The Wellness Revolution
The 20th century brought us automobiles, jet travel, computers, cell phones, penicillin and surgery; each of these discoveries led to the development of major industries and vast financial empires. The dawn of the 21st century brings fresh horizons and important new opportunities for those with the vision to see them. Are you ready for the Wellness Revolution? I hope so, because ready or not, it will soon change every aspect of your life – the way you think, work, eat, shop, live, play, pray, recover from illness – all of it.

In his latest book, The Wellness Revolution, economist Paul Zane Pilzer predicts that the $200 billion wellness industry will grow to over $1 trillion dollars annually in the course of the next decade. Pilzer expects the dynamic growth of this emerging global industry to impact every sector of the economies of more than 200 nations.

I concur. My extensive background in conventional medicine and business development and more recent work as a consultant in the emerging medical spa industry have given me a unique perspective on changes taking place in the industry. I am convinced that under the leadership of committed individuals in the medispa and hospitality fields, the wellness industry will soon become the dominant voice in global healthcare.

The transition has already begun. In the United States, the fledgling wellness industry is engaged in fierce philosophical and economic competition with the “sickness” industry – the $1.6 trillion dollar medical industrial complex. How’s the battle going? More than 350 US hospitals have closed in the last decade – hardly surprising, given that conventional medicine is costly, poorly managed and woefully inadequate when it comes to the treatment of chronic and advanced disease.

More significantly, these closures have been accompanied by a dramatic upsurge in the number of health spas, medispas, day spas, wellness hotels, health clubs, natural food stores and web-based providers of healthcare. Given these trends, the wellness industry will likely surpass the illness-based field of conventional medicine in both sales and market share by the year 2030. We can expect to see this trend replicated in emerging economies across the planet.

The elimination of disease is not synonymous with the optimization of health. The fact is, even the term “conventional healthcare” is a misnomer. Physicians, surgeons and hospitals specialize in the identification of disease and pathology and have little to do with the promotion or preservation of health. It is a reactive system, one we turn to only when sick or injured.

By contrast, those in the wellness industry provide services based a model of prevention and the proactive adoption of healthier lifestyles, and by doing so, distinguish themselves as the true providers of healthcare. A growing segment of the population clearly understands the difference, and when given a choice, they show a decided preference for the latter. In the end, those embracing preventative self-care, integral and anti-ageing medicine, and the promotion of healthy lifestyles will define the parameters of the wellness revolution. The New Healers The fastest growing sector of the human population is now over sixty, and members of this group have shown an insatiable appetite for everything related to prevention and anti-ageing medicine. This has created a burgeoning demand for service that is bringing surprising new players to the fore of the wellness industry.

Medicine is currently dominated by the providers of conventional allopathic care – hospitals, doctors and clinics whose basic strategy of care has changed little in the past hundred years. Innovators in the healthcare field have tended to emerge from the wellness-based resorts and spas of the hospitality industry.

Somewhere between lies the world of natural, alternative and complementary healers, practitioners who serve as a bridge between these two disparate philosophies of care. This category includes naturopathic and chiropractic physicians, massage therapists, herbalists, acupuncturists, bio-feedback therapists and other licensed professionals. As a group, they represent the most dynamic and independently functioning sector of the new wellness economy.

In the future, the industry’s greatest growth may come from healers who do not fall within any particular healthcare licensing category. They are our urban shamans, life coaches, psychics, energy healers and medical intuits – housewives, neighbours and siblings drawn to the healing profession by a higher calling. They are responding because they feel the planet and its people need them. In doing so, they are filling a void.

These individuals may not hold professional titles, but they are engaged in the vital, loving and long-neglected task of helping healthcare find its roots. In time, this group will be recognized for the important role they are playing in shaping the new planetary consciousness and emerging trends in healthcare.

I have great respect for these intuitive healers – and like them, I believe that healthcare should not be viewed as the exclusive domain of licensed professionals. The loving act of healing to ourselves and each other is a God-given birthright of every human being. We each have the innate ability, fundamental right – and indeed, responsibility – to heal whenever and wherever our help is needed. In a suffering world, it would be immoral to think otherwise.

This new generation of healers is arriving on the wellness scene in ever greater numbers; many of them were participants in the Wellness Summit at Hua Hin. I welcome them as esteemed colleagues and pray that they will one day gain the numbers, strength and organizational power they will need to revise legal codes around the planet. The right to heal has been systematically stripped away from millions of gifted and conscientious people. It’s time to reclaim it.

If I could have one wish for the Wellness Summit 2007 in Manila and for the future of healthcare, it would be to grant special recognition and a voice to this dynamic and growing group of men and women. We owe them that much. They are doing the work of heroes.

Until then, I wish you well.

With much love,
Noah

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