Physiologists are researchers, teachers, clinicians and more. As part of the job, we negotiate an extraordinary wealth of literature. Pubmed returns 705,000 articles if searching the sub-discipline of “muscle physiology” and it would take the best part of 500 years to work through this literature if reading four articles per day: at the end of this endeavour the knowledge would be at least 500 years out of date, such is the rate at which the literature expands. Physiological research is clearly a very busy and productive place. This makes it competitive. The bar is set high for anyone wanting to contribute original articles. You must have a good command of the literature, possess excellent laboratory or clinical skills to collect the original data, use appropriate statistics to interpret the results and the written manuscript should be succinct and compelling. Funding is needed to support further research or to translate the new knowledge into practice and this is notoriously difficult and probably requires a different skills-set from laboratory-based science. Those with a permanent academic contract will also balance research activities against a considerable teaching load. Academics are a conscientious bunch and if the work ethic alone is not enough to thoroughly prepare all teaching activities, pressure to avoid low student satisfaction scores should do it. Despite the sizeable work demands, a career in physiology is enjoyable and rewarding. In this talk, I will share my personal experience and thoughts about what early career physiologists can do to stand out from the crowd. There is no substitute for genuine interest in the topic, but what I think makes the crucial difference is a supportive mentor and close group of collaborating colleagues all pulling in the same direction and contributing knowledge and skills to the team.