This is a  bumper episode because it is a crossover with The Struggling Scientist podcast! I am joined by Susanne and Jayron, founders of The Struggling Scientists to talk about all things science communication. Susanne and Jayron will give advice about getting started in science communication and I will offer coaching tips on some of the common barriers and worries that people have about engaging with the public. You can check them out at www.thestrugglingscientists.com. 

Transcript

Vikki: Hello and welcome to episode 27 of the PhD Life Coach. Today is a super exciting episode because we are doing our first collaboration. So we've had guests on the show before, as you know, but today is a full collaboration with the Struggling Scientists Podcast. So I am here with Suzanne and Jayron from Struggling Scientists, and this episode is going to go on both of our podcasts. So we are going to be thinking today about getting involved in science communication, why you might want to, what things might hold you back, and from my perspective, how we can use coaching to overcome some of the worries and concerns that you might have about getting involved in these things today. But before we get started, Suzanne, Jayron, do you want to introduce yourselves and let people know a little bit about you. 

Suzanne: Yes, of course. So I'm Suzanne and I am now a fifth year PhD student, still working on it. Almost done, hopefully soon, writing the thesis. A lot of work. I'm from the Netherlands, and that's also where I'm doing my PhD now. And my PhD is in medical biochemistry and in cholesterol metabolism. So I'm a very fundamental scientist and generalist as well. And yeah, we are from the Struggling Scientist Podcast, but I will let Jayron introduce that part.

Jayron: Yes. So I'm Jayron, the other half of the Struggling Scientists. I also do my PhD in the Netherlands, also fifth year PhD student, same department as Ison. That's where we met. And my PhD is more focused on one particular gene in diabetes and insulin secretion and stuff like that. So slightly different from Suzanne, but we're still both in fundamental science.

And yeah, we both got started with the struggling scientist back in April of 2021, I want to say. And yeah, it's taken off quite a bit. And here we are now. 

Vikki: Fantastic. Thank you so much for being here. Let's start with how you guys got involved in science communication. I know for your listeners, you've, recently done an episode about this, but for the benefit of my listeners, how did you get involved in the first place?

Suzanne: So yeah, we got started with science communication because Jayron had a real passion to want to start a podcast. He has once been told by a PI that he had a real podcast voice and it always stuck with him. He first started a podcast actually about investing and that was really not my topic. I love to talk about science. So when he wanted to do something together with me, it quickly became a science podcast instead. We have been really lucky that it's been really successful and grew a lot.

And when we started with that, we realized that we had a real passion for science communication. We sort of rolled into it and it's been this really great, amazing thing that we got to do next to our PhDs, which has been a super lot of fun, but also a lot of work, of course. Jayron, do you have anything to add? 

Jayron: Yeah, I would also just add that it, we didn't really just stop with the podcast. At a certain point, it became social media newsletter, some blogs, a website. We kept adding more stuff on top of it. So yeah, science communication doesn't just stop with one thing, you can always add more. 

Suzanne: Yeah. We, we are not that good at sticking to one thing, I guess!

Vikki: You make it sound quite straightforward that you just thought you'd like to do a podcast and started doing it. So was it that straightforward or did you have concerns and things along the way? 

Suzanne: Well, honestly, I think one of the things that the PhD taught me the most was that you can teach yourself anything. You can dive into a topic, you can read all about it, and you can do it. You are smart. You can do anything you want in the world, basically. And it also teaches you how to find information and how to take that in and how to start rolling with it. And that has been super helpful also in this area where we just are self-taught, of course mostly by YouTube videos, watching about how to edit podcasts and how to do everything. So yeah, it is actually quite easy to get started with it and it also involved a lot of experimenting, I would say, with what works and what doesn't work. And that's also something we of course love from our background as PhD students. So yeah, it worked out quite well, I have to say. 

Jayron: Yeah, I would just add maybe that the one thing that we sort were sort of hesitant a little bit about in the beginning was how to bring the podcast forward to our network. Because we originally only started by putting it on LinkedIn. It's like, “Hey guys, by the way, we make this”. And from there it was like, okay, but should we be a little bit more confident about it and bring it forward like that also on Twitter for example. Neither of us really had Twitter or Instagram or anything like that, so it was a process of learning to put yourself forward a little bit, I guess.

Vikki: I love that because so often when I'm working with clients, they talk about a barrier to doing something, being not knowing how to do it. “I've never done this before. I don't even know where to start. I don't know anything.” And I love the way you've sort of flipped that around and gone, no, I don't. That's true. And that, but that doesn't mean I can't do it. That doesn't mean that this is too difficult for me. What's also true is that I know how to find things out and I know how to learn to do things.

And that's one of the techniques we often use in coaching is if you're having a thought that might hold you back - so the thought, “I don't even know how to do this” perhaps - you ask if it's true and sometimes maybe it is true. And then the, the sort of approach is, okay, what if it's true and that's okay? And what if something else is true too? 

And in this case, the fact that you had confidence in your ability to learn things and that you knew where you could find resources and you were willing to spend some time in that bit where you don't know and you can see it as an experiment, just feels like such a positive thing.

Suzanne: Yes. Well, it's almost like we find it kind of fun to learn new skills. Mm-hmm. So for example, I also learned website building and I learned how to edit podcasts and I learned to do so many different things just for this podcast basically, which grew into so much more. And yeah, I really enjoy learning new things and things like accounting, there was a little bit less fun. 

Vikki: But yeah, we've all got to do the admin stuff as well, haven't we? Now you guys are starting to help other people get into science communication, I think. 

Suzanne: Yes. Yeah. That's our goal. 

Vikki: How's that? How's that going? What barriers do you see people talking about? 

Suzanne: Well, it's often that people don't know where to start. That's like a really, really big one. Or that they don't feel like it would be interesting enough what they want to talk about. And that's also something we struggled with in the beginning. Definitely.

Jayron: Yeah, no, for sure. I agree with that. It's also like, I want to say, it seems like a lot of people put their stuff forward. They do try, but then they don't see the results immediately, like their, their tweet or whatever doesn't go viral, it's like, okay, this was much harder than I thought.

And then they maybe tone it down a little bit or maybe end up quitting or after a certain amount of time. Something along those lines as well. I think. 

Suzanne: Yeah, there are a lot of people who start very enthusiastically…

Jayron: And then hopes and dreams dashed!

Vikki: Definitely. I mean, it's something I've had to coach myself through that, you know, you find yourself, you're celebrating 10 downloads, you're celebrating the fact that you've published five episodes and all of this.

And you know, especially as people that are used to being quite high-achieving in our normal lives, that's starting right at the beginning and understanding that it can take time and there's going to be times when not many people are listening or when you don't feel like doing the episode or whatever it is.

It does take that sort of persistence, I guess, and that understanding that it will take some time. How did you kind of coach yourself through that? I mean, you have billions of listeners now, but I do assume you didn't leap straight to having tons and tons of listeners. So how did you like coach yourselves during that? How did you keep going? 

Suzanne: Well, one really big thing, we also agreed that consistency is an important thing. You need to keep going. It really helped that we were with two people instead of one, because we could sort of help each other through the difficult parts.

And when I wasn't feeling getting prepared for an episode, Jayron did a bit more or the other way around and that really, really helped. And yeah, I personally think metrics are also kind of fun. You see it going up and you should enjoy that, but it can also be really, really difficult when you see it going down for, for a month.

I mean, in the end, you need to look at the bigger picture and what you're working towards and keep the big goals in mind. And of course, we're also doing it to help other PhD students or other scientists basically when the days are a bit harder or their experiments failed that we want to talk about that are fun science or help them get through their difficult day byentertaining them basically. So that's also a, a big goal that we keep in mind. 

Jayron: Yeah, and I think also when we started out we were very happy with like those first 10 downloads of we were celebrating that. We didn't expect it to do as well as it did at all. Like, it was just sort of a hobby that we were putting our sort of money into buying some equipment to get started with, which even that is, you don't really need to do that at the beginning if you really want to get started.

But it was just like, we're doing this because we want to, not necessarily because we expected to do well or anything like that. We just did it because we wanted to. And even when it was sort of hard, it's like, but we still want to do it. We still want to be consistent. We still want to keep doing it, I guess, you know.

Vikki: I love that, that idea of keeping the bigger picture, the sort of remembering why you decided to do this in the first place at the front of your mind is a really good way to get through those times where you are, “oh my goodness, nobody's listening.” Or “fewer people, you know, fewer people are listening to this episode than the last episode. Am I getting worse?” Keeping that bigger picture of why, why you're doing it, can help loads. 

I also love that you're talking about sort of relying on each other there as well too. Because often I hear my clients talk about relying on others almost as a weakness, almost as a, “I should be able to be independent. Sometimes my friend has to help me, but you know, I should be able to do this independently.”

And I'm a big believer that actually putting that stuff around you is part of being strong and independent. That somebody who's strong and independent builds bridges with people who help them to be even stronger and even more effective, and that actually setting up that scaffolding is part of working well. I'd love to hear your guys' perspective on that.

Suzanne: Yeah. Well, we lean so much on each other's strengths also, I mean, Jayron is basically responsible for our social media, and he works on real magic that I would absolutely not be able to do. And I edited podcasts and that's something he would absolutely not be able to do. And in that sense, we, we are a real team and we couldn't do it without each other.

I think that's also a little bit different than what I ever experienced during like the academic world, because in our group, we didn't really work as teams on certain projects. We all had our own projects, and then you're basically alone responsible for that. So it's also been really nice to be able to be so much part of a team, I would say.

Jayron: Yeah. No, I agree. I also say like, I think it's more along the lines of no one is really expecting anything out of this podcast in that sense. There's no real expectation to meet a certain milestone, meet a certain goal. It's because of that we can sort of experiment a little bit with what we do and try out new things.

Start a newsletter, start a website, a web shop and stuff like that. And all that also adds on top of what we're doing that and keeps it fun for us. And in terms of leveraging each other's skills, we pick up new skills along the way as well that we can sort of compliment each other with. So, yeah, definitely.

Vikki: Anyway, I feel like I've asked you loads of questions. Have you got questions for me? 

Suzanne: Um, yeah. Well, we actually had, of course, quite some experiences during making this podcast. And we also had some comments from other people that didn't always understand why we love doing this so much or why we wanted to do it, and then there's of, of course, always the big thing that you already are doing a PhD, so why would you want to add more on top of that? 

So we actually had some comments from people that we heard. Not necessarily like in a, they didn't mean it ever in a negative way. That's really important, but they can be sort of demotivating and we would love to hear your perspective on them. And I mean, we can explain how we got through it, of course, but we also would love to hear what you would recommend if we would still be in that stage. 

Vikki: I would be very happy too. Just one thing with coaching, so I rarely recommend what people should do, but what I would do and what I can talk with you about today is what things I would get the person to consider. Because you know you better than anybody else. I could say, “yes, you should do this, or you should do that.” But I don't know you, I don't know my clients as well as they know themselves. And so what I'll do is if you tell me some statements, I'll tell you the sorts of things that I would want you to ask yourselves or the people you work with could ask themselves to figure out what they want to do in those situations.

Suzanne: Yes. Okay. So the first one is also something that we quite often hear from people who might want to start with it or from colleagues or whatever is like, “why would anyone want to listen to you in case of this podcast or read your blog? Or why would my topic be interesting enough to put out there?”

And that's something I think a lot of people starting out with science communications struggle with. Especially if you talk about your own science or about something that's dear and near to your heart of course. 

Vikki: Of course. Definitely. And our brains are really good at that, aren't they? They're really good at throwing up questions. And one of the things I always encourage my clients to do is notice when your brain is asking you questions and just take a second to answer it. Because one of the unhealthiest things we do is just throw around questions “what if no one listens? What if I'm not interested enough? What if this, what if this, what if this, what if this?”

And it sort of all spins in your head and takes up lots of cognitive space and leaves me, you know, leaves you feeling quite anxious quite often. And so I've asked, okay, so you are asking why would anybody listen to you? Why would they? Let's just answer that question and then people start going, “well, you know, I mean, I think it's interesting and other people study this topic too, and actually I don't think there's anybody out there really talking about it. And I, you know, I would try really hard to make it interesting and you know, maybe everyone wouldn't want to listen to it.”

And so you start to answer your own question, what if no one listens? Well, okay, what if, what do we do if no one listens? And then we start to look at it as a problem to be solved rather than as a reason not to do it. So that's where I'd really encourage people to start. 

The other thing I would always encourage to remember that the things that seem easiest and most obvious to you are often the things that are super interesting to other people. We often really downplay our strengths, downplay the things we are good at, because we think they're easy and so they're just no big deal.

You guys know all this stuff about cholesterol and diabetes and all this stuff, and you don't think – well, you guys do science communication, so you know, it's interesting, but a lot of people are like, “oh, well yeah, but that's all, you know, they'll have done stuff like this. You know, they'll, you know, if they did Biology A level, they know the basics and the rests just details or whatever.”

But actually the stuff you take for granted is super interesting for people who don't. So that's the other thing I get people to reflect on is what's the stuff you are taking for granted that people know? Because there's tons and tons and tons and you just think it's normal. 

Suzanne: Yeah. I think a way I also always thought about it is like, would I be interested in listening to listening to this? Because in the end, especially with what we do, we make a podcast for other scientists of course. So we are our own audience basically, which really helps. Like, would I enjoy if I would listen to this? And then if the answer is yes, I'm like, oh, we made a great episode. That's great. 

Jayron: And I think maybe expanding on that a little bit. I also think about it like, did we have this problem? Did, like if, if we're having this problem or like we're thinking about this as a question, would someone appreciate an answer to this? Would I appreciate that answer to it? Sort of like we've tackled topics along the lines of having problems with your PhD and stuff like that.

So if I experienced that problem, would someone else want that information as well? And that's how we also share via the podcast. 

Vikki: Definitely. I think consulting in with yourself is a great shout. The other thing you can do is consult in with past you. So especially for something like you guys are doing, and for me, I'm just casting my mind back further, but you know, your fifth year PhD students. Thinking back, would I have wanted to hear this in second year? Would I have wanted to hear this in my first month of doing a PhD? Because again, often the stuff you take for granted now would've made a massive difference back then when you didn't know that, when you weren't familiar with those things. So yeah, consulting with your past self, I hear a lot of people talking about how they do the things they do now because they want to create what they wish had existed when they had needed it. 

Jayron: No, for sure. I definitely agree with that. And that's also one of the reasons why we've been diving a little bit more into like productivity tools as well, because I wish I knew about some of them in my first and second year. That made, would've made a big difference. 

Vikki: Absolutely.

Jayron: Yes. So yeah, maybe then moving on to our sort of next statement or problem that we sort of faced. I guess it comes in sort of the sense of but are you not busy enough with the PhD? So if you have enough free time to be doing this, couldn't you spend that more on your PhD and stuff like that? Should you not focus on your science? And does doing this sort of take away time and cognitive mental energy from your PhD and, yeah. I don't know. I sort of see it as like, I personally have always felt it like a like a weekend, like we have weekends to rest and recovery. And I also see this, yes, it's still kind of work and it's still fun and stuff like that, but it's also, it takes you away from that thing for a bit, but it brings you back sort of fresh again to to approach it with different eyes, with fresh eyes and tackle the problem. At least that's how I felt about it. 

Vikki: Definitely, definitely. But I think it's a really important question to ask. And again, it's a really important question to take seriously and not just to have as a worry. Because for some students it might not be the right thing to do. So some PhD students are working for money, they are doing tutoring in their departments, they're doing lots of other things as well. And so it may be that some students, especially if they're people, you know, I'm someone who generally takes on too many things.

It's something I've really worked on, but I tend to be sort of, “oh my god, yeah I could do that, I could do that, I could do that.” And you know, so sometimes actually just stopping and going, okay, well is it too much? Is is a really good question to ask. Because for some people it might be. But whenever you are making a decision, what I encourage people to do is to think about what are your reasons for doing it and what are your reasons for not doing it?

So, maybe for some people doing a podcast would be because it would be fun. It might be because people might want to listen to it. It might be to build a career. It might be because someone's told them they should do science communication. It might be because they think they're rubbish at presentation skills and they want to get better at it.

And then the flip side reasons for not doing it might be, I'm too scared, no one will want to listen to me. Or they might be, I'm in a phase of my PhD where I really want to focus in on my writing. And what you get to do then is you get to look at your two lists of reasons and decide which ones come from the best version of you, which ones come from the version of you that you want to be.

Because the truth is there's no right answer in this. There's no, yes, you definitely should, or no, you definitely shouldn't. You get to pick and then you get to decide that you love that decision. So that's how I always get people, when they're thinking about decisions to work through that process. 

The other thing I'd say, and especially in response to the busyness thing, is whenever you take on something new, I'd encourage people to really mindfully decide if I do this, what am I not doing? Because all of us fill 24 hours one way or another. Some of that's sleeping. Some of it's messing around on social media in a non-productive way. Some of it's doing social media in a productive way. Some of it's seeing our friends, it's exercising, whatever it is. And so even if people consider themselves to be someone who doesn't do very much, you're filling all those hours, even if it's with Netflix.

And so saying, okay, which bit of my week am I swapping out realistically? How much time is this and what am I stopping doing? And for some people it would be, oh, if I do this, I'm going to have to do less work on my PhD because everything else is already stretched fully. And is that what I want? I don't know. Is that for the best? Not sure. 

Other people will be like, you know what? Tuesday nights I just watch Netflix and I'm happy to swap Netflix for podcasts. That's fine. Just means I don't watch TV on a Tuesday or whatever day you do your things. So properly thinking through what am I not going to do if I do this and will that net either improve or keep my life where it is is another way to, to ponder through those decisions. 

Suzanne: I think for us it was definitely a weekend and evening thing. We definitely had to give up some other things. It was our main hobby and every evening after dinner, we would go back to our computer and work on it.

It did help me also survive the PhD almost during the difficult times. I've had this other thing that still kept my love for science alive, basically. So in that sense was really helpful. But there were definitely things we had to give up, especially once we started taking it more seriously than we perhaps had to.

Because of course we were went a bit crazy with it. On the other hand, I think also the PhD is a time where you are supposed to discover what you love and what you want to do in the future. And it's not bad to experiment a little bit with that and just try it out. And I wish especially in our Dutch PhD system where we are fully paid workers to be 36 hours in the lab basically, and then right after that, there isn't a lot of focus on development and coursework and things like that.

And I wish it was a bit more accepted to develop yourself in other ways during the PhD because not everybody is going to end up in academia. Not everybody is going to end up as a PI. And it's okay to spend some of your time also developing perhaps science communication and finding out that that's what you want to do with your life.

Or teaching, and finding out that that works great with you, and at the same time, it sort of develops this guilt at the same time that you're not in the lab and that you're not writing your paper. That I really think shouldn't be there. And it should be a bit more accepted that, that you're also doing this other thing, that it's still science related and still very cool and interesting, but, um, it's a bit. different than, than the standard stuff. 

Vikki: Yeah. And there's, there's so much in what you just said that I want to respond to. I think that's brilliant. And it actually relates back to something Jayron said earlier about it energizing you as well. So when you're thinking about what would I stop doing in order to do this, you can also think about what does it add to my life? And for some people, especially people who identify as more introverted and those sorts of things, it might actually be a net drain that actually you love doing it and you want to do it, but you have to allow then for the fact that you'll also need some time to rest and recover from that sort of sociability of recording podcasts and that kind of thing.

Whereas, certainly for me, I'm a pretty extroverted person. I get energy from doing this sort of stuff. I will get more work done after talking to you guys today than I would've done if I hadn't talked to you because I come off these calls just like, “yay, that's so exciting.” And then get on with all my things. So thinking about what it adds to your life as well, I think is really important. 

I think your point about training so well made, you know, it is one of the big, sort of hidden, I guess to some extent things of academia is that this relatively small percentage of PhD students that will go on into academic careers, you know, it's pretty shocking in many ways how low those percentages are. And spending some of that time figuring out what types of things do you like doing, not even necessarily what career you might do after a PhD, but what types of things would you want it to involve? 

Would you want it to involve this sort of public facing communications stuff? Would you want it to involve teaching? Would you want it to involve working in teams? All those sorts of things. I think any opportunity to try out those different things and have those experiences is brilliant. And I mean, you guys, whatever you go on and apply for after this, if you are carry on working for yourselves, then obviously that's the thing, but working for other people, you're going to have so much to talk about and so many, you know, skills and experiences that you can bring to that. I think it's amazing. 

And then the last thing, you talked about guilt and the guilt of I should be doing something else. I always encourage my clients to be really careful when they hear the word “should”. If you hear your brain saying the word “should” really start examining those thoughts because this really comes back to that point that I briefly made about really loving your decision.

So what I would really encourage people to do is if you decide to do something like this, say you listen to this and you decide you want to set up a podcast, decide for how long you are deciding and decide that this is the best decision you ever made. And it doesn't have to be long. I'm going to do a podcast for six months, say.

That's what I'm deciding. I'm deciding I'm going to do, you guys do fortnightly, don't you? I'm going to do fortnightly podcast for six months. That's what I'm deciding. This is the best decision ever. And then whenever you hear your brain go, “oh God, if you hadn't started this, you could have gone on with your writing or whatever”, then no, this is what we decided.

This was a great decision. This gives me energy. It rejuvenates what I love about science. I've still got time to do my writing. This was an amazing decision. And then at the end of that period, you still get the opportunity to reflect and you still get to go I love that decision. I'm so glad I did that, but you know what?

I need to tone this down to monthly. Or you know what, that needs to be a first season and we're going to have a break before we start the next season. And you still get to reflect. But it's this constant beating ourselves up about whether we made the right decision or not and feeling guilty that we didn't make the other decision or feeling like we missed out.

So if you decide not to start a podcast, you have to remind yourself that that was the best decision. I'm so glad I put my PhD first. I'm so glad I gave myself the space to write my PhD and I didn't burden myself with having to think about that stuff that you love that decision too. And in six months you decide, do I want to start a podcast now? So we can still revisit it the other way round. But loving on that decision, so that we're not constantly remaking it, really makes things easier. 

Suzanne: Yeah, I can imagine that actually. Shall we move on to the next one? 

Vikki: Yeah, let's go. 

Suzanne: So something we also heard as a joke at some point during, I think it was drinks from work or whatever, was saying, so are you influencers now? Which was a joke for sure. It also kind of felt like being made fun of almost for wanting to do this. They didn't mean it badly for sure. But yeah, it sort of invalidates what you're doing. How, how would you recommend working through that or like, um, yeah?

Vikki: So I have a question. So let's put ourselves back in that situation. And somebody says to you, so are you influencers then? What are you making that mean?

Jayron: I would not necessarily think of ourselves as influencers, at least back that time point. I don't think we were influencers. I'm not really sure we really are influencers right now in some shape, way, or form. It sort of depends on what that description, I guess is, but it's sort of like, I think we were thinking about it like sort of the YouTube influencers, those people who just…

Suzanne: Well, it comes with a negative connotation though.

Jayron: Yeah, exactly. 

Vikki: So tell me that, what's the negative connotation? What does it mean about you if you're an influencer? 

Suzanne: Well, we like it now!

Vikki: But in that moment, go to, at that moment, I'm going to ask you in a minute how you came to then accept it. But in that moment where you felt - because Suzanne, you said that it felt like you were being made fun of a little bit.

Suzanne: Yeah. 

Vikki: What were the thoughts that you were having? It was actually what we were wanting to do. We wanted to do science communication via social media, which kind of means that you turn into a science influencer almost. So it was sort of our goal to become that almost, I'm not sure if it's like the right name for it, but it was basically, we weren't there yet for sure, because we were still very small and we were growing and it was, it felt like, our main goal was sort of laughed at almost. And I think that was what, what made it uncomfortable in the moment. 

Vikki: But were they laughing? 

Suzanne: Yes. 

Vikki: So they're laughing when they were saying it?

Suzanne: Yeah. And the other people around it too. 

Vikki: And so they, you made that mean that they thought what you were doing wasn't serious?

Suzanne: Yeah, I guess that's how it felt.

Jayron: Yeah. Yeah. Not that, not taken seriously I guess. 

Vikki: Yeah. Okay. So, because this is what's really important with these things. When, when you find that somebody asked you a question, it kind of, I'm going to use the word triggers. I don't mean triggers and like triggers, but you know what I mean. And it like upsets you or bothers you in some way, asking yourself, what am I making it mean?

Because we have no idea. I mean, I certainly have no idea what they meant by it. But they could be “are you going to be influencers? You know, I watch influencers all the time. That's, you know, that's exciting. That's cool.” And when we find ourselves getting offended by these things, it's like, okay, what am I making that mean about me?

I'm making that mean that they're not taking me seriously. I'm making that mean that they think I'm going to be selling Amazon products and dancing around on TikTok or whatever. They're making that mean that I should be doing something else or they're making that mean that I am superficial somehow, or, you know, all these like preconceptions we have.

And it's not that there's anything wrong with having those thoughts, but recognizing that that stuff is coming from us. They've just said words to you. 

Suzanne: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. 

Vikki: Your answer could very easily have just been, “yeah, we're working on it, but not now, we're quite small

Suzanne: Yeah. In that moment, we didn't feel comfortable enough to say, yeah, yeah. That's what we want to do. You know, we were still kind of uncomfortable. 

Vikki: Because of things you were telling yourself. You know, either that they think you're silly for wanting to do it or that you think that you're nowhere near doing it. And so you can't claim that title yet, as it were.

So yeah, it feels embarrassing to say that that's your goal if you're definitely not there yet and it sort of feels still like this unreachable thing that you might want to do and then you get uncomfortable with people like sort of calling you out like that. 

Vikki: So if somebody said, are you going to be an academic? Would you feel equally embarrassed about it and be made fun of and stuff? 

Suzanne: Well, if they say it in the same way, like, so you want to be a PI now, huh? Then I think so, yeah. Because that's also feels like this may be unreachable thing for a lot of people and I think, yeah, I would feel the same way like that.

Vikki: So it's not, and this is what's interesting is you start to dig into it a little bit and you start to figure out what the actual issue is, and you can do this for yourself, you can, you can sort of just sit and be like, ok, what, why did that bother me? What did I make that mean? Would it have been different if it was this, would it have been different if it was that?

What's interesting here is it sounds that it's less about the fact that they were somehow mocking, influencing, but more about the fact that you maybe felt a little bit imposter-y, that you weren't, you know, you know, oh, I'm no way near influential enough to call myself an influencer.

You know, I'm no way near far enough through you to say, I want to be a PI now, or whatever. And so, and that's really useful because then you start to figure out, okay, right. That's why I felt uncomfortable. Because I feel like I'm quite a long way from that. 

Suzanne: Yeah. No, we would definitely also respond differently if the same thing was set now, now we would be way more comfortable, saying like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's what we do.

Vikki: And why is it different now? 

Suzanne: Because we feel like we're closer to that goal. We feel we have more right to say it now.

Jayron: I guess more confidence in what we're doing and how long we've been doing it and sort of the results that we've seen from it. I guess something along those lines.

Vikki: So how close do you have to be in order to claim something without embarrassment? 

Jayron: Sponsors!

Vikki: Someone paying me to do this!

Jayron: I feel like the moment we started getting sponsors like, oh, I guess this is really happening. 

Vikki: Would everyone have the same answer? I don't have sponsors. Is my podcast proper? I mean, I don't have as many listeners as you guys, but…

Suzanne: Would you consider yourself an influencer? 

Vikki? Would I consider myself an influencer,?

Suzanne: A science influencer.

Vikki: That's a really interesting question because I think I still conceive most of what I do as teaching and coaching.

Suzanne: But that's what influencers are though. 

Jayron: Well, some of them. 

Suzanne: Well, you try to put a message out there and try to help other people through what you're creating. 

Vikki: So yeah, I think I probably wouldn't call myself an influencer, but not because I don't feel like I'm there yet and not because I have any like “what that would mean about me”. I'm just not sure that's what I'm aiming to be. 

Suzanne: I can imagine that. 

Vikki: Yeah, probably that’s where I would sit with that. But these are really important questions to ask yourselves. And that question, it sounded a little bit flippant when I said, how, how big would you need to be before you can feel comfortable with it? But the reason I asked is because there's no right answer to that. I could ask a whole bunch of different people who were on that influencer journey and you'd have people that say, as soon as you put a TikTok up, you are an influencer.

And other people would say, until you have a million followers, you're not an influencer. Who do you influence? Yeah. And everything in between. 

And the joy of that is you just get to decide. Confidence doesn't come because of an absolute thing that you achieve. I tell you guys now when you get your PhDs, you are not going – well, for a day, you're going to feel more confident about yourselves because you're going to be walking around going, check me out, doctor. 

And then you're going to start worrying again about all the things that you worry about now. And I know that because partly it's true for me and partly I coach people all the way through to full professor who feel like imposters, who feel too scared to talk to people at conferences.

And it's like you're a professor, like a full, full professor and you're too scared to talk to people at conferences. And so it's not the milestones that you meet that make you feel confident, it's the thoughts that you have. And usually we just allow those thoughts to just pop up and that once enough stuff's happened, you start to automatically start having thoughts that actually I'm quite good at this actually.

You know, maybe I am an influencer. And for you guys that seems to have happened quite organically and it can go like that, but you can also just choose to pick those thoughts earlier and to spend more time on those thoughts. 

Jayron: No, for sure. I agree. And I also think like, coming back to that original sort of comment about like, uh, being an influencers and stuff like that, looking back at it, I also think people didn't have like a better term maybe to, to sort of say like, okay, oh, are you going to do this? Maybe they were just genuinely curious about like, okay, but what's your goal? What are you planning with this? And sort of the influencer, yeah, title was the best thing that they could come up with in that moment.

And we just interpreted it maybe the wrong way in that sense. Um, so now I'm also more conscious of when we talk to people to also like, okay, maybe they just don't know the right terminology for it, or they most likely don't mean it in the wrong way. It's just, that's the only word they might have at that moment to describe it.

Vikki: And sometimes they might just be taking, making fun of you. They might be, but you are absolutely right. And this is one of the things we get up in people's heads thinking about what it is that they intend by the thing they're saying. And we're interpreting the fact they said that and then laughed as they're making fun of you.

For me, it's just as plausible that they used a word that they don't really understand what it means. And they laughed awkwardly because they're like, I don't really know what an influencer is, but I'm asking you if you are one. Maybe I look stupid, maybe I've used that phrase wrong. Maybe that's not what they are. I don't know. I'll just feel a bit uncomfortable, so I'm going to laugh. 

And so often when we spend time in other people's heads trying to figure out what it was that they meant by the thing, it just, it just gets a mess. Because you just don’t know, unless somebody tells you what's in their head, you don't know what's in their head.

And so spending as little time in other people's heads as possible, being like, well, am I happy with what I'm doing? Am I comfortable with this? Yeah, I am. Happy days. Let's stay there. 

Suzanne: Yeah, for sure. 

Jayron: Okay. So maybe moving on to the other statement that we also heard throughout our science communication journey.

Suzanne: Recently also

Jayron: What makes you knowledgeable enough to talk about this? Yeah. 

Suzanne: And this one was also specifically when we decided we wanted to start giving courses. And honestly, I have of course also as a PhD as a student followed courses about science communication. And I think we are knowledgeable enough to talk about this, especially compared to some of the other people.

But how do we respond to something like that? 

Vikki: So, What was the scenario? Because how you respond slightly depends on who you're talking to. 

Suzanne: Oh, in this case it was, uh, another PhD student who I was just talking about, oh yeah, we're now also going to start these courses and whatever. Oh, what, what are you going to give courses about and well, this and this and this and this.

And then the question was like, but why are you knowledgeable enough to talk about this or to teach about this? 

So the reason I ask is, so this person's not commissioning courses from you? 

Suzanne: No. No.

Vikki: So the first question is, do I need to explain this to them? Because you don't have to explain everything to everyone.

Suzanne: True. 

Vikki: Sometimes we do. Because again, what are you making that mean about you? Is that making you doubt that you know enough? Is that making you go, Ooh, maybe I don't, maybe few people are going to think I'm stupid. Maybe people are going to think we're all like uppity and telling people what to do and actually we don't know what we're doing. Yeah. So the first thing is, do I actually even need to like explain? 

“Because we've learned a lot doing this.” There we go. 

Suzanne: Yeah. Yeah. That was also the answer I gave. 

Vikki: You know, just a really short, if it's some, so thinking through in this environment, I don't need to explain it to another PhD student - because I think it'll be cool. No reason, whatever. 

Now where you might want to think it through is if you are contacting universities and offering these services, then you might want to think, okay, how can we demonstrate our credentials? Because then again, we look at this question without judgment. So instead of how are you knowledgeable enough to do this meaning, “oh God, they think I'm not knowledgeable enough to do this”, we take it at face value. How am I knowledgeable enough to do this? Well, I've been running a podcast for this long. I've got sponsors, I've got this many listeners. I've got social media with this sort of following. I post this often and this is what I've learned.

And so sometimes if we can just take the judgment out of it and just answer the question for people who actually need to know the answer to the question, then suddenly it's not really a scary question anymore. 

Suzanne: No. And I also think that if it's, if it's like a general, like for example, for somebody who really needs to know the answer, I have absolutely no problem like telling it.

But it's always almost more difficult to explain to your direct colleagues or your family, which is also a big, big one of course. Because there's this extra layer of of stuff. And I definitely recognize that that's where it comes from also. 

Vikki: Well, families, there's always a whole extra layer of stuff. I got the cutest message from one of my sisters yesterday who'd listened to one of my podcasts for the first time yesterday, and she sent me a really lovely voice note to tell me how useful she'd found. She's not an academic, but she was like, even though I'm not an academic and you were talking about that it's really useful for like normal people like me as well and, and all of this and she was really and absolutely lovely. And it was like, oh, that's so nice. 

And then she was like, and I particularly loved your silly podcast voice you put on, and I'm just like, “it's not put on, I'm just enthusiastic.” So yeah, there's always stuff that's fair to say. 

But then again and again, that's not a problem. There's nothing wrong with that. That's not something broken that we bring stuff where there's long histories of how we've interacted through our whole lives, of course, there's going to be stuff, that's fine. We just have to recognize that so that when it comes up, we can respond to what's actually being asked rather than to all the subtext that we're sort of sticking around it.

Jayron: No, I agree. I, I specifically like your, your answer about like, do I actually need to, to explain this to this person? Yeah. Yeah, definitely going to remember that to use that a bit more. 

Vikki: Definitely. And it's not, I'm certainly not suggesting you answer by saying “I don't need to explain myself.” You know, that's probably not the going to, I mean you might need to in certain situations there. 

Jayron: My PhD defense! 

Vikki: Yeah. You kind of gotta explain yourself to them! But even in your PhD defense, if you can interpret those questions in a way where they just want to know the answer to this. You know, because often people get asked, you know, why did you choose that method?

That's a perfectly reasonable question to ask in a PhD viva. Absolutely fine. But if in your head you are going, “oh my God, they think I chose the wrong method. They think I should have done something different. Maybe, maybe I didn't do it very well. Maybe I, you know”, and you spin off into that, suddenly it's a really painful experience.

Whereas if they say, you know, why did you choose this method? You say, oh, because I was picking between this one and this one, and they had these qualities and that was what we were able to do. So I did that one. You sort of almost take that question at face value. 

The other thing I would always say is, especially with this thing of, do I know enough? Because you guys are talking about that in the context of your courses, but I'm sure that's often the case when people are starting podcasts and things as well. You know, do I know enough to talk about this in public? Is remembering that you only need to know more than your audience. So you only need to know more about being productive in your PhD or whatever than people who are behind you in your PhD journey. So as long as you know more than third years or second years, or at least some third years and second years and first years, not even all of them, some of them, then what you're doing is of use. Yeah. Often people think that they need to be leading expert in the thing in order to be useful, but actually there's something really special about hearing from people who are only a few years ahead of where you are at.

You know, I can tell people about how I managed my PhD and how I got by and whatever, but I got by in a completely different world and era to you guys. You know, academia was a very different place in the early two thousands, and so the things that I did and got through aren't necessarily relevant. So now when I'm coaching, partly I steer away from advice, but also I tend to refer more to the students that I've supported through and things I've seen there than I do to my experience because it's too long ago. It's too far away. 

So that thing of, are you just a bit more knowledgeable than somebody else who might want to hear this? Yeah. Happy days, let's go. 

Suzanne: Yes. No, for sure. I think in terms of science communication, it can also be really helpful to take people along on the journey, which is also a great way to, to do it.

Vikki: Definitely, definitely. And for them to see someone who looks like them and sounds like them doing it too. That helps too. 

Jayron: Yeah. And I mean, I also think it's along the lines of if, if you need to prove that, when it comes to starting a podcast on the, like your production is on the level of Joe Rogan or any under of these like million-download podcasts to be able to talk about it at all, no one is ever going to start a podcast like that. No one is ever going to do anything because you constantly need to prove that you're already in the top 1% to be able to start it. So I think if you can, if you're happy starting sort of at the bottom and learning to get to the top, then hat didn't take you a long way.

Vikki: Definitely. And on a really practical one, go back to the beginning and listen to their first episodes. 

Jayron: Oh, no, no, don't do that. 

Vikki: No, not Joe Rogan. I'm not saying him, but some of the podcasts that I listened to where I was trying to learn from them and stuff, and I went back and listened to the very first one. It's like, this is rough. Your microphone's terrible. Your little intro doesn't sound that good. This is, yeah, it's like, it's totally, I'm not sure I can do what you guys are doing now, but I can definitely do this. 

Suzanne: Also, listening back to our fir our own first episodes is not something we like to do. 

Vikki: Mine, I just tried to grab everything. I love my first episode. But it's got enough stuff in it for like 10 episodes. I do a whole two hour course now based on that one first podcast. And even that doesn't cover everything that I covered in that. It's like, right, let's go. Boom, boom. So yeah, you learn as you go through, for sure. 

Suzanne: Yes. Um, yeah. Something that we also hear from others and have also experienced ourselves, ourselves is that people are often surprised when it takes off and that people are actually listening to you and that so many people are listening to you and then they compliment you.

Like, oh, that's really great that you're doing that. But at the same time, they're sort of surprised that it's actually taking off and doing great, which can of course be quite a difficult thing to sort of go through every time again, that people keep being surprised that more and more people are listening to you.

And I think that also is probably something that you take out of these comments that they don't actually mean for sure. But how would you suggest people, people handle that? 

Vikki: I think it's the same answer. What are you making it mean that they're surprised? 

Jayron: I mean, I think a bit because for us we sort of decided that we would do the podcast and we would keep going with it and we were committed to it in that sense and everything else with the science communication journey as well.

So it sort of feels like, yeah, this is the “natural progression” of it. Like if you just keep doing, eventually if you keep running, eventually you'll be good enough to run a marathon. If you keep working at your PhD, hopefully eventually you'll be able to defend it. So it's sort of like, oh, you didn't expect me to actually get this far if I just work hard?

Vikki: And so that's what you are making it mean? 

Jayron: Yes. 

Vikki: You are making it mean that they didn't expect you to succeed. That they didn't think you would stick to it this long or that they didn't think that you would be good enough? What, what are you making it mean? 

Jayron: I think, at least for me, um, it's maybe some combination of the two. Because I think we, we can be quite committed people with things that we set our minds to. So maybe it's more along the lines of, okay, we know ourselves well enough that we know that we were going to stick with it, that it was going to be successful. We didn't know that either. So I think maybe it's just a disconnect with what we were getting inside their heads and thinking about it like that and just misinterpreting what they were saying. Because they also just don't know of any other podcast people doing science, communication, stuff like that in their immediate area as well. So maybe it's just along the lines of curiosity and maybe framing it slightly differently and us interpreting it the wrong way. 

Vikki: And again, it's not necessarily interpreting it the wrong way. I don't want you to think this is something that you are doing wrong. What you're doing is completely human. When people say things to us, we add in layers of meaning to what we think they mean. What that means about us. It's why we get most defensive when people say things that we worry are true. So you don't, you never worry. The example I've heard used by coaches before is if I told you, Jayron, I really hate your red hair, you'd be like, well, I don't have red hair, so that's an irrelevant comment. So you wouldn't even think about it. But it's where it's things that we sometimes worry about that we then put in all this layer interpretation. So you're not doing anything wrong. It's not that you're interpreting things wrong, you're just adding meaning to stuff. And assuming that it's true.

So in this situation, I want to compare to something you just said. So you said we didn't know it was going to be successful, so in some ways you are getting bothered because somebody's surprised that it succeeded. if we've gone back and told you 18 months ago how many listeners you have now, you'd be surprised.

Suzanne: True. 

Jayron: For sure. Yeah. 

Vikki: So you're actually expecting a level of faith in you that you didn't have in you 18 months ago. And that wasn't because you hated you 18 months ago. You just didn't know you were capable of that. And so maybe these people just didn't know you were capable of that. They hadn't seen you do it.

Jayron: Yeah. Yeah. There was no sort of evidence to base the confidence on, uh, neither for us or, or, or them, I guess. 

Vikki: Yeah. I mean, I'm a big fan of developing confidence and sort of mindfully developing confidence for things you've never done before just by, kind of similar to you said at the beginning, Suzanne, about trusting that you can learn things and trusting that you can develop your skills, that's a brilliant way to develop confidence in advance, but most people don't do that.

And so the fact that somebody was surprised that it did this well is, is only really the same as you back then were surprised except you've just gone along the journey. You've seen it happen, and so for you, it's not surprising anymore. 

Suzanne: Yeah, I have also, of course talked with other, other people who struggle with the same stuff because it's fun to talk with other people who talk, struggle with the same stuff. And uh, yeah. I think this one is also something that I've heard more often that, that it's sort of a double edge sword where you want people to be, like, happy that it works out for you. But you also don't want them to act as… it never, it's never okay what they say. Yeah, exactly. And that's where if we are relying on other people to say things to make us feel a particular way, then we're always going to be in trouble. So if they have to say the exact right combination of being impressed, but not surprised, because if they're too surprised, we're going to get upset. And if they're not impressed enough, we're going to get upset. So they have to hit it exactly so that we feel pride, for example.

Then it's just, you're just fighting losing battle. Whereas you can feel pride just because of the thoughts you have about what you've done. And then it's irrelevant what other people say. They're impressed. Nice. They're surprised. Fine. So was I, that's okay. Um. But I'm proud because I know how much work I've put into this and how well it's going, and I'm really proud of the consistency we've shown and how we've worked together and how we've done it.

So a lot of the problem comes from we want people to say the right things in order to make us feel that way. If you take responsibility for your own feelings and tell yourself what you need to hear to feel the way you want to feel, they can say whatever they like. And it doesn't mean we don't care. It doesn't mean it's not nice to get compliments, but our sense of wellbeing's not dependent on it and that's such an easier place to be. 

It's the same deal with your supervisors. People often say, you know, I just want my supervisor to reassure me. I just want my supervisor to tell me I've done a good job and all of these things. Let's reassure ourselves. Let's tell ourselves we've done a good job.

You know, I ask PhD students all the time, when was the last time that you look at, you know, what you've done? You said, I'm so proud I've done that. I'm really pleased I got that done today. I'm really pleased. I ticked that off. Even on most productive days, people are usually still focused on the bit they haven't done, they don't reassure themselves the way they want to get reassurance from others. So do it for ourselves. 

Suzanne: I think that's really great advice for anybody who wants to start science communication. I think also at the same time, we might overthink it as scientists being scientists, you know, you're thinking it, overthinking it too much. 

Vikki: Oh, definitely, definitely. That whole, you know, we have such high standards for whether we're expert enough to talk about particularly things. You know, I used, so I used to manage teaching programs and I would have really senior academics being like, oh, I couldn't do, no, I couldn't do lecture on that. That's not my, that's not my specific area. I'm like, Come on. It's a first year undergraduate lecture. You're a specialist across this. You, you can do an introduction to psychology or whatever.

You can, you can do this. It'll be fine. Oh, no, no, but that's not really my thing, you know? So, again, it, it carries on throughout your career unless you choose to think different thoughts about it and recognizing our own expertise, that even if, you know, you guys are an expert, expert, expert in that specific thing, for your PhDs, but you are relatively expert, again, across an awful lot of things compared to, um, like the general population who doesn't have a science training, recognizing your expertise really helps with, whether it's academia or whether it's science communication. 

Suzanne: Yeah. So we also had perhaps some things that we might want some tips for. 

Vikki: Okay. 

Suzanne: So for example, how do you communicate with people or colleagues or family that you are really enthusiastic about, in this case, science communication without seeming overconfident or boastful. How would you handle that? Because that's of course, a kind of delicate balance that also very much to do with how you feel yourself, but…

Vikki: Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I guess as always, first question is what would be the problem with feeling like you were being overconfident or boastful? So, I would spend a little bit of time just exploring what judgments you are making about what it would mean if you were overconfident or boastful. Because some people think that it will make other people around them uncomfortable or that it would mean that they're a selfish person or that they've got an inflated ego or whatever it is, and you can really ask yourself, is that true?

You know, can I talk enthusiastically about all this stuff without it meaning those things? In terms of actual tips though, for how to do it, one of the things that I do, I work with academics who are going for promotion and going for like teaching awards and those sorts of things. I have a package where I look after them through that process, and people often don't want to come across like they're blowing their own trumpet too much.

That they're boasting too much but they have got to talk about their achievements. And one of the really concrete tip tips that I give them is to really focus on facts. So to really focus on evidence and impact of what they've done rather than just talking about how wonderful they are.

So for you guys, if you say, if you are going, I have an amazing podcast. We have so many followers. We're just so influential. It's incredible. Everybody loves us. Then that might feel a bit overconfident and boastful. But if you can say, we typically have X thousand listeners a month and that's, you know, that's doubled, over the last six months.

And now we have sponsors for most episodes. You know, you start to just impart statements, then it sort of conveys how big and amazing what you're doing is without saying, look at us, we're big and amazing. Do you see what I mean? And the same's true when you're talking about your science, talking about, you know, you can talk about, where you've presented it, where you're writing it up for, what it's gone on and influenced and all those sorts of things.

You can kind of talk about why it's important, how many people are affected by diabetes, how many people are affected by high cholesterol, why this is so important to understand and sort of getting into that side of it can really help to be enthusiastic, but without it being, this is all about me because I'm amazing kind of thing.

Jayron: Yeah. No, I definitely agree. I think the, the issue sometimes, at least what I often have is I like to rely on the metrics, just, yeah, here's the number. But a lot of the, a lot of the time those metrics require some sort of understanding about these numbers to begin with. You can't just, like, we have X thousand downloads, and then the immediate next question often becomes this, is that good though? 

Suzanne: Is that a lot?  

Jayron: Yeah. Yes. Are you doing well? Um, so it's all, I struggle often to explain like, I guess it's okay because also for podcasts it's unclear what is a successful podcast? When are you sort of doing okay as a podcast? At a certain point we came across a metric that said like, if you have over eight episodes and you're being consistent, that's, you're already a very good podcast.

That's, most podcasts don't go over eight episodes and they sort of stop. So, yeah. I struggle with giving some context to some of the numbers and making it concise without it sort of seeming like, here's my entire backstory from…

Vikki: And again, is that whole thing, you don't have to overexplain so convey why are you conveying any of this anyway? But you can then choose you and you can convey it either giving some sort of benchmark for them to understand. 

So you know, you pick, you know, to put that in context, that puts us in - did you guys say the top 1% of life sciences podcast in the Netherlands? 

Suzanne: That's what Spotify told us. We don't believe it, but that's what Spotify told us.

Vikki: I, I mean, I would take Spotify, I would take what they say. So, so that's a way to say it. That's a way that you can contextualize it. You can say top podcasts usually have X number of listeners. We're about here. So you can see where we are compared to that. But that's pretty typical for a life sciences podcast, for example.

You know, you can contextualize like that or you can contextualize against your own benchmarks. So you can say, when we set out, we aimed to have 500 listeners a month, and now we're way over that. And so you can sort of contextualize to your own goals as well. That's another way that you can sort of show people that you've surpassed your expectations or you can talk about your future goals.

So we started here. We've got to here, we're aiming to get to 10,000 listeners a month or whatever. I don’t know your numbers, but you know what I mean. And, you know, and so you can contextualize like that so they can see where you are in your journey as well.

The other way, actually, to think about it is the other way is, you know, you guys a bench scientist, but qualitative data's a thing too. I love telling people about the messages that I get. So, you know, I don't have billions of listeners to my podcast at the moment. I'm trying to build it, but I do get people messaging me saying, I feel like you're inside my brain. When you talk, I feel normal because I'm like, oh my God, it's not just me that feels like this, and I can see that there's a way I can feel different. And for me, that feels much more important than how many hundreds or thousands of listens I get.

Because I get messages like that from people. So that's the other thing you can say to people is, you know, oh, we get this many listeners, but to be honest, it's when somebody says that, you know, we've told 'em about a bit of science that they've just never heard before, and now they want to learn more or whatever, that's what's really important to us. 

Jayron: Yeah. Really have that sort of direct impact on someone. Uh, yeah. I like that too. Yes. Okay. Um, maybe moving on to our next thing that we would really like a tip on, and this is a big one. Do you have any recommendations for how to sort of keep your work life balanced through everything that you do if we do stuff like that?

Vikki: Yeah, absolutely. I just did a workshop on this for a charity in the uk. So first of all, you need to define what you mean by a work-life balance, because that balance sits somewhere very different for everybody. And so I don't particularly like the phrase because I don't particularly like the dichotomy between work and life.

I think, you know, I'm the PhD life coach because I think you get to curate your whole life, part of which is your PhD, part of which is everything else that you do. And in fact by the time this goes out, I've had an episode now with Jamie Pei the messy PhD coach talking about how to curate your PhD life.

And so I would think about it, not so much about work life balance as about what do I want my life to be? What would an ideal life for the phase I'm in look like? So this is not the ideal life if you had a million, you know, when you are famous influencers and you've got billions of pounds and sponsorship deals all over the place, what your perfect life on an island somewhere looks like.

But in the phase you are in, where you are writing up your PhDs, you're running a successful podcast, and trying to look after your health and have social life and whatever, outside of that, what would you want that to look like? And actually spending a bit of time on that because until you've decided that, you can't decide whether you've got a work-life balance or not.

So figure out what it looks like and then, I would really ask yourself, what are the barriers to that being your life at the moment? And sometimes that can lead to things where you realize, actually, this circumstance needed to change. I need to do, I need to extend my PhD, or I need to pause the podcast for now, or I need to do less of this, or more of this, or whatever.

Sometimes it's that, but often, again, it's the thoughts that you are having. So often the problems with work-life balance come because at the end of the day when you've been working, you tell yourself you haven't achieved enough today. You tell yourself you should have done more. You tell yourself you're behind.

You tell yourself you should be somewhere other than where you're at. And the problem with that is it just generates anxiety. It generates shame. And those emotions don't lead you to having a good work-life balance or to even being successful in your work. They lead to you procrastinating. They lead to you getting distracted from things. They lead to you spending time doing things that contribute neither to your work nor your life.

You know, just wasting time distracting yourself from how you're feeling. And so what I do with clients is sort of work through what some of those thoughts are, and you guys can tell me which ones come up for you, maybe what some of those thoughts are that make you work longer than you intended to, or work less than you intended to.

So which way round for you guys, what, what way round would be your sort of issues with work-life balance, do you think? 

Suzanne: Well, honestly, when I was still in the lab for the PhD, I felt like we had our work-life balance pretty much figured out because we were during the day in the lab working on that and then in the evening and the weekend, we're doing this fun thing that is the podcast. But now, recently when I am more at home writing, and also the podcast is taking off, we're getting sponsors that require a lot of work, but it felt like it was all one big blob of just a to-do list that was never ending. Uh, so I've been working on trying to make it a bit separate again, and I bought myself a Switch, ton have some fun time in the middle. That, that's what I've been struggling with recently in terms of work-life balance. 

Vikki: So that thought this is never ending is one to really watch. First thing we do is we stop and think, what's it trying to tell me? And I love the fact that you are already starting to think, yeah, what it's trying to tell me is these things are all blurring into one, that I'm not seeing a distinction between the different things. Now everything feels like work and everything feels… So sometimes our thoughts are actually giving us information that we need to listen to. And that's why we don't just try and push negative thoughts away.

We stop and go, oh, that's interesting. I'm feeling like this is never ending a lot. Why is that? What is it that's happening here that's making me feel like that. Okay. And so the things that you've started doing to try and make things more distinct, build in some relaxing time and stuff as well, absolutely brilliant. 

What I would caution you to keep an eye out for is these thoughts are habitual. And so once you've put in place some more boundaries where actually I don't work on this then and I always have a gap here and those things you are working on at the moment, you are now going to need to look out for your brain still throwing up “this is never ending” because it will. Because that's a thought that's been coming for a while. 

So even in your new scenario, your brain may still offer you that and at that point you get to go “Yeah, yeah I know, but remember that's why we decided to x.” You sort of reassured like a child, like yeah I know, but we've talked about this and, and that's why we only do podcasts on Wednesday and Thursday now, or whatever.

So, that thought, that thought will come back up and it's not a problem, it is just a habit and you just get to nudge it away and remind yourself of the things you're doing to make it not feel never ending now as well. And that's the bit people often miss. They try and put in place something to make it better and then get upset when it doesn't really fix it. 

We have to work on the thoughts that come with it as well. How about you Jayron? What's your, is it similar sorts of things or do you have other thoughts that make work-life balance hard? 

Jayron: A little, some of the same, but also a little bit different now. So I am in the last stages, I've sort of submitted my thesis and I need to get it printed now, and I have my defense date.

I have more of a problem with like, I don't know if you're familiar with like the, you have a jar and you have like big rock, small rocks, some stage. 

Vikki: Oh, yes. 

Jayron: Yeah, that one, that sort of analogy. I know I have to sort of put in the big rocks first and do those difficult tasks for the PhD to get it wrapped up. Yet I'm sort of focusing on sort of the smaller things because I like, okay, I can scratch that off my to-do list first and do that first, and then by the end of the day I always feel like, but I didn't do those big important things. Okay. Tomorrow then, and, I'll skip my running and then do it, but then, yeah.

Vikki: Yeah, firstly, so common. Why do you think you do - I mean, you've started talking about why do you think you do go for the small things?

Jayron: It's just that it's sort of easier to scratch it off the, like, to get that in immediate sort of dopamine of one thing is off your to-do list. Yeah. It's easier I guess.

Vikki: Yeah. And again, so common. So, and again, we tend to beat ourselves up for this. We tend to finish there going, oh my God, I did all the easy things and I should have done the big things and ugh, I'm never going to get this done. So firstly, totally common, totally normal. But what we do is we get some data from that.

We look at what you've done. Okay. You like being able to scratch small things off. You find it easier if you can feel a sense of accomplishment that you've ticked things off. Okay, well, your big jobs, you are at the moment telling yourself they're the important and difficult jobs. Of course, you're not going to sit down and go, do you know what I want to do today? I want to do the important and difficult jobs. I really like important and difficult jobs. Of course not. 

But how can you break those down into sufficiently tiny steps that actually those rocks become sand? Because you haven't got to do an important and difficult job. You've got to do a series of small jobs. And I know, you know, break it down to small tasks is a really trite bit of advice. But believing that your big task actually is just a series of small tasks can really, really help. 

Jayron: Yeah, no, for sure. And I'm now trying to apply that a little bit more in the sense of, I break it down. So for the thesis, like, okay, contact the printer, um, have a meeting with my supervisor. All those things by themselves, obviously they're tasks, but they're much more doable than, I need to have my almost 150 page thesis printed out by have my suit ready and everything. Yeah. A little bit easier.

Vikki: Definitely. And that's often where the problem comes. So I had this, you know, we were talking about podcasts. I had this when I was first doing a podcast because I published this on, I do the video version on YouTube and I have a podcast version. And then I put the transcript on my blog. There's sort of multiple steps, you know, I'm using like five different bits of software.

There's multiple steps to what order you edit in and what, how you put your intro and outro on and all that stuff. And it always felt like this big job of process podcast. And I'd procrastinate it horribly until it was right at the very last minute before I would do it. And then eventually I was like, I put myself in boss mode and I was like, right, what do I actually have to do?

And I literally wrote down, and I think it was like 19 steps or something like that. And even just having it spelled out like that made it feel so much easier. And for a while I used to have these little tiny see-through post-it notes that I could move down as I was on the different steps. Now I know it well enough that I can just do it, but that really helped to do that.

And so sometimes when we've got a big task, we're avoiding, it's because we haven't actually spelled out specifically, what do I need to do to get this done? You know, people write, write introduction on their to-do list. No, don't write, write introduction, say, write paragraph on blah, using evidence from that paper, that paper, and that paper, and put them in a folder.

So you get to put yourself in boss mode and make really specific instructions for worker you, okay? In the next hour. I need you to write about 200 words that summarizes those two articles. You’ve done yours Jayron, I’m talking to you now Suzanne and that's your task for the next hour. So you try and be the best boss to yourself that you can by making it as specific and achievable as you can. And then it's all small things. 

Jayron: Yeah. Thanks. 

Suzanne: Yes. I think in terms of what we are doing, we have also prioritized always that this needed to stay fun. And if it wasn't fun anymore, then we were doing too much. Especially like doing this next to the PhD. It had to stay something that we kept getting energy from.

And that's something that as soon as that changes or it becomes a drag to make a podcast episode every time and it becomes difficult, we are really like, okay, stop, back to what we find fun and how we want to do this. And that has been really important. And keeping this up and keeping it going.

Vikki: I love that. And I particularly love that you're not just taking it as, oh, at some point it'll stop being fun and then we stop. But that, if you notice that it's starting to get not fun, you actively go, okay, we need to retreat to the bits we find fun. Let's do the fun bits. This was meant to be fun because even that, finding it fun, is, that's constructed by thoughts in your head. So you get to decide it's fun, and you get to decide to do more of the bits that you find fun. So I love that you are kind of not only reminding yourself of that, but also constructing that for yourself. That's perfect. 

Susanne: Yeah. Because it can definitely be very, very hard to, even if you have your PhD defense, there still needs to be an episode that comes out, and even if you're writing a paper and you're in the, in like writing with your supervisor until three in the morning, you still need to get the episode. Also, you know, it, it's a lot. 

Vikki: But you can also look at how can I be kind to future me? So if you've got your defense coming up, Jayron, you can look ahead and decide, okay, actually could we get an extra episode done early so that we don't have to do one the week you've got your defense. You know, are there things like that? Could you do a special episode where Susanne does it with somebody else so that you get that one off or something like that. You know, you can look ahead and go, how can I be kind to future me and make this easier? So one of the things, we are doing this now, I'm plotting this in so that I don't have to work during Easter week. This will come out just after that. So when you're listening to this, that's when it'll be. And that's part of me being kind to myself so that during that week I'm not going, oh no, and I still need to sort podcast for next week. It'll already be in the can, as they say, and processed and scheduled and everything ready to go.

So you can sort of, if you know that this is meant to be fun, you can start planning ahead and think, how can we make sure it stays fun? 

Susanne: Yeah. Yeah. And it, it's definitely one of the main reasons people stop. And it's a shame. So we try to be super, super conscious of it. Okay. I think that was our last, our last question to you. Thank you so much Vicky. 

Vikki: Thank you so much guys. Today has been really fun doing this crossover episode. If people want to know more about Struggling Scientists, science, communication, and all the other cool stuff you do for PhD students, where can they find you?

Susanne: I would recommend just googling the Struggling Scientist and our website should send you exactly everywhere you need to go. We are on a lot of social media channels, channel. Which ones are those again? 

Jayron: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and also a little bit on Pinterest. 

Susanne: Yes. And everywhere we're the Struggling Scientist and also on basically all your favorite podcast platforms, you can find us as the Struggling Scientists, so that should be fine.

Vikki: Perfect. So definitely look them up. I can highly recommend! Thank you so much for coming. Thanks everyone for listening, and I will see you next week.