Insights
Knowing what you can't say
70% of what's going on, there's nobody I can talk to about it.
Leo Judkins, Founder, The iGaming Leader"70% of what's going on, there's nobody I can talk to about it," a first-time CEO told me recently.
I've heard some version of that dozens of times now.
Not nobody in the world. Nobody in reach.
His wife listens. She wants to help. But she won't say the hard things.
His team reports to him. Anything he says shapes how they see him.
His peers in the industry are all his competition.
So the decisions about staff, cash flow, structural changes — they all sit in his head for weeks. Sometimes months.
Nobody mentions that part. It's just quiet.
I know that quiet well.
In 2012, I sat across the table from someone who'd moved his family to Gibraltar two years earlier.
I'd known for weeks his role wasn't going to exist by the end of the month.
He didn't know yet.
We talked about his daughter's school. The house they'd just moved into. Whether the team would go for dinner that Friday.
I nodded along. But when I walked out, I felt dead inside.
Went back to my desk and carried it.
Years later, after I started my own business, I began having quiet conversations with senior iGaming executives. One at a time. No agenda.
The same thing kept coming up.
“There's no one I can really talk to about this.”
Not one person. Not one company. Not one type of role.
Everyone.
You can't talk to your boss. Your team needs you certain. Your friends don't get it.
So you carry it.