John R. Miles

Hey, friends, welcome to Episode 718 of Passion Struck.

We're continuing our series, The Meaning Makers.

Last week in my solo episode, I discussed the architecture of significance, and we uncovered the structure that emerges when the noise of achievement fades.

Earlier this week, we explored the raw materials of the human bond with two of the most insightful minds in their fields.

On Tuesday, Dr. Steven Sloman joined us to unpack collective intelligence.

how meaning isn't something we create in a vacuum, but something we find in the between-us space of shared beliefs and sacred values.

Then yesterday, Alex Emus dove into the psychology of trade-offs and a phenomenon called the winner's curse, helping us understand why the things we fight hardest to win are often the very things that weaken our internal structure.

Together, they help us see a profound truth, significance,

is the architecture we reveal in silence, but meaning is the binding agent we apply together.

We often think of our lives as a collection of heavy things.

We talk about the weight of our responsibilities, the solid nature of our achievements, and the massive goals we're trying to move.

We spend years cutting these stones, shaping them, and hauling them into place.

thinking that if we just stack enough of them high enough, we will finally have built something that lasts.

But if you look closely at the ruins of history, and at the ruins of many modern lives, you'll see that it's rarely the stones that fail, it's the space between them.

Without a bond, a pile of the most expensive limestone in the world is still just a pile.

It's shifting, it's vulnerable.

In our own lives, we call that feeling quiet disorientation.

It's that haunting suspicion that while we have all the right pieces in place, we are still one heavy wind away from it all coming down.

we are moving from the stones to the space between them we're moving from the architecture we build in private to the mortar we apply together before we dive in a quick note on a project that mirrors these themes of significance we often spend our adult lives trying to rediscover the value we should have been anchored in as children my new children's book you matter luma is a bridge to that truth a reminder that your significance isn't earned by your performance it is a fact of your existence

You can pre-order it now in Barnes & Noble or go to youmatterluma.com.