Podcast Episode 24: The Real Stories Behind the iGaming Leader Mastermind

Fintan Costello: I was getting to the point where I was chilled. Burnt out is a big word, but I was done.

Julia Weygandt: I had this constant feeling of I need to do more because what I'm doing is not enough.

Rob Fell: The sleepless nights and waking up at 03:00 in the morning thinking, did I forget this? I really needed a way to fix those things.

Leo Judkins: Welcome to the iGaming Leader podcast where we uncover the human side of some of the most inspirational leaders in our industry. I'm your host Leo Judkins, and I am a high performance coach for iGamingLeaders. I've worked with over 300 leaders from some of the biggest names in our industries, and today we are going to do things a little different. I'm handing over the mic to some of the people in our iGaming Leader Mastermind to show you what's actually possible when you take off the mask and start working on sustainable high performance. These aren't just tactics that you're gonna hear.

These are real transformations from people that we've all seen at conferences, on stage, and doing podcasts, opening up about what it really takes. So please sit back, enjoy, and think about what might happen when you work on sustainable high performance as well. Let's start with Rob Fell, CEO at Risk Cherry and someone who many of you know. He's had a phenomenal physical transformation at the top of his game by all accounts. But behind closed doors, he was struggling.

Sleepless nights, scattered focus, and the slow creep of burnout.

Rob Fell: The the sleepless nights and the waking up work through a doctor in the morning thinking, oh, do I have to get this? But I would have easily ended up taking sixteen, seventeen hour days consistently and revert back to old world pre 2023 ways. I really needed a way to fix those things. The thing that really helped me was looking at what type of work are you best at with. And that was a really personal thing.

It has really helped in a short period of time to get clarity on what should I be doing when, what are my focuses, what should my to do list for today look like, and in what order are really gonna achieve those things. Just doing that is hugely valuable. Or where I've been seeing huge uplift in inbound traffic, increased number of new clients and people converting a rapid rate. The community that you're building and have built is is excellent, and there's a a huge number of highly respected and very successful people within the wider high gaming and gambling sector within that group.

Leo Judkins: I'm so proud of Rob and him sharing that because it's clear to see how much our own physical well-being and health impacts our professional performance. We often see them as separate things, but they clearly overlap. And it's clear to see from the results that Rob has achieved in his business, and as a result in his personal life as well. So with that being said, let's go to the next person on our iGaming Leader Mastermind, Fintan Costello, who many of you will know from the Gambling Files podcast. Of course, the founder of BonusFinder.com, which he successfully sold to Gambling.com.

He's now a nonexecutive director and adviser, and he came to me after a period where he wanted to take some time off over Christmas for two weeks. He's supposed to be semi retired, and all he did was sleep.

Fintan Costello: I was getting to the point where I was just Yeah. Burnt out is a big word, but I was I was gone. I was doing a lot, working long days, working the weekends. When I'm really good at suffering, I can grind it out, but I knew it wasn't sustainable. The two week break over Christmas, just put the laptop away, do nothing, recharged.

I just slept for two weeks, which is ridiculous. Right? I'm meant to be, like, semi retired. Like, I'm doing this completely wrong. There's something wrong here.

Something needs to change. You know, Si, you were somebody I knew I could work with. So for me, was basically, you know, checking your availability, understanding what working together would look like. It was just such a no brainer decision. It was more just, oh my god.

I hope he's got space. You've probably made me millions. It's probably the best way to describe it. I think the the reframing and the resetting and how I'm approaching the business and how I'm approaching using my time, the knock on compound effect is clumsy. So being able to free up thirty hours a week, like, you end up with a huge number.

Again, the compound of that is utterly colossal. So jokes aside, genuinely millions.

Leo Judkins: What an amazing story from Fintan, from completely being overwhelmed, sleeping for two weeks, being close to burnout to actually recovering thirty hours per week and making millions in his business as a result of some of the actions that he's taken with us on the mastermind. Really powerful story, and I've been so inspired to see it up from close by. It's been amazing. Now next up, we've got Julia Weigands, who is, of course, on the international committee at Global Gaming Women. She is the group CCO at CallsU.

Many of you will know her from being on stage and on panels. She came to me feeling almost consumed by her job, having very little to no work life balance and not knowing how to break out of it. This is what she had to say.

Julia Weygandt: Well, the effect was that I was working 20 fourseven. By the time I finished was 9PM, I was exhausted. I need to do more. I had this constant feeling of I need to do more because what I'm doing is not enough. I could never really switch off the feeling of what else do I have apart from work.

Sometimes feeling a bit overwhelmed, the struggle of delegating, that feeling of even sometimes I'm a failure and I'm the only one struggling with these things. And I had this moment where I created a guest list for my birthday party. And at some point I realized everyone on that list is related to work. But that was kind of the written version of you don't really have a social life outside of the industry. It was the moment where I thought that I should change.

That's when I reached out to you. In this program, I can exchange my ideas or I can share my problems without holding back. Having that safe space with other people in the same situation. To be honest, at the beginning, I was a bit hesitant opening up. But the welcoming was just simply amazing.

It took me a week to realize, okay, I can just blend it out. Can be myself. Again, I always had the feeling it's just me and I'm failing. And to be honest, we have people in the program who I never expected. And that was also a big eye opener.

We're kind of all in the same boat and we do have the same struggles. And this is the support system that I needed.

Leo Judkins: How good is that with Julia from not being able to switch off working 20 fourseven and feeling that she couldn't get out of it to actually finding her crowd and being able to change everything around just by being in the right environment. I wanna go to the next person on our mastermind, which is Carl Hallam. He's the cofounder of Vago Gibraltar. He was in a really bad place eighteen months before joining. Just listen to his transformation from grinding every single day to finally feeling back in control.

Carl Hallam: I've done amazing. If you spoke to me eighteen months ago, different world. I was in a really, really bad place at one point because I'd pushed myself that far. I had drastic mood swings. I I was exhausted.

I felt my relationships could be strained both in business and friendship and my family, but I didn't realize what I was compromising along the way. I said to my business partners, I I know we're not in the balling stage where we can invest, but I need this, and I think it will make me a better a better business partner. That's how I sold it. You know, I need fifteen, twenty minutes to myself, a little bit of investment financially, but not even noticeable. And, yeah, I just I'm ready for it.

The habit binding has been unreal. I get out of

Fintan Costello: bed and have a shower. Straight after that, before I have

Carl Hallam: a coffee, I'm gonna get my book ready. So as soon as my quiet kettle's bored, I'm reading my book. Suddenly, the TV hasn't gone on with the news, and I've dedicated half an hour every day to reading. I'm physically ten years younger, but I'm mentally twenty years older. You know, I'm buying thermos flasks.

I'm sitting down the beach for four hours reading a book. I'm present when I'm with my kids, and they learn that actually that things can go wrong at work but I'm still there as a dad and they can see me work through it positively. So I'm teaching them good behaviors as well. I finish a day now rather than going, I'm exhausted. We spent five minutes just going, wow, look at everything we've done.

I knocked off this board today. I feel like I can be a better partner to our clients because I can actually got the headspace to think and decode and delegate more efficiently. I thought I had that done ten years ago, but that's where I feel I am. A better professional. Unstoppable.

I think that's the only thing. I I I genuinely believe I'm a better leader because of it.

Leo Judkins: Amazing, isn't it, Carl? From that despair to actually feeling ten years younger but mentally twenty years older, I thought that was amazing. Such a great story, which shows the power of recovery habits, and taking charge of your life just by a simple yes. Now, next, I want to go to Lex, who's the VP of gaming, ITV Studios, who's talking about also a place of despair that he found himself in from, you know, being a person that was giving his partner and his kids what was left of him rather than the best of him to finally feeling back in control and in the best place he's ever been. Listen to his story.

Lex Scott: I got to such a such a severe point of almost giving up. I know far too many people that have lost their lives to suicide, and that's always been something that I've

Rob Fell: been super

Lex Scott: conscious of is I think that I just wasn't able to set healthy boundaries between myself and the work. We're putting so much in that is actually taking a lot out of us without us even realizing on a threshold that we perhaps aren't even aware of at the time because we're so in it. And for a long time, things worked for me as a single person. But when I started having to think for, you know, a family, I was hitting a ceiling. I think I was becoming unpleasant to be around for my partner, Katie, and to an extent to the kids.

My temper was short. I was drawing through an empty well. It was reserves that I was giving them. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't giving them what they what they needed or what they felt they deserved. And the ups and downs, you can ride them out.

But one thing that I've never had in that that high volatility is peace. And for the first time, something that I'm feeling and it's just I feel really emotional about it because I thought it was something that was beyond me. And for the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm excited. 2025, it feels like the possibilities are endless. This is this is the best place I've ever been in without a doubt.

Leo Judkins: That moment when he's finally found peace for the first time in his life, I found that so moving because it goes to show that it's not about just well-being. It's about real life leadership challenges. And I'm so glad Lex is finding himself in that place. Next up is Richard Marquis, who is director at Flutter or Skygaming, and he never used to believe in burnout. He never saw it as a thing until he ran into a really tragic loss.

And suddenly everything changed.

Richard Marquis: Really, the tipping point was was my mom passing away. I carried a lot of guilt from not spending more time with her. As as as I worked and as I enjoyed myself living in London and in different places around the world, I had no commitments and work became life in many ways. What comes with working with the industry was drinking a lot and not looking after myself and, you know, the old work hard, play hard adage. You know, it's finding yourself being really reactive to that as well.

Because you know something's next, but you're not in control of what's next because it's right now. Now I'm a dad. Now I'm putting the kids to bed. Now the kids are in bed. Now I'm back on my laptop.

And when does that stop? And then it's the next day. And and what is gonna come next? And, you know, you may get a week off here and there, but are you really switching off because you know you're coming back to something else? And so I never even acknowledged burnout being a thing or anything that comes with it, but I started to see behaviors in myself I didn't like.

And I think having kids was part of the process of understanding things needed to change, you know, wanting to make her proud of me. I thought the most realistic way for me to make her proud of me was something that was sustainable. And then I came to a point of realizing that there are people and there are processes I can lean on to become the best version of myself for me and for my family and for my career. You know, my diary now starts with what I need to do to do my job well and live live my life how I need to means that I'm just much more in control. I think the thing I'm most proud of with this is the feeling of habits forming, of there being longevity there.

And I don't feel like there is a potential black cloud on the horizon with with with what's to come. You know, if work stacks up, if projects come my way, you know, it goes through a process now of going, am I the right person? How do we approach this? Just been a bit more conscious of that and a bit more precious on my time, critical of what the work is, you know, and creating a bit more of a filter through which that finds its way onto my to do list. So, yeah, it's a really nice feeling to have a level of control over your to do list.

Leo Judkins: What a great story from Rich. He did it for all the right reasons. But what I love most is how he took back control over the one thing that most iGaming leaders surrender far too easily, his time. And time is our most valuable asset, we can only spend it once. So choosing what we spend our time on, and especially what we don't spend our time on is one of the most impactful behaviors that you can learn.

And Rich did that really, really well. And next, we're going over to somebody else on our mastermind, Arthurs, who's a CMO who didn't believe in coaching and community and thought it was all BS until his imposter syndrome actually got the best of him. That's when he started really looking out at what we were doing, who was in our community, and he joined. And here is the transformation that he went through.

Arturs Zagurilo: The main challenge I had was impostor syndrome. Right? I kind of felt that there are certain gaps I need to cause to be aligned with my position. The impostor syndrome, feeling that you're not enough, that you're just here by some luck. Sometimes you think you need to work more to compensate.

I think this feeling of never enough came when I was a kid. And one of the things was that I realized I'm compensating my perception that I'm not enough to be working more instead of trying to find a healthy balance between personal life and work. I was always suspicious about all those communities, coaches, and this and that. But this is bullshit initially. This is not a coaching guy, like thousands of them, and they always say blah blah blah.

They just take money from people and they never improve. Right? But then I started to, like, check what type of people you have in the community. And I thought, okay, if they show trust in you, there should be a reason. Obviously, just because you're a great coach.

But what is even more important, you bring people together to one community where people are sharing ideas, thoughts, fears. And it's very cool. Because then, what is actually vital, you don't feel alone. I realized that there's some contribution I can add to this group and to the people. And then seeing the reaction of the other community members and realize that actually maybe that will be helpful for them.

This is amazing feeling. But actually, it works because you are programming yourself. It's a thought exercise. I became more productive. Instead of spending more times for work, I even reduced it.

But I'm more productive by doing a lot of different tricks. I got a better sleep. I am very active in sports. I go to the gym two or three times a week. I do tennis.

I do paddle. I mean, it's crazy. Crazy improvement. So one month ago, I would say to you that, okay, Leo, Bright future. I would like to become a and blah blah blah.

All of this, you know. But right now, I'm I want to be more happy. I kinda understood that it's not about the the the end goal. It's about the process and the journey.

Leo Judkins: What a great story from Artus. He joined because he wanted to become a better leader, and he stayed because he found something far more powerful than that happiness perspective and sustainable high performance without burnout. Really great perspective shift. So love that he opened up about that and how it's actually impacted every single aspect of his life. Now last, we've got James, who is the director of business development at play netic, really raw and powerful story about how we often feel that it's a sign of weakness to ask for help.

He found himself in a place where he was really struggling both professionally and personally until his partner held a mirror up in front of him and told him the truth. This is what he's got to say.

James Murray: It's a stigma of asking for help. And potentially people saying that is, oh, we know you're struggling, and it's a weakness. And it's absolutely not. It's a strength. And that's something that I've found doing the doing the calls with you.

I'd always taken work home, and been worrying about things, then not being able to sleep. I was feeling down about everything. Felt like whatever I was doing, just wasn't helping or whatever I was doing. People were undoing all my good work. And it was just like, after knock.

It was, you know, it wasn't just taking a knock in the face. It was going like twelve twelve rounds of Tyson, everything now. And following in, you know, a year worth of being happy and not eating right, not sleeping properly, whatever. I had a conversation with my with my missus, and she was like, you know, you've you've not been happy at work. For the like the last year.

And and it kind of something just sort of went in my head, because it was someone just saying to me, holding up a mirror, like, you know, in the last year that you've been working, you've not come back from work and been happy. Or you've not said I've had a good day today, always been negative. And I think that's really spurred me on to reach out to to you. I have gone through burnout before. And I think joining this course is to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

And as soon as that plan was in place, you know, I had an exit plan that I could follow. And that just took off so much pressure relieved all that stress I had because I felt so trapped. And I had given myself a way of not feeling trapped by working with you and saying, Hang on, ultimately, I can control this decision, and I can control my happiness. That's another really key one. You are in control

Arturs Zagurilo: of your own

James Murray: happiness. That's my control. I can't control everything. But what I can control is obviously my decisions and, and what I'm going be doing. Because I feel like I can I can attack these challenges?

And I feel like whatever comes up, I've got a much better understanding on how I'm going to attack them, How I'm going to bite size them down sets me up to to know that I can actually focus on what I love doing. I think in our industry, there's a lot of BS. This group cuts straight through that BS. There's none of that there. And I don't think there's any other space in our industry where there is the ability to do that.

And whether you're wanting to improve in your career, personal life, I would urge anyone to reach out to Leo. You're definitely not going to regret it.

Leo Judkins: What a great story from James because it's not about preventing those challenges from happening. It's about finding ways to deal with them more effectively so that it doesn't affect your personal health, well-being, and generally happiness. And he's dealt with that so well. So I'm really proud of him for making those changes. Now all of these leaders are still in our industry.

They haven't sacrificed or given up on any of their ambition. In fact, the thing that they've stopped sacrificing is themselves in the process. And that's something that's truly powerful because what we see with all of them is that when they stop sacrificing themselves, they start achieving so much more in both their professional lives and their personal lives. If some of these stories hit home, even if one of them sounded like your own, then that's your sign. The AI Gaming Leader Mastermind is open this week, and we've only got 12 seats available.

Last time we opened up, we had 26 applications in just four days, and we only let 11% in because we want to protect the room. We want to make sure that the right leaders are in that room, people that are ready to achieve sustainable high performance, that want to lead without sacrificing themselves in the process. So if that sounds like you, please head over to igamingleader.com and apply. We'll go through the interview process. We'll make sure you're a great fit.

We'll have a quick conversation and if it's meant for you, we'll take the next step from there. I hope to see you there. Take care.