Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Gordon Flett on the Urgent Need to Know You Matter | EP 597

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on Passion Strike. I'd say just as a quick snapshot, if you feel like you're not just a non-essential worker, you're a non-essential person. Now, everybody's essential. Everybody matters. And you have the potential to make a difference in people's lives. But if you're walking around feeling like that, you've probably got this sense of anti-matter. And the other thing that we've been studying lately as an extension of that is the fear of not mattering so that you feel like you matter now but you anticipate maybe you won't matter down the road. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host John R. Miles and on the show we decipher the secrets, tips,

Starting point is 00:00:37 and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now let's go out there and become Passion Struck. Welcome to episode 597 of Passion Struck. Whether you're a longtime listener or joining us for the first time, I am so grateful you're here. You've tuned into a movement dedicated to unlocking your potential, living with intention, and making what truly matters matter most.

Starting point is 00:01:30 And today, I have to tell you, I am absolutely thrilled for this episode. If you've been following me for a while, you know that I've been studying the science of mattering for years. It's one of the most profound and personal topics I've explored on this show. And it's at the very heart of how we build resilient lives, relationships, and communities. So it's truly an honor and a full circle moment for me to welcome someone I've long admired,

Starting point is 00:02:00 someone who literally wrote the book on the subject, Dr. Gordon Flett. Dr. Flett is the author of The Psychology of Mattering as well as the new book Mattering as a Core Need in Children and Adolescents. He recently retired as a distinguished professor of psychology at York University where he spent decades pioneering research into how the feeling of mattering, of being seen, valued, and significant, shapes everything from our mental health and relationships to our sense of identity and purpose. In our conversation, we explore what mattering truly means and why it's different from self-esteem, belonging, or mere connection.

Starting point is 00:02:41 The profound emotional and psychological toll when we experience anti-mattering and how loneliness, depression and anxiety often stem from feeling overlooked or underappreciated. We go into practical, actionable ways we can enhance our own sense of mattering even during life's most difficult seasons. We discuss why reciprocal relationships are so vital and how giving mattering to others can transform our own lives. And lastly we go deep into understanding mattering at the societal level and how it could reshape education, workplaces, and communities for the better. This episode is deeply meaningful for me and I truly believe that it will change the way you think about your relationships, your worth, and

Starting point is 00:03:24 your impact in the world. It's not just about feeling good, it's about becoming whole. Before we dive in, let's take a look back at the two incredible episodes that led up to today. On Tuesday, I sat down with Humble the Poet to explore one of the most misunderstood emotional experiences of our time, anxiety. It's an unfiltered conversation about identity, self-worth, and how to find calm in a chaotic world. And just yesterday, Dr. Emily Falk, a trailblazing neuroscientist from the University of Pennsylvania, revealed the science behind how ideas spread, what makes messages persuasive, and how understanding brain

Starting point is 00:04:00 synchrony can transform how we connect, influence, and communicate. If you want to become a more intentional messenger of change, make sure to check it out. And here's something else. Next week, I'm making a big announcement. One that's been in the works for a long time. I can't say too much just yet, but trust me, you'll want to tune in for the big reveal. For those eager to dive deeper into our most popular topics, check out our episode Starter Packs at passionstruck.com slash starter packs. With over 590 episodes, we've created curated playlists covering themes like mental toughness, emotional mastery, and personal growth. And don't forget to subscribe to my Live Intentionally newsletter for exclusive insights and behind-the-scenes

Starting point is 00:04:41 stories you won't find anywhere else. Now let's get into this transformative conversation about why mattering is a core human need and how understanding it can unlock deeper meaning, greater being and more powerful human connection with the one and only Dr. Gordon Fletch. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin. Hey, PassionStruck family. I have an extraordinary guest today, someone who I've wanted to have on this podcast for about 18 months, and we finally made it happen. I'm so honored and privileged to welcome Dr.

Starting point is 00:05:25 Gordon Flett to Passionstruck. Welcome Gordon. Thanks for having me, John. I am glad we finally got together and we have done a lot of things, I believe. Well, just before we came on the air, you told me that you recently retired from your teaching position, but you were just bestowed an honor. And I thought it was important to maybe start there. Can you tell us what that honor was? I was just named the honorary president of the Canadian Psychological Association, which is quite an honor.

Starting point is 00:05:56 And I've had former presidents like Albert Bandura and Kahneman of Kahneman and Tversky. But to me, it's an opportunity to get people to find out more about mattering. I'll be giving a keynote address at our annual convention and we'll be focused on mattering and how it can make a difference in people's lives. It's such a well-deserved recognition and congratulations to you. And I wanted to just start today's discussion with just a little bit of history.

Starting point is 00:06:29 I have really been trying to understand why are there so many people, and when I say so many, I'm talking in the neighborhood of billions who are facing so many issues in their life, from feeling helpless and hopeless to lonely, to rising mental health, to anxiety. And I kept trying to search for, was there some linchpin that was tying this all together? And I remember I was talking to Tom Curran in an episode and we were talking about perfectionism.

Starting point is 00:07:03 And I was telling him I had spoken to Angela Duckworth and Ethan Cross and all these people with these famous researchers. And I said, I can't find anyone who was studying mattering. And he goes, have you ever heard of Dr. Gordon-Flett? And I said, I have not. And so I immediately started Googling you and reading everything I could get my hands on that, that you had produced. And you are at the epicenter of this nascent world of studying mattering, which I think is one of the most important concepts that we need today. So I was hoping with that as a backdrop, Gordon, that we could start

Starting point is 00:07:46 at the beginning. As I've done research, you first discovered the concept of mattering as a graduate student in the late 80s. Can you describe that moment of when you discovered it and why it resonated so deeply? It was fortuitous in the sense that I was a member of a club, one of the publishers that had discount books for graduate students and I saw this book on the self and I sent off for it at the low price that they were offering it for, and long would the provisions don't share it with others. And I came across this chapter by Morris Rosenberg who was the person who originated the concept of mattering and in that chapter there was five pages, who was the person who originated the concept of mattering. And in that chapter, there was five pages and he gave the impression that here's this totally

Starting point is 00:08:30 neglected element of the self that's so relevant to people of all ages, so predictive. And I just found that away thinking, well, why aren't people studying this? But then I left alone, I had to finish my work on my dissertation on depression. And then later we were doing a project on the transition to college. And I'm actually just finishing a paper on transition and the role of mattering as a key resource. And I said, one of the postdoctoral students said,

Starting point is 00:09:01 hey, I came across the scale on mattering and immediately the light bulb went off. And I said, hey, I came across the scale on mattering. And immediately the light bulb went off and I said, yeah, we need to be including this. And at the same time, I was asked to be the researcher for a provincial program on developing a resilience prevention program and encouragement program for young people. And we were kicking around concepts and I said,

Starting point is 00:09:24 well, there's this concept of mattering and with educators, they knew exactly what I was talking about. It's tied into the idea of the one caring adult who can change a kid's life like Oprah Winfrey did with her teacher who she had on her second last show. So we included it as well. And while we were looking at, that's when I also came up with the idea that just as important it is to feel

Starting point is 00:09:46 like you matter, the feeling of not mattering is also something that sticks with you at a very deep level. So we started measuring it there. But aside from that, I'd say that I look back and I said, was I being prepared to realize that this was a concept? I was very fortunate to be raised by loving parents and grandparents. And we actually had the two grandparents and my aunt in the house growing up.

Starting point is 00:10:11 So I had surrounded by adults and my paternal grandmother, I was the first born. So I was treated like that spoiled special kid but I got a lot of attention. And then later on the school experiences including when our daughters, we have two daughters now grown up and the local school is just a block away.

Starting point is 00:10:31 And that school was all about mattering. And when you have environments where it's right at the top, the principal and the staff who, ironically, I just met the principal again a couple of days ago at an event, they're all about the importance of the child as a person, not just the curriculum, and really to the point where the principal in a school of 900 students knew every kid by name, and something about them so that she could, which is one of the ways you end up feeling like you matter. And then when I became a faculty member at York, I became the undergraduate director.

Starting point is 00:11:10 And I had these students come in who had many of the things that you described in terms of loneliness, disconnection, demoralized, depression. And these were excellent students who had just not got off to a great start. And what they needed was somebody like me in that position to be able to show some faith in them and to give them some strategies. And one of the things that goes along with mattering, it's the secret power, I say a secret sauce of mattering,

Starting point is 00:11:38 is that it's very strongly correlated with hope. People who feel like they matter have a sense of hopefulness about them at a very high level and not just hope in terms of being able to do things and make things happen, but hopefulness about other people and other people are going to be for them when they need it. And so I saw it and I've seen it in other people in terms of just how it's changed their lives and brought them from a position where they're really not doing all that well to a position where, hey, suddenly they realize their strengths and they're more likely to develop self-compassion and other positive things

Starting point is 00:12:12 that go along with it. And in my new work, a new book coming out, I talk about with kids, how if they feel like they matter, it comes with a host of other strengths, usually including hope and positive orientation towards the future and a host of other strengths, usually including hope and positive orientation towards the future, and a sense of resilience that they'll be able to overcome challenges and obstacles and adapt as new situations emerge. They said, I just recently retired, but I'm busier than ever. And it's like the famous line from the Al Pacino and the Godfather, just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in. And that's what mattering is.

Starting point is 00:12:46 There's much more to be learned about it and much more in terms of heightening awareness, which is another reason why I appreciate this opportunity today. So I'm thinking about the best place to go. And I want to come back to your grandmother's story here in a second. But I think before we do, it might be best for you to ground the listeners or viewers on when you define mattering, what words do you use? Well, mattering is essentially defined as feeling important, feeling significant, feeling like people are paying attention to you.

Starting point is 00:13:21 What I really come down to and something we've added much more focus on recently is the sense of that you feel cared about that somebody cares about you and somebody really is looking out for you and thinking of you and when you have that you can be able to carry that from situation to situation even when those people aren't there. And then of course the flip side is when you feel like you don't matter so you you're not heard, you're not seen, you're feeling invisible, you're feeling overlooked, maybe feeling forgotten, which we call anti-mattering. And that feeling is something that some people have at a chronic level. But you can also have those kinds of experiences, even if you have a sense of mattering and you have to learn how to cope with that kind of treatment. But another element of it

Starting point is 00:14:05 that's key because it almost sounds like you're waiting for somebody to treat you the right way but also you can generate feelings of mattering by going out and doing things for others. Isaac Kroolatensky has talked about this in terms of adding value to other people's lives and this is what I tell someone who says, well, people just aren't treating me the way I need to be treated. What I'm just going to have to deal with this. And I say, well, you can become more involved. You can find a cause, you can make a difference in somebody else's life.

Starting point is 00:14:36 And then you know that you matter to them at least, and then you can go from there. But really it's something that's described as a feeling in terms of that. How does it make you feel when you feel like you matter or don't, but also it's described as a need. So that everybody has a need to matter and it's believed to be universal. And this is the way that Rosenberg talked about it in terms of needing to be significant and needing to feel like you're making a difference or people would miss you. Is one of the things that he said is that if you're somebody who knows you matter you know that people would miss you if you weren't around anymore. I think it's important because when I was doing my

Starting point is 00:15:11 research a lot of people pointed me towards the work of Jeff Cohen on belonging or I was pointed to study work on self-esteem or study work on happiness. How does mattering differ from belonging or self-esteem or happiness? Yeah, that's a very important point. When I was just doing work on this, somebody, get reviewers that said, well, I already studied this and it's called belonging. And I said, there's a difference. And the difference that has to do with, I see belonging as you're fitting into a place somewhere where you're in the circle. But mattering comes into play as if you're in a group setting, for instance, when people recognize you and hear your voice. When I had this experience sometimes at

Starting point is 00:15:56 meetings where I'm at where I say, well, I belong at this meeting, they let me into this meeting, but nobody seems to want to hear what I'm saying. So it's not just fitting in, it's a sense of importance or connect, of being valued within the belonging setting. And one key difference is that school boards have told me, educators have told me that they can identify kids and they have identified kids who have a sense of belonging when they're measured, but they don't have a sense of being valued. And they said for some reason, it seems that these are the kids that may be the worst off

Starting point is 00:16:30 in the sense that they're wondering, why don't I have a sense of value, even though I clearly belong here? As for self-esteem in the original work by Rosenberg, he made the key point that it's not just self-esteem, that it's a unique element. Self-esteem is more about feeling liked and feeling confident and feeling confident, but mattering is that sense of feeling valued and being important. And he showed in his original

Starting point is 00:16:55 work that once you took into account self-esteem, that mattering was very much more predictive over and above. And there's been multiple papers, because that's the challenge for researchers when they have something that they think is fairly new is they have to show that it predicts above and beyond other measures like self-esteem or sense of belonging. And of course they're all correlated. So somebody who feels like they matter

Starting point is 00:17:19 tends to have higher levels of self-esteem and higher levels of belonging, but they're different. And when somebody has a lack of mattering as their core things, there's no way around it by boosting self-esteem, where you might add to some narcissistic tendencies or the sense of belonging. I found this one time, by the way, with a boy who had been given one of our questionnaires and he wrote on it when it weren't supposed to write on it. He circled, I don't matter to anyone. And then he says, and this I know

Starting point is 00:17:49 for sure he wrote. I was telling the school board, I said, look, with this boy, he's coming for counseling, unless you address that core sense of not mattering, educational initiatives, self esteem initiatives aren't't gonna get to what he needs because he's got that core sense of just not being important to anyone when he overgeneralized. And that's the thing about mattering is that you can say, I don't matter to anyone.

Starting point is 00:18:16 That's why it's important for someone to show somebody they matter because then they can no longer say, I don't matter to anyone. And then overreact as a result of that. I'm sure you're familiar with the belonging barometer that the American immigration council put out, but when you talk about not feeling like you belong, I think the figure was 17% of people feel like they don't belong or don't feel

Starting point is 00:18:42 like they matter at any point in their life, which is a huge number when you think about it. And the numbers are close to 70%. You feel they don't belong in their work environments, the same thing with their communities. This is a huge thing. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time looking at those numbers. I just wanted to add that in our original work with the school board, about two-thirds of the kids said they felt they mattered, but the other third said they either didn't matter or they weren't sure. And a really important element and the thing to realize about mattering is we can measure it generally as we typically do, but you can measure mattering at school, mattering in the community, mattering at work. So it cuts across these domains. And research that's been done with kids mostly in the US

Starting point is 00:19:29 on the mattering in the community indicates that 45 to 50% of them say they don't matter in the community. And to me, I said, well, we don't address that as a core thing. What chance is there in terms of raising wellbeing and helping them develop the way they could in terms of their potential.

Starting point is 00:19:45 So it's shocking when you think about the sheer volume of people at different ages who feel like they don't matter. It is shocking and I want to get more into that. I wanted to ask you one more thing around science. So when I talked to my friend Ethan Cross about mattering and I was asking him where he suggested I should look, he turned me towards Edward DC and Richard Ryan's work on self-determination theory. And I have seen the linkages between the need for intrinsic motivation and mattering. But when you look at it, where would you say it crosses and where do you think mattering, but when you look at it, where would you say it crosses and where do you think mattering goes well beyond

Starting point is 00:20:29 self-determination theory? Right, right. Well, their theory focuses on three primary needs that everyone needs to have satisfied, the need for autonomy, the need for competence, and the need for relatedness. So it links mostly with the need for relatedness, but I actually did

Starting point is 00:20:45 find a quote from them that I'm cherishing that I found where they talked about belonging and mattering. It's tucked away, but I cite it now quite frequently and realize that they had been thinking about this without going and drilling down. People who are feeling like they matter feel like they have a sense of agency, they have a sense of self-determination, but they also have unfulfilled needs in terms of that sense of confidence and autonomy. And we've shown with our work on the anti-matter, which is that feeling invisible, that when people say they feel a strong sense of not mattering with that scale, it's very robustly correlated with all of those needs in terms of deficits

Starting point is 00:21:25 across those three core needs, but it predicts above and beyond in terms of other outcomes. Let me put it to you this way. One of my students also has a class that he's teaching. I gave an exercise to the students and said, here's what competence is, here's what relatedness is, here's what this is, here's a bunch of other needs, including this one we call mattering, please rank them in terms of which is the most important to you and the people you know. And mattering came out over and above those other ones.

Starting point is 00:21:57 And another illustration with the school board project is we had principals at a table where we had all these concepts on cutouts. And we said we got like 15 psychological concepts here, like jargon city, in terms of we got self-compassion and optimism and grit and all of these kinds of growth mindset. And they said, well, all of these are important. But we said, which one would you pick and just go through them in order?

Starting point is 00:22:27 And the principals unanimously agreed that mattering was the top thing out of the 14 or 15 that they picked. And when asked why, they said, it's because it applies to everyone. It applies to our students. It applies to our teachers. It applies to our staff and the custodial staff,

Starting point is 00:22:44 the parents and the community. And then they immediately made the tie into the kid with the one caring adult who changes the life of that kid. When I see those sorts of things, that's how I know that we can look at research findings, but it's something that has incredible resonance with people once they understand what the concept is. And usually they then tie that to somebody that they've known in their past has made them feel that way.

Starting point is 00:23:10 And what do you think is that link that gets people to understand the concept? Because when I try to explain it, I remember I was having this discussion with a person in the PR field and I was talking to them them about the need to matter and they go, well, everyone has a different sense of matter. And I said, well, that is exactly true. We all have our own view, but I think there are commonalities that we all share as well. And we tend to focus on the differences instead of the commonalities. But how would you answer that?

Starting point is 00:23:44 What I would say is like people talk about, as we have talked about belonging, they talk about connection, but mattering is about those special connections that everybody wants to feel special to someone. They want somebody who truly understands them at a level that nobody else does. And so many people don't feel understood and they don't feel seen or heard. And, but it's largely about those feelings and it's tied to memories that people have that a time when they've had someone like that and I remind myself of this when I go and I look at popular things that are out

Starting point is 00:24:16 there. Why are some of these things so popular? So fictional wise I always come to the movie, It's a Wonderful Life, where there's Jimmy Stewart's character shown what it would be like if he didn't exist, which in all you do not matter, you don't exist. The other fictional example I point to is Mr. Holland's opus with Richard Dreyfuss at the end when he thinks he's wasted his life and he's not really going to do the great symphony and he retires and there's that room, the auditorium filled with his former students. He's impacted in ways he didn't understand.

Starting point is 00:24:50 It's the value of the rewardingness of people and the comfort that comes from knowing that there are people who really, you know, it's not just loving you, but they really care about you and they would miss you if you weren't around. And it even goes through, I realized I was looking at, I gave a talk for a hospice organization. And the Cicely Saunders, I believe is her name, who has the famous phrase, you matter to the end of your life, even when you're not here, no longer you matter and you'll never be forgotten.

Starting point is 00:25:20 That sense of people want, it's about their identity too. It's like they want a sense of unique identity. And I added this in my description of mattering the need to feel like a unique individual who people are seeing as somebody with unique positive properties, a sense of individualization and people that's the thing about belonging versus mattering is that you're, you've got a unique identity within that group. No, absolutely. And the way I look at it is I've developed this framework where I think it

Starting point is 00:25:52 starts with how you matter to yourself. Then how do you matter to others? How do you make other people feel they matter? And then how do you then extend mattering beyond yourself to the community around you and I think when you talk about the second one how other people make you feel you matter and then how you make other people feel they matter there's something that comes in with reciprocity is that something that you've looked at?

Starting point is 00:26:27 Yes. I haven't studied reciprocity per se, but in the new book that we just, you know, I just finished talk about mutual mattering in terms of that reciprocity. And when you're really locked in with somebody, you've got that sense of reciprocity where they understand you and you understand them, but they're looking out for you and you're looking out for them. And the book I always go back to read to remind myself of this is Tuesdays with Morrie. It should have been called Tuesdays with Morrie and Mitch.

Starting point is 00:26:56 Mitch Albom's book that was a gigantic bestseller. And I said, there's Mitch Albom going back to visit his professor who's in his final days or he's heading in that direction and that sense of caring about each other and how much he seemed to miss that in terms of when they lost contact. That's the key and that's the best thing in terms of with parent-child relationships where you know there's that sense of connection where the child is showing concern for the parents feelings as, and that whenever they get to that stage, some young people intuitively seem to have that component.

Starting point is 00:27:31 But reciprocity is key. One-sided mattering is going to feel bad at some point in terms of, hey, I'm doing all this stuff for them, but they're not doing it for me. Nancy Schlossberg, who was another big name in the field, looked at this in terms of caregivers. And she said, it's the only time when you feel that mattering is not really good is that it's you're feeling too dependent on and it's more one way so that you're not getting the recognition.

Starting point is 00:27:59 So you have to perhaps remind yourself of times when, if it's an aging parent, maybe dealing with dementia, when they were able to engage that way, or there'll be moments where you get that glimmer. But when it's too one way, it can become a sort of a compulsive thing where it's all focusing on other people's needs. I'm especially glad your framework includes that focus on mattering to yourself because ultimately I fear what happens with far too many people is they don't feel like they matter to others

Starting point is 00:28:28 and then they internalize it. I talk about this in terms of the internalization so that I don't matter to anyone, I don't matter to myself anymore, which potentiates a lot of very bad risky behaviors with young people that could be internalizing in terms of self harm, but it could also be acting out and doing things where you're not worrying about

Starting point is 00:28:49 consequences because you don't see a future and mattering to yourself wraps around that concept of hope and optimism in terms of what you for yourself in terms of the future. And if you don't matter to yourself, then you just act whichever which way because you're not saying anything that you're going to lose down the road. Psychologists, I'm not a clinical psychologist. My closest colleague in the perfectionism work, Paul Hu, we've been working together for 30, 35 years now. And he talks about the relationship that the self has with the self. That you've got to be kind to yourself. You've got to care about yourself and not be so hard on yourself as perfectionists tend to be because they feel that they're pushing

Starting point is 00:29:30 themselves by being so hard on themselves. But ultimately it's a recipe for exhaustion and being totally drained. You've got to learn to be accepting of oneself over here set up for all those bad choices. So as I was discussing this concept with my wife, we were talking about events like Easter, which is coming up or Christmas Hanukkah, where to me, I always feel the most emotionally involved in the holidays when I'm giving a gift to someone else, much more than when I'm giving a gift to someone else, much more than when I'm receiving a gift from someone. It wouldn't be the same if I didn't intentionally go out

Starting point is 00:30:13 and select that gift for them, wondering how they're gonna react to it, wanting to see their anticipation, et cetera. So when you think about that, what are the psychological benefits that comes specifically from giving mattering to others, not just receiving it? Yeah. I have to say here that when you said to giving a gift, I immediately, my mind

Starting point is 00:30:36 went to being at the bottom of our stairs here, waiting for our daughters to come down the stairs to see, I'm sneaking down there early a couple of times along the way too. But just the looks on people's faces and how that makes you feel to realize that you've had that impact where people think, wow, that's somebody who's really thinking about me. And I did find that as a big shift for me as you get older, but you do get that sense of having a positive impact. So it reflects back on you in terms of you can make a difference in other people's lives

Starting point is 00:31:09 and that special glow, which I learned back when I was the undergraduate director, because this person I inherited the role from said, unlike most things where you send a paper off to a journal and be waiting months and wondering, is anybody going to read this when I actually have it out there if it goes out there. When you're the undergraduate director you have students with real problems real lives right there you can do something about it and he says you'll get that glow of knowing that hey I actually am making a difference around here that this student's life is going to be better this person got back on track and that

Starting point is 00:31:43 does develop a sense of what we interpersonal efficacy where you feel you can have a positive impact on others. And some people I think have taken what they've learned through mattering to others in terms of relationships and then they've gone on to careers in terms of public service. And anybody who's in a public service will know about what it means in terms of wanting to make a difference in people's lives and how you feel like you do make a difference in people's lives. And when they're prone to burnout is when they get to that point of saying, I don't matter. Nobody's paying attention to this. If I didn't show up for work, nobody would miss me. And that's one of the key elements that's not been studied extensively, but there's

Starting point is 00:32:22 clear links between feelings of not mattering and psychological burnout and demoralization in the workplace. To the point that the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, Dr. Murthy, included that as one of his five pillars in terms of workplace mental health, the feeling of mattering in the workplace. So I think of that though in terms of, I think back to the pandemic and here's those situations where we celebrated first line people, front line people and celebrations at night, ringing bells and that. And then later I've seen accounts of going, Hey, where did all the appreciation go? Because suddenly it's not taking on that spotlight.

Starting point is 00:33:01 But you get that sense of making a difference in people's lives that, and they're a key part, which Nancy Schlossberg talked about, a key element of the mattering concept is the feeling of being appreciated. Once you know that you're appreciated, it's like a sense of validation that's not going to be creating narcissism or false feelings about the self that, hey, somebody sees that I made a difference. And this is when I am asked to give advice for perfectionistic kids and their parents. Parents say, what can we do? I said, how about you spend some time volunteering

Starting point is 00:33:35 where your child learns that it's not all about grades and competition, but you can actually feel really good about yourself in a lasting way by going out and doing something for other people. And you don't forget it. And also when you're in an occupation where you feel you should be getting some acknowledgement and appreciation, instead maybe you get criticism or no attention, it can cut you both ways in terms of that as well.

Starting point is 00:34:02 For sure. So we've talked a little bit about anti-mattering and you gave the definition of mattering. So how would a listener know if they might be experiencing anti-mattering? Are there certain psychological or emotional signs that someone might be feeling? Yeah, and I won't go into this in great detail. In terms of the scale, it talks about things like,

Starting point is 00:34:30 to what extent do you feel insignificant? To what extent do you feel invisible? But I think one of the things that's correlated with anti-mattering that probably might amplify feelings of it is when people feel really isolated and lonely. There's a very strong correlation. I just have a recent chapter on loneliness and the feelings of not mattering. And the premise of the chapter is the loneliness epidemic actually an epidemic of feelings

Starting point is 00:34:59 of not mattering because they're so highly correlated. And even when I look at the items to measure loneliness per se, I see all these anti-mattering type items that are in there that sort of hope for those two to be related. So it's a sense though of really feeling like you weren't around, nobody would miss you and that there's different levels of it so that, you know, you can have a moderate level, but if you have an extreme level, which sadly some people do, I've seen perfect scores on our measure that are so alarming.

Starting point is 00:35:32 This is where you'd say, I don't matter to anyone. And people seem to be going out of the way to make me feel insignificant. Or they look through and past me. People in homelessness situations say they feel like people are just looking beyond them and that they're not really there. But some people have lives like that. And it's also possible to have a general feeling of mattering, because we've shown in profiles that people have a sense of

Starting point is 00:35:55 positive mattering, but they also have a sense of anti-matter because maybe they have a background where they know they matter to people, but they're in a work context where they're made to feel irrelevant and that famous thing about essential workers versus non-essential workers. I'd say just as a quick snapshot, if you feel like you're not just a non-essential worker, you're a non-essential person. Now everybody's essential. Everybody matters. And you have the potential to make a difference in people's lives. But if you're walking around feeling like that, you've probably got this sense of anti-matter. And the other thing that we've been studying lately as an extension of that is the fear of not mattering.

Starting point is 00:36:33 So that you feel like you matter now, but you anticipate maybe you won't matter down the road. So it could be in my context, for example, okay, I'm facing retirement. Am I still gonna have attention paid to me? Do I have to stop people on the street now and start rambling, a madman? And that fear of not mattering, I think,

Starting point is 00:36:53 makes people just keep striving if they're perfectionists because they don't want that feared outcome to occur. And I came up with the idea of actually studying this when I was watching the Emma Stone, Michael Keaton exchange in Birdman movie, where she very harshly says, dad, you know what your biggest problem is? You're afraid that you don't matter. And then she says, and you know why?

Starting point is 00:37:15 Because you don't matter. So she got him on the anti-mattering and the fear of not mattering. And this is not as prevalent a feeling, but it certainly is relevant to certain age periods in one's life or transitions. And the whole side of mattering that's not been studied, with exception to maybe four studies, is the loss of mattering, where you were somebody who felt significant and then something happened where you now feel insignificant. And then you can dread the dreaded anticipation of something like that happening, which tends to tap into other insecurities. Well, when you think about what you've just described, there are various points

Starting point is 00:37:57 in your life where that could happen. One could be you're coming out of a long-term relationship or a marriage. Yeah. Could be one aspect of it. Another one that I typically see people who come to me who have had a long career and now they're either retiring maybe from the military, maybe from what they're wanting to do and their whole sense of identity is shaken to its core and they don't feel like anything they're doing matters. I've seen this happen.

Starting point is 00:38:28 It happened to me when you get well into your career, only realizing that what you're doing is not what lights you up inside and never was, and you're searching for your identity again. So I think there are many different circumstances that in our lives that we hit peaks and valleys where we feel like we matter. And other times troughs where we've lost it completely. Yeah. And the feeling transition in terms of the feeling really gets at people. In my case, I spent three and a half years as Associate Dean in our Faculty of Health. And I remember the

Starting point is 00:39:07 feeling, that's okay, you're literally a big man on campus. And then the next day, when it's all over, you're not. That's okay. Now I'm back into the rank civilian life, as one of my colleagues described it. I really hit home when I said that parking spot that I had right by our building, am I going to be allowed to keep that? No, you're not allowed to keep that. Then I said, can I go on the waiting list?

Starting point is 00:39:32 No, it's too long. It's like status one day, not status the next, but we could be doing a great service to people if we start to put ourselves in the shoes of all these individuals and think, what things can we set up so that they can retain a sense of significance, where they can make a difference in other people's lives so that it's not what they were doing, but they still have something where they can see a valued role because it's far, some people simply just can't handle it. And I think there's even in retirement, there's the stories of people who don't last very long

Starting point is 00:40:04 after they've got the coveted retirement because they just don't feel a sense of being valued anymore. It's too much of a transition for them but we don't tend to do this. We don't try to there's a lot of things going on in the world so we don't think of what opportunities we create for people as they are making these transitions that can be incredibly difficult for them. Absolutely. Gordon, I wanted to go into a couple of different areas. One of them is going to start with workplace and then we're going to go to schools after it. So I want to start with the early experiences that you had visiting your

Starting point is 00:40:37 grandmother's workplace because they had a significant impact on you. And I wanted you to use the experiences of visiting her workplace to how the workplace has evolved today. Right, right. I can answer the first part of that easier, but my paternal grandmother and my other grandmother worked at a cafeteria that my one grandmother ran.

Starting point is 00:41:01 So my sister, and I'm talking maybe six years old, five years old, and my sister is a year younger, we would go to visit the grandmothers and get a special lunch and have all this attention plus whatever we wanted, which for me was usually some mac and cheese and some chocolate milk. But I'm concerned about this in general. We know that mattering is associated with workplace satisfaction and I've talked about the mental health, but the anti-mattering also occurs at work and I think we've lost the sense of what it means to be a person who's experiencing job

Starting point is 00:41:36 transition. So when people who have been in a valued role for years suddenly get an email that tells them, sorry, but your performance isn't up to speed and pick up your stuff and you're gone. And I do know that there are people now working on an anti-mattering work version to show that this sense of being unimportant and insignificant in the workplace is also very potent above and beyond general feelings of mattering or not mattering. And what I would tell leaders is that you need to focus on the human costs, effective, impressive leaders.

Starting point is 00:42:10 I already figured this out. So it's part of their leadership orientation where they feel that everybody counts, everybody matters and that everybody has a role to play versus the type of person who might go to the favorite the prestige employees and not give others a chance to have input into decisions or a sense of voice. And you know, workplace mattering is something that has got very limited attention.

Starting point is 00:42:37 There's a separate scale, the measures mattering in the workplace that's only been used in a handful of studies, but it's absolutely critical and that's something that I saw in our local school in terms of the educators all feeling like they mattered and everybody feeling like they mattered. And it is tied into that sense of demoralization and burnout that I was referring to. And people like Freud said love and work were the two key domains. Well, if you feel that your work is something that's draining you in terms of, you're not getting any sort of validation

Starting point is 00:43:09 or sense of being valued in that workplace, it's gonna be reflected in illness, turnover, absenteeism, presentism where you're there, but you're not really there psychologically. Bottom line is that when people in a work setting or another setting feel like they matter, they're much more engaged in a day-to-day way and then problem solving, proactive mode versus being disengaged and disillusioned and demoralized if you feel like

Starting point is 00:43:38 you don't matter in a work setting. And the leaders who have already figured this out, in a work setting and the leaders who have already figured this out, they got where they got for a reason because they are realizing the human side of everything. Yeah, when I talk about this, I talk about my experience when I was at Lowe's Home Improvement. I had this friend of mine named Steve who was over all the distribution components of the company. So when you think about this, this is about 30,000 employees. So it's a big job. And we would go into these distribution centers themselves that are about a million and a half square foot.

Starting point is 00:44:15 So there are these huge facilities. And at the time we had a number of them. And I remember we would walk into these facilities and they had hundreds of employees and Steve would walk around and he would know every, not only every person's name, he would understand who their family members were, what their passion for it was amazing. And he was almost like a rock star. People just flocked to him because he made them feel seen. a rock star. People just flocked to him because he made them feel seen. And then I had this boss who was hired. And I remember for the first two weeks that she was there at the

Starting point is 00:44:54 new job, she'd come into work, go into her office, lock the door. And the only time she would come out would be if she had a meeting or needed to go to the bathroom or something like that. And I remember when I finally got a chance to talk to her, I had major components of her job before. So I knew all the employees who were literally just sitting right outside her office, thousands of them. And I went up to her and I said, would you like me to take you around so I can introduce you to the directors and managers and other people who are part of

Starting point is 00:45:30 the group and she goes, you don't understand. She goes, that's your job. I don't have any desire at all to meet them. My job is to manage you, to manage my peers and to manage the relationships with my superiors. And I just look at this two people were at the exact same level. They were both SVPs. And I look at how differently they approached their jobs

Starting point is 00:45:54 and how the people underneath them performed for each of those people, because one treated them like they were family, the other treated them like they were a cog in a system. Yeah. And people are very attuned to that. And it could be even worse if they treated a few people like they were key and the rest of that they weren't. I'll tell you a quick story about this. My brother decided to get involved in photography.

Starting point is 00:46:20 My youngest brother, and he happened to be at a photo shoot with president Bill Clinton there in Hamilton, Ontario. And Bill Clinton is somebody who figured this out a long time ago in terms of his charisma. A lot of his charisma is making everybody feel like you're the only person I'm talking to in this room and being sincere about it. It has to be authentic too. It has to really matter.

Starting point is 00:46:41 So at the end of this photo shoot, my brother's in the corner and he's like, there's Bill Clinton at Secret Service, and he's in the corner and he's like, there's Bill Clinton at Secret Service, and he's just the assistant to the photographer who's doing the main shoot. President Clinton went over to my brother when he didn't have to, when he was already probably behind schedule and said, young man, tell me a bit about you.

Starting point is 00:46:57 You've been here, I wanna find out what's happening with you. And he spent time with him, which the glow that my brother had would have probably lasted the next couple of years because of that. The same thing with there's a big element of mattering in sports and performance and the really successful coaches are not just the strategists and the taskmasters, but also the ones who make their players feel like they matter as people. And I got a read on this when I went through the book that was written by Jerry Kramer, who became Hall of Fame lineman from the Green Bay Packers, who talked about Vince Lombardi behind the scenes and the diary that he kept for a year. It's great reading for anybody into sports. And he talks about how Lombardi humiliated him because he was

Starting point is 00:47:41 the blindside tackle. And he once, as a rookie block and Bart Starr the famous quarterback almost got massacred by the blindside hit and Lombardi showed the tape 32 times or something like this in the film session the next Monday with Kramer right at the front feeling totally humiliated and he's thinking I'm gonna get my pink slip I'm gonna get cut from this team and he's thinking, I'm going to get my pink slip. I'm going to get cut from this team. So he's sitting there actually thinking, should I clear up my locker? Has everybody's left? And suddenly an arm comes around him and it's Vince Lombardi. And he's saying, I was pretty rough on you.

Starting point is 00:48:17 I want to tell you why he goes, I was rough on you because I know you have greatness in you. And I want to make sure that never happens again, because you're going to develop and you're going to, and that was like, he realized what he was doing. It was not just being artless. He had a goal in mind. And with those kinds of coaches, you might hate them one moment, but you'll go through a wall for them or a frozen tundra field on your way to the first

Starting point is 00:48:42 Superbowl wins and the coaches who don't figure this out are the ones who don't last very long. That they've got to connect and Ted Lasso of course, fictional example is the example of this. There's a famous clip where he talks about mattering that's got millions of views online and at the end of the day, everybody in a role needs to know that the person in charge cares about them. Even just a little bit, it was an incredible long way where you make sure to say hi and make eye contact rather than just ghosting by.

Starting point is 00:49:11 And people realize that people are very busy. So if you give them a little bit of time that they realize, hey, I'm important enough. They gave me some of their valuable time, but so many leaders don't figure it out. And I talk about human costs, But if somebody added up the financial cost, you know, people not being as productive as they could or being ill, it pays for itself. But I think it mostly pays in terms of the people themselves in terms of how they feel as a result of their interactions. And I feel sorry for that lady

Starting point is 00:49:40 is like she cut herself off from rewarding interactions and more enjoyable work day by not getting talking to some of the people and probably also not learning some of the things that would then enable her to make important decisions down the road. I won't pick on her too much though, I don't even know. No, I think that's one of the things that many leaders fail to do is to treat people, regardless of where they are in the organization, at an equal level, because some of the most mind blowing discoveries I made was by talking to all the employees, because sometimes they have the best ideas possible to fix things, but they're never given the chance to have a voice in, into strategy and ways to overhaul things. So you're doing yourself a huge disservice by not including people in the discussion.

Starting point is 00:50:37 Yeah. And I always think of my favorite fictional detective Bosch with Michael Connolly. Everybody counts or nobody counts. And everybody in an organization is important because they're gonna be in an opportunity to do whatever for whoever. And as you say, sometimes the greatest ideas come from having many minds focused on the same thing

Starting point is 00:50:59 and many voices talking about it. So I now wanna switch the topic to kids. So as I have been writing my own book on this and trying to figure out what is going on and who is suffering the most when mattering is lost, what I keep finding is this is what has already happened to generation Z and it's what is already occurring to gen alpha right now as we speak. And there seems to be a couple of different dimensions of it. You talked about the school that your kids or grandkids were in earlier as a great example of a school where mattering is

Starting point is 00:51:41 present. But I feel in the vast majority of schools, mattering is completely absent or severely lacking. And then on top of that, as the work of Jennifer Wallace showed, you then have this erosion of the family system as well, where the person who shows a child that they matter the most is the parent. And if the parent themselves don't feel like they matter,

Starting point is 00:52:06 it starts having this ripple effect. So they're not feeling it at school, they're not feeling it at home, they're probably not feeling it from their friends. And so you've got this recipe where this is something that's now being taught from their earliest ages. Am I thinking about this in the right way? Yes, for sure.

Starting point is 00:52:26 Well, you think about everything in the right way as far as I'm concerned, because that sense of looking at all those domains is critical. And I found there are schools, and there isn't some school boards here who are now trying to put a focus on mattering. But it's the exception rather than the rule. And for those kids who don't feel like they matter at home

Starting point is 00:52:45 and they don't matter in the community, if they matter at school, then they can no longer say, I don't matter anywhere. And they can get out of that type of thinking. And one of the concerns, of course, with the generation that we're dealing with now is social media addiction. And if you feel like you don't have that sense of mattering

Starting point is 00:53:00 in your day-to-day, whether it's at school, family relationships, then you can turn to the internet and social media to try and get that sense of mattering. And there is some initial research, including studies I've been involved with linking the feeling of not mattering and the unmet need to matter with social media addiction. And that sets you up, I think, for maybe more contact with people, but not the kind of quality relationships that provide that key unique sense of self-worth. My thing about schools is that it would be very easy for schools to implement something that would enhance the sense of mattering

Starting point is 00:53:38 of everyone at the school if there's no focus on it and it doesn't take a lot of time or energy. I did come across one school in our resilience project that was supposed to be in a comparison group. And I looked at the scores and the students in the school had much better adjustment and much a bigger sense of mattering. So I asked the school board educators,

Starting point is 00:54:01 I said, what's up with this school? Because this shouldn't even be a control school. Whatever they're doing, people need to do more of it. And they said that, well, on Mondays, the school-wide theme is mental health Mondays. And Fridays, it's physical Fridays for the physical well-being. So that sort of initiative, where it's coming from the top of the school and then comes in various ways as part of how the week unfolds, sends the message right at the start that, hey, we realized that you need to matter and you matter to us to the point

Starting point is 00:54:34 where we've structured this and made it a focus and try to show how you let your fellow students know that they matter so you can develop more peer relationships. But I do think that the mental health issues of young people today, whether it's anxiety, depression, loneliness, suicidality, mattering and the feeling of not mattering has a very strong role to play. It's not the only thing of course, but for many, it's at the core element of this.

Starting point is 00:55:02 And when they feel that they don't matter, then there's little reason to become engaged in learning. So this is what I was telling our educators is that the ultimate goal for them was to increase learning outcomes and to decrease problem behavior that was really problematic in several schools. And I said people need that sense of a future and a sense of worth. And that will carry over in terms of learning. And it will carry over in terms of behavior, so that people are going to benefit, young people benefit in multiple ways. And it can create a culture. So if you can foster an environment where it's across, whether it's a workplace or a school or wherever, where that is a

Starting point is 00:55:43 very salient thing and people do big things or small things to promote the sense of mattering among the people they interact with. It can have an enormous benefit and I've seen it. So I actually found with the school behind us and the principal who we renewed acquaintances with on Friday that I found the initial documents where they went and selected staff that had this kind of orientation, they had a people orientation so that it was a brand new school at the time and it was something that was built in, baked in, in terms of picking people who could carry this message and this way of interacting with people. A follow-on question to that is, I think whether it's kids or adults, many people struggle to see

Starting point is 00:56:25 how their actions actually affect others. Do you have any insights from your research on why recognizing our impact on others is so crucial to feeling like you matter? Don't have any research per se, except to turn back to that work on doing for others in terms of volunteering, or mentoring and how there's a literature on this. Now usually these papers on volunteering or mentoring don't mention mattering as key

Starting point is 00:56:53 ingredients in terms of those interactions, but they say, well, there's a benefit to this and benefit to that. And what is it about that? And it's in terms of that relational side of things where you can see somebody's face light up when they learn something that they weren't able to learn, that transformation, because you were able to tutor them in a way that got them on the right track where they suddenly are not self-doubting anymore. But generally speaking, like I said, I do believe there's even examples in terms of

Starting point is 00:57:23 that making a difference in other people's lives. There's case examples of people with severe forms of mental illness and then they were given a role within a setting or helping a fellow patient or that where they suddenly realized, hey, I can do something worthwhile for somebody else and I do have this positive and it transforms them and it's a key to their well-being. Just one example of this, how people can lose sight of this though. For years, I don't go to church often, but my wife did, and the church where we are married and the minister who actually married us ended up suffering from severe depression. He was a fabulous guy.

Starting point is 00:57:58 And he knew I studied perfectionism and he had perfectionism inclinations. So he asked after two months off due to depression and the whole congregation knew that he was depressed. He asked if I could drop by the man's, the house where they live and just talk to him. And on my way there, I got the feeling, this is before I was really studying mattering to the degree that I do now.

Starting point is 00:58:20 I said, somewhere along the way, I think he's lost the sense of just how much he means to other people. So as part of our three-hour conversation, I said, I need to remind you what you mean to people, to us, to our kids, to the broader congregation. My wife, when she had a health incident that was almost potentially fatal, he came to the hospital

Starting point is 00:58:44 and made sure that she almost potentially fatal. He came to the hospital and made sure that she was doing okay. So I don't know if that was it, but I suspect that it was because within 10 days, he was back at work and doing much, much better. And I said, but it also taught me a lesson to like, how can people who do so much for others lose sight of that? This is where people judge themselves according to some very difficult standards and lack of self-accepting. And I've actually been to a few things that are sad in a sense, but where somebody far too young has passed away and you get there and there's three or four hundred people and you're going, did this person realize just how much they meant to all of these

Starting point is 00:59:22 people? I had a grad student who passed away tragically around the age of 40. And when we got to the funeral, there was 500 people there because what I learned was, although he procrastinated on his own work, he was a master tutor in terms of statistics. And he literally went around the university helping out any grad student he could find

Starting point is 00:59:40 or undergrad who was having problems with statistics. And it's too bad that people don't realize this. It's like Jimmy Stewart and it's a wonderful life. He didn't realize his impact until he was shown what it would be like if he wasn't around anymore. And I think people need to get reminders. So this is what I tell parents is just don't assume that your kid knows that he or she matters. Show them, remind them, talk about it and realize that you matter as part of it as well because parents also lose sight of how much they matter, especially when I feel like it's a thankless role at times. But parents, one piece of

Starting point is 01:00:17 advice I give is for that situation where the teenager looks like they don't want any input from the parent, give it a try anyway. And then you can say, well, directly you can say, hey, I just want you to know, even though you don't seem to want to talk to me, that I'm interested in finding out what's going on with you, because they will remember that they may not acknowledge it. But they'll know that somebody actually cared about them. Parents trying to show an interest. trying to show an interest. Thank you for sharing that, Gordon. And there are a couple of last areas I wanted to go into with you.

Starting point is 01:00:47 One of them is the fact that mattering is malleable, that we can actively increase our sense of significance. And I was hoping you might give some practical strategies or maybe habits any of the listeners could do to enhance their own sense of matter. Well, we can't forget as well the mattering to yourself part of it. And to people remind themselves of what they have done

Starting point is 01:01:10 if they don't feel that way in the current situation with what they've done in the past. But I think the outreach to other people can be through small ways. Just checking in on somebody is one way to get their sense of mattering up and then you will feel that you matter as well in terms of the reaction.

Starting point is 01:01:28 The principal I referred to at the school was the master of the lost art of writing somebody a personal note. But you can also write a note to yourself in terms of reminding yourself about things that you've done that people seem to have appreciated and things that you could do if you're not having a chance at the current time. Really a key thing though is spending time with people. My one brother said one time, he never went beyond high school, but he said to me one of the wisest things I've ever heard. He says, your time is limited. So if you give your time to somebody, that's the most precious gift of all.

Starting point is 01:02:04 So spending time with someone shows that you want to be with them, that you're valuing them in a way. And unfortunately, in the busy world, that we have too many situations where people are left to themselves and they don't get that interaction. But even just saying to somebody, I've been thinking of you means that, hey, all the things that are there to distract you and all the social media, that you are the person on their mind, not to the point of stalking or something like that. But on the flip side, of course, is the anti-matter. You wanna make sure that you're not doing the things

Starting point is 01:02:34 that'll make people feel less than, to feel devalued or unvalued. So for instance, try not to spend time looking at your cell phone when you're interacting with somebody, try to have some eye-to-eye contact and put the phone away. That's called fubbing, P-H-U-B-B-I-N-G, in case people thought I said something differently. And don't add to that sense of, hey, they don't see me, they're not really paying attention, they're not listening to me, because that can be just as destructive as all of the positive things that I've said.

Starting point is 01:03:03 And the work by the Gottmans on marital interactions showed that if you had a very difficult something with a partner, like somebody who harshly criticized you, it's going to take about seven or so positive exchanges to make up for that one negative exchange. So in addition to doing the positive things, make sure to try and limit the negative that will be destructive and give that sense of fears and feelings of not mattering. So it can go both ways. Another one I wanted to make sure I got in here is if our society as a whole, given all the issues of dehumanization, conflict, everything else that we have going on, prioritize mattering more explicitly.

Starting point is 01:03:48 What changes do you envision we would see in our communities, workplaces and our overall mental health? Yeah, massive changes. The potential is there in terms of especially we talk about the divisions that are amongst people right now. What I tell people is people have more in common than they don't and something that ties someone together is that everybody has that shared need to matter. And that's important to realize that even when people have fallen by the wayside or

Starting point is 01:04:15 done things that are horrible, even people think about it this way, if somebody's engaged in criminality at some level, they still have a need to matter too. And unfortunately, they didn't have people in their lives who positively exchanged with them in a way that satisfied that need. So maybe I can matter by joining this gang who gives me the attention. So the search for significance through maladaptive, inappropriate ways.

Starting point is 01:04:37 But if we dedicate ourselves to this in organizations and in communities, it could transform everything. And we've got a federal election just starting here in communities. It could transform everything. And we've got a federal election just starting here in Canada. And the ad that's running with our short-term Prime Minister, Mark Carney, talks about, we care about people. Just that sense of people knowing that people

Starting point is 01:04:57 generally do care and it's authentic, can go a long way. But when we have situations where maybe every second young person says, I don't matter in my community, we can say, what can we do in the community to make a difference? And I'll just very quickly tell you a story. I know we're going along here, but we once went to Maine to a town called, I think, Macias, Macias, and it has the most famous blueberry pie in the United States. And my wife said, hold off till you get across the border

Starting point is 01:05:25 because you're going to get some of the blueberry pie. And unbelievably, the night before we went to this inn where there's the restaurant with the award winning pie that won the national award, the restaurant burned to the ground. Oh my god. And I said, oh my god, there goes the pie, but these young people who just took over the place,

Starting point is 01:05:44 they've lost their place. Where does mattering in the community come in? They told us when we got there that their town was very now concerned about all the students who had summer jobs at that place so the town was getting together the following Tuesday to say what jobs can we come up with what opportunities can we come up with we can help these young people who now have lost their employment as a result of this burning down. I said, I would wanna live in that community. Who wouldn't wanna live in that community where people are looking out for each other

Starting point is 01:06:15 and deciding that, hey, we'll look past what race, whatever sexual orientation and realize that everybody has this core sense of need to matter and we can do a better job at making everyone realize that they do indeed matter. Yeah, we had something similar to that happen to us about six months ago. We got impacted by Hurricane Helene and had about three feet of water in our house. And we had a dozen or more friends who ended up showing up for us, some pulling up carpet and helping us get the water out of the house and others bringing food and others packing

Starting point is 01:06:52 up things for us. And I'll tell you, it's when people show up like they did that you feel that sense of mattering in the most profound way. When you need it the most, and that's a key thing about reciprocity, I should have said, is that it involves a responsiveness to someone's needs. When they send out a signal, or you can figure out that they need something, whether it's the help of neighbors or whatever, responding to that is a key time because then they say, hey, this person is tuned into me and what I need and was sensitive that I needed it.

Starting point is 01:07:26 On the other hand, if the signal's there, that signals up and you don't respond. That also then adds that sense of, Hey, I'm alone here. I don't have that sense of connection. That's the key is the responsiveness when somebody clearly needs it. Great neighbors. You want to stay there as long as you can. Gordon, you've been studying mattering now for decades. What has surprised you most or challenged your assumptions about how people build mattering in their lives?

Starting point is 01:07:55 I think it's when people don't realize that they matter as we were talking about earlier, but also just how I like to change that around a little and say that people have told me, like Jennifer Wallace, for instance, have told me that knowing about this concept has changed how they interact with people. The research really hasn't picked up on that yet in terms of how people have had their lives changed as a result of being attuned now more to the relational side of things as opposed to the achievement. But one thing that I learned, and this goes back and praise to my colleague Paul Hewitt in our work on perfectionism over the years, is that he said all along in therapy that

Starting point is 01:08:34 perfectionists are driven by unmet interpersonal needs. And the achievements driving that's excessive that will end up maybe creating major health problems for them is driven by unmet needs. So indeed, one of the unmet needs is the need to matter. And we need to get a better appreciation of how achievement and interpersonal are actually connected through the needs that are largely interpersonal. And there's now five or six studies showing that perfectionists of different age levels

Starting point is 01:09:03 are ones that feel unmet need to matter. And it's like the striving is, okay, if I do something spectacular, if I'm famous, then people will give me the love, respect, attention, and the sense of being cared about that I've been lacking all this time. Yeah. And unfortunately, they'll reach that point and realize lie they've been told is going to hit them in the face. Yes. Yes.

Starting point is 01:09:25 Yeah. Where's people offering the ones that actually attain perfection and find out that it didn't really matter to certain people that they really cared about. Yeah. And I just had a really good conversation with Laurie Santos about this. She was put into this position, like the one you were describing where she got picked to live on campus in this big house and she was in the middle of all the students became the den mom at the time and realized just

Starting point is 01:09:54 how many of them were suffering from perfectionism from overachievement from filling less than and that's why she created the whole course that became Yale's most attended course in history off the back of mattering really or seeing the phenomenon of anti-matter. Feeling like an imposter, feeling unseen and not wanting to share anything about themselves and a lot of the other thing that I've talked about in this new book on kids is that the front that people put on where they let on that everything's okay. And this is especially the case when people feel like they don't matter because there's a sense of shame about

Starting point is 01:10:35 it. Maybe it's something about me is the reason why I don't matter. That's the sort of time talk to oneself that people have to stop doing. No, it could just be you're in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people or you haven't had a chance. You need an opportunity to oneself that people have to stop doing. No, it could just be you're in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people, or you haven't had a chance, you need an opportunity to show that you matter. But I learned very early on with students and was a champion of student mental health, that they may look like they're doing okay, and they're exceptionally talented,

Starting point is 01:10:57 and all kinds of potential, but dealing with things. That's where I came up with the idea of individualization, that you talk about students, but students are different. Each has their own unique history, unique set of experiences. And what might be how somebody got that way is totally different for someone else.

Starting point is 01:11:13 And taking the time to hear somebody's story and to be responsive is one of the keys of building that sense of individual connection with somebody and realize that things are much more complicated than they seem on the surface at times. Absolutely. Gordon, can you just for the listeners, you had a previous book, The Psychology of Mattering, can you talk about that and just for to tell them more about it and

Starting point is 01:11:36 then maybe just introduce this new book that's coming out? All right. I appreciate it. The Psychology of Mattering book was in 2018 and it was the first full scale book on this particular topic. I appreciate it. The Psychology and Mattering book was in 2018 and it was the first full-scale book on this particular topic. Actually, I think I have it behind me. This is it here. And you notice the hands that came up brilliant, I thought, with the book cover. And this talked about mattering in terms of introducing it, but also mattering in terms of its link with mental

Starting point is 01:12:00 health. You can feel like you don't matter because you're not getting the services that you need when you're seeking help, but also mattering at school, mattering in the workplace and so on. And the new book, this one here, just published by the American Psychological Association, this is the full-scale look at what is it like to be a kid growing up in today's world without a sense of mattering. There's a top 10 list, for instance, of 10 indicators of kids feeling like they don't matter. Also, I talk about links with depression, anxiety,

Starting point is 01:12:31 social media, physical violence issues as well. So full-scale look. And one of the key points that I could say about both books is that 10 years ago, there wouldn't be enough to write these books. I struggled at first with the first book published in 2018, just to pull everything together because the literature wasn't as illuminous as it is now.

Starting point is 01:12:53 Now there's plenty enough books on the way. And I've been asked to write a follow-up volume to the first book, edition two, plus one perhaps on the workplace. But what I'm pleased to see is that it's something that is a topic that resonates with the public. So it's not something that sits on a shelf and doesn't get put into action. And there's big ways and little ways

Starting point is 01:13:15 that it can be injected into settings and organizations to really make people's lives much better. Gordon, thank you so much for sharing that and thank you so much for joining us today. It was such an honor to have you. Well thanks John and maybe we can have a follow-up sometime as I know you're invested in mattering and also would like more chance to learn from you because I'm sure I would love that some stories like the ones that you've shared that I find when like-minded people, with passion if you want to say passion struck, get together and one person will say something and create a light bulb going off in the other person and then even some shared initiatives. So thank

Starting point is 01:13:54 you. Absolutely. And that's a wrap. What an incredible conversation with Dr. Gordon Flett. His groundbreaking insights into the psychology of mattering have illuminated a profound truth. Feeling significant isn't merely a nice-to-have, it's essential for our well-being, resilience, and overall happiness. His research reminds us that mattering goes far deeper than simply belonging or being connected. It's about feeling valued, knowing we're needed, and believing that our lives genuinely make a difference. From uncovering the hidden cost of unmattering, like anxiety, depression, and loneliness, to providing actionable strategies we can use every day, Dr. Flett has shown us a clear

Starting point is 01:14:34 path toward living lives of greater purpose and intention. As we close today's episode, I invite you to reflect on a few key takeaways. How can you actively communicate to others in your life that they truly matter? What practical steps can you take to enhance your own sense of significance, especially in areas where you often feel overlooked or undervalued? And how might embracing the reciprocal nature of mattering deepen your relationships and foster genuine connection? If today's discussion resonated with you, please take a moment to leave a five-star

Starting point is 01:15:04 rating and review. It's one of the best ways to support PassionStruck and helps these transformative insights reach even more people. And if someone in your life could benefit from Dr. Flett's powerful research and perspective, please share this episode with them because one conversation can ignite lasting change. For all the resources and links discussed today, including more of Dr. Flett's research on mattering, visit the show notes at passionstruck.com. And if you wanna dive deeper, don't miss the video version of this conversation on our YouTube channel titled John R. Miles.

Starting point is 01:15:35 And finally, if you'd like to bring these life-changing insights directly to your team, organization or event, visit johnrmiles.com slash speaking to learn how we can work together to spark intentional transformation and inspire meaningful growth. Coming up next, I'm joined by Isabel and Laura Hoff. We go into their groundbreaking new book, Secrets of the Ice Woman, and we discuss the power of cold and breath work to balance hormones, bolster health and unlock inner potential. When my mother died, it was one of the most dramatic, impactful moments

Starting point is 01:16:09 in our lives as a family and also my father, because it really made him want to go out into the world and just do things, right? Act to almost soothe this hurt that he was feeling. It was a way for him to escape, but then it became a way of healing. But it was also the reason that he went into these extremes, like sitting in a bucket for two hours.

Starting point is 01:16:37 Who does that? Well, a person maybe that is super driven. It made my father driven to the point that he went into these extremes doing marathon bare feet, climbing a mountain even the Mount Everest up until the death zone 7,800 meters in shorts. This practice that my father used to heal himself later on we also we love to practice for different reasons we see it as one of the best modalities to regulate yourself, to really come to the centre point of yourself where you can go through life in a balanced way.

Starting point is 01:17:13 It healed him, but then he brought it out into the world. He has a purity of heart, of mind, of being. That is my thought. That's a childlike purity. And he gave it to anybody who was willing to listen, anybody who needed it. And remember, the fee for the show is simple. If you found value today, share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Most importantly, take what you've learned and put it into action. Because knowledge alone doesn't create change, action does. Until next time, live life, passion struck.

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Gordon Flett on the Urgent Need to Know You Matter | EP 597

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