Australia is a pretty wide and wondrous country, as we that live here know, and it has been some years since I had (read: made) the time to just go to places just because they exist. Generally these days I need to know it exists before I go there, and this is unfortunately a little true about the way many of us interact day to day in our personal and business lives.
We keep going over the same paths without stepping out into a new space to find alternate experiences (read: new ways to do what we do) .
My latest camping trip took me to Wardell, NSW. A wee town 18 km south of Ballina. Years ago I have blown past this spot without even knowing it existed and in honesty it does not show up much on maps. Friends were Grey Nomading there and invited a few of us to come down for a long weekend.
So with last years camper (read: xmas present) we trekked the 2.5 hrs to Wardell and got to enjoy the beauty of the small and ‘real’ places that fill this country.
1 pub, 1 takeaway, 1 school almost summed it up. A small population living next to the Richmond River and so close to so many beautiful spots. In 3 days i learnt that Sugar gets farmed this far south (hey I thought Peter Beattie had it all up in North Qld) , there are some beautiful untouched beaches here, a great river to fish at, peace and quiet and some real friendly people.
On arrival the camp manager got up from behind his desk and came around to shake my hand and introduce himself, “So you must be Darryl?”. A most unexpected greeting (ok so not many people book to get there at 8.30am) and he figured it was me but the whole process was warm and ‘new’.
For what in some ways was just an ordinary camping trip with no eventful catastrophes or experiences to mention per se, my family and I have many memories entrenched from it just purely from its difference. A local restaurant filled with history and meaning gave both great service, a gourmet meal, and a local history lesson which all 3 of my children loved and have spoken of since. And these kids are kids of the electronic generation – yet have grabbed the essence of the experience and locked it in!
From doing something different, speaking differently with people who are new and getting time to reflect on ‘normality’ created new opportunities as well as unlocked some brain matter to something new.
With June a day or 2 away and that old feeling of another year just running away on me, a number of recent business experiences have gotten me to take a step outside of where the everyday takes me, and to look at some different possibilities. When we started our business it was to do some things differently from where we had come, mind you there were not a lot of models to follow back then with Internet businesses. Recently I have wondered have we just ended up like where we came from. Some fundamental business truths still dictate what we do and our customers businesses as well. But it is way too easy to just keep doing everything the same.
As the old saying goes….’if you keep doing the things you have always done, you will keep getting the results you always get!’
So Ireckon our current challenge for the first half of 2007 has been forcing us to enter new places, go to new areas we have not been thinking about, and then reflect on where we have been, what we are doing, and on how to do some things differently. Sometimes such journeys create discomfort and problems, sometimes immense happiness or a sense of knowing it was just the right time for that thing to happen. Staff come and go – forced and not forced, customers as well cycle through, as some are no longer the right camping spots for us or them (too noisy – too quiet), and some people just shine through and find whole new ways to bring value to every day while some people cannot help but to find problems in everything. We have broken some of our systems and rebuilt them, and in some cases found some systems are just perfect the way they were, we were just looking at the map upside down.
Every day it is a new journey. Some days we drive exactly the same road but with a fresh perspective we can see things we have been blinded to for a long time. And some days you smile and realise this road is just the right one to be on!
I love the everyday I get with my team of unique people and I also love the wonderful new places we go to when ever we let ourselves!
I love the fact that as of yet ‘we’ and ‘I’ aren’t perfect yet, as otherwise the purpose would have gone, and that by getting a prod to look from somewhere else new opportunities abound.
Have you gone somewhere new recently?
A new coffee shop, a new lunch spot, a new way home? Try it – or even better go to Wardell!
Cover you mean Printed, then that's a rule... 18 days ago