Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Slight Changers. We're back at the end of
Speaker 1: this month with season four of A Slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I wanted to share a very special
Speaker 1: conversation I had with my friend Max Lynsky for his
Speaker 1: podcast Long Form. The show typically features conversations with nonfiction writers,
Speaker 1: reporters and journalists about how they tell stories, but Max
Speaker 1: generously invited me on to talk about my life story
Speaker 1: and my inspiration for A Slight Change of Plans. Our
Speaker 1: conversation gave me the chance to take a step back
Speaker 1: and reflect on how we make A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans and the important role all of you listeners have
Speaker 1: played in making it into what it is today. So
Speaker 1: thanks and I hope you enjoy it. Hello, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the long Podcast. I'm Max Lynsky. I'm here with just
Speaker 1: one co host Evan Ratliffe. How are you, sir? I'm
Speaker 1: doing great, Max. Aaron will be back next week. We
Speaker 1: always miss him. What he's gone. It's been so long
Speaker 1: since I introde with Aaron. I miss him desperately. Well,
Speaker 1: you'll see him again, You'll see him again. But for
Speaker 1: this week, who have we got for us? This week?
Speaker 1: I talked to Maya Shunker, and Maya is the host
Speaker 1: of a podcast. It's called A Slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1: It launched last year, and every episode Maya talks to someone,
Speaker 1: oftentimes very well known people, sometimes people you have not
Speaker 1: heard of before, but all of them have gone through
Speaker 1: a significant change, something transformative in their lives, and the
Speaker 1: show is about how you navigate those moments, how you
Speaker 1: come out on the other side. And Maya is like
Speaker 1: the perfect person to host it because she has had
Speaker 1: a bunch of really distinct lives, particularly professionally. She was well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil it because we talked about
Speaker 1: it at some length, but she has reached the pinnacle
Speaker 1: or almost the pinnacle, of multiple professions and that includes podcasting.
Speaker 1: She launched the show last year. It was named best
Speaker 1: of the Year by Apple, which you know, is for
Speaker 1: me at least like a little annoying. She just starts
Speaker 1: doing this and all of a sudden it's the best
Speaker 1: of the year, but deserved. This show is great and
Speaker 1: it was really fun to talk to her. We talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, interviewing and moving into podcasting, and also about
Speaker 1: like whether or not she thinks of herself as a
Speaker 1: journalist or a scientist or an entertainer is a really
Speaker 1: compelling conversation. She is a one of a kind person,
Speaker 1: absolute one of one. I love it when you interview
Speaker 1: an interviewer, Max. I feel like I learned a lot
Speaker 1: from the Max interviews and interviewer type shows. You know
Speaker 1: that I wanted to do that whole show. I wanted
Speaker 1: to do like a spinoff where I just interviewed interviewers,
Speaker 1: and then I realized, like, that doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: a spinoff. I could just do it on the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'd be annoyed if you did that as a spinoff.
Speaker 1: You know who's not annoying the people at Vox who
Speaker 1: we make this show with. Thanks so much to them
Speaker 1: for their partnership. And now here is Max with Maya Schunker. Hi, Maya,
Speaker 1: Hey Max, it's great to be here. Oh, it's so
Speaker 1: great to have you. Feel like we're overdue, I know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm such a fan of long form, so
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a fan girl in a bit mutual fanning
Speaker 1: out because I'm very very excited to have you, Maya.
Speaker 1: I believe that you are unique among our four hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty two guests and that I don't have the
Speaker 1: qualifications to be on the show. Is that what you mean.
Speaker 1: I'm not a journal I'm not a writer. In that
Speaker 1: I think this might have been a mistake. No, I
Speaker 1: think that you potentially have lived more lives than anyone
Speaker 1: that we have had on the show. Is always not
Speaker 1: the life that would again qualify me to be on
Speaker 1: the show. It's not lost on the Max. But thank
Speaker 1: you to all the listeners who are sticking around. I
Speaker 1: promise it'll be a fun conversation. Yeah, we'll do our best.
Speaker 1: But when people ask me about you, which they do
Speaker 1: fairly often, my answer is that Maya has lived like
Speaker 1: multiple entire lives that the rest of us would be
Speaker 1: very comfortable, was just like any one of and yet
Speaker 1: somehow you have had these totally totally disparate journeys. And
Speaker 1: I understand that this is a slightly challenging way to
Speaker 1: ask this, But is there a way that you could
Speaker 1: just do like the condensed Maya story for people who
Speaker 1: don't know about these multiple lives. Yes, I'll try to
Speaker 1: do the fast story. Yeah, give me the fast version.
Speaker 1: So as a kid, first of all of you'd ask me,
Speaker 1: will you be a cognitive scientist. One day, I'd be like, no,
Speaker 1: because I don't even know what that is. I was
Speaker 1: a violinist first and foremost. So when I was six
Speaker 1: years old, my mom brought down my grandmother's violin from
Speaker 1: the attic that she had brought with her all the
Speaker 1: way from India when she immigrated to this country in
Speaker 1: the seventies. So my grandmother had played Indian classical music
Speaker 1: and my mom had just meant to show me the instrument,
Speaker 1: but I I took to it so quickly, like I
Speaker 1: looked at it and I was fascinated by it, and
Speaker 1: I asked my mom very quickly for a pint sized
Speaker 1: version of my own. So she bought me a quarter
Speaker 1: size instrument. And I was a little kid with big
Speaker 1: dreams very quickly. And so I ended up auditioning for
Speaker 1: the Juilliard School of Music in New York when I
Speaker 1: was nine and was very fortunately accepted. And when I
Speaker 1: was a teenager, it's like Pelman asked me to be
Speaker 1: his private violin student, and so that was a big
Speaker 1: deal for I. Mean, these days I feel like people
Speaker 1: are like, who's Pearlman, because you know, we all grew
Speaker 1: up with Brittany, But Pearlman is a big deal in
Speaker 1: classical music circles. I feel like the long form podcast
Speaker 1: audience is in the Perlman's a big deal camp. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, I think this is
Speaker 1: the right audience for recognizing Perlman. Wait, just so people
Speaker 1: are understanding this, your mom showed you a violin when
Speaker 1: you were six years old. You intuitively and immediately became
Speaker 1: obsessed with the thing, willed your way into Juilliard, and
Speaker 1: then Perlman is like, you're going to be my person
Speaker 1: kind of. I mean, we literally willed our way into Juilliard,
Speaker 1: like into the physical building. So it might be worth
Speaker 1: sharing the story, which is I was obsessed with the violin,
Speaker 1: and my mom notes that while she had to convince
Speaker 1: me to do lots of things, practicing the violin was
Speaker 1: just not one of them, which was always kind of
Speaker 1: stunning to her. And so at a certain point she
Speaker 1: realized that she was at the limits of her connections
Speaker 1: in the musical world. Namely, she had none. I mean,
Speaker 1: my dad's a physics professor or my mom was a
Speaker 1: physics major. They're both scientists at heart. They don't have
Speaker 1: any connections into this space. And so she realized, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure how to connect my kid with
Speaker 1: the opportunities she needs in order to pursue her dreams.
Speaker 1: And so one day we were walking by Juilliard in
Speaker 1: New York and I had my violin with me, and
Speaker 1: she said, why don't we just walk into the building.
Speaker 1: It's like, what do you mean just walk in? She's like,
Speaker 1: what's the worst thing that can happen. I'm like, security guards,
Speaker 1: that's one thing. You know, this was back in the
Speaker 1: day when you could still slide in too large establishments.
Speaker 1: So we did. We go into the elevator and my
Speaker 1: mom strikes up a conversation with a student and her
Speaker 1: mom and says, hey, my daughter plays a violin. Would
Speaker 1: you mind introducing us to your teacher when your lessons
Speaker 1: over today? And you know, I'm so embarrassed, like I'm
Speaker 1: like in the corner of the elevator, trying to make
Speaker 1: myself as small as possible. And they said yes. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's incredible how kind strangers are when you asked them
Speaker 1: for a favor. And so they introduced me to who
Speaker 1: would become my future teacher. I auditioned for him on
Speaker 1: the spot. He accepted me into a summer boot camp
Speaker 1: essentially the summer music program, and skilled me up to
Speaker 1: the point where I even had a shot at getting
Speaker 1: into Juilliard. And I'm not being falsely humble like. We
Speaker 1: asked him later about this, and he confirmed to my
Speaker 1: mother that when he first met me, he thought I
Speaker 1: had no shot of getting into Juilliard, but he liked
Speaker 1: my personality and so he wanted to give me a
Speaker 1: chance chance. And then you know, I just worked really
Speaker 1: hard over the summer and then you know, was able
Speaker 1: to pass the audition. And so that was a very
Speaker 1: valuable lesson to me from an early age that sometimes
Speaker 1: life doesn't give you the silver platter and you just
Speaker 1: kind of have to create opportunities where they don't exist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a theme that's going to come
Speaker 1: up again in Like Life Too of Maya and Life three.
Speaker 1: It's all about cold emails. But tell me about what
Speaker 1: happened next. So Perlman takes you in and you are
Speaker 1: on a path to be a concert violinist. That's going
Speaker 1: to be your life. Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean again,
Speaker 1: I definitely had all the imposter feelings for the longest time,
Speaker 1: because when you're in such elite competitive circles, you're just
Speaker 1: not sure you have what it takes. And then, as
Speaker 1: I was saying, when Perlman took me on, I felt, okay,
Speaker 1: let me, let me go for this. And I even
Speaker 1: convinced my Indian parents that a conservatory was maybe in
Speaker 1: the cards for me. They had always been more of
Speaker 1: the you know, hey, we loved liberal arts education, very stable,
Speaker 1: maybe don't do this music thing full time. But even
Speaker 1: they were, you know, sold after the Pearlman vote. And
Speaker 1: so I just went full, you know, steam ahead. I
Speaker 1: was totally in. And then at a moment that changed
Speaker 1: my life forever, where I was practicing violin early in
Speaker 1: the morning at Pearlman summer camp, I overstretched my finger
Speaker 1: on a single note and I heard a popping sound
Speaker 1: and I had torn tendons in my hand and resisted
Speaker 1: reality for a very long time until doctors finally told
Speaker 1: me I could never play the violin again. And so
Speaker 1: that was it was a total shock to the system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that must have been just wild. It's like your whole
Speaker 1: plan gone in a moment and then sort of setting
Speaker 1: in a couple of moments later. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting, Max, because when I look back at it,
Speaker 1: I realized that I expected to grieve the loss of
Speaker 1: the instrument, but I didn't expect to grieve the loss
Speaker 1: of me. It was only in that moment when I
Speaker 1: lost the instrument that I realized how tethered my identity
Speaker 1: was to it. And so when it was gone and
Speaker 1: it was no longer a thing I could do, I
Speaker 1: really felt like I didn't know who I was anymore,
Speaker 1: because I defined myself as a violinist for so long,
Speaker 1: even before I was Maya, I feel like I was
Speaker 1: a violinist, and so when it's taken away from you,
Speaker 1: you're kind of like, what the hell? You know, like,
Speaker 1: what do I do? What is my purpose in meaning
Speaker 1: and value in this world? You know? I was sad,
Speaker 1: but then I was also discouraged because I didn't know
Speaker 1: if I could find something again that filled me with
Speaker 1: the same kind of passion and love and I and
Speaker 1: I recognized that it was such a gift. I was
Speaker 1: given to love something so much as a kid, you know,
Speaker 1: I was given that gift, and then when I was
Speaker 1: taken away, I was just heartbroken. It is the easiest
Speaker 1: way of putting it. I had never been through something
Speaker 1: like that, but I can imagine how devastating that moment
Speaker 1: is and how confusing it is in terms of identity
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out who you are. And I
Speaker 1: feel like there's all these stories out in the world
Speaker 1: of people having experiences like this, Like I think about
Speaker 1: like athletes blowing out their knee and their professional careers
Speaker 1: gone by the way. I like to think that I
Speaker 1: made violent and extreme sport, you know, of having this
Speaker 1: career ending injury. So I just want a little bit
Speaker 1: of street credit the rare catastrophic violin injury. But the
Speaker 1: thing that seems different here is that you figured something
Speaker 1: else out and then ran as hard as fucking possible
Speaker 1: at that. So what is like the next life of Maya? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's a psychological term that I've since been acquainted
Speaker 1: with that I didn't know at the time called identity foreclosure,
Speaker 1: and it refers to the idea that we can lock
Speaker 1: ourselves into a self identity early in adolescence, and sometimes
Speaker 1: that mentality can persist into adulthood. And I fell prey
Speaker 1: to identity foreclosure, and I think it really held me back.
Speaker 1: I didn't see my identity as malleable, as dynamic, as
Speaker 1: something that could change, and at the time, if I
Speaker 1: had been cultivating that kind of spirit, I would have
Speaker 1: navigated the moment better. But long story short, I was
Speaker 1: in my parents' basement the summer before college started counterfactual World.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be in China touring with my
Speaker 1: violin classmates, so equally cool summer situation, and I stumbled
Speaker 1: upon my sister's course book. It was Stephen Pinker's book
Speaker 1: called The Language Instinct, and it basically articulated the marvelous
Speaker 1: ways in which our mind works and how sophisticated the
Speaker 1: machinery is behind the scenes that's giving rise to our
Speaker 1: ability to comprehend and produce language. And I'd literally never
Speaker 1: once before thought about my language abilities. Just something that
Speaker 1: kind of happened, right, And I remember feeling in awe
Speaker 1: of this organ that we all possess. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is awesome and fascinating and so complicated, and I
Speaker 1: was nerding out. I was like, this is a really
Speaker 1: cool thing that I just never thought about before. And
Speaker 1: so I got my hands on like every book I
Speaker 1: could that summer on cognitive science, which is so foreign.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was going in to college thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I could pull off being a history major, like
Speaker 1: don't I don't have any specializations, but my brain really
Speaker 1: lit up when it came to studying COGSI, and so
Speaker 1: I still remember. So this is another like kind of
Speaker 1: Juilliard entrance moment. Basically, I knew that the cognitive science
Speaker 1: program was a competitive one, so as an admission's only program.
Speaker 1: And my imposter syndrome, by the way, at this point
Speaker 1: is through the roof, because I'm thinking, the only reason
Speaker 1: I got into Yale in the first place is because
Speaker 1: I had these violent credentials, and I don't have them anymore,
Speaker 1: so I don't even know why I'm here. And I
Speaker 1: heard during a pre orientation program that this professor, Laurie
Speaker 1: Santos was running a monkey lab, a non human primate
Speaker 1: cognition lab, and it was like the coolest thing because
Speaker 1: if you joined this lab, you got to run novel
Speaker 1: experiments and ask all these interesting search questions and study
Speaker 1: cognition through this lens and hang out with monkeys all
Speaker 1: day and hang out with monkeys, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: later proved terrifying. So I'm not really sure what I
Speaker 1: was thinking, but I show up to the class on
Speaker 1: day one. It's the day where we just learn about it,
Speaker 1: and then there's the admissions process after that, and the
Speaker 1: room is overflowing Max. There's like fifty people for whatever
Speaker 1: five spots, and it's overflowing with upperclassman. I'm the lowly freshman.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, oh crap, like there's no shot I have
Speaker 1: at this. But thankfully for me, there is an application form,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm going to crush this application form.
Speaker 1: Laurie Santos is never going to see a better application
Speaker 1: form than this. And by the way, no one's taking
Speaker 1: the application for seriously except for seventeen year old Baya,
Speaker 1: viewing it like an elevator at Julie. Yeah, exactly. And
Speaker 1: I was like, Laurie, I will take the six thirty
Speaker 1: am Saturday morning shifts in New Haven. I was selling
Speaker 1: my soul on this application. I was like, you can
Speaker 1: have any unborn children, like you can have all the
Speaker 1: things that I ever succeed at, like all everything. And
Speaker 1: she took me in. I was the only freshman that
Speaker 1: she took into the class that year, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was my bulliance. She later told me that I
Speaker 1: was the only one who was willing to take the
Speaker 1: Saturday morning shifts, So you know, too bad. It wasn't
Speaker 1: actually what I wrote in the application process. But that
Speaker 1: course really changed my life because not only did I
Speaker 1: have did I get to enter this life experience of
Speaker 1: what it could be like to be a scientist. I
Speaker 1: now had an inbuilt mentor in Laurie Santos who was
Speaker 1: able to kind of coach me through undergrad and get
Speaker 1: me jazzed about studying the mind and getting to ask
Speaker 1: just fascinating research questions, which is something I never thought
Speaker 1: i'd be able to do. So you find another passion.
Speaker 1: You get like seventeen different PhDs, it's actually eighteen. Matt
Speaker 1: travel all around the world. Don't understand eighteen right eighteen,
Speaker 1: You're going to be a professor of cognitive science. You're
Speaker 1: set up, it's all there for you. Yes, and yet
Speaker 1: that's not what happens. Again. Yes, I had my other
Speaker 1: slight change of plans, So I got my one PhD
Speaker 1: for the record, and I was doing my postock at Stanford.
Speaker 1: I was doing my post stock in a neuroscience lab,
Speaker 1: and I had this moment that maybe many people can
Speaker 1: relate to, where you've put a lot of years into
Speaker 1: something and you're kind of fighting reality, which is it's
Speaker 1: not actually good fit for you. So this happened to me.
Speaker 1: I was in the basement of this fMRI laboratory and
Speaker 1: it was my like sixth hour scanning brains in a
Speaker 1: windowless lab, and this guy comes in and within moments
Speaker 1: I'm peering at his amygdala. And I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about the dude. I didn't know what his favorite books were,
Speaker 1: or if you at kids, or what his favorite ice
Speaker 1: cream flavor was. And I just felt like, given my personality,
Speaker 1: the order of operations was just totally off, and I
Speaker 1: just wanted a personal connection before I before I did
Speaker 1: brain scans, basically. And so I'm having this realization and
Speaker 1: it's definitely an oh shit moment, because again I've just
Speaker 1: spent whatever seven years or something plus undergrad studying cognitive science.
Speaker 1: And so I leave the lad that day and I
Speaker 1: call Laurie and I'm like, hey, girl, you know that
Speaker 1: thing you've been helping me do for a long time
Speaker 1: and you invested a ton of resources into I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that anymore. I'm really sorry, but thanks
Speaker 1: so much for everything. I think I want to become
Speaker 1: a general management consultant and Laurie is just like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I put too much into your kid for
Speaker 1: you to leave. And at this point, you know, let's
Speaker 1: just like a deep breath, let's have a quick conversation
Speaker 1: about what your options are before you go on the
Speaker 1: general management consulting interview circuit, which is very much in
Speaker 1: the cards. And then it was just fortuitous Max, because
Speaker 1: she'd just been to a conference where she heard about
Speaker 1: how the federal government at the time, so this was
Speaker 1: the Obama administration. She tells me about how they were
Speaker 1: using insights from my field, from behaviorali from cognitive science
Speaker 1: to get low income kids access to school lunch. And
Speaker 1: I was just blown away by this example. It's a
Speaker 1: really simple story. And the government offers of free or
Speaker 1: reduced price lunch program for low income kids, and despite
Speaker 1: the fact they offered it to millions of kids, millions
Speaker 1: of kids were still going hungry every day because they
Speaker 1: weren't enrolled in the program. And when they did a
Speaker 1: behavioral audit of the program, they realized that there were
Speaker 1: some barriers to entry. The first was that it was
Speaker 1: an extremely complicated application form. Think about a single mom
Speaker 1: who's working three shifts to make ends meet, and we're
Speaker 1: asking her to fill out like a fifty page application
Speaker 1: form that requires referencing a bunch of tax documents and oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you make a mistake, there's going
Speaker 1: to be a financial penalty, and oh, you have to
Speaker 1: get to the post office on this specific day and
Speaker 1: make sure you have stamps and all. Like, it's just
Speaker 1: it's too much to ask. It's one of those things
Speaker 1: that feels like totally insane that that's how it works,
Speaker 1: and also impossible to ever change. Yeah, no, exactly. And
Speaker 1: then there's a second barrier which was deeper than that,
Speaker 1: which was that there was a stigma associated with signing
Speaker 1: your kid up for a benefits program. And ultimately what
Speaker 1: they did is they used an insight from behavioral economics,
Speaker 1: which is the power of the default, and they changed
Speaker 1: the program from an opt in program to an opt
Speaker 1: out program. So they used administrative data they already had
Speaker 1: collected on these kids and automatically enrolled all eligible kids
Speaker 1: into the program. And so now parents only had to
Speaker 1: take an affirmative step that they wanted to actively unenroll
Speaker 1: their kids from the program. And Laurie was telling me
Speaker 1: that as a result of this program change, twelve and
Speaker 1: a half million more kids were now eating lunch at
Speaker 1: school every day, and I was like, holy crap, that
Speaker 1: is unreal. And by the way, compare that to the
Speaker 1: extreme lack of impact I was having as opposed to
Speaker 1: talk publishing nothing of significance or importance. And so I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, that's the thing I want to be doing.
Speaker 1: That's incredible, And I didn't even realize it was a
Speaker 1: thing that you could be a practitioner of this field.
Speaker 1: And the challenge max was that there was no job
Speaker 1: that existed that I could apply for. So I talked
Speaker 1: to Laurie's like, I want to do that thing, but
Speaker 1: I know that thing doesn't exist yet, so like, what
Speaker 1: how do we make this work? And she said, well,
Speaker 1: let me give you the email address of the guy
Speaker 1: whose presentation I saw at this conference. His name is
Speaker 1: Cass Sunstein, author of the book Nudge, which was a
Speaker 1: seminal piece of work that really defined, you know, the
Speaker 1: application of behavioral science to public policy. And you know,
Speaker 1: I sent him an email and I used Laurie's name
Speaker 1: in the subject line. I was like, recommendation from Laurie Santos,
Speaker 1: because like, I just needed some name recognition. And I
Speaker 1: looked back at the email, and it is seeping withinsecurity.
Speaker 1: I mean it's actually hilarious, not quite in these words,
Speaker 1: but it was essentially like, Hi, I'm Maya. I have
Speaker 1: no public policy experience, and I've published nothing of significance,
Speaker 1: but I would really love to work at the intersection
Speaker 1: of behavioral science and policy. And I said in parentheses,
Speaker 1: I know I'm not cool enough to work with the
Speaker 1: likes of Obama, but if there is an opportunity in
Speaker 1: state or local government, I would love to take advantage
Speaker 1: of that. And fortunately for me, probably in part because
Speaker 1: cass Unstein is married to Samantha Power and understands that
Speaker 1: like women can really thrive in this world, ignored all
Speaker 1: of my insecurities and wrote back an email and said,
Speaker 1: here's contact information for the president's science advisor and his deputy.
Speaker 1: Let them know I passed you along the story. By
Speaker 1: the time, I feel like you've told this story enough
Speaker 1: times that it doesn't seem amazing to you. But this
Speaker 1: story is so incredible, all right, just keep going, No,
Speaker 1: thank you, It's funny to go down memory lane with you.
Speaker 1: I was swimming at the y MCA when this email
Speaker 1: came in, and as I was getting on my bike,
Speaker 1: to go home. I opened my phone and saw that
Speaker 1: Cassette responded to me, and I'm like, I nearly fell
Speaker 1: off my bike. I just could not believe again the
Speaker 1: kindness of a stranger. It's like he doesn't know who
Speaker 1: I am. He's responding to my cold email within a
Speaker 1: matter of minutes and is telling me he's happy to
Speaker 1: facilitate a connection to an entire political sphere that I've
Speaker 1: had no interactions with my entire life. And when I
Speaker 1: email the Obama advisors hilariously this time, I put cass
Speaker 1: in the subject line recommendation from cass Sunstein ladder up.
Speaker 1: I love it, Ladder it up. So I email the
Speaker 1: Deputy Science Advisor and he tells me, again fortuitous, that
Speaker 1: it just so happens he's in California this week because
Speaker 1: he lives in California, and he loved to have me
Speaker 1: interview with him two days later. And I need to
Speaker 1: get a business suit, and I also have to prepare
Speaker 1: Max for an interview with a White House official, and
Speaker 1: I have no idea what I'm doing. So my solution
Speaker 1: to that problem was to call everybody smart that I
Speaker 1: know in this world and mine their brains for wisdom.
Speaker 1: I was like, so, hypothetically speaking, if you had an
Speaker 1: interview in two days with a White House official, what
Speaker 1: policy interventions would you want to do at the intersection
Speaker 1: of behavioral science. And so I just start curating all
Speaker 1: these ideas. And also, I mean, it was a really
Speaker 1: fun exercise because I feel like I'd been waxing poetic
Speaker 1: about the virtues of behavioral science for a bit at
Speaker 1: this point, but I never thought any of those dreams
Speaker 1: could come true, and so it was a really fun
Speaker 1: thought experiment. And so I show up at Tom Khalil's house,
Speaker 1: that's his name, and I don't know what to expect
Speaker 1: of this government bureaucrat either, and so I'm like very
Speaker 1: very nervous coming in the door and I enter, and
Speaker 1: I just remember like it was not what I was expecting.
Speaker 1: He was super nice and not at all intimidating, and
Speaker 1: what perceeds is just this wonderful, rich conversation. It felt
Speaker 1: really like a conversation versus an interview about what it
Speaker 1: could be like if the government created this new position
Speaker 1: that I was proposing to them of a behavioral scientist.
Speaker 1: And so my job was just to pitch him. It
Speaker 1: was like, I want you guys to create this position,
Speaker 1: and I want you to hire me into the position
Speaker 1: once you created it. And I remember that there was
Speaker 1: this there was this moment that was really special for
Speaker 1: me where I was talking about the first Ladies Let's
Speaker 1: Move initiative and I was saying how some of the
Speaker 1: language on the website could be improved because it wasn't
Speaker 1: reflecting the best science from behavioral science. And Tom's response was, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I know you know Michelle, Michelle and her chief of staff,
Speaker 1: and we can make that happen. That was incredible, that
Speaker 1: moment where I realized, Wow, all this stuff that's in
Speaker 1: my brain and in all the books can now be
Speaker 1: translated in real life to improve people's lives. And so
Speaker 1: we conclude the conversation, and I remember at the end
Speaker 1: it was like an awkward first date. He was like, so,
Speaker 1: I'd love to keep in touch, and I was like,
Speaker 1: let's unpack that. What kind of keep in touch are
Speaker 1: we talking about? Here? Yeah? What are we talking about?
Speaker 1: We talking about like a don't call me, I'll call
Speaker 1: you situation or is it like i'd love to hire you?
Speaker 1: So I literally, I think in the moment I did
Speaker 1: push him and I was like what does what does
Speaker 1: that mean exactly? Are you blowing me off here exactly?
Speaker 1: And he says, well, there's a couple of things that
Speaker 1: need to happen. One, Obama needs to win his reelection
Speaker 1: in a few weeks, so this was like fall of
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, and he said, I also have to like
Speaker 1: convince all the leaders ship at the White House to
Speaker 1: create this new position, right, and I also need to
Speaker 1: make sure that there's a desk available for you. And
Speaker 1: this is where all my West Wing dreams just kind
Speaker 1: of like start dictating, because I realized that, like the
Speaker 1: White House is actually look a very resource constrained environment
Speaker 1: in which practical considerations like is there a desk available?
Speaker 1: It's like a real thing. And so all those things
Speaker 1: ended up happening. But I did do a very bold thing,
Speaker 1: which is I terminated my lease in California and I
Speaker 1: signed a one year lease in DC and sold everything
Speaker 1: other than my bike before having a formal job offer
Speaker 1: from the White House. That is a bold move. I
Speaker 1: was kind of like, I'm showing up, We're going to
Speaker 1: make this happen. Just showed up, knocked on the door
Speaker 1: of the White House. Yeah, and I was like, let
Speaker 1: me in, But I think that really did show a
Speaker 1: commitment to everyone that it was really great if we
Speaker 1: could just get this over the finish line, and it happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we can fast forward a little bit. I mean,
Speaker 1: you created a Department of Behavioral Science, worked in the
Speaker 1: White House for four years, did all kinds of incredible work,
Speaker 1: and to me, I mean, there's so many parallels between
Speaker 1: that and the experience that you had with the violin
Speaker 1: and then Maya. And this is where the story goes
Speaker 1: from incredible for me slightly annoying. You decide to start
Speaker 1: a fucking podcast and then it's Apple's best podcast of
Speaker 1: the year, Like, how do you do that? I think
Speaker 1: it's important to pull the curtain back a little bit.
Speaker 1: Which is the number of times that I've been told
Speaker 1: no and rejected in my career is countless. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was trying to build this team in government, and
Speaker 1: I was knocking on every conceivable door that I could,
Speaker 1: begging my government agency colleagues to work with me because
Speaker 1: I wasn't given a mandate and I had no budget
Speaker 1: to build this team. And I think that a key
Speaker 1: part of my story is you know, you see the numerator,
Speaker 1: you see the successes, but you don't see the denominator.
Speaker 1: You don't see all the times that I was totally
Speaker 1: despondent because I was told I would never be able
Speaker 1: to make it team, or all the times I felt
Speaker 1: hopeless and like there was no chance ahead. So I
Speaker 1: think I just want to start by saying that you
Speaker 1: have to try enough times at something to make things happen.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of always been my philosophy. And do
Speaker 1: you have endurance for that? Like, are you okay hearing no? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I think I'm comfortable being told no or getting
Speaker 1: those rejections because from the time I was a little
Speaker 1: kid playing the violin, I received so much critical feedback.
Speaker 1: You're not going to survive in that world if you
Speaker 1: don't develop somewhat thick skin, because it's a perfectionist sport, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're playing a passage that to any lay
Speaker 1: person would be like, that's great, and then it's being
Speaker 1: picked apart, not just by your teachers and everyone, but
Speaker 1: by yourself. I mean I was always my harshest critic,
Speaker 1: and so I think maybe some of the resilience came
Speaker 1: from those early formative years where I was just used
Speaker 1: to being extremely criticized and extremely critical of myself, and
Speaker 1: I don't know where the right balance, but that was
Speaker 1: just my life. And so that's that's what I've kind
Speaker 1: of used to and I've used it to kind of
Speaker 1: grow and be better. So how does that translate to
Speaker 1: starting a podcast? How do you go from the White
Speaker 1: House and that level of impact to being like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna talk to people with some microphones. Well, one way
Speaker 1: that that kind of thing can happen is when you
Speaker 1: don't control the result of the twenty sixteen election and
Speaker 1: so the woman you were hoping to work for for
Speaker 1: eight years doesn't get elected. That's one possible way that
Speaker 1: you shift gears in life. But when it came to
Speaker 1: the podcast, I mean, I love people. That's actually been
Speaker 1: the through line through all of these seemingly disparate career choices,
Speaker 1: which is at their heart, it's always been about human
Speaker 1: connection and forging human connection. Certainly through music, you can
Speaker 1: make people feel things they've never felt before, and that's intoxicating.
Speaker 1: And then in my role as a cognitive scientist, I
Speaker 1: studied the human condition. I study how it is that
Speaker 1: we even connect with one another. And at the White House,
Speaker 1: you know when you're on the ground in Flint, Michigan.
Speaker 1: The wonky policy stuff feels super far away, and it's
Speaker 1: really just about connecting with human beings who are in
Speaker 1: states of distress. And so I do feel like I've
Speaker 1: always been motivated by a love and curiosity and empathy
Speaker 1: for humans. That's kind of like the thing that makes
Speaker 1: me tick, and so the podcast in many ways, I
Speaker 1: never dreamt of being a podcaster. But when twenty hit
Speaker 1: and I was feeling overwhelmed by, first of all, just
Speaker 1: what was happening in the world. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that kind of took us all by storm, and no
Speaker 1: one knew how to respond in this collective moment of
Speaker 1: grief and loss and shock. And then I was going
Speaker 1: through loss in my personal life. So one of the
Speaker 1: challenges that I faced is my husband and I have
Speaker 1: to work with a surrogate in order to have a baby.
Speaker 1: And after years of trying to find our surrogate, we
Speaker 1: found her. We found Haley in Arkansas, and she's amazing,
Speaker 1: and I'd gone through all their fertility treatments and she
Speaker 1: was pregnant with our baby girl, and we were so
Speaker 1: over the moon and so thrilled that this was finally
Speaker 1: happening for us. You know, it's one process in life
Speaker 1: where you just don't have control. You know, no amount
Speaker 1: of like maya hustle translates in this space. It's just
Speaker 1: it's not like other spaces that I've been in. And
Speaker 1: so we were so thrilled. And then Haley had a
Speaker 1: miscarriage and we lost our baby, and we were devastated.
Speaker 1: I was devastated. I was so intimidated by this moment.
Speaker 1: As someone who had endured so much change, this change
Speaker 1: felt different to me, and I felt like I didn't
Speaker 1: have the tools in my toolbox to figure it out.
Speaker 1: And we were also all quarantined. I wasn't even able
Speaker 1: to spend physical time with the very few people in
Speaker 1: my life who knew about this at the time. And
Speaker 1: so I guess I did the thing that I tend
Speaker 1: to do in these moments, which is I kind of
Speaker 1: like got to action, you know, which is I think
Speaker 1: something that's kind of chacteristic of my personality, which is
Speaker 1: I am a very proactive person, you know, don't I
Speaker 1: don't like kind of marinating in the negativity. I'm always
Speaker 1: trying to find a way out. It's probably just a
Speaker 1: survival mechanism. But I thought to myself, Okay, you're feeling
Speaker 1: really scared by all the change, but you know that
Speaker 1: change is not new to humans, Like you know that
Speaker 1: we've done this rodeo, this change rodeo, many times before,
Speaker 1: and that while the current moment feels daunting, our human
Speaker 1: ability to navigate change is not unprecedented. It's not new,
Speaker 1: and maybe if you can find people who have navigated
Speaker 1: extraordinary change and come out the other side, you can
Speaker 1: learn from them. So it was actually motivated by a
Speaker 1: very personal desire to crack the nut on change, because
Speaker 1: even though I studied it, I felt like the science
Speaker 1: was falling short, and I felt like I needed to
Speaker 1: connect with other human beings and to hear their stories.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's what gave rise to what became
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans. I'm so sorry, May thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been tough. There's an episode of the
Speaker 1: show in which you talk about this at length, and
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about that. But in terms
Speaker 1: of getting started, like you're embarking on this totally due medium,
Speaker 1: totally different than anything you've done before from a practical sense,
Speaker 1: Like how did you approach that shift, because I think
Speaker 1: there's probably a fair number of people who are listening
Speaker 1: who are thinking about those kinds of transitions in their
Speaker 1: own professional lives, and actually I think specifically around podcasting,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of people who are thinking about
Speaker 1: how they could do that or if they could do that,
Speaker 1: And I wonder how you approached actually doing the work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I called again, similar to that White House interview,
Speaker 1: I called smart people. I had a friend named Max Lynsky.
Speaker 1: Now you're just like blowing up my spot. I just
Speaker 1: ask you that question, like I didn't know the answer,
Speaker 1: but I do kind of a little bit. I mean answer,
Speaker 1: did you leave the witness a little bit and your
Speaker 1: subconscious didn't know it? Max? No, but it was an
Speaker 1: important conversation. And I'm not you know, I don't mean
Speaker 1: to make you uncomfortable by saying that you help this
Speaker 1: podcast happen. But you did help this podcast happen, which
Speaker 1: is I called you up and I said I had
Speaker 1: this idea for a podcast, and I need you to
Speaker 1: keep it real with me about whether this idea has
Speaker 1: legs and whether you think there's something there, and also
Speaker 1: can you just give me some confidence that I can
Speaker 1: be a podcast host. I needed to hear all those things.
Speaker 1: It's not like when you build confidence in one area
Speaker 1: of life, it just naturally translates over into another. It's
Speaker 1: all of them. Michael Jordan's basketball to baseball switch. You
Speaker 1: never know what's going to happen, folks. And so I
Speaker 1: didn't know if I could do podcasting. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have interview experience, and I just didn't know what
Speaker 1: this whole enterprise was like. And so I remember what
Speaker 1: you told me is just get started. Just do an interview.
Speaker 1: That was so interesting to me because that felt again
Speaker 1: like the order of operations is off. I was like, wait, no, no,
Speaker 1: I thought, I have to like convince the company to
Speaker 1: want to work with me and everything. So I just
Speaker 1: do an interview. And I remember I interviewed my husband
Speaker 1: Jimmy about his career changes, about his slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: and it was a shitty interview. Max. I am glad
Speaker 1: I don't have that recording anymore. I sent it to
Speaker 1: my best friend, who loves both my husband and me,
Speaker 1: and she's like, girl, this sucks. I was really bored,
Speaker 1: that's what she said. And so the end outcome was
Speaker 1: maybe not amazing, but it gave me an understanding of
Speaker 1: what this show could kind of be. And I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful for that advice. And I think it's actually important
Speaker 1: to share because sometimes it's really helpful to just get
Speaker 1: your feet wet. So I did that, and then I
Speaker 1: also called up my tried and tested advisor, Laurie Santos.
Speaker 1: She works with Pushkin Industry, so Malcolm Gladwell's production company
Speaker 1: on a show called The Happiness Lab. She's made that
Speaker 1: transition too, Yeah, yeah, from academia to podcasting. And so
Speaker 1: I started writing up this pitch, which I ran by
Speaker 1: you and got a lot of good feedback on, and
Speaker 1: she just ended up sending it to the head of Pushkin.
Speaker 1: I did a piloting process and and Pushkin ended up
Speaker 1: green lighting it. And that's when I got to really
Speaker 1: start and how have you approached interviewing? Like, how have
Speaker 1: these various experiences that you've had impacted the way that
Speaker 1: you ask people questions? Do you think of yourself as
Speaker 1: a journalist? No, Oh my god. Do you know how
Speaker 1: any journalists I'd offend if I said I considered myself
Speaker 1: a journalist? Max, I am interested in how you think
Speaker 1: about it. Is it yeah? Is it journalism? Is it entertainment?
Speaker 1: Is it science? It's a great question when I've never
Speaker 1: been asked before. When I think about it, actually I
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, there's a there's a parallel here, which
Speaker 1: is when I entered the government, because I had such
Speaker 1: a lack of experience, there was an advantage to that,
Speaker 1: which is I didn't see rules and red tape and
Speaker 1: obstacles where a lot of people who were more seasoned
Speaker 1: in the government would have seen them. I was really
Speaker 1: just making things up as I went along, and in
Speaker 1: some ways that was an asset because I didn't feel
Speaker 1: encumbered by some of the structure that existed there. And
Speaker 1: I think the same is true for podcasting and interviewing,
Speaker 1: which is I'm not a student of anything, like I've
Speaker 1: never taken like an interview class. I've never i had
Speaker 1: no experience interviewing people, but I love podcasts, so I've
Speaker 1: consumed lots of interviews, and I think this show for
Speaker 1: me was an expression of genuine curiosity, like I would
Speaker 1: show up to interviews fascinated by a person's story. So
Speaker 1: the first person I interview on the show is a
Speaker 1: black jazz musician named Daryl Davis who ends up convincing
Speaker 1: people to leave the Ku Klux Klan. Okay, So that's
Speaker 1: like an unbelievable story. And the way I prepared for
Speaker 1: that interview was to consume everything he had ever done,
Speaker 1: every interview'd ever given, everything he'd ever written in his
Speaker 1: whole life. I spent probably like fifty plus hours preparing
Speaker 1: for every single interview I do on the lower end
Speaker 1: sometimes and I go in being like, I'm a listener
Speaker 1: of the show. That's how I think about it. It's like,
Speaker 1: if I'm a listener of this show of a slight
Speaker 1: change of plans, what do I want to know about Darryl?
Speaker 1: I think I'm a cognitive scientist because I was already
Speaker 1: so fascinated by humans, So it might be wrong to
Speaker 1: say that because I'm a cognitive scientist, my questions are
Speaker 1: informed by that. I think I'm actually just like so
Speaker 1: naturally interested in human beings that I put that lens
Speaker 1: on everything that I do, that cognitive science lens. There's
Speaker 1: an element, I guess you can say, of science because
Speaker 1: that's my training, and so I'm fascinated by every facet
Speaker 1: of human psychology, and I think something that makes this
Speaker 1: show different from simply reporting on a change, is that
Speaker 1: I'm always interested in the psychological shifts that are happening
Speaker 1: underneath the surface. So I'm hearing about the external events
Speaker 1: that this person went through, but I'm always probing to
Speaker 1: understand how their psychology was changing along the way. And
Speaker 1: that's maybe where the cognitive science piece comes in. How
Speaker 1: is your psychology you've been changing along the way doing
Speaker 1: the show. I think that's been the most surprising part
Speaker 1: of this whole show for me, in the most nourishing
Speaker 1: part of this whole show, which is I'm in the
Speaker 1: inner right and I'm preparing for the interview, and the
Speaker 1: interviews will often run for I don't know, an hour
Speaker 1: and a half or something, and we end up condensing
Speaker 1: it to about thirty minutes. And then I'm an executive
Speaker 1: producer on the show. I help edit the show, I
Speaker 1: write narration for the show. I'm listening to each episode
Speaker 1: before it reaches completion, probably like a dozen times. And
Speaker 1: yet despite all of that exposure, I will find myself
Speaker 1: months later making a PV sandwich peanut butter sandwich, thinking
Speaker 1: about something that my guest told me months ago. That
Speaker 1: thought will come into my mind and it will enrich
Speaker 1: my own psychology and make me think totally differently about
Speaker 1: the current moment that I'm in. And so I feel
Speaker 1: like every conversation I've had has somehow stuck with me
Speaker 1: and stayed with me in this really powerful way. And
Speaker 1: it's affecting the way that I think about my philosophy
Speaker 1: on life, It's affecting the way that I think about change,
Speaker 1: it's affecting the way that I think about my self identity.
Speaker 1: And that's amazing because I didn't expect for there to
Speaker 1: be this continuous cycle where you know, you put stuff
Speaker 1: out into the world, and you get stuff back, and
Speaker 1: then you also have all these ideas marinating. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. I feel like we've been talking this whole
Speaker 1: time about your identity and how it has changed and shifted.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in for you personally, what has shifted from
Speaker 1: doing this work. And maybe this is the time to
Speaker 1: talk about this episode you did that was about you,
Speaker 1: because when I heard it, it's devastating, But I was
Speaker 1: also so impressed that you had decided to do that publicly,
Speaker 1: because it didn't seem totally in character to me. No,
Speaker 1: that's totally true. The decision to do that felt like
Speaker 1: evidence of a shift. Yeah, I think that's completely right.
Speaker 1: I mean I always thought, you know, I'm the interviewer,
Speaker 1: and I bring guests on and they share their stories.
Speaker 1: That was always my mental model going into the show.
Speaker 1: And you're in control of how much you're going to
Speaker 1: put out there of yourself, and you're just helping people along. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I tend to be open about certain things but
Speaker 1: also deeply private about other things, and certainly this whole fertility,
Speaker 1: surrogacy miscarriage space was was not something I was going
Speaker 1: on the road talking about. But here's what happened. So
Speaker 1: I already mentioned that we had a pregnancy loss with
Speaker 1: our surrogate in February of twenty twenty and then I'm
Speaker 1: making the show in twenty twenty one, and in late summer,
Speaker 1: we go through another embryo transfer with our surrogate, Hailey,
Speaker 1: and this time she's pregnant with identical twin girls, so
Speaker 1: our embryo split. It was so exciting, And I'm in
Speaker 1: the middle of production for season two of a slight
Speaker 1: change of plans, and all of a sudden, Haley miscarries
Speaker 1: again on exactly the same day of development for the
Speaker 1: baby and I mean this time, it's just like I'm
Speaker 1: still speechless because I just remember what that moment felt like.
Speaker 1: Where's like, wait, really again the same exact thing. How
Speaker 1: is this happening? We just saw the healthy babies on
Speaker 1: an ultrasound and there's a miscarriage again. We later learned
Speaker 1: that Haley likely had an autoimmune response to our embryos.
Speaker 1: So it's just it was just a bad fit. We
Speaker 1: were a perfect human fit and just not a good
Speaker 1: biological fit, which is something that is such a bizarre
Speaker 1: thing to happen. I remember thinking in that moment, I
Speaker 1: feel like I need to make something good come of this,
Speaker 1: because it otherwise just only feels bad. And I feel
Speaker 1: like I also need some outlet to process what's going
Speaker 1: on in my mind. And so I called my producer
Speaker 1: the day after this happened, and I said, I think
Speaker 1: I want to share this on the show, like would
Speaker 1: you be willing to interview me? Which is so foreign
Speaker 1: to me. Max, I never ever thought that I would
Speaker 1: want to do this, But I also kind of realized
Speaker 1: and I was pushing myself, thinking, you know, this is
Speaker 1: something you ask of your guests all the time, like
Speaker 1: extreme vulnerability and honesty and transparency, and a willingness to
Speaker 1: kind of quote, go there, and you haven't been willing
Speaker 1: to do this about the stuff you're going through in
Speaker 1: your own life. And I already was starting to feel
Speaker 1: so connected to my listeners at this point. I mean,
Speaker 1: in many ways, it's an ode to my listeners that
Speaker 1: I had the confidence to do this, because they had
Speaker 1: already started creating the supportive bubble around me, where you know,
Speaker 1: I get emails from listeners every single day from all
Speaker 1: over the world talking about the show and loving the
Speaker 1: show and loving hearing what I had to say, which
Speaker 1: was also amazing to hear because I was always focusing
Speaker 1: on the guests and I just thought of myself as
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, fly on the wall who
Speaker 1: occasionally asked questions. But I was noticing that listeners were
Speaker 1: really responding to that, and so they gave me the
Speaker 1: confidence that my story was worth sharing. And so I
Speaker 1: remember telling my producer, we have to record this tomorrow
Speaker 1: morning otherwise as I'm going to change my mind. And
Speaker 1: I also don't want too much time to pass because
Speaker 1: I don't want to have created a narrative around this
Speaker 1: is what the human instinct we all have in our
Speaker 1: psychology is to create narratives around what happens to us.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't want there to have
Speaker 1: been too much processing. I really want to process what
Speaker 1: I'm going through out loud. You did not have it
Speaker 1: figured out. I really didn't, and I still don't for
Speaker 1: what it's worth, but I maybe I have it more
Speaker 1: figured out than I did then. So it was the
Speaker 1: rawest I've ever been and we put it out into
Speaker 1: the world. The episodes called maya slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: which is so again unexpected. And it's funny that I
Speaker 1: say we put it out into the world because I
Speaker 1: think that again was my mental model. You put things
Speaker 1: into the world. What I didn't anticipate is what I
Speaker 1: would receive in response. And I feel completely overwhelmed by
Speaker 1: what listeners of this show gave me in return. It
Speaker 1: makes me emotional. Podcasting becomes a conversation between you and
Speaker 1: your listeners, and I didn't expect that going into all
Speaker 1: of this, but it is absolutely the most beautiful thing
Speaker 1: that's happened to me as a result of this show.
Speaker 1: And has that opened you up in other aspects of
Speaker 1: your life? Does it translate to your personal life? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm more hopeful and positive about human beings because I
Speaker 1: see the love and generosity of spirit from people who
Speaker 1: are consuming the show all the time, and I also
Speaker 1: hear about their lives, and it makes me feel connected
Speaker 1: to people in a time when it's especially hard to
Speaker 1: connect with people. And does that make you better at
Speaker 1: your job? Probably? I think the more empathy we build
Speaker 1: as people and the more curiosity we cultivate about others,
Speaker 1: the better will be as interviewers. I had to like
Speaker 1: learn about like interview structure. When I first started this,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I don't know these things right. So
Speaker 1: I've learned so much from my producers on the show
Speaker 1: and my editor Jen Guerra has like taught me about structure.
Speaker 1: But mostly, like what I've driven by is just my
Speaker 1: own curiosity, and so I think probably it's translated what
Speaker 1: about your ambition? How driven are you by ambition and
Speaker 1: what you want for yourself? Whether it's playing with Pearlman
Speaker 1: in Carnegie Hall, which happened, or working with Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: which happened, or being named Apple's Podcast of the Year,
Speaker 1: which happened, How driven are you by those end goal results? Look?
Speaker 1: I am I am a driven, ambitious person at my core.
Speaker 1: They're never able to take that out of me. I
Speaker 1: do find, certainly with this podcast that I have been
Speaker 1: not that interested in external achievements because I find the
Speaker 1: thing itself so enjoyable and rewarding. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the Apple thing just came out of nowhere, like I
Speaker 1: in a sea of millions of podcasts. The reason I
Speaker 1: laughed ambition of the kind that you're describing in the
Speaker 1: podcasting spaces that I just felt like, what's even the point.
Speaker 1: There's no point in having a vision in this space.
Speaker 1: It's so saturated. I'll just be happy if I get
Speaker 1: people to listen to this show. That's where my expectations were, truly.
Speaker 1: I could never have anticipated that the show would become
Speaker 1: what it was. And then when Apple gave us the
Speaker 1: Best Show of the Year award, I mean, I just like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I might have laughed out loud.
Speaker 1: I was like, how did this happen? This is insane?
Speaker 1: This is totally completely wild and nuts. So that was
Speaker 1: like cherry on the freaking top. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I was over the moon about it. So it's not
Speaker 1: like I'm rejecting. I'm not one of those people who
Speaker 1: you know, I've read about these Nobel Prize winners who
Speaker 1: are like, no, I refuse to accept the award. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, I'm not one of those people. I will
Speaker 1: always accept the award. But I don't feel driven by
Speaker 1: the external stuff when it comes to this podcast, because
Speaker 1: there's just like so much humanity underneath it all in
Speaker 1: a way that like it's nourishing me at a deeper
Speaker 1: level than I could ever have expected. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that resonates with you, but it just feels like
Speaker 1: it's a different, a different part of my being is
Speaker 1: being nourished by this podcast. That makes me not pay
Speaker 1: attention to that stuff as much. That makes sense to
Speaker 1: me in the context of the show. I think the
Speaker 1: thing I was prying at is whether there is connective
Speaker 1: tissue between these three totally different paths who have been
Speaker 1: on and ambition. I think when I take something on
Speaker 1: and I feel a lot of ownership over it, which
Speaker 1: I did with a Violin because it was my creative pursuit,
Speaker 1: and then with the White House team I was building
Speaker 1: it from scratch, and then with a podcast and making
Speaker 1: the show, I just try and excel as much as
Speaker 1: I can, just try to always make it the best
Speaker 1: thing that I can imagine. That might be the thing
Speaker 1: that stayed constant. I think the thing that's been surprising
Speaker 1: to me about podcasting is that you might have that
Speaker 1: goal of being like making the thing great, but then
Speaker 1: translating that into hard work is a totally different thing. Right,
Speaker 1: and with a violin, there was a lot of hours
Speaker 1: spent not having a ton of fun in my practice
Speaker 1: room trying to get a passage right, and also time
Speaker 1: I spent listening to Britney Spears on MTV TRL hashtag
Speaker 1: Carson daily instead of practicing because it's just like, not
Speaker 1: all that's fun. And I think the thing that surprised
Speaker 1: me about podcasting is how rewarding I'm finding the day
Speaker 1: to day aspects of it, the actual making, which is
Speaker 1: so important because you need to really enjoy the making
Speaker 1: of the thing in order to sustain your interest in
Speaker 1: it and desire to keep doing it and to feel
Speaker 1: like even if it's doesn't become a great thing, it
Speaker 1: was still worth it. Do you have any sense of
Speaker 1: what the next version of your life is going to be?
Speaker 1: I don't. Do you think about that? So this has
Speaker 1: probably been the greatest shift that's happened for me in
Speaker 1: my life. And maybe this hits on your your question
Speaker 1: about ambition. I am like a type a person through
Speaker 1: and through. I love having the five year plan and
Speaker 1: the ten year plan and mapping it all out by nature.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm like. And I think the series of
Speaker 1: pivots that my life has naturally taken or I've had
Speaker 1: to take in my life has kind of soured me
Speaker 1: on that whole way of thinking and has forced me
Speaker 1: to kind of think more about now than what's coming,
Speaker 1: which is a really hard thing for my brain to
Speaker 1: orient around itself because my brain loves living in the future.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to like be on that whole
Speaker 1: present mindedness movement. I don't met it. I don't do
Speaker 1: any of that stuff that I should be doing. But
Speaker 1: what I mean is, you know, I thought it was
Speaker 1: going to be a violinist, lost the violin I thought
Speaker 1: it was going to be an academic, decided not going
Speaker 1: to be an academic. Finally land in a place that
Speaker 1: I love working in, which is the White House and
Speaker 1: in the federal government, and I'm like mapping out my
Speaker 1: you know, just on four years in Obama map and
Speaker 1: out my eight year plan with Hillary that doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: And so I have kind of learned to stop having
Speaker 1: so many plans, like so many long term goals, and
Speaker 1: so I can honestly say at this moment that I
Speaker 1: don't actually have quote ambitions for the future, which is
Speaker 1: such a weird thing to say, because my you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at me as a kid, I had
Speaker 1: so many ambitions for the future. I want to play
Speaker 1: with every orchestra in the world. I want to win
Speaker 1: every competition that ever existed. I want to be a
Speaker 1: pro all this stuff. Like I was just brimming with
Speaker 1: tangible representations of you know, accomplishment and success right in
Speaker 1: this space I was in. And I guess again, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is just a self protective mechanism,
Speaker 1: but I just don't have those same goals anymore. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's also that I'm a more grateful person than
Speaker 1: I used to be, Like I feel more gratitude, and
Speaker 1: so part of my orientation now is well, how lucky
Speaker 1: am I that I even stumbled upon something like there
Speaker 1: was a moment Max, I'm just remembering like two years ago,
Speaker 1: maybe three years ago, where I was walking with my husband.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't have hobbies like I need.
Speaker 1: I need to fill my free time with something that
Speaker 1: is like really fun and meaningful. And literally Jimmy was like,
Speaker 1: maybe you can start up playing bridge, like maybe we
Speaker 1: can get you into video games, and I was like,
Speaker 1: all these things sound horrible to me. And so I
Speaker 1: knew that I was trying to fill some void, and
Speaker 1: so part of me is also just feeling gratitude, like
Speaker 1: I can't believe I stumbled upon something in podcasting that
Speaker 1: feels that void through and through and has just enriched
Speaker 1: my life so much. But I just don't have a
Speaker 1: I don't have a five year plan that seems really healthy.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sometimes it's a little destabilizing, like oh no,
Speaker 1: what's going to come next? I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: a little destabilization is healthy. That's probably true. And I
Speaker 1: will say, and this feels so wonderful to say, it's
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we spend a lot of time in
Speaker 1: our future because we're not satisfied with the present, right,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of like where we go to dream.
Speaker 1: I'm actually legitimately living my dream through a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans, and I didn't expect that, so I don't
Speaker 1: want to move into the future. I would love to
Speaker 1: stay in this current moment for as long as it'll
Speaker 1: let me. That's incredible and I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: what you do next. Oh gosh, Max put it so
Speaker 1: much fresher on me. I'm just teasing Maya. Thank you
Speaker 1: for doing this. Oh thanks for having me. Max, always
Speaker 1: a pleasure to chat with you. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: Long for Him. I'm Maxinsky. My co host Sir Aaron
Speaker 1: Lamer and Evan Ratliffe. Our editor this week was Gabriella Saldivia.
Speaker 1: Thanks to her, thanks to Noel Mateer, who did the
Speaker 1: show notes, thanks to Vox, with whom we make this show,
Speaker 1: and thanks so much to Maya. Her show is called
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans. You can listen to it
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to this show, which we'll be back
Speaker 1: next week.