Hal Hershfield, Ph.D. and Daniel Pink: Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today

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.