more than just get paid or add another line to your CV/résumé — and how you can be a scientist and ...

Is the Lab the Only Way to Be a Scientist?
In this episode, I interview a scientist who found out the lab is not a required component, in fact sometimes not even a desirable component for a real career in scien...

How to Manage Your Boss
Life would be great...if it wasn’t for my boss. You wouldn’t be alone in thinking that. But let's face it, bosses are a necessary part of life. And they can serve many...

When and How to Delegate
The English poet John Donne famously wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” So how do you get off of your Island and start including others in your work? It m...

How to Handle Disappointment
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You had such high expectations. You had plans. And then came the crushing blow. Now what? In this episode, we deal with disappointm...

How to Foster Imagination
Many of us look back with nostalgia to a time when we used to just live in our imagination. But for so many of us, the necessities of math and hard science have made u...

When Should I Speak Up
You are educated, informed, and engaged. You are opinionated, and rightly so. And as you look around, you see that your lab, your industry, maybe the entire world is c...
