Chatter
The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It
Lavin Exclusive Speaker
We all struggle to avoid overthinking in our work and our personal lives from time to time—but after a year of crisis and uncertainty, negative self-talk is on the rise like never before. Award-winning psychologist and author of the instant national bestseller Chatter, Ethan Kross studies how the conversations we have with ourselves shape our lives in surprising ways, from our health and our job performance, to our relationships and decision-making. His accessible, science-based talks reveal how we can harness our mind to improve productivity and well-being in our own lives, as well as help us become wiser leaders to others.
Giving into negative and disorienting self-talk—what Kross refers to as “chatter”—doesn’t just lead us to feel worse. It also undermines our ability to think and perform, creates friction in our social relationships, and degrades our physical and mental health—so much so, the World Health Organization has flagged anxiety and depression—which is fueled by chatter—as a trillion dollar problem. From sports stadiums to the corporate C-suite, the harmful effects of rumination have been well-documented. But the good news is that we have everything we need to make our inner voice work in our favor, says Kross. In his expertly researched debut book Chatter, as well as his accompanying talks, he shows us how we can strengthen our emotional fitness to find more meaning, satisfaction, and success, both at work and in our personal lives. Silencing your internal dialogue can also make you a better, more resilient leader, says Kross, whose concrete strategies have proven to be an invaluable resource for CEOs, managers, and small business owners confronting pandemic-related challenges and stress. Brilliantly argued and deeply compelling, Chatter has received praise from many remarkable leaders in the field, including Angela Duckworth, the world’s preeminent expert on grit, and New York Times bestselling author Dan Pink, who declares, “Ethan Kross has written the definitive work on how to redirect our inner voices away from rumination and self-criticism and toward reflection and self-improvement.”
An award-winning professor at the University of Michigan and the Ross School of Business, Kross is also the director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory. There, he explores how people can control their emotions in order to improve our understanding of self-control, and how to enhance it in our daily lives. Using an integrative approach to study these issues, Kross draws on multiple disciplines within psychology, including social, personality, clinical, developmental, and neuroscience.
Kross has participated in policy discussion at the White House and has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, and NPR’s Morning Edition. His pioneering research has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Science. Kross completed his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD at Columbia University.