We often think change will make sense once we get to the other side, but what if the real work of change is learning how to stay present in the uncertainty itself?
Today, Jay sits down with cognitive scientist and author Dr. Maya Shankar to explore why unexpected change feels so threatening, and why losing what we thought our life would look like can feel like losing ourselves. From a career-ending injury early in her life to deeply personal losses later on, Maya reflects on how life’s unexpected turns can quietly reshape how we see ourselves, our worth, and our place in the world.
Maya explains that one of the biggest mistakes we make during change is tying our self-worth to roles, titles, or outcomes. When those fall away, it can feel deeply destabilizing. Instead, she invites us to root our identity in something more stable: our “why.” The deeper reasons behind what we love—connection, service, growth, creativity. When we stay connected to those, we can move through change without losing ourselves. Jay reflects on how often we seek external validation and why redefining success during loss is essential for resilience.
In this interview, you'll learn:
How to Handle Change You Didn’t Choose
How to Anchor Your Self-Worth Beyond External Success
How to Find Your “Why” When Life Falls Apart
How to Rebuild Yourself After a Dream Ends
How to Grow into the Person Change Is Shaping You To Be
If you’re going through a season of change right now, remember this: you’re not broken for struggling with it. Change is meant to shake us, to slow us down, and to make us question who we are beyond our titles, plans, and expectations.
A quietly powerful read about resilience and reinvention by Maya Shankar, The Other Side of Change invites you to meet yourself again when life takes an unexpected turn - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729180/the-other-side-of-change-by-maya-shankar/
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX
Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.
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What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
02:11 How Change Has Shaped Your Life
04:52 Why Does Change Feel So Scary?
11:45 Why We Tie Our Identity to What We Do
16:25 What Awaits on the Other Side of Change
24:47 Using Self-Affirmation to Stay Grounded
30:51 Finding Gratitude in Who You Become
39:31 Maya on Final Five
Episode Resources:
Maya Shankar | https://mayashankar.com/
Maya Shankar | https://www.instagram.com/drmayashankar
Maya Shankar | https://x.com/slightchangepod
A Slight Change of Plans | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-slight-change-of-plans/id1561860622
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the biggest reasons why change is so scary
is that it can threaten our self identity. One way
to have a more secure self identity is to anchor
yourself not simply to what you do, but to why
you do that thing.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So, first of all, i want to say, I'm really
grateful to be here with my very, very dear friend,
doctor Maya Shanka. We've been friends for like maybe four
or five years now, and honestly, beyond her incredible resume,
incredible list of achievements, continued excellence in everything she does,
(00:36):
she's just truly one of the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful humans.
And so the fact that you've all come out here
tonight to support her and hopefully get her book or
you've already got it. How many of you have already
got the book? Okay, all of you who didn't put
your hand up, I want you to get a book
by the end of this. Truly, I'm just so grateful
(00:56):
to be here. She is the kindest, most generous, sweet loving,
wonderful human being, and I'm so happy to be here
supporting you. So congratulations, mind, thank.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You so much.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Day is such an utter delight to be in conversation
with you about this topic, and I'm so grateful for
your friendship, So thank.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You, thank you. Well. This book that you wrote, the
Other Side of Change, I find it such a fascinating
topic and read because I feel like there's two types
of change. One is the change that you choose, and
the other is the change that chooses you. How many
(01:37):
of you like it when you decide to change? How
many of you like it when change chooses you? Yeah,
exactly right. That's like the worst, It's like the worst
feeling ever. It's like, what, like, why did this happen
right now? Like I you know, it's and that's like
a daily occurrence for anyone on planet Earth. Why did
(01:59):
this happen?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Now?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Why this happened to me? What's going on? When will
this change? When will this get better? Talk to me
about how change has drastically altered your life when you
least expected it.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, I mean I should start by saying that the
reason I study change is because I'm super scared of
it and I'm really bad at it and I hate
the unexpected changes by and large that have come my
way in life. I am someone who loves having a
firm grip at the steering wheel, right. I like being
in control. I like feeling like I'm going to dictate
(02:39):
how my life turns out. It feels very comforting to
believe that the world is fair and that if you
do good, good things will be it will happen. If
you aren't good, bad things will happen. It's just a nice,
clean input output model. But of course we all know
that that is sadly not how the universe operates, and
that fills me with a lot of discomfort, right. The
(03:00):
uncertainty that fills change. And one of my favorite research
studies from cognitive science shows that we are more stressed
when we're told we have a fifty percent chance of
receiving an electric shock than when we're told we have
a one hundred percent chance of getting that shock. Yes,
one hundred percent, And I feel that viscerally. I'm like,
(03:22):
bring on the shocks, just don't make me have to
deal with that anticipatory anxiety that makes my skin crawl.
I had a really formative experience with change when I
was a little kid. I was an aspiring concert violinist,
and I was studying at Juilliard at the time under
it'sak Perlman who is considered, you know, one of the
(03:42):
best violinists in the world. And I really thought in
that moment, you know, as a teenager, Okay, I think
I have what it takes.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I think I might be able to go pro. And
then I had my change of plans.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
A sudden injury that I sustained while playing the violin
led was a career ending injury for me, and doctors
just told me, I'm really sorry, but your dream is over.
And that was my first kind of foray with this
horrible change thing that I've learned to, you know, over time,
(04:15):
I've learned to have a slightly more peaceful relationship with
but it was pretty tough as a fifteen year old
to lose a thing that at that point, Jay, I
had been doing for almost ten years.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
How many of you have been rejected or failed in
that way? Anyone? Yeah, it's the worst hearing that news,
but especially because of something that you're struggling with injury wise.
I mean, it's not even like you didn't make it,
or you went good enough, or you went smart enough.
It was something totally out of your control. To some degree,
(04:48):
when things happen that are out of our control, is
it even possible for the human mind to be able to tolerate,
accept and move through it smoothly. Like is that what impossible?
Is it possible? Is it made up? What's your take?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Jay, you're the monk. You need to tell us. Why
is he looking to me for answers.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I've taken off any kind I'm not monk anymore, but
I've taken off any sort of metaphorical ropes today to
be the interviewer for you. So I have no answers.
I'm I'm just humbly asking glad.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, that's totally teasing, But that is to say, whatever
piece you found equanimity, you found a change. Just assume
I found about you know, one fraction. One's very small
fraction of that. It is a very hard thing for
us as humans to reckon with the true limits of
our control. But it also makes a lot of sense
why our brains lead us to believe we are in control.
(05:43):
Because if we didn't believe that we had a lot
of control over our lives, you can imagine that we
might descend into nihilism. Right, We might just think, what's
the point of anything? Why am I trying hard? Why
am I doing good? In the world, none of it
really seems to matter because that lightning bolt can just
strike me from above and it was all for not right.
And what's really interesting about the research is that it
(06:03):
shows people who have and this is called an internal
locus of control, so they really strongly feel like they're
dictating outcomes in their lives. They in general have higher
well being, greater happiness over time. The challenge, though, is
that when that proverbial anvil drops from the sky, it
shatters the illusion and it ends up being a very
(06:26):
tumultuous time. And in my own life, what I found
when I lost the violin was that there was something
so curious about my grief, which was that I didn't
feel like I was just losing the instrument. I felt
like I was losing a part of myself. Actually, I
felt like I was losing all of myself. It felt
like Maya and the violin were inextricably attached, and in
(06:52):
taking it away from me, I no longer had as
much value. Right, it threatened my self worth. It's only
when you lose something that you realize how much it
meant to you in the first place. I'm sure many
of you can relate to this feeling, You're like, oh
my gosh, I didn't realize how much of my confidence
was coming from the violin, or you know, as a
kid who was bullied right as a little girl in
(07:14):
elementary school, I'm like, oh wow, violin was a big
part of my sense of social belonging. Right when I
was at music school, which was international. All the kids
accepted me. They didn't care about the color of my skin.
In losing it, I realized actually one of the and
I by the way, when I say I realized, I
mean this like it From my current vantage point as
a fifteen year old, I was just cranky, annoying to
my parents, like why can't I do this thing I love?
(07:36):
But in hindsight, I've now realized that one of the
biggest reasons why change is so scary is that it
can threaten our self identity. And I've learned that, and
I would urge all of you to engage in this
thought experiment. One way to have a more secure self
identity is to anchor yourself not simply to what you do,
(07:58):
but to why you do that thing. So I asked myself,
what did I love about the violin? Well, it turns
out emotional connection was at the core of my love
of the instrument. And just because I lost the violin
didn't mean that I lost what led me to love
it in the first place. I could still find that
underlying feature in other places. I could still express that
part of myself through other channels. And it turns out
(08:20):
that subconsciously I've done that right as a podcaster hosting
a slight change of plans, writing the other side of change,
all of these pursuits have been about forging deep emotional
connections with people, like this is my bread and butter,
like I love having this conversation right, like this is
what makes mya tick, is deep emotional attachment to people
(08:40):
and connection to people.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And so ask yourself, what is your why? Right? Maybe
it is service. Maybe it is caring for people.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Maybe it is getting better at something and proving at
a craft. Maybe it is having a creative outlet like
we were talking about backstage.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Whatever your why is, life can't take that away from you.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
That's something that's going to be a firm anchor and
it can guide you towards your next steps. It can
be a soft landing when life makes other plans for you.
And I've just felt so much more whole in the
transitions and in the inflection points in my life, knowing that, like,
my why is still there.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, I love that. I was about to ask you
how to do it, but I love that because I
think it's so natural for us to place our confidence
in who we're with, what we're doing, right, It's natural
to evaluate our value in the world based on.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I'm placing a little bit of my confidence hanging out
with Jay Shuddy tonight.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I'm sorry. I'm just going to say sorry, keep going.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
But it's true, right, we base our value on all
of these external things exactly, and it's fine when it's
going good. And we were just talking about that, it's
fine when it's going good the moment it doesn't work out.
I was just speaking, I'm thinking of something You've reminded
me of someone. And I was speaking to a lady
who I think it was like two weeks after her
fortieth birthday, and so I was wished her a happy
(10:08):
belated birthday, and she was a mutual friend of another friend,
and she was telling me about it, and I was like, Oh,
tell me about your birthday, Like forty that's a big birthday,
Like what was the celebration, like, and she said, and
this is why I was reminded of it, based on
what mya just said, and why I think, you know,
her book is the book I'm going to be giving
to this lady. Straight after this conversation, she said to me,
(10:31):
she goes, Oh, my fortieth birthday was a disaster. I said, why.
She said, I lost my job two weeks before my
fortieth birthday. And I said that sounds terrible, and you know,
and she's and I was asking her about how she
lost it and whatever, and she goes, I thought I
was about to be promoted, so she was, like, I
(10:54):
thought I was about to be promoted. I lost my job.
I had my fortieth birthday in two weeks where I
was so excited to announce my promotion and invite my
work colleagues and talk about this incredible twenty year career
that I'd had. And now I didn't have anything to
talk about. She goes, I didn't have anything to talk about.
I didn't feel like I'd achieved anything. Sure, I was
(11:16):
in a relationship and whatever, like all this stuff, but
like I didn't have something that made it feel like
my life was going in the right direction, and you're
spot on. And whether we do it with our families,
whether we do it through our children, whether we do
it through our bank balance, whatever we do it through,
we all find it through some external validation. And what
you're reminding us to do is saying, pullback and focus
(11:39):
on why you love that thing? Why, though, is it
so hard to do that in the moment. I mean,
you're a cognitive scientist, so tell us what is going
on in the brain when change is thrown onto you
and you're like, but I don't like it, Maya, I
don't want to think about why. I just wanted that promotion. Yeah,
(11:59):
I wanted that extra money. I wanted that validation and assurance.
How do I do that well?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I actually think we're socialized to anchor our self worth
and our identities to the what, to the roles and
the labels that we carry. Think about the question we
ask little kids, what do you want to be when
you grow up? We don't ask who do you want
to be when you grow up? What are your passions?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
What do you love doing?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It turns out from research, actually looking back to your
childhood is one of the easiest ways to access your
why you want to find out when you were on
the playground, what were you gravitating towards? Were you like
going crazy on the monkey bars, or were you like me,
like listening to what everyone was saying and trying to
understand human psychology and social groups, and oh is this
person thinking this? Or is that you know that was
me on the player It's like, okay, of course she
(12:42):
was going to become a cognitive scientist. But that's actually
one of the best ways of figuring out what that
core passion is. And look, our self worth is called
contingent self esteem. That naturally we like to easily anchor
to something because it almost feels uncomfortable to just anchor
it to existence, which is what all of us should
(13:03):
do at the end of the day. By virtue of
just existing, we should be worthy. But as humans, we
are getting signals from everywhere that we need to justify
our existence, we need to justify our presence. And it's
so interesting because I think someone reached out to me,
this guy named Scott. He was a human rights lawyer,
Harvard trained, Rhodes scholar, super accomplished so many accolades. To
(13:27):
your point about getting that external validation, that was what
he was getting most of his life as he went
through his career trajectory, and then he got hit with
terrible long COVID, totally incapacitated, so he was suffering from
severe brain fog. He was unable to even read a
sentence of a book for the longest time. He was
(13:48):
experiencing nausea, terrible, terrible symptoms, and so bad that he
had to take permanent leave from his work as a
human rights lawyer. He listened to my ted talk and
I had talked about this what versus why distinction, and
I heard from him. He couldn't type, so he sent
me a voice memo. I remember, and I was listening
to my phone. He said, I asked myself what my
(14:11):
why was, and it was advocating for underrepresented people, people
who don't have a voice. And so then I asked myself,
with my newly constrained life that I live, how can
I still express that why? And he realized he still
could by advocating for the long hauler community.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
And so now he devotes all of the hours of
his day where he feels cognitively capable to advocating for
various legislation, talking to drug manufacturers, giving a voice to
all these humans whose lives had been upturned by long COVID,
who otherwise wouldn't feel represented. And I think that is
such a beautiful illustration of my hope with this insight.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Mm hmm. I love that. How many of you are
going to start trying that out to today, right, And
we've got to give it a go. We've got to
give it a go, you know. I always I feel
like there's so much good advice out there now, and
it's like Maya's book is packed with these incredible insights,
and I'm like, the biggest mistake we can make is, God,
that's a really cool idea, and then it just goes
over our head. It's like that ability to stop and
(15:14):
pause and say wow, Like Maya's just repeated this idea
like three times because of how powerful it is and
given us multiple examples, whether it's a real life story,
whether it's cognitive neuroscience, whether it's looking at it from
a practical point of view, and it makes sense. And
so I encourage each and every one of you when
you walk out of here, try and try and apply
it to a real life situation. I was also reflecting
(15:50):
that when I think about all the people I look
up to, Yeah, they all reacted incredibly well to bad circumstances.
So anyone that I admire or am inspired by. And
this could be a family member, it could be a
public figure, it could be anyone in your life. Right,
it doesn't have to be someone well known. Anyone that
(16:12):
I look up to had something horrific happened to them
and they somehow turned it into the best thing that
ever happened to them. Yeah, And when you study people's
lives closely, and I'm sure people have that in their families.
I'm sure if you think about your parents and aunts
and uncles, or you think about ancestors who just did
incredible things that we don't even know how they lived
(16:33):
through times like that, it doesn't what's the difference between
someone who has something bad happened to them and transforms
it into a superpower, yeah, and someone who has something
bad happened to them and doesn't have that ability, Like,
what's the difference, Because I think we all feel both
of those things. I've had terrible things happened to me,
and there have been times where I'm like, all right,
(16:53):
time to throw in the towel. It's all over. Forget
about it, and then there's times when tough stuff happens
and I'm able to what's the difference?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, well, I have really good news for you, because
as someone who started off being very bad at responding
to these negative events and who I think has made
incredible progress, this is a malleable trait in us, and
I think the difference is in perspective. So I'll say
a couple things. The first is, we have this funny
little trick our brains play on us when it comes
(17:23):
to how we think about who will be moving forward.
So it's called the end of history illusion, and basically
what it says is, while we fully acknowledge that we've
changed considerably in the past. So if you were to
show me pictures of violinists like eight year old violinist Maya, teenager,
oh gosh, cringe, teenager Maya college, we have this Yeah, actually,
(17:45):
right now I thought we were friends, Jane, and then
you know, twenty something, I'll say, I would say, oh
my gosh, I am so different from that person. Do
not even show me, like, I'm going to try to
create as much emotional distance as I can between you know, current.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
And past Maya.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
But then Funnily enough, if you were to ask me, well,
how much you plan on changing moving forward.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I'll be like, nope, finished product. What you see is
what you get.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
This is it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And researchers have said that we falsely believe that the
present is this watershed moment in which we become the
person we will be for the rest of our lives.
And again, it is just this funny little quirk in
the way that our brains have evolved. And the reason
that this is relevant to change is that we become
(18:31):
different people on the other side of change. The titles
not an accident, the other side of change. When a
big change happens to us, it also leads to lasting
change within us. And these big seismic anvil falling from
the sky moments they accelerate those internal transformations. We come
(18:51):
out the other side with new values and new perspectives
and new capabilities, new ways of seeing the world around
us and ourselves or maybe our fan or maybe our
family history, or maybe the shame we felt about some
part of our childhood. Whatever it is, it is possible
for us to emerge a new person. And so the
difference that I've come to see even in myself is
(19:15):
now when I'm feeling daunted at the outset of a
change and my old reflexes kick in and I think, oh,
I can't possibly handle what's up ahead. I'm not strong enough,
I don't have the right resources around me, I don't
have the right vantage point, I don't.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Have the right values. Whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I now think the Maya that's actually going to have
to engage with every part of this process is actually
going to be different from the person she is today,
And that is so empowering. Like when you're feeling daunted
at the outset of change, just know, and I know
people in this room who have undergone incredible transformations as
a result of the changes they went through, they would
(19:52):
never have been able to predict who they would have become.
And we know also from research, we are bad affective forecasters,
really bad at predicting how we will think and feel
about events in the future. And so that I think
is the sole trait that people have who are really resilient.
They understand that they too are changing as a result
(20:13):
of their circumstances, and they are introspective throughout. They think, Okay,
I'm noticing this change has revealed to me that I
have a certain value or belief.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Is this holding me back? Is it problematic?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Maybe this change is giving me a rare opportunity to
revisit that belief. I shouldn't hold it as sacred, I
should interrogate it. And so it's been uplifting. And I,
even in writing the book, saw this transformation within me
as I was undergoing an unexpected change in my personal
life that I write about in the final chapter. And
so I fully believe it now, you know, having seen
(20:46):
it happen within myself.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, and you were telling me that just before you
walked on. And not to get into details, but you're
telling me that you've literally been reading your own book.
Oh my gosh, during new change that's happening.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
While not because I'm a narcissist, but.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see how that came out now.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
And then I listened to my podcast. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I'll tell you why I was reading my book. The
last month of my life was awful. There were unexpected
challenges in my family when it came to health. And
just one example, I don't want to get too emotional,
is that my beloved aunt, her stage four cancer return
for a third time. Which is just very sad, right,
(21:31):
I don't know what's going to happen, and I love
her dearly. And as a person who had been writing
this book about Unexpected change for three and a half years,
I think I was engaging in magical thinking.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Jay.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I was like, all right, I did the change thing,
like I had the formative experience in childhood. And as
I was writing the book, I was struggling to start
a family with my husband. That was my second big change,
and like just going to wipe my hands clean, change over,
you know, And then change was thrown my way and
(22:03):
it was so hard and so destabilizing, and I just
remember thinking, in that moment, you have gained so much
wisdom from the people who invited you into their lives.
For years, for this book, I interviewed people on repeated
occasions over multiple years, just to understand so deeply their
psyche and their life story. And I was like, what
(22:24):
a shame it would be if you do not benefit
from that wisdom in this moment, if you don't use
those same science based strategies you're telling everyone else to use.
I didn't want to just talk the talk. I wanted
to walk the walk, and so I still remember this
one night. I was sitting in my living room and
my husband, Jimmy, and I were just spiraling. We were
doing the thing everyone does in the face of uncertain change.
(22:46):
We were starting to catastrophize. Our anxiety was rising and
we could feel it in our bodies. Our hearts were racing,
and everything was looking negative. And I remember I pulled
out there's one chapter of the book I devote entirely
to rumination.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Separate note. I have a PhD in rumination.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Not an academic not an academic version, but the lived version.
I am very skilled in waking up in the middle
of the night and thinking about things, you know, till
they drive me crazy. And I just remember reading some
of these words that I'd written because they hit me
even more in that moment when I feel I needed
them most. And I was able to actually effectively use
(23:23):
these strategies and they help me in a time of need.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
And I it was such a trying time.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
I was like, how am I going to get the
energy to get to like do this book tour. But
I turned the ship around, folks, I did, and I'm
here with you right now, and I'm so full of joy,
and I think one of the reasons why you're seeing, oh,
I'm so sweet. One of the reasons I was talking
about this with Jay beforehand, that you are seeing me
(23:48):
filled with so much joy is that one first of
all health stuff just puts everything into perspective. It just
right sizes every small or big problem that you're sorry,
let me just let me say it. Really getting emotional
health challenges put everything into perspective immediately, And so I
instantly had clarity about what this book tour was all about,
(24:12):
and it was that I had written a book for
people who are struggling with exactly what I was struggling
with for the last three weeks. And it renewed my
faith in the importance of storytelling, in the importance of
distilling science and ways that are easy for people to understand,
and for just connecting with my fellow human beings. And
there's been so much healing that's happened, even in just
(24:33):
this past week, meeting people from all over the country.
Right a woman came up to me and said, you know,
she looked to be about in her late thirties. She
was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's, so she was dealing
with that and another person had been in a terrible
car crash and she was dealing with the repercussions of that,
and it's just it's just really touched my heart to
(24:53):
be in conversation with people going through this stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So beautiful as I'm listening to you, and I'm so
glad that you did share that. I didn't know if
you were going to, but I'm glad you did because
I don't think there's any better test of doing the
work than doing it when it's happening right now. Yeah,
And for those of us that share insight, or share research,
or give advice or help people through things, it's only
(25:22):
when you're going through that exact same thing yourself that
the advice either stands true it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I'm so glad you said that, because I want to
share an example of a time when I didn't want
to do the work and I ended up doing it
and it really paid off.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Okay, So long story short.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
For years and years and years, my husband and I
were on this journey to start a family, and we
experienced so many obstacles and disappointments and heartbreaks over the years,
and a miscarriage with our surrogate and about a year
and a half later, we were just over the moon
because we found out that we were going to be
having identical twin girls. We were we were just so happy, like,
(26:02):
oh my gosh, how amazing that this has now happened.
It's like a blessing given the first pregnancy loss. And
we saw two healthy, beating hearts. And then five hours
later we found out that our surrogate had miscarried again.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And it was.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
To go from such a high high to such a
low low within just a couple hours was so jarring
for my nervous system. I was like, I remember telling
my husband Jimmy, I'm like, we need to leave our apartment,
Like I just need to get fresh air. I don't
know how to tolerate sort of the emotional complexity of
this moment and all that I was grieving. You know.
(26:37):
We talked about identity loss right. Being a mom was
one of the earliest identities that I ever aspired to have,
and society always told me that in order to be
a full person, I needed to have kids, and for
that reason, I felt like it was a massive threat
to hear about this this loss, and I remember getting
(26:59):
into bed early that night, putting the covers over me
and just feeling really really sad, and my husband Jimmy
comes in.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Bless him.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
He goes may ma's his pet name for me, Let's
name five things were really grateful for. And I'm like, oh,
hell no, bro, you take your Instagram bs, you go
into the corner and your toxic positivity. There is no
space for that in our bedroom right now. And I
(27:28):
was so ticked off. JA.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I was like, I'm not doing this. This is so annoying.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
But there was something so sweet and innocent about Jimmy's request,
and I also thought, Okay, also, if I do this,
maybe I'll just get him off my back.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Let me just do this thing now.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Mind you, Jimmy's a software engineer, so what he did
not know is that he was engaging me in that
moment in what's called a self affirmation exercise. Really fun
to be married to a cognitive scientist. Let me tell you.
A self affirmation exercise is when you articulate all the
things that bring your life value and meaning that are
not being threatened by the change you're going through. So
(28:04):
if you're in a tough spot in your relationship, you
might focus on your spiritual life. If you're having a
rough go of it at work, you might focus on
how meaningful your community is to you. What the affirmation
exercise does is that it contextualizes what you're going through,
and it actually reduces things like denial because when you
feel like when you don't feel like your whole identity
(28:26):
is under threat from this change, you can embrace the
news more easily and actually start to cope with it.
It also leads to greater resilience, less anxiety. There's all
sorts of wellbeing outcomes associated with a self affirmation exercise.
So anyway, Jimmy comes in and he asked me to
do this thing, and I'm like stubbornly like okay, fine,
and you know, the first item on my list, I
was like, okay, well, I'm really grateful for.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
You, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
You know, hear the love of my life and you're
so wonderful. But then this list just flowed out of me.
I'm so grateful to be an aunt to my six
nieces and nephews. What a joy that I get to
go into the closet of our apartment and talk to
people all over the world about their incredible stories of change.
Like never in my it was not on my Bingo
card that I that this was ever going to get
(29:12):
to be my life, that I got to interview people
and be interviewed by people where you have such incredibly
edifying conversations. I love my workouts with my Zoom trainer,
Like we talk about the Bachelor and love is Blind
and it's just so much fun to gossip about all
this stuff and it feeds a different part of my soul.
I always say, celebrity gossip is my love language. And
(29:35):
then I'm like, and I'm grateful for the California son,
and it just it was like effortless. It just started
to flow out at me, and I swear to God,
something magical happened in that moment. I had been so
single mindedly focused on achieving this goal of mine, and
I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this.
We set our minds on something and we developed tunnel vision.
(29:56):
We're like, until I get this outcome, like nothing can
rest That I had lost perspective on how otherwise rich
and multi dimensional my life was. I had forgotten that, yes,
I was in pursuit of motherhood, but there was still
so much else that defined me. There was still so
much that made me a valuable human and were sources
(30:19):
of joy in my life, and there was so much
to be grateful for. And so did I go to
bed over joyed that night, of course not. But did
I go to bed feeling more whole, Yes, I did.
And I'm so grateful that I forced myself in that
moment to do the uncomfortable thing because it really helped
(30:40):
me in the longer term. And Jimmy slept on the couch,
yeah exactly, yeah, and then we hired the divorce lawyers.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
That good old Jimmy. That's good for Jay now, even
for Jimmy to have the like courage to even say
that to you in that moment, I was like, oh God,
I was a scared boy. I feel like I just
(31:17):
learned this yesterday. And so if I sound if you
hear this, then you go, yeah, I've heard that a
million times, then I'm glad you learned it quicker than
I did. I literally learned this like two weeks ago.
I was in India, back at the monastery that I
used to live at, and I was sharing something I
thought i'd learned with my teacher. And he has this
really remarkable way of teaching me back without making me
(31:38):
feel like I'm stupid, but it's kind of like, yeah,
you're stupid, Like you got that wrong, and you've You've
just given me the science to back up what he
was saying to me. So up until like two weeks ago,
I thought you had to somehow figure out how to
be grateful for what happened to you. We always hear
(32:00):
that be grateful for what happened. You know, the curse
becomes a gift and the nightmare becomes the dream, and
you know, like be grateful for what happened to you.
And I've always felt that you just had to somehow
figure that out through like raw tolerance, beating your head over,
you know, whatever it took, Like you just had to
figure our way, and if you were deep enough and
if you were profound enough, then one day you could
(32:22):
be grateful for like terrible things happening to you. And
I felt like that's what it meant to have, like
you know, God's childlike level forgiveness and level of acceptance.
And he just said this to me, He goes I
was saying that to him. I was like, yeah, I
really believe that, you know, one day I'll be really
grateful for this, and I'll be grateful for what happened
to me. And he said, he said, you don't have
(32:44):
to be grateful for what happens to you. You have
to be grateful for what you have after what happens
to you. And it was just this subtle, tiny change
that completely freed me of this pressure that I'd put
myself under. Is if you had to be grateful, yeah,
for not being able to have children, or you have
to be grateful for having an injury when you wanted
(33:06):
to be a violinist as a kid, It's like, no,
you don't have to be grateful for that that you could.
You could pretend to maybe for a day, but you know,
you've just freed us as well by giving us the
science mind. And that's why I love your work so much,
because you have this profound ability to take wisdom, have
the signs to back it up, the resets to back
it up, and then make it sound so simple, even
(33:27):
though you're so much smarter than all of us, but
you know, make it sound and that's what you do
so brilliantly in this book. It's like we're like wow,
like you're actually speaking to us and speaking to our
hearts and speaking our language. Uh. And I guess you
had all this time to practice on software engineer Jimmy,
so you know you've had a gain.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh god, No, yeah, just a follow on to what
you said. I think that's so spot on.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
And the people that I interviewed for the other side
of change, by and large, aren't happy that they had
to go through what they went through. They would not
will their changes over again. Who would Who would invite
illness into their lives and a heartbreak and loss? I mean,
that would be kind of strange. But they are extremely grateful,
(34:12):
all of them, for the person they became as a
result of the change they went through. And I feel
like that's perfectly echoed by this teacher of yours. They
feel like they emerged with renewed confidence, a renewed relationship
with their family, a new sense of what was important,
a new perspective on their self worth and where to
(34:33):
actually anchor it, A new way of seeing attachment and
their closest relationships.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
That's the part they're grateful for.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
And I love the honesty of that because I often say, like,
I'm allergic to two things, soy and platitudes. I'm always
skeptical when people talk about silver linings and whatnot, and like, really.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Are you sure?
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Is that just something you tell yourself because it makes
you feel better. Where's the science to back it up?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
You know?
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And so it's so interesting because I was seeing I
wanted to write it. By the way, writing the Other
Side of Change pretty agnostic as to what I would find.
I identified people from all over the world that I
just found fascinating, and I interviewed them for a bunch
of years, and I didn't know their what lessons I
would learn. I didn't know what their stories would reveal,
which was an incredibly delightful process of exploration. By the way,
(35:25):
it was like me, like Maya the cognitive scientist in
a candy shop.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
I started to see this incredibly hopeful message emerge about change, right,
which is that people were grateful for the internal transformation
they went through. And I really felt this deeply, And
I was alluding to this before when I was writing
the final chapter of the book unexpectedly about my own
experience on this parent or trying to be a parent journey,
(35:53):
and I realized something really important. So I had very
slowly and very subconsciously been on my own internal evolution
and transformation on this topic. If you had asked me
on that night, when Jimmy asked me that incredibly annoying question,
(36:14):
is anything good ever going to come of this? I
would have said no. Will you ever feel whole as
a person if you don't have kids, Oh definitely not.
Will your life have enough color without kids?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Absolutely all of those questions I would have said no to.
And yet here I am three years out and I
am child free today, and you are seeing the happiest,
most joyful, most curious, most hopeful version of Maya that
has ever existed. And I could never have seen that coming.
(36:47):
Because I thank you my dream was cut short, you know,
and you don't always anticipate that when a dream is
cut short, you'll still be grateful for what hapen. And
on the other side, exactly to your point, and so
witnessing that within me was very moving and very wildly unexpected,
(37:09):
I realized, by the way. So one of the chapters
in the Other Side of Change is about a woman
who has to revisit her relationship with her family history.
It actually comes about through about of amnesia. It's like
one of the most fascinating tales I've come across, And
the idea of that chapter is it shows change can
actually serve as an important moment of revelation for all
(37:29):
of us. So when a really negative thing happens in
our lives, we can often think of it as a
personal apocalypse of sorts. The world that we once knew
that was so familiar and so comforting to us, so
comfortable as well, is no longer available. And interestingly, the
word apocalypse comes from the Greek word apocalypsis, which means revelation,
(37:52):
And so the etymology is really instructive. Change can abend us, yes,
but it can also reveal things to us. And as
I was going on this journey of figuring out my
own relationship with motherhood and parenthood, I realized I did
have quite antiquated views that were fed to me, maybe
through my Indian American upbringing, right through cultural forces, through
(38:16):
pop culture, through society, through the very special stigma reserved
for child free women that a woman's value was something
that was firmly attached to whether she had kids, whether
she has kids. I mean, it's a stigma that still
very much exists today, and part of my process because
I talk in the book about how we cannot view
our beliefs and ideas as these sacred, immutable truths that
(38:38):
ought to never be examined. Most of our beliefs, most
of the ideas we have about the world were inherited subconsciously,
they were through They were in our childhood from caregivers,
and we had so much of our love wrapped up
in that caregiver that to challenge them, to question them
would have been quite dangerous, emotionally dangerous for us.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Or we learned them from a.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Teacher that we so greatly admired, and because we were
more of a black and white thinker, we couldn't see
that there might be nuance. Or we learned it from
watching TV, or we learned it through who becomes famous
or not famous, And all of those ideas are worth
unwinding and unpacking, and change can give us this powerful
moment where we take a step back and think, wow,
(39:19):
is this point of view worth revisiting? And so I
credit ingrid this woman's story for giving me the courage
I needed to question some of these assumptions and to
now feel like, of course, I'm like a whole woman
in her you know, without kids like, how could I
have ever thought that? It seems preposterous now, but we
all grow up with these self limiting beliefs, and so
(39:42):
I believe in the power of change to help unearth
what they are and then give us a chance to
question them.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Well said, Well said, Maya. We're running out of time,
but I want to end with a little quick fire
about change.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Okay, I'll try every thing.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
We always end every episode of my podcast with a
quick fire. But you've already done that before because you
came on the show four years ago.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And you've answered those questions.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
So I'm going to give you. I'm going to give
you a new set of questions. So these questions have
to be answered in one sentence. All right. So the
first question is what is the first change people should
choose after tonight.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Being present when they are with other people.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
That's a great answer, Very good. All right, put your.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Phone away because that really right.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Now, keep filming so that so that more people.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
And I'm not allowed to go on, but just know
that that is also evidence based.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Go ahead, do you want to tell us the let's okay,
all right, okay, okay, second question, the change that you're
happiest you made in the last twelve months.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
To care less what people I don't respect think of me. Yeah,
that's a really hard one. As still working on it.
I'm like, wait, but I just want can't we just
all feel love for one another? It's like such a
naive point of view, but I'm like, I just want
people to love each other. And then it's just yeah,
and then you know, not looking at comments on the internet.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
So question number three, something you're trying to change this year?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
I am an extremely impatient person. Can I have a
few more sense?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
You've been doing it for all of them without permission?
Why you asking now?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
I'm extremely impatient. I for so long hated this part
of my personality. Though, I think one thing that's really
helpful for everyone is to remember there's always two sides
to the coin on personality traits. So my impatience has
also really helped me in my work in the White
House and my work you know, at various places like that.
Impatience propels me to try to get stuff done, so
I try not to resent it too much, but I
(41:59):
think it would be really good for my overall well
being if I just like took a b So when
my you know, if my boss sends me a message
on like a Friday afternoon, that's like, hey, period, don't
freak out.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
You can wait till Monday. It's going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Whereas I tend to kind of like need resolution as
quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
That's I think we can all relate.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Yeah, I just want closure.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
The smallest change that someone can make in their relationships.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Try not to impose your mental frame, your way of
seeing the world onto the other person. So before you
talk at them, deeply listen to them, and then you
will be able to find common ground.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Great answers, Well, you're like, I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Trying to be picky.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
This is really good. This is the final question I
want to ask you. Okay, and this one go on.
You can go on on it because I really want
to understand it. Do you believe that if we chose
more change we'd be better at dealing with change?
Speaker 3 (43:01):
I love that question so much so.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
The previous stop of this book tour was in San Francisco,
and Michael Lewis was moderating the conversation, so the author
and journalist and someone in the audience asked a question
actually about the uncertainty around AI and as a mom,
she was thinking, what do I tell my kid right,
so that they learn to embrace change, Because that's actually
(43:25):
kind of what you're asking, right, How can we take
strategic steps to embrace change more? And he gave a
fantastic piece of advice. He said, take an improv comedy class.
Get yourself off balance. That's really the kind of change
that's really healthy for us is to go outside of
our comfort zone, to test ourselves and to be in
(43:48):
almost this perpetual state of unease, because that's when we
flex all these muscles, all these abilities that we had
that may have been laying dormant because we were always
choosing what was comfortable, and we get to see them
on display and think, oh, well, like maybe I am
a little bit more resilient than I thought. And I
(44:09):
think it's so great for us to introduce change in
the form of challenge when we learn a new skill,
for example. So you inter you interviewed Chris Hemsworth for
your podcast and I was his brain coach on this
show called Limitless, and I was so inspired by his attitude.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
You know, this guy is like.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
One of the most famous actors in the world. He
could just sit back and relax, And he was telling
this audience at the London premiere, I think we all
need to be a little bit more uncomfortable. He's like,
I seek out discomfort wherever I can. He's like, you know,
with these nests, thermosats to adapt that adapt to the
ideal temperature, and smart white, like everything's meant to be
(44:51):
customized so that it.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Brings ease into our lives.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
And Chris was saying, I feel like that's the only
vehicle for growth is to be in these uncertain, uncomfort situations.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
That's the only way.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
The episode was all about flexing our brain's capacity for plasticity, right,
and building cognitive reserve so that as we age, we
feel the impact less.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Again.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I was just so inspired to hear him say that,
because again he could just kick back and be like, okay,
I'm good, and instead, you know, for our episode, he
learned the drums and played with Ed Sheeran in front
of seventy thousand people, So we don't have to do
that version.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
I'm not doing that version.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
My smaller commitment to introduce a little bit of change
into my life was re picking up learning Mandarin, so
my husband's Chinese American and his relatives don't speak English.
And I took a brief hiatus, namely three and a
half years while I wrote this book where I stopped
taking those lessons, and I'm now committing to starting again
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Well, Min, I'm so happy that you took that brief
hiatus and put together this amazing book, The Other Side
of Change. As I said, when you pick up this
book today, you're not picking up just a book. You're
picking up interview research, hundreds and thousands of hours of
other people's stories, lived experience, ups and downs, challenges, breakthroughs, discomfort,
(46:12):
and you get to invite that all into your life.
And as someone who grew up as an avid reader
of nonfiction and true stories, I think what Maya's put
together in this incredible book is an invitation to all
of us to study the lives of people just like
us who have walked the path of challenges that we
(46:33):
either have in our life right now or may have
in the future, and gain probably the most important skill
humans could potentially ever develop, which is dealing with change.
There's probably no if there's one skill you dedicate twenty
twenty six too, it should probably be dealing with change.
There is no more important skill, not Mandarin, sorry.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
No, not anything else.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
It's dealing with change. And so this book is dedicated
to that mayas dedicated in half years and the people
that are in the book have spent decades living it through.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Oh my gosh, totally.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
And so from the bottom of my heart, hope you'll
grab a copy. I'm so proud of you and grateful
for just how you walk through life, and even just
your expertise and all the answers you gave today was
just second to none. It was unbelievable to learn from
you and listen to you. I'm always humbold when I'm
around you. Oh thank you, sir, and I'm so grateful
(47:26):
that you let me support you. I'm going to let
everyone ask you all their amazing questions now that I'm
sure they're dying to ask you. And thank you again
for letting me be a part of this. Give it up,
my error. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my
interview with doctor Daniel Ahman on how to change your
life by changing your brain.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with
a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or
the curse to scam. Over a thousand convicted felons and
over one hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.
One of the biggest reasons why change is so scary
is that it can threaten our self identity. One way
to have a more secure self identity is to anchor
yourself not simply to what you do, but to why
you do that thing.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So, first of all, i want to say, I'm really
grateful to be here with my very, very dear friend,
doctor Maya Shanka. We've been friends for like maybe four
or five years now, and honestly, beyond her incredible resume,
incredible list of achievements, continued excellence in everything she does,
(00:36):
she's just truly one of the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful humans.
And so the fact that you've all come out here
tonight to support her and hopefully get her book or
you've already got it. How many of you have already
got the book? Okay, all of you who didn't put
your hand up, I want you to get a book
by the end of this. Truly, I'm just so grateful
(00:56):
to be here. She is the kindest, most generous, sweet loving,
wonderful human being, and I'm so happy to be here
supporting you. So congratulations, mind, thank.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You so much.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Day is such an utter delight to be in conversation
with you about this topic, and I'm so grateful for
your friendship, So thank.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You, thank you. Well. This book that you wrote, the
Other Side of Change, I find it such a fascinating
topic and read because I feel like there's two types
of change. One is the change that you choose, and
the other is the change that chooses you. How many
(01:37):
of you like it when you decide to change? How
many of you like it when change chooses you? Yeah,
exactly right. That's like the worst, It's like the worst
feeling ever. It's like, what, like, why did this happen
right now? Like I you know, it's and that's like
a daily occurrence for anyone on planet Earth. Why did
(01:59):
this happen?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Now?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Why this happened to me? What's going on? When will
this change? When will this get better? Talk to me
about how change has drastically altered your life when you
least expected it.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, I mean I should start by saying that the
reason I study change is because I'm super scared of
it and I'm really bad at it and I hate
the unexpected changes by and large that have come my
way in life. I am someone who loves having a
firm grip at the steering wheel, right. I like being
in control. I like feeling like I'm going to dictate
(02:39):
how my life turns out. It feels very comforting to
believe that the world is fair and that if you
do good, good things will be it will happen. If
you aren't good, bad things will happen. It's just a nice,
clean input output model. But of course we all know
that that is sadly not how the universe operates, and
that fills me with a lot of discomfort, right. The
(03:00):
uncertainty that fills change. And one of my favorite research
studies from cognitive science shows that we are more stressed
when we're told we have a fifty percent chance of
receiving an electric shock than when we're told we have
a one hundred percent chance of getting that shock. Yes,
one hundred percent, And I feel that viscerally. I'm like,
(03:22):
bring on the shocks, just don't make me have to
deal with that anticipatory anxiety that makes my skin crawl.
I had a really formative experience with change when I
was a little kid. I was an aspiring concert violinist,
and I was studying at Juilliard at the time under
it'sak Perlman who is considered, you know, one of the
(03:42):
best violinists in the world. And I really thought in
that moment, you know, as a teenager, Okay, I think
I have what it takes.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I think I might be able to go pro. And
then I had my change of plans.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
A sudden injury that I sustained while playing the violin
led was a career ending injury for me, and doctors
just told me, I'm really sorry, but your dream is over.
And that was my first kind of foray with this
horrible change thing that I've learned to, you know, over time,
(04:15):
I've learned to have a slightly more peaceful relationship with
but it was pretty tough as a fifteen year old
to lose a thing that at that point, Jay, I
had been doing for almost ten years.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
How many of you have been rejected or failed in
that way? Anyone? Yeah, it's the worst hearing that news,
but especially because of something that you're struggling with injury wise.
I mean, it's not even like you didn't make it,
or you went good enough, or you went smart enough.
It was something totally out of your control. To some degree,
(04:48):
when things happen that are out of our control, is
it even possible for the human mind to be able to tolerate,
accept and move through it smoothly. Like is that what impossible?
Is it possible? Is it made up? What's your take?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Jay, you're the monk. You need to tell us. Why
is he looking to me for answers.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I've taken off any kind I'm not monk anymore, but
I've taken off any sort of metaphorical ropes today to
be the interviewer for you. So I have no answers.
I'm I'm just humbly asking glad.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, that's totally teasing, But that is to say, whatever
piece you found equanimity, you found a change. Just assume
I found about you know, one fraction. One's very small
fraction of that. It is a very hard thing for
us as humans to reckon with the true limits of
our control. But it also makes a lot of sense
why our brains lead us to believe we are in control.
(05:43):
Because if we didn't believe that we had a lot
of control over our lives, you can imagine that we
might descend into nihilism. Right, We might just think, what's
the point of anything? Why am I trying hard? Why
am I doing good? In the world, none of it
really seems to matter because that lightning bolt can just
strike me from above and it was all for not right.
And what's really interesting about the research is that it
(06:03):
shows people who have and this is called an internal
locus of control, so they really strongly feel like they're
dictating outcomes in their lives. They in general have higher
well being, greater happiness over time. The challenge, though, is
that when that proverbial anvil drops from the sky, it
shatters the illusion and it ends up being a very
(06:26):
tumultuous time. And in my own life, what I found
when I lost the violin was that there was something
so curious about my grief, which was that I didn't
feel like I was just losing the instrument. I felt
like I was losing a part of myself. Actually, I
felt like I was losing all of myself. It felt
like Maya and the violin were inextricably attached, and in
(06:52):
taking it away from me, I no longer had as
much value. Right, it threatened my self worth. It's only
when you lose something that you realize how much it
meant to you in the first place. I'm sure many
of you can relate to this feeling, You're like, oh
my gosh, I didn't realize how much of my confidence
was coming from the violin, or you know, as a
kid who was bullied right as a little girl in
(07:14):
elementary school, I'm like, oh wow, violin was a big
part of my sense of social belonging. Right when I
was at music school, which was international. All the kids
accepted me. They didn't care about the color of my skin.
In losing it, I realized actually one of the and
I by the way, when I say I realized, I
mean this like it From my current vantage point as
a fifteen year old, I was just cranky, annoying to
my parents, like why can't I do this thing I love?
(07:36):
But in hindsight, I've now realized that one of the
biggest reasons why change is so scary is that it
can threaten our self identity. And I've learned that, and
I would urge all of you to engage in this
thought experiment. One way to have a more secure self
identity is to anchor yourself not simply to what you do,
(07:58):
but to why you do that thing. So I asked myself,
what did I love about the violin? Well, it turns
out emotional connection was at the core of my love
of the instrument. And just because I lost the violin
didn't mean that I lost what led me to love
it in the first place. I could still find that
underlying feature in other places. I could still express that
part of myself through other channels. And it turns out
(08:20):
that subconsciously I've done that right as a podcaster hosting
a slight change of plans, writing the other side of change,
all of these pursuits have been about forging deep emotional
connections with people, like this is my bread and butter,
like I love having this conversation right, like this is
what makes mya tick, is deep emotional attachment to people
(08:40):
and connection to people.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And so ask yourself, what is your why? Right? Maybe
it is service. Maybe it is caring for people.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Maybe it is getting better at something and proving at
a craft. Maybe it is having a creative outlet like
we were talking about backstage.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Whatever your why is, life can't take that away from you.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
That's something that's going to be a firm anchor and
it can guide you towards your next steps. It can
be a soft landing when life makes other plans for you.
And I've just felt so much more whole in the
transitions and in the inflection points in my life, knowing that, like,
my why is still there.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, I love that. I was about to ask you
how to do it, but I love that because I
think it's so natural for us to place our confidence
in who we're with, what we're doing, right, It's natural
to evaluate our value in the world based on.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I'm placing a little bit of my confidence hanging out
with Jay Shuddy tonight.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I'm sorry. I'm just going to say sorry, keep going.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
But it's true, right, we base our value on all
of these external things exactly, and it's fine when it's
going good. And we were just talking about that, it's
fine when it's going good the moment it doesn't work out.
I was just speaking, I'm thinking of something You've reminded
me of someone. And I was speaking to a lady
who I think it was like two weeks after her
fortieth birthday, and so I was wished her a happy
(10:08):
belated birthday, and she was a mutual friend of another friend,
and she was telling me about it, and I was like, Oh,
tell me about your birthday, Like forty that's a big birthday,
Like what was the celebration, like, and she said, and
this is why I was reminded of it, based on
what mya just said, and why I think, you know,
her book is the book I'm going to be giving
to this lady. Straight after this conversation, she said to me,
(10:31):
she goes, Oh, my fortieth birthday was a disaster. I said, why.
She said, I lost my job two weeks before my
fortieth birthday. And I said that sounds terrible, and you know,
and she's and I was asking her about how she
lost it and whatever, and she goes, I thought I
was about to be promoted, so she was, like, I
(10:54):
thought I was about to be promoted. I lost my job.
I had my fortieth birthday in two weeks where I
was so excited to announce my promotion and invite my
work colleagues and talk about this incredible twenty year career
that I'd had. And now I didn't have anything to
talk about. She goes, I didn't have anything to talk about.
I didn't feel like I'd achieved anything. Sure, I was
(11:16):
in a relationship and whatever, like all this stuff, but
like I didn't have something that made it feel like
my life was going in the right direction, and you're
spot on. And whether we do it with our families,
whether we do it through our children, whether we do
it through our bank balance, whatever we do it through,
we all find it through some external validation. And what
you're reminding us to do is saying, pullback and focus
(11:39):
on why you love that thing? Why, though, is it
so hard to do that in the moment. I mean,
you're a cognitive scientist, so tell us what is going
on in the brain when change is thrown onto you
and you're like, but I don't like it, Maya, I
don't want to think about why. I just wanted that promotion. Yeah,
(11:59):
I wanted that extra money. I wanted that validation and assurance.
How do I do that well?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I actually think we're socialized to anchor our self worth
and our identities to the what, to the roles and
the labels that we carry. Think about the question we
ask little kids, what do you want to be when
you grow up? We don't ask who do you want
to be when you grow up? What are your passions?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
What do you love doing?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It turns out from research, actually looking back to your
childhood is one of the easiest ways to access your
why you want to find out when you were on
the playground, what were you gravitating towards? Were you like
going crazy on the monkey bars, or were you like me,
like listening to what everyone was saying and trying to
understand human psychology and social groups, and oh is this
person thinking this? Or is that you know that was
me on the player It's like, okay, of course she
(12:42):
was going to become a cognitive scientist. But that's actually
one of the best ways of figuring out what that
core passion is. And look, our self worth is called
contingent self esteem. That naturally we like to easily anchor
to something because it almost feels uncomfortable to just anchor
it to existence, which is what all of us should
(13:03):
do at the end of the day. By virtue of
just existing, we should be worthy. But as humans, we
are getting signals from everywhere that we need to justify
our existence, we need to justify our presence. And it's
so interesting because I think someone reached out to me,
this guy named Scott. He was a human rights lawyer,
Harvard trained, Rhodes scholar, super accomplished so many accolades. To
(13:27):
your point about getting that external validation, that was what
he was getting most of his life as he went
through his career trajectory, and then he got hit with
terrible long COVID, totally incapacitated, so he was suffering from
severe brain fog. He was unable to even read a
sentence of a book for the longest time. He was
(13:48):
experiencing nausea, terrible, terrible symptoms, and so bad that he
had to take permanent leave from his work as a
human rights lawyer. He listened to my ted talk and
I had talked about this what versus why distinction, and
I heard from him. He couldn't type, so he sent
me a voice memo. I remember, and I was listening
to my phone. He said, I asked myself what my
(14:11):
why was, and it was advocating for underrepresented people, people
who don't have a voice. And so then I asked myself,
with my newly constrained life that I live, how can
I still express that why? And he realized he still
could by advocating for the long hauler community.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
And so now he devotes all of the hours of
his day where he feels cognitively capable to advocating for
various legislation, talking to drug manufacturers, giving a voice to
all these humans whose lives had been upturned by long COVID,
who otherwise wouldn't feel represented. And I think that is
such a beautiful illustration of my hope with this insight.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Mm hmm. I love that. How many of you are
going to start trying that out to today, right, And
we've got to give it a go. We've got to
give it a go, you know. I always I feel
like there's so much good advice out there now, and
it's like Maya's book is packed with these incredible insights,
and I'm like, the biggest mistake we can make is, God,
that's a really cool idea, and then it just goes
over our head. It's like that ability to stop and
(15:14):
pause and say wow, Like Maya's just repeated this idea
like three times because of how powerful it is and
given us multiple examples, whether it's a real life story,
whether it's cognitive neuroscience, whether it's looking at it from
a practical point of view, and it makes sense. And
so I encourage each and every one of you when
you walk out of here, try and try and apply
it to a real life situation. I was also reflecting
(15:50):
that when I think about all the people I look
up to, Yeah, they all reacted incredibly well to bad circumstances.
So anyone that I admire or am inspired by. And
this could be a family member, it could be a
public figure, it could be anyone in your life. Right,
it doesn't have to be someone well known. Anyone that
(16:12):
I look up to had something horrific happened to them
and they somehow turned it into the best thing that
ever happened to them. Yeah, And when you study people's
lives closely, and I'm sure people have that in their families.
I'm sure if you think about your parents and aunts
and uncles, or you think about ancestors who just did
incredible things that we don't even know how they lived
(16:33):
through times like that, it doesn't what's the difference between
someone who has something bad happened to them and transforms
it into a superpower, yeah, and someone who has something
bad happened to them and doesn't have that ability, Like,
what's the difference, Because I think we all feel both
of those things. I've had terrible things happened to me,
and there have been times where I'm like, all right,
(16:53):
time to throw in the towel. It's all over. Forget
about it, and then there's times when tough stuff happens
and I'm able to what's the difference?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, well, I have really good news for you, because
as someone who started off being very bad at responding
to these negative events and who I think has made
incredible progress, this is a malleable trait in us, and
I think the difference is in perspective. So I'll say
a couple things. The first is, we have this funny
little trick our brains play on us when it comes
(17:23):
to how we think about who will be moving forward.
So it's called the end of history illusion, and basically
what it says is, while we fully acknowledge that we've
changed considerably in the past. So if you were to
show me pictures of violinists like eight year old violinist Maya, teenager,
oh gosh, cringe, teenager Maya college, we have this Yeah, actually,
(17:45):
right now I thought we were friends, Jane, and then
you know, twenty something, I'll say, I would say, oh
my gosh, I am so different from that person. Do
not even show me, like, I'm going to try to
create as much emotional distance as I can between you know, current.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
And past Maya.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
But then Funnily enough, if you were to ask me, well,
how much you plan on changing moving forward.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I'll be like, nope, finished product. What you see is
what you get.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
This is it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And researchers have said that we falsely believe that the
present is this watershed moment in which we become the
person we will be for the rest of our lives.
And again, it is just this funny little quirk in
the way that our brains have evolved. And the reason
that this is relevant to change is that we become
(18:31):
different people on the other side of change. The titles
not an accident, the other side of change. When a
big change happens to us, it also leads to lasting
change within us. And these big seismic anvil falling from
the sky moments they accelerate those internal transformations. We come
(18:51):
out the other side with new values and new perspectives
and new capabilities, new ways of seeing the world around
us and ourselves or maybe our fan or maybe our
family history, or maybe the shame we felt about some
part of our childhood. Whatever it is, it is possible
for us to emerge a new person. And so the
difference that I've come to see even in myself is
(19:15):
now when I'm feeling daunted at the outset of a
change and my old reflexes kick in and I think, oh,
I can't possibly handle what's up ahead. I'm not strong enough,
I don't have the right resources around me, I don't
have the right vantage point, I don't.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Have the right values. Whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I now think the Maya that's actually going to have
to engage with every part of this process is actually
going to be different from the person she is today,
And that is so empowering. Like when you're feeling daunted
at the outset of change, just know, and I know
people in this room who have undergone incredible transformations as
a result of the changes they went through, they would
(19:52):
never have been able to predict who they would have become.
And we know also from research, we are bad affective forecasters,
really bad at predicting how we will think and feel
about events in the future. And so that I think
is the sole trait that people have who are really resilient.
They understand that they too are changing as a result
(20:13):
of their circumstances, and they are introspective throughout. They think, Okay,
I'm noticing this change has revealed to me that I
have a certain value or belief.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Is this holding me back? Is it problematic?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Maybe this change is giving me a rare opportunity to
revisit that belief. I shouldn't hold it as sacred, I
should interrogate it. And so it's been uplifting. And I,
even in writing the book, saw this transformation within me
as I was undergoing an unexpected change in my personal
life that I write about in the final chapter. And
so I fully believe it now, you know, having seen
(20:46):
it happen within myself.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, and you were telling me that just before you
walked on. And not to get into details, but you're
telling me that you've literally been reading your own book.
Oh my gosh, during new change that's happening.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
While not because I'm a narcissist, but.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see how that came out now.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
And then I listened to my podcast. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I'll tell you why I was reading my book. The
last month of my life was awful. There were unexpected
challenges in my family when it came to health. And
just one example, I don't want to get too emotional,
is that my beloved aunt, her stage four cancer return
for a third time. Which is just very sad, right,
(21:31):
I don't know what's going to happen, and I love
her dearly. And as a person who had been writing
this book about Unexpected change for three and a half years,
I think I was engaging in magical thinking.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Jay.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I was like, all right, I did the change thing,
like I had the formative experience in childhood. And as
I was writing the book, I was struggling to start
a family with my husband. That was my second big change,
and like just going to wipe my hands clean, change over,
you know, And then change was thrown my way and
(22:03):
it was so hard and so destabilizing, and I just
remember thinking, in that moment, you have gained so much
wisdom from the people who invited you into their lives.
For years, for this book, I interviewed people on repeated
occasions over multiple years, just to understand so deeply their
psyche and their life story. And I was like, what
(22:24):
a shame it would be if you do not benefit
from that wisdom in this moment, if you don't use
those same science based strategies you're telling everyone else to use.
I didn't want to just talk the talk. I wanted
to walk the walk, and so I still remember this
one night. I was sitting in my living room and
my husband, Jimmy, and I were just spiraling. We were
doing the thing everyone does in the face of uncertain change.
(22:46):
We were starting to catastrophize. Our anxiety was rising and
we could feel it in our bodies. Our hearts were racing,
and everything was looking negative. And I remember I pulled
out there's one chapter of the book I devote entirely
to rumination.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Separate note. I have a PhD in rumination.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Not an academic not an academic version, but the lived version.
I am very skilled in waking up in the middle
of the night and thinking about things, you know, till
they drive me crazy. And I just remember reading some
of these words that I'd written because they hit me
even more in that moment when I feel I needed
them most. And I was able to actually effectively use
(23:23):
these strategies and they help me in a time of need.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
And I it was such a trying time.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
I was like, how am I going to get the
energy to get to like do this book tour. But
I turned the ship around, folks, I did, and I'm
here with you right now, and I'm so full of joy,
and I think one of the reasons why you're seeing, oh,
I'm so sweet. One of the reasons I was talking
about this with Jay beforehand, that you are seeing me
(23:48):
filled with so much joy is that one first of
all health stuff just puts everything into perspective. It just
right sizes every small or big problem that you're sorry,
let me just let me say it. Really getting emotional
health challenges put everything into perspective immediately, And so I
instantly had clarity about what this book tour was all about,
(24:12):
and it was that I had written a book for
people who are struggling with exactly what I was struggling
with for the last three weeks. And it renewed my
faith in the importance of storytelling, in the importance of
distilling science and ways that are easy for people to understand,
and for just connecting with my fellow human beings. And
there's been so much healing that's happened, even in just
(24:33):
this past week, meeting people from all over the country.
Right a woman came up to me and said, you know,
she looked to be about in her late thirties. She
was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's, so she was dealing
with that and another person had been in a terrible
car crash and she was dealing with the repercussions of that,
and it's just it's just really touched my heart to
(24:53):
be in conversation with people going through this stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So beautiful as I'm listening to you, and I'm so
glad that you did share that. I didn't know if
you were going to, but I'm glad you did because
I don't think there's any better test of doing the
work than doing it when it's happening right now. Yeah,
And for those of us that share insight, or share research,
or give advice or help people through things, it's only
(25:22):
when you're going through that exact same thing yourself that
the advice either stands true it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I'm so glad you said that, because I want to
share an example of a time when I didn't want
to do the work and I ended up doing it
and it really paid off.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Okay, So long story short.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
For years and years and years, my husband and I
were on this journey to start a family, and we
experienced so many obstacles and disappointments and heartbreaks over the years,
and a miscarriage with our surrogate and about a year
and a half later, we were just over the moon
because we found out that we were going to be
having identical twin girls. We were we were just so happy, like,
(26:02):
oh my gosh, how amazing that this has now happened.
It's like a blessing given the first pregnancy loss. And
we saw two healthy, beating hearts. And then five hours
later we found out that our surrogate had miscarried again.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And it was.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
To go from such a high high to such a
low low within just a couple hours was so jarring
for my nervous system. I was like, I remember telling
my husband Jimmy, I'm like, we need to leave our apartment,
Like I just need to get fresh air. I don't
know how to tolerate sort of the emotional complexity of
this moment and all that I was grieving. You know.
(26:37):
We talked about identity loss right. Being a mom was
one of the earliest identities that I ever aspired to have,
and society always told me that in order to be
a full person, I needed to have kids, and for
that reason, I felt like it was a massive threat
to hear about this this loss, and I remember getting
(26:59):
into bed early that night, putting the covers over me
and just feeling really really sad, and my husband Jimmy
comes in.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Bless him.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
He goes may ma's his pet name for me, Let's
name five things were really grateful for. And I'm like, oh,
hell no, bro, you take your Instagram bs, you go
into the corner and your toxic positivity. There is no
space for that in our bedroom right now. And I
(27:28):
was so ticked off. JA.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I was like, I'm not doing this. This is so annoying.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
But there was something so sweet and innocent about Jimmy's request,
and I also thought, Okay, also, if I do this,
maybe I'll just get him off my back.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Let me just do this thing now.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Mind you, Jimmy's a software engineer, so what he did
not know is that he was engaging me in that
moment in what's called a self affirmation exercise. Really fun
to be married to a cognitive scientist. Let me tell you.
A self affirmation exercise is when you articulate all the
things that bring your life value and meaning that are
not being threatened by the change you're going through. So
(28:04):
if you're in a tough spot in your relationship, you
might focus on your spiritual life. If you're having a
rough go of it at work, you might focus on
how meaningful your community is to you. What the affirmation
exercise does is that it contextualizes what you're going through,
and it actually reduces things like denial because when you
feel like when you don't feel like your whole identity
(28:26):
is under threat from this change, you can embrace the
news more easily and actually start to cope with it.
It also leads to greater resilience, less anxiety. There's all
sorts of wellbeing outcomes associated with a self affirmation exercise.
So anyway, Jimmy comes in and he asked me to
do this thing, and I'm like stubbornly like okay, fine,
and you know, the first item on my list, I
was like, okay, well, I'm really grateful for.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
You, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
You know, hear the love of my life and you're
so wonderful. But then this list just flowed out of me.
I'm so grateful to be an aunt to my six
nieces and nephews. What a joy that I get to
go into the closet of our apartment and talk to
people all over the world about their incredible stories of change.
Like never in my it was not on my Bingo
card that I that this was ever going to get
(29:12):
to be my life, that I got to interview people
and be interviewed by people where you have such incredibly
edifying conversations. I love my workouts with my Zoom trainer,
Like we talk about the Bachelor and love is Blind
and it's just so much fun to gossip about all
this stuff and it feeds a different part of my soul.
I always say, celebrity gossip is my love language. And
(29:35):
then I'm like, and I'm grateful for the California son,
and it just it was like effortless. It just started
to flow out at me, and I swear to God,
something magical happened in that moment. I had been so
single mindedly focused on achieving this goal of mine, and
I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this.
We set our minds on something and we developed tunnel vision.
(29:56):
We're like, until I get this outcome, like nothing can
rest That I had lost perspective on how otherwise rich
and multi dimensional my life was. I had forgotten that, yes,
I was in pursuit of motherhood, but there was still
so much else that defined me. There was still so
much that made me a valuable human and were sources
(30:19):
of joy in my life, and there was so much
to be grateful for. And so did I go to
bed over joyed that night, of course not. But did
I go to bed feeling more whole, Yes, I did.
And I'm so grateful that I forced myself in that
moment to do the uncomfortable thing because it really helped
(30:40):
me in the longer term. And Jimmy slept on the couch,
yeah exactly, yeah, and then we hired the divorce lawyers.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
That good old Jimmy. That's good for Jay now, even
for Jimmy to have the like courage to even say
that to you in that moment, I was like, oh God,
I was a scared boy. I feel like I just
(31:17):
learned this yesterday. And so if I sound if you
hear this, then you go, yeah, I've heard that a
million times, then I'm glad you learned it quicker than
I did. I literally learned this like two weeks ago.
I was in India, back at the monastery that I
used to live at, and I was sharing something I
thought i'd learned with my teacher. And he has this
really remarkable way of teaching me back without making me
(31:38):
feel like I'm stupid, but it's kind of like, yeah,
you're stupid, Like you got that wrong, and you've You've
just given me the science to back up what he
was saying to me. So up until like two weeks ago,
I thought you had to somehow figure out how to
be grateful for what happened to you. We always hear
(32:00):
that be grateful for what happened. You know, the curse
becomes a gift and the nightmare becomes the dream, and
you know, like be grateful for what happened to you.
And I've always felt that you just had to somehow
figure that out through like raw tolerance, beating your head over,
you know, whatever it took, Like you just had to
figure our way, and if you were deep enough and
if you were profound enough, then one day you could
(32:22):
be grateful for like terrible things happening to you. And
I felt like that's what it meant to have, like
you know, God's childlike level forgiveness and level of acceptance.
And he just said this to me, He goes I
was saying that to him. I was like, yeah, I
really believe that, you know, one day I'll be really
grateful for this, and I'll be grateful for what happened
to me. And he said, he said, you don't have
(32:44):
to be grateful for what happens to you. You have
to be grateful for what you have after what happens
to you. And it was just this subtle, tiny change
that completely freed me of this pressure that I'd put
myself under. Is if you had to be grateful, yeah,
for not being able to have children, or you have
to be grateful for having an injury when you wanted
(33:06):
to be a violinist as a kid, It's like, no,
you don't have to be grateful for that that you could.
You could pretend to maybe for a day, but you know,
you've just freed us as well by giving us the
science mind. And that's why I love your work so much,
because you have this profound ability to take wisdom, have
the signs to back it up, the resets to back
it up, and then make it sound so simple, even
(33:27):
though you're so much smarter than all of us, but
you know, make it sound and that's what you do
so brilliantly in this book. It's like we're like wow,
like you're actually speaking to us and speaking to our
hearts and speaking our language. Uh. And I guess you
had all this time to practice on software engineer Jimmy,
so you know you've had a gain.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh god, No, yeah, just a follow on to what
you said. I think that's so spot on.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
And the people that I interviewed for the other side
of change, by and large, aren't happy that they had
to go through what they went through. They would not
will their changes over again. Who would Who would invite
illness into their lives and a heartbreak and loss? I mean,
that would be kind of strange. But they are extremely grateful,
(34:12):
all of them, for the person they became as a
result of the change they went through. And I feel
like that's perfectly echoed by this teacher of yours. They
feel like they emerged with renewed confidence, a renewed relationship
with their family, a new sense of what was important,
a new perspective on their self worth and where to
(34:33):
actually anchor it, A new way of seeing attachment and
their closest relationships.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
That's the part they're grateful for.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
And I love the honesty of that because I often say, like,
I'm allergic to two things, soy and platitudes. I'm always
skeptical when people talk about silver linings and whatnot, and like, really.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Are you sure?
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Is that just something you tell yourself because it makes
you feel better. Where's the science to back it up?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
You know?
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And so it's so interesting because I was seeing I
wanted to write it. By the way, writing the Other
Side of Change pretty agnostic as to what I would find.
I identified people from all over the world that I
just found fascinating, and I interviewed them for a bunch
of years, and I didn't know their what lessons I
would learn. I didn't know what their stories would reveal,
which was an incredibly delightful process of exploration. By the way,
(35:25):
it was like me, like Maya the cognitive scientist in
a candy shop.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
I started to see this incredibly hopeful message emerge about change, right,
which is that people were grateful for the internal transformation
they went through. And I really felt this deeply, And
I was alluding to this before when I was writing
the final chapter of the book unexpectedly about my own
experience on this parent or trying to be a parent journey,
(35:53):
and I realized something really important. So I had very
slowly and very subconsciously been on my own internal evolution
and transformation on this topic. If you had asked me
on that night, when Jimmy asked me that incredibly annoying question,
(36:14):
is anything good ever going to come of this? I
would have said no. Will you ever feel whole as
a person if you don't have kids, Oh definitely not.
Will your life have enough color without kids?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Absolutely all of those questions I would have said no to.
And yet here I am three years out and I
am child free today, and you are seeing the happiest,
most joyful, most curious, most hopeful version of Maya that
has ever existed. And I could never have seen that coming.
(36:47):
Because I thank you my dream was cut short, you know,
and you don't always anticipate that when a dream is
cut short, you'll still be grateful for what hapen. And
on the other side, exactly to your point, and so
witnessing that within me was very moving and very wildly unexpected,
(37:09):
I realized, by the way. So one of the chapters
in the Other Side of Change is about a woman
who has to revisit her relationship with her family history.
It actually comes about through about of amnesia. It's like
one of the most fascinating tales I've come across, And
the idea of that chapter is it shows change can
actually serve as an important moment of revelation for all
(37:29):
of us. So when a really negative thing happens in
our lives, we can often think of it as a
personal apocalypse of sorts. The world that we once knew
that was so familiar and so comforting to us, so
comfortable as well, is no longer available. And interestingly, the
word apocalypse comes from the Greek word apocalypsis, which means revelation,
(37:52):
And so the etymology is really instructive. Change can abend us, yes,
but it can also reveal things to us. And as
I was going on this journey of figuring out my
own relationship with motherhood and parenthood, I realized I did
have quite antiquated views that were fed to me, maybe
through my Indian American upbringing, right through cultural forces, through
(38:16):
pop culture, through society, through the very special stigma reserved
for child free women that a woman's value was something
that was firmly attached to whether she had kids, whether
she has kids. I mean, it's a stigma that still
very much exists today, and part of my process because
I talk in the book about how we cannot view
our beliefs and ideas as these sacred, immutable truths that
(38:38):
ought to never be examined. Most of our beliefs, most
of the ideas we have about the world were inherited subconsciously,
they were through They were in our childhood from caregivers,
and we had so much of our love wrapped up
in that caregiver that to challenge them, to question them
would have been quite dangerous, emotionally dangerous for us.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Or we learned them from a.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Teacher that we so greatly admired, and because we were
more of a black and white thinker, we couldn't see
that there might be nuance. Or we learned it from
watching TV, or we learned it through who becomes famous
or not famous, And all of those ideas are worth
unwinding and unpacking, and change can give us this powerful
moment where we take a step back and think, wow,
(39:19):
is this point of view worth revisiting? And so I
credit ingrid this woman's story for giving me the courage
I needed to question some of these assumptions and to
now feel like, of course, I'm like a whole woman
in her you know, without kids like, how could I
have ever thought that? It seems preposterous now, but we
all grow up with these self limiting beliefs, and so
(39:42):
I believe in the power of change to help unearth
what they are and then give us a chance to
question them.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Well said, Well said, Maya. We're running out of time,
but I want to end with a little quick fire
about change.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Okay, I'll try every thing.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
We always end every episode of my podcast with a
quick fire. But you've already done that before because you
came on the show four years ago.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And you've answered those questions.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
So I'm going to give you. I'm going to give
you a new set of questions. So these questions have
to be answered in one sentence. All right. So the
first question is what is the first change people should
choose after tonight.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Being present when they are with other people.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
That's a great answer, Very good. All right, put your.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Phone away because that really right.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Now, keep filming so that so that more people.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
And I'm not allowed to go on, but just know
that that is also evidence based.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Go ahead, do you want to tell us the let's okay,
all right, okay, okay, second question, the change that you're
happiest you made in the last twelve months.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
To care less what people I don't respect think of me. Yeah,
that's a really hard one. As still working on it.
I'm like, wait, but I just want can't we just
all feel love for one another? It's like such a
naive point of view, but I'm like, I just want
people to love each other. And then it's just yeah,
and then you know, not looking at comments on the internet.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
So question number three, something you're trying to change this year?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
I am an extremely impatient person. Can I have a
few more sense?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
You've been doing it for all of them without permission?
Why you asking now?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
I'm extremely impatient. I for so long hated this part
of my personality. Though, I think one thing that's really
helpful for everyone is to remember there's always two sides
to the coin on personality traits. So my impatience has
also really helped me in my work in the White
House and my work you know, at various places like that.
Impatience propels me to try to get stuff done, so
I try not to resent it too much, but I
(41:59):
think it would be really good for my overall well
being if I just like took a b So when
my you know, if my boss sends me a message
on like a Friday afternoon, that's like, hey, period, don't
freak out.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
You can wait till Monday. It's going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Whereas I tend to kind of like need resolution as
quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
That's I think we can all relate.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Yeah, I just want closure.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
The smallest change that someone can make in their relationships.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Try not to impose your mental frame, your way of
seeing the world onto the other person. So before you
talk at them, deeply listen to them, and then you
will be able to find common ground.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Great answers, Well, you're like, I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Trying to be picky.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
This is really good. This is the final question I
want to ask you. Okay, and this one go on.
You can go on on it because I really want
to understand it. Do you believe that if we chose
more change we'd be better at dealing with change?
Speaker 3 (43:01):
I love that question so much so.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
The previous stop of this book tour was in San Francisco,
and Michael Lewis was moderating the conversation, so the author
and journalist and someone in the audience asked a question
actually about the uncertainty around AI and as a mom,
she was thinking, what do I tell my kid right,
so that they learn to embrace change, Because that's actually
(43:25):
kind of what you're asking, right, How can we take
strategic steps to embrace change more? And he gave a
fantastic piece of advice. He said, take an improv comedy class.
Get yourself off balance. That's really the kind of change
that's really healthy for us is to go outside of
our comfort zone, to test ourselves and to be in
(43:48):
almost this perpetual state of unease, because that's when we
flex all these muscles, all these abilities that we had
that may have been laying dormant because we were always
choosing what was comfortable, and we get to see them
on display and think, oh, well, like maybe I am
a little bit more resilient than I thought. And I
(44:09):
think it's so great for us to introduce change in
the form of challenge when we learn a new skill,
for example. So you inter you interviewed Chris Hemsworth for
your podcast and I was his brain coach on this
show called Limitless, and I was so inspired by his attitude.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
You know, this guy is like.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
One of the most famous actors in the world. He
could just sit back and relax, And he was telling
this audience at the London premiere, I think we all
need to be a little bit more uncomfortable. He's like,
I seek out discomfort wherever I can. He's like, you know,
with these nests, thermosats to adapt that adapt to the
ideal temperature, and smart white, like everything's meant to be
(44:51):
customized so that it.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Brings ease into our lives.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
And Chris was saying, I feel like that's the only
vehicle for growth is to be in these uncertain, uncomfort situations.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
That's the only way.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
The episode was all about flexing our brain's capacity for plasticity, right,
and building cognitive reserve so that as we age, we
feel the impact less.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Again.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I was just so inspired to hear him say that,
because again he could just kick back and be like, okay,
I'm good, and instead, you know, for our episode, he
learned the drums and played with Ed Sheeran in front
of seventy thousand people, So we don't have to do
that version.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
I'm not doing that version.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
My smaller commitment to introduce a little bit of change
into my life was re picking up learning Mandarin, so
my husband's Chinese American and his relatives don't speak English.
And I took a brief hiatus, namely three and a
half years while I wrote this book where I stopped
taking those lessons, and I'm now committing to starting again
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Well, Min, I'm so happy that you took that brief
hiatus and put together this amazing book, The Other Side
of Change. As I said, when you pick up this
book today, you're not picking up just a book. You're
picking up interview research, hundreds and thousands of hours of
other people's stories, lived experience, ups and downs, challenges, breakthroughs, discomfort,
(46:12):
and you get to invite that all into your life.
And as someone who grew up as an avid reader
of nonfiction and true stories, I think what Maya's put
together in this incredible book is an invitation to all
of us to study the lives of people just like
us who have walked the path of challenges that we
(46:33):
either have in our life right now or may have
in the future, and gain probably the most important skill
humans could potentially ever develop, which is dealing with change.
There's probably no if there's one skill you dedicate twenty
twenty six too, it should probably be dealing with change.
There is no more important skill, not Mandarin, sorry.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
No, not anything else.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
It's dealing with change. And so this book is dedicated
to that mayas dedicated in half years and the people
that are in the book have spent decades living it through.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Oh my gosh, totally.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
And so from the bottom of my heart, hope you'll
grab a copy. I'm so proud of you and grateful
for just how you walk through life, and even just
your expertise and all the answers you gave today was
just second to none. It was unbelievable to learn from
you and listen to you. I'm always humbold when I'm
around you. Oh thank you, sir, and I'm so grateful
(47:26):
that you let me support you. I'm going to let
everyone ask you all their amazing questions now that I'm
sure they're dying to ask you. And thank you again
for letting me be a part of this. Give it up,
my error. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my
interview with doctor Daniel Ahman on how to change your
life by changing your brain.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with
a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or
the curse to scam. Over a thousand convicted felons and
over one hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.
Host
Jay Shetty
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