Last night I gave a webinar on grant writing, where I told a story of a grant. It was a story of both failure and successes, showing what things worked and what things didn’t. It was meant to be an instructional story, as many good stories are. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize that people learn far better through story than through pedantic spewing of facts.
So. A lot of people wrote to me afterwards ...(read more)
{ 0 comments }
Ever feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle to convince your conservative colleagues that your new theory or hypothesis has merit? Feel like talking to them is much like talking to your teenage daughter who just slammed the door in your face?
Check out this video by Dan Schechtman, especially the part mid-way through, where he talks about the resistance he faced to the idea that a crystal could have 5-fold symmetry.
It wasn’t like he was just some random nobody ...(read more)
{ 0 comments }
Bruce is an admitted (and reformed) racist, who cheated on his wife.
In this Ted talk, he discusses how the amount of deception you practice in life is inversely proportional to your feeling of aliveness.
He also shows how being honest helps you connect more deeply with your audience in a talk.
It’s a great watch:
If you like it, please hit the Facebook Like button.
Enjoy!
{ 0 comments }
If you are too attached to the outcome of a specific thing like the decision on a grant or paper submission, you are more likely to fail at that thing.
Does this sound crazy to you?
It is not. Eastern philosophies like Zen have taught this for centuries. I never “got it” until recently.
A discussion with a successful senior colleague illustrates.
We talked about grant funding, and he said that he has rarely failed to get a grant in his whole ...(read more)
{ 1 comment }
Giving thanks … and no thanks … on thanksgiving
by morgan · 0 comments
Originally I was going to post just about being thankful.
See, despite shrinking budgets and challenging times, we scientists are a lucky group – especially those of us who have benefitted from the budget largesse of the USA towards our endeavor.
When else in history has any society spent so much money on people simply exploring and figuring out who the world works? Never. It’s actually amazing if you think about it.
We are so lucky to be living in a time when ...(read more)
Tagged as: thanksgiving
{ 0 comments }