Can Conversations Change Us?
I Used to Take That for Granted
For a long time, I would have said yes without hesitating. Of course conversations change us. It's the whole of what I believe — that a single conversation has the power to unlock new thinking, shift a perspective, open a door that didn't seem to be there before.
But I think there's a difference between believing something and actually feeling it.
It was during lockdown in 2020,. I was scrolling through a Facebook community group — the kind of scrolling that we all day. We may be taking a break in the middle of a workday. On this particular day, something stopped me.
A teacher. A remote Indigenous community. An op shop built by parents and students. Donations needed.
It was a few lines. Nothing elaborate. But something in it caught me. Not just the cause — something about the person behind it. The way it was written.
I reached out. I had no particular plan. Just curiosity, and a belief I try to live by: that the most interesting conversations are often the ones you weren't expecting to have.
Courtney Lynch, Nyirripi, 500km from Alice Springs
That reach-out became a podcast conversation — and one of the most memorable ones I've recorded.
Courtney Lynch was at the time, a teacher in Nyirripi, a remote Indigenous community in Central Australia. We had never met in person. We'd exchanged a few messages online after I read the facebook post and I found that in reality, her family loved about ten km from me in Melbourne.
When we sat down — virtually — and she told me about her world.
About the 10-hour round trip families made just to reach the nearest Kmart. About the school that had decided to solve a real problem with the resources they had. About parents who set up an op shop — open one afternoon a week — so the community could access clothing, bedding and homewares without that impossible journey. About students learning numeracy and literacy by actually running it. About all the money made going back into school projects the students and staff chose together: sports equipment, painting the school, bush trips.
About a Facebook post that led to donations flowing in from across Australia.
I found myself leaning in as she spoke. Not because the story was dramatic — it wasn't, in the conventional sense. Because it was so quietly, powerfully human.
A simple idea. A community that owned it. And a conversation that started because someone posted online and a stranger was paying attention.
What That Conversation Gave Me
The pillars of my podcast and connection, contribution and community and it was during lockdown that I started my podcast to amplify stories of people who were making a difference and hoping to create an impact.
For years prior to 2020, and since then, I've continued to create conversations and connections — in communities, at events, in one-to-one settings. I believe in what a good conversation can do. It's not abstract for me. It's the whole of the work.
But Courtney reminded me of something I sometimes lose sight of in the busyness of my own world.
Conversations change us when we bring genuine curiosity to them. Not agenda. Not a pre-formed point of view. Real curiosity — the kind that says: I don't know your story, and I'd like to. A good conversation can create awareness beyond our own experience.
That conversation was a powerful example for me. It widened my sense of what's possible when people connect across difference. It reminded me that the most meaningful conversations don't always happen between peers, or colleagues, or people in the same industry. Sometimes they happen because you reached out to someone you'd never normally meet, in a context completely removed from your own.
I came away from that podcast with more than a story to share. I came away with a clearer sense of why I do what I do. I want to amplify inspiring people, prompt people to think beyond themselves and see conversations as the tool to unlock opportunities that we can explore, excite and expand through.
The conversations that change us aren't always the ones we planned. Sometimes they're the ones we almost scrolled past.
Five Things I’ve Learned from Conversations that have changed Me
Courtney's conversation was one of many that have shaped how I think and work. Here's what I keep coming back to:
• Curiosity is the starting point. Every conversation that's shifted something for me began with genuine interest in another person's experience — not a goal, not an outcome, just: tell me more.
• You don't have to have anything to offer. The most generous thing you can bring to a conversation is your full attention. That's it.
• The ripple effect is real. What begins as one conversation — between two people — has the potential to move into the world in ways neither person could have predicted.
• Difference is an asset, not an obstacle. Some of the conversations that have taught me most were with people whose lives looked nothing like mine. That distance is where the learning lives.
• You have to show up. None of it happens without the decision to reach out, to say yes, to stay in the room a little longer than feels comfortable.
So — Can Conversations Change Us?
I think the honest answer is: only if we let them.
We need to get curious. Open. Willing to reach out to the stranger, to stay in the room, to sit with what we heard long after the conversation ends.
Courtney's conversation did that for me. And she's one of many. Over years of podcasting, facilitating, and bringing people together, I've lost count of the exchanges that quietly rewired something in how I see the world. Check out the other conversations in my podcast- HERE. I’d be really interested if you find one , or more, that changed how you think or expanded your horizons.
In June I'm hosting a small, curated dinner in Melbourne called “The Conversations That Change Us”. Just fourteen seats. A thoughtful evening. No panels, no pitches, no pressure to perform. It’s for a group of curious, generous professionals — and a facilitator who believes that the most valuable thing in a room full of interesting people is the conversation that happens when everyone stops performing.
I named the dinner after something I've witnessed over and over again: that the conversations we remember — the ones that quietly reshape how we see something, or someone, or ourselves — rarely announce themselves in advance.
You don't always know, in the moment, that this is one of those conversations.
You tend to know afterwards.
If you've ever left a conversation thinking: that shifted something — you'll know exactly what I mean.
You Can Find the Podcast — and the Dinner — Here
If you'd like to listen to my conversation with Courtney Lynch, you can find it “Awareness is the Greatest Agent of Change” on my Spotify Podcast- “Conversations and Conneections to amplify and Inspire” or find it via my website www.kerryn-powell.com.au/podcast
And if the June dinner sounds like it might be your kind of evening, I'd love for you to consider joining us. Details are at the link below.
The Conversations That Change Us · Melbourne · 18 June · 14 seats
kerryn-powell.com.au/shop/in-person-dinner
Kerryn Powell is The Network Catalyst. She helps professionals, business owners, and changemakers build confidence, strengthen relationships, and uncover opportunities for growth through conversations that count. Book a conversation HERE.
Or, follow along on LinkedIn — Kerryn shares reflections on conversation, connection, and the hidden opportunities in both, most weeks.
