My brain as I try to squeeze some unused creative juices for this post
Warm welcome to fellow readers to the very first post of our Healthy Thoughts Only (HTO) blog. Things are looking pretty bare at the moment, but we are actively looking to put out new content in the upcoming months!
I have been an avid writer of science fiction since 2015 stemming from my love of reading when I received my first novel from the most unlikely of people. However, it has been quite a while since I’ve exercised my writing skills ever since I found my passion in the technology field – now I write more lines of code rather than words on a daily basis. This will be a challenge but I’m not one to shy away from that. Perhaps this will be the perfect outlet to express myself more creatively as opposed to the constant logic driven work I do all day (and night!) So, here goes my first take on HTO where I’ll share something a bit on the personal side and why I choose to cofound SynapseBN – a company dedicated in building the health advocate community.
Why health then?
To understand why this particular venture, we first have to reminisce back to what my cofounder, Zul, have mentioned during the early days of when we first met.
In the future, it is health that will be the most important thing for us as human beings. Health is something we simply can not live without – an absence of that will be like living in a nightmare!
Zul
That is as best a translation I could muster from his vivid recollection of being paralyzed in the hospital and unable to perform even the most basic of daily routine tasks like eating, changing clothes and relieving himself – his lowest point as he described it. Although not to the same extent, I too have been a sickly child and I understand the feeling of helplessness of being unable to even care for yourself. Health truly is a blessing that a lot of us have taken for granted one way or another.
This statement became more apparent when the world was impacted by the COVID-19 virus earlier this year, leaving millions bed-ridden while other less fortunate lost their lives battling this unknown disease – Brunei was no exception. It came to no surprise that people became major fanatics on cleanliness overnight, despite hypocritically belittling (or even downright ignoring) common diseases that causes more deaths in a year compared to COVID-19. I’m talking about obesity, a silent killer amongst many first world and developing countries globally.
An infographic we’re all too familiar with
Although I’m not one to downplay the issue with COVID-19, the issue of obesity and unhealthy eating just hits closer to home than anything else. Growing up in a household where there were no boundaries on what you can put inside your body, I can say that I have been physically unfit for most of my childhood and then through the adolescent years. Setting aside the valid medical conditions that are associated to being overweight, I have also faced first hand embarrassment during times when I can’t even run up a flight of stairs properly or coming in last during my secondary Track & Field P.E lessons. Reminiscing back, these were unflattering memories that I wouldn’t want to relieve again, but at that time, I couldn’t care less as I indulge myself more.
To say ignorance is bliss is an understatement – there were a lot of other factors that contributes to my unhealthy diet which for one reason or another, I chose to turn a blind eye on. I used to think health can come in second or third to everything else, only to realize that literally everything else false apart if I hadn’t gotten my health in check. I am grateful that my case of being overweight is still manageable, different from those who have gone years on end without proper care. They would most likely develop conditions such as the dreaded Penyakit 3 Serangkai (diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases), all of which are highly preventable if only they would scrutinize more of their intake.
Despite all that, it is not something I can pass judgement onto as I too have been in the their shoes. In hindsight, I wasn’t motivated to get healthier, nor do I have someone to aspire to be health-wise – even my environment at the time, facilitated a lifestyle that would make the current me shudder. What I was missing (and frankly a lot of people are) is that sense of belonging to a group of people striving towards the same fitness goals together. You can say, some sort of a community, if you wish.
Why a community?
My fitness journey started to take off back in 2017. No, it wasn’t a stroke of epiphany that sprung me to start jogging 3 times a week, nor was it a feeling of dread over imagining a bleak future of myself in a dialysis center. In fact, it was the subtle persuasion from a dear friend of mine that got me out of my comfort couch. Years after, it was another close acquaintance that introduced the gym to me, teaching me all the tips and tricks of using the available equipment at my disposal – I grew to be fond of the gym and have been routinely attending for the past 2 years. Another time, I have also picked up boxing for a while under the mentorship of Mimi, someone I grew closer with over time. Never in my 20+ plus years of living that I’d be so committed in bettering my health, and yet it only took some words of affirmation to get the ball rolling. Now, I can happily say that I am steadily climbing towards my peak fitness.
How I imagined starting really like. But it’s not as stress inducing as it looks
The point I’m trying to make it that in the long run, no one can go through this journey of fitness alone!
The common factor of all my positive experience was all the encouragement I’ve received from people around me – my very own healthy community – something that not everyone is blessed with. With the ever growing responsibilities and commitment adulthood brings to the table, most will be stuck with seeing their work colleagues, friends and family. If you’re lucky, you get to enjoy that once-a-week morning hike at Bukit Sipatir, otherwise you’re stuck searching for a personal trainer, nutritionist or a gym partner that more than likely end up to no avail. This is where the majority would lose track of their aspirations and going back to their sedentary lifestyle. I would like to think this happens to the people I’m acquainted with, unfortunately, a quick visit to the Brunei subreddit shows that it’s a recurring theme.
Those who are still motivated however, still puts their hopes in finding the right guru online. Over the years, I have seen a plethora of health related brands popping up, whether it being a new gym, diet planner, coaches or even niche yoga masters. Unfortunately, it would then take them additional efforts to vet these people. Not all gurus practice what they preach as some I’ve seen even promotes unhealthy habits or selling miracle pills to their followers – in my opinion, that is simply a huge insult to the true and honest practitioners out there. Unless that person is highly motivated to seek out these true health advocates, as we like to call them, these accounts get little to no attention before fading to obscurity or just entertaining within a small subset of their loyal fan base.
So now, we’ve got this dichotomy of people who want to get fit, who wants to regain their personal health, but who also has no idea on where or how to start – against – passionate health advocates who opens up their practice with so much knowledge and expertise to share, only to find it difficult to attract their new clients, surviving solely on their circle of dwindling regulars. You don’t have to take Economics 101 to realize that supply and demand are not the problem here.
So what's the problem then?
Through our countless observations and talking with various stakeholders within the community, we see that there’s still a massive divider that’s stopping various businesses from reaching their intended audience. There are a multitude of reasons to why this may be the case – something as simple as the people being unaware, to improper leveraging of social media marketing by the business owners. Either way, it will be impossible to curate each and every Instagram profile to win the unicorn lottery.
This is the root cause of what SynapseBN is going to solve – bringing people of the same vision together whilst bridging the gap between health enthusiasts and health advocates, similarly like how a brain’s synapses connects all the neurons within it. What influence we may lack on the individual scale, we can still make it up in numbers without diluting the brand of me each contributor has to offer.
In essence, the goal of our health advocate community is to continually grow, influence and strive towards achieving a more health conscious nation. To play our role at Synapse, we want…A community is a unified body of individuals with common social interests, common characteristics, common history and/or common policy creating an interacting population striving for a common goal
our favorite definition of a community taken from – Merriam Webster dictionary
To be the go-to tech solution provider for the health advocate community
As a professional software engineer who’s worked with community based applications in the international scene, I can definitely say that there are still bountiful ways in which we can apply tech solutions to solve modern day problems relating to the business of influencing people to become more health conscious. I want to bring my expertise into the mix and help these business work more efficiently so they can focus more on what they do best – being passionate about health!
To grow a network of health advocates in the nation
We believe that a community of health advocates greatly amplifies the influence to any new comers. This is where Healthy Thoughts Only comes in. We will continue to provide more valuable content, featuring vetted professionals in their field ranging from health and beauty to fitness to healthy ageing – we will cover all bases of health in which our network specializes in. So if there’s anyone you think would mesh well into our community, please free to reach out to me via email synapsebn@gmail.com.
To promote brands and businesses alike
Ultimately, a brand or business is only sustainable through acquiring more audiences on the platform. Synapse believes in growing healthier together than we are apart. Each member of our network will be exposed to others members’ channels that will help promote the brands exponentially! Being part of this trusted network will also help boost their credibility amongst a range of audiences.
To sustain the community through the Continuous Improvement Kata
The Toyota Kata, written by Mike Rother published in 2009, details the management approach of Continuous Improvement process developed in the Toyota Production System. It focuses on the concept of iterative processes to finding the best fitting solution to a given problem. This is the core of how Synapse approaches in building IT solutions and how we will grow the community – via constant and open ended feedback loop between the founders, community leaders, advocators and the audience to build the most trusted network of individuals in Brunei.
Our goals at a glance
Our core goals largely puts the emphasis on putting the community first, and going through the iterative improvement process to better build our platform. This will ultimately benefit the network towards better reaching their audiences which, are those who are in need of their guidance the most. When we have successfully connect these two halves of the equation together, that will be what we at Synapse consider as a win.
I am pleased to officiate HTO with this first post, it may not be the most coherent but in time I promise it’ll get better (we’re open to hiring part time editors too!). There is an exciting journey ahead and I’m looking forward to dive head first with everyone on board – so stay tuned to more writing!