The Mattering Effect | How to Create a Life of Meaning with John Miles
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00:58That's primalqueen.When you check out, tell them creating confidence sent you.Would anyone really notice if I weren't here?Mattering is much deeper.And research describes mattering as having two different sides,feeling valued and adding value.Giving us someone a seat in a room isn't the same as making them feel valuedor giving them the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution.
01:23Mattering is, I'm valued here and what I bring can make a difference.That's what gives you the confidence to then grow from there.I'm on this journey with me.Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals.Overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow.I'm ready for my close-up.Hi, and welcome back.I am so excited for you to meet my guest today.
01:48And we have been through it, just trying to get on each other's schedule.He's one of the busiest guys I know, and you're going to see why.In a second, John Miles, he's a founder and CEO of Passion Struck.U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former Navy officer.MS and MBA spent 20 plus years as a Fortune 50 executive, CIO, C-O-O, C-O-O, C-D-O.I don't even know what that means.C-I-S-O was a private equity partner, which is badass,and served as a four-time CEO before starting Passion Struck.
02:17Host of the Passion Struck podcast, and he just had me on,so you know you've got to listen to that too,number one Alternative Health Show worldwide, 85 million-plus downloads,winner of the Gold Stevia Award and the Gold Davey Award.This guy is killing it.He's author of Passion Struck.Gold Stevie Award for Best Business Book,2025 and 2024.
02:36Next Big Idea Club must read his new book,The Mattering Effect,creating a life of meaning and worth Morehouse Publishing on sale.October 6, we are getting into that today.He's also in his free time.He's co-founder of the Passion Struck Speaker Bureau.I mean, John, I don't even know how you have time to be here right now.So thank you for being on the show.
02:56Heather, thank you for that very flattering introduction that you just did.It is such an honor to be on your incredible show, which is just killing it.Well, you're so sweet to be here.All right, let's dive in because, I mean, you know me and you know,I love getting into the backstory because so many people see your level of successand they think of, well, he can do that, but I can't because I have different challenges than he does.and I know as you just shared with me,you actually started with a paper route back in the day,
03:28much like I did.Can you take us back to what it was like to be the young John?Yeah, Heather, part of the reason I did that paper routeis I started about the same age you started 10 or 11,but a few years prior to that,I was playing a game of tag with growing up outside of Cleveland,and I got pushed from behindand ended up going head first through our basement window.
03:52and I woke up, I blacked out, and I woke up in the ICU with a tube in my head.And as a result of that, I ended up developing a speech impediment, other speech issues, eyesight issues, chronic headaches, a sensory processing disorder, and all of a sudden my life changed overnight.And I know you love to talk about confidence. Coming out of that, confidence was the way.one thing I didn't have. And so for me, the paper route was a really important evolution in my lifebecause it was something that I leaned into where I needed to gain confidence. And that was one of thethings that propelled me into it. I wanted to have the confidence that I could actually carry allthose papers, that I could interface with the adult world and carry on more responsibilities. So it wasactually part of my my regrowth from that traumatic brain injury that I had.
04:55So, and as John just mentioned, yes, your girl did have a podcast, I'm sorry, a paper route as well.And I believe working at a young age can be such a blessing and set you up for more success movingforward.Okay, so you didn't rock a lot of confidence when you were young.How did you go from that to the navel again?And Heather, this is an interesting story.I know you've had mentors that have helped you. I had a mentor initially when I was going throughrecovering from that brain injury where I had a speech therapist who I initially like despised
05:33going to this speech class because I had to do the walk of shame while everyone else in myelementary school was in English class. I walked right by them in the courtyard to go seethis speech therapist and I hated it. But after a while, she really taught me an important lesson.She, at a very young age, taught me that we can either become victims of our environments,which you and I have spent some time talking about, or we can learn to overcome them. And she told methat it really comes down to the choices that we make, regardless of how old or young we are.And so she started to teach me that if I was going to overcome this, I had to do thesemicro moments of confidence building to learn the neuroplasticity to reclaim my mind.
06:25And I did a lot of that growing up and had reached a point in high school after winning astate championship in cross country and being a star athlete in track to having this collegedecision that I was faced with. I know you spent time in Michigan. My entire family went toUniversity of Michigan, grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents. So I thought that's where I was destined to go.And I was kind of having a mentoring conversation with a beloved English teacher who everyone justadmired. And she said something to me that stopped me in my tracks. She said, John, you were nevergoing to amount to anything. And you talk about moments in your life that reshape your trajectory.that moment kind of pushed me.
07:17I think there are two paths and walk in life we can walk.There was the Michigan one staring in front of me,and then there was this Naval Academy one,and it really challenged me.If I hadn't overcome enough,it really paused me to put myself through the most challenging curriculumthat I could possibly face at that point,and that's what drove me to the Naval Academy,
07:42along with having, you know, both a father and a grandfather who would serve before me.So I wanted to keep on the family legacy as well.So, okay, first of all, let's run it back to when you were young and you had the brain injuryand you were seeing this speech therapist to help you.And I understand completely what you're saying because for me, it was going to work study.I felt embarrassed and I felt less than others.I understand what you're saying.You were going a different place that the normal kids weren't going to.
08:12and it felt bad going in there.What were some of the techniques she taught you to help you build that confidence?Well, one of, and you're going to love this because it ties into something you did.One of the things that she really taught me is that having a positive mindset just doesn't comeovernight.It comes to reinforcement.So she started to get me to think about mantras, things that I could tell myself on a daily basis,repeat and and I remember as a kid sometimes I repeat them 10 20 times a day that I was enough
08:52that I had the capability to to shape my world and to make it better that I am not avictim of my circumstances you know they were simple simpler words at the time butshe really got me to to start repeating things that would have a positive impactlater on in my life. And that is something that I practice to this day. For the first 20 minutesof my day, every day, I take a walk in the dark with my dog and the first 20, 30 minutes.I just allow myself to be in the environment that I'm in. And I say words of gratitude. I reflect onwhat went well the day before, how I want to live the day I'm living. And I always say two or threemantras that I've been saying for well over a decade that allow me to enter my day in the right
09:46mental space that I want to be there. And it all goes back to that room with that speech therapist.What are the mantras that you say? I basically say, today is a glorious day and I'm going to liveit in excellence. I'm kind of borrowing from Robert Sharma with all that I am and all who I can be.I deserve to be known.I deserve to be unique.I deserve to be heard.And I also need to deliver that to other people so that they are seen, valued, and heard.And then a few other things that I bring into it.
10:23I love that.And guys, for everyone listening right now, this is not by chance, but so many of the guests on this show and not just on the show, but on any show are due.I'm thinking of our friend John Gordon.He does the gratitude walk, right?There's...Same thing, yes.These are very successful people repeat the same habits.It is not by chance.
10:46It's by design.So start doing these things.Bring gratitude into your life.Get out and take a walk.Gosh, I've recently realized when I spent a couple of days in the house too long,that just not taking steps outdoors can affect you negatively.You know, there is signs behind all this stuff, guys.Please take a page out of John.
11:04John's playbook, it will work for you.Okay.John, so when you talked about not going to Michigan,which is a huge deal when your entire family did it,I have so many friends.I know so many people and I've worked with so many peoplewho say, I went this route because my family had done it.I became a doctor because.
11:26I became a lawyer because, but now I'm questioning everything.How were you able to find yourself in that situationand say, I'm not just going to take this route because everybody else did it.I'm going to go a different route that's actually going to be harder.And you want to know who one of the most disappointed people in me was was actually my dad.He wanted me to go to Michigan so bad that when I didn't go,he was extremely disappointed, but disappointed for another reason.He had served in the Marine Corps Force Recon.
12:00And when he went to Cambodia just before the Vietnam War, only two members of his platoon came back.So I think part of it was he also realized the sacrifice that I might be signing myself up for that I didn't realize the ramifications for as I was signing the paperwork and raising my hand.So I think part of it was a protective mechanism and part of it was he wanted me to be the maze in blue.But I think that was probably one of the most difficult decisions because I thought he was going to be so proud of me for making this decision.And what I got was the exact opposite, which at the time kind of stopped me in my tracks.How did you keep moving forward?I just realized that I had always had such a huge fascination with leadership and had tried every opportunity I could, whether that was being a capital.on my team and I know you played softball, taking on leadership roles when I worked in grocery,
13:02even doing the paper out that I knew leadership was a strong calling for me. And I just thought aboutit. Like, what is going to be better for teaching leadership? Is it going to the University ofMichigan or an academy that that's what they teach you is how to be a leader? And then at 21,22 years old, you know, you're out there in the real world dealing with real world.issues when you come out of a service academy. So I just thought it was long term the bettertrack for me. And it was really going to challenge me to be the best version of who a young Johncould possibly be. What were so the leadership principles they instilled in you that you're stillutilizing to this day? Man, well, I think one of them is just the group of people that you're
13:53surrounded by. What I realized very soon is that coming out of high school, I was the big personon campus. I thought I knew everything. I had gotten great grades. I had finished close to thetop of my class. And what I realized going to the academy was that I was really average. I think at best.I've talked to NFL players who, you know, come out being an All-American in college and then they go to thecombine and go to the NFL team and they realize like they are marginal at best. That's kind of howI felt. And, you know, I've classmates who went on to become astronauts. I have one now who'sleading the entire war effort against Iran. He's a four star. I have another one who was the secondyoungest governor in the history of the United States, governor of Missouri. So that's the caliber
14:47of people I was with. But they also challenged me because ofthat caliber to be so much more than I could have been had they not been there.And that support structure, I'm actually going back there tomorrow, is something that I wouldn'ttrade for the world because I know I can go to my classmates in any moment, and they'll be therefor me.That's an incredible group to be running with.And I'm so glad that you had that opportunity, obviously, to surround yourself with peoplewho could be even running at a faster pace than you are.
15:21So many people want to be the big fish in the small pond and think that's the answer.What would you say to them to help them understand?Because I even remember for me just being in the media business.It's what I oftentimes we change is scary and we want to be in the environment we know.And what if I make a leap to do something else?And I'm not at the head.What if I'm not the biggest?That fear held me back for a long time.
15:48How do you speak to people so that they understand making that.leap and putting themselves in that other situation is actually the answer for them.Yeah, I'm going to simplify this. We started this whole conversation about me being this youngkid. Well, let's think about all of us. At some point or another, we've all been at that kid atrecess, waiting to be picked for whatever team it was. Could be a kickball team. When I was growing up,we loved to play football at recess. When you're picked, that's belonging. You have a place on the team.if we're going to correlate this to my book.But I think what people don't understand is this whole concept of mattering.
16:28Mattering is much deeper.And research describes mattering as having two different sides,feeling valued and adding value.And to answer your question, I think you can be on a team,whether that's that kickball team or being in a work environmentand still wonder, would anyone really notice if I weren't here?And I think that's where a lot of leaders lose and confuse this difference between belonging and mattering.Giving us someone a seat in a room isn't the same as making them feel valued or giving them the opportunity to, you know, or giving them the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution.
17:09So I think it's important for people to understand that belonging means I have a place here.Mattering is I'm valued here and what I bring can make a difference.So I think when you enter rooms like that, that's what you have to think about.How do you put yourself in a position where you're valued here and you understand that the difference that you're making, regardless of what level it is, can really make a difference because I think that's what gives you the confidence to then grow from there.Growing up, money in my house was scarce.and the conversations around it were a little stressful to say the least.That shaped how I handled money for years.Monarch didn't just change that.
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18:30I just ask Monarch's AI assistant.Write your own money story with Monarch.Use code confidence at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch core half off at just $50.That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.arc.com with code confidence. I still remember my first real move online. I didn't have a website.I had a LinkedIn profile and a lot of nerve. And for way too long, I told myself a website was somethingI'd get to eventually. It felt expensive. It felt like something you needed a developer for.So I put it off. Here's what I wish someone had told me back then. That delay cost me opportunities
19:07and revenue. The moment I finally had a real professional website, one place where people could seemy work, my books, my speaking, all of it. The conversations change. People stopped asking,what do you do? And started asking, when are you available? That's when hosting her asked me to trytheir AI website builder. I actually sat down and played with it. I typed in what I wanted,a clean professional portfolio that actually looked like me. And it built a working first versionin minutes. No developer. No code. No three week back and forth with a designer, extra fees. And itdoesn't stop at launch. So when you're sitting there thinking, okay, it's live. Now what? You actuallyhave help. If you've already got a site, they make switching over easy too. What I really love is
19:51that it's all in one place, your domain, your website, your email, your marketing, one account, one login.And plans start at just $3 a month. Building your online presence doesn't have to cost youthousands of dollars up front. You can start small and build as you grow exactly like I did.Hostinger, build your vision step by step. Go to hostinger.com slash confidence and use code confidence for 10% off now.How do you explain it to people?Because when you explain that and thank you for sharing that because it's a different way of looking things than I typically do,I believe sometimes people might say they're not letting me matter versus I matter by the value I bring.
20:38how do you differentiate that or how can you help somebody with that challenge?Well, I mean, I think it's an interesting thing because the honest answer is you can feel connected and still feel insignificant, right?So you can be in that environment feeling like you're connecting with others, feeling like you're contributing and still feeling insignificant.So the way I would put it is when I was at Lowe's, I inherited this group.I often talk about this on my show, where I was brought in because Lowe's had just undergonelargest hacking incident in retail history.A couple of people had been able to gain access to an access point, got all the way tothe company's general ledger, if you can believe it.
21:25And I thought, well, that's going to be the biggest thing I've got to solve.Well, I had a huge shock when the Chief of Human Resources brought me into our office on thefirst week and said, we just conducted the first employee engagement survey and companyhistory and John, you have inherited the most disengaged group out of 350,000 employees.And what I learned going into this is that people can be indispensable and still feel insignificant.And that's exactly what had happened with this group.They all had very important roles, but no one was making them feel significant and they hadno idea in how the role that they were performing was making a difference to a customer in
22:05the store or to increase in shareholder value or other the key metrics of the company.So I think that's a good way for people to see this, is there's a big difference betweenknowing you matter and feeling you matter. And I think that's something that leaders need todo a better job is making people feel both, one that they feel significant and then helpingthem understand why they feel significant.Can you walk us through some of the changes that you implemented to turn that around?Yeah.So one of the most important ones is something that I call a line of sight.
22:46So I went around and first I tried to interview, well, I went and interviewed all of the customersof our organization and then I talked to all my peers.time to get from their perspective,why was this organization performing so low?But then the important other step I took is I showed upand I started talking to people in break roomsin the command centers, in the data centers,and I would get up at 2 o'clock in the morning
23:19because some of the shifts were 24 by 7and they didn't work a day shift.So I one signaled to all of them that they mattered to me,and that I was willing myself to put in the effort to meet them.The second thing is, is I started to learn about them.Like, what were their passions?Did they want to stay in this role?Did they want something more?
23:45What was happening outside of them?Did they have a member who might have been sick in their family?Did they want to go on to further their education?Did they have kids and what were their kids interested in?So I made them see that I was concerned about them bigger,than just the role that they were doing.But then I also tried to understandwhat were the barriers that they were feeling.
24:05And what I realized was thatthey were part of an environmentwhere no one had given them the ability to have a voice.So it was really top downlike I was used to it from the military,but they weren't allowed to influence from the bottom up.And so when I started to go to a manager in the command center,and it started out with them, what should I do, John?
24:32And I started to say, I can't be with you at 3 o'clock in the morning every single day.You've got to analyze the situation and what I want from you as a leader, start telling me,what changes based on where this organization needs to go?Do you think we need to start making?And it kind of gets into that Ted Lasso.You know, when Ted is initially talking to the kit person, you know,you need to start taking some of the ideas from the lowest people in the organization and implementing themso that they see that you're going to take their ideas and put them into practice.
25:08Because once you start doing that, they believe in you more.And then as often as I possibly could, I got in front of them.And I talked to them about the difference that they were making, the changes that we were doing,the impact that they were making.And I started telling them stories.like the fact that you were able to catch this issue on loz.com enabled us to fulfill orders for a thousand peoplewho would not have been able to receive that order had it not been for you.And I talked about their grandmother visiting the store and family members and this and that.
25:47And I related it so that they could see the actual impact that they were making.And that was the start of it.And then that allowed me to implement a lot of the strategic initiatives that we wanted to becausethey believed in me. And then from there, 18 months later to 20 months later, we went from the loweston the engagement survey to the second highest in the entire company.How long did it take you to build that trust with them?Man, the thing is, is that the trust seems like it happens so slowly, but it really happenedmuch quicker than I even expected. That initial getting the signal back took about six months.
26:27You know, the first weeks were really hard because they kind of look at you and think you're justthe next person that the company is bringing in. But when you start sending the signals back topeople that they matter, that they're valued, and that they could say something to you, even verycritical. I had an open door policy, and it was a true open door policy. I would let people come in,and tell me if I screwed up or give me advice if I said something that they didn't agree with.And when they saw that not only would I listen, but I would get in front of, you know,hundreds of people and tell them that, you know, Giles came into my office the other dayand told me this fact about what I'm doing. And he was completely right. And so I'm not going to do
27:14that anymore. It showed them that that I wasn't this person on their high horse.I was actually human like they were, and it really got them to believe in me.And then they also saw me, and this is something I learned from one of my favorite military leaders,that I would defend them, even if sometimes they were wrong.It didn't matter.If I were talking to my boss, one of my peers, and I had their backs, and I would defend them to the end of the day,that might meant I would close the door on them and say, what the hell were you thinking?and don't ever do this again.
27:50But out in public, they knew I had their back.And so it made them have the confidence that even if they screwed up,that someone believed in them and would defend them.I love that.And that's such a sign of a great leader.Okay, so you brought up something interesting that I want to address.I actually currently am coaching a CEO of a $6 billion organization,thousands of employees.
28:17And like you, he probably.hides himself on having an open door.However, John, one of the things that we've been talking a lot about working on is he's so accessible.His calendar gets away from him and he's not able to manage things that are really important.Bigger objectives, huge things that need to be handled.How can you find a balance of having that open door because you want people to know you're there to listen,but still being able to deliver on the work that you have?Well, there are two things that have really guided me for years.
28:48One of them is Stephen Covey's principle of keeping the main thing, the main thing.And to me, the main thing in my life is God.So ultimately, that is the main thing.But when it comes to a work environment, I use it in conjunction with the Eisenhowerquadrant.So I am very much, Eisenhower quadrant for people who aren't familiar with it is he had twoaxes, important versus urgent.and then you have to prioritize against them.
29:19So is what's happening to you both important and urgent?If it's not, it goes into a lower quadrant.So what I set my calendar up to do is I put it in blocks where I needed to keep themain thing, the main thing.And I put those blocks first thing in my day.And I put blocks for time that people could do office hours with me later in the day.where my energy was a little bit lower,where I had gotten the most important things
29:51I needed to get done during the day.So I freed up my schedule to allow that to happen.But it also, I would change itif I would get some kind of free wordon why the person was coming to talk to me,which often, before someone shows up,you get it anonymously,or someone will tell you,
30:12hey, I think Jim's going to,or Heather's going to come and talk to you.So that also gives you an inkling of what they're going to talk about and it's important.But if you don't set that up, you do put yourself in a situation where you're going to have a lot of people talking to you about things that, while they may be important, aren't necessarily the most important thing that you need to be focused on and they're not the most urgent thing that you need to be focused on.So that's what I used as a way to manage my time throughout my career.I love that strategy and I was not familiar with it.So thank you for explaining it.I'd love learning something new.
30:48Okay, so I want to get into your new book, The Mattering Effect.And for someone who's had such a disciplined career, military background, massive businesses in corporate America, it seems almost a little off brand to be writing the mattering effect.Why did you go this route instead of doing, I don't know, how to improve company?culture or dry bottom-wing results. What was that change for you to focus so much onMavering? Heather, I know you're a spiritual person and as you can tell I am too. Many of ourfriends, familiar friends are as well. I grew up Catholic and when I was in my early to mid-30s,I took this course at a Methodist church called Discipleship One. And it is one of the mostchallenging courses I've ever taken. It's 36 weeks long. We met with our pastor.
31:43twice a week for three to four hours in the evening, man, it was brutal. And we went through the entireBible in 36 weeks in detail. Well, during that time, I started to get this mission that the subliminalmessage at first, and then it got louder, that the path that I was on doing all the wonderfulthings I was in corporate America was not the path that I was destined to do in God's eye.And the words I was given is that you were supposed to help the lonely, broken,disengaged, battered, helpless, hopeless of the world.And I have to tell you, I had no idea what to do with this.At the time, you know, I'm leading application development,
32:27and you asked what the CDO is chief data officer.They now call it the chief data, an AI officer.So I'm doing those types of things.I have no idea what I'm supposed to do to help someone who's lonely or helpless or hopeless.but it started to get me to ask questions.And the question I came up with was all these things seem to be so far removed from one each other.What does loneliness and being burned out and employee disengagement have to do with one another?And so I started asking the harder question, you know, what is sitting underneath all of this?
33:03and I recently was having a conversation with a social scientist Arthur Brooks,if your audience is familiar with them.And he told me that the happiest people feel needed, not merely successful,meaning achievement can satisfy ambition while doing remarkably little to satisfy our own need for significance.And I started to wonder, like, I'm big on this whole idea that's a John Gordon thing.that you have to find the one word problem that you're called to solve.And so I'm like there has to be a one word problem that's driving all these different things.And I discovered that it's unmattering.
33:48And I've added systemic unmattering.But what I discovered is that all of these things that are these epidemics that are plaguing so many of us are rooted.They're really symptoms of something larger.and that's this unmattering.And what I found is that so many of us are living in what I call the mattering gap,which is the distance between what you're giving to the world and the degree to which you feel valued.And when you live inside that gap too long, you start paying the mattering tax,meaning you're trying to close that gap, but what you feel instead is anxiety, exhaustion,
34:33overwork, self-editing, loneliness, because you're not connecting in the way that you feel likeyou should, that come from constantly trying to prove you deserve, you matter. And so all of thatconnects to something larger, which is what I call the mattering market. We've created environments,whether that's our family environment, our school environments, our work environments,the communities that were in, even consumerism, that are very good at asking people to add valuewhile giving them very little evidence that they themselves are valued.And that, to me, was the foundation of doing all the work that I'm doingbecause it plays a direct role in creating a culture where people feel like they matter
35:23at work, at joining a community where they feel like they belong, etc.So the gap is what you feel.The tax is what you spend your time trying to compensate for it.I've sat in CEO chair.I've been on boards.I've led five acquisitions.And here's what I know.Every day your business is late to AI, you fall two days behind.
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38:40Just head to granola.a.a.a.comfidence.That's granola.orgia slash confidence to get your time back.Try it for free at granola.orgia.John, while you're explaining that what pops in my head is this,when I was back in corporate America,Chief Revenue Officer,and on the outside,it looked like this girl's killing it.
39:05You know, she's making a lot of money.She's getting all these accolades.But I remember I, as a single mother and I had a little boy,I would volunteer for a charity at nights and on the weekendsbecause I didn't feel like,I didn't feel like I was getting that sense of significancethat you're talking about right now.I was making rich people richer with our shareholders.
39:26And that was great.And I was proud of the job I did.But I want to.wanted to have more of a purpose somehow, then cut to now as my son just left to go to college,now I'm having the same kind of reinvention moment again where do I really matter and am Ifulfilling a purpose because one of the things that I focused on so much so, you know, has gone toa different phase. What are some of the advice and or what the frameworks from the book thatyou work with people going through these moments where they are disconnected or not feeling like
40:03they matter? Yeah. So the first thing is, I spend a short period of time in the whole bookon outlining the problem because I think more people, I think a lot of a lot of people noware kind of starting to understand what the problem is. What I haven't seen anyone really do is givethe solution to it. So the first three chapters really outline, how did we get here? Therest of the book goes into something that I call the matter framework. And the matter frameworkconsists of six conditions. And I spent really a decade studying this. So I've talked to everyone fromthe Dalai Lama to John Cabot-Zinn to Nobel Prize winners to professional athletes. I tried to geta full circumference of what was happening to come up with this answer. And what I found was
40:57is that there are these six conditions that happen to match the word matter,that when they're there, we feel valued and we receive value,and when they're not there, we lose it.So M stands for meaning.A is autonomy.T is time.The other T is trust.E is energy and R is reciprocity.
41:22So let me just go through this and how they build on each other.meaning is, is my life really connected to something that matters to me?Autonomy, and this really plays an important role, especially with the advent of AI,do I feel like I have authorship over my life, or do I feel conditional in it where other people are driving my life?Trust really gets into the work of Amy Edmondson and psychological safety.Can I, myself, be honest and unfinished.Can I live my life as I actually am or do I feel like I have to pretend in the rooms that I'm showing up in?Time really gets into, do I have enough unhurried space?
42:09Kind of gets back to that importance, urgent matrix, to actually experience my life and the relationships that matter to me.Energy gets into this concept of return on energy.Is my life replenishing me or only extracting from me?And then reciprocity, I like to get people to think of a metaphor of a seesaw.Does care flow both ways on that seesaw or is it rising in one direction and the other is not receiving it?So I introduce the matter framework and then I then go into how do you build this back first using yourself as the compass because I think mattering is really the foundation, our human.operating system and then once you do it for yourself personally, then how do you build it backinto your family situations? How do you build it back into your intimate relationships or your
43:07relationships with friends into your work environments and into your community? Are there elements ofthe framework that you see universally across these thousands of interviews that you've done in all of thisresearch? Is there one thing that matters more than the other or is it a function of how they worktogether. It's really a function of how they work together, but there is an important point.Like, if you don't have meaning, if you don't understand what matters most, then it's going to bevery difficult to have autonomy over, you know, figuring out how to move that if you don't,if you don't have meaning in your life. So there is an element to them being united, but there are certaincomponents of this that you just have to have
43:54where the rest of it's going to topple down.Don't you think that so many people,I mean, I guess I'll probably even put my younger selfin this base camp.I would have never even picked my head up long enoughto think about finding meaning.I was just trying to find my next paycheck,get through that next day,
44:11find a way to get back in a routinethat made sense and find some happiness.Yes.So often people are in, when you're in the rut,when you're in it, it's hard to pick your head upand say, I need to be smart about this and take a look at bigger things.Yeah, I talked earlier about the questions that I ask myself,and I think there are some important ones that your audience needs to ask.
44:35Like in the book, I define something that I call the Mattering Needs Pyramid,and it has four different levels, but they all revolve around different questionsthat I think are fundamental to any of us.The first question, which really gets to the meaning element, is who am I?The second question is, where do I fit?What do I want now and how do I want to feel that come back to me?And then what happens when my old identity no longer fits based on where my life is?And so what I'm really trying to help people understand is why achievement doesn't answer those questions
45:14and why we need to come back to ourselves and that human operating system to really understandthat internal belief that you're not going to matter to someone else and feel it, come back to youif you don't feel like you matter to yourself. And that's where this starts and ends is in personalmattering. There can be no relational mattering and no emotional mattering until personal matteringis felt. And I think for so many of us, myself included, that's where it started for me,because when God gave me that mission, the hardest thing that I had to come to the realizationwas that I was one of the very people that he was asking to serve.I myself was broken.
46:02I myself had become burned out.At one point, I was so numb that it took my son, who was probably eight or nine years old at the time,to say to me, Dad, why do you never laugh anymore?to really come to the realization, the wake-up call, that at the time I was at Dell,and I would come off these 100-hour weeks, you know, half of which was spent overseasdealing with issues. And I'd walk into that conference room. And as I told you when you and I were,when I was interviewing you, I had this president who just made my life miserable. So I was doingall this work. And I felt half the time,
46:46like, what mattered more, the chair that I'm sitting in or me? And then to have my son,you know, who I cared the most for told me, dad, you're not even showing up in the house. Like,where are you? Like, I think that is happening to so many people. And it was a huge wake-up call for me.So it really showed me that this is something that is huge that is plaguing, I think,hundreds of millions of people and has become one of the largest epidemics that is plaguing.humanity, regardless of where you may be sitting today listening to this.So for people listening right now, who did you write the book for?Because I'm seeing it right now as so many versions of myself along my own life, different
47:30versions of myself, different challenges, different moments of burnout, whether it could be you'regoing through divorce and questioning things, whether you're in a job that isn't bringing youjoy, whether you're not creating time for things that truly matter to you, relationship with God,your children, your health, yourself.Who did you really write this book for?I'm glad you asked that.One of these is the person who feels like success is the thing that is finally going to bring in fulfillmentbecause I can guarantee you it never will.
48:02And one of these is the burned out people.This could be the doctor who keeps giving and giving and giving and never gets anything in return.But this is also for the spouse.who gives to their children, gives to the family, gives to the husband, asks for very little in return, but is not getting that reciprocity back to them.It's also for, you know, the older generation who, you know, I write an example where, you know, a person is coming up to a person that I interviewed in a crosswalk.and she's in her late 70s, and she feels like an object that people barely see because of whereshe is in her life state. And so she feels very lonely because they don't see the previous 70 years inthe life. All they're seeing is this obstacle that needs to be avoided, not the person who they were.
49:00And it's for the youngsters today who are spending so much time, you know, with these filters,and other things that social media is telling them that they have to use because they're not enoughand they feel like they have to be perfect and they're swimming around like ducks so rampantwith so much anxiety underneath the water feeling that they have to be a different personto survive in the world today. So it's for all of those people. And that's why I tell peopleto their blue in the face. This impacts so many people in so many different roles. It's not justfor the high achievers.John, I'm so grateful you wrote this book.
49:39Did all of the due diligence and research that you did to bring this forward with such anincredible framework?How do people find the book and where can they get it?It is available everywhere for pre-order.The most simple place to go is mattering effect.com or you can go to my podcast website, Passionstruck,and right at the top of the header, it has places that you can pre-order.John, thank you so much for writing this book.Guys, get this book.
50:07As he just described, this book is for everybody, no matter where you are in your life.You matter.Get the mattering effect.John has spent years creating this for you and let it change your life because you matter.And John, you matter to us so much.Thank you so much for being here today.Heather, it was one of the biggest honors I've had in a long time coming on your show.So thank you so much for having me.
50:31Well, that means the world to me.get the mattering effect by John Miles,and we will link it in the show notes for you.You can get a pre-order copy right now one week before it comes out,October 6th, head over, get your copy, you matter.Until next week, keep creating your confidence.You know I will be.I'm on this journey with me.
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