Feeling like you don’t matter can be one of the most difficult experiences to explain, particularly when your life appears successful from the outside. You may have built a career, earned the trust of others, taken care of your family, and become someone people depend on, yet still find yourself wondering whether anyone truly sees you beyond what you accomplish or provide. I know that tension because I spent years building a life that looked successful while gradually losing touch with the person I wanted to be.
During the launch of my new book, The Mattering Effect: Creating a Life of Meaning and Worth, I sat down with Emmy Award-winning Fox 13 news anchor Linda Hurtado at the Saint Petersburg Museum of History for a conversation about what happens when our sense of worth becomes disconnected from our achievements. We explored the Great Erasure, the quiet process through which the systems and environments around us measure our output while overlooking our humanity. We also discussed the personal experiences that led me to study mattering, the leadership decisions that can restore it, and Linda’s own experience of leaving a workplace where she no longer felt valued.
Our conversation brought the subject into the places where it matters most: our homes, our workplaces, our relationships, and the private moments when we begin to question whether the life we are building reflects what matters to us. The question that emerged throughout the evening was simple but consequential: what would change if we started treating mattering as a fundamental part of how we live and lead?
Why Success Can Leave You Feeling Like You Don’t Matter
For much of my career, I believed that progress meant accepting greater responsibility, solving increasingly difficult problems, and proving that I could handle whatever came next. I worked long hours, traveled extensively, and climbed the corporate ladder, including during my time at Dell. From the outside, I was doing many of the things people associate with achievement. Internally, however, I was becoming increasingly disconnected from the experiences that made life meaningful.
One of the moments that brought this disconnect into focus happened when my young son was playing with blocks alongside his sister. They were laughing together, absorbed in the kind of ordinary childhood moment that can make a home feel alive. I was physically present, but my attention remained consumed by work. My son looked at me and asked, “Dad, why don’t you ever laugh anymore?”
That question stayed with me because it revealed something I had struggled to recognize in myself. My professional responsibilities had become so consuming that the people I loved were beginning to experience the consequences. I had become very good at meeting external expectations while losing sight of the life those expectations were supposed to support.
A few years later, in 2017, two frightening experiences brought another turning point. Someone burglarizing my home pointed my own gun at me, and three days later I learned that a close friend had died by suicide after jumping from the Skyway Bridge. Those events forced me to reconsider how long I had been postponing the work I felt called to do. I had spent years thinking about how to help people who were lonely, burned out, disengaged, and struggling to find meaning, only to recognize that I was experiencing many of those same difficulties myself.
That realization changed the questions I was asking. I began to see that achievement and fulfillment are related, but they are not interchangeable. A career can give us responsibility, recognition, and financial security while leaving important human needs unattended. When we measure our lives primarily through what we accomplish, we can lose the ability to recognize whether the life behind those accomplishments is one we actually want to inhabit.
The Great Erasure: When the World Measures Your Output but Misses Your Worth
As I studied loneliness, burnout, employee disengagement, and the growing sense of disconnection many people experience, I began to wonder whether these problems were connected by a deeper pattern. We often approach them as separate challenges, each requiring its own solution. My research led me toward a broader question: what happens when people live and work in environments that continually measure their contributions but rarely help them understand their inherent worth?
I came to call this pattern the Great Erasure. The term describes the gradual process through which systems and environments extract our value without reflecting our worth back to us. Organizations measure productivity, performance, revenue, and achievement because those things are visible and relatively easy to track. The human experiences that sustain those outcomes, including trust, belonging, meaning, autonomy, and the feeling that our contributions are recognized, can receive far less attention.
Over time, that imbalance can influence how we see ourselves. If our contributions are consistently evaluated while our needs remain invisible, we may begin to believe that our value depends on remaining useful, productive, agreeable, or successful. We learn to interpret recognition as evidence that we matter and silence as evidence that we have become less important. This can create a fragile relationship with self-worth because our sense of significance becomes dependent on conditions we cannot fully control.
The Great Erasure also helps explain why someone can feel lonely in a crowded room, disconnected inside a thriving organization, or empty after reaching a long-pursued goal. Visibility and mattering are different experiences. A person can be noticed for their performance while feeling unknown as a human being. They can be indispensable to a team while feeling that no one has considered what the work is costing them.
Recognizing this pattern gives us a more useful starting point. Instead of treating every experience of disconnection as an individual failure, we can examine the environments shaping our lives. We can ask whether our workplaces allow people to exercise judgment, whether our relationships make room for reciprocity, and whether our measures of success reflect the human outcomes we ultimately want to create.
How Workplace Culture Can Make People Feel Invisible
One of the most revealing experiences of my leadership career happened at Lowe’s. I joined the company expecting to help address a major security challenge, but on my tenth day, the chief human resources officer told me that my group had scored last in the company’s first employee engagement survey. The results were striking because the organization employed hundreds of thousands of people, and the feedback I initially heard suggested that the group itself was the problem.
As I spent time with employees and managers, I began to understand how much the working environment shaped their experience. People were navigating bureaucracy, limited autonomy, insufficient support, and uncertainty about whether their judgment would be trusted. They were being asked to perform while dealing with barriers that made the work more difficult. The survey had revealed disengagement, but understanding the reasons behind it required listening to the people experiencing the system every day.
I remember one manager, Giles, who had worked at Lowe’s for roughly two decades. I visited him during an overnight shift because I knew that improving the organization required understanding what life looked like for the people closest to the work. After we had built enough trust for an honest conversation, he asked me how I wanted him to get his team to perform better.
I told him that I trusted him to understand his job, and that I wanted to know what support and training he needed, which barriers I was creating, and what bureaucracy was preventing him from doing his work effectively. Giles became emotional because, as he explained, no one in his entire career had asked him those questions.
That moment changed the relationship. Instead of treating him as someone who needed more instructions, I treated him as someone whose experience and judgment could help us improve the organization. We gave him opportunities to share what he was learning, and when he made mistakes, we used them as opportunities for growth. Over time, the approach spread through the group. Two years later, we had moved from the lowest-scoring group in the employee engagement survey to the second highest.
The lesson I took from that experience was that employee engagement is deeply connected to whether people feel trusted, supported, and able to make a meaningful contribution. Leaders influence that experience through the questions they ask, the obstacles they remove, and the degree to which they recognize the people doing the work. A culture begins to change when employees are treated as participants in solving problems rather than simply as resources expected to produce results.
Linda Hurtado on Leaving a Workplace Where She No Longer Felt Valued
Linda brought an important personal perspective to our conversation because she had experienced what it feels like to contribute to an organization for years and then sense that the environment no longer recognizes that contribution. Before joining Fox 13, she had spent two decades at ABC. When new management arrived, she began to feel that her history, relationships, and professional contributions carried less weight than she had expected.
The experience became especially painful when she saw how employment decisions could be shaped by budgets and contracts rather than by the value someone brought to the organization. She loved many of the people she worked with, which made the prospect of leaving more complicated. Her decision involved more than finding another job. It meant separating her loyalty to colleagues from her assessment of whether the workplace remained right for her.
Linda described a conversation with her husband that helped her see the situation differently. He reminded her that she was her own brand, and that her professional identity and the relationships she had built extended beyond the television station. Together, they began preparing for a move to another station in the Tampa Bay area.
As the departure approached, her employer offered a one-month contract extension and then requested a meeting after plans changed. Linda recalled the moment with a line that captured the emotional timing of the experience: “Now I matter, but at that point I was already gone.”
Her story illustrates how recognition can arrive after trust has already eroded. By the time an organization realizes that someone is preparing to leave, the employee may have spent months or years trying to understand whether their contribution is valued. Once a person has decided to move on, a last-minute expression of interest may be insufficient to repair the relationship.
Linda also discovered that many of the nonprofit organizations and community partners she had supported followed her to Fox. Their continued relationships reinforced the idea that her value had never belonged exclusively to one employer. Her experience offers a useful reminder for anyone navigating a similar situation: professional loyalty and personal worth are different things, and recognizing that distinction can help us make decisions with greater clarity.
In this episode, You’ll Learn:
- Why success and achievement can coexist with emptiness, disconnection, and the feeling that you don’t matter.
- What I mean by the Great Erasure, and how environments can measure our productivity while overlooking our worth.
- How workplace culture, autonomy, trust, and meaningful recognition influence employee engagement and well-being.
- What Linda Hurtado’s decision to leave ABC reveals about professional identity, recognition, and knowing when it is time to move on.
- How one question transformed my approach to leadership at Lowe’s and helped my team improve its employee engagement results.
- What parents, leaders, partners, and friends can do to help people feel seen, supported, and valued in everyday life.
How The Mattering Effect Began With a Personal Question
The questions Linda Hurtado and I explored during our conversation grew out of a question I had been trying to understand for years: why can people build lives that look successful while feeling increasingly disconnected from themselves and the people around them? My research into loneliness, burnout, and employee disengagement gradually led me toward a deeper pattern. Across workplaces, relationships, and communities, people were struggling with the experience of feeling valued primarily for what they could produce, provide, or achieve.
That question became the foundation of my new book, The Mattering Effect: Creating a Life of Meaning and Worth, which launched on October 6, 2026. Writing it required me to bring together years of research, conversations with psychologists and leading thinkers, and experiences from my own life that had forced me to reconsider what success meant. I had spent much of my career pursuing achievement, yet some of the moments that taught me the most about meaning came when I began to recognize the distance between the person I appeared to be and the person I was becoming.
During the conversation, Linda helped bring those ideas into focus by asking about the experiences behind the book. I shared the story of my son asking why I no longer laughed, the events that pushed me to reconsider the direction of my life, and the leadership lesson I learned when a manager named Giles became emotional after I asked what support he needed to do his job better. Linda contributed her own experience of leaving a workplace where she no longer felt valued, reminding us that professional identity and personal worth can become entangled in ways that make difficult decisions even harder.
These stories helped illustrate what I mean by the Great Erasure: the gradual process through which the systems and environments around us measure our contributions while overlooking our worth. The Mattering Effect explores how we can recognize that pattern and begin creating conditions in which people feel seen, understood, trusted, and able to make a meaningful difference. It is a book about the human needs that can become obscured by the pursuit of success, and about the choices available to us when we begin paying attention to those needs again.
What excites me most about sharing this work is the possibility that it can change the questions people ask themselves and the people they lead. We can begin to consider whether our workplaces allow people to exercise judgment, whether our relationships make room for care in both directions, and whether our definitions of success reflect the lives we actually want to live. Those questions are relevant to executives and employees, parents and partners, and anyone who has ever wondered whether their contribution is seen beyond the results they deliver.
I wrote The Mattering Effect because I believe understanding our need to matter can help us build more thoughtful relationships, healthier workplaces, and lives with a deeper sense of purpose. If the conversation with Linda resonates with you, I invite you to explore the book and continue reflecting on what it means to feel valued, to recognize the worth of others, and to create environments where people can contribute without losing sight of themselves.
How to Rebuild Your Sense of Mattering in Everyday Life
Mattering becomes meaningful when it shapes the way we treat ourselves and other people. It is expressed through the decisions we make about our time, the relationships we nurture, the work we choose to do, and the attention we give to the people around us. Rebuilding a sense of mattering therefore involves both reflection and action. We need to understand which parts of our lives have become disconnected from our values, and then make changes that restore a more reciprocal relationship between what we give and what we receive.
One place to begin is by examining the conditions under which you feel most like yourself. Consider the relationships in which you feel understood, the activities that create a sense of purpose, and the moments when your attention is fully engaged with the people around you. These experiences can help reveal what gives your life meaning beyond achievement or external recognition.
Another step is to notice where your contribution has become disconnected from your well-being. At work, that may involve identifying unnecessary bureaucracy, asking for better support, or having an honest conversation about the autonomy you need to do your job well. In personal relationships, it may mean explaining what helps you feel appreciated and making room for the other person to express their own needs. Mattering becomes more sustainable when care moves in both directions.
During our conversation, Linda and I also discussed how small acts of attention can influence the way people experience their worth. I believe this begins with something remarkably ordinary. When a child comes home, give them your undivided presence before asking about homework or responsibilities. Let your face show that seeing them is a meaningful moment in your day. That same principle applies to adults, colleagues, partners, and friends. People need to experience that they matter to us through the way we listen, respond, and make room for them.
Leaders can apply this principle by acknowledging contributions in ways that are meaningful to each person, asking employees what support they need, and removing barriers that prevent them from doing good work. Some people appreciate public recognition, while others feel most respected when they are trusted with meaningful responsibility. Understanding those differences takes attention, but it can transform the quality of a working relationship.
The broader point is that mattering develops through repeated experiences. A single conversation can create a turning point, as it did with Giles, but the deeper change comes when people consistently experience trust, support, recognition, and genuine care. Those conditions help individuals see themselves as more than the sum of their output and help communities become places where people can contribute without losing themselves in the process.
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About John R. Miles
I’m the author of Passion Struck, winner of the Gold Stevie® Award for Best Business Book and a Next Big Idea Club Must-Read, and the host of the Passion Struck podcast, with more than 85 million downloads.
As a former Fortune 50 executive and U.S. Navy officer, I’ve spent more than two decades synthesizing insights from psychology, neuroscience, behavioral science, leadership, and human flourishing to understand why so many people quietly lose their sense of significance despite outward success.
My work has been featured in Fortune, Inc., Forbes, ABC, NBC, Fox, and Writer’s Digest, and I’ve appeared on leading podcasts including 10% Happier with Dan Harris, The Next Big Idea Daily, and FranklinCovey On Leadership.
About Linda Hurtado
Linda Hurtado is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and anchor at FOX 13 Tampa Bay, known for her storytelling, community engagement, and decades of experience in broadcast journalism. Before joining FOX 13, she spent 20 years at ABC, building meaningful relationships with colleagues and community organizations throughout the Tampa Bay area. Her career reflects a commitment to connecting with people and bringing their stories to a wider audience. In her conversation with John R. Miles on Passion Struck, Linda shares a personal perspective on workplace belonging, professional identity, and the importance of recognizing your worth beyond the organization you serve.
Why Your Need to Be Needed Is Destroying YOU | Mick Hunt & John R. Miles
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can I feel like I don’t matter even when I’m successful?
Success can provide recognition, financial security, and a sense of progress, while leaving needs for belonging, connection, and purpose unmet. When most of our attention goes toward achieving external goals, we may lose sight of whether our relationships, daily experiences, and choices reflect what matters to us. My own experience taught me that achievement alone cannot answer every question about meaning and worth.
What is the Great Erasure?
The Great Erasure is the term I use to describe the way systems and environments can extract our value without reflecting our worth back to us. They may measure productivity, performance, and achievement while overlooking the human needs that help people feel valued and connected. Over time, this imbalance can contribute to feeling invisible, disengaged, or disconnected from our own sense of purpose.
How does feeling unappreciated at work affect employees?
Feeling unappreciated can weaken trust, reduce engagement, and make it harder for employees to see meaning in their work. When people face unnecessary barriers or feel that their judgment is ignored, they may become less willing to contribute beyond the minimum expected of them. My experience at Lowe’s showed me how listening, offering support, and giving employees greater autonomy can help create a more engaged workplace.
What can leaders do to help employees feel that they matter?
Leaders can begin by asking employees what support they need, which obstacles prevent them from doing their jobs well, and where they need greater autonomy. They can recognize contributions in ways that are meaningful to each person, create opportunities for people to share their experience, and treat mistakes as opportunities for learning. These actions help establish that employees are trusted participants in the organization’s success.
How can I rebuild my sense of worth and purpose?
Start by examining the relationships, activities, and responsibilities that help you feel connected to your values. Look for areas where achievement has taken priority over well-being, and consider what changes would restore a healthier balance. Communicating your needs, building reciprocal relationships, and spending more intentional time with people who see and understand you can help you reconnect with a sense of mattering.
What is the difference between success and mattering?
Success generally describes the achievement of goals or the attainment of particular outcomes. Mattering concerns the experience of being valued, significant, and able to make a meaningful contribution. The two can reinforce one another, but success does not automatically create a sense of worth. A person can achieve considerable professional recognition while still feeling unseen in their relationships or disconnected from their purpose.
Why did Linda Hurtado decide to leave her workplace?
Linda described how, after two decades at ABC, changes in management left her feeling that her contributions and experience were no longer valued as she had expected. With her husband’s support, she began preparing to move to another station. Her eventual decision to leave was difficult because she cared about her colleagues, but she later found that many of the community organizations she had worked with followed her to Fox, reinforcing her understanding that her professional identity extended beyond one employer.
What is The Mattering Effect about?
The Mattering Effect: Creating a Life of Meaning and Worth explores why people can feel overlooked or disconnected despite their achievements and what helps restore a sense of significance. Drawing on research, interviews, and personal experiences, I examine the Great Erasure and offer a practical way to think about the conditions that support mattering in our relationships, workplaces, and communities.
