Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.
I have to admit: If it were not for the Homeschool Review Crew, I never would have heard of nor tried the goal achievement and team building experience TRIVE by GOZIMUS Enterprises, LLC., a game that aims to promote family relationships, communication, and achievement, while everyone puts their phones down to converses with, coach, and compete with one another.
Part entertainment, part teamwork, all working towards motivating participants to discover, share, and achieve personal goals through face-to-face conversations, TRIVE is a unique experience.
What Comes in the TRIVE Box?
We were all impressed with the physical quality of the TRIVE materials.
The game comes in an appealing and sturdy box which includes:
a TRIVE instruction booklet
50 Goal Cards
50 Review Cards
100 Quotable Cards
a TRIVE Leader Notebook
There is also an Online TRIVE Guide.
All of these work to help a group of 4-6 family and friends connect and achieve through a 3-step TRIVE process.
My family also found that the Quotable Cards make great quick-pick journal and impromptu speech prompts!
What Was Our Experience with TRIVE?
When I hear words like "goals," "teamwork", or "family communication," I think, You're speaking my language. Others here do not, though. Four of five like games though, so I was interested to see how my family would react to TRIVE.
Thus, after I read all the TRIVE instructions, I gathered my family for a TRIVE Discovery Session one night.
On the night of our Discovery Session, we each came up with three goals and, then, secretly, put a quick drawing, word, or phrase on a goal card to represent the goal.
From there, we followed the TRIVE directions to play a game where we took turns drawing Quotable cards, read the cards aloud, and guessed who had said each quote. (We had expected many older, traditional quotes, and were surprised by how many current figures were included in the Quotable cards.)
Then, we picked up random goal cards, read these aloud (or showed the sketches on them) and guessed who had penned the goal, and, finally, based upon points and conversation, paired up with coaches.
From there, we headed into the Achievement phase of the TRIVE experience, where - over the next six months- each of us is meant to work on our goals with our coaches encouraging us.
For the first couple of days after our Discovery Session, some of our family actually began to coach and work towards goals, while others joked about it all.
Sadly, too soon for my liking, efforts petered out, so I am not sure if it will be worth us continuing onto the Review Session where final discussion, assessment, scoring, etc. is done. For, while I would love to have this work for my family, it is clear that - at present- we just are not a good TRIVE, or group of friends or family members discovering, sharing and achieving personal goals through face-to-face conversations.
In fact, when I asked each member of our TRIVE for their thoughts, my 14-year-old - who tends to like personal goal setting and games, but also likes things to be clear cut, said:
I didn't really like using TRIVE the way it was meant to be used, but I did like to use the cards with the quotes to find journal prompts and impromptu speech quotes. Also, the materials were of good quality.
The game itself was a little bit boring, because it wasn't really a game and wasn't really a meeting either. It was a fine line that I did not find pleasant. It was a little bit in between.
My 16-year-old, who is not a goal-setting and sharing, family time kind of kid right now, said:
I didn't enjoy it so much. I found it kind of pointless, because I don't see why you need something external to set goals with you and why everyone needs to know what your goals are. It's not my style, but people like my mom would like it. It is more organized...all with the family, and all that.
My husband, who willingly gave TRIVE a chance, but found it lacked the motivational factor that would work for him and some of our children said:
It was okay, but has not really been achieving its goal. I have not coached or been coached much.
My youngest, however, who is just 11 - so young for this experience which is geared for those 15 years old and up - did like it. He said:
It was a fun way to set goals. I liked using the card points to pick coaches.
As for me, I think TRIVE has potential and would love to try it again with a different group of people - perhaps some of my friends.
I signed up for the optional TRIVE emails that offer tips and such, and enjoy reading what they have to say. I also think that TRIVE could:
effectively act as a framework for discovering, defining, sharing, and achieving personal goals.
encourage meaningful dialogue.
guide willing participants in the importance of coaching and how to be a great coach.
motivate the right personality types to overcome obstacles such as procrastination, self-doubt, and fear.
encourage commitment to tasks.
focus one on the value of discipline to a process.
and more.
What TRIVE Tweaks Would I Like to See?
Undoubtedly, the mixed reviews my family gave for TRIVE were due, in large part, to the temperament and habits of different people here and not the quality of TRIVE materials. However, I do think that two tweaks to how TRIVE is presented would help families like mine benefit more from the experience:
(1) Encourage varied goal setting periods.
For a family like mine, with some members who don't like goal-setting and others who need more of a push to form new habits, I think the six-month timeframe for the TRIVE experience is too long. I think we would have found the activity more successful with a much shorter initial TRIVE cycle.
(2) Allow TRIVE coaches an option for access to a website with links to each TRIVE Guide portions.
Signing up for optional emails is all well and good, but emails get lost in overcorwded inboxes and also, the automatic pacing of the emails prevents families from flexibly speeding up the TRIVE cycle as suggested above. So, I would love to see the ability to have immediate web access to all of the Guide once the Guide access code is inputted online.
Would We Recommend TRIVE?
While several in my family would not likely recommend TRIVE, I would - for families and groups of friends that like structure and wish to get together to talk, set goals, and coach one another. The product materials are well made, the concept interesting, and the goal of getting people to put phones down and start talking face-to-face a wonderful one.
Some Homeschool Review Crew families truly loved TRIVE. Head on over to read their reviews to see if your family, like theirs, will find TRIVE an awesome goal achievement and family communication experience.
