Founded by Bradley Hook
Brad Hook is a speaker, author, facilitator, and entrepreneur based in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand. He is the founder of the Values Institute, the author of Start With Values (Penguin, 2025), and the creator of the FLAME Method — a holistic performance framework for leaders and teams navigating the age of intelligence.
Over two decades, Brad has delivered keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for organizations including PwC, Bridgestone, Electronic Arts, Fonterra, and Fletcher Building. He has partnered with Chartered Accountants Worldwide, been featured in Entrepreneur magazine, and directed the documentary Waves of Freedom. His podcast and YouTube channel explore the intersection of values, performance, and what it means to live fully.
The Values Institute was founded in 2018 as the research home for all of this work — a place to develop the tools, content, and community that would eventually become Start With Values and the FLAME Method.
Learn more about Brad at bradleyhook.com →
The Values Institute — research home
The Values Institute produces original research into how values shape human behavior, performance, and wellbeing. The Global Values Report 2026 — The Values-Living Gap — draws on 9,327 respondents across 114 countries and surfaces one of the most consistent findings in the literature: values clarity is necessary, but not sufficient. Knowing your values and living them are two very different things.
That gap — between insight and action — is what everything here is designed to close. The free Values Assessment, the articles, the book, the Values Course, and the Values Coach Certification all serve that same purpose.
The FLAME Method — delivery vehicle
FLAME is how the Values Institute’s research comes to life inside organizations. It’s a holistic performance framework built on five pillars — Fellowship, Legacy, Agility, Mindset, Energy — with values at the foundation of every one.
FLAME is delivered through leadership retreats, team programs, keynotes, and corporate rollouts. It is not a burnout prevention program. It is a performance program — built for leaders and teams who want to operate at a genuinely high level, sustainably, in an age where intelligence is abundant and wisdom is rare.
Learn more about the FLAME Method at flame.live →
Why values? The science.
Values aren’t a soft topic. The research is unambiguous — and it has been for decades.
Participants who affirmed their values had significantly lower cortisol responses to stress, compared with control participants.
Affirmation of Personal Values Buffers Neuroendocrine and Psychological Stress Responses — University of California
Much has been written about stress management techniques that are primarily behavioral in nature. But relatively little has been written on the benefits of self-disciplined articulation of a philosophical worldview and core values that help us weather the storms and devastations that inevitably rock our lives and careers.
David Brendel, MD, PhD — Harvard Business Review
It turns out that writing about your values is one of the most effective psychological interventions ever studied. In the short term, writing about personal values makes people feel more powerful, in control, proud, and strong. It also makes them feel more loving, connected, and empathetic toward others. It increases pain tolerance, enhances self-control, and reduces unhelpful rumination after a stressful experience.
In the long term, writing about values has been shown to boost GPAs, reduce doctor visits, improve mental health, and help with everything from weight loss to quitting smoking and reducing drinking. It helps people persevere in the face of discrimination and reduces self-handicapping. In many cases, these benefits are a result of a one-time mindset intervention. People who write about their values once, for ten minutes, show benefits months or even years later.
Professor Kelly McGonigal — Stanford University
