The options available on each member's individualized site are summarized in the picture below, and explained in more detail thereafter.
Individualized membership sites
Our students and clients become members of the FlourishWell4Life community. They each receive their own individualized membership site where all their specific membership's resources (e-assistants, e-workshops, conditioning systems, trackers and multimedia-based enrichment material) are available in one place, where all their assessment scores and corrsponding recommendations are retrievable, where all their interactions with the various interactive resources (available from their specific memberships) are saved in e-journals, where they can follow their progress on their chosen trackers over time, where they can access their individualized leaderboards, and where they can access all the certifications and badges they have earned on their FlourishWell4Life journey.
The options available on each member's individualized site are summarized in the picture below, and explained in more detail thereafter.
FlourishWell4Life utilizes social media to create communities of members, like Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagam. For example, a Twiiter feed is displayed on the "My Community" section of a member's site that tweets automatically whenever members complete assessments, submit e-workshop activities, make e-journal entries, and so on. Members can therefore see what others in the community are doing, and the community can see what they are doing. The utilisation of social media promotes the social interaction intrinsic motivator, i.e. the need to belong and to be connected to and interact with others.
The "My Community" option is also utilized to "push" appropriate news items and notifications, for example news about new offerings/products, news about the leaderboards, news about possible new challenges, etc.
Each member has a few simple, yet intelligent, applications on his/her FlourishWell4Life site available to help him/her decide which combination of e-workshops, conditioning systems, trackers and multimedia is best suited to his/her needs and preferences (called "My Assistants"). These "wizards" use a few easy-to-answer questions and requests to compile an individualized recommendation for a member.
Members have access to a wide variety of e-workshops from the "My e-Workshops" member's option. All e-workshops are designed according to the so-called "Grok-Gauge-Grow-Track" model. Each workshop starts with a multimedia presentation to introduce the topic and the key concepts (Grok). This is followed by an appropriate assessment (Gauge) and journal activities and -exercises (Grow). All assessments and journal activities and -exercises are recorded, archived and reported on a member's site (Track), and can be retrieved as long as somebody stays a member. e-Workshop certification assessments and achievements are also tracked and reported (see also "My Achievements") option. More detail about the composition of our workshops can be studied here, including an explanation of our blended approach that also include face-to-face workshops (with a strong e-component).
The main themes addressed by these e-workshops, and their target groups, are:
This page contains lists of topics for each of these themes.
Studies were conducted to determine the characteristics, qualities and/or personality factors / traits of happy, well, successful, fulfilled, highly effective, prosperous, thriving, principled, lucky and ingenious people, of great leaders, thinkers, entrepreneurs and millionaires, and of people like Jesus, Leonardo da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin. Models of happiness, wellness, success, emotional intelligence, positive psychology, personality, wealth, thinking, leadership, entrepreneurship and genius were therefore studied. These models, or sets of desired characteristics or personality traits (as we define these models), form the basis of our conditioning products. Our conditioning products attempt to equip our users with the necessary skills and habits to acquire these qualities and / or habits. Examples products are UBHappy2 (You Be Happy Too), UBWell2 (You Be Well Too), UBASuccess2 (You Be A Success Too), UBHopeful2 (You Be Hopeful Too), UBGritty2 (You Be Gritty Too) and UBVirtuous2 (You Be Virtuous Too).
The conditioning concept is best described by describing the basics of such a conditioning system - let's consider UBWell2 (You Be Well Too). UBWell2 consists of a number of "Inspire-U-2-Have-Characteric"-modules specifically designed to develop the various aspects/dimensions of wellness, a tracking component and an individualized e-journal for each member.
Each "Inspire-U-2-module" contains powerful quotations that inspire members to develop a specific characteristic. Thousands of quotations are incorporated in total. UBWell2 is available in eBook, multimedia slideshow, web-based flash, text and mobile friendly web formats. The multimedia versions contain voice, music and pictures (based on themes) and uses accelerated learning principles.
Each user's interaction with UBWell2 is tracked via web forms: The student must indicate which type of modules he/she consulted on which date and for how long, provide his opinion about the quality and meaning of the modules, indicate to what life areas he/she is going to apply the lessons learnt and compile an action plan on integrating the lessons learnt in his/her life.
All users also have access on their own personalized and secure webpages to an e-journal that contains a complete record of their interactions with UBWell2 and that summarises statistically how they have utilised the various Inspire-U-2 modules.
A more in depth look at the conditioning system (more than just the basics), as well as a list of all our conditioning titles, can be found here.
All the major app stores have numerous apps that track things like personal goals, weight levels, specific habits, exercise goals and so forth. FlourishWell4Life also caters for this need of quantifying the self. All our trackers are based on evidence-based approaches and aim to advance our PERMA-V, wellness and neuroplasticity ambitions. Our approach has the advantage that all one's trackers can be found in one place and also that one's tracking records are accessible from one membershio site, one's individualized FlourishWell4Life site.
Three kinds of trackers that are also supported by FlourishWell4Life (apart from the normal ones typically found on app stores) are described and illustrated below: Daily e-journaling in response to specific questions, weekly tracking of habits by grading your involvement in specific activities, and daily tracking of well-being attitudes and habits, again by grading your involvement. Also remember that tracking also takes place within the various e-workshops and conditioning systems.
Our first large-scale implementation of trackers was the BeWell Mentor Wellness project at Stellenbosch University. One of the tracking activities we use within BeWell is a daily e-journaling activity within which our students are challenged to answer a series of morning and/or evening questions. Their answers are recorded and a complete record of all their entries are available on their individualized BeWell sites.
The two mind maps below lists the topics addressed by these morning and evening questions. It is quite clear that they address the majority of the PERMA-V and wellness dimensions and it is therefore a good way to advance one's well-being and by making e-journal entries the transfer of skills and attitudes is also advanced (one of the big challenges of any personal development endeavor). We first learnt about the power of questions from the personal development guru Anthony Robbins' best seller "Awaken the Giant Within", but have since then also found validation of its power from "more" scientific publications.
Majid Fotuhi suggests in his book "Boost Your Brain" that we should rate ourselves on a sliding scale on a weekly basis on our efforts with regard to specific habits that advances brain growth (and therefore satisfies our goal of taking advantage of our brains' neuroplasticity). These areas are depicted in the mind map below. As you can see it also links up well with our PERMA-V and wellness approaches and also supports the Unlimited Potential Paradigm. This is an example of the weekly tracking of healthy habits (for example, a 5 is assigned if you were very active over the last week, a 1 if you were sedentary, and a 2, 3 or 4 if you fell somewehere in between). A complete record of all weekly recordings is available on the individualized sites of members and they can therefore monitor their progress over time.
The well knowm executive coach Marshall Goldsmith advises us all in his 2015 book "Triggers" to ask ourselves a series of questions at the end of each day and then grade ourselves on each on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being the best score. We should keep a record of the scores over time. This very simple technique has been proven to increase people's well-being in multiple dimensions. The following six engaging questions are very powerful and should be part of everyone's list of daily questions.
Within FlourishWell4Life members also get the opportunity to rate themselves on a daily basis on these six engaging questions. Their scores are recorded and reported on their individualized FlourishWell4Life sites. This allows them to monitor their progress over time and maintain good well-being habits that eventually will lead to flourishing, moving away from struggling and languishing.
FlourishWell4Life members are also encouraged to add additional questions to their own lists. These should focus on specific PERMA-V and wellness dimensions. Goldsmith himself added the following 13 questions to the six listed above, and his list can be used as a guideline by members when they compile their own lists:
An e-library that contains a set of audiobooks, ebooks, videos and toolkits were collected and compiled and are available from within each member's individualized site. They can be used for personal enrichment and development, to stimulate discussions in groups, to help others who may struggle with a specific issue addressed by one of these resources, etc. More than 80 titles are available. The e-library are divided into seven sections - one general secion and one for each of the six wellness dimensions. All the multimedia titles are aimed at developing a speciic aspect of wellness. Some aspects of the PERMA-V model are also addressed. This e-library has been part of the BeWell Mentor Wellness project at Stellenbosch University and nearly 10000 students had access to it since 2013.
In the near future combinations of brainwave entrainment sessions and mind programming techniques may be added to the "My Multimedia" section of specific memberships to help with the optimization of soft skills development. Downloadable mp3 solutions that are in the process of been developed include StudyWell4Life, AffirmWell4Life, SuggestWell4Life, VisualizeWell4Life and HypnotiseWell4Life. This part of the e-library will integrate tracking mechanisms that will record the utilization and effectiveness of these mp3 interventions (and will have reports on it on the individualized sites of members). This mind programming addition is still in an experimental phase and will only be available to certaim membership types. The potential offerings are summarized in the mind map below.
The whole FlourishWell4Life system has been gamified. This therefore also includes the implementation of a points system (with levels) and the integration of leaderboards. Members receive points for every activity they complete. A variety of leaderboards is used to show progress and to motivate members to further engage with the system. Members are tyically also part of a larger group, like a team or a residence at university, and these groups are also part of a larger organization which allow for competition among different groups, for example, different residences at a university, or sporting codes within a larger sport organization. Leaderboards are then used to rank the points earned by competing groups.
FlourishWell4Life implements leaderboards in the three ways, namely by using different time frames, by shrinking the context and by showing "me". Rajat Paharia proposed this model in his book "Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with BIG DATA and GAMIFICATION" and we adapted it for our purposes.
Use different time frames: Along with an "all-time"leaderboard we also have a top 10 leaderboard for points earned over the last seven days. In this way everyone, regardless of how long they have been a member, always has a chance on a leaderboard.
Shrink the contaxt: Instead of showing users a global leaderboard, we only show them one with themselves and their friends or their working colleagues. This cuts down the size of the leaderboards to something where the user can always have a place. WIthin the BeWell Mentor Wellness Project, for example, we have 500+ mentors in 30+ living environments that all earn points for their mentoring activities. We shrink the context here by providing leaderboards per living environment, like a specific residence.
Show "me": Rather than always showing the top x, say the top 20, instead, always show current users where they rank, even if they are in the 1000th place, and show them a few people above them and a few people below them. This gives users a sense of where they rank, give them clear targets for what they need to do to move up rungs of the ladder, and lets them know what they need to do to prevent themselves from moving down rungs. The most important person to users is themselves!
The "My Leaderboards" section of a member's individualized site therefore contains these three types of leaderboards. Additionally, there may be leaderboards to show how the larger group they are part of are doing against other similar groups. Within our BeWell project we have, for example, a separate leaderboard for the various residences - this allows a mentor to see how all the mentors in his/her residence are doing collectively compared to those in other residences.
All member achievements are listed on this part of a member's site: Levels reached, badges earned and certifications obtained. Members earn points for every activity they take part in. Levels reached are based on number of points earned. Badges are earned for challenges completed, e-workshop sections completed, a pre-defined amount of conditioning completed, having evidence proving that specific trackers have been used for a minimum period of time, etc. Certificates are awarded for e-workshops and conditioning programmes successfully completed (this requires passing an online certification test plus showing evidence that all required online activities have been done). The mind map below summarizes some of the achievements members can earn.
Please use the menu at the top to navigate to other pages.
Life is too short not to shine on your journey!