Inspirational Women Leaders Of Tech: Nicole Gibson Of Love Out Loud On The 5 Steps Needed To Create Great Tech Products

An Interview With Rachel Kline

Be honest with yourself about your leadership style — although it’s good to grow and change — there are fundamentals in our personality that are best to own and build a team that will complement you.

Currently, only about 1 in 4 employees in the tech industry is a woman. So what does it take to create a successful career as a woman in Tech? In this interview series called Lessons From Inspirational Women Leaders in Tech, we are talking to successful women leaders in the tech industry to share stories and insights about what they did to lead successful careers. We also discuss the steps needed to create a great tech product. As part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Nicole Gibson.

Nicole Gibson is an acclaimed social entrepreneur. Leading the global ‘Love Out Loud’ movement, she’s also the creator of the upcoming inTruth Technologies app to help individuals regulate their emotions. Venturing into Silicon Valley with pioneering biotechnologies and having made significant impacts in Australia’s health and education as the youngest Commonwealth Commissioner for Health, she’s also the author of “Legacy Disorder.” Nicole’s aspiration? To manifest a civilization of love by 2030.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before diving in, our readers would love to learn more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I really never anticipated ending up in technology; it was definitely not a linear path throughout my whole career, I’ve been driven by the same question; “How have we co-created such a disconnected world?”

What my work has continually revealed to me is how much more of ourselves we are when we’re surrounded by connection, compassion, and emotional awareness — and how this lessens when surrounded by fear, judgment, and competition. At the very beginning of my journey, I wanted to validate that hypothesis.

My first-ever business was a nonprofit that worked in mental health; and to validate my concept for community-based approaches I committed to doing qualitative research and validate this hypothesis that I had: emotional awareness will lead to a different way of being in the world. I traveled Australia for two years listening to 50,000 stories from people of all different ages, backgrounds, and levels of education.

What I noticed was regardless of the details of someone’s life, when you really create space for people to share their truth, every single person just wants to feel loved and have a sense of belonging and acceptance. In the beginning, I thought just awareness would be enough: if we exposed the problem, if we talked about the problem, then that would solve the problem. I quickly learned awareness isn’t enough because awareness without capacity doesn’t create change.

So the question evolved into, “How do I support people and humanity at large to develop emotional capacity?” I was consulting with communities, governments, and organizations on how to build emotional infrastructure, how to have difficult conversations, and how to resolve conflict — essentially, emotional intelligence training but with its own nuance.

As I was doing that work, radical transformations began occurring. Schools that had a 15% attendance rate, after six months, had a 70–80% attendance rate. It was quite miraculous in many ways. I knew I was heading in the right direction. That work eventually led me to the position of National Mental Health Commissioner.

During my tenure, I could see that by trying to influence how the government was spending money, although it did create an impact and is an essential part of the puzzle, there were other ways needed to tackle this problem. I recognised a movement-based approach was required; that created a genuine intrinsic change amongst the broader population. I wrote “Love Out Loud,” my debut book. I couldn’t have anticipated the rapid growth that occurred after launching that book. “Love Out Loud” as a message quickly had a presence in 40 countries, and there was a movement of people. There are people around the world with “Love Out Loud” tattooed on them.

As an entrepreneur, naturally, your mind continues to ask the question, “How do I become more and more effective at solving this problem? How do I remove myself as the agent of change? How could I create something that stands the test of time and influences systems, addressing the core issue of emotional incapacity?” Naturally, the path began leading me towards technology; “what if we could create a technology that actually measured this?” In fact, why doesn’t this exist? It was intriguing because, at the beginning of that journey, many naysayers came out of the woodwork, arguing that emotion is something we’ll never measure in this way because it’s so subjective.

What’s been fascinating about the journey is that emotion actually isn’t truly subjective. The emotional reaction we have occurs in 0.2 seconds, and for the most part, an involuntary reaction to our environment or thought patterns. That’s why our emotions govern us so much. Even the most rational person, at best, is driven by emotion in 80% of their decision-making.

There’s so much untapped potential in this realization. When we don’t harness our emotions or learn to have self-control over it, we lead a very reactive life; rendering our true sense of agency obsolete. This reactivity is evident globally, affecting our approach to major challenges like climate change, political unrest, and health crises.

However, if we approach these from a place of reactivity, we significantly limit our ability to consciously address these problems. It seemed that no leadership and no companies were genuinely trying to address emotional foundation before diving into larger conversations.

Today, many can’t even partake in these discussions because they’re in a hyper-vigilant, anxious, hyped-up, defensive state. So, for many years, my view has been that we’ve got to address this foundation first. The evolution of my work has shown me that technology is the most scalable, and perhaps most intimately personal, way of addressing this problem.

With technology, it’s you against you. This technology tracks you throughout your day. You don’t need to wait to see a therapist. You don’t need to attend a seven-day retreat. It’s a constant presence, showing you the emotional patterns that govern you.

I believe that’s invaluable. Marketing companies understand these patterns about us, but they utilize them through predictive algorithms to drive consumer behavior. My ambition was to create something that returns that power to the hands of the consumer, the individual, and the everyday citizen, making emotional insights accessible to all.

It has been said that our mistakes can sometimes be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

My biggest lessons in rising to success young have been about how to not identify with my success. The times I’ve been kicked in the ass the most have been when I’ve allowed an overidentification with my success to create a power imbalance in myself.

When I took on the challenge to create the tech, it was the first time I was going out into the world as an entrepreneur and raising substantial amounts of capital. I had bootstrapped every other business venture I had done. So even that was a big test of how I managed power.

The last three years of my journey professionally have been the most challenging, which is interesting because I started with $0.37 in my bank account at one point. But it was a different kind of struggle back then. When I first began my journey, I only had dreams. And with every level of success, there’s more to lose. Making the decision to leave the nonprofit, and finishing my last term as commissioner, I was very young, in very prestigious positions. It’s one thing to be nobody and go out into the world and try to make something of yourself. It’s another thing to be somebody and say, “Am I willing to give up something great for something magnificent? Am I willing to risk it all again?”

I’ve made mistakes through those times and definitely in leadership. I can think of many times when I’ve treated people in a way that if I could go back in time with the wisdom I have now, I would do differently. However, I think that’s part of the lesson, and I guess a big valuable aspect of the ethos I write about and where I try to come from as a leader, to the best of my ability, it holds me accountable. But that’s a double-edged sword too, because I was very young and I was introduced consistently as the messenger of love. Think about, as a 20-something-year-old, how that plays out in personal relationships.

People struggle to see you as both that and also the imperfect human that we all are. I didn’t handle that well. There were many times through my 20s when I was very close to going off the rails because I just couldn’t deal with the pressure. It’s been a very long and amazing but challenging journey to become well-adjusted, and able to take on this level of challenge. My message is to any leader who’s putting pressure on themselves to be the perfect embodiment of whatever it is they stand for: The art and the artist are two separate things.

You can both stand for something and also be in the process of becoming. Giving myself that grace and compassion has been crucial for me in my journey. And to everyone else who is maybe around someone who’s taken on that leadership role, I would really encourage you to transcend that dualistic thinking that you can either only be the superhero or only the villain. I think we have all of it in us. The journey is more about self-acceptance.

What do you feel has been your ‘career-defining’ moment? We’d love to hear the lead-up, what happened, and the impact it had on your life.

There have been a few. The one that comes to mind is at the beginning of 2021. When the borders closed in 2020, I had a world tour planned that year, and I was at the peak of my speaking career. Before the tech, that was one of my main priorities. I still love speaking; there’s a real power to it. However, I really had my dream year. I felt like everything from the age of 18 until then was leading up to that year. And like many people, getting the call from my assistant and hearing, “We need to cancel the tour because the borders have closed,” was obviously really devastating.

It was a realization of, “now is the ultimate test of your message of love versus fear. Are you going to choose fear or are you going to radically choose love? And what does that even look like?” I believe that those events, along with what followed, were profoundly influential in shaping my career.

After realizing I had to cancel the tour, I asked myself, “What’s a radical act of generosity I could do for humanity at this time?” I could see the world was overcome with anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and all the things we were all feeling. I made some calls, and within four days, collaborators and Love Out Loud organized 100,000 people around the world to meditate together.

I had never coordinated a direct response campaign like that so quickly, where tens of thousands of people came together in a time like that to choose love. It shifted my paradigm of what impact was really possible. After that experience, I started to think differently. It was so profound. I had to refund all of the retreats we had sold out; I had to cancel the tour. I was in this place again where I had nothing to lose. I had lost everything I thought I’d been working for. So, the slate was clean in a weird way, even though it was painful.

Ten months went by. I had started to think about the tech. Love Out Loud had moved a substantial portion of its training programs online, and I had begun to work with an advisor to flesh out the idea of the technology. She called me and asked, “Hey, do you want to come to Necker Island?” Thinking she was going to say “next year” or “in a few months,” I asked, “When?” She said, “Next week.” Australia’s border rules at the time stated that if you left, you couldn’t get back in for three months. So I knew that if I left, it meant making a significant decision.

It was this real leap of faith moment. I had a ten-page deck, no capital, this crazy idea to build this technology, and I couldn’t get back into my home country. So I decided to book a one-way ticket, go to Richard Branson’s Island, and see what happens. I said yes. I took that leap, and after making that decision, I felt there was no other way but to make it work. It’s been two and a half years since that moment, and honestly, it’s been the craziest two and a half-years of my life. And I’m so glad I took that leap of faith.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

There are undoubtedly moments when you find yourself sitting on the shower floor, contemplating whether you can make it through the next hour, let alone envision executing your company’s ten-year plan over the course of twelve months or three years. During this period, I was also grappling with the most profound heartbreak of my life — the breakup with my fiancée. Additionally, I found myself entangled in a legal battle with the company in Australia. It was a challenging phase, marked by dark moments when even seeing beyond the current day felt like an insurmountable task. That’s the power of faith. I had to put my trust in something bigger than me. There were times when the feeling was worse than quitting the business.

The initiation process of creating something world-changing forces you to relinquish all these ideas about who you think you are. Sometimes that can be a really brutal process. Many times, success stories are presented as a transition from being nobody to becoming a perfect, successful individual. However, the truth is, in every remarkable journey, there are numerous messy moments. This holds true for every person who has achieved something extraordinary.

In fact, I think the definition of extraordinariness is being able to find your way out of that darkness and alchemize it into light. That’s what creates extraordinariness. If there wasn’t that struggle, if there wasn’t a hero’s journey of some kind, it’s not inspirational, and it’s not coming from the depth of your soul, which is what I think is required to create something amazing.

Ok, super. Thank you for all that. Let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. We’d love to learn a bit about your company. What is the pain point that your company is helping to address? How does your company help people?

The core problem is emotional incapacity. The way we’re solving that problem is quite literally by tracking your emotions in real-time against what you are doing in a day and then looking at how those emotions govern you as emotional patterning. The artificial intelligence categorizes those emotions into different areas of life. You can see what your collective mood or your level of consciousness is in your relationship, intimate relationship, work, friendships, and health. Then we track what specifically is either throwing you off course or bringing you back into center. There’s a huge amount of self-awareness that can be extracted from what we’ve developed.

Of course, the artificial intelligence also provides guidance through those intelligent correlations. For example, we can see that you have a meeting with an important CEO this afternoon. Your emotional patterns over the past few hours have compromised your decision-making capacities by 37%. You can also share the emotional data with another person or a team.

Suppose you want to be more emotionally aware in your intimate relationship. You could share your inTruth data with your partner. It would show you exactly how your emotional triggers interact. It would show you the overall mood and emotion in the relationship when you were around each other and offer suggestions on how to work through it.

At Love Out Loud, we believe that emotional intelligence and emotional awareness are the foundation to solve most of the substantial problems we face as humanity. This technology accelerates our ability to become incredibly emotionally in tune.

If someone wants to lead a great company and create great products, what is the most important quality (for example, “determination” or “eye for detail”) that person should have, and what habits or behaviors would you suggest for honing that particular quality?

I believe the most valuable characteristic and quality any leader in the world right now needs to have is emotional awareness. That’s why I’ve dedicated my life to establishing that. It’s so important, and the behavior needs to follow frequent self-reflection, intentionally putting themselves around people who aren’t just going to say yes and create an echo chamber. So diversification of thought has never been so important.

Next, let’s talk about teams. What’s a team management strategy or framework that you’ve found to be exceptionally useful for the product development process?

Product development, to me, is all about empathy. I’m going to sound like a broken record, always bringing everything back to emotional awareness. However, it is the solution for so many of our challenges. Not because it’s the solution, but because it creates the pathway for the solution to emerge. It’s similar to, “Give a man a fish and he can have his dinner; teach a man to fish and he can feed himself at every meal.” I firmly believe that imparting genuine emotional intelligence, authentic emotional awareness, and profound emotional capacity is akin to teaching someone to fish.

In product development, the superior product is always going to be the product that is best at solving the problem. So, how do you get really good at solving a problem for someone? You have to understand them. You have to know what they’re feeling, probably why they’re feeling it, the influences that led them there, the thought patterns they’re probably stuck in, their life circumstances, where they hang out, and what’s accessible to them. All of those things are crucial if you want to design a really effective product. In my view, empathy is the often overlooked superpower in this equation.

My background is nontechnical, and for the most part, a lot of people looked at that and saw it as a disadvantage. I would actually say the fact that I was a nontechnical founder building a tech product meant that I leaned more naturally to a perspective that was probably shared by the consumer. I believe I was more able to ask the “stupid” questions that I know a consumer will ask, whereas a technical founder can sometimes get really into the tech and become so stuck on the tech that they lose that human connection. You see it a lot in technical development. The engineer’s mind goes so deep into the technical build, that they stop thinking about what the use cases are.

A big part of what we’re creating is not just the ability to accurately capture the data, but to help people make sense of the data. That takes a huge amount of understanding, presenting the data in a way that’s both not biased and not fueled with bias, but also in a way that is simple, accessible, and easily interpreted and understood by the user.

From a team standpoint, diverse teams have a well-documented track record of excelling in the creation of various things, including, in the context of this question, products. Being able to really learn the language of everyone on your team, an experienced designer thinks very differently from an engineer. An engineer can sometimes think differently from a coder. All of them can think quite differently from your product advisors. In our case, we’ve had neuroscientists, kinesiologists, and human behavior specialists. We’re bringing them into the team to coach a very diverse team of thinkers. You, as the leader, have to know how each person on the team is hearing that information. It’s your job to support the distilling of that and really make sure that nothing gets lost in translation so the richness can really translate into everything you develop.

When you think of the strongest team you’ve ever worked with, why do you think the team worked so well together, and can you recall an anecdote that illustrates the dynamic?

I’m very blessed, to be able to say that the team I have now is the strongest team I’ve ever had. And that is probably a reflection of me as a leader. Hopefully, continuing to grow every single year and maturing, understanding what leadership really entails.

What is the secret sauce behind that? I believe clarity of vision is probably the number one thing to have a coherent team. If I start taking my mind off the vision, or if I become conflicted or confused about the vision, the impact that has on the rest of the team is significant. They are essentially following your vision, and putting in the hard work to bring that vision to life. So, if that vision isn’t clear, you’re not providing them with clear direction. I think a leader is someone easy to follow. So, if your team is feeling confused after meetings, if they can’t see what you see, or if you haven’t reached a place where you know how to communicate that vision effectively, then adjustments are needed.

It’s not just about communicating effectively; it’s also about communicating confidently without being overbearing. So, creating space for people to provide input, ask questions, and challenge is crucial. However, you ultimately must have the confidence to make those final decisions to keep the ship moving forward.

If you had only one software tool in your arsenal, what would it be, why, and what other tools (software or tangible items) do you consider to be mission-critical?

Learning how to use artificial intelligence intelligently. I’ve modified my team so that every critical team member has a virtual assistant, and every critical team member is well-versed in how to prompt AI effectively. The execution power that this has given not just me, but my team, has been invaluable. Essentially, the secret there is you optimize the higher-value thinking; there’s more space to put your team’s mind to more valuable problems. They’re not so stuck in the grunt work. And I’ve really noticed genius arise from members of my team as a result of empowering them in that way.

Let’s talk about downtime. What’s your go-to practice or ritual for preventing burnout?

True to my interest in the wearable space, I’m really into measuring my biometrics. As you measure your biometrics and see what your heart rate variability is doing and how well you’re sleeping every night, you understand you can’t cut corners with these things. I think that often founders believe it’s the right thing to do, to sacrifice these things for the greater good of the mission. However, we know that when you’re not getting enough sleep, or when your heart rate variability, which offers insight into how well your nervous system is handling stress, is low, it can be due to a multitude of things. This can include a poor diet, not enough exercise, insufficient sunlight, and not getting the right amount of melatonin. So, if you’re not watching the sunrise and the sunset, which are crucial for the transition of melatonin, it makes a difference.

These things really matter, and you will get burnt out if you don’t prioritize them. You have to understand that if you don’t make that a priority, there’s no escaping the consequence. You will pay for it at some point. So, to put those things first, on every level, helps you be more equipped to take on the challenges you face as a founder and to remain emotionally regulated in the process.

Based on your experience, what are your “5 Steps Needed to Create Great Tech Products”?

1 . Completely delete any limitation in your thinking and be relentless about it — don’t allow where technology currently is to define your ideas.

Many people say that emotion is purely subjective and can’t be measured. That was one of the biggest challenges thrown at me in the beginning. It was only through my work with people over so many years as a facilitator that I recognized there was something universal in how people would react. Without understanding the science, there was enough physiological evidence I had gathered which suggested this could be something measurable through our physiology. Moreover, with the advancement of machine learning over the past few years, and since I first started building the company, opportunities opened that I couldn’t have hypothesized. When you go on a journey, sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, and then the path appears. That’s especially true with radical ideas; when you throw yourself into the arena against all odds and remove a plan B from your mind, you’re almost willing the path to appear.

2 . Have superhuman empathy — understand the problems your consumer is facing, why they’re facing them, and why they struggle to solve this pain in their life.

If you can create a product that truly is a solution for people, the idea that the product sells itself becomes very real. It’s really important to work on a product that you feel excited about. For example, I’m so excited for inTruth to exist. However, you’ve got to make sure that you’re challenging your own bias in that way, and that you’re really connected to the people you’re trying to serve. That’s foundational and crucial, not just in how you develop the product but also in how you communicate the product, how you take the product to market, and the verticals you choose to tackle.

3 . Don’t be desperate when it comes to pitching for cash.

Pitching for investment is similar to dating. You should have an air about you that’s slightly aloof. You want an investor to feel that, with or without them, it’s going to happen. You don’t want to give off the sense that the only way it’s ever going to work is if they invest in your company, especially at the early stages of a relationship.

It’s different once you’ve established trust. If you’re going through a hard time and need support, of course, you’d want to have a relationship with your investors that’s authentic enough to put that on the table once you’ve made that kind of commitment to be a team. In the beginning, though, you need to embrace a mindset where success is the only option. You must clear your thinking of any other possibilities. Initially, it’s beneficial to exercise a degree of discernment and question your ideas. However, when you’re at the inception stage, essentially creating something out of nothing as a founder, you must drown out all distractions and have unwavering faith that the necessary resources will manifest.

What I’ve learned, especially in the early stages of a company when you don’t have something tangible to show, is there’s also a chance that your investors, or the people around you, don’t even identify the problem you want to solve in the same way that you do. So, the thing that people are most attracted to, and the thing that’s going to be the most charismatic and compelling, is your passion.

4 . Be honest with yourself about your leadership style — although it’s good to grow and change — there are fundamentals in our personality that are best to own and build a team that will complement you.

One of the biggest hindrances in a startup is power dynamics with early-stage teams. This wastes energy, which is the biggest resource you have in a startup: the energy of your team and optimizing that. If you’re spending any energy in conflict and trying to manage power dynamics, especially if there are too many cooks in the kitchen, it’s not only exhausting for you as the founder but also creates a really frustrating work environment for your team.

You want to foster a culture that has clarity and direction, where everyone comes to work every day knowing their place in the team and the ways they’re meant to contribute. For you, as the leader, it’s crucial to have the guts to make the hard decisions when required. That’s definitely something I’ve had to learn in my journey as a young founder and leader.

Often, I was working with people who were older than me and really had to assert, at the end of the day, this is my company; it’s on me. I’ve been trusted with the capital, and I have to make the final decision. The team I need are the people who can listen effectively and are intelligent enough to devise strategies to execute the vision. Not every founder is like that, necessarily. Not every founder is a visionary founder, and they might need people who stimulate them creatively. It’s really about winning together, and that happens when you have a system that can see goals through and achieve them collectively.

5 . Don’t take it personally.

At some point, you’ve got to recognize that you are not your business. One of the healthiest things is for a founder to not overly identify with their business, whether that’s because they’re working towards an exit or just for the sanity of having a self outside of the business. We know that the startup journey, especially in tech, can be all-consuming. Far too many founders come out the other side feeling empty with seriously compromised mental health. So, having that separation and knowing who you are outside of the business is really important. It’s vital to have people you love and really trust. Maintain a relationship with them where there’s enough vulnerability for them to truly understand what’s going on with you, so you’re not alone. This way, you have emotional, mental, and spiritual support.

Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in Tech? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

I think it would be remiss for any female to say that they’re satisfied with an investment of 0.7% of venture capital into women last year. The stats kind of speak for themselves.

At the same time, I try to adopt a limitless mindset because, even if there is a glass ceiling, I think you’re more able to break through the glass ceiling when you believe anything is possible. So there are kind of two messages in this.

The first is women who genuinely feel that their gender is the reason they’re not succeeding. Finding it within you to fall so in love with the solution you have for the world that you no longer see those limitations. Just become obsessed with the solution, with the business. That’s definitely how I’ve always shown up. It’s not about me, my gender, what I look like. It’s about the quality of the solutions I’m building.

On the other side of that, I think we all have a responsibility beyond just equality. Actually understanding that if we have only one siloed perspective that’s going into technical development in our world right now, the implication of that is more exponential than it’s ever been.

Artificial intelligence is learning from us. It’s learning our bias. Technology, inTruth, is literally combining artificial intelligence with emotion. Imagine if we were only training our model on 30-something-year-old men from America. It’s not a true indication of humanity at large, and technology is holding a massive mirror up to us right now. So, it’s really important that investors seek to diversify and maybe understand that there are fundamental differences.

In the world of pitching, there’s a noticeable gender difference in approach, and there’s data to back this up. The data indicates that men often enter a room with bold promises but might not always follow through as effectively. On the flip side, women tend to downplay their capabilities and then exceed expectations. Therefore, if we persist in measuring everyone against the traditional archetype that currently dominates venture capital, we risk overlooking a significant amount of untapped potential. As a result, I believe there needs to be more open-mindedness from the investor’s perspective, and women should continue to put themselves back in the ring and fight for this equality.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

I believe the work of the Center for Humane Technology is very aligned with what we’re developing. So, that would be Tristan Harris. I believe he was the one who initiated the conversation around data sovereignty so credit is due. “The Social Dilemma” was the first significant conversation around data protection.

Thank you so much for this. This was very inspirational, and we wish you only continued success!