The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - A Slight Change of Plans

Episode Date: May 20, 2021

Dr Maya Shankar studies how our minds work and how we change. She joins Dr Laurie Santos to discuss how her own life plans were derailed at 15 and the journey that finally brought her to start a new podcast, A Slight Change of Plans.The show brings you intimate conversations about how people navigate changes of all kinds and use that change to ultimately grow. Maya uncovers little-known personal stories and reflections from familiar names, like Hillary Clinton, Tiffany Haddish and Kacey Musgraves.In this preview you'll hear part of an interview with Darryl Davis, a Black jazz musician who convinced hundreds of KKK members to leave the Klan. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. is the fact that I get to interact with such fantastic students. My undergrads have gone on to be scientists and lawyers, doctors and novelists, startup founders and craft beer brewers. But I somehow never expected that one of my star psychology students, Maya Shunker, would grow up to become a podcast host just like me, and that she'd have an amazing new podcast on the science of behavior change. It's called A Slight Change of Plans. In retrospect, though, I probably shouldn't have been surprised. And that's because she experienced her own devastating, not-so-slight change of career plans when she was still only a teenager.

If you had asked Maya back in the day what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would have given you a pretty quick answer. 100% a violinist. That was the thing I was super into. I started playing when I was six. My mom had my grandma's violin in the attic from India. She had brought it all the way with her. And she asked my three older siblings if they wanted to play. And they were like, this isn't cool. And apparently, I wasn't that cool. So I was like, this sounds great. And I fell in love with it really quickly. Like practicing didn't feel painful for me. And I also just loved the idea

that like I could work hard at something and then I could see myself get better. So you're getting better and better. And then all of a sudden when you were 15, everything changed. Yes. It coincided, I think, when I was at my peak as a violinist. So at this point, I had been studying at Juilliard for about six years. Itzhak Perlman had asked me to be his private violin student. Even my parents, who had always been like, we would really like it if you went to a liberal arts college, not do this music thing, were like, oh, actually, yeah, maybe Maya can do the violin thing.

So we were all getting behind this, this idea of me becoming or trying to go pro. It's obviously a very, very tough industry. And then I was just playing a really challenging piece and I overstretched my finger and I tore tendons in my hand. It was a very serious injury. And then finally, doctors said, sorry, kid, but you're out of luck. This career is over. So what's that like? You're in high school, you thought you had this career all mapped out, and all of a sudden, it just totally went away.

Yeah, it was very disorienting. As a kid, you just don't engage in a ton of introspection, right? Like, who am I? You don't ask yourself any of those questions. But then suddenly at 15, when the violin was taken away from me, I was forced to examine this question of who I was. And I realized, like, this whole time I have felt like a violinist, first and foremost. Like even before I was Maya, I felt like I was a violinist. My right shoulder to this day is a little higher than my left one because my bow arm spent so many hours practicing. Like my body like grew in a way that aligned with the way the violins like ergonomics were. So it's

only at that moment you realize that, wow, this thing was a huge part of my identity. And now that I don't have it anymore, I have no idea what comes next. And I was really scared. I was like, I don't, I don't know if I'm ever going to love something as much. I don't know if I'm good at anything else. Like, I don't, I don't know if I'm passionate about anything else. Like all these questions, you know, came to mind. But being good at something, being passionate at something, that all came pretty quickly in a new field, like my field, the field of psychology, right? Well, thanks to you.

So basically, yeah, the summer before college, I'm dealing with the fact that this thing that I thought even got me into college in the first place, violin, is no longer a thing. So I'm like, I don't know what it is that I want to study. And then I read an interesting cognitive science book over the summer and my brain lit up and I was like, oh my gosh, the study of the mind is fascinating. Like I just never thought about this stuff before. I never fully appreciated like how badass our minds are, right? Like we're always like criticizing ourselves or annoyed at some personality trait we have. And you're just like, you read these books and you're like, we are all crushing it basically each and every day just by virtue of living.

So I just felt like I was in awe of the mind, but then I was like, well, what do I do with this? And so I was looking through the Yale course catalog and I see that there's this major called cognitive science and you are one of the leaders of the program, right? And I remember reading in the course book that it was like an admissions only major. So, oh, no, I first of all, don't feel like I even deserve to be here anymore. And I now want to do a major that's like applicant only. Like, I just felt totally overwhelmed. And so the way you dealt with feeling so totally overwhelmed is that you chose to reach out to a young new professor in this field of cognitive science. Me. Luckily, I have found your first email to me that you sent me way back in the day. Here's what you wrote. It's a torture for me too, because I was young back then. It was

much like, but here's what you wrote. You wrote, Dear Professor Santos, I am a freshman this year in Calhoun College. I am heavily interested in cognitive science. And I was wondering if you had any openings. And so I kindly wrote back to you as like a keener freshman and told you about my lab. And what was funny is that you wrote back to me and your enthusiasm was so rich and incredible. You say, thanks so much for your reply! Exclamation point. I was extremely excited. I remember, so I went to the first day of your class, right? And I show up, the lowly freshman, and the room is packed. All these upperclassmen, people who want to write their senior theses, right? They're all in this room. And there's a limited number of spots, okay? And so you're like, I won't be able to accept all of you guys, but here's an application

process. And I felt like I sold my soul on this application process. I was like, Lori, you can have my unborn children. You can have anything you want. And it was just so amazing of you to give me that chance because I was the only freshman that you were willing to let in that year. It changed my life, right? It allowed me to see that I did actually love something, like I loved the violin. And I just don't take it for granted that you like stepped in at a really crucial moment in my life. And of course, it was a game changer for me. It was a game changer for me too. Maya would go on to become one of my most accomplished students. But the longer Maya stayed in the academic ivory tower, the more she realized how much real-world behavior she was missing out on.

I was at Stanford studying decision-making, and I was in the basement of this fMRI lab, and I was like scanning this dude's brain. I'd been in this like dark windowless room for like five hours at this point, peering into this person's brain, who I haven't had a conversation with. I don't know what his middle conversation with. I don't know what his middle name is. I don't know what his favorite ice cream flavor is. There's lots of fundamental things I don't know about this person. And I remember thinking, I feel like I want to engage with people. I want to be on teams. I want to have like a hyper social dynamic and the scanning part of this job, the fMRI scanning is just not for me. So I called you and I was like, hi, so I've been doing

this like academic thing for like 10 years now, but I actually don't think that I want to do it anymore. I had no idea what came next. And you shared with me that there was some amazing work happening in the White House at the time. It had never crossed my mind that a cognitive scientist could go work in the government. You and I had talked for so many years at this point about the potential of behavioral science. Oh, when do you use injunctive norms versus descriptive norms? Like, what's the power of the growth mindset, right? Like, we talk about all these things.

And then I remember in this interview I had with a senior Obama White House official, I'm talking about these ideas in the abstract. And his response is, you know, I know First Lady Michelle Obama. Like, we can absolutely integrate that into her Let's Move initiative. And I was like, what is happening in my life? This is totally insane. Like, we can actually make this stuff happen. In the end, she not only got hired,

but was offered a chance to start her own social and behavioral sciences team to make real changes. She helped military service members enroll in a new retirement savings program. She worked to ensure that eligible children had access to reduced school lunches. She helped family farmers more easily understand the steps needed to get a microloan. But the biggest thing her new role taught her was the importance of finding out about people's lived experience. her was the importance of finding out about people's lived experience. Yeah, it helped me see the power of stories and the fact that when it comes to changing a person's life or, you know, helping to inspire change in their lives, maybe the first place we should go is to hear people's

stories. And then next, you know, we look at the science. And so that's one of the big inspirations behind your new podcast, A Slight Change of Plan. So what is this podcast? Yeah, it is a podcast that's all about change. It features really intimate, raw conversations with people who have experienced extraordinary changes of all kinds. And I've learned so much from doing this podcast about all the contours of change that exist and the kind of impact that change can have on a person's life. And like, you know, we dig in, like, what is that process like? I've heard this come out in so many of the interviews, people saying they felt so much trepidation or fear in advance of a big change. But then what you find in virtually every case is that they are grateful that they went through the change. Even if the change didn't

end in exactly the place they had wanted it to end, even if it taught them something wildly different than what they thought they were going to be taught, they do feel like they've grown from that change. There is a tension between change and happiness in a lot of ways, which is like changing ourselves, changing our minds. It's a deeply uncomfortable process, right? It is so much easier to live our life not questioning the values we have, the ideas we have, the opinions that we have, but we know it's worth it in the end, right? We know that that trade-off is worth it. And so I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on like how we can try to incentivize people to want to change, even though we know they might take a short-term

hit in happiness. I mean, I think, you know, one thing we know from the science is that people are awful at predicting the kinds of things that are going to make them happy. You know, it's one of the constant themes on this podcast is that we're really bad at what's called affective forecasting, right? Predicting how things are going to go in the end. And I think one of the things you're seeing in so many of your episodes is like, you know, if you can get through the friction, if you can get through the fear that comes with the prediction, in the end, things are going to wind up being much better. People are usually much happier after that change. I think that's completely right. And I feel like that's especially emboldening when people are on the receiving end of a change that they

really don't desire. So, for example, I spoke to this young man, Scott, who is in his early 30s. He's a cancer researcher and a self-proclaimed health nut and control freak. So he has spent the last decade of his life totally optimizing for his health. He is a vegan. He does intermittent fasting. He does high-intensity interval training. He pours turmeric on all of his food. And then at 32,

he gets a stage four cancer diagnosis. This is his worst nightmare realized. And what was so fascinating about this conversation is that post chemotherapy treatment, multiple surgeries, a leg amputation, he's sitting outside in his backyard, drinking a cup of coffee saying, amputation, he's sitting outside in his backyard, drinking a cup of coffee saying, you know, I actually feel as happy now as I did six months ago before I even got the diagnosis. I loved hearing him say that because I was so familiar with the research, right? And I just always wanted to call bullshit on that for myself. I'm like, okay, I'm sure everybody else is that way, but I'm not that way. I'm not that resilient. But I felt like Scott and I, we connected on these levels that allowed me to see like,

oh, we're more similar. And I remember he said at the end of the interview, if I had known that I would end up in this place happiness-wise, that this profound change in my life would actually have made me a better person, I would never have feared it as much as I did in the first place. And I just, yeah, I just found that, I mean, it's stirring to even say that. Like, it was so powerful for me to hear that. A huge thanks to Maya for talking with me about her new podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. And now I'm excited to share with you a short clip of her first episode. It's an interview with Daryl Davis, a Black jazz musician who convinced KKK members to leave the Klan.

You can subscribe to A Slight Change of Plans wherever you listen to The Happiness Lab. Okay, here's your quick taster of what's in the show. So I was riding in my car. I'm driving, and this Klansman was sitting in my passenger seat. And we got on the topic of a crime. And he made the mention that black people are born with a gene that makes them violent. And I said, look, I'm as black as anybody you've ever seen. I have never done a drive-by or a carjacking.

How do you explain that? This man did not hesitate one second. He answered me instantly. He said, your gene is latent. It hasn't come out yet. That's Daryl Davis, a blues musician. And yeah, you heard him right. He's driving in his car with a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

You know, I was speechless. I was dumbfounded. And he's sitting next to me all smug and secure like, huh, you see, you know, you have nothing to say. And I thought about it for a moment. Rather than attack him, just say, it's not true, it's not true. I said to him, I said, you know, white people have a gene within them that make them serial killers. And he said, why know, white people have a gene within them that make them serial killers.

And he said, why would you say that? I said, well, face it. Name me three black serial killers. He thought about it. He couldn't name anybody. He couldn't do it. I rattled off Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, son of Sam, Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler. And I said, son, you are a serial killer. And he said, Daryl,

I've never killed anybody. I said, you're a genius legend. Hasn't come out yet. He said, well, that's stupid. And I said, well, duh, it is stupid. And he got very, very quiet. And I could tell that the gears in his head were spinning super fast, probably burning a hole in there. And then a moment later, he changed the subject. But within five months, this guy quit the Ku Klux Klan. Since that car ride 30 years ago, Daryl Davis has gone on to convince dozens of people to leave the Ku Klux Klan. Convincing someone else to change their mind,

their view of reality, is one of the most elusive, coveted types of change, which is why Daryl's story feels so improbable. So how does he do it? I'm Maya Shunker. As a cognitive scientist, I've always been fascinated by how we change our minds and why we change our minds. On this show, I'll have intimate conversations with people who've navigated extraordinary change, and hopefully their stories will get us to think differently about change in our own lives.

This is A S change of plans. Daryl didn't set out to change anyone's mind. He was mostly just focused on his music. But one night, his life took an unexpected turn when he was playing a show at a bar called the Silver Dollar Lounge. When I first met you, baby honey, you were just 21 The Silver Dollar Lounge at the time was an all-white lounge. And I say that not meaning that black people could not go in, but meaning that they did not go in by their own choice

because they were not welcome there. And when you go somewhere where you're not welcome and alcohol is being served, sometimes it does not make for a good combination, especially when you're outnumbered. So we took a break after the first set, and I was walking across the dance floor to go sit with the bandmates when somebody approached me from behind and put their arm around my shoulder. Now, I don't know anybody in this place, so I'm turning around to see who's touching me.

And it was this gentleman, maybe 15, 18 years older than me. And he's all excited. He says, man, I sure like your piano playing. This is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. And I told him, I said, well, Jerry Lee got it from the same place I did, from black, blues, and boogie-woogie piano players. Oh, no, no, no, no. I never heard no black man play like that except for you. Jerry Lee invented that style. I said, look, I know Jerry Lee Lewis. He's a good friend of mine. He's told me himself where he learned how to play. The guy didn't buy that either. But he was so fascinated with me that he wanted me to come back to his table.

He's going to buy me a drink. So I don't drink, but I agreed to have a cranberry juice. He bought it, paid the waitress, and then he took his glass and he clinked my glass and cheered me. And then he announces, you know, this is the first time I ever sat down with a black man and had a drink. So innocently, I asked him why. And he didn't answer me at first. I asked him again. And his buddy sitting next to him elbowed him and said, tell him, tell him.

And the guy looked at me and said, I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Well, I burst out laughing at him because now I did not believe him. I thought he was pulling a joke on me. I'm laughing. He goes inside his pocket, pulls out his wallet, flips through it, and hands me his Klan membership card. I recognize the Klan insignia, which is a red circle with a white cross and a red blood drop in the center of the cross. And I'm thinking to myself, oh my goodness, you know, this is for real. So I stopped laughing. But he was, you know, very friendly and very appreciative of my music and all excited. He gave me his phone number to, you know, to call him whenever I was to return to this bar with this

band. And so I'd call him every six weeks and say, hey man, you know, to call him whenever I was to return to this bar with this band. And so I'd call him every six weeks and say, hey, man, you know, I'm down there at the Silver Dollar this weekend. Come on out. You say it so nonchalantly. Like, so I called the guy. It is remarkable that you called this person. And, you know, I don't think I'm alone in struggling to understand,

you know, what was going through your mind at this moment. If someone told me that they were in the freaking Klan, I would certainly not call them back. In fact, I'd probably just flee the scene. And I think this is for pretty good reasons. Well, you know, I was questioning myself for a second, like, what the heck am I doing sitting here with a Klansman. But the guy was friendly. He disputed the things that I had in mind of the image of a typical Klansman. And he wanted to share my music with some of his fellow Klansmen and Klanswomen. And they would, you know, get on the dance floor and dance to our music. You know, they didn't come in robes and hoods, right? You know, they came in, you know, regular street clothes. This goes on for a year, an entire year. Daryl would play a gig at this bar

and he would invite Klan members to watch him play. This is one of those things that makes Daryl so unusual. I mean, for me, a huge part of what makes someone who they are is their belief system. And so if we share the same taste in music, that's fine, that's great. But if I then find out they're a flagrant racist, that's going to fully eclipse everything else about them. So how does Daryl look past that? He says it's not like that. He wasn't looking past it. He wanted to learn from it. See, Daryl had spent his early childhood overseas in a school he describes as a United Nations for little kids.

Race was always in the background. But when he moved back to the States when he was 10, he couldn't escape racism. And ever since then, he's been interested in why people hate. I had had an experience at the age of 10 where some racist people threw rocks and bottles at me during a parade in which I was the only black participant. And never having had this happen to me before, I was perplexed as to why people were doing this. And when later my parents explained that it was racism, my 10-year-old brain could not process the idea that someone who had never seen me before, who had never spoken with me and knew

nothing about me, would want to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than the color of my skin, you know, that just did not compute with me. Well, later when I realized this was true, there are people like that, I formed a question in my mind, which was, how can you hate me when you don't even know me? And some people would just say, well, Daryl, you know, that's just the way it is. Well, no, it's not just the way it is. There has to be a reason behind it. Well, it's always been that way. That was not good enough for me. I wanted to get to the nucleus of it. So Daryl dedicates himself to answering this question. He devours books about race and racism. He reads nearly every book that exists on the Klan, but he's still

unsatisfied. So he decides he wants to write his own book about the Klan. All the books written on the Klan, except for mine, have been written by white authors. You know, white authors obviously have an easier time getting in contact with the Klan and sitting down and not fearing any ramifications or whatever, or they might even join the Klan undercover. A Klansman would have a different perspective sitting there talking to a black person than he would a white person. And how do you feel that perspective would have been different? Because he's sitting there telling the person that he hates why he hates them. So now he's having to face me and face those same questions

that somebody would ask or even different questions that a white interviewer, journalist would not ask because they don't think of them because they don't feel the things, the same things that I feel. As Daryl starts researching for his book,

it suddenly dawns on him. He already knows someone in the Klan, that guy from the Silver Dollar Lounge. So he goes on a mission to track him down. It takes a while, but eventually he finds the guy's address. And I knock on the door, you know, unannounced. And he opens the door and sees me, goes, Daryl, you know, what are you doing here? And he looked up and down the hallway to see if I brought anybody with me. So it was more him who was intimidated than me. And when he stepped out of his apartment, I stepped in.

So he turns around and comes back in. So now we're standing inside his apartment. And he says, you know, what's going on? Are you still playing? What's going on? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still playing. But listen, I need to talk to you about the Klan. He says, the Klan?

I said, yeah. He goes, well, I quit. I quit a while back. I said, well, where's about the Klan. He says, the Klan? I said, yeah. He goes, well, I quit. I quit a while back. I said, well, where's all your Klan stuff? He says, well, they came and got it. And I said, what do you mean they came and got your robe and hood? Don't you own it? And he explained to me, when you join the Klan,

if you have the money to pay for it, you can purchase your robe and hood, and it's yours to keep forever. If you cannot afford it at the time, you can still take it home with you, but you put a little extra money in every time you pay your dues until you pay it off. Sort of like layaway kind of thing. A bizarre financial aid system within the Klan. Love it. Yes, exactly. Equal opportunity for everyone who's racist.

That's right. Absolutely. So anyway, he said that they came and got it, but when they came to get it, he could not find the mask. And he had since found it, and he needed to return it. I said, well, can I see it? So he goes down the hallway, comes back, and hands me the mask. And I said to him, I said, do you know Roger Kelly? He goes, yeah, Roger was my grand dragon. I know him. And I said, well, listen, I need you know Roger Kelly? He goes, yeah, Roger was my grand dragon. I know him.

And I said, well, listen, I need you to hook me up with Mr. Kelly. I want you to interview him. I'm going to write a book on the Klan. Now, let me explain how the hierarchy of the Klan works, so you understand these terms. We would call a state leader a governor. They call that the grand dragon. A mayor, that person is known as the exalted cyclops.

Anybody on the great level is, yeah. Sorry, the self-importance of these names is truly astonishing. Well, see, that's, yeah, but see, that's also what attracts people because, you know, they get titles, they feel important. It's a sense of self-importance, you know, because they're not getting that from the society in which they live. So, you know, this brotherhood, this gang, if you will, gives them those things. So at the time, Roger Kelly was the Grand Dragon, state leader from Maryland. So I said, I'll tell you what, you need to return this mask, right? He said, yeah.

I said, give me Roger Kelly's phone number and his address, and I'll go return it for you. And he snatched that thing right out of my hand and said, no way. And so I begged and pleaded with him. Well, he finally gave it to me on the condition that I not reveal to Mr. Kelly where I got it. And he warned me. He said, Daryl, do not go to Roger Kelly's house. Roger Kelly will kill you. And I said, well, that's the whole reason why I need to talk to Mr. Kelly. I need to know why would he kill me? What is going on in his mind when he sees me? I have to understand this. You did realize that you might not get the answer to the question if, in fact, the dangerous part happened first, right?

True. This is true. But I was thinking that I would prevail. I'm the eternal optimist, if you will. thinking, you know, that I would prevail. I'm the eternal optimist, if you will. I hope you enjoyed hearing this teaser of A Slight Change of Plans. If you want to check out more of Maya's transformative life stories and learn more about the science that goes along with them, and subscribe to A Slight Change of Plans today. You can download it wherever you get The Happiness Lab and all your other podcasts. And not to worry, The Happiness Lab will be back with Season 3,

which will launch later this summer. Until then, stay happy.