About this episode:
Dr. Ethan Kross is one of the world's leading experts on emotion regulation. An award-winning professor in the University of Michigan's top-ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he is the director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory, where he studies how the conversations people have with themselves shape their health, performance, decisions, and relationships.
He is the two-time national bestselling author of Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters and How to Harness It (2021) and Shift: Managing Your Emotions – So They Don't Manage You (2025). Chatter became an international bestseller, translated into over 40 languages, and was chosen as one of the best new books of the year by the Washington Post, CNN, and USA Today. Shift was named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly.
Ethan has participated in policy discussions at the White House, spoken at TED and SXSW, and consulted with some of the world's top executives and organisations. His research has been published in leading academic journals and has featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and the BBC. He has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, and NPR's Morning Edition.
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00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
03:51 Ethan Origin Story
07:40 Dad and Meditation Roots
10:34 What Are Emotions
14:27 Why Negative Emotions Matter
17:46 Chatter vs Shift
19:42 Three Step Regulation Framework
25:38 Sponsor Antifragile Academy
27:10 Emotion Gym Toolkit
28:43 Sensory Shifters Fast Wins
32:35 Attention and Strategic Avoidance
39:01 Perspective Shifters Reframing
41:56 Venting and Introspection Traps
47:21 Validation Without Suppression
