Building Toward Something New
Rethinking my game plan.
I’ve been in a transitionary period recently. For most of my adult life, I’ve been working toward my PhD. Now that I’ve almost got it—it’s a strange feeling that I will have done the thing I’ve set out to do—I am starting to look beyond it. It feels that a kind of paradigm shift is necessary.
For the first time, my path isn’t laid out by the academic track. My reasons for this are partially laid out in this post, in which I argue that even in the best case scenario an academic career doesn’t seem all that great. But up until now, I’ve followed a pretty templated academic path toward earning my degree. Certainly, I’ve spent a lot of time on things that have nothing to do with my academic work. For example, my podcast. But now it’s time to think outside of the academic prescription, to what I want to do, what I want to work, and what I want to build toward.
What should I be doing now to put me in a solid position for my next step a year from now?
And so I’ve been rethinking things. I’ve been rethinking my podcast. I’ve been rethinking my writing. What should I write about? And who should I write it for? I need a new center of gravity around which these pursuits can orbit.
In the old paradigm, the academic-track one, these were just side projects. And, as side projects do, they came and went depending on how much my primary responsibilities required of me. In many ways, the point was for them to exist. This is definitely true of podcast. I had a vision for what it was going to be. But a big part of the foundation for that vision was that I wanted it to exist. And now that it does (I’m 60+ episodes and almost two years in), I need to go back and reevaluate what I want that show to be, what I want it to grow into.
The same is true of writing. My goal during graduate school was, in many ways, to write. To write what? Anything, really. Just to get something into the world. To try things out. And now I feel I’m ready to focus in a bit more, to go about things with a bit more precision, with greater sense of purpose than just to do it when I feel like it.
And at first these reevaluations left me in a state of despair. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the old paradigm was untenable. The way I was doing things was no longer the way I should be doing things. And so for a bit I simply languished.
But now I can start to feel that clarity of vision start to emerge. It’s time to build toward something new.
What exactly does that look like?
The template for “making it” as a modern “author,” “content creator,” “writer” (I am reluctant to use these concepts without qualification) is surprisingly straightforward. Grow a platform on three fronts: Twitter, podcast, and some form of direct-to-reader (e.g., Substack). If you can grow those platforms to significant numbers, monetization is pretty straightforward. Depending on your goals, there are also book contracts with major publishers and freelance pieces (e.g., getting a piece published in, like, The Atlantic). Increasingly, you’ll find new authors follow this template. More established authors also increasingly conform to this tripartite (tweet, pod, newsletter) strategy. So it’s not really a question of what. It’s a question of how.
Specifically, how to position oneself and one’s work within the overpopulated universe of available content. What is it that you are uniquely position to say? What are you positioned to say that a critical mass will be eager to hear?
One of the things I’ve struggled with on this front is a fear of commitment. By answering that question in one way, I feel like I’m closing the door on all other ways of potentially answering it. By defining myself in terms of one thing, I’m letting go of all the others. And that’s tough for me. What’s always been most exciting for me in the world of ideas is the sense of expansiveness, of finding yourself in new territory which is not only unfamiliar but that up until now it didn’t it even occur to you to look for. It’s the same problem that dating apps introduce into the selection of a mate. Sure, this one seems fine. But what about all the other ones?
It’s funny. This isn’t all that different from the problem I’d be facing if I were to stay in academia. I’d have to be known for something. I’d have to be the “world expert” on a single niche topic. The thing that is apparent to me is whatever that “something” is is not a research endeavor. But I still think this kind of move—to focus on carving out a niche—is the right next step for me. That’s the center of gravity of going forward.
And I feel like I’m starting to gain some clarity on what that’s going to be.
The clarity has come from taking a step back to consider what I’ve tended to do previously, what I’ve enjoyed doing and felt I’ve done well. To consider the authors and writers I really look up to and would want to be like, and to consider the spaces they occupy. To consider the things I’ve tried to do with my research, but have felt myself unable to address in the way I’d like. To consider the things that I think make my way of seeing the world unique. To consider the kind of work that I would like to exist in the world but currently doesn’t. With all that under consideration, it’s pretty clear what’s at the core. Essentially, it’s the intersection of psychology and travel.
Obviously, I’m getting my PhD in psychology. So that’s going to be a part of it. In my podcast, I interview psychologists (mostly). In my writing, psychological research often underpins my arguments. I’ve spent the last, let’s say, six or seven years in dedicated training for psychology and cognitive science research.
But the other piece—more enigmatic, less formal—is travel. Having gone places and seen things is, along with the study of psychology, the activity that has most influenced my view of the world. I find that the only authors I like even more than ones that nail psychology are travel writers (e.g., Bill Bryson, Anthony Bourdain). Also, if you’ve followed my work for any length, you know that I have a not-so-secret obsession with anthropologists. Their whole research program is premised on the idea that you have to go somewhere. I also tried to introduce this notion of “intuitive anthropology” into academic psychology (with no success). Overall, the thing that I’ve been most in interested in psychology is how we understand people who are different from ourselves—be it culturally, politically, linguistically, etc. You can see how travel plays into that idea. I have also spent a not insignificant amount of time working on my own travel writing. I released a season of a podcast featuring it, called Notes from the Field. For a long time, I’ve known that travel was something I wanted to be a part of my work.
And while psychology and travel both appeal to a large market of readers, no one has ever successfully combined them. People who write about travel generally don’t traffic in ideas. People who write about ideas rarely connect them with the act of travel.
There’s a host of ways I think would be really interesting to connect them. It goes in both directions. What can psychology research tell us about how to travel more meaningfully? Pretty much every resource in existence for improving one’s travel experience is about what to do, not how to do it. Yet our travel experiences are all underpinned by the staples of psychology: memory, expectation, emotion, meaning, etc. In the other direction: How does travel change us psychologically? It is when we’re abroad, in an unfamiliar environment surrounded by unfamiliar people, that we learn the most about our own identity, personality, and culture. This is something we all suspect and would likely elicit agreement from anyone who has done any significant traveling. But no one has ever really drawn out that connection, to say precisely what it is or how it works. It also feels like a unique time to be asking these questions. For two years, most of us haven’t been able to do any significant travel. People will be hungry for it in a new way over the coming years. Anyway, this is the sphere of questions to which I find myself drawn.
And so the game plan—the basics of it anyway—is pretty clear. I’m going to dedicate this Substack to writing about that topic: psychology, travel, and the science of meaningful experience. I’m also going to retool the podcast, to align my interview guests and questions more with this topic. In all likelihood, the pod won’t change that much in the immediate. I’ll still be doing interviews with, for example, authors of interesting recently-published psych books. But over time I hope to develop a stronger link with the travel x psych niche.
Twitter I’m not going to worry about for now. While, in theory, it’s a great way to lead people toward your work, it’s also a cesspit. I can’t stand it. The thing I can’t get over is that exactly 0% of the authors I really admire spend a bunch of time (or any time at all) on Twitter. So I’ll have a Twitter account for the pod, which will advertise new shows. But I don’t want me—“Cody” as, like, a person—to spend a bunch of time on Twitter. It just doesn’t feel consistent with who I am or who I want to be.
So the pod and the Substack will come out on a regular basis. Let’s say every week, though it might be less depending on what it takes to achieve the level of quality I want. On top of that, I’ll also return to doing freelance work writing for magazine and online outlets. I started doing this at the beginning of graduate school. For example, in I placed a few pieces in a magazine called Nautilus. This serves two main functions: (1) pretty much every legit writer has the same CV in which they list the prestiges outlets that have published their work. Basically: the more the better. And (2) it’s another way of third-party validation of ideas. It’s one thing to put a piece out there and see how many views it gets. But it’s another to have to get it through the filter of a savvy editor. Both are useful. I want to continue to exercise that muscle.
Then there’s the book. I’m currently working on a book proposal which would be about this psychology / travel admixture. I’m going to see how that shakes it. I’m not going to force. I’m going to work on it for as long as it takes to make it feel solid. I have a tendency to rush through projects, to just get them out there. But not this one.
The crucial thing is that pod and the sub point toward the book, but don’t rely on it. If I get the book contract, great. The pod and the sub will help promote it. But if I don’t, they are still independently worth doing. They are still going to help me work towards what I want to do longer-term within this new paradigm.
So, yeah. That’s it. That’s what’s been on my mind. And I’m excited about it. I’m excited to finish out my PhD. I’m excited to start building toward something new.
Which means, I suppose, that now that I’ve said I’m going to do it the only thing left is to do it. You can expect this new content to show up here starting soon. Maybe not next week, because, as I mentioned, I’m working on not rushing things. So I may take a bit to get things started. But soon enough, I’m going to be exploring this space of travel x psych ideas. It’s going to be a good time. I appreciate you being there for it. Your support, your comments, your subscribing and reading all mean a lot.
Please do let me know if you like the new stuff as it comes out, or if you have any ideas that I might want to build into my new game plan in these early stages.
Thanks,
CEK