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.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 5.
Appearances
What kind of person do you want to be when you grow up?
And so because we're not asked that question, I think we naturally think, well, what does it mean to have a self-identity?
It means to do something.
And I'm not saying that that version of a self-identity is always problematic, right?
If you identify yourself as someone who eats really healthily or is really into fitness, that's great because, one, it gives you instant camaraderie with your fellow athletes.
It gives you a sense of meaning and purpose every day.
It probably staves off some existential angst you might feel if you didn't wake up every day with a mission.
But the challenge happens when you get that curveball
and you don't want to feel like nothing is intact.
You don't want to feel like life has stripped away everything that was meaningful from you.
And I really did feel this acutely, Max, on the night that we found out that there was a second miscarriage with our surrogate when we lost identical twin girls.
The reason why it hurt so much was in part because I felt like
it was an identity-based loss, right?
It was threatening the aspiration of, well, I've always dreamed of becoming a mom and that label is so important to me.
And so if I don't achieve that label, I am not whole.
But what I learned, honestly, from the process of just spending time with amazing people who are so reflective for the book was, well, what was I craving from motherhood?
Can I find that in my role as an aunt to my six nieces and nephews?
Can I find that through mentorship?
Can I find that warmth and joy, like cuddling with cute little animals?
It takes a little bit of the emotional punch and power out of the situation so that you can at least see that a primary part of, for example, what makes me Maya Maya is still there.
Showing 1001–1020 of 1,518 · page 51 of 76
← Previous
Next →