Michael Lewis and Maya Talk “The Other Side of Change”

Pushkin.

Hey everyone, it's me Maya. I recently had the pleasure of launching my new book, The Other Side of Change with literary royalty Michael Lewis. Michael, it seems, knows only how to write bestsellers that also tend to get turned into big budget movies like Moneyball, The Big Short, and The blind Side. He's a star through and through, Needless to say, I was honored that he wanted to host

So I have here to my right, Maya Schucker, who is a friend from We Go Back. I was working on the Undoing project story of Danny Kannoman and I met you at the Kennedy School.

Yeah, I asked, if you want to do my friend.

Yes, she did, That's exactly right, send.

You to email.

I wanted to listen to her presentation she was giving. She was working in the White House at that point, you're working, you were a behavioral like what was your title?

Yeah, behavioral scientist.

All right, So I've watched I've watched iterations of Maya. You know, that was my White House Maya, Public Policy Maya. And now then she became Google Maya, and then she became podcast Maya, and now she's author Maya, and she you know, eventually you be Nobel Prize winning Maya. Now and I got to talk for forty five minutes, and then we're going to open it up to questions, and the conversation is going is we're going to talk about the book. But before we talk about the book, I

Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, thank you all of you so much for coming. It's so much fun to do this in San Francisco because it does feel like a celebration with friends and family and some new faces. But I am very humbled that all of you took some time out of your evening to spend it with me, and like mostly Michael, stop it so we know who pulled the weight on this invitation. It's okay, okay, So how did I get interested in the topic of change?

With those dream don't just glass over there talk about that for a minute.

Okay, let's start.

So from the time I was a little kid, violin was the center of my life, and when I was nine, I started studying at Juilliard. When I was a teenager, it's off Pearlman invited me to be his private violin student. That was sort of the vote of confidence I needed to think, Hey, maybe I have what it could take to become a professional. And it was the first time I remember talking with my siblings and my parents like maybe conservatory is a real option versus, you know, the

How were you fifteen, okay, and what was your response to that? How'd you feel?

I was surprised by how hard I took it. But then I think about the fact that when you're fifteen and you've played the violin since you were six, that's a sizeable fraction of your life, and so the loss feels pretty big, and it's hard to understate my devotion to the craft. My sister would say he was in the front row that when I was not home, she would actually hear phantom sounds of the violin playing. It was like her worst nightmare. It was so horrible. I'm

I mean, it was the thing that.

Made me feel like I was special and I was good at something, and that I belonged. You know, I was bullied in school, and violin and that whole community was a refuge for me.

And yeah, it just was really entangled with my self worth.

I mean, you flash forward many years and you're telling stories of other people's adaptive strategies. Did you have a strategy? What did you do?

I doubled down on watching MTV. All right, I was super MOPy.

I didn't have any good strategies or coping mechanisms as a fifteen year old, I was just like, this sucks. I was also very, very stubborn, so I kept playing through the pain. I had hand surgery. I took an absurd amount of anti inflammatories. Eventually doctors were like, kid, you got to do what You've got to stop. This is clearly not going to resolve itself.

Yeah, at that moment, where did all that energy go?

So my dad gave me good advice.

So was the summer before college, and I was having serious imposter syndrome because I thought, well, Violen's the only reason I even got into college in the first place, and I don't even have that thing. So now what do I do? And he said, you've effectively been wearing blinders for the last ten years. Your job this summer is to basically be an explorer. I want you to read as much as you can possibly read, when to

And he knows that he knew his daughter you were so goal.

Orient Yes, And I really like clarity and I really like certainty, so I was going to latch onto anything. It was like, Okay, can I pull off being a history major? Okay, I'll go with that. And I'm really glad that I didn't do this with a concrete goal in mind, because I didn't even know that cognitive science was a thing. And it just so happens that I read Stephen Pinker's book, The Language Instinct. It was in the basement of my parents. My sister had read it in college.

Which you wouldn't have read if your father.

Didn't absolutely not.

Yeah, I would probably have just skiinned the course catalog and been like, which is the one where I feel like I could actually do okay in it?

That would probably have been my strategy, and it was.

The book was all about our brain's extraordinary capacity for language, and I had always taken my language abilities for granted. I just didn't really think about them. And this book detailed the sophisticated cognitive machinery that's operating behind the scenes that gives rise to language, and I was totally enraptured.

I was like, whoa, this is totally crazy.

And it would share things like think about how a little kid learns language, right, They just hear a continuous stream of sound. There's no parsing between words. Kids just figure out when one word stops and the next word begins. And it's like, WHOA, that's crazy, Like you never really teach them grammar, and they like, somehow learn grammar and grammar anyone who has learned English as a second language knows English is not an easy language. It doesn't make

So this trauma in your life that comes from.

Me, little little t trauma No no, no concert violinists herself.

You can't study at Juilliard anymore, like kind of slightly. You motored through it pretty well. You motored through pretty well. I just want to pay respect to true trauma because we're gonna get to that. We're gonna get there's an awful lot of it in this book. Let's come close to the present. You are, your surrogate has lost the child. How does that lead to a podcast?

Yes?

So one thing that was surprising to me is despite having gone through this violin shift and learning whatever I subconsciously learned from it, I wasn't consciously being like, what lessons should I draw from this experience?

And I sorry, I was just.

Waving to Jimmy who came in to my husband ill and sorry to embarrass you.

Okay, I'm going to get to I.

So anyway, I I had had these formative experiences, and I wasn't, you know, consciously drawing lessons. But I felt like, okay, I built some thicker skin, and I found myself reeling.

After the miscarriage.

I remember, yes, and I as someone who's quite social, I also felt like it was very, very hard for me to communicate with people. I remember I texted my family and was like, this happened. I can't talk to anyone. Please don't call me. I don't want to talk to anyone for like many days, and I finally mustered up the courage and I called my brother aj because it just felt like I had to reach out to someone, and he was wonderful, but I was just really struggling.

I'll just figure out a way.

I'm very creative and very resourceful when it comes to finding a way to the finish line, and relentless right but much to my mom's chagrin, And so for that reason, I felt this sense of powerlessness that was so discomfiting for me, because I was like, oh, wow, in the world of fertility and whether pregnancies work or not work, there's no such thing as hustling or hard work. The universe is totally indifferent towards the depth of my desire

None of that matters.

And I really struggled with this feeling of contending with the true limits of my control. That was very hard for me psychologically, and that's what introduced me to this whole world of change.

All right.

And then I was at a party of a person who's here, Adele, and I was talking with my friend Christine. We were talking about the idea of a podcast. Oh you're sitting right next to each other, Thank you.

Guys in this room. You don't know.

It makes me look bad. My goal of is all just my friends and family. I would say thirty percent, I know, okay, all right, seventy percent are true strangers and we're just so captivated by the title of the book. So I was brainstorming with my friend Christine, and then we came up with the idea of, oh, wouldn't it be amazing if there was a podcast about change? And I wasn't quite sure what that looked like yet. In fact, at first, I thought maybe you'd be career change. And

So Jimmy's very entertaining with the problem.

Yeah, I guess I brought it down.

I can guess what the problem was.

What do you think it was?

The stakes were so low?

I mean, the stakes are too low.

What is like, who cares about people's career changes?

Oh?

Yes, yes, yes, the stakes aren't high enough exactly the reasons I described. Yeah, then it just became a podcast about people's unbelievable changes in their personal lives. And the first person that I interviewed was Darryl Davis, This black jazz musician who convinced dozens of people to leave the Ku Klux Klan because of his incredible persuasive powers and his ability to understand what it means to empathize with people who even have vile views, right, and how to

All right. So now we're gonna move to the book. So they are what six seven different profiles. You're one of them.

Yes, Unexpectedly, I didn't think that the last chapter would be narrative.

I picked three that I want to talk about. Sure, we're going to do case studies, and we're going to figure out what did you tell these stories? And you're gonna explain to us what we can learn from each of these stories. Is that right?

Okay?

I I mean that's what you've kind of done here.

Yeah, yeah, no, sorry, that's fair, and that's fair.

I want to push back a little bit, and I'm so glad that we coordinated in advance when.

We talk about but no one even told me what time I come here.

Mike. Michael on the way in was like, I did extremely little prep for this conversation. I just want you guys to know. And I was like, perfect, that sounds great. That's actually the best version of Michael.

So this is great. But here's what I want to push back on.

I want to give our readers the joy of the story unfolding in the long form version of this.

So I don't want to give away endings.

Okay, So I can talk generally about some of the stories or some of the lessons learned, but I want people to really enjoy it.

Their words are always going to beat my words, right, So, well.

Back way for just one second before getting too that why did I write a book? No?

No, no, you well all right, yeah, we talk about that.

Yeah, why did you write a book?

Okay?

And there's are there plenty of books out there? Who needs another?

Yeah?

And in fact, I.

Asked myself that question every time before I write a book, like this, is the world need another?

Yes?

And often the answer is no.

Yes.

Richard Taylor had told me so many times like, don't write a book, don't write a book, don't write a book, and I started to taking it personally. I was like, okay, dude, you have to even see my writing yet, like why do you feel why do you feel so strongly about this?

But what he was trying to say is so many authors get into.

The business for the wrong reasons and kind of like the Bachelor, right, you got to be here for the right reasons for it to work. But the reason that I wrote it is because one, I love learning new skills. So I at the time, I was lucky enough that I had talent representation and my agents at CAAA had been asking me for a really long time will you write a book?

We write a book?

And by the way, initially, I mean I said no for about a year and a half because I was like, it was never on my bucket list to write a book. I was happy to go to my grave not being a published author only. I also only want to take on endeavors if I think I can make something exceptional, which really sets a high bar for you now that you're about to read this book. No, but I want I want to feel it's great. So I really don't

So okay, yes, you.

Literally do an excerpt from the phone book and it would be a number one Neuror Times bestseller. So you really don't have a lot of credibility here. So annoying how easily you sell books. It's so annoying. Yeah, people were like, hey, when I was asking for advice, I was like, dude, these pre order numbers are paltry, Like what's going on? And then they were like, well, you know authors like why do you talk to Michael Lewis

Thank you very much. Anyway, I digress.

I realized that as I was recording all these podcast episodes about people's incredible lives, so it was like stories of illness, stories of a dream loss, stories of a job lost, and stories of just unexpected wile and will drop from the sky style changes. I noticed there are some really interesting connections. In fact, sorry, she also mentioned your daughter, who I interviewed quinn Is for the podcast. She was a guest of mine. I noticed that there

You should talk to them.

Oh I lost a loved one. Oh go to the brief section of the bookstore. Oh I'm going through a job thing. Oh yeah, there's a community support group for people losing jobs. And I think that's misguided. What matters is a shared psychology in the face of change. So what I've noticed is that people going through wildly different changes on their surface have so much more in common when it comes to both the problem statement and the

But if they're all the same, why he needs seven different ones?

No, sorry, different lessons emerge from different story. Yeah, all right, good thing, you weren't my editor? Not exactly, not exactly. Motivation, He's like, couldn't this have been an Atlantic article?

Well, that's a good question to ask oneself before one sits down to write a book.

And that's also a good thing about operators should ask one's author before one sits down, and one's author.

But your point wasn't that all these people have the same thing in common. Your point is that sometimes the cancer patient hards something in common with a person who's has been cheated on her.

Bet I'm making is that when people read this book, which I hope they do, they will find resonance in an unexpected story.

Okay, because of the lesson that emerges from it.

Before we again, before we get into this specific story, since you're not going to tell them all the way, Yeah, we have a little more time. Yes, is in your mind you when you started the podcast? Yeah, well you think change is always bad change? Is it always loss that you do? How about gain?

So it's a great question. Yeah, I was thinking about bad change because who wants to hear No one's interested in reading about good change. Okay, I'm here to brag about how wonderful my latest promotion was. It's true that there's a flip side to good change, because of course we're about it affecting forecasting, and we get things wrong and it turns out lottery winners are miserable. Blah blah

It's lost, you're really yeah?

Absolutely, And to that point, there was a moment about a year into making a slight change of plans that I was on a walk and it occurred to me, I thought this show was about change, but it's actually a show about identity, because every story actually is about how people felt that their fundamental sense of self, their identity was threatened as a result of the change they went through.

All right, this is an excellent segue to the first story. Great and why don't we take them in this order? Were the three people I want to talk about? Or Olivia, Dwayne and Ingrid. Yeah, so let's start with Olivia.

Olivia was incredible, and I want you to know, by the way, the reason this book took me three and a half years to write is one because I have a full time job, but two because it was extremely hard for me to find people that I wanted to feature in this book. Great stories are so so so hard to find.

Now, these people were in your podcast, correct.

All the people profiled are not in the podcast. And I was very interested not just in the external beats of a person's story, but from my vantage point, their interior life. Right, So what was shifting within them as they went through their change? That was the novel lens I was going to bring to the table, which is I want to understand maybe the thing that they find the hardest isn't the thing that I found would find

Tell me more about that.

I want to know, because I read one article about you and I never would have gotten that insight. So Olivia, actually she came to me via Instagram. She sent me a DM and she said she slid into my DMS and she said, hey, I've listened to your podcast.

A slight change of plans. I have my own story.

I had a severe brainstem stroke when I was in my early twenties and it left me with locked in syndrome. Now, for those of you who don't know locked in syndrome diving bell and the butterfly that if it brings any bells, it basically means that so all of your cognition is preserved. But importantly, you cannot voluntarily control any of the muscles in your body except for the muscles that move your eyes. So your only portal for communicating with the outside world

Oh is she before this happens too?

Well, I'll get to that, Michael. I'm trying to do a you know, a story of a tension Denu mal you know, so.

Would you like I could just.

You told me I had to tell the story?

Yeah? Good.

So, so first I want to say that she she texted me and she was like, I just want to share the story with you. And I was in the throes of writing this book and I texted her. I was like, you know, she was hoping maybe to hear back from me. At some point I was like her, are you free in like one minute to talk on the phone.

And I get on the phone with her, and.

I was like, so, instead of doing a one time podcast episode, would you instead like to spend the next three and a half years with me talking deeply about your story.

I probably freaked her out, but she was like, okay, yeah, I guess. And so she was. She was one of those people that made this book the book.

It gave me the confidence that I did not, in fact need to return my advance.

We've already told us something. Yeah, that the person who you she's got this syndrome where she can only communicate by blinking her eyes. Yeah, she's on the phone with you. Yeah, okay, So.

She was sending me a text on the phone, Michael, you know, I'm just kidding.

I'm kidding. I just you didn't have to make that so explicit.

Oh, one day I will improve to the point where you're you're satisfied with my interviewers. But but, but but let's talk about you interview Okay, I'm trying to figure out, so this person gets a touch who wants to tell her story? Yes?

And so I started interviewing her. And here's who Olivia was before the stroke. She was a fairly happy, but very insecure high school student slash college student. So that's most people, right, and so she has this catastrophic brainstem stroke,

For two reasons.

One, I think we naively believe that when we get us, when we get such catastrophic news, like we're locked in all of our old preferences and values and ways and thinking about the world. Are immediately right size and we don't care about that stuff anymore, and we are immediately enlightened and we have perspective, and it's like, who cares what other people think. I'm just concerned about being able

Version of herself.

About Ingrid, Yeah.

Ingrid is someone who, from the time she's very little, growing up in Columbia, is told that she should never tell people about her family's indigenous background. So her mom cautions her from a young age. She says, all these family stories about your grandpa's magical abilities and our spiritual traditions, they're going to be harshly judged by others and you might face violence or discrimination.

Don't talk about these with anyone.

Can you can I think your talk? Can you pause just a liver there and tell them? Can you tell them one of the kind of stories that she was told as the great stories.

Yeah, that her grandfather could move clouds and help farmers with their crops. It's a little Ingrid would hear these stories with such delight, but she quickly learned like, oh wow, no, these are shameful stories, right, I shouldn't talk about them with anyone else.

And then when she so she.

Continues this when she moves to Chicago eventually and has a bustling community around her, her friends notice she's very guarded about her upbringing and her cultural heritage and just her life in Columbia in general. And you know, her boyfriend even would tell her like, Ingrid, you never open up to me about your life life back in your homeland.

Why not?

And so he said being inscrutable was kind of her defining quality. And then one day she gets into a biking accident and she develops amnesia, retrograde amnesia. So what that means is you lose a lot of memories from the past, but you can still form new memories.

But she didn't develop it. She comes out of this crash and she doesn't remember who she is.

Yes, so in a moment, it's like no.

Idea who she is correct and has to kind of uncover who she like it becomes a detective guy. Yeah, yeah, so she so she does nothing about herself. Yes, that's just an amazing thing, waking up and knowing nothing about who you are.

She gets it from the bike, and she knows, she knows how to use the bike. So it's interesting because with retrograde amnesia, all your skills are still intact. So you can still read, and you can still write, and you can still pick up a phone and call someone, but you don't have an understanding of who you are. And so she stares at her reflection at one point and thinks she's observing someone else until she finally puts it together and is like, oh my god, that's me.

So sorry.

One thing that I should note is, unlike most people who would be totally freaked out of their mind if this were to happen, Ingrid experiences unbridled joy and euphoria.

She knows she doesn't know who she is, and.

She's thrilled about it, and she's to the point.

Where she doesn't even want to look in the mirror. She doesn't want to remember anything. Yeah, that is especially weird, because don't you think if you felt that way, you would ask yourself, why do I feel this way? And maybe like what I was whereas a serial killer.

Or something absolutely Ingrid and I could not have more different cognitions. That was one of the other delights. I'm like, I don't relate to this person at all.

Right, yes, yeah, You'd be scrambled to get back to Maya's fast.

I'd be like, what is her Amazon ranking? What is this person?

I don't know if she's written a book, but I need to know her Amazon ranking. And so Ingrid has this euphoria, and she describes it as a feeling of lightness. She feels unburded in some way, but she can't understand quite why. And as Michael said, is she's going through these next few weeks trying to hold her recovery. She covers up every mirror in her house with blankets because she doesn't want to be reminded. She doesn't read any of the journals on her bookshelf. She wants to preserve

It has no idea. What she's doing is transgressingly exactly nothing.

Until one night she has to flash in her mind of her mom staring at her sternly, and she rushes to the bathroom, and that's when she remembers, oh my god, I'm ashamed of these stories. These are a source of shame for me. I'm not supposed to even talk about them. But it's too late. She has already arrived at a

It might be problematic? Is it outdated?

For Ingrid?

She realized she overinterpreted her mom's message, so her mom only cautioned her to not share this because she was worried about ingrid safety. She was deep her mom was deeply proud of these stories. But we so often have this happen. Right, ninety percent of our beliefs. I just made that number up, But let's just assume I'm just your classic social scientists. No, I'm just kidding, and ninety percent of you believe me just now.

Now, I'm just.

Kidding, just kidding.

Many of our beliefs, I don't know what the numbers are, are actually sitting on very flimsy ground. We learned those ways of thinking and seeing the world based on subconscious messaging when we were kids, from parents, from teachers, from popular culture, from TV shows we watched, from culture and our upbring, whatever it was. And yet it's not like every day we wake up thinking what belief should I interrogate for its credibility today?

Right?

And so what change can do like it did for Ingrid, is wipe the slate clean and give you a chance to ask yourself, is this a belief that I should carry?

And do we need trauma for that? No?

So one of the things, so I don't want anyone to have to go through a change to benefit from this book. So the thing that I was very intent on is this book is for anyone who is not just in the throes of change, but someone who's looking to change the relationship with a past experience that they have a very troubled relationship with, or someone who simply wants to get ahead of a big change that's forthcoming and it's going to come for all of us spoiler alert.

Was your social science background at all useful to you in doing the book? I know why, how? And why? Because these are stories and you can sort of draw conclusions from the stories, but explain how social science background sort of finds its way into them.

So I think first of all, giving names to concepts is very helpful for readers, right they want to know that there's a thing like identity foreclosure or epic label or whatever the concept is. But also because when it came to prescribing recommendations, that's where the social science is very helpful. So we can identify from Ingrid's story that she had these faulty beliefs that were problematic in X

So we only got a couple mins for let them start asking you questions. There are a couple of we'll skip doing because I wanted to ask you a couple of other things. Did anybody you approached try to write about not want to be written about?

Oh?

Of course, so you got turned down? Yeah, who turns it down?

Let me tell you one example.

So there was a woman why I want to protect her privacy because she didn't want to be written about. I mean, yeah, saw disguiser I wrote about. I was interviewing a woman whose story I found absolutely fascinating. And at the end, she said, at the end of our interviews, which only lasted a couple of weeks, she said, I feel like I'm kind of writing my own eulogy when we have these interviews. And I was like, WHOA, that's really intense. I don't want you to feel like that.

How the subject of the book responded to this so really really well, nobody's angry.

Nobody's angry. I know that. So unlike you I mentioned, I was a people pleaser.

So Michael has Michael has pissed off so many subjects.

Oh my god.

Yeah, well that's right. There's a rule they get. Did they get to read the book when you get to read the book?

Yeah?

First of all, so you have the thickest skin. I mean, not collagen wise. I'm just saying you have the thickest skin of anyone that I know, because you just let criticism like, I don't even know if it hits your skin. It's like you have a chemical repellent that doesn't even let it touch you. And he's like, Daniel Connoman, h yeah, he was really pissed off about the way that I wrote about the whatever project. I'm like, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Connoman. He's like, yeah, he'll get over it.

You know.

It's just like you're so chill about everything. How are you so chill?

Well, it's it's so in the case of Danny is different, a little different. Danny was the most terrifying subject I ever had, because his mind could just run circles around my mind. Yeah, mostly my subjects sort of see plus students and you know, they're athletes and Wall Street traders and they're not that smart and uh, and so that I'm not that worried about what they might say that or they might or that they might think something that my brain hasn't already thought. Yeah, but Danny, you just

Yeah, so it was not you know, I really really deeply hate upsetting people.

Okay, well I don't, and so I trying to upset them. No, that's not the point, not to upset them. I understand deliver what I think is true. Yah the page. Absolutely.

So my policy for the book was I would not allow any editorial input on anything that I've written. I did allow for a fact check, but I did not let anyone interfere with the writing.

And nobody came back and said, you got me slightly wrong.

I think No, I don't know if everyone has read their chapter.

All right, Okay, Dwayne read his chapter and said it was really healing for him.

So, I mean, by the way she said, who Ingrid is? I mean a sudden these people are not Once in.

San Francisco, she wrote, Man, he could do clouds. Yeah, she's a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Yeah, this all turned into this turned actually this is a story of gain. That's the one story of gain. Yes, so last thing, I'm just cart curious.

Well, in Ingrid, for example, she she did say she loves that her story was interpreted through a very fresh lens because it was one she had not had not explored in the book that she wrote, so it was really fun for her.

Yeah, she left a lot of material on the floor. I mean, I just couldn't believe that was amazing. It was a bit when I saw it. I know who she was. I thought, why didn't she write this?

Yeah, totally don't tell her that.

So did you enjoy doing this?

I actually loved it.

Did you like it more than the podcast?

It was very different. Writing is solitary.

Though.

My husband Jimmy spent so much time helping me on this book, and I was so grateful for his partnership. We just kind of like coop them in the living room and just like go go at it. I it's a yeah, it's a very different experience. What I loved about writing the book, which by the way, I'm I'm saying I love it, but it was also absolutely the

Was that knowing laughter from the front row. I think it was knowing laughter from the front row. Let's kick it to the audience.

Oh, by the way, had to go like ten minutes. Are people open to going? Like ten minutes over? So don't you just finish this?

Okay? We run light?

Are you running late? Okay?

Go ahead, finish with Oh sorry, I was going to say. With the book, what was so nice is you have the luxury of time and space to breathe because you're doing dozens of hours of interviews with people over many, many years, and so I could explore kind of every nook and cranny, and there were stakes were low, and

So that was really fine. You never would have found it in a podcast ever.

Never, So that was the part that was most joyful for me.

Right, you're able to make connections that you wouldn't otherwise, Yes, right, yes, all right, So let's open it up. Is there a mic or people just gonna stay on in the shower. There we go.

Hi, I'm Sonny. I'm a huge fan of your podcast. The question for both are witch podcast. Do you say a Michael Lewis has written so much.

I'm just I have a.

The question for both of you. You can decide who when to answer first or better answer. So I have a college going daughter, she's doing cognitive science, and I'm just curious. It's our kids are going to go through the massive change, and they are going through the massive change right now as we speak, in the AI era. And what does so much of what you're talking about I think is just happening to us without even the face of big change. The change is happening so slowly,

Michael, you should answer.

Change person.

Never tried about Sam. Thanks, you're intell.

No, it is I mean, this is different. This is an interesting for this this this is a distinction here between external change like technical rapid technological change that changes the environment, all right.

Find just to get used to stop, I'll just answer it.

Okay, go ahead.

So I'll start by saying I don't know the answer to the question. And one thing that I have tended to do over the course of my life is to overplan. I've been making five and ten year plans from the time I was five years old. Okay, super fun hang really really cool kid. And for that reason or sorry, for that reason, I have really I've really struggled with change because I would over prescribe the future. And we know from decades of research, legitimate social science research, that

And so.

What's really important about this is that when big changes happen to us, they also lead to lasting change within us. We develop new perspectives and abilities and vantage points. And that's the same thing as perspectives and values and beliefs and ideas about the world and ways are just seeing

It's just true.

Everyone will figure it out to some degree, right, They're just going to have to. Yeah, those are my thought. Any other then, Michael us.

They're a weird little piece of advice. Just tin little thing. It's a title little thing. It isn't a lecture, it's a it's a no, that's a that's a speech. You a speech. You have a speech in you on this subject. I don't this is not my subject. But but but have your son enroll in an improv comedy class. Build build that muscle, like that muscle and understand what that muscle feels.

Talking to an.

Indian person, they're gonna enroll their kid that they're they're in Kuman now.

If they think if they think it's gonna absolutely so. But it's it's uh that there's a in fact, if you want to give him a great present. Second second, second city daughter sorry's second city in Chicago? Has it? You read the book? Well, they also you can send your your daughter there for four days and and just drop her in an immersion class. And I did it. Uh, I brought a child with me to do it, and

That's a great that's a great answer. Genuinely, mm hmm. Genuinely, there's a great answer.

It beat My answer, if you're lucky is a secure persons because I would just be out of here. I've been out here a half an hour ago. All right, so we have any we're gonna we got a little bit more time. We got time for one or two more.

No one, everyone else is here. You seem to be the one who's in a big rush. Where do you have to go with me?

So it's me either way here with me rather than there this in and out and an hour okay, answer questions, yeah, okay, Hi.

Thank you so much for sharing your stories and about the book and all that. I'm Brian Wade a little bit of a back and forth on Instagram actually speaking

Oh my gosh, I absolutely love that question, Brian, and thanks for reaching out to me over Instagram. The penultimate chapter of the book is actually about a woman who really believes the world is just That's a big part of her upbringing. So her parents kind of tell her, look, if you do good, good things will happen to you. My trador Matt and I talk about this all the time. Right, he believes in like karma and like good things having to good people. And I'm always like Matt, my heart

Okay.

Anyway, So she really believes that if she does good, good things will happen, and that is actually like per tradictory for most of her life, right, she works hard in school, she gets good grades, she's nice to people, people are nice to her back right, input output model clean.

And then when she is in her twenties, she gets really dark really quickly.

Guys.

She's just driving on the road and a little boy who's eight years old runs out onto the street because he didn't look in both directions, and she hits him and she kills him. And because Marianne's view in a just world is so robust, she ends up engaging in all these mental gymnastics to help to justify what has happened.

Ah, there we go. That's the how have you checked?

Is it?

Okay?

If I give a lecture, Yeah, we give a lecture, Okay.

I started off saying that as I was writing this book, my husband Jimmy, and I were going through a tough period with heartbreaks and obstacles and disappointments. When it came to starting a family, and when I the genesis for the podcast was an emptiness and a void that I felt in my life that I wanted to fill with something after the first miscarriage, and then about a year and a half later, we found out that our surgut was pregnant with identical twins at identical twin girls, and

Why is it problematic?

But then also to learn so many other valuable lessons about what it means to live a rich life even when life doesn't go according to plan. And so I am so grateful for the personal evolution that I experienced. It was such an unexpected part of the journey. I do write it back out it in the final chapter, but the gains have continued far beyond when I had to submit this for publication, Like I continue to derive

Thank you guys so much. Thank you Michael.

Hey, I hope you enjoyed this special live episode of A slight Change of Plans. You can find my book The Other Side of Change in the episode notes or at changewithmya dot com slash book and exciting news. We recently learned that the Other Side of Change is an instant New York Times bestseller. If this is your first time listening to the show, welcome, We are so happy you're here. If you want to get caught up, check out the special link in our show notes for what

See you then.

A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Alexandra Garritan, our lead producer Megan Lubn, our associate producer Sonya Gerwitt, and our sound engineer Erica Hwang. Louis Gara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. Special thanks to Daphne Chen for