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by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.
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Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

A Wellness Keynote Well Remembered

Saturday June 30, 2007

How would you like to take a quick test? Good. There is only one question on this test - and, if you play by the rules that I just made up, you have five seconds to answer it or you don't pass the test. Ready?

A mute enters a store to buy a toothbrush. He acts out this desire by mimicking the action of brushing his teeth to convey to the clerk what he wants. The clerk gets the idea immediately, and the transaction is completed. Here is the test: If a blind man wants to buy a pair of sunglasses in the same store from the same clerk, how should he express himself? Think about it - for five seconds.

Time's up. Did you answer correctly? The answer is he opens his mouth and says. "I would like to buy a pair of sunglasses." Naturally, you got this right away, but a lot of people do not. Why? I suppose because they're distracted by a cognitive sleight of mind. The thought process gets stuck in a certain mode (in this case, to think in terms of charades to communicate an idea) and the simple solution to the challenge is overlooked as a result.

I think the same dynamic occurs at national wellness conferences. Experts give splendid keynotes with interesting visuals, relevant statistics, tell funny anecdotes and do all or most of the things that make for a great speech, but they don't talk about wellness. At least not REAL wellness. And nobody notices!

One of the most memorable talks ever in 30-some years of National Wellness Conferences (NWCs) was the closing keynote at the 1987 event delivered by Robert F. Allen, one of the pioneers of the movement. Dr. Allen spoke about peace as a first wellness challenge. At the time, the Cold War was still hot as hell. Dr. Allen urged all wellness enthusiasts to direct a good deal of their energies to promoting world peace, as well as seeking more harmony in their personal lives, as "peace begins with all of us." It was a fine talk, made especially memorable by the way he illustrated the number of thermonuclear weapons extant at the time. He poured BBs into a bucket, each BB representing 100 nuclear weapons. The BBs made a thunderous and frightening racket as they crashed into the bucket. The noise seemed to last a long time. Finally there was quiet. It was clear that there would be no wellness if it came to a point where even a few of these BBs ever hit the real bucket, Earth.

I was there for that speech. I still remember the sound of those BBs. So, when the late Dr. Allen's son Judd, who has continued his dad's work with great distinction, described what he was planning to do at HIS keynote at this summer's NWC, twenty years after his dad's memorable talk, I was pretty excited. Here is a summary of what Judd outlined.

Early on I will be quickly stating my position on the big issues that demand a wellness culture. I hope to use my dad's trick of pouring BBs into a container with chilling effect. Each BB will represent 100 premature annual deaths and I will unload containers of BBs into the coffee tin for alcohol abuse up to smoking in ascending order of death rates...I will report that the cultural breakdown leaves us vulnerable to more extreme/fanatical thinking. I plan to flash the average 2006 annual cost of family health insurance ($10,600) and talk about our need for national health insurance and the pitfalls of tethering our wellness story to a broken illness care system. I will also be talking about employment trends and how they are adversely influencing work/life balance. Our Italian friends get more than 3 times the days off per year. I will talk about high lifestyle change failure rates and how this undermines wellness. This is before I discuss culture change methodology and offer illustrations of successful culture change at Frost Valley, South Africa and in American work settings. How does this all sound?

Well, at first it sounded wonderful, and I'm sure it will be wonderful. But, then I thought of that test question and our human tendency to overlook the obvious. This provoked a few second thoughts. After pondering the matter a while, I responded to Judd's invitation to comment.

However, since my comments turned into a two page rant and I'm already near the end of my allotted space limit, I'll end this now and provide my response in the next essay.

Meanwhile, stay well and look on the bright side.

Domain: mental
Subdomain: factual knowledge

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