This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Hello, everybody. How we doing? It seems like a design flaw in our species that we live in a world of constant change, an infinite fluxing gumbo, and yet most of us are not comfortable with uncertainty.

So today, we're going to talk about how we can get better at dealing with change, how we can stop seeking what scientists call cognitive closure when it's generally not on offer.

My guest is Maya Shanker, a former senior advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded

and served as the chair of the White House behavioral science team.

She also served as the first behavioral

science advisor to the United Nations and is currently a senior director of behavioral economics at Google.

She's also the host of a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans, which was named Best Show of the

Year in 2021 by Apple. In this conversation, we talk about why humans are so uncomfortable

with uncertainty and change. What a behavioral scientist actually does? Why even the host of a

podcast about change is not immune to the difficulties of uncertainty, the benefits of

cultivating a more malleable sense of self, why humans are such bad forecasters, the importance of auditing yourself when you're in the middle of a big change, how to take advantage of big reset moments, and the concept of cognitive closure and why having an open mind has many, many benefits.

A quick note that this is a rebroadcast of an episode we originally ran

in June of 2022. And coming up on Wednesday this week, we've got another gem from the archives

with the teacher Kyra Jule Lingo. Dr. Maya Shanker, coming up. Before we dive in, just to say,

we've got some exciting things happening in the 10% happier universe. We are now offering bespoke guided meditations to go with every podcast episode. Those meditations will be guided by a teacher of the month, all people who you know from the 10% cinematic universe, people who have been on

this podcast before. I like to think of the podcast as the lecture and then the guided meditations

as the lab. These meditations are available only for paid subscribers over at danharris.com.

So put on your lab goggles and let's improve your neurons. Dan harris.com.

Sign up immediately to access our full slate of guided meditations and give us our

feedback because this is a growing, living organism and we want to get a sense of how it's all

working for you.

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