Gordon Flett

satisfy your sense of mattering by getting people who come to depend on you through coaching mentoring just being that person who reaches out to them when you're worrying about this and then and it comes back to you so it's sort of like an investment where you're investing in your own sense of well-being by by doing that and establishing those relationships with people who care about you and it's the best the best kind of mattering is reciprocal mattering where you matter to each other

Yes, people, I think, forget what they've done for other people.

They just lose sight of how much difference they've made in the lives of other people.

You know, they say everybody at some time has dark thoughts.

But, you know, at that point, that would be a great time to think about somebody who you've made a difference to, who would miss you.

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