Dr. Maya Shankar

And there will be gratitude around the incredible person that you become.

Yes, because I experienced a version of this actually, right?

So going back to my violin story, I had spent almost 10 years of my childhood honing a craft, right?

And devoting my whole life to being a violinist.

I was studying at Juilliard.

My teacher was Itzhak Perlman.

I was on the up and up and all of a sudden,

The universe was like, nope, you're not going to do this anymore.

And I had to figure out how to start from scratch.

And since then, I've had many career pivots in which I've had to start from scratch.

So I'm very familiar with this mindset.

One thing that has really helped me is to remind myself that just because it is...

technically starting from scratch, all of the soft skills that I've built over the course of my professional life and my personal life will service me well in this next pursuit.

So yes, did being able to play complex passages on the violin help me as a cognitive scientist?

Of course not.

But did

learning how to be really resilient in the face of failure, did overcoming stage fright because I had to perform in front of thousands of people, did cultivating grit and perseverance, did those things help me in my role as a cognitive scientist and to this day in my various pursuits?

So much so, right?

And so the question to ask yourself when you are starting fresh is,

what are the skills that I've built previously that I can still carry with me into this next space?