REV UP Rebellion

Four years ago, Grace Miller joined Diary of a CEO when it had 100,000 followers. She left the Gold Coast, took a role most of us haven't ever heard of, and started building something Steven Bartlett considered so critical he created the role specifically for it. Today the podcast has nearly 16 million followers, over a billion YouTube views, and multi-million-dollar revenue streams. Grace's title: Head of Failure and Experimentation.
In this episode of REV UP Rebellion, Grace sits down with Abbie White in front of a live audience of revenue leaders to unpack how businesses can learn from FlightStory's approach to failure and experimentation.
This episode is NOT about starting a podcast! It's about what revenue leaders can take from one of the fastest-growing media businesses on the planet, and how to apply that same experimentation edge to drive real commercial growth.
Most revenue leaders experiment to some degree, but FlightStory has built it into its DNA, even looking for these attributes in a hiring culture test. The team has achieved unparalleled growth by out-failing the competition.
Grace also shares how FlightStory is currently experimenting with AI, the internal AI competition that fast-tracked their progress, and the growth opportunities Grace has her eye on.
What's covered in this episode:
90% of experiments at Diary of a CEO either fail or come back inconclusive — find out why Grace still considers that a win
How Grace and the Diary of a CEO team get the entire organisation consistently experimenting
Why Steven Bartlett calls Head of Failure and Experimentation one of the most critical roles in the business
How FlightStory is experimenting with AI right now and what their results revealed
How to come back from a failed experiment without loss of morale
What separates a good experiment from a wasted one
The culture standard Grace holds her team to: it's not acceptable to NOT try something new
What would actually surprise you most about working with Steven Bartlett!
(00:00:45) How Failing and Experimenting Can Result in $9M in Pipeline (Plus, How We Got Grace on Our Podcast!)
(00:04:33) Process is Overrated: Why Breaking Process Unlocks Growth
(00:06:35) What ‘Head of Failure’ Actually Means Day to Day
(00:07:41) How Much of Your Team's Time Should Be Spent Experimenting
(00:13:27) What Separates a Good Experiment from a Waste of Time
(00:18:50) The Culture Mechanics that Make Experimentation Stick Across the Whole Organisation
(00:25:05) How FlightStory Is Experimenting with AI Right Now
(00:39:42) How to Build a Failure and Experimentation Culture Inside a Risk-Averse Organisation
Connect with Grace: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-miller-linked-in/
Connect with us:
Be an Insider and receive our inside track: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/be-an-insider-now/
Check out our REV UP FY27 Program: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/REVUPSystem/
Join the REVenue Leaders executive community: https://tinyurl.com/REVenueLeaders/
Follow Abbie for the behind-the-scenes journey: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/Follow-Abbie-on-LinkedIn/
The Growth Paradox keynote and workshop enquiries: ⁠https://abbie-white.com/

Abbie ran a business pre-mortem on her own company.
She sat down expecting nothing she hadn't already thought of. She lives in this world every day. Thirty minutes later she had identified risks to her business she had not seen coming, and opportunities she had been too close to spot.
That exercise became the Growth Paradox Framework.
Right now, most revenue leaders are deep in one conversation: which AI LLM to use, what is the ROI on AI, and is the team adopting AI. It's not the wrong conversation. Whilst all these questions are relevant, there is a far more critical question which could be make-or-break, one that is most often being missed.
In this episode, we dive into that critical question and stress-test your business against the Growth Paradox Framework.
The Growth Paradox is a framework Abbie uses with clients and has never shared publicly... until now!
If you lead revenue teams, this one is for you.
What's covered in this episode:
The high-risk AI conversation nobody is having
What Abbie found when she ran a pre-mortem on her own business, and why it surprised her
The IKEA decision that turned displacement into over €1 billion in revenue
The most expensive mistake most leaders are making right now
The question that should be answered by every revenue leader before FY27 planning closes
(00:00:08) Why the AI Conversation Needs to Go Beyond LLMs and Tools
(00:02:13) Where to Start: Running a Business Pre-Mortem
(00:04:35) The Growth Paradox Framework
(00:05:13) How to Find Emerging AI-Powered Opportunities
(00:09:23) Human Connection is an Untapped Growth Lever
(00:12:12) AI Risks Leaders Need to Face
(00:14:18) What Businesses Risk by Not Adopting AI
(00:16:49) Finding Your Non-Negotiables and Redefining Your Growth Strategy
Take This Further:
The Growth Paradox: Human + AI is Abbie's signature keynote for revenue generating teams in FY27. If this episode landed, reach out via this link: https://www.abbie-white.com/the-growth-paradox
Abbie is also running FY27 planning workshops and leadership offsites for teams who want to go deeper. Book a conversation to see if it's a fit: https://www.abbie-white.com/contact-abbie
Connect With Us:
Be an Insider and receive our inside track: https://tinyurl.com/be-an-insider-now
Check out our REV UP FY27 Program: https://tinyurl.com/REVUPSystem
Follow Abbie for the behind-the-scenes journey: https://tinyurl.com/Follow-Abbie-on-LinkedIn
Follow us on LinkedIn for educational bites: https://tinyurl.com/Follow-SR-on-LinkedIn
Keynote and workshop enquiries: https://abbie-white.com

In the current volatile market and AI age, the most critical role a business needs is arguably the Chief Revenue Officer. Not the CRO running a playbook built for a market that no longer exists, but the one rising as the Growth Architect: building new systems of work, new revenue levers, and a function fit for today’s market.
In this episode of REV UP Rebellion, Abbie sits down with Hayden Stafford for a frank and timely conversation. From the rise of the Chief Revenue Officer and why the average CRO tenure is only 18 months, to navigating growth in an AI age where, in two years, there will be 10X more AI agents than sellers!
Hayden Stafford is President and Chief Revenue Officer at Seismic, the global leader in revenue enablement, and one of the most experienced revenue leaders in enterprise technology. He has held senior revenue roles at Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce, and Pegasystems before taking the CRO seat at Seismic, a company now operating as an AI-first revenue platform.
This is a must-listen for CROs, Heads of Sales, and senior GTM leaders who want a clearer picture of where the role is heading and what it actually takes to build a revenue engine that performs and is futureproofed.
What's covered in this episode:
Why the obsession with pipeline volume is a red herring, and what to measure instead
The real mandate of the CRO role, and how to lead through volatility
The performance gap hiding in plain sight across even the highest-performing revenue teams
Why most sellers are not getting the lift they expected from AI, and the three practical steps to close that gap
Systems of work versus systems of record: why this distinction will define who wins the next three years in revenue
If you are leading a revenue function and want to cut through the noise on what the CRO role actually demands right now, this is the conversation to start with.
(00:01:45) Why More Pipeline Is the Wrong Answer
(00:04:57) The Rise of the CRO: What Makes a CRO More Than Just a Sales Leader
(00:09:26) How to Find Growth Opportunities in Uncertain Markets
(00:18:32) Why Annual Plans Might Be A Thing of the Past
(00:20:04) Positive and Negative Signals to Watch Out For
(00:23:05) The Biggest Performance Gap Hiding in Plain Sight
(00:25:25) AI Reality Check: Why Most Sellers Are Getting No Lift
(00:37:54) The "System of Work" Your Revenue Team Needs
(00:44:09) Seismic: The #1 Global Sales Enablement Platform
Connect with Hayden:
Hayden Stafford on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haydenestafford/
Connect with Seismic: https://www.seismic.com/
Connect with Us:
Be an Insider & receive our inside track: https://tinyurl.com/be-an-insider-now/
Check out our REV UP FY27 Program: https://tinyurl.com/REVUPSystem/
Follow Abbie for the behind-the-scenes journey: https://tinyurl.com/Follow-Abbie-on-LinkedIn/
Follow us on LinkedIn for educational bites: https://tinyurl.com/Follow-SR-on-LinkedIn/

What separates the leaders who hold their ground under pressure from those who unravel? Dan Haesler has spent his career inside that question, and the answer is rarely what most organisations are investing in. 
Dan Haesler is a performance and leadership coach who works with the biggest elite athletes and sporting teams in Australia (including the Penrith Panthers, the Socceroos, the Wallabies, and members of the Australian Olympic and Commonwealth Games teams). He is also the author of the bestselling Australian business title 'The Act of Leadership' and director of Cut Through Coaching, which works across sport, corporate, and education. He brings the same mental skills frameworks to a revenue leader navigating a brutal quarter as he does to an athlete performing in front of a national audience. 
In this episode of REV UP Rebellion, Abbie White sits down with Dan for a conversation that cuts through the noise on sustainable high performance, identity, and what it actually means to lead when the pressure is on and the pace of change feels relentless.
This is a must-listen for every sales, GTM, and revenue leader who may be hitting their numbers but wondering how much longer they can sustain this pace, or leading a team that is showing the cracks. 
What's covered in this episode: 
The four pillars of engagement that COVID dismantled, and why one of them is still driving workplace friction right now
"Radically protect your core, innovate at the edges": the framework that keeps high performers grounded when everything is moving fast 
The identity question most leaders cannot answer, and why that's the real reason performance breaks down under pressure
Why winning the quarter, each quarter, might be burning your team out, and what high-performing teams do differently
The mental skills that are trainable, the equanimity that elite coaches build deliberately, and how it translates directly to revenue leadership
Why the soft skills are actually pretty hard, and what it costs leaders who keep treating them as a nice-to-have
(00:01:41) The Conversation Most Leaders Are Avoiding
(00:07:15) Why Efficiency Could Be Killing Team Performance
(00:17:57) Radically Protect Your Core: The Strategy for Leading Through Uncertainty
(00:24:07) Most Leaders Can’t Answer This Question, And It’s Why People Break
(00:30:55) Sustainable High Performance vs the Burnout Cycle
(00:39:32) The Equanimity Edge: The Trademark of High-Performance Teams
(00:49:28) How to Train "Mental Skills" and Resilience to Be a Better Leader
(00:55:07) Why "Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast"
(00:57:42) The Key to Thriving Under Pressure and Disruption
(01:01:55) How to Start When the Gap Feels Too Big to Bridge
Connect With Dan
Dan Haesler on LinkedIn: https://tinyurl.com/DanHaeslerLinkedIn/
Cut Through Coaching: https://cutthroughhq.com/
Dan’s book, The Act of Leadership: https://www.actofleadership.com/
Connect With Us
Be an Insider & receive our inside track: https://tinyurl.com/be-an-insider-now/
Check out our REV UP FY27 Program: https://tinyurl.com/REVUPSystem/
Follow Abbie for the behind-the-scenes journey: https://tinyurl.com/Follow-Abbie-on-LinkedIn/
Follow us on LinkedIn for educational bites: https://tinyurl.com/Follow-SR-on-LinkedIn/

As co-founder of Lendi Group, David Hyman handed over his CEO responsibilities and went into a room with ten people to rebuild a live $110 billion loan book as an AI-native business, in one of Australia’s most highly regulated, complex industries. Development cycles collapsed from under 12 weeks to under 12 days. Business teams went from waiting on technology to prototyping solutions in under an hour. A voice AI agent that David told a hackathon team "would never get there" was handling almost 100% of out-of-hours calls twelve months later.
He also wakes up every morning with what he calls a "semi-healthy level of resting anxiety" about not moving fast enough.
That tension is exactly what this episode is about.
Daniel Folb spent years as a Deloitte partner watching large organisations execute complex transformations. He knows the moment a program stalls, who kills it, and what separates the businesses that actually move from the ones that talk about moving. After watching the Lendi story unfold publicly on LinkedIn, he and David kept bumping into each other on the street. The universe, as Dan puts it, was telling them something.
Today is launch day for monō ai, Australia’s new global AI company. This episode is where the story starts.
In this episode of REV UP Rebellion, Abbie White sits down with both founders on launch day for a conversation that covers the real mechanics of how Lendi became AI-native, what it actually took to move from human motion to agentic motion, and why the leaders most at risk right now are the ones who still think they have time.
This is a must-listen for every leader inside a complex, regulated, or enterprise environment who is still hearing "we’re not ready yet."
What’s covered in this episode:
"If you think of AI as a tool, you’ve already lost" — and what the leaders who are winning are thinking instead
From under 12 weeks to under 12 days to under an hour: the specific operating shifts inside a business most said couldn’t do it
What "agentic motion" actually means when it’s working inside a real business, not a demo
Project Aurora: ten people, a board mandate, five to six months, and a live loan book; the inside account
The "semi-healthy resting anxiety" every revenue leader should have, and what it’s actually telling you
Why the leaders who move first are building a compounding intelligence advantage that gets harder to close every quarter
The first move to make this week if your business is still in the "not yet" conversation
This is not just another AI hype conversation. This is the inside account of what it actually took, what worked, and what two people built on the other side of it.
(00:02:47) Why We Should Stop Thinking About AI as a "Tool"
(00:06:16) Becoming AI-Native in a Highly Regulated Industry
(00:12:07) Lendi's Cutting-Edge AI Transformation Process
(00:18:28) Introducing monō ai: The Next Global AI Company
(00:21:02) How monō ai Will Enable Businesses to Go AI-First
(00:24:35) Transformation Advice from a Former Deloitte Partner
(00:29:27) What Top Businesses Do to Ensure Execution and Results
(00:34:29) We're Measuring AI ROI Wrong
(00:42:13) Why "It's Better to Work Somewhere That's Embracing AI"
(00:47:34) Addressing AI Security Concerns
(00:52:55) First Steps to Truly Integrate AI into Businesses
Check out monō ai: monoai.co
Connect with our guests:
David Hyman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhyman/
Dan Folb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-folb-877aaa69/
Connect with us:
Check out our REV UP 2026 program to uplift sales & GTM team capability together: ⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/REV-UP-2026/
Be an Insider & receive our inside track every other Thursday: ⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/be-an-insider-now/
Follow Abbie for the behind-the-scenes journey: ⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/Follow-Abbie-on-LinkedIn/
Follow Sales Redefined on LinkedIn for educational bites: ⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/Follow-SR-on-LinkedIn/