Wellness Unplugged

A short story to begin...

I sat at the hair salon recently, watching an inconsolable child - through screwed up face and streaming tears - refuse to lay down his mother’s smartphone for a 10-minute haircut. I intend to throw no criticism on his mother - I’ve no doubt that this handy piece of technology irresistibly affords her some time each day to complete necessary tasks and enjoy a little much-needed peace and quiet. But the sight of this made me feel very sad. I recalled my own childhood obligations to dutifully attend hair appointments with my mother, most times clutching a picture book firmly in both hands to pass the (what felt like at the time) excruciatingly long wait until the hairdresser was ready to massacre my own hair. Sure, I sometimes cried following the appointment, but it had everything to do with the mullet-esque hairstyle that had been decided for me, and nothing to do with an addictive device.

As a child, my books were my prized possessions, second only to the glitter pens and notebooks that facilitated my own storytelling. The smell of my beautiful hardcover, illustrated publications of Enid Blyton’s ‘The Faraway Tree’ and ‘The Wishing Chair’ still lingers in the depths of my brain’s olfactory cortex, remaining both comforting and intoxicating even now.

I would spend hours on end in my bedroom, door firmly closed, reading, writing and drawing. Nowadays, this would be termed ‘consuming and creating content’. At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon beyond my years, I am tremendously grateful to have enjoyed these hobbies at a time when the mind-to-hand requirement involved no mediation by a digital screen.

Maybe, at the hair salon, I witnessed that kid in an uncharacteristically defiant moment. Maybe he loves his books, too, and is also mesmerised by some 2023 equivalent of Moon-Face, Silky and The Saucepan Man. I hope so.

Three (or so) decades on from my enchantment with Moon-Face, I decided to take the plunge to start my own business in something that is incredibly meaningful to me: supporting others to live long, healthy lives through nourishing eating and lifestyle habits. At the time, I had blissfully not used social media for over two years. I proclaimed to everyone I knew that, as a business owner, NOT using these platforms would be a selling point for me. I could assure clients that I was instead using that time to provide them with exceptional service and offerings. That, when I advised them of the very real risks to health, wellness and quality of life posed by the design of these platforms, I was credibly walking the walk.

Then I began receiving business ownership advice, undertook training and read a lot, and the resounding message was that social media simply MUST be part of one’s marketing strategy, that it must be used very frequently, and that the only way to really reap any benefit is to pay the platforms to elevate your content.

So, against my better judgement, I dutifully sunk hour upon hour to follow that advice.

I resented it and, worse still, I felt like a complete fraud as a practitioner who promotes natural ways of living to enhance quality of life above all else. I was unable to fully embrace the activity because of its misalignment with my values and philosophies, so all I could do was mimic what others were doing rather than set my brand apart. It also took time away from getting out into my local community to build meaningful professional relationships, which is very important to me and my business.

I quickly became aware of the viscous cycle that has been created by the beast that must be continuously and increasingly fed. I have to be on social media because my competitors are, right? But wait - my competitors have to be there because I am! If we all just unplugged tomorrow, stepped out onto our doorsteps, strolled down the street and visited our fellow local business owners, had a chat, shared stories, explained what we do and how we could serve each other's customers and clients...what would happen? What COULD happen? Maybe a more limited market? Sure. Maybe steps toward rebuilding true reciprocal communities with more engaged members. I think so.

This is why I am now experimenting with both playing to my strengths and testing an alternative: an initiative I have named ‘Wellness Unplugged’. Read on to learn more.

Wellness Unplugged - what and why?

At its heart, this is an experiment.

I am committing to taking the time I would have spent on social media marketing activities and investing it into face-to-face engagement with other local small business owners for a period of time. The outcome of these connections will be a collection of stories that demonstrates how wellness permeates every part of our lives - touched by every interaction and activity that businesses across ALL industries influence. As a synergistic business community, we can all play a part in enhancing others' quality of life. This initiative aims to shine a light on this fact.

Every month, I will publish these stories in a newsletter sent directly to mailing list subscribers.

Each edition will feature a story that I have crafted from a conversation with a local business owner about who they are, what their business does and how their offerings contribute to the wellness of their community. These stories will be brief non-fiction pieces containing information provided to me by the respective business owner in our discussion, written in creative prose. There will be strong characters, meaningful messages and even a few plot twists! Each month will include at least one story, with the view to increase this number as time goes on.

Hang on, email is not completely unplugged...

Absolutely. This is designed to act as a stepping stone back to real-life connections; a first step to fostering a community that has said ‘Yes, I want to read about this!’ rather than trying to connect via platforms that elicit mindless scrolling and centralised control over what we view. We all intuitively know that personal contact is a much more engaging form of communication than the homogenous approach of social media. Where technology can facilitate this more personal contact, rather than hinder it, its utilisation can be worthwhile - I am certainly not strictly anti-technology. Social media has flipped the balance, however, of us using technology to technology using us.

In truth, I do have grand plans to eventually go full analogue! But baby steps...