“You’re a nobody, but we can make you a somebody.”
The business pitch come advice on building her brand in the multi-billion dollar wellness industry insinuates itself.
So on a Monday evening in March she sets a table with exquisite samples of raw food, flyers, and piece de resistance — hard copies of her first book.
A mixed crowd drifts into the Queensland Multicultural Centre for a screening of “Peaceful Warrior”. In the half hour before the movie starts, she sells about 18 signed copies at $79 apiece and is “stoked” at their delight in her work.
More went into that cookbook than raw food recipes.
If an entrepreneur is their brand, the origins of Rowena Jayne’s lie in a body that broke. She was 26 years-old when her immune system turned on her and life as she knew it — acting, singing and dancing — collapsed.
It wasn’t a total surprise. Cycles of binge eating and fasting had already damaged her kidney function. But when rheumatoid arthritis blew out her left knee and her colon started bleeding, her world contracted to long days, and longer nights, trapped in an apartment in constant pain.
Her search for a cure led to yoga, India, ayurvedic medicine, a guru and raw food. She healed.
A relapse three years ago reignited the pain and fear of being crippled. Yet she now flirts with its return. Running a business single-handed sees her skipping some of the practices of self-care — yoga, nutrition, meditation — that form the bedrock of her message.
There is pressure to “go big”. What was an uncrowded niche a year ago has flooded with competitors who are rapidly building large followings.
She is aware of the danger. Seen others lose themselves to their business. Watched the scales tip from giving to taking.
“It’s down to me. It’s okay to start small. It’s okay to be what I am.”
Flights are booked. Opportunity awaits.
This occasional series is my attempt to capture a moment in the lives of everyday entrepreneurs in my network in 300 words.
