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