Adam Alter, Ph.D.
Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business
David Epstein
Science writer and best-selling author
Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Anatomy of a Breakthrough from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Alter that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
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.
This event suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.
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Upcoming Events
The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature
Alan Lightman, Ph.D.
Professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT and author of seven novels
Dacher Keltner, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley, Faculty Director of the Greater Good Science Center, and bestselling author
ON ZOOM
The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions
Michael Norton, Ph.D.
Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Sam Sommers, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Racial Equity and Diversity Lab at Tufts University
ON ZOOM
