Daniel Pink and Adam Grant, Ph.D.: The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward

With millions of copies of his #1 New York Times bestselling big-idea books sold (When, To Sell is Human, Drive, and A Whole New Mind), a renowned TED talk that has been viewed more than thirty-eight million times, lectures around the world, a popular MasterClass, and the acclaim of everyone from Oprah to Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink (FAN ’18) has changed the way we live by changing how we think. With his extensive scientific research and practical takeaways, his books have transformed the professional and personal lives of his readers. In his newest book Pink moves from big ideas to big emotions by exploring the transforming power of our most misunderstood yet potentially most valuable emotion: regret.

Everyone has regrets. They’re a universal and healthy part of being human. But they often have an underserved bad reputation. In The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Pink helps us understand how regret works, how it can help us make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and create greater meaning to our lives. Drawing on fascinating research in social psychology, neuroscience, and biology, Pink debunks the myth of the “no regrets” philosophy of life. He also undertook two unprecedented research efforts of his own. One was the American Regret Project, the largest public opinion sampling of American attitudes on regret ever conducted. The other was the World Regret Survey, which has collected individual regrets from more than 16,000 people in 105 countries.

These projects reveal a fundamentally new understanding of what people regret and why that matters. While previous research has focused on the domains of people’s lives (work, family, health, education), beneath that surface is a deep structure of regret that spans these domains— a hidden architecture of human motivation and aspiration. Around the world and across cultures, people have the same four core human regrets, and Pink explains how we can use them as a positive path toward a better life.

Pink will be in conversation with Adam Grant, Ph.D. (FAN ’14 and ’16), the Saul P. Steinberg Professor of Management and Professor of Psychology at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania. Grant is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of five books that have sold millions of copies and been translated into 45 languages: Think Again, Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. He hosts WorkLife, a chart-topping TED original podcast. Among many pursuits, Grant co-curates the “Next Big Idea Club” with Pink, Malcom Gladwell, and Susan Cain (FAN ’13).