About Caroline Cameron

My first real experience of leadership happened when I was asked to be School Captain in Year 12. This coveted role was given to someone selected by students and teachers and I didn't for one minute think it would be me! One of my friends had publicly campaigned for the job and desperately wanted it. And, we all knew she'd get it.

When the headmaster called me into his office and asked me to do the job, my first reaction was total surprise - 'Who... ME?' I asked incredulously. My next reaction was what I now recognise as heart-pounding fear. What if I can't do it? What if they find out I'm not up to the job? My friend (who wanted the job) will never talk to me again. I really don't know how to do this!

As I stood up in front of the school at assembly for the first time I was paralyzed with terror! With all eyes on me, face flushing and hands trembling, my job was to ask everyone to be quiet so assembly could begin. Aaaargh! i was stunned when the school hall did fall silent and quickly.

Little by little my confidence grew and by the end of the year I'd stopped worrying, just a little bit! After all, what was the worst that could happen?

After graduation, I gained a job as a Play Therapist at the world famous Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London, where they treat the sickest children from across the UK and Europe. At the ripe old age of 23, I was responsible for helping children overcome their fear of hospital, illness and excruciating treatment through play.

One of my greatest teachers was Robin, a previously health 7 year old who had contracted a rare disease from a mosquito bite whilst living with his family in Egypt.

Emergency air lifted to the hospital, his whole body was covered in horrendous infectious ulcers and besides being wracked with unbearable pain, the disease had ulcerated his eyelids, leaving him totally blind. Terrified and confused, he would scream whenever anyone came into his room and helping him was a daunting prospect when I had so little experience.

For hours and weeks on end, I'd sit at the door to his room reading him stories, reassuring him that I wouldn't enter his room until he gave me permission. One day, in the middle of a story, he interrupted me and said, 'Caroline, I would like to do some painting!'

With no idea what I really wanted to do, I found myself opportunistically and randomly changing careers and jobs! I moved from country NSW to Melbourne to support my then husband through his mid-life career change, whilst he studied to become a vet. With a beautiful 14 month old daughter, my #1 priority was to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads.

While the next 15 years looked like this:

I was consulting for a boutique IT management consultancy and, as I don't have a technical bone in my body, I figured I could help with the 'people stuff'. 

This was long before Change Management became a thing and initially it involved writing newsletters for IT system implementation projects so they could tick the Communications box on the project plan.

Working for insurance companies, banks, utilities, telcos and non-government agencies, I started to notice how much people really struggled with change.  No matter the project or the client, this was a common theme and I started to wonder why.

It was as if someone, somewhere had said, 'Change is HARD!' , and everyone wholeheartedly and unquestioningly accepted this as true.

To be fair, I was grappling with change in my life too as a newly single mum, working 60+ hour weeks and struggling to keep my head above water.

Over the next few years I progressed to writing Change Management Strategies for organisations confronting the realities of acquisitions, mergers, divestments, restructures and the introduction of web enabled technologies. I became increasingly aware that how we do business isn’t the easiest or best way to make change happen.

Defining Moment #1:

One day (to prove my theory), I inserted a short passage from Alice In Wonderland into the middle of a Change Management Strategy I’d been slaving over for a large corporate client.

I sent the document to the Executive team to review and scheduled a meeting to have it approved. The 8 very senior and busy executives were jovial as the meeting started. Signing off the strategy was a major milestone completed and simply another tick in the box on the project plan.

As unanimous approval was received and they prepared to move on to the next agenda item, I drew their attention to the rogue passage and curiously asked how Lewis Carroll’s inadvertent contribution had helped inform their decision making. Sheepishly, they all admitted they’d only read the Executive Summary!

Don’t get me wrong, written communication is very important, but lengthy documents and copious emails don’t make change happen…. So what does? Then it occurred to me -

“It's not big fat strategy documents that make change happen - it's what people THINK, BELIEVE, FEEL, CHOOSE, SAY and DO.”

This defining moment sparked my determination to discover how to make change easier and more successful.

It was around then that my life had to change too. Facing a painful divorce, my resistance strategy was ‘gritty determination’. As a single mum with a mortgage and no child support, I struggled and it was hard, but couldn’t see any other way to survive.

Working long hours in the corporate world was curiously comforting because I was surrounded by people also struggling with change. 

No one seemed to have the answer and we were a united, 'in the trenches' resistance movement. Like a duck - seemingly in control as I glided across the water - my feet paddled furiously below the surface as I tried to stay afloat!

Defining Moment #2:

Driving home one cold, dark winter's night in torrential rain, rushing to get my daughter to ballet on Melbourne's clagged Monash Freeway, a large semi jack-knifed in front of me.

I swerved off the road and stopped...

Badly shaken, heart pounding, windscreen wipers thrashing, hazard lights on, I rested head on steering wheel. 

Visions of a horrific car accident I'd been in when I was 6 came flooding back and I suddenly realised – resistance to change is futile.

If my life was going to change, I was the only one who could change it.

That near miss, started me on a journey to discover how to take the struggle out of change.  I knew I had to change what I thought, believed, said, chose and did.

I enrolled in a year’s intensive professional coach training, lost 25 kg, reclaimed my life & discovered surprisingly simple ways to harness the power of change.

Throughout my coaching training, I learnt how to reframe the stories I'd been telling myself and my life so far started to make a lot more sense.

Working through frontline to executive level roles wasn't a random quest to figure out what I wanted to do. Rather, the accumulated experience helped me truly understand and deeply empathise with the challenges my clients face.

The relief I felt at being able to change my circumstances and take control of my life was immense. For the first time ever, it started to feel as though anything was possible.

I hadn't gone into coaching to start a business (losing the regular paycheck was still way too scary!). But the more I learnt, the more I changed and I knew I had found my purpose - the unique difference that I had been put on this earth to make.

If exploring, understanding and reconfiguring my old stories was helping me, surely it could help others too.

Over the next two years I moonlighted - working by day as a consultant whilst pursuing my coaching side hustle - helping people to harness the power of change. The results were remarkable. Change challenges they'd struggled with for years were overcome in a heartbeat!

In the evenings and weekends I practiced my coaching until I knew I was ready to back myself and take the leap. Stepping out of my comfort zone, I resigned, stepped off the corporate treadmill and set up Possibility to Reality in 2005.

My aim was and always will be to move ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. I’ve been honored to help hundreds of professional people, teams and businesses test the limits, break the shackles and blow open the opportunities to create the future they want and their results inspire me.

My ‘make change easy’ journey has taken me all round Australia and the world. Coaching senior executives in Melbourne, passionate young entrepreneurs in Johannesburg, journalists in the Daintree Rainforest, local government leaders in Western Australia, clients from Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand and working with coaches from the UK, America and Dubai – they all share one thing…

They all have a strong desire to make their difference count and awareness that only they can make it happen.

Whether it's coaching, speaking or facilitating, every day I learn new things, often thinking, "I wish I'd known THAT back when I was struggling!"

Coming alongside my clients to help them achieve things they never previously thought possible, is thrilling and such a privilege. Together, we expand your awareness, build your strengths and develop clear, calm, confidence to achieve your personal and professional aspirations.

The greatest highlights come from watching my clients pass on what they've gained through coaching - empowering themselves and their people to embrace change, rather than resist it. 

I call this 'paying it forward' and it creates a ripple effect as more and more people break free from the change struggle to become the best they can be, doing what they do, making their unique difference and... loving life in a whole new way.

So... now it's over to YOU!