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

The Prayer of Saint Francis isn’t just a spiritual message—it’s a blueprint for how to lead, influence, and build something meaningful in business. “Where there is hatred, let me sow love…” That’s not weakness. That’s the foundation of lasting influence. Real leadership isn’t about control—it’s about presence, service, and building others up. Whether you’re running a company, managing a team, or j...

If you’ve ever felt like a mess in academia—like you’re supposed to be confident, polished, and certain, but inside you’re wrestling with doubt, contradiction, and confusion—this one’s for you. I talk about how I’ve spent years trying to build something real with the R3ciprocity Project. I’ve done it in public. I’ve done it without a roadmap. And I’ve done it while constantly second-guessing wheth...

I used to care what everyone thought. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to impress. But years of building the Reciprocity Project—putting in the work when no one believed in it—taught me something deeper. People say a lot. But if you watch their eyes, their body, the tension in their face—you’ll see the truth. Most of it is just cheap talk. So I stopped listening to the noise and started believing in...

We get it wrong—over and over again. We chase the exciting, the flashy, the dream jobs we see on TV and TikTok. Entrepreneurs, influencers, movie stars, pro athletes. The few that make it look easy. But we rarely ask: what’s the probability of actually succeeding? I’ve been thinking about this a lot. As someone who’s built something unconventional, I know how seductive the dream can be. But I also...

Doing the right actions that were result in good outcomes doesn’t always result in good outcomes.

We think if we just try harder, think more, or help more, things will work out. But the truth is—we can’t control much. I’ve had to learn that over and over again. Even with good intentions, even when I do everything “right,” things don’t go the way I thought they would. We believe we’re in control of ourselves, of others, of the world. But real life doesn’t work that way. It’s messy, uncertain, a...

How do you become a legitimate professor without getting an education? It’s an interesting problem. The only way is if you worked backwards and came up with a major discovery so important that people can’t look at the world the same way. But even then, legitimacy is squishy. You’d always be discounted by some. Yes, it’s possible to make intellectual contributions without formal education, but it’s...

The more that I understand how the sausage is made, the more disillusioned I get with it. I used to have this sort of envisioned idea that if I simply just worked and I did a good job, I treated people nicely, I did everything that I was supposed to do, that it would work out. That was very naive. It’s often not what you thought it would be. The process is not what you think it is. There is more t...

Fear is powerful—but it’s often used as a tool for manipulation. In this deeply honest message, we explore why fear is so primal, how it shapes our actions, and how bad actors—from the media to people close to us—exploit it to control behavior. But you have a choice. Like firefighters, judges, and leaders in high-stress roles, you can pause. You can think clearly. You can take one calm step forwar...

I grew up in a working-class family—blue-collar through and through. Now I live in a world full of academics, PhDs, and prestige. And to be honest, I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. Both sides have their own kind of snobbery. On one side, being “too educated” makes you the outsider. On the other, if you act like a normal human—go to your kid’s baseball game, show up at a PTA meeting, take time...

There’s a pressure to “perform” that is deeply ingrained in research culture. A norm of climbing the ladder, being cutthroat, doing more with less. But I’ve come to see how detached this is from reality. Very detached. I grew up in a very average, blue-collar family. Now, I’m in a different place. I’ve made it, at least on paper. But here’s what I’ve learned: the things that make me happiest have...

I was going to proclaim that blogging is dead. The traffic on the R3ciprocity Project blog has steadily declined since the rise of artificial intelligence. People get answers faster now, and it’s changed how we interact with content. But I keep thinking—what is the value added of humans over algorithms? Computers are fast and accurate. But humans? We’re good at finding and fixing exceptions. We ha...

One of the hardest things I’ve learned as a researcher is this: If people can’t see the depth of what you’ve done, it doesn’t matter. You could spend years thinking through a layered, nuanced idea. Build a framework that connects pieces nobody else has connected. And what happens? Someone skims your work in 30 seconds and says: “Huh, seems basic.” It’s crushing. But it’s not because you did someth...

Academic research is built on knowledge—but not on community. And that’s a problem. Incentives in academia don’t reward cooperation. They reward competition, individual credit, and winner-takes-all outcomes. Even when we want to collaborate, the system quietly tells us not to. Unlike companies, which reward people for building something together, academic research often rewards people for standing...

My tone changes when I talk about professional doctorates because many institutions are designed to extract a lot of value from you while providing little in return. It’s not just about getting a degree—it’s about ensuring that what you’re paying for actually adds value to your life. Some programs are legitimate and well-established, but many prey on people’s optimistic beliefs and desperation. Be...

Venturing off into new knowledge—whether it’s a PhD, R&D, or building something new—comes with a strange, painful truth: you need a community, but you won’t know who that community is until after you’ve been completely alone. You have to feel lost. You have to not know what you’re doing. You have to go through hard knocks, pain, and moments where you say, “What the hell, why is this happening?” An...

The more that you start looking at things, you start realizing that there’s just lots of moments where things break down and they don’t work as if you wanted them to actually work. We look at somebody else that seems really, really successful, and we try to mimic what they do, but we inevitably fail. There is almost always a ton of invisible infrastructure that you never see. I’ve learned this rep...

What happens when you do everything right, yet the recognition never comes? In this deeply personal reflection, I share my journey from a lonely high schooler seeking validation through achievement to an academic navigating the brutal realities of the research world. The market never tells you you’re good enough—so how do you keep going? This is a story about detaching from external expectations,...

I can guarantee this is how it’s going to play out for you—unless you’re one of the fortunate ones. You’ll spend a great deal of time building something, and when it’s finally out there, people will discount it. They’ll say it’s not good enough. They’ll pass over it. It doesn’t matter what you’re working on—a new product, a research project, a PhD, or a business—it’s the same old story. You will h...

Forget the beautiful story—none of that works. The real secret? Do the boring. Repeat the boring. It’s the Toyota Camry strategy, the ordinary, the tedious, the thing nobody cares about. Every flashy move takes away from future success. The more boring you are, the better off you’ll be. Don’t fall for the fishing stories. Ignore the noise. This is what actually wins.

Some people think there’s a clear path to success in research—that there’s a small, elite group of people who always knew what they were doing. But that’s not reality. The truth is, if you feel lost, uncertain, or like an outsider, you’re not alone. That’s the defining feature of this career. I know what it’s like to struggle to get into the research game. I had to change my identity completely. I...

Absolutely, academia is an industry—it has all the signs of one. If you look at the production and distribution of knowledge as a product category, it’s clear. But here’s where it gets complicated. The academic world is the ‘general purpose engine’ of the economy, fueling industries with new ideas that drive productivity and innovation. The challenge? Costs are immediate and easy to measure, but t...

What if reading and writing don’t come naturally to you? Can you still succeed as a researcher or a PhD? The answer is yes—but it takes relentless determination. I’ve struggled with reading and writing my whole life. I was undiagnosed with ADHD for years and likely have dyslexia, yet I’ve still built a career in academia. The key isn’t natural talent; it’s curiosity, persistence, and finding strat...

We only cheer for the winners, but that’s not what really matters.” Most of what determines success—body shape, genetics, where you’re born—is beyond anyone’s control. Yet, we act like effort alone defines outcomes. The truth? Some people work harder than anyone and still fall behind. What if we stopped celebrating results and started celebrating the courage to show up, day after day? Because in t...

Hiring freezes in academia come and go, just like watching the stock market—if you focus on the day-to-day, it creates anxiety, but the long-term trend is almost always upward. The news thrives on fear, but in reality, opportunities exist if you keep taking steps forward. If you’ve lost your position, take a step back and regroup. It won’t feel good, but almost always, there’s a better opportunity...