Dr. Ethan Kross

What separates people who perform well under pressure from those who fall apart? It isn’t talent or experience — it’s the relationship they have with their own mind in the critical moment. Choking, freezing, and overthinking aren’t signs of weakness. They’re the predictable result of a brain doing exactly what it’s designed to do at exactly the wrong time.

From the lab to the locker room to the C-suite, Dr. Ethan Kross unpacks the science of why your brain underperforms at crunch time. You’ll come away from this keynote with specific, actionable techniques to perform closer to your ceiling when it matters most.

Your performance, work, and relationships are all affected by your emotions. The better you regulate them, the better you will think, perform, and lead. The problem isn’t that you have emotions — it’s that you haven’t been taught to recognize them, understand why they arise, or change them when they do.

Dr. Ethan Kross is an expert in emotions and performance. In this dynamic talk based on his book Shift, he dismantles myths about emotions like “avoidance is always toxic, negative emotions are the enemy, and willpower is the answer.” Audiences will come away with a science-based toolkit for changing how they feel: strategies that work even under stress, even without time, and even when the usual approaches fail.

Do you talk to yourself? The conversations you have with yourself are the most important you’ll ever have. Your inner voice—”the Swiss Army knife of the mind”—helps you plan, perform, create, and lead. But when your inner voice turns on you, it becomes chatter: the relentless loop of worry, self-doubt, and rumination that undermines performance and health, often precisely when the stakes are highest.

In this compelling talk, Dr. Ethan Kross draws on compelling human stories and cutting-edge science from his book Chatter to explain how your inner voice works for you and against you. You’ll come away from this talk with applicable tools to turn that inner voice from your worst critic into your best friend and coach.

Dr. Ethan Kross is the world’s leading authority on the inner voice and the science of managing emotions and a two-time international best-selling author of the books Chatter and Shift. In this fireside chat, Kross makes cutting-edge science feel like a conversation with a friend. He goes deep into the topics of your inner voice, regulating emotions, and mental fitness, while providing science-based, actionable tools you can use today.