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Leo Judkins

Founder, iGaming Leader

He suffered in silence at the top.

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Leo's journey from rock bottom reveals extraordinary courage as he openly shares the struggles no one else sees.

 

He rebuilt his life step by step, by finding the purpose to connect leaders facing the same silent battles and show them that healing and growth are real and possible.

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Leo stands for raw honesty and real connection above all else, rejecting fake success and championing what it means to be authentically human.

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Philosophy:

Leadership isn't a solo sport.

Let's normalize being human.

The person  you are today has been formed by the moments when you were so ashamed or that you've hit rock bottom or whenyou burnt out.

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Career history:

iGaming Leader Mastermind, BetVictor

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iGaming Legacy:

What we're trying to create hopefully makes the industry a little bit more authentic. A little bit less show off, a little bit more real.

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Leo Judkins

iGaming History, Episode 8 Transcript

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Narcis Gavrilescu: Hello, everyone. Welcome back. iGaming history episode... I still don't know what episode it is anymore because we have a lot of them. I have a very special pleasure today. I'm joined by Leo, founder of iGaming Leader. Leo, Absolute fantastic, ultra ,mega, super pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for joining me today. For anybody who doesn't know who you are, which, again, would be extremely weird by this point, Tell us a bit about what you do.

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Leo Judkins: Yeah. Cool. Hey. Really cool to be here, Narcis. I love what you're doing. Love the podcast. Really excited to be here on the show. Some great names I've seen coming by already, some of my clients even. So, really, really cool.

 

I'm Leo. I'm the founder of iGaming Leader. I run a mastermind for VPs, directors, and executives where people work together to talk about the challenges that, you can't solve through Googling or using ChatGPT. One of the big things that I think most of us experience as we grow through the industry is that the higher you go, the lonelier it gets. There's very few people to talk to at the top.

 

When you're a founder or you're bootstrapped, you struggle with cash flow issues. There's not many people to talk to about that kind of stuff anymore. I've realized that. I've gone through that, and I've created a platform where people can openly speak about the challenges, the frustration, but also the desires that they have, the growth that they wanna achieve, the ambition that they have and being surrounded by the average five that we wanna be surrounded by, to help us grow. So that's what I do.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: So one of the main reasons why I invited you to the show is because your journey, in my opinion, is a very emotional one. You wrote some things. I've seen some of your posts that hit right home for me as well. Also, you're doing a huge service to the community with this. Can you start maybe with your story? Like, why is it that you do what you do?

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Leo Judkins: Yeah. Sure. So I've been in the industry since 26, since I was 26. I'm not 26 anymore. I know you wouldn't say. It's 2007 when I first started, and I became a director at 33 at BetVictor. Immediately, I felt like an absolute fraud as if I didn't belong there. I felt that asking for help was like admitting that I didn't deserve that spot. I felt like that all my life, that I had to work harder than anybody else to prove that I belong in the position that I did. Served me quite well throughout my career. I've been promoted in most of the jobs that I've had.

 

But then at that directorship at 33, I remember the very first revenue meeting I had. I reported into the CEO and to Andreas. These revenue meetings, monthly talks where we go through the p and l, and we talk about what's been happening and what's going on. I was director of retention, so I was responsible for all of our client revenue. There was something with bonus costs. I can't remember exactly what it was, but there was something wrong with the bonus costs. I was asked, how did this happen? I didn't even know how bonus costs were calculated. I didn't know if it was off of wagering, off of crediting, off of usage, off of losses. Of course, that's calculated differently in different businesses. I felt I had to know that, and I felt so ashamed.

 

I bullshitted my way through it. I felt like an absolute fraud, and I didn't have anywhere to turn to. That's kinda where it all started, because the consequence of that, those moments happened many times after since as well. The consequence of that is that I slowly burnt out. I was drinking too much. My brain was fried every night. I didn't know where to turn to, and I didn't know how to get out of it without actually giving up my career and sacrificing everything that I'd worked so hard for. So, yeah, that's where it all started and the seed was planted in that revenue meeting.

 

That's why this idea came for this mastermind. I turned my life around. I lost 35 kilos, stopped drinking for five hundred days. I did all these different things, and suddenly I realized that there were so many other people just like me that were also struggling, that were also brain fried all the time, that were also always working. I thought I was the only one before that. That's when I realized, well, this is something the industry needs and I resigned and started my business.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: And here we are. One quote that I found from you: "You were at the hight of your career, but at the bottom of your health." So what did rock bottom actually look like and feel like at that moment?

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Leo Judkins: Yeah. So, physically, I had gained so much weight that I couldn't even bend over to tie my shoelaces. Every morning, I stood in front of the closet so angry with myself of having gained so much weight. Nothing fit anymore. I was ashamed to take off my top. I live in Gibraltar. We got to the beach quite regularly. Not being able to take off your top because you're so ashamed is not ideal. That's kind of what rock bottom looks like.

 

But what made it worse is that I was drinking too much most days. We just had a kid. We just had my first son. We've got two kids now. Just had my first son and that was getting worse and worse over time, I thought I was not gonna see him grow up. I knew that I was not gonna be part of his life if things were gonna continue the way that they had been.

 

At the same time, I also got a neck injury. I was a rugby player. That neck injury meant that the neurosurgeon told me that I could never play rugby again, which was a massive loss of identity as an expat. My whole life was my rugby. So that was gone. That made me balloon as a result of it as well, and all I had left was work. I thought this was the way to work. If I would change that, that was gonna be the thing that I would lose as well. That's really what rock bottom looked like for me, that just not knowing how to get out and feeling really stuck.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: Was the rugby moments the moment when you flipped, when you switched from this lifestyle to transformation, you thought I need to change everything, or was there something else?

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Leo Judkins: No, man. You would say that. I was in the I had done the MRI. I sat in the neurosurgeon's office. The neurosurgeon does these tests and looks at the MRI, and he goes, this is really bad. Said, if you're gonna play rugby again, you'll go paraplegic from the neck down. You would say that that's probably a moment where you go, well, maybe I should change something. Yeah. It didn't change a thing for me. It made me quite depressed because I'd lost that part of my identity.

 

It actually got me even further down that rabbit hole of drinking too much. So it made things worse. But then there was a moment, maybe a year later or something, where in the casino here, a pit boss that I'd known for a very long time, Dushant, I was drunk. I walked into the casino, and I haven't seen him for a long time. He looked at me and said, "oh my god Leo, what's happened to you?" He's Eastern European, so he's quite direct. He told me some truths that I didn't want to hear but needed to hear. It made me very angry and upset. I was crying later on. I was really emotional about it.

 

But the next day, I got a personal trainer. I turned my life around, went training once a week first with a personal trainer, and made all these lifestyle changes that kinda was the start of that transformation.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: When you started to rebuild yourself, what was harder? To change the habits or changing your identity?

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Leo Judkins: Yeah. I've read so many personal you can see it here behind. I don't know if you can see it, but I've got all these books. James Clear talks about this in Atomic Habits. That you've gotta change your identities, change your habits, and it's kinda comes from Ziggy Ziglar that kinda started it with be, do, have.

 

If we wanna be somebody different and we wanna have results that are different, we've gotta be that person first before we act like it. But I don't know if that's true. For me, it was really about the problem is that you need to have a severe breakdown. I think you need to have I think it's true for all of us.

 

When you just think about yourself and you think about the most pivotal moments in your life, and you think about the person that you are today and what's defined that person that you are today, your characteristics, the person that you are today has been formed by the moments that you were so ashamed or that you've hit rock bottom or that you burnt out. I think you need the really hard stuff to be the fuel that you need to create the habits that you need so it's not really an identity change. It's not really a habit change. Both those things happen. But I think they happen as a consequence of something that's kinda traumatic. Yes.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: No. I agree with you. If I had met you at BetVictor, all this time ago, what kind of person would I have met? What would I have misunderstood about you?

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Leo Judkins: I think you would have met somebody that would have come across quite arrogant, forceful. Maybe I would definitely be micromanaging. Really, all as a layer to insecurity that's underneath. I felt really isolated, felt like I had to figure it all out by myself. I often felt attacked.

 

I felt unsafe as if everybody was out for my job. So I kinda armored up. I think that would have probably come across. I think that behavior is what pushed a lot of people away as well, made working together very difficult. I think it's something that you see in many organizations where departments are quite siloed as a result of people protecting their jobs and protecting their areas because they're all competing for that same spot a level higher. For me, that weakness was masked as confidence. I think that's probably what you would have seen.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: And when was the first time you felt that you shed the skin and you weren't seen as a director or whatever, just as Leo?

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Leo Judkins: Yeah. I never introduced myself by my title or anything, I was proud of the progress I've made and salary that comes with that. I never identified myself by position or level or anything. Being myself happened when I realized that when I'd lost the weight and I was getting better and I wasn't struggling so much with myself and work wasn't everything for me anymore, I realized actually, there's a person underneath all of this facade. For me, the key moment really was when I resigned. Again, revenue meeting. I got along really well with the CEO, still do. We sat there, and I'd been working up to this moment of resigning, and it was so difficult. You know how you sometimes you're really nervous about doing something and I kinda count down in my head. I go, I'm gonna do it at zero. So I'm

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Narcis Gavrilescu: gonna five four. For me it's kind of worse because if I say I'm gonna quit in a month from now. I already quit. Already it's already there. So if I decide that I'm done, I need to be done, and I need to be done quickly. Otherwise, it's just painful.

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Leo Judkins: It is very painful. It's weight that you carry with you, and you build it up. So that's the thing that happens. So at the end of this revenue meeting, I was counting down my head. Three, two, one, zero. I'm gonna do it now. I said, Andreas, need to have a chat with you. Can you stay for a minute? I walked over to him. It was like everything slowed down in my head. I shook his hand, and I said, I'm sorry. I'm gonna resign. It was a really difficult moment because I know that many people that resigned, that didn't go down very well. I was really worried about what the impact it was gonna have, how he was gonna react, how the business was gonna react. But he was super encouraging. He had seen my transformation. He knew how much it meant for me, and he knew how inspired I felt to help others in the industry do the same. He was probably one of the first supporters even in that moment of resignation, which was really cool. I really love that. Yeah.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: So walking away from that role, your country, during a lockdown, that's I was just gonna say, that took balls. So what usually, you have a little devil in your ear whispering all sorts of fears. What did that little devil whisper to you back then?

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Leo Judkins: Yeah. I found it really interesting because I wanted to start my own business all my life, and I've been afraid of doing it all my life. But then in that moment, it was so obvious I had to do it. The thing I feared was actually my boss's response, CEO's response. That's what the thing I was most worried about, but which turned out to be fine.

 

Actually, starting the business or resigning from a big role at a secure paycheck and a big paycheck didn't really put that much fear in me. It probably should've. I just signed my first mortgage ever. We were new parents. We were in a different country. Living in a different country with no family support in the middle of lockdown. There's five reasons there already not to do it. I walked away from that guaranteed salary. Starting a business is not pretty. Starting it is maybe pretty, but then very quickly, the shine of it goes away. You go through the ups and downs of it. All of a sudden, you realize that paycheck is not guaranteed. I didn't pay myself out for many years. I've been at the end of our income. I've been days away from actually going broke and literally having to go back into employment. Days away from being broke from literally not having any money left in the bank in a different country, without that support.

 

The mistakes that you make, they provide the fuel to create the changes that you need to make. The worst fear really wasn't that of going broke or the business not working. It was having to give up what I was trying to build, which is something I knew so many from my own experience, from having been there myself, I knew so many people needed. That was the biggest fear.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: I can't even tell you how much I empathize with the situation. How did people react when you told them I'm quitting this to start a business or a mastermind or something like that?

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Leo Judkins: Yeah. Most people thought I was insane. Maybe and they're probably right. It wasn't the smart decision. It wasn't a decision that any I just recently read Shoe Dog. The guy from the found Nike's founder? And it's a great story. You should read it. He basically he's gone broke a million times almost and super successful business. The likelihood of it not working is very high. Starting a business.

 

That's okay. It probably wasn't a smart decision, but it was an itch that I had to scratch. It was a problem that I felt needed to be solved. It was the support that I felt I needed when I was struggling so much, and we're in the gambling industry. We take more than we give. Especially when you think about how that works towards customers. I wanted to give back as well, and it's something I was able to do. My wife's been obviously the biggest supporter, but people like Ashley Lang of Pragmatic Solutions introduced me to Pierre Lindh, which then allowed me to do the first podcast. People like Lucky Multani who was a director at Entain introduced me to my first corporate coaching. Matt Robinson, CEO at Lottoland, helped me with ideas. So many people that all of a sudden along the way, I could have conversation with that I never had.

 

There's also the opposite side. Friends who were stuck or who are still stuck in the same job, same old secure job that are very much against. We're very much against it now. Five years later, business being quite successful, obviously, it's changed. In those first three years and then even worse than that, there's also people that wish you ill. That wish that it doesn't go well. Again, all of that is fuel for performance.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: Do you think that if the iGaming Leader Mastermind existed ten years ago, you would have gone through everything that you went through?

 

Leo Judkins: Yeah. 100%. I would have gone through exactly the same problems and exactly the same issues. It would have had no change because I think that we need to go through those dark moments to realize what we need in order to change. Without those moments, we are blind to the issues that we have and the challenges that we have and what we actually want to achieve, and what's required for that next level. I think if ten years ago, something like this would have existed, I wouldn't have even gotten through the vetting process. I wouldn't have applied, but if I would have, I wouldn't have come in.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: Still same thing. So your hosting groups now are some of the biggest names in the industry. What is the most common lie that people tell themselves?

 

Leo Judkins: This is true for everyone. It'll get better after x. After the next project, after the next deadline, after the next quarter, after the next it'll get better. This is just temporary. When we look back, we all know it's not temporary. There's always the next thing. I think that's fine because it's the underlying foundation of what it means to be a high achiever of wanting to do more, wanting to achieve more. There's always the next thing and there's never enough time and there's always too much work and that's okay.

 

When we tell ourselves that lie, that there's never enough time to do the things that we need to do, that's the thing we've gotta break. I remember when I first started with going to the gym, when I couldn't even tie my shoelaces, the first time I went and I got the personal trainer, I felt like I had to apologize to my wife because I was already working so much that I would now I was also taking an hour of my time to go to the gym once a week on top. I was already not being present at home, physically, but also mentally, I wasn't present. I wasn't able to pay attention. I was always on my phone. Then I went twice a week and then three times a week. Every time I felt I didn't have time for it. But what it did is by taking better care of myself and by surrounding myself with people that wanted to better themselves, I found time that I previously didn't have. The things that I was doing were going more quickly. The problems that I had at work didn't seem so heavy. They got solved faster. You win time back by taking care of yourself.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: My next question would have been, is there a problem that everybody in the groups thought it was unique to them, but it's universal?

 

Leo Judkins: No. I think time is definitely a very common problem that we all face. Thinking that we don't have time or believing that we don't. Actually, none of us have time. It's all filled up. Our days, it's not like we're doing nothing all day long. Of course, we don't have time. It's also not about creating time. It's about finding time and optimizing time. That's definitely something that most people come in with.

 

The biggest thing that I actually see with most people is that they just can't switch off. Work is their hobby. It's true for all high achievers. Your work's your hobby. You just keep going. You could do it twenty four hours a day, no problem. When your work's your hobby, it's very difficult to also be present at home or to do the things that you need. I think that's the key thing. Once people are inside of our mastermind and they go into their first breakout room, they work with their inner circle, they realize that there's five other people in that six person breakout room that are exactly the same. Them and the five others, and they're going through the same thing. It's almost like business therapy for iGaming leaders.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: No way! I thought about this. I did think about this when I saw some of your stuff. It's soothing in some way.

 

Leo Judkins: Yeah. It's like 100%. The other thing with high achievers is most high achievers are lone wolves. They wanna fix everything themselves. That's what got them to where they are, and that's cool. But leadership isn't a solo sport. Yes, you can figure it all out yourself. It just takes longer, and it takes more effort, and you probably won't have the perfect solution.

 

When you're challenged by people that are at your same level with the same experience or more experience that have different viewpoints, you buy speed and certainty. That's the two things you buy because we've all had that moment where somebody says something to us and we think, why didn't I think about that before? That's how people come in and after a while, even after the first week, that's the thing that they realize, that they're not by themselves, that everybody has the same struggles and is also seeking the same type of solutions. It's quite soothing.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: So tell me something. Why can't somebody use ChatGPT for this? Hire a consultant or whatever. Talk to your board, because you're part of the same team. Why can't you do this, and you need to do it outside of your usual circle?

 

Leo Judkins: The funny thing with AI and chat we've actually got a session on AI tomorrow. We've got an expert session with Pini Jakuel, the founder and CEO of Optimove. He's talking about how to use AI in leadership decisions. I'm gonna ask him tomorrow.

 

The funny thing about AI is that it pleases you. It seeks to please. Whatever you're feeding it, it's gonna confirm your bias, and it doesn't provide alternative viewpoints. The same is true with colleagues.

 

The higher you go, the more you notice that every conversation becomes transactional. People want stuff from you. You're their boss. You're gonna be the one that is gonna give them a salary raise. There's weirdness between you, so you can't be honest.

 

The problem with your board is that you're all in the same silo. It's like this echo chamber, so you don't really get an outside perspective. Also, there's performance. You wanna show that you know what you're talking about. The last thing about coaches, I have coached lots of people, both through executive coaching, but also in other areas.

 

The problem is with coach, they're very good at helping you find the answers that you have inside of yourself already. Very often in iGaming, it misses that industry context. The pressure that we're under, the changes in regulations, the pace of the industry, the insanity of the conferences.

 

The second thing is that sometimes you just need the experience, the wisdom of somebody that has already been there, has already done it, has made the mistakes, got the scars to show it, and can actually tell you what works and what doesn't.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: What's an example of a problem that you could have never solved alone? Or someone coming into the group would never solve alone.

 

Leo Judkins: Yeah. So without naming names, we recently had a guy who works for a big operator in the US and was really struggling with how to actually have, let me actually give you a better example. We do recently, there's a guy who I met here in Gibraltar, James, and he doesn't mind me sharing the story because he's talked about it openly.

 

James used to work for three six five and had loved his job, did what he absolutely loved, came from ITV, moved into three six five. I met him first in the gym here, and we're talking and great guy. He had seen some of my content. He said, are you Leo? We started talking. It was cool. We met for a coffee. A few months later, I saw him, and he had lost a lot of weight. Not in a good way. So he was already he looked fit. Suddenly, I asked him what's going on. He said he was struggling. He'd been struggling. He'd been away from his wife. He didn't have a support network around him. He'd moved back to The UK, joins our mastermind, gets the support that he needs from people that have been there and understand the challenges that he's gone through.

 

Now he's in a job that he loves, works for gambling.com, moved from a head of position to a directorship. He's really thriving in his role. He's just had his first baby. He's very healthy. He's loving life. From having a bit of outside perspective and normalizing that these are challenges that we all go through. That's massively helped him just having that environment.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: I think I read somewhere that you reject 90% of the people coming into these groups? Why is the bar so high?

 

Leo Judkins: I think reject sounds so horrible. I've been called out on it as well a few times because it sounds horrible, and I don't mean it to be. I don't like using that word.

 

First of all, we want to make sure that the people that we have are all on the same level. They have similar strategic challenges. A new manager wouldn't necessarily fit into the program, or somebody that's new to iGaming wouldn't really fit into the group because dynamic wise, it doesn't work.

 

We have a lot of applications from people like that, where they need some career support or they're a new manager. They need to get better at delegation, and they apply and just doesn't really work.

 

Then we also know that there's a lot of people in the industry that are takers and not givers. We want givers and not takers. For our group dynamic to work, it's important that we've got people that come in not just to pitch and expand their network. I get it. It's fine, but that's not us. That's the second thing.

 

Once we've had those few filters, I have an interview with people, and it's just like we're chatting now. It's really just a normal chat to see what's going on and what people want and why they feel that in a group environment would benefit them, but also what they feel that they could contribute to the group. Based on that, you see personality traits, character traits, and that's what I really look for.

 

I wanna make sure that we have a group that gels well together. Sometimes people from a personality standpoint don't really fit well. That gets us to 10 to 15% that comes in after application.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: You worked with about 400 plus people now?

 

Leo Judkins: Yeah. 400 plus probably now.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: Is there any story that gives you goosebumps?

 

Leo Judkins: Yeah. In a bad way. No. I find it hard to talk about people individually unless they've shared their story. You had Rob Fell on the podcast. He's lost a lot of weight, and he did that before he joined our program. When he was with us, he told his story about how he was waking up every night at 3AM. He's the CEO of Risk Cherry. As a CEO, he has all this pressure on him, and there's all these product things that they wanna solve and release, there's always more work. Every night he would wake up at 3AM head racing. Doesn't benefit him from his health perspective, how he is with his kids, being at home present. One of the big things that we've worked on initially is just his ability to focus, time blocking, time management, did some work around habits. It literally changed so much for him. Helped him progress in his career, progress in his business, grow.

 

The things that give me goosebumps are the small moments, not the big, like I lost 35 kilos, and you see these before and afters. It looks really cool on Instagram. But that's not the stuff that gives you goosebumps as somebody that facilitates an environment to help people transform. The things that give you goosebumps are the individual moments that somebody might have with their kids or the conversation that they might have with their CEO that they couldn't have before or the small wins that they celebrate. We set up WhatsApp communities for each of the inner circles and the wider groups, and we see these wins every day. I'm just really proud to be able to provide an environment like that.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: So what do these people really crave beyond growth or profit? Is it this human element being in touch with it? What do you think it is?

 

Leo Judkins: I think the big thing that people crave goes back to what I was saying earlier. It's not just to have a network. It's for people to actually challenge them. The thing I was saying about ChatGPT that it tries to appease you and tries to make you feel good. Employees are the same. As you grow, somebody I had on one of our suitability calls said the higher you go, the thinner the air gets. I think that's really true. The higher you go, every conversation becomes transactional. There's something that someone wants from you, and nobody wants to feel like that. Nobody wants to feel like they're at the end of a transaction. People want to have genuine conversations. Nothing changes when you're the CEO or you're the manager. You still an individual that wants to have normal conversations, especially when you're passionate about the business.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: Correct.

 

Leo Judkins: So I think that the thing that most people crave is to break through that isolation and to actually have an environment where and that's why people join memberships, go to conferences. Most of those conversations that you have there, you've just been to Rome. Most of those conversations are transactional. You'll have somebody screaming for traffic. You know what.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: Yeah it's... people... that that's what it's all about. You have traffic? Can I do business with you? So, okay, you left the business as a director, but then you came back as I don't wanna because you told me you don't see yourself from the perspective of your position. But how did the moment of making iGaming leader work? What did that symbolize for you?

 

Leo Judkins: I've got this card here. That says a lot to me, and I'll tell you why. I resigned five years ago, and it talks about that moment. Lots of people still in that business. They're now one floor above me. I'm in the World Trade Center. I've got an office in the World Trade Center right below their floor, and that meant so much, going from my home office where I've been fighting and working so hard for so many years to make the business work, failing so often, almost breaking down, having to go back into employment almost.

 

All of those struggles and sacrifices. Then I assigned to get a place here, and I walk into the building and I see old colleagues. That means a lot to me. Just actually having a business. Director Leo was very stressed and I was craving recognition and was really insecure underneath and now founder Leo. I've found my purpose, and I feel content. Feeling content is something that my clients described in one of his testimonial videos, Lex. I thought I would never get there, and I've been there now for a while. That makes me really happy.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: If you were to start from zero today, you have nothing except everything that you've learned, how would you do it?

 

Leo Judkins: I would build exactly what I've built now. I'm seeing the results that clients are getting inside of their inner circles. I'm seeing how much it means for them. Before, it meant a lot to me, being able to provide this environment. Now it's gone to the next level. It's gone to now I see how much it means for everybody inside of the program. It's not just about them getting results, but it's about them helping others get results. It's like a cascading effect, and that makes it like an oil mark on water. It is spreading. That's something I'm really proud of because as one person, you can only do so much. It becomes really scalable. It feels like a movement, it's really creating something. That's really important because the whole industry is so full of people trying to pretend to be something that they're not, showing off, and we're trying to do the opposite.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: If and when your children would see this, what would you like them to understand about your journey?

 

Leo Judkins: I think a few things are really important. For any parents listening, we all want to wrap our kids in bubble wrap and prevent them from having to go through any challenges or hardships. We create who we are in those hardship moments, and we need the challenges to become the person that we are today, and that's something that I'd love for them to understand. Instead of celebrating successes and look at how awesome the business is going. I would like to do the opposite and go, these are the difficult moments that we've had, and these are the not just as a business. As an individual, as a parent, as a friend, as a husband. These are the challenges that I've had, and this is how I've grown stronger because of it.

 

That's the thing I'd love for my kids to see and to remember because everything else is fake. Everything else is temporary. The person you become and the person that you are and your values, they are things that no matter what happens to your career or your business or the industry, Those things stay. That's the important thing I'd love for them to understand.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: And for the rest of us in the industry, how would you like to be remembered in iGaming history?

 

Leo Judkins: Well, hopefully, not me. But what we're trying to create hopefully makes the industry a little bit more authentic. A little bit less show off, a little bit more real. I had this. I was in Lisbon at SBC Lisbon, and I'm walking around, and I get stopped by two founders, cofounders. I've never seen them before, and they'd seen some of my content. The guy said, I really need to talk to you because we founded this business, bootstrapped, gone okay, but so much stress. I'm struggling with vertigo. I'm falling over half the time. He's normalized all of it as a result of the high pressure that he's feeling. He said, I don't have anybody to talk to except my cofounder here, and we just gotta push through. Man, that's not normal. You should be able to talk to people about that.

 

What instead happens, Tom Gallanis, has talked about this in a video that I did with him, where we talk about his journey on the mastermind. He said that the industry is so full of how successful everybody is and successful business are, and you measure yourself against that highlight reel of everybody else, and it's just not real. It's not sustainable. It's not achievable. Let's normalize being humans and having a human conversation instead of trying to show off. That's what I'm hoping that we as a group can achieve in the industry.

​

Narcis Gavrilescu: Well, definitely, your work is showing. It does touch people everywhere. I have been touched myself, hence why we are here.

 

Leo Judkins: Thank you, Narcis.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: Thank you very much for your work, Leo, for what you do. People can come and sign up into your Mastermind, right? I'll put a link in the description.

 

For anybody watching this, get down there. Thank you for your time, for your dedication, for everything that you do. Thank you to everybody watching us, and stay tuned for more iGaming history.

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Leo Judkins: Thanks, Lars. See you soon.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: See you. Bye bye.

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