Everything I Learned Along the Way: Synthesizing Your Life from Your Experiences with Dr. Rachel Herz
Dr. Rachel Herz 40:00
I think so. And also probably for consistency, I mean, I think since that’s that sort of become the emblem and you know, that circle is the kind of the TED logo. So you’re kind of like always in the logo. And I think if they had too much latitude of people wandering here and there, it would lose it sort of font style as it were. But I think that there’s one other Ted consistency that they, we try to maintain. So I totally why but I mean, it is, you guys should look up this spoof version of attention, because it really is really what it’s all about, you know, kind of in a way that
Dr. Russell Strickland 40:33
sounds like fun. Well, so here’s the million dollar question. Knowing what you know, now, would you do it again?
Dr. Rachel Herz 40:42
Definitely. And and the thing is that you mean, the TED talk or everything? Right, right. Right. Yeah. The TED Talk. Right? Well, so that was actually what I was asked, right after I did it, and I’m on this complete high, like, that was so great, you know, people coming up to me, and I’m like, Oh, you know, like, I’m a movie star, you know, for five seconds. And then I, but at that time, you know, I, I probably would do it again, now knowing having sort of this experience. But I don’t know that, you know, it would really depend on what was also going on in my life, because I knowing the kind of sacrifice that’s involved with respect to the time commitment, everything, I did not anticipate it being the time commitment that it was at all, and actually should tell you, funnily enough, one of the speakers that day was a Nobel laureate, physicist, and he refused to come to any of the state of the reversals or anything like this. And he said, You know, I’ve been there, done that. And the organizers were really worried that he was going to be like, the worst talk about he ended up being really good. I mean, he said, he happened to naturally just be good at this. But they were, in fact, really concerned, because the sort of attitude of people who Oh, yeah, no, I’m above this, you know, that sort of Nobel laureate, it’s not even wrong kind of idea that they were concerned that he was going to be a total failure. But he in this case wasn’t. But I think that the practice that is involved now to get to Carnegie Hall, was really, really hard. And depends on what I was doing. But I would, I would love it, you know, if I was asked to do a real TEDlike a full TED no x beside it. I definitely say yes. Another x, I don’t know, depending on what was going on at the time.
Dr. Russell Strickland 42:15
Yeah, it’s like you’re saying with the guy who didn’t come to practice, it’s tough, because a lot of professors say that. It’s my job I profess. I do this all the time. You know, how many of your students are asleep in your class every day? Let’s get some data here. Because a lot of professors just they know that they talk. And that’s they think they can do it. And it’s a very, it’s amazing how everything can be studied. And you can learn everything, these people who were telling you these little things and had names for everything that you didn’t even realize you were doing. Right? We studied that there’s like a whole body of study that’s gone into that. And it’s it’s amazing how there’s just, knowledge is such a rich thing that you can dive so deep into anything. I think that’s one of the reasons why I like talking to folks like you and the doctoral students, I work with everything’s because you can always learn something new, anywhere, even in the most mundane things. Oh, you shouldn’t stand that way. Why? Well, it’s called this and here’s the reasons, the five reasons why. There’s five? Exactly. Yeah, amazing, right. So I know, you said you love writing and, you know, a big segment of our audience, that’s really what they’re here for is to is to get their book out there into the into the public domain and to help other people, through their message. Tell us how that experiences work for you what it was like to the first time and after that.
Dr. Rachel Herz 43:38
So the first time as I mentioned that, I thought I was leaving academia, I thought this was the end. And I felt like after all this work, I can’t just walk away and you know, close the door. So I felt like I had to write a book. And I, you know, this was this was also when I first started, this was 2004. the publishing industry, by the way, for popular science is very different today than it was then. But I was able to find an agent that actually went through a couple before I found the right one. And that’s also something people don’t realize. I mean, at that time, too, there was no self publishing, so you had to get an agent if you wanted to be in a popular press. And also that, you know, it’s not like an agent’s there, and it’ll all work out and everything’s fine. Like, the first agent had a totally different idea. Like, she wanted me to write the sense of smell for Dummies. And I’m like, No, no, no, that’s not what I’m doing. The second one, you don’t have this other leg, we just you know, didn’t quite fit together and then shouldn’t really have the connections and finally, I hit the right one and I’ve been with this agent and her our partner for now, ever since 2004. But in any case, the the translating this is the first time I ever did it, you know, science into a story was something that I did not know how to do. And I never went to school to learn how to do this and nobody ever taught me, but I have always loved writing in general. Like I know what I was my first academic job was in Philadelphia and I took creative writing, like as a, you know, nighttime fun course. And when I was younger, I used to write like, long, short, you know, long, long, short stories all the time, you know, write poems, I always really liked that, you know, sort of creativity. But that into science wasn’t something that I had ever any experience with, or really knowledge how to do. I read a lot of, you know, popular science books to sort of see what what would be sort of narrative nonfiction would be like, or So I sort of learned from reading and I think that’s actually really important. And so reading other authors, and when you find someone whose writing you like, and then seeing what what it what is it that they’re doing, I mean, one of the problems with being a writer is sort of trying not to see mechanism, because now you know, now that I am a writer, and I kind of understand certain devices that writers will use as hard to, don’t look at the fact that the author is doing this, just enjoy it for what it is like. Like, if you’re a wine expert, like don’t think this is smells like caramel and wet dog, just enjoy the Chardonnay.
Dr. Russell Strickland 46:07
Tell my son all the time, he’s 15. And he wants to point out all the little things about the movie, I’m like, I’m just trying to watch a movie. And I went through that stage in life too. Whereas like, I’m smarter than this person, I can pick apart what they did. But at some point, I’m like, he’s he made a movie, he went through a lot of work to let me enjoy myself. Let me just enjoy myself instead of analyzing it. All
Dr. Rachel Herz 46:30
right, right. Yeah. So for the most part, I’ve gotten good at like dropping that and not, you know, when I’m reading for pleasure, which by the way, my major form of reading for pleasure is is fiction, and I love murder mysteries, like I’m a mystery is where I go. But so I don’t read Popular Science for fun. I don’t know. But for fun, but I want other people to read my books for fun. But anyhow, so trying to figure out how to turn, you know, complex science into narrative enjoyable, you know, easily understandable was a real challenge. And also, because I knew this topic so well, and everything about it was like completely interesting to me, I knew that that’s not the case that everybody is going to read this. So figuring out what really important to say, and other stuff to not say, and also how to turn this into something that’s really enjoyable and digestible. And you can also it’s not like a textbook, where first we teach you this, and then we teach you that it’s like this, and then we teach you Well, it’s not really like that it’s like, so that’s not how you write it at all. It’s like you start in the middle, then you go to the end, then you go to the beginning in terms of the topic, you know, evolution kind of thing. So, so all those were real challenges for the first book, in terms of paring it down, try to figure out what else was interesting turning, like finding a voice. You know, that was something that was really hard to like, what is my voice specifically, like, Who am I, you know, the speaker to the reader. And that’s something that I’ve honed and has developed along the way. So I don’t think I had it perfectly. For my first book, I think my most recent book, I really got it much more. But it’s something is also quite elusive. I don’t even really know when people will come up to me, and they’ll tell me that they think I’m really funny. And I’m like, really, I just like, I think if I were trying to be funny, I would not be funny at all. So it’s sort of you don’t want to try too hard, whatever it is that you’ve kind of got, but sort of learning what your voice is. And basically, it’s like, if you were telling somebody else who you wanted to have them be interested in what you’re doing, how would you explain it to them? And sort of how would you talk it through with something else that’s sort of a kind of a technique of mine, and just kind of came up with it on my own, or this is how it is for me when I’m writing is it’s really architectural for me, like, like the book is and and so my first book was all about the challenge there was paring it down, translating it into, you know, Popular Science, etc. My second book, which was about the emotion of disgust, was a lot easier from the point of view of I didn’t really know that much about it to start with, I knew a little bit, but I know what would be interesting, because I would be interested in it. But I didn’t know the topic. So I basically had to give myself a new PhD on, on the emotion of disgust. So that was a huge amount of work. And then my most recent book, why you eat what you eat. I basically was at the point after a year into the contract, and I had a year left to go of waking up in a cold sweat at 4am. Not having written a word and thinking I didn’t have to give back my advance. I cannot write this book. Because I couldn’t it was like Fort Knox. That was the architecture at the time. I’m standing outside I cannot get in because I kept thinking anyone can write this book, any journalist could write this book about food and eating. Why would I write it and believe it or not, it had not dawned on me that someone with an expertise in smell and taste could actually have some particular in it. And then it was like, Oh, wait a second. I know how to approach it that’s unique or different. And anyway, but that took that was the first architectural hurdle was I was standing outside Fort Knox and then something that’s the key For all the books is like, first of all, the internal plan. So the kitchen, is it next to the dining room? Is it next to the first floor bedroom? And then what’s in the kitchen? You know, maybe I have this in there, but maybe I’m going to put that table into the dining room instead. So the content of each chapters, first of all, what’s in one chapter, what follows from that chapter, what is actually in that chapter that you may actually think, well, something in chapter one really should go in chapter four. So you know, that whole sort of idea, the manipulation of the of this sort of segments within is very much of an architectural thing for me. And then also the the idea of telling a story, both, you know, telling a story, sort of, I like to use, you know, a lot of personal anecdotes as examples in the story. But also seeing the whole thing in a way as a story, I think is really important. From the point of view, getting your reader involved, it’s kind of it’s a difficult thing, but um…
Dr. Russell Strickland 50:55
It is because that’s how that’s how we emotionally react to stories. That’s how we’ve been taught to learn for eons. I mean, maybe not technically eons. But as long as humans have been around, at least, that’s how we’ve been taught to learn. And so that’s one of the things we have to teach our authors as well is, is, you know, you’ve been, again, drilled into your head that you write a certain way. And it’s very, you know, stodgy and analytical and objective and cold. And nobody wants to read that stuff. What you got to do is become warm and engaging, and you stories, and then that can be hard for some folks to make that transition.
Dr. Rachel Herz 51:31
Well, you know, what you said before about your writing, when you first started writing academic papers and not wanting to make it this sort of third person really wonky? Well, I cannot at the same time, right? Like, if I’m writing a publication paper for an academic journal, I cannot do that. Well, actually, it’s more that I can’t be writing Popular Science at the same time is doing that, because that’s like this totally formulaic writing style. And I don’t want it hurting my narrative. So I can switch from writing the narrative to Okay, I have to work on a paper because it’s easy to kind of switch into that brain methodological mode. But if I’m writing a lot like that, I cannot make that transition into the into the narrative, because it’s like, you know, total brain switch. There really are different. Yeah,
Dr. Russell Strickland 52:13
Yeah. It’s like, try and play classical with one hand and jazz with the other. It’s there. It’s tough. Yeah. But it, it is definitely a different mindset. And you have to decide which way you’re going to be writing what is what’s the point of what I’m writing. And for a lot of folks, they were so indoctrinated, obviously, in their doctoral degree program to write a certain way. Yeah. That it takes us a while to break them and get them back out to being a person so to speak. Yeah. Not that the researchers aren’t people to but it’s a different way of thinking. Yeah, yeah. I always loved the commercials that that put at the bottom of the bell, a little disclaimer, real people, not actors. actors, all you have a psychology degree, what does it do to actors? This? But anyway, um, well, this has been so interesting. Do you have an opportunity? Or are you allowed at all to give us a sneak peek as to what’s coming with the next book? Or is that still under wraps as of yet,
Dr. Rachel Herz 53:17
just because I’m sort of superstitious? Like, I don’t want it to not happen. So I don’t really want to go there yet. But hopefully, you know, I’ll hear some good news. I mean, like I said, the publishing world is really different today. And, and one of the things that has been kind of a shock to me, actually, since the the most recent book came out “Why You Eat What You Eat”, I actually have tried already with two other books so far, that were not successful. So far, they’re still in the desk drawer. But one of them I mean, this was really surprising to me, because a lot of people that were interviewing me after why you eat what you eat came out, said, you know, you need to this would be so great kids need to know about food and eating, and they need to know other senses and their psychology are involved in you really should write a book for kids. So I thought that would be great. No, I would love to do that. So I actually wrote out a whole, you know, book for kids, you know, template and everything. My agent was super excited about it. I actually had some really good feedback for scholastic and an editor there loved it when I was like, that would be amazing. But then they took it to they have their bookfair marketing people and they thought, Oh, you know, we they didn’t really think it was going to work. So that that was a that was done with and then during this past year of the pandemic, I had another idea for a book and I think the pandemic really changed also, how editors were looking at, you know, marketability, and everything else. And my agent was telling me a lot of things that normally are being sold are not being sold. So that’s that other idea for a book, which was something different than then the the food book. I’m not gonna say what that is because hopefully, maybe that will work out. That that’s that got, you know, rejected and I’m like, what, you know, am I you know, we were both like, how can this not that How can this be, but the topic is i thought was something that people would really be interested in. So I guess I’m a little gunshot because I hadn’t had not happened to me with my first three books. It wasn’t like, Oh, no. I mean, I was just who which publishing house Am I going to go with? because nobody’s interested in you. And now I had to two total rejections. And thinking that well, I don’t want to say, this is a tough deal yet. But I mean, this is also really interesting time is because as a function of the pandemic, and just global finances, and what are people interested in your Why do people want to be reading about it’s not the same as it was even just a few years ago, let alone what was like 15 years ago. So, you know, for that reason, I’m a little don’t want to,
Dr. Russell Strickland 55:38
I guess, do definitive right now. I think 2020 is going to change a lot of things for a lot of industries moving forward in ways that we don’t even begin to understand yet. I’m going to be very interested in seeing what people who are really studying this stuff had to say about how this affects our kids 10, 15, 20 years down the road, because I guarantee you, they’re going to be making decisions based on something they learned this year, this experience. So But anyway, I listened divers, I’ve had a wonderful time, I know that you’ve got to go soon, I’d like to make sure that folks can reach out to you. If they would like to make contact and maybe continue this discussion in any way. What’s the best way for them to do that?
Dr. Rachel Herz 56:20
Well, the best way is my website. So you can even find me there’s contact my emails up there. And also, you could follow me on Twitter, I’m on Twitter. I’m also on LinkedIn. I don’t know if anyone’s professionally, you know, into that. But I also have a blog on Psychology Today, although I’m not as good at keeping up with that as I shouldn’t be. But I do have, you know, stories in there. But if you want to get in touch with me directly, my website and my email from my website would be the best way.
Dr. Russell Strickland 56:46
And tell everybody what’s the website.
Dr. Rachel Herz 56:48
Explaining, RachelHerz.com.
Dr. Russell Strickland 56:50
Easy enough. So and folks who want to you know, if you’re driving in the car right now or something, and you can go back to our blog on DissertationDone.com/blog, find Dr. Herz’s episodes there. And we’ll link all of our contact information in also the books, all the cool stuff so that you can find it in one place. So we’ll be happy to do that.
Dr. Rachel Herz 57:10
Thank you so much, Dr. Strickland, it’s an honor to be on today.
Dr. Russell Strickland 57:14
Well, you are quite welcome. I very much appreciate this. We’ve had a wonderful discussion today. I do want to just remind folks briefly that today’s episode is brought to you by Dissertation Done. So if you are struggling through the dissertation process or about to face it, get the guidance and support and accountability that you need. Reach out to us at DissertationDone.com/done and see if we might be a good fit there. And if you would like to see if you can become a published author just like that, Dr. Herz. Maybe we can help you with that too. You can find out more DissertationDone.comm/book. And so we’d love to help you or have a conversation at least, if either of those two things is of interest to you. Again, Dr. Herz, thank you so much for being here. I had a wonderful time.
Dr. Rachel Herz 57:54
Thank you so much for having me. I had a wonderful time too.
Dr. Russell Strickland 57:57
And for everyone else, have a great day and go out and live your unconventional life.
Outro 58:08
This has been An Unconventional Life. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, Subscribe now to keep getting inspirational stories of unconventional lives as soon as they’re released. Until then go out and live your best unconventional life.
