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What a musician turned cognitive scientist wants you to know about life
For the first lesson, let’s travel back to when I was 6 years old, when I first asked my parents if I could play the violin. My three older siblings had opted for the clarinet, trumpet and flute, but I was drawn to the violin because my grandmother had played it in a traditional Indian style as a little girl — and I adored her.
I began by learning the Suzuki method, and after a year or so, my parents noticed that while they had to nudge me to do lots of things, they rarely had to remind me to practice the violin.
To help nurture my growing passion, my mom found a local violinist who was willing to take me on as his first-ever student. His approach was unconventional: I never played scales or etudes, or learned proper vibrato technique or the right way to shift across the fingerboard. We skipped straight to the joy of playing pieces. I watched and mimicked, letting my instincts guide me through the music.
This was my experience until one spring afternoon when I was 9. My mom and I were in New York City for the weekend, and I had my violin with me for an audition. After the audition was over, we decided to walk over to Lincoln Center so that I could see the Juilliard School up close. By that point, I knew of the music school and the world-class musicians it had helped nurture. Yo-Yo Ma and Midori had been my favorites — I’d watched a recording of Midori’s 1990 Carnegie Hall recital dozens of times on a VHS tape in my living room. And so, as I stood by the entrance of Juilliard that day, I felt goose bumps imagining all the remarkable musicians who had walked in and out of the building. I resolved to practice harder the next day.
Suddenly, my mom looked at me and said matter-of-factly, “Hey, why don’t we just go in?”
“What do you mean, just go in?!” I thought she was nuts.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” she asked.
I could think of many worst-case scenarios, but I agreed, and within minutes we were in the lobby, with my mom asking the staff if we could look around. There, we struck up a conversation with a young student and her mom. They were rushing off to the fourth floor for a violin lesson but invited us to join them for the elevator ride so that we could keep our conversation going. The student was studying under one of Juilliard’s all-star professors: Dr. Won-Bin Yim. Dr. Yim had studied under Dorothy DeLay, who had taught legends such as Itzhak Perlman.
Just when I thought my mom couldn’t pull out any more surprises, she turned to the student’s mom with a question: Could they kindly introduce us to Dr. Yim after their lesson?
Amazingly, one hour later, I found myself playing the first movement of the Bach Violin Concerto in A Minor for Dr. Yim. After I finished, Dr. Yim expressed what can charitably be described as “muted enthusiasm.” It was clear that while I had strong musical instincts, I did not have the technical skills needed to get into Juilliard. But Dr. Yim told me he would be in residence at a music festival that summer and would be willing to take me on as a temporary student to see if we could level-up my skills in advance of the Juilliard audition in late August. I was giddy with excitement.
That summer was transformative. Dr. Yim was a fantastic teacher. He put me through a rigorous boot camp, and after hours of intense practice every day for months, I finally completed my Juilliard audition.
A week or so later, we got a call from Dr. Yim.
“Hello, Mrs. Shankar,” he said to my mom. “Is there any chance Maya’s name is actually Anna?”
My mom politely answered that no, Anna was not my name. Dr. Yim then explained that he had received the list of accepted students at Juilliard and a certain “Anna Shankar” had been on the list. I remember thinking I’d be happy to go to a court right then and there to register a name change. I had only lived nine years on this planet as a Maya — I could become an Anna, if that’s what the situation required!
Thankfully, Anna turned out to be me. Or I turned out to be Anna? In either case, the point is that someone somewhere had made a typo and I was able to both keep my real name and enroll at Juilliard that fall.
This brings us to the first lesson I want to share: It’s about the power of what one might call imaginative courage. Imaginative courage is what my mom modeled for me by envisioning a path to Juilliard. She was unafraid to ask the questions that opened up opportunities I hadn’t imagined for myself. “Why don’t we just go in?” “What’s the worst that can happen?” “Might it be possible to meet Mr. Yim?”
When I said earlier that I didn’t have a chance of getting into Juilliard when I first played for Dr. Yim that spring day, I was not being falsely modest. Dr. Yim later confessed to my mom that when he first heard me play, he felt my chances were slim … but that he appreciated my “enthusiasm.” My mom had created a critical opening for me: If she had not taken that bold step, I would never have experienced the growth I had at Juilliard.
Some of you will go on to become professional musicians — others may become teachers, or doctors, or activists. Your paths will develop and change, and there will be times when it seems like what you want and hope for does not exist or isn’t possible. But this is when you can call on your Juilliard training. A good musician knows that there is more to a great performance than playing the notes on a page; they know how to bring forth beauty and feeling by creating what’s not yet there. As musicians, you all know how to look beyond the page — and life will require more of this same imagination.
Years after my time at Juilliard, I ended up getting a PhD in cognitive science, where I studied the science of human behavior and decision-making. I realized that rather than work in a lab — which was the expected path — I wanted to use my knowledge to improve how we design government programs and policies so that they could better serve people. But there was no such position available to apply for. And so, I did for myself what my mom had once done for me: I asked questions and took a bold step. “Why don’t I just go in?” “What’s the worst that can happen?”
I sent a cold email to a former adviser in the Obama White House, who introduced me to the president’s science adviser. I pitched the administration on creating a new position for someone with my training, and, ideally, hiring me for the role. Days later, I was interviewing for the job and wound up getting hired. My years working in public policy ended up being some of the most rewarding of my life. And they wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been inspired by my mom to imagine something beyond the page.
Okay, now back to my story with the violin. After I was accepted at Juilliard, my life assumed a new rhythm. Every Saturday morning, my mom and I would wake up at 4:30 to catch a train from Connecticut to New York so I could take part in a full day of classes. You all know the drill: private lessons, orchestra, music theory, ear training, scales class, master classes, chamber music and, of course, gossiping about who got what part and who we had crushes on.
All my Juilliard training began to pay off. I started winning concerto competitions and soloing with orchestras. When I was 13, Itzhak Perlman invited me to be his private violin student, which now meant we were traveling to New York multiple times during the week. Mr. P, as we affectionately called him, gave me the vote of confidence I needed to start believing I might be able to go pro one day.
But then, one summer morning when I was 15, I was practicing Paganini’s challenging Caprice No. 13. I struggled to get this one passage right and I overstretched my finger on a single note. I heard a pop.
It was not a string that had popped but a tendon in my hand. For months, I remained in denial about my injury: I continued to play through pain, until the pain got so severe, I needed surgery. When that wasn’t successful, doctors told me I had to stop playing altogether.
I found myself grieving not just the loss of the instrument, but also the loss of myself. If I was in an airport without a violin strap around my shoulder, it felt like I was missing a limb. The violin had defined me for so long, and without it, I felt stuck. I would later learn that this experience is known as identity paralysis — and it happens to a lot of us when we experience unexpected, unwanted change: Who we think we are and what we’re about is suddenly called into question.
Ultimately, I found my way again as a cognitive scientist, but this experience with change seeded a curiosity within me about how we as humans navigate the big changes in our lives and reckon with the shifts in self-identity that accompany them. I realized that what I missed most about playing the violin was that it had given me a vehicle for connecting emotionally with others. It turned out that this was at the root of my passion for music. And a hopeful message emerged from this insight: Although I had lost the ability to play the violin, I could still find this underlying love of human connection in other pursuits.
This brings me to a second lesson: We can learn to anchor our identities not to what we do – but to why we do it. Thinking of our identities in this way can make us more resilient in the face of change.
As you imagine your future, ask yourself what drives you to do the things you love — what really lights you up about them. Connecting emotionally with people is what makes me tick. For you, it might be a love of storytelling, or learning new things, or challenging yourself, or helping others. Whatever it might be, remembering this can help you feel grounded during periods of uncertainty, guiding you toward your next steps while retaining the core of who you are.
The third and final lesson I’ve learned is to make space for awe. I remember one night when I was 12. I was in bed, in the dark, and listening to a recording of Anne-Sophie Mutter playing the Beethoven violin concerto. My heart raced along with the melody, and I felt shivers during certain phrases. I was awestruck by how beautiful the music was — and how it made me feel.
As I got older, though, there were moments when I lost sight of how extraordinary music is. Especially in my teens, I became a far more self-conscious musician, fearful of how my peers would judge my playing, envious of those who seemed to play effortlessly and burdened by the competitive nature of performance. My constant mental chatter — focused on all the wrong stuff — muted the awe.
And then, as you know, I gave up hope of being a professional musician and rarely touched my instrument. My violin — my life around it, and the awe and wonder that had blanketed me as a child — stayed in the back of a closet.
Until one day in graduate school when I received a phone call. The organizers of a conference I was slated to attend in South Africa told me they had a surprise guest of honor: violinist Joshua Bell. They wanted to know whether I’d like to perform the Bach Double with him. They had no idea it had been years since I had picked up my violin. I had so much scar tissue in my hand that I realistically had only a concert or two left in me, period. I wanted this to be one of them.
I had no idea what it would be like to play my instrument again. But the basics came back to me more easily than I’d thought they would. And so there we were one night, Josh Bell and I performing together on an outdoor stage, under a starry South African sky. In the middle of the second movement when the two violins sing in unison, an old, familiar feeling returned. My heart raced, and I was in awe of the music.
It is remarkable that a collection of musical notes — arranged just so — can bring tears to our eyes. Whether it’s listening to Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto” or Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well,” watching a beautiful sunset, or marveling at a new scientific discovery, feeling awe can help us tap into better versions of who we are as people. We feel more connected to the broader whole, to something bigger than ourselves.
And
so, as you begin to anticipate the joys and challenges that lie ahead, I
hope these three lessons will inspire you: Look for opportunities to
practice imaginative courage, remember that why you do something is more
important than what you do and, whenever possible, try and seek out
awe. source
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