As a young girl, Maya Shankar was well on her way to a promising career as a classical violinist. Itzhak Perlman had taken her on as his private student at the Juilliard School. At the age of 14, and she was accepted to his prestigious summer program on Shelter Island. But not long after, she injured her finger while playing a difficult section of Paganini's Caprice no. 13. She tore a tendon in her hand, bringing her musical career to an untimely end.
Today, Maya has reached a new pinnacle in an entirely different field. She served in the Obama administration as a senior adviser at the White House, working to create better policy using insights from behavioral science. Her work in government was far-reaching — helping students get to college, workers save more for retirement and millions of children get access to school lunch.
It's a calling she couldn't have anticipated at Juilliard, where she dreamed of being a concert violinist. What followed in the days after her musical career ended was an incredible sense of loss.
"I was really devastated to lose something that I was completely in love with, and so passionate about, and that had really constituted such a large part of my life and my identity," she says. "I was first and foremost a violinist."
This week on Hidden Brain, we look at turning the page and starting anew. At the end of the podcast, you'll hear musician Aimee Mann read a poem by Emily Bishop.
Special thanks to NPR's From the Top with Christopher O'Riley for music of Maya's performances used in the episode.
Hidden Brain is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Parth Shah, Jennifer Schmidt, Rhaina Cohen, Thomas Lu, Laura Kwerel, and Camila Vargas Restrepo. Our supervising producer is Tara Boyle. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain, and listen for Hidden Brain stories each week on your local public radio station.
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