New Podcast Release: Jennifer Wallace

In the latest episode of Lives Well Lived, the podcast I co-host with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, we speak with journalist and author Jennifer Wallace about her new book: Mattering: The Secret to Life of Deep Connection and Purpose.

Jennifer’s work focuses on a question that sits beneath many contemporary anxieties: what it means to feel that one’s life counts. In our conversation, she argues that what many people lack today is not success, praise, or validation, but the sense that they matter to others and in the world more broadly.

We talk about how mattering can be formed and lost across the life course, from achievement culture- the subject of her 2023 bestseller, Never Enough – to parenting and work. When we discuss how mattering can be gendered, Jennifer reflects on her own experiences, including stepping away from a successful career, and on the research that has shaped her thinking about unconditional worth, contribution, and balance. We explore how mattering differs from self-esteem, how it relates to impact and moral value, and why she believes mattering has become an urgent concern in a time of social fragmentation and rapid change.

Below is an edited version of our conversation, organised thematically and condensed for clarity.

When achievement stopped being enough

KASIA DE LAZARI-RADEK:
Was there a moment in your own life when you realised that mattering, not success, was what was really at stake?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
I’ve been reflecting a lot while writing this book on moments when I felt like I mattered and moments when I didn’t. One moment that keeps coming up was when I was a junior in college at Harvard.

Up until that point, my life was a lot of achievement, a lot of feeling that my worth rested on my accomplishments. Then I had an extraordinary experience. Harvard students run the only student-run homeless shelter in the country, and I was matched with an extraordinary woman named Sue.

For the first time, I realised I was not achieving for my résumé. I was achieving so that I could be better for others. That was my first real experience of mattering, and it made me realise that the whole point of achievement and success is to be better for others.

KASIA DE LAZARI-RADEK:
That’s a wonderful story. I imagine it felt good.

JENNIFER WALLACE:
It felt really good. And here’s something I’ve never told anybody. At the time, Harvard students and their families had access to subsidised housing. Sue became my “Aunt Sue”, and we found her a Harvard studio apartment.

It wasn’t just that I helped her through the shelter or with her résumé. Had I not been going to that school, she wouldn’t have had access to the kind of apartment she could actually afford. That was the most meaningful experience of my young adult life.

Losing a sense of mattering

PETER SINGER:
Did that sense of mattering stay with you as your career developed, especially when you stepped away from 60 Minutes?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
I stepped away from 60 Minutes when my husband and I moved to London for his work. I freelanced while I was there, but that moment really rattled my sense of mattering.

Up until then, I knew who valued me and how I added value. Almost overnight, that collapsed. I moved to London, I knew nobody, and I wasn’t getting much work. I felt intense loneliness and purposelessness.

I wish I had what I now call the “mattering lens”. Had I known that what I was experiencing was a mattering crisis, I wouldn’t have personalised it so much. I would have put it into context and found a faster way forward.

PETER SINGER:
Is that what you’re trying to offer others now?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
Yes. Life transitions can shake our sense of mattering, even transitions we choose. Changing jobs, becoming a parent, experiencing loss or divorce, all of these can disrupt it.

But we can rebuild it. I’ve come to believe that we have a responsibility to matter in this world, and that we have agency. Mattering isn’t something that just happens to us.

Practical ways to rebuild mattering

KASIA DE LAZARI-RADEK:
How can people actually do that?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
One approach is what researchers call “me-search”. When something is personal to you, study it. Seek out role models. Read, listen, learn. Don’t be so hard on yourself, we tend to personalise instead of contextualise.

Another piece is invitation. We often underestimate how being vulnerable draws people in. Researchers call this the “Beautiful Mess Effect”. We think our lives need to be shiny and perfect to invite others in, but that’s not true.

And if no one is inviting you, you still have agency. I interviewed a woman going through a difficult divorce whose therapist said, “Then you start hosting dinner parties in your kitchen.” You can create mattering in your relationships.

I also think about finding a need and meeting it with your time, talent, and treasure. I saw this with a grandmother who hosted weekly breakfasts for her grandson and his friends. She created community, and everyone involved felt that sense of mattering.

Is mattering gendered?

KASIA DE LAZARI-RADEK:
Much of the work of making others feel they matter is often feminised. Does gender shape who gets to matter?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
On average, yes. Women are often socialised to matter through relationships. When those relationships rupture, it can hit their sense of worth deeply.

For men, a lot of mattering comes from work. When they lose a job, their sense of mattering can collapse overnight. In a study of suicidal men, the two words most often used to describe their suffering were “useless” and “worthless”.

If we want boys to know they matter across domains, they need to see men mattering in relationships too. Otherwise, relational work remains coded as women’s work.

Mattering beyond one’s immediate community

PETER SINGER:
Can we matter by helping people beyond our own communities, especially those in much greater need?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
Absolutely. I’m on the board of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York, largely because of my college experience. Helping people through painful transitions like homelessness is one of the most meaningful ways to matter.

But I struggle with how to convince people living in extreme poverty of their unconditional worth in a society where their needs go unmet. I firmly believe mattering is unconditional, but capitalism increasingly tells us that worth is tied to contribution.

Mattering, impact, and equality

PETER SINGER:
If some people save millions of lives and others don’t, do some people matter more?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
My worldview is that I am not better than anyone else, and no one is better than me. Impact can be greater, but that doesn’t mean someone matters more.

Bill Gates’s impact may have a bigger ripple, but I wouldn’t say he matters more than a community organiser who keeps her neighbourhood safe. Impact and mattering are not the same thing.

Achievement, values, and children

PETER SINGER:
When does achievement become toxic?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
Achievement becomes toxic when a child’s developing sense of self is so tangled up in performance that they only feel they matter when they achieve, when they have a high GPA [Grade Point Average, a measure of academic achievement], the right number of likes, the right status, or a certain body type. That’s the point where achievement stops being healthy.

Not all achievement is toxic. We started this conversation with the idea of not being better than others, but better for others. Achievement that contributes to society, that alleviates suffering, that adds meaningful value, that’s different. The real issue is values.

Researchers like Tim Kasser have shown that, across cultures, we tend to hold two broad kinds of values. Extrinsic values include status, image, popularity, and appearance. Intrinsic values include growth, contribution, and being pro-social.

Values operate like a zero-sum game. The more time and energy you spend pursuing extrinsic values, the less room you have for intrinsic ones. Extrinsic values are consistently linked with anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Intrinsic values are linked with the wellbeing we want for ourselves and our children.

In my research, kids who were doing well under pressure, who were achieving at high levels and sustaining it, felt valued for who they were and were relied on to add value at home, at school, and in the wider world. The kids who struggled most felt their worth was contingent on performance.

If we want to raise healthy strivers for life, my money would be on raising kids who believe they are unconditionally worthy. Those kids are not afraid to reach for high goals, because reaching for high goals involves failure and setbacks. When worth is tied to achievement, people eventually stop reaching.

I felt unconditional worth in my own family, and that made me unafraid to try, fail, and try again. Parents play a unique role here, because kids are growing up in a culture that constantly tells them, “I am what I have, I am what I do, I am what people say and think about me.” Parents can counter that by showing their children they matter outside a system that tells them they always have to prove it.

I love achievement. I love that my work has reached people. I want my children to experience that joy too. But I want them to have that joy for life, not burn out. I think of mattering as a kind of clean fuel. Linking self-worth to achievement is more like dirty fuel. It might get you a short-term win, but eventually it clogs the engine.

On happiness and living well

PETER SINGER:
With that understanding of what it is to live well, are you living well?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
I would say I am living very well. I have rich relationships that make me feel valued. I have the opportunity to fill a need that I think is desperately needed in this world, an awareness of mattering. I feel honoured to bring decades of resilience research into the hands of people who can use it. That feels deeply meaningful to me.

PETER SINGER:
Would you like to leave our listeners with one question or practice to take away?

JENNIFER WALLACE:
I’ve adopted a challenge for myself, and I don’t meet it all the time, but I aspire to it. I try to picture everyone I meet, strangers, family, friends, wearing an invisible sign that says, “Tell me: do I matter?”

We can answer that with warmth, eye contact, and civility. With compassion instead of judgment. What I’ve found is that the fastest way to feel like you matter is to remind someone else why they do.