Taking the first step is the worst part. If you don’t have a fear of not succeeding, you’re not thinking about it deeply enough, lying, or maybe narcissistic. It’s that fear of falling on your face in public while everyone watches. I’ve felt it with everything I’ve started - this newsletter, the podcast, every business I’ve started, science communities. Felt it real hard when I started my PhD.
But as a wise person once told me (via book/movie), “Fear is the mind killer”. So, how to get over it when you start something new. There are obviously the internal subconscious calculations you’re constantly making about relative risks and benefits. You have to get to a point where you’re confident. But even after that, there’s the inertia of just getting started.
The thing that always works for me is a fake deadline.
Story Time
Disclaimer: I’m not saying this is optimal behavior or admirable, just is what it is. That said, let me tell you about writing my dissertation.
Set the scene - I’m about 4 years into my PhD program, been cranking data for about a year. Prior to that, nothing worked. I’m planning to become an academic scientist and I start thinking about where to do a postdoc. Through an overly analytical process (maybe talk about this later), I nail down a few labs that I’m interested in. Long story short, during Thanksgiving break, very last minute I planned a trip to San Diego. Why not just email someone on my list in San Diego? So I visit one of the labs on the list and after an hour the PI is like, “Want to come here for postdoc?” To which I respond, “sure that sounds fun” or something like that.
So now I have a job. But the problem is, I don’t have any papers published yet and definitely no dissertation defense date.
How do I keep this job in a world-class neuroscience department where I can surf on a daily basis? What if they run out of funding and can’t hire me? Enter fake deadlines.
I set an arbitrary deadline for September. The plan? 9 months to convince my PI, finish gathering/analyzing data, submit a paper to Nature (gotta dream big right), write the dissertation, defend the dissertation, move my family of 4 from Baltimore to San Diego. So let’s skip ahead. It’s now February and I’ve got 2 months before my defense.
Haven’t written a single word yet. My defense date is approaching and I’m furiously doing experiments. My goal at first was to write the paper, submit it, then use that as a baseline for writing my dissertation - as any sane person would do. But I was waiting for some killer data to, you know, get that Nature paper. So it’s mid-March and I start realizing it’s not gonna happen.
Plan B - write the defense and use that as the basis for the Nature paper. Ok cool, that’ll work. Still doing experiments, thinking about writing. When I actually start writing I realize I have 2 (maybe 2.5) weeks to write ~150 pages. So I’m like ok what am I going to do.
I bring a pillow to the lab and keep it in my bottom drawer at my electrophysiology rig. Also a toothbrush and a few other toiletries. But I’m camping in the lab.
Do a couple quick experiments in the morning, write all afternoon/evening. At 11pm, the night security guard walks the halls. It’s not that I’m worried I’ll get in trouble. It’s that I’m embarrassed I’m sleeping on the couch outside the lab with my Patagonia down jacket to block out the light. Each morning I was up by 5:30am so nobody saw me camping on a dingy NIH couch. Every few days I went home to eat dinner with my family (thank you forever, Kim) and shower.
But somehow I did it. Mostly I guess - the paper went to Nature Neuroscience.
This Last Week
Back to present tense. A week ago today I met with a pretty prestigious incubator. It felt cool just to be even talking to them. When I found out they wanted to meet again, I was like, uh yeah which day. That day ended up being Thursday - 6 days later. I learn they have a written application, so I blurt out “Sure I’ll get you something before we meet”. False deadline of Wednesday.
I took the weekend off (although it was definitely on my mind) so on Monday I’m like let’s go. Met with the co-founders first thing in the morning to set the gameplan. Send me your notes, I’ll do the writing, you work on the demo, that sort of thing. By this time, the model is fleshed out so a 13 page memo maybe isn’t too crazy. Two days later, we submitted it. MASSIVE thanks to my heretofore unnamed co-founders and friends who provided feedback.
Yesterday (Thursday), we had a Q&A with the incubator folks. They asked some questions, we spitballed ideas - it was fun. Really excited to see where this goes.
What I Learned
Setting seemingly impossible deadlines are the only way to get a big thing started - at least for me. I’m the type of person that gets moving under pressure. Condense all that Brownian Motion and give it a defined outlet.
Does that make me a procrastinator? Maybe. But I think it’s more about turning on my hyper-focus and letting the creativity take the wheel. Once you know where to go and what time to be there, just put your foot on the pedal. Now that I say that, it sounds cliche.
The other thing I’ve learned over the years is to pace myself. What I didn’t mention above is that one week after I submitted the dissertation, I did my oral defense. I was so burnt out that I didn’t practice the talk until the morning of the defense. Of course everyone said it was good, but deep down I know it was pretty meh. There are busy seasons and times you just have to push. But it’s a marathon right. So today, rather than cranking, I’m spending a little extra time with my family.
On that note, let me say one thing. I owe everything to my beautiful, amazing, supportive spouse. We had our first child a few months before we started grad school and two by the time we finished. Lived on about thirty- thousand salary for almost five years and I knew that I had to make this work somehow. We made it work together and I couldn’t have done it without her.