Mike Erlin on Human Capability, AI, and the Decision That Changed Everything

Mike Erlin on Human Capability, AI, and the Decision That Changed Everything

There is a version of every life that almost happened. The path we were on before we turned, suddenly, toward something we couldn't yet see. Most of us never talk about that fork in the road, or what it cost to walk away from the safe thing. This conversation is about exactly that moment, and what unfolds when you trust it completely. Mike Erlin is the co-founder and CEO of AbilityMap, a company built to answer a question that followed him across three countries and twenty years: why do organisations keep getting it wrong on people, and why does nobody seem able to fix it? Before any of that, he was a footballer at the University of Oregon, a stranger on a yacht club dock in San Francisco, and a young man standing at a literal crossroads in Salt Lake City. Highlights The paper route that funded a household. When Mike's parents divorced in 1975, his mother was left with two boys and no income. At nine years old, Mike was lending her money from his paper route savings — the first lesson in a belief that would define his life: there is no option but to move forward. Two worlds in one childhood. After the divorce, Mike's mother packed her sons into a Datsun station wagon and drove them to Guanajuato, Mexico, for eighteen months. He lived in a wealthy compound but crossed daily into a poorer part of town to play with friends who had dirt floors — an early, formative lesson in seeing people for who they are, not what they have. The decision at the crossroads. Mid-route delivering a boat part to Salt Lake City, Mike faced a literal fork: turn one way back to his football team at Oregon, or the other way toward an America's Cup campaign in Australia. He turned toward the unknown — and has carried the guilt of leaving his team behind for years since, even knowing it changed the entire direction of his life. The full circle nobody could have planned. Mike's America's Cup campaign brought him to Australia, where he met his wife. Decades later, he discovered that the same psychometric science used to help Australia win the Cup in 1983 had been pioneered by the man who would become his AbilityMap co-founder — a connection neither of them saw coming until it was already true. Building lean, on purpose. AbilityMap ran for four years without sending a single invoice while Mike and his co-founder tested the science. They've taken minimal outside funding, survived a fifty percent revenue drop during COVID, and twenty-one months without income — choosing to do the job right over doing it fast. Anchor Quotes "There wasn't some huge spreadsheet that I used to weigh everything. I think I just looked at it and I felt what was going to be — I tend to do this, and it's definitely not always right." "AI amplifies that which we have. If we have people who are misaligned from a capability standpoint, it's going to amplify that misalignment." What stays with me from this conversation is how rarely the biggest decisions in our lives come with certainty attached. Mike didn't have a spreadsheet at that crossroads, he had a feeling, and the willingness to live with what it cost. If you're sitting at your own fork in the road right now, I hope this conversation reminds you that clarity often comes after the turn, not before it. Connect with Mike Erlin: LinkedIn  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeerlin/] Connect with Ability Map: LinkedIn [https://abilitymap.com/https://www.linkedin.com/company/ability-map/about/] | Website  [https://abilitymap.com/] Connect with Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee):  LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-ghahramani/] |  Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kirsty.gee/] | Website [https://www.leadershipodysseys.com/]

Jacqui Bloom: Showing Up

Most of us think reinvention happens in a single, dramatic moment. Jacqui Bloom's story proves otherwise. Hers happened in the kitchen, in hospital corridors, in a car stuck in traffic when she finally admitted she couldn't keep doing what she was doing. Across thirty years and multiple businesses, one question kept finding her: how can I help? This conversation is about what happens when you stop waiting to be ready and start answering it. Jacqui Bloom started selling shoes at a Melbourne market at eight years old and was running her family's multi-million dollar fabric business by twenty-four. She has since built and lost businesses, walked through profound personal loss, and rebuilt herself into one of the most connected investors in the Australian startup ecosystem. Today she is Head of Investment at Backable and a Non-Executive Director at NASDAQ-listed Mobilicom. Key Highlights From the market stall to the boardroom. Jacqui's entrepreneurial instincts started at eight years old, selling shoes at her local market with her cousin. By twenty, she'd turned down a graduate role at a major bank to join her parents' fabric business instead. By twenty-four, she was running it. The cost of carrying it all. At twenty-four, Bloom Fabrics went into administration. Jacqui talks candidly about what that meant for her father, the responsibility she carried as a young leader, and the perfectionism it left behind, the belief that there was no room to get things wrong. When grief became the turning point. In the space of a few years, Jacqui lost her brother-in-law to cancer and watched her mother go through the same illness while she was having her own children. She talks openly about what it cost her to keep showing up, and how that experience became the seed of The Helping Hub. Rebuilding an identity from scratch. Jacqui speaks with rare honesty about her divorce, what it meant to lose a twenty-year relationship and the version of family life she'd planned for her children, and the piece of advice from a school psychologist that changed how she carried herself through it. Backing the next generation. From founding Shepreneur to building a fund inside Startupbootcamp to her current role at Backable, Jacqui has spent the back half of her career helping founders, particularly women, get access to capital. She shares an unflinching, sometimes provocative view on what is actually holding female founders back. Two Anchor Quotes "They decided that showing up was the credential." "I couldn't ask people, can you come and wash my underwear? And that's where the idea for The Helping Hub was born." What stays with me from this conversation is how many times Jacqui's life asked her to start again, and how many times she did. Not because it was easy, but because, as she told her own son during her divorce, we always have a choice in how we meet what happens to us. That's the thread running through every chapter of her story. I hope it gives you permission to find yours. Connect with Jacqui Bloom: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqui-bloom/]  Connect with Backable: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/backableai/] | Website  [https://backable.ai/] Connect with Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee):  LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-ghahramani/] |  Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kirsty.gee/] | Website [https://www.leadershipodysseys.com/]

David Mann: Career Reinvention, Stewardship and Why the Path Doesn't Have to Be Linear

David Mann has never had a grand plan. What he has had is a willingness to follow the thread - to say yes to the next opportunity, trust the learning, and keep moving. From auctioneer to NSW Police Officer and court Prosecutor, to commercial lawyer, to 24 years leading billion-dollar consulting operations for Accenture across the UK, Asia Pacific and the Middle East, to CEO of Workplace Giving Australia, to now leading Tour de Cure as its CEO - David's story is one of the most compelling examples of career reinvention and non-linear leadership you will find. In this conversation, he takes us behind the decisions, the discipline, and the quiet conviction that has shaped a life built on purpose, stewardship and trusting the process. KEY HIGHLIGHTS 1. The police force was his first leadership school Before any boardroom, David Mann spent six years as an NSW Police Officer and court Prosecutor. He credits that time with teaching him the fundamentals of human behaviour - how to read a room, how to negotiate without igniting a situation, and how to understand that people do not all think the same way. He describes the best police as those who can defuse rather than escalate - a philosophy he carried directly into his leadership approach at Accenture and beyond. It is not a background most senior executives share. And it shows in how he leads. 2. He has never had a grand plan - and that was the strategy David said it plainly in this conversation: he has never had a grand plan. What drove every career decision instead was a simple filter - will this keep me learning and growing? He described his father's question that still shapes how he thinks: what is the point of working 48 weeks of the year in something you do not enjoy, just for four weeks of holiday? For anyone navigating their own non-linear career path, that question is a compass. Career reinvention, David says, is not a crisis. It is a choice. 3. Stewardship is the leadership principle he returns to again and again After 24 years at Accenture, David left deliberately - not because he had to, but because it had become routine. He recognised that a leader who has stopped being energised is a disservice to the people around them. He described stewardship as making other people successful and then getting out of their way. It is the leadership principle he applied to leaving Accenture, and the one he now applies every day at Tour de Cure. In a world that celebrates holding on, David makes a quiet case for knowing when to let go. 4. Tour de Cure - from bikes to a national cancer research force David joined the Tour de Cure board in 2014 as a volunteer, and became CEO in October 2024. When he arrived, Tour de Cure was built around one thing: riding. Bike tours were the centrepiece and the identity. Today, riding represents only about 10% of what the organisation does. Over 20,000 of its 25,000 annual participants now come through runs, walks, swims and gala events - a deliberate diversification David helped drive from the board before stepping into the CEO seat. Tour de Cure has funded over 1,300 research projects, contributed to more than 250 world-class medical breakthroughs, and currently sponsors approximately 130 PhD students. David is clear: researchers will find cures for cancer. The only thing that will stop them is lack of funding. 5. Kindness has been a thread through everything When asked where kindness had shown up across his career, David Mann did not reach for a corporate example. He talked about his parents, his friends, and the people around him who were never just in it for themselves. He describes kindness not as a soft leadership idea but as a practical force - and it is part of why he joined My Acts of Kindness alongside his work at Tour de Cure. For David, leading with kindness and leading seriously are not in tension. They are the same thing.   David Mann did not set out to build an impressive career. He set out to keep learning, keep growing, and be around people who were doing the same. The titles and the scale came as a by-product of that orientation - not the other way around. What this conversation leaves you with is something quieter and more useful than career advice: the reminder that the path does not have to be linear to be right, that stewardship matters more than status, and that career reinvention is not something that happens to you. It is something you choose.   Connect with David Mann: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-b-mann/]  Tour de Cure: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/tour-de-cure-ltd/posts/?feedView=all] | Website  [https://tourdecure.com.au/] My Acts of Kindness: Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/company/my-acts-of-kindness] | Website  [https://myactsofkindness.com.au/] This episode is brought to you by: Cell Wellness Co  [https://cellwellnessco.com/] Connect with Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee):  LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-ghahramani/] |  Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kirsty.gee/] | Website [https://www.leadershipodysseys.com/]

Dr Kat Page: Why Fixing Work, Not People, Is the Leadership Shift We Need

Organisational psychologist Dr Kat Page has spent two decades researching workplace wellbeing and happiness at work. She is a Leadership Partner at ByMany, Adjunct Professor, and author of Good Work a book that makes the case that burnout is a design problem, not a people problem. In this episode of the Leadership Odysseys podcast, Dr Kat Page and Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee) explore what happiness actually means, how good leadership shapes the conditions people work in, and why designing better work is the most important lever any leader has. From a Goat Farm to a Life's Work Kat grew up on a 40-acre property in Benalla, Victoria, a writer from primary school age. When she landed on happiness research at Deakin University at 21, she knew immediately it was what she was meant to do. Two decades of organisational psychology research followed — and a book that needed all of it to be written properly. "I was just in my happy place, no pun intended, studying happiness." What Happiness at Work Actually Means Most people sit between a six and eight on the happiness scale regardless of what happens to them. The deeper form of happiness, flourishing comes from living in alignment with your values and feeling like your life matters. Kat's practical tip for leaders and founders: do a values card sort, rank your top three, and use them to make decisions. At any point in time, she says, there are only three values you can truly live by. "Happiness is really about having someone to love, something to do, and something to contribute towards." Why Fixing Work, Not People, Is the Answer to Burnout The central argument of Good Work is that poorly designed work not a lack of individual resilience is driving the workplace wellbeing and burnout crisis. Kat's Six Cs framework describes what good work looks like in practice: clarity, control, competence, connection, contribution, and care. Each one is a design choice. And each one, when absent, quietly depletes people who are trying to do a good job. "Work is a social determinant of mental health. Fix work, and you improve outcomes at scale." The Loneliness Nobody Talks About Kat admits she has experienced loneliness herself, despite being surrounded by people constantly. In a world of Zoom meetings, Slack messages, and back-to-back calendars, genuine human connection at work is increasingly rare. The antidote, she says drawing on researcher Zach Mercurio's work on mattering, is not more contact — it is the feeling that you matter to someone. "How rare it is to have someone say: I see you. I see how hard you have been working." The Me, We, Us Framework for Good Work Good Work is organised around three layers that every leader can act on. Me is your own energy, recovery, and non-negotiables. We is the space between people — connection, psychological safety, and how leadership is felt in the moments between conversations. Us is the organisational system: culture, work design, and the structures that either protect people or erode them. Knowing which level a problem lives at is the starting point for solving it. "Good work is not a luxury. It is a design choice and a shared responsibility."   This episode of the Leadership Odysseys podcast was recorded 1 May 2025. Good Work by Dr Kat Page is available now in print and audiobook. Connect with Dr Kat Page: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kat-page-2366514/] | Website [https://www.drkatpage.com/]  ByMany: Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/company/%E2%80%94bymany/] | Website [https://www.bymany.com.au/] This episode is brought to you by: Naturally Glutenfree [https://www.naturallyglutenfree.com.au/] Connect with Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee):  LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-ghahramani/] |  Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kirsty.gee/] | Website [https://www.leadershipodysseys.com/]   Mentioned in this episode: Zach Mercurio [https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachmercurio/] — The Power of Mattering Megan Wright — Spacious Mode Craig Hassad [https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-hassed-101471a8/] — Punctuating Your Day Sir Cary Cooper [https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-sir-cary-cooper-cbe-4213909/] — Workplace wellbeing researcher and mentor Amy C. Edmondson — Harvard Business School, endorsed Good Work Life values card sort — search online for a free version

Stop managing your time. Start leading it. Mridu Parikh on intentional productivity for founders and leaders

Most leaders are good at filling their calendars. Far fewer are intentional about what goes in them. In this episode of Leadership Odysseys, Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee) sits down with Nashville-based productivity coach, speaker, and bestselling author Mridu Parikh, founder of Life Is Organized, to explore why driven, capable people still end the day feeling like they didn't do enough. Mridu shares the single question that replaces every productivity framework you have tried, why white space in your calendar is quietly deceiving you, and how to build systems that protect your focus without sacrificing the life you are building around your work.   Episode Highlights 1. The Closet Was Never the Problem Mridu began as a professional home organiser, but a pattern kept emerging. She could sort the garage and tidy the pantry, and clients would still come back overwhelmed. The real disorder was not in the spaces. It was in the calendar, the inbox, and the mental load of expectations people had never stopped to question. That shift became the foundation of everything she teaches. The physical and the organisational, she argues, operate by the same logic. If you can organise a cupboard, you can organise your priorities. You just need the right questions. 2. The Pillow Test Mridu replaced the Eisenhower Matrix with one question asked at the start of every day: what two to three things will make me feel most successful when my head hits the pillow tonight? The phrasing is precise. It limits scope, grounds decisions in how you will feel rather than what looks urgent right now, and consistently surfaces what you have been avoiding. Those two or three things, she says, are almost always what you are procrastinating. It is also the question at the heart of her recent TEDx talk, How to Stop Feeling Like You Didn't Do Enough, which explores why we can work hard all day and still go to bed feeling like none of it mattered - and how purpose, presence, and relationships all hinge on getting honest about what we are actually working towards. 3. The White Space Trap When we see open space between meetings, we believe we have more time than we do. Mridu calls this positivity bias, and high achievers are especially vulnerable. Her fix: schedule the work, not just the delivery. If a proposal is due Friday, Monday needs a block for the outline, Tuesday for team input, Wednesday for the draft. When you fill in those steps honestly, the calendar stops lying, and you stop overcommitting. 4. Schedule the Distraction Willpower is not a strategy. We are wired for ease and the dopamine hit of a cleared inbox. Mridu's answer is to schedule distraction deliberately and use a timer without exception. The timer creates an external signal that breaks the pull of the scroll in a way that looking at a clock never will. She also notes that how we communicate our availability trains the people around us. Telling your group chat you will respond tonight removes the pressure, protects your focus, and costs almost nothing. 5. Purpose Before the To-Do List When Mridu compares a client's stated priorities to their actual calendar, the gap is almost always startling. Health, strategic growth, family time. None of it on the schedule. Her point is not that people are dishonest. It is that intention without a calendar commitment stays intention. The calendar is not the last step in planning. It is the moment the plan becomes real. Mridu's work is not about optimisation for its own sake. It is about alignment between the life you say you want and the days you are actually building. Her advice for founders: protect the morning, block strategic thinking, and come to a mutual agreement with your team that internal emails and meetings don't start before 10am - so everyone can protect their highest-value hours, not just the leader. The leaders who create lasting impact, she says, are not the ones who manage their time. They are the ones who lead it.   Connect with Mridu Parikh: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mridu-parikh/]  Connect with Life is Organized: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/life-is-organized-llc/about/] | Website [https://lifeisorganized.com/]  This episode is brought to you by: Naturally Glutenfree [https://www.naturallyglutenfree.com.au/] Connect with Kirsty Gee:  LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-ghahramani/] |  Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kirsty.gee/] | Website [https://www.leadershipodysseys.com/]