The most important conversation we have each day isn’t with our boss, spouse, or friends: it’s the one we have with ourselves. When facing a challenging task, our inner voice can motivate us and help us keep our focus. But often, we come up against the nagging voice that tells us we can’t do it or that people will laugh at us if we try. The million-dollar question is how can we transform our self-saboteur, determined to undermine our success, into an internal life coach that will buoy us up and help us expand our potential?

Enter Ethan Kross. A world-class psychological scientist, Kross has written one of modern history's most definitive guides to mastering self-talk. In Chatter, he uses a blend of cutting-edge science (from his own lab) and real-world case studies to help us harness the power of our inner voice. The tools are all around us—from the objects we surround ourselves with to our relationships with others, the physical spaces we inhabit, and the digital worlds we interact in. This talk is a lively exploration of how we can use those tools to make our inner voice work in our favor, and it answers some valuable questions along the way. For instance, why do we seem immune to toxic chatter when we attempt to advise other people? What factors determine whether we receive—and provide—helpful or harmful social support? And how can we approach our decision-making differently, learning to control our emotions and reason wisely instead of acting on impulse? An expert storyteller, Kross brings his research to life in a way that is fascinating, accessible, and immediately applicable to our daily lives.

About the Author:

Ethan Kross is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. An award-winning professor and bestselling author in the University of Michigan’s top-ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he studies how the conversations people have with themselves impact their health, performance, decisions, and relationships and is the founder of Emotion & Self-Control Laboratory. Ethan’s research has been published in Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other peer-reviewed journals. He has participated in policy discussions at the White House and has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR’s Morning Edition. His pioneering research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, The Economist, The Atlantic, Forbes, and Time.

Ethan is the author of the National Bestseller Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters and How to Harness It, which was chosen as one of the best new books of the year by the Washington Post, CNN, and USA Today and the Winning Winter 2021 selection for Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Dan Pink’s Next Big Idea Book Club. Chatter is scheduled to be translated into over 40 languages. 

Funding provided by Susan and Stephen Bates and brought to you in partnership with the Library Speakers Consortium.