The Key to Getting What You Want - according to my mum...

My Mum, Donna Penrose, is a scientist.  Between her early twenties through her fifties, she worked in all sorts of labs, and earned a PhD in Molecular Biology.  

Not long ago she was talking about scientific work and what makes a scientist. It struck me that the key ingredient to a successful career in science, is applicable to those of us in the arts.

The kinds of experiments she conducted required multiple, seemingly endless, repetitions of the same method.  When an experiment works it's exciting, but then it needs to be replicated to ensure your findings are true.  

There's an inevitable moment, she says, where a young scientist repeats an experiment, and despite it being successful every previous time they conducted it and despite the fact they executed the method perfectly, IT DOESN'T WORK.

This can be a heart-breaking moment, because it means there is a flaw somewhere. It might even mean scrapping an experiment you've devoted months – sometimes years – to and beginning again. Scientists can become despondent and depressed at this moment, feeling like it's all futile and tempted to throw in the towel.

Donna said, this is the moment where you discover if you're actually a scientist. 

A scientist sticks with it.

A scientist has the tenacity, the doggedness, the patience and (paradoxically) the faith to not give up.

My Mum modelled this quality over and over in my lifetime. From small moments in childhood, when my brother or I would cry, "I can't find it anywhere!" searching for something we'd misplaced. She would first ask what we’d reward her with when she found the lost item, and once we'd struck a bargain, no matter how long it took, she'd locate whatever it was.

In a yoga workshop we took together a few year ago, she (in her mid-sixties, surrounded by twenty-year-olds) was the only participant who was able to hold herself in crow pose. Afterwards, she told me, she saw the teacher doing it, and thought, "This is possible. I can do this." 

She also survived an aggressive colon cancer and intense 6-month treatment in her mid-forties. Coming out the other side of that, she completed her PhD. 

Now retired, Donna’s time is devoted to gardening, studying ballet and developing a book on preserving – how to make the most delicious jams, pickles, chutneys, etc – with scientific precision and fun. 

Science like the arts is a fickle career, uncertain, filled with let downs and without the guarantee of a payoff.

We don’t know what’s going to be a hit, a useful contribution or a ‘failure’.  But it’s in the act of staying in the lab and trying again, that we increase our odds of success.

She says, "You may not get the result you think you wanted, but if you can muster the dogged determination to exhaust all possible solutions, something will happen.  And at that point it's a choice to change course, knowing you gave it a really good shot." 

My Mum is a remarkable, bad ass human being and I hope you take some inspiration from this tough love lesson she has given me: 

Come hell or high water, the key to getting whatever you want is to stick with it. 

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