R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness

When I started this project, I had about 80 followers.

On YouTube, my first follower for six months was the developer.

That’s the truth.

At any moment, I could have said, this is impossible, I should give up. Nobody is following me. The platform doesn’t have users. Everything about this feels like failure. It feels like guilt. Like I’m screwing something up.

And until you actually do something like this, you don’t get it.

People try three times and quit. Then they give advice. But they don’t have the lived experience. They don’t know what it feels like to grind every day with no signal back.

Most advice is biased. We only study people who made it. We ignore the enormous number who tried and disappeared. Building a platform. Raising money. Growing an audience. None of it works the way people tell you it does. There are no easy answers. Not a single one.

If you need to will something into existence, be prepared:

It is going to be grinding.

It is going to be embarrassing.

People won’t believe in you.

They will laugh at you.

Your inferences will be wrong. Your comparisons will be wrong.

The only real signal is this:

You get back up.

You grind again.

One more day.

One more try.

Repeat that long enough, and something moves.

One of the most interesting things I’ve learned in science is this:

No amount of convincing will ever change people’s minds.

No amount of work.

No amount of data.

No perfectly designed study.

Strongly held beliefs don’t move because you argue better.

In my field, it’s almost understood that ideas don’t win by persuasion.

They win when people move on.

You can complement existing ideas.

You can challenge them carefully.

But if you think evidence alone will do the work, you’re going to be frustrated for a long time.

I’ve learned this the hard way.

When people are skeptical, no amount of data will ever be enough.

That’s not a failure of science.

That’s a feature of being human.

So you stop trying to convince.

Instead, you take a step back and ask a harder question:

How do I communicate this without triggering resistance?

The problem is not them.

The problem is you.

Figure out how to change your approach, not their mind.

I don’t believe in the success games of research.

The hardest part of building something meaningful isn’t the outside criticism. It’s the silence—or worse, the doubt—from the people closest to you.

Family. Friends. Colleagues. They love you, but they didn’t sign up for the risk. They’re not in it. They’re watching from the sidelines, eating popcorn, while you’re out there doing the work.

They can’t see what you see. And that hurts. But it doesn’t mean you’re wrong. If anything, it means you’re early.

This message is for every academic entrepreneur, every misfit innovator, every quiet builder who’s doubting themselves because someone they love questioned their vision. You don’t owe them understanding. You owe yourself persistence.

Keep going. You saw something they didn’t. That’s how all breakthroughs begin

I feel that I am the most successful person alive, and I know that sounds really presumptuous of me.

But I want to explain.

If I was to look at the norms or the way that we’re supposed to treat my career and classify my career, I would inevitably come to the conclusion that I am a failure. By very definitive measures. I’m considered very much behind. I’ve heard that I was supposed to have X number of publications. I didn’t get any of those.

The reciprocity project doesn’t make me any money. Very few people are using it. I’ve been working at it for ten years and I’ve spent so much money that I’m too embarrassed to talk about it. By that dependent measure, I would be the laughing stock.

And yet, I feel wildly successful.

I get to spend time with my kids and my family. My wife is pretty awesome. And one of the coolest things is that my mom listens to this. She gets to hear how I think. I could never say this to her face. I get weird and uncomfortable. But she listens.

Maybe someday my great grandkids will listen and say, this is how he thought. This is how it felt.

I’m never going to be the way the market wants me to be.

That’s the gift.

I get back up and do it again every day.

And I’m happy to be a big screw up.

What drives me bonkers about our culture is that we do not encourage people to struggle in a healthy way.

We don’t encourage people to sit with failure.

We don’t encourage people to dwell in negative outcomes and actually learn from them.

Instead, the only message that seems to exist everywhere is that success is the only thing that matters. And not just being okay. Not just doing reasonably well. The bar has shifted so far that unless you’re in the top tiny fraction of humanity, you feel like a screw-up.

When I was younger, the goal felt different. It was simple.

“I just want to do as well as my parents did. Maybe a little better.”

Now the unspoken message is:

“If you’re not extraordinary, you’ve failed.”

What does that do to people?

It trains them to believe they are permanently behind.

It creates a gap so large between expectation and reality that people stop believing they can move forward at all.

And when that gap gets too big, people detach.

I do it too.

We all find ways to fill that void. Games. Screens. Work. Busyness. Distraction. Anything that lets us avoid the feeling that we’re not measuring up to some impossible standard.

What I want to do, very deliberately, is push back on that.

I want to normalize playing in failure.

I want to normalize saying, “I’m not a screw-up just because things aren’t going as planned.”

Instead of latching onto celebrities or billionaires or people whose success came from luck, timing, or things you can’t replicate, I think we should do something much simpler and much healthier.

Look around you.

Find one real person in your actual life.

Someone doing moderately well. Or someone struggling in a way you don’t want to repeat.

Match that.

Not perfection.

Not dominance.

Not fantasy.

Just one tiny step forward, every day.

You are supposed to feel behind.

You are supposed to feel slow.

You are supposed to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing.

That feeling isn’t failure.

That feeling is what growth actually feels like.

If you take one small, imperfect step each day, you will outgrow your reference points. I’ve lived this. I’ve watched it happen. It takes years. Decades, even.

And yes, people will think you’re weird.

They will laugh.

They will move faster than you, loudly.

Let them.

If you’re doing the right thing, you will feel like a loser most days.

Wallow in it. Learn from it. Then take one more tiny step.

That’s how anything meaningful is built.

Take care.

Why Doing Research in 2026 Is Objectively Better Than in 2005

(Even if it still sucks)

1. Access is radically better

In 2005, most people outside a few Western countries never had a real shot. Today, someone in rural Italy, India, Brazil, or Indonesia can actually imagine becoming a researcher.

2. The world is materially better off

Despite what social media feeds you, most long-run indicators show fewer people in extreme poverty, more education, and more stable cities than when I started.

3. Research tools are unrecognizable

No artificial intelligence in 2005.

No cheap transcription.

No instant equations.

No thinking in blocks of ideas.

Everything was slow, manual, and fragile.

4. Writing no longer requires linear thinking

If you have ADHD or dyslexia, research is no longer gated by sentence-by-sentence recall. You can think, speak, iterate, and refine.

5. Literature access is instant

I had to go to libraries and hunt paper journals. Now the problem is too much access, not too little.

6. Methods are cheaper and faster

What once cost thousands of dollars and weeks now costs pennies and minutes.

7. Global research markets exist

In 2005, “making it” meant the US, Canada, or the UK. Today, serious opportunities are emerging elsewhere—even if slowly.

8. Politics were always there

Visas, violence, instability, and fear existed then too. The difference is now you see it constantly.

9. The noise is worse, not the reality

Social media is optimized for anxiety and outrage. That does not mean the underlying world is worse.

10. You can build under uncertainty

There are now tools, platforms, and communities that let you learn in public, iterate, and survive ambiguity.

⸻

The uncomfortable truth

Research still isn’t safe.

It still isn’t stable.

It still isn’t financially rational for most people.

But compared to 2005?

There has never been a better time to learn how to think, build, and adapt under uncertainty.

This is not encouragement.

It’s a facts.

The best feeling in the world isn’t the workout.

It’s what happens after.

You finish.

You’re warm, flushed, a little euphoric.

Your eyes feel strange. Your body feels loud.

Then you step outside on the coldest night of the year.

The air hits your skin and it stings.

For a second, your nervous system panics.

Then everything wakes up.

I swim outdoors. Even in winter. The pool is heated, but barely.

If you stop moving, you start shivering. So you don’t stop.

And when you’re done, that contrast—hot body, cold air—does something strange.

It’s uncomfortable and incredible at the same time.

A kind of clean pain. A kind of joy.

You can’t fake it.

You can’t buy it.

You can’t replicate it in summer.

It’s the same feeling you get stepping out of a sauna into snow.

Or plunging into cold water after you’re already warm.

Your body doesn’t know what to feel—

so it feels everything.

I don’t do it for discipline.

Or optimization.

Or cold-plunge bragging rights.

I do it because it makes me feel alive in a way almost nothing else does.

Pain and pleasure at once.

Shock and calm together.

Exhausted and clear.

It doesn’t happen often—and maybe that’s why it’s special.

I’m not sure I could handle feeling that awake all the time.

But when it happens?

Yeah.

That’s it.

Here’s to hot and cold.

I just came back from one of the biggest international conferences I attend. Over 14,000 people—researchers, professors, thinkers—all incredibly talented. It’s humbling. And a bit overwhelming.

There’s so much brilliance in one place that you can start to feel small. Everyone is trying to carve out a niche, to be known for something unique. But instead of feeling proud, many of us feel more insecure. We start to measure ourselves by the people around us. Their awards, their institutions, their citations.

It makes you ask: why do we do this?

Why do we turn a room full of talent into a contest?

Over time, I’ve realized something that younger-me wouldn’t have understood: you don’t have to see everyone as competition.

This mindset—that life is a race, that everyone is a rival—doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from how we’ve learned to view the world. Often through the lens of economics, or strategy, or “getting ahead.” But applying those frameworks to people can distort how we treat each other—and ourselves.

Most of these frameworks weren’t meant for human relationships. They were designed to explain firms, markets, countries. But when you bring them down to the level of individuals, they feel cold. Transactional. And a little bit yucky.

The truth is: the things that make life rich aren’t competitive. They’re cooperative. A smile. A hug. A conversation that makes someone feel seen.

Even in the business world—where we’re told competition is everything—it’s trust that keeps things moving. And trust doesn’t come from outmaneuvering someone. It comes from small, simple human things: showing up. Being kind. Being reliable.

So here’s a question I ask myself: how do we start training for that kind of life?

I don’t think it’s complicated. But it is hard. Because it means undoing a lot of what we’ve been taught. It means choosing not to play games that everyone else seems to be playing.

You start by reminding yourself: your differences are your strengths. The things you feel ashamed of? The stuff you try to hide? That’s the gold. That’s the stuff that makes you unique. That’s the stuff that other people will love about you—if you’re brave enough to share it.

When I think about my life in terms of competition, I never feel good. I feel drained. Burnt out. Disappointed.

But when I think about it as a life—just a life—I feel different. When I think about the joy I get from encouraging someone else, or forgiving myself when I don’t meet a deadline, or laughing at a dumb joke, I remember what actually matters.

I try to take one small step each day. Encourage myself first. Then encourage someone else. Find a reason to smile. Or to make someone else smile. That’s enough.

And when I can’t do everything? When I fall short? I remind myself: that’s okay too. We’re not here to win. We’re here to live.

So if you’re standing at one of these big conferences, and you feel small, or scared, or not good enough—just remember: you are enough.

You’re pretty darn wonderful. And so is the person next to you. You’re both just curious minds, wandering through the world. You’re both doing your best with what you have. That’s all anyone is doing.

You don’t have to scheme. You don’t have to impress. You don’t have to be the smartest. You just have to be you.

And if today you’re not your best you? That’s okay. You can try again tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, then the day after that.

Life will unfold, whether you like it or not. You can fight the current. Or you can float along and enjoy the ride.

Because when we stop trying to control everything—and start participating in the flow of life—we start to see the beauty in each other. Not just in the famous names at conferences, but in your sister, your neighbor, your friend.

They’re smart too. Just in a different way.

You’re doing just fine.

Take care—and have a wonderful day.

Here’s the truth I’ve learned as both a business professor and a software builder:

software development isn’t elegant. It’s a series of embarrassing bugs.

You fix one thing, and something else breaks.

Then you fix that, and another part stops working.

It feels endless—because it is.

People imagine progress as a straight line.

But real progress looks like this:

bug → fix → new bug → fix → embarrassment → repeat.

Even the best systems fail (remember the Bill Gates Windows demo crash?).

Even the most robust organizations—yes, including nuclear power plants—plan for things to go wrong.

So why do we still expect perfection when we build?

The reality is, building anything—software, research, or a career—means accepting limited information and constant iteration.

The challenge isn’t the bug.

It’s learning how to manage the emotional crash that comes after it.

Embarrassment. Self-doubt. Fatigue.

The key is simple:

Fix it. Apologize. Learn. Move on.

Then keep building anyway.

Because progress isn’t about being flawless.

It’s about surviving the next bug.