The #1 Mindset Shift to Turn Unexpected Change Into the Biggest UPGRADE of Your Life

Key Takeaway

When unexpected change threatens your identity, don't anchor your self-worth to what you do—anchor it to why you do it. A violinist forced to quit discovers that her love of emotional connection wasn't lost with the instrument. By identifying your core 'why' (service, creativity, growth), you create a stable foundation that survives any external change. This week, list five sources of meaning in your life beyond your current role or goal.

Episode Overview

Dr. Maya Shankar, cognitive scientist and host of 'A Slight Change of Plans' podcast, discusses her book 'The Other Side of Change' with Jay Shetty. The conversation explores how to navigate unexpected life changes, from career-ending injuries to health crises. Maya shares research-backed strategies for building resilience, including the distinction between anchoring identity to 'what' you do versus 'why' you do it, the power of self-affirmation exercises during difficulty, and understanding that we become different people through change. The discussion is both scientific and deeply personal, as Maya reveals her own recent struggles with family health issues and fertility challenges.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The #1 Mindset Shift to Turn Unexpected Change Into the Biggest UPGRADE of Your Life from On Purpose. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

So first of all I want to say I'm really grateful to be here with my very [snorts] very dear friend Dr. Maya Shanka. Uh we've been friends for like maybe four or five years now and honestly honestly honestly beyond her incredible resume, incredible list of achievements, continued excellence in everything she does. 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. Uh truly, I'm just so grateful to be here. She's she is the kindest, most generous, sweet, loving, wonderful human being. And uh I'm so happy to be here supporting you. So congratulations. [applause and cheering] Thank you so much, Jay. It is uh such an utter delight to be in conversation with you about this topic and um I'm so grateful for your friendship. So thank you.

you. 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. chooses you. chooses you. How many of you like it when you decide to change? to change? to change? How many of you like it when change chooses you? chooses you? 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 this happen now? Why did this happen 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. 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 um the unexpected changes by and large that have come my way in life.

I am someone who loves having a firm grip of the steering wheel, right? I like being in control. I like feeling like I'm going to dictate 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 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 the the the 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 50% chance of receiving an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance chance chance of getting that shock. Is that real? Yes. 100%. Wow. And I feel that viscerally. I'm like, bring on the shocks. just don't make me have to deal with that anticipatory that anticipatory that anticipatory anxiety that that you know 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 Giuliard at the time under It Pearlman who is considered you know one of the best violinists in the world and I really thought in that moment you know as a teenager okay I I I think I have what it takes. I think I might be able to go pro. And then I had my change of plans. A sudden injury that I sustained while playing the violin um le 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 feray with with this horrible change thing that I've learned to, you know, over time I've learned to have a slightly more uh peaceful relationship with. But it was it was pretty tough as a 15-year-old to lose a thing that at that point, Jay, I had been doing for almost 10 years. 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 weren't good enough or you weren't smart enough. It was something totally out of your control to some degree. 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? Is that like is that is that impossible? Is it possible? Is it made up? What's your take, take, take, Jay? You're the monk. You need to tell us. Why is he looking to me for answers?

I've I've I've taken off any kind I'm not a 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 just I'm just humbly asking questions. I know I'm totally teasing. But that is to say, whatever piece you found, equinimity you found with change, just assume I found about, you know, one fra one very small fraction of that. Um, 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. 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 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 uh over time. [snorts] The challenge though is that when that proverbial anvil drops from the sky, it shatters the illusion and it ends up being um a very 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 I didn't feel like I was just losing the instrument.

I 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 taking it away from me, I no longer had as much value. Right? It 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 um bullied, right, um as a as a little girl in 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 from my current vantage point as a 15-year-old, I was just cranky and annoying to my parents, like, why can't I do this thing I love? 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.

[clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] And I've learned that and I would urge all of you to engage in this thought experiment. experiment. experiment. One way to have a more secure self-identity is to anchor anchor yourself not simply to what you do, 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 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 I love having this conversation, right? Like this is what makes my tick. Um is is deep emotional uh attachment to people and connection to people.

And so ask yourself what is your why, right? Maybe it is service, maybe it is caring for people, maybe it is getting better at something, improving at a craft, maybe it is um having a creative outlet like we were talking about backstage. Whatever your why is, life can't take that away from you. That's something that's going to be a 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.

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 I'm placing a little bit of my confidence hanging out with J Shetty tonight. I'm sorry. Just going to say sorry. Keep going. But But But but it's true, right? We we base our value on all of these external things.

Absolutely. And it's fine when it's going good. 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 I was speaking to a lady who I think it was like 2 weeks after her 40th birthday and so I was wished her a happy belated birthday and she was a mutual friend of another friend and uh she was telling me about and I was like oh tell me about your birthday like 40 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 Maya 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.

this conversation. this conversation. She said to me, she goes, "Oh, my 40th birthday was a disaster." I said, "Why?" She said, "I lost my job two weeks before my 40th birthday." And I said, "That sounds terrible." And you know, and she and I and I was asking her about how she lost it and whatever. And she goes, "I thought I was about to be promoted." promoted." promoted." So, she was like, "I thought I was about to be promoted. I lost my job. I had my 40th birthday in two weeks where I was so excited to like announce my promotion and invite my work colleagues and talk about this incredible 20-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. and sure I was 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 pull back and focus 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 on to 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." Right? I just wanted that extra money. I wanted that validation and assurance. How do I do that? Well, I I actually think we're socialized to anchor our self-worth and our identities to the what to the roles and the labels uh 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? What do you love doing? 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 flagrance like okay of course she was going to become a cognitive scientist.

Um, 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 do at the end of the day. Like 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 um someone reached out to me, this guy named Scott. He was a human rights lawyer, Harvard trained, road scholar, super accomplished, so many accolades. To your point about getting that external validation, that was what he was getting most of his life as he went through um his career trajectory. And then he got hit with terrible long COVID, totally incapacitated. So he was suffering from severe brain fog. Um he was unable to even read a sentence of a book for the longest time.

He was experiencing nausea. Uh terrible, terrible symptoms and so bad that he had to take permanent leave from his work as a human rights lawyer. He had 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 I was listening on my phone. He said, "I asked myself what my 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. community. community. Wow. 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, manufacturers, manufacturers, giving a voice to all these humans whose lives have been upturned by long co who otherwise wouldn't feel represented. And I think that is such a beautiful illustration of my hope with this insight.

insight. insight. Mhm. I love that. How many of you are going to start trying that after today? Right. And we got to give it a go. We got to give it a go. You know, I always feel like feel like 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 go that's a really cool idea and then it just goes over our head. It's like that ability to stop and pause and say, "Wow, like my 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 that when I think about all the people I look up to, yeah, yeah, yeah, they all reacted incredibly well to bad circumstances. circumstances. 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 I look up to had something horrific happen 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 through times like that, it it doesn't What's the difference between someone who has something bad happen to them and transforms it into a superpower? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And someone who has something bad happen to them and doesn't have that ability. Like, what's the difference?

I think we all had terrible things happen to me and there have been times where I'm like, "All right, 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 turn it into a superpower. What's the difference? 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 to how we think about who we'll be moving forward. So, it's called the end of history illusion. And basically what we 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 8-year-old violinist Maya, teenager Oh gosh, cringe teenager Maya. Um, college, Um, college, Um, college, we have we have those pictures.

Yeah. Yeah. actually right now. Um I thought we were friends, Jay. Um and then you know 20omething 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 Maya and past Maya. But then funnily enough if you were to ask me well how much do you plan on changing moving forward? I'll be like nope finished product. What you see is what you get.

This is it. And researchers have said that um 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 different people on the other side of change. The title's 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 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 family 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 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 have the right values." Whatever it is, 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 never have been able to predict who they would have become.

And we know also from research we are bad affective forecasters. We're 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 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. Is this holding me back? Is it problematic? maybe this change is giving me a rare opportunity to revisit that belief.

I shouldn't hold it as sacred. I should interrogate it. Um and so it it's been uplifting and I and I even in writing the book saw this transformation within me as I was uh undergoing an unexpected change in my personal life that I write about in the final chapter. And so I I fully believe it now, you know, having seen it happen within myself. within myself. within myself. Yeah. And you were telling me that just before you walked on and not to get into details, but you were telling me that you've literally been reading your own book.

Oh my gosh. During new change that's happening while not because I'm a narcissist, but because because because Yeah, I should have reed Yeah, I should have reed it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Yeah, I see how that came out now. And then I listened to my podcast. I'm just kidding. Um 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 4 cancer returned for a third time, which time, which time, which is just very sad, right?

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, Jay. 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 um then change was thrown thrown my way. And 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. Like 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 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. 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.

Separate note, I have a PhD in rumination. 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 um they hit me even more in that moment when I feel I needed them most. And I was able to actually effectively use these strategies and they helped me in a time of need.

And I it was such a trying time. I was like, how am I going to get the energy to like do this book tour? Um 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, that's so sweet. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Um, Um, Um, one of the reasons I was talking about this with Jay beforehand, um, that you are seeing me 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 say this differently. I'm getting emotional. Um, health challenges put everything into perspective immediately. And so I instantly had clarity about what this book tour was all about. 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 in 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 this past week meeting people from all over the country, right? A woman came up to me and said, you know, she was she looked to be about in her late 30s. She was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's. Um so she was dealing with that and another person had been in a terrible um car crash and she was dealing with the repercussions of that. And it's just it's just really touched my heart to to be in conversation with people going through this stuff.

So beautiful. Honestly, as I'm 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. Yeah. Yeah. And for those of us that share insight or share research or give advice or help people through things, it's only when you're going through that exact same thing yourself that the advice either stands true or it doesn't.

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. Okay. So, long story short, 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.

And we were um we were just so happy. Like, 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 5 hours later, we found out that our surrogate had miscarried again. And it was 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 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 I I don't know how to tolerate sort of the the emotional complexity of this moment and all that I was grieving. You know 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 um I needed to have kids. And um for that reason, I felt like it was a a massive threat to to hear about this this loss.

And I remember getting into bed early that night, putting the covers over me and just feeling really really sad. And my husband Jimmy comes in, bless him, he goes, "May's his pet name for me." um let's name five things we're really grateful for. grateful for. 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 was so ticked off, Jay. I was like, I'm not doing this.

This is so annoying. But it there was something so sweet and innocent about Jimmy's like request. And um I also thought okay also if I do this maybe I'll just get him off my back. Let me just do this thing. Now 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. self-affirmation exercise. 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, 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 um 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 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 well-being outcomes associated with a self-affirmation exercise. So anyway, Jimmy comes in and he asked me to do this thing. And I'm like 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 you." You know, I'm like like, you know, you're the love of my life and you're so wonderful. [snorts] But then this 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 in my bingo card that I that this was ever going to get to be my life that I got to interview people and be interviewed by people where you have such incredibly edifying conversations. Um 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 like feeds a different part of my soul.

Um I always say um celebrity gossip is my love language. Um and and then I'm like I'm grateful for the California sun and I it it just it was like effortless. It just started to flow out of 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 develop tunnel vision. 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 um were sources of joy in my life and there was so much to be grateful for. And so did I go to bed overjoyed that night? Of course not. Um 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 me in the longer term. And Jimmy slept on the couch. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And then we hired the divorce lawyers. No, I'm just kidding. That is Yeah. Good old Jimmy. That's good for Jimmy. Even for Jimmy to have the like courage to even say that to you in that moment. I was like, "Oh god." I was I was scared for him. I was Oh gosh. But you know, as I'm listening to you say that, it reminded me of something.

I I I feel like I just learned this yesterday. And so if I sound if you if you hear this and you go, "Jay, 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 feel like I'm stupid.

But it's kind of like, "Yeah, you're stupid. Like, you got that wrong." Uh, and 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 that. Be grateful for what happened. You know, the the the curse becomes a gift and the nightmare becomes the dream and you know, like be be grateful for what happened to you.

And I've [snorts] 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 out way. And if you were deep enough and if you were profound enough, then one day you could be grateful for like terrible [snorts] things happening to you. And I felt like that's what it meant to have like, you know, God's childlike level forgiveness and and level of acceptance. And he just said this to me.

He goes, I was saying that to him. And 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 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 that completely that completely freed me of this pressure that I'd put myself under as if you had to be grateful grateful grateful Yeah.

for not being able to have children or you have to be grateful for having an injury when you wanted to be a violinist as a kid. It's like no, you don't have to be grateful for that. Like 100%. 100%. 100%. 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 behind it. And that's why I love your work so much because you have this profound ability to take wisdom, have the science to back it up, the resets to back it up, and then make it sound so simple even though you're so much smarter than all of us.

but uh you know make it sound so 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 and I guess you had all this time to practice on software engineer Jimmy. So, you know, you've you've had a guinea pig. Oh, no. Go. No. I was going to ask. Yeah. Just to follow on to what you said, I I think that's so spot on. 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 heartbreak and loss? I mean, that would be kind of strange, but they are extremely grateful, 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 actually anchor it.

Um, a new way of of seeing attachment and and their their closest relationships. That's the part they're grateful for. And I love the honesty of that because I often say like I'm allergic to two things, soy and platitudes. Um I'm always skeptical when people talk about silver linings and whatnot. I'm like really? Um are you sure? Is that just something you tell yourself because it makes you feel better? Where's the science to back it up? You know, and so it's so interesting because I was seeing I went into write, 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 what 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, it was like me like Maya the cognitive scientist in a candy shop. Literally, I started to see this incredibly hopeful message emerge about change, right? which was 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 and journey and journey and I realized something really important. So, So, So, I had very slowly and very subconsciously been on my own internal evolution and transformation on this topic. Um, if you had asked me on the on that night when Jimmy asked me that incredibly annoying question, 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? Oh my gosh. Absolutely. All of those questions I would have said no to. And yet here I am 3 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 because I Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

um 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 happened on the other side. Exactly to your point. And so witnessing that within me was very moving and very wildly unexpected. 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 um with her family history. It actually comes about through a bout 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 of us. So um when a 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. And so the etmology is really instructive.

Change can aend 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 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 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 um 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. or we learned them from a 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 is this point of view worth revisiting and so I credit Ingred uh 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 I believe in the power of change to help unearth what they are and then give us a chance to question them well said well said my uh uh we're running out of time but I want to end with a little quickfire about change.

about change. about change. Okay, I'll try because I think we we always end every episode of my podcast with a quickfire, but you've already done that before because you came on the show four years ago and so you've answered though. So, you've answered those questions. So, I'm going to give you a new set of you I'm going to give you a new set of questions. So, these questions have to be answered in one sentence. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. [snorts] So, the first question is, what is the first change people should choose after tonight?

being present when they are with other people. people. people. That's a great answer. Very good. All right. right. right. Put your phone away. Okay. Because that really not right now. Keep filming so that Yeah. So that more people get the book. book. book. And I'm not allowed to go on. Um but just know that that is also evidence-based. evidence-based. evidence-based. Go ahead. Do you want to tell us the evidence? evidence? evidence? No. No. It's okay. It's okay. Let's do it like it like it like Okay.

All right. Okay. Okay. Uh second question. Uh, the change that you're happiest you made in the last 12 months to care less what people I don't respect think of me. Yeah, that's a really hard one. I 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.

So, internet. So, internet. So, yeah. yeah. yeah. Uh, question number three. Something you're trying to change this year. [sighs and snorts] I am an extremely impatient person. Can I have a few more sentences? Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Go on. You've been doing it for all of them without permission. So, I don't know why you're asking now, why don't know why you're asking now, but go on. Um, 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 think it would be really good for my overall well-being if I just like took a beat. So um 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. you can wait till Monday.

It's going to be okay. Whereas I tend to kind of like need resolution as quickly as possible. That's I think we can all relate to I just want closure. The smallest change that someone can make in their relationships. Oh, 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. Great answers. Wow, you're like I'm trying to be picky. This is really good.

This is the final question I want to ask you. Okay. Okay. Okay. And I mean and this one go on, you can go on on it because I I really want to understand it. Do you believe that if we chose more change, we'd be better at dealing with change? I love that question so much. So the previous stop of this book tour was in San Francisco and uh 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 um so that they learn to embrace change because that's actually 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 almost this perpetual state of unease because that's when we flex all these muscles, all these um abilities that we had that may have been laying dormant because we were always choosing what was comfortable.

Um, and we get to see them on display and think, oh, wow, like maybe I am a little bit more resilient um than than I thought. And I think it's so great for us to introduce change in the form of of challenge um when we learn a new skill. For example, so you you interview you interviewed Chris Hemsworth um for your podcast and I was his brain coach on this show called Limitless. Um and I was so inspired by his attitude. You know, this guy's like one of the most famous actors in the world.

He could just sit back and relax. And he was telling this audience at 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 Nest thermostats to adapt that adapt to the ideal temperature and smart white, like everything's meant to be customized so that it it brings ease into our lives. And Chris was saying, I feel like that's the only vehicle for growth is to be in these uncertain, uncomfortable situations.

That's the only way. The the episode was all about flexing our brain's capacity for plasticity, right? and and building cognitive reserves so that as we age, we feel the the impact less. Again, 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 70,000 people. So, we don't have to do that version. I'm not doing that version.

My smaller commitment um to introduce a little bit of change into my life was repicking 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 uh in 2026. 2026. 2026. Well, my I'm so happy that you took that brief hiatus brief hiatus 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 interviews, research, hundreds and thousands of hours of other people's stories, lived experience, ups and downs, challenges, breakthroughs, discomfort, and you get to invite that all into your life. And as someone who grew up as an avid reader of non-fiction and true stories, I think what Meers 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 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 dealing with change.

There's probably no If there's one skill you dedicated 2026 to, [gasps] it should probably be dealing with change. There is no more important skill. Not Mandarin, sorry. Uh not not anything else. It's it's dealing with change. And so this book is dedicated to that. Ma's dedicated three and a half years and the people that are in the book have spent decades living it through. through. through. Oh my gosh. Totally. Uh and so from the bottom of my heart, hope you'll grab a copy. Maya, I'm so proud of you and grateful for just how you walked 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 humbled when I'm around you. Oh, thank you so much. And uh I'm so grateful 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 uh thank you again for letting me be a part of this. Give it up for my Thank you. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Aemon on how to change your life by changing your brain.

If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers and their brains are very damaged.