Deep Dive with Jennifer Wallace on Mattering & Making

Kelly Corrigan Wonders

Kelly Corrigan Show

Society & Culture

4.8 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this conversation recorded live at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Kelly explores two fundamental human drives with panel moderator Dave DeSteno (host of the podcast How God Works) and author of the new book Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose, Jennifer B. Wallace - our deep need to feel valued and our instinct to create. Jennifer shares her research on "mattering" and why so many people today feel invisible, while Kelly makes the case that creativity isn't a luxury but essential for our wellbeing. Together, they uncover why showing genuine interest in others matters more than praise, how economic pressures are driving perfectionism in families and the surprising ways that making things with our hands can change how we see the world. Kelly and Jennifer Wallace will be together in person, in New Caanan, CT on October 29th, 2025. We'll add the link for the event here in the show notes as soon as it becomes available. Special thanks to our friends at the Aspen Ideas Festival. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly Corrigan. And today I'm wondering about these two ancient human drives that really shape who we are, our need to matter, and our instinct to create.
0:16.1	With insights from a panel I joined at the Aspen Ideas Festival alongside my friend, journalist, and bestselling author, Jennifer Wallace.
0:24.1	Our moderator, Dave Desteno, did such a perfect job of setting the stage.
0:28.0	I think we'll just cut right to it and let him explain.
0:30.9	Here's my conversation with Dave Desteno and Jennifer Wallace.
0:36.9	Good afternoon, everyone.
0:38.6	We have lots of traits as humans,
0:41.1	but two stand above the rest when it comes to defining us.
0:45.2	The first is that we're a social species,
0:47.8	and that means we depend on our relationships with other people,
0:51.2	not just to survive, but to thrive.
0:54.5	We have a deep desire to know that we're needed,
0:58.4	that our tribe values not only our contributions,
1:01.6	but our person, that we matter.
1:04.9	It's in the intricacies of interaction,
1:07.3	the sense that we get of mattering or not,
1:10.1	that we find joy or despair. The second trait is our
1:13.9	creativity, and like mattering, it's been with us for a long time. Over two and a half million years ago,
1:19.7	our ancestors were making something called Oldawan tools, which are simple rocks that they would
1:25.6	chip off a few flakes,
1:27.7	so that they could scrape and cut better.
1:30.4	Now, that might not sound like much,
	...

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