Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Zach Mercurio on How Leaders Can Help People Feel Seen | EP 610
Tue, 13 May 2025
In this compelling conversation, John R. Miles is joined by Dr. Zach Mercurio, one of the world’s leading voices on purposeful leadership and the psychology of mattering. As the author of The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Cultivate a Culture of Significance (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025), Zach brings decades of research to a timely discussion on why people are craving something deeper at work—and how leaders can answer that call.Click here for the full show notes: https://passionstruck.com/zach-mercurio-how-leaders-help-people-feel-seen/Join the Ignition Room!Join the new free Passion Struck Community to win Passion Struck merchandise! - The Ignition Room: https://station.page/passionstruckTogether, John and Zach explore:Why mattering is a survival instinct—not a luxuryHow invisibility and disengagement are symptoms of a “mattering deficit”What truly great leaders do to make people feel seen, heard, and neededThe science behind “reflected appraisals” and how small actions affirm significanceA simple, powerful framework: Noticing, Affirming, NeedingWhether you're leading a team, a family, or your own life, this episode will change the way you understand human motivation—and how to ignite potential by making others feel they matter.Click to connect to Zach Mercurio - https://www.zachmercurio.com/Catch More of Passion Struck:My solo episode on Why Hustle Culture Is Toxic (And How to Break Free From It)Can't miss my episode with Homaira Kabir on How You Overcome the Tyranny of PerfectionMy episode with Susan Cain on What is the Happiness of Being BittersweetListen to my interview with Thomas Curran on Breaking Free From the Perfection TrapCatch my interview with Matthew Weintrub on the Psychedelic Origin of ReligionListen to my solo episode on Why You Should Avoid the Trap of Effortless PerfectionIf you liked the show, please leave us a review—it only takes a moment and helps us reach more people! Don’t forget to include your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally.How to Connect with John:Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMilesFollow him on Instagram at @John_R_MilesSubscribe to our main YouTube Channel and to our YouTube Clips ChannelFor more insights and resources, visit John’s websiteWant to explore where you stand on the path to becoming Passion Struck? Take our 20-question quiz on Passionstruck.com and find out today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the importance of mattering in leadership?
Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck. Welcome to Episode 610 of the Passion Struck Podcast.
Whether this is your first time tuning in or you've been with us from the beginning, I am so grateful you're here. Together, we're building a movement grounded in one powerful idea. You don't have to settle. You can live with intention. Lead with purpose and make what truly matters, matter most. Before diving in, I've got something exciting to share.
We just launched the PassionStruck clothing line. And to celebrate, we're giving away free gear to new members of the Ignition Room. The Ignition Room is our free listener space where we go deeper after every episode with exclusive debriefs, reflection prompts, and a place to ask your questions and connect with our team.
Each new member this month will be entered into a drawing to win a PassionStruck t-shirt and hat from the new collection. To enter, just visit the show notes and join the Ignition Room. It's completely free.
today's conversation is part of an ongoing series exploring a fundamental truth mental well-being is not a side note it's the infrastructure of a purposeful life and all month long we've been diving deep into mental health awareness month and not just to raise awareness but to shift the conversation from crisis to capacity Because mental health isn't just about coping. It's about mattering.
It's about meaning. It's about feeling like you are seen, heard, and needed. Last week, I released a solo episode outlining five foundational mental health habits that can create inner resilience and emotional sustainability in the modern world. And last Tuesday, I sat down with Dr. Andrew Newberg, who revealed how belief,
awe and spiritual connection reshape the brain and restore our sense of wholeness. And on Thursday, I was then joined by behavioral scientist Elizabeth Weingarten, whose work reframes uncertainty as a gateway to deeper courage, creativity, and emotional truth.
These conversations built the groundwork for what we're unpacking today, because at the center of this entire month is one critical, often overlooked idea, mattering is medicine. And that's exactly what we're exploring with today's guest, Dr. Zach Mercurio.
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Chapter 2: How does belonging differ from mattering in the workplace?
In this conversation, we dive into the neuroscience and psychology behind mattering, how the lack of mattering leads to burnout, disengagement, and despair, why the best leaders are noticers, people who affirm and elevate those around them, and how three deceptively simple practices, noticing, affirming, and needing, can transform entire cultures from the inside out.
Whether you're a team leader, parent, or someone who's ever questioned their worth, this is a conversation about reclaiming your humanity and helping others to do the same. So let's get into it. Here's my conversation with the brilliant Dr. Zach Mercurio. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
Now, let that journey begin. I am absolutely honored and truly ecstatic today to have Dr. Zach Mercurio on PassionStruck. Welcome, Zach. Thanks, John. Likewise. I think the feeling's mutual. I am so excited to have you. You are the author of a brand new book called The Power of Mattering.
And I am so excited to do this conversation because this is right up the direct alley of PassionStruck and our listener base. And this whole book is talking about the importance of mattering at work. But I'm just so glad you've gotten this into the world. You must feel relieved and really ready to ignite the world with this content.
A lot of people have asked me, like, Zach, why did you want to write this book? And I say, I did not want to write this book. I felt that I had to write this book. The evidence is so clear as there's a reason why people more than ever right now are talking about mattering. There's a reason why you're writing a book. I'm writing a book. Other people are writing books about mattering.
And usually that happens when people experience the opposite of a phenomenon.
So true. I reached out to Katie Melkman and I said, hey, Katie, I'm working on what I think is the most important project I've ever worked on in my career. When I started down the path of writing this book, because for me, it's really something deeply personal. It started when I was five years old after I had a traumatic brain injury.
And I felt invisible at that point in my life because of the aftermath. And so it's something that is in part of my life from a very early age. But I think something you and I both share is I hear a lot of people talking about symptoms and you hear about the loneliness epidemic and The hopelessness epidemic and people feeling burned out and broken and battered, whatever word you want to use.
And for a while, I thought they were all separate conditions. But the more I have been investing into it, I think they're all symptoms of an underlying lack of significance that people feel in their lives. And I think you feel the same way.
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Chapter 3: What is the science behind feeling significant?
And ironically, researchers find in the workplace, for example, that is the key, the quality of the interactions. is the key to reducing loneliness, not the quantity. So I think you're right on.
Well, thank you for sharing that, Zach. And I want to jump into this. In the book you write, our first instinct in life is to matter. And that's a pretty profound claim. Our first instinct in life is to matter. When did you first realize that and how did it shape your mission to study this as part of your doctoral research, to write this book, to write the book that you did before this?
The first memory I have from when my first son was born is I remember him reaching out his hand and grasping onto my index finger really tightly with his tiny little hand. And that was so powerful to me because he immediately calmed down. But I started studying what it means to matter, what it means to experience significance.
And I realized that I was experiencing 6 million years of fine-tuned programming in that grip. Scientists call that grip the grasp reflex. It's one of several reflexes we're born with. Immediately after we open our eyes, we reach out our arms to matter to someone enough to keep us alive.
a really interesting thought experiment for everybody listening right now is to think none of us would be here right now if at some point in our lives we hadn't mattered enough to another person so they would keep us alive.
And in thinking about mattering as a survival instinct helps us to understand how as we grow up, that instinct turns into the fundamental need to feel seen, heard, valued, and needed. And it gets out of this idea that mattering is a preference. It's not a preference to matter. It's a survival instinct to matter. And it's a fundamental need for almost everything else that we say we want.
Now, the way this has looked for me is that my first research study was with a group of janitors, with cleaners at a university. And we embedded ourselves with them for a year and a half, a very difficult job, often overlooked. And we were trying to study what contributed to meaningful work, which is the experience that your work is significant.
And I quickly realized that these people only experienced their work as significant when they felt significant. And it was in very small moments. I remember one janitor told me that the most meaningful part of her job in a 20-year career was when a student walked into the building, looked her in the eye, said, hey, Susan, and said, hey, it's great to see you today.
A 20-year career, that is the moment. And then since that, for the last five years, we've been studying what is the architecture of moments of mattering? What are the things people do that create these very small moments that can dramatically alter people's career and their lives?
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Chapter 4: How can leaders cultivate a culture of significance?
What do you think, John? Well, I completely agree with you. And I don't want to give out too much of my book coming up, but I have this model that has four components to it. And one of them is that from a personal perspective, we have to feel like we matter. But then there's a reciprocal component to it where others need in turn to make us feel like we matter.
And in turn, we make other people feel like they matter. And then what ends up happening, it ripples from there. And it reminds me of a line that you have in the book, people need to feel value to add value. And no matter how you look at it, it really turns the conventional model on its head. And I think this is where so many organizations get it backwards. That's really well put.
And I like that because what is important about those interactions in which we see our significance is that those interactions give us the evidence of our significance. One of the ways they do that is it's called reflected appraisals. Reflected appraisals are the little components of evidence that are introduced to us that help build our beliefs about ourselves.
And what you're saying is spot on because there are two beliefs that we need to have of ourselves to motivate any action. We need to believe that we're worthy. That's what's called self-esteem. And we need to believe that we're capable, called self-efficacy. Those are actually the two most potent predictors of things like workplace performance or productivity. And why is that?
Because again, we need to feel valued to develop those beliefs so that we have the confidence to go out and add value. And then we know that when we come back after we're adding value, that someone has our back, that someone supports us. So I think you're right on with that model.
Well, and what you're describing, whether it's self-efficacy, Albert Bandura, or you talk about in the book, Learn Helplessness, which goes all the way back to Marty Seligman's early work. You have all these people who are touching around the peripheral of this issue. And I think what your work, my work is trying to do is we're trying to show how all of this interconnects.
These aren't separate, distinct theories. They're all pulling towards this mattering deficit, as you've correctly put it. And this is why I love that a major component of your book is this whole idea that You can't have a healthy organization if you have unhealthy people. And one of the people who endorsed your book is Claude Silver, who's been on the show.
And what I love about Claude in this example is Gary V, who she works for, understood this very well. And that's why he made her the first chief heart officer, because he didn't want to look at the position as your typical CHRO, Chief Human Resources Officer, he really wanted someone who was looking at the pulse of the people.
And if you're looking at the pulse of the people, it's not just about them in the work environment. You got to see all of them. And I think that's something that a lot of companies get wrong is they don't, they only tend, I ran into this myself. You tend to see Mike, the person you work with only for the role that they're in.
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Chapter 5: What are common symptoms of a mattering deficit?
I need you to just do your job. That was five years prior. She said that one moment shut her down. She said she just clocked in, clocked out. And guess who she told? She told her team, hey, don't share your voice. Nobody's going to listen to you. And what quickly happened was this small moment, because I think we talked about this, that mattering happens in moments and interactions.
So too does anti-mattering, the feeling that we're insignificant, very small, often routine moments of being looked over, talked over, not listened to, can get that belief that I just don't quite matter. And then you go and tell other people and people say, eh, nothing we say will matter.
And that devolves into what's called learned helplessness, which is the belief that I won't, can't, and never will matter. And it is such a killer on a team in an organization. It spreads like a brush fire. And one of the reasons why is because when people feel that they don't matter, two behaviors typically follow. They either withdraw.
they isolate, they stay silent, or the terminal withdrawal response has been branded by organizations as turnover. Usually turnover is the inevitable withdrawal response to feeling insignificant. Quiet quitting. I don't know if you remember that trend, John, but that was a, that quiet quitting again was misdiagnosed as a symptom of people who feel insignificant.
So they're going to withdraw versus people are saying, oh, this is like a lazy entitled generation. Or It can be much louder. And I think this is important for listeners that people either act in withdrawal when they feel insignificant or they act out in desperation. They're desperate for the attention that they're not getting.
Think about how we behave and our bodies and minds activate when any survival instinct is threatened. Think about how you feel when you don't get sleep. Think about how you feel when you don't eat. How we feel when we don't matter is we scratch and claw. And acts of desperation can be things like complaining, blaming, gossiping, protesting, all of these things that we've termed toxic.
That's my toxic employee. That's a difficult employee. And in my practice, when I've really dug deep, many of the most quote unquote difficult employees are also the most unseen, unheard, unvalued employees as well.
So it can be incredibly corrosive in an organization and all it takes is a moment for someone to get evidence that they aren't significant for them to start believing they're not significant.
Zach, there are a couple of things in the book that I think go into what you were just saying that are quotes that I want leaders who are listening to this to remember. One of the things that you write is that many motivation issues are really anti-mattering issues in disguise.
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Chapter 6: How does anti-mattering manifest in organizations?
He would go to their other sports games. He would show up outside the cafeteria. He would become friendly with their friends so he knew them better.
and he also was a great listener one of the things that happens in hockey is that lines need to be changed lines are the configurations of where hockey players are sent off the bench to to get on the ice together and if someone wanted to change lines he would say okay go talk to all the coaches and let's see if it's a good idea to them if they say it's a good idea let's try it and see how it works and then i'm going to schedule a meeting with you to see how you think it went
He would let them try these ideas. I think the next year they lost five games. And then repeatedly they were ranked in the top percentages of high school teams without any major change in talent level. And I think that you see this when you look at studies of athletes, when you look at studies of coaches. The best coaches seem to see the person before the athlete.
They create what we just called that secure base. I can go out and try and fail because someone has my back and he's has an amazing story. So I highly recommend his book. Let them lead.
Yeah. And if you want to listen to it, you can listen to the just search passion struck John you bacon, and you'll find it. And it really leads back to that whole story. that I talked about with Lowe's because the part of the story I left out was two years later when they did the employee disengagement survey, our employee engagement survey again, that same group
went from the worst in the company to the second highest in performance. And similar to his hockey team, a few of the chairs I switched out, but I would say 85 to 88% of the organization was the same as what I inherited. It was just, treating people differently that made the huge difference.
Yeah, and seeing them differently too. There's something I write about in our research on why people struggle with this is that we have labels for everything in our organizations, high performers, low performers, high potentials, difficult people, toxic people, introverts, extroverts, right? But the moment you label someone is the moment you're seeking to understand them.
And you're susceptible to self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you see someone as a low performer, you tend to treat them as a low performer. And when they see themselves as a low performer, they tend to act like a low performer. And the cycle continues. And what I love about what John Bacon did is he broke the cycle. He saw them all as having potential. He saw them all as unique, important people.
And I think that's so important, that seeing people for the full human being that they are before their role is essential for them to perform in that role.
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