It Was Never Really About the Rebrand

But another year was going to pass whether we went or not.

So we made the decision and started telling people.

We figured that if we said it out loud, we would be far more likely to find a way than if it remained one of those ideas we always talked about but never acted on.

We didn’t have the plan worked out.

We had simply decided.

Six months into the lap, the rebrand has only just started to fully click into place.

There wasn’t one defining moment when it all became clear.

It happened gradually.

It happened while admiring wombats at Cradle Mountain. Walking along the beach at Pambula. Flying through the trees on a zipline. Driving between places I had never been and sitting outside the caravan at the end of the day.

None of those moments had anything to do with branding.

I wasn’t trying to solve anything.

I was simply present.

I’ve realised that clarity often comes to me that way. Not when I’m sitting at a computer trying to force an answer. Not in a meeting or with a notebook full of ideas.

It comes when I’m happiest and not thinking about the problem at all.

Somewhere between slowing down and giving my mind room to wander, the dots quietly began joining themselves.

As we worked through the rebrand, we kept stripping things away.

Not because they were bad.

Because they weren’t us.

The more we simplified, the clearer everything became.

The funny thing was, that was exactly what we were doing in our own lives.

Living in a caravan has a way of stripping things back. You own less. You have less space. You become more conscious of what you carry and what you can do without.

Life becomes simpler.

Not always easier, but clearer.

There is less noise and more room to notice what matters.

Somewhere along the way, I realised the rebrand and the lap weren’t two separate things happening at the same time.

They were both asking the same question.

Who are we when we strip everything else away?

For COgear, the answer was simpler than I had been making it.

We believe workers should never be uncomfortable at work.

We listen before we design.

We believe comfort changes everything.

That hadn’t changed.

We had simply found a clearer way to express it.

The same was true for us.

The lap hasn’t turned us into different people. It has given us the space to understand ourselves a little better. To question the things we had accepted as the default. To recognise what matters and let go of some of what doesn’t.

Looking back, I don’t think the lap changed COgear.

I don’t think it changed me either.

It simply gave me enough space to see us both more clearly.

The rebrand wasn’t about becoming something new.

It was about becoming more ourselves.