Cairns pharmacist shares life’s journey and health tips in book
Cairns pharmacist and businessman Mario Calanna has put pen to paper for a memoir and health guide.
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MARIO Calanna has never strayed far from home. Woree has been his forever patch.
First it was in a small cottage, surrounded by sugar cane, farm sheds and machinery.
Later, as the urban sprawl of Cairns moved north and south, the family farm disappeared and Mario’s pharmacy took its place.
The new home he built for his wife and children is not far away either, just on the other side of the park that bears his family name.
“Since 1953, I’ve only moved about 500 metres,” says the Cairns pharmacist and businessman.
Family, farming, pharmacy.
All have been anchors in a life that he has now shared in a new book, Design a Good Life: From Farm to Farmacia to Whole Health.
“It’s a memoir, but it’s not just about my family,” says the 68-year-old founder of Calanna Wholehealth Pharmacy, which includes a string of pharmacies in Cairns, Townsville, Innisfail, Atherton and the Gold Coast.
“It’s about leadership, responsibility and little things that can help someone be a better person, things we seem to have forgotten in the last few decades.”
It is also a chance to share his belief in the whole health wellness “wheel” and the seven segments which can provide a balanced and purposeful life.
Physical, financial and emotional health are among those foundations. Family is another.
Then there is the leadership and learning which have played an important role in his own life.
Social service is important too for the former Jaycee (service group), current Rotarian and past and present member of multiple health and charitable boards.
The final cog in Mario’s wheel of wellness is faith.
“I think it’s one of the things that is missing in people’s lives.”
Mario found faith, love and contentment early, growing up in the bosom of a hardworking Italian farming family.
“It was good fun. You could drive tractors and trucks. You could smell the cane and newly furrowed soil. I learnt how to drill holes in steel, make implements for the tractor, plant cane.”
He could have followed his father on to the land, but it was his dad who suggested otherwise to the high-achieving student.
“One of my aunties was a pharmacist and one day dad said to me ‘it’s the books this way or the farm that way’. He said ‘you need to do what you believe you should do’.”
His dad also recognised the potential of subdividing the farm and nudging Mario into business.
“When I started to do pharmacy, Dad started to get the idea to build a medical centre here,” he says of the Woree property, now headquarters for a group employing 135 people.
It’s nearly 30 years since Mario expanded his business beyond a traditional pharmacy and into complementary health.
“I was unwell and I was looking for answers. I started to find out about naturopaths, vitamins, minerals, nutrition, herbal medicine, health foods.” Now he helps others design a good life.
“Ever since I opened my own pharmacy, I knew I was there to help others. The book is trying to say that you can design your own life to become a better ‘me’.
“If each of us becomes a better version of ourselves, then we’ll have a better community.”
Design a Good Lifeis $29.95 and available at Calanna Whole Health Pharmacy outlets.
Originally published as Cairns pharmacist shares life’s journey and health tips in book