Tony was fit and healthy before joining the AIA Vitality Executive Wellness Programme in 2020 – he always enjoyed playing and coaching a wide range of sports, and recently picked up mountain biking as his latest hobby.
While he felt like he was checking off most of the boxes for healthy living, a series of events suddenly led him into a tailspin.
“I was doing my best to juggle all the balls of life,” Tony says. “But some personal and professional challenges cropped up, and I wasn’t prepared to deal with my current reality. I started to struggle to keep my head above water, and my mental health started deteriorating.”
Luckily, Tony’s AIA Business Development Manager (BDM) noticed that something was wrong, and sent him an invite to the AIA Vitality Executive Wellness Programme. The rest, as they say, is history.
Reflecting on my health
The AIA Vitality Executive Wellness Programme aims to help people take time out of their busy lives, and to reconnect with their health and wellbeing – and that was exactly what Tony needed.
“I didn’t really know what to expect,” Tony admits. “But I knew that if nothing changed, my situation wouldn’t get better on its own. In my case, it wasn’t a lack of motivation. I wanted to learn how to take that first step towards positive change and gain momentum after it.”
After joining the programme, Tony first participated in a ‘clock’ activity with other participants. The AIA Vitality Coaching team invited the members to rate their own wellness on a clock face, where ‘1’ was the lowest score, and ‘12’ the highest.
Tony found himself alone on ‘2’.
“It was the truth, and I felt a bit lonely all there by myself,” Tony laughs. “I was under immense stress at the time. I’d lost some good friends, and I didn’t have a solid support network.”
Thankfully, Tony found solace in the programme. Over the next few days, the AIA Vitality Coaching team provided invaluable support, tools and metrics to take back control over his life. One message in particular stuck with Tony ever since.
“The Coaching team reminded me to ‘put my own oxygen mask on before helping others,” Tony explains. “It was incredibly liberating and relevant to my situation. The tools the team gave me helped me to think and act differently even after the programme ended, and it definitely set me off on the right foot.”
Using AIA Vitality as an accountability tool
Two years after participating in the AIA Vitality Executive Wellness Programme, Tony found himself using AIA Vitality to apply the skills he learned and to keep his health on the right track.
“I hit Gold Status just last week – I'm really proud,” Tony says. “Even with some injuries last year, I stayed motivated enough to get me where I wanted to be. My next goal is to lower my AIA Vitality Age – it's currently six years older than my actual age. It’s a great motivator to keep going, especially now that I have young and active grandchildren.”
And when asked about how he’d grade his health today in the same clock face activity, Tony is proud of his own progress.
“It’s an easy ‘10’ for me now,” he beams. “Just remember, it’s up to us to own our future; if it’s to be, it’s up to me.”
Footnotes:
- The AIA Vitality Executive Wellness Programme is an invite-only event open for financial advisers. This 12 week programme is designed to offer advice, resources and tools to improve health and wellbeing for advisers, advisers staff and ultimately clients too. The programme also explores potential changes to business strategy, to improve client engagement and enhance the way advisers do business.
