Emily Falk on How to Rewire Your Brain for Better Choices

Why do we keep making choices that don’t serve us—whether it’s doom-scrolling, chasing validation, or neglecting our future selves? In this compelling episode, Dr. Emily Falk, award-winning neuroscientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, joins John R. Miles to explore the brain’s hidden decision-making machinery. Drawing insights from her groundbreaking new book, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change, Dr. Falk reveals how our brains calculate value, how social influence shapes our behavior, and how we can begin to rewire our minds to prioritize what truly matters.

Whether you’re trying to make better daily decisions or escape the trap of overvaluing the wrong things, this conversation will shift the way you think about change—from the inside out.

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Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Listen Notes, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube below.

How Neuroscience Reveals the Hidden Forces Behind Our Daily Decisions

What if the real reason you struggle to make better choices isn’t a lack of willpower, but the way your brain calculates value? In this episode, Dr. Emily Falk, an expert in the neuroscience of communication and decision-making, breaks down how our brains determine what matters to us—often without our awareness. She explores how self-relevance, social feedback, and even the stories we tell ourselves shape our behavior. Through a blend of personal insights, science-backed research, and engaging stories, Dr. Falk helps us understand why we sometimes act against our own best interests—and what we can do to change that.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode With Emily Falk:

• Your brain doesn’t always prioritize what’s good for you – It often overvalues short-term gratification, novelty, or social validation over long-term fulfillment.
• Self-relevance is a powerful driver – Information we perceive as personally relevant is more likely to influence our behavior and get stored in memory.
• Social pain activates the same brain regions as physical pain – Negative social feedback can feel neurologically similar to being physically hurt.
• Future selves are hard to prioritize – The brain struggles to connect with a version of us that feels distant, leading to impulsive or misaligned choices.
• Synchrony with others shapes decisions – Brain-to-brain synchrony helps explain why shared experiences and social narratives can deeply impact behavior.
• Small, repeated changes matter – Sustainable behavior change comes from nudging the brain’s value system over time—not one big “aha” moment.

WHY IS THIS EPISODE WITH EMILY FALK A MUST-LISTEN?

Because it challenges everything you thought you knew about willpower and motivation. Dr. Emily Falk gives you a neuroscience-backed roadmap to understand your inner decision-maker. If you’ve ever felt stuck in patterns you can’t break or wondered why you keep choosing the wrong thing, this episode offers surprising insights—and real hope for change. It’s a transformative listen for anyone interested in rewiring their life, one intentional choice at a time.

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Exploring “What We Value”: How Dr. Emily Falk Helps Us Rethink the Way We Make Choices

In this enlightening Passion Struck Podcast interview, psychologist, neuroscientist, author, and professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Emily Falk shared some of the most compelling ideas from her new book, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change. Throughout the conversation, she invited us to look under the hood of our daily decision-making and ask a question we rarely pause to consider: Why do we value what we value?

Dr. Falk doesn’t just talk about what we think we care about—she goes deeper into how our brains actually calculate value, often in surprising and subconscious ways. As she explains in the book, value isn’t just about economics or what feels good in the moment; it’s a complex, dynamic process rooted in neural systems that are constantly weighing personal relevance, social feedback, and even imagined future outcomes.

One of the most fascinating revelations from What We Value is that the brain treats information that feels personally relevant as more important—not just emotionally, but biologically. This neural coding means we’re far more likely to remember, act on, and be influenced by ideas that feel connected to who we believe we are.

During the episode, Dr. Falk used real-life examples and stories to make these brain-based concepts feel deeply human. She talked about the way small, seemingly insignificant daily decisions—like choosing what to eat or whether to reply to a text—are quietly shaped by neural mechanisms designed to keep us safe, liked, and efficient. But here’s the twist: those same mechanisms can also lead us astray. As she outlines in What We Value, this is why we sometimes sabotage ourselves, stick with bad habits, or chase status symbols that don’t actually fulfill us.

She also highlighted the importance of brain-to-brain synchrony, a concept covered in the book that shows how our neural activity can literally align with others when we feel connected or engaged. This has profound implications for everything from leadership and parenting to social media and public health messaging. It’s not just about influencing people; it’s about understanding how to build shared meaning in a way that sticks.

Ultimately, What We Value isn’t a prescriptive “fix-your-life” book—it’s an invitation to become more aware of the forces shaping your inner compass. And in the podcast, Dr. Falk’s approachable tone and scientific depth help bridge the gap between complex brain research and the real-world challenge of making better choices.

By the end of the episode, you can’t help but walk away rethinking how you define “good” decisions—and how much of your behavior is driven by values you didn’t even realize you were prioritizing. It’s not just about choosing differently. It’s about learning how to value differently. And that, as Dr. Falk makes beautifully clear in What We Value, is where real change begins.

THANKS, DR. EMILY FALK

If you enjoyed this interview with Emily Falk, let her know by clicking on the link below and sending her a quick shout on Instagram

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RESOURCES FROM THE SHOW WITH DR. EMILY FALK

Please note that some of the links on this page (books, movies, music, etc.) lead to affiliate programs for which The Passion Struck podcast receives compensation. It’s just one of the ways we keep the lights on around here. Thank you so much for being so supportive!

1. Dr. Falk’s Website
2. Dr. Falk’s Instagram
3. Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/falklab.bsky.social
4. Lab’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/communnication-neuroscience-lab/?viewAsMember=true
5. Emily’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyfalk/
6. Lab website: https://www.asc.upenn.edu/research/centers/communication-neuroscience-lab
7. BUY Dr. Falk’s Book What We Value: https://amzn.to/4lorq0h
8. Passion Struck Core Value System: https://passionstruck.com/the-passion-struck-core-belief-system/
9. Listen to Passion Struck’s interviews with New York Times bestselling authors Gretchen Rubin and Seth Godin.
10. Check out Passion Struck’s Episode Starter Packs on Spotify or Passion Struck starter packs to get started with the podcast.

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About Today’s Guest, Dr. Emily Falk

Dr. Emily Falk is a renowned neuroscientist, psychologist, and professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She is widely recognized for her groundbreaking research at the intersection of neuroscience, decision-making, and social influence.

As director of the Communication Neuroscience Lab, Dr. Falk investigates how our brains process information that shapes our values, behaviors, and the choices we make every day. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, NPR, and other major media outlets.

Dr. Falk is the author of the influential book What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change, which explores how self-relevance, social feedback, and brain dynamics influence the way we make decisions—and how we can rewire these systems to create more intentional and meaningful lives.

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