Yara Shahidi: The Anxiety Hiding Behind the Smile
episodePreviously titled “Yara Shahidi Opens Up: How To Prioritize Mental Health & Overcome Self-Doubt To Achieve Any Dream” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 13, 2026
Transcript
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What challenges does Yara Shahidi face in her career?
The incredible Yara Shahidi. It truly starts as a vision board. Some random day, I was 18 and wrote down every deal that I wanted to have. And I don't typically think that way of being like, oh, I'm going to get this deal with this. But I just written down a list. Two years later, I was like, oh, we did it all. The priority in this world is building relationships with people around you. It's not building networks. It's not building contacts. It's building relationships.
My whole life has been about relationships.
Yeah.
What do you feel like has been the most challenging thing you've had to overcome?
I don't know if I've talked about this,
Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have Yara Shahidi in the house. So good to see you.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, I'm excited because you have had an incredible career as a young actor, but also just talking to you beforehand with your mom is just inspiring what you've been able to create for yourself from your career in TV, film, but also graduating from Harvard while acting as well on one of the biggest shows on TV and making that work. You're launching a podcast now with your mom called The Optimist Project. And you were telling me right before that you're actually not that optimist of a person.
Yeah. Yeah, I think the podcast truly came from conversations we're having. So, I mean, the thing is, what's nice is if you know me, you know that me and mommy are very similar people, which is why our friendship but also our business relationship works. And so many times people know. I'll say Carrie Shahidi because she... So many times people... would assume that I'm just an upbeat person. I think for the most part, day to day, smiley individual. But I think so many of the conversations we were having, particularly while I was in school, was just hitting that kind of mental block of one, having a deep anxiety about what growing up looks like and feeling like what's happening when the anxiety and overwhelm are overshadowing the excitement of what's next.
And also simultaneously in school, reading all of these theorists and people, I was in this year-long course for my major in which you have to read everyone from like Hobbes to Marx and every social theorist in between.
And some dark stuff.
Some dark stuff. But more than the dark content in their books, it was like you all live dark lives. The amount of people that wrote a book and then became recluses or ended up separating from family, I think it meant top of mind success. for me was, oh, if this is something that I want to continue to study, what does that mean for me to prioritize quality of life? And so I was that annoying person in all of our discussion classes, like, but were they happy? But were they happy? And what does it mean if they weren't? And why are we taking this so seriously if they weren't happy?
Interesting. Do you feel like you're happy right now?
It's a good question. Today, yeah. Today, yeah.
On a scale of 1 to 10 of happiness, where have you been this entire year? 1 being miserable, 10 being elated, optimistic, positive, joyful. I think... On average.
What is the significance of building relationships in Yara's life?
That's a good question. I feel like I'm a solid 7. Okay. Because I think the difference between even... my life last year to this year was in knowing that there are natural ebbs and flows of emotions. Because I think last year, as much as I could go through something and be really sad for an extended period of time, I always felt like that feeling was going to be permanent.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What challenges does Yara Shahidi face in her career?
0:30–3:42
2
How does Yara prioritize mental health?
3:42
3
What is the significance of building relationships in Yara's life?
0:49–14:19
4
How does Yara navigate public expectations?
14:19–27:57
5
What lessons has Yara learned from self-doubt?
27:57–1:25:54
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The School of Greatness
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