In the February 2012 edition of the Success magazine, there is a story about the TV reality show Shark Tank.  I have never seen the show, but as I read the article, my blood began to boil.  The article suggests that to achieve success, you must sacrifice everything else.  Is success really worth this price? 

If I understand the show’s concept correctly, entrepreneurs are selected by the show’s producers to pitch their business concepts to the sharks who then decide whether to invest in the entrepreneur’s business.  The so called sharks are: Kevin O’Leary, Mark Cuban, Daymond John, Barbara Corcoran and Robert Herjavec.

As a worksite wellness and well-being thought leader and strategist, what particularly concerned me was two of the story’s concluding three paragraphs.  These two paragraphs stated: “The sharks agree that entrepreneurs have to be willing to sacrifice a lot until a new business starts to succeed.” Mark Cuban is quoted as saying, “If you are not dreaming about it, if your relationships aren’t being injured by it, you know, if you are not tired, you are not working hard enough.”

Kevin O’Leary is quoted as saying, “I love working with young people who are willing to sacrifice everything for success.  I am talking about people who are willing to give up their marriages just to make the business successful.  They are willing to live like hermits and work for 20 hours a day if that is what it takes.”

I have been a W-2 employee for all of my professional career.  Therefore, maybe I am more of a wantrepreneur than a true entrepreneur.  However, it just does not make any sense to me that in order to achieve success, one has to sacrifice their health and happiness.  There has to be a better way.  

As human beings, I believe we both want and need happiness and success.  Our current societal operating model, known as Blank Slate, puts success ahead of happiness.  Blank Slate states that once you achieve success, you will be happy.  Recent positive psychology research has, however, proven otherwise.  According to the research, happiness precedes success.  If you can achieve happiness, success will follow. 

For the past two years, I have been studying the happiness and success model put forth by Mike Jay.  Mike is an international business and leadership developmentalist who has consulted and coached managers and executives in 47 countries.  Originally fromNebraska, Mike now lives in Manila, Philippines where, as a businessman, he believes he can better capitalize on the near east and Asian demographic growth curves.

In Mike’s model, known as Flawless Living, what makes us happy is inborn and unique to each of us.  What we view as success is usually determined by sources and forces outside ourselves, what Mike refers to as a composite success standard.  This creates a gap that Mike refers to as the happiness – success gap.  Traditionally, we try to close the gap by changing ourselves, more often than not, without success.  As Mike is fond of saying, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you will.”  In Flawless Living, closing the gap involves the use of strategies other than personal change.

If you think about it, the current entrepreneurial model, where 90 percent of the start-ups fail within five years, is obviously flawed.  I am not suggesting that entrepreneurial success should not require focus and hard work, only that it should not require the loss of either health or happiness.  The good life should include happiness, success and health.  To achieve the good life, you should not have to sacrifice neither happiness, health or success.

We have all been waiting to see what sites will be selected for the seven regions set out in the National Healthy Worksite Program funded by the CDC and being led by Veridian Health.

On a noon time Webinar today, the seven sites were announced.  They are:

Region 1:  Somerset County,Maine

Region 2:  Shelby County,Tennessee

Region 3:  Marion County,Indiana

Region 4:  Harris County,Texas

Region 5:  Buchanan County,Missouri

Region 6:  Kern County,California

Region 7:  Pierce County,Washington

Employer recruitment within these counties kicks off next Friday January 20, 2012.

For more information about the project, go to: www.cdc.gov/NationalHealthyWorksite

On last night’s late local news there was a story about a new Maine wellness business called The Wellness Connection.  Would anyone like to guess what wellness products they sell?

Hint #1:  The products are not related to the retail wellness story I posted yesterday.

Hint #2: Maine has a medical marijuana law.

Yup. You guessed it.  The Wellness Connection is a medical marijuana dispensary.

Geez.  It is no wonder employees and the general public are confused about wellness.

It appears that wellness programs are going the way of retail health clinics.  Aetna has announced a relationship with Best Buy stores whereby three suburban Chicago Best Buy stores will create 1,200 square foot health technology departments in which they will sell four Aetna on-line health promotion modules from Aetna’s “My Resources for Living Well” product line.  Each module will sell for $19.99.  The four modules are: fitness, weight management, smoking cessation and stress management.

Aetna describes the pilot program as being a great opportunity to merge their tools with the health related technology products already being sold by Best Buy.  The fitness program is described as being a 90 day walking program that includes on-line coaching and tracking.  The weight management program is 12 weeks long, while the quit smoking module involves 12 sessions over five weeks.  The stress management program is described as offering ways to implement calming techniques.

I can’t imagine that Aetna and Best Buy would launch this pilot without having done a market survey which indicated some level of positive support. Therefore,  it will be interesting to watch and see how this initiative plays out.  Since these modules are already available to Aetna health plan members, including employees, it will also be interesting to see if retail consumers respond at higher rates of utilization than employees usually do.

Those of us in the health promotion business already know that education alone does not result in behavior change.  I therefore can’t imagine that without on-going live support that these initiatives will be any more successful than similar efforts have been with employees.  Since Best Buy is well known for its Geek Support upsell, if the sale of these modules is successful, I wonder if we will see the emergence of a wellness squad or live coaching squad upsell?

A leading force in the effort to get Congress to pass federal health promotion legislation was Michael O’Donnell Ph.D. and his volunteer organization  known as Health Promotion Advocates.  Michael is best known for being the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Health Promotion. 

In the current edition (January – February 2012) of the  American Journal of Health Promotion, Michael gives an updated status report about federal funding for health promotion that has arisen out of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act .  His report is located in the Editor’s Notes section of the journal which can be accessed for free.  Here is the link:  http://ajhpcontents.org/toc/hepr/current

Seeing a news release about the Reindeer Cam reminded me that growing up in the throes of the cold war, I remember on Christmas Eve hearing NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) reports on Santa’s travels across the globe.  I checked the NORAD Web site to see if NORAD still did this and was surprised to learn that NORAD has been following Santa since 1958 and continues to do so. 

According to NORAD, the tradition started in 1955 when a local media ad directed kids to call Santa direct – only the number was misprinted. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone rang through to the Crew Commander on duty at theContinentalAirDefenseCommandOperationsCenter. Thus began the tradition which NORAD has carried on since it was created in 1958.

Here is the link to this year’s NORAD tracking site: http://www.noradsanta.org/en/

 If you are lucky enough to own an iPad, with the help of iSwifter, Santa has added to the spirit and excitement of Christmas by installing a Reindeer cam at the North Pole. The ReindeerCam on iSwifter lets you watch a live video of Santa feeding his reindeer and loading his sleigh on Christmas Eve. iSwifter is the only way to use your iPad to watch these majestic creatures before they take to the air on Christmas Eve to pull Santa’s sleigh full of toys.

Good boys and girls — and their moms and dads too –  can view the ReindeerCam on their iPads by dowloading iSwifter at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iswifter/id388857173?mt=8

Merry Christmas to all and I hope you all have a great time with your family and friends.

According to a news release in the Youngstown, Ohio Business Journal on December 19, 2001, the State of Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation will make $4 million available to employers to create worksite wellness programs to control the escalating costs of workers’ compensation claims associated with health risk factors related to obesity and chronic disease.  Participating employers will be awarded up to $15,000 over four years to implement the programs. An application process is expected to begin in the first quarter of next year.

The news release stated that the Bureau expects more than 600 employers will benefit from these grants, which will be awarded on a “first come, first served” basis based on availability of funds.  The Bureau will gather data from participating employers to determine the effectiveness of the program in reducing claims frequency and costs, improving return-to-work and reducing health-care costs to employers.

While the news release only relates to the State ofOhio, hopefully other states will followOhio’s lead. Thanks to theDukeUniversityresearch on the relationship of employee health to work related injuries, here inMaine, my employer has been using workers’ compensation dollars to find several employee wellness related initiatives for several years now.  My workers’ compensation director has been a great believer in and supporter of our worksite wellness initiatives.

Affordable Care Act saved 1.1 billion dollars across 32 health systems: HHS               Posted on December 19, 2011 by Stone Hearth News

Since I was not aware that the Affordable Care Act, to date, has saved any plan or organization any money, this title came as a surprise to me. 

The article said:  “Thirty-two leading health care organizations from across the country will participate in a new Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) initiative made possible by the Affordable Care Act, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today.  The Pioneer ACO initiative will encourage primary care doctors, specialists, hospitals and other caregivers to provide better, more coordinated care for people with Medicare and could (emphasis mine) save up to $1.1 billion over five years.” 

Further on, the article said: “The first performance period of the Pioneer ACO Model will begin January, 1st 2012.”

Looks like the originator of the post to the news service didn’t read the article very well. 

To avoid this embarrassment, before you make a post to a blog, listserv, etc. about an article, make sure you take the time to read the whole article.

Manta Media sponsors a quarterly Small Business Wellness Index.  The title of the press release announcing the 2011 third quarter results caught my attention.  The title was: “Healthy, Wealthy or Wise? Small Businesses Rank Wealth Before Health for 2012.  Based on a November 14 – 21, 2011 survey of 1,026 small business owners, 72% reported 2011 as being a successful year, up 12% from Q3 in 2010.

The survey also asked small business owners how their business is impacting their personal well-being.  The results were revealing.  Success yes, but at what price?

The business owners responding reported:

• 44% said the 2011 business climate has taken a toll on their personal health
• 33% were working out (exercising) less
• 22% were eating less healthy
• 9% said they are more short tempered and argue more with family and co-workers
• They reported working the following hours:
  • 23% worked 41 – 50 hours a week
  • 21% worked 51 – 60 hours a week
  • 11% worked 61 – 70 hours a week
  • 8% worked more than 70 hours a week
• 28% experienced increase stress
• 4% are less happy
• 17% are less able to financially support themselves and their family
• 14% spend less time with family and friends
• 3% have seen their marriages suffer

All is not doom and gloom for the business owners.

• 20% reported their health has been positively affected
• 33% work 40 or less hours a week
• 10% work out (exercise) more
• 14% eat healthier
• 17% were happier
• 13% were better able to financially support themselves and their family
• 8% have more time for family and friends
• 4% report their marriage has improved

Since starting their business, 50% reported that their business has not impacted their health.  As for 2011, 24% reported the business climate had not affected their health, while 12% reported no impact on their personal life?

These numbers reflect why I strongly feel that small business wellness is the new frontier for worksite wellness.

Topics sorely in need of attention within worksite wellness programming are, in my opinion, the topics of mental health promotion and substance abuse prevention.  I did an earlier post on mental health promotion.  In this post, I will focus on substance abuse prevention.

Why should the worksite wellness coordinator care about substance abuse?  Here are some reasons:

Alcohol

• In 2010
• The rate of current alcohol use by full time employed adults age 18 or older was 64.8%
• The rate of current heavy alcohol use (three or more drinks daily) by full time employed adults age 18 or older was 8.5%
• The rate of current binge drinking (5 or more drinks on any one occasion) by full time employed adults age 18 or older was 29.7%
• An estimated 1.83% workers drink before work
• An estimated 9.23% workers work with a hangover
• About 15% of theUSworkforce uses or is impaired by alcohol on the job.
• Health care costs for employees who have alcohol problems are about twice as high as for the average employee
• Alcoholics and problem drinkers are:
•  More likely than other workers to have had three or more employers in the last year
• Likely to have missed more than two days work in the past month due to illness or injury
• Likely to have skipped work more than two days in the past month

Drugs

• In 2010
• Of the 20.2 million current illicit drug users aged 18 or older in 2008, 13.3 million or 65.9% were employed either full or part-time
• An estimated 3.1 percent of employed adults actually used illicit drugs at least once during the past year before reporting to work or during work hours, with about 2.9 percent reported working under the influence of an illicit drug
• Drug users are absent 1.5 times as often
• Employed drug abusers cost their employers about twice as much in medical and worker’s compensation claims as their drug free co-workers
• Each untreated substance abusing employee costs their employer an estimated $640 annually
• Problem drinkers spend four times as many days in the hospital as the national average

Traditionally, alcohol and drug issues have been the province of EAP (employee assistance programs) programs.  However, I think there are a number of strategies the worksite wellness coordinator can help their employer to implement. 

At a minimum, these strategies should include helping the employer to adopt a drug free workplace policy and conducting awareness and education programs. 

Some additional strategies might include:

• The development of an onsite screening,  brief intervention, referral and treatment (SBIRT) program
• Drug and alcohol testing
• Promotion of the inclusion of mental health and substance abuse treatment benefits with the health insurance benefits
• Better, more comprehensive to the employer’s EAP program
• Programs designed to support employees who are in recovery
• Programs addressing the safe disposal of unused prescription medications
• Programs addressing the issue of underage drinking (for both underage employees and employees who are parents
• Programs related to responsible drinking
• Programs related to personal and organizational liability associated with the serving of alcohol at parties and other events.

So as you can see, a lot of reasons why and opportunities for worksite wellness coordinators to address the issue of substance use and abuse.