Hi everyone, it's Sophia and welcome back to Work in Progress.

Today's guest is a world-renowned behavioral scientist.

She has worked everywhere from Google to the Obama administration.

She was actually the first behavioral science advisor to the United Nations

and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University.

She's been featured in the New York Times, Forbes,

Scientific American, Freakonomics,

the list truly goes on and on and by now I'm sure you all know that I was so geeked.

To have this conversation with her today, I had one million questions.

Her brain is so fascinating and I cannot wait to introduce you all to the phenomenal Dr. Maya Shanker.

In addition to using behavioral science to advise presidents and the biggest companies on Earth,

Dr. Shanker has also started her own podcast,

which she hosts and produces called a slight change of plans.

The show puts the spotlight on guests from all walks of life who have experienced extraordinary circumstances

and takes a deeper look at how that changed the course of their lives.

And that's a topic Maya knows plenty about from her own life experience

as we will hear for ourselves. Let's get to talking.

Maya, it's so nice to have you on the show today.

And before I ask you one million questions about your fascinating work,

I actually always like to go backwards because I sit across from you today,

fascinated by your career and wanting to talk about behavioral science and how the brain works.

And I wonder how you got to be an expert on the brain.

...