Maya Shankar: The Toolkit to Accomplish Your Hardest Goals

The Knowledge Project

Shane Parrish

Business, Society & Culture, Technology

4.7 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Shane Parrish and Maya Shankar dive into the complexities of identity and personal transformation. They explore how significant life changes can reshape one's sense of self and explain how to navigate these transitions. Maya shares her personal stories and tips on making proactive choices and keeping a flexible, layered sense of self. They also discuss the psychological and philosophical aspects of identity, offering practical advice on goal-setting and personal growth. Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist and the creator, executive producer, and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. Shankar was a Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House Behavioral Science Team. She holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Oxford and a B.A from Yale. -- Newsletter - The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it’s completely free. Learn more and sign up at ⁠https://fs.blog/newsletter/⁠-- Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of the episode, join our membership: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fs.blog/membership/⁠ and get your own private feed. -- Follow me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://beacons.ai/shaneparrish⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:40) Shankar's "almost unbelievable" story of getting into Julliard (05:30) Why Shankar studied identity (11:38) What is identity? (14:52) Using your identity to accomplish your goals (18:00) Using anti-identities to accomplish your goals (18:51) What to do when your identity is "attacked" (26:30) How to re-establish trust in institutions (32:30) Use identity to start a positive habit (35:35) How to debunk myths with stories and facts (37:18) How does how we frame our goals help (or prevent) us from accomplishing them (43:11) The one motivational technique Shankar uses every day (45:15) On success Watch the episode on YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/theknowledgeproject/videos⁠⁠ Newsletter - I share timeless insights and ideas you can use at work and home. Join over 600k others every Sunday and subscribe to Brain Food. Try it: ⁠⁠https://fs.blog/newsletter/⁠⁠ My Book! Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results is out now - ⁠⁠https://fs.blog/clear/⁠⁠ Follow me: ⁠⁠https://beacons.ai/shaneparrish⁠⁠ Join our membership: ⁠⁠https://fs.blog/membership/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We can, especially at the outset of goal setting, be wildly ambitious about what it is that we want to accomplish.
0:05.7	So rather than setting a year-long goal, which we might feel an instinct to do, instead, by the same token,
0:12.3	if we see ourselves through these more negative labels, then we might also act in ways that align with that and needlessly hold ourselves back.
0:19.8	It's a mechanism by which you can get people to open their minds up without them feeling
0:23.3	like they're threatening the entire moral compass that they live by.
0:28.2	So that we don't have to employ willpower, we should really focus on the way that we design
0:32.7	our lives and the choice architecture of our lives.
0:34.9	What we're talking about here are aspirational identities, right? And we don't want to get in our own way.
0:39.5	I want to switch gears just a little bit to something you said when you were in the White House
0:43.4	that is fascinated me, which is how does how we frame our goals affect our ability to accomplish
0:49.6	our goals?
0:50.7	So one example of this is that... Welcome to the Knowledge Project, a podcast about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out so you can apply their insights to your life.
1:08.5	I'm your host, Shane Parrish. A quick favor to ask before we start.
1:12.6	Most people listening to the show right now haven't hit the follow button. If you can hit
1:16.3	that big follow button right now on Apple or Spotify, we'd appreciate it. If you'd like access to
1:22.2	the podcast before everyone else, my thoughts and reflections at the end of each episode,
1:27.4	including all the
1:28.2	takeaways I had, member only episodes, hand-edited transcripts, or you just want to support
1:33.5	the show you love, join at fs.blog slash membership. Check out the show notes for a link.
1:40.7	Today, my guest is Maya Shankar, PhD. She's a brilliant cognitive scientist who worked in the White House Behavioral Science Group. She's the host of the podcast called A Slight Change of Plans. I really wanted to talk to Maya about the idea of identity. What is it? The limitations and advantages of choosing them. How they affect our ability to accomplish
2:02.7	our goals. How our identity affects our ability to learn from others and how it impacts our
2:08.2	politics. Should we keep our identity small or should we expand it? These are questions that we
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