From Holding Myself Small to Saying Hell Yes: My Story
There's a moment I come back to often. I'm standing at the edge of a bed of hot coals in Sydney, Australia. It's 2002. Anxiety is rising in my chest. And there are two voices in my head having a very loud argument.
One voice is soft and reassuring:
“It’s okay if you don’t do it. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to.”
The other voice asks me a single question:
“Who will you be tomorrow and how will you feel about that person if you don’t do this?”
That question changed everything.
WHERE IT BEGAN
It started around 2000 or 2001, when a friend handed me a set of cassette tapes — yes, cassette tapes — a 30-day program by Tony Robbins called Personal Power. Every day, there were exercises that built on the one before, designed to challenge beliefs, rewire patterns of thinking, and expand what felt possible. I wasn't sure what to expect. What I got was a complete shift in perspective.
Every morning, I woke up early, consistently listened to and completed the exercises before getting ready for work.
From there, I signed up for something that would genuinely rock my world: Unleash the Power Within, Tony Robbins’ live event in Sydney. No, this isn’t a sales pitch — but these tools and experiences genuinely changed my life.
Three days. Thousands of people. And a firewalking experience that I almost didn’t do.
THE FIRE WALK
The preparation before the walk is everything — a deep conditioning of the mind that reframes what you’re about to face. And it worked. When I looked at the bed of coals laid out before me, my mind didn’t see fire. It saw something like a long pit covered in grass matting, with just one small area that looked like a hot ember poking through.
I walked across those coals and felt nothing — until I reached the spot my mind had flagged as dangerous. That’s where I felt a small burn.
It was, in the most literal sense, proof of how powerfully the mind shapes reality.
With the right preparation and conditioning, you can program your mind to support you in ways that seem impossible from the outside.
I walked on fire. And I felt unstoppable.
BUILDING THE MOMENTUM
After that weekend, I joined a mastermind group to keep the energy and accountability alive. I kept going deeper into NLP, into understanding the unconscious mind, into learning how to identify and rewrite the programs running beneath the surface.
I attended courses, workshops, and one-day events. I collected tools. And through all of it, I started to genuinely imagine what I wanted my life to look like — not just what felt “realistic” or “safe,” but what I actually wanted. Not what I had been programmed to expect for myself.
What emerged surprised me: I already knew I was dissatisfied with how I was spending my time earning money, without a connection to something greater — a purpose. I realised I wanted to work in a completely different field. I wanted to move into human services.
SAYING HELL YES
My first role in human services came to me in a way I still find remarkable. When deciding I wanted to shift industries, I researched organisations that aligned to purpose and values. I found one in particular that resonated on every level. I sent off my resume and forgot all about it. Nine months rolled by and one morning, I received a call.
I hadn’t imagined what I would be doing in human services or the organisation I had sent my resume to nine months earlier. I had retrained as a counsellor and was keen to use those skills supporting people to overcome challenges and live their best life. That voice on the end of the phone asked me if I would step into an interim State Manager role for a national organisation — with no prior track record in the sector.
Once upon a time, I would have said “I can’t do that.” I would have found a dozen excuses why it wasn’t for me, why I wasn’t ready, why someone else would be better.
Instead, internally I said “Hell yes” — and to the caller, my response was “I would love to help you.” And that was the beginning.
THE CAREER THAT FOLLOWED
Over the years, I moved through a range of organisations and into increasingly senior leadership roles, including Chief Executive positions. I worked in business development for a university, which brought opportunities I never could have imagined for myself.
I travelled to the United States. I spent significant time in China, meeting with leaders from some of the world’s largest organisations, building relationships, exploring partnerships and business opportunities.
I was 31 the first time I got on a plane by myself and it scared me. I was, not so long before any of this, a scared girl who believed the world was mostly out of reach.
And here I was — unaccompanied, in a foreign country, sitting across the table from global business leaders, completely at home.
WHAT LEADERSHIP TAUGHT ME
The career has given me extraordinary lessons, and most of them have come from the people around me — particularly the teams I’ve had the privilege of leading.
They’ve taught me to examine and overcome my unconscious biases. They’ve shown me, repeatedly, that actions speak louder than words in ways that can catch you completely off guard.
I remember arriving early to the office daily as a recently commenced State Manager — getting in before the rush meant I could get focused work done before the day filled up with conversations. What I didn’t expect was that, before long, most of the team started arriving early too.
People were following my lead — not because I’d said anything, but simply because of what I was doing. That’s the weight of leadership. That’s the responsibility of it.
WHY I’M HERE
Everything in my story — the cassette tapes from a friend, the firewalking in Sydney, the mastermind group, the NLP courses, the career I said yes to, the countries I never thought I’d visit, the teams that taught me more than I ever taught them — it all flows from one decision.
The decision to stop holding myself small.
To stop listening to the voice that said “it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to, it’s okay.”
And to start listening to the voice that asked: “Who will you be tomorrow?”
You don’t need to be standing at the edge of a fire pit to face that question. There may be a small, soft voice within urging you on — telling you there is more, or there is a better way.
That’s the work I’m here to do with you.
This story is shared as part of my commitment to helping others move from self-doubt to possibility — in their lives, their leadership, and their work. If you are a human service leader navigating emotional fatigue, explore private coaching options at MindShift Studio.