January 15, 2018: Share Promotions on Facebook and Twitter

Happy New Year! 

Hear that?

It's the sound of 30 million Christmas trees being mulched - Christmas is over and 2018 is officially here!

Each year, I sit down to write out my closing thoughts for the past year and plan out my vision for the next. As I did so this year, I cycled through an emotional blender of regret, excitement, frustration, hope and gratitude.

Regret: I regretted missing moments of shared experiences with loved ones that will never present themselves again. I regretted doing things that were less than kind because I was tired, caught up in an emotional moment, or just too lazy to make the effort.

Excitement: We got a lot closer to realizing MassageBook's vision of letting independent practice owners compete effectively with franchises and larger competitors last year. Over 250,000 massages get booked on MassageBook each month now, and that number is growing exponentially.

Massage makes the world a better place, and we're helping steer more and more of the public to independent practices across the country. I'm really excited by the things we'll be rolling out this year - it's only going to accelerate our positive impact on independent massage and bodywork practices in 2018.

Frustration: Change and software development both require clear intention, tremendous effort, and time. I wish we could move faster. My other big frustration is the "me, me, me" focused culture we live in. We could accomplish so much more as a culture (and as a community of bodywork professionals), and our quality of life would be so much higher, if the focus was on accomplishing things together as a community and not so much on "what's in it for me?".  I mean this both within the realm of the massage industry as well in our country at large.

Hope: I still believe strongly in the inherent kindness and compassion of the human race. I see evidence of people going out of their way to help others physically, emotionally and financially. That's really comforting - and inspiring. And it gives me great hope that more of us will figure out that we're all connected, highly dependant on each other, and that we're not as different as it may seem sometimes.

(I also hope for a good tasting gluten free bread that doesn't need to be toasted to be edible.)

Gratitude: My head is usually focused on a long list of problems to solve. It occurs to me, even though I often feel suffocated by issues to address, that I (and most of us) lead gloriously privileged lives with safe homes, plenty of food, and loved ones in our lives. Everything else is gravy, isn't it?

With deepest appreciation for you, your support of MassageBook, and your help in making the world a better place, all of us at MassageBook wish you and the rest of the massage and bodywork community a healthy, happy and wildly successful 2018! 

Mark