The Right Support from the Right People with Kynd's Michael Metcalfe | PROACTIVE Podcast #123

Australian disability support has experienced something of a revolution of late thanks to the NDIS.

On this episode of the ProActive Podcast, Michael Metcalf explains how he created Kynd, a platform that allows those in need to best capitalise on this new, life-changing approach to care.

Video Transcript:

- [Announcer] Welcome to the ProActive Podcast. Brought to you by MeMedia.

- Chris Hogan coming to you for the ProActive Podcast and episode 123. I have Michael Metcalfe who is the founder of Kynd. That's K-Y-N-D for those that are listening. Michael, welcome to the show mate. It's been a long time coming and-

- Thanks for having us.

- I'm so glad to have you on, we're all-

- Looking forward to the chat.

- How old's Kynd?

- Gosh, we started in, 2017 and obviously some, months and time getting our legs underneath us. So really kicked off early 2018.

- Unreal and it's been awesome to watch the ride, from afar, just, a few kilometres away from your office. Not that far.

- And mate, can you explain to people who Kynd is and what it is you do.

- Yeah, absolutely, so Kynd is a way for people to find and book the right NDIS support person. So effectively, if you have an NDIS plan or yourself or family members living with a disability, Kynd helps you find the exact individual who's gonna be right for your needs, and simplify everything in between.

- Now, I said earlier that I don't have any, I'm very fortunate to not have any, disabled people in my family that require, care. I'm very grateful for that, but, I also don't fully understand what the NDIS has done for Australia. This came in, this whole new scheme came in right at the beginning, of Kynd's birth. That was the...almost a catalyst for-

- Absolutely, that I'm...I mean so the whole scheme, it's all been decades of campaigning for change across Australia and that transition from an older, very traditional style system. Old-school thinking to more flexible, choice oriented system, for people with living... living with disability and their families.

- What was the old school system?

- So the old school system was effectively very much geared around the providers. So, you were allocated a large provider.

- So who was allocated?

- So, the person, who was living with a different type of disability, whether it could be a physical disability, intellectual, but either way, they had very little choice, no to low flexibility in how their support needs were actually met and how they could go about things. That's ultimately the crust of the NDIS. It's how can we give people a more person centred, flexible approach to what they're doing.

- Did I hear you say that was, also state-based as well? Off-camera, maybe?

- That's it originally. So imagine, all the states of Australia and the ICT, different systems, different approaches, different assessments of needs, different funding and packages, and ultimately making it really hard to have a consistent system. Imagine crossing those borders and all of a sudden you're without support, or you're unable to take that, assistance need with you. So, a huge change as they talk about it in the media-

- Spin your mic up mate.

- As they talk about it in the media, ultimately, the biggest social transformation since Medicare.

- So, I'm this disabled person and back in the old school days, I would have had to, I would have got some kind of, I guess, diagnosis that I was eligible for care. I was eligible for funding. Then what? What do I get?

- So effectively you were... if you're in a certain postcode, certain region, you are likely allocated a provider. You are told, hey, that's who you're gonna use. You don't get any real choice in the matter. They might then dictate to you, who's coming to your house or who's taking you out in the community, when it's gonna happen, you don't get any real ability to say, well, hang on, you're charging me these maximum rates and that's limiting my funding. That's limiting my support hours and ultimately, that's limiting my development, my evolution. So really a way when we look at this new transition to it's a wholesale change of how things are done in Australia.

- Unreal, so now I get a choice. So in 2017, that changed.

- So it rolled out...started rolling out with pilot sites before 2017 but, on the Gold Coast did effectively launched in the middle of 2018.

- That meant that now in 2018, I could choose almost like interview, for the right kind of skillset, right kind of personality, age, capability and, I guess in strength, if they need to be lifting people in and out of beds and stuff like that.

- Spot on, all the variables. So previously, if you're looking at going, hang on, all the power was with that large organisation, that provider organisation. The power now is shifted to the NDIS participant as they say, or the person living with a disability or whoever is assisting them to organise that support. It can often be mom or dad or a relative or a professional support coordinator.

- So it was based-

- How I came to the person.

- It was almost like democratising care

- Looking to do so, absolutely. There's a huge...there's a long way to go. There are so many changes, no system is perfect, especially in those early days, but ultimately that person could now say, that funding package that I've been given from the government, that's with me, I'm gonna choose how I implement it. I'm gonna choose the...either the right company or the right person or both.

- So the NDIS, now provides funding. Who does the NDIS pay when it's, about what... like I'm requesting care, I need care. Is it the individuals or the disabled person? The patient let's maybe call them, is that, what do you call-

- In terms of lingo, you just call them either, the NDIS participant or a person living with a disability. In terms of how it works, that's where it gets pretty complex. You might need five hours on a podcast. As governments tend to do, the most simple system was not implemented. So there's multiple streams of how things are funded and different rules around how that works and where invoices and claims go. But, ultimately people do have a little bit of choice in which stream they choose or which they apply for.

- Then, I get, how does Kynd work? How does Kynd help me through this process? It helps me find a, what? A nurse? What are you?

- Yes, so support worker, or as we call them the Kynd Support Pro, want people to be proficient, proactive, professional, and personal in what they do. So ultimately, if you've got an NDIS plan or it could be, it could be a child, it could be a relative. You're able to go to Kynd, log on, set up your profile and effectively, instead of just having a warm body come to your house or, take you out during the day for whatever you're looking to do, you're able to find a really unique combination of variables. So if I'm looking for someone who can help me learn how to cook and be independent, I'd like them to speak French, have experience with horse riding, be female and have a working with children check 'cause my daughter's gonna be around, I can find that person. So we use a combination of, local people and really smart data and a simple platform to help the right people come together. Ultimately that creates better relationships, loyalty, and way better outcomes, for what people are actually trying to achieve.

- Absolutely, that's amazing, I mean, I want some, sorry. I'm starting to, put my, my list down of what I want in a person, but, yeah, look, some of the ideas that you just said there, someone that speaks French, they could be... they could be a guitar teacher. They almost give a whole new lease on life to people as well like, being able to teach them something on parts of knowledge with them and potentially share in something amazing.

- The big thing is, most of the time you're talking about nonmedical care. A lot of it is social support. You're helping people advance towards their goals and, integrate better into society or work or achieve that independence. So things like, learning to play the guitar, or, helping a 17 year old, feel safe on public transport and learning how to travel and get off at the right places. All these things, services and support, the NDIS is designed to achieve.

- I could join and teach people how to do martial arts.

- That absolutely exists. So, exercise, physiology, keeping well, movement therapy, all those things are a huge thing and there's a range of support, a range of services, because it's all about that person's goals. So, your goals are different to my goals. I might wanna achieve X, Y and Z. We've had people join up to the Kynd platform who their goal is literally to do triathlons or go to the games. So, there's a broad spectrum. They're looking to do different things.

- That is very broad.

- Yeah it's cool. It's inspiring stuff.

- Mate so, where did this come from? Like inside you. How did this come about? Like, what values did you tap into? And, let's start with that first. So what values did you find within yourself to, to even wanna start going?

- Yeah, it's a great question and, people will often ask me that because if we look back at my career and my history, a lot of it has been in the hospitality space, in the tourism space and, through startups, but also life experience it basically, what I tapped on is that what I wanna do is help people with these experiences, make things simpler, look at systems that need massive change. It was just, fortuitous through family experience in about 2015 and 2016 that we actually got insight to both the aged care, space and also what was going on in the disability world and that led to hundreds of conversations with family, with friends, understanding how things are working and how things are not working in Australia. It basically, set off this light switch of curiosity for wow, there's a massive change that's needed here. Imagine if we think about, disability support and, aged care at the time as an experience, how can we make this end to end experience much better and impact a tonne of people along the way?

- So, basically you did some awesome market research by the sounds thing, discovered-

- Coffees, coffees basically so, no real documents, tell me what's going wrong-

- That is market research mate.

- Exactly, cold face.

- You identified a problem and then you saw that problem exists, and repeat itself for every conversation, albeit slightly different, slightly unique for each individual.

- I mean, if you went and did a survey around the Australian industry of hey, how do you guys think? Whether you're receiving support or you're support worker, how would you write how things are being done? You're talking about one star Google reviews everywhere, people feeling trapped, people feeling that... how are we ever gonna get ahead? How am I ever gonna achieve some of my own goals in life 'cause I don't have the right support in place? So it just became so crystal clear and in those early days, we had a bit more of a mantra of all ages, all abilities, but what we learned over time was that what we were building and the right solution for the time was so aligned with the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and, people living with a disability.

- Charming, mate. Knowledge and timing means that you're able to basically cash-in on an opportunity. So, that's fantastic. So, then what became your purpose? How do you describe your personal purpose in life? Like, what gets you out of bed, on those tough days?

- Pretty lucky don't I... I mean, you've got a lot of hard work to do when you're, you're taking on this journey of course, but, I would say never really tough days. Like everything...there's such a passion for learning across our entire team and doing it better and watching our team have these strong debates about the best way of doing things. That's the biggest motivator. So we did a lot of thinking from all our learnings over the past two and three years, and talking to people who are using Kynd on both sides, whether they're a support worker or a family or that person, and what became so clear to us that it's all about the right support, the right person, and you get the right support in place, and that can change everything. It could mean a couple that's having a really tough life, raising a child with a disability. They get that right support that may save their marriage. That may help them devote more time to their other children, that they feel so guilty 'cause they're neglecting. It might help a person get into the workforce for the first time. It might help a support worker leave a job that they absolutely hate that's full of policy and red tape and bureaucracy and checklists, and actually devote their time to supporting that person one-on-one with their needs. So, it's huge and we just, we keep so many stories. We share every story we get and some of the life transformations that are already underway are absolutely huge.

- More marketing brains.

- It's pretty motivating.

- Start in the Kynd purpose statements for you now. The right person at the right time, sorry, was it, the right person.

- Well, the big one for us is the right support changes everything.

- The right support with the right person at the right time. That's a great purpose man.

- It's a big, it's a huge driver. It's the whole thing of like, yeah, sure, you might give, everyone benefits, A, B, C, X, Y, Z, with what the servers and what the platform delivers to them but ultimately, what are you actually doing? You're looking to make someone's life easier and better and household free.

- Great, awesome. How did that come about? Was that, finding that purpose easy or does it like, maybe in hindsight it feels easy but do you remember going through that process and just gonna, either writing on ideas. Like, what is it we do? What does it to who do we do it for? What is that why, if you . Did you go through that over and over and over again?

- I wish it was that sophisticated. If I look back, it was ultimately more about, let's help one person at a time, forget the huge blue ocean. Like how do we make a difference from that person who's called us, they're asking for help. I think about a particular family and a lady in Northern New South Wales. She's been looking after her daughter, who's mid 30s now, cerebral palsy, has a spinal injury, she's been looking after her by herself for over 30 years. So well before the introduction of the NDIS. When someone like that is reaching out to you for help, they need support, they need a new support worker team in place. That's a big driver to say, let's just focus on you and let's learn and guess what? There's gonna be a lot more families like you around as well.

- Yeah, absolutely, solving one problem at a time.

- That's it, that's it.

- No, 100%.

- Solve, learn, solve, learn, move on.

- We used to call it test, measure, improve, grow, test, measure, improve, grow.

- That sounds much fancier, let's go with that.

- Everything in the marketing land, like when you're doing a new client, is basically, it's always a test. A lot of people don't like to hear that, you are using my money to test things.

- Life's an experiment, you go this way, you go that way.

- Absolutely. Where has, I guess the funding come from? How did you actually fund this? Was this a bootstrap in the early days and how did you get here to 20, almost 2021? A lot of people are very excited about that, aren't they?

- They think they...a lot of people believe it's gonna be, the most amazing year ever given what we've just had and comparison it probably will be but, I also think that, everybody's got their expectations in check now 'cause I said that in 2019.

- Though, there was a bit of that with the turn of the decade, it wasn't there, it's gonna be the greatest decade ever, here we go. What are you doing? You just got to keep your head held high and get on with the days. But, yeah for us, it was a really interesting journey and then, through literally that experience of hundreds of coffees and meetings and just asking people, what are you experiencing? The level of conviction grows so high that, between my wife and I, we had lots of talks. We were looking at things and we said, let's do it. So we actually put in the first 50,000 of personal savings, so first money in the door to get the wheels turning, the basic building blocks in place, and then Kynd had a really fortunate journey from there. I mean, there were some definite moments where I was looking at things and going in two weeks time, we're in real trouble here, what are we gonna do? And, we ended up winning an $80,000 social support grant from Optus and were named one of the Optus Future Makers of 2018. We ended up winning a $100,000 Queensland Government Ignite Ideas Grant. Fast forward another 18 months and we were able to receive the $200,000 Ignite Ideas Grant. Through that entire period, we were quite lucky in that every single month, there was stable growth, so you always had a little bit of cash coming in the door to help sustain the solution, to help you grow, to get to that next phase. There was certainly a long period and, after that, we were able to work out how things are going and actually go out and raise a private capital round. So we did that in 2019. Then after that time as well, we were successful in getting a co-investment well like I co-grant, the $500,000 Accelerating Commercialization Grant. So that got us, a little bit of, a little bit of fuel in the tank to just go on and keep this solution growing and reach more people, and put us in a good place for the future.

- What do you call that man? What are you, is that a bit of lock or is that a lot of hard work writing grants? What do you call that?

- That's, I think it's a bit of everything. At the end of the day, something has to work for a community to wanna support it. So we were lucky that what we were doing could impact most families, that one in five people are the statistics out there live with some form of a disability across Australia. So, something resonated, people could see the value. So whether it was nonfinancial support or just giving us a try or sharing a referral with us, that all helped us grow to that point where other people said, hey, this not only makes social sense, this makes business sense and that's a powerful combination.

- Like you're saying, it's not being fully funded off the back of grants, you are making revenue, which is the best proof in the world.

- There's plenty of startups out there where, revenues are a foreign concept. That gets to be a bit of a worry after a certain point in time.

- I had that conversation last week with Jason Atkins, from Cake.

- Are you using Cake?

- We love Cake. So quick shout out to Cake, get on it. Whoever you are, just get on it, use the system. There you go happy days.

- Right on, right on. So that's last week's episode. You can go back and check that one out with Jason. Jason actually educated me on, basically getting investment and what all the terms mean and how you value your business and all that sort of stuff. I've never had a pitch for funding. I'm lucky enough to say that and-

- Good keep, great to keep it that way. So what is that like? What is that like, Michael?

- Oh, it's like anything. If you're trying to focus on getting your solution out there and helping people, you've got an operation to run and bit by bit there's more people in the team. That's a lot of time that requires just a-

- What's it like answering to multiple shareholders?

- Well, we're really lucky. There's no real answering relationship. It's more just a supportive relationship. We've gotten...we've got great people involved, people involved in health technology, a few doctors, we've got an NDIS participant and businessmen involved. So a really great mix who get what we're doing, understand the forward journey and are there to help out however they can.

- That's cool, that's cool.

- So pretty lucky.

- And, I understand you've just done a bit of a shakeup with your tech. I wasn't able to get you on the show for a number months.

- Sorry about that. That's fine mate. What have you done recently that's gonna isolate, propel you forward?

- So, we basically took everything we were hearing. Everything that we knew was part of this roadmap going forward and did a wholesale rebuild of our tech. So in the early days you are talking a true MVP platform. It was horrible, but people used it. Like the problem was that deep and painful that people were willing to use-

- It surely wasn't that painful.

- Well, probably versus my standards of where things need to get to, it was painful, but it works, but it worked, it worked. And so, but now we know, hey, this can work, this has an impact, let's get the tools in place where we have ultimate scalability and reach for people. So that's what we've been working on for a long time now. It's really cool. We got to do a lot of co-design. So actually bringing people in, NDIS participants and support workers, what do you love? What do you hate? What would be a dream experience? What are the biggest priorities for you before we can get to that dream experience? And ultimately, building in a way that shapes the tool around what people actually need.

- So what does that tech look like in sort of layman's terms? Is it an app? Is it a web app? Sorry, that's not very layman, is it? I do see here you're on the App Store and you're on Google Play. So, that was already existing.

- Basically we built a centralised platform that, obviously website leads to desktop platform as well. That same system feeds through to mobile apps and ultimately, just a really easy walk through the journey. So the first time of like proper UI, UX involved, proper tech, getting that backend and front end synergy working really well.

- So now we're getting into the stage where, I think a lot of people would expect to be here from, first day out of the gate. Like, there you go, I wanna go and create an app that does this. Now, your MVP didn't look anything like it does now, or, I mean-

- No, not anything like it. The basic system of you could find a different person, you could learn about them, you could set up a support shift of booking in that way. Those core elements existed, a chat system, that type of thing-

- Probably difficult to manage from your end. Was it more difficult to manage from your end as well?

- More just the ability to reach, never, a true MVP system. Something that you couldn't grow to, hundreds of thousands of people across Australia. So, we wanna give people something that they love using, that's simple to use, that looks good, that plays nice.

- How did you get from that one to this one in terms of like, gaining the right advice? Like, identifying what was wrong and how to go to this new platform? 'Cause I imagine, like most founders you've got a vision, but you probably don't fully understand that the nitty gritty of all the tech that you need to implement in order to get there-

- Spot on, and, unless you are that technical founder, that's always gonna be the case, isn't it?

- So did you have people in-house or did you-

- We brought people in house. It was really important for us to have that tight quality control, aligned people, people who could see how we're growing and what we're doing and ultimately have context as you're writing code versus, trying to write up a 900 page spec and ship it off to be outsourced. So we do all that in house. It's really important to us to have that agility as well as things changed and, even post deployment or sort of a launch of that system, that ability to change fast has been amazing.

- Awesome.

- So all that great people, really, I think that's the biggest leap but, you need evidence and you need cash and you need resource to go about those projects.

- How did the local community help you or, how did any outside influence help you?

- Within that project?

- Yeah.

- So absolutely being involved in the design process. So literally, hey, here's a bunch of designs, we're about to go write code, give us your feedback. What would you like? How do you see this working for you? So that input at those early stages, before you building up that cost in that technical debt. So we're able to bypass or mitigate some of that by bringing people in early.

- Was there any technical assistance from the community as in like, the startup community, and that have maybe like been through this process before, like-

- Always.

- Coffees with-

- Always picking the advice of people on the Gold Coast, Brisbane, in terms of how we're managing the project, getting our tech team set up in the right way but, we were really lucky to have, well and still have great quality developers, and people who are really product focused and understand what we're doing at the same time.

- What I'm searching for Michael is, when people are in this moment, like they've gone... they've gone to credit MVP, and they're going, I needed to go to the next level, but I'm absolutely like stuck, . I don't know how to get there, what tech to use, et cetera. I need to ask someone. Where are those people that I ask? I think where were they for you?

- Spot on, I think this day and age, anyone new. In the pre COVID era, we used to catch up with people. That was fun, wasn't it. Anyone who wants to be in this world or has that mindset of I'm building something and I've got conviction, I can see the future here, there were enough events, startup community, tech community, DevOps, meetups, everything, AWS groups, everything under the sun. So, I'd always tried to immerse myself in as many of them as possible and ultimately that peer sharing so other founders. So some founders might be a technical founder. I'm more on the business side so actually sharing that knowledge and just being willing to pick up the phone, send a text, hey, I've got this problem. I'm wondering about this, what have you experienced? And I think that's the best help anyone can get.

- Beautiful. So how would, if you were gonna tell somebody to go to a location or a website or a LinkedIn or Facebook group, that you've tapped into in the past, from experience, where would they go? Who would they go to?

- Which particular groups?

- Yeah, just anything.

- There's so many, that's a podcast in itself and the laundry list isn't a bit... you look around Facebook, you've got Gold Coast startups, Brisbane startups, Queensland startups, and these are really supportive helpful communities. People put a shout out for whatever they need, or they're hiring someone, or they've got a question. There will be people who help you out.

- Excellent.

- The same thing on LinkedIn. It's the whole thing, you find those right three people, they know, three other people and so on down the road. So LinkedIn is a huge tool for basically building up that, mentoring that advisory network that people need.

- Are there places on the Gold Coast or in Brisbane, I think that, isn't The Hub in Brisbane?

- Well, I mean, I haven't been there for a little while, but you did have River City Labs-

- You ever seen those?

- Brisbane, you had the capital there, Gold Coast, you've got Cohort Innovation Space up there at the hospital which is pretty aligned with what we're doing from a health tech perspective as well. So, no shortage of groups. I see a lot of informal organic groups, also these days where it's literally, hey, I'm helping you, you're helping me. Sometimes that lives just below the surface, but, not hard to identify a lot of support out there.

- I mean, back in the day we had Silicon Beach Gold Coast which was founded by Kyle McGinty and then, he had a little holiday with that one. We tried to bring that back and that was fantastic. It was great seeing people just having conversations and helping each other out and talking through their problems and, seeing, like there was so many CTOs in the room. There was so many founders in the room. It was fantastic.

- I think you backed that... I think you're back to Gold Coast, 2015, when I arrived back from, living overseas, I think that was the first group.

- It was.

- Yes, Silicon Beach and then some of the startup weekends that were happening back in those days. Back at before it, got too popular. But yeah, there was a real pedigree of a... there was a real system up on the Gold Coast, and we look forward to... all of us look forward to that continuing here, specifically.

- I think Cohort are doing a great job up there. I think they're really, creating a great group of people, great founders group. Jim Rohn's famous saying, you're the average of the five people you hang out with most. Like, absolutely hanging out in places like that, is very valuable. So mate, it's an app it's on Google Play, it's on App Store. It's on the web too, I can log in. I can become a Support Pro. Now, for Support Pros, this almost looks like a whole new opportunity for, me to be able to, be self-sufficient in, finding work, if I'm a Support Pro. So, imagine this, like you were saying, nurses, this even personal trainers, there's physios, there'd be all those types of skillsets on this platform, are they then, enabling themselves to live a more free life in terms of like structuring their days and their weeks, according to how they want their weeks to be structured. So almost, giving them some sense of freedom.

- That's it ultimately. So, if you're a disability support worker already, maybe you've experienced two decades of working for these huge organisations and things can be very... policies and procedures driven, you don't really get any choice as to who you're actually gonna go and help during the day as well. So you might not feel it's a great fit. Maybe you're not the right person, but you also have limited choice in that role. Now, fast forward with all these changes and the opportunities now. So if you sign up as a Support Pro with Kynd, effectively, you're a sole trader, everything's about that mutual agreement between you and the person. So you're able to talk about your schedule, your hours. You're able to agree your own hourly rates within limits and what services you're willing to offer and what things that you don't think you're the best person for.

- So this client help me get paid, does it help me?-

- Absolutely, we take care of all that simplicity in between all those needs in between from admin and insurance and invoicing and all that to basically mean, you can turn up, be with the person and just focus on them.

- Oh, fantastic.

- That's the dream.

- You take care of the admin, the invoicing, the...yeah mate.

- That's it, I mean, people typically don't wake up in the morning and say, great, I can't wait to, well, some people do love sending invoices, but, it means there's some-

- .

- Yeah, exactly but, it's a good problem to have, isn't it? But, if you're looking at basically being a full-time person, helping someone out, then, if someone can remove those hassles for you or those roadblocks to getting started is a big one as well, then that's a big win and we see people really appreciate that service.

- Unreal.

- It's good fun. Really lucky and inspiring for the team as well.

- I bet, I bet it is. So what's supply and demand like at the moment? Is there a lot of people looking for help that just can't find the right fit for them at the moment? Is Australia crying out for more Support Pros? Where are we at? I mean, and that probably comes down to a little bit of your popularity as well. I mean Kynd's brand needs to be, pretty well-known for people that even know that this opportunity exists.

- Exactly, so if you look at things from firstly, a nationwide perspective with Australia and the NDIS, if you look at that statistic on one in five people living with some form of disability, what are we talking? Four and a half, 5-6 million people. Now, if you break that down, you look at the NDIS, you're talking about 450,000 NDIS participants. Now, that's gonna require, as the minister and the government themselves and all the economic forecasting has done, that's gonna need 90,000 new disability support workers within four years time. So there is a huge need for people who are looking to either re-skill or join that industry, and also do things in a different, more flexible way. So ultimately Australia's crying out for more disability support workers. That's gonna be needed to make this scheme a success. From a pure community perspective, imagine those dollars and that support, it's re-circulating, in, specific suburbs, specific economies, it's, through using a tool like Kynd and people coming together more directly, ultimately you're keeping money in communities versus it going to either a foreign owned corporation or a behemoth. So it's a, massive need in terms of supply and demand. If we look at the way health is going, social anxiety, mental health, and different challenges that we're all living with these days it's a need that's only getting greater and greater as the years pass by.

- So, good point that you just brought up there. It's not always a physical disability that we're, struggling with, and mental disability is absolutely... mental health, is such on the rise at the moment. So, getting support in terms of counselling, family counsellors, psychologists, and things like that is possible too.

- Well, it's, ultimately it comes down to that NDIS plan that someone has received or applied for, and, what diagnosis and, what their goals are within that but, typically the way the government will look at it is, hey, is this a permanent and lifelong disability versus a more episodic, occurrence in someone's life? In that way.

- Forget the NDIS for a second, I'm a father in need, my family needs some counselling. I'm not saying this is true, just hypothetically speaking.

- Sure.

- I can get on there, I can find someone I can pay him?

- Not at this stage, no.

- So there's, a lot that we'd love to be able to help out with and, control the options being given to people but, we live in Australia, we've got certain government systems and rules and some things live in the department of health that are completely unrelated to the NDIS. Some things live in the NDIS, but it's not a perfectly aligned system right now. I mean, if you look at little nuances such as, if I might have an accident and I've got an acquired brain injury, it's degenerative, it's never gonna get better and I need support. If I'm 64 years old and 364 days, I could receive an NDIS package that's individualised and tailored to me for life. If I'm 65 and one day I'm now in the aged care system, I could receive a much lower level of funding and less support on an ongoing basis. So, that's where we're at with the country. There's a long way to go and that transformation is gonna take time. There's a lot of philosophy. There are some politics involved as you can imagine, but hopefully as a country on more of an international basis in a world stage, at least we're moving towards a system of that person centred support and actually just trying to get the right help to the right person. It'll take another decade to hopefully get to, anything close to a utopia.

- Brilliant. Well, I'm glad, it looks like we're on the right road.

- We hope so, you gotta stay positive. The good thing is there are so many families and people out there hyper passionate about making these changes and advocating for something different. If you're gonna have a system like this in the NDIS where it's a $22 billion scheme. So, every Australian should probably know about it 'cause you're paying tax money for it, we ultimately want the best out there.

- Beautiful, thanks so much, Michael. We're gonna have to give that a wrap. We're heating up here in Queensland. And under these-

- A few little bullets, down here on the Gold Coast today. It's sweating bullets. Thanks so much for your time, Michael. It's been fantastic catching up with you. Is there any thing that you were dying to share that I maybe didn't prompt you to say?

- No, I think the most important thing is, yeah, we're big believers in some of the philosophy that you're sharing like if you can find something that, helps people, it's got a purpose, it makes business sense and it's sustainable, ultimately, that's a big win for everyone. So, that's kind of our focus at Kynd and, yeah, bring on the future.

- Thanks Michael, I appreciate your support and the common words, no pun intended. Now we're very passionate about our methodology and what it's gonna do for businesses. 100% we believe that if you do not have a business that is purpose led in this...in the 20s you will not exist beyond the 2030s. You will struggle majorly.

- Rightly so. Right on. Thanks very much for watching guys. It's been Michael Metcalfe from Kynd, kynd.com.au. Check that out. You can find Michael spelled normally. Metcalfe, M-E-T-C-A-L-F-E.

- That's the one as well.

- Beautiful. On LinkedIn, go and connect with him there. Tell him that you wanna partner with him, and all of that sort of stuff and be a great, support network for this great cause, that is Kynd and helping people get the right support at the right time from...with the right people. You can check us out on memedia.com.au and the ProActive Podcast is on Apple and Spotify. Thanks guys.

- Thanks very much, Chris.