We often focus so much on distant outcomes and on doing the thing that we think is going to be the best for us, that we disregard or downweight the thing that actually is going to make the process joyful.

We imagine that we're making decisions independent of lots of other factors,

but the data really bear out the idea that our brains value systems are deeply influenced

by what other people are thinking and feeling and doing.

That's Emily Falk. She's an award-winning researcher who serves as the director of the communication neuroscience lab at the University of Pennsylvania.

And she shares a lot of wisdom from her research in her book, What We Value, the Neuroscience of Choice and Change.

So you'll learn one, how to make doing hard things easier.

Two, the one belief that's limiting your possibilities.

And three, how to disarm resistance to change.

I'm Pete McItis. This is How to Be Awesome at your job. And now, here's Emily.

Emily, welcome. Thanks so much for having me, Pete. Oh, thank you. I'm excited to hear some of your goods. So then tell us

with your book, what we value. What's the big idea, our core message here? Well, the big idea in

what we value is that our brains shape what we value. And that happens in ways that we might not

realize as they're unfolding. And my hope is that if people can understand how their brains are

calculating value, that that has potentially a lot of benefits, that one possibility is that we can

feel more compassion for ourselves and for other people when we make decisions that, like,

don't necessarily make sense to us. It might also help us make choices a little bit differently

or also communicate more

effectively with one another. So the book is in three parts, right? There's the first part that

explains how this all unfolds in the brain. Then there's a second part that focuses on what we might do

if we want to change those kinds of processes. And then the third part focuses on how we connect

with other people.

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