John R. Miles

A few years ago, went to Texas and I participated in a four by four by 48 challenge to bring awareness to traumatic brain injuries and mental health issues that many veterans are going through and

There were about 100 other veterans who were there, and Morgan Luttrell and his brother Marcus were supposed to be there, but Morgan was in the process of running for his first term at the time, so he couldn't be.

But what was interesting to me, because it's not something that I often talk to other veterans about, but at that event, I did, 99.99% of us were experiencing the same repercussions.

And

What's troubling about this is that it's very difficult to diagnose between the long-term effects of TBIs and post-traumatic stress disorder.

So it often gets mislabeled as a mental issue instead of what it actually is.

And I think a lot of veterans feel invisible, misunderstood, minimized.

I know just personally, it's led to a lot of suicides for veterans because they're not getting

the help they need.

But so first, I wanted to thank you and Morgan for sponsoring this because I think it is so important, not just for veterans, but first responders and other people.

But what parallels do you see between how we've treated brain injury and overall how we're treating women's health?

Because to me, there are like a lot of similarities between the two.

What do you think it would look like if we design systems around human lives and not these idealized timelines that happen to us?

Yeah, well, I am so glad you brought that up, Sarah, because some of what you were just talking about is one of the most important things that I'm concerned about, which is this whole topic of belonging.

And when I think of the fact here in America that 40% of our teenagers are feeling constantly sad or hopeless, to me, it comes right back to this issue of feeling like they matter in their lives.

So I've actually taken on a project.

I call it the mattering verse.

And the first phase of this is I've written a children's book called You Matter Luma comes out in February, but I'm trying to attack this when kids are four to 10 years old, because that's when

this whole value system starts breaking down.

And the reasons it's breaking down is to what you just described.