How Mattering to Yourself & Others Can Change Your Life with Oprah, Jennifer Wallace & Ina Garten

0:00So, Ina never cancels unless she is really sick., Definitely. Yeah, I just don't. And you just know it. And it builds this trust. And we live in this flake culture where people have really, I mean, I think it's a terrible thing to do. It really erodes friendships. One way to make people feel like they matter is to commit to them so they can trust you. They can trust that when they make a plan, you will be there. The most lovely thing you can do to say to somebody you matter is say, come to dinner. And I mean, when was the last time somebody called and said, come for dinner? And you said, no, I'm not really interested.

0:33I know. Get a home-cooked dinner. That's right. Of course you're going to say yes. Of course you do. And when you show up, you create a community around yourselves.

0:43Hey there, it's my pleasure to be with you here on the Oprah Podcast in the great city of New York. I often say that one of the biggest lessons I've ever learned from my life and career of talking with thousands of people is that at our core, we all want to know that we matter. It's one of our fundamental desires as human beings. Every argument, every interaction we have really boils down to this. Do you see me? Do you hear me? And does what I say matter to you? So when I saw the title of this book, Mattering, The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection, I thought, Jennifer, speaking my language, it got my attention.

1:25And I love a Clementine too. So then I open it up and I see that I am quoted on page 18 in this book. Pretty cool. My guest on this podcast today believes that there has been an erosion of mattering. So that's why she was inspired to spend six years researching it all over the world. Jennifer Wallace is an award-winning journalist and founder of the Mattering Institute. Did you know there was a Mattering Institute? Welcome, Jennifer, to the podcast. I hear everyone calls you Jenny, so I'm going to call you Jenny. Great. Thanks, Oprah. So I find this fascinating that you asked hundreds of people around the world this question.

2:07Do you feel like you matter? We asked that of you today. Do you feel like you matter? That's a really important question. And what did they tell you, Jenny? They told me no or not anymore. I spoke with doctors who felt crushed by insurance companies, not able to practice the care they wanted. I heard from first responders wondering if their efforts were really making an actual difference. I heard from caregivers who felt like they mattered too much to everyone else, except that their needs were never prioritized. I spoke with a college student who told me that she only felt like she mattered when her GPA was high and her weight was low.

2:52Yes. Yeah. So it was a crushing experience, but I also met people who found a way back to mattering, which was inspiring. Which is what we're going to talk about today a lot. And you write on page 10, in truth, we are living through a social health crisis, a profound breakdown of the relationships that once protected us. We've lost track of our basic human needs for connection and contribution. Now we often feel tempted to fill that void with counterfeit forms of mattering, chasing attention over connection, prestige over purpose and money over meaning. That's what you found around the world, too.

3:39People are saying, but not articulating as well as that. Right. We have, you know, this is, as you said in the intro, this basic human need that we have stopped treating as a need and more like a nice to have. And the problem is when you don't feed that need, you will find other ways to meet it. Yeah. Whether conscious or not conscious. And do you think now with all of the things in this abundant filled society that we live in, you would think that with all the abundance and all the access and all of the indulgence that people would feel like they mattered more, but it's actually the opposite.

4:19It is. It's a false sense of mattering. It's sort of the junk food of mattering. I've been thinking as I was writing this book I was thinking about the theologian Henry Nowen who talks about the three great lies of our society I am what I have I am what I do I am what people say and think about me that is the opposite of mattering that is the belief that I do not matter my mattering is contingent it is contingent on my house it's contingent on the number of followers I have it's contingent on the sneakers I'm wearing It's contingent on all these other things. It's contingent on how people see me.

4:56It's how they see me, their perception of who I am, instead of working on what you really are. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I first heard about your book from Ina Garten. Oh. Did you know that? Yes. Right here on this podcast when I was interviewing Ina from my tea house. Ina, who's one of the most, as we know, beloved people in the world, the fabulous Ina Garten. Here's a quick look at what Ina said. What do you think your purpose and your gift to the planet has been? I think writing the book has really made me realize this. Yeah. I think the thing that we can do is matter to each other, is that my work matters to other people.

5:37And the thing about mattering, which a very good friend of mine, Jenny Wallace, talks about mattering and she's writing about it, is that it's so actionable that we can do things that make other people feel they matter to us, and that makes them feel good and vice versa. And it's as simple as bringing a pot of chicken soup to a friend who's sick. You're saying to that person, you matter to me. Hi. Hi. Ina Garten is here. I'm so happy to see you. The Ina Garten wanted to show you her support, Jenny, because you matter so much to her as a friend. You've been friends for how long? Years. Ten years.

6:21Ten years. Welcome, everybody, the barefoot contessa, Ina Garten. So good to see you. So good to see you. Why did you believe so passionately in this book? Just in our conversation, you just casually mentioned it. She was writing it at the time. She was writing it, exactly. What resonated most for you, Ina? What I love about Jenny is that she's writing the book because it's important to write, but she's such a believer in people understanding this. It's really more about people having the information so that they can make their lives better. And it doesn't matter whether it's 20 people or 2 ,000 people.

6:56She just wants people to understand how important this is to our own satisfaction. And Ina has mattered so much to you, I'm sure, being a friend and mentor, yes. She has. I mean, I've learned so much in our 10 years of lunches and dinners. She's my mentor. I'm not her mentor. I will say if we're going to talk in mattering terms, I think Ina really showed me how to matter to myself, which is a critical aspect of mattering. And when you are a parent to three young children and trying to have a career, your needs are often not even on the to do list. and so I would go, we would meet for lunch and I would sit down and she would say, okay, so what are you doing for you?

7:41How are you? She didn't use the word mattering necessarily at the time but she really, you know, what she showed me was we have to be intentional about finding our joy and celebrating our joy. She said to me a quote, for some people like me, work is easy, play is hard. And so I learned from Ina how to prioritize my play, how to squeeze more joy into my day, even on those really busy days. And, you know, for anybody out there like me, who's struggling with how to prioritize your own needs, I now have this simple practice that I do where every morning when I'm brushing my teeth, I say to myself, what is the one need I need to fill today for myself so that I can show up and be my best self for the people that I care about?

8:26So that's, it's about, you know, there's this great quote, self-care is other care. Yes. And as parents, we know that until if you're if your your tank is empty, you don't have anything to give everybody else. Yes. Yes. I loved on our show when when we were doing our podcast together, I know that you said it could be as simple as a as a bowl of soup sharing with someone. What are the other ways that you have found have been powerful in showing people that they matter? I think I mean, Jenny and I do this all the time is when you're with somebody, you don't have a phone, you don't have anything with you.

9:00They've got your undivided attention. And that just says you're more important to me than anything else. And you and I do something that I just love is, and we just do it spontaneously. Whenever we're together, we don't leave each other until we say, when are we going to, when's the next time? What are we doing next? We mark it in our calendars. And you actually make the time. We make the time. We just say, I'm not done. You're so important to me. I can't, I can't finish what we're doing. And we always make it and we do it without thinking about it as mattering but but it just that's the way we that you are worthy of protecting this time i'll tell you the other thing that struck me 10 years ago when we first started becoming friends and i think what really first started dating we first started dating as girlfriends and what struck me was how quickly you can build a sense of trust when the person that you know is is committed to showing up to the events so So Ina never cancels unless she is really sick.

9:56And you just know it. And it builds this trust. And we live in this flake culture where people have really, I mean, I think it's a terrible thing to do. It really erodes friendships. One way to make people feel like they matter is to commit to them so they can trust you. They can trust that when they make a plan, you will be there. And it's in that trust, that commitment, that you feel comfortable being vulnerable. And so that's another lesson you learned from her just by your actions, by the way you show up for other people. Did you learn anything in particular from this runaway bestseller of Aina's Be Ready When the Luck Happens?

10:32I mean, the title is a mantra of mine, which I think, yes, luck plays into it. But so does the everyday work. I mean, Aina is a scientist. Aina is a serious businesswoman. She makes it look fun and she does have fun. and she prioritizes her fun. But this is work. This is every day, five days a week, sometimes seven days a week working. And that's how you build this unbelievable business and empire that both of you have built. I think Jenny and I do something else with each other. And the most lovely thing you can do to say to somebody you'd matter is say, come to dinner. We know how hard it is to make dinner.

11:13But when you say to somebody, come to dinner, you say, you're important to me. and you're not only important, you're important enough that I want to spend the time and the energy to make dinner for you, to take care of you. And I think we love having small dinner parties where you can really connect with people. And I mean, when was the last time somebody called and said, come for dinner? And you said, no, I'm not really interested in a home-cooked dinner. Of course you're going to say yes. Of course you do. And when you show up, you create a community around yourselves. Well, Ina Gard knows how to do that better than anyone in the world.

11:42Thank you. Thank you for all the gifts you've given to all of us and making all of us feel like we matter in the kitchen with our food offerings. Thank you. With our cooking, with our sharing, and being able to be around the table with friends and really feel that that is valuable time for everyone. It is. And it always is, isn't it? Don't you always walk away feeling fulfilled, like soul-satisfying kind of experience having good friends around the table? Absolutely. And we know that you have a busy schedule here in New York, so thank you for stopping by just to say hello Thank you so much. So good to see you.

12:14Your support. Have fun. Letting us know we matter. Thank you. Thank you, Ina Garden. I thank you for listening. After this quick break, Jennifer and I talk with one of the world's leading experts on mattering, who shares vital information on the link between mattering and your health and longevity. Hi, and welcome back to the Oprah podcast. I'm with New York Times bestselling author and journalist Jennifer Wallace. Her new book is Mattering, The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. If there's someone you love who is struggling with feeling valued or seen, I hope you share this episode with them.

12:49So imagine my delight when I'm just flipping through the book, reading a page and da-da-da-da, page 15, connecting to your impact and reading stories. And then I come across page 18 and there's a quote from Oprah Winfrey. I'm like, wow, I'm in this book where I say there's a common denominator in the human experience that we all share. So that obviously resonated with you as deeply as it has resonated throughout my life. But isn't that true? It is so true. That's the thread that connects us all. Yes. If you want to know someone, if you want to really know them, ask them, do you feel like you matter?

13:26Yes. Did you grow up feeling like you matter? Do you work in a place that makes you feel like you matter? Do you matter to your neighbors, to your extended families? Do you have these deep nourishing friendships that remind you that you matter when you get pulled off course, when you doubt your own worth? We all need that. You know, we're the wealthiest nation in the world. And we have, you know, so much affluence and indulgence and abundance. Did you find talking to people in other countries that were not as wealthy and people were not as well off that their sense of mattering is different than an ours?

14:05Yes. I would say where it comes down to is can I dork out for a minute and talk about values? So I didn't know this before researching the book, but our values, what we value impacts our well-being. So when researchers who study it, say all of us all over the world have these same core values inside of us and researchers separate them out into extrinsic values and intrinsic values. Extrinsic values are things like wanting the big house, wanting the high status career. That's right. The car, the things that label you. a certain image. Those are extrinsic values. Intrinsic values are things like wanting to be good to the environment, wanting to be pro-social, wanting to grow spiritually, wanting to be a good neighbor.

14:51Values operate like a zero-sum game. So the more time and energy you spend pursuing these extrinsic values, the less room you have in your life for pursuing intrinsic ones. And here's why this matters. Because extrinsic values are linked with negative mental health and substance abuse disorder, whereas intrinsic values are linked with the well-being we want. And here, it's not that we in America have bad values. It's that our extrinsic values are constantly being activated on social media, in the wider media. We are hearing these messages day in and day out in our hyper-capitalistic culture that you need these things to matter, whereas people who live their lives and organize their lives through intrinsic values are are what they are doing is they are more likely living a life of mattering living a life where they feel valued by their people and where they know that they add meaningful value back well i want to bring in dr gordon flett whom you know gordon a professor emeritus in psychology at york university in Toronto, the New York Times called him one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of mattering.

16:07And his thoughts are featured throughout Jenny's book. Dr. Flett, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. And explain why mattering is so crucial. Mattering is something that cuts across virtually everything we do and everything we have in our lives in terms of our thoughts, our feelings, but also our roles and our relationships. And, you know, I think daily it's something that we experience either in terms of that feeling of mattering or not mattering. So to me, the bottom line is that when you're thinking about mattering and somebody has a deep sense of mattering, that they are somebody who is filled with hope as well.

16:45That's the key thing from a person perspective. It goes along with a lot of other positive things and it's very strongly related to hope. So somebody who has this sense has got a lot of positive resources they can bring up when they need it. Absolutely. And you coined the term anti-mattering also. What is that? Anti-mattering is the flip side. It's that time when you feel like you're invisible, people are going out of their way to make you feel unimportant, insignificant. And it can be very deep in terms of a soul-based thing where if you chronically are experiencing this, you're feeling you've got, you're not being seen, you don't have a voice.

17:21And, you know, unfortunately, this is something that's related to epidemics that we have right now. We talk about the loneliness epidemic, the social media addiction epidemic. I think they're all focusing on that need to matter. And sadly, antimattering is very robustly correlated so that if you feel like you don't matter and it's chronic, you also have that strong sense of being alone and lonely. Yeah. As I was reading the book, I was thinking anti-mattering really contributes to people being dangerous, dangerous to themselves and dangerous to other people. Because when you don't feel like you matter, it means you can do anything to harm yourself and do anything to harm other people.

18:03Agree, Jenny? I totally agree. You will go to great lengths to prove that you matter. That you do matter. When I think about political extremes, I think about road rage, I think about shootings, I think about online attacks. These are people who are desperately saying, oh, I don't matter. I'll show you I matter. They'll even act out against themselves. There was a study that I write about of suicidal men. And the two words they used to describe their pain was useless and worthless. Yes. So when we feel like we don't matter, we can turn against ourselves or we can turn against each other. Well, Professor Flet, you know, I think this is something that maybe a lot of people don't realize.

18:44You know, we are seeing this craze now towards longevity. It's a craze happening in our culture. But how does mattering impact our morality and our longevity? I'm so glad you asked that. First, the morality, there is that subset of people Jenny referred to. That goes right back to the very first thing that was written about matter, the idea that if I can't get my sense of feeling important from these people, I'll get them from these perhaps less desirable people. The longevity part is key. And that's the one thing I'd really like to underscore for your listeners and your viewers is that there's about 10 studies now that link mattering with better self-reported health.

19:26And two of them involve objective measures so that you'll see a link with blood pressure, heart rate, positive chemicals versus the negative chemicals. And that's now been implicated as well in terms of quicker aging and mortality. And it goes back to what I was saying about loneliness and being a predictor of earlier death. So I really see the feeling of mattering or not mattering as a life or death thing. And, you know, ideally, people are going to be able to have a sense of mattering because it cuts down on the stress. If somebody is leading a life of not mattering, they're leading a life of extreme and chronic stress.

20:03Yeah. And danger endangering themselves and possibly other people. Well, when you feel like you don't matter, you feel like you're going through this world alone. And we know from an evolutionary perspective that we are wired to matter. Right. We are wired to be important to the band, to the group. And to not matter to the group means to be pushed out. And to our earliest ancestors, that meant death. And we are wired. And as Gord puts it, it is life or death. It is life or death. All right. Thank you, Dr. Flett or Gord. Thank you so much again. Nice to see you. Thank you so much. To see you as well.

20:40I'm wondering, Jenny, when you were asking these questions of people around the world that we started our podcast talking about, you know, do you matter? Do you think that you matter to someone? Did just asking the question cause a lot of people to reflect in a way that your interest made them feel like they mattered? Yes. They were very open to talking about it. What I found often were the people who were saying they didn't feel like they mattered. They were going through a life transition. So either they had lost a loved one that they felt very valued by or maybe facing an empty nest or maybe they'd lost a job or relocated.

21:21I experienced that myself when I was a newlywed moving to London. When you go through a transition, we tend to personalize the experience. We think, oh, it's so painful. There must be something wrong with me that I'm not coping well with this change. but transitions in and of themselves are a hard thing to do. Yeah. Right. We're going from one role to another role. And if we can look at them through the lens of mattering, that offers us a pathway through the transition. So if you're going through a painful transition, look for role models, look for people who have gone through something similar and - And gotten through it.

21:56And gotten through it. Use their life as almost like a blueprint for yourself, a little map. Yeah. And then there's one other thing that I write about in the book is the power of invitation. So it is accepting invitations and issuing invitations. And offering them. When we are going through something hard, we are often reluctant to reach out to people or to accept because we feel like we have to get our lives together. But there's research called the beautiful mess effect, which is the idea that we think we need to be perfect to be loved. But actually, when we are going through something hard, when we are authentic and open about it, that it actually brings people closer to us because they trust us more.

22:33They think we're authentic. So if you are going through something hard, They trust you because they see and feel the vulnerability. They do. They see you as a human, someone they can trust. And if you are not getting invitations, I interviewed this woman who went through a horrible divorce, didn't want to be a fifth wheel out to dinner. And so she was complaining to her therapist that her social life was zero. And the therapist said, then you start hosting dinner parties. You start inviting your girlfriends to your house. Reboot your social life. You have agency. That is a big message in the book.

23:03that if you are feeling like you don't matter, you need to know you are one decision, you are one step away from mattering again. That's right. After this short break, Jennifer and I talked with a military wife and mother who felt invisible. If you or someone you know feels the same, she found a simple, inspiring solution. So glad you're back. I'm with journalist Jennifer Wallace. Her new book, Mattering, The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose, is giving us a lot to think about. Like, how can I make the people in my life know that they matter? Let's get back to it. You talk often in the book about reaching out to somebody else.

23:40You know, one of the things I remember when I read the story in the book that you share about a military wife, we went to a military base and did a whole show with military wives and treated them to wonderful things because, as you say in the book, so many military wives feel alone. They feel like they don't matter. They feel like they've sacrificed. Military spouses are going through something called silent scaffolding, holding everything together, but they still feel invisible. So Simone Gorindo is also a journalist who wrote a book called The Wives, a memoir, and she's joining us from her home in Washington.

24:20Hi, Simone. Tell us about that feeling of invisibility. Hi, Oprah. Hi, Jenny. Just first of all, thank you so much for having me. It is an absolute honor to be here. Thank you. Well, you know, really at the very beginning of my journey of becoming an Army wife, I immediately was swimming in those waters of invisibility. My husband, it was back in 2012, he joined a rapidly deployable combat unit in the Army. and I left my job as an editor in New York City and packed up a U-Haul and we drove south to Columbus, Georgia. Oh, Lord. And two weeks later... It's a long way. It was a long way. And I left everything I knew behind.

25:03I'd never been south of the Mason-Dixon line. And I didn't even have a driver's license to get myself around. I was that much of a fish out of water. And two weeks after we arrived, my husband deployed to Afghanistan. And on one level, I knew what I was signing up for. I knew he was going to deploy and go train, but it was such an isolating experience. I felt so alone so immediately and I couldn't call him. And if he could call me, it was over these monitored phone calls. And especially in the beginning, both of us were getting this messaging that we needed to be as quiet as possible about where he was, what he was doing.

25:47So he was so nervous in the beginning. I remember asking him what he had for breakfast and he said, I can't talk about that. So really, my husband, my closest connection, I just kind of felt like I'd lost him overnight. And it was confusing too, because we get this messaging from commanders that, you know, we are essential. They can do what they do because of you. They're training and deploying at this breakneck speed and you are keeping it together. Like you said, you are the silent scaffolding at home, keeping it together. And that's true. And also really our primary job is to be silent and invisible and to not let on where he's going.