Have you found yourself in your darkest hour of academia? Feeling stuck or lost in your career path?

Join Isaiah as he shares his darkest hour experience and gives you three strategies to turn your own despair in academia into an opportunity for industry success!

Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode…

• First, Isaiah shares his story, which is probably not far from your own. It’s not a matter if you get stuck but when. Understand you’re not alone and how small shifts can trigger big change. 
• Then, Isaiah shares the three simple strategies you can implement now to get unstuck in your career path. 
• Finally, Isaiah discusses how your skills and passions can help you find your target, keep you motivated, and find success in industry.

From This Week’s Show…

How Academia Drives You To Your Darkest Hour 

I want to talk to you about your darkest hour in a job search. A lot of PhDs who have not yet reached severe pain in terms of their job search or in terms of academia are unprepared for their own darkest hour. 

Sooner or later, we reach a point in academia where we realize there is no reward anymore.

“Should I be treated like this is, am I just worthless? Can I only be successful by doing what other people have done?  Following that standard path of a postdoc to whatever else?”

The fact that you would feel like it’s your obligation to work for free out of some sense of duty or guilt or whatever, just shows you how completely absurd academia is.

It’s not until we go through that darkest hour that we look for something that brings us out of it. Something triggers us, just like there’s a trigger to put us into that darkest hour. Usually, the pain gets so bad that we finally say “enough is enough.” 

The Three Strategies To Get Unstuck

It’s not too late for you, no matter what you’re facing, when you become stuck, if you’re not stuck yet, or if you are stuck now, or if you are in that area of despair, there are three things that will get you out of it. 

Get out of this negative pessimistic mindset that academia teaches you to have. That’s a great mindset to have to avoid confirmation bias when you’re doing experiments or you’re writing your thesis or you’re gathering or evaluating information, but it is a horrible attitude to have when you’re dealing with other people, be nice, be kind, be engaged.

Why do you want to get out of academia? You need to know, and you need to put a name to it. You reached that moment of despair for a reason. Maybe it’s because you finally had enough of low pay. You finally had enough of being disrespected. You finally had enough of being yelled at. 

Find your target. It doesn’t matter how driven you are or how intelligent you are. It doesn’t matter what qualities you have behind you if you can’t hit a target. 

You deserve this, but you’re going to have to work for it. You’re invisible to employers. All you have to do is learn how to be visible. 

Get more exposure to these different industries, again, to increase visibility and keep yourself motivated and driven so that if you face a rejection , you’ll keep moving forward. Learn the power of next.

** for the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

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