This is going to be a long post and worth reading in detail to the end. It’s an important message.
At present, if you choose to take care of your health and well-being, many other people and organisations benefit from it.
- Your national health service saves a lot of money because you don’t get so sick.
- Your employer, if you have one, saves a lot of money because you take less time off work. You’re also happier, easier to work with, concentrate better and perform better.
- Your health insurance system saves a lot of money because you have fewer claims.
- The economy of your community, state, country and the whole world benefit because you contribute more and cost less.
- Your family benefits because you function better as a human being, whether you’re a grandparent, parent, partner, sibling or child.
The knock-on effects of taking good care of yourself are impossible to fully measure because they’re so significant.
The strange thing is that you pay for all of this yourself. You pay for your gym membership, sports and health clubs, courses, trainers, events, classes, equipment and clothing – the whole lot.
If you think about it, it’s all the wrong way round. A sensible approach would be to do everything possible to support and incentivise you to be healthy and well, because it’s so extraordinarily valuable.
Clearly that’s not happening at the level of government or health services, so I’ve been working with some amazing people to create a better system. Let’s imagine for a moment, a better way of doing health and wellbeing.
Suppose you could see your health and well-being as an asset with significant value. What might it be worth?
In Australia, the government values a whole year of a perfectly healthy life at more than $65,000 dollars per annum. In other countries, it will vary, but every country in the world has a price for the cost of disability/sickness and a value for quality of life. You can look up DALYs and QALYs if you want to find out more.
Suppose the value of your health and well-being could be turned into shares.
If you’ve been exercising regularly and working on being healthy for the last five years and you can prove it, you could be awarded a number of shares (we call them LifeShares) to start or add to your investment portfolio. The shares are valued at US$100 each when you receive them. The value may go up or down, depending on market conditions, as with any share.
Suppose those shares could be bought and sold on the stock exchange.
If you want some extra cash to pay for your training, participate in a marathon or attend a well-being event (or to pay for whatever you like) you could sell some of your shares. This enables you to realise some of the value you’ve created through your own work (i.e. working out, playing sport, doing yoga etc). The interesting thing is that if you sell some shares, you still get to keep your health and well-being. You just have access to some additional cash.
Suppose you could receive more shares every year, as long as you keep actively maintaining your health and well-being.
This means the health and wellbeing value you are creating is being rewarded on an ongoing basis. It is then up to you to choose whether to keep or sell your shares just like any other asset you own.
Suppose your LifeShares could attract a dividend every year.
If you keep the shares you’ve already earned, rather than selling them, you receive an annual dividend (like any other share, and a bit like getting interest on a bank deposit). This means the value of your portfolio keeps on growing.
Suppose you could split your shares with the people and organisations that help you stay healthy and well.
The idea is that you could pay your coaches, trainers, courses, clubs and memberships and event organisers in shares rather than cash, if you both agree. Effectively, it means that you share the health and wellbeing benefit you create together. This will mean more money for you and more for them too. It’s a win-win.
And suppose every member of your family could participate, including the kids.
In a family of four where you’re all actively taking care of your health, you receive four lots of LifeShares every year plus four dividends.
Does that sound like a better way to incentivise and reward you and your family for getting and staying healthy?
Is it possible?
The answer is yes.
I’d like to introduce you to a new venture called Love To Be Well, which has created the system I’ve described above. Through $2.5 million of research and nearly 4 years of thought, discussion, planning and the contributions of some very brilliant people, we’ve found a way to do this.
You probably have questions about how it can be done, so let me answer the most common ones immediately.
How is it possible to pay people for their health and well-being?
When the Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015, 189 countries committed to investing at least $1 trillion a year in ecological and social improvement across the world. So far they have only managed to invest around $600 billion (it should be over $3 trillion by now) so they are way behind. Their problem is that they need to invest in very large-scale projects and most businesses that improve ecology or social well-being are simply too small. So the funds are available but they need to be channelled in the right direction.
Love To Be Well solves that problem by fitting the requirement for social improvement and by being scalable across the world, in both developed and developing nations.
How can LifeShares become actual cash?
Do you believe that putting money in people’s health and well-being would be rewarding, if you were an investor? Of course, especially if the return is guaranteed through an annual fixed dividend.
Many investors (both institutional and individual) are looking to buy shares that are doing good for people and/or the environment. This is even more the case now than ever before. A recent offer of green bonds issued in the last few months was 40 times oversubscribed. Share offers in recent solar projects in Australia have sold out within hours of being launched.
So we see this is a very solid investment, safer than start-ups or property and providing a better return than a savings account on today’s interest rates.
From your point of view, if you wanted to sell some of your LifeShares it’s just like selling any other shares on a stock exchange. It’s a simple transaction and you get paid.
How can people prove that they’re improving their health?
To begin with, we will look for proof of regular physical activity. If you’re a member of a gym or yoga or sports club or you’ve participated in any mass participation events the clubs and organisers will have records of your attendance that can be used as verification of your activity. Later we will accept other forms of verification, for example, wearables that validate your physical activity.
This sounds like a lot of data collection and sharing. Is it safe?
All your data will be held in a post-blockchain system, which essentially means it 100% belongs to you (not us) and you will be able to choose who you share it with. If you want to participate in research you can choose to share some or all of your data with a research organisation. If you want to receive marketing from specific companies you select them yourself. Your data cannot be used for data-mining or advertising or anything else, unless you specifically give your permission to do so.
Who’s really making money out of this?
The idea is that everyone involved makes money out of this venture. We are using a special kind of company structure called a Mutual. A Mutual is very different from a traditional company because every single person or entity involved with it owns a share in it. That means the health and wellbeing members, their coaches and trainers, the businesses who trade with the members, the managers and the financial partners each have one share.
All decisions in the Mutual are required to be made for the benefit of the members. Since the members are the shareholders, this simply means that everybody benefits. In fact, it is a principle of the mutual that no member can benefit at the expense of others.
This is a different way of doing business. We are looking at a new form of capital, which is the capital you create through taking care of yourself. It is also the capital that gets created by businesses that help you to take care of yourself. This is truly social capital. With it comes more enlightened ways of doing business.
Where is this venture up to?
We launched Love To Be Well on 14 October at the Mass Participation World Summit 2020. We are currently inviting people (including you) to join the pilot program. As members join the pilot, it allows us to appoint a financial partner. Once we have our initial membership and our first financial partner, we are in action. We anticipate this stage to be complete by the end of March 2021. We are looking for between 50,000 and 300,000 members to fill the pilot program.
Clearly, this is very new.
Yes, it is. It’s a different way of thinking about life, health and business. It’s based on a win-win-win approach where we share the goodness that we create in life.
It’s an expansive model based on abundance rather than scarcity. It’s really a way to help you make a living by doing what you love (and doing good for yourself and others).
Why is this the most significant email I have ever written?
My book, Love Money Money Loves You, shows a way you can relate with money that’s good for you and for society. It’s a beautiful vision and the energy of money that comes through the book is exquisite.
Whilst I had the ability to show up and write the book, I don’t have the business brains and experience to be able to create the new models of business that we desperately need to match the energy of the book. But in the beautiful way that life works, I met someone who does.
My friend, Tim Bennett, who I’m partnering with in Love To Be Well, is doing his life’s work in creating this model. And our third partner and another friend, Chris Robb, is one of the world’s most significant influencers in Mass Participation Sports. This is the perfect combination for getting Love To Be Well started.
In the 30 years since I started learning about energy my main focus has been health and well-being and it still underlies all the work that I do with money. Love To Be Well brings together those many years of experience in health and well-being with the vision and promise of my work about money. This is a long-held dream in the process of becoming true.
Help! This is creating more questions than answers.
If you feel intrigued but confused, don’t worry. That’s what tends to happen when you come across something new. I will happily answer all your questions until it becomes clear. I look forward to the day when most businesses are thinking in this win-win-win way, but until then we will have to demonstrate over and over again how it works. That is my job.
How can you get involved?
To participate in the pilot and be amongst the first people to receive shares for the value of your health and well-being, please click the button below and you will be instantly added to the list. We will then get in touch with you in due course so you can start the process of claiming the improvements you’ve made to your personal health and well-being and turning that into shares.
Join the Love To Be Well pilot program
Please note that this is a pilot project. There is no risk to you, because all you’re sharing is your name and email, which will be protected, but we are unable to make a specific promise at this point. We need members to appoint a financial partner and we need a financial partner to create the annual payments and to trade the shares. There will be many details to be worked out in the process. This is a case of win-win or “a rising tide lifts all boats”, and making it work will be great for all of us.
What does it cost?
It doesn’t cost anything to join and it won’t cost anything to be a member. This is about you being paid, not paying.
Isn’t it too good to be true?
It sounds a bit like that, but actually it is using existing and quite traditional structures (shares, stock exchange, mutual company) in a new way, that makes sense and is good for the world.
From time to time there’s a significant shift in our way of doing business and valuing our human contributions. This is one of those times. It’s not free money. It’s a reward for the work you put in to be healthy and well. That has genuine value. It just hasn’t been financially valued until now.
If you have questions or want to know more.
Please join me in a webinar where I will explain it again from the beginning and answer all your questions until it’s clear.
If you’ve decided to sign up or join the webinar, I’d like to thank you sincerely for being curious about a better way of supporting your health and wellbeing. We are doing everything we can to make this a gamechanger in our way of doing business, and we’re delighted that you want to be in on the new game.
With appreciation
Sarah
