Dr. Maya Shankar: Transform Your Mindset to Navigate Life’s Biggest Changes in 2026 | Human Behavior | E381

Why does mindset collapse when the life you planned disappears? Dr. Maya Shankar learned this firsthand after two devastating losses. A sudden injury ended her dream of becoming a professional violinist, and years later, repeated miscarriages shattered her vision of motherhood. These moments exposed how easily we attach self-worth to imagined futures. Drawing from cognitive science and human psychology, she learned to redefine her identity beyond self-imposed labels. In this episode, Maya explores the psychology of change, revealing why we experience “identity paralysis” when unexpected changes occur, and how we can use that to our advantage. In this episode, Hala and Dr. Maya will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:59) Understanding Identity Paralysis (07:21) The Science Behind Change (17:00) Unlocking Potential Future Selves (24:09) The Difference Between Resilience and Reinvention (33:14) How Change Reshapes Values and Beliefs (36:56) Self-Affirmation Exercises That Boost Positivity (40:40) The Change Toolkit: Navigating Life Transitions (57:16) Navigating the Messy Middle of Change (01:00:34) Mastering Career Pivots and Starting Fresh Dr. Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans. She serves as Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google and previously founded the White House Behavioral Science Team under President Obama as a Senior Advisor. A Rhodes Scholar with a Ph. D. from Oxford and a B. A. from Yale, Dr. Maya completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford. Her new book, The Other Side of Change, explores the psychology and stories behind life’s most disruptive transitions. Sponsored By: Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/PROFITING Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting. Spectrum Business - Visit Spectrum.com/FreeForLife to learn how you can get Business Internet Free Forever. Northwest Registered Agent - Build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes at northwestregisteredagent.com/paidyap Framer - Publish beautiful and production-ready websites. Go to Framer.com/profiting and get 30% off their Framer Pro annual plan. Intuit QuickBooks - Start the new year strong and take control of your cash flow at QuickBooks.com/money Quo - Run your business communications the smart way. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com/profiting Working Genius - Take the Working Genius assessment and discover your natural gifts and thrive at work. Go to workinggenius.com and get 20% off with code PROFITING Resources Mentioned: Dr. Maya's Book, The Other Side of Change: bit.ly/TOSOC Dr. Maya's Podcast, A Slight Change of Plans: bit.ly/ASCOP-apple Dr. Maya’s Instagram: instagram.com/drmayashankar Dr. Maya's Website: mayashankar.com Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Newsletter - youngandprofiting.co/newsletter LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Habits, Human Nature, Critical Thinking, Robert Greene, Chris Voss, Robert Cialdini

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hala Taha?

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• 0:45Hala Taha?

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• 1:09Speaker 01

  One way that we can get out of identity paralysis is to define yourself not simply by what you do, but by why you do that thing. But the problem is that life can effortlessly get in the way and make other plans for you, and suddenly you can be denied those labels.

• 1:26Hala Taha?

  Dr. Maya Shankar. She's a cognitive scientist, a former White House advisor, and the host of the award-winning podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. Today, Maya returns to Yap to share insights from her new book, The Other Side of Change.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  We sometimes forget that we ourselves change. When a big change happens to us, it also inspires lasting change within us. Big goals are very psychologically daunting, and it can be very discouraging to only see returns on our investment months and years down the line. Break big goals into small, manageable, achievable goals that will give you a feeling of accomplishment in the short term. The second thing...

• 2:04Hala Taha?

  When we feel like life is out of control, how do we make ourselves feel in control in the moment?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  So let me give you a couple of my favorite evidence-based strategies. The first is called...

• 2:28Hala Taha?

  Yap fam, have you ever had life blindsided you so suddenly that the person you thought you were yesterday no longer makes sense today? Maybe it was a bad breakup you didn't see coming, a career shift, a health scare, or a curveball so big it forces you to ask the question that most of us try to avoid: Who am I now? Nobody understands that question better than Dr. Maya Shankar. She's a cognitive scientist, a former White House advisor, and the host of the award-winning podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. Today, Maya returns to Yap to share insights from her new book, The Other Side of Change. She weaves science together with powerful personal stories, including her own experiences with loss, uncertainty, and reinvention, to show how unexpected change can reveal hidden strengths,

• 3:12Hala Taha?

  reshape our values, and expand who we believe we can become. By the end of this conversation, you won't just see change as something to survive. You'll see change as something that can truly transform you for the better. Maya, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Thanks so much for having me, Hala. It's great to be back.

• 3:28Hala Taha?

  I'm so happy that you're back. And last time, we talked all about decision-making, we talked about your come-up story, and it was such a good episode. I was so excited to speak with you today because I remember how much I loved our previous episode. So if anybody wants to tune in to that first interview that I did with Maya, we're going to play it on Friday this week, so make sure you check it out. But today, we're going to talk all about change and the science of change. And one of the things that really caught my attention when I was reading your book, I was just devouring your book, is this concept of identity paralysis. And so I'd love for us to start there. Talk to

• 4:08Hala Taha?

  us about identity paralysis and why it's such a big issue when it comes to dealing with change.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Identity paralysis refers to the idea that when a big change happens in our lives, when that anvil drops from the sky, we are often uncertain about who we are and who we could be because all of the plans we had once made for ourselves are no longer available to us. So when I was a little kid, I was this budding concert violinist and then a sudden injury derailed my dreams overnight. And I remember experiencing identity paralysis as a fifteen year old because every version of future Maya had involved being a violinist in some way or another. And suddenly, the universe was telling me, okay, you've had this career

• 4:57Speaker 01

  ending injury. Now you need to chart a path forward. But I had no idea what those next steps could look like. And I think one reason a lot of us experience identity paralysis is that change can really threaten our sense of identity in a really powerful way. And it's taken me a while to learn this insight. But when something is taken away from us, it's often only then that we realize how much that thing had defined us in the first place.

• 5:23Hala Taha?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  So when I lost the ability to play the violin at fifteen, I hadn't realized, oh my gosh, I spent nearly a decade of my life playing this instrument and it is what makes me feel valuable and like I have a lot of worth and like I'm able to contribute to society. And so when it was ripped away from me, I wasn't just grieving the loss of the violin, I was also grieving the loss of myself in a much deeper way. And so I think one way that we can get out of identity paralysis is to do something that I've only learned in my adult life and I want to make sure your listeners have this insight so that they don't have to repeat the same mistakes I made, which is to define yourself not simply

• 6:04Speaker 01

  by what you do, but by why you do that thing. So I think naturally, so many of us are used to defining ourselves by the roles we play, right? So I think, oh, I'm an author now. I'm a podcaster. I am a cognitive scientist. But the problem is that life can effortlessly get in the way and make other plans for you. And suddenly, you can be denied those labels, right? And so instead, you can ask yourself, well, what is it that you love about the things you love doing? So when I asked myself, well, what did I love about playing the violin? I realized that human connection was actually at the core of that passion. That I just loved emotionally connecting with other people.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  And just because I lost the violin didn't mean that I lost what made me love it in the first place. And that could still be fully intact. It could be a fully intact part of my identity that I could use as a compass to guide me forward. And as it turns out, I have subconsciously sought out professions that have human connection at their core and everything that I've done since. As a cognitive scientist, I studied the science of human connection, as a podcaster, as a writer. Every conversation I have is all about probing deeply into another person's psychology. And so I would encourage everyone listening to ask themselves, what is their why? What is the thing that makes them tick when it comes to what they love?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  And if you can define yourself in those terms, like I am the type of person who loves caring for others or being really empathetic or getting better at a craft. That can help be your north star as you think about next steps.

• 7:42Hala Taha?

  Yeah, and I feel like it's so important for entrepreneurs, especially because we often tie our identity to our company and the thing that we're building. And if it fails or isn't doing well, we feel like we're a failure and we're not doing well. And so we really need to separate ourselves from our companies and from work as a whole.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  I completely agree. And I'm of course not saying that we should do away with those role-based identities altogether. They can obviously have lots of positive effects. For example, if you are an entrepreneur, it breeds instant camaraderie with other entrepreneurs. And it gives you a sense of meaning and purpose every day that you wake up and can stave off existential angst. So there are benefits, but I really do believe that we should try and build more robust expansive identities that are more resilient in the face of change. So that when something is taken away and we're not able to do that thing, we have something left. We don't feel that all of us has been taken away by the change. And it's so interesting, Hala, I was actually just talking with someone who reached out to me.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  This guy had heard my TED Talk and he said, you know, I was a human rights lawyer. And I got a diagnosis of long COVID and I've no longer been able to perform my lawyer duties. I just don't have the energy or the cognition to do it. And he said, but I listened to your talk about trying to find your why versus your what. And I asked myself what I loved about being a human rights lawyer. And it was representing the disadvantaged among us. And he said, I realized that I could actually still achieve that why in my new state by being an advocate for long haulers, for being an advocate for this new community that I'm a part of. And that was such a beautiful example of consistency in the throes of change.

• 9:35Hala Taha?

  Yeah, so really think about your why, you know, what's driving you to do the thing that you want to do? Not necessarily the what, because what can always change and probably will change over time in this fast-paced moving world. So Maya, talk to us what actually happens to our brain and biology when we're facing big change. Let's say we lose our job and we got laid off.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Change is scary for all sorts of reasons. And one of the biggest reasons is that it's often accompanied by a ton of uncertainty. And our brains are not wired to like uncertainty holla. So one of my favorite research studies shows that we are more stressed when we're told we have a 50% chance of getting an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance of getting an electric shock.

• 10:24Hala Taha?

  Oh, my God.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Right? It's kind of wild and funny, but if you're like me, I so resonate with this, right? As a type A hyper planner who wants to know how the story ends. Part of me is like, yes, bring on the shocks. Just the anticipatory pain of not knowing if they're coming is way worse than the actual shock itself. So. I think that that is one of the biggest reasons why change is so disorienting and why we often feel so unmoored, right? We like having plans and stability and certainty. And what change does is it rips away our sense that things are actually going to be a certain way. And another thing it does is it shatters what's called the illusion of control.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  So what research shows is that most of us, as we operate in our everyday life, we fall prey to the illusion that we have far more control over how things turn out in our lives, how much we will actually dictate how our lives turn out than we actually do. And it makes sense why our brains would be wired like this, right? We want to feel like we have control over our lives. Otherwise, we would probably all descend into nihilism, feeling like, well, what does it even matter what I do? The world's just going to decide my fate. And so, of course, from an evolutionary perspective, that feeling of control was really a big asset to us. But the downside of it is that when a change happens that's unexpected and negative, it

• 11:52Speaker 01

  can in fact shatter this illusion and we are forced to contend with the limits of that control. And I remember having a personal experience with this. I write about it in the final chapter of my book, The Other Side of Change, which is more memoir. The other chapters are devoted to other characters, but I felt like, okay, I gotta walk the walk here. I've just done this study on all these other people. Now I have to turn the mirror towards myself and do some deep reflecting. But, long story short, my husband and I were on this multi-year journey to try to start a family and were unsuccessful. And I remember that when we found out we had had a second miscarriage with our surrogate and had lost identical twin girls, one of the things that disoriented me the most about

• 12:36Speaker 01

  that was the feeling that I was not in control. I'm so used to, and I'm sure your audience, of all audiences, will relate to this, we outwork challenges, right? We figure out a way to hustle, to find creative solutions, to overcome barriers. I mean, that is the entrepreneurial spirit in a Notch shell is how do I still get to yes, even though I have all these barriers in my way? And that is sort of the approach that I've always had in my life, which is, okay, when I'm facing a failure or a setback, I'm just gonna work harder and I'm gonna be more creative and I'm gonna figure it out. And one of the things that this change did for me was it humbled me in this regard.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  There's no such thing as trying harder in the context of fertility and starting a family. The universe doesn't care how much you want something or how hard you worked at it. And so I think that's another reason why I was so eager to write this book is that I felt like that loss of control is so dispiriting. And in my own life, I've been advised by lots of people. And there's this well-known mantra out there all over the internet. You can't control what happens to you, but you can control your reaction. And it's meant to be empowering. And I know there's so much ancient wisdom baked into this mantra. But when I was in the throes of my grief and frustration and feeling of helplessness, it just registered as a platitude.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  I was like, okay, that sounds great, but how the heck do I actually do that? How do I change my reaction? I felt like there was no manual for me to figure out how to actually think and feel differently about the changes that I was going through. And so a big reason that I actually wrote The Other Side of Change was to give people that manual. I wanted to give them a companion, which was part stories that are so exceptional in their nature, but are also universal in terms of the lessons they teach us, paired with science. So they actually had concrete actions they could take to start to renew their relationship with their change.

• 14:38Hala Taha?

  There's so much to unpack with your story about infertility. And one of the things that really resonated with me in the book is this fact that you were grieving this role that you weren't even in yet. This role of motherhood that you always dreamed of. So sometimes we're grieving things that we've lost, that we actually had. And sometimes we're grieving change in terms of what we thought we were going to be, our future self was going to be, but now we have to come to terms that we're not actually gonna be. Who we thought we were going to be.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  That is so beautifully put and just touches my heart that that was one of your takeaways from the book, because that's exactly right. In many ways, I've written it for people who are not just in the throes of change, but are anticipating a potential future and are wondering how change might intersect with all those dreams that they have for themselves, or people who are looking to the past to figure out how they might potentially revisit a change that maybe they don't have a particularly good relationship with. And I will tell you that what you've said is 100% correct. So I think the earliest identity that I ever attached myself to, for whatever reason, right? Growing up in an Indian American family, I sort of absorbed implicit messages that as a woman,

• 15:50Speaker 01

  becoming a mom was the end destination, right? That is where I was going to find my value and my worth, and that is what it meant to live a full life. And so when I was not achieving that, right? When we are consistently not actually building a family, I did feel like this part of my future was taken away. And there's this concept in psychology called possible selves. Possible selves come in three different categories. So there's hopeful selves. Those selves reflect our dreams and aspirations. There's feared selves. Those reflect our worries and anxieties. And then there's our expected selves. Those are the ones that we just think are most likely to happen, irrespective of whether they're good or bad.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  And what our brains can do actually is overly constrain us in the face of a change when it comes to the possible selves we now imagine. And that constraining can happen as a result of stereotypes or assumptions we make about people who are in certain situations. So we might have biases around the type of possible selves that are available to a caregiver or someone who's just lost their job, who's unemployed, or someone who's a college dropout, or someone who is a teen mom, or in my case, a woman who's childless free. And what I realized from my whole experience is that I was influenced by all of these societal norms and pressures around being a child free woman.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  And it actually required challenging a lot of the assumptions that I'd carried as a child. I mean, one thing change can do is that it can serve as a point of revelation. It reveals to you all these beliefs that you were laboring under that may have been previously hidden from view. And now that they're in the light, you have this rare moment to challenge them and to think, well, do I actually believe this? Do I actually believe that you cannot live a full life if you don't have kids? Do I actually believe that a woman's worth should be tied to motherhood? I don't actually think those things, but it can take a lot of unwinding. And so, one of the things that I talk about in the book is how we can, at these moments of inflection, crack open our imagination and actually generate new, more positive

• 18:04Speaker 01

  possible selves in the face of these inflection points.

• 18:10Hala Taha?

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• 18:51Hala Taha?

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• 19:57Hala Taha?

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• 20:28Hala Taha?

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• 21:09Hala Taha?

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• 21:25Hala Taha?

  You talk about defining your future self. And that's something I also talked to Ben Hardy about. It was one of those concepts that I learned, I think it was a year ago when he talked to me about future self, that really was just so powerful and stuck with me because I feel like so often, we don't actually fully try to imagine who we could be in the future. But how do we do that in a way that's not fixed? Because you say humans are essentialists and that we think of ourselves as a fixed thing. How do we think about our future self while also understanding that we're going to have to adapt because not everything's going to unfold exactly how we think it's going to?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  So let me give you a couple of my favorite evidence-based strategies for unlocking our potential future selves that are maybe less constrained than the ones our brains naturally come up with. So one of my favorites is to seek out moments of moral elevation. So what's moral elevation? It's that warm, fuzzy feeling we get in our chests when we witness someone else's extraordinary actions. So that might be their kindness, or self-sacrifice, or their courage, or their resilience, or their ability to forgive. And what's so interesting about moral elevation, when we witness someone else's moral beauty, is that it doesn't just feel good, it actually changes our brains.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  In seeing someone else violate our assumptions about what humans are capable of in the most beautiful way, it actually cracks open our own imagination about what is possible for us. But one of the people that I profile in the book was sentenced to nine years in adult prison for a carjacking he committed when he was 16 years old. And he had had such a promising future, Hala. It's such a tragic story of someone making a really, really terrible mistake just to try to prove something to the boys in his neighborhood. It just completely derailed his life. And he, I remember, this guy's name is Dwayne, he told me, "Maya, it wasn't just my mourning

• 23:26Speaker 01

  all the futures I'd once imagined for myself, it was fearing who all I might become behind bars." Because he had an image of what it meant to be a prisoner. He was worried, am I going to develop a gambling habit? Am I going to become violent for the first time? Am I going to be able to protect myself from violence? He was so scared. And about a year into his sentence, he has a powerful experience with moral elevation. He runs into one of his fellow inmates. And this guy, Bilal, totally defies Duane's expectations of what it means to be a prisoner. He shows such deep care for all the younger prisoners, teaching them how to box and to protect themselves, which Duane thought was not possible in prison. He sort of thought you had to be ruthlessly self-interested in order to survive.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  He also carried himself in such a dignified way. Duane describes it as being like a man in uniform. And he would get up an hour before the guards came over for count time. And he would have done 250 pushups in his cell before that even happened. And so Duane was so inspired by Bilal's example because it showed him that maybe you didn't have to be a certain way just because you were a prisoner. And it was with this empowered mindset that when he discovers a book of poetry and reads a poem that represents young men and boys of color in prison, he thinks to himself for the first time, maybe I could be a poet. I can't do what Bilal can do. That's what he says, right? I'm not strong, I'm not going to be able to teach the kids how to box,

• 24:55Speaker 01

  but I can represent them through my words. And fast forward a couple of decades, Duane is a Yale Law School graduate and the Garthor Genius Prize winner, and writes some of the most gorgeous poetry I've ever read about the experience of young men of color in prison. And so I share this example because moral beauty and the experience of moral elevation is actually all around us if we are just willing to be keen observers, if we just are willing to be in the moment and pay attention. And you can be inspired across domains. So one experience that I reflected on, in which I had an experience of moral elevation, was witnessing, which was after the horrific shooting at Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  The daughter of one of the victims publicly extended forgiveness to the racist killer. And I remember just being absolutely stunned by her capacity for forgiveness. And the interesting thing about moral elevation, Hala, is that it's not even like I was looking to forgive anyone in my life at that moment. This is not just simple inspiration. It's that her example made me see that maybe I am capable as a human of so much more than I thought possible. Maybe I have a greater capacity for kindness. Maybe I have a greater capacity for ingenuity, for empathy, you name it. But that's the power of what these small moments can do to our brains.

• 26:23Hala Taha?

  You have so many inspiring stories in the book, and I think one of the themes throughout the book is basically that change can really unlock strengths that you never even knew that you had. And I think you talk about a girl Christine Ha, who I think she was a blind chef, right? Can you tell us about her story?

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, her story is so remarkable. Christine had always loved cooking and recreating the Vietnamese dishes that she had grown up with, given her mom's cooking. And when she was in her early twenties, she was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition that left her permanently blind. And to our earlier discussion, Hala, in that moment, Christine saw all the future versions of herself that involved being a cook disappear from sight. And yet, with a combination of incredible discipline and the belief that she could actually overcome whatever stereotype she had in her mind around her limitations, she ended up learning how to cook without sight and then went on to win season two of MasterChef.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  She owns two restaurants and has published a cookbook. And one of the things I also talk about in the book is that it's one thing to generate these new possible selves, right? So you can generate possible selves by, again, the experience of moral elevation. You can also read fiction. Fiction is seen as a, quote, "identity laboratory" in which you can try on new versions of yourself and experiment with different ways of being and making decisions in this really psychologically safe space. That's really cool. You can also remind yourself that even though life has taken a turn, you still have all the same skills and talents and abilities that you had before the change. And so the relevant question to ask yourself is, who else can this person be?

• 28:08Speaker 01

  This person who has had all of these life experiences and has accrued all of this wisdom and knowledge. But it's not enough to simply brainstorm who you can be. You actually have to put in the hard work to do it. And so following the story of Christine Hah, I actually unpack the science of motivation. And I share tactical strategies people can use to actually achieve their long-term goals and to realize those future possible selves.

• 28:34Hala Taha?

  We can definitely talk about ways to motivate ourselves. I've got a little toolkit section that I want to do with you in terms of how we can foster change, take on new things. But before we do that, one of the things that you talk about in your book is the difference between resilience and reinvention. Can you break that down for us?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  So as you mentioned, I really see change as this incredible moment, this rare moment to unlock strengths and perspectives and values within ourselves that we didn't know were possible. So one helpful way to talk about this is when a really terrible thing happens to us, it can feel like a personal apocalypse. It can feel like the world we knew and grew to become comfortable with no longer exists. And what's interesting about the word apocalypse is that it's actually derived from the Greek word apokalypsis. And apokalypsis means revelation. And that etymology is so instructive because what it says is that, yes, change can upend us,

• 29:37Speaker 01

  but it can also reveal things to us. I think most of us, as we operate in our lives, think we have a fairly good understanding of who we are. But the reality is that that image we have in our minds of ourselves is based on a limited set of data points that we happen to collect over our lives, based on the somewhat arbitrary set of experiences we had. Now, when we're thrust into a totally new environment and have to face all the demands and stresses and constraints of that new environment, it can often reveal things to us. For example, about the beliefs we are carrying, or about the abilities that we have, or about the perspectives we have. And all of that gives us the opportunity to think

• 30:19Speaker 01

  about our relationship with each of those entities and to see them anew. And I think this actually leads to the thesis of my work overall, both for my podcast, The Slight Change of Plans, and then also this book, which is that we sometimes forget that we ourselves change. So when a big change happens to us, it also inspires lasting change within us. And this is actually a very hopeful message, because when we're really daunted at the outset of a change, if we remind ourselves that we're actually going to become new people on the other side of it, with new perspectives, and new values, and new abilities, and new ways of seeing the world, we might feel so much more capable of actually surviving the

• 31:04Speaker 01

  change than we do just given our present day selves. And we often forget that we change, so much so that scientists have coined a term for this, it's called the end of history illusion. And it refers to the idea that while we fully acknowledge we've changed considerably in the past, so show me pictures of high school Maya, and I will do everything in the world to distance myself from that person, I think I'm a completely different person now. But if you were to ask me, hey Maya, do you think you're going to change a lot in the future? I'd be like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I'm totally done now. What you see is what you get, finished product here. And it's this funny little game our brains play on us, which is, yeah, we've changed a bunch before, but what you see

• 31:45Speaker 01

  today is the finished product. And of course, we are always changing, and a big unexpected change in our lives can accelerate those internal shifts. And so I see change as carrying so much possibility for self-growth and transformation. And what I have found from everyone that I've interviewed is that while they might not have been Happy that the change happened, which is so expected. I want to be very truthful with folks, right?

• 32:13Hala Taha?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Who's gonna invite illness or joblessness or heartbreak into their lives knowingly? Of course not. They were all very happy with the person that they became as a result of the change. I mean, there's a reason I call my book The Other Side of Change is because there is a promised land in that space that can be very hope giving in these moments, that can be very life giving in these moments of total distress.

• 32:40Hala Taha?

  I feel like the most successful people typically have gone through the most challenges and the most pain and have learned the most from all the suffering that they've went through. When I listen to you, one of the stories of my own life that always comes up is I used to work at Hot 97. That was the first job that I had. I used to work at a radio station. It's a very popular radio station. And I actually dropped out of college to work there and I worked for free for Angie Martinez for three years. And then they fired me when I asked to get paid. And I had identified myself as Kala from Hot 97, all my social media handles, everything. And then it literally felt like a part of me had died and I was so devastated.

• 33:23Hala Taha?

  But I learned so much from that experience. I learned to like own what I do, to start my own business, to never let anybody dictate my career, to never let somebody take advantage of me. There were so many lessons that I learned from that failure that changed who I was, to your point, and then enabled me to then start my company's about to hit eight figures. It would have never happened had I not gotten fired from my job. I'm always so thankful and there's that cheesy quote rejection is redirection and all that. You know, there's all these like cheesy quotes about these types of situations, but it's really true. You become a stronger person and a smarter person and a more capable person after you have some setbacks.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  I find that story so inspiring and I love that you've taken the time to reflect on all that you've learned because that is actually a key part of unlocking that sort of growth. Right? You have to actually take a step back and almost do an audit of yourself to figure out, well, what did I learn? And what patterns of behavior were on display in this thing? And can I improve on those and what have you? And your story is reminding me of two stories from the book. One features a young woman, Olivia, who has a massive brainstem stroke in her early twenties that leaves her with locked in syndrome. So locked in syndrome is most people's worst nightmare. In a nutshell, the damage in your brain means that you cannot voluntarily control any of the muscles in your body,

• 34:51Speaker 01

  except for the muscles that control your eyes. So the only way of communicating with people is by blinking. So people will move their finger along the letters of the alphabet and you just have to blink when they get to the right letter. And that's how you painstakingly spell out words to the people around you. And when you're locked in, you fully retain all of your cognition. You feel the same emotions as before. So everything internally is working, but you cannot communicate. And it's so interesting because you talked about some of the lessons you learned afterwards around, you know, empowerment and other aspects of your identity. What Olivia learned from this experience, which was so interesting and so unexpected,

• 35:33Speaker 01

  is how beholden she was to other people's perception of her. Because she realized that when her boyfriend's family, who she had never been able to impress before, came into the hospital, that is when the reality of her situation really dawned on her and she felt the enormity of it. It wasn't her just grappling with how awful it is to not be able to move your body in that way. It was not being able to curate an image of herself for others. It was not being able to be a certain way to impress other people. And her change, almost by brute force, caused Olivia to have to confront who she really was. There's no version of curation when you're in that setting.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  And over time, especially by seeing how much her care team of physical therapists and rehab specialists loved her as a real person who was unfiltered and unvarnished and not that perfect version of her that she'd always tried to maintain, that she started to love herself. And that is the power of change. You get these unexpected lessons. She said she might have gone her entire life not knowing how much she was placing her self-worth in other people's opinions had this not happened. And that now, as a twenty-seven-year-old, she feels more self-assured and more self-confident than she ever could have imagined. And she's so grateful to her change because she said,

• 37:00Speaker 01

  "This mental state that I'm in of self-assuredness could have taken me decades to achieve if I'd gotten there at all." And I think there's something so beautiful in that. And there's another woman Tara, who has a really traumatic experience in childhood, and it leads her to develop a deeply avoidant attachment style. And then through another big change in her life, she recognizes this avoidance and is able to slowly work towards a more secure form of attachment. And so, again, I find it so inspiring when I learn about how sometimes the hardest, worst moments of our lives can actually be the keys that unlock these new versions of who we can be.

• 37:38Hala Taha?

  Something else that changes within us when we encounter change is our own values. So what kind of things typically surface values-wise when we're coming across a big change?

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Oh, all sorts of things. So I think one misconception we have is that most of the values we have in our minds and our beliefs and our ideas about the world are the result of really conscious, deliberate reasoning. And that we put so much thought into all of the beliefs that we have. No, we haven't. Most of them we absorb subconsciously through societal messaging, from messages from our caregivers growing up. And those are particularly powerful because when we're children, those messages are wrapped up in our sense of love and belonging. So we don't want to challenge the beliefs that are passed down to us. And then there's pop culture and teachers and classmates. And so we are absorbing ideas all the time. And most of them are worth revisiting at some point.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  But because we're all so busy, it's not like, Hala, every morning I wake up and I'm like, "What value would I like to revisit today?" Like, none of us have time for that, right? We don't have the time to interrogate everything we believe. But when we go through a change, we can then reflect after the fact. Or if we're anxious and nervous about a future change, we can reflect on what it is that's making us so nervous about it. Right? That will reveal to us what our values are. And there's this incredible story that I write about in the book, featuring a woman named Ingrid. She felt so much shame around her Colombian heritage and some of the indigenous practices that her family engaged in over the years. And what's so interesting about her story, she ends up getting amnesia as a result of a biking accident. And she loses so many of her memories.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  And so the slate is wiped clean. And she has to revisit all of these new memories that are resurfacing in her brain after the injury anew. And gosh, I love this story so much because what happens is when her family's stories start coming back to her one by one. She has not remembered at this moment that she had deep shame around those stories. When they rush back to her, she thinks, oh, my God, these stories are incredible. They're so filled with delight and they make me feel a sense of nostalgia and a desire to go back home. I love these stories. They are incredible. I need to share them with everyone I know. No one had heard, by the way, of these stories and her boyfriend hadn't heard about them. None of her friends in the United States had heard about them.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  And so she starts sharing them liberally. And only a few weeks later, does the memory resurface that she had once been ashamed of those stories. But it was too late. She had already made up her mind without all those biases that she had been carrying for so long about the incredible beauty that was stored within her rich cultural heritage. And I share this because it's a wonderful reminder that none of the beliefs we carry are these sacred immutable truths about the world. They're just things that we kind of come up with at some point. It turns out when Ingrid was a little kid, her mom had cautioned her about sharing her family's stories because she was worried that Ingrid might receive discrimination or prejudice, or maybe the threat of violence, right? From people who didn't understand.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  And Ingrid had overinterpreted that message to be a sign that maybe there was something wrong with her family. And so each of us can look at our beliefs and ask ourselves like a scientist, how did I actually arrive at this belief? Would the people I trust endorse this belief? What evidence in theory would convince me to change my mind? Is there data out there that would actually contradict my current belief and make me want to update it? Right? So we, we need to be curious and to treat the beliefs we carry in our values as almost hypotheses that we should be continually testing.

• 41:21Hala Taha?

  How do we approach life in a way that's not so reactive? Right? So we're always embracing change. Bad things happen. We lose our job. We go through breakups. People die. Life changes. But I don't think it's the best approach to just be reactive and deal with it in the moment. Is there anything that we can do to like better prepare ourselves for change? Or evaluate our values proactively? Or what can we do proactively for this?

• 41:48Speaker 01

  One thing I found to be really helpful to do, whether you're in the throes of change or outside of a change, is what's called a self affirmation exercise. I had an experience with this, actually, after the second miscarriage, where we had just found out we had lost the twins. And my husband came into our bedroom and I was just beside myself with grief. And he's a software engineer, so he didn't know he was engaging me in a self affirmation exercise.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  But he looked at me and he said, Mai, which is his pet name for me. He was like, why don't we just say a couple of things that we're grateful for? And I remember being like, no.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Here you bring toxic positivity into this bedroom. You take your Instagram self-help stuff into that corner over there. I'm staying here under the covers, feeling sorry for myself. Okay, so I was not having it, Hala. And I was, after such a jarring day where we had seen heartbeats on the ultrasound and then we got this horrible news hours later, I was in no mood to reflect on what I was grateful for. Okay? But he wore me down and I think probably I thought at some point, let me just get this guy off my case and just do this thing so we could get to bed. But something magical happened when I started to do it. So I remember thinking, oh, I'm so grateful that I've worked with the same people for over 10 years. The same people that I worked in public policy with, still work with me today.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  I'm so grateful that I get to do these Zoom workouts with my incredibly positive trainer, Matt. I love being an aunt to my six nieces and nephews. I love hosting a slight change of plans. I get to meet the most incredible people and interview them and podcasting is such a joy. And as this list flowed out of me, I started to realize that my life was so much richer and more multifaceted than I'd given myself credit for. So sometimes when we are so single-mindedly focused on a goal, and I imagine again, so many people listening, they have their heart set on achieving a goal. We can develop tunnel vision. We can forget that there are so many other identities that matter to us, that we take great pride in, that are still very much intact.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  And so after I did this exercise, did I feel amazing going to bed that night? Of course not. But did I feel like not all of me had been taken away by this change in plans? Yes, absolutely. Did I feel like there was still fullness and richness in my life? Absolutely. And so I would urge people to do a self-affirmation exercise, no matter what stage of life they're in, because it will reflect back to you what your values are, what you care about in this world. You can just take five minutes and you write down every identity that means something to you and that you value in your life, or that means something to other people. Because, you know, we also can be in service of others and that's a huge source of joy and satisfaction for us.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  And if you are in the throes of a change right now, you want to focus on those values and identities that are not threatened by the change. That's the power of the self-affirmation exercise. So yes, I don't currently have a job. Yes, I don't currently have my significant other because we just broke up. But wow, here are all these other things that can make me feel stable and secure during this point of transition.

• 45:07Hala Taha?

  Hello, young and profiteers. If you're running a business, getting website traffic is only half the battle. The real key to profiting is turning those visitors into paying customers. And I know checkout friction can quietly kill your sales. That's why I always say, "Serious entrepreneurs build on Shopify." Shopify is a commerce platform that helps you launch and run an online store without needing to be super technical. You can build your storefront, manage your business, and make it easy for people to buy. And here's the major advantage. Shopify Checkout with Shop Pay converts up to 36% higher than the competition. With Black Friday coming up, now's the time to get your store ready and simplify your checkout experience. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday,

• 45:52Hala Taha?

  go to Shopify.com/profitting to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/profitting. Go to Shopify.com/profitting today to hear your first...

• 46:07Hala Taha?

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• 46:51Hala Taha?

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• 47:17Hala Taha?

  What's up, Yap gang? I recently had Gary Vee on the podcast and he told me something that really stuck with me. If you've got sales DNA, you've got to be paying attention to live selling, because it's one of the biggest opportunities right now online. And that really got me curious, so I checked out an app that he told me about called Whatnot. I jumped into a live show and I instantly got it. The seller was showing products in real time, answering questions in the chat, and building a real relationship with the buyers. It didn't feel like boring shopping. It felt like a community. Whatnot is the largest live shopping marketplace in the country. And for entrepreneurs, the results are really hard to ignore. Sellers on Whatnot can sell up to 10 times more than traditional marketplaces. And the number of sellers making over a million dollars a year on the platform has doubled.

• 48:01Hala Taha?

  So if you've got products to sell and you're looking for a new way to reach customers, search Whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the App Store. Download it and you can start selling right away. That's Whatnot in the App Store. You talk about so many incredible tools and strategies in the book, and I thought we could play a fun game to get some of these strategies out, where I throw out a scenario and you tell me what are some tools, strategies, things that we should do if we're in this scenario?

• 48:28Speaker 01

  This is so fun.

• 48:28Hala Taha?

  Yes, it's called the Change Toolkit Live. All right, so the first one-

• 48:32Speaker 01

  I love this, Paula. I've never gotten to do something like this where it's like a game show.

• 48:35Hala Taha?

  Really? Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's amazing.

• 48:38Hala Taha?

  Okay, first scenario. Somebody has just been laid off from their job, deeply tied to their identity. What tools would help them navigate the first two weeks?

• 48:48Speaker 01

  I'm going to share one around rumination, because I think what can often happen is that we blame ourselves or we start mentally spiraling around all of the negative exchanges that we've had, all the negative interactions. Our boss might have been terrible and we just fixate over and over and loop through the same thoughts over and over and over again. I feel like I have a PhD in rumination, girl, okay? I am a professional ruminator. And so, one of my favorite techniques to help stave off some of the rumination, actually, can I share two as part of-

• 49:23Hala Taha?

  Of course, yeah, yeah.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll just share two.

• 49:26Hala Taha?

  You can share as many tools and tips as you want.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  There's a couple, there's a couple. The first is called mental time travel. Our brains have this remarkable ability to move forward in time and backward in time. And we can use this to our advantage when we find ourselves in these mental spirals. So you can travel backward in time to remind yourself of instances where you showed greater resilience in the face of adversity than you previously thought. That helps bring you some confidence in this much-needed moment. You can also travel to the future to remind yourself that your current situation is transient. So you can ask yourself, how am I going to feel about this same situation five days from now, five years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now? You probably will feel the same way about this five days from now.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  But in five years from now, when you found your way through it, or definitely 15 years from now, when Paula, you look back at that firing, you actually see that it was a blessing in disguise because it unlocked all these strengths within you and it led you on this incredible path where you are such a badass businesswoman, you will see it through a new perspective. And I use mental time travel all the time because, let's say I've had a negative experience with a coworker and I find myself kind of looping over it. And in some cases, honestly, because I'm feeling embarrassed, I'm like, oh God, why did I say that? That was so awkward. What did I? And then I think, am I going to still feel this was as significant or important in five years from now? Almost certainly not. They might not even be my coworker anymore.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  And so I think that can help breed psychological distance, which is what we're after. Another tool is to try and understand, because you talked about in this hypothetical, that their identity is really tied to their job. It's to engage in what's called affect labeling. So oftentimes, in the aftermath of a change, we just have this cloud of negative emotions. And we often don't even know what's in there. What are the different emotions that I'm feeling? And one technique that can be really helpful is to just label those emotions with as much specificity as you possibly can. So what does that look like? I'm feeling grief. I'm feeling resentment. I'm feeling frustration.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  When you give emotions labels, you shift away from the perspective of being the emotion, of embodying the emotion, to someone who simply has the emotions. And when we create that distance between ourselves and our emotions, it actually allows us to see them more clearly and to actually try and problem solve and develop more constructive solutions. And the final one I wanted to share is something called self distancing. So this is where we try to step outside of ourselves and have more of a third party bird's eye view of our situation. Okay. Two things can happen in the aftermath of, for example, us losing our job. The first is that we are losing some of our self confidence and we might be self berating.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  And we're not exactly our best hype people in that moment. If you're anything like me, you're not your best hype person. So what you can do is pretend that you're coaching a friend. Okay, imagine you're just a fly on the wall observing the situation happening to yourself and you're giving yourself advice. You're saying, you know, Maya, I do want to remind you, you have these incredible strengths. I do want to remind you that there are so many other options you can explore right now. And what research shows is that that will help you meet yourself with more self compassion, which we know, by the way, is not just woo woo, nice self talk. It actually leads to better, more productive outcomes in the longer term. And it will help you to see your situation with more objectivity, given the hormonal fog you might have surrounding it.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  And you can do a quick version of this where if you're coaching yourself, rather than talking to yourself in the first person, like, oh, I just need to get a grip. You say something like, Maya, you need to get a grip. And that slight tweak, it sounds like such a funny little gimmicky thing, has been shown to be so powerful across a range of negative emotions in a wide set of domains. And so again, all of these techniques are meant to just help you breathe some space between you and the challenge that you're experiencing.

• 53:36Hala Taha?

  Okay, scenario number two. Suddenly you go through a breakup and you feel like your world has collapsed overnight. Your significant other will not speak to you and you're craving closure. How do you move forward?

• 53:49Speaker 01

  God, I'm getting anxious just hearing about this. I've totally been there, done that. Yes, we do want closure. We do want clarity. Our brains desire black and white answers. And the reality is that when we climb out of the rubble of a negative change, all there is is gray space around us. Right? And that lack of clarity, not having clear definitive answers, can really crush us. So one woman that I wrote about in the book experienced heartbreak out of nowhere. Her husband of decades had an affair and decided he wanted to get divorced, even though she wanted to make it work. And she was just so grief stricken. And she was desperate to find answers. So she went on this solo canoe trip and she was

• 54:34Speaker 01

  playing through every single scenario that they'd been through. And she was vacillating between extremes, like it's all his fault. No, it's all my fault. And it turns out that her quest for closure actually just led her into a worse mental state than before. Guess what did help? Being part of a community. She visited this really funny sounding museum called the Museum of Broken Relationships in Croatia, which has all these exhibits that are dedicated to relationships that at one point failed. And as Florence was walking through the museum, reading about these love lorn tales, she started to see that, one, she was not alone in her heartbreak and the emotions that she felt. I think a lot of times when we're ruminating,

• 55:19Speaker 01

  our brains can trick us into believing that we're exceptional in some way. Right? That the very complicated not our mind is tied is unlike anyone else's. And that we can't possibly learn from other people's experiences. But she's walking around the museum, she's reading all these exhibits. She's like, wait a second. This singular feeling of heartbreak is so universal. And actually, I can't absorb the lessons that they have to teach me. And what she learns from all of their stories is that Everyone had unanswered questions on the other side of heartbreak. The idea of closure was fool's gold. And so what she actually had to do was to become more comfortable with the idea of living in a world where there were so many unknowns.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  And she ultimately, at the end of her experience, comes to see that there's a little bit of magic in that, in not knowing exactly how life will unfold and not knowing exactly what the answers are to all of her questions around her heartbreak, and that it was still possible to live a happy, fulfilling life without having those answers. And one of the devilish features of rumination is that it can trick us into believing that if we can get that clarity, somehow, everything will be fine. So it's like, if I can just figure out why they broke up with me, then I'll never have someone break up with me again. If I can just figure out why they betrayed me, then I'll never be betrayed again. If I can just figure out why I drove them away, then I'll never, you know? And that is all just fiction.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  That's a game that our brain is playing with us because it's desperate for some sort of certainty or closure, but it actually isn't. So, all of this to say, find community with people, not necessarily who are going through exactly the same thing that you're going through. In fact, one of the theses of my book is that we can learn from people whose stories don't look anything like ours. In fact, the cancer patient had way more in common with a woman whose husband had had an affair because they both experienced feelings of betrayal. So just find community with people who are struggling with the lack of closure they have in their lives, right? Like, why did this happen to me? They're asking those sorts of questions. You can learn a lot. The second piece of advice is to seek out awe-inspiring experiences. So awe can come in all sorts of forms. We already talked about moral beauty.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  That's one source of awe, just other people's extraordinary ways of being. But there's also other types out there, right? Nature, music, art, the complexity of a math theorem. Psychologist Dacher Keltner defines awe as the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world. And so it might be this epic skyscraper, or it might be a beautiful vista, or an incredible hook that was written by a pop musician, you name it. But so many things can fill us with this feeling of wonder. And what awe does to the brain is that it reduces activity in the areas of our brain that are devoted to self-immersion. And what that does is allows us to step outside of ourselves,

• 58:11Speaker 01

  to remember that we are part of a collective whole, and to gain some distance from our current preoccupations and worries and anxieties. We almost have, all gives us these transcendent moments where we can see our situations for what they are and see them with much greater perspective, like cosmic perspective, which I found to be very helpful.

• 58:31Hala Taha?

  I hope anybody who's going through a breakup takes that advice to heart because I feel like it was so good. Okay, scenario number three. It's the start of the new year. You want a fresh start, but you fear repeating your old patterns. What's the best way to scientifically start off the year differently?

• 58:48Speaker 01

  This is one of my favorite ones because this is about the science of motivation, which you said we'd come back to. So a couple of things you could do. One, the beginning of the new year is actually a great time to set forth these goals because of what's known as the fresh start effect. So there's a couple of techniques that I have in my motivation toolkit that I use all the time. The first is to break big goals into small goals. So big goals are very psychologically daunting. When I signed my book deal, I never thought I was ever going to write a book, Hala. I swear to God, for those first four or five months, I was like, okay, I'm going to have to give my advance back.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  I don't know if I'm going to make this happen. Because all the big goals we have are often multi-year goals, right? And so you don't feel a sense of accomplishment or completion in the short term, and it can be very discouraging to only see returns on our investment months and years down the line. Now, if you can take a big goal and break it into mini goals. So for example, okay, I'm not going to write the whole book today, but let's say I just search for really fascinating people over the next two weeks, just to try to identify amazing humans that I can interview. And that's one of my concrete small goals. One, I'm going to feel a lot of pride having accomplished that two weeks later. So that's going to give me a boost in my motivation. But two,

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  it helps avoid what's known as the middle problem. So the middle problem refers to the idea that motivation levels do not remain stable and consistent over time. We get a huge boost in motivation at the outset of working toward a goal. And then we get a huge boost in motivation right when we're near the end, when we can see the finish line. But there's actually a lull in motivation in that middle section. And when you have a year-long goal, the middle section is months long. When you have a weekly goal, the middle section is days long. And so when you only have a couple of days, you're less likely to fall off the wagon, right? And just give up on the goal altogether. So that's number one, break big goals into small, manageable, achievable goals that will give you a feeling of accomplishment in the short term.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  The second thing, and this is one of my absolute favorites, is called temptation bundling. So this is when we pair, I think we might have talked about this one. This is when we pair the challenging thing that we're trying to make progress on with an immediately rewarding thing that we otherwise wouldn't give ourselves access to. So I kid you not, I clearly am a child. When I was writing the book, I would have a little bowl of candy on my desk. And I would allow myself to eat as much of these like little coffee chews as I wanted during my writing sessions. But I was never allowed to have the coffee chews outside of that space. Okay. Or in other cases, I will save my favorite music to listen to when I'm working out. And I'm not allowed to listen to that music when I'm not working out.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  And so what happens is that the challenging thing becomes mentally associated with this really positive, fun thing. And you start wanting to return to it with more frequency. The last insight that I would share speaks to another funny quirk in the brain, which is around how we build memories of things in the past. It turns out that when we reflect on an experience, not all moments are created equal. We give a lot more weight to the peak of that experience. So the most emotionally intense moment, negative or positive. And then we give a lot of weight to the end of that experience. It's called the peak end rule. So what does this mean? It means that we can actually shape the end of our experience to reflect back on it more favorably. So what does this look like in practice?

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Well, if I have a really challenging workout, I might tack on a gentle stretching session just at the end, just for two minutes, because that I know is going to be overweighted in my memory. Or let's say there's something really, really uncomfortable, like I'm bashing my head against the wall, trying to get this paragraph out, but I end the writing session by just mapping out a couple of bullet points for my next chapter. Now I'm going to reflect back on it more favorably. And so you can deliberately shape that end to make it more likely that you return to your goal the next time and more likely that you don't fall into old habits.

• 1:02:51Hala Taha?

  Last scenario. You're an entrepreneur and you feel overwhelmed by uncertainty. You have no idea where the market is going. You have no idea how your business is going to go. You just feel overwhelmed with uncertainty. What are some tools you can use so you don't spiral?

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  One tool is called cognitive reappraisal. And this means deliberately reinterpreting an event in order to alter the emotional impact that it has on you. So one thing you can do in these moments is to remind yourself that the reason why you're so fearful of these future outcomes is because you really, really care about your business succeeding. And that's actually a great thing to care so much about something that it causes anxiety is actually not something to be taken for granted. Lots of people have complacency when they go through their lives and all they want is a sense of meaning and purpose. We also see the efficacy of this approach when it comes to stress. So when we're feeling stressed, we often just think it's a really bad thing. But we know actually stress has positive impacts and stress is a signal to our brain

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  that the thing we're about to do really matters to us. And that's exciting. That's why we're having this adrenaline-based response, right? I care about how this podcast is going to go with Hala, right? I care about how high quality my book is going to be. That's why I'm feeling stressed. Okay, so that's one. The second, which is kind of counterintuitive, is to distract yourself a little bit. So distraction gets a really bad rep, but modern research shows that it can actually be a really healthy coping mechanism for dealing with these kinds of ruminative spirals and just negative events in general. I think there's a narrative out there that if we don't Directly and persistently confront our negative emotions or our biggest fears all the time, then down the line, those emotions will rear their ugly heads with even greater force.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  But modern research shows that's simply not true. And for a lot of people, distraction is actually a very good strategy to have in their toolkit and can give them much-needed relief from that anxiety and stress so that they are more resilient longer term.

• 1:04:49Hala Taha?

  What are ways that we can make sure that when we feel like life is out of control, how do we make ourselves feel in control in the moment?

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  So one thing I do, and I've only done this maybe in recent years, but it's actually helped, is to introduce a really small daily ritual into our lives that we do without fail. For me, and I've actually brought it to this interview, I make a cup of Indian-style tea. So I cut up fresh slices of ginger, cardamom, a Sam tea, and it is a whole thing that I do. And when I travel, I pack my tea bags, and I pack the creamer I use, and I pack the ginger. So I'm making this tea in hotel rooms. Wherever I go, my tea is the thing that grounds me in my morning. And the reason why rituals are so important is that they signal to our brain that despite the fact the world might be swirling around us, despite the fact that so much is uncertain,

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  there are still some things that are fully in our control, that we can introduce into our lives no matter what. And there have been moments, by the way, Hala, where I have felt like this warm, cozy tradition ritual thing doesn't fit my day, right? Like, I'm having a terrible day and I don't want to do it, but I do it anyway. And subconsciously, I do think that it brings me some reassurance, like, okay, there's something safe and cozy that still exists in my current world, which is making me feel totally disoriented.

• 1:06:12Hala Taha?

  Let's say somebody is in the messy middle right now. They're currently going through change, whether that's losing their job, a breakup, something terrible has happened to them, and they're currently going through a change. What do you want to tell them in this moment?

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  I want to tell them that one, I feel you. I've been in your position so many times and it is very, very scary to be right in the thick of it. At the same time, I have come out the other side of change in my own life. More hopeful and more optimistic than I ever thought I could be. If you had asked me in my moments of my most harrowing grief, will anything good ever come out of this? Is there anything redemptive about this situation? Will you ever become a better person? I would have been like, of course not. This is only bad. And so as someone who would lean more cynical in that department, I have been so heartened to see that what I'm talking about in my book, the premise of my book of us becoming new people on the other side

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  in ways that lead to richer, better lives has come true for me. I just have the firsthand experience of having been so transformed by the wisdom and insights from the people I interviewed and by the science of it all, that I feel like I have a much better relationship with change. And I am so happy about the person I've become as a result of the hardest moments in my life. And I have two allergies. One is soy and the other is cliches and platitudes. And so I'm the first to be like, really Maya? There's like a true silver lining in change. And I promise you, this is real talk. Again, the change itself might not be anything you ever willed,

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  but I promise you that through a combination of revelation and growth, you will unlock parts of yourself that you did not even know existed. And there will be gratitude around the incredible person that you become.

• 1:08:07Hala Taha?

  For entrepreneurs tuning in, a lot of us are really high achievers. We're masters of our field. And sometimes change happens where we've got to like start from scratch. And suddenly we need to grapple with being a beginner again, which could be really hard. Any advice for folks who might be having to start from scratch right now? Maybe reinvent their careers?

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Yes, because I experienced a version of this, actually, right? So going back to my violin story, I had spent almost 10 years of my childhood honing a craft, right, and devoting my whole life to being a violinist. I was studying at Juilliard. My teacher was Itzhak Perlman. I was on the up and up. And all of a sudden, the universe was like, nope, you're not going to do this anymore. And I had to figure out how to start from scratch. And since then, I've had many career pivots in which I've had to start from scratch. So I'm very familiar with this mindset. One thing that has really helped me is to remind myself that just because it is technically starting from scratch, all of the soft skills that I've built over the course of my professional

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  life and my personal life will service me well in this next pursuit. So yes, did being able to play complex passages on the violin help me as a cognitive scientist? Of course not. But did learning how to be really resilient in the face of failure? Did overcoming stage fright, because I had to perform in front of thousands of people? Did cultivating grit and perseverance? Did those things help me in my role as a cognitive scientist? And to this day, in my various pursuits? So much so, right? And so the question to ask yourself when you are starting fresh is, what are the skills that I've built previously that I can still carry with me into this next space?

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  And then you will feel less ill-equipped, less unprepared for this new moment. You actually have so many more capabilities than you might have thought that are going to help you kick ass at this new venture.

• 1:10:05Hala Taha?

  So I usually end my show with two questions that I ask all my guests. The first one is all about taking action, actionable advice. But I feel like you spent most of the interview giving us actionable advice. So we're going to skip that one. The last question that I ask is, what is your secret to profiting in life? Now, this show is called The Young Profiting, as you know, and this could be profiting in all aspects of your life. What would you say your secret is?

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  One of my favorite insights from the research, because it's so heartening, is that helping others is one of the best ways to boost our own well-being. And I had this conversation with the former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, and he was telling me that in the face of the loneliness epidemic, one of the best antidotes is not necessarily self-care. It is actually just going out into the community and doing something to make other people's lives better. And it doesn't have to involve starting some epic nonprofit. It can be as small as helping someone cross the street, or smiling at a stranger, or you notice someone in a challenging situation and you just stop by and see if you can help them.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  These small moments have outsized positive impacts on our mental health and our sense of well-being and our self-compassion, because we see ourselves being valuable in the world around us. And so I try to practice that as much as I can in my daily life, and I would encourage everyone listening to do that, too, because it'll just make the world a better place.

• 1:11:31Hala Taha?

  Maya, I love having you on the show. You are always welcome back. You just give such incredible advice, and you've got so much great content. You're such a pro. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  So the first thing folks can do is to preorder a copy of my book, The Other Side of Change. As a first-time author, I would really appreciate this, and pre-orders really, really help signal to bookstores that there's interest in this book. So you can find The Other Side of Change wherever you buy books. This book was truly a passion project for me. It features stories that folks will not have heard on my podcast, and it's been years in the making, so I'm just so excited to share this project with people, and I want to hear from as many readers as possible about what their reactions are. So you can reach out to me directly. I try to respond to everyone on Instagram, @DrMayaShankar. So that's D-R-M-A-Y-A-S-H-A-N-K-A-R.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  I would love to hear from you after you've had a chance to read the book. And then, of course, there's my Pride and Joy, my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. We're just entering, I think, our fifth year of making the show, and of course, I would love to have you tune into the show and to let me know what your thoughts are there, too.

• 1:12:41Hala Taha?

  Amazing. We'll stick all those links in the show notes, all the links to your social as well. Maya, I know your book's going to be a bestseller. I'm so excited for you. So congratulations and thanks for joining us.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me, Hal. It's always a pleasure to receive your brilliant questions, and I love the energy that you bring to your show.

• 1:13:03Hala Taha?

  Yap fam, I just adored my conversation with Maya. I love how she brings clarity to the chaos of change, and she doesn't sugarcoat how disorienting it can feel when life pulls the rug out from under you. But Maya also showed us, through science and stories, that these moments can actually carry enormous potential and positivity. One of the things that stuck with me was her idea of defining yourself by your why instead of your what. So many of us, especially us entrepreneurs, we tie our worth to our job title, our success, our company, our relationship, or a goal that we're chasing. But like Maya said, the what can disappear overnight. That's why the why is so important. The why is what stays with you. When you understand the deeper motivation behind your passions,

• 1:13:47Hala Taha?

  you can rebuild in any direction, and that is a powerful shift. I also love her concept of expanding our possible selves. We often assume our future is a narrow continuation of who we are today, that we're not going to change much. But change can actually widen that path. But we don't need to wait for heartbreak in order to see a different version of who we could become. We can seek out moral elevation, read fiction that stretches our identity, or simply ask, who else can this version of me become? This will open up possibilities that you may have never considered. Maya also gives us practical tools for navigating uncertainty. Mental time travel can help break rumination loops by reminding us that today's crisis won't hold the same emotional weight five, 10, or 15 years from now.

• 1:14:32Hala Taha?

  Labeling emotions with precision gives you distance from them. And self-distancing, coaching yourself like you would a friend, creates clarity you need to move forward with confidence. And finally, her self-affirmation exercise is such a valuable reframing tool. When a singular part of your identity falls apart, it's easy to forget the rest of who you are. Listing out all your identities, all your values, all your relationships that are still intact can restore stability in moments of upheaval. These insights remind us that change isn't just something we endure. It's something that can expand us, strengthen us, reveal who we're becoming. And the best thing is that you get to choose who you become on the other side. If you resonated with Maya's wisdom on turning change into transformation,

• 1:15:16Hala Taha?

  make sure you go grab her book, The Other Side of Change. It's packed with stories and science that will shift how you see every curveball life throws your way. And before we go, I want to spotlight a Yap listener who took the time to drop us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Mike BH says, "As a Neo Fight Podcast creator and host of Do You Ever Wonder? I'm astounded by the guests Hala brings to the party. Add to that the value each episode provides, and it's a must-listen to channel. Five stars for sure, only because there's no option for 10 stars." Mike, thank you so much for that awesome review. That was so sweet. I appreciate you. I'm cheering you on your podcast journey. I know you're going to crush it. Yap fam, I'd love to hear from you too. I love to read your reviews. Literally every day I check for new reviews.

• 1:15:59Hala Taha?

  So if you love this show, let me know why. Tell me what you love about it. Tell me your favorite episodes, your biggest takeaways. Drop a comment on YouTube, Apple, Castbox, wherever you listen to the show. Your insights help us craft even more better conversations. You can also hang out with me on Instagram at YapWithHala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha. All right, Yap gang, this is the end of the show, and this is your host, Hala Taha, AKA The Podcast Princess, signing off.