Stepping Into My Own Story
Look how far you've come. I'm still learning to say that about myself.
I'm Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee). Entrepreneur. Executive leader. Podcast host. Business builder. Board director. Mother. Someone who loves celebrating the journeys of others — and who believes that one of the greatest gifts we can give another person is helping them feel truly seen. This is me, stepping into my own story.
I've always found it easier to shine a light on someone else than to stand in it myself. And I know I'm not alone in that.
So many of us show up fully for the people around us — we hold space, we encourage, we remind others how capable they are. And then we turn the lens on ourselves and suddenly the bar is higher, the voice is harsher, and the story feels less worth telling.
I interview remarkable people for a living. I sit with leaders, founders, and thinkers and create space for them to share the parts of their journey that don't often get airtime — the doubt, the pivots, the quiet moments of courage that happened without applause. It is the work I love most.
And yet talking about myself — really talking — has always felt different. Harder. Like, somehow the same permission I give to everyone else doesn't quite apply when it's my own story on the table.
I'm working on that. This post is part of it.
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I was born 11.5 weeks premature. I spent long periods of my childhood in the hospital. I underwent a 20+ hour stomach reconstruction surgery as a young child — the kind that made the medical record books — and was diagnosed with Coeliac disease, long before it was a trend. My early life was shaped by fragility, by uncertainty, by learning very young that the body is both vulnerable and astonishingly resilient.
Those years gave me something I didn't fully understand until much later: an urgency for a meaningful life — and a deep capacity to find joy in the smallest moments of a day. When you've been close to not having one, you don't take the ordinary days lightly. The morning coffee. A conversation that lingers. A child's laugh at the dinner table. These things are not small. They are everything.
At 16, I started working at McDonald's. Most people wouldn't lead with this. But for me, McDonald's wasn't a stepping stone — it was the beginning of a genuine love affair with operations, leadership, sales discipline, and culture. I learned how strong culture drives performance. How systems create consistency. How standards scale across people and places. That experience shifted my entire direction. I met my husband Ash there. I made lifelong friends. And I found something I didn't yet have a name for — a deep belief that the way you lead people is everything.
"I didn't follow a straight line. I followed what felt real."
At 22, Ash and I opened our first business together. At 26, we co-founded Naturally Glutenfree — a gluten-free food manufacturing facility built from lived experience, not trends. No shortcuts. No external capital. We designed and operate one of the very few exclusively gluten-free purpose-built manufacturing facilities in Australia — a genuine rarity in an industry where shared facilities are the norm. Uncompromising standards, high-quality whole food, and two decades of consistent, quiet discipline. That business is still growing today. Built steadily. Built to last.
And at 26, I also became a mother to Isabella and Max. Motherhood reshaped everything. Time, priorities, perspective. It deepened my commitment to presence and the long view. It sharpened my focus on what kind of world we are building for the next generation. It also gave everything so much more purpose. If I was going to leave my family each day to go to work, then the work had to mean something. It had to be worth it. So I made sure it was — and I gave it everything I had.
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For sixteen+ years, I ran parallel paths.
A career spanning retail and commercial leadership across some significant chapters, including leading APAC in-store sales at Afterpay. Business ownership by night and weekends. Home, family, two children, a husband who was all-in on building Naturally Glutenfree. Always in motion. Rarely stopping.
But here's the part that doesn't often get said out loud: my corporate career wasn't separate from building Naturally Glutenfree. It was part of the strategy. Ash and I made a deliberate choice — I would hold the steady now, while he built the future. My income created the safety net. The personal and professional cash flow meant we could keep investing everything back into the business, keep showing up for our family, and keep our eyes fixed on the long game — without having to compromise either.
It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't always easy to explain. But it was intentional. And looking back, it was one of the smartest things we ever did. Building something that lasts requires more than vision — it requires architecture. Steps placed carefully, one at a time, in the direction of a future you can't yet fully see.
I loved my corporate career. Genuinely. I went all in — high standards, strong work ethic, deep commitment to the people and the work. And I loved building Naturally Glutenfree alongside Ash. Both things were true. Neither was a consolation prize.
But I won't pretend it wasn't hard. The seasons where progress felt invisible. Where comparison crept in quietly and made everything feel smaller than it was. Where quitting felt close — not because I didn't believe in the work, but because the messy middle is heavy, even when you love what you're building.
That feeling? I've never forgotten it. And I know I'm not alone in it.
"Building something that lasts isn't one bold move. It's a thousand quiet ones — made with intention, over time."
The uncertainty. The quiet discipline. The small, repeated choices that shape a life over time. The fact that you can be deeply committed, deeply capable, and still have days where you wonder if it's adding up to anything. That is not a weakness. That is the journey. And the journey deserves to be seen.
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At 42, I launched Leadership Odysseys.
Not because I had all the answers. But because I kept meeting people who were doing extraordinary things, They couldn't see it. People so focused on the gap between where they were and where they thought they should be that they had stopped noticing how far they had already come.
And I thought — how wonderful would it be to create a space where leaders who have worked their way through some of the messy middle could share their lived wisdom. Not polished advice from the other side. Real, honest, earned perspective — so that the next generation doesn't have to navigate it alone.
Here's what I know to be true: we are all human. We all have a story worth sharing. And not one of those stories has followed a straight line — mine certainly hasn't. The paths that look effortless from the outside were built through years of doubt, discipline, and choosing to keep going on the days it felt pointless.
Seventy episodes in, every conversation has reinforced the same thing: when someone we admire is honest about their journey — the grit it demanded, the risks they took, the discipline required to stay the course, and yes, the wobbles along the way — something shifts in us. Comparison loosens its grip. We stop feeling behind. And slowly, quietly, something more important begins to take its place — a growing belief in our own worth. In our own path. In the idea that we are enough, exactly as we are, at exactly this stage of the journey. And the life we're building — the one that looks nothing like anyone else's — starts to feel like exactly what it is: ours.
If I can help even one person pause, look back, and genuinely celebrate how far they have come — and feel inspired to design a life they actually want to live rather than one built on comparison — then I have done my job.
Today, I lead a portfolio career by design. Interim executive roles, board roles, advisory work, mentorship, podcasting, and building new ventures. All of it connected by the same thread: people, long games, and perspective.
I mentor others. I remain a committed mentee. I believe deeply that what we model today shapes the next generation — and that showing up honestly, not perfectly, is one of the most important things any of us can do.
So this is me, showing up.
Sharing my story — not because it's finished, but because it doesn't have to be. Because the middle is where the real work happens. And because if you're in your own messy middle right now, I want you to know: you are not behind. You are exactly where your journey needs you to be.
So pause for a moment. Look back at the road you've already walked — the risks you took, the hard seasons you carried, the quiet discipline that got you here. Look how far you've come. Really. Let yourself see it. Let yourself celebrate it.
And then, when you're ready — dare to become what comes next.
Leadership Odysseys — conversations shaped by curiosity, courage, and lived experience. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and iHeartRadio.
The Dare to Become workbook is your companion for exactly this moment. Get your copy here →
→ Now it's your turn. Tell me one thing you'd celebrate about your journey. I'm listening.
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