#24: Unplugging to Experience Real Life with Ilya Kneppelhout

Having a neat lifestyle has a lot to do with taking some time to unplug from digital devices to connect with yourself, real people, and real life. In today's episode, I have a special guest, co-founder of The Offline Clube Ilya Kneppelhout, for an interview to talk about this unique "getaway" club from Amsterdam, which is on its path to expanding worldwide. The Offline Club helps you experience a boost of creativity, recharge your energy, and improve your lifestyle. Listen now!

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Credits: 

Song: Green Lights
Performed By: DLP
Written by: Daniel Labate (BMI 100%)
Published by: Boss Soundstripe Productions (BMI 100%)

Song (Trailer): Epic Hybrid Trailer Music
Performed by: by 2CoolFire
Licensed by: Envato Market

Cover Photo: Angela Clifton Photography
Hair and Make-up: Casey J. Cheek

Transcript

Welcome to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast. My name is Katia Mesquita. I'm a life coach, an online business entrepreneur, and your host on this weekly variety show. I'm excited to bring you an extra dose of inspiration to reorganize life to find and go after what you really want. My goal in this podcast is to help you achieve a more successful, harmonious, and meaningful life. I can't wait to connect with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in, and now let's begin. Hello and welcome to the Neat Lifestyle Podcast. Now present in 43 countries all over the world. Thank you so much for listening. I'm your host, Katia Mesquita, and today we are gonna talk about unplugging to experience real life. Just to give you a little bit of a context here, I was searching something on Instagram, usually inspirations, and I stumbled upon a post that a friend of mine happened to like, and then I was really  curious because it was talking about something like an offline club, and I was, "Huh, what is that?" I was really curious. And then I visited this page, the name was The Offline Club, and then I fell in love for the first site, in the first site, and they offer exactly what I was looking for. 

It's some kind of, the people get together, they unplug from digital devices to connect with real people, in person, with real life. And this is amazing, but I'm not going to be the one to explain to you how it works, what is this Offline Club about, and how important it is for us to have a better life, a better lifestyle because I'm bringing very special guests. He is the co-founder of The Offline Club. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm so excited and pleased to introduce you to Ilya Kneppelhout. Ilya, how are you doing? Thank you so much for being with us today. 

Thank you so much for having me, Katia. I'm very excited. 
 
Okay, and can you tell us a little bit more how The Offline Club works, and how was this idea, who came up with this idea? What inspired the creation of The Offline Club? 

Yeah, of course. So, although The Offline Club itself only came into existence in February of this year, 2024, so very recently, the whole philosophy actually dates back to about two years ago when one of my co-founders, Jordy, we were working together at a company called Moju, and he went offline for a couple days. He said, "I'm going to a house in nature. Bill Gates does this twice a year to kind of unplug and get inspired and read books." And Jordy really enjoyed it. And I'd never heard of anyone doing this, so I was inspired to do the same. I was having quite a very social, busy, hectic life. I was ending my studies, doing a lot of work, and I thought I was on my phone too much. I wanted to read more books. I didn't get to reading enough, to writing, which I enjoy because I spent time answering messages and planning things in my Google calendar. 

So, the idea of going offline for a couple of days really spoke to me, but I didn't have any expectations. I just took a couple of books, my diary, and there I went. And the result was amazing. I felt super inspired. I had boost of creativity, I read a lot, I felt rested and reenergized, and I was like, "Wow, this is crazy. I spent a couple days without my phone and without any other digital devices, and I feel so much better after it, so probably more people will feel the same way." And at the same time, I was having a lot of conversations with people around me, my friends, family, who felt the same way. They were spending too much time on their phone glued to their screens at work, but also after work on social media. And I want to get out there more, read more, do more things that they actually enjoy. 

And so we started organizing reading weekends or The Offline Getaway we call it now, which is like a digital detox retreat. We just did on the side as a passion project, like four times a year, and it was a success, but we wanted to make more impact. We wanted to reach more people and make unplugging from technology easier, more low commitment, and also financially more attractive. And that's how we came to the idea of The Offline Club to help people unplug in a fun and accessible way in cities, in cafes where people come together. The first thing they do is lock up their phone. But that's just a means to reach the end, which is more human connection with others but also with yourself. 

Wow, that's amazing. I can't wait for that. I'm actually here in Amsterdam. 

Yes, I'm very excited. 

Where The Offline Club started, right? 

Yeah, absolutely. 

Yeah. And then, of course, I'm gonna have this experience here and having my son, my 21-year-old son, to have the same because he's from this generation that was born with a smartphone basically, and they didn't have that time in the eighties in which we used to, you know, knock at our friend's door and to play and play with board games and other stuff. And I'm so excited because it's gonna be my first time, and I can't wait to have the same Offline Club in the US, especially in my neighborhood. Anyway, I have one other question here. Did you notice, like any people, like having this experience? What changed? Did they share with you some changes in their lives? 

Yeah, definitely. Great question. Well, first of all, you have the events themselves, right? Which is two to three hours and it might seem like quite a short period of time without your phone, but a lot of people, even people who said, oh, I can easily hand in my phone or get up my phone, they say like, wow, now that it's actually not even near me and I can't even look at it, I realize how often I just take a look at my phone subconsciously, right?

Uhuh

So first of all, it's raising awareness, making people aware of not only that they spend more time on their phones than they want to, and than they think they do, but also that just 1, 2, 3 hours offline without any digital distractions can already make you feel much more calm, releases stress, makes you feel more connected to yourself and actually gives back a lot of time to spend on hobbies you really enjoy. So, what people have told me is that it was the first time that they read more than 20 pages in one go without being distracted. One girl, she's from Vancouver, and she stayed in Amsterdam longer as an international student instead of going back earlier because she found her community because it's also about meeting like-minded people. Someone else bought an alarm clock. He took our advice. At the end, we always share digital detoxing tips and he took our advice to buy an alarm clock so that you don't sleep with your phone in the room. And another girl who came with her mom, she scheduled or she organized an offline hangout for her friends at home. So, besides people experiencing our events and connecting with each other and ourselves offline at our events, they also bring it home, which is, of course, why we do it. We want to inspire people to have more healthy relationship with their phone and digital lives, not only at our events, but also in their personal lives. 

And speaking of healthy relationship with their phones, what do you, like think that would be a healthier relationship with smartphones and, you know, devices at all? What do you, like, consider to be a healthy, balanced relationship? 

I think it differs per person, but I think one maybe clear thing that I consider a healthy relationship is that you can leave your phone at home when you go out for groceries or for the gym so that you don't feel like you constantly need to have it with you, that you are able to switch it off at times so that you can switch off yourself as well. Because if your phone is not switched off and if you receive notifications, you also cannot switch off personally. Furthermore, I don't really think it's healthy to wake up with your phone as an alarm clock, and the first thing that you see is notifications of friends, colleagues, people from around the world who you usually wouldn't let into your bedroom physically, so why would you let them into your bedroom online, right? So, it's these small changes that I consider having a healthy and balanced relationship with your digital life. So instead of having it use us and consume our time more than we want, have it be a conscious choice for us to use technology and our phones as a tool. 

Okay, great. And I'll take that advice. I am one of these people who use this smartphone too as an alarm clock. 

Well, I did so as well until eight months ago or nine months ago. And it's really for me, giving me a lot of time to read and wake up easier and, yeah, go to bed just on a more relaxed, in a more relaxed way. 

I don't know kind of how old you are, but I'm curious if you had that experience in the eighties before 1991 when the internet was first open to public. Before 1991, internet was not available. There was no internet connection for the general public at all. Did you experience that? How was your life before if you had life before 91? 

Well, I'm born in 1997, so I'm 27 years old. I might look like a grandpa, but I'm 27 years old, so I had no experience of the pre-internet era. I got my first iPhone. I was really one of the first ones in my friend group in school to get an iPhone. I was 13 years old, so I pretty much also grew up with connectivity. I still remember chatting to friends on online platforms and that was the beginning of it all. And I do remember before we all had smartphones or, I mean, mobile phones that we would call the house numbers of our friends like, "Hey, is 'bloody blah' home? Can we play outside?" So yeah, I actually also grew up mainly with phones and social media. I was a teenager when social media became a thing, so I picked it up quite quickly. So yeah, although I do feel nostalgic about the times before at all, even though I haven't really experienced it, I have grown up with it and it's kind of second nature to me. 

And okay. We are talking about a neat lifestyle, so I want to challenge you a little bit to describe what would you consider to be a neat lifestyle. 

Well, I think a neat lifestyle is one in which you feel connected to yourself and connected to other people. So I think a neat lifestyle is one in which you have great social contacts of people where you can be yourself with, rely on, to have people around you that wanna get the best out of you and that respect you and accept for who you are and love your weird personality traits. So I think social connections are very valuable and important of a neat lifestyle, and next to that, also the connection to yourself that you're able to engage in fun activities that make you feel healthy and happy. 

Hi there, Katia here to make a quick announcement. One of the biggest mistakes people make when they want to change their lifestyle and start attracting their own clients in revenue is quitting their jobs before preparing what they need. It usually happens because many of us were taught just how to become good employees with no access to marketing information that could actually set us free. Well, I've been there, and after discovering how marketing works and applying it myself, I started experiencing the freedom to work with something I really enjoy. Choose the days and time I'm available to work, travel wherever I want, whenever I want, and I wish the same for those who also want to experience that. I believe that a job can be something transitional, and marketing information should be accessible to everyone. That's why I've created the masterclass, "Attract Your Own Clients and Revenue Online." I wanna show you how to utilize your expertise and marketing strategies to attract your own clients and generate revenue online so you can step into the freedom you were meant to have. And better yet, this masterclass is absolutely free. To register, visit my website at neatlifestyle.com/programs or click on the link in the show notes of this episode, and we can get started right now. 

And as a parent, as I mentioned before, I have my son, and he was also raised in this digital world. And what would you tell parents to pay attention to before things get a little bit out of hand, out of control? 

I think that's a hard question for me to answer since I'm not a parent and since I'm also not specialized in the way kids behave. 

Okay, no problem. 

So it getting out of hand, I don't know. I think once, what I expect, right, is once your child spends a lot of time by him or herself in their room talking to friends, I think that's quite worrisome. And if I was a parent, I would be very strict about social media uses and phone uses. I know Cristiano Ronaldo, the football player, doesn't let his son use a phone. I know that all of the big tech or a lot of the big tech people, like the founders, they don't let their kids have an iPad or social media or Snapchat. The founder of Snapchat doesn't let his own kids have Snapchat. So I think that says enough, right? So I would just put a hard no as a parent and be like, well, you just play with your friends, and I'll try to convince other parents to do the same so that your child and his or her friends are in the same boat. 

Okay. And thank you so much. I really appreciate you and the work you do. 

Thank you. 

And also this idea of The Offline Club, and I really want this to be all over the world. 

I hope so, too. 

Yeah, and what if people want to reach out to you to learn more about The Offline Club? How do they find you? How do they reach out to you? 

So, ironically, people can reach us on Instagram at @theoffline_club. They can send us a message there. We do receive hundreds of messages each week. We're also struggling with digital overload ourselves, so it might take days or weeks for us to get back to them, and otherwise, they can send us an email, and the same counts for that. It might take a while, so be patient. 

It's kind of tricky, right? Somehow because it's Offline Club and somehow we still have this online connection, but it's still important, right? It's basically all about more moderation, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah, I think we're not completely against anything online, right? We're about having a good balance. I'm personally not a fan of Instagram at all, although I definitely see the power of it, and it has allowed us to be where we are, do The Offline Club as a full-time job, and inspire already over 3000 people to get offline. So I think it's about how you use these tools and platforms, but unfortunately, they have the best strategies to keep you hooked and addicted and online. So, raising awareness and teaching skills about how to behave on those platforms and how to deal with them, I think, is very important. 

Okay. Any final thoughts or any particular book that you recommend to consider this episode complete? 

So, a book. Well, I don't really have a book that's connected to this topic. I always just advise people to not really only read, like which is very popular these days, nonfiction, but also to read fiction because it really allows you to dream away and be in a different world. So, I like all the books by Khaled Hosseini. Kite Runner, And the Mountains Echoed, and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Three books that are heartbreaking and beautiful, and it'll completely transport you to a different world. 

Okay. Thank you so much for being with us today once again. And all right, this is Katia Mesquita, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

Thanks so much. 

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to share it with those you care about so they can also benefit from it. If you aren't already following me on social media, do so by clicking on the link on the show notes or simply by visiting my website at neatlifestyle.com. I appreciate you so much. I hope you have an amazing day. I'll see you in the next episode of The Neat Lifestyle Podcast.