wellness

Virgin Pulse is habit-forming

In this overpaced, overscheduled, over-expectational world, would you be willing to invest 30 minutes if you could gain a couple of hours of productivity?

That’s one of the questions Virgin Pulse CEO Chris Boyce posed during his main-stage address at his company’s Thrive Summit 2015 this morning. He was talking about exercise: 70 percent of people don’t get the recommended 30 minutes a day, and the lack leads to 23 percent decline in cognitive ability for the rest of the day, he said.


Virgin Pulse's "Thrive Summit"

I'm writing and posting from "Thrive Summit 2015," hosted in Boston by Virgin Pulse. I hope to remember to add this disclosure to each of my posts, but in case not (and a faint attempt to cover me for social media), I want to disclose that a) I'm Virgin Pulse's guest at this event, having been granted a press pass, and b) this is, in part, a sales conference highlighting Virgin Pulse software. Nothing wrong with that, but still, it's good to remember, and to state it.


"I don't see no problem here," or "Let them eat fruit"?

In the most recent post, we were enjoying author Andre Spicer’s interview with a very sympathetic editor at Harvard Business Review. Spicer is co-author of “The Wellness Syndrome,” a run-of-the-mill dog-bites-man tale that argues that corporate wellness programs not only don’t help, they harm.

I saved his last answer for this post. It is:


Al Lewis can't help it if all his targets are liars

Firebrand Al Lewis is relentlessly snide in his prosecution of corporate wellness in the public dock. His blog posts refer to the “self-described experts” of the “wellness ignorati” who produced a report he picks on, and then mocks a critic who says that calling people ignorant and liars is bullying.


Brian Campkin: "I want to be part of curing heart disease"

Welcome to another episode of “10 Words or Less,” in which I ask brief questions of interesting people and ask brief answers in return. Today’s guest has is not easily classified: He’s an author, a professional speaker focused on wellness, and an official spokesman for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, all while he keeps his day job working for Canada’s largest telecom. His book is “From Survivor to Thriver, The Story of a Modern-Day Tin Man." Remember, “10 Words” is an ethic, not a limit, so to those of you at home, please, no counting. If you think it’s so easy, let’s see you do it, especially on the fly.

This is an edited version of the interview. If you prefer, watch the full video interview.

Brian Campkin, professional speaker and official spokesman of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of CanadaName  Brian Campkin
Born when, where  Dec. 3, 1960, Trenton, Ontario, Canada
Resides now  Whitby, Ontario
Job  "I work for Rogers Communications. My role is an inside sales manager, selling their portfolio of products to small business."
Family circumstance  "Married, three daughters, eldest is also married, and I have a grandson."
Something you learned before age 10 that still matters  "Your word is your bond."
An early influence outside your family  “Bullying. When I was in grade school, I wasn’t the biggest kid in the class, but I had a sense of humor and could run fast, and both of those got me out of a ton of trouble. Even being the smallest, I still came to their rescue. It’s just something I won’t stand for."
A historical figure you particularly admire  "John Lennon. I like where he came from, I like where he got to, I don’t like how he ended, but that wasn’t his doing. That was a bully."


What's a penalty, and what's an incentive?

A vital issue brought up by the Affordable Care Act is whether employers can penalize employees who decline to take part in wellness offerings. Some consider it a civil rights issue if companies penalize employees who won’t act that way their employer wants them to.

I see that some could see it as an issue, but I hesitate to agree.


The slave drivers who counsel health and happiness

These scoundrels of corporate wellness, with their “relentless focus on health and happiness.” How dare they!

The phrase comes from a RealBusiness blog post by Jason Hesse, not from “The Wellness Syndrome,” (link withheld for cause) the book that triggered his comments, so it is conceivable that I’m being unfair to the book. But I read the review of it from the Guardian this morning too, and I’m feeling safe enough to proceed.

The authors, Andre Spicer and Carl Cederström, are Europeans business professors of clear political bent (which, I concede, is something usually said by someone with a different political bent). The “syndrome” of the title is a “creeping cult of corporate wellness,” under which emphasis on health and wellness is alleged to make people feel less healthy and less well.

”’The pressure to maximize our wellness can make us feel worse. We have started to think that a person who is healthy and happy is a morally good person while people who are unhealthy and unhappy are moral failures,’ explains Spicer,” quoted by Hesse.


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