Full PreFrontal: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function Ep. 167: William Damon - A Look Back to Look Ahead
British author Somerset Maugham once wrote, “What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.” Writers and poets have a lot to say about reminiscing, contemplation, regret and nostalgia, but it often suggests that one must travel far down the road of life to arrive at that point where suddenly our life decisions say more about who we are rather than what we did!
On this episode, professor at Stanford University, director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, and leading scholar of human development across the lifespan and author of A Round of Golf With My Father: The New Psychology of Exploring Your Past to Make Peace With Your Present, William Damon, discusses why the process of Life-Review is a productive way of looking back. Since Executive Function skills provide the guardrail for self-regulated future-forward thinking, the Life-Review process can prove to be a painful or invigorating process depending on our openness to self-change, capacity to admit mistakes, and desire to stay connected to the past-self to shape the journey of the future self.
About William Damon
William Damon is a professor at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence. He is a leading scholar of human development across the lifespan and the author of The Path to Purpose. His recent book, A Round of Golf with my Father: The New Psychology of Exploring your Life to Make Peace with Your Present, is an examination of using a life review to renew personal identity and forge a purposeful direction moving forward. Damon is a fellow in the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Damon has been named by Best Schools as one of the fifty most influential living psychologists in the world today.
Website:
Books:
- A Round of Golf with my Father: The New Psychology of Exploring your Past to Make Peace with your Present
- The Path to Purpose
About Host, Sucheta Kamath
Sucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, a celebrated community leader, and the founder and CEO of ExQ®. As an EdTech entrepreneur, Sucheta has designed ExQ's personalized digital learning curriculum/tool that empowers middle and high school students to develop self-awareness and strategic thinking skills through the mastery of Executive Function and social-emotional competence.