I’ve caught myself doing something over the past few weeks that I don’t love.

Looking back.

Remember when things felt clearer? When the model worked? When effort reliably turned into results? It’s tempting to frame those moments as wisdom or experience. A lot of the time—it’s avoidance.

We can’t be romantic about who we were.

Healthcare staffing isn’t broken. It’s different. The market shifted. The leverage shifted. Travelers changed how they choose, how they trust, how they engage. If we keep operating like none of that happened, that’s on us. For years, noise came from us. Calls. Emails. Submissions. Activity. That was the signal. If things slowed down, we simply worked harder. That worked in that market.

This market doesn’t reward noise from agencies. It rewards connection from travelers. When travelers care, they get loud. They talk to you. They respond. They tell you what’s working and what’s not because they believe you’ll do something with it. Silence doesn’t mean satisfaction. It means indifference. And right now, it’s quieter than it should be.

That doesn’t mean people are angry. It means we’re not earning attention. We’re not solving problems quickly or loudly enough that people feel the need to engage. We’re not standing out in ways that matter. Some of what we still do exists because it once worked. Some of it exists because it’s comfortable. That’s the uncomfortable truth. Familiar systems, familiar language, familiar promises, even when the market has moved on. Reinvention gets framed like reinvention theater. New words. New graphics. Same behavior. That’s not what I mean.

I mean questioning things that feel settled.
I mean listening without defending.
I mean being willing to admit that parts of our identity no longer serve the people we claim to serve.

We don’t need to rediscover ourselves. We need to adapt to reality. To the market we’re in—not the one we remember fondly.

If travelers start getting louder again, even when it’s inconvenient, that’s a good sign. Noise means trust is still alive. Silence is the thing we should be worried about.

This isn’t about going back.
It’s about deciding who we’re willing to become next.