Gordon Flett

And for those who need to have it in terms of dollars or cents, I prefer to focus on the human costs of not promoting mattering, but the actual costs in terms of

We're talking workplace absenteeism, lost productivity, cost to the health system.

There are so many objective indicators that would suggest this is the way to go as well.

But at the end of the day, of course, the people who engage in this just feel better about themselves in terms of making a difference in somebody else's life.

So, yeah, if there's somebody out there with a trillion dollars and they want to really make a difference.

And I've heard this because I've sat in on meetings with donors, nobody with a trillion.

in my role formerly as research dean at our university and faculty of health, these people, big donors, there's a subset of them who really do want to improve society.

And I would say, if that's the case, take that money, put it into action in terms of promoting mattering.

And you'll never be feeling that there was an ounce of energy or money wasted.

I have to say about Yuri Bronfenbrenner, a hero of mine, and I actually had a very close brush with him because I was at a conference in Washington and I was speaking with my wife.

I said, wait a minute, I hear a voice behind me.

I know who that voice is.

And I want to point out, he was often in Washington because he was going in front of the policymakers.

in terms of advocacy and the main message there of somebody needs to be crazy about the kid.

So what this would look like in terms of societal change, just as one example, I've made the case and gone on radio in Canada saying, why don't we just have an hour a week in the schools?

Forget about the curriculum.

And let's just focus on promoting the well-being of these young people and their teachers and everybody else in the school in a way that will also intrigue many of them to pursue a career probably

in psychology or counseling.

And I've seen schools that have done this, and unfortunately, it's not documented where people can find it.

But just one example, we had this resilience project with six schools, and I oversaw the research, and I actually looked at every single data point for every kid in that study.