I’ve been noodling this around for quite a while and just now feel like writing it down. It’s not a formal business plan so much as a declaration of intention that I’m sending out to the universe. I could write a business plan, but frankly my life-long challenge has been to harness the intensity of my momentum enough to LISTEN. My intention now is not to steamroll obstacles that might be in my way, but rather to slipstream the unfolding demand for the services I provide and therefore become one of the ways in which the universe actually expresses itself. (Does that sound a little too spiritual for a business plan? I confess, I just listened to the 10 podcasts between Oprah and Eckhart Tollé on “The New Earth”, and it articulated what I had been aiming at.)

I’m not the only one who sees the current health care crisis culminating in a catastrophic implosion of our health care system. Listen to Dr. Andrew Weil’s opinion.

I foresee a major social readjustment coming, where people shift from belief in our “disease care” model to one much more invested in preventative wellness. Right now we are still trapped in the “pill for every ill” mentality that prevents people from listening inwardly or looking at the bigger picture. Our highly educated physicians specialize to such an enormous degree that if you might see a gastroenterologist, a dermatologist, a rheumatologist and an otolaryngologist, receive four different medications, and never discover that your underlying problem is, say, celiac disease.

People confuse the disappearance-of-symptoms with a cure, when often all we are doing is pressing the pharmaceutical mute button on our body’s effort to communicate. We have the most expensive health care, by far, in the world, and we are getting– pardon my bluntness– a crappy return on that investment.

So I see the trend shifting rapidly to preventative wellness in the next 5 to 10 years. Expensive as THAT can be with your gym membership, health counselor, acupuncturist, massage therapist and high quality food, it’s already way cheaper than throwing yourself on the mercy of our bloated, hubristic “health care” system.

But change is hard. Habits seem intractable and when it gets depressing, there’s always Ben and Jerry’s. How would someone who wanted to, actually make the lifestyle changes needed for good health?

So here’s my vision. I’m going to open a “Center for Nutrition and Lifestyle Change.” It will offer a sort of life-coaching towards health, complete with cooking classes, shopping tutors and a community of real people who are also making the shift themselves. Yes, it will have a strong emphasis on food– on self-nourishment– because your food becomes your life (and conversely, your life shows up in your food.) It’s an empowerment model, that allows for room for heinously crashing and burning at times on the road to good health, because that’s always totally part of the process. It’s a model that would have people slowly start to trust themselves above all others– if that’s what they want– (Some people don’t actually want that) and do what they can to contribute to their own good health, which is: a lot.

Ideally it will be located in Rockport on Rt. 1. (I already have a building in mind.) In this center, a client would enter into a 6-month program, (a much-enhanced version of my current program.) In addition to bi-weekly meetings (12 sessions total) with a Holistic Health and Nutrition Counselor like myself, the client would also be assessed by an acupuncturist and an Ayurvedic practitioner (another one or two sessions) in order for us to determine their constitution according to these two ancient Eastern medical traditions. This is crucial for determining a personally-appropriate diet and exercise regime, as everyone’s needs are different. A functional medicine practitioner and a fitness motivator (another two sessions) would round out the team of people who would be synergistically supporting each client (one session each), while massage, energy psychology and other body work would be available as add-ons to individual programs.

Determining a person’s constitution is separate from determining whatever imbalance they might have. The fact is, you often have to eat according to your imbalance before you can be balanced enough to eat according to your constitution.

Here’s the fun part; My center would have a huge, tricked-out demo kitchen where cooking classes would be held 5 nights a week. How do you actually cook fennel? What about those garlic scapes that came in your CSA share? A number of these classes would be included in the program. I envision a variety of kinds of cooking classes; Whole Food 101, Raw Food, Macrobiotics, Kid’s Meals, Gluten-Free, Sprouting, Fermented Foods, Eating according to your Constitution, Ethnic Cuisine, Efficiency Cooking (cook once eat four times, ) classes on how to prepare Vegan food for those who have eaten too many animal products and classes on how to prepare meat for vegetarians who want to get over their obstacles to this. I might even figure out a way to hold a “studio kitchen” once a week, where people come in for 2 hours and assemble 10 whole-food meals to take home, without worrying about meal planning, prep, or clean up. Now that would really support people to try new whole food meal choices.

So in my imagination, the upstairs of this building would be session rooms and the downstairs would be this big kitchen, a fitness room and a small store that would carry books, some supplements and some clean-living supplies like air and water filters. It would also have a children’s room for both clients and practitioners who get into a childcare crunch and or would like to include their children in their work lives or their healing process.

For practitioners to work collaboratively, part of my work will be to learn about alternative leadership models, like this one. I’m already collecting my guides for this. These are exceptional people who have done a huge amount of inner work and are embodying and inspiring change in the people and systems around them. I’m not sure if I’m finding them, or they are finding me, but anyway, we are crossing paths, and I feel very lucky.

Lastly, I know a 16 to 24 session program with adjunct cooking glasses and workshops sounds expensive, and I’m sure it will be, but here’s how I intend to make it available to more than just those who can invest in the full program. Firstly, with the collapse of our health care model has come options like the “Health Savings Account.” Currently, this type of account is only available through your employer, which excludes self-employed people and, of course, companies that don’t offer one. It is also only offered if you “opt out” of the traditional HMO set-up, for one that’s more for catastrophic coverage. If you do this, you can get one of these accounts, which diverts pre-tax money from your paycheck into an account you can spend on your health care– including things like massage, acupuncture and supplements, if your doctor recommends them. It’s already possible right now to spend this money on my services (holistic health and nutrition counseling,) and I foresee these health savings accounts becoming much more widely available in the near future– not just through certain employers.

Spending pre-tax money on your health makes it a lot more possible and appealing to invest in preventative wellness. In addition, my center will offer many levels of affordable service. In addition to individual programs, we’ll offer much more affordable group programs and a really cool web-based option that works like this: I’ve already developed the kernel of an online learning center on my website which includes a forum and an “aggregator” that organizes learning resources about nutrition, news, personal growth, video recipes, spirituality and food science. In addition to this learning center, I envision live streaming video of the cooking classes and workshops, so that these resources will be available to anyone anywhere with a computer who is willing to plonk down the price of an annual magazine subscription.

In addition to these ideas, I believe in the importance of reserving a certain percentage of your time to do pro bono work, which I already do. Besides taking on pro bono clients, I will inevitably set up a foundation arm of my center in order be able to offer scholarships for people to take advantage of our programs.

Lastly, why not franchise this baby. If I’m all about social change, why not set that brush fire.

So there it is. Just by writing this down, have and will continue to refine this vision. I’m looking to have this up and really running in ten years, by 2018. I am always open to the cross-pollination of ideas, so if you have some thoughts on this, feel free to let me know them.

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