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ETHS Sponsoring Virtual FAN Events on May 23 and May 24

May 19, 2023  1:00pm CT

 

Evanston Township High School is sponsoring two virtual Family Action Network events on May 23 and May 24. Both events are free and open to the public, suitable for ages 12 and up. Registration is required.

 


Hal Hershfield, Ph.D. and Daniel Pink
(image from www.familyactionnetwork.net)

 

“Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today,” a conversation with Hal Hershfield, Ph.D. and Daniel Pink, will be held on Tuesday, May 23, beginning at 7:00pm, via Zoom The event is free and open to the public, suitable for ages 12 and up. Registration is required.

 

We’ve all had the desire to travel through time and see what our lives will be like later in life. While we want the best possible future for ourselves, we often fail to make decisions that would truly make that a reality. Why do we choose steak over vegetables at dinner, waving off concerns about high cholesterol? Why do we splurge on luxury cars rather than save for retirement? Why can’t we stick to our exercise programs? Why are so many of us so disconnected from our future selves?

 

Based on over a decade of groundbreaking research, Hal Hershfield, Ph.D.’s new book Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today explains that, in our minds, our future selves often look like strangers. Many of us view the future as incredibly distant, making us more likely to opt for immediate gratification that disregards the health and wellbeing of ourselves in the years to come. People who can connect with their future selves, however, are better able to balance living for today and planning for tomorrow. Your Future Self presents the science, describes the mental mistakes we make in thinking about the future, and gives us practical advice for imagining our best future so that we can make that a reality.

 

Hershfield is a professor of marketing, behavioral decision-making, and psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where he has won numerous awards for his teaching and research. His research on future selves has received widespread attention in outlets such as NPR, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Hershfield’s research has been published in prestigious business, psychology, and general science academic journals, as well as in the Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and Psychology Today.

 

Hershfield will be in conversation with Daniel Pink (FAN ’18 and ’22), the author of several provocative, bestselling books about business, work, creativity, and behavior, including The Power of Regret; When; To Sell Is Human; Drive; and A Whole New Mind. Pink was host and co-executive producer of Crowd Control, a television series about human behavior on the National Geographic Channel that aired in more than 100 countries. He has appeared frequently on NPR, PBS, ABC, CNN, and other TV and radio networks in the U.S. and abroad.

 

The May 23 event will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel. For more information, including a list of sponsors for the event, visit the Family Action Network website.




Adam Alter, Ph.D. and David Epstein
(image from www.familyactionnetwork.net)

 

“Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most,” a conversation with Adam Alter, Ph.D. and David Epstein, will be held on Wednesday, May 24, beginning at 7:00pm, via Zoom The event is free and open to the public, suitable for ages 12 and up. Registration is required.

 

Almost everyone feels stuck in some way. Whether you’re muddling through a midlife crisis, wrestling writer’s block, trapped in a thankless job, or trying to remedy a fraying friendship, the resulting emotion is usually a mix of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, anger, and numbness. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Anatomy of a Breakthrough is the roadmap we all need to escape our inertia and flourish in the face of friction.

 

Adam Alter, Ph.D., a professor of marketing and psychology at New York University’s Stern School of Business and the Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow, has spent the past two decades studying how people become stuck and how they free themselves to thrive. In his new book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most, Alter reveals that the solution rests on a process he calls a friction audit—a systematic procedure that uncovers why a person or organization is stuck, and then suggests a path to progress. The friction audit states that people and organizations get unstuck when they overcome three sources of friction: HEART (unhelpful emotions); HEAD (unhelpful patterns of thought); and HABIT (unhelpful behaviors).

 

Alter is the author of the 2017 book Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, WIRED, Slate, Huffington Post, and Popular Science, among other publications.

 

Alter will be in conversation with David Epstein (FAN ’16 and ’20), a science writer and author of the New York Times bestsellers Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, and The Sports Gene. Epstein was previously an investigative reporter at ProPublica, and prior to that a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. His two TED Talks on human development and performance have been viewed 12 million times.

 

The May 24 event will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel. For more information, including a list of sponsors for the event, visit the Family Action Network website.