Maya Shankar

speaker

1,518 appearances 8 recordings 7 series first heard Oct 2025 last heard 5 Jul

Maya Shankar’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 5.

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TED Talks Daily · Why you fear the unknown — and what it can teach you | Maya Shankar, Simone Stolzoff · 5 Jul 2026 podcast

And importantly, just because I lost the violin did not mean that I lost what led me to love it in the first place.

That part of Maya was still very much intact, even as a 15-year-old who could no longer play her instrument.

And when you anchor your identity in your why, then you have a path forward because the thought experiment becomes, well, through what other means, through what other outlets can I express this part of who I am?

And it turns out I kind of subconsciously gravitated towards those spaces.

I became a cognitive scientist who studies the science of human connection in hosting a slight change of plans.

It's all about forging deep emotional connections of the people that I'm interviewing.

This is the same for writing The Other Side of Change, where I spent years interviewing people on repeated occasions and really going deep and deep and deep when it came to their stories.

And so I've been able to actually still express this huge part of what makes Maya, Maya.

And to hold on to that as kind of a North Star, a compass of sorts that can guide me towards my next steps.

And I feel like that has helped me, that why part of my self-identity has helped me weather more recent changes with a bit more equanimity, a bit more ease.

And that's because I know that...

The world can't take that passion away.

It's still very much there.

And so I would urge people who are tuning in today to ask themselves what their why is.

Maybe it's service.

Maybe it's getting better at a skill.

Maybe it's having a creative outlet.

Whatever your why is, that can be a soft landing when life makes other plans for you and can help you steer yourself towards what comes next.

I love that story so much.

I think the argument from both of our books is that there is so much possibility that sits within uncertainty, that sits within change.

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