An earlier version of this piece was published in Inside Higher Ed's Carpe Careers column on May 15, 2023. 

​Let’s start off with a statement that may read a bit alarming to the science and engineering graduate students and postdocs who are reading this: there is no “formula” for career success. No combination of your skills plus talent plus hard work definitively guarantees success in your career or life. This is partly a fact of the world not being predictable or “fair” but also acknowledges something that seems obvious when examined deeply and holistically but shocking when first encountered by an individual socialized in a modern, capitalist economy: your success isn’t up to you.  

“Greatness is in the agency of others” is a phrase often used by Scott Galloway, a faculty member at New York University’s Stern School of Business and influential blogger/podcaster.   

​The crux of this argument is that no one succeeds alone. Rather, we live in societies where collectively we produce success and opportunity, even if it is only evident to have been realized by a subset of the population. In fact, the only reason our modern economies function is through the collective and specialized actions of many individuals contributing, yes, their unique skills and abilities to the world. 

​The key word there is collective…we succeed together even if many of us don’t realize or acknowledge it. A central example is childcare and education. Even the most naturally gifted individual must be cared for as a baby and young child to reach an age where their potential can be realized. Furthermore, they need schooling and access to information that was created by others to understand the world and how they can build off the foundation of countless individuals to create new “breakthroughs” and potentially make money doing it. And this action may lead that individual to be rewarded financially and touted as a genius, a disrupter, or successful entrepreneur but their success is not 100% theirs. 

In an increasingly complex world with technology advancing at a blistering pace, no one can know it all or be 100% self-made. For many decades leveraging one’s technical skills and abilities to produce value was paramount to having a successful career. You needed to offer skills that were in demand in the current economy to be recognized as providing value in a purely economical sense. While this seemed to be rational and efficient it was not necessarily good for human flourishing. We are more than our skills and physical outputs and the acceleration in generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology has left many wondering what are we “good for” in a future where AI can produce similar creative and practical outputs to our own more efficiently and effectively? 

The famous American poet, writer, and activist Maya Angelou has a quote that nicely embodies what we all should strive for as human beings today and always:
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

​The enduring skills of the future of “work” are human skills…making others feel something: feel valued, feel heard, feel understood, feel important.  

Human skills or interpersonal skills include a variety of skills that help us work effectively with other human beings. Communication, empathy, emotional intelligence and other attributes fall under this larger umbrella. 

• Communication is critical to so many professional roles and ultimately facilitates (or hinders) teamwork and progress toward institutional goals. 
  
• Leadership and management center around how we understand the people who report to us enough to know how to motivate them and facilitate their success. 
  
• Compassion and empathy are critical to dealing with setbacks and challenges that are inevitable in life and demonstrate to others that we care and value them.  

​These human skills are essential to succeeding and enduring professionally. The fact of the matter is that while one’s skills and abilities can land you a job interview or often an entry level job, your interpersonal skills and other attributes of your personality will make someone want to have you as a colleague or work for you.

​Unfortunately, many individuals pursuing their graduate degrees or postdoctoral research dismiss the importance of these skills. They will often discuss a frustrating job search process with statements like “don’t my skills and abilities speak for themselves?” or “my work speaks for itself”. And while skills and abilities are surely important, they are often being assessed on more than their work. I think this is a good thing because we are all more than the skills, abilities, and accomplishments listed on a resume. 

​Even in research-focused roles at companies, someone with PhD-level training will often be hired with the intention that the company considers them to be a future project or program leader. Being placed in a leadership role might not occur right away but many employers will be looking for glimpses of these skills when interviewing candidates. 

More value is placed on transferable and interpersonal skills when a Ph.D. is transitioning into a non-research role. At that point, an employer doesn’t often care as much about your specific technical skills or research accomplishments but rather that by completing a graduate degree you showed the ability to think critically, problem solve, extract insight from data, and communicate your findings. Your Ph.D. experience provides a breadth of these transferable skills valued by employers.

How does one work to build interpersonal skills? 
Through putting yourself out there and practicing.

This is best accomplished when the stakes are low and could start out as simply as attending a graduate student or postdoctoral association event and chatting with a few people in attendance. Making “small talk” can seem trivial but it works to build connection with others. In fact, it may seem trivial to you to attend an event and listen to a fellow grad student or postdoc vent about their day or talk about their new dog but that doesn’t mean it is trivial to them. Sometimes people just need to be heard, to believe that what they have to say or share is worthy of another human being’s time and attention. For the introverts reading this (of which I count myself), I think we can all acknowledge we would most often rather listen than talk. The good news is you can go to one of these community events and mostly listen and affirm what you hear from others. 

​Busy graduate students, postdocs, and professionals will often cite the lack of time as a hurdle to making connections with others or engaging in organizations or activities that would benefit them professionally and personally. They see these social and community engagement activities as a combination of a luxury and distraction. Time is indeed a finite resource and while there will always be more work to be done than time to do it, time with others is time well spent. In addition, science shows you will feel better from having engaged in these “prosocial” behaviors. It feels good to engage with and help others. Importantly, by building these informal networks you can begin to have people you can rely on for help. This is essential as sometimes we are the helpers and sometimes we are the ones needing help. 

Human skills are more than just valuable to you professionally but also personally. This may go without saying but sometimes we can forget how important it can be to be a caring, compassionate human when interacting with others. Saying thank you and showing other signs of appreciation, remembering relevant personal information and milestones of your coworkers, and being willing to be helpful even if an ask is “outside your job description” go a long way. And our national loneliness epidemic could benefit from more human connection and compassion. Many people want more opportunities to socialize and bond with others but it often takes someone to be brave enough to initiate the process. Will that be you? 

​Embracing your humanity and honing your interpersonal skills through practice will allow you to better relate to and understand other human beings’ needs, hopes, and desires. This will in turn pay dividends in your work, life, and society as a whole. 

​No one succeeds alone and no one (consistently) succeeds on their skills and abilities alone. Rather, greatness is in the agency of others: engaging with others, listening to others, empathizing with others, and working collectively with others is essential not only for our own personal and professional fulfillment but for a functional and prosperous society for all. 

Life Advice, Personal Perspective, Creativity, Innovation

It is common for causal observers to see a big breakthrough, amazing creative achievement, or other big professional accomplishment from another and think to themselves "wow, that person must be super talented" or "they are so lucky!". And while talent and luck play a part in "success", what often gets less attention is the amount of work that goes into an "overnight success". 

Complex and ambitious achievements usually take even more time and effort to come to fruition. A particularly interesting set of stories comes from the Walt Disney Company's Pixar division (before they become part of Disney) and Disney's venerable Imagineering unit. 

Perhaps the name most synonymous with "magic" is Disney. The Walt Disney Company is dedicated to making magical experiences for its customers via its movies, shows, and, perhaps most prominently, its theme parks. The first park at Walt Disney World in Florida was literally named the Magic Kingdom when it opened in 1971. And having been to the park as a child, I can attest that it is, indeed, a magical place. Disney Parks are full of state-of-the-art attractions that can leave you speechless and wondering how they accomplished such feats.

If you are interested in learning more about what goes into creating the many fabulous rides and experiences at the Disney Parks, I highly recommend the Behind the Attraction series on the Disney+ streaming service. What struck me the most profoundly when watching episodes of this series was how much planning and work goes into creating (and updating) a Disney attraction. In essence, magical experiences come from hard work and planning, sometimes taking years to reach a final product. 

Often, the Disney "Imagineers" must invent new technology to bring a ride to life. For example, the Indiana Jones Adventure ride at Disneyland in California relied on an entirely new ride vehicle invented by the Imagineers to simulate the motion of an off-road jeep. In fact, the Imagineering team at Disney holds over 500 patents for new technologies they have developed to create the unique rides and attractions at the parks. 

Experiential and Emotional Impact Through Technology & Innovation

At Disney they firmly believe that the story and experience should drive the design and execution of all they do and that they can iron out technical details to bring an idea to life. Disney rarely sacrifices practicality for the sake of creative quality and experiential impact on their customers. ​

Disney's Pixar Animations Studios (which was an independent company from 1986 until 2006 when it was acquired by the Walt Disney Company) perhaps best illustrates how dedication and commitment to one's craft combined with a passion for creating memorable experiences can produce amazing results. 

Pixar invented new computer animated techniques and approaches beginning with its founding but its journey from start-up to box office hit maker took time. In some ways the technology had to catch up with the company's ambitions and its employees had to become more familiar and confident in the use of said technology. Pixar initially struggled with a business case focusing mostly on producing animated commercials in the 1980s and early 1990s to pay the bills. In 1991 the company numbered 42 employees (nearly the same size it was at its founding) as it removed hardware and software sales from its operations to focus on the core creative business. In that same year, Pixar signed an agreement with Disney to develop at least one computer-animated movie that Disney would market and distribute. That movie become Toy Story, which was released in November 1995 to critical acclaim and sensational audience reviewers on its way to ​earning nearly $400 million at the global box office (~$823 million in 2024 dollars). ​

This began a 20 YEAR run of amazing box office success for Pixar films with every movie they release from Toy Story 2 in 1999 to Inside Out in 2015 earning at least $500 million at the global box office with 2003's Finding Nemo hitting the $900+ million level and Toy Story 3 released in 2010 crossing $1 BILLION in ticket receipts (~$1.43 Billion in 2024 dollars). But if you watch the documentary The Pixar Story, you will realize that story is core to all they do. During its run of successful films from the mid-nineties to the 2010s, Pixar continued to push the envelope in what could be computer animated to drive new and novel story ideas from thousands of animated ants in A Bug's Life to life-like fur for Monsters Inc to water environments in Finding Nemo and human characters (with muscles) in The Incredibles. Technical innovation was core to making these stories come to life and making audiences feel connected to the worlds depicted in these films. 

Pixar's success during that time was undoubtedly fueled by its willingness to grow and innovate with each new project, never resting on its laurels. But the technology served the stories they were telling, never dictating or limiting the narratives. In addition, those at the company will tell you that its operation was driven by a willingness for creative and technically gifted individuals from diverse backgrounds to collaborate on projects that were driven at their core by stories to make the audience feel something.

The lesson to take from this is, I think, is to not innovate just to innovate but to think about how a new technology or idea serves others. Does it help solve a critical problem? Does it make peoples' lives or society better in some way? Does it bring joy to the world? Does it provide entertainment and life lessons (in the case of many movies)? Innovation without impact will fall flat. If the technologies or innovative ideas you are leveraging aren't in service of something that improves peoples' lives, they rarely resonate. In Pixar's case, they leveraged technology to create characters and stories audiences cared about and that spoke to human challenges, struggles, and ultimately triumphs (even if many of their characters weren't human, they amazingly made us care about bugs and fish!).  

"What most people call overnight success is actually the market suddenly realizing the value of a great product or service that had been kept in obscurity for too long while its creators refused to give up." - Entrepreneur and author Luis E. Romero, from Forbes

Another lesson from the Pixar story is the commitment and perseverance often required to see a novel concept "breakthrough". The conviction of Pixar's founders to stick to their core business over the first 5+ years as it gained its footing allowed it to be in a position to make Toy Story and what looked like an overnight success in 1995 after Toy Story's release was many years in the making. Pixar's animators developed their expertise on commercials and short films in the company's early years and realized producing a full-length computer animated film​ at its core is still an exercise in constructing a compelling and moving story. The combination of compelling narrative, endless storyboarding and editing (story development for a Pixar film can take YEARS), a committed and technically gifted team, and innovative technology allowed Pixar to create movie magic. The company and its employees gave audiences something they had never seen before and, in the process, left a lasting impact on the entertainment industry.   ​

Learn more about the animation innovations Pixar pioneered in the video from Business Insider, below (and the follow-up video here):

Disney Magic In Real Life - Innovation and Iteration

Crafting of real-word experiences through physical rides and attractions requires another level of commitment. Examples of technical and impactful achievements in the Disney parks include the floating mountains in the Pandora - World of Avatar land within Disney's Animal Kingdom, the creation of Cars Land (based on the Pixar movie) and its mountain range at Disney's California Adventure Park, the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind attraction at EPCOT, and Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios. The combined efforts of designers and engineers led to the creation of immersive and unique experiences that help transport park visitors to locations they had only see on a movie screen before and in the process allows them to escape the worries and challenges of the real world, if only for a bit. 

None of the work Disney does is easy, especially when it comes to building actual rides and landscapes people interact with in their parks. Imagineers blend creativity with modern technology and an understanding of human perception to create amazing experiences. And the more you learn about how they build attractions the more you appreciate how Imagineers not only invent new technologies to bring an attraction to life but often build on previous designs and take lessons from the design of past attractions to make new ones. There are so many examples including leveraging the technology from Test Track in Epcot (opened in 1999) for Cars Land's Radiator Springs Racers (opened in 2012) to improving on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad with new projection mapping technology and revolutionizing the classic Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride for the 21st Century with the installation of Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure (and use of technology to guide the boats through immersive sets) at Shanghai Disneyland. These examples highlight that Disney never stops innovating and improving, realizing that creating magical experiences requires learning from the past while constantly pushing the boundaries of technology and storytelling.     

As mentioned earlier when discussing Pixar films, storytelling at its heart requires the need to make the recipient feel something, to care about the characters, relate to their challenges, and celebrate in their triumphs. To be an effective story it must relate to our human experiences including struggle, loss, love, friendship, and family and the realization that happily ever after is often the result of overcoming adversity in our lives. 

The Story Comes Together

In my last post, I reflected on our human relationship to time. Recently, while watching the Behind the Attraction series on Disney+ that I mentioned above I learned about this amazing "nighttime spectacular" at Hong Kong Disneyland titled "Momentous". Learning about the history of creating this show we discover that when Hong Kong Disneyland was renovating and updating their castle, the technology for Momentous was literally built into the castle's redesign. The show has been described as "a love letter to the memories we make throughout our lives" and if you watch the video of it below you can see that the creators of this spectacular incorporate Disney and Pixar characters, stories, and songs over the past 30+ years from The Little Mermaid and The Lion King to Aladdin, Moana, and Up. Featured songs include classics like "Kiss the Girl", "You'll Be in My Heart", "A Whole New World" and lesser-known but appropriate songs like "Friends on the Other Side" from the Princess and the Frog and "Remember Me" from Coco. 

The feelings the show generates are tied up in the audience's memories of Disney movies and it can only achieve the effect of moving onlookers due to the fact that it builds on the creative efforts of the thousands or animators, artists, and musicians who contributed to the creation of the content. In addition, the spectacular itself relies on a variety of technological advancements from the Disney Company including projection mapping technology, water screen projections, and sophistically timed pyrotechnics and fireworks that can be positioned with pinpoint accuracy via compressed air. The result of all these efforts is magical. 

Live the Moment & Love the Memories - Momentous Nighttime Spectacular's Tagline

The show's "theme song", Love the Memory, that unites its various chapters has a super catchy and impactful chorus:
Time's always moving, we can't slow the hands
Won't last forever, so take every chance
To learn and to love and to dream and to dance
Live the moment and love the memory

Momentous's songs and storytelling remind us that life is a journey and ultimately consists of the impact we have on others and them on us. It is filled with highs and lows, love and loss, but through all these things we learn and grow, hopefully becoming better versions of ourselves in the process. A powerful notion, for sure.  

Making Impact Everyday

While most of this post has contained reflections on the Walt Disney Company's and Pixar Animation Studios' quest to create memorable experiences through creativity, technology, and hard work, I think the lessons from their efforts can apply to everyone's work and life. 

We often seek the "magical solution" to our problems or want a quick fix to the challenges we encounter. We want to lose weight NOW, we want to earn more NOW, we want to be more productive NOW, we want to be recognized for our achievements NOW. But these things are most often the result of consistent work and incremental improvements that slowly and steadily build on themselves to achieve the desired result. And sometimes, maybe even often, the end result of our efforts is more impactful than we could imagine when we begin on our journey. I don't think the creators of The Little Mermaid when it was released in 1989 would have ever imagined its scenes and songs would be projected on a water "screen" and physical castle at a Disney theme park in Hong Kong purpose built for these projections but that is what ultimately occurred. 

Good content and story that touches us as human beings is timeless and transcends any specific media. Much the same way, each of us doing "good work" and making "good decisions" ultimately leads to good outcomes and impact ​in time. We all know deep down what is good and right and will ultimately lead to the outcomes we want for ourselves (eat more healthily, exercise more, stress less, make more time for those we care about, help others etc...) but the consistent commitment to these actions over time (often in the face of very little short-term "results") is what is needed to produce the magical (ie, impactful) results we are looking for. 

It is also worth mentioning here that we often cannot fully predict how our work and actions now will impact our (and others) future. And we shouldn't necessarily try to map all our actions to some future state because the future is always in flux. Rather, we should work to do good and important work now and realize that the positive impacts of this will resonate over time. This work may also be built on and improved upon by others to produce further innovation and impact, as is often the case with the Disney attractions and experiences mentioned above. 

So, what ideas do you want to share with the world?
How can you contribute your gifts and talents to society to impact others?

• See my Career Exploration 101 piece to help with your self-reflection

​What story are you trying to tell about yourself? 
How can you collaborate with others as part of a larger narrative and goal?

• Learn more about volunteering and the impact of cultivating serendipity through your relationships  

The Often Long, Methodical Grind to "Success" 

So, what's my story? How do I see my gifts and talents contributing to the world? ​

Well, I have always been interested in helping others, even from a young age. I am fairly empathetic and find a lot of joy in teaching and mentoring others. I do this to some extent in my day job helping support postdoctoral researchers at Virginia Tech. I also use this blog and platforms like LinkedIn to share resources, programs, and opportunities with a wide audience. My hope is by doing this I can help others realize how their skills, interests, and values can be applied productively to activities and careers that benefit the world in distinct and important ways. I firmly believe we all have something to contribute. Personally, I have been working on building my platform and finding my voice so I can reach and impact more people, including those of you reading this post or leveraging the information shared on my blog and website. 

And the statistics show I am slowly making progress in these areas. ​

In a blog post from January 2021 I spoke to the fact that returns on our efforts to build skills, invest in our networks, and growth our brand often compound. Seeing measurable growth in these metrics can be slow at first but many online activities result in network effects where knowledge accumulation and impact can increase over time non-linearly. For example, building one skill early on helps you develop a related one more easily next time or one connection can lead to another. Similarly, the publication of one piece of creative or scholarly work can lead to citations by or engagement with others who then amplify your work to their networks and, in the process, help your ideas and content spread more rapidly than you could manage alone. 

I figured now, three years from when I spoke to the compounding returns I was seeing from my creative and scholarly works, would be good time to revisit the stats. For context, I launched this personal website in August 2014 as I began my postdoc position at Vanderbilt University. I figured I need to work on building my professional brand as a neuroscientist at the time and later launched this blog in April 2019 after having written pieces on my postdoc experience for the NIH BEST website (see those archived here). The blog launch was an attempt to build up a writing portfolio for potential future use in my career. I also enjoyed the process of sharing resources, advice, and research focused on a variety of topics from career and professional development to Ph.D. career pathways, the job search, and neuroscience findings with others.  

As you can see from the chart above that only reports my personal website traffic data over full calendar years, for 5 YEARS yearly unique visits to my website were under 2,000 and from 2015 to 2017 struggled to cross 1,000 (in 2017 the number of unique site visits for the year was 1,068 or an average of 89 per month). Beginning in 2020, however, visitors to the site began to rapidly grow (rising 243% from 2019 to 2020 and another 117% from 2020 to 2021). Essentially, unique visits to my site more than tripled from 2019 to 2020 and then more than doubled from that level from 2020 to 2021. Growth has slowed since then but now I average more unique site visits per month than I did in all of any year from 2015 to 2017: average monthly visits August - December 2023: 753 versus unique visits compared to 341, 476, and 626 unique visits in the years 2015, 2016, and 2017, respectively.  

Compounding growth like the stats mentioned above is hard for us to wrap our minds around.

​In the case of my website, growth in visits is most likely the result of several factors:
1) In 2021 I launched a newsletter (now with 181 subscribers) to share resources and readings with interested individuals, where I also highlight my new blog posts as well as a few select posts from my blog archive 
2) As I create more content there is more for a visitor to my website to engage with
3) I have added content beyond the blog over the years including job search resources, funding resources, and a growing list of career and professional development research studies
4) I often point to past content in new posts so individuals can "rediscover" older posts/content and this may, in turn lead to the growth in overall views of my content
5) As I grow my network and professional brand outside my website, when I point to blog pieces or resources on LinkedIn or X/Twitter more individuals see my posts on these platforms

I also believe well-written and useful content ultimately resonates with people and hopefully I am providing that via this platform. 

But my own journey to greater reach and impact has not happened overnight. It requires commitment and dedication. I have written 55 blog posts over the 57 months from April 2019 (when I launched my blog) to now, January 2024, or nearly one post per month. I try to consistently share something interesting and thought provoking here. Mostly I do it for myself, to keep my writing skills sharp. But I also do it for those who read these posts and in the process hopefully learn something or are made to think more introspectively about their lives and the impact they can have on the world. Sometimes this is accomplished through a resource or process I share to aid readers in their career and professional development but other times it is through sharing an insight into neuroscience research, like findings illustrating the power of our mindsets and beliefs. In a way, I seek to inspire others to take steps to improve their lives, whether that be spending more time with loved ones or realizing that finding fulfilling work is a process. I plan to keep doing this hard work (this post alone is probably the culmination of at least 30 hours of research, writing, and revision) because I think I have something important to say and I hope it helps my readers live better, more fulfilled, and more impactful lives.  

Growing One's Network & Scholarly Impact

In my blog post on network effects from January 2021 I also mentioned LinkedIn as a powerful tool for professional networking and how one's reach on the platform can grow with both a commitment to engaging on it and time to allow for growth. For a superb guide to leveraging the platform for career success, including building your network and engaging in career exploration, see the 2022 book Linked: Conquer LinkedIn. Get Your Dream Job. Own Your Future. by Garriott and Schifeling. 

Over the years the number of my LinkedIn connections continues to grow as I interact with new colleagues and coworkers, meet people at professional conferences, or work with new leaders and volunteers in organizations I am involved in. Additionally, individuals will reach out to me to connect and I almost never turn down a personalized LinkedIn connection request.  

I joined LinkedIn in April 2013 and by the end of that year had 43 connections. I really worked to expand my network on the platform during my postdoc position, which began in August 2014. In the graph below you can see the steady rise in my cumulative LinkedIn connections for calendar year 2014 to 2023. Steady investments in leveraging the platform have resulted in my total connections increasing 36-fold over 10 years. 

Big things can come from small beginnings and consistent effort. ​

Over the past few years I have leveraged LinkedIn's "Creator Mode" to better broadcast the content and resources I share and have moved away from gathering connections (Creator Mode replaces the default network option on LinkedIn from "Connect" to "Follow"). In 2023, my follower count grew by 19.5% and now allows the content and resources I share on career development, the job search, networking, mentorship, and more to reach thousands of people. Through the technological platform that is LinkedIn I am able to amplify my impact, helping more people learn of opportunities and resources to assist them in their career development and professional journeys. 

I firmly believe LinkedIn is a powerful multiplier for networking and brand building that you simply cannot ignore as a professional in the 21st Century. So, start investing in that platform today.​

As an administrator who supports early career researchers (graduate students and postdocs in particular), I understand that growing one's scholarly profile is essential to academic success. One of the most important metrics for a scholar is one's citation count as it indicates other researchers acknowledge your work in theirs. By definition, citations of your work take time to accumulate as your work must be disseminated first (passing through an often lengthy and grueling peer review process to get published), others must read and cite it, and then they must also publish their work before your citation is registered in various systems (Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science). So, it can take years for citations to accumulate on your work. This can sometimes discourage early career researchers as they don't feel they are gaining traction at the beginning. Patience and persistence is required in one's academic scholarship. If you are putting out work that contributes to your field by asking important questions and addressing critical topics, it will eventually be cited. It also takes time and some promotion to help get your work discovered.  

My first peer-reviewed publication was in February 2012 and I did not start seeing citations of it until 2013. Over the years I published more publications in neuroscience from 2012 until 2019 (and to a lesser extent now as a researcher interested in mentorship and the faculty job search) and slowly the citations of this work grew along with the number of my peer-reviewed publications. So, the chart above is the result of continuing to publish, even as an academic administrator, and letting time work for my prior work's visibility. 

You can certainly see in the Google Scholar stats the effect of me transitioning from postdoctoral researcher to postdoctoral affairs administrator in January 2019 and a stunting in my citation momentum in 2020 but in June 2020 I was listed as an author on my first non-neuroscience paper, focused on a survey-based analysis of the academic job market which led to new connections and research directions for me. Recently, I was involved in important work on mentorship of which our analysis of faculty mentoring experiences was published in December 2023. I expect to continue to work in these areas as a postdoctoral affairs administrator as these topics relate to my work supporting this population and, as a result, my scholarly output may increase in the coming years. And while it is nice to put out work that gets recognized and cited, that isn't really ​why I do it. Rather, I try to be part of teams contributing important insights into processes that need improvement in higher education including the hiring of faculty members and providing increased support and training for aspiring and new faculty members. 

And though I don't actively publish in the neuroscience area anymore, my past research is still being cited and contributing to new knowledge in reward processing, decision making, and substance abuse risk. That prior work is, in effect, still having an impact. When you publish scientific findings, you are leaving a legacy and contributing to the broad, upward trajectory of human knowledge and progress. When you are in the thick of the scholarly work, though, you can sometimes forget this but know that "good work" can have an impact and though it might not immediately be recognized that does not mean it won't be of value to future researchers.    ​

Your Mileage May Vary

Before wrapping up this piece I want to emphasize that the personal metrics presented above reflect my priorities in brand building (personal website, LinkedIn followers) and networking (LinkedIn connections). Growing one's scholarly metrics is mostly out of your direct control but ultimately does partially depend on producing good work consistently that others value. The activities and platforms you leverage to measure your "success" could look very different. The metrics you care about may also differ from those I shared. 

Everyone's goals are unique and the pathway to achieving them distinct. I hope seeing how my metrics and impact grew from small beginnings with time drives home the point that if you invest in activities important to you, their reach and impact can expand through consistent effort and commitment over many years. The key is to decide what you value in terms of your personal and professional growth and invest your time in those areas. Success won't come overnight but I believe you can increase the odds of making an impact through dedicated action that is genuine, internally motivated by your values, and leverages your unique skills and gifts. ​

Final Thoughts

In today's post, hopefully you can see that to have an impact you have to start by taking action to share your knowledge and gifts with the world. That looks different for each of us. It might be putting out creative works or thought pieces on the internet, it could be publishing scientific and scholarly papers, or making YouTube videos explaining complex research topics to the public. It could be as simple (and important) as showing a student in your research group how to perform a new experiment or analysis (ie, mentoring them). Whatever you are doing and sharing, the process requires engaging with others in some way. You can also take advantage of network effects to ensure your message is being amplified by reaching others you don't know but who could benefit (ie, your connections shares it with their connections or the student you teach shares the knowledge with another and then another and so on and so forth). Only by sharing our skills, talents, and ideas with others can we truly spread them. Similarly, others can only build off your ideas if they know about them. So put your thoughts out there in the world! 

Magical outcomes, which we might rightfully call innovation, begin with novel ideas that through collaboration with others and the combination of hard work, creativity, and technical know-how result in real-world impact. The impact might be creative, scholarly, or entrepreneurial. To achieve these results, though, requires a person to reach and impact others and in the process make their lives better - more informed, more efficient, more joyous, more fun, or more meaningful. The final result can often to an outsider seem like magic or overnight success but it rarely is that. Rather, consistent effort, belief in your craft, and the right group of people in your network combined with, yes, some luck, is essential.

Furthermore, the impact from one's creative or innovative efforts will only endure if you and those who come after you build off prior work and knowledge to make it even more impactful, allowing it to compound to a level of scope and reach its original creator could never have imagined. In the process these efforts hopefully move others to contribute to making the world a happier, healthier, safer, and more prosperous place through the deployment of their own gifts, skills, and actions. That's when the magic happens. ​

More from the Blog

• Career Exploration 101
• Compounded Returns: Growing Your Network and Personal Brand
• Past, Present, Future: Reflections on Time
• Mind Over Matter
• To Be Rather Than to Seem
• Giving Thanks: Finding Personal Fulfillment
• Find Your Passion? Finding Meaning and Purpose in Your Work & Life

Additional Readings & Content

• Disney & Technology: A History of Standard-Setting Innovation
• The Imagineering Story documentary series on Disney+
• Pixar Animation Studios - Our Story Timeline
• The 22 Rules of Storytelling, According to Pixar
• Pixar follows 5 storytelling rules to make every movie feel so perfect (video)
• Pixar in a Box - The Art of Storytelling (Online Learning from Khan Academy)

November brings with it a host of collegiate and professional sports taking place in the United States from American football to basketball and hockey. 

Being a sports fan is a complex endeavor that can be both painful and joyous. Depending on the resources and talent on your favorite team they may be more or less likely to win games or an eventual championship. But anyone who has watched a few sporting events knows that sometimes (even often) the team that is favored to win doesn't for a variety of reasons including mistakes, luck, and an opponent being better on that day. 

I grew up as a Wake Forest University Demon Deacon fan as both my parents went there. My sister is also a Wake alumnus and lives near the campus, only a few hours drive from my current home in Southwest Virginia. As such, for the past few years I have been to many Wake games with her and witnessed the highs and lows of fandom. 

In 2021, the Wake Forest football team won 10 games (out of 12) in the regular season and advanced to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football championship game. It was an amazing season for a school with the smallest enrollment among institutions competing at the highest level of collegiate football in America. Despite what was objectively one of the best football seasons in Wake Forest HISTORY, there were still 3 losses that took place that year including in the ACC championship game itself with my sister, her boyfriend, our tailgate buddies, and myself present to witness it. That loss in particular still stings. We all know from behavioral economics that losses loom larger than gains and indeed any sports fan can tell you that losses stay with you longer (and eat at you more as you play the "what if" game) than the highs of a win.  ​

While 2021 was an amazing football season for Wake Forest, 2023 has been a struggle. A team that has been so offensively gifted the past few years has had a difficult time scoring in 2023. At the college level players graduate and leave and so some variability in results is to be expected. Regardless, watching "your team" make mistakes and struggle is challenging. You can see the players are putting in effort but the results are just not there. You hope they continue to commit to the work of getting better, gelling more as a time (chemistry between the players is important), and realize that next year things can be different. However, a variety of factors in modern day college sports makes commitment of players more elusive than it has ever been. 

The modern college sports landscape has introduced an interesting set of incentives that have cast a spotlight on what an athlete gets from their experience playing for a university. It used to be that an athletic scholarship and the chance to build skills and a resume that made one competitive to be selected to join a professional team (and get paid a professional athlete's salary) was what a prospective college athlete could expect. Now, in the revenue-generating sports of college football and basketball mostly male athletes have the ability to get paid for the use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL). In theory this sounds like a great idea as historically colleges with large fanbases generated millions of dollars in revenue from the efforts (and results) of their collegiate players who did not themselves reap many financial benefits despite the risk of playing physical and often violent sports. Practically, though, the ability for players to receive NIL compensation has become a "pay for play" arrangement where the most promising players are offered serious money (especially for a soon-to-be high school graduate) to come play on a university's team. As you can image, institutions with more resources are able to offer more to these high school prospects than those with smaller fanbases, less wealthy donors, or less lucrative media contracts. Yes, there are a set number of scholarships a school can give out so it is not possible to hoard talent in pure numbers but NIL has allowed for some of the best talent to concentrate at a select number of institutions.  

And NIL is perhaps even more "effectively" used in combination with the "transfer portal", which allows players already on a collegiate team to express an interest in potentially leaving the team for a "better" opportunity. Again, in theory the transfer portal seems like a good idea. Allow collegiate players who have yet to find the right "fit" to be able to change their environment such that they can get the coaching and experience they need to develop and grow. And if someone is graduating from their current institution and seeking to enroll as a graduate student at a new institution that isn't all bad in terms of the educational and professional development. However, when coupled with NIL offers the transfer portal allows for more well resourced teams to potentially "poach" players from teams that are either underperforming and/or under-compensating their current scholarship recipients. Growth in transfer players on college football bowl subdivision rosters from 2019 to 2023 was >220% (from 6.4% to 20.5% of rosters), indicating this mechanism is becoming a more popular way for teams to upgrade their talent.  

Personally, I also believe the current system makes it easy for players to "quit" on their current team. Things not going well individually or as a team? Not getting the playing time you want? Feel like the coach is showing preference in terms of increased playing time to another player that you think you are better than? Put your name in the transfer portal in December and look for greener pastures. But is such an action what is ultimately best for these young men? 

The individual player challenges mirror larger team challenges and fanbase angst over "winning". In sports, unlike many other aspects in life, there is an objective record of outcomes associated with a team each season: wins and loses. 

A game that can run 3-3.5 hours in length for college football is eventually reflected in a single win or loss. There can easily be 80 plays per team with 22 players (11 on offense and another 11 on defense) on the field for each of them. While every player is not directly involved on every play for simplicity let's run the math assuming all 22 play a part in every play (which is more true than the casual fan realizes). This calculates to over 3,500 individual "actions" occurring in a single game. 3,500 actions and easily 80 total players involved per game. A game that again is ultimately reflected in a binary outcome: win or loss.  ​

If you watch American football games for any length of time you begin to observe that the line between "winning" and "losing" is incredibly thin. Literally one or two plays out of the 80 or so each team runs can change the outcome of a game. So when one team wins and another loses, what really is the difference in talent and effort between them? Sometimes very little and sometimes a lot. One also must acknowledge that talent and effort alone don't determine outcomes. Luck is a factor for sure. Does a defender fall down and allow an offensive player to be open down the field for an easy touchdown pass? Does a sudden gust of wind knock a ball off course preventing a field goal kicking attempt from being good? 

And what of the opposing team's effort? Fanbases will sometimes be so fixated on their own team that I think they sometimes forget that the other team has players who also want to win. So, your favorite team's success is not based completely on their own effort as they are playing against individuals who are also exerting effort and seeking an outcome (ie, a "win") that only one of you can obtain. And there are games where clearly the opposing team is just playing better or worst than your team, which will ultimately influences the outcome.  

I say all of this to make clear that while teams are often judged on their record (ie, wins vs losses), these numbers cannot capture the effort of players, level of competition, and luck. A sensible fan should then not be so obsessed with these numbers but rather look more closely at the effort players are exerting. Players make up teams and with experience and development they can become more effective in their roles that will ultimately give one's team a better chance to win in the future. This is predicated on these players continuing with your team and committing to put in the work to get better over the years.  

Wake Forest University's football team has been one particularly focused on developing its players with many "redshirting" (ie, not playing their 1st year) to allow them to remain eligible to be on the team for 5 (versus the usual 4) years. Most new additions to the team spend their first year practicing and learning the plays but never actually playing in a competitive game. This is the ultimately illustration of delaying gratification, realizing that the work they put in will often not be put on display for a year (or more!). This developmental model faces considerable headwinds in our modern era and the current collegiate sports environment. Will a freshman player with considerable talent and expectations be willing to wait their turn and trust the developmental process? 

What is even the goal of playing on a collegiate athletic team? I mentioned many embark on this trajectory with the hopes of playing professionally but very few college players will "turn pro". So, while it seems to the external observer that the goal of playing in college is to become a professional athlete, the actual value in this experience is in the development of critical skills (leadership, dedication, hard work) for succeeding in the world after college. Furthermore, playing a college sport provides one memories that last a lifetime. 

So, it is the JOURNEY of practicing, playing, and competing at the college level that matters most to most individuals rather than the DESTINATION per se. The phrase "focus on the journey not the destination" may be a tired one but that doesn't make it untrue. Results and outcomes are fleeting moments in time boiled down to numbers on a ledger X wins, Y losses. The experience of being on a team, forming bonds, and working toward a common goal is a rich one. A memory that will last and often ages well...many players come back to their alma matters many years later proud of their efforts playing on a past team. ​

Chris, this blog normally focuses on career and professional development topics. What does all this sports talk have to do with that? A lot. First, most students and younger employees are seeking to grow and develop skills that will make them more marketable in the future (just as a college athlete is trying to develop skills and experiences for a professional career). Many will encounter challenges in these roles and setbacks are expected. Perseverance is key. Not giving up when things get touch at school, at work, etc... but realizing that through challenges comes personal growth and development.  

Similarly, many of us focus on professional outcomes and not the process of developing as a professional. Just because you didn't get that promotion or land a new job doesn't mean the process of honing one's skills and revisiting and highlighting one's accomplishments aren't worthwhile in and of themselves. 

In each competitive endeavor we undertake professionally the outcome may be binary - winning or losing - but we must look beyond that. Similarly a true fan must get past measuring "success" in wins and losses. Wins and losses are an external scorecard that cannot account for personal growth or internal state. We can lose but learn in the process. We can lose but know we are getting better and closer to a "win", even if we cannot completely predict when that win will come. 

If we all focus a bit more on the process of personal growth and fulfillment versus looking at external measures to define success, we would all be better off as fans and professionals. You can't fully control if you "win" or "lose" but you can determine your mindset (if not always your mood). Certainly losing sucks and no one likes it. But being more reflective on an experience may allow us to take something positive from it regardless of the outcome. We may have lost the game but the defensive is playing better this year and hopefully the offensive improves next year as well (in the case of Wake Forest football). We didn't land that job we really wanted but we were reminded of all we have accomplished and have to offer our next potential employer.  

I believe the key to moving from an external scorecard to internal growth is via personal commitment to our own development and not allowing factors external to us (and often outside our control) to govern how we feel about ourselves. This is a hard thing to do but we all would be better off adopting this mindset. And we can't give up when things get difficult. Success means more if it is achieved through overcoming adversity. 

According to the professor and author Arthur Brooks, satisfaction is "the joy of accomplishing a goal with effort" (learn more about the art & science of happiness in the TEDx Talk featuring him, below). 

The with effort part is important as it is achieving something through striving and overcoming obstacles and challenges that is rewarded in our physiology and psychology. You won't be satisfied if you always take the easy way out and don't commit to doing the work to get better at your craft (as an athlete or professional). ​

This past Saturday, Wake Forest played its last football game of the season at Syracuse and I was down at my parents house for the US Thanksgiving Holiday. Typically my Dad doesn't like to watch the whole game as it makes him nervous but we did turn it on with about 5 minutes left in the game. Wake was down but had a chance to go ahead with a score. They had scored more points in this game than any against conference opponents and had a relatively new player in leading the team at the quarterback position. We were excited to see the team executing on offense for a change as they moved the ball down the field. In the end, it came down to one play where the team couldn't get the ball in the end zone. But how exciting to witness what the players were capable of. We were proud if disappointed in the outcome. That performance gave us hope for next season. 

"I am not happy with our record but these guys showed up everyday, they prepared hard, they practiced hard, they played hard down to the final play....I understand we are expected to win football games and we accept that expectation but I am proud of our players."
- Dave Clawson, Head Coach, Wake Forest University Football 

In the end, winning is great but it certainly is not guaranteed nor should it always be expected. Rather, relying on our own internal scorecard (a term popularized by the legendary investor Warren Buffett) and knowing work is being put in that will pay off is critical. In an ironic way the next win will mean more because of the past losses it can be measured and contrasted against. 

With near infinite distractions and choice available through modern technology, humans are often left adrift and detached from reality. While we think escape from life's hard problems is the answer, ultimate satisfaction usually comes from commitment and the overcoming of challenges.  Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing by Pete Davis is a book that I think captures our current societal state while offering insights on what can be gained from commitment to causes bigger than ourselves. 

In the book and his 2018 commencement speech at Harvard Law School that inspired it, Davis laments we, especially younger adults who were raised with the internet, smartphones, and on-demand content, are stuck in "Infinite Browsing Mode." This state, facilitated by technology, leaves us swiping through endless choice, content, and information and often paralyzes us from commitment. It may be most apparent as an issue in examples like browsing Netflix for a show to watch or scrolling through countless dating profiles on apps like Tinder and Bumble but it goes beyond this. It has permeated our society and culture and leaves people either afraid or unable to commit. Solving the world's biggest problems requires action not passive "browsing" and people would be on the whole happier and healthier if they detached from their screens and engaged with the physical world. 

Making the effort to commit and live in the physical world is hard. It requires vulnerability and courage and a willingness to forego the easy but often unfulfilling online world for a messy, challenging, yet beautifully flawed "real world". 

I find the third point interesting as the author defines this as the worry that commitments we make will threaten our identity or sense of control. He mentions, and I agree, that there is a "messiness to working with other people" and that no organization, institution, group, employer, etc.... is going to perfectly match the characteristics we might desire and/or feel perfectly aligned with who we are. 

It is certainly "easier" to remove the messiness of working with other people from one's life but it would lead to a less fulfilling experience. You can imagine that when we have a choice about whether to associate and work with others we may be even more hesitant to do so given this fear of association and all the challenges interpersonal relationships (even professional ones) have. But removing other human beings from our professional and personal lives is not the answer. We are a species who evolved to cooperate (and also compete & fight). It is core to our humanity and despite the challenges of working with others, it is something we cannot and should not excise from our lives. 

In last month's post I spoke to current challenges in volunteer engagement with non-profit organizations across the United States. I see how this could be the result of individuals' fears of association mentioned above. Why would a person who already sees the challenges of working with others in their professional or personal life choose to work with even more individuals in a volunteer capacity? Why add more stress and potential interpersonal conflict to one's plate when you aren't paid to deal with it? How can you effectively work with and motivate individuals in these settings where no compensation is tied to their engagement? These are certainly valid points and challenges non-profit organizations have always faced. 

The difference now, though, is that potential volunteers have so many options to occupy their time and even activities that may make them feel like they are making a difference. Sharing one's reactions and concerns on social media requires a few clicks on a keyboard or screen and can leave one with the impression that they have "done good". And certainly, engaging with organizations and causes online can be effective and useful in its own way. Nothing, however, replaces true engagement in a cause or organization and the satisfaction that can come when working with others towards a common objective or goal. ​

Breaking out of "Infinite Browsing Mode" in our age of distraction and cynicism requires us to dedicate ourselves to something larger than us - to a cause or community that matters. 

Davis talks about sustained commitment and that many of us are led to believe we will find "success" or self-actualization through some major, life-defining moment like the climax of a Hollywood film. Often, however, we change and grow gradually and our lives are filled "not with big, brave moments, but a stream of little, ordinary ones out of which we must make our own meaning." And in an age of endless distraction, staying committed to work or causes over time is very challenging. He goes on to state that everyday boredom, distraction, and uncertainty threaten sustained commitment. 

As someone who works to support career and professional development of graduate students and postdocs, I think a lot about how developing oneself and advancing toward a career goal also requires a gradual and sustained approach. Commitment to learning a bit more or advancing a bit more in one's craft can ultimately yield results but it rarely happens overnight. Similarly, "networking" to land a job takes time and should ideally be done months if not years in advance. Relationships need to be cultivated to yield fruitful results. 

I wrote a few years ago about compound returns in growing one's network and ultimately career. I need to update that piece soon as I have certainly seen how the visibility of this blog, my website, and my personal "brand" have grown over the past few years. Importantly, this didn't happen overnight and requires a relatively small but sustained commitment on my part: to publish a blog post once per month. I have been doing this since early 2019 and after nearly 5 years, I am seeing sustained interest in the resources and content I share here and in my monthly newsletter (launched in January 2021). I think doing all this helps me build professional credibility and also provides me a means of sharing resources and readings I care about with others who may be interested. It allows me to extend my reach beyond my day job and contribute to the field of graduate and postdoc career development. 

While I wouldn't call myself a "thought leader" in this space (and don't really like that term to begin with), I do think maintaining this personal website, blog, and newsletter has allowed me to build professional capital. After I landed my current role at Virginia Tech, our Senior Vice President of Research and Innovation commented that he really liked my website. While I don't think having this platform got me my current role, it certainly was an attribute that stood out to my employer.

Do you need to go out and create website, blog, YouTube channel, or newsletter to build your personal brand? Not necessarily. The point of this story is that I found an avenue outside my work responsibilities to contribute to my community and share resources. Furthermore, my efforts are gaining traction after dedicating myself to continuing these efforts over many years.

What could a commitment to your own career and professional development look like for you? Maybe a Coursera course or training on a skill you would like to build? Or perhaps attending a campus workshop on a topic you have been curious to learn more about? There is so much out there for you to engage in and online platforms like Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, and even YouTube make accessing new knowledge and developing new skills easier than ever. ​

The same technology that distracts us can empower us. As with so many things, it is how we use the internet and online platforms that matters. ​

For more see this short video covering some topics and recommendations around good habit formation from James Clear's book, Atomic Habits.

Dedication and commitment to any cause, activity, or action helps develop the habit of said action. And once something has become a habit, it becomes automatic and less subject to disruption by our rationalizing mind with excuses like "I will get to that tomorrow" or "the weather is bad today". Habits become a sticky aspect of our behavior...hard to disrupt. In some sense, habitual actions become a part of us. Who wouldn't want to develop the habit of self improvement or volunteering or being a more kind and compassionate human being? Most of us want these things but if we do not commitment to consistently engaging in these activities we are almost certainly doomed to fail. Forming a habit requires considerable intention and effort early on but ultimately it can become second nature. 

To close, dedication and commitment are not easy. But they also can start from small acts, performed consistently over time. The formation of good habits that help you develop and grow or contribute to other's well-being are ultimately worth the initial effort. They leave us with improved skills, more diverse interests, and/or those around us more supported, engaged, and loved. We all feel like we could be doing more to both better ourselves and make the world a better place and certainly there is much to be done. But starting small and realizing that any action you take either internally or externally can lead to meaningful changes in your life and the lives of others is critical.   

It won't be easy at times to stay committed to causes and activities you care about but in the end it will be worth it. ​

"Commitment is about choosing to pursue—in the face of our limited length—boundless depth, for the more time we add to something, the more beautiful it becomes. The two meanings of the word “dedicate” are revealing. First, it means to make something holy (like “dedicate a memorial”). But it also means to stick at something for a long time (like “she was dedicated to the project”). I don’t think this is a coincidence: We do something holy in the extraordinary moments when we set out on long hauls, and we do something holy in those countless ordinary moments when we sustain them."
​           - Pete Davis, Author of Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing 

In last month's blog post I discussed how our perspective matters in how we interact with and see the world. As I was exploring research to cite in that piece I came across some very interesting work related to how how a person's mindset can affect them, physically. 

Much of this work comes from Alia Crum, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. The Stanford Mind & Body Lab she directs studies how subjective mindsets (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, and expectations) can alter objective reality through behavioral, psychological, and physiological mechanisms. Her first publication, Mind-set Matters: Exercise and the Placebo Effect, found that informing female hotel room attendants that their work cleaning rooms was good exercise that satisfied the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendations for an active lifestyle perceived themselves getting significantly more exercise 4 weeks later than a control group despite no overt change in their actual physical activity. Informing the attendants that their work was good exercise also affected their physiology measured at the 4-week time point. In fact, the subjects in the informed group lost an average of 2 pounds, lowered their systolic blood pressure by 10 points, and were significantly healthier as measured by body-fat percentage and body mass index.

​This study is a remarkable demonstration of how perception and belief an affect not only how one perceives their actions but also how this impacts their bodies and health. Crum has gone on to examine other interesting effects of mindset and beliefs on human physiology including how a milkshake perceived as more caloric and decadent increased participants' feeling of satiety ("fullness") and reduced ghrelin levels (a physiological signal for satiety) more than a milkshake labeled as healthy/diet despite the fact the milkshakes were identical in their make-up. The simple belief that one shake was more decadent and rich (despite it not actually being so) led to a physiological signal of more "satisfaction". Beliefs are powerful things.

And while certainly these findings are interesting and potentially impactful in how we think about food and exercise, Crum and others have also demonstrated the power of mindset on our mental state and ability to function productively in the world.

​For example, stress can both enhance and hinder human performance and work by Crum and colleagues show that one's stress mindset can impact both physiology and behavior. Based on responses to a scale developed by these researchers (Stress Mindset Measure), individuals fall into either a “stress-is-enhancing” or “stress-is-debilitating” mindset by default. Importantly, though, information presented to individuals that emphasize the enhancing nature of stress show improvements in self-reported health and work performance. Additionally, the authors found that individuals with a stress-is-enhancing mindset have a stronger desire to receive feedback on their performance and show more adaptive cortisol (stress hormone) profiles under acute stress.

Crum's stress work indicates the importance of mindset on how we respond to challenges in the world. One of her most recent publications, though, takes her lab work out into the real world. Specifically, they investigated differences in how individuals viewed the COVID-19 pandemic at its outset in Spring 2020 and the impact these varied viewpoints had on a variety of measures collected from them 6 weeks and 6 months later. Over 20,000 American adults participated in this study at intake (which took place on the very day the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic: March 11, 2020) with analyses investigating subgroups that completed the follow-up assessments at 6 weeks (May 2020; n=9,643) and 6 months (October 2020; n=7,287) post initial assessment. A total of 5,365 COVID-negative participants completed all three surveys and were included in the subsequent longitudinal analyses by the team.

Study participants' mindsets (using a modified version of the Illness Mindset Inventory, for more see) about the pandemic were categorized along three dimensions:

• Catastrophe Mindset: The COVID-19 pandemic is a global catastrophe that is wreaking havoc on our society.
• Manageable Mindset: The COVID-19 pandemic can be managed so that people in our society can live life as normal. 
• Opportunity Mindset: The COVID-19 pandemic can be an opportunity for our society to make positive changes.  

​Importantly, mindsets differed between individuals and within individuals over time (some individual's mindsets shifted across the timepoints assessed).

Here is an excerpt from the discussion section of their paper explaining their findings:
"Those who endorsed the catastrophe mindset more than others took the situation more seriously; they stayed home, washed their hands, and (when it was recommended) started wearing a mask. Interestingly, this appeared to be at the expense of other aspects of their wellbeing.

This contrasts with the effects of the manageable mindset. Despite maintaining high levels of wellbeing during the pandemic, people who adopted the manageable mindset to a greater extent than others were much less likely to prioritize these CDC recommendations. As such, endorsement of this mindset may reflect an attempt to deny the reality of the global pandemic and a refusal to engage with it in a socially responsible way. Over time, as people adjusted to the changes necessitated by the pandemic, it may have become more adaptive.
​
The opportunity mindset seemed to provide the best of both worldviews; those who adopted this mindset to a greater degree compared to others staved off major declines in wellbeing without subverting the behaviors necessary to engage with the pandemic in a socially responsible way."

Indeed, framing stressful and challenging situations as an opportunity is crucial to aid us in persisting in activities despite the perceived and real barriers we face. And viewing the stress associated with life as enhancing can help us channel our stress to productive efforts.

​For many seeking to enter the world of work, the modern job search is one of those stressful experiences than can benefit from a mindset shift. 

Your mindset affects your career. 
​Data show that students with a lifelong learning mindset (ie, a growth mindset) receive higher supervisor ratings of their performance in a co-operative education program and report higher levels of job satisfaction, work engagement, and job-related self-efficacy in their careers after graduation. In addition, they receive more promotions in their careers.

​A study of Duke University MBA students mirrored these findings: those with an optimistic attitude about life (assessed at the beginning of their graduate program) received more internship offers, had better employment prospects at graduation, and were more likely to be promoted 2 years after graduation.  

Your mindset, uncertainty, and the future. 
​We must acknowledge that while optimism and a growth mindset can help you navigate the world and your career more effectively, we are living through a time of rapid technological progress and change. The rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning, large language models, and more have added increased levels of anxiety amongst knowledge workers (a topic I will discuss in March's blog post). We must remember though, that by its very nature, the future is uncertain and unpredictable. Dealing with this uncertainty and change by abandoning your agency is not a winning strategy, however. 

Regardless of what is happening in the ever-changing external world, we must believe that we have, at minimum, control over our mindset and, as a result, believe that things can get better for us despite the stress and uncertainty we face. Cultivate optimism and a growth mindset. 
​
​Indeed, optimistic individuals tend to have better health prospects and live longer and cultivating a growth mindset is associated with increased subjective well-being & health and relationship & job satisfaction. ​

I spend much of my working days thinking about how to help individuals with Ph.D.s navigate their careers. It is both a reflection of human nature and a sign of the times that some of the most educated individuals in society are stressed, anxious, and pessimistic about their job prospects.

​Some of this is surely rooted in how academia has constructed graduate and postdoctoral training (ie, an apprenticeship model) as well as actual barriers to work that exist for international students and scholars needing work visas to be employed in the United States, for example. 

A great deal of job search anxiety comes from the fact that humans are often wired to focus on what they don't have versus the attributes they do possess (see last month's post and a discussion of the negativity bias). We all have valuable skills and perspectives to share but we have to believe this is the case before we can convince others of these facts.

In addition, we need to work to channel our stress and unease about a job search into productive efforts (ie, view stress as enhancing vs debilitating). Instead of allowing our feelings of inadequacy to push us toward a state of inaction or resignation remember that growth and development is part of life. Just because you aren't good at something yet doesn't mean you can't develop that skill or competency.

​Take a growth mindset to developing your growth mindset. Construct a plan to enable you to assess your skills, determine where you need to develop, and chart your future, ideally before you enter a job search.  

To return to the fundamentals of your mindset, a critical first step to making progress in your career, job search, and life is believing you have something to offer and contribute. Focusing on your strengths and unique experiences can help and as we have seen in some of the data shared in this piece, simply reframing your beliefs (in this case about your job search) in an affirming light - I have something to offer and contribute - can make all the difference in your experience and even, perhaps, your outcomes.