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 Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new kind of daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robay.
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And me, Simone Boyce.
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Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.
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I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side.
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You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share.
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 Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.
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 At one of the most famous restaurants in the world, there's a table in the corner where the most incredible conversations on the planet are happening every week with owner Ruthie Rogers and amazing guests like Martha Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and Paul McCartney.
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 We've saved you a seat.
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Ruthie's Table 4.
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Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You're free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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 I'm John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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SPEAKER_03
 When we have these really big life changes, these big milestones, like we move to another town, or we buy a home for the first time, or we get married, or we have kids, or we take a new job, those moments in time can serve as breaks from our past and all the habits that we used to have.
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In many ways, we can take on a new identity in this new role.
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 Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every single one of you for learning, listening, and growing with us every single week.
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Now, you know that I'm always trying to find new minds, new people, thought leaders who have insights that can help me learn, listen, and grow.
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And then I want to share that with you.
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And today's guest, when I first read about her,
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 I was blown away immediately and I knew I had to have her in the studio for this conversation.
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And so we finally are here.
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She came all the way.
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She's with us in person.
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I'm talking about none other than Maya Shankar.
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 For those of you that don't know, she's the senior director of behavioral economics at Google and is the creator, host, and executive producer of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, where she interviews fascinating guests that I can't wait to talk to her about.
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She previously served as a senior advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as chair of the White House's behavioral science team, a team of scientists tasked with improving public policy using research insights
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 from human behavior.
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Maya, thank you so much for being here.
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Your resume is phenomenal.
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You have an incredible set of expertise.
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I secretly wish I was a behavioral economist.
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I love hearing that.
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That comes from my
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 Behavioral economics has been like my passion since I was 15 years old, and I'm not smart enough to be one.
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But I get to sit with you today and get to pick your brain.
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So thank you for being here.
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Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me.
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It's such a pleasure to be with you and to be in person with you, which feels so special at this point in time.
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 Yeah, and we've already been talking offline and getting on, so anyone who's listening to this podcast, you're in for a real treat.
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Maya is so warm, so relaxed.
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You have such a warm energy about yourself.
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I know you were saying that about my wife, but you have the same energy.
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I need to tell your listeners.
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So, knocked on the door.
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 And Ravi, Jay's wife, opens the door, has no idea who I am.
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I'm with my friend Madeline, and she greets us in absolutely the warmest way.
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She's like, hello, welcome to my home.
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I have no idea who you are, but I'm going to be effusive and warm anyway.
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And I was so struck by her presence and that kind of energy.
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And then, of course, you walk up the stairs and you have exactly the same vibe.
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So I know why you guys are married.
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It's very sweet to see that in action.
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 Well, we felt the same from you immediately as well.
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And I feel like we're old friends already in the way that we're talking.
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And I want to go back because I do want to use this as an excuse to get to know you better.
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But let's go back to the beginning of your journey.
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And I read that you were off to become a really successful violinist.
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And that was the path that you were on until you experienced an injury.
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I want to hear about that journey, your fascination with music, and tell us about how it all started out.
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 Yeah.
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So when I was six years old, my mom went up to her attic and brought down my grandmother's violin that she had brought with her all the way from India when she immigrated to this country.
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So it was one of those few things that she carried with her.
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And when I was six, she brought it down from the attic and showed it to me.
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And
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 She had only meant for me to see it.
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She said, Oh, you know, I want, you know, this is, this is your Patti's instrument, right?
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That's how you say grandmother in Tamil.
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And, um, I, I looked at it and she noticed that I was so quickly taken by the instrument.
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Um, I very quickly asked for a pint sized violin of my own, and she went to the store and got me a quarter sized violin.
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And.
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 I was infatuated.
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I mean, my mom never had to tell me to practice.
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Every day I'd rush home from school, go upstairs, open my instrument.
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And I assure you, Jay, I didn't feel that way about everything I was studying in school, but the violin was something that just felt like it came so naturally to me.
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And so when I was nine years old, and I was that classic kid with really big dreams and no idea how to get there, my mom and I were in New York.
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 Now, my parents have no connections at this point into the classical music world.
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And so, you know, my dad's a theoretical physicist.
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My mom helps immigrants get green cards in this country.
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They had no idea how to facilitate, you know, this transition for me.
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But then my mom is such a fearless go-getter.
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So we're walking by the Juilliard School of Music in New York one Saturday.
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I happened to have my violin with me, and she said, Maya,
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 Why don't we just go in?
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What do you mean, why don't we just go in?
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We don't have an invitation.
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That's why we don't go in.
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That's nuts.
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And she's like, let's just go in.
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Let's see what happens.
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What's the worst thing that can happen?
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I was like, well, I'll tell you the worst thing that can happen.
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I'm going to get rejected and it's going to be terrible.
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And my mom didn't care.
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She's like, we're going in.
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 So we walk into Juilliard uninvited, and we stumble upon a fellow classmate.
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And my mom says, hey, would you mind if my daughter auditions for your teacher today?
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I know we don't have the formal invitation, but that would be wonderful.
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And they were so generous and kind.
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And I auditioned for him, and he accessed me into a summer program.
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And then six months later, I auditioned for Juilliard and get accepted.
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 Wow, that is amazing.
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Yeah, my mom is, she's taught me so many lessons, but one of them was, don't wait for that silver plate, just create it, right?
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And so that began my journey of just being so in love with violin.
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And when I was a teenager, Itzhak Perlman asked me to be his private violin student.
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And I'm sure a lot of your listeners can relate to this, but when you're in a deeply competitive environment like Juilliard, you don't really know if you have what it takes to succeed.
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 And so when Perlman took me on as his student, that was the vote of confidence that I needed, that like, oh, maybe I do actually have what it takes.
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And so I was even able to convince my parents that I should, you know, I wanted to go pro.
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And they were finally like, OK, fine, you don't have to do the liberal arts education.
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You can go to a conservatory for college.
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So I had everyone on board.
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 And then, like you mentioned, when I was 15, I had a sudden hand injury.
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Basically overnight, doctors told me that I could never play the violin again.
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And as you can imagine, I was just completely despondent because the violin had played such a formative role in my life up until that point.
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I felt like I was first and foremost a violinist, right?
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It was my identity.
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And, you know, there's this interesting
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 insight from cognitive science which says which is about this concept called identity foreclosure and refers to the fact that We can get really fixed in certain identities, especially in adolescence I mean it can carry through into adulthood, but certainly in adolescence and I felt prey to that I kind of felt like I
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 For the first time ever, I was asking all these existential questions about myself, like, who am I?
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Who am I without the violin?
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I'd never thought to ask myself that question before.
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And in many ways, being forced to pivot at that moment in my life has given me a much more malleable sense of self, a much more malleable identity.
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And I think that's served me well as I've endured life's twists and turns.
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SPEAKER_04
 Yeah.
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Wow.
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I mean, I can't imagine what it feels like to be that age and be told you can't play an instrument again and, you know, something that you've built up such a close relationship with over nine years.
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I mean, tell us about what you were feeling.
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How did it affect your confidence?
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Because I'm guessing at that time as well, when your identity is wrapped up in being a performer or being a violinist and you have this incredible mentor and then that's taken away, what did that feel like?
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And, you know, what did that kind of push you towards?
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What changed about you at that point?
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 I resisted it for a while.
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I was the impatient teenager that was like, I'm going to get through this.
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Damn those doctors.
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I don't care what they say.
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Well, actually, those doctors were super right.
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And I needed to just have listened to them from the beginning.
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But I think what it taught me was something very important, which was
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 It was much more stable and sturdy for me to attach my identity not to a specific thing, but to the traits of that thing that lit me up.
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And so when I dug deeper, I realized, you know, my child brain thought, well, I love the violin.
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I love the instrument.
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I love the way it feels.
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I love the sounds it produce.
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 But actually, Jay, the thing that really got me ticking is the fact that my instrument allowed me to forge a close emotional connection with people almost effortlessly.
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So imagine I'm a kid, right?
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Nine years old.
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I go onto a stage.
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There's thousands of people in the audience that I've never met before.
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They've never met me.
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And within moments,
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 I'm allowing them to feel something they've never felt before, right?
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We have some sort of emotional intimacy and bond that's forming between us just because the music that I'm playing.
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And I realized like, well, that's what I'm actually passionate about.
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It's human connection.
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 I mean, that's probably why I responded so much to your warmth, right?
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Because that's genuinely what makes me tick in life is connecting with other human beings, trying to understand what motivates them, what pains them, what brings them joy.
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And I feel like that led me down this path to studying the human mind in all of its intricacies, right?
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The science behind the human mind.
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And in many ways, it led me to this new podcast I've been creating, A Slight Change of Plans, where I have this license now to go into a room
0
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 and interview people like Hillary Clinton and Tiffany Haddish and others and say, hey, Hillary, apropos of nothing, what is your biggest insecurity?
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What's the hardest moment of your life?
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You can cut through all the pleasantries and just really dig deep.
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And I think when I look over the course of my life, that is the common thread.
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It's this deep desire to emotionally connect with those around me.
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And I've just tried to find that in other pursuits.
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 you know, for those listening, I feel like if you're going through a hard time where you're being forced to pivot, try to identify what features or traits of things that you like, and then try to engage in an exploration to figure out where else they might exist in other domains.
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Yeah.
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I'm so glad you raised that point.
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I think that's so powerful.
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Like we get so obsessed with activities and identity shaped around activities, and it's not about activities.
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It's about the aspects, the subtle things, the
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 the role you get to play, the relationship you have with that thing that makes a difference.
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I often say to people, like people think like your purpose is to be a speaker or your purpose is to be a podcast.
0
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And it's like, well, none of those are a purpose.
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They are vehicles and they are platforms and they're modes of sharing a message.
0
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But the purpose is the reason why you do it and your intention and what you put into it.
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And I think we all get so lost with like, well, what's the activity that I want to do?
0
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 So I love how you broke that down and simplified that, but you also gave me a few good, uh, you also gave me a few good questions to ask you now, based on what you've been asking other people.
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So I'm going to be using them on you.
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Uh, I was going in that direction.
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I wanted to know since then, what do you think is the most difficult experience you've personally gone through since then?
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So that was obviously a big thing at 15, 16.
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What since then has been probably the biggest personal challenge that you feel you've been faced with?
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 I think the biggest challenge one faces is growing into themselves.
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I think for me, if I were to summarize the biggest challenge in my own life, it is the acceptance of certain parts of my personality that I wish were different, that I just need to be okay with, and to manage in life in spite of those things, right?
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Give me an example.
0
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I'm incredibly impatient.
0
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 I want everything to have happened yesterday.
0
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And that impatience can have lots of negative.
0
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I mean, my mom would always say, when I was a kid, that she's like, before I'd know it, you were running across the street.
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You wouldn't wait for the light to turn.
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She's like, I was always terrified something was going to happen to you.
0
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So I've always seen my impatience as being a negative thing.
0
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 But then I think about the parts of my life in which that impatience has really served me well.
0
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So a good example of this is, so quick backstory.
0
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So as I mentioned to you, I discovered cognitive science and I ended up becoming an academic.
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 I did my PhD, I did my postdoc in cognitive neuroscience.
0
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And I remember there was this moment, I was in the basement of, I was at Stanford at the time, so I was in the basement of an fMRI laboratory, and I was scanning this guy's brain.
0
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I'd probably been in this windowless room in the basement for about five hours at this point.
0
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 So he comes in, and within moments, I'm peering into his brain.
0
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And I'm thinking to myself, given my personality, I feel like the order of operations is a little off here.
0
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Like, I don't know whether this guy has kids.
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I don't know what he's passionate about.
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I don't know if he has children.
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I don't know what his favorite ice cream flavor is.
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These are important questions, Jay.
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I don't know anything about him.
0
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And yet, I'm peering into his brain, which feels really intimate.
0
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So I remember thinking to myself, I'm too social for this.
0
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Like, I need to pivot in some way.
0
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 And I didn't know what to do, because what does a postdoc in cognitive neuroscience do other than become an academic, become a professor?
0
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So I ended up talking with my undergraduate mentor, who I know you know, Laurie Santos.
0
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Oh, I didn't realize that.
0
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Yeah, yeah.
0
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So she was my freshman.
0
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I love Laurie.
0
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I did not know that.
0
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I don't know how I missed that.
0
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Yeah, she's one of my closest friends and has been an incredible mentor to me ever since freshman year of college.
0
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I can share the story how we met at some point later.
0
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But anyway, I call her up and I'm saying to her,
0
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 Laurie, so the thing I've been doing for the last 10 years, I'm kind of in like a JK moment where I no longer want to be doing this, but what do I do next?
0
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Should I try to become a general management consultant?
0
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Like, I don't understand what I can do.
0
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So she tells me,
0
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 Maya, there's this incredible work happening in the White House right now where they are using insights from our field, from the science of decision-making, and it is changing people's lives.
0
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So for example, they are changing the default settings in this school lunch program that helps low-income kids eat lunch every day.
0
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And instead of it being an opt-in program,
0
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 They're making it an opt-out program so that all eligible kids are automatically enrolled without the need for a burdensome application or the stigma associated with signing up your kids for a public benefits program.
0
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And now parents only need to take a step if they want to actively unenroll their kids from the program.
0
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So as a result of that change, 12.5 million more kids were eating school at lunch every day.
0
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 So I'm thinking to myself, so this gets to the impatience piece, right?
0
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Thinking to myself, oh my gosh, I want to have that job, but that job doesn't exist.
0
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It just was work that was happening.
0
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There's no role for a behavioral scientist.
0
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And so I go home that day and Laurie makes some connections for me and- You fly to DC and walk into the White House like you walked into Julia.
0
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That's what happens, right?
0
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It's actually pretty close to that, Jay.
0
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 I send a cold email to an Obama advisor.
0
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He doesn't know who I am.
0
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I'm riding off the coattails of famous people like Larry Santos and Cass Sunstein, who wrote the book Nudge, and they're helping guide the way.
0
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But I basically interview with a White House official two days after I send this email.
0
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 I moved to D.C.
0
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without having a formal offer letter.
0
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I remember I sold everything in California other than my bike.
0
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I signed a one-year lease in D.C.
0
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and I was like, I'm here whether y'all like it or not because I need to be here.
0
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So that impatience kicked in.
0
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And then it really kicked in when I was at the White House where
0
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 I had this big, grand goal to build a team of behavioral scientists, and I wasn't given a mandate or a budget to do so.
0
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And that impatient personality really helped me thrive there, where I refused to take no for an answer.
0
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I pushed people every day.
0
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I was like, every day matters in this administration.
0
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I feel like accepting the parts of myself that I haven't always liked and trying to figure out if there are silver linings to those traits.
0
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Like, my husband and I will often do this, even in our relationship, right, where I'll be like,
0
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 I'll be like, Jimmy, you're being too much of a people pleaser.
0
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You need to just say no to the person.
0
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And he'll remind me.
0
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He'll be like, you know, Maya, the fact that I can be a people pleaser sometimes does make me a very loving husband.
0
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I am very kind.
0
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I'm like, oh, you are really kind and loving.
0
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You're so right.
0
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And so I think my husband, Jimmy, has helped me
0
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 If we can do that with each other, remind each other that traits are complicated and complex and they have pros and cons, then we should give ourselves the same, we should constantly remind ourselves.
0
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And he was teaching me by role modeling it with himself.
0
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I should remember that there are also some pros.
0
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 I love that.
0
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Is he a behavioral economist too?
0
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He's actually a software engineer.
0
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_03
Right.
0
SPEAKER_04
Okay.
0
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I was just like, is he like, you know.
0
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But he's very wise.
0
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I feel like he is a behavioral economist at times.
0
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Can I, can I ask you that same question though, which is, is there a trait in you where you didn't always embrace it, but you've learned over time that there might be a, you know, it's a double edged sword in some way.
0
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No, it's really interesting.
0
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When I, when I think about,
0
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 I'd have to stop to think about if there's a trait.
0
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I feel that way about, when you started talking about that, the first thing that came to my mind was, and I've been feeling this a lot lately and I've been talking about it, it's this idea of when I lived as a monk, I was trying so hard to be a monk.
0
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And now I've realized that that's just one part of me.
0
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I love being a messenger through media.
0
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I love being a thinker.
0
SPEAKER_04
I love being a content creator.
0
SPEAKER_04
I love being so much more
0
SPEAKER_04
 than that.
0
SPEAKER_04
And that's such a big part of my identity.
0
SPEAKER_04
It still is a massive part of my life.
0
SPEAKER_04
It's, it's the foundation of who I am, but it's not all of me.
0
SPEAKER_04
I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a married man and I, and I love being married.
0
SPEAKER_04
I love being an entrepreneur and I love strategy and marketing and I love all these things, which wouldn't, you wouldn't think a monk likes all those things.
0
SPEAKER_04
And so it took me a lot of time to kind of unravel
0
SPEAKER_04
 what that identity was where I saw myself for such a long part of my life or such a deep part of my life as a monk and now to realize that's a part of me and not all of me.
0
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I think so I'm trying to think of a trait to give you a more specific answer.
0
SPEAKER_04
I think I've always been pretty self-assured and so I think I've turned stuff probably earlier than people would and that's
0
SPEAKER_04
 Either that's my illusion or delusion, and I'm okay with that.
0
SPEAKER_04
But I'd say that intensity, I always talk about intensity as one of my traits.
0
SPEAKER_04
I'm a very intense person.
0
SPEAKER_04
If I'm focused, I'm very laser focused.
0
SPEAKER_04
And that causes a lot of issues because I can have tunnel vision.
0
SPEAKER_04
I can be completely
0
SPEAKER_04
 dedicated and obsessed with something and not care about everything else for that time.
0
SPEAKER_04
But I've also realized that's what helps me learn and grow quicker and accelerate and move forward.
0
SPEAKER_04
And so I actually think if you look at every one of your traits, you're right, you'll find a pro and a con for every trait we have.
0
SPEAKER_03
 Exactly.
0
SPEAKER_04
And you have to, I think we have to learn how to use them in a way that helps us serve ourselves and serve others as opposed to use them in a way that forces other people to have to change.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I think that's the part, I think that's the part that I'm becoming more and more conscious of as a trait is the trait of
0
SPEAKER_04
 being extremely focused on something shouldn't stop you from being aware of other people's feelings.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I think if I can get that subtlety right, then I'm going to win.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_04
But if I don't have that subtlety, I've worked with so many clients that that's exactly the subtlety they didn't have.
0
SPEAKER_04
And then that led to destruction of their families, their marriage, their personal lives or whatever it may have been in the pursuit of greatness in a certain regard.
0
SPEAKER_04
Does that make sense?
0
SPEAKER_03
 It does make sense.
0
SPEAKER_03
And it's making me think too, as I'm listening to you share this with me, I think, well, of course you should embrace that, Jay.
0
SPEAKER_03
That's what makes you so special and unique and rare.
0
SPEAKER_03
And of course there's a silver lining, like look at your life, look at the positive impact you've had on so many.
0
SPEAKER_03
And what I'm realizing is that I so effortlessly
0
SPEAKER_03
 see other people through that lens, but because I think as people, as humans, we're just so hard on ourselves.
0
SPEAKER_03
We rarely turn it around and say, well, why don't you be yourself with that same complexity?
0
SPEAKER_03
And maybe that's the, that's been the hardest thing I've gone through is trying to use that same amount of compassion with myself.
0
SPEAKER_04
 Yeah and if it's not out of place to say I also think it's the difference in gender and men and women too.
0
SPEAKER_04
I do think that I have male privilege in that you are just a bit more self-assured and more confident because it's been reaffirmed whereas from the studies I've read and you could probably speak to this a million times more than I can but women are more likely to look at a job description and think oh
0
SPEAKER_04
 oh my gosh, I can't do seven out of those 10 things.
0
SPEAKER_04
Whereas a man will look at it and go, oh, but I could do three out of 10, that's good enough.
0
SPEAKER_04
And that kind of discrepancy, I don't know how you feel about that and how that affects it, but.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, no, I definitely, I mean, the studies are really compelling, showing that there are disparities.
0
SPEAKER_03
And, you know, it's reminding me, nobody's immune to those effects.
0
SPEAKER_03
So I remember, so for my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, you know, I had the honor of interviewing Hillary Clinton.
0
SPEAKER_03
 And what that interview taught me is that Hillary Clinton didn't come out of the box Hillary Clinton.
0
SPEAKER_03
She had to go through her own personal journey and development and also resolve a lot of the insecurities and anxieties that you and I are talking about right now.
0
SPEAKER_03
So I remember she was telling me, she was sharing this story about how she just left the White House as first lady.
0
SPEAKER_03
 And she'd always been tethered to her husband's identity, right?
0
SPEAKER_03
That had been the role that she had played.
0
SPEAKER_03
And she was very productive in that role, but it wasn't her role.
0
SPEAKER_03
And she so fervently believed that women should run for offices and be in leadership positions and be in power.
0
SPEAKER_03
So she was motivating all these people around her to do that.
0
SPEAKER_03
And one day she was an event promoting women in sports.
0
SPEAKER_03
 And this basketball player leaned down and whispered into her ear, dare to compete, Mrs. Clinton, dare to compete.
0
SPEAKER_03
 And she said she was astonished in that moment because no one had said it to her like that, but she realized suddenly, maybe I'm too afraid to do the thing that I've been asking everybody else to do.
0
SPEAKER_03
Maybe I don't think I'm good enough.
0
SPEAKER_03
Maybe I don't know if I have what it takes and if people will like me and if I have the right presence for politics.
0
SPEAKER_03
 And that was so powerful to hear from someone like her.
0
SPEAKER_03
You know, wow, even Hillary at times felt this.
0
SPEAKER_03
And then to see where she's come from there.
0
SPEAKER_03
I mean, talk about inspiring, right?
0
SPEAKER_03
She was able to overcome all of that and go on to accomplish incredible things.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I think that experience showed me that
0
SPEAKER_03
 We all have this kind of, I mean, it sounds so cliche, but it's so true.
0
SPEAKER_03
It's like we all have some degree of self-doubt and it's just a matter of finding ways to manage that and learning from other people's experiences.
0
SPEAKER_04
 Absolutely.
0
SPEAKER_04
I want to, I want to backtrack a bit to, first of all, having South Asian parents and being encouraged to play the violin and go to Juilliard and then like just your whole journey.
0
SPEAKER_04
I'm, I'm, I'm fascinated by, your parents sound amazing.
0
SPEAKER_04
They're wonderful.
0
SPEAKER_04
Tell us a bit about what it was like, like, what, did you feel that other children in the South Asian diaspora were encouraged in the same direction?
0
SPEAKER_04
Did you feel like an anomaly?
0
SPEAKER_04
I want to, I want to hear about how you felt on that journey because it's very unique.
0
SPEAKER_03
 I'm not sure whether other South Asian kids were following that journey at that time.
0
SPEAKER_03
Did you have a lot of South Asian kids in school?
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I was going to say, I grew up in a primarily Caucasian hometown and we were one of the few families of color anywhere.
0
SPEAKER_04
How did that feel?
0
SPEAKER_04
Tell me a bit about that because I think that the South Asian experience in England is very different than the South Asian experience in the US.
0
SPEAKER_04
So I'm intrigued.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think I was so eager to assimilate.
0
SPEAKER_03
 everything from, you know, I've like textured hair and I remember going to a birthday party and all the girls with the smooth, shiny hair got like the pretty scrunchies and I was given a headband.
0
SPEAKER_03
I was like the one girl that didn't get, I mean, clearly I'm over this, Jay.
0
SPEAKER_03
It's not like I still remember it at age 35.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I'm laughing, that's the worst.
0
SPEAKER_03
No, no, no, totally.
0
SPEAKER_03
But it's like these small things, um,
0
SPEAKER_03
 I just so desperately wanted to be like the girls that I saw at school.
0
SPEAKER_03
And, you know, my dad remembers when I'd write all these stories as a kid, I wouldn't use Indian names for my characters.
0
SPEAKER_03
It was always Catherine and Lindsay and Katie and, you know, and so it took me a long time to really feel comfortable in my skin.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I think one thing that actually
0
SPEAKER_03
 helped me on that front is, well, one, I'm one of four kids.
0
SPEAKER_03
So I always felt a huge sense of tribalism.
0
SPEAKER_03
Like, it's my family against the world, you know?
0
SPEAKER_03
And my parents were always deeply proud of being Indian.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I loved that.
0
SPEAKER_03
I mean, especially looking back, you know, it's like, my mom is a brilliant chef.
0
SPEAKER_03
She made us amazing meals.
0
SPEAKER_03
At the time, I was like, we should just get pizza.
0
SPEAKER_03
And now I'm like, oh my god, I had gourmet food in my home growing up.
0
SPEAKER_03
How could I not have appreciated it?
0
SPEAKER_03
So they were fiercely proud of being Indian.
0
SPEAKER_03
 While I rejected it as a child, I think I grew into it.
0
SPEAKER_03
And then, you know, now I'm fiercely proud to be Indian.
0
SPEAKER_03
And it's funny, one of the jobs that I had right before grad school was working at Sesame Street.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I worked on the Indian version of the show.
0
SPEAKER_03
No way.
0
SPEAKER_03
And yeah, there's an Indian version of what I love about Sesame Street, Jay.
0
SPEAKER_03
A lot of people don't know that.
0
SPEAKER_00
I love Sesame Street.
0
SPEAKER_03
Is that it changes young children's minds.
0
SPEAKER_03
 in ways that families can embrace.
0
SPEAKER_03
So for example, this was back in the day, I don't know how the shows evolved, but in the South African version, the main Muppet character is HIV positive.
0
SPEAKER_03
She's always taking her medications on time, it's reducing the stigma around HIV.
0
SPEAKER_03
And then in Israel, the main Muppets, one is an Arab Muslim, and one's an Israeli Jew, and they're best friends, and they both love hummus, and they bond in all these ways.
0
SPEAKER_03
And in the Indian version, the main character, Chumki, is always wearing her backpack.
0
SPEAKER_03
 He's committed to going to school.
0
SPEAKER_03
It's all about, you know, young girls thriving in school.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so what I did was I worked to domesticate the Indian version of the show so that families in the United States could have it.
0
SPEAKER_03
So that young kids growing up could feel the sense of pride that I wish I had felt as a youngster, but only came later.
0
SPEAKER_03
 so they could grow up hearing languages like Hindi in their homes and grow up seeing young kids, young Muppets, eating Indian food, eating with their hands, you know?
0
SPEAKER_03
And so, yeah, I mean, it was a very interesting experience for my parents to come here.
0
SPEAKER_03
And, you know, my older three siblings had a lot of exposure to Tamil, our mother tongue.
0
SPEAKER_03
By the time I came around, you know, they were like, oh, I think the kids should just assimilate.
0
SPEAKER_03
You know, like, no, we're all just figuring this out.
0
SPEAKER_03
 ourselves.
0
SPEAKER_03
But I did spend my graduate years in England.
0
SPEAKER_03
I did my, my DPhil and it did feel like the South Asian experience is very different there.
0
SPEAKER_03
So I don't know if any, anything I've shared resonates or doesn't resonate with your experience.
0
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, no, I think a lot of it does actually.
0
SPEAKER_04
Like the idea of, I think,
1
SPEAKER_02
 in your early years to kind of be embarrassed or shy or unconfident about your Indian experience.
1
SPEAKER_02
So like when my mom would make me an Indian lunch to take to school, like I would eat it in the corner and hope that no one could smell it or whatever.
1
SPEAKER_02
And now I feel the same way as you do.
1
SPEAKER_02
My mom made amazing food and you know, you're right, we had gourmet meals at home.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I'm, I was, when you were saying that, all I was thinking of was dosa and I'm a massive fan.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so I was, you know, but the idea of just,
1
SPEAKER_02
 like starting to understand the value of that culture and then sharing it out.
1
SPEAKER_02
But I love what you were sharing about Sesame Street.
1
SPEAKER_02
I didn't, I had no idea.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I wish I had that to watch too.
1
SPEAKER_02
I didn't have any of that to watch when I was growing up.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I can imagine the, the impact of that.
1
SPEAKER_05
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
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Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
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 Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown's pen.
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1
SPEAKER_02
 Tell us about, you know, you've been studying human behavior.
1
SPEAKER_02
That's your fascination.
1
SPEAKER_02
It's your deep passion.
1
SPEAKER_02
You've done it at the highest levels and are doing it at the highest levels.
1
SPEAKER_02
What's something that you've learned through that about human behavior that scares you about humans?
1
SPEAKER_02
Like what's something that's kind of like difficult or uncomfortable
1
SPEAKER_02
 as a researcher to come across and then you're trying to figure out or reconcile how to hopefully aid it or cure it or help?
1
SPEAKER_01
That's a fascinating question.
1
SPEAKER_01
I've never been asked that before.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it's such an important one to ask because we have to be honest about the human condition and human nature.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think the scariest thing, given the state of the research right now, is that while it can be easy to inspire behavior change in people, it is incredibly hard for people to change their minds.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And I think as a culture, as a society, we are experiencing this in spades right now in a time when things feel incredibly divided and divisive and, you know, we can't even have a normal Thanksgiving dinner anymore, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
It's tragic.
1
SPEAKER_01
What I've learned is that
1
SPEAKER_01
 You know, we know that people can disagree even on empirical matters, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Like, is climate change real?
1
SPEAKER_01
Or is the coronavirus real?
1
SPEAKER_01
Or does gun control reform actually reduce gun deaths?
1
SPEAKER_01
And it's tempting for people who have a more empirical mind to think, well, I'll just give them more facts.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is just the result of an information gap, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
I can easily fill the gap just by showing them the data, showing them the evidence.
1
SPEAKER_01
 But we know from research that this is missing a huge part of the puzzle.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the piece that's missing is people do not generate their attitudes and beliefs just based on facts.
1
SPEAKER_01
They generate their attitudes and beliefs about the world in part based on their membership to different groups and the values those groups hold.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And so there's this really interesting study.
1
SPEAKER_01
It's actually from the 50s, and it involved controversial referee calls during a football game.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they had people who were fans of opposing teams watch this footage of these controversial calls.
1
SPEAKER_01
And even though they were watching exactly the same footage,
1
SPEAKER_01
 their assessments of these calls vary considerably based on their group membership, based on their team loyalty.
1
SPEAKER_01
So those people who were fans of one team tended to feel like the unfair calls were in their direction and vice versa, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
And what's astonishing to me about that research and the reason I mention it is it's not like these folks are consciously aware
1
SPEAKER_01
 Oh, I know that I'm not able to be biased.
1
SPEAKER_01
I know that I'm seeing a warped version of reality.
1
SPEAKER_01
Of course not.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is their reality.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it shows how potent these group memberships are, that they can actually affect people's perception of reality.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And so what that means in practice is that when it comes to bridging divides, we need to use different techniques than just throwing information at people.
1
SPEAKER_01
One of my favorite findings from behavioral economics, to your point about whether we can ameliorate some of these concerns, comes from a domain called moral reframing.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it's research that shows that it's much more effective to hold people's values as fixed
1
SPEAKER_01
 and present an argument or present a position in ways that affirm those values rather than threaten them.
1
SPEAKER_01
So for example, if you are trying to convince a conservative to care more about the environment, you might frame it as caring about the environment means preserving our nature's beauty, our natural beauty, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
It is patriotic to care about the environment.
1
SPEAKER_01
 If you're talking with a liberal, you might focus on the fact that investing in climate change reform can actually help elevate those with socioeconomically underprivileged status.
1
SPEAKER_01
It can help them thrive.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so in both cases, it's the same policy objective.
1
SPEAKER_01
You're trying to get people to care about the climate, but you are taking into account what their existing value systems are.
1
SPEAKER_01
So if they don't feel that in agreeing with you, they're threatening their tribal membership.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And that helps me build a lot of empathy for people right now, because let's take the coronavirus, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
It's so easy to think it's just a mask, like just wear one already.
1
SPEAKER_01
I promise you it'll make you safe.
1
SPEAKER_01
But when you look at it through the lens of psychology, through cognitive science, you realize
1
SPEAKER_01
 Wearing a mask for a person can carry huge symbolic significance and it could potentially threaten the relationships in their life that they hold most sacred.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so when you have that in mind, I just think it's the, in general I think studying the human mind is the greatest empathy builder that exists out there because the minute you uncover
1
SPEAKER_01
 why it is that a person has a particular belief, then there's an element of understanding that allows you to approach the person differently, and for them to approach you differently, potentially, and for you to try to make, to meet halfway, you know?
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
I couldn't agree more.
1
SPEAKER_02
That was a beautiful answer, by the way.
1
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, as scary as it is,
1
SPEAKER_02
 you are right that the study of the human mind is potentially the only antidote because then you start to see how you're caught in your own trap yourself.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I think that's the hardest part, as you're saying with those fans, they couldn't see that they were being really biased or that they were getting lost on one side because of their affiliation and they just couldn't see that.
1
SPEAKER_02
And not being able to see that, not being able to step back and be an observer and take the home jersey off, take the away jersey off,
1
SPEAKER_02
 and just be the referee yourself.
1
SPEAKER_02
And that's almost like we need referee vision.
1
SPEAKER_02
You need to be able to see the game as hopefully an unbiased referee would to be able to truly make the right calls.
1
SPEAKER_02
Sorry, yeah, go on.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, I completely agree with that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I also think
1
SPEAKER_01
 the wonderful thing about being in my field is that it is serving up solutions and is giving us tactics that we can use in our day-to-day life when we converse with those we disagree with.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I was talking about this with Adam Grant, who I had on my podcast recently.
1
SPEAKER_01
I love Adam, huge fan.
1
SPEAKER_01
He's wonderful.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I was talking about how I had interviewed Daryl Davis for my podcast.
1
SPEAKER_01
And Daryl Davis is a black jazz musician
1
SPEAKER_01
 who was approached by a member of the Ku Klux Klan when he was performing at a bar one night.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the guy at the bar said, hey, I love your music, man.
1
SPEAKER_01
It's incredible.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then Daryl finds out that this man is from the Klan.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he starts to ask himself a series of questions like, how is it that these people can hate me without even knowing me?
1
SPEAKER_01
 And so he ends up pivoting in his life, talk about a slight change of plans, and ends up inspiring hundreds of people to leave white supremacy groups.
1
SPEAKER_01
 It's an astonishing story of how someone who has every card stacked against them, even in terms of personal safety, having these conversations, conducting these interviews with members of the Klan, could find a way to penetrate their minds and ultimately get them to make one of the greatest leaps we can see in terms of mindset change, which is going from believing in absolute vitriol
1
SPEAKER_01
 to turning their backs on the Klan.
1
SPEAKER_01
And what I loved about my interview with him, Jay, is that so much of what he was sharing is corroborated by the science.
1
SPEAKER_01
So we know when it comes to changing people's minds, certain tactics are very effective.
1
SPEAKER_01
You want to show genuine curiosity for why that person has their beliefs.
1
SPEAKER_01
You want to increase your question to statement ratio.
1
SPEAKER_01
So you're asking them,
1
SPEAKER_01
 Well, how did you arrive, you know at this belief in the first place and what evidence would in theory change your mind?
1
SPEAKER_01
What would you have to learn in order to think differently about this?
1
SPEAKER_01
And one reason I love that question is that it presupposes that they ought to be willing to change their mind in the face of evidence which is not something we can always take for granted and then there's other techniques like
1
SPEAKER_01
 You try to affirm that you're not questioning their morals.
1
SPEAKER_01
You're not questioning their values or their humanity over the course of the conversation.
1
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You're just simply trying to understand why it is that they believe in something.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think the most powerful one, and this is something Daryl shared with me, is he doesn't like to say that he changed people's minds.
1
SPEAKER_01
He likes to say that he inspired them to change their own minds.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And the science there corroborates that beautiful poignant statement, which is you want to recruit their own sense of agency.
1
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You want to make them feel that it was them who decided to change their minds.
1
SPEAKER_01
You arm them with new perspectives, with information, with your own personal story, but let them wrestle with all that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then the sturdiness of a mindset change that a person themselves inspires is far greater than trying to impose a set of beliefs on someone.
1
SPEAKER_02
 Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
1
SPEAKER_02
I often find that when we're presenting something to someone and they're not taking up to it, we think it's because of their weakness and often it's our weakness in the presentation, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
It's like if something's not been clearly articulated or presented to someone or in a way they can digest it, they may not remember it and they may not understand it, but the responsibility of that falls so much more on
1
SPEAKER_02
 those of us that feel we know and are sharing this new way or alternative path.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I found that so much so in, you know, the work I do and I'm working with people on, which effectively is changing their behavior.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I,
1
SPEAKER_02
 Very early on, a lot of people would ask me, like, don't you get frustrated when someone doesn't start meditating after you've been telling them about meditation, whatever it may be.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I'm just like, I don't, because I know how long it took me to start meditating.
1
SPEAKER_01
So it's safe to tell you now that I don't meditate, even though I know I shouldn't.
1
SPEAKER_01
That's awesome, because I know you're going to be empathetic.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, no, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_02
Because it's just, first of all, I know how long it took me.
1
SPEAKER_02
 Second of all, I know how hard it is, and I've seen this research on people's minds.
1
SPEAKER_02
I haven't done it, but I've seen it and read it.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I can also just recognize that I still haven't said something that
1
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 lets the penny drop for them, right?
1
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Like there's somewhere where I need to go.
1
SPEAKER_02
And usually what I've found is it's not what I say or even what I do, it's an experience they need to have.
1
SPEAKER_02
And that's kind of the question I've always been asking is what experiences this person not had yet that will help them change their mind?
1
SPEAKER_02
Because if they have that experience, then that's theirs, kind of what you're saying, like then that's theirs to keep.
1
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But if their experience is only through what I tell them,
1
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 then that's not their experience, it's my experience.
1
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And so for me, it's always been about creating and facilitating experiences and experiments for people to help them get their own research and data and their own conclusion, rather than saying or doing anything.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so I'm always fascinated by how you can use experiments and experiences to help people have a new, you know, a newfound solution that they didn't even comprehend before.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Yeah, I love the way that you just said it.
1
SPEAKER_01
That's my experience, not theirs.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it reminds me, you know, one of the women that I interviewed for A Slight Change of Plans, her name is Megan Phelps Roper, and she grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church.
1
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I don't know if you're familiar with this church, but it is the Southern Poverty Law Center, I think refers to them as the most rabid hate group in America.
1
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So they are
1
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 homophobic, anti-semitic, basically they hate everybody who's not a member of the church.
1
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And they do abhorrent things like show up at military gay, like gay military funerals.
1
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They wanted to protest the Sandy Hook shooting.
1
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I mean, it's horrible.
1
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And Megan grew up in this church.
1
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Her grandfather was the founder.
1
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 And she was absolutely indoctrinated.
1
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I mean, she was steeped in the ideology from a very, very young age.
1
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And she grew up to become one of their most ardent vocal advocates for the church.
1
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And people end up engaging with her on Twitter, actually, in this very compassionate way that you and I have been talking about, where
1
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 They tried to just help her understand that maybe there were a few holes here and there.
1
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That's how they, you know, the very slow process.
1
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And they would reaffirm her humanity.
1
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And they would just point out some inconsistencies, like the moral reframing stuff that I was saying.
1
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But they wouldn't say, Megan, what you believe is crazy.
1
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They would say, you know, actually there's a few issues here and there.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And what she says, so she ended up leaving the church in her mid-twenties, which meant leaving her family behind and leaving basically everything she ever believed to be true behind.
1
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And I asked her this question, right?
1
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I said, how do you think about your family?
1
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Right.
1
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And the fact that they haven't left, like what gives you hope?
1
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How do you think about your former self?
1
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You know?
1
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And she said,
1
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 I don't try to detach myself from my former self, even though I disagree one million percent with what that former self was like.
1
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 I can then feel close to the person that I was and the person that I was was someone who was persuaded by absolutely terrible ideas.
1
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And then one day saw the light.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that gives me hope that if my family experiences the same thing that I experienced, if people treat them in exactly the way they treated me, maybe there's hope for them too.
1
SPEAKER_01
 So it's exactly what you just described where she knows, I can't just, I'm not able to just tell them that this is wrong, but I'm hopeful because I saw that journey in myself.
1
SPEAKER_01
I am a convert.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I believe that if I can just set up the right environments for them to get that kind of exposure, they could potentially leave too.
1
SPEAKER_02
 Yeah, it's that idea of like, people don't have a remote control that has the fast forward button on life.
1
SPEAKER_02
So you can't see the future implications of your current action.
1
SPEAKER_02
And you can see it around you, but it never feels you, it never feels like it's about you.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so the reason why it resonates so strongly with me is because, and we spoke about this a bit earlier before offline, but
1
SPEAKER_02
 I was someone who experimented with a lot of drugs when I was young, but I never got addicted, obsessed, or never really got into doing something for a long period of time.
1
SPEAKER_02
And the only reason why that happened is I met one of my friend's aunts who was an addict, and I saw her have a fit in front of me.
1
SPEAKER_02
 And it was such a traumatic experience where we thought she was going to die and she didn't.
1
SPEAKER_02
Thankfully we, you know, we called the ambulance and everything else.
1
SPEAKER_02
But it was like, it was such a like traumatic live event of seeing someone who was an addict to a particular substance to then go through that in front of us as young men.
1
SPEAKER_02
And for me to go, okay, I'm never messing around with this stuff ever again.
1
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 And it was like an experience.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it's the same way I think about what you were saying earlier, that facts don't work.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like, we know every cigarette pack has the label and it's never worked.
1
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Like, you know, that doesn't stop people.
1
SPEAKER_02
But when someone loses someone in their life, or when someone hears about someone getting an unfortunate diagnosis because of one of their habits,
1
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 it starts to change their mind.
1
SPEAKER_02
Tell me about something that we talked about traits that you've started to see both sides of.
1
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Do you think that works for everything or have there been certain behavioral changes you've made in your life that you felt just had to be transformations for you?
1
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So I think for me, uh, exercise has been the thing that I really had to introduce behavioral changes around because I've seen
1
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 I almost don't do it for fitness reasons, Jay.
1
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I do it for my mind.
1
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And it is so powerful for my mind.
1
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Like the days that I work out versus the days that I don't feel totally different to me.
1
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And I've actually used some behavioral change insights to motivate me to exercise.
1
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So I'll share one of those with you.
1
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It's an insight that was generated by my friend, Katie Milkman, who's a professor who studies change.
1
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 And it's called temptation bundling.
1
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And the logic behind this is to pair up an undesirable activity with a desirable activity.
1
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And you're only allowed to do the desirable activity
1
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 if it accompanies the undesirable one.
1
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So one of my favorite things in life is to discover a new pop song.
1
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Okay.
1
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I'm into all of it.
1
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Like of course, Taylor Swift.
1
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Um, I guess Casey Musgraves isn't pop.
1
SPEAKER_01
She's someone I interviewed for my podcast and I love her music, but she's, you know, she's genre defying.
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, but I love discovering a new song, but I know because of the way the brain adapts that I'll only get like 30 or 40 really good listens out of a song before it becomes old hat.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Right?
1
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And so I save it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I only listen to these songs when I'm on the treadmill or I'm lifting weights or I'm on the elliptical.
1
SPEAKER_01
And my poor husband, because he'll be like, oh my gosh, we're cooking dinner.
1
SPEAKER_01
Let's play the new Kacey Musgraves album.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I'm like, we do not play recreationally, okay?
1
SPEAKER_01
It needs to be saved for these sacred moments when I'm working out.
1
SPEAKER_01
 It's been wonderful to like, you know, even though I study change for a living, even though I'm a behavioral economist, I fall prey to all the same human biases that we all fall prey to, of course.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I'm using these strategies every single day in my life to try to optimize and reach some of these longer term goals.
1
SPEAKER_02
 I love that one.
1
SPEAKER_02
So wait, is there a reason that actually says you're only going to get 30 to 40 plays out of a song?
1
SPEAKER_02
Is there a reason that goes along?
1
SPEAKER_01
No, this is just the Maya formula.
1
SPEAKER_01
I have no idea what it is for you, Jay.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think given your monk days, you're probably closer to like 100 because you'll see dimensions of the song that I can't possibly appreciate given your depth and my relative superficiality.
1
SPEAKER_01
But for me, it's about 30 and then I'm done.
1
SPEAKER_01
That's amazing.
1
SPEAKER_02
 That is such a, no, but you know, that's brilliant.
1
SPEAKER_02
I love that.
1
SPEAKER_02
That is the most interesting, unique piece of advice that I think, you know, that that's going to help so many people who, I can imagine everyone now talking to their partner or their friend today going, I turned that song off right now.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like I'm only, I'm only using it for those painful moments in life.
1
SPEAKER_02
That's genius.
1
SPEAKER_02
I love that.
1
SPEAKER_02
And, and that's a Maya Shankar original special.
1
SPEAKER_02
I love that.
1
SPEAKER_02
It's brilliant.
1
SPEAKER_02
Uh,
1
SPEAKER_02
 Tell us a bit about what you're doing on a day-to-day basis.
1
SPEAKER_02
I find that you have this role at Google and you're studying human behavior on a day-to-day basis.
1
SPEAKER_02
I find there's two questions here.
1
SPEAKER_02
The first question is, tell me what you do on a day-to-day basis, what's fascinating about it, because I have no idea what you do on a day-to-day basis.
1
SPEAKER_02
The more interesting question for you probably will be the second one, which is, what is an area that you think behavioral economists haven't
1
SPEAKER_02
 really uncovered or understood yet.
1
SPEAKER_02
So when I've read books about behavioral science or behavioral economists, it's been about the relationship between money and human behavior, the relationships between everything from lying and stealing in human behavior through to, you know, about the different character traits or the idea of giving and service in human behavior.
1
SPEAKER_02
But I'm wondering what's an area that you're fascinated to uncover and you think we're just scratching the surface on, we don't actually know a lot about?
1
SPEAKER_01
 Yeah, I love that question.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think one area, and this is actually something I was also talking about with Katie Milkman is how durable some of these behavioral change insights are.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yes, such a good question.
1
SPEAKER_01
It's so hard because behavior change, that's a one-time thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like the decision to sign up for retirement or get your COVID vaccine or remember to call your mom on her birthday.
1
SPEAKER_01
That's a,
1
SPEAKER_01
 maybe a once a year type of commitment, or maybe a once in a lifetime type of commitment, and then you're done.
1
SPEAKER_01
And from a public policy perspective, we become excellent at this.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I remember when I was working in the Obama White House, I was able to work on a lot of these nudges where you shift just one thing, and then the person's life potentially has changed forever.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I talked to you about the school lunch program, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
You make that one change, and now millions of kids are getting lunch at school every day.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or I worked with military service members in order to
1
SPEAKER_01
 help them get enrolled in retirement savings plans.
1
SPEAKER_01
And again, that's like a one-time decision and then they're done.
1
SPEAKER_01
The ones that are much harder are the day-to-day behaviors where we have to build these habits over time and sustain those habits over time.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we just haven't cracked the nut fully.
1
SPEAKER_01
 on how to encourage long-term behavior change on the things we value most.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that's because we're human, Jay, right?
1
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We're fallible.
1
SPEAKER_01
We fall prey to temptation left and right.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it's just very, very hard to be a highly disciplined person, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
That's probably one of the reasons why you recommend to everyone that they meditate, because that can help with sustained behavior change.
1
SPEAKER_01
But it would be wonderful to see additional innovations within that space.
1
SPEAKER_02
 Yeah, I love hearing you say that because I found that at least through my own mechanisms and work, I've kind of found like a trifecta that gets closest.
1
SPEAKER_02
And the challenge is that a lot of behavioral change, as you said, is not around anything that is consistent.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so for the three levels that I found that at least in my work that really do help people are coaching, consistency, and community.
1
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 that have a massive impact on people.
1
SPEAKER_02
And we built a program three years ago now that was centered around these three areas.
1
SPEAKER_02
And through our research and studies, we've been able to see how people have become happier, more successful, more financially free through the program.
1
SPEAKER_02
And of course, we're dealing with thousands of people, not millions of people in that program.
1
SPEAKER_02
 But it's phenomenal to see how those three things together, coaching, consistency, and community, are so powerful.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like coaching gives you that insight and advice.
1
SPEAKER_02
Consistency is the one I think is ignored in everything.
1
SPEAKER_02
It's like, like you said, you do that one nudge, and that doesn't create a cascading, life-changing effect.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so that consistency of weekly check-ins, and then finally the community aspect of having a group of people that you're doing it with has been so powerful.
1
SPEAKER_02
 Yeah, tell me what you're doing on a day to day basis and what you're discovering and learning.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think the consistency piece that you just mentioned is really interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
And there is one potentially powerful antidote for this that comes out of behavioral economics research and that's called the fresh start effect.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it's the idea that when we have these really big
1
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 life changes, these big milestones, like we move to another town, or we buy a home for the first time, or we get married, or we have kids, or we take a new job.
1
SPEAKER_01
Those moments in time can serve as breaks from our past and all the habits that we used to have.
1
SPEAKER_01
In many ways, we can take on a new identity in this new role.
1
SPEAKER_01
And what research shows is that
1
SPEAKER_01
 people are far more effective at introducing a new kind of consistency or sustained behavior change when their surroundings are physically different.
1
SPEAKER_01
They don't have some of the same cues and reminders every day that might inspire them to eat the chocolate cake versus the fruit salad.
1
SPEAKER_01
And their commute to work is different.
1
SPEAKER_01
So now maybe they're going to walk versus take their car.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I do believe in the power of fresh starts.
1
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 You don't necessarily have to wait for a major milestone.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sundays can serve as fresh starts, like certainly January 1st can serve as a fresh start.
1
SPEAKER_02
Every Monday is a fresh start for me.
1
SPEAKER_02
I'm one of those people that's like, I'm just waiting for a new day.
1
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
But we found, for example, that military service members, again, this is work I was doing in the Obama White House, were more likely to sign up for retirement savings plan on the first day of spring when they were reminded that it was a new beginning and a new start to their future lives.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I really do believe that if
1
SPEAKER_01
 If your listeners are struggling with that kind of consistency and are looking to build a new set of habits that better align with their long-term goals, look out for those moments in your life where you're breaking from the past and you can reestablish yourself and the kinds of behaviors that you aspire to associate yourself with can be more present.
1
SPEAKER_02
 Yeah, I can agree more.
1
SPEAKER_02
I think I've always used a new job or moving to a new town or joining a new group as being an opportunity to redefine my identity in that space of who I want to be.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I got introduced to spirituality like just on the cusp of leaving high school and going to college.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so college is where I got to
1
SPEAKER_02
 redefine who I was, whereas at high school, I was a rebel and a troublemaker and all the rest of it.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then all of a sudden, I went to college and I was like the kid who meditated and everything else.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it was so great for me because I was no longer held down by that baggage of the identity I had crafted for myself, where people expected me to be a certain way.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then, of course, after leaving being a monk and coming back into the world, it was easier to always come back and be like, oh, I don't go to that or I don't
2
SPEAKER_02
 drink or I don't do this because I'd had this life experience.
2
SPEAKER_02
Whereas if I would have joined the corporate world before, maybe I would have had a very different experience.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I, I completely can relate to so much of that advice.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I love seeing this insight play out in your life.
2
SPEAKER_00
I'm wondering, you know, when you went to college, was it a really intentional action to, to change?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, were you seizing that moment?
2
SPEAKER_02
It was, it was because I think I'd, I'd created such a role that I played at high school.
2
SPEAKER_02
 where I was, like I said, the rebel, the troublemaker, the person who was a funny drunk, like I just had a role that I'd created.
2
SPEAKER_02
It wasn't a role, it wasn't me.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was just an identity that I enjoyed being because people enjoyed that version of me.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I took a gap year before I went to college, which was great because all my friends went off to their respective colleges.
2
SPEAKER_02
 lived their first year lives and all the rest of it.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I went to a college where none of my school friends went.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I had a complete blank slate where no one knew who I was and there was no history and I could completely reframe who I wanted to become.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I ran a philosophical society every week at college and I meditated and everyone would come to me to learn these skills and techniques I was learning from monks.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it was almost like I could be the person I wanted to be and I think that helped so much.
2
SPEAKER_00
 You know, this reminds me of another insight from behavioral economics.
2
SPEAKER_00
It's called identity priming.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it refers to the fact that our behaviors often align with the identities, the social identities that we either associate ourselves with now or aspire to associate ourselves with.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think your experience underscores the importance of, especially when you're young, not allowing people to give you labels.
2
SPEAKER_00
 Because the moment you're given a label, the rebel, the funny drunk, whatever it is, you feel some degree of pressure to assimilate to that or to ensure that your behaviors are aligning with that identity day to day.
2
SPEAKER_00
In part, it's just to reduce cognitive dissonance within yourself, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You want to believe that your identity means something and that you're living it out every day.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, um, you know, this was true in, in when I was talking with Daryl Davis, who says, you know, it's sometimes it's important to label
2
SPEAKER_00
 behaviors as racist versus people as racist, if you feel like they're redeemable, that they can change.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because if you give people a label, they will carry that with them, and it might not facilitate the same kind of change.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I remember when I was working with the reentry population while at the White House,
2
SPEAKER_00
 We were designing guides for people who were leaving prison.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the transition back to civilian life can be a very challenging one, but it's also a fresh start in which we want people to tap into their best selves and reach their goals.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we were very careful in this guidebook, this transition book, to not refer to people as former convicts or ex-convicts or ex-prisoners.
2
SPEAKER_00
Instead, we made sure that the labels we were using were community members, job seekers,
2
SPEAKER_00
 those kinds of labels are forward-looking and can allow people to use those identities.
2
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, it's just your personal experience transitioning from high school to college allows me to see how important it is that we just, we don't let others label us and we also don't label ourselves, you know?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I love that, I love that how simple, even when you were describing that, just hearing those words changes how you view that person, even for the new people that are going to get to meet them.
2
SPEAKER_06
Guess what, Bango?
2
SPEAKER_06
What's up, Will?
2
SPEAKER_06
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
2
SPEAKER_05
 I know, that's why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
2
SPEAKER_05
It's about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it's called Earthquake House.
2
SPEAKER_06
Mango, I'm going to cut you off right there.
2
SPEAKER_05
Why don't we just tell people about our show instead?
2
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, that's a better idea.
2
SPEAKER_05
So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world's most important questions.
2
SPEAKER_05
Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
2
SPEAKER_05
Is William Shatner's best acting work in Esperanto?
2
SPEAKER_05
Also, what happened to Esperanto?
2
SPEAKER_06
 Plus we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
2
SPEAKER_06
How do dollar stores stay in business?
2
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And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
2
SPEAKER_05
There absolutely is, and we are risking our lives by talking about it.
2
SPEAKER_05
But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history, and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius.
2
SPEAKER_06
Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
2
SPEAKER_03
 Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we're the hosts of Grownup Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
2
SPEAKER_04
It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
2
SPEAKER_03
 like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
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We're back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
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And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
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So let's figure this stuff out together.
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This season, we're gonna talk about whether or not we're financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
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We're gonna figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account.
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 And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
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All that plus so much more.
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Let's learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
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Radios were smashed.
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Cassettes burned.
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You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
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And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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 The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You're free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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I'm John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 And I think so many of us are carrying around old labels and old baggage and old identities that we don't want to be anymore.
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I think I meet so many people who are like, Jay, I don't want to be this person anymore, but all my friends think I'm this person.
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And so I love the idea of, you know, at least starting to test who we want to be in new phases of our life and new places of our life.
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 You've mentioned the podcast throughout the conversation, these amazing conversations that you're having.
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Tell me about why you decided to start a podcast and why you called it A Slight Change of Plans, because I love the title, but I want to know the reason for why you did that.
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Yeah, I think it was in part inspired by my personal experience with change, you know, losing the violin at a young age.
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 asking myself all these existential questions about identity, it's in part inspired by my role as a cognitive scientist, someone who studies the mind.
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And I was eager to marry these two, the narrative storytelling part of my life with the cognitive science part of my life.
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But the catalyst for this happened in 2020.
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And
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 I was feeling really overwhelmed by the pace of change that was happening around me and I know everybody was.
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It was this collective moment in the world where we all so acutely felt a loss of control.
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We realized how much of an illusion control is and
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 it was easy to feel intimidated.
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That would be the best word I could use to describe my state of mind as someone who loves planning and likes knowing how things are going to end out and then also seeing all the tragedy around me and the racial upheaval.
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It was just a very, very hard time.
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And then
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 I tried to put on my cognitive science hat.
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And what I realized is, while the specifics of what 2020 threw our way was absolutely unprecedented, our human ability to navigate change is not.
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In many ways, our minds are built for change.
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And that's really important for us to recognize because as a human civilization, we've done this rodeo many times before, this change thing.
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 But there's no textbook out there with answers.
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It's not like in the throes of a huge life change, you can go to your textbook and open it up to page 90 and be like, oh, yes, here's the path that I should take.
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And so I thought to myself, why don't I try to find people who have been through extraordinary change in their lives?
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People like Tiffany Haddish and Hillary Clinton and Casey Musgraves and Tommy Caldwell and then just a bunch of people I've either heard about or met in my personal life.
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 and hear their reflections and try to mine their stories for insights and lessons that we as listeners can take back into our own lives that might help us think differently about change in our own lives.
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And it has been an absolute joy to make this podcast.
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I mean, I've never felt more closely aligned with something given who I am.
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Remember I told you about the basement of that fMRI lab?
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The podcast is the opposite.
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That is actually the thing that I just, I mean, I've fallen in love with it.
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 And I think the reason is that you can meet people with two very similar sounding stories, but how they define their change moment will be radically different.
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The lessons that they learn will be radically different.
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And so I feel like, I mean, this, talk about eating a slice of humble pie.
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I have been so humble doing this podcast because
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 My guests have taught me so much about change that I never would have appreciated absent listening to their stories.
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And it's been wonderful to go on this expedition with them about how it is people have navigated some of the toughest changes that you can imagine in life.
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Yeah, no, absolutely.
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Living or not living, who'd be someone that you are fascinated about the amount of changes in their life or those transitions in their life?
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 I mean, there's always Oprah, but that's the obvious one.
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You know, what's interesting, Jay, is that when you meet someone, you don't always appreciate the full depth of their life story.
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So I'll give you one example.
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One of the people that I interviewed for this podcast, his name is Scott.
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He's just a friend and colleague of my husband's.
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I'd had dinner with him once back in 2019.
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 and he is a self-proclaimed health nut.
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So he sounds like you and Ravi now, right?
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So he's vegan, he does intermittent fasting, he does high-intensity interval training, he adds turmeric and chia seeds to his food whenever possible.
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Now look, we're both Indians, so we know that turmeric is a delicate spice.
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You do not pour it on anything.
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This guy is adding turmeric to his food.
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So if it's in a book somewhere saying that something's healthy, he's done it.
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And then in 2020, Scott,
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 got a stage four bone cancer diagnosis.
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And within weeks, he had to get his right leg amputated.
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He had to pack up his bags, move to MD Anderson in Texas, do 18 administrations of chemotherapy.
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He also had to get a vertebra removed from his spine.
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And I think his tibia was removed from his other leg.
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Scott's worst nightmare came true.
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He had literally spent his entire adult life trying to avoid this outcome.
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 Now I talked to him and I'm interviewing him for this podcast and he's telling me he's in the throes of it all when I'm interviewing him.
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He actually just finished up his treatment yesterday.
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He says to me, you know, Maya, my worst nightmare came true, but I'm sitting here in my backyard sipping a cup of coffee and realizing the emotional thermostat has prevailed.
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 I am more or less as happy as I was before the diagnosis.
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Sure, the bad moments are worse, I'll give you that.
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Nausea's intense, the pain is terrible, I have moments of fear, but the good moments are just as good.
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And he said, if I had known that I would respond this way psychologically, I would never have been as fearful of cancer as I had been in the first place.
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 That's so stirring to me.
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And those are the kinds of insights that I carry with me, you know, because they give me hope and they make me understand just how resilient we are as people.
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Um, not everybody has Scott's story.
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You know, I'm not sure I would respond in that way, but he didn't think that he would respond in that way.
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And so I love it when a guy, I just had dinner once.
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 You know, I can have this kind of conversation with him.
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He teaches me, he gives me so much wisdom.
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And another thing he shared with me is he said, you know, I put so much emphasis, my identity was so intricately entwined with my fitness up until this point.
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Like I was smart, fit Scott.
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Like those are the two labels, you know, he's like a Harvard grad and all that stuff.
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And he said, this whole experience is allowing me to see that maybe these traits that I
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 Saws so core to my identity are more negotiable than I thought he's the word negotiable and I love that he goes yeah, maybe I can't do a handstand, but like I'm still Scott at the end of the day and
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 The final lesson that I learned, well, I learned so many lessons.
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One of the final lessons I learned from Scott's interview was he said, you know, I would be ashamed if my body deteriorated and my personality also got worse.
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So I'm going to use this to become a better person.
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And to me, that was a testament to the fact that this is a trait I see across all my guests is,
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 We are natural storytellers in our hearts.
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No matter what your spiritual or non-spiritual beliefs, it is just human nature to try to find meaning and silver linings in adversity and change, to almost justify the randomness of it all.
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 And, um, hearing Scott be so intentional about that growth and, and saying, look, I need to just make the best of it.
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Um, I love that.
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And I think that's, that's such a powerful story.
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So maybe, maybe the, to your earlier question, I think my dream guest is someone who just teaches me something new, helps me see the world through a different vantage point.
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You know, they don't have to be someone I've already heard of.
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I just love seeing the world through different lenses.
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 Yeah, absolutely.
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I think that's a beautiful answer.
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And I'm so glad you shared that journey.
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I just, on Saturday, I got the news that my best friend, who was almost like my brother, who was a monk, he just passed away after suffering with colon cancer for four years, but it spread far beyond his colon.
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It was everywhere.
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I'm so sorry to hear that.
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And so he like, I don't know how many cycles of chemo he had, like 30 or something like that.
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And it was just, every time they'd feel it's gone away, it had gone somewhere else.
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 And I got to speak to him on the phone about three days before he passed away.
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And I didn't know, obviously you never know.
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And I got a message from one of the senior monks who was with him and said,
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 we're just talking about you and we're thinking about you and so I called him straight away and it was like he'd gone to London for his treatment it was like 11 40 p.m in London and 3 40 p.m here so I called him up and I got to be on FaceTime with him and he was like completely emaciated like hunched over but he was smiling like he just had this massive smile on his face and he was like that throughout his whole cancer journey
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 And I could tell that this was the worst I'd ever seen him because up until every time I'd seen him, because he was taking treatment, he looked normal, as in not normal, that's the wrong word, but he looked his usual self.
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This was the first time I'd seen him completely, you know, emaciated and in bed.
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 and he was just smiling away and we were joking around and we were both telling each other stories and memories and he'd lost his voice so he could only like really whisper and the Sini Monk knows us both so he was kind of helping speak for him and translate for him and add for him and it was just remarkable to me to see someone at the end of their life be so blissful and all I could see was bliss that when I spoke at his memorial yesterday
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 It was the most blissful memorial I've ever, I was on Zoom of course, everyone was there in person in England, but it was the most blissful memorial I've ever been to because that was him.
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 And, and that's from what you're saying about Scott, it sounds like a very similar energy of how to deal with this.
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And, you know, while he was at cancer, he was, uh, he was leading charity initiatives to raise funds for cancer, raise awareness for cancer.
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He was organizing meditation retreats for cancer patients that were struggling with him so that they could all grow together because that's what he was doing.
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So he was extending his practices out to them.
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Yeah.
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 And he just lived with so much purpose in the last four years and so much service in the last four years.
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And yeah, that kind of mind is just...
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 unbelievable and phenomenal.
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Like you said, he's not famous.
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He doesn't have followers.
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No one knows who he is.
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He's not having impacts on millions of people's lives, but everyone who knew him would say that he changed their life.
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Yeah, what an honor to have been this guy's best friend.
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Yeah, I was very lucky to, you know, he was kind enough to be my best bud for a few years.
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But anyway, when you're talking about Scott, I love that answer because
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 I think it's so true that there are just so many people in the world who are going through enormously difficult things and hearing their stories gives us so much faith.
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Yeah, and in part I almost see my responsibility as uncovering the hidden stories.
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 There's one interview I did just recently.
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It was with a guy named Morgan.
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He was assigned female at birth, and he went through hormone therapy to align his body with his true gender identity, which is male.
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And for a while, Morgan is feeling intoxicated by the joy and liberation that comes from being freed from his female body.
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 He's a black man and he said his joy was punctured when he was confronted with the harsh reality of what it means to be a black man in society.
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And his first confrontation with this was literally being pulled over by the police in his grandmother's driveway.
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And it's an incredibly insightful, thought-provoking set of reflections from Morgan because
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 not only does he share what it means to have gone through this transition and embrace himself, but he ends up joining the force.
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He ends up becoming a police officer and with the goal to reform it.
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And again, those are the kinds of stories that I live for, you know?
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 I want to hear them because I feel like, you know, I, we talked earlier about how being a cognitive scientist to me is like the greatest empathy builder.
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Well, if you marry the science with storytelling, it's, it's an unbeatable combo in terms of, of empathy building and just understanding the full range of human experience.
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And, um, yeah, I guess you could probably see it in my face.
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People can't see it, but I just love obsessed with having these interviews because I, I do feel like every single one I learn
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 It's not even that I learn something new.
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I learn a new way of interpreting the world around me.
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It's a perspective shift.
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Yeah.
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And that's, I'm sure you find that when you, when you interview different people is it changes the perspective with which you look at the world.
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And that's an incredible gift to be given.
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 Yeah.
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And it's totally unpredictable.
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Like when we started this conversation, it's, I felt different to when I first read about you and it's different to when now we're coming to the end of our conversation.
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It's like we can have so many perceptions about someone and what we expect to learn from them.
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And I can honestly say that sitting with you for the past hour, this has been a totally unexpected conversation in a good way.
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 And I'm like, I think that's the power of getting to listen to stories and listening to people and getting to meet people that you'd never meet before or otherwise.
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Because I think we're so good at, and I guess that's where behavioral science is so interesting because we do have to box people to make sense of stuff, but then we need to unbox them to actually make sense of them.
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Like it's a weird paradox, right?
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Like we always put people into categories so that we can,
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 make decisions, but then we need to get them out of those to really deeply understand them.
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And so, you know, I wasn't expecting that our conversation would go down the journey that it has, but that's, what's so beautiful about it.
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And so, yeah, I want to, I want to thank you for.
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 you know, doing your podcast, for those of you who haven't listened to it, go and check out a slight change of plans.
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It's, it's beautiful to hear these stories that you've even been sharing with us on the podcast.
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And I can't wait for my audience to actually go and listen to some of these conversations.
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I know I'm going to do that.
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Because it sounds like you're just speaking to some people who, and in a way that
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 is going to be really insightful for people's change and growth, but also for their heart.
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And I think that's what I love.
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What I love about you from the little time that we've spent together is that it feels like you bring a lot of heart to science.
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And that's rare.
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It's very rare.
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I feel like you're bringing your heart into how to help people change how they think.
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 And so, you know, storytelling is one thing, but heartfelt storytelling is, is even a deeper step.
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So thank you for doing that.
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That's so kind and generous of you to say and such a compliment too.
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Because my hope is that I really can marry, you know, science and humanity, I guess.
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Right.
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I mean, they're obviously really interconnected, but that has been my goal with a slight change of plans.
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And it's kind of been my goal living.
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 You know, it's like, how do I bring my heart to as many things as I possibly can?
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So it was such a pleasure to get to talk with you, Jay.
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I'm such a huge fan of your show and I'm just, I'm just so grateful for the opportunity.
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So thank you.
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Well, thank you, Maya.
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Well, we're not done yet.
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We end every interview, the final five.
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Oh, awesome.
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So this is the fast five round where every question has to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum.
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 A sentence, I believe, or at least I've made this up is seven words maximum.
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So I don't know if that's real or not, but seven to 10 words maximum.
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So this is your fast five, Maya.
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Your first question is what is the best advice you've ever received?
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Find amazing mentors.
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 Great.
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I love that.
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That's a good one.
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And you shared so many wonderful examples of mentors that you've had in your life.
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Absolutely.
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And the amazing impact they've had on you.
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I'm going to, I'm going to destroy my rules here, but it's important to do that.
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Yeah.
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How do people find good mentors?
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Teach us that because you know, I have my own thoughts on this and I share that a lot with my audience, but I'd love to hear your perspective on how people can find good mentors.
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 Yeah, it's a good question.
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I've never done it intentionally.
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I've always slipped into the mentee role almost without realizing it.
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But my mentors have played a profound role in my life.
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And the way that it happened, in case this is helpful to folks, is
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 I'm always searching for people that I admire and whose life I would love to lead, you know, and who bring that kind of heart to things.
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Because that's something that speaks to me personally, for me, Maya, right?
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And then when I find those people, like Laurie Santos,
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 I just, I cling to them.
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You know, I say, oh, Laurie, like, you know, addition to you mentoring me, can I work in your lab?
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Can we get coffee?
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Can you actually be my lifelong friend?
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You know?
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And I think as I've gotten older, one way to do that more effectively is I've just always, I mean, everyone has different philosophies on this, but I've always blurred the line between colleague and friend.
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 And it's irresistible for me.
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I can't not bring that really personal side of myself to my work, no matter what it is that I'm working on.
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It's funny, there was a quick anecdote, just sorry, from my time in Obama's White House.
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So the government had just shut down and there were all these ethics rules about the fact that
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 we couldn't hang out in our, quote, professional capacity.
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We could only hang out in our personal capacity, because otherwise we'd be violating federal rules.
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But we were just planning.
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We were all very friendly, and we just wanted to hang out as friends.
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So I was joking with folks.
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I was like, ah, I can't wait for all of you guys to see me in my personal capacity.
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And one of my friends, Bass, is like, oh, Maya, you're exactly the same.
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And then another one of my friends goes, we're still waiting to see Maya in her professional capacity.
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 So I think that says everything, which is I, I blur that line.
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And I think what ends up happening is I just like naturally ended up becoming friends with the people I admire.
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And then I find that they can be, that they have been just wonderful mentors.
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Um, but it's always been, I know this might be unsatisfying for listeners to be like, Oh, why did it have to be an organic process for you, Maya?
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I want the like one, two, three checklist.
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But I think that's kind of the only way for it to feel genuine.
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You know, you really want to be friends with them because you're genuinely curious about the way they think and the way that they live.
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 Yeah, I love that.
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And I love that that's your authentic, genuine way that it's happened.
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That's beautiful.
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I think one of the most amazing things for me is that I genuinely believe you can be mentored by people you've never met.
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And so I've spent my life studying the lives, the words, the teachings of so many people that I admire that are no longer alive and simply sitting with their biographies and their autobiographies and listening to every interview and watching every
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 TV show they went on or whatever they did, just looking at the records of their life, there's often times where I'll sit there and be like, well, what would that person do?
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There is an answer.
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It's somewhere there.
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And I've loved that because I would have loved to have been mentored by Martin Luther King or Steve Jobs or some of these people that I never got to meet.
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And I can be mentored by the people that met them or I can be mentored by them through their own lives if I studied them deeply enough.
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 And of course, I agree with you that I'd say any mentors that I've had in reality have not been calculated.
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 decisions.
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It's, I agree with you, it's always been very natural.
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So I love that.
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I was, you actually reminded me of something.
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I'm totally going off here, but your fast five has changed.
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You reminded me of something.
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You asked me that question about what trait has changed and you said something there that actually triggered something you said, asking people to be my lifelong friend.
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SPEAKER_02
So I've, I've always been very much wore my heart on my sleeve kind of person.
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SPEAKER_02
I've always been that way because my mom raised me that way and I always was honest with people.
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SPEAKER_02
And often you were,
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SPEAKER_02
 You know, often when you're like that as a teenager, it's not a strength, it's seen as a weakness, like you're weird or you're strange or you're needy or you're desperate or whatever it may be.
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SPEAKER_02
And I never let go of it because I realized I would rather say what I really want to say to someone and then let it be whatever the result is versus not tell them the truth and then realize we could have been best friends.
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SPEAKER_02
And so,
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SPEAKER_02
 Till this day, I've got some of my closest friends in my life who, when I got to know them, the first thing I said to them was like, I really want to be friends with you.
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SPEAKER_00
Me too.
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SPEAKER_00
As a 30 year old man.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh, I love that we're bonding.
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SPEAKER_00
I do the same thing.
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SPEAKER_00
I think it takes people aback then.
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SPEAKER_00
I'm like, look, I may as well just be straightforward.
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SPEAKER_00
You can say no.
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SPEAKER_02
Totally, totally.
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SPEAKER_00
I do this all the time.
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SPEAKER_02
 with someone saying no and actually I feel like I'm getting a much more honest take on like whether this is going anywhere and now I'm not living in the woulda coulda shoulda whatever I'm living in okay well it didn't work and that's cool yeah and and I'm so much more happier with that sense of closure and now we're talking about relationships but it's like I'm so much happier with having honest
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SPEAKER_02
 transparent conversations rather than this idea in my head that, so anyway, you, that was the trait I think that I've learned to really see as a strength and, and not see as a weakness.
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SPEAKER_02
And, you know, so.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think I have something very similar, which is I used to see my openness maybe as weakness or something like that, because I am so open with the people in my life that I love.
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SPEAKER_00
Um, even about just my affections for them, right?
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SPEAKER_00
Like I'll probably be writing you like a long email after this being like,