Leah Simon-Clarke is a sought-after aesthetician, but she's raising eyebrows for another reason.

Since 2012, she's turned off her cellphone for a three-month stretch every year.

Business has hardly suffered. Her Linden Hills-based Extrados Salon recently joined forces with reVamp! Salon in Uptown, and she's booked out months in advance. She's been featured on "America's Next Top Model" with Tyra Banks; Frederic Fekkai of Hollywood books her beauty services for special events.

Although her family and friends worried at first about her decision to disconnect, they're now supportive — if not quite ready to replicate the ban themselves. "It's more and more becoming my greatest passion," she said.

Simon-Clarke, who is in her 30s, studied at the Aveda Institute, then worked in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Miami, Chicago and New York. "But I always come back to Minneapolis," she said. "Nothing beats the people."

I caught up with Simon-Clarke (by cell) to ask when, why and how she made the call to do this.

Q: Was the decision to turn off your cellphone planned out? Or did you decide in a moment?

A: A little bit of both. I definitely was dedicated 100 percent to growing my business. I was putting in 80 hours a week in the early years, not always eating properly. At one point, I lived with two cellphones. I'd be getting text messages from my insurance company at 9 p.m., or from an employee at 11 p.m. People think, "If it's on my mind, I need to get it out right now." I was living that way for so long.

Q: So what was the turning point, or, more accurately, the turning-off point?

A: There was a very clear moment where, oddly enough, I was driving by a house that was my dream house. I was thinking how nice it would be to live right by the lake and have a little moped. I looked at that house and there was a moped in the front yard and I had a moment of jealousy. That tinge of jealousy surprised me. It's not my nature to feel jealous. So I wondered, "What is that saying to me? What am I not enjoying about my life and how do I correct it?" I decided to take three months and turn my cellphone off to set new boundaries. That was in 2012. I cut it out cold turkey.

Q: But you kept your business landline?

A: Yes. I could use my business phone and my laptop. I would make plans over e-mail. It wouldn't have been difficult for people to find me.

Q: Was that enough?

A: It was enough to see a shift. What happens when you make that change is that you set meetings up and people tend to show up on time.

Q: Was your family mad at you, or worried about you, for being somewhat less reachable?

A: People who know me well weren't surprised. They'd say, "Oh, yeah, that is something Leah would do." With other people, the reaction has been pretty interesting. I recall walking through a store, talking to the owner. She said, "I could never do that. I'm a business owner." I said, "I'm a business owner, as well."

The other reaction is from people who say they couldn't do it because they have children. I'm not a parent, but I will say that I grew up without technology. Many of us grew up without technology. We need to be leaders. Because there are almost limitless options for technology, you have to consciously set up a way for it to be healthy in your kids' lives. Parents have to be independent thinkers themselves.

Q: What was it like at first? Did you go through withdrawal?

A: I felt an immediate sense of relief and freedom. It was something that felt like … it gave me more peace of mind, an ability to be more present with people I was with at that given time. It was an opportunity to recharge.

Q: Do you pick a certain time of year to shut down the cell?

A: It lines up well around the New Year, but I do it whenever I feel I need it. I would do it more than annually if I thought I needed it.

Q: But then you have to turn it back on. How does that go?

A: It rerouted how I function with my cell. I decided that when I turned it back on, I would not receive e-mails on it. I have not received e-mails on my phone for four years. I turned off the text option for two years. Now that I use the text option again, I've turned off the sound alerts. I'm now talking with my phone company to find out how not to have a smartphone at all, just a phone I can use to make calls.

I don't believe we should always be accessible. I've taught myself to leave my phone at home when I visit friends or take a walk around the lake.

Q: You don't stop at phones, do you? You're passionate about getting us to step away from our computers, too.

A: Look around and observe. At the workout class I attend regularly, there's one young woman who is always frantically texting. I actually had to ask her once if she was going to put her phone down. At a spa I went to, there are large signs in front of the meditation room that say, "No cellphones." Multiple people had cellphones in the meditation room.

When Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport accomplished their renovations, I was astounded to see that it is near impossible to sit and have a meal without having technology unavoidably placed directly in front of your face. In some restaurants, you actually order your food on an iPad, reducing human-to-human interactions.

Q: Would you advise people to try this for three months?

A: For some people, a huge step is doing it for an hour. That could be a great start. For others, a day would work, and, for some, a weekend.

People are going to need to take technology breaks. There are now retreats being held to help us get away from our devices. People ask me, "How could you do that?" I say, "Watch me. A person can."

gail.rosenblum@startribune.com 612-673-7350 • Twitter: @grosenblum