Show Notes:
Kaitlin Christine is the CEO and Founder of Gabbi, the first digital health solution for predicting breast cancer risk and empowering women to be in control of their own health outcomes. Kaitlin created Gabbi to not only to de-stigmatize women’s health issues, but to decrease incidence of preventable diseases by creating a nexus of trusted expertise, resources, and support for women to take control of their health.
Kaitlin lost her mom, Lise, to cancer in 2013. When Kaitlin had similar symptoms at age 22, she had to battle to get tested for BRCA1, which is known to increase risk (she was positive), then battle again for a mammogram after she discovered lumps in her breasts (they were pre-cancerous.) At just 24, Kaitlin chose to have a double mastectomy and in surgery they found breast cancer.
Kaitlin spent the next five years working in health care. She realized doctors simply don’t have enough time to properly evaluate or educate their patients, and that women are overwhelmed by conflicting information. Gabbi is her solution.
Follow Gabbi on Twitter.
In this episode we discuss:
- How this trailblazer is changing the face of women’s healthcare and attracting accomplished executives along the way
- The surprising way aligned incentives can be used to save lives and also bring humanity and meaning into the workplace.
- The suffocating trap of the “should” path
- Sherlock Holmes’s inquisitive secret to unlocking opportunity
Key Takeaways:
- When you personally experience a system that’s broken, that experience is an invitation to fix it—an invitation to create something that will benefit others who rely on that system. It takes an incredible amount of courage to accept that invitation. That’s exactly what Kaitlin has done, and as a result she’s blazing a path that will benefit women as well as everyone that has a mom, or a sister, or a daughter or a wife.
- Clearly articulating a vision of a better world that your business is working to create is the best talent magnet out there. While we all want a stable paycheck to support our families, we also want our careers to be more than just a means to an end. We want to contribute to something bigger than ourselves. And the employees that are passionate about what you’re doing are the secret brain power that will innovate the future. As Elon Musk said, “Putting in long hours for a corporation is hard. Putting in long hours for a cause is easy.”
References:
- Gabbi
- Kaitlin Christine
- BRCA Gene Mutations: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing (National Cancer Institute)
- Information on mastectomies (American Cancer Society)
- Information on bilateral salpingo-oophorectomies (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)
- StartUp Health
- David S. Kidder
- Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andme
