The Self-Driven Child

Mattering: an interview with Jennifer Wallace

• Ned Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 67

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 If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing all the right things—checking boxes, meeting expectations—yet still wondering whether any of it really matters, this episode is for you. In this conversation, I sit down with New York Times bestselling author and researcher Jennifer Wallace to explore one of the most fundamental human needs we rarely name directly: mattering.

Jennifer joins me to talk about her latest work and the research behind why feeling valued—for who we are, not just what we do—is essential for resilience, mental health, and motivation. Together, we unpack how mattering shows up in families, schools, workplaces, and communities, and why rebuilding connection may be one of the most important things we can do for our kids—and ourselves.

 

Episode Highlights:

[0:00] – Why thriving kids (and adults) need more than good intentions
 [1:07] – Introducing Jennifer Wallace and the idea of mattering as a basic human need
 [3:05] – From Never Enough to mattering: what parents revealed behind the scenes
[5:44] – Why caring for children means caring for parents too
[6:18] – The “pay-to-play village” and what we’ve lost culturally
[7:12] – Why kids (and adults) need more trusted adults in their lives
[9:03] – Capitalism, religion, and who society decides “matters”
[10:25] – Aging, invisibility, and the pain of no longer being invested in
[12:52] – Why mattering is a felt experience—not something you can force
[14:46] – Defining mattering and the SAID framework
[18:32] – Community, reciprocity, and the power of mutual investment
[22:59] – Clean fuel vs. dirty fuel and what truly motivates kids
[26:48] – Honest feedback, gratitude, and real investment in relationships
[30:11] – Mental subtraction, appreciation, and noticing who matters most
[34:53] – Why gratitude and mattering protect mental health
[37:05] – Helping kids strive without tying worth to achievement
[42:48] – Rebuilding spaces of mattering in an isolated world
[43:08] – Key takeaways and why reminding others they matter helps us too

 

Links & Resources:

 

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If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com

Ned Johnson:

Hey, folks, Ned here, like me, you want your kids, your students, honestly, all the young people you know to thrive, and you know how much you can help. But like me, you probably also recognize that you fall short more than you like to, in part, because we tend to revert to old ways. We hear a great suggestion or learn a new approach, but to easily fall back into the same darn things that didn't work before, it isn't easy, which is why I'm really excited to share with you that Bill and I have a new book out this spring, the seven principles for raising a self driven child, a workbook. Our goal is to make it easier to put into practice more of the advice from our first two books, the self driven child and what do you say? Full of reflections and exercises to do yourself with your partner and with your children. We want to help make the self driven child way, your way, so you can, more often than not, be as effective as you want to be with your kids in ways that we know you want to be if you get a chance order a copy bill, and I and your kids would be grateful.

Jennifer Wallace:

So I have yet to meet one person that says I fully feel like I matter in every domain in my life. I'm great. No, I think we are. We are constantly searching for those signals and to be someone who can offer that to somebody, it is a need just like water, just like food, just like shelter. This need to matter is wired in us and essential to thrive.

Ned Johnson:

Welcome to the self driven child podcast. I'm your host. Ned Johnson and co author with Dr William stixt of the books the self driven child, the science and sense of giving your kids more control over their lives and what do you say? How to talk with kids, to build motivation, stress, tolerance and a happy home. As a parent or caregiver, do you find yourself doing all manner of things that you feel you must but question the value of and once you've done all the tasks and checked all the boxes, do you find yourself feeling relieved, but maybe not fully fulfilled. Now think about the work of your kids, especially in school. Does it seem too often that so much of what they're doing doesn't really matter to them? If so, do you and they feel or hope that they matter in other spaces, in more meaningful ways? You're not alone. Joining me today is New York Times best selling author and parent and mattering researcher Jenny Wallace. I hope you'll take a listen. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven child podcast. So Jennifer Wallace, I am so happy to have you join us again for another podcast, conversation about another fantastic book. So what's the Marvel? Origin story for those who don't know your work as well, how did your work with never enough bring you into this wonderful book on mattering.

Jennifer Wallace:

Well, I am so happy to be with you. I always love chatting with you, Ned. So the first book, never enough looked at the Youth Mental Health Crisis, specifically high performing students and the enormous pressure that they feel today, this never enough feeling in my interviews with families, and there were hundreds of them, what kept staying with me was that after my interviews about the kids, parents would linger and want to talk about their own experiences, feeling like they were never enough. Saying, you know, I really relate to what my child is going through, whether they were doctors at major medical centers feeling crushed that one doctor described work as death by 1000 clicks, that he actually two doctors, a man and a woman, described it that way. They had spent so much time on paperwork and not enough time on what they actually wanted to be doing, so they didn't feel like they mattered at work as much as they should. It was educators who felt like they were not appreciated for the significant role they play. It was caregivers who felt like they mattered too much, that that they were so critical to meeting everybody else's needs, but their needs were never prioritized. They didn't feel like they mattered. And I spoke with people who had lost jobs, lawyers who were worried about AI coming to take their jobs. So anyway, it struck me that so many adults were struggling as well. And I know there's research that came out by Rick weisbord and his team at making caring common at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. And he was looking that the team was looking at mental health within a family, and he was finding a one to one ratio between teenagers struggling and at least one parent struggling with mental health issues. And what I know from decades worth of resilience research is that our children. Children's resilience rests on our resilience, and our resilience rests on our relationships. And the parents that I was talking to spoke about how their friendships had sort of hollowed out because they were so busy just trying to get through their day, take care of their family. Be these one family villages. They didn't know their neighbors. They some of them had close relationships with work. Others felt invisible at work. So there are lots of forces that are contributing to this feeling that we don't matter in our world today. And so I knew I needed to explore it,

Ned Johnson:

that for any society that professes to care about children, it must care about their parents. And so the point that you just made there of we, the parents, are so often overwhelmed feeling knowing how important is to do this work, but not feeling enough support for themselves or that they matter enough is a really, really good one.

Jennifer Wallace:

Yeah, we know that it takes a village to raise a child, but we need a village at every age. We are human beings that need a village, and those villages, for a variety of reason, reasons, have disbanded over the last few decades.

Ned Johnson:

You had a wonderful term. I assume this is your own neologism, but pay to play village. Can you talk about that that hit home and it stung? You know?

Jennifer Wallace:

Yeah, I was writing in the book about this idea that, Oh, the village does exist, but you need to pay to access it now. So whether it is, you know, online memberships, promising community. And I'm not putting these things down, but I'm just saying it's not available to every parent, because every parent can't spend that money to join a community, something that really should be a, you know, a free, reciprocal relationship. That's what a village is, right? It's a It's social proof that you matter in that village, not because you're paying for it, but because you are simply there and present and worthy of being supported.

Ned Johnson:

Have you stumbled across the term Allo, parent, have you heard that term before? Years ago, I got to interview michaelina clef about her wonderful book hunt, gather parent, and you talked about, however things have sort of frayed or eroded over decades and 100% right? And certainly what her great book points to, and how it didn't used to be. Families weren't as nuclear, as siloed as they are today. And so I think your point is such a good one of you know, if you're of, if you're fortunate enough, if you have a broad enough family, if, certainly, if you have enough means you can acquire all the help around you. I remember, I was probably 24 I was very young, and started my work in tutoring, and their kid was really having a hard time. And, no, I was his buddy, and so, you know, test prep geek or whatever. But the mom, who was herself a clinician, she was a psychologist, pulled me aside, and she looked at me, and she said, You won't understand until you have children of your own how valuable it is to have other adults around your kid whom you can trust you to have the best interest of your kid at heart. And I smiled and thanked her for the compliment, and I didn't really think that much of it until my own kids had a whole bunch of headwinds. You know, the cleanest story that I can tell is my son, who had acquired a brain tumor after his first year of college, and oh goodness. I mean, the number of people for whom I have gratitude, and we as a family have gratitude. It just never you don't know the help that you need until you need it. And to your point, you raised in the book, then you see who do people step up, or do they not? And it is, you know, we are fortunate. I have a wife with executive functions out of ears, and we have and that we know enough people and have the means to be able to get the help that our kid needed, but, boy, that's not the case for everyone.

Jennifer Wallace:

No, it isn't. I was really struck by how it is really not the case for many more people than we would have thought that this, this support that, you know, was there. It was eroding when we were growing up, but it was there to our neighbors, you know, we were a more religious society. And I'm not saying that religion is a cure all or a solution, but what it gave us was this structure to our week, that every weekend we would be in community. We would be hearing about intrinsic values. We would be, you know, every major religion talks about this idea of unconditional worth, and we as a society have traded religion with capitalism. And who matters in capitalism is the person that's contributing most to it, right? And the people who aren't contributing it, people who are retired, people have been laid off. Maybe. Caregivers who've stepped back to care for their kids full time, they can really strongly feel the sense that they do not matter in society, that they feel invisible. And I heard that over and over again in my interviews,

Ned Johnson:

that that story about was it Ken, who volunteered at the bookstore, and they just made him a greeter and said, What was the line when we get old, they don't invest in us anymore.

Jennifer Wallace:

The hardest part of getting older is that people stop investing in you, having people in your life who believe in you, want you to grow, want to invest in you. So he was, he was working as a volunteer. It was a community nonprofit that sells used books to raise money for the town he lived in. And, you know, he wanted to work the cash register, and he wanted to price the books, and, you know, the all these kinds of things, these meaning tribute in meaningful ways, really exactly. And instead, they they stuck him at the door to say hello to people, and he's like, it was a useless role. It made me feel like I was wasting my time well.

Ned Johnson:

And the thing, and the thing that's interesting there, for me is, for some people, that could be an interesting role, you know, if you particularly, if you're really social. I mean, you know, because you talk about your book just, you know, greeting people in the barista and all those little points of contact. What? What struck me about that couple things? Well, I guess the biggest thing is that they didn't ask him how he wanted to contribute. You know, you make a point somewhere in that same chapter about when people contribute, really in social services, it increases their sense of control. And you know, what is meaningful to you and what's meaningful to me might overlap beautifully, but might not at all. And so if you assign me something that feels meaningful to you but it doesn't feel meaningful to me, you know, and all in theory, all they had to do is ask, how would you like to contribute? Yeah, or

Jennifer Wallace:

tune in to see, is he more of an introvert? Is he somebody who would have been better behind the desk? There's a Have you heard of the platinum rule? So we all know the golden rule. The golden rule is to do unto others as they that you know, do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. The Platinum Rule is Do unto others as they would want you to do unto them. So really, it's thinking about the other person and what they want and what they need. So maybe the person running that nonprofit thought, oh, I would love to be a greeter. And thought that making him a greeter was a great idea. But instead of actually tuning in to see who he was, where his strengths were, I think what he was noticing was that he felt very interchangeable there,

Unknown:

that he felt like tangible, not a good human need. Yes, right?

Jennifer Wallace:

Exactly. So to feel like we matter is a subjective experience, right? Somebody else might say, Oh no, that was important to have somebody at the door to greet them and make them feel good, but for him, it wasn't making him feel like he mattered. And that's the tricky thing about mattering, is that it is a felt experience. You can't make someone else feel like they matter. You can do things. You can create the conditions, and very much more likely than not people, there are ingredients to mattering that are that are universal, and one of them is feeling invested in, and he was talking about how nobody was investing him, in him anymore.

Ned Johnson:

I just read, I can't remember, an article the past few weeks, and it was at, I guess, sort of a gated retirement home somewhere in Florida. You know, very affluent folks. And speaker was coming in there and greeted by the guy who sort of smirked and said, Welcome to the PIP club. And he said, Pip, pip previously important people. And one of the things I really like about your book is you talk about and this really, again, builds so nicely on the the never enough and the achievement culture, about all the different ways that we can matter. And to your point, about religion and capitalism, we tend to have the sense that people matter to the degree to which they can contribute towards valuable economic outcomes, and that causes all manner of you know, unhappiness and mental health and social dysfunction and family discord. So can you walk us through, give us the structure of what are the what are the ways that matter and when we can go get nitty gritty after we go 30,000 foot Okay,

Jennifer Wallace:

great, so to define mattering simply for that right, researchers define it as feeling valued for who we are, not necessarily what we do, feeling valued for who we are and having an opportunity. To add value back to the world around us, so feeling like we are valued by our family, by our friends, by our colleagues, by our community, and importantly, by ourselves, and then having a chance to add value back to all of those domains as well. Researchers have been studying it since the 80s, and they've come up with sort of a list of ingredients, what, what goes into making someone feel like they matter? And I've organized it in my head around the said framework, s, a, i, d, which is just an easy way of remembering the four main ingredients, and that is feeling significant or important, feeling appreciated, feeling invested in, and feeling depended on. So I could quickly go through those and give you an example. Okay, so for feeling significant, I was struck by how often in my interviews, when I asked people, when do you feel like you matter? Or tell me a memory of when you felt like you mattered? It was never, you know, a milestone birthday toast or an award at work. It was small moments. It was someone saving a seat for them at a party, or it was a neighbor checking in when they hadn't seen them for a while just to make sure everything was okay, or a friend coming over when you're sick with a pot of soup. Those are the feelings that elicit a sense of mattering, the idea that we are important to the people in our life. So you don't need to feel like a VIP, right? You need to feel important to your you know, to your immediate circle, and to your colleagues and and that you you are known, you are seen, you are significant. That's what it means to feel important. We are as a species today, in this modern world, we are starved for signals of mattering. So I have yet to meet one person that says I fully feel like I matter in every domain in my life, I'm great. No, I think we are. We are constantly searching for those signals and to be someone who can offer that to somebody. It is a need just like water, just like food, just like shelter. This need to matter is wired in us and essential to thrive well.

Ned Johnson:

And their point about, you know, to be able to meet that your book has does such a nice job of articulating all the different places and ways, you know, big and small, that we can all do that. Do you know the parable about heaven and hell on the banquet table? No, so I don't know where I stumbled on this. So in hell, everyone's down there this massive banking table, every possible delicious food delight you can imagine. And there are this row upon row of people on benches, just ravenously hungry. And they have these enormous, you know, forks and spoons or whatever you know, sort of affixed to their arms. And they're trying to pick this stuff up and feed themselves, and it just, it just misses their face, and they're just, they're beside themselves because they're ravenous, and this food is there, and they can't, it's Tantalus, and they can't get it up a few floors in heaven. It's the exact same scene, and I've got this thing, but I'm reaching across the table to feed you, and you're feeding me, and it's just chaos. I mean, we're all just stuffed to the gills with all this food, and there's stuff all over face, and everyone's howling with laughter as they nurture

Jennifer Wallace:

one another. That should be earth, not just heaven, right?

Ned Johnson:

It's so Earth, because you talk about, I mean, how it is this, you know, kind of virtuous cycle that, what was the, what was the line from the end of the chapter? But Rehan? Rehan, again, I mean correctly. What was the line about we are strong because, not because I pull myself up by my own bootstraps, but we pull each other up. Was that the line?

Jennifer Wallace:

That's it. And he said, I see no glory in being a self made man, I I see the glory in having people in your corner and investing in you.

Ned Johnson:

Can you tell his story? Because I have an insight about particularly his earliest occupation. I just I adored, I adored this young man.

Jennifer Wallace:

Can you? He's an extraordinary human. He grew up in Maryland, in the in the DC area, he grew up with a single dad. They were in poverty. There was food a food scarcity issue. They couldn't afford heat anyway. He struggled through school, mostly because he was exhausted having, you know, not enough resources and high a scores, yep, basic needs graduates and goes to work as a sanitation worker, and felt a real sense of pride in being able to take care of his community that way, but often felt very invisible in that role, that the uniform somehow made him invisible, not worthy of recognition. He had people in his life, his dad, his his co worker. Lawyers who encouraged him to pursue his dream of going to college. Fast forward, he goes to college. Fast forward, he does really well in college, with the help of so many people who lifted him up and supported him, he gets into Harvard Law School. He arrives at Harvard Law School and he starts noticing that the support staff there, the custodians, people working in the kitchen, the servers, that they were feeling invisible to the people at the law school, and so he and his classmates did something about it. He held a celebration to honor them, to make these invisible workers visible to everyone. He calls it. He started a nonprofit called the reciprocity effect, which is the idea that we all need each other and that we have a responsibility to acknowledge each other and appreciate each other. And so he used his moments of invisibility to sort of turn it around and help others who might have been feeling the same way. He's now working in corporate law in New York City. Wow.

Ned Johnson:

The two things that were bouncing around inside my head when I was reading about him was one that for years I've often reflected on what's the most significant job. And part of this was born out when we were writing the self driven child I was, we had a staff barbecue at my house, and I had a young admin at the time who came along with her with her bow, and she was a second year student at University of Maryland. And so I asked him, so are you at Maryland too, just assuming that's where they'd met? And he says, No. He says, No, I'm not. I'm not that smart. I'm not in college, and I, of course, don't let things like that sit so I circled back a little bit later. Said, so, so how do you how do you spend your time? Well, I'm just an EMT, so the line that we put in the self driven child was Okay, so in the event of an emergency, do you want a, I'm a multiple choice guy. A, a neuropsychologist, be a test prep geek EMT, and I'm like, holy smokes. And you know, I got to thinking about that for some while, about really, what's, what career, what job, what vocation, and the history of humanity has been most significant. Has saved the most lives, and my two answers, and I haven't actually looked this up, would probably be scientists, right? So, you know, penicillin and whatever else, but also sanitation. Because before I mean all that, I mean when sanitation falls apart, I mean all the things that we would quickly, you know, dysentery and anything else. And it may be the most potent, powerful, important job in the world that is largely unseen and not only thankless, but as you put out, wrote in the book, the mom walked by with his two boys and said, Don't end up like those men, and you're sitting thinking you're literally saving, knowingly or not, 1000s of lives all The time.

Jennifer Wallace:

Exactly, I couldn't agree with you more.

Ned Johnson:

So let's go back to your ingredients, and then so we

Jennifer Wallace:

start with significance, which we already went over, appreciation. And appreciation I've come to think of is appreciating the doer behind the deed. So let's say you have, you know, a colleague who always sets up happy hours for the team, you could say to them, thank you so much for another fun night. Or you could appreciate them in a way that feeds a sense of mattering by saying something like, you know you are a community builder because of you and your efforts. We are such a cohesive team. You are extraordinary, and we are so lucky to have you so appreciating who the person is, not just what they do, is how we feed mattering. The next ingredient is investment, right? It's what we were just talking about, having having people around us who are invested in our goals, who are there to support us through setbacks. It's the idea that we are not going through this world alone, that we have people with us. There's a great study that I quote in the book about two friends standing at a at a hill, researchers found that the hill doesn't look as steep when you're standing there with a friend versus when you're standing there alone. Social support is really it acts as a kind of buffer to life's stressors. So it's having people in your life that are invested in you, and also having people that you are invested in as well. Researchers call that ego extension, the idea that you can extend your ego to include the egos of others, so that their successes and joys become your successes and joys. I mean, this is something we talk about in our family all the time. Like, I think something like 70% of the joy I feel on any given day is because I am relishing and delighting in my friend's successes.

Ned Johnson:

Wait and what was the what was the term for that? The Hindi term,

Jennifer Wallace:

go extension. Oh, I hope I'm saying it right.

Ned Johnson:

Mudita, I kept googling this myself. Like, yeah, which is. Is just that, right, taking enjoyment from other people's success,

Jennifer Wallace:

and it's something that we are wired to do. I mean, we are wired to be in community, to have pride in our group, in our band. It's just in our zero sum culture that that idea gets beaten out of us. But I'm here to say, take it back. Enjoy it. It's an incredible source of joy and delight.

Ned Johnson:

Well, I mean, gosh, I mean, you know, I have an identical twin brother who is wired that same way that you mentioned that you are, that he just takes such he just, he said, Why? Why would I not? He said, and if I can take joy and delight and happiness from the other people's success. It's boundless, right?

Jennifer Wallace:

It's boundless. And I have to say, if you're maybe listening and you haven't really thought about it, start, start doing it. Start taking an interest in your friends goals, asking them, you know, what are they working towards, and then check in on them. Really, that delight comes not just from bearing witness to it, but actually being invested in their success. So I think a lot of the joy I get is because I take my friends goals like my own, I add them to my own to do list. I'm thinking about them. Who can I introduce them to? How can we position this better? How can I help them build on what they're already building? And so because I'm investing in it, I also feel their success. Does that make sense?

Ned Johnson:

Yeah, yeah. I love that story about with your was it I may be conflated them with your friend Katie before she passed, and how you would mutual goals. And, okay, no, but no, but how you doing with this? Tell me, Jenny, are you pushing that? Are you? You know, it's pretty neat holding each other accountable. I did smirk a little bit, though, when you said that your love language was honest feedback.

Jennifer Wallace:

It really is. I have to tell you, it's always been when people you know give me compliments. That's lovely, yeah, but that doesn't feel like investment. So it's the people in my life, who are willing to tell me what I need to hear that I feel like they are. They have skin in the game. They are taking a small risk. Yeah, make me better. Now, I don't take the criticism from people I don't appreciate or necessarily want their feedback, but I ask my friends, I mean, I have early readers for my books, and I say to them, here's what I need you to be reading for, and I'm really specific, and I want that feedback. And I am so lucky that I have friends who are, you know, the way they look at it is, you know, we want to make you fire proof. We want to make this book fireproof, so that people aren't poking holes in it and getting confused by the argument like we want this to be, to land in people's laps and be the strongest thing it could be. And so that to me is it truly is my love language, investing in me, giving me feedback, helping me get better. There's no greater investment in my mind than that. And then the last ingredient is feeling dependent on is having people who depend on you and rely on you, who make you feel like the world would be less good if you weren't around that you are an essential piece of this puzzle of life, and also, you know, being vulnerable enough to depend and rely on others too, letting them in so that you can depend on them.

Ned Johnson:

I forget who did the research, but a beautiful story in there about a mental subtraction exercise that I never thought about this way. And I could you talk about that

Jennifer Wallace:

a meditation researchers developed this, this meditation, which is the idea of thinking about someone important in your life, maybe a spouse, maybe a best friend. Think about how you met them. Think about because of that, meeting you, all of the things that have benefited you in your life. So let's say it's a partner, a romantic partner, because you met them, you got married, maybe you had children, you built a home together, you built a circle of friends, you built memories. Their family became your family. Your family became their family. So really thinking about all the ways that could have not happened had you not gone to that party, had you not agreed to that blind date, then imagine those things didn't happen. Imagine you didn't go on that blind date. Imagine all of the benefits you got from that relationship have been taken away, and so then the Guide brings you back, and they say, Okay, now go back. Go back. Know that this did happen, and now fully appreciate all of the gifts that this relationship brought to your life. So what it is is a way of building up gratitude, yeah, and a feeling of appreciation for people in your life that you might take for granted.

Ned Johnson:

I'm, you can see I'm tearing up and around my wife, and when just even now as you're telling that I'm sort of, I adored that, and I've also really liked where you situated it in the book, if I recall, it was around the two women. Was it Lori and Catherine, who were going to have a party, and then everyone ditched.

Jennifer Wallace:

It actually was a married couple that had lost their spark and were more like roommates, but you're talking about friends who had been experiencing this flake culture in their friend group, where every time they would make plans, people would flake. And Lori also was somebody who would flake that coming out of covid, everybody normalized, staying home, you know, not fighting through the cold or uncomfortable feelings that that Tech had made life so frictionless and so their friendships had really hollowed out because they didn't prioritize them. And then Lori decided she wanted to start prioritizing showing up for her friends. And I will say, in my own life, I would say the number one thing that has made my friendships so deep and nourishing is a personal policy that I have, which is, I don't cancel plans on friends unless I'm sick. And that one small personal policy sends the signal to my friends that they matter to me, that they are a priority in my life, that they are worthy of my time and investment. And because of that, because they feel like a priority, it sets up the conditions that allow us to be vulnerable with each other. So if you know that your friend is going to show up for you, barring being sick, you go into that meeting feeling like a priority and primed for deeper connection I have,

Ned Johnson:

kicking around the bouncing around the back of my head a guy named Frank Martella. Did you ever stumble? Do you know Frank Martella? So he's a finisher, right? And he has a book called A Wonderful Life. And his tagline is very, very similar to where you're thinking in your book as well, where he says, the meaning of life is doing work that makes you meaningful to other people. So this work that's meaningful to you, that makes you meaningful to other other people. And so his book is called a wonderful life. And so when I got to that mental subtraction meditation that you talk about, and again, as you were so eloquently describing it right now, I just picture, you know, you know, Jimmy Stewart at the, you know, at the end of a wonderful life, and if you weren't there, and how everything fell apart, you know, without him, like, oh my god, you know George, George. We need to, everybody needs to be like, George, right?

Jennifer Wallace:

It's true. We need to feel like this world would be less good if we weren't here, right? That is what it is. Noted absence, is how researchers refer to it. And you know, the way I think of it, which is similar to, I'm blanking on the philosopher's name right now that you just mentioned

Ned Johnson:

hella, he's cool, like he's off the just hopped off the set of the Partridge Family. If you ever look at pictures of him, it's It's remarkable.

Jennifer Wallace:

So the way I think of it, which is very parallel, I think, to what he's saying in that quote you just said, is that when it comes to mattering, it is knowing the value that you have and that you can bring to others, and that the more you add value, the more meaningful your Life becomes. So I he and I are very aligned. I believe that the meaning of life is to matter, is to add value to the world around you. And what I know from the research and from my own life and from living mattering for the past seven years is that when I add value, I feel valued. So it becomes this positive, upward spiral. So if there is somebody listening right now who is maybe going through a painful life transition and doesn't feel like they matter as much anymore, maybe they've lost a job, maybe they've lost a loved one, maybe they've moved and they've left behind friends, I want to say you are one decision and one step away from mattering again, and that's the fastest way to feel like you matter is to remind someone else why they do.

Ned Johnson:

Wow. My thoughts drifted to gratitude practices.

Jennifer Wallace:

Gratitude is. Is, I think the best coping strategy that we have in life, that we gratitude allows us to see a challenge in front of us, not to deny the challenge, not to say that what you're going through is not hard, it is hard, but gratitude helps you open the lens so that you can still take in the good. And that is the same thing with mattering, right? If there's an area you go through a painful divorce and you're focused on that, but you can still open your lens and realize that you have value to add to this world. And not only do you have value to add, I would argue, as a human being, we have a responsibility to matter on this earth.

Ned Johnson:

I'd love to talk a little bit about kids and turn this conversation back towards the high school set. You know, your book never enough. Really expanded on that research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation about the causes of stress in young people's lives, that after poverty, trauma and discrimination, the next one was excessive pressure to Excel that you can talk about so eloquently. And it just strikes me that I'm not sure that we're we haven't moved the needle much in that way yet, and that for young person, if you feel like your job is to identify the hoops that need jumping through and become a really good jumper of hoops. Then you'll get approval from peers, parents, you know, college admissions folks, whether or not it matters to you at all. I mean, it's completely externalized locus of control, right? You know, as a parent yourself, how do you talk to other parents and help them balance? And for young people themselves, how how they can find the balance of meeting the demands or expectations so they can, you know, get the college admissions that they want, but do it in a way that allows them to feel that it's not utterly meaningless, that everything in their life is not simply a means to that end.

Unknown:

So I've, I have a

Jennifer Wallace:

lot of thoughts on this, a few that I'll offer here, because we only have a few more minutes. Is this idea of clean fuel versus dirty fuel. So, and this is true for kids, and this is true for employees and these this is true, really, of everybody in life that we can be motivated with dirty fuel, which is fear, which is criticism, which is feeling like you are only lovable, if or and by the way, that might get your child to study for their Spanish quiz, but over Time, that dirty fuel is going to clog their engine, and what I saw in my reporting for never enough is that they will burn out or they will turn against themselves when they are not successful with that dirty fuel versus clean fuel. And clean fuel is rooted in mattering. Clean Fuel is the idea. And I know this sounds counterintuitive, but stick with me. Clean Fuel is this idea that you are not your successes and you are not your failures, that you are you unconditionally, and it is the secure knowledge that you are lovable and loved no matter what that actually primes students and adults to reach for the very high goals that you will need to reach for in order to be successful. So if you believe that your value is contingent on performance, you will perform, and then you will get to a point where I don't know if I can do this, and the risk of missing and failing is the risk of feeling your worth is has collapsed. And so what I found among the healthy strivers that I interviewed in the book and their families was that it was because they felt like they mattered no matter what that these healthy strivers were able to reach for high goals because they knew that their parents would love them and support them through setbacks and failures. And you and I both know that there is no pathway to success, sustainable success that does not draw lots of setbacks, lots of you know so, so what I've come to realize as parents is that in this achievement culture where our kids are fed these messages that you need to do more and more, that you're never enough, that you're only as good as your next goal, that we parents play a particularly important role, and That is to convince our children of their worth outside the system, and in doing that, in letting them know we love them unconditionally and living that now, it doesn't mean not having expectations, right, right, right, because to feel like you matter to your parents means that your parents are invested in you. They believe in you. They hold you accountable. Fuel, but it is not tied to love or to regard that you love them. You regard them. You adore them no matter what. You don't always love the behavior. You don't do something wrong. You don't love the behavior, but you always love them. So clean fuel is separating the deed from the doer, and dirty fuel is conflating the two that you are what you do. There's this great theologian, Henry now in who talks about the three great lies of society. I am what I do. I am what I have. I am what people say and think about me. That is dirty fuel. That is what holds us back in our relationships. It holds us back in success, and it negatively impacts our well being and mental health so well said, pointing these things out to our kids, pointing out the lies in our culture, and giving them these counter cultural messages and living them and when we inevitably fail as parents, to be quick to repair and to be quick to say, You know what, I was not my best self. I am really worn down and tired and I was not my best self, and I am sorry, there's always room for repair. You do not have to be a perfect parent.

Ned Johnson:

The only perfect parents are people without children. Yes, I've never heard that before. That's so good. Can I ask you one more question? When the whole time I was reading this, I had Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone in the back of my head, because one of the things with achievement culture is it's not just grades and scores, but it strikes me that all of the what used to be really outlets, you know, places for authentic social connection and for stress relief and feeling that you matter in ways that aren't necessarily being measured with within all the extracurricular activities that kids can do. And so I remember, you know, started never enough about your son as a builder, right? But, but also, kids are artists and musicians and and, you know, athletes and so on and so forth, that so much of what was play for children gets, you know, basically monetized and weaponized becomes adult directed activity that we all to your point, pay for pay to play village and it. And so, by definition, it's no longer play if it's adult directed and so you you end the book with talking about building spaces of mattering, right? You know, with the erosion of third places, can you talk about that a little bit? Because that strikes me that, you know, the epidemics of loneliness, these are social problems, and so much like cell phones, we can't make it be an individual solution to a social problem, that when we work on building these spaces for our children, for children for ourselves, it's not just helping us, but it's helping everyone.

Jennifer Wallace:

I think you said it perfectly, Ned, I think you nailed it. I think you're absolutely right.

Ned Johnson:

I'm a good student of your work. Thank you for this wonderful book, because I know you're off there helping all sorts of people in ways that matter to them and to you. So thanks. It's gonna be a great book.

Jennifer Wallace:

I always love talking with you. Thank you so much. Always insightful.

Ned Johnson:

So Jenny, I know you have to run off to an NPR interview. You matter in so many spaces. Thanks for joining us. Some takeaways about mattering, appreciating who the person is, and not just what they do. Is how we feed mattering. Mattering is feeling valued for who we are, not what we do, and having the opportunity to add value back into our communities. And mattering can be described using the said framework, feeling significant, feeling appreciated, feeling invested and feeling depended on. We all know the golden rule, the platinum rule, though, is Do unto others as they would want you to do unto them. And the fastest way to feel like you matter is to remind someone else why they do so for all of you who take the time to listen to this podcast, thank you. You matter to me and more importantly, to people and your life, I encourage you to let them know that they matter to you too. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven child podcast. Hey folks, over the past 25 years, I've talked to countless parents of high school age students who care deeply about their kids' education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. It can help parents to work with a team they trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better scores and grades. That's why I founded prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation and academic tutoring. This podcast and my books with my friend Bill stixrod reflect our company philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school age student and would like to talk about putting a plan together, please get in touch with us. Visit our website. At prep matters.com or while your kids may only text, you might want to actually talk with a person, if so, you can reach us at 301-951-0350.