Exactly What to Say: The Magic Words for Influence and Impact

by nurazaliah | Apr 18, 2019 | HowTo

The worst time to think about the thing you are going to say is in the moment you are saying it.

Go and get this great book by Phil M Jones

Opening Words
1. I’m Not Sure If It’s for You, But

When you say to somebody, “I’m not sure if it’s for you, but.. .,” the little voice inside your listener’s head hears, “You might want to look at this.”

2. Open-Minded

When introducing a new idea, start with, “How open-minded are you?” This will naturally attract people toward the very thing that you’d like them to support. Everybody wants to be open-minded.

3. What Do You Know?

The best way to overcome the “I know best” mentality of many people is to question the knowledge on which the other person’s opinion was founded.

to be continued…

4. How Would You Feel If?
5. Just Imagine
6. When Would Be a Good Time?
7. I’m Guessing You Haven’t Got Around To
8. Simple Swaps
9. You Have Three Options
10. Two Types of People
11. I Bet You’re a Bit Like Me
12. If… Then
13. Don’t Worry
14. Most People
15. The Good News
16. What Happens Next
17. What Makes You Say That?
18. Before You Make Your Mind Up
19. If I Can, Will You?
20. Enough
21. Just One More Thing
22. A Favor

PQDT Open

by nurazaliah | Apr 12, 2019 | HowTo

With PQDT Open, you can read the full text of open access dissertations and theses free of charge.

https://pqdtopen.proquest.com/search.html

In academia, hard work is expected—but taking a break is effort well spent, too

by nurazaliah | Apr 9, 2019 | HowTo

My lab bench was strewn with tubes and pipettes—remnants of an experiment that had refused to work for several weeks. I was slouched against the bench, deep in despair. It was a far cry from how I had felt just a few months earlier, when I started my master’s research project. At that point, I thought I had cracked the code to academic success. After years of excelling in the classroom thanks to intensive studying, the idea that I would be rewarded if I worked hard enough was deeply rooted in me. So I spent long hours in the lab, steadily filled pages in my notebook, and was praised for my diligence. When my experiments didn’t produce the exciting results they were supposed to, I thought I just needed to work more.

Yet here I was, working harder than ever—but not getting anywhere. I didn’t know what to do.

It was late in the evening. One other person was still in the lab: A postdoc, who noticed my distress, came over and gently asked how I was doing. I told him about my struggles with the experiment. I didn’t tell him that I was also wondering what was wrong with me and that I felt like a failure. After we talked through the experiment, the postdoc said, “I think it’s time to go home and get some sleep.” He added with a smile, “Taking a break is also hard work, you know?”

Those comments planted the seed of a new approach. Previously, when my nonresearch friends questioned whether the “always working” ethos that is common among academics was normal or healthy, I had brushed off their concerns. Now, I realized that they were on to something. I started to go easier on myself, to try to make being in the lab from early morning to late evening the exception rather than the norm. Pushing back against the belief that long working hours are the hallmark of a good researcher was hard, and I slipped back into my old routine more than once. But things got a little better. I felt less stressed and my research started to progress. Yet, in the back of my head, I still felt guilty for not working “enough.” I hadn’t fully understood what the postdoc was trying to tell me.

A few years later, during my Ph.D., the penny dropped the rest of the way. My adviser and I were at a café, discussing a hurdle facing our field of nanomedicine and many other biomedical fields: that research rarely translates to improved clinical outcomes. As he finished his coffee and rubbed his forehead, he said, “We need to work smarter, not harder.” I had never heard that mantra before, although I now know it is common, and it resonated with me. It also helped me see how academia is often set up around the opposite premise: Working harder and longer is seen as a virtue, regardless of how “smart” that work is.

Exciting, novel ideas do not come from a mind constantly under pressure.

That conversation helped me understand that exciting, novel ideas do not come from a mind constantly under pressure. My best ideas and “aha” moments almost always come after I allow my mind to relax, to drift—whether that’s playing video games with my brother, cooking a nice dinner, or going on long hikes with my wife. Part of working smarter, I realized, can be taking a break. Fighting academia’s norm of overwork to detach for a while and fully experience something else is an effort—but one worth making.

Today, a decade after that eye-opening evening in the lab, I try to pass this mindset on to my own students. Not too long ago, in the lab one night, I walked by one of my students slumped over her bench. I gently asked how she was doing. With a defeated look, she responded that the protocol refused to work, again, despite many attempts. I couldn’t help but see myself all those years ago. We talked for a while about academic life and what it means to be a researcher. I asked her why we do what we do. Often it comes down to pursuing curiosity and passion.

How can we nurture that spirit? The answer does not include working ourselves to exhaustion. Work-life balance is not a detriment to excellent research or an optional bonus, but an integral part of it.