ColivingDAO Insights: The Web3 Path for Regen Living

Transforming Work-Life Balance with Coliving

• Daniel Aprea & Gareth Thompson • Season 1 • Episode 29

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Can coliving elevate your wellbeing to new heights? Join us for an eye-opening episode of ColivingDAO Insights as we unravel the powerful connection between wellbeing and coliving. We begin with a deep dive into the World Health Organization's holistic definition of health, exploring how physical, mental, and social health form the cornerstone of wellbeing. We'll uncover why work-life balance is now a top priority for 65% of the workforce, often outweighing pay and benefits, and how our evolving societal and technological landscape is reshaping this balance. Don't miss our discussion on how only 23% of organizations focus on wellbeing, setting the stage for innovative solutions.

Discover how companies subsidising coliving spaces can revolutionize employee wellbeing, decrease stress, and boost productivity. We delve into the advantages of community-driven wellbeing activities over individual efforts, emphasising the role of social interaction and accountability. Explore the transformative potential of coliving arrangements managed by ColivingDAO, offering a structured, community-centric approach to enhance quality of life. Stay tuned for the latest updates and exciting future plans from ColivingDAO aimed at making co-living not just a lifestyle choice, but a catalyst for holistic wellbeing.

Daniel:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Coliving DAO Insights. This is your co-host, daniel, and I'm joined today, as usual, by my co-host, gareth. Hi Gareth, hey Dan, really good to be back. Great to have you here as well, gareth, today we are going to be talking about something that is quite important and I'm sure most of you will agree. We're going to be talking about the concept of well-being and how co-living in particular, can really enhance people's well-beings. We'll touch on something that a lot of people talk about as well, which is work-life balance. Now, personally, I'm not a big fan of this expression, work-life balance. To me, it sounds like it implies a dualism between work and life, and I do consider work as part of life, so I'd rather use the word life balance. But I understand the context is professional life versus personal life. So we'll stick with the term work-life balance for simplicity. We'll talk about that as a part of this episode on well-being and we'll see exactly why co-living, and especially Coliving DAO, can really enhance people's quality of life. Gareth.

Gareth:

Yeah, Dan. So why don't we start with you know what is well-being? What do we mean by well-being when we say that phrase? It's kind of an elusive, nebulous phrase to some extent, and, I think, a really useful definition of well-being that comes from the World Health Organization, where they talk about health as well-being or health as complete well-being, and they say that health or well-being is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or problems.

Gareth:

You know, an absence of the negativity is not well-being and health. And this is great because the way I look at it is that well-being is something that is not like you're maintaining something, but actually if you're really taking care of your well-being, you get better, you feel better and better as each day goes on. If you're really taking care of your mental, physical and spiritual health, then it really enhances your life. So well-being can be an expansive, growing concept, not just the absence of negative things like tiredness and illnesses. So it's a really uplifting way to look at well-being and to make sure we get the 360 degree view of what well-being is. Dan.

Daniel:

Absolutely so.

Daniel:

It is a word that is used very often, so I'm glad that you gave a definition so that people can really understand what we're talking about and why it's so important as well, because, as we said, it's not just about not being sick or absence of disease.

Daniel:

It's really the idea of how can life be better and better, and nowadays we have more and more resources. If we compare our situation right now, if we compare the advantages of technology evolution in a number of ways, how society really improved in a number of ways, but at the same time has well-being necessarily improved and it did in many ways, but at the same time there's still a lot of gaps and we could be a lot better if we paid a little bit more attention to that, and I know a lot of organizations are indeed doing that, and so it's great to see that more and more focus has been placed on this very important concept. We'll see how this plays a role in people's personal life, in people's work life as well, and in general, how we can utilize the advantages of co-living, and especially co-living DAO, to make sure that people really get the best of both worlds. So, without having to really compromise anything, getting more value and more advantages. Right, gareth, yeah, exactly.

Gareth:

So we're going to look at well-being in the co-living context and and how well-being can be enhanced by co-living. I think, dan, it's also worth mentioning that, like you said, technology and improvements in society have really increased well-being over the over the last you know, few centuries or so for many people. But also that to recognize that right now we're going through a lot of challenges and a lot of people are in very challenging situations around the world and even in more privileged places in the developed world, people are going through some big challenges right now in cost of living and working, finding good work, finding fulfilling work, finding work that even is well enough paid. So just to bring that into the context as well, and I think that's really relevant because co-living offers a potential way to really maximize your life and and navigate some of these challenges that people are currently- facing.

Daniel:

It is indeed, and one big element of well-being, as we mentioned, is something that goes by the name of work-life balance. Now, the reason this is important is because people do spend a significant amount of time working. The average full-time employee works typically at least 40 hours a week, potentially more than that. Of course, there's people that are part-time employees and so on. There's people that are self-employed, people that have their own business, but sometimes people have their own side hustles as well, so there's a lot of professional life styles and alternatives.

Daniel:

What's important is that a lot of people talk about work-life balance, but if we look at the numbers, we can see that 65% approximately 65% of people place more importance on work-life balance compared to pay and benefits when choosing an occupation, choosing a job. Now, this is important. It's true across the board. So this has been surveyed in multiple countries in the UK, in the US and the numbers are quite consistent around that 65% mark, approximately. So we can say that definitely, nearly two thirds of the workforce really cares about work-life balance more than money and more than other things.

Daniel:

When we look at what companies are doing, on the other hand, we can see that only 23% of the companies self-proclaim well-being center, or at least they claim that they do something about work-life balance, so they offer good work-life balance. This difference sounds to me quite a stark contrast. So we have 65% of the people prioritizing that and then only 23% of the companies offering that, or at least claiming to offer that, which is self-reported. This means that not enough emphasis is placed on that. Gareth, you know the importance of well-being. What does this gap suggest in this context?

Gareth:

Yeah, so those numbers basically suggest that employees really look for work-life balance and have it as a major priority, and yet most companies don't actually deliver on it. They don't actually cover that big priority that employees have. It's a really interesting conflict in the way that employees and companies are behaving with regards to their own priorities, right.

Daniel:

Yeah, exactly. So we've seen why well-being is so important. We've seen that well-being in professional settings so more specifically we can talk about work-life balance is also quite important, not only for general purposes, but also because it's been already proved that it can improve productivity, it can improve performance and a number of things. So it's something that companies want, not just out of being good employers, but also because it helps business as well, as we very well know. So what can we say about the current living situation when it comes to not living in a co-living, so let's say, people living in a single family unit or living alone, or even living in a random flat share, let's say, versus what can be achieved with the co-living?

Gareth:

Yeah. So if we think about a normal apartment or a flat share in a city and you live in one of those flats or apartments and let's say that you need to travel to the office you live in a big city like London and you need to travel to the office to do most of your work you quite often face, you know, a big commute done and have to travel to work and then back home to work. And let's say you have a well-being event, because we're talking about well-being here and you've booked an exercise class somewhere else in the city. So if we just look at purely how you're going to organize your day, you need to commute to work, do your work in the office. Then you need to go from your office to the location of your well-being activity the exercise class that you've booked and then after the exercise class you need to travel all the way back home.

Gareth:

Again, contrast that with a situation, dan, where you actually live in the co-living and, let's say, you also work in the office the same office. So you travel to work and you do your hours at work, but then you travel home and you go to the same wellbeing class in the building in your home. After the wellbeing class you then just go straight back to your place. You just walk up the stairs and you're there. If you're tired, you go straight to sleep and you've just eliminated a lot of intermediate traveling and time that would have been wasted if you were in a normal flat share or an apartment, dan.

Daniel:

Exactly. It's a very good point because, especially in big cities, commuting is a big thing. So the fact that one can have not just amenities but really events and well-being activities inside the co-living community where they live effectively, this is a big game changer. It makes things possible which are otherwise not possible, or at least the cost is very high. The barrier is very high. A lot of people plan to go to events in the evening after work, only to cancel that because they feel too tired. They feel like it's too much traveling, too much commuting, too much work, that they may be a little bit stressed. And what could help with that stress is the thing that they actually decide not to do because they're stressed. So it's a bit of a counterintuitive dynamic, but it just happens over and over again. We've seen that and it's been documented. So having something literally at your doorstep can massively enhance the ability to effectively take advantage of that opportunity and get the benefits in terms of well-being.

Daniel:

Now I know some companies offer well-being programs In order to increase work-life balance. They could offer, for example, yoga sessions at the workplace, gym memberships, they could offer recreational events and so on, and some companies do as we said. It's a tiny fraction at this stage it's not many, but some companies do that. Even when they do that, it's challenges because the company has to organize all that. The company also has to make sure that employees show up and sometimes that just doesn't happen. Sometimes employees don't even know about that or they're informed too late and there might be some calendar conflicts and other things. So what usually happens is these programs they get obviously some benefits, but not as much as they could. So there's a massive underutilization of this type of opportunity. So, other than the cost which for the company, the cost is still there. So what the company will have to do is constantly balancing the cost of providing these activities versus the increase in performance of the employees and some of the other benefits that they get. And sometimes it's just hard to measure that as well.

Daniel:

And I know that in a corporate environment usually, even when people start with good intentions, well-being is not really at the top of the priority list. I know that if there's a specific task, they usually take priority over well-being. If there's more tasks, let's say related to productivity more directly or increasing revenue or getting more done in terms of actual work, then usually this happens at the expense of well-being activities. So this is a challenge for many companies and this is a challenge that right now even though there isn't a lot of intentionality in this right now this challenge is already addressed by co-living spaces, because people that live in co-living spaces, they already have the opportunity to have a calendar of events, some of which may be centered around well-being. That can really help achieve the sort of work-life balance that we're talking about.

Daniel:

And if we also talk about people working from home, this becomes even easier, because imagine people that work from home and they live in a single unit, in a single family unit. They are potentially away from other amenities and by the time they finish work, they might not be willing to leave home and go and take part in any activities, so they might just stay home, have dinner, go to sleep, watch TV, not something that has a major positive impact of well-being in general. Whereas the ability for people to work from home within the context of co-living allows them to really have time, not only after work, sometimes even during lunch break or during other breaks to really socialize, which is important. Again, it's not just about events, it's also the ability to have people around with whom they can bond and form relationships, and this improves the quality of life in general. Right, gareth?

Gareth:

Yeah, absolutely, and I remember if I recall, some of the events that we went to in the co-living that we lived in Dan when, when we were neighbors. It covers a whole wide range of well-being activities. Right, and having fun is a well-being activity. So we used to run a games night on a Sunday and people would just show up on the Sunday afternoon and we would decide what board games or other types of games we were going to play that afternoon and that was like a really fun social activity. You get to connect with people. You get to play that afternoon and that was like a really fun social activity. You get to connect with people, you get to just hang out.

Gareth:

And also, because it was on our doorstep, you didn't have to travel. You just walk out of your room. If you feel like you're really tired and having a lazy Sunday, you walk out of your room and you go and you meet people and you play games and then you just wander back to your room. So that time factor is really important, dan, and, as you said before, living in a co-living unlocks a huge variety of different wellbeing activities. You can effectively, just by saving time from travelling alone, you can actually go to more wellbeing activities in a week, especially if they're in your house, right. So it covers everything from fun stuff, like the games night I just mentioned, to sports, to meditation classes, nutrition, cooking classes, education, self-development there's a whole range of things and you've just just by saving time in your week, you can actually go to more events because you've got more energy for it, because it's on your doorstep, and that's a pretty amazing benefit of co-living.

Daniel:

So we can see that co-living can offer this benefit, and it's kind of interesting because, again, companies are trying to solve this, sometimes unsuccessfully, and then there's other organizations, like co-living operators, that are effectively addressing this more successfully, and they don't even get the advantage of extra productivity for the employees right. So we're looking at people that naturally choose to live in a co-living space. Thanks to their choice and thanks to the work of the co-living operator that has provided that opportunity, then they become more productive at work as well and companies can benefit. But this is done without intentionality from the companies themselves. So there's definitely an opportunity there, because what I'd love to do very soon as well is see exactly how this all translates into co-living DAO and explain why there is a big advantage in co-living DAO, specifically in terms of well-being as well.

Gareth:

Absolutely, dan. Yeah, and just to expand on that, as you mentioned the benefit that companies get without any intentionality, here's an idea for you what if a company partially paid for an employee to live in a co-living, knowing that they're going to get access to all these well-being events? And so effectively the company is outsourcing the well-being activities all in one giant package for their employee and they don't need to worry about it, they don't need to organize anything, they don't need to think about timing, because they know that that employee is going to get access to good well-being activities in the place that they live. So if there's any companies out there, there's an opportunity for you. If you want to have happy, productive employees, maybe pay for some of their accommodation, their co-living happy, productive employees maybe pay for some of their accommodation, their co-living.

Daniel:

That's a great idea, gareth. I wonder who thought about that. It's one of those things that is probably overlooked, but it can definitely increase the benefits for companies and lower their cost and the organizational burden when it comes to organizing well-being activities, especially because they uptake the opportunity for people to effectively join the events. Not just the chance for that to happen, but the actual act of employees joining the events might be relatively lower at a workplace, but when people live in a co-living space and they already have friends, it's like going to certain activities with friends can also help.

Daniel:

Of course, there's some advantages to relationship building at the workplace, but a lot of well-being activities they don't involve relationship building anyway. So we see that many companies they offer perks. They offer gym memberships, for example sort of things that are not really around relationship building. They offer, for example, all sorts of things that are not really around relationship building. They offer, for example, memberships to yoga apps where people can do yoga online. They offer meditation app discounts all sorts of different things that are really around individual well-being as opposed to group well-being. So making that happen within a co-living space has additional advantages as well, gareth.

Gareth:

Yeah, and there's a really good specific example of that that I came across, dan, in the co-living where we lived. So an individual well-being activity if you live in an apartment or a flat, for example, and there's a nice green space nearby, like a park or an area of natural interest, where there's a nice green space nearby, like a park or an area of natural interest, where there's wildlife and an outdoor space you can go and explore, basically you can just go out there and go for a walk for your own personal well-being alone. But one of the advantages of co-living is that you can get multiple benefits in one activity or one go. So that same space outside of co-living is that you can get multiple benefits in one activity or one go. So that same space outside a co-living building and we had one of these where we lived in the co-living there was a nice nature space that was kind of like a park and a wild nature place, so they had some interesting animals and plant life there, interesting animals and plant life there.

Gareth:

Instead of going alone, the co-living could organize a nature walk. That's a guided nature walk and so you go with an expert and they show you the nature in that area and then you get some education, you go with a group, you have some relationship building and you get the benefit of the walk and the exercise and the fresh air. So you're getting this holistic 360 degrees well-being benefit from multiple dimensions. By going on one event and contrast that to just walking in the park on your own, if you lived in an apartment and you didn't know anyone nearby, there's a big, big difference and that really highlights the advantage of being able to organize events in groups from a co-living community.

Daniel:

Exactly, and another big advantage of this is accountability as well. I can imagine a lot of people wanting to go to the gym in the morning or go for a run and maybe getting lazy and not really doing that. But doing that with other people, especially people they live with, it makes it a lot easier to actually do that and I can imagine. I can remember, for example, having morning yoga at 6 am with my neighbors and it's something that for a lot of people, if someone is extremely self-motivated, sure they will do one in yoga in the morning at 6am. But for people that have a certain level of motivation, but not that huge motivation to do it by themselves, it just becomes so much easier to have friends that are going to do the same and that level of accountability really helps to actually do it. And the benefits are there, gareth.

Gareth:

I remember, dan, do you remember in the co-living space we lived in, the number of of gym bookings? They were when they introduced the booking system and the number of no-shows that that appeared, that were that happened in the gym where you know you had a fully booked 7 am slot and then one person would show up in reality. So, yeah, that accountability is really important. It helps to, especially for events where there's going to be a bit of interaction. It really helps to motivate people to go to them do these activities, particularly if it's exercise.

Daniel:

Definitely, and let's see how all this translates in the co-living model that we're adopting Now, in a normal co-living DAO model that we're adopting Now. In a normal co-living space, surely there could be a community manager getting some informal feedback from the co-living residents and implementing a well-being event calendar accordingly. So that's something that may well happen. It does happen in many co-living spaces, so that's great. It's definitely helpful, gareth. What does happen in many co-living spaces, so that's great. It's definitely helpful, gareth. What's different in a co-living DAO community?

Gareth:

Exactly, Dan. So in a normal co-living you have your community manager, Maybe they have a team, and that team is looking for interesting events for their residents and they sort of set it all up pretty much themselves. Right, stay in a co-living DAO community the more resident shares you accrue and the shares make you a decision maker. They give you legal power to make decisions regarding what goes on in the co-living community and so obviously that gives you some say in what kind of wellbeing events do I want to attend in the place that I live? Oh, now I can vote on it. I can actually vote as a shareholder on what I want to see.

Gareth:

And we know that the wellbeing space is evolving and it, you know, is evolving in response to changes in lifestyle, and it's evolving in terms of what kind of activities are really fun or hot at the moment. So, for example, spin classes were really popular at one point in time. They probably still are. But you know, new well-being activities are sometimes being created by innovative entrepreneurs and people in the well-being space. So you never know what kind of new thing is going to get invented and if there's a bunch of residents that are aware of a new well-being activity but it's not happening in the co-living.

Gareth:

They can then vote on it. They can make a decision or put forward a proposal to say, hey, there's this new exercise class that we really want to have available in our co-living. Let's have a proposal and see what other residents think. Is there enough interest for this to go ahead? And if there is, then people vote on it and then it goes ahead and they have even some say in the budget and where the budget is spent for events. So what you now have is a really responsive way for the community to decide exactly what wellbeing events they want to attend and want to have on their doorstep, and that really turbocharges the whole well-being experience, because you're taking control of your own well-being as a resident by actually deciding what well-being events you want to be a part of in a co-living DAO.

Daniel:

Yeah.

Daniel:

So really, the ability to have a voice to shape the community and the well-being program within a community really makes a huge difference.

Daniel:

The other big advantage I can think of is the fact that Co-Living DAO is creating a federation of co-living communities as well, not being limited to one community but having the opportunity to live in a place and then tap into the vast potential that is on offer when it comes to other communities part of the same federation as well.

Daniel:

So what if some events, some activities are happening in one communities and then you can go to another community to tap into a different set of activities? For example, some can be a little bit more urban, some can be a little bit more based in the nature or countryside. Some can be near the sea, near the mountain, some can be in the middle of a big city with a lot of connections, a lot of people that are living in the city as well. So this can be advantageous for a lot of people that are living in the city as well. So this can be advantageous for a number of reasons, one being the activities themselves and one being the tapping into a wider network, so meeting a range of people from all walks of life, getting more stimulation and more diversity of conversations and topics. This can be very, very beneficial for well-being as well.

Gareth:

Yeah, and a couple of examples to illustrate that. Dan, let's say you live in a big city, inner city, co-living, and you're into parkour, right, and you can run along the tops of buildings, jump up flagpoles and stuff like that, and you live there and you take part in this parkour club and you take a bunch of residents out every wednesday evening and you go running around the city taking huge risks to your physical well-being. But then you know, at the weekends there's another co-living dow community in the federation and it's on the coast near a beach and you're also interested in surfing. With your membership or access pass for the place that you live, the co-living dial community you live in in the big city you could then go travel to the co-living dial community on the coast and take part in a surfing activity if you're into surfing, because obviously you can't do that in the inner city.

Daniel:

so there's some, really you know, practical examples of the advantage of having access to a federation of co-living DAO communities really unlocks the next level of well-being activities, absolutely where people can have a much better work-life balance by living in communities, living in places that offer a calendar of events and facilities as well that effectively contribute to their well-being. Also, really promote interactions between people, so that people can not just do the activities by themselves, but literally join friends every single day. Just to the activities by themselves, but literally join friends every single day and not only be more accountable but also getting more from the experience by sharing the experience with someone they care about and potentially also being connected with other communities, so that this can really grow exponentially and this can benefit them more and more. Sounds like a very pleasant picture, right?

Gareth:

Yeah, I want to go back, I want to live this again and hopefully, you know, by building we're building exactly that for other people to experience in the future, to be part of the next stage of co-living that really unlocks these 360 degree health benefits from every angle your mental, your physical, your spiritual well-being all in one place and taking care of all at the same time. The same time you meet people and hang out and do all the fun things that you know makes it fun to be, to be human. So I'm really excited by that and I think co-living and co-living DAO in particular, that gives people a voice to shape those wellbeing activities that they want to take part in. It's going to be great.

Daniel:

Yeah, and we see it's better for the people, it's better for companies higher productivity, more business, more wellbeing-being in general, quality of life improves for everyone. This is one of the advantages, really, of bringing people together and make sure that things can happen in a way that there is a net positive. So more value for the people, more value for the local communities, more value, more ability to have a better life. So great to have everyone here. Gareth, thank you so much for being here as well.

Daniel:

I think we gave people a very good picture of what things could be like and what things are becoming as well, because I see more and more co-living spaces adopting models that allow people for having better quality of life, and with Co-Living DAO, we're aiming to take this really to the next level. So thanks everyone for being here. What we're doing is we'll be back as usual with more and more content on the co-living well-being and, of course, how we are taking things to the next level. So what you want to do is subscribe to this podcast and we will be back with you very, very soon. Outro Music.