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

We often think change will make sense once we get to the other side, but what if the real work of change is learning how to stay present in the uncertainty itself? Today, Jay sits down with cognitive scientist and author Dr. Maya Shankar to explore why unexpected change feels so threatening, and why losing what we thought our life would look like can feel like losing ourselves. From a career-ending injury early in her life to deeply personal losses later on, Maya reflects on how life’s unexpected turns can quietly reshape how we see ourselves, our worth, and our place in the world. Maya explains that one of the biggest mistakes we make during change is tying our self-worth to roles, titles, or outcomes. When those fall away, it can feel deeply destabilizing. Instead, she invites us to root our identity in something more stable: our “why.” The deeper reasons behind what we love—connection, service, growth, creativity. When we stay connected to those, we can move through change without losing ourselves. Jay reflects on how often we seek external validation and why redefining success during loss is essential for resilience. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Handle Change You Didn’t Choose How to Anchor Your Self-Worth Beyond External Success How to Find Your “Why” When Life Falls Apart How to Rebuild Yourself After a Dream Ends How to Grow into the Person Change Is Shaping You To Be If you’re going through a season of change right now, remember this: you’re not broken for struggling with it. Change is meant to shake us, to slow us down, and to make us question who we are beyond our titles, plans, and expectations. A quietly powerful read about resilience and reinvention by Maya Shankar, The Other Side of Change invites you to meet yourself again when life takes an unexpected turn - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729180/the-other-side-of-change-by-maya-shankar/ With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:52 How Change Has Shaped Your Life 04:33 Why Does Change Feel So Scary? 11:27 Why We Tie Our Identity to What We Do 16:07 What Awaits on the Other Side of Change 24:37 Using Self-Affirmation to Stay Grounded 30:32 Finding Gratitude in Who You Become 39:13 Maya on Final Five Episode Resources: Maya Shankar | https://mayashankar.com/ Maya Shankar | https://www.instagram.com/drmayashankar Maya Shankar | https://x.com/slightchangepod A Slight Change of Plans | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-slight-change-of-plans/id1561860622 https://www.instagram.com/jayshetty https://www.facebook.com/jayshetty/ https://x.com/jayshetty https://www.linkedin.com/in/shettyjay/ https://www.youtube.com/@JayShettyPodcast http://jayshetty.me

Jay ShettyhostDr. Maya Shankarguest
Feb 11, 202647mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:52

    Intro

    1. JS

      So first of all, I wanna say I'm really grateful to be here with my very, very dear friend, Dr. Maya Shankar. Uh, we've been friends for, like, maybe four or five years now. And honestly, beyond her incredible resume, incredible list of achievements, continued excellence in everything she does, she's just truly one of the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful humans. And so the fact that you've all come out here tonight to support her and hopefully get her book, or you've already got it. How many of you have already got the book? Okay, all of you who didn't put your hand up-

    2. MS

      [laughs]

    3. JS

      ... I want you to get her book by the end of this. Uh, truly, I'm just so grateful to be here. She's, she is the kindest, most generous, sweet, loving, wonderful human being. And, uh, I'm so happy to be here supporting you. So congratulations, Maya. [audience cheering]

    4. MS

      Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jay. It is, uh, such an utter delight to be in conversation with you about this topic. And, um, I'm so grateful for your friendship, so thank you.

    5. JS

      Thank you. Well, this book that you wrote, The Other Side of Change, I find it such a fascinating topic and read because I feel like there's two types of change. One is the change that you choose, and the other is the change that chooses you.

    6. MS

      [laughs]

    7. JS

      How many of you like it when you decide to change? How many of you like it when change chooses you?

    8. SP

      [laughs]

    9. JS

      Yeah, exactly, right?

    10. MS

      Boo. [laughs]

    11. JS

      That's like the worst. It's like the worst feeling ever. It's like, "What?" Like, "Why did this happen right now?" Like I, you know, it's... And that's like a daily occurrence for anyone on planet Earth. Why did this happen now? Why did this happen to me? What's going on? When will this change? When will this get better?

  2. 1:52 – 4:33

    How Change Has Shaped Your Life

    1. JS

      Talk to me about how change has drastically altered your life when you least expected it.

    2. MS

      Yeah, I mean, I should start by saying that the reason I study change is because I'm super scared of it. [laughs] And I'm really bad at it. And I hate, um, the unexpected changes by and large that have come my way in life. I am someone who loves having a firm grip at the steering wheel, right? I like being in control. I like feeling like I'm gonna dictate how my life turns out. It feels very comforting to believe that the world is fair, and that if you do good, good things will be, will happen. If you aren't good, bad things will happen. It's just a nice clean input-output model. But of course, we all know that that is sadly not how the universe operates, and that fills me with a lot of discomfort, right? The, the, the, the uncertainty that fuels change. And one of my favorite research studies from cognitive science shows that we are more stressed when we're told we have a 50% chance of receiving an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance- [laughs]

    3. JS

      [laughs]

    4. MS

      ... of getting that shock.

    5. JS

      Is that real?

    6. MS

      Yes, 100%.

    7. JS

      Wow.

    8. MS

      And I feel that viscerally. I'm like, "Bring on the shocks."

    9. JS

      [laughs]

    10. MS

      "Just don't make me have to deal with that anticipatory anxiety that, that, you know, makes my skin crawl." I had a really formative experience with change when I was a little kid. I was an aspiring concert violinist, and I was studying at Juilliard at the time under Itzhak Perlman, who is considered, you know, one of the best violinists in the world. And I really thought in that moment, you know, as a teenager, "Okay, I ha- I, I think I have what it takes. I think I might be able to go pro." And then I had my change of plans. A sudden injury that I sustained while playing the violin, um, le- led to, was a career-ending injury for me. And doctors just told me, "I'm really sorry, but your dream is over." And that was my first kind of foray with [laughs]

    11. JS

      [laughs]

    12. MS

      ... with this horrible change thing that I've learned to, you know, over time I've learned to have a slightly more, uh, peaceful relationship with. But it was, it was pretty tough as a 15-year-old to lose a thing that at that point, Jay, I had been doing for almost 10 years.

    13. JS

      Hmm. How many of you have been rejected or failed in that way? Anyone? Yeah. It's the worst. Hearing that news, but especially because of something that you're struggling with injury-wise. I mean, it's not even like you didn't make it, or you weren't good enough, or you weren't smart enough. It was something totally out of your control to some degree.

  3. 4:33 – 11:27

    Why Does Change Feel So Scary?

    1. JS

      When things happen that are out of our control, is it even possible for the human mind to be able to tolerate, accept, and move through it smoothly? Is that like-

    2. MS

      [laughs]

    3. JS

      Is that, is that impossible? Is it possible? Is it made up? What, what's your take?

    4. MS

      Jay, you're the monk. You need to tell us.

    5. JS

      [laughs]

    6. MS

      [laughs] Why is he looking at me for answers?

    7. JS

      I've, I've, I've, I've taken off any ... God, I'm, I'm not a monk anymore.

    8. MS

      [laughs]

    9. JS

      But I've taken off any sort of, uh, metaphorical robes today to be the interviewer for you.

    10. MS

      I know. [laughs]

    11. JS

      So I have no answers. I'm just, I'm just humbly asking questions.

    12. MS

      I know. I, I was totally teasing.

    13. JS

      [laughs]

    14. MS

      But that is to say, whatever peace you found, equanimity you found with change, just assume I found about, you know, one fract- one very small fraction of that. Um, it is a very hard thing for us as humans to reckon with the true limits of our control. But it also makes a lot of sense why our brains lead us to believe we are in control. Because if we didn't believe that we had a lot of control over our lives, you can imagine that we might descend into nihilism, right? We might just think, "What's the point of anything? Why am I trying hard? Why am I doing good in the world? None of it really seems to matter because that lightning bolt can just strike me from above," and it was all for naught, right? And what's really interesting about the research is that it shows people who have, and this is called an internal locus of control, so they really strongly feel like they're dictating outcomes in their lives, they in general have higher wellbeing, m- greater happiness, uh, over time. The challenge, though, is that when that proverbial anvil drops from the sky, it shatters the illusion. And it ends up being, um-A very tumultuous time. And in my own life, what I found when I lost the violin was that there was something so curious about my grief, which was that I, I didn't feel like I was just losing the instrument. I, I felt like I was losing a part of myself. Actually, I felt like I was losing all of myself. It felt like Maya and the violin were inextricably attached [laughs] . And in taking it away from me, I no longer had as much value, right? It, it threatened my self-worth. It's only when you lose something that you realize how much it meant to you in the first place. I'm sure many of you can relate to this feeling. You're like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't realize how much of my confidence was coming from the violin." Or, you know, as a kid who was, um, bullied, right, um, as a, as a little girl in elementary school, I'm like, "Oh, wow, violin was a big part of my sense of social belonging," right? When I was at music school, which was international, all the kids accepted me. They didn't care about the color of my skin. In losing it, I realized, actually, one of the... And I, by the way, when I say I realize, I mean this, like, from my current vantage point as a 15-year-old, I was just cranky- [laughs]

    15. JS

      [laughs]

    16. MS

      ... and annoying to my parents. Like, "Why can't I do this thing I love?" But in hindsight, I've now realized that one of the biggest reasons why change is so scary is that it can threaten our self-identity.

    17. JS

      Mm.

    18. MS

      And I've learned that, and I would urge all of you to engage in this thought experiment, one way to have a more secure self-identity is to anchor, anchor yourself not simply to what you do, but to why you do that thing. So I asked myself, "What did I love about the violin?" Well, it turns out emotional connection was at the core of my love of the instrument. And just because I lost the violin didn't mean that I lost what led me to love it in the first place. I could still find that underlying feature in other places. I could still express that part of myself through other channels. And it turns out that subconsciously I've done that, right? As a podcaster hosting A Slight Change of Plans, writing The Other Side of Change, all of these pursuits have been about forging deep emotional connections with people. Like, this is my bread and butter. Like, I, I love having this conversation, right? Like, this is what makes Maya tick, um, is, is deep emotional, uh, attachment to people and connection to people. And so ask yourself what is your why, right? Maybe it is service. Maybe it is caring for people. Maybe it is getting better at something, improving at a craft. Maybe it is, um, having a creative outlet, like we were talking about backstage. Whatever your why is, life can't take that away from you. That's something that's gonna be a s- a firm anchor, and it can guide you towards your next steps. It can be a soft landing when life makes other plans for you. And I've just felt so much more whole in the transitions and in the inflection points of my life knowing that, like, my why is still there.

    19. JS

      Yeah. I love that. I was about to ask you how to do it, but I love that because I think it's so natural for us to place our confidence in who we're with, what we're doing, right? It's natural to evaluate our value in the world-

    20. MS

      Yeah

    21. JS

      ... based on-

    22. MS

      I'm placing a little bit of my confidence hanging out with Jay Shetty tonight.

    23. JS

      [laughs]

    24. MS

      I'm sorry. Just gonna say. Sorry, keep going. [laughs]

    25. JS

      But, [laughs] but it's true, right? We, we base our value on all of these external things-

    26. MS

      Absolutely

    27. JS

      ... and, and it's fine when it's going good, and we were just talking about that. It's fine when it's going good. The moment it doesn't work out, I was just speaking... I'm thinking of something. You've reminded me of someone. I was speaking to a lady who, I think it was, like, two weeks after her 40th birthday.

    28. MS

      Mm.

    29. JS

      And so I was wished her a happy belated birthday, and she was a mutual friend of another friend. And, uh, she was telling me about, and I was like, "Oh, tell me about your birthday. Like, 40, that's a big birthday. Like, what was the celebration like?" And she said, and this is why I was reminded of it based on what Maya just said, and why I think, you know, her book is the book I'm gonna be giving to this lady straight after this conversation. She said to me, she goes, "Oh, my 40th birthday was a disaster." I said, "Why?" She said, "I lost my job two weeks before my 40th birthday." And I said, "That sounds terrible." And, you know, and she s- and I, and I was asking her about how she lost it and whatever, and she goes, "I thought I was about to be promoted." So she's like, "I thought I was about to be promoted. I lost my job. I had my 40th birthday in two weeks where I was so excited to, like, announce my promotion-

    30. MS

      Yeah

  4. 11:27 – 16:07

    Why We Tie Our Identity to What We Do

    1. JS

      Why, though, is it so hard to do that in the moment? I mean, you're a cognitive scientist.

    2. MS

      Yeah.

    3. JS

      So tell us what is going on in the brain when change is thrown onto you and you're like, "But I don't like it, Maya. I don't wanna think about why."

    4. MS

      [laughs]

    5. JS

      "I just wanted that promotion."

    6. MS

      Yeah.

    7. JS

      Right? "I just wanted that extra money. I wanted that validation and assurance." W- how do I do that?

    8. MS

      Well, I, I actually think we're socialized to anchor our self-worth and our identities to the what, to the roles and the labels, uh, that we carry. Think about the question we ask little kids, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" We don't ask, "Who do you wanna be when you grow up? What are your passions? What do you love doing?" It turns out from research, actually, looking back to your childhood is one of the easiest ways to access your why. You wanna find out, when you were on the playground, what were you gravitating towards? Were you, like, going crazy on the monkey bars, or were you like me, like, listening to what everyone was saying and trying-

    9. JS

      [laughs]

    10. MS

      ... to understand human psychology and social groups, and, "Oh, is this person thinking this, or is that..." You know, that was me on the playg- It's like, okay, of course she's gonna become a cognitive scientist.

    11. JS

      [laughs]

    12. MS

      Um, but that's actually one of the best ways of figuring out what that core passion is. And look, our self-worth is called contingent self-esteem. That naturallyWe like to easily anchor to something because it almost feels uncomfortable to just anchor it to existence, which is what all of us should do at the end of the day. Like, by virtue of just existing, we should be worthy. But as humans, we are getting signals from everywhere that we need to justify our existence, we need to justify our presence. And it's so interesting because I think, um, someone reached out to me, uh, this guy named Scott. He was a human rights lawyer, Harvard trained, Rhodes Scholar, super accomplished, so many accolades. To your point about getting that external validation, that was what he was getting most of his life as he went through, um, his career trajectory. And then he got hit with terrible long COVID, totally incapacitated. So he was suffering from severe brain fog. Um, he was unable to even read a sentence of a book for the longest time. He was experiencing nausea, uh, terrible, terrible symptoms, and so bad that he had to take permanent leave from his work as a human rights lawyer. He had listened to my TED Talk, and I had talked about this what versus why distinction, and I heard from him. He couldn't type, so he sent me a voice memo. I remember, and I, I was listening on my phone. He said, "I asked myself what my why was, and it was advocating for underrepresented people, people who don't have a voice. And so then I asked myself, with my newly constrained life that I live, how can I still express that why?" And he realized he still could by advocating for the long hauler community.

    13. JS

      Wow.

    14. MS

      And so now-

    15. JS

      Wow

    16. MS

      ... he devotes all of the hours of his day where he feels cognitively capable to advocating for various legislation, talking to drug manufacturers, giving a voice to all these humans whose lives have been upturned by long COVID, who otherwise wouldn't feel represented. And I think that is such a beautiful illustration of my hope with this insight.

    17. JS

      Mm-hmm. I love that. How many of you are gonna start trying that after today?

    18. MS

      [laughs]

    19. JS

      Right?

    20. MS

      And we can do it, yeah.

    21. JS

      And we gotta give it a go. We gotta give it a go. You know, I always feel like there's so much good advice out there now, and it's like Maya's book is packed with these incredible insights. And I'm like, the biggest mistake we can make is go, "That's a really cool idea," and then it just goes over our head. It's like that ability to stop and pause and say, "Wow," like Maya's just repeated this idea, like, three times because of how powerful it is, and given us multiple examples, whether it's a real-life story, whether it's cognitive neuroscience, whether it's looking at it from a practical point of view, and it makes sense. And so I encourage each and every one of you when you walk out of here, try and, try and apply it to a real-life situation. I was also reflecting that when I think about all the people I look up to-

    22. MS

      Yeah

    23. JS

      ... they all reacted incredibly well to bad circumstances.

    24. MS

      Mm.

    25. JS

      So anyone that I admire or I'm inspired by, and this could be a family member, it could be a public figure, it could be anyone in your life, right? It doesn't have to be someone well-known. Anyone that I look up to had something horrific happen to them, and they somehow turned it into the best thing that ever happened to them.

    26. MS

      Yeah.

    27. JS

      And when you study people's lives closely, and I'm sure people have that in their families. I'm sure if you think about your parents and aunts and uncles, or you think about ancestors who just did incredible things that we don't even know how they lived through times like that, it, it doesn't... What's the difference between

  5. 16:07 – 24:37

    What Awaits on the Other Side of Change

    1. JS

      someone who has something bad happen to them and transforms it into a superpower-

    2. MS

      Yeah

    3. JS

      ... and someone who has something bad happen to them and doesn't have that ability? Like, what's the difference?

    4. MS

      Yeah.

    5. JS

      Because I think we all feel both of those things. I've had terrible things happen to me, and there've been times where I'm like, "All right, time to throw in the towel. It's all over. Forget about it." And then there's times when tough stuff happens, and I'm able to turn it into a superpower. What's the difference?

    6. MS

      Yeah. Well, I have really good news for you because as someone who started off being very bad at responding [laughs] to these negative events and who I think has made incredible progress, this is a malleable trait in us, and I think the difference is in perspective. So I'll say a couple things. The first is we have this funny little trick our brains play on us when it comes to how we think about who we'll be moving forward. So it's called the end of history illusion, and basically what we s- what it says is, while we fully acknowledge that we've changed considerably in the past, so if you were to show me pictures of violinist, like 8-year-old violinist Maya, teenager, oh, gosh, cringe, teenager Maya [laughs]

    7. JS

      [laughs]

    8. MS

      Um, college.

    9. JS

      Wait, we have, we have those pictures. [laughs]

    10. MS

      [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, actually right now. Um, I thought we were friends, Jay. Um, and then, you know, 20-something, I'll say, I would say, "Oh, my gosh, I am so different from that person. Do not even show me." Like, I'm gonna cr- try to create as much emotional distance as I can between, you know, current Maya and past Maya. But then funnily enough, if you were to ask me, "Well, how much do you plan on changing moving forward?"

    11. JS

      [laughs]

    12. MS

      I'll be like, "Nope, finished product. What you see is what you get."

    13. JS

      [laughs]

    14. MS

      "This is it."

    15. JS

      Wow.

    16. MS

      And researchers have said that, um, we falsely believe that the present is this watershed moment in which we become the person we will be for the rest of our lives. And again, it is just this funny little quirk in the way that our brains have evolved. And the reason that this is relevant to change is that we become different people on the other side of change. The title's not an accident. [laughs] The Other Side of Change. When a big change happens to us, it also leads to lasting change within us, and these big, seismic, anvil falling from the sky moments, they accelerate those internal transformations. We come out the other side with new values and new perspectives and new capabilities, new ways of seeing the world around us and ourselves, or maybe our family, or maybe our family history, or maybe the shame we felt about some part of our childhood. Whatever it is, it is possible for us to emerge a new person. And so the difference that I've come to see, even in myself, is now when I'm feeling daunted at the outset of a change, and my old reflexes kick in, and I think, "Oh, I can't possibly handle what's up ahead. I'm not strong enough. I don't have the right resources around me. I don't have the right vantage point. I don't have the right values," whatever it is, I now thinkThe Maya that's actually gonna have to engage with every part of this process is actually gonna be different from the person she is today.

    17. JS

      Mm.

    18. MS

      And that is so empowering. Like, when you're feeling daunted at the outset of change, just know, and I know people in this room who have undergone incredible transformations as a result of the changes they went through. They would never have been able to predict who they would've become. And we know also from research, we are bad affective forecasters. We're really bad at predicting how we will think and feel about events in the future. And so that, I think, is the sole trait that people have who are really resilient. They understand that they too are changing as a result of their circumstances, and they are introspective throughout. They think, "Okay, I'm noticing this change has revealed to me that I have a certain value or belief. Is this holding me back? Is it problematic? Maybe this change is giving me a rare opportunity to revisit that belief. I shouldn't hold it as sacred. I should interrogate it." Um, and so it, it's been uplifting, and I, and I even in writing the book saw this transformation within me as I was, uh, undergoing an unexpected change in my personal life that I write about in the final chapter. And so I, I fully believe it now, you know, having seen it happen within myself.

    19. JS

      Yeah, and you were telling me that just before you walked on, and not to get into details, but you were telling me that you've literally been reading your own book [laughs]

    20. MS

      Oh my gosh, yes

    21. JS

      ... during new change that's happening while

    22. MS

      Not because

    23. JS

      after the book

    24. MS

      ... I'm a narcissist-

    25. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    26. MS

      ... but because-

    27. JS

      Yeah, I should've, I should've

    28. MS

      ... it's just gotta get my work in

    29. JS

      ... reworded that. Yeah, yeah. It's like-

    30. MS

      [laughs]

  6. 24:37 – 30:32

    Using Self-Affirmation to Stay Grounded

    1. JS

      I don't think there's any better test of doing the work than doing it when it's happening right now.

    2. MS

      Yeah.

    3. JS

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

    4. MS

      I'm so glad you said that 'cause I wanna share an example of a time when I didn't wanna do the work.

    5. JS

      [laughs]

    6. MS

      And I ended up doing it, and it really paid off, okay?So long story short, for years and years and years, my husband Mar- and I were on this journey to start a family, and we experienced so many obstacles and disappointments and heartbreaks over the years, and a miscarriage with our surrogate. And about a year and a half later, we were just over the moon because we found out that we were going to be having identical twin girls. And we were, um, we were just so happy, like, "Oh my gosh, how amazing that this has now happened. It's like a blessing given the first pregnancy loss." And we saw two healthy beating hearts, and then five hours later we found out that our surrogate had miscarried again. And it was ... To go from such a high high to such a low low within just a couple hours was so jarring for my nervous system. I, I was like, I remember telling my husband Jimmy, I'm like, "We need to leave our apartment," like, "I just need to get fresh air. I, I, I, I don't know how to tolerate sort of the, the emotional complexity of this moment," and all that I was grieving. You know, we talked about identity loss, right? Being a mom was one of the earliest identities that I ever aspired to have, and society always told me that in order to be a full person, um, I needed to have kids. And, um, for that reason, I felt like it was a, a massive threat to, to hear about this, this loss. And I remember getting into bed early that night, putting the covers over me, and just feeling really, really sad. And my husband Jimmy comes in. Bless him. He goes, "Maya," Maya is his pet name for me, um, "Let's name five things we're really grateful for."

    7. JS

      [laughs]

    8. SP

      [laughs]

    9. MS

      And I'm like, "Oh, hell no, bro."

    10. JS

      [laughs]

    11. MS

      "You take your Instagram BS-

    12. JS

      [laughs]

    13. MS

      ... you go into the corner, and your toxic positivity, there's no space for that in our bedroom right now." And I was so ticked off, Jay. I was like, "I'm not doing this. This is so annoying." But y- there was something so sweet-

    14. JS

      [laughs]

    15. MS

      ... and innocent about Jimmy's, like, request. And, um, I also thought, "Okay, also if I do this, maybe I'll just get him off my back."

    16. JS

      [laughs]

    17. MS

      "Let me just do, do this thing." Now, mind you, Jimmy's a software engineer, so what he did not know is that he was engaging me in that moment in what's called a self-affirmation exercise.

    18. JS

      [laughs]

    19. SP

      [laughs]

    20. MS

      Really fun to be married to a cognitive scientist, let me tell you. A self-affirmation exercise is when you articulate all the things that bring your life value and meaning that are not being threatened by the change you're going through. So if you're in a tough spot in your relationship, you might focus on your spiritual life. If you're having a rough go of it at work, you might focus on, um, how meaningful your community is to you. What the affirmation exercise does is that it contextualizes what you're going through, and it actually reduces things like denial. Because when you feel like, when you don't feel like your whole identity is under threat from this change, you can embrace the news more easily and actually start to cope with it. It also leads to greater resilience, less anxiety. There's all sorts of wellbeing outcomes associated with a self-affirmation exercise. So anyway, Jimmy comes in and he asks me to do this thing, and I'm like, I'm like stubbornly like, "Okay, fine." And you know, the first item on my list, I was like, "Okay, um, well, I'm really grateful for you." [laughs]

    21. JS

      [laughs]

    22. MS

      You know? Like, like, you know, "You're the love of my life-

    23. JS

      [laughs]

    24. MS

      ... and you're so wonderful." But then this, this list just flowed out of me. I'm so grateful to be an aunt to my six nieces and nephews. What a joy that I get to go into the closet of our apartment and talk to people all over the world about their incredible stories of change. Like, never in my ... It was not on my bingo card [laughs] that I, uh, that this was ever gonna get to be my life, that I got to interview people and be interviewed by people, where you have such incredibly edifying conversations. Um, I love my workouts with my Zoom trainer. Like, we talk about The Bachelor and Love is Blind-

    25. JS

      [laughs]

    26. MS

      ... and it's just so much fun to gossip about all this stuff and it, like, feeds a different part of my soul.

    27. JS

      [laughs]

    28. MS

      Um, I always say, um, celebrity gossip is my love language.

    29. SP

      [laughs]

    30. MS

      Um, and, and then I'm like, and I'm grateful for the California sun, and I, it, it just, it was, like, effortless. It just started to flow out of me, and I swear to God something magical happened in that moment. I had been so single-mindedly focused on achieving this goal of mine, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this. We set our minds on something and we develop tunnel vision. We're like, "Until I get this outcome, like, nothing can rest," that I had lost perspective on how otherwise rich and multidimensional my life was. I had forgotten that, yes, I was in pursuit of motherhood, but there was still so much else that defined me. There was still so much that made me a valuable human and, um, were sources of joy in my life, and there was so much to be grateful for. And so did I go to bed overjoyed that night? Of course not. Um, but did I go to bed feeling more whole? Yes, I did. And I'm so grateful that I forced myself in that moment to do the uncomfortable thing, because it really helped me in the longer term.

  7. 30:32 – 39:13

    Finding Gratitude in Who You Become

    1. JS

      I'm, as I'm listening to you say that, it reminded me of something I, I, I feel like I just learned this yesterday. And so if I sound ... If you f- if you hear this and you go, "Jay, I've heard that a million times," then I'm glad you learned it quicker than I did. I literally learned this, like, two weeks ago. I was in India back at the monastery that I used to live at, and I was sharing something I thought I'd learned with my teacher, and he has this really remarkable way of teaching me back without making me feel like I'm stupid.

    2. MS

      Mm.

    3. JS

      But it's kind of like, "Yeah, you're stupid," [laughs] like, "You got that wrong."

    4. MS

      [laughs]

    5. JS

      Uh, and, and you've, you've just given me the science to back up what he was saying to me. So up until, like, two weeks ago, I thought you had to somehow figure out how to be grateful for what happened to you.We always hear that, be grateful for what happened. You know, the, the, the curse becomes a gift, and the nightmare becomes the dream, and, you know, like be, be grateful for what happened to you. And I've always felt that you just had to somehow figure that out through like raw tolerance, beating your head over, you know, whatever it took. Like, you just had to figure out a way, and if you were deep enough, and if you were profound enough, then one day you could be grateful for like terrible things happening to you. And I felt like that's what it meant to have like, you know, God's childlike level forgiveness-

    6. MS

      Mm

    7. JS

      ... and, and level of acceptance. And he just said this to me. He goes... I was saying that to him. I was like, "Yeah, I really believe that, you know, one day I'll be really grateful for this, and I'll be grateful for what happened to me." And he said, he said, "You don't have to be grateful for what happens to you. You have to be grateful for what you have after what happens to you."

    8. MS

      Mm.

    9. JS

      And it was just this subtle, tiny change that completely freed me of this pressure that I'd put myself under, as if you had to be grateful-

    10. MS

      Yeah

    11. JS

      ... for not being able to have children-

    12. MS

      Yeah

    13. JS

      ... or you had to be grateful for having an injury when you wanted to be a violinist as a kid. It's like, no, you don't have to be grateful for that. Like-

    14. MS

      100%

    15. JS

      ... d- that you could, you could pretend to maybe for a day, but, you know, you've just freed us as well by giving us the science behind it, and that's why I love your work so much because you have this profound ability to take wisdom, have the science to back it up, the research to back it up, and then make it sound so simple, even though you're so much smarter than all of us. [laughs]

    16. MS

      [laughs] Not at all.

    17. JS

      But, uh, you know, make it sound so... And that's what you do so brilliantly in this book. It's like we're like, "Wow," like you're actually speaking to us and speaking to our hearts and speaking our language. Uh, and, and I guess you had all this time to practice on software engineer Jimmy.

    18. MS

      [laughs]

    19. JS

      So, you know, you've, you've had a guinea pig.

    20. MS

      Yeah.

    21. JS

      Oh, ma-

    22. MS

      I, oh, sorry.

    23. JS

      Oh, go, oh, no, go on, girl.

    24. MS

      Just, just to follow-

    25. JS

      I was gonna ask, oh, yeah

    26. MS

      ... yeah, just to follow onto what you said, I, I think that's so spot on. And the people that I interviewed for The Other Side of Change by and large aren't happy that they had to go through what they went through. They would not will their changes over again. Who would? Who would invite illness into their lives and heartbreak and loss? I mean, that would be kind of strange. But they are extremely grateful, all of them, for the person they became as a result of the change they went through, and I feel like that's perfectly echoed by this teacher of yours. They feel like they emerged with renewed confidence, a renewed relationship with their family, a new sense of what was important, a new perspective on their self-worth and where to actually anchor it, um, a new way of, of seeing attachment and, and their, their closest relationships. That's the part they're grateful for. And I love the honesty of that because I often say like, "I'm allergic to two things: soy and platitudes." [laughs]

    27. JS

      [laughs]

    28. MS

      Um, I'm always skeptical when people talk about silver linings and whatnot. I'm like, "Really?"

    29. JS

      [laughs]

    30. MS

      "Um, are you sure? Is that just something you tell yourself because it makes you feel better? Where's the science to back it up," you know? And so it's so interesting because I was seeing... I went into write, by the way, writing The Other Side of Change pretty agnostic as to what I would find. I identified people from all over the world that I just found fascinating, and I interviewed them for a bunch of years. [laughs] And I didn't know what their, what lessons I would learn. I didn't know what their stories would reveal, which was an incredibly delightful process of exploration, by the way. It was like me, like Maya the cognitive scientist in a candy shop, literally.

  8. 39:13 – 47:21

    Maya on Final Five

    1. JS

      Maya, uh, we're running out of time, but I wanna end with a little quick fire about change.

    2. MS

      Okay, I'll try my best.

    3. JS

      Because I think we, we always end every episode of my podcast with a quick fire, but you've already done that before because you came on the show four years ago, and so you've answered-

    4. MS

      I'm not pithy though, so if you can tell. [laughs]

    5. JS

      You've, you've answered those questions, so I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you a new set of questions.

    6. MS

      Okay.

    7. JS

      So these questions have to be answered in one sentence.

    8. MS

      Okay.

    9. JS

      All right? So the first question is, what is the first change people should choose after tonight?

    10. MS

      Being present when they are with other people.

    11. JS

      Hmm. That's a great answer. Very good. All right. Uh-

    12. MS

      Put your phone away.

    13. JS

      [laughs]

    14. MS

      It's okay. Because that really... Well, I know-

    15. JS

      Not right now. Keep filming so that-

    16. MS

      [laughs]

    17. JS

      Yeah, so, so that more people get the book.

    18. MS

      And I'm not allowed to go on, um, but just know that that is also evidence-based. [laughs]

    19. JS

      [laughs] Go ahead. Do you wanna tell us the evidence? [laughs]

    20. MS

      No, no, it's okay. It's okay.

    21. JS

      So-

    22. MS

      Let's do the lightning.

    23. JS

      Okay. All right. Okay, okay. Uh, second question. Uh, the change that you're happiest you made in the last 12 months.

    24. MS

      To care less what people I don't respect think of me. Yeah. [applause] That's a really hard one. I'm still working on it. I'm like, "Wait, but I just want... Can't we just all feel love for one another?"

    25. JS

      [laughs]

    26. MS

      It's, like, such a naive point of view, but I'm like, "I just want people to love each other," and then it's just... Yeah, and then, you know, not looking at comments on the internet, so.

    27. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    28. MS

      [laughs]

    29. JS

      Uh, question number three, something you're trying to change this year.

    30. MS

      I am an extremely impatient person. Can I have a few more sentences, Jay?

Episode duration: 47:21

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