Description

Turn your inner voice from critic to coach

As humans, we all have a special ability that is unique to our species: an inner voice. It helps us focus, achieve our goals and reflect on life’s most joyful moments. But it can also be our biggest enemy, chewing over painful emotions and replaying embarrassments, hijacking our thoughts to run amok with ‘chatter’. How does this source of wisdom turn into our biggest critic? And how can we take back control?

These are the questions one of the world’s leading experts on the conscious mind set out to answer twenty years ago, when he started on an audacious mission – to study the conversations we have with ourselves. In this hugely anticipated book, that expert, the award-winning neuroscientist and psychologist Ethan Kross, reveals the sheer power of the inner voice, and shows us that we all possess a set of tools for harnessing it. Hidden in plain sight, they are in the words we use and the stories we tell ourselves, in the conversations we have with our loved ones and in the habits we undertake when tackling our goals. They are even sometimes in our bizarre rituals and lucky charms.

Fascinating, entertaining and full of original insights and tips, Chatter will change the conversations you have with yourself forever, and help you lead a happier, more productive life.

Publisher Review

Completely fascinating... it's already changed my life * Chris Evans * Are there right and wrong ways to communicate with yourself, and if so, are there techniques that might usefully be employed by those with inner voices that are just a little too loud?...Kross has found answers to some, if not all, of these questions...[Chatter] could hardly be published at a more opportune moment. * Rachel Cooke, The Guardian * Fresh and riveting, Chatter is a masterpiece-a landmark book that will change the way you think about human nature. Ethan Kross is one part sage, one part mensch, and one part world-class psychological scientist. When I need advice, it's Ethan I call. Now, through Chatter, everyone has a chance to learn about their inner voice from among the wisest people I know. Required reading for all. * Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit * So accessible and informative - a fantastic addition to our understanding of our mind, and how it emphatically changes our day for good or bad. * Julia Samuel, psychotherapist and bestselling author of Grief Works and This Too Shall Pass * Ethan Kross isn't just a world-renowned scientist, he's an expert storyteller too. In Chatter, he shows why our inner voice is indispensable, and reveals how we can master it. Urgent, lucid, and compelling, Chatter is the groundbreaking and transformative book the world needs now. * Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Quiet and Quiet Power * I've demonstrated throughout my career how negative thoughts can spiral and undermine people's success. In Chatter, Ethan Kross weaves cutting-edge science with riveting stories to reveal the tools people can use to manage these experiences. Chatter is a truly compelling and valuable book. * Carol Dweck, author of Mindset * Chatter isn't just thought provoking - it's thought transforming. * Apple Books Review * This book is going to fundamentally change some of the most important conversations in your life - the ones you have with yourself. Along with being a pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist, Ethan Kross is an unusually gifted writer and storyteller. He shows that instead of trying to silence your monkey mind, you can learn to educate it, motivate it, and even reason with it. * Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B * I talk to myself. And so do you. Yet this remarkable capacity for introspection can sometimes lead us astray. 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. Chatter is a profound and practical book-one that will leave you with both a fresh understanding of yourself and new strategies to live a fuller life. * Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drive, To Sell is Human, and When * Stimulating . . . Kross, the director of the University of Michigan's Emotion & Self Control Laboratory, debuts with an eye-opening look at managing 'the silent conversations people have with themselves'. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *