Maya Shankar

And so it's in this really rich exploratory space.

And so those are just two examples.

I outline a bunch of other techniques you can use to try to conjure up new and more hopeful possible selves.

Ooh, that's a great question.

I just feel so much wiser as a result of the people that I...

had the great fortune of interviewing.

I mean, this book was such a journey for me, Jason, because I was writing it and interviewing people repeatedly over many years.

So I was witnessing their evolution.

And then simultaneous to that, I was undergoing my own evolution, right?

Going through this whole challenge around parenthood.

And so it was this very transformative process for me.

I think the techniques that have been most useful to me have been, well, it's one thing to generate new possible selves.

It's another thing to actually realize those selves.

And in the book, I outline a bunch of motivational strategies that people can use to actually achieve their goals.

And I basically leverage these techniques each and every day, because if you're trying to be a better version of yourself, if you're trying to change certain habits of mind or to become new versions of you that you just never thought possible, you have to have the mental discipline to actually put in the work.

And I learned a lot from talking to folks through the book, but then also

just from the field of cognitive science and being a cognitive scientist that have helped me actually put those dreams and desires into practice.

This is a pretty easy one to implement and I have used it religiously.

So it's called temptation bundling.

And temptation bundling simply means pairing the hard thing you're trying to do.