Which Habits Are Needed To Be An MVP in the Academic World?

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00:00:03.360 | All right, I think we have time for one more question.

00:00:07.760 | This one is from Nicholas, who prefaces the question

00:00:10.880 | by saying, not sure if you want to answer this.

00:00:13.760 | Nicholas, I will try to answer this.

00:00:15.360 | You ask, which habits are needed to be

00:00:18.960 | an MVP in the academic world?

00:00:24.720 | That's a good question, Nicholas.

00:00:27.360 | Adderall and lying?

00:00:29.760 | Is that what I wasn't supposed to say?

00:00:33.360 | No, it's OK.

00:00:34.200 | The formula is not super complicated.

00:00:37.200 | If you want to be a star academic,

00:00:40.240 | there's three things that are preconditions.

00:00:42.960 | They're not sufficient.

00:00:44.040 | This won't necessarily get you there, but they're necessary.

00:00:46.040 | So at the very least, you'll have to do these three things.

00:00:48.500 | And typically, it's A, read.

00:00:51.020 | And by read, I mean you do the work

00:00:52.880 | to keep up with the latest literature

00:00:56.200 | in your particular specialty.

00:00:58.560 | If you're a theoretician, you are

00:01:00.520 | reading what people are doing in the topics you study

00:01:03.240 | and mastering their techniques.

00:01:04.640 | If you're a lab scientist, you're

00:01:06.000 | looking at the innovations in lab scientist techniques,

00:01:08.600 | and you're learning from it.

00:01:09.960 | This is really hard work.

00:01:11.440 | Reading academic papers is hard.

00:01:13.200 | Trying to figure out what academics is doing is hard.

00:01:15.400 | The top people spend a lot of time on this.

00:01:17.440 | Two, you're working relentlessly.

00:01:19.800 | You're always working on research, carefully chosen

00:01:23.200 | projects.

00:01:23.640 | You're always working on it at a faster pace than other people.

00:01:26.160 | And when you finish one thing, you move on to the next.

00:01:28.440 | The total number of hours top academics

00:01:31.760 | put into their research is typically much bigger

00:01:33.760 | than their peers, where it's more seasonal.

00:01:36.080 | They're working on something.

00:01:37.280 | They kind of do other things for a while, and they work on it.

00:01:40.080 | Star academics are relentless about it.

00:01:41.880 | It's priority one.

00:01:42.840 | They try to fit in the other stuff, the teaching,

00:01:44.840 | the whatever, when they can.

00:01:47.280 | But the time is going to be on the research.

00:01:49.640 | And then three, you attach yourselves to stars.

00:01:53.000 | If you want to produce MVP caliber work,

00:01:55.360 | you have to be training under MVP caliber people.

00:01:59.040 | It's very consistent.

00:02:00.360 | It's very difficult to break up to a higher level

00:02:04.200 | than you studied under.

00:02:05.760 | It typically goes the other way.

00:02:07.120 | There's a reason why star academics are stars.

00:02:09.240 | You have to learn from them how they do it, how they work,

00:02:11.960 | what they focus on, their techniques, their work ethic.

00:02:14.680 | So you have to work with the very best people.

00:02:17.640 | Now, you could do those three things and not end up a star.

00:02:20.560 | There's raw brainpower and luck play a big role in this.

00:02:24.360 | I mean, especially in mathematical fields

00:02:26.800 | or other types of fields, there's just horsepower

00:02:30.120 | that matters.

00:02:31.960 | And I don't know how you develop it

00:02:33.520 | and how much of it you're born with

00:02:35.000 | and how much of it is the training you've

00:02:37.040 | done throughout your whole life or whatever,

00:02:38.880 | but there's a certain just type of ability

00:02:41.280 | to do spatial reasoning or internal numerical

00:02:44.040 | manipulations.

00:02:45.120 | And that's just you probably have to have,

00:02:47.560 | and some people don't.

00:02:48.480 | And then there's this luck.

00:02:51.000 | The topic you're working on works.

00:02:53.040 | You can't always predict that.

00:02:55.080 | But you're working on, let's say it's 2018.

00:03:00.440 | You're starting a postdoc.

00:03:04.080 | You're going to do a postdoc at wherever.

00:03:07.840 | And what I'm going to focus on is

00:03:10.000 | the phenotypic expressions of coronavirus genotype point

00:03:15.280 | mutations.

00:03:17.160 | And then the coronavirus pandemic comes.

00:03:19.560 | Wow, you're going to get a lot of grant money.

00:03:21.440 | You're going to get a lot of demand.

00:03:22.940 | What you're doing is really, really useful.

00:03:26.360 | This would be a really good time.

00:03:28.640 | Whereas at the same time, if in 2019,

00:03:30.760 | you were an epi professor at Johns Hopkins that had just

00:03:34.000 | published your first book, which was A World Without Viruses,

00:03:40.040 | why we will never again face a big pandemic because

00:03:46.160 | of the miracles of modern technology

00:03:49.960 | and the ability for populations to react nimbly and quickly.

00:03:53.820 | Now you're in a bad place.

00:03:56.700 | You're not going to do as well.

00:03:58.180 | So there is luck involved as well.

00:03:59.680 | But those are the necessary.

00:04:00.900 | Like at the very least, you have to be

00:04:03.060 | mastering the literature, working relentlessly,

00:04:05.860 | and working with stars.

00:04:06.860 | And it's a focused, intense, deep work effort every day,

00:04:13.900 | reasonable amount.

00:04:14.820 | You could probably do four hours of this a day

00:04:16.740 | and just repeat, repeat, repeat.

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Which Habits Are Needed To Be An MVP in the Academic World?

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