Shine
Amid all the pressure in modern times to conform, to do things faster, more efficiently, or even automatically, it's nice to actually step back and think about why we do what we do.
Yesterday I met an exercise physiologist who uses old-fashioned diaries to manage his appointments. A few months ago, a work colleague told me that her dad makes amplifiers out of tubes and valves. Something that has to be seen (and heard) to be believed. Surely those diaries and hi-fi equipment have no place in a modern society where everything seems to be Spotify and Facebook.
It struck me that quite often we just do things today without thinking about what they mean, why they matter or where they came from.
When we started our business, the NDIS seemed to be so complicated. We couldn't get the systems to work, everything seemed to take so long to type in, the rules seemed to change often. That went on for a few months. We stuck with it, determined to overcome the problems and actually start spending more time on people and less time on paperwork and admin.
And as we kept at it, we realised from those early days how things came together. Rather than just following the process and being frustrated, we made phone calls, got to know people, got to understand the NDIS and importantly figured out how to mix our experience with the things that the NDIS was all about.
Without those early days, things would seem a little stale now. Sure, now we have automated things, and everything is more efficient. But without the experience of those early days, teaching us how everything goes together, we would not be where we are today.
As I reflect on all the things that have happened recently, I realise that it is the old-fashioned things that give meaning and life to what we're about. Old may sometimes seem redundant or inefficient, but it's through getting used to how things work at their heart that you learn how the whole thing comes together. And that's what we do. We bring it all together to make things shine.
