Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing) · Hala Taha | Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing | YAP Media Network

Dr. Maya Shankar: Transform Your Mindset to Navigate Life’s Biggest Changes in 2026 | Human Behavior | E381

·1 hr 13 min·4 clips

Maya describes a fertility loss that made her confront control, grief, and the limits of "trying harder."

1. Young and Profiting with Hala Taha centers this episode on change, identity paralysis, and Maya Shankar's book The Other Side of Change. 2. Dr. Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist, former White House advisor, and host of A Slight Change of Plans, and Hala Taha frames her as a returning guest. 3. The episode asks what change is for, and Maya argues it can reveal strengths, values, and future selves that were hidden before the disruption. 4. Maya defines identity paralysis as the uncertainty that follows a major life change when old plans and labels are no longer available. 5. She uses her own story of losing a violin career at 15 after a sudden injury to show how a role can become tied to self-worth. 6. Maya says she realized the core of her violin identity was human connection, not the instrument itself. 7. She connects that lesson to entrepreneurship, noting that people can over-identify with a company and feel like failures when it struggles. 8. Maya describes a human rights lawyer with long COVID who reframed his purpose from "being a lawyer" to advocating for long haulers. 9. She says change is scary because uncertainty is stressful, and she cites a study showing a 50% chance of an electric shock felt worse than a 100% chance. 10. Maya also argues that unexpected change shatters the "illusion of control," which helps explain why layoffs, illness, and infertility can feel so destabilizing. 11. She shares her own multi-year struggle to start a family and says a second miscarriage with a surrogate made control feel impossible. 12. Maya says the common line "you can't control what happens to you, but you can control your reaction" felt like a platitude during grief. 13. She wrote The Other Side of Change to give listeners a companion with stories and science plus concrete actions. 14. Maya explains the psychology of "possible selves" and separates them into hopeful, feared, and expected selves. 15. She says societal messages about motherhood and child-free women shaped her own assumptions about what a full life should look like. 16. Maya argues that change can reveal hidden beliefs and create an opening to build more positive possible selves. 17. She contrasts resilience with reinvention and says "apocalypse" comes from apocalypsis, meaning revelation. 18. Maya's interview style is reflective and example-driven, with Hala asking practical follow-ups and personal questions. 19. Listeners interested in psychology, identity, and life transitions will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners looking for fast tactical business advice without personal reflection may skip it.

As heard by us

A steady conversation about how disruption can reshape identity.

Dr. Maya Shankar and Hala Taha make the episode feel grounded and useful by staying with a plain question: what changes in a person when life does not go as planned?

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Why you'd press play

When change hits hard, this gives you a steadier script.

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