Instructor certification
Certified FLAME Instructor.
Teach the method. Run the programmes. Join the network. Small live cohorts with Brad Hook — eight weeks from your first session to your listing on flame.live.
The invitation
A proven programme.Delivered by you.
FLAME Instructor Certification gives coaches, facilitators and learning leaders a complete, research-based method for sustainable high performance, the materials to run it, and a network behind you.
Twenty years of work went into FLAME: a decade on team performance, a decade on personal resilience, four books, three global reports and a validated assessment. Certification puts all of it in your hands, including the decks Brad runs himself, with notes written for a guest presenter. You bring the room. The method carries the rest.
Who it's for
- Executive and leadership coaches who want a workplace programme with tools, not just conversations
- Facilitators and trainers who want a science-backed method they can run in any room
- L&D and wellbeing leads building an internal bench that delivers the same programme in every market
- Values Coaches extending their practice from the individual to the team
What you'll be able to do
- Run FLAME keynotes, webinars, half-day and full-day workshops under the FLAME name
- Deliver FLAME for Teams: four sessions, two parts, one team charter
- Run the FLAME assessment and debrief a team report with a leader
- Be listed on flame.live as a certified instructor, and receive enquiries for your region
The market
Organisations are seeking what FLAME delivers.
Employers already rank the human skills FLAME builds among the most important in their workforce. The demand is real. The constraint is hands.
67%
of employers name resilience, flexibility and agility a core skill for their workforce
57%
name creative thinking
50%
name curiosity and lifelong learning
50%
name empathy and active listening
World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025 — share of employers who consider each a core skill for their workforce.
What you'll deliver
Three formats. One toolkit.
Every client starts somewhere different. Certification covers all three, so you can meet a keynote brief, an offsite or a whole-of-team programme.
The short form
State, Story, Action
Sixty to ninety minutes, or a half day.
The entry point for most clients. The prediction engine, the performance curve, three regulation practices and one commitment.
- Keynotes and conference sessions
- Webinars and lunch-and-learns
- Half-day workshops
The full programme
The Five Dimensions
A full day, a retreat, or a series of five sessions.
Agility, Vitality, Mindset, Purpose and Belonging in delivery order, with State, Story, Action as the running rhythm. Pair work, live demos, the Rhythm map.
- Full-day workshops
- Leadership retreats
- Five-session programmes
For teams
FLAME for Teams
Four sessions in two parts, or two half days.
Part 1, How We Work Together: State, Story, Action, then team styles and the team mix. Part 2, What We Stand For: purpose, essentials and a one-page team charter. Add-on sessions cover Accountability, Psychological Safety, Leading through Pressure and Joy as Infrastructure.
- Team styles assessment, FLAME assessment and team report, re-measured at 90 days
- Online or in person, priced per team, never per seat
The curriculum
Five dimensions. Twenty-five practices.
Everything you'll teach lives in The FLAME Field Guide. Every participant carries the same book you do, so nothing you say in the room is lost when they leave it.
Agility
The oxygen
The breath that keeps the flame alive under pressure. Zones of performance and how to move between them.
- Mauao Breathing
- Coherent Breathing
- Stress as Fuel
Vitality
The fuel
The body budget you burn. Sleep, light, movement, food and recovery as the base of capacity.
- Sun 3-2-1
- Movement
- Nutrition
- Rest & Recovery
- Into Nature
Mindset
The light
What you see by. Attention, control, reflection, emotion and self-talk.
- Monotask
- Control the Controllables
- Space to Reflect
- Gratitude
- Play & Curiosity
- Emotional Granularity
- Self-Talk
Purpose
The spark
What ignites you. Meaning, ownership, legacy and the values beneath them.
- Find the Why
- Radical Ownership
- The Legacy Reflection
- Know Your Values
- Values into Verbs
Belonging
The warmth
The reason we gather. Trust, empathy, shared reality and repair.
- Weave Trust
- Empathy
- Build Shared Realities
- Compare Your Values
- Courageous Conversations
The FLAME Field Guide
A guided journal for calm, clarity and energy: the practices from all five dimensions, the Seven-Day Burn, and space to write. Digital edition for every participant; print editions available for workshops and retreats.
The toolkit
The tools in the room. Ready to run.
Certification includes the decks Brad uses himself, with speaker notes, timings, the science behind each slide and guidance for a guest presenter. Twelve of the tools you'll be running.
The Prediction Engine
Exteroception, interoception and past experience. Why six people on one roller coaster wear six faces.
State + Story = Action
The rhythm that runs every session. Strength and risk factors, and a worksheet for any situation.
Zones of Performance
Calm, focused, flow and peak against flight, fight and freeze. Everyone locates themselves on it.
Regulation practices
Coherent breathing, the physiological sigh, panoramic vision. Train one daily, deploy one in the moment.
Joy as Infrastructure
Laugh, hug, move, play, sing. Joy as a system input rather than a reward for finishing.
The Energy Budget
Circadian rhythm, ultradian cycles, light and sleep. One thing to add, one thing to subtract.
Control and the Resolution Wheel
What I control, influence, and don't. Then: I am feeling X because of Y, so I will Z.
The Flow cycle
Clear goal, matched challenge, minimal distraction, recovery. One diarised hour of flow next week.
The Golden Circle and Purpose Story
Connect a daily activity to the why. Legacy reflection and the values you want to be remembered for.
Human Operating Styles
Explorer, Driver, Connector, Steward. What each values, what alienates each, and how to flex.
The Empathy Ladder and Courageous Conversations
From schadenfreude to compassion. A two-column protocol for the conversation you've been avoiding.
The Identity Cascade and the Rhythm map
Priors shift from evidence, not insight. Micro-habits, habit stacking, and a 24-hour map with every practice on it.
The science
Four fields. One method.
FLAME draws on neuroscience, psychology, preventative medicine and values research, and is written for people who don't need to read the papers. You'll learn to explain each piece in a sentence, and to name the source when someone asks.
Neuroscience
The brain as a prediction engine rather than a reaction machine (Clark, Friston). Emotions as constructed from bodily signals, and the body budget that funds them (Barrett). Allostasis and allostatic load: what pressure costs when the budget runs in deficit (Sterling, McEwen).
Psychology
Stress mindset and expectation effects: how what a person believes about pressure changes their physiology (Crum). Growth through adversity (Tedeschi and Calhoun). Autonomy, competence and relatedness as the conditions for sustained motivation (Deci and Ryan). Psychological safety as the foundation of team learning (Edmondson).
Preventative and lifestyle medicine
Sleep, movement, nutrition and recovery as the physical substrate of capacity. Social connection as one of the strongest predictors of long-term health (Holt-Lunstad).
Values and purpose
Schwartz's model of basic human values, and the Values Institute's own research on the gap between what people value and their capacity to live it: 9,656 people across 114 countries in the Global Values Report 2026.
Every stat in the deck has its source in the speaker notes — Gallup on engagement, the World Economic Forum on skills, Gloria Mark on attention, McKinsey on burnout. Where a finding is a correlation, the note says so, and so will you.
How it runs
Four live sessions with Brad Hook.
Small live cohorts. Four 90-minute sessions online, a fortnight apart, with real practice in between. Eight weeks from the first session to your listing on flame.live.
Week 0
Access opens
Decks, guides, your own assessment, and a print Field Guide in the post.
Week 1
Session 1
The Method
The prediction engine. State, Story, Action. The short form.
Week 3
Session 2
Capacity
Agility, Vitality, Mindset. The practices and demos, live.
Week 5
Session 3
Direction
Purpose and Belonging. Team styles and the mix.
Week 7
Session 4
Assessment and practice
The app, the team report, the debrief, your teach-back.
Week 8
Certified
Listed on flame.live. Welcome in.
Times alternate between Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas so every cohort has a slot that works. In person, the certification can run as one day inside your own event, with a Master Instructor.
Between sessions
- Run one practice with a real group: a team you lead, a client, a peer circle
- Record a short teach-back and get feedback from Brad and the cohort
- Complete your own Seven-Day Burn for the dimensions just covered
- Take the team styles and five-dimension assessments yourself, and read your own report
To certify
- Attend all four live sessions, or catch up on the recordings
- Deliver a ten-minute teach-back in session 4, assessed live
- Submit a programme plan for a real or intended client: format, sequence, tools, assessment points
- Sign the FLAME instructor agreement
Coming soon: a fully self-paced version. Instructor training delivered asynchronously on a collaborative learning platform, with regular touchpoints throughout. If a live cohort doesn't fit, mention self-paced in your enquiry.
The FLAME app
Measure the room. Then measure it again.
A psychometrically validated assessment and companion app, from the creator of the Resilience Institute's assessment technology. As a certified instructor you run it for every team you work with.
What it measures
The five dimensions, rolled into one FLAME Index, and each person's team style: Explorer, Driver, Connector or Steward. Completed in minutes, results the same day.
What a leader sees
A team report: the collaboration styles overview, the team's profile across five dimensions, the focus areas the group shares, and a baseline to re-measure at 90 days. Patterns, never individuals.
The app is included in every FLAME programme at no extra cost to your client, never sold as a separate line item. Your instructor licence covers the teams you run.
More about the appWhat you receive
Everything you need. Nothing to buy.
One fee. The method, the materials, the tool and the network. No per-seat charges, no separate assessment licence, no tools your client has to procure.
What certification includes
- Certification in the FLAME Method and FLAME for Teams: the short form, the full programme, all four team sessions and the add-on themes
- The full-day and half-day slide decks, the FLAME for Teams decks, session guides and run sheets, with speaker notes
- The FLAME Field Guide: a print copy sent to you, the digital edition, and participant pricing for your workshops
- Instructor access to the FLAME app for twelve months: run both assessments and generate team reports for the teams you lead or support
- Your listing on flame.live as a Certified FLAME Instructor, with enquiries from your region referred to you
- A place in the FLAME instructor network: a monthly call, new modules as the method develops, and a path to Master FLAME Instructor
You deliver, you keep 80%.
FLAME takes a 20% programme licence on every FLAME engagement you run. It covers the app, the materials, the updates, the network and the leads. Associate and licensed-facilitator models commonly leave the person in the room with half the fee or less.
Invoice either way.
You can invoice your client directly and remit the licence, or FLAME invoices the client and pays you on delivery. Guide rates are published to instructors so pricing is consistent across markets, and you set your own rates within them.
Leads by region.
Enquiries that come to flame.live are referred to the certified instructor closest to the client, in their language and time zone, when it makes sense for the client.
Certification
USD 2,950
per person, small live cohorts
- Includes the first twelve months of instructor app access; renews annually.
- Founding cohort rate: USD 1,950 for the first cohorts.
The network
One method. Many hands.
FLAME is delivered by certified instructors working from one Field Guide, led by Brad Hook and a group of Master FLAME Instructors across three continents. Five more instructors are currently in training. You would be joining them.
Wherever you are, Brad leads delivery from New Zealand, within working hours for Asia Pacific, with Master Instructors covering the Americas and Europe. Certified instructors join a monthly network call that alternates time zones, and a shared channel for questions between calls.
The founder
About Brad Hook.
The person you'll be learning from, and the body of work behind the method.
Brad Hook created FLAME after twenty years working on the two halves of the problem: a decade with Life by Design on team performance and engagement, and a decade with the Resilience Institute on personal resilience. In 2018 he founded the Values Institute, whose free assessment and research underpin the Global Values Report.
He is the author of Resilience Mastery (2020) and Start With Values (Penguin / Hatherleigh, 2025), edited the Global Values Report 2026, and authored the Resilience Institute's Global Resilience Report in 2022, 2023 and 2025. His next book features the FLAME Method in full and will be published by Hatherleigh in 2027, distributed globally by Penguin.
Brad's podcast ranked in the top 5% of video podcasts on Spotify. He writes a column for Entrepreneur and has written on the future of work for more than a decade. Teams describe his sessions as edutainment: rigorous, experiential, and fun.
Trusted by teams under pressure
What sets Brad apart is his ability to translate high-performance concepts into something tangible and actionable. We've seen the impact firsthand, not just in the moment, but in how our people keep applying the tools in their day-to-day roles.
Pauline McLaren
Head of People & Technology, Realty Group
Quite honestly, the star of the two days training. His subject matter expertise was exceptional; delivery style was masterful.
Programme feedback
Toyota
Engaging, thoughtful and deeply practical. Everyone is still talking about it days later.
Jo Stansfield
Chief Technology Officer, Fortysouth
Join the network
Bring FLAME to your clients, your organisation and your region.
Tell me about your practice and where you'd deliver. I'll come back personally with dates for the next cohort.
Upcoming event
FLAME Live 2026
A public event for leaders and changemakers.
Stay inspired
Insights, tools and ideas to help you burn bright.