Gordon Flett

So when we talk about in psychology about mindfulness, I say we need to be mindful about mattering and, you know, mattering mindfulness where we say, okay, not just in the here and now, but how have we thought about ourselves in terms of making a difference to other people?

What do you hear in that clip, Gord?

What's going on?

Mattering is so subjective where people can very easily lose sight of having an impact on others that they don't realize.

This is quite common with teachers where they don't realize, they get frustrated, maybe focused on the one student who doesn't seem to be getting it rather than all the ones who are getting it.

and a key thing is that mattering is subjective that it's our appraisals of how we think you know do we matter to others are others holding us in esteem that's why it's very important to show somebody they matter in a way so it's not subjective and in the clip of course the famous clip of that student is the governor who's come back now to be part of the band to play

Mr. Holland's opus that he never got to have.

And, you know, I said, how wonderful it would be for everybody who's facing a job transition, whether it's retirement or whatever, to have people come and just express their appreciation and just tell a very quick story.

So I mentioned this at a conference just back in the fall of last year.

And in the question period, a teacher put up her hand, an educator, and she said, this notion of not being able to see what effect you've had on others.

She goes, I was recently contacted by a parole officer of a former student who said that the student provided her name as somebody to contact to essentially a character reference.

And she said, I remember the student as being someone who I thought I just didn't get through to.

But when asked, he said that he's giving her name because she is the only one who saw him for what he was, who really gave him a sense of being valued and cared about.

Yet she, until that point, had not realized that she actually had that kind of an impact on the young man.

So we're often not a good judge of how much impact we have of others, which makes me

That sense of not mattering or not sure if you're mattering, very insidious and potentially destructive.

And I've seen cases where I say, you know, it's too bad the person never realized how much regard others had for him or her or they.

Yeah, it's such an excellent and underscored point that, you know, the quality of the relationships, the quality, that sense of somebody truly caring and you know they care and they're not going to forget you is a huge thing here.

you know, in terms of that one-to-one relationship, I always come back to the famous book by Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Maury, and referring to a former professor as coach and going to see him right through to his final days due to his illness as he's approaching the end of his life.

That's, I think, what made that book so famous, is that people could relate to that basic feeling of having somebody who cares that much about you.