From Shop Floor at 16 to CEO: The Power of Building Confidence Every Day
Welcome to The Bend Like Bamboo Resilience Show
We discover that our greatest challenges often become our greatest strengths.
Each month, I sit down with remarkable leaders who've transformed adversity into triumph, sharing their inspiring journeys of resilience and renewal. Together, we explore the mindset shifts, practical strategies, and breakthrough moments that turned their setbacks into comebacks.
What you'll discover:
Real stories of people who've learned to bend without breaking, actionable tools to transform stress into strength, and evidence that when we change our story, we change what's possible for our health, relationships, and future.
Like bamboo, we're designed to be flexible.
When we embrace this truth, we don't just survive life's storms - we use them to grow stronger, wiser, and more resilient than ever before.
Join me as we explore how flexibility builds unshakeable resilience.
"I believe in you. Now you need to believe in yourself."
Those eight words changed Colleen Callander's life.
She was 18 years old. Fresh out of school. Standing on the shop floor of a fashion retail store. And her area manager, Vivian, had just offered her a managerial position.
Colleen's immediate response? "I'm not good enough. I'm not old enough. People are better than me."
The stories we tell ourselves when opportunity knocks.
But Vivian didn't accept that answer. She said something that would become Colleen's north star for the next 37 years:
"I believe in you. Now you need to believe in yourself."
And here's what Colleen heard beneath those words—something deeper than encouragement:
"I believe in you. I'm going to be here to support you. I will pick you up when you fall over."
That belief became the foundation for everything that followed.
Today, Colleen Callander is an award-winning CEO, bestselling author, and modern thought leader redefining what it means to lead with confidence, purpose, and heart. I'm thrilled to have her back on the Bend Like Bamboo podcast—because our first conversation was so powerful, I knew we needed to go deeper.
She left school at just 16—not because she had to, but because she'd fallen in love with fashion retail during a summer job at her local Just Jeans store. Her parents, who'd worked so hard to put her through school (her mum finished at 13, her dad at 14), were gobsmacked.
But her father gave her words that became her mantra for life: "Work hard. Be passionate. Love what you do. And never give up."
That summer job became a 30-year retail career. Colleen rose from the shop floor to become CEO of two of Australia's most iconic fashion brands—Sportsgirl and Sussan—leading with a people-first approach that transformed culture and performance.
And now, she's channelling everything she's learned into empowering others through her work as a keynote speaker, business advisor, founder of Mentor Me Women, and author of three books—Leader by Design, Elevate, and her newly released The Power of Confidence: A 30-Day Transformation.
This is a story about what happens when someone believes in you before you believe in yourself. And what happens when you learn to build that belief into an unshakeable foundation.
The Secret Sauce: People Are Your Greatest Asset
From those earliest days on the shop floor, Colleen knew something instinctively that many leaders spend decades learning:
People are your greatest asset.
"I was exceptionally passionate about retail, but I was really passionate about people," Colleen reflects. "Loving people. Wanting to create environments where people thrive and shine. That was my secret sauce—being so connected with people."
This wasn't performative leadership. This was genuine care.
When she joined Sportsgirl in 1999, she didn't think she'd spend 20 years there—13 of them as CEO. But it was the people, the culture, the opportunity to lead with kindness and accountability, that kept her there.
"I still think about Vivian's words," Colleen shares, nearly 40 years later. "And it's become something I've tried to take through my journey—believing in other people. Because often we just need that one person to believe in us before we start believing in ourselves."
For my HEAL listeners managing chronic stress and autoimmune conditions: this is what deep healing looks like. Someone sees your potential when you can't see it yourself. Someone holding space for your transformation before you're ready to hold it for yourself.
For my THRIVE listeners navigating leadership and burnout: this is what sustainable leadership looks like. Not pushing people to perform. But believing in them deeply enough that they start believing in themselves.
And here's the truth Colleen discovered: confidence isn't something we're born with. It's something we build.
The Power of Confidence: It's Like Going to the Gym
Colleen's newly released book, The Power of Confidence: A 30-Day Transformation, is built on a simple but profound premise:
“You can't go to the gym once and think, "I'm done. I'm ripped. I'm flexible. I never have to go back again.”
Confidence works the same way.
"You have to keep going," Colleen explains. "You have to be consistent and intentional about working on yourself every day. That's how you build real strength. That's how you build real confidence."
The book isn't theory. It's a practical, step-by-step 30-day program designed to help you:
Quiet your inner critic
Stop self-sabotaging
Build unshakeable self-belief
Transform the way you speak to yourself
"When we make life too hard, we do it for a day or two and then throw it in the bin," Colleen laughs. "A bit like New Year's resolutions. So this is something that's lasting and life-changing if you want to put in the work."
Some exercises take a few minutes. Some take longer. But they're all designed to be doable within the rhythm of real life.
Because confidence isn't a destination. It's a daily practice.
Mentor Me Women: Making Mentoring Accessible to All
During COVID lockdowns in Victoria, Colleen started receiving calls, emails, and Instagram DMs from women she knew—and women she'd never met.
"What can I do? I'm really not coping well in this situation."
She wanted to help. But there are only so many hours in the day for one-on-one mentoring.
So she created Mentor Me Women—a platform designed to make mentoring affordable and accessible to women of all ages and all walks of life.
"Most women don't know where to go to find mentors or coaches," Colleen explains. "And often they're very, very expensive. So I thought about what I felt were the really important fundamentals that every single woman needed in their own lives to be able to live, lead, and love in a different way."
She broke it into four core pillars:
The Power of Self – Understanding who you are at your core
The Power of Leadership – Leading yourself and others with intention
The Power of Confidence – Building unshakeable self-belief
The Power of Values and Purpose – Living in alignment with what matters most
The program runs for four weeks—one hour per week—because "we don't have three weeks to go away and do a course."
Hundreds of women have been through the program. And what makes it special isn't just the content—it's the community.
"It's this really beautiful, intimate circle of exceptional women," Colleen describes. "You get to hear their values, what their purpose is. You're defining all of this together. And sometimes we need to redefine our values—because life changes, we change."
As someone who went through the program myself, I can tell you: it's transformative.
I dug out my notes from the course recently. My values that I identified were inspiration, achievement, authenticity, health, and family—things I hadn't focused on in years because I'd been a workaholic obsessed with achieving.
And there was a question Colleen asked: "Three years from now, what would you regret if you didn't have the courage to action today?"
I wrote: Having a family, finding the love of my life, buying a house, investing in my future and finances, and going at it with all I've got with Bend Like Bamboo.
Three years later? I'm living all of it. I got married at the end of 2025. I'm building my business with clarity. And Colleen's program helped me define what was actually important to me.
"Values give you clarity in all of your decision-making," Colleen teaches. "If you make decisions in line with your values, you're going to have great clarity and confidence. Because values are the things we deem most important in the way we live, work, and love."
Resilience Through Burnout: The Gift She Didn't Know She Needed
At 36 years old, Colleen had it all.
An incredible career. Three young children. High-performing success.
But she didn't have an off button.
"I hadn't built the mechanisms into my life to allow me to thrive at a high-performing level without burning out," Colleen shares. "And burnout... it's not a fun place to be."
But here's what's extraordinary about Colleen's story:
She calls burnout "a gift I didn't realise I needed at the time."
Not because burnout itself is desirable. But because it forced her to do what she'd never done before:
Slow down. Reassess. Set boundaries. Put herself first.
"Burnout made me think about me as the asset versus me as serving everybody else," Colleen reflects. "Because at the end of the day, we have to serve ourselves before we serve anyone else. We can only be good to other people when we're good to ourselves first."
This is the lesson so many high-achievers resist.
For my THRIVE listeners: you can't lead from empty. You can't scale your impact if you're running on fumes. You can't build something sustainable if the business model requires you to sacrifice your health.
For my HEAL listeners: your body will force you to stop if you don't choose to bend first. Burnout isn't a badge of honour—it's your nervous system saying, "This way of living is not sustainable."
"If we don't build solid foundations for ourselves—resilience, confidence, boundaries—we will really struggle when tough situations come our way," Colleen teaches. "It's like foundations of a house. If you don't build strong foundations, cracks will appear. The house will fall over."
The Connection Between Resilience and Confidence
When I asked Colleen about the connection between resilience and confidence—the heart of what I teach through the Bamboo Method—her answer was profound:
"Resilience, confidence, and leadership all start with self. All start with us."
And here's what she believes about resilience:
"I don't personally believe you can teach anyone to be resilient. I think resilience is something you learn as you go through life and experience new things. It's built through our experiences—our successes, our failures, our fears, our setbacks, our wins, our achievements."
Burnout was Colleen's teacher.
It taught her that:
Self-care isn't selfish
Boundaries are essential
You can't pour from an empty cup
High performance requires strong foundations
"All of these things intertwine," Colleen explains. "Resilience, confidence, leadership. The more we work on them, the stronger each one becomes. And if we don't, we will fall over when tough situations come our way."
This is why I love talking with Colleen—we're teaching the same thing through different lenses. She talks about foundations of a house. I talk about bamboo's deep roots. But we're both saying: you can't skip the foundation work.
The Two Types of Confidence: Output and Input
There's something Colleen and I discovered in our conversation that I think so many high-achievers need to hear:
There are two types of confidence.
The first is the confidence that pushes us to give it a go. Get out of our comfort zone. Take on the world. See what we're capable of.
This is output confidence—the kind that builds careers, launches businesses, and achieves goals.
But there's a second type that we learn much later (if we're lucky):
Input confidence.
The confidence to receive. To rest. To say no. To build balance. To prioritise wellbeing alongside achievement.
"We're not taught that in our generation," I shared with Colleen. "We talk about it so much now—there's so much information, beautiful podcasts where we're more aware of these topics. But my mum, my grandma? I don't think they were talking about it."
"No, they weren't," Colleen agreed. "They weren't talking about values, or leadership, or resilience, or confidence, or self-sabotage, or any of those things."
But we are. And the more we talk about them, the more we support not only this generation, but the next generation to think and live differently.
For so long, the story many of us told ourselves was: "Self-care is selfish."
If you're doing something for yourself, you're not caring for your family. Your team. Your clients. Your partner.
But here's the truth:
You are the most important person in the world. And the more you invest in yourself, the more you work on your confidence, the stronger it becomes.
What's Next: Living Beyond the Achievement Boxes
At 55, Colleen is entering a new chapter.
Her book, The Power of Confidence, is out now—in bookstores, airports, online. She's delivering keynote speeches around it. Running Mentor Me Women programs (next one starts in March). Serving on boards.
But here's what's different this year:
"I'm going to take a month off mid-year and go to Italy, where my father's from," Colleen shares. "I want to make this year not just about working hard and ticking boxes. Achievement's one of my values—when you're an achievement junkie, you just like to keep ticking boxes."
"But I also want to tick other boxes this year. Connection. Family. Friends. Health. Wellbeing. All the things that are super important. Because that's really how we function at our best—when we have all of those things working beautifully for us."
This is what sustainable success looks like.
Not just achieving. But living. Connecting. Experiencing. Building a life that breathes.
The Foundations You Need to Build
If there's one thing I want you to take from Colleen's story, it's this:
Confidence isn't something you're born with. It's something you build. Every single day.
Just like going to the gym. Just like building the foundations of a house. Just like bamboo growing deep roots before it grows tall.
Whether you're managing chronic stress and autoimmune conditions, or you're a leader navigating burnout, the principle is the same:
You need strong foundations. And those foundations start with believing in yourself.
Not performative confidence. Not fake-it-till-you-make-it bravado.
But the quiet, unshakeable belief that:
You are worthy of investing in
Your wellbeing matters as much as your output
Self-care isn't selfish—it's essential
You can build the life you want, one intentional choice at a time
Colleen's journey from shop floor to CEO wasn't about having all the answers. It was about having someone who believed in her. And then learning to believe in herself.
And now, through her book, her programs, her speaking—she's becoming that person for others.
The person who says: "I believe in you. Now you need to believe in yourself."
Connect with Colleen Callander
Get The Power of Confidence: Available now in all good bookstores, airports, and online A 30-day transformation program to build unshakeable confidence
https://www.colleencallander.com.au/product-page/leader-by-design
Mentor Me Women: Next program starts March 2026 Four weeks. Four core pillars. A beautiful community of women. Email: hellopaigeconnect@gmail.com
Follow Colleen:
Website: www.colleencallander.com.au
Instagram: @colleen_callander
Instagram: @mentorme_women
LinkedIn: Colleen Callander
Facebook: Ollie Callander
Ready to build sustainable resilience? Here's how to work with me:
🌿 HEAL – If you're managing autoimmune conditions, chronic stress, or health challenges
Deep-dive 1:1 support with kinesiology and nervous system regulation
→ Learn about HEAL: https://www.bendlikebamboo.com/heal-bamboo-method
🌿THRIVE – If you're a leader, coach, or practitioner experiencing burnout, this intensive 1:1 program is for sustainable leadership without sacrificing your wellbeing
→ Learn about THRIVE: https://www.bendlikebamboo.com/thrive-bamboo-method
🌿 Foundations – Want the complete Bamboo Method at your own pace?
Self-paced digital course teaching all six pillars of resilience
→ Explore Foundations: https://www.bendlikebamboo.com/bamboo-foundations
Not sure which path is yours?
📍 Book a Free Clarity Call with me, and we’ll explore together.
https://www.bendlikebamboo.com/service-booking-clarity-call
Remember: With a flexible mindset, we can adapt, transform our story, and reimagine what's possible.
📍 Book a Free Clarity Call:
https://www.bendlikebamboo.com/service-booking-clarity-call
Remember: With a flexible mindset, we can adapt, transform our story, and reimagine what's possible.
Free Resources:
The Podcast on iTunes
The Podcast on Spotify
Watch on YouTube
Free Resilience Toolkit
Connect:
Website: bendlikebamboo.com
Instagram: @bendlikebamboo
Facebook: @bendlikebamboo
LinkedIn: amanda-campbell-resilience-coach