The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

Welcome to Raising Good Humans podcast. I'm Dr. Eliza Pressman, and I'm so excited to share with you this episode on Mattering with New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Wallace.

Mattering the secret to a life of deep connection and purpose.

Jenny wrote a book that we've talked about a couple of times on this podcast called Never

Enough.

And this is the book that she wished she had written before she wrote Never Enough

about achievement culture and kind of the toxic part of achievement culture and what we can do about it.

And the real antidote is for humans, adults and kids have a deep sense of mattering.

So that's today's episode.

And I hope everybody enjoys 2026 as a year to both feel deep mattering themselves and to give others that deep sense.

And we're going to show you how to do that.

All right.

So we have been waiting for this mattering book since you wrote never enough.

Can you just help everybody frame what is mattering?

Why did you realize or how did you realize how important mattering was and maybe just a little bit

for those who don't know what never enough was just in case on the off chance that they don't

know about all of this can you frame this can you Can you tee up this conversation? Totally. So I published

Never Enough about achievement culture in young people and how there was so much pressure on young

people to achieve that they were struggling with heightened anxiety, depression, substance abuse disorder.

And I went in search of the kids who were doing well, despite the pressure.

They had a lot in common, but it boiled down to mattering, that the kids who were doing well,

despite the pressure, felt like they mattered for who they were at their core,

...