Why Change Is Hard and How to Make It Your Advantage with Maya Shankar

Summary

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Podcast Summary: All the Hacks with Chris Hutchins

Episode: Why Change Is Hard and How to Make It Your Advantage with Maya Shankar
Release Date: February 18, 2026
Guest: Maya Shankar, Cognitive Scientist & Author of The Other Side of Change

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the psychology of change—why we fear it, cling to the status quo, and how we can actually use change as a catalyst for growth. Host Chris Hutchins is joined by cognitive scientist Maya Shankar, whose personal experiences and research illuminate the roadblocks—and opportunities—present at life’s many inflection points. They explore practical, science-based strategies for navigating unexpected and self-initiated changes, moving beyond platitudes to real, actionable tactics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Is Change So Hard?

• Change triggers uncertainty: Our brains are wired to dislike unpredictable scenarios, even when the “status quo” isn’t serving us. Maya references research showing people are often more stressed by a 50% chance of receiving an electric shock than by a 100% chance ([00:46]).

  "We would rather be certain that a bad thing's gonna happen and endure an expected amount of pain than to have to grapple with any uncertainty." — Maya Shankar ([00:46])

• Loss of control feels destabilizing: Both Chris and Maya share personal anecdotes about how unexpected changes shatter their illusion of control.

2. Status Quo Bias & “Apocalypse” as Revelation

• The Power of the Familiar: We’re taught “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke,” but this mindset can trap us in situations that limit growth ([03:05]).
• Reframing “Apocalypse”: Maya explains that the Greek root “apokalypsis” actually means “revelation,” not destruction—implying that profound change, though traumatic, can illuminate unseen aspects of ourselves and our values ([03:05]).

  “Change can upend us, yes, but it can also reveal really important things to us… The unique demands and stresses... can reveal things to us about our beliefs and our values and our ideas about the world and our perspectives.” — Maya Shankar ([03:05])

3. The “End of History Illusion”

• We Underestimate Future Change: People recognize how much they’ve changed from childhood but rarely anticipate further change in themselves—falling victim to the psychological concept called the "end of history illusion” ([05:47]).

  “The present as, quote, a watershed moment in which we have finally become the person we're going to be for the rest of our lives. What a funny quirk of the human mind.” — Maya Shankar ([05:47])

• Practical Upshot: Remember, you are a dynamic entity—you’ll change in response to future challenges, and the version of you who faces adversity will be different and often more capable than you predict ([05:47]).

4. Relating to Past, Present, and Anticipated Change

• Maya’s Framework for Change:
  • Coming to terms with past change
  • Navigating current change
  • Preparing for anticipated/future changes, or overcoming general discomfort with change ([12:50])
• Personal Story: Maya shares her struggle with infertility and loss, illustrating how platitudes like “change your response” felt hollow until she developed real, actionable strategies grounded in science ([12:50]).

  "It wasn't like there was a switch in my brain I could just flip on and off that would suddenly make me feel more enlightened..." — Maya Shankar ([12:50])

5. Toolkits & Tactics for Navigating Change

a) Maximizer vs Satisficer Mindsets

• Definitions:
  • Maximizer: Always looking for the “best” possible option; often paralyzed by overanalysis.
  • Satisficer: Settles once standards are met; less likely to overthink and more content ([16:43]).
• Chris's Experience: Analysis paralysis can keep maximizers from making even obviously beneficial changes ([17:45]).

b) Anchoring to “Why” Not “What”

• Identity Resilience: Don’t tie your identity solely to your current role or activity, but rather to the underlying “why” (your core motivations or values).

  "It can be quite precarious to anchor too much of who we are to what we do... I have since tried to anchor my identity to why I do the things that I love to do." — Maya Shankar ([18:51])

• Exercise: Reflect on childhood play—what did you naturally gravitate toward? Your “why” is often found here ([23:37]).

c) Navigating Change with Others

• Different Empathy Types:
  • Emotional Empathy: Feeling another’s emotions
  • Cognitive Empathy: Understanding another’s emotions
  • Empathic Concern: Wanting to help
• Key Insight: Recognize that differences in empathic styles can affect how couples or teams handle change; increased openness and understanding can smooth these transitions ([25:25]).

d) Tactics for Breaking Rumination

• Mental Time Travel: Imagine yourself five hours, five days, or five years from now to gain distance and perspective on your current struggle ([29:22]).

  “What that does is it helps you zoom out and gain what psychologists call psychological distance.” — Maya Shankar ([29:22])

• Affect Labeling: Explicitly name the emotions you’re experiencing to create separation between you and your feelings ([29:22]).

e) Rethinking Beliefs with a Neutral Third Party—Human or AI

• Invite friends as “cognitive advisors”: They can poke holes in your narrative and help break out of mental loops ([33:09]).
• Self-Coaching: If you don’t have someone to talk to, imagine yourself as an impartial observer or refer to yourself in the third person to foster self-compassion ([33:09]).
• AI Tools: Chris and Maya discuss emerging value in using custom AI “coaches” to challenge your thinking effectively and impartially ([36:56]).

  "It won’t have the same emotional relationship with you… it can actually be even more effective at trying to help you see your problem from new angles." — Maya Shankar ([36:58])

f) Getting “Unstuck” at Inflection Points

• Choosing the Status Quo is Still a Choice: Remind yourself that not changing is an active decision, with opportunity costs ([40:26]).
• Possible Selves: Envisioning multiple futures (“selves”)—hopes, fears, likely outcomes—broadens your sense of potential ([40:26]).
• Moral Elevation: Witnessing acts of courage and resilience in others (even strangers or fictional characters) can spark inspiration and expand your sense of what’s possible ([40:26]).
• Fiction as “Identity Laboratory”: Reading stories lets you “try on” new identities safely and imagine alternative choices ([40:26]).
• Consider: “Who else can this person be?”: Transfer skills and strengths you’ve developed into new arenas ([40:26]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On identity and change:

  “When I lost the violin, I realized, oh my God, this instrument is entangled with so much of what makes me me. And now that I don't have it, I don't even know who I am or who I can be.” — Maya Shankar ([18:51])

• On rumination:

  “You feel the illusion that you're making progress, that you're on the verge of some kind of breakthrough, but in actuality, you're making no progress at all.” — Maya Shankar ([29:22])

• On shared psychologies:

  “There are so many similarities in the problem statement psychologically that you're up against… So the solution set will often look quite similar, too.” — Maya Shankar ([45:42])

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Practical Segment Timestamps

• [00:46] — The discomfort of uncertainty
• [03:05] — Reframing “apocalypse” and the revelation of change
• [05:47] — The “end of history illusion”
• [12:50] — Relating to change: past, present, and anticipated
• [16:43] — Maximizers vs Satisficers discussion
• [18:51] — Anchoring to “why” you do things
• [23:37] — Identifying your “why” using childhood clues
• [25:25] — Empathy differences & navigating change with others
• [29:22] — Breaking rumination: mental time travel and affect labeling
• [33:09] — Using others (or AI) as cognitive advisors
• [36:56] — The emerging role of AI “coaches”
• [40:26] — Agency in the status quo, the power of “possible selves”, and moral elevation

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Closing Guidance From Maya

• For those in the thick of change:

  “Be in community with others, irrespective of the changes that they've had to navigate in their lives. ...We all have a shared psychology.” ([45:42])

• You can draw wisdom from a wide spectrum of people's experiences—recognize the commonality in how we all engage with and adapt to change.

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Stay Connected with Maya Shankar

• The Other Side of Change — Available wherever books are sold
• Podcast: A Slight Change of Plans
• Instagram: @DoctorMayaShankar
• Audiobook available for listeners

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Listen to the full episode or read more at AllTheHacks.com

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This summary provides core concepts, science-backed strategies, and memorable moments to offer actionable guidance—whether you’re anticipating change, in the midst of it, or processing the past.

Transcript

[A]

Change isn't just inevitable. It's uncomfortable because our brains hate uncertainty. Today I'm joined by Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist and best selling author of the Other side of Change to unpack why we cling to the status quo even when growth is on the table. We explore the biases that keep us anchored to what's familiar, why we misjudge our own future growth, and practical tools to help us think more clearly at inflection points in our lives. I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoy this episode, leave a comment or share it with a friend. And if you want to keep upgrading your money points in life, click follow or subscribe. Maya Change is just a guarantee in life. Everyone faces it, but it scares people so much. What do you think? People get wrong when they think about it.

[B]

So I should first say that I am also one of those people that finds change super scary, which is one of the reasons why I've gravitated towards studying it. As a cognitive scientist, I don't think I do a great job. I rarely meet moments of unexpected change with equanimity. And so part of the goal of writing the Other side of Change was in fact me search and trying to figure out how to do things better. One of the reasons why we find unexpected change so scary is that it is accompanied by a lot of uncertainty and our brains are not wired to enjoy uncertainty. One of my favorite research studies shows that we are more stressed when we're told we have a 50% chance of getting an electric shock than when we're told we have a 100% chance of getting that shock. And so we would rather be certain that a bad thing's gonna happen and endure an expected amount of pain than to have to grapple with any uncertainty. And it's kind of funny, right, that we would have this quirk in the way that we think about the world and the way that we assess risk, the way that we feel about risk. But I don't know about you, Chris. I resonate so much with this finding. I want to know how the story ends. I like being in control. I like having a firm grip of the steering wheel. And when I temporarily or over a longer stretch of time, feel like the illusion of control that I live so happily alongside has been shattered because the anvil, the proverbial anvil, has dropped from the sky and has shattered that illusion. It's very destabilizing. It's very disorienting.

[A]

It's funny cause I have a friend who unfortunately lost his home in the fires in la. And we had this interesting conversation where he's like, gosh, I had all this stuff, and he's like, this thing forced me to get rid of it. And. And so, in a way, it was a really stressful change moment for him. Like, I can't even imagine, but a part of me was, like, slightly jealous where I was like, you got forced into having to reevaluate what you own, where you live. All these decisions that aren't sudden change, right? Like, for me, moving, it's not something that's going to be forced upon me. But it feels so daunting. It's like uncertainty about, like, well, I like this place more. And I was a little jealous that he just got to reevaluate all these things. And here I am like, wow, we got a good mortgage rate, so, like, we can never move. And, you know, if we were renting, it'd be like, oh, it's a lot easier to try new things.

[B]

We humans are such a fan of the status quo. It's very hard to kind of poke holes in things that aren't broken. We're told, don't fix it if it ain't broke. And so I think what change does is that, like you said, it upends your life in a way that feels so profound, and. And as a result, it can serve as a moment of deep revelation. So I talk in the other side of change about this concept of the word apocalypse, which we can often use to describe when a terrible thing has happened in our life. It can be like a personal apocalypse, right? The world that we once knew and were so comfortable with is no longer available to us. I talk about the fact that that word apocalypse comes from the Greek word apokalypsis. And what's interesting is that apocalypsis actually means revelation. And so I feel like this etymology is very instructive. Change can upend us, yes, but it can also reveal really important things to us. The unique demands and stresses of our new environment, the one that we were thrust into without our consent, can reveal things to us about our beliefs and our values and our ideas about the world and our perspectives and the way we see ourselves and the world around us. And in turn, it can give us an opportunity to reevaluate each of those things. And I think that's potentially what your friend might be able to experience as a result of this devastating change. I'm pretty allergic to the idea of things having silver linings. I think I'm just cynical like most people. So when I hear that there can be any sort of upside. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I tell people I'm allergic to two things, soy and platitudes. And so I, I am always a little bit of a skeptic. But what I found in interviewing the people for this book for many, many years and then undergoing my own personal evolution, I. Wow. This idea of change precipitating, really seismic internal transformation is true. It's real. By virtue of getting outside of our comfort zone and by brute force being required to make all of these adjustments and shifts in our lives, we can become new people.

[A]

What's the antidote to making this easier? Right, Because I think you and I know, me and a lot of people listening have this attitude that's kind of in conflict with this nature against uncertainty, which is we all want to improve. Like, we want to be happier. And so the idea of, you know, utopia, right? Like I live in this place, that's better than where I live. I have more relationships. Like, there's almost this idea of perfect being better than where we are now. We believe we can improve, but we're so stuck with the status quo. How do we grapple with that tension?

[B]

Well, I want to clarify one thing, which is I certainly can't guarantee that people will be happier necessarily on the other side of a harrowing change. But what I have found by and large is that most people are grateful for the person they became as a result of the change they went through. It can feel subtle, but it's a pretty important difference because I think it would be dishonest of me to say, and guess what? Happiness is awaiting you on the other side of illness or loss or heartbreak. I don't necessarily think that's true. I do think though, that the internal shifts that we can facilitate within ourselves can lead to greater enlightenment and occasionally joy. I think one big mindset shift that is helpful to anyone who's listening is to remember that we are always changing. So we often fall prey to what psychologists call the end of history illusion. And what this means is that while we fully acknowledge that we've changed considerably in the past. So if you asked me, how similar are you to 10 year old Maya or 20 year old Maya? I will say not at all similar. You know, forge as much psychological distance as I can between current day Maya and that former person that I hardly even relate to. But then if you were to ask me, Chris, well, how much do you anticipate you'll change moving forward? I'll say, oh, no, no, no, I'm done changing. What you see is what you get. Like this is the finished product. And the researchers who coined this term end of history illusion talk about the present as quote, a watershed moment in which we have finally become the person we're going to be for the rest of our lives. What a funny again, quirk of the human mind that we forget that we are in flux, that we are these dynamic entities that are consistently changing. And what a seismic change, unexpected change in particular can do to us is it can accelerate these internal shifts. So like I talked about before, when you are thrown into an unknown environment, you suddenly discover new things about who you are that may have been previously hidden from view. It is the ultimate sense, self actualization boot camp. All of a sudden you discover, say, a secret about a family member and it upends everything you believed in your childhood and the foundation upon which you formed every other belief. Or you're confronted with an illness and you are forced to reckon with a self identity that you had subconsciously built around you and your health, but now has been, is actively being dismantled and you have to put the pieces back together and figure out what your actual identity is. And so I give those examples because when you anticipate how you are going to respond to a terrible change, you are likely to feel very daunted. And oftentimes I felt like I can't possibly navigate what's up ahead, that I don't have the capabilities, I don't have the right perspectives, I'm not as enlightened as I would need to be to navigate this illness or this loss. But there is some hope and optimism in remembering that the person who will actually navigate that full experience, that person will be different from the person you are today. And I have now witnessed so many versions of Maya emerge on the other side of the big changes in my life. And I've been stunned by one. How resilient the human mind is and also the ways that we adapt, but also like you said, the ways that we actually improve ourselves and the ways that we come out better because we sometimes believe. I have a fairly good understanding of who I am and Chris thinks like he has a fairly good understanding of who he is. But our self understanding is based on a very limited set of data points that we've happened to collect over the course of our lives based on a random set of experiences. It's a very limited set of data points, right? And so these big changes, they reveal all this stuff that's so fascinating for our psychologies to absorb. So I would recommend that people just remind themselves of this human bias of the end of history illusion and to remember that there is an optimistic message.

[A]

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[B]

So no, it's a, it's a terrific question and it was one that I actually thought a lot about when writing the Other side of Change. I wanted this book to be relevant for people who were trying to renew their relationship with a past change. So maybe they felt still so much anxiety and discomfort around it, or maybe they felt like they had a tortured relationship with something that happened in the past and they were looking to revisit that experience through a different lens. I wanted to help people who are in the throes of change, right? So the person who's actively navigating the unexpected and needs support and needs to know what the right science backed strategies are and tools to use. The person who's anticipating a future change. This is one thing that I excel at. Sadly, I am like a professional ruminator and I will at times, you know, when I'm worried about the future, just catastrophize and go over all the what ifs, what ifs, what ifs. So it's also for people who are trying to get ahead, to build that resilience and that armor before the change even happens to them. And for people who just generally have a negative relationship with change like I do, because they don't like uncertainty, they don't like the shifts in identity that can accompany the unexpected, and they just want to have a healthier, happier relationship with the concept of change. And I think that when I was writing this book, as I kind of alluded to this earlier, I was going through an unexpected number of shifts in my own life. So, long story short, after six or seven years of my husband and I trying to start a family, we were unsuccessful. And we were having to navigate heartbreaks and pregnancy losses with our surrogate and just so many disappointments. And I Remember that? I was reeling in part because I love being in control. I love having a plan and I like outworking challenges, right? When I see an obstacle and when I've seen an obstacle in my career, I just do everything I can to overcome it. But the world of fertility is one space that will really humble you. The universe doesn't care how hard you work. It doesn't care how much you want a certain outcome. You just get what you get, irrespective of your wants and desires, the intensity of those wants and desires. And so I was reeling and this mantra was playing in my head because people would say it on and off over the course of my life and I would see it on Instagram and I would see it out there in the world. And it's this idea that while you can't change what happens to you, you can change your response to what happens, right? And it's based in ancient wisdom and it's meant to be deeply empowering. But in my moment of distress and heartbreak, it registered as a platitude. Those words rung hollow because I didn't know what it actually looked like to change my reaction. It wasn't like there was a switch in my brain I could just flip on and off that would suddenly make me feel more enlightened or happy or positive or more hopeful about the future. And so my goal was to give people a means to an end. I want people to think and feel differently about change in their life, period, whether it's past, present, future, just generally as a concept. But I wanted to give people a set of tools, right? Science backed strategies, wisdom from all the people that I interviewed, thought experiments, the right questions to ask so that they could actually achieve the goal of changing their response.

[A]

So maybe this is a good time to jump into a few of them so people can kind of get a sense of how they could use them. And to the extent we can keep it as broad as possible so that it applies to people thinking about past change, thinking about future change. And then there's this like, fifth person you mentioned, four archetypes, and I feel like I'm one of them, where it's like I am caught in my desire to stay in the status quo, but also want change for personal growth. It's like, I don't like change, but I really want it. I'm not afraid of it, I just don't seem to do it. I don't even know how to explain that construct. But maybe keep that in mind because some of these toolkits or Tools might be helpful.

[B]

I resonate with that, too. I mean, my husband and I lived in the same apartment for, like, nine years, and finally, we have bought a place. And I wonder, actually, let me ask you, are you a maximizer or are you a satisficer?

[A]

Definitely the maximizer. Like, I want to be a satisficer, but I feel like this show is for maximizers who want to be recovering maximizers one day.

[B]

Okay? So that's funny to me, because my reason for being like, jimmy, I'm happy to stay in this apartment forever is that I'm a satisficer by nature. So I was actually just interviewing someone, Barry Schwartz, for my podcast A Slight Change of Plans. And he was saying satisficers can have really high standards. It's just that as soon as those standards are met, you're good with it, right? Whereas, again, maximizers, obviously, they have really high standards, but they just keep upping the standards, right? They're trying to get, like, the maximum utility they possibly can out of an experience. So I'm just surprised that given your maximizing personality type, you don't chase after change and you don't introduce more change into your life, because, of course, that is how you might maximize your overall utility during your lifetime.

[A]

I think some of it probably comes from the analysis paralysis of, like, oh, well, I could do this thing to optimize something and make it better, but there's, like, 20 options, and which one works? And, like, this other one I'm doing now, like, kind of works well. And, like, for me, there was this wild moment where I was trying to find an insurance policy. And I've talked about this a few times, but I realized the insurance policy I had right now was way too expensive. And I was seeking out, like, what is the best option, like, the best deal? And I came across something that was, like, clearly a better deal, right? Like, it was, like, 20% less expensive. And I was like, I had to separate the process of going from something to 20% less to finding the, like, 23% less. And oftentimes I'm paralyzed, making that first jump because I'm looking for, like, the best. So in a way, like, I need to learn to satisfy and say, look, what I'm doing now doesn't work. If I can just get to here, it'll be great. But because I'm always seeking what is kind of the perfect, best, maximum outcome, it stops me from actually satisficing.

[B]

Yes. Yes. Okay. That's so interesting. I do resonate with you. Though I think that more often than not, we don't take enough risk in our lives. And I think there's economists who back this up. They have, like, really impressive studies showing that on average, we will go with the safer bet. Not always, of course, but there are some really interesting studies on that front. Here's one strategy, one hack, if you will, that I think can service anyone, irrespective of whether they are in the change realm, period, or whether they're like you, who's just looking to encourage more change in their life. Try to anchor your identity, your self identity, not simply to what you do, but to why you do it. So let me make this concrete. When I was a little kid, my whole life centered around playing the violin. I started studying at Juilliard when I was nine years old. The renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman invited me to be his private violin student. I was on the up and up, hoping to one day become a professional. And everything was going according to plan until I had an acute hand injury that damaged tendons in my hand and ended those dreams effectively overnight. I mean, I was a recalcitrant teenager. So I kept playing and not listening to doctors and whatnot. But they were eventually like, look, you've done the surgery, you've done all the alternative treatments, you've done all the anti inflammatories and physical therapy, and the pain's not going away, so your dreams are over, kid. And I remember that there was something so curious about my grief, which was that I found myself grieving not simply the loss of the instrument, but also the loss of myself in this more fundamental way. I think sometimes it's only when we lose something that we recognize how much it mattered to us, how much of our self worth and value it constituted. And when I lost the violin, I realized, oh my God, this instrument is entangled with so much of what makes me me. And now that I don't have it, I don't even know who I am or who I can be. And so it was this formative experience that I had as a teenager that ultimately led me to learn a very valuable lesson, which is that it can be quite precarious to anchor too much of who we are to what we do. Because life can take that thing away in a moment and it can limit our worldview around who all we can be in these lives that we live. And so I have since tried to anchor my identity to why I do the things that I love to do. So I asked myself in retrospect, well, what did you love about the violin? And I realized that human connection was at its core. That was the thing that made me love music more than anything. And there were other attributes, too. I loved improving at a craft. I loved seeing myself get better at something. I loved the sense of community that came along with my musical training tribe. And 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 me was still very much intact, even when I could no longer play the violin anymore. And so then the exercise simply becomes, well, are there other outlets through which I can express these parts of myself? And it turns out, subconsciously, I gravitated towards those domains. As a cognitive scientist, I love seeing myself improve at my craft. I am able to feed this deep desire for human connection through my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. And then in writing, the Other side of Change, which is, you know, deep, long form interviewing. Over many, many years, I would spend hours with my subjects, and it has felt like I've been able to better weather transitions and be more open to the unbidden by not having my identity so firmly anchored in the what of now, Because I know that I have this more flexible why that sits within me, that can dynamically engage with other parts of the world. And so I would urge everyone who's listening to ask themselves, what is their why? What is the thing that really lights them up, that really energizes them about the things they love to do? And put some of your identity into that bucket, such that if life does make other plans for you, you have a compass of sorts to help steer you towards your next steps, but also, to your point, the place you're currently in in your life. It can also make you more open minded about other pursuits that you might take on that you previously felt weren't available to you because you didn't have that narrow skillset. But actually, maybe the same passion that drives you towards podcasting would lend itself really well to this other discipline.

[A]

Is there an exercise you went through kind of, in hindsight, to figure out what those other things were? You said community. You said honing your craft, connecting with people. Was it just thinking? Or how did you kind of convert this idea of being a violinist to actually having all these other things that were really, at its core, what you loved?

[B]

Yeah, it was a thinking exercise. One of the experts I interviewed on A Slight Change of Plans, Angela Duckworth, once told me that one of the best ways to understand what your true passions are is to reflect back on childhood and see what you naturally gravitated towards during playtime. She's a psychologist, Right. So she was joking that even now, to this day, when she and her husband were looking for homes, he was looking at, you know, prices and, you know, the different dimensions of the home. And she was wondering, what's the story of the people who once lived here? That's what I'm most interested in. What's the backstory? And she displayed some of these tendencies when she was a little kid. And I think back to Maya on the playground. And was I going nuts on the jungle gym? Absolutely not. Instead, I was observing everyone and trying to figure out the social hierarchy and trying to understand, oh, who's friends with who, and what is this person thinking? What's that person thinking? And so I think it's a really nice thought exercise to be like, hmm, when I had free time, or when I was just like, on the playground, what was it that I was naturally drawn to? Maybe it was creative expression. Right. So your why can be anything. It could be, I love giving back to others. Right. Maybe you're one of those kids that was a huge empath. You just, like, really loved caring for your friends and family, and you always felt their emotions really deeply. So maybe it's service, maybe it's creative expression. Maybe it is trying new things and a sense of adventure. Right. Don't judge your why. Your why can be anything at all. It's just can be a nice, sturdy anchor when things change in your life.

[A]

I'm torn. Cause I want to hear another one. But I also have a question that came up from this house example, and I'm thinking this couple, where one person is thinking, gosh, who lived here? And the other person's looking at the numbers. When you're in the middle of change with another person, and you guys have very different perspectives on how to navigate it, are there some tactics there?

[B]

Yeah, actually, this is something I talk about in the other side of Change because I think it is one of the hardest things that you can navigate. You know, you're going through some really harrowing change, and you find that you and your partner are navigating it very, very differently. There's no one size fits all, other than recognizing that empathy comes in many forms. So there's something called emotional empathy, which is the visceral feeling you have when you witness someone else's pain or suffering or their happiness. For example, there's cognitive empathy, which is being able to properly diagnose what it is they're feeling and thinking. And what they might need in return. And then there's empathic concern, which reflects a desire to actually help the person. And there's actually a pretty weak correlation between these types of empathy in any given person. So you might be really high on the cognitive empathy scale, but pretty low on the emotional empathy scale. And I think if you can start to understand that we have these different empathic love languages, if you will, it can start to make you a little bit ironically more empathetic towards the way that another person is responding. Oh. Just because they're not showing it on their face doesn't mean that they don't care about me or the situation as much as I care. Right. It just opens up your mental frame about the way that people can grieve and the way that people can show care for others. But it's just a much longer answer and I know you want to get to more strategies.

[A]

No, no, no. It's helpful and it gives me hope. As someone who feels like I've been criticized for not having as much empathy, I'm like, maybe I just have a different type of empathy than my wife, which is very clear.

[B]

You might have more cognitive empathy.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Bilt. You've heard me talk about BILT as the loyalty program that lets you earn points on rent wherever you live. And they just leveled up even more. As of 2026, homeowners can also earn up to 1.25x points on their mortgage payments. This is thanks to Bilt's three new credit cards, the Palladium Card, Obsidian card, and Blue card. All three turn your housing payments, rent or mortgage into flexible rewards so you can choose the card that fits your lifestyle without missing out on points and exclusive benefits. Built points can be redeemed at top airlines and hotels, Amazon.com purchases, future rent payments, and more. Built points have also been ranked by top publications as the industry's most valuable point currency. Your housing payment is already your biggest expense. Make it your most rewarding. Find the card that fits your lifestyle and apply today at joinbilt.com allthehacks that's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com allthehacks make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Terms and limitations apply subject to approval and eligibility. Built cards are issued by column NA member FDIC pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated. This episode is brought to you by Deleteme. One of the smartest things I did a few years ago was Clean up my digital footprint. And that started with Deleteme. There are hundreds of data brokers whose job is to collect and sell your personal information. Things like your home address, phone number, email, and even your relatives names. I tried removing all the data myself at first, and it was a total game of whack a mole. After spending hours barely making a dent, I switched to Deleteme. Since then, Deleteme has been continuously finding and removing my personal information from those sites and just as importantly, keeping it from quietly popping back up. I've now signed up my entire family. It's one of those things I don't even have to think about anymore. So if you're thinking about how to start 2026 safer and more organized, you've got to check out Deleteme. It's simple. It runs in the background and it actually reduces risk. Go to allthehacks.com deleteme and get 20% off a plan for you or your whole family. Again, that's allthehacks.com deleteme let's come back to a few tactics because the first one was great.

[B]

Okay, so one thing that is very common in the aftermath of unexpected change is rumination. So rumination is when your mind gets stuck in a negative loop and it keeps circling over the same negative thoughts over and over and over again. You feel the illusion that you're making progress, that you're on the verge of some kind of breakthrough, but in actuality, you're making no progress at all. So the psychologist Ethan Cross gives this beautiful analogy of it being like a hamster on a wheel, just like running in circles. So how do we break out of these ruminative spirals? There's many, many strategies. But let me share a couple that have been particularly effective in my life. The first is mental time travel. So our brains have this extraordinary ability to travel both forwards and backwards in time. And we can use this to our advantage when we are stuck in these negative thought spirals. You can travel to the past to remind yourself of moments in your life where you showed incredible resilience in the face of adversity, where you surprised yourself with the way that you overcame a big challenge, or to contextualize your current problem against the backdrop of bigger challenges that you faced in your life or society has faced in your life. So some people use this strategically during the COVID pandemic, which was to say, okay, this is not actually the first time that humans have had to handle something like this. You can also travel into the future and this one's been very effective for me because it reminds you that your current situation is transient. So let's say you wake up in the middle of the night and you're just ruminating over, I don't know, a negative interaction you have with a co worker. Super awkward. They were kind of rude. You don't understand why they came at you like that, whatever it is. And you're just thinking about and thinking about it. You're coming up with all these things you should have said in the moment or things you're going to say. And all you need to do is ask yourself, okay, how am I going to feel about this situation five hours from now, five days from now, five months from now, five years from now, 15 years from now? And what that does is it helps you zoom out and gain what psychologists call psychological distance. You see, actually this problem that feels so front and center, like it's the biggest challenge of all time and it deserves all of my attention, is likely to not be as significant to me in the future and that it very well might change. So when I would ask myself that sort of question, I might think, I'm not even sure this person's going to be my colleague in five years. And so it just gives you that sort of objective view that you need when you are so in it, when all of your emotions are locked in on that state. Another technique that's been very useful is affect labeling. So this is when you just give specific labels to the negative emotions you're feeling. So if I found out some really negative, shocking news, I would feel a flurry of negative feelings. And I feel like they embody who I am in that moment. I feel so consumed by that negativity. Research shows that when you just give specific names to these emotions, like I'm feeling anger or frustration or envy or grief or despair, it can shift your attention away from being the emotion to simply having the emotion, which is a very helpful means by which you can forge that psychological distance.

[A]

We've all had our moments of spiraling, so I'm excited to put some of these to use. Sometimes in these moments I start to think about myself and my personality and like, reevaluating things I've thought in the past. And I'm wondering if, as I'm trying to process beliefs I've had about how to react in situations, how I've been, what I do, how can we apply some tactics to reevaluating ourself or, like those beliefs we've had for a long time?

[B]

Yeah, so one of the perils of rumination is that we end up just doubling down on our former convictions because we are in these loops. And so we kind of subconsciously gather evidence in support of our existing viewpoint. One of the most effective ways to break out of rumination is to bring someone into that conversation with you that you actively enlist to poke holes in the narrative that you have constructed. So what that third party can do is see your situation as more of a neutral arbiter, and they can say, wait, are you sure that's exactly what that person meant when they said this? Or do you think maybe you're misreading what this is? Or do you think maybe you deserve to have a little bit more self confidence in this domain and it's probably not right for you to engage in so much self be whatever way you're leaning. Having another person who will be, I think, what Ethan Cross calls a having another person who you're in dialogue with, who's not just providing emotional bombs. So they're not simply validating all of the emotions that you're feeling, and they're not simply validating the narrative, but they are serving as what Ethan Cross calls a cognitive advisor. That person can really help you revisit these belief systems and to find faults within all the ways that you're thinking. And so that's great if you have someone you can invite in. One other tool that you can use if you don't have someone that you feel comfortable talking about this with, is to try to simulate being that neutral third party. Research shows that if you imagine yourself as a fly on the wall, observing that interaction, say, between you and the coworker, you can gain some of that objectivity. You can start to revisit the narratives you told yourself about what unfolded, and even just referring to yourself in the second person or the third person when you're coaching yourself, almost like coaching a friend can be helpful. So if I'm really frustrated with the way that I'm interacting with someone or engaging with a problem, I might say in a moment of acute distress, oh, my God, I need to get a grip. What? Research shows that if I had simply said, maya, you need to get a grip, I would not only help facilitate more of that psychological distance, but I would also be a bit more compassionate with myself. Because if you were to talk to a friend or coach a friend, you would never be so unkind to them, and you would probably rarely scream at them and berate them in the way that you would self berate. We often reserve the least amount of compassion for ourselves. And so self compassion is not simply like a nice to have. It actually often leads to better results in the longer term. That's a common misconception that, oh, self compassion is that weak kind of woo woo thing that people say you should do to feel better, but actually it leads to better performance. It leads people to actually improve because they feel like they are actually redemptive and there's something worth improving. So I think that's another way to sort of get there if you don't have a person available to you.

[A]

So you talked about people and you talked about yourself. And I'm curious what you think about having these conversations with different AI tools. And I'll bring this up in the context of I took this really deep personality assessment that someone created. They literally just vibe coded a personality assessment and it was like 45 minutes of questions and I'm looking at the answer and it's super interesting. It's like, you know, here's your profile, here's your attachment style, here's your anxiety scores, here's your life satisfaction, here's your sensory processing and your big five person personality traits and conscientiousness and extroversion and all this stuff. And it presents it to you in a form that you can just copy and turn into like a custom GPT with this prompt and then start having conversations. I know you've done research long before we even had these tools. How do you think they might play into this as an alternative to doing it myself or doing it with another human?

[B]

So I'm definitely not an AI expert.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But it seems like it could be a really good conversational partner because you can explicitly ask it. Hey, can you find problems in the way that I'm thinking? Can you play devil's advocate? It won't have the same emotional relationship with you that say, your partner might have with you or a friend who just wants to see your distress go away or your anxiety go away and just wants to make you feel better. And so in that sense it can actually be even more effective at trying to help you see your problem from new angles, from new perspective.

[A]

And probably, and I haven't played around with using this prompt on a custom GPT, but it's like presenting it in a way that is more productive. I went through my wife's assessment and I was like, gosh, I now know how you would better perceive feedback. But my nature is not to present it in that way. But if I were an AI tool, I would just be trained to do that. And I could give you exactly what you need. And so I'm like, I'm going to read this, I'm going to try. But man, I feel like in some cases it's kind of magical that you could train a life coach in minutes to basically react exactly the way that is best for you. I'm not an expert either, but I've been going down the rabbit hole of all this stuff and it's just kind of crazy what tools we have to ourselves now that didn't exist years ago. This is not gonna be another AI episode because I just did another one. This episode is brought to you by Fabric by Gerber Life. I try not to live in a worst case scenario mindset, but it is hard to ignore the question if something unexpected happened, would your be okay financially? That's why having a simple, easy way to put coverage in place for life insurance matters so much. Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today. Made for busy parents like you all online on your schedule, right from your couch, you could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. Fabric has flexible policies to fit your family and your budget, like a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day. And if you're young and healthy, the time to lock in low rates is now. And best of all, with a 30 day money back guarantee, there's no risk and you can cancel at any time. Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just [e-mail] allthehacks that's meetfabric.com allthehawks M E-T fabric.com allthehacks Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. Thank you so much for being here today. You can find all the links, promo codes and discounts from our [e-mail] deals. These are brands I love and use, so please consider supporting those who support us. Let's come back to tools or tactics. I'm curious what an example of one you might give to someone who's thinking about big change, like thinking about a career shift, thinking about moving and kind of stuck in the place, which I think a lot of us are, which is like, well, it's just so easy to stay, you know, I had a conversation with someone yesterday. It was clear she doesn't like her job. But like somehow she's come to terms with like, I don't like this job. I don't like commuting for this job. I don't get any fulfillment out of this job. But I'm just going to keep doing the job here.

[B]

I want to talk about one of my friends, Annie Duke. She's a professional poker player. She wrote an entire book about the science of quitting.

[A]

We had an episode on this topic.

[B]

Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. So I think it's really important for one people to remember that staying in the job is a choice. You are making a decision every day. You show up to that job because you're not doing an alternative thing. There is an opportunity cost to your time. And by virtue of going to that job every day, you're making the choice not to explore the counterfactual world, which you're exploring something else that might be a better fit for you. So I think feeling a little bit more agency in just maintaining the status quo can sometimes be a powerful motivator. Like, oh, shoot, I didn't realize. I actually am making a choice by virtue of just not quitting. The other thing I would say is people are sometimes compelled to stick with the status quo because they can't envision what future possibilities can look like for them. So oftentimes, I mean, I think you probably experienced this too, Chris. As we get older, it just feels like more and more doors close for us. Right? And certainly when a big change happens, it can close a ton of doors. We're in a newly constrained environment. Futures that we thought were available to us are no longer available. And there's a really nice concept in psychology called possible selves. So we generate these possible selves all the time in our everyday lives. We have hope for selves which reflect our dreams and aspirations. We have feared selves which reflect our worries and anxieties. And then we simply have expected selves which reflect what we think is just most likely to happen, good or bad. We can crack open our imagination about what is possible for us in the future using specific techniques. So one of those techniques is called moral elevation. Moral elevation is that warm, fuzzy feeling we get when we witness someone else's extraordinary behaviors or actions. So that might be their courage or self sacrifice or resilience or ability to forgive or fortitude. And moral elevation doesn't just feel good. It actually changes our brains when we witness someone violating our expectations of what humans are capable of in the best way possible. In this case, it actually cracks open our imagination about who we can become. It opens those doors that were once close to us. It expands the landscape of possibility for us. And in this particular chapter, the main character, Dwayne, has an encounter of moral elevation that just completely transforms his life. And moral elevation transcends any specific domain. So if you watch someone's incredible ability to forgive someone else, that could actually encourage you in another domain, like your capacity for kindness or your capacity to be adventurous. And so it's a very powerful tool that's available to all of us in our everyday life. Moral elevation is really always around us. It just needs a perceptive observer. And so one thing that I've tried to do in my own life is be more present when I'm at the coffee shop, when I'm just taking a walk on the street, when I'm in line at the pharmacy. You will encounter moral elevation more frequently than you think. And it can really alter your mind and expand your understanding of what's possible. The other technique, or actually, there's two other ones that I'll share really quickly. One is to actually read fiction. So researchers call fiction an identity laboratory. And that's because when we read about other people in the context of fiction, we effortlessly blend our identities with the characters identities. And that merging allows the self to dissolve a bit and gives us the space to try on new ways of being, new personality types. We can test out certain decisions that we might have been too afraid to make in our own lives and kind of see where that takes us. And so it puts us in this psychologically safe space where we can experiment with ourselves and think, how would I have responded in this situation? Would I have done what the main character did, or would I have done something else? And so that can also be another way to crack open our sense of what's possible moving forward. Another thing that you can ask at these moments of inflection is, who else can this person be? So we sometimes forget that when we are at a crossroads, we're trying to decide between this job or that job, or do I quit this job and try this new job, or do I take on this new pursuit? Do I move to another country and pursue my dreams? Whatever. The big question is that even though there's a big change in your circumstances, all of the skills and abilities and knowledge and talents and wisdom that you've accrued over the course of your life will still be very relevant, likely in this new pursuit. When I think about playing the violin, okay, yes, the technical stuff was not relevant in any other pursuit. But the grit that I cultivated, my working to overcome stage fright or nerves, all of the criticism that I would get as A musician thick in my skin. Like, there's a lot of things that you build over the course of your life that you can purpose to your advantage in whatever the next pursuit is.

[A]

I'm glad you mentioned that. We're not going to go through every tactic because you wrote an entire book to go through every tactic. So I'll ask you one thing, and then I want to remind everyone where they can kind of stay on top of everything you're doing. Find the book. For someone who's in the middle of it right now, what advice do you have for them?

[B]

I think my best piece of advice is to be in community with others, irrespective of the changes that they've had to navigate in their lives. I think generally in our society, we are always told to seek out people whose stories look like ours, because that's where we're going to get maximum insight. Oh, you're going through a divorce. Oh, I have a friend who went through a divorce. Oh, you just lost a job. Oh, here's a support group for people who lost jobs. Oh, you're navigating a loss. Oh, go to the bereave section of the bookstore. As a cognitive scientist, my orientation is different. We all have a shared psychology. So irrespective of whether you're going through a cancer diagnosis or whether you're going through a betrayal or whether you're going through the loss of a job, there are so many similarities in the problem statement psychologically that you're up against, right? Whether it's bristling at the unfairness of the world, or grieving a past that's no longer available to you, or trying to figure out who you can be in this new world that you're in, or managing your anxieties and your rumination. And so the solution set will often look quite similar, too. Right. If the problem sets the same, you can expect that some of the solutions will be the same. And I still remember interviewing a young man who was navigating an unexpected cancer diagnosis in his early 30s, a bone cancer diagnosis, despite having been so, so, so healthy. And then a woman who found out that her husband had cheated on her for decades. And they were both grappling with a deep feeling of betrayal. One felt their body had betrayed them. One felt that their spouse had betrayed them. And so even though their stories look nothing alike on their surface, they had so much to learn from one another's experience. And so I think there's something very heartening in that message, which is in a time when people can feel so disconnected from one another and like society is so fractured. There is so much that unites us in this domain, and there's so much we can learn from just about anyone who's navigated change.

[A]

Okay, so we didn't get to all the tactics. For someone who wants to stay on top of what you're doing, check out the book, which, by the way, is already a bestseller. Congratulations. Where should they find everything?

[B]

So you can find my book, the Other side of Change, wherever you buy books. I know that you listen to podcasts because you're listening to Chris's podcast right now. So I have recorded the audiobook. You can listen to my podcast A slight change of plans. Wherever you listen to podcasts. And you can find me on Instagram @Doctor Mayashankar. So that's D R M a Y a S H a n K a.

[A]

R. Awesome links to everything that you just said is in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here.

[B]

Thanks so much, Chris. I appreciate it.