Thank you, Zach, again for making the time for coming to the podcast to talk about all the things that matter. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2Of course I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1Yes, how would you like to be presented? Usually, what I do is I pre-record the intro for my guests, but I usually also ask the guests how would you like to be presented or introduced? What do you feel is important for listeners to know at the beginning of our conversation?
Speaker 2I would like to be introduced as a researcher, so I research what makes life and work meaningful for people, but then I am also out with people, actually helping them to use the skills to ensure the people around them are able to experience meaningfulness.
Speaker 1Good, amazing. So you wrote this book the Power of Mattering, how Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance. I want to ask you why now, why do you believe now it is important to write about this mattering and significance, and then also you can explain to our listeners what you mean by the words mattering and significance.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a great question. So there's a couple of things going on in the world right now that are getting a lot of attention. One is loneliness. So one out of every three people in the world, according to the American Psychiatric Association, experience persistent feelings of loneliness and disconnection. You also see rising levels of disengagement in work. So feeling emotionally uninvested in work About seven out of 10 people listening right now feel emotionally uninvested in their work. So, feeling emotionally uninvested in work About seven out of 10 people listening right now feel emotionally uninvested in their work, the place where they spend a third of their lives In schools, almost half of students feel that they're not valued. In fact, there was one study of 66,000 students that found that over half said they didn't think anybody would notice if they were absent. So what's going on is loneliness, disengagement, feeling unvalued are getting a lot of attention. But what our solution has been to those things has been to connect more, so develop more connections, reach out to people and we have more engagement initiatives than ever in organizations. It's a $1 billion industry now. We have more initiatives to bring inclusion and belonging into schools and yet we're still lonely, disengaged and feel undervalued.
Speaker 2Why is that? When you look at the data, we're facing a mattering deficit. So people do not feel seen, heard and valued in their everyday interactions. 30% of people also report feeling invisible. In that same Gallup engagement survey that found that we're at our lowest level of employee engagement in a decade, just 39% of people said that they had someone at work that cared about them as a person. Just 30% said that someone invested in their unique potential.
Speaker 2So this is not like a loneliness epidemic. It's not a disengagement crisis. It's not even a technology addiction problem. It's a mattering deficit, and mattering is the feeling of being significant to the people around you. That comes from feeling valued and knowing how we add value and mattering. We develop mattering through interpersonal interactions, not through programs, perks, pay, awards, and I think the way to solve those problems is through re-optimizing how we are with one another so that the next person we interact with feels seen, heard, valued and needed. So that's what's going on, and underneath that is that we're actually facing a mattering deficit that's driving some of these things that we're seeing can.
Speaker 1Can I ask a question? Why do you think we're experiencing it now? Or was it always this way? We just never noticed? Or maybe something contributed for us to not feel that anymore, Like before? Maybe we felt more or not.
Speaker 2I think there's one big reason, and that is that since the year 2000, we've been able to send short text messages to one another. So there are more platforms than ever. Whether you're managing your kid's sports team or communicating in your classroom or an organization, there are platforms for everything. And what has happened is that we have been able to actually evade the situations that help us to hone the human skills of seeing, hearing and valuing one another. For example, if you give me some bad news, I can just send you a little sad-faced emoji and say, type I'm sorry to hear that. I don't actually have to sit with you anymore, Seek to understand you, Show compassion. If you give me some good news, I can just say, hey, good job. I don't have to share with you why I'm proud of you. What I've seen in you illuminate your gifts.
Speaker 2So the more we've been able to not be in situations that allow us to use those skills, the more those skills have suffered. And here we are right, when we need them more than ever. We've also, since the 1970s, called these skills soft, and anytime you label something soft or simple, your brain thinks you're better at it than you are. It's called an overconfidence bias, so we approach it with less rigor. It's likely why less than 2% of the world's population gets formal education on things like listening well, so that's why the solution is to reconnect is not to put down your phone, not to just put down your phone. It's what you do when you put down your phone. It's relearning the skills skill.
Speaker 1Yeah, I lost you for a moment. Yeah, it's relearning the skills. That's where you stopped.
Speaker 2Yeah, so what was I saying when you lost me? I can repeat that so you can edit it back in.
Speaker 1What matters is what you do when you put down the phone.
Speaker 2Okay, yeah, so that's why the solution to this disconnection is not just putting down your phone. It's what you do after you put down your phone. You know how to do, and so we need to relearn the skills to see, hear, value and show the people around us that they're needed. And what's interesting is that when we do that for other people, we are actually reinforced that we matter. Our words matter.
Speaker 1Our behaviors matter. Yes, it's, yeah. I guess what I'm hearing is we stop using those skills and then maybe nobody explained to us why they were important. And then we had all this technology and we just never reintroduced it because nobody told us they were important. Hearing each other, listening to each other, affirming each other, showing each other that we matter, that we are significant and needed.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I would add that there's also a gap between what we want to do and what we actually do. For example, think about someone in your life that you're grateful for right now Everybody listening. When's the last time you told them Explicitly I'm grateful for you? Like oftentimes, there's a gap between our intention and what we feel about people and what we actually do, and that's another bias. It's called our underestimation bias. We actually underestimate the impact of very small words, very small acts that show others they're seen, heard and valued by us.
Speaker 1In fact, today in the morning, because of our interview and being exposed to your work, I called to my. I left a message to both of my parents telling them why they're important, because sometimes I feel they don't actually know that or might feel like they're not important anymore. Because you can support yourself. You can take care of yourself Like what's the meaning of them? Yes, and they take care of yourself Like what's the meaning of them? Yes, and they were surprised.
Speaker 2Yeah. So one of the things people say to me is that they say, zach, this is common sense, why do you have a job? And the problem is that common sense isn't common practice. Sorry, you just froze.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening, I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 2It says like the little thing next to your thing is going red for some reason, the Wi-Fi thing, I don't know.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2I'll restate that when did I stop?
Speaker 1You step on. Why, zach? Why do you have a job?
Speaker 2Yeah. So people often ask me Zach, why do you have a job? Isn't this just common sense? And I always say to them what's common sense isn't always common practice. Yeah, and that's clear in the data. Think of someone that you rely on in your life. Think about the last time you told them hey, I rely on you, I need you, you are indispensable to my life Explicitly told them. One of my favorite ways to counteract this is what I call scheduling your good intentions. When I'm out walking my dog, I'm the kindest person in the world. I think about all the people I should thank, all the letters I should write the calls I should make. And then I got back to my desk and I have a big to-do list. So when you have that intention, that thought to check in on somebody, to thank somebody, to remind somebody that they matter to you, put it on your to-do list, put it on your calendar, because we need to start making these things common practice yeah, and what are the ways to do that right?
Speaker 1maybe let's also jump into the model that you develop and noticing, affirming and needing right. And what kind of practices? What are those things and what kind of practices people can start putting on their calendar to make them not just intention but a practice.
Speaker 2Yeah. So when we asked hundreds of people, when they feel that they matter to others, what are those people doing? There are three major experiences. One is they feel noticed. So feeling noticed is feeling seen and heard. There's a very big difference, though, in knowing somebody and noticing them, and I think it's important to distinguish. You can know your best friend but not notice that they're struggling or suffering. You can know your team members but not notice that one of them is feeling left out of discussions. So noticing is a deliberate act and practice of paying attention to the details, ebbs and flows of people's lives and then offering an action to show them that you see and hear them, and we are in such a hurry and our attention is in such short supply that we need tools to do this.
Speaker 2One of my favorite examples came from a supervisor in a distribution center, and this distribution center had several teams that scored really low on employee engagement surveys, except for one team. It was an outlier, and so I went to that team and I said what is going on here? What are you all doing? And all the team members said oh, it's our supervisor. She just gets us, we'd do anything for her. And so I asked her. I said what do you do here? And she said it's really simple, zach. She pulls out this notebook. She said every Friday I write down the names of my team members and then I write down one thing I noticed about them they're struggling with a project, they're nervous about a meeting, if their child was starting a new sport. And I write it down and then on Monday I look at that notebook and I schedule a three minute check-in with each of them just to ask about what I wrote down and I say hey, I remembered last week that you were nervous about that meeting. How did that go? And she looked at me and she said there is magic in being remembered. But just as an example for that first noticing practice, what I love about that is that she had a tool. She didn't just leave it up to chance, she had a tool, it was a deliberate practice.
Speaker 2Other practices in that noticing area are asking better questions instead of how are you or how's everybody doing today. Good Asking questions that actually go beyond those greetings and get you data to see people. What is your attention today? What's been most meaningful to you today? What have you been working on today that's most exciting for you? What are you struggling with? How can I help? Those are the two practices that you can take immediately and start doing Noticing people's details, remembering them, having a process and checking in on them. One of the things I do on my one-on-ones with my team is I write down. Don't forget to ask about right at the top Again.
Speaker 1It's all about turning what's common sense into common practice.
Speaker 2So noticing that, noticing practice is the foundation of mattering.
Speaker 1Yes, because yeah before you can affirm, because you can let people know how they are indispensable in your life. You got to notice that.
Speaker 2Yeah, and what happens when you start noticing people is they start feeling valued, which again mattering is the experience of feeling significant to those around you. That come from feeling valued and then adding value. And once people know that they're valued, they develop the confidence, the self-worth and self-belief and their capability necessary to add value. And the adding value piece is making sure they're affirmed, they know how they and their uniqueness makes a unique difference, and then they know how they're needed, how they're relied on. But I think it's really important for listeners, if you're wanting to cultivate mattering around you, that the dominant approach to how we approach one another, especially in organizations, has been that people should be valued once they add value. But the opposite is actually true. Psychologically, people need to feel valued first in order to add value. So that's why that noticing practice comes first.
Speaker 1Yes, it feels counterintuitive, but that's exactly right. It also goes back to this idea that when you feel that others expect more of you, like you have more potential ability to contribute more, you actually are so much more likely to try and to meet those expectations, versus when somebody or a lot of people think that you're not going to sum up to anything. Then the person is not even motivated to do more or sometimes anything.
Speaker 2Yeah, I see this mistake being made with leaders who have quote unquote difficult employees. So if you have an underperforming employee and you come low, potential people, Right, but what people are missing is exactly what you say. How you see somebody affects how you treat them. How you treat them affects how they behave toward you. How they behave toward you reinforces how you see them. How they behave towards you reinforces how you see them. So if you see someone as a difficult person, you will treat them as an issue to be dealt with. They will feel like an issue to be dealt with. They will act like an issue to be dealt with and then you see them as an issue to be dealt with Instead.
Speaker 2Interrupt that, Stop labeling. And I often say when I see someone who's difficult or underperforming, I say to myself this is a human being who is behaving in ways that I perceive as difficult. Yeah, it's this. And when we separate these labels, we can actually start to seek understanding. And when we seek understanding, we start to see people, we start to hear people, we start to understand people. And when people feel understood, they develop more self-confidence, they develop greater sense of self-worth, which are the very things we need them to have in order to improve their performance in the first place.
Yeah so many leaders try to get people to improve their performance in the first place? Yes, which so many leaders try to get people to improve their performance by depleting the very self-beliefs they need to improve their performance?
Speaker 1Yes, and also I feel like it's not just about performance, but also in day-to-day interactions. We so often see a behavior and we make an assumption, put a label on a person. This person was rude to me. This is the root. Like this is someone who's rude, I probably don't want to be friends with them, or they just I don't know this. This bad person, like overall right, just from one instance, and very often we don't think like what this person is going through in their day, like what's that been before.
Speaker 1Maybe that was that's been the worst week or day in I don't know the year, like you just never know. And plus, we all know like we have our moments, we can be in the rush or something got into us and, yeah, we, we speak in a way that this, that can be perceived true, but what I guess I'm getting is the people is not one act or also if it's taken out of the context.
Speaker 1You can put different labels on that and also every person, I guess what I'm also very passionate about is a potential meaning. They can grow, they can change, they can develop.
Speaker 2They're not just like this static state that they're stuck in for the rest of their life, from the moment where you encountered them exactly because if we treat people and a german philosopher said this as we treat people as they can be, they become who they truly are yeah, that is so powerful and so think about if you.
Speaker 2We often see people as what they're not yet, and so we treat them as what they're not yet, and they become what they're not Instead. Do you treat people on who you think they can become? How would that change if you that difficult employee, that underperformer, quote, unquote if you treated them as if they were who they could be? It's a radically different way of seeing somebody. And then that gets into that second area of that model right, notice, and then, affirmed, you start affirming them that, hey, you have unique gifts that make a unique difference. And that's really what affirmation is. It's showing someone how their uniqueness makes a unique difference, that, hey, you have what it takes to make an impact. You make a unique difference. And when we feel affirmed, when we feel that we matter, we tend to act like we matter.
Speaker 2And we see ourselves in that.
Speaker 1What I also found to be very powerful in your book, and I think it's the first book where I saw a lot more clarity around things like strengths, purpose, perspectives and wisdom, because I also believe that a lot of people struggle to even understand their own strengths before working on them or developing them, and so I really love the clarity there in how you incorporated that in the book and around affirmation and all the other practices that the person needs to first develop this awareness and then leaders need to also develop ways of how to see this strengths, for example, in a person before being able to affirm them strengths, for example, in a person, before being able to affirm them.
Speaker 2Yeah, I often say that it's very hard to read the label when you're inside the jar.
Speaker 2So like it is very hard to, be able to name our gifts when we are not the recipient of them. Other people around us are the recipient of our gifts. We are the recipient of other people's gifts, so part of our duty as human beings is to show them what we see, because they likely don't see it themselves. And I like using the word gifts and I was writing that section of the book and I was reading a lot about strengths, but there was something that was missing for me about what I noticed that people gave me every day. They didn't just give me what they're good at, what they love to do, which is a strength.
Speaker 2They also made a unique impact right. They served a unique purpose. They also have a unique perspective that only they have. They also have wisdom that only they have. Wisdom is what we've learned in our life. Everybody in the world has something that only they can teach you. Think about that. Think about that way of seeing others right, that everybody around me has something that they can teach me, that only they can teach me.
Speaker 1Yes, and that's their wisdom. And again, I just love also how you put simple definitions into this, sometimes things that feel very abstract in part to define, like, for example, strengths something you love to do and something that you're good at right, so it makes it easier to figure out when somebody is not sure, like, what are my strengths. And obviously there are also these assessments that you're good at right, so it makes it easier to figure out when somebody is not sure, like, what are my strengths. And obviously there are also these assessments that you mentioned in the book. Or, for example, purpose it's your strengths plus the impact that you want to make. Yeah, what do you make Exactly? And it makes it so much easier than, okay, my purpose. It doesn't have to be something I don't know out of this world like big or I don't know audacious, and I feel like, once you figure that out, it's so much easier to then just bring your best talents or gift to the table, mission or your organization and then also start seeing that in other people as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think that we've overcomplicated a lot of these things. Yeah, after reading your book, I felt like this is simple.
Speaker 2Yeah, because if we can't name something, we can't do anything about it. We can't change it, we can't invest in it, and I think we've overcomplicated things. You mentioned purpose. I think that's a great insight, because a lot of people say how do I find my purpose? As if it's out there in some mystical land waiting for you to discover it. But purpose is really where your strengths make a difference. If you're living and breathing today, you have strengths. If you're living and breathing today, you will impact someone else at some point in some conversation, so you already have purpose.
Speaker 1Your task is not to go find your purpose, it's to see your purpose yes, and again that that was such a great, insightful piece of the book that I really love. And well, yeah, I guess for this section affirming what are some practices that you could recommend to leaders or individuals, to from other people, maybe also affirm themselves more often and better yeah, it's very easy for someone to like take a compliment and say, oh no, that's not true, that's not me.
Speaker 2It's very hard for someone to be affirmed truly affirmed and not believe it, because when you affirm somebody, you are giving them the indisputable evidence of their significance, because affirmation is very different than appreciation or recognition. Appreciation is just showing general gratitude for who someone is. Recognition is showing general gratitude for what someone does, but affirmation is showing them the specific evidence of their unique significance. One example I can share is I worked with a manager of facilities maintenance people at the National Park Service. This is in the US. There's national parks and there's a big staff of people that manage all the facilities in these very difficult environments, and he had a practice that every Friday he would send them photos of projects his team worked on and he would send photos of visitors using those product projects, walking across a bridge, using a new building that was open, using a doorway that was fixed, and he would just send them an email and said, hey, look what you did, thank you, and I love that practice because look what what you did. Nobody can sit back and be like, oh, he doesn't mean it. I mean it's right there, like it's right there. So affirmation is when you give someone the indisputable evidence of their significance. So what he did was he used photos to show them.
Speaker 2We can also tell and collect real stories of people's significance in our lives. If somebody did something for you and it made a difference for you, don't just say hey, thank you. Say hey because you helped me out today and allowed me to do this, let me show you. I call that meaningful gratitude. When you say thank you to someone, don't just tell them thank you or good job. Show them the difference they make and exactly how they made that difference. Name their gifts. Another way to affirm people is that when you are talking about their tasks or what they do, always bring it back to why the task matters to someone else and what it's necessary for, because, again, it is very easy for nothing to matter to someone who doesn't first believe that they and what they're doing matters yeah, I also have this example.
Speaker 2Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 1I also have this example of I don't know if it's completely related cognitive constructing, but this so that mindset at work. When somebody can give themselves this affirmation practice so I do this work, so that I don't know the other person can do their job and our organization can help our clients do that right. So you can bring this affirmation practice to yourself as well and feel that you do matter when, for example, not every day or not every time that you needed, somebody else affirms you, but you can give it to yourself, having this mindset.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely, you can make it. You can get yourself ready to experience mattering, and what I mean by that is that this whole, one of the last chapters of the book, is how you can apply that noticing, affirming and needing model to yourself.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Noticing yourself, noticing your emotions, noticing how you impacted someone else that day, noticing your unique gifts, noticing your strengths, affirming yourself by reminding yourself. Who did you help today?
Speaker 1Yeah, Like this practice that you, I think you started asking your son who did you help and who helped you in completely changing the conversation.
Speaker 2Yeah, who did?
Speaker 1you help today.
Speaker 2If you end your day subtly thinking to yourself what did I get done today, you will very quickly start to experience that you don't matter, because achievements come and go right, but your presence and the ability to contribute is available every day. So you contribute to others every day in very small ways that are probably more impactful when it comes to your legacy and who you are than your to-do list. But we have to start seeing those things. Who did I help today? Who needed me today? This is a powerful one, especially I'm a parent of two young boys, right, and there's a lot going on and it can feel like you're just doing the regular tasks, driving people everywhere, and then you realize you start to think to yourself oh my gosh, I'm creating a human being's core memory of carpooling with their friends to practice you have to remember that, though it's not like, what's purposeful isn't always pleasurable yeah
Speaker 1contributing is rarely convenient yes, you know that you have this also, this concept of I think it also last chapter of overestimating your impact. Right, instead of thinking like, oh, it doesn't really matter, I think how big of an impact you're actually making on the world around you, like through those small interactions, whether that's your family or I don't know barista at your favorite coffee shops. And how would you behave if you knew it all mattered and could change someone's life?
Speaker 2Yes, absolutely. There's several experimental studies that show that when, for example, researchers had people write little notes, little thank you notes to people, and then they rated the person writing the thank you note on how impactful they thought it would be, and then they asked the receiver how impactful it was and almost every time the person who wrote the note underestimated the impact on the receiver. Other studies have been done that show like we underestimate how interested a stranger will be in having a conversation with us, so we don't talk to them, right? So we have this underestimation bias where we underestimate our impact. But I'm here to tell you that the evidence shows and you have an evidence-based pass to overestimate your impact, Because the little things that we do and again we've become worse at doing these little things, which has led us to where we are today as a society, where we're disconnected, we're divided and people feel insignificant Overestimate these little things. Schedule your good intentions, Put it on your to-do list and do it.
Speaker 1Don't overthink it list and do it, don't overthink it. Yeah, of affirmations that I think. I want to transition now to needing and this practice of helping others to feel and understand that they need it and like why. That is why this is important and how people can also do it to complete this set of practices for noticing, affirming and meaning also I think on my me personally also. I wanted to understand, like why is that important and how is it different from affirming someone?
Speaker 2yeah. So affirming is that you know that your unique gifts make a unique difference. Being shown that you're needed means that those gifts and that difference you make are indispensable. We couldn't do it without you.
Speaker 2When people report experiencing mattering, one of the most critical ingredients that they report experiencing is feeling relied on by others. When we ask people, hey, when is a time in your life when you most felt that you mattered? People frequently say, oh, when I became a caretaker, or when I had to take care of a friend, or when I became a parent, or when I had to help somebody who was in trouble, or when I had to solve a problem or an emergency at work. And all of those things are a little bit different than affirmation, because they point to feeling relied on. Human beings are at their best when they're relied on, because our whole species wouldn't even be here right now if we weren't interdependent. So feeling needed is like an essential quality of what it means to be human. To know that your presence and your absence mean something to just one other person, I think is what it means to be human. Yeah, and and so feeling needed, and when we feel like we are needed, we act like it.
Speaker 2So one of my favorite experiments that shows this, and and I talk about this in the book is in 1913, a French agricultural engineer had some students pull on a rope as hard as they could and he attached it to a dynamometer that measures force, like how hard they're pulling on the rope, and then he had them do it as individuals so same amount of students. He had them do it as groups, and then he had them do it as individuals so same amount of students. He had them do it as groups, and then he had to do them as individuals. And conventional wisdom would say the groups exerted the most total force. But every time when he added up the force readings it was the individuals. And why is that? Because the individuals knew that their effort was indispensable. No one else was going to pull on the rope for them, so they exerted more total force.
Speaker 2So when people feel replaceable, at work on a team, in a relationship, they will act replaceable, they will not show up, they will not commit. But when people feel irreplaceable, when they authentically feel that they and their unique gifts make a unique difference, that they and their work are not disposable, not dispensable, they show up and they commit emotionally, and that's what it means to feel needed. One of the best ways you can do that is the people we interview, report people around them, saying five words to them regularly.
Speaker 2If it wasn't for you, hey, I just want to say if it wasn't for you this, just want to say, if it wasn't for you, this wouldn't be possible that's just simple phrase very simple phrasing but in our individualistic western cultures it's very hard for people to say that when we do self-assessments on mattering, the needing section is the lowest in almost every group, especially in the western world.
Speaker 2In the eastern countries the other way asia it's actually the other way around, that noticing individual's uniqueness is lower, the needing piece is higher because that's part of the culture. But in the Western cultures, yeah, it's very hard for people to say hey, I rely on you.
Speaker 1Especially here in the States. Yeah, maybe it's a sign of weakness that can be interpreted as I need you or I need someone to do my thing or to help me with that.
I think that might have to do with that People don't thrive when they're just out on their own. Yeah how a lot of our self-help messaging and a lot of the messaging to people have said no one's coming to save you, you have to figure it out yourself, get tough. All of that messaging is actually counteract, is actually counter to what we know about human psychology and flourishing. Do you know the number one ingredient of a flourishing life? In almost every study, the number one ingredient of happiness and, yes, flourishing life.
Speaker 2In almost every study, the number one ingredient of happiness and flourishing yes, flourishing is relationships.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think I read it in some longevity studies actually.
Speaker 2Yes, the number one. But go on your Instagram feed, go to the bestseller list for nonfiction right now.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Look at how many titles are on that list or viral things on Instagram about how to help yourself, and then notice how many things are on there about how to help others. You will see the reason why we're so lonely, disconnected and disengaged.
Speaker 1I'm like on board with everything I read in your book. I think it's going to be a bestseller, to be honest, like it's so much needed for oh, that's nice.
Speaker 2I hope so. Not that it's a bestseller. I just hope people like think about it and start incorporating it and relearn some of these things. Name some of these things. That Name some of these things. That's why I wrote it to name these things.
Speaker 1Exactly that's how I felt like a lot of things that we would think about or somehow try to figure out, like they didn't have good enough definitions. It's like what's this strengths and purposes? Until you can define something in a simple way and then give people a way to practice it, to do it with other people, to somehow quantify it, until we do that, it's very hard to, yeah, make it a common practice, as you said and I think you know of. Next question I want to go into scaling these practices because I feel like a lot of leaders or even people might think okay, I will know, will know that, but how do we spread it? How do we make sure that more people do that? And it's not just like one thing that I have with my I don't know friends or a couple of coworkers, like, what are some ways of scaling that throughout the organization and then the whole world Wow, what have you found that's a big question right.
Speaker 2I think that we have to first set the motivation to do it. One of my favorite psychologists his name is BJ Fogg. He's at Stanford. Many people have heard of him. He writes books on habits which are phenomenal.
Speaker 2But any human behavior has three components. We have to be motivated to do it. We have to be energized to do it. We have to want to do it because it matters to us and we know it matters to others. The second is we need skills to do it. We need to know how to do it. And the third is our environment has to remind us to do it.
Speaker 2No-transcript can't. As leaders, we can't just do it to get people to perform more, produce more. Anytime you see someone as a means to your end, they cease becoming a person to you, become just a resource. And again, if someone feels like a resource, they'll act like it. They'll get up and leave when they don't feel valued.
Speaker 2So that's the first, is the motivation. The second is you have to learn the right skills. You have to, and that's why a lot of people are the critique of my book is this is common sense. Why do you need a whole book on it and the reason why I wrote the book is because, again, it's not common practice and we haven't actually named and categorized these essential human skills to do this for one another. And if we can't name something, we can't measure them, we can't keep doing them, we can't develop them. And that leads me to the next part developing those right skills, but measuring those right skills. So, being in an environment where we're actually doing an evaluation, I have leaders do a self-evaluation every two weeks on the frequency at which they're noticing people, affirming people, showing them how they're needed, and they talk about it with one another, because what we talk about is who we become. I'm very concerned that this topic of mattering is enlightening for people.
Speaker 1You were concerned.
Speaker 2I'm concerned about it because it is so fundamental, like, literally, as a human being. As a human being, the first thing that you did when you were born is you didn't search for food, you searched for someone who'd care for you. You searched to matter to somebody. It's our most primal human instinct, and that instinct is not being met on a grand scale, right, and we call these things touchy-feely or soft. I mean, showing someone how they matter is about as touchy-feely as feeding someone in front of you who's hungry, and so we need to start approaching this with the same rigor as we approach anything else.
Speaker 1Yes, and a small sentiment here I think we actually human beings, we're somehow really good at not noticing the most important fundamental stuff, because maybe it feels so much a part of who we are that we don't notice. When you have your gift, you don't notice it. It's like the same. I come from a background also wealth, health, nutrition, and for me it's like how do you not understand that what you put on your plate is going to be a directly correlated with the house?
Speaker 2That's how I feel. That's how I feel with relationships. That's how I feel with leaders. Like, how do?
Speaker 1you not understand that someone will not add value until they feel valued? And but that's exactly. It's a great parallel to nutrition, actually, yes, because again like so. For me it's like that's just common sense, right. But the same thing with here like mattering and affirm the sense of significance of being needed and bringing value into the world, like it's so fundamental to being human. But I think, maybe because it is so fundamental, we just like blind.
Speaker 2I love this. This is like social nutrition.
Speaker 1Exactly.
Speaker 2Really, it really is social nutrition, because what we invest, what we put into other people directly correlates to what they offer us.
Speaker 1Yes, and again back to this idea, I actually had another conversation today and I said that I look at a human being kind of like a seed and you put it in the soil and, depending on the soil and the nourishment, the seed is going to grow into this beautiful, magnificent plant. Or like almost nothing, and I feel like for a human being, social interactions is that the most important nourishment?
Speaker 2that you can get. I love that. You're right and this is important for listeners the seed doesn't grow because you hope it will grow.
Speaker 1Yeah.
It doesn't grow because you yell at it to grow. It doesn't grow because you complain about it. It doesn't grow because you think about it. It grows because you take action to nourish it. And that's what we and that's it. That's what this is all about is taking action to fill the most fundamental human need that people have, which is to feel significant.
Speaker 1Yeah, so then people can flourish and release into the world their magnificent gifts that we all are given and we need people's gifts more than ever.
Speaker 2We have increasingly complex problems that are going to require unique strengths, purpose, perspective and wisdom, and what I worry about is, in a world where more and more people are feeling that they don't matter, that we're going to miss out on the very resources we need to solve these problems.
Speaker 1Yes, and I share this sentiment, this thought, and since I was a kid, I felt like every single person is a superhero, but they need certain unlockers or certain tools to get to their gifts so they could release their superpowers and so we, together, we could create a better world and live the most fulfilling lives. Doing that, fiona, I read in your book that you have similar purpose to help more human genius, geniuses to, to express their genius and to give the gifts that they were given to the world.
Speaker 2Yeah, I see my purpose just as a parent, as an educator, as a researcher, as just a human is to help people to realize their own significance. I don't think my job, my task, is to tell people that they're significant, or tell people that they matter, or motivate people or inspire people. I'd see my task as helping people reveal to themselves how people see themselves as significant. Yeah, and that's the only motivation you'll need. Once a human being truly believes that they and what they do matters, they won't need any more motivation.
Speaker 2Yeah, I agree with you he truly believes, and that comes from environment.
Speaker 1Environment, yes, and yeah, environment is such a huge thing, definitely. I just told my dad today, as I told you, I called my parents and I said to my dad I know that it might feel like you, you're not necessarily needed in my life, on the life of my sister, we have our own things. I'm here today doing the things that I do because a when I was a kid, you believed in my dreams.
Speaker 1You always went with me on the craziest adventures to help me I don't know to get to that education, et cetera, because you believed in the vision I had for myself. And to this day, you still do that right, always encouraging, trying out things, and that's the reason why I am where I am right and so that really matters. Right, and I think everyone, if everyone has someone like that in their lives, like we, can create such kind of magnificent things that we don't know about and maybe not even dreaming about. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much again, zach, for writing this book and work, doing your best to spread this beautiful message, to help more people feel more significant, so again they could create the beauty in the world. They give away the gifts and solve the biggest problems. So that's, I think, so, so needed. Is there anything that you'd like to add at the end of this conversation? Maybe leave our listeners with a tool or message or some practice, and then also let our listeners know where they can learn about your work and follow you.
Speaker 2Yeah, my message is don't overthink it. Your next great act will happen in your next interaction. What was this phrase about leaders?
Speaker 1Great leaders. Optimize interactions yes, great leaders.
Speaker 2Leadership is relationships, and when I talk about leadership, I'm talking about anybody who influences anybody. Everybody listening right now influences someone, and so you're a leader by default. Your next great leadership act is your next interaction, and everybody's looking for the next program, platform or next big thing, but it really starts in your next interaction. In your next interaction, can you notice something unique about somebody? Can you name a strength they have? Can you remind them that you believe in them? Can you show them that they're needed in that conversation? And you can. It's all accessible and I guess a way to. If you want to read more, you can go to my website, zachmercuriocom or powerofmatteringcom and learn more about what you can do.
Speaker 2There's some free resources there as well on how to do some of this and how to reflect on it for yourself. There's a free assessment that we talked about in this podcast right there. So join in and join this movement. Commit to doing it.
Speaker 1Yeah, commit to mattering, helping others feel like they are significant and helping yourself to feel the same, and I think like this we can change the world, one interaction at a time. Thank you. Thank you, zach again for your work and being a part of this conversation. Really appreciate you.
Speaker 2Thank you.