PhD Transition Report On-Demand

Skip ahead to:

0:30 – TOP TIP: The Questions You Should Ask At An Interview
9:07 – Show Me the Data
27:41 – Presenting Yourself Authentically On LinkedIn w/Petra Fisher
48:47 – Medical Writing Careers w/Evguenia Alechine, Ph.D.

Do you feel limited by your PhD background?

Does your LinkedIn profile showcase you as an industry professional?

In this episode of Cheeky Scientist Radio, we are talking about how to get into a career that’s different than your PhD background. LinkedIn expert, Petra Fisher, will discuss how to present yourself as an industry professional before becoming one. Petra gives us strategies to make the best possible first impression with your LinkedIn profile. Plus we have on Evguenia Alechine, PhD who will discuss what it’s like to work as a medical writer.

About Our Guests

Petra Fisher is called “The LinkedIn Storytelling Wizard” by her clients and peers. Petra helps international professionals and entrepreneurs, establish a LinkedIn presence that naturally attracts their dream client or employer. Executives with an outstanding track record hire her to add their personality to LinkedIn. Entrepreneurs hire her to bring their employee past in line with their current focus.

Petra lives with her teenage daughter and big-fat-red-cat. She loves to travel to Thailand. She’s either got her nose in books or the laptop, out on a long walk or stuck into some crochet. The magic word is tea.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/petrafisher/

Evguenia Alechine did her Ph.D. in Biochemistry with a focus on human genetics at the University of Buenos Aires. From there, she gained valuable experience as a freelance editor, working with Cactus Communications, MogoEdit, ClearScience, and SelfHacked. Evguenia was also an Associate Editor at The Journal of the International Academy of Science, Humanities and Arts (JOSHA Journal). Evguenia then joined SelfHacked full time as Chief Scientific Editor.

Evguenia is currently working as freelance medical writer and editor, co-editor of EMWA’s Medical Writing journal and developing her science communication consulting business.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/evgueniaalechine/

Key Takeaways

1. Add personality to your LinkedIn profile so you can be sure to find a job where you fit with the company culture.

2. Highlight transferable skills, not past job titles or responsibilities, to make your LinkedIn profile future focused. 

3. If you have a passion for talk about science more than doing lab work explore the Medical Writing career path.

Your Online Presence Is Massively Influencing Your Job Search Success

A study published in the journal of New Media & Society found that there was a correlation between a high level of this professional information (aka professional success) and the amount that someone posted on LinkedIn.

It wasn’t necessarily just being active, on LinkedIn that was valuable, it was more about what people are producing and contributing to the platform. Those people who contributed more highly were more successful in this professional information area.

The study also found that having lots of strong and weak connections on LinkedIn increased your professional success. Only on LinkedIn, and not Facebook or Twitter, were these weak connections so valuable. A lot of people overlook this and they don’t realize that the weak connections really matter on LinkedIn. In fact your best chance of getting a job is actually through a weak connection versus a strong connection.

So you connections on LinkedIn are important, but what about your profiles? Are employers actually looking at your online profiles?

A recent CareerBuilder survey of more than 100 hiring managers and recruiters, found that YES your online presence is incredibly important. Just a few of the findings from the survey are below:

• 57% of hiring managers and recruiters found content online that caused them not to hire a candidate
• 47% of hiring managers and recruiters said that if they can’t find a candidate online they are less likely to hire them
• 58% of hiring managers and recruiters are search candidates online to find information that supports their qualifications

It’s really important to be aware of what your online presence is. Once an employers has your resume, you’ve been referred, they want to hire you. They want to give you this job, and so they go online to look to make sure you have the right stuff. Make sure your profile impresses them and doesn’t send out any red flags that will land you in the reject pile. 

Presenting Yourself Authentically On LinkedIn: A Conversation With Petra Fisher

Isaiah: How can PhDs add more personality to their LinkedIn profile? 

Petra: As for your personality traits, they are very important, because if you project something you’re not you won’t be happy. If you’re a very formal person, you know, and you like being formal, you do well with a lot of formal people around you. But you’ve seen me, and you think, “Oh, that’s apparently how it goes.” And you start being really chatty and casual and all that, you’re going to be hired into a company where you’re miserable every single day, because you don’t fit in a company culture.

It is extremely important, and how you project your personality can be done in lots of ways. It’s your tone of voice, what kind of words do you use. 

If you go to my profile at the moment, I have done something that goes directly against everything I always recommend. My headline starts with, “Cranky Old Fuddy Duddy Claims To Know Shitloads About LinkedIn.” And then it has something more. But that shows personality, right? I got so many connection requests from people high up in corporate saying, “That headline just got me, and I had to read your profile.”

Think about two things. Who are you? What comes most natural to you? And what can you get away with in the company environment where you would like to work?

Once you find a balance between those two, you use that in all your writing, but you also use it in media you might want to add to your profile. If you’re going to add videos of yourself, think about it. Are they when you’re doing really formal presentations because that’s where you’re most comfortable, or do you want to add a little really casual ones. Videos where you’re making a cup of tea. You had this brainwave, and you had to record it straight away. It all shows your personality. So many different ways to add it there.

Isaiah: Now, we have a lot of PhDs who have the academic culture, the academic language displayed on their LinkedIn profile, how can they be more future facing on LinkedIn?

Petra: Yeah, great question. And this is my all-time favorite topic, because these days everywhere I go, I say, “Make sure your LinkedIn is fully future focused.”

I even have it on my t-shirt these days. See there we go. Make sure your LinkedIn is fully future focused because people tend to write about the past on LinkedIn. I did this, this, and that. And then I did that, that, and that. And that is boring. We can guess that from your job title.

What we want to look for are transferable skills, especially if you want to move out of academia into industry. If you’re getting too specific, too detailed, it will only make sense to the people you used to work with back then, not the ones where you’re going for.

You want to think of more generic skills. Think about collaboration, or big picture thinking, or offer detail on your communication skills. If you’ve done your research in a team, then you have collaboration skills, but maybe also leadership skills, all these kind of things.

But most importantly, the way you’re going to write it down, it’s always I say show me, don’t tell me. Don’t say, “I have great communication skills.” And make a typo in that sentence while you’re at it. That doesn’t tell me anything.

I want you to say by doing X, I achieved Y. So, you’re proving your skills. You’re showing how it was used. And again, do it in a way that I can understand it. If I can understand it, I don’t have a background like any of you, because I don’t come from academia, I don’t come from business, so if I can understand it, anyone can understand it.

Medical Writing Careers: A Conversation with Evguenia Alechine, Ph.D.

Isaiah: We have a lot of PhDs who are considering a different career than staying at the bench. So why did you choose medical writing?

Evguenia: Well, after my PhD, I was sure that I was passionate about science, I was passionate about discussing science, communicating science. But I didn’t want to stay at the bench and I didn’t want to stay in academia. So I left and I felt that communicating and helping others communicate their science was my thing. I was totally passionate about it, I was editing other people’s manuscripts during my PhD. And I love writing my papers and making presentations, for Congress, writing my papers, and that’s something that I really enjoyed.

I never hated the bench. When I was doing the writing and the communications part of the time, especially bringing science colloquia to the people and doing something more applied than just staying in the lab doing what was for me very small research that was not making an impact in the world. That was my way of contribution. I always wanted to make a difference in the world. And that was the way for me, communication is key. In every aspect of my life. And that was what made sense.

Isaiah: Now what did that industry transition process look like for you? We all have a story. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that story.

Evguenia: Yeah, well actually my transition, my first transition, and this was before joining scientist, was quite a failed transition. I left academia, I left my PhD, and took the first job opportunity that I could. And I stayed in that job miserably for six months. That was how long it took me to realize that I was really miserable. And I was not valued as a PhD, everything that I could bring to the table was not valued at all.

After that, I had my career crisis where I didn’t know exactly what to do, and that’s where the idea of working in scientific communications came up. And I knew about the Association, actually, I knew about the Association because I met someone who was already in the Association, Jackie Johnson. She was my mentor, and she was also in the same industry that I wanted to get into. And she gave me the best advice, to join the Cheeky Scientist Association and to join specifically a medical writer’s association. And from that moment in my life, everything started falling into place. I realized that that was what I wanted to do. And then I actually gained the skills to know how to do it and how to reach my goals.

Isaiah: So what were those skills that you had to learn? And what were some of the biggest Aha moments during your transition into this specific career track.

Evguenia: Well I would say that for sure the biggest one was learning to network and to add value. And I wasn’t doing it at all before, but once I started, now I just love networking. I love talking to people. I love when people reach out to me with questions like, “Oh, I’m so inspired by you and your job, can you tell me more.” Yes, it’s just amazing and collaborations with people. I feel like that was the main thing. And for the most technical things, like having a good resume, a good LinkedIn profile that you can actually show to people, and will not embarrass yourself. For sure. But adding value was the key point for me.

Watch the full podcast episode above to get even more insight into personalizing your LinkedIn profile, finding a job that fits you well and learning more about what it’s like to work as a Medical Writer.

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How To Enter A Field Different Than Your PhD Background (Cheeky Scientist Radio) appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Skip ahead to:

1:13 – TOP TIP: How To Turn On The Recruiter ‘Button’ On LinkedIn
8:45 – Show Me the Data
22:30 – Adding Value To Employers When You Don’t Have Value To Add w/A.J. Jacobs
40:00 – Live LinkedIn Profile Review w/Isaiah & Mary
52:38 – Stop Being Invisible On LinkedIn w/Donna Serdula

Do you know the one thing you must do after an interview?

Is your LinkedIn profile visible to recruiters?

In this episode of Cheeky Scientist Radio, we are talking about how to add value to employers even when you feel like you don’t have any value to add. A.J. Jacobs, author of the book Thanks a Thousand, discusses the incredible value a ‘thank you’ can add and how it will help you build professional relationships. Then we’re bringing on Donna Serdula, the world’s number one LinkedIn specialist to help you stop being invisible on LinkedIn and discusses some incredible new ways you can leverage LinkedIn in your job search. 

About Our Guests

A.J. Jacobs is a New York Times bestselling author, whose titles include Drop Dead Healthy, The Year of Living Biblically, My Life as an Experiment, The Know-It-All, and It’s All Relative.

Jacobs is a contributor to NPR, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Entertainment Weekly. He lives in New York City with his wife Julie and their children. Visit him at AJJacobs.com and follow him on Twitter @ajjacobs.

Donna Serdula LOVES LinkedIn. She is the author of the popular book, LinkedIn Makeover: Professional Secrets to a POWERFUL LinkedIn Profile. It was back in 2009 she decided to break free from corporate America and set out on her own path. She started Vision Board Media with the goal to help business and individuals leverage the Internet in their quest to market themselves.

Donna is the foremost expert in LinkedIn profile optimization. She founded LinkedIn-Makeover.com where she helps individuals from around the world brand themselves successfully using LinkedIn.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/todonna

Key Takeaways

1. Partake in delusional optimism about yourself, by convincing yourself that you have something of value to offer. Re-frame your job search as being part of a greater whole that will help the world.

2. Hand written notes are incredibly powerful. 

3. Keep a list of all the people who have commented on your LinkedIn posts. Then when you create content and are ready to ramp up, you have tons of people to tag in your posts. 

How Gratitude Can Make Your Life (And Job Search) Better

According to a study in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology people who practice gratitude, are more satisfied with their well-being and feel more connected to other people. In the study, the authors asked participants to complete the following action every night, they were asked, “There’s many things in our lives both large and small that we could be grateful about. Think back over your week and write down some things you are grateful for.” When the participants did that, they actually ended up feeling significantly more satisfied or happier about their lives. 

Practicing gratitude also had more concrete effects, where participants who completed the gratitude activity got more sleep and felt more well rested than those participants who did not do the gratitude practice.

Additionally, a study in Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found that people who expressed gratitude were better at coping with stressful situations in productive ways. For example, gratitude was significantly correlated with using social support as a way of coping with stress as well as with coping by re-framing the stressful situation so that is can been seen as a way to grow. On the other hand, gratitude was negatively correlated with harmful coping strategies such as self-blame and social disengagement.

As a PhD looking for a job, you are in a stressful position. Practicing gratitude can be a great way to find positive ways to cope with the stress and will allow your to get more sleep and feel more well rested.

Adding Value To Employers When You Don’t Have Value To Add: A Conversation with A.J. Jacobs

Isaiah: So why did you want to write a book on gratitude?

AJ: Well, it was partly because I had read all these studies, how important gratitude is to fighting depression, to your sleep, to eating better, all sorts of positive correlations. So I thought one way to do it would be to go to the extreme and try to thank everyone I could. Because we take so many people for granted in the little things in our life. So I chose a cup of coffee, and I said I’m gonna thank every single person who actually makes that coffee possible. And if you think about it, that’s a lot of people, that is hundreds, thousands of people. Because you don’t just have the farmer, and the barista. Oh, you have to thank them of course. Well, it’s like six degrees of gratitude. Yes, there’s the guy who drove the truck but he couldn’t have driven the truck with the coffee beans without the road, so you gotta thank the guy who built the road, the guy who painted the yellow lines on the road so the truck didn’t veer into traffic. And it just goes on and on and I loved it, because it was revelatory to realize the connections and the networks we live in.

Isaiah: AJ, what have you found from writing this book and other books that has changed your perspective in terms of going broad, in terms of the networks of gratefulness? What were some of the surprising things that came up?

AJ: Well, I am a big fan of going broad and interdisciplinary thinking, not that I’m very good at any particular discipline but I do enjoy, and I think some of the most creative ideas come out of it. And speaking of scientists, Isaac Newton, well-known scientist, his theory of gravity was partly inspired by his work with alchemy which is a total pseudoscience, and it’s crazy. But in alchemy, they talk about magical forces working at a distance. And it opened his mind to, maybe that’s something that could be what happens and that’s how we came up with gravity. So even if the other discipline is kind of hooey, I’m quite open to that.

I want to be practical as much as I can, gratitude and connections are super practical. And one study that jumped out at me that you didn’t discuss yet, I don’t think is that, it was by a Harvard researcher. That something as simple as writing a thank-you note to the person who interviewed you and being really specific with the praise and mentioning what you guys talked about in the interview, that doubled the response and it’s just one study. And I know to be skeptical, but still, it’s such a… I love it because it’s such… It suggests that this thing that our parents always told us is true, could be scientifically true. A simple act of writing a thank-you note.

Stop Being Invisible On LinkedIn: A Conversation with Donna Serdula

Isaiah: What can you tell us? What’s up to date now? What’s working on LinkedIn in terms of just getting noticed?

Donna: I gotta tell you, one time, you just needed a good-looking profile and that was it. Those were the days, my friend, but they’re long gone. You’ve got to splash around. LinkedIn is this like ginormous ocean. And if you want to get noticed, you’ve gotta splash around and what does that mean? That means you’ve got to like, you’ve gotta comment, you’ve gotta share and you’ve gotta post. You’ve gotta use LinkedIn as that social networking site. And so that’s going to be really really really important. And I always say, a lot of us get overwhelmed at the thought of being the creator of content, it’s scary. So don’t be the creator of content out of the gate, because it is hard. Instead be the curator of content, of good content.

Isaiah: I think especially as PhDs, we overthink it a bit. We’re like I have to write a peer-reviewed journal article on LinkedIn to be taken seriously, and we make it too big. But you’re just saying if I like some people’s posts, if I comment, this person’s gonna recognize somebody actually commenting on their post, actually caring, right?

Donna: Yeah, and then if you share it? Oh my goodness, you are then promoting them to your network. That’s huge. And then if you want to take that extra little bit of step, just find some interesting links to articles and post that with a little, maybe a little blurb that says why you found it interesting. Maybe find a really interesting quote and use that quote as the context. Simple things like that are great. And then, here’s the biggie now.

Alright guys, pen and paper, this is this, I’m gonna come up with some gold right now. So you start doing this, little by little, you’re gonna start seeing that people are reacting. People start to interact. Now, what most people do, is they just accept it as awesome and they don’t do anything but you guys are gonna do something different. You’re going to have, maybe it’s a notebook, maybe it’s analog like this. Or maybe it’s digital, like an Evernote Journal. And everyone who starts to comment on your posts, people who start to share, you grab their name and you put it into a list. Then once you do start to create some interesting content or when you really want to get something going, you now have a list of people that you can tag into your posts.

Isaiah: What else is fresh and new out there for LinkedIn, especially when it comes to moving from your profiles optimized to now getting attention on your profile?

Donna: So, I’ve got something I’ve never talked to you guys about before. This is exciting stuff. And it goes really well with this idea of gratitude. And that is I hope you guys haven’t already talked about this but it’s the kudos. Have you guys seen kudos?

When on LinkedIn, right up here it says share an article photo, video or idea. If you click there, do you see the little medallion icon? No one ever touches it, no one does anything with it but it’s there. We click on it and it says, who shall we send this kudos to? And you can send someone a personalized kudos showing your gratitude for what they have done. 

Watch the full podcast episode above to get even more insight into: how you can use gratitude to boost your job search success and how to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post Adding Value To Employers When You Don’t Have Value To Add (Cheeky Scientist Radio) appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Skip ahead to:
1:00 – Resume Musts For PhDs w/ Isaiah Hankel
17:50 – Choosing Yourself In Your Career w/James Altucher
36:20 – Show Me the Data
51:31 – Finding A Career You Love w/Philip Kruger Ph.D.

Are you prioritizing your own values in your job search or just following a predetermined path?

Ready to choose yourself in your career and find a position that you enjoy?

In this episode of Cheeky Scientist Radio, James Altucher, best selling author of Choose Yourself talks about the steps you can take to choose yourself in your career and find a position that you enjoy. Then Philipp Kruger, Ph.D. author of the Nature article ‘Why it is not a ‘failure’ to leave academia’ gives great insight into how PhDs can figure out what jobs are a good fit for them.

About Our Guests

James Altucher is a Top 10 Linkedin Influencer, prolific writer, successful entrepreneur, chess master, and venture capitalist. He has started and sold several companies and is actively invested in, or advises, over 30 different companies in areas ranging from tech to energy to healthcare to biotech. But more important, James has been inspiring people both in person through hundreds of events and through weekly Q&A Twitter sessions by speaking on topics including stress, fear, anxiety, money, and relationships.

His writing has appeared in most major national media outlets, The Financial Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and The Huffington Post.  His blog, The Altucher Confidential, has attracted more than 10 million readers since its launch in 2010. His podcasts, including “The James Altucher Show” have had over 50 million downloads. James is the author of eighteen books, including the motivational best seller Choose Yourself and I Was Blind but Now I See.

Philipp Kruger did his B.Sc. at the University of Tübingen, and recently finished his Ph.D. in immunology at the University of Oxford, UK.

He is the author of the Nature article ‘Why it is not a ‘failure’ to leave academia’, which is about how PhD students can prepare for different careers, and how lab heads can help.

Philipp is currently a Career Outreach Fellow at the Careers Service at the University of Oxford, where he runs career-development activities and gives presentations and workshops.

Key Takeaways

1. To successfully make a career change (ie transition from academia to industry) you need to set up a ‘pyramid’ that will help you move forward. From bottom to top that pyramid is: made of  1. eliminating toxic people from your life 2. practicing your creativity 3. learning microskills 4. finding your plus, minus, equal and 5. just doing it.  

2. Diversify your ‘tribe’ when you feel like you are slipping or losing value in your current group. 

3. Keep a perpetual pro and con list to learn what you enjoy and don’t enjoy doing so you can make an educated choice when seeking out a new career. 

How To Find A Career That Brings You Value

Inside Higher Ed reported a study about the prevalence of depression and anxiety among PhD students. They study found that 41% of PhDs in the survey experienced anxiety and 39% of PhDs experienced depression. These number are higher than what the average population experiences and highlights the negative culture that is often associated with academia.

Interestingly the study found that having a positive relationship with an advisor mediated the levels of depression, where if the PhD student ‘felt valued by the mentor’ the level of depression dropped from 56% to only 30% and the level of anxiety dropped from 55% to 34% when PhD student felt valued.

The big takeaway here is that sometimes you can’t control who your specific advisor is, but you can always find other mentors. Look somewhere else, and find a mentor that you really can look up to and that makes you feel valued. So you can find that positive relationship, rather than relying on one that’s built in for you, that’s not working.

And it’s important to find a career that you enjoy and is satisfying because it will influence the quality of your life. A study in Frontiers In Psychology found that job satisfaction and life satisfaction were positively correlated with a value of  β = 0.43.

So, if you’re life is feeling crappy now, take a look at how things are going at work, and vice versa. And so if you are not happy in academia now, your life is not going to be happy, right? That’s why you might be experiencing anxiety, depression, et cetera, because it’s a powerful influencer.

All of us understand that frustration that you can feel in academia. It’s empowering to know that a lot of times the reason that your whole life feels like that is just because of the work you’re doing. So if you switch that up, if you give something new a shot, you can totally change the entire trajectory of what you’re feeling.

Choosing Yourself In Your Career: A Conversation with James Altucher

Isaiah: What could somebody who’s trying to change careers do to push themselves into a position where they have to go forward, where they have to make a change?

James: I think that’s such a great question, and there’s not a one sentence answer, there’s kind of like a pyramid of answers.

First you have to build the foundation. You have to build the foundation of where you’re able to physically and psychologically make a change from something you’ve already invested a lot of time and energy, and maybe money into. And that foundation is saying to yourself, “Okay, I need to make a big change.” You got to be ready for it, you’ve got to be physically healthy, you’ve got to be psychologically healthy, which means eliminate the toxic people in your life, eliminate the people who say, “No, you can’t do that.” Or, “No, you shouldn’t make that change, that’s such a bad decision for you.” Or, they try and put you down. So that’s really important. Eliminating toxic people and being healthy are probably the two most important things you can do to prepare the foundation to make a change.

Second, practice your creativity. Creativity is a muscle, like any other muscle. So make sure you’re being creative, every day, and most people aren’t focused on being creative every day. I guarantee you, within three to six months, of even just writing down 10 ideas a day, your idea muscle will be an idea machine.

Third, for whatever you want to learn, identify the microskills of what you learn. As an example, let’s say you want to be good at business, there’s no such thing as a business skill. Business skill is divided into microskills, there’s negotiating, there’s sales, there’s product development, there’s execution, there’s monetizing, there’s marketing, there’s leadership and management and motivation. So these are all skills you have to develop to have this umbrella skill of business. For instance, in the past couple of years, I’ve wanted to learn to be a standup comedian, just for fun, just to get myself out of my comfort zone, because it helps in other areas of life. And I realized there’s no such skill as standup comedy. There’s humor, there’s likeability, there’s crowd work, there’s stage presence. You have to be good at all of these microskills. Okay, so that’s the next layer.

Fourth, Frank Shamrock, who’s probably the best ultimate fighting champion of all time, he told me this, and I found that it’s true for every big change in my life, “Find your plus, minus, equal.”

The plus is a mentor to teach you, and that might be a real mentor, it might be a virtual mentor doesn’t matter.

Your equals are the team of people around you who are also striving to succeed, and they challenge you, and you challenge them, and you compare notes, and you exchange ideas, and you can grow up as a team with them. And it happens in every area of life. If you look back at, even the computer age, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, … they were all hanging out together, practically as barely more than teenagers, and they created the entire computer age. So every industry has this, the equals.

And then there’s the minus, which is, you can’t really know anything unless you can explain it. So make sure you can always explain at like a third grade level, what it is you’re learning, and find people to teach and share what you’re learning as you’re learning it, and you’ll find you’ll learn much better, and you’ll learn the nuances much faster. So plus minus equal.

Fifth, the final top of this pyramid is, Just Do It, the Nike expression. Just simply do what you love. If you love writing, write a lot; if you love computer programming, computer program a lot; if you want to start businesses, start side hustles or businesses or do whatever you can to monetize your interest. Just start doing things. 

Isaiah: Let’s say you’ve realized that your current path lead to a dead end. Is there something you can do to shake off that feeling and show yourself that there’s more possibilities?

James: I think it’s about understanding a two million year old idea or longer, which is that we’re tribal animals. So we get into a setting, and join the tribe. In academia the professors who are famous for publishing a lot, they’re at the top of that tribe. They’re the alpha of that tribe. Then maybe the up and coming professors are next, and the genius students are next, and then of course there’s me at the omega level of students.

So you’ve got a natural instinct to place yourself in a tribe. But that’s all artificial. So whenever I find myself in a subculture or hierarchy where I’m feeling that those neuro-chemicals release, like the cortisol that happens when you feel like you’re slipping from the tribe, you’re losing status, I diversify tribes.

So make sure that you diversify the tribes that you’re in, and also just be aware that these feelings you have, whether it’s success or failure, it all related to whether you feel the tribe is accepting you or rejecting you. And try to just be aware of that so you can again diversity the tribes, and awareness is the key to freedom. You want to be your own self and pave your own way, and avoid all these primal neurochemical instincts.

Finding A Career You Love: A Conversation with Philip Kruger Ph.D.

Isaiah: Philip is the author of the Nature article, “Why it is Not a Failure to Leave Academia.” This is a fantastic article. My first what inspired you to write this article that’s been so well-received?

Philip: Well, mainly conversations with people around me in my research environment, literally over the four years of my PhD. Talking to other students, seeing other students and how much time they spend on the bench while I went off to do other things. But also having conversations or overhearing comments from group leaders, from senior academics, I heard one person say that only those people that are not good enough for academia go into industry. And I thought, “How can a person in such a senior position who has spent so much time in research say something that is so far away from reality? How can we allow culture like this to exist?”

And that was really when I started thinking about writing something that hopefully can help to change this culture.

Isaiah: I think you did a great job of discussing how to decide on career paths and how to gather data on options, and you do something called a perpetual pros and cons list that you keep as the hear about different positions, etc. Can you talk about this perpetual pros and cons list?

Philip: Yeah, it’s essentially more or less a kind of diary, but not on a daily basis, but based on experiences. If I have a very bad day in the lab, a frustrating experience or just had a very boring week of analyzing data, or whatever it is for you. Whatever task it was. I reflect on that kind of thing and I just make a note of what have I done and why did I not enjoy it, and then that list accumulates over years.

And at the same time you make a note if you have a really exciting day. If you have a very interesting conversations, a really elevating discussion with someone, a personal connection. And that way, for example, I’ve found that I really have this kind of feeling of excitement whenever I came back from conferences. Whenever I had interactions with lots of people, discussions about science. Not really when I was doing the science myself. When I was in the lab for a whole week just doing experiments, not talking to anyone, I never really enjoyed those parts of the work.

Isaiah: If you do this self-analysis, with the pros and cons list, and you still don’t know what you want, what’s the end of the equation? The last steps? The things you can do to expose yourself to new things?

Philip: Well I think taking initiative and organizing events, for example, and going out there, doing things, being on committees, exploring the outside world, within or outside the university. That is already part of self-assessment because you get to know yourself better by doing these kinds of tasks. If you’ve never had the responsibility for budget as the treasurer of a committee, you won’t know if that’s something you might like, and that’s the first step really.

But it can obviously also help you develop networks, talk to people, and that’s really the second part of the career development for me is learning about the world. Trying to figure out what jobs are there, what do people do, what is it on a day to day basis?

And I think for that, you can read as much online as you want, but you’ll never really get down to the day-to-day experience. You really have to talk to people. I really like this kind of idea of information interviews, even with strangers. But also just at conferences or in your environment. Observe where people are, what they do, and whether you might enjoy that kind of role.

Watch to the full podcast episode above to get even more insight into: strategies you can use to choose yourself in your career and specific tips for finding a career that you love and enjoy.

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post Choosing Yourself In Your Career (Cheeky Scientist Radio) appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Skip ahead to:
8:48 – Show Me the Data
30:42 – How To Become An Unstoppable PhD w/Ruben Gonzalez
1:00:20 – Overcoming Imposter Syndrome In Business w/Aja Isble

Does your job search fill you with anxiety that you don’t know how to handle?

Ready to find the courage needed to overcome your career challenges? 

In this episode of Cheeky Scientist Radio, Ruben Gonzalez, a 4-time Olympian and author of The Courage to Succeed lays out strategies you can use to overcome the anxiety associated with changing your path, setting large goals and ultimately achieving them. Then, we have on Aja Isble, M.B.A. who discusses how you can overcome imposter syndrome and truly see yourself as an industry professional.

About Our Guests

Ruben Gonzalez is a four-time Olympian, award-winning keynote speaker, and bestselling author of The Courage To Succeed. He is the first person to ever compete in 4 Winter Olympics in 4 different decades. He has spoken for over 100 of the Fortune 500 companies since 2002, appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, the New York Times, Success Magazine, Time, BusinessWeek and Forbes and been Featured in 3 chapters of Jack Canfield’s book, “The Success Principles”.

In Ruben’s own words, “My story takes people’s excuses away. I was a benchwarmer in school sports. When I was 21 I took up the sport of luge with a dream to compete in the Olympics. Four years and a few broken bones later I made it. I went on to compete in Winter Olympics in four different decades. I’ll help your people face their fears so they can be the best they can be. My Fortune 500 clients will tell you that after my presentations, their people were inspired and equipped to think differently, to take immediate action and to produce better results.”

Aja Davis Isble completed her M.Sc. in Pathology from the University of Iowa and obtained her MBA from Darden Graduate School of Business Admin, a Top 10 US MBA Program. She has over 10 years experience working in sales and marketing at Amgen, and in new product and strategy roles at Baxter, Baxalta, Shire. Aja recently accepted a position as Director, New Product Planning, Gastroenterology at Takeda.

Key Takeaways

1. It’s essential to connect with your why. Because if you have no desire and no belief in yourself there will be no action. 

2. Develop your emotional intelligence, motivation, and ability in order to use anxiety as a benefit not a hindrance.

3. Write down your goal. It doesn’t have to be a dissertation. But the act of writing it down is an act of commitment that drives it into the subconscious mind.

More About This Show

Today’s show is about overcoming challenges and overcoming anxiety to achieve your goals – especially your career goals. Ruben Gonzalez, a 4-time Olympian on with us talks about his book The Courage to Succeed which breaks down the psychological and situational challenges you’re likely facing as you try to change careers or transform yourself from an academic into a business professional. Ruben lays out strategies for overcoming the anxiety associated with changing your path, setting large goals and achieving them.

Aja Isble, an MBA working as a director at Takeda Pharmaceuticals comes on with us to discuss how you can overcome imposter syndrome and the anxiety that you have about seeing yourself as a business professional. She dives into how PhDs can learn to communicate better and speak the language of business.

Anxiety Is Normal And It Can Actually Help You.

Anxiety is normal worldwide no matter what country or culture you’re from, people deal with this emotion. A survey from the World Health Organization looked at the percentage of people diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and found that all around the world between 10-23% of people have been diagnosed with anxiety.  

So lots and lots of people are experiencing anxiety. And most commonly anxiety is considered a bad thing that impairs performance. But does anxiety have to be a bad thing?

Research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology looked at how dispositional and situational workplace anxiety can exert both negative and positive affects on job performance. 

Dispositional anxiety is trait based and it varies from person to person. It  basically refers to your own personal baseline anxiety level. On the other hand, situational anxiety is dependent on the circumstance you find yourself in. Circumstances like a job interview, performance review, business meeting or a sales presentation. Each of these different kinds of situations will cause different levels of anxiety in different people.

But the key part of this paper, that is relevant to you, is that there are specific things you can do to use your anxiety as a positive thing. Things you can do to use your anxiety to propel you forward, not impair you.

The three traits that contribute to whether you experience anxiety inhibitory or beneficial are: emotional intelligence, motivation, and ability. By developing those three traits you can learn to harness your anxiety to you benefit instead of your detriment.

How To Become An Unstoppable PhD: A Conversation with Ruben Gonzalez 

Isaiah: We brought Ruben on the show because performing at the highest level, no matter whether it’s as a PhD or in the Olympics, requires you to overcome a lot of internal battles and a lot of external struggles. And so Ruben, I’m sure you have experienced a lot of uncertainty, a lot of what we call imposter syndrome when you first decided to become an Olympian. What was going through your mind during that time? Why did you decide to become an Olympian?

Ruben: When I was 10 years old I saw the Olympics for the first time on TV and I was hooked. And what drew me to the Olympians, it wasn’t the athletic side, it was their character. I thought, ‘Wow. This is a group of people that have a dream. They’re willing to fight and train for years and years and years with no guarantees for success and they make it.’ I thought, ‘Man you gotta be so strong inside to do that. I just wanted to be like them.’ It was never about the medals for me. It was about I want to be one of those guys.

I didn’t take any action for 11 years and then when I was 21 years old,  watching the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympic games, I see Scott Hamilton the figure skater, he was 18 years old then. He weighed like 110 pounds soaking wet and he wins the gold medal and he gave me hope right? I thought, ‘Man if that little guy can do it I can too.’

I’m gonna be in the next Olympics no matter what. It’s a done deal, I just gotta find a sport. All of a sudden I had belief. Before I had desire, no belief, no action. Now I got belief, I’m ready to take action.

So I went to the library to get this big book about the Olympics, I had to find a sport. As I was looking through the list of the winter sports the analytical side of my brain kicked in. I thought, ‘I’m about to put together a plan for the next 40 years. It probably makes sense to base the plan on my strengths.’ My strength is perseverance, my nickname in school was Bulldog. So I decided I’m gonna find a sport with a lot of broken bones. A sport that looks so hard there’d be a lot of quitters. Only I won’t quit. 

Isaiah: Was there a time that you experienced imposter syndrome?

Ruben: Yes, when I was in a World Cup race. I’m knew I was gonna have to race for the next two years to see whether I make it to the Olympics. Now, imagine You’re a 16 year old kid, you’ve just got your drivers permit and you’re finally to the point where you’re not hitting the curb all the time. and all of a sudden, you’re put into the Indy 500 and you’re in a room with Al Unser, Mario Andretti and a bunch of icons. You feel like you don’t belong.

that’s how I felt at the World Cup race. I felt like I couldn’t look at ’em in the eye. I had all this mental thing telling me, “What the hell am I doin’ here? I don’t belong here.” I mean this is ridiculous, but I knew I was just putting my head down, I just gotta focus on those points. I’ve gotta get another World Cup Point. I’ve gotta get another one, I gotta get another one. And I just focused on that instead of the doubt.

Mary: When you were asking people to give endorsements for your book, you were reaching out to a lot of people. This is similar to cold calling when PhD’s are looking for industry positions. We have to get in touch with people we don’t know but that we are really eager to learn from. So can you tell us a bit about how you reached out to people, how you cold called?

Ruben: Right before the Salt Lake City Olympics this little kid in my neighborhood asked me to be his show and tell project in school. And so when I came back from the Olympics I took the sled, the Olympic torch, the helmet ready for show and tell. But the principle takes me to the cafeteria. There’s 200 kids sitting there. He said, “You got 45 minutes. Have at it.” They turned it into an assembly. They didn’t tell me

In the end, it went really well. The principle said, “Man you got a gift, you should do this for a living. You’re better than the people we pay!” And I said, “You pay for show and tell?” He said, “No, it’s a speaking profession man. Don’t you know anything?”

And apparently I didn’t but I was a copier salesman and he was so in my face about it and I was having fun out there, I was telling my story. Maybe I can inspire some people to really go for it.

I quit my job three days later.

I figured if I can sell a copier I can sell a Ruben too and I started calling all the schools in Houston. The principle, the president of the PTA, the counselor, follow up with faxes, emails, massive action right? You throw enough mud on the wall and some of it’s gonna stick right? You can always clean up the mess later.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome In Business: A Conversation With Aja Isble

Isaiah: I want to dig in first to the anxiety, think back to when you were moving from position to position in industry, when the business was changing. What did those times feel like for you and then what sort of internal and external resources do you call upon to get through them?

Aja: First of all I’ll just say you guys can’t control everything as much as you might want to. You can only control your own emotions and I guess the dispositional anxiety. And the way that I have through the course of my career handled some of that is realizing that actually the situational stress does impact my individual stress quite a bit. But if I have a good sense of forecasting what those situations might be, that makes me feel less anxious about them.

So, again, I can’t control what’s happening outside, but if I can foresee or anticipate what’s happening outside, then I start to create a plan and anticipate what those changes are and I’m lining up my options all along the way.

Isaiah: Can you talk a little bit more practically about what that looks like? Is there a key question you tell yourself?

Aja: It’s about how you interact with other people and then ensuring that you have your tribe kind of around you to help you out when there is a period of extreme stress or a massive change. So, I can control how I interact with people, my relationships, my mentor relationships in particular. Right? And making sure that I’m maintaining that over time.

So, in massive kind of stress points, I turn to my people, I turn to my circle, and I ask questions and I start to kind of look outside of myself. The points when I start to feel most stressed are the times where I start looking outward most because I know myself and I know that if I allow myself to succumb to that stress, I can get very internally focused and that’s not helpful. That actually leads to more stress. You gotta look out for that help and you gotta turn to some other people to gain perspective right? Because you kinda lose perspective in real moments of stress.

Listen to the full podcast episode to get even more insight into: How Ruben became a 4-time Olympian, how you can apply those same strategies to your job search and much more.

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How To Become An Unstoppable PhD (Cheeky Scientist Radio) appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Skip ahead to:
12:50 – Show Me the Data
36:23 – How PhDs Maintain Focus Under Pressure w/Dr. Greg Wells
56:45 – Maintaining Focus In Your Job And Career w/Aja Isble

Are you constantly distracted and not able to focus on your job search?

Do you know what gets you into a flow state? 

In this episode of Cheeky Scientist Radio, Dr. Greg Wells, talks about his book The Focus Effect, and give us tons of insight into everything having to do with focus. With highly practical and strategic tips you can implement right away. Then, we have on Aja Isble, who will talk about maintaining your focus once you get hired in industry. 

About Our Guests

Dr. Greg Wells is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, and associate scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children, and the CEO of The Wells Group. He is the author of best sellers Superbodies: Peak Performance Secrets from the World’s Best Athletes, The Ripple Effect: Sleep Better, Eat Better, Move Better, Think Better and, most recently, The Focus Effect: Change Your Work, Change Your Life.

Greg is a sought after speaker on the topic of human performance, and has spoken at top events like TEDX and the Titan Summit, alongside Sir Richard Branson, Robin Sharma and Steve Wozniak.

Dr. Wells is a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail and has been an expert source to other top media outlets like ABC News, “20/20,” The Discovery Channel, TSN, CBC and CTV. He also served as the sports medicine analyst for the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Consortium for the 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games.

Aja Davis Isble completed her M.Sc. in Pathology from the University of Iowa and obtained her MBA from Darden Graduate School of Business Admin, a Top 10 US MBA Program. She has over 10 years experience working in sales and marketing at Amgen, and in new product and strategy roles at Baxter, Baxalta, Shire. Aja recently accepted a position as Director, New Product Planning, Gastroenterology at Takeda.

Key Takeaways

1. If you are controlling your own attention then you’re probably doing what you need to be done. But, if your attention is being controlled by someone else then that’s a problem.

2. Move from time management into priority management and you’re gonna crush everybody.

3. Be prepared for topsy turvy  times in your job by knowing your priorities and maintaining your focus on those priorities.

More About This Show

Today’s show is all about how to stay focused during your job search as a PhD. We have on a very special guest, Dr. Greg Wells, who will be talking about his latest book, The Focus Effect: Change Your Work, Change Your Life, and bringing us his expert insight into how you can get and stay focused. He gives super practical and actionable strategies to improve your focus and achieve success in your job search. 

We also have on Aja Isble to talk about staying focused in business and why increasing your business acumen is so important for PhDs. Not only should you be focused on the technical side of things, you also need to focus on the business aspects of working in industry. Aja discusses how you can expand your focus onto new things, new business concepts, and how that will help you get hired and propel you forward in your career trajectory.

What Is Focus? Getting Into The Flow State.

Flow is what happens when you do something and you completely lose track of everything else. You’re completely engrossed in whatever you’re doing. You’re totally focused. During flow you’re totally focused on what you’re doing, nothing else matters and the task feels easy. 

The book by Flow: The Psychology Of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines the flow state, where you are able to reach your optimal focus with 8 traits: 

1. Complete concentration on the task
2. Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback
3. Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down of time)
4. The experience is intrinsically rewarding
5. Effortlessness and ease
6. There is a balance between challenge and skills
7. Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination
8. There is a feeling of control over the task

What gets you into a state of flow? And how can you replicate that to achieve optimal results in your job search?

A study out of the University of Lincoln found that throughout the literature there are a few things that people need to have into order to achieve the flow state – and one of the most important was focus. They had to be focused on the right things at the right time in order to enter this state of flow. And the other things that were important are preparation, motivation, arousal, thoughts and emotions, and confidence. You have to have all of these things together to enter that ideal flow state.

How To Maintain Focus During High Pressure Situations: A Conversation with Dr. Greg Wells

Isaiah: Why did you write The Focus Effect? What was the reason behind it?

Greg: So what was happening is I was actually at a speaking event in Zurich and I was with my buddy Bruce Bowser. We were at the back of the room where all the speakers hang out. And I was sort of just looking around and I noticed that so many people were on their devices in the middle of some of these epic talks. And I’m sure some people were taking notes so it’s all good. But it really just struck me.

And then we went on break and everyone’s on their phones. And then we went out to dinner. People were on their phones. We walked along the street and someone walks into us ’cause she’s looking at her phone not looking where she’s going. Like oh my God, it’s crazy. And I’m like we should write a book about that. And so Bruce and I ended up collaborating together and over the course of about six months to put together the book.

Isaiah: When you do become distracted by your phone, or something else, it takes your brain a while to come back to being focused and actually taking in the information. Is that right?

Greg:  Yeah, absolutely. And what a lot of people can probably relate to is imagine you’re engrossed in a book, a great story, where you’re reading,  your imaginary world is all around you in this amazing book. If you get distracted, someone asks you a question, and you’re like whatever, and then you come back to it, how long does it take you to get back into the state where you’re completely engrossed with that book? Probably 60 seconds up to like five minutes.

That happens to us every single time that we’re pinged by an email alert or a message on your phone. So the first strategy that I have for everybody, because I like to keep it granular and give people specific tactics, is right now on your phones, iPads, tablets, computers, turn off all your audio notifications at all times. They should never be on, ever, because they interrupt you and they interrupt everyone else around you.

But what I’ve started to think about is four things. Focus to distraction, and then intention versus compulsion. And if you’re intentionally recording something because you wanna keep those notes, an important thought, that’s great. If you’re compulsively scrolling through Instagram, that’s problematic. These devices are designed to capture our attention. Our attention is the currency. That is what we are, that is what’s being taken from us. As long as you are controlling your attention then you’re probably doing what you need to be doing. If you’re attention is being controlled by someone else then that’s a problem.

Isaiah: Do you have any tips for how we can trigger the ‘zone’ or flow state in ourselves? 

Greg: It’s self awareness, honestly. It’s knowing what zone you need to be in in order to perform at your best. And the exercise that I use for athletes is we actually take some time and we go back and we think about a moment when you were in the zone, a moment when you were performing at your best, when you’re deep in focus, when you were writing that paper, you’re delivering an amazing presentation, what were you doing?

What were you doing, physically? Were you physically relaxed? Were you standing tall? Were you stretching? Were you sitting? Physically, what was happening? Second thing, what was happening mentally? What were you thinking? What type of attitude did you have at that moment? And then the third component is what were you feeling? Were you excited? Were you scared?

So I actually know that if I’m gonna be the best that I can possibly be on stage when I’m doing public speaking, I have to be slightly scared. So sometimes, I have to actually to get myself more agitated, because if I’m too relaxed I don’t perform well. But there’s other times, like when I’m playing with my daughter and son in the park where that doesn’t work well. In those cases you’ve gotta be chill. You cannot take your stress into your family life. So in those cases you’ve gotta really really calm yourself down.

So it’s about self awareness. Where are you right now? And understanding what state do I need to be in? And understanding you have control of your state.

Maintaining Focus In Your Job And Career: A Conversation With Aja Isble

Isaiah: How can PhDs stay focused once in industry, when things kind of go topsy turvy?

Aja: Now I will tell you that topsy turvy times happen more frequently than not, whether there’s a merger or an acquisition or not. I like to call them fire drills. Fire drills are extremely common in the working world and that’s because people don’t know how to plan ahead and then they need something from you. So this happens almost on a daily basis.

During times of fire drills it’s even more important to structure your day in a way that allows you to get the work done that you need to do. I focus my effort and my sort of hard thinking time in the mornings. I will put meetings in the afternoon. So meetings I’m not leading, that’s kind of out of my control a little bit, but the meetings that I’m leading I can put in the afternoon and that requires a different type of mental energy than the heads down, more strategic thinking, putting presentations together for senior leaders, etc. That I do in the morning.

During mergers and acquisitions you have to stay focused on your work. Mergers and acquisitions will just automatically cause people to start doing things like talking a lot in the hallways, gossiping about what’s gonna happen to whom. And frankly speaking, there’s a lot of loss of productivity because of that. I value myself enough to know that I can contribute to the company during those times. So I don’t allow myself to be as distracted as other folks during those times because people are relying on me to get stuff done, right?

So if I know what the company priorities are and if I align most of my activity to those priorities, then that can help you stay focused. So literally asking myself sometimes is the thing that I’m doing right now actually meaningful? Or can I put this off until tomorrow? Where do I actually need to be working and doing my focusing is something I ask myself all the time. 

And if people were asking me to do other stuff I would literally ask, these are the five things that we agreed upon that I was gonna work on in the next year. Happy to change my focus if it’s a meaningful business impact but how is that gonna impact the other things that I’m working on? Those prioritization discussions, which I think we were just kind of getting to at the end, should drive your day to day and should help you focus your mental energy.

Listen to the full podcast episode to get even more insight into: How to come back to a state of flow after a disruption, breathing techniques that enhance focus and much more.

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How PhDs Maintain Focus Under Pressure (Cheeky Scientist Radio) appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.