R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness

David Maslach

Professor David Maslach talks about graduate school, research, science, Innovation, and entrepreneurship. The R3ciprocity project is my way to give back as much as I possibly can. I seek to provide insights and tools to change how we understand science, and make it more democratic.

  1. 6d ago

    What High School Teaches Us About Social Class

    High school never really ends. I know that sounds ridiculous, but watch almost any coming-of-age high school movie and you see something real. At some point, people realize there are groups. Jocks. Nerds. Gamers. Outcasts. Popular kids. Quiet kids. Studious kids. People with different interests, different information, different tastes, and different views of the world. Social class is defined as a set of groups that shape what people value, what they see, who they know, and what choices feel possible to them. I felt this very early. I was always a nerdy kid. I did not really fit cleanly into any one group. Toward the end of high school, I became more studious because I saw education as a path to economic prosperity. But even then, I could see that moving between groups was hard. Not just because people were mean. But because each group carried different information. Different beliefs. Different habits. Different signals about what mattered. That is the part I think we often miss. A lot of how we teach economics, business, and strategy assumes people are making clean choices. They see options. They weigh costs and benefits. They choose. But real life is messier than that. People do not just choose from all possible options. They choose from the options their social world makes visible. That is why high school is such a powerful example. It is one of the first places where many of us see status, belonging, class, identity, and opportunity all tangled together. And the uncomfortable part is this: Business schools often teach decision-making as if people are floating above society. But people are not floating. They are embedded in groups. Families. Friendships. Schools. Cultures. Neighborhoods. Signals. Stories. That does not mean economics is wrong. It means our simple models often miss the social world that makes some choices feel normal and other choices feel impossible. If we want people to make better life decisions, we need to stop pretending everyone sees the same choice set. They do not. Sometimes the biggest advantage in life is not intelligence. It is being around people who make better futures seem possible.

  2. Oct 8

    How To Keep Building When People Doubt You

    Most lives change in boring ways. Not in one big breakthrough. Not in one perfect moment. Just one more day with quiet confidence. One more step forward. One more time getting back up and trying again. Maybe you are finishing school and trying to find a job. Maybe you are building a business. Maybe you are trying to build a family. Maybe you are trying to build anything at all. I know how crazy-making that feels. It can feel like nothing is moving. It can feel like everybody else has a map and you do not. I was the person who got picked last. I was not the athletic one. I was not the one everybody looked at and thought, this person is going to do something remarkable. A lot of things did not come easy to me. And then at some point I realized something simple. Nothing was going to change unless I got back up and did one more day. That is still the lesson. There is very little you can change in one moment. But you can change your direction in one moment. One more application. One more hour. One more video. One more embarrassing step into the unknown. One more try when the odds are low and most people do not care. Most people are not going to believe in you. Some will doubt you. Some will laugh. Some will tell you it was easy for you. Bless your heart. You were not there for the journey. The journey is the point. You move the needle by repeating what matters long enough for your life to change. Not all at once. Not with magic. Just one more day. One more step. One more try. That is how unbelievable things get built.

  3. Oct 6

    Why Academic Entrepreneurs Stop Believing Words

    Most people talk. Very few help. One of the biggest lessons I have learned as an academic entrepreneur, innovator, and builder of the R3ciprocity platform is this: do not listen to what people say. Watch what they do. I thought research uncertainty, PhD depression, scholar loneliness, and the broken research game were obvious problems people would want to solve. I thought the academic community, funding agencies, and grant systems would want to move the needle. They did not. People talk about research problems, academic culture, innovation, community, crowdsourcing, and change. But when it comes time to fund, build, pay, join, or help, almost nobody shows up. That is the real lesson. Human behavior matters more than academic talk. Actions matter more than words. So if you are building something real, expect repetition. Expect embarrassment. Expect rejection. Expect to do most of it yourself. The only strategy I believe in now is repetition and leverage. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Then find small ways to leverage the repetition. That is how real change starts.

  4. Oct 1

    The Checklist View of Life

    We are sold a very modern checklist view of life. Get the degree. Get the job. Make good money. Be practical. Go on the trips. Exercise. Meditate. Do all the right things and somehow you are supposed to feel whole. But for some of us, even when we do a lot of that stuff right, there is still a longingness. There is still that quiet feeling that something is mismatched, that you are chronically behind, that there is something more you are supposed to do with your life. That is what made thinking about a doctorate feel so confusing to me. On paper, it looked irrational. More school. More uncertainty. Less money. Less approval. It looked like moving backward when I was supposed to be moving ahead. But the strangest part of adult life is that the checklist life does not fix that deeper ache. I do think some checklist things help. Exercise helps. Family helps. Doing the basics helps. But none of it fully resolves that deeper yearning if you are the kind of person who keeps searching for meaning, depth, truth, and a more genuine impression on the world. You can know not to pay attention to other people and still not fully know how to do it. So if you are in that exact same spot, wondering whether wanting a doctorate after a Master of Business Administration means you are foolish, I would say this. Maybe you are not making the stupidest choice of your life. Maybe you are finally being honest about the life that feels true to you. The hard part is that this feeling never fully goes away. There is no perfect checklist that wins the game. There is only trying to live your life as fully as you can, one day at a time, while remembering that even with the longingness, you may still be doing pretty well. Sometimes that is the real work. Not checking every box, but getting back up and trying again

  5. Sep 29

    The Tyranny of Numbers

    I’ve been thinking about the tyranny of numbers. I know that sounds peculiar. But over the last 200–250 years, we’ve put a number on almost everything. Grades. GPA. Trade deficits. Performance. Even time itself. ⸻ It’s been the job of engineers, accountants, doctors—really all professionalization— to codify the world into numbers. And on one hand… this has been one of the modern miracles. ⸻ We’ve had enormous growth because we can: • calculate • quantify • assign numerical values ⸻ But there’s also a tyranny with it. ⸻ Once you put a number on something… you can’t escape it. ⸻ It brings out aspects of humanness that are not so great. We compare. We compete. We try to get ahead of somebody else. Sometimes at all costs. ⸻ Grades are a perfect example. A simple numerical system. But suddenly: • you are a 4.0 • or you are not And that number becomes something people believe means everything. ⸻ But it’s a made-up system. It doesn’t even make sense outside of a very specific context. ⸻ And yet… people build their identity around it. ⸻ The same thing happens everywhere. Trade surpluses. Performance metrics. Rankings. Numbers that were originally created for one purpose… get used for something completely different. ⸻ To signal status. To compare. To judge. ⸻ I’m an engineer. I understand the beauty of numbers. But I also see how self-reinforcing they become. ⸻ Once they exist… they shape behavior. ⸻ People don’t pursue things for the sake of pursuing them. They pursue the number. ⸻ And if you don’t fit that numerical system… it’s very difficult. ⸻ We start labeling people as: functional dysfunctional Based on systems that are, at their core, constructed. ⸻ And we forget something simple. These systems are very new. ⸻ Clocks. Grades. Standardized measures. These are not ancient truths. They are recent inventions. ⸻ And yet we treat them as if they define reality. ⸻ So I try to pause. And ask: Where does this system work? Where does it break down? Who prospers? Who doesn’t? ⸻ Because for most people… a single number is incredibly motivating. That’s why these systems exist. ⸻ But they are also incredibly limiting. ⸻ And the question I keep coming back to is: Are we understanding people… or just measuring them?

  6. Sep 24

    Why No One Listens… Until You’ve Been Doing It for 10 Years

    What’s funny is… my message hasn’t changed. People just started listening because I got older. I’ve been saying the same thing for over a decade. When I started, no one cared. It was dismissed. Ignored. Called a waste of time. People told me—directly and indirectly— that what I was doing didn’t make sense. And if I’m honest… they were right. At least in the short term. ⸻ Because anything that actually matters… looks like a mistake while you’re doing it. It looks: • inefficient • inappropriate • like you don’t know what you’re doing And people will tell you that. Especially the people closest to you. ⸻ So what happens? Most people quit. They move on. They do something that “makes sense.” And the thing that might have mattered… never gets built. ⸻ I didn’t quit. Not because I was confident. But because I kept repeating. Over and over. For years. ⸻ That’s the part nobody wants to hear. There is no trick. No shortcut. No “one move” that changes everything. ⸻ It’s just: repetition. Getting up. Doing it again. Even when you feel embarrassed. Even when you feel like a failure. Even when nothing is working.

  7. Sep 22

    Why Do I Feel So Stressed Right Now? (It Happens Every Year)

    I’ve been thinking a lot about stress lately, and I don’t think it’s as personal as we make it. I think it comes in cycles. Every year, there are periods where stress ramps up, and it’s not random. It’s tied to how we’ve structured time. Over time, we’ve become more and more synchronized. We used to live with loose time. Clocks were off. Schedules were imperfect. Now everything is precise. Our phones, our computers, our calendars… all synced to the same clock. And because of that, we’re all moving through the same cycles at the same time. Deadlines cluster. Work piles up. Pressure builds. Not just for you. For everyone. And I think that matters more than we realize. Because when stress hits, we interpret it as something personal. We think: • I’m behind • I’m not handling this well • something is wrong with me But often, it’s not just you. It’s the system. It’s the timing. It’s the fact that everyone around you is also under pressure. Which means people are: • less patient • more reactive • not at their best So things feel worse than they actually are. A short email feels harsh. A delay feels intentional. A bad day feels like failure. But it might just be the cycle. So if you’re feeling off right now… Take a pause. Zoom out.

  8. Sep 17

    Why Your PhD Feels So Hard (Even If You’re Smart)

    Most PhD students think success is about intelligence, productivity, or discipline. It’s not. It’s about your relationship with yourself. Three versions of you are always in conflict: • your past self • your present self • your future self And most PhD students lose because they never learn how to manage that. ⸻ Let’s start with your past self. You were trained to believe: • work harder • get the right answer • move fast That worked. Until now. Because a PhD forces you to confront something uncomfortable: You were wrong about how progress actually works. That’s hard to admit. It means letting go of who you thought you were. It means questioning the way you were taught to succeed. Most people don’t do that. ⸻ Now your present self. This is where it gets messy. Because what actually works in a PhD feels… wrong. It feels slow. Repetitive. Uncertain. And it looks strange to everyone around you. You might: • take longer than others • explore ideas that don’t “pay off” yet • invest time in things that don’t show up on your CV People won’t understand it. They may think you’re: • inefficient • distracted • not serious But here’s the truth: Nobody is paying as much attention to you as you think. That weird feeling? That’s not judgment. That’s just you stepping outside the script. ⸻ And then there’s your future self. This is the part most people ignore. Because it requires something uncomfortable: sacrifice without immediate reward. Writing one more paragraph. Reading one more paper. Taking a course just to learn. Not because you have to. Because you choose to. You are investing in someone who does not exist yet. And you have to believe they are worth it. ⸻ This is the real PhD problem. Not intelligence. Not talent. But whether you can: • forgive your past self • tolerate your present self • and invest in your future self All at the same time. ⸻ Here’s what I’ve learned: 1. Be kind to your past self They were doing the best they could with what they knew. 2. Accept that your present self will feel out of place If it feels weird, you’re probably doing it right. 3. Pay your future self every day One small step. Even when it feels pointless. ⸻ Because one day, your future self will look back and say: “Thank God I kept going when it didn’t make sense.” ⸻ If this resonates: What’s one thing you’re doing right now that your future self will thank you for?

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Professor David Maslach talks about graduate school, research, science, Innovation, and entrepreneurship. The R3ciprocity project is my way to give back as much as I possibly can. I seek to provide insights and tools to change how we understand science, and make it more democratic.

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