Ethan Kross

“Ethan Kross is one part sage, one part mensch, and one part world class psychological scientist.”—Angela Duckworth, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Grit

We have everything we need to leverage our emotions (even the negative ones) to tap into high performance and powerful leadership at home and at work. Ethan Kross, award-winning psychology professor at the University of Michigan and director of the Emotion and Self Control Lab, says that we can change our lives by changing the way we think about and navigate our emotions. Drawing on his acclaimed books Chatter and Shift, he shows us how we can strengthen our emotional and mental fitness to find more meaning, satisfaction, and success in all areas of life. Ethan’s concrete strategies have proven to be an invaluable resource for everyone—from students to small business owners to CEOs—in any challenge or stressful situation. His science-based toolkit helps all kinds of leaders and employees to build wisdom and coach ourselves through every circumstance.

In his latest book Shift, Ethan dives into why we have emotions, and how we can leverage them. Through riveting stories of people struggling and succeeding to manage their emotions—from a nuclear code-carrying Navy SEAL to the mother whose fear prompted a split-second decision that saved her daughter’s life—he shows us the science-backed tools we can use to take advantage of our emotions in any situation. Lisa Damour, New York Times bestselling author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, says, “This must-read book will—without question—change your life for the better!”

In his first book, the national bestseller Chatter, Ethan provides us with simple, immediately actionable tools for harnessing our self-talk: like using your own name to give yourself a pep talk in high-pressure situations. 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.” It was one of Amazon’s best non-fiction books of 2021.

An award-winning professor at the University of Michigan and the Ross School of Business, Ethan is the director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory, where he studies how people can control their emotions. Using an integrative approach to study these issues, Ethan draws on multiple disciplines within psychology, including social, personality, clinical, developmental, and neuroscience. He is also the faculty lead for the Research Innovation Core at the Eisenberg Family Depression Center, where he uses his vibrant ideas and strategic mind to focus on facilitating research innovations in the field of mental health.

Ethan has participated in policy discussions 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. He completed his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD at Columbia University.