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April 22, 2022
Following a two-year postponement due to the Covid pandemic, the Invictus Games resumed this week at The Hague, The Netherlands. The Paralympic-style competition for wounded veterans, which concludes today, featured 500 competitors from 20 nations taking part in 10 adaptive sports.
To further support members of the wounded, injured, and sick veteran community, last week event organizer, the Invictus Games Foundation, announced a partnership with BetterUp® to provide resources to help veterans transition from military to civilian life and into the workforce. The San Francisco, California-based “human transformation company” is innovating the future of work through a focus on mental fitness, career and leadership development and social connection. It is now the Official Mental Fitness Coaching Tool for international members of the Invictus Community, made up of service members from around the world who have suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses.
The Invictus Games were created by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, following a 2013 trip to the Warrior Games in the US where he saw first-hand how sport could physically, psychologically and socially help wounded military servicemen and women. Since then, the Games have used sport to inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and generate a wider understanding and respect for those who serve their country.
Prince Harry is a vocal advocate for mental health and joined BetterUp in March 2021 in his work to “lift up critical dialogues around mental health, build supportive and compassionate communities and foster an environment for honest and vulnerable conversations.” The Foundation supports its international community with opportunities to use sports, esports and adventurous challenge for recovery.
“At its heart, the Invictus Games is about empowering every single person around the world. It’s a worldwide display of resilience, determination, and community for which each of us can draw inspiration,” said Prince Harry, Founding Patron of the Invictus Games Foundation and Chief Impact Officer at BetterUp.
“The mind is like a muscle: it needs to be honed, trained, rehabbed, and coached. The men and women I served with understand this, the Invictus community knows this, and now the world is beginning to see it too. I’m honored to bring the work we do at BetterUp to Invictus and look forward to expanding the support systems that service members and veterans depend on to achieve remarkable feats.”
The startup uses coaching, content, community and cutting-edge AI technology to help people and businesses reach peak performance and maximize their potential. The company states that it is the inventor of virtual coaching and the largest mental health and coaching startup in the world with a network of over 3,000 Coaches offering support in 46 languages in 90+ countries.
“From our early days of building BetterUp, we were fortunate enough to learn from members of the military and veterans alike about peak performance, leadership, resilience and coaching as a means to help build trust, alignment, and strength in vulnerability of service men and women and their teams,” said Alexi Robichaux, BetterUp co-founder and CEO.
The partnership will provide BetterUp access for the Foundation to support and encourage the recovery journey of wounded, injured, and sick veterans and service personnel from around the world via the online platform, We Are Invictus. The company will offer 1:1 coaching, live group programming, community support and personalized assessments created and designed by PhDs and behavioral scientists to support, encourage and guide members. Based on data aggregated by BetterUp Labs, on average, after 3-4 months of BetterUp, members who start their coaching journey low in these areas see a 149% increase in resilience, a 222% increase in focus, an 86% increase in self compassion, an 83% increase in life satisfaction and 77% improvement in cognitive agility.
The first activation took place this week during the Invictus Games Foundation Conversation where competitors, friends, family, supporters and partners discussed how the Invictus Community uses the power of sport to break down barriers around disability.
The World Veterans Federation estimates that there are 60 million veterans worldwide.
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