#186: Jennifer Breheny Wallace — The Science of Mattering, Outrunning Your Inner Critic, Building a Writing Life Around Deep Work

Mar 22, 2026

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Award-winning journalist and bestselling author Jennifer Breheny Wallace on mattering, resilience through relationships, and the writing practices behind two New York Times bestselling nonfiction books.

You’ll learn

Why resilience as a writer has far less to do with self-care routines and far more to do with the people you surround yourself with.
How to tell whether your idea is a series of articles or a book, and what structural test separates one from the other.
A practical way to ask for feedback on your writing that actually leads to useful criticism instead of vague encouragement.
Why putting yourself in a nonfiction book can transform it, even if every journalistic instinct tells you not to.
The writing schedule that let a journalist with three kids produce two bestselling books, and why it starts at 4AM.
Why your inner critic tends to sleep in, and how to take advantage of the hours before it wakes up.
A visual trick involving artist sketches that can help you push through the frustration of early drafts.
What a lesson from Morley Safer at 60 Minutes reveals about the tension between accuracy and storytelling in nonfiction.
The surprising research behind mattering and why it goes deeper than self-esteem, belonging, or purpose on their own.
A 30-second daily practice that can help you reconnect to your sense of purpose when long-term projects leave you feeling stuck.

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About Jennifer Breheny Wallace

Jennifer Wallace is an award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling book Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — And What We Can Do About It, which was named an Amazon Best Book of the Year. Wallace has contributed to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Jennifer began her journalism career in television at “60 Minutes”. She lives in New York City.

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