Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Competitive Runner to Science Journalist – Turning Passion Into Profession with Alex Hutchinson

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From Competitive Runner to Science Journalist – Turning Passion Into Profession with Alex Hutchinson · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:05
  Signaling to others and to yourself that you're serious about whatever endeavor you're taking on.
• 0:09
  That's a real it can be a source of motivation, but also, you know, help you help advance your career.
• 0:17
  Today we sit down with Alex Hutchinson, a former competitive runner turned acclaimed science journalist with a unique background in physics and quantum computing.
• 0:29
  Alex made a bold pivot from life in the laboratory to becoming a leading voice in the world of endurance, adventure, and human performance writing.
• 0:38
  He's a contributing writer for major publications and the author of books like Endure and the upcoming the Explorer's Gene.
• 0:47
  In this conversation, Alex shares how his experience as an elite athlete has shaped his disciplined approach to writing, why trial and error still trumps the latest science in athletic training, and how to strengthen strike that elusive balance between
• 1:03
  pursuing new horizons and savoring your successes.
• 1:07
  He unpacks the mindset behind tackling big projects.
• 1:11
  His pivot to science journalism lessons from exploring both literally and intellectually, and offers powerful advice for entrepreneurs seeking fulfillment in their own careers.
• 1:23
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:28
  And if you love this podcast, please leave a review@ratethispodcast.com Beyond Fulfillment all right, Alex Hutchinson, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:39
  Thanks, Dave.
• 1:40
  It's great to be here.
• 1:41
  Absolutely.
• 1:42
  We, we appreciate you taking the time.
• 1:44
  Okay, so let's get right into it, Alex.
• 1:47
  How did your experience as a competitive runner shape your approach to the discipline and the perseverance that's been required in your writing career?
• 1:58
  Yeah, I mean, for me, the experience of competitive running is like a metaphor for everything in my life.
• 2:03
  So it's, it's definitely a big factor.
• 2:06
  And I think pushing myself as, as an athlete gives me some context as to what it means to work hard.
• 2:16
  Like it.
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  There's nothing I do in my experience as a writer that, that, that compares in any way to the sacrifices and the, the hardships and discipline that I put through as a runner.
• 2:31
  So that's been a great context.
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  I guess the other big, the one other big thing is one thing I learned in running is you set a huge goal for yourself.
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  Sometimes you're lucky enough to make it.
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  You think your life is going to change as soon as you achieve that goal, you're like, all right, I think I can go faster.
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  What can I do next?
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  And so as a journalist, that has really been something I've kept in mind.
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  Things have gone well.
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  I've published articles in places that I've always dreamed of publishing.
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  I've learned to expect and to know that achieving one Thing just gives birth to the next goal.
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  And so you've got to celebrate your wins when you can, but not expect that achieving something you've dreamed of is going to suddenly make you a different person.
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  Yeah, that's such a great point.
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  And entrepreneurs can certainly relate to that because no matter how big the goal is, if you do hit it, there's another goal immediately.
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  So, so important to enjoy the journey and savor the, I guess the thrill of, of pursuing that goal.
• 3:32
  Because once you hit it, like you said, it just gives birth to another one.
• 3:37
  Yeah, and it's a, it's a tough balance or a tricky tension because you want to stay hungry, but you also want to enjoy, you know, enjoy the successes.
• 3:45
  And you, you have to try and find ways of holding both those thoughts in your mind at the same time.
• 3:50
  Okay, and so what was the pivotal moment that led you to transition from the world of physics and quantum computing to science journalism?
• 4:02
  Yeah, you know, this was a, probably like a 10 year slow drip.
• 4:07
  If I had to pick a kind of moment of epiphany, one that sticks in my mind is, you know, I was working as a physics researcher and we were putting in long hours in the lab.
• 4:17
  This is in, at the NSA just outside Washington D.C.
• 4:21
  you know, we'd sometimes be there till 8, 9 at night or sometimes later if you were running experiments, and then be back in the lab early the next morning.
• 4:30
  And I remember coming in one morning and one of my colleagues asking like, hey Alex, did you see that article about such and such a thing in, in Physics Today?
• 4:38
  And I was like, article in Physics Today?
• 4:41
  Are you kidding me?
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  I was here in the lab till 10 o' clock last night.
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  I did not go home and read Physics Today.
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  I had all the physics I could handle.
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  But I realized that my colleague, he was in the lab till 10 o' clock and then he went home and he was just jazzed about physics.
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  So then he went home and read Physics Today.
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  And I thought about that and I thought, are there topics that I'm as passionate about?
• 5:03
  Yes, there are.
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  Is it physics?
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  No, I enjoy physics.
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  It's okay.
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  But it's not something that I'm excited to go home and read about.
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  And that was kind of a, I still remember that moment.
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  So I was like, yeah, I got to make a change so that I'm doing something that I'm passionate about where I'm like motivated internally to want to go and dig more.
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  And so that led to a change to journalism.
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  Not because journalism was what I was passionate about.
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  Because I saw journalism as a vehicle to be able to dig into questions about human performance and stuff that I was really fascinated by.
• 5:39
  Okay.
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  Yeah, and that's great self awareness and particularly that you still remember that moment, that, that was a big aha for you.
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  Okay, so you mentioned journalism as the vehicle to delve into these other, these other subjects.
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  I mean, what, what about human performance and endurance sports and the outdoors?
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  Like, what made you decide to, to focus your journalistic lens there?
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  Yeah, that wasn't a.
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  I will say that wasn't like my plan right out of the gate.
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  When I started out, I was a freelancer writing about, you know, basically anything to pay the bills.
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  So I was writing about music and philosophy and accounting.
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  I went to accounting conferences to write for an account something newsletter.
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  And I enjoyed the diversity, but I found myself kind of drawn because I had a background as a competitive runner, but also a background as a.
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  In this sort of science world that I could kind of take those two parts of my, my background and, and combine them to be a whole greater than the sum of their parts by writing about the science of
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  performance.
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  But it wasn't just that I was sort of had the background to write about it.
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  It's also that I found it fascinating.
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  And I think where that comes back to is my experiences as a runner.
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  Where I wanted running to be my, wanted my performances to be very predictive, you know, scientifically determined that what I have to do is increase my VO2 max and my running economy and that will improve my performance and
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  I should be able to run such and such a time.
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  That's never how sports performance works.
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  There's always the intangibles, the unknowns.
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  On any given day, one person is going to rise up to the challenge better than everyone else.
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  And I, I found that I couldn't, I couldn't find that in this physiology of the time.
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  And so I was really interested in the psychology and how the brain determines and influences our capacities and our limits.
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  So both my successes and failures as a runner made me interested in that angle.
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  And so it ended up being something I really wanted to dig into professionally.
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  Okay, and so when you wrote your first book, I mean, how was that process compared to the regular column writing that you'd been doing as far as like new challenges or unexpected rewards?
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  Yeah, there's kind of, there's always a.
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  A grass is greener kind of phenomenon where when you're writing short columns or articles, you're like, oh man, you know, I wish I had more time to interview more People or I've interviewed so many people.
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  I wish I had more space.
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  I wish I could write about this in more detail.
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  I wish I could really dig into this topic instead of having to just do it, submit the article, move on to something new.
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  Then when you're writing a book, you're like, holy crap, I wish I could just be done with this and move on to a different topic.
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  Like it's been two years or whatever, so there's a bit of grass greener.
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  But they are very different challenges.
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  And overall for me, I really like getting into the weeds of, of, you know, these are very complicated questions of how the body works, how the mind works, how it all comes together.
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  There's fascinating research, so I like having the freedom to really follow those rabbit holes as far as they, as far as I can follow them.
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  But boy, it's, it is hard to sustain your own interest over a course of multiple years to put together a book, but then also to write something that's going to be interesting, you know, on page 200, not just
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  on page three.
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  And so, and you know, that's a challenge that sometimes you succeed at and sometimes you fail.
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  But it's a very, very long grind compared to the sort of more instant gratification of writing an article and the next week you're reading it in the paper.
• 9:27
  Yeah.
• 9:27
  Wow, okay.
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  And you know, talking about athletic training, why do you think the trial and error approach, you know, still holds such significant weight, you know, as far as like elite athletes and how they train spec, you know, especially with
• 9:43
  the volume of scientific research that's out there now?
• 9:47
  That's a great question.
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  And you know, I, I don't have a great answer because I think all the scientists are still wondering the same thing.
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  It's like, why haven't we been able to design the perfect training program?
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  Like we've got so many studies.
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  Um, why is it that the best athletes in the world, world still generally trained based on the trial and error experience of other athletes and other coaches informed by science for sure.
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  But, but the science, you know, there's no question that scientists are, are following rather than leading when it comes to designing training programs.
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  Why is that?
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  I think one big thing is human variability.
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  Like, people are different.
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  So you do studies with ten athletes, or if you're lucky, with twenty or fifty or a hundred athletes, you can get an average result.
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  But that might not tell you how an individual athlete is going to respond to a given intervention, to a given training program.
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  So having a coach who's there on the ground, watching how things work and tweaking the training in response to your individual performance.
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  That ends up being a more powerful way of designing training.
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  And then not just variability between people, but variability from day to day.
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  What works for me today may not work for me tomorrow or may not be the best training program.
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  So all of this makes it really hard to come to firm conclusions about what the best training program is.
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  So, so the bottom line is, is that I, I, I'm a big believer in science.
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  I think we learn a lot from science, but it, but it's trial and error.
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  That's, that's driving the bus when it comes to training.
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  Yeah.
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  Okay.
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  And what ex.
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  Or what parallels have you found between, you know, the mindset that's, that was required for you to push your physical limits as an athlete and a runner, you know, compared to the mental fortitude that you, you need to,
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  to tackle some of these ambitious writing projects?
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  Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things.
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  One is just the recognition that how I set my goals and what I believe and what I tell myself is going to have a, a powerful effect that ultimately if I, if I don't have confidence or, or belief
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  that I can have a reasonable chance of fulfilling a goal, then it doesn't matter.
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  You know, it doesn't matter how, how well I train or, or how many hours I sit in front of the screen.
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  If I don't think I can write the article, if I, if I don't have belief in myself, that's not going to work.
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  So I think that's, that, that aspect of the, the mental rather than like, it's almost easier to see in the work capacity.
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  I know that journalism is not about how fast I can move my fingers on the keyboard.
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  Like, the real challenge is not typing.
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  It's, it's doing the mental work and it's, you learn that in running, even though you might fall into the trap of thinking that running is about moving your legs, but really the, you know, the person who wins the
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  race is not the person who moves their legs the most.
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  It's the person who has, over a long period of time, set long, uh, set challenging goals and showed up every day to, to work towards those goals.
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  Cause.
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  Which I guess is an, you know, I think that's a, Another important thing is that you learn in, in running that no big workout or in, in, you know, in training, that doesn't you, you can't win a race
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  by doing one amazing workout, no matter how hard you push yourself.
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  And so you have to, in fact, you can lose a race by doing, by, by, by deciding you, you know, get just getting insanely motivated and doing a crazy workout such that you can't recover the next day and
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  you know, you have to miss a few days training.
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  And so the, the, the value of consistent pushing over a long period of time.
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  You have to learn that in running.
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  And I think it ends up being really valuable in, in, you know, most pursuits, including in journalism where it's like as, as much as I would like to be able to churn out a book in, in two weeks,
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  I can't.
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  And it's, it's years and so I have to be, I have to have a sustainable way of showing up every day or at least every workday and chipping away at those goals.
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• 15:50
  Yeah, so true.
• 15:52
  Okay.
• 15:53
  And for your latest book, the the Explorers Gene, what made you decide to, to look at the science of exploring?
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  And I mean what, what insights did you gain from that?
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  Yeah, it's it.
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  So I mean I, I'm one of those people who has a kid who always loved wandering around in the woods and I still do love going on backpacking and canoeing trips.
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  So the, the general topic of exploring was always sort of appealing to me, but what kind of launched me is so after my last book, Endure came out in 2018, Endure did actually surprisingly well.
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  It kind of set me up as the science of endurance guy.
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  That's the topic I'd been writing about, for about a decade leading up to that book.
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  And I suddenly, I had this, I realized, you know, this could be me.
• 16:41
  I could be the science of endurance guy for the rest of my career.
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  I could, I could stay in this role.
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  And if so, you know, I need to get working on Endear to, you know, like some sort of follow up book to endure.
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  And, and I had a lot of people encouraging me, saying, hey, that's the smart thing to do.
• 16:57
  But what I realized ultimately, in the same way, so similar to the, the realization that I just didn't have the passion for physics.
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  I just, I tried to pay attention to what I was interested in and I was less, I just wasn't interested in rewriting the same book in a different way or repackaging the same insights or refollowing the same research.
• 17:19
  I was drawn to doing something new.
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  And at that time I didn't even know what it was that I wanted to do that was new.
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  I just knew I wanted to do something different.
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  And I started to connect that to other aspects of my life and the ways I like to travel, the ways I like to order food and restaurants and so on.
• 17:35
  And I started to wonder, like, what, what is it?
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  Why am I always looking for something new?
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  Why, why aren't I happy with what I have?
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  And so that led me to say, well, maybe I should dig into that.
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  Maybe I should dig into this exploring urge that I have.
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  And that I think ultimately I've come to conclude we all have in different ways or in different degrees or in different domains in our lives.
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  So that, that's where it started.
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  I, I wanted to understand why, why I couldn't just be happy with what I had and always wanted to pursue something new.
• 18:04
  Okay.
• 18:05
  And I mean, that's certainly a topic entrepreneurs can relate to in terms of new ideas, constantly, new businesses, new a, you know, new directions.
• 18:17
  But another important topic too, I think you've touched on this as well, is, you know, of course it's fun to explore and it can certainly satisfy a certain urge for all of us.
• 18:31
  But having the wisdom to determine when it's the right time to explore and maybe when it's not the right time.
• 18:39
  Can you talk more about that within your journey?
• 18:42
  For sure.
• 18:42
  So when I started on this project, I assumed that the subtitle of the book would be something like why we all need to explore more or why Exploring is the best thing for all of us.
• 18:54
  And ultimately I ended up with a more nuanced perspective that, that exploring is great and it's certainly like the exploring urge, I think is what drives entrepreneurs and, and it's, it's an essential part of their, their character and
• 19:08
  their, their, what they do.
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  But I also realized that there's a value to understanding when you know when to pass up the urge to explore that.
• 19:22
  If you, you know, in the entrepreneurial context, let's say if you're someone who comes up with new business ideas all the time, that's great.
• 19:30
  You've got an idea, you've got another idea, you've got another idea, but you're not going to get anywhere if you don't eventually pick one or more of these ideas and follow through on them.
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  You need to explore the different ideas that you might want to follow, but eventually you need to exploit, you know, which is to take advantage of the, the, what you know, the information or the ideas you, you have.
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  You have to buckle down and, and, and execute on those ideas.
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  And I think that's, so that's true in terms of, you know, if you're going to set up a business, certain point, you have to stop just coming up with new ideas and actually grow the business.
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  And more generally in life, it's like we, we all have goals, we all have dreams.
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  We, like I have professional ambitions as a runner, I had competitive ambitions.
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  And it's true that it's, you know, as we said at the top of the show, if each time you achieve something, it gives birth to the next goal.
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  But it's not a very satisfying way to live if you can't find a way to, to, to, to enjoy the things you've achieved and, and to push them to, you know, to squeeze the juice out of the, the
• 20:41
  lemon sometimes.
• 20:42
  So I, there's a, there's this explore, exploit dilemma that's often talked about in the decision making literature.
• 20:50
  And what the, what the science suggests is that it's the combination of exploring, that exploiting that leads to the most fruitful, you know, career opportunities and so on, that it's not all about exploring, it's not all about exploiting.
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  And you don't want to exploit, then explore because then you're like you're spending all this energy before you even know what you should spend it on.
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  Exploring gives you a chance to find the best opportunities.
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  Exploiting then is the, the way you take advantage of those opportunities.
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  It's just finding the right balance and knowing when, when each side of that coin is appropriate.
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  And, and much to my disappointment, I wasn't able to find a magic formula for this.
• 21:31
  You know, I, I, I I, I read a lot of papers and I talked to a lot of scientists, but it's like, it depends, it depends on the context.
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  Obviously, you got to understand, you got to be able to read the context.
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  It also depends on the person.
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  We are all wired differently.
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  And for, you know, what might be a great opportunity for one person might be an uncomfortable risk for someone else.
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  And so it's not that everyone has to make the decisions all the time or that there's one right answer, but if you find that it's like, you know, it's like the way we listen to music, you know, as
• 21:59
  we get older, we tend to, you know, when we're young, we listen to a lot of different music, we find what we like, and the older we get, the less likely we are to explore new music.
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  And so you might say, oh, it's important to keep exploring.
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  And I think that's true.
• 22:11
  It's important to keep, keep your ears open, try and find new stuff.
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  But it's, you don't want to just be like, if you had a rule that I'm only going to listen to any song once, I will never listen to the same song twice because exploring is more important.
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  We can all see that that's ridiculous.
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  And you need to, you know, if you find a song you like, you should, you should put it into your playlist.
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  And I think that analogy applies in other aspects of life.
• 22:33
  It's great to discover new things, it's great to be pushing our boundaries, but sometimes you want to take advantage of what you've explored and enjoy it.
• 22:42
  Okay, and so in terms of establishing yourself as a respected voice in science journalism, what are some of the, the biggest hurdles that you faced in doing that?
• 22:54
  You know, the very, one of the very first hurdles I encountered, I think was, was basically credentialing.
• 23:03
  So when I, when I just realized that I wanted to be that, that I was interested in switching over to journalism, I started to send out some applications for internships and, and send out some pitches for articles.
• 23:15
  And I didn't, I didn't get very far.
• 23:17
  No, but nobody was.
• 23:18
  I didn't, you know, I applied for, gosh, hundreds, I think, of internships and didn't get any.
• 23:23
  And I kind of realized, okay, people are seeing me as a, as a, as a physicist who's moonlighting, who's a dilettante, someone, not someone who's serious about this.
• 23:34
  And so I ended up, the way I started my journalism career was I went back and did a one year master's degree in journalism.
• 23:40
  I, I learned stuff there.
• 23:42
  Like it was, it was a fun time, but I probably learned all I really needed to know in the first like three weeks there.
• 23:47
  Ultimately, what that degree was was a credentialing exercise, a way of signaling to others, but also even to myself that this is what I'm going to be, this is what I'm going to do.
• 23:56
  I'm, you know, I have made the commitment to this.
• 24:00
  So, you know, I'm not saying that everyone who wants to do something needs to go do a one year master's degree in it, but, but finding ways, you know, both.
• 24:08
  It was a, then I could pitch people and say I have a degree in journalism.
• 24:12
  But it was also a signal to myself that this isn't just something I'm idly thinking about.
• 24:16
  I have quit my job as a physicist and dump.
• 24:19
  Jumped into the deep end.
• 24:20
  And now either I'm gonna swim as a journalist or I'm gonna sink and it's gonna be trouble.
• 24:25
  And that gave me motivation.
• 24:26
  So I think signaling to others and to yourself that you're serious about whatever endeavor you're taking on, that's a real, it can be a source of motivation, but also, you know, help you help advance your career.
• 24:42
  Okay, and how is your background in, in scientific research.
• 24:49
  You know, influenced your.
• 24:50
  Ability to, to be able to take like these complex subjects and then turn them into like engaging reading material.
• 25:00
  So, you know, I spent a lot, I spent whatever a decade studying some pretty esoteric physics.
• 25:05
  And the truth is none of those equations are very, almost none of those equations have any bearing on what I, what I do now.
• 25:11
  I don't need to, you know, be able to solve Schrodinger's equation or anything like that.
• 25:16
  But the underlying mindset is, is crucial in terms of, first of all, I really want to follow the train of logic of, you know, if there's new research that I'm writing about, I really want to understand, you know,
• 25:31
  what the question was, why we want to look at this question, what the evidence did suggest, what the new evidence adds.
• 25:39
  I want to be able to lay that out in my mind in a very logical way.
• 25:42
  And then if it's clear in my mind, then I can explain it more clearly than if, you know, it's very hard to write a clear article if you're not quite sure what's going on and readers can tell if
• 25:52
  you're, if you're, if you're, if you're not quite sure.
• 25:56
  The other big thing about that I think though is I spent a lot of time in physics talking to people who knew stuff that I didn't know.
• 26:06
  I had to get comfortable showing up and saying I don't understand.
• 26:10
  Like, nobody understands quantum mechanics.
• 26:12
  So it wasn't, it was no source of shame that.
• 26:14
  So I had to be able to ask questions and deal with complexity and keep asking questions until I, you know, got the answers I needed.
• 26:22
  And so as a science journalist, it's super helpful to be.
• 26:25
  To not be scared to talk to scientists, to not to be worried if I ask someone a question and they give me an answer that I don't understand, to be willing to say, okay, I, I don't have the
• 26:36
  background to be able to understand what you just said.
• 26:38
  Like, can we break it down?
• 26:39
  Like, what.
• 26:41
  Tell me again in different words or in simpler words or, you know, with pictures or whatever, what it is that.
• 26:47
  That you're doing here.
• 26:48
  And so that.
• 26:49
  That willingness to engage and just to be willing to ask questions and read papers even when you don't understand them, I think that's been.
• 26:57
  Been helpful for me.
• 26:58
  Okay, and you've certainly been able to build a career at the intersection of your passion and your professional skills.
• 27:08
  What advice would you give to.
• 27:10
  To aspiring entrepreneurs out there who are looking to do the same thing?
• 27:16
  So there's a, There's a.
• 27:19
  The classic risk is that when you make your hobby into your day job, all of a sudden it's.
• 27:26
  Or your passion into your day job, all of a sudden it's.
• 27:29
  You've turned your.
• 27:30
  It's no longer your passion, it's now a job.
• 27:32
  And so there's.
• 27:34
  For me, I know I've had to navigate this kind of blurring of the boundaries between things I do for fun and things I do for my job.
• 27:41
  And it's a great privilege to be, you know, reading about running, which is a sport I love, and to be think.
• 27:48
  And, you know, it's.
• 27:49
  I would do it no matter what, but to be thinking, oh, this is.
• 27:51
  This is work.
• 27:52
  I'm.
• 27:52
  I'm.
• 27:52
  I'm reading about this because it's rel.
• 27:54
  Or to, you know, to go travel to a race to cover it or whatever, and it's like, this is fun, but it's also work.
• 28:00
  The, the danger then is that I can never turn it off.
• 28:04
  And for a while, so I got into.
• 28:06
  I did a bunch of travel journalism and like, adventure travel journalism.
• 28:09
  And so, you know, my wife and I would go on, or sometimes even my wife and kids and I would go on really fun trips in cool places, but because I was going to Write about it for the
• 28:20
  New York Times or someplace like that.
• 28:22
  I was always stressed out about, oh crap, I need to get, oh, go walk there again.
• 28:26
  I need to get a good picture of this moment.
• 28:28
  Do it again.
• 28:28
  No.
• 28:29
  Oh, the light wasn't good.
• 28:29
  Do it again.
• 28:31
  And so the, the enjoyment started could sometimes get displaced by the fact that I was, it was also my job.
• 28:40
  And so now there's time.
• 28:41
  I'm less aggressive about making sure that every time I go on vacation, I get to sell an article about it.
• 28:45
  Sometimes I just want to be on vacation.
• 28:47
  And I think for entrepreneurs, especially if they're launching a business that's in an area they have passion and expertise, you know, deep passion, expertise in.
• 28:58
  That's great.
• 28:58
  You want to leverage that.
• 28:59
  But you also want to think carefully about boundaries and find some ways to be where.
• 29:03
  Not where you're not thinking about your job 247 and you're able turn it off.
• 29:09
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 29:10
  I mean, we all need those, those brain breaks, that white space, whatever you want to call it.
• 29:15
  And yeah, trying to, being on vacation and focused on the work aspect can certainly could certainly be problematic.
• 29:23
  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's the, the, the modern condition.
• 29:27
  Is that, isn't it great?
• 29:29
  You know, we can work remotely, we can go anywhere, we can go on vacation and I can still check in with work.
• 29:33
  But then it's like, oh, isn't it terrible?
• 29:35
  No matter how far I go, I can't get away from work.
• 29:38
  One of the saddest things to me was when all these GPS or satellite messaging apps came out.
• 29:44
  And it's like, now, no matter how deep in the wilderness I go, in theory I can check my email.
• 29:48
  That's terrible.
• 29:50
  It's a double edged sword for sure.
• 29:52
  Yeah.
• 29:53
  Okay.
• 29:54
  Well, Alex, thank you so much for taking the time to be here sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our audience.
• 30:01
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 30:02
  Thanks, Dave.
• 30:03
  It's been a lot of fun.
• 30:04
  All right.
• 30:04
  And that's all the time we have for now.
• 30:06
  We will see you next time.