Mike de Graaff: From A Stroke to Sustainable High Performance - Mike de Graaff's Wake Up Call at 33

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I was just dding on this feeling of success and just working harder and building bigger and going more more more more and then that for me resulted last summer into having a mini stroke in my R by giving them even more responsibilities in their own areas and allowing them to step up they show that what they can do I really noticed the company was doing far better even than before when I was trying to do it all my own the company is not about duplicating yourself that's the totally wrong way of doing doing it because there's only one of you and then to start with

I'm the owner of a company so I have to uh to work 80 hours a week otherwise the company is not succeeding well if the company is not succeeding and you are working 80 hours a week and the company is not succeeding because you are working 80 hours a week welcome to the igaming leader where we uncover The Human Side of some of the most inspirational leaders inside of our industry I'm your host Leo Judkins and today I'm joined by Mike D who is the chief compliance officer at bet comply at only 33 years old he had a heart shattering moment where after having just

had his kid he suffered a stroke he will share with us exactly what led to that specific moment and what he has done since to maintain a high performance lifestyle while managing his performance his team and his own well-being with that being said let's dive straight in hey Mike welcome to the eming me really great to have you here I've been really wanted to talk to you for quite some time because something I recently saw from you on Lin but first just let me say welcome hi thank you happy to be here cool hey M you started um in gaming in 2015 been in the

industry for quite a bit one of the things I noticed from your kind of go through your Le is you quickly Rose to a te leader position I'm just curious what draws that rapid progression and looking back what were some of the things that you wish you knew back then when you first moved into that team leader position correctly stated I started in 2015 in customer service back uh when I moved to Malta I already had a number of years in the contact center industry from the healthcare industry I was in traffic management and team leader positions there but I realized also at this is

a new industry so I was willing to go you know learn learn it on the front line so started in CS I did that for a few months and then the opportunity came to become a team leader there before I Rose into payment risk and and and confiance one of the things that you know throughout my career always is is a constant is growth and at at at speed I tend to nail that down to two things so I am I am ADHD quite quite heavily also uh but and diagnosed ADHD and high intelligence which is a combination that is deadly in school but if

you find something that you're really passionate about or that you like to do it it created big advantages I soak up information like no other and I also work harder like no other when you first moved into that team leader position and M what were your first impressions of gaming that must have been I mean it's quite a you excess rule I'm also D so kind of know what the company thought you like what was that transition like from moving from more of a big operator like that like excess R to gaming which was rather when you first started right yes it was a real

change of culture actually so I came from corporate in the Netherlands like big office ruls and badges and all that kind of stuff and then we went into 2015 I gaming so for those who know what 2015 I gaming is these are a if you're speaking about Malta you're talking converted Flats in into into offices a bunch of youngsters trying to do a good job and then in terms of the the customers and the industry itself I found found it very exciting because there was a lot of going on always but what I immediately noticed when I went into T lead precisions and CS was

also the complains in the disputes problem gambling and criminal activity so that's when you get a real Bri Sense on the front lines on what is happening when it when players play on gambling websites which was totally new to me so being Dutch right you one of the things I also seen you say before is you have this blunt Dutch in you're the blood Dutchy in compliance I am having that background myself as well I know sometimes we rub people up the WR way because with men we're a little bit too direct and sometimes it goes really well as well right some do you have

any specific examples where perhaps just either helped you or really kind of been a disadvantage for you in that you know having that directness in a multicultural organization yeah sure so well where did it help me was initially with complaints disputes and and refunds uh cuz I was in charge of that for for the whole department and yeah when someone is is actually complaining or or in a desperate situation or or anything like that being blunt to them doesn't help because you need to acknowledge their emotions and and and go into their story reinvestigate and just say sorry terms and conditions it's not really going

to going to be helpful in that sense so I really learned a lot in terms of soft skills and writing skills with being in charge of complaints and disputes over there so that's why it didn't help me uh where it does help me is in what I've been doing for the last few years which is compliance consultancy so compliance is a very wide term it encompasses a lot anything from responsible gaming and anti-money laundry to Outsourcing and integrity and payments and HR and internal monitoring there's a all wide range and there's also all wide range of interpretations and ways of doing it and especially if

you're in consultancy they come to to you for the answer like hey my marketing team is saying this my legal team is saying that my commercial team is saying this what do I need to do and how do I need to do it so they're looking for the straightforward and blunt answers so that's where it really helps in getting the message across explaining things but it also helps if you're on hour your rate that you're fasty your entry do you notice that you are changing your approach and how you kind of communicate or is that you know that's just mik that's just what you're going

to get yeah mostly the louder that the people that we work with they they know what they can expect from us uh which is straightforward business and straightforward talk and and and non nonsense which helps them so it's mostly the latter I do have to give the warning or the heads up up front when we're coming with new clients or new partners I am Dutch meaning I am very punctual I'm never late and two I'm very blunt and no filter but it's only for the better it's never to be disrespectful anything I not hey 2020 right you made a big job into consultancy and during

the pandemic that's a big move right so I kind of did the same thing I resigned from a directorship at 20 I know how scary that was because in scary trouble at time and it's it's it's a big move so what's compelled you to make such a bold decision in such an uncertain time the market was calling for me basically so I was working in house back then as the risk and compliance manager and 2019 2020 is when the the the Netherlands started to work towards opening of the market because it opened up in in in 21 but in 20 I was already receiving calls

and emails and Link requests from a lot of different parties saying hey the market is opening in the Netherlands there's not many Dutch speaking compliance experts out there can you help us out with the compliance framework or the license application and policies Etc and I was in house and I was like well I can continue doing my work as I've been doing because I was happy there but the company itself did not have any plans to enter the market and I was like why I'm the only one of the very few Dutch piing compli experts on this ey and everyone is calling me asking to

work for them why don't I just go on my own and do it because as you said it was also covid time so we were already on log down we already at home I couldn't really go out do anything other than doing work and my wife is a shf she was also at home because it was a CO lockdown so we made a conscious decision to go into consultancy do several projects at the same time and go full force couldn't do anything else other than than sitting at home and working so I took the opportunity how did I feel were you scared was it big

decision how like took me through kind of the process of actually doing that I have to go back a little bit on that because it goes back to the nature of the Beast which is my personality in the way that I approach things I I tend to box above my weight as I call it where I'm very comfortable so I've been doing that for all my life meaning that I have this thinking process that says it I have never done it but I think I can do it so I'll do it and up until now I've been able to do it and do it properly

so I go into some things knowing that I do not know everything but I'm confident enough that I'm resourceful enough to find out how it should be done and then execute it accordingly so it's a little bit of sometimes overcool foros but up until now just probably right so you're a dad moving in a fast-paced industry your expats right all these things at the same time sometimes it's very challenging right it's kind of finding balance and balancing family life but also being in this kind of 24/7 industry that is fastpac and high pressure how do you balance all of that I was not always very

good at this and so after Co when everything started opening up again I was in consultancy in an open industry with open industry I mean all the industry events or the conferences all the travel every as a consultant you need to be everywhere right you need to be everywhere to be sefe to talk to clients talk to New Leads partaking panels do a lot of networking so when Co came to an end and I started traveling again to all these conferences once a month doing all this work also you having babies along the way I went too far because I I really enjoy what I'm

doing and I'm really passionate about what I'm doing so I was just dding on this feeling of success and just working harder and building bigger and going more more more and more and then that for me resulted last summer into having a mini stroke in my RAID and because I overdid it you fool so yeah I must not very good at this I took a real hard look a real good look at myself in the way that I've been doing things I realized that if you want to build you as a consultant on your own you're doing your own work your own sales and you

execute yourself is very different from building a company which we are doing with that compli having that mini stroke in the summer forced we to go back to the drawing board and say okay what is it that I am doing personally what is it this that the team is doing where did it go wrong in terms of me overdoing it and how do we not do that anymore yeah so to summarize I was not good at this at all I was forced to look into it and now I like to think that I am getting good at it I mean you were only 33 well

maybe still are 33 because it was this summer all when that happened that's really scary right so what was that what was that day like what was going through your mind that day and how how how did that like how did it appear so it was a day like no other I was working from the office where I am right now I was just working behind my desk I started that my I started to notice that my arm was feeling a bit numb and I was like oh maybe I'm not sitting qu or something you have that sometimes right you're sitting at a desk and

maybe you're L your arms you get sleepy for Num so I said that's where let me let me stand up I tried to stand up and I noticed that my whole leg was also fully numb and I could not stand on it so I was like oh this is weird we I need to walk it off right so I just I walked up to the kitchen to grab coffee he noticed that my whole right side was just not from in and I tried to explain that and as soon as I tried to explain that I I noticed that I couldn't talked anymore I couldn't find

any words so was all the classic symptoms right and then I also met them my whole face on the right side with num as well so I had all the classic SS for of one side of my body fully none of of power no strength full loss of speech me being the workoholic that I am instead of calling 112 I called our operations director asking her as basic being notified say I cannot really continue work today cuz I don't feel well but if you're having a stroke you cannot explain that either so I was on the phone blam like like this and she got scared

and so I didn't realize it was a stroke until I actually went to the hospital and they and they told me you had a stroke and you basically almost died you should have come here immediately and not after some time so on the day itself and didn't realize it as much and but when the doctors started talking to me and investigating me doing my brain scans and my heart scans all that side then I started realizing how serious this actually is I'm 33 I'm young and I was going for cardiac appointments and brain scan appointments and in in Waiting rooms full of 70 80y old

people that were looking at me like what are you doing here and that's when I start realized like Y what am I doing this is not normal I should not be here this is not okay I I want went way too far with this and it was also I had the stroll in the week that my son was born so it also took away I don't want to say took away the joy of it cuz you I still experien a lot of Joy but in the background of my head I was still late I almost died last week so I had that in the back

of my mind uh while we were having a third son well because of the labor we I also have my two weeks of paternity leave of course so I I also forced paternity leave by coincidentally cuz I needed that rest and then in those two weeks I really started thinking okay how do I how do I structure this out so it doesn't happen again anymore from the moment that I came back for also during my pet I really went back to very strict diet very strict seat schedule very strict work schedule so a lot of us in the industry especially people my age we go

way too way too way too hard right we don't do schedules we sleep whenever we're tired we work when work needs to be done we party we Network we travel and I really we needed to go back to and in bed by 9:00 p.m. I work from 8:00 to 4:00 I don't drinked only during travel I don't work after 400 p.m. anymore meaning I really need to L off now I can do maybe a phone call but no more work and I found out by doing that and by enabling our operations director and the other consultants in in the team to step up and take

responsibility further than what they were doing I noticed how good our team is I already knew our team is good then that's why we gathered that team as is but by giving them even more responsibilities in their own areas and allowing them to step up to show that what they can do I really noticed the company was doing far better even than before when I was trying to do it on my own that's awesome man guys what a fantastic result out of a really bad situation right hey quick pause here because I know you can probably relate some of the things Mike's saying around the

insane pressure that we put ourselves under maybe you're compromising on your own health and well-being as well just in order to meet that next deadline or to perform a little bit better but we all know that that's not sustainable so if you're a VP director head of or SE level exec and you want to create sustainable high performance building habits and behaviors that you can practice in just 20 minutes a day please join us in the igaming leader Mastermind it's a community of igaming leaders just like you where we help you live lead and perform at your best in a way that you can actually

achieve that sustainable high performance now if you want to apply please head over to igaming leer.com and fill in your details let's go back to Mike so how was that Mike when the do sty talking to you and sty explain that was actually stroke you probably didn't even believe it right because you were thinking oh well I'm in like you were saying I'm indestructible when did you notice that it's kind of a consequence of perhaps the things that you were doing the high stress levels the lack of sleep all those things that you like how did that process go did the doctor tell you that

or did you figure that out were there any warning signs beforehand that you might have missed or that you just kind of suppressed well I did suppress some signs no but in the in the 6 months leading up to the stroke I was losing weight and not overweight by any means but I was losing like a kilo a month and average so I didn't see it as an indicator of that I was just like um sometimes you lose weight sometimes you gain the fact that I was not sleeping well I was blaming that on having small kids and and being pregnant again so I was

just B just telling myself it was other things or justifying it in the back of my head right because I was in the middle of growing this compliance consultancy firm which was going amazing and I could not have anything tarnished that right it couldn't that could not be the issue everything else is the issue maybe not that cuz everything depends on it so I did it took the signs as they were and then when it all happened I also when it actually happened I didn't realize it was a stroke when I was in the hospital I realized it was a stroke but I but still

was not realizing ing where it actually came from until the doctor started questioning me do you use drugs or anything do you anything anything to explain what happened because I'm 33 I have no preexisting conditions no terminal diseases of any kind so there's not many reasons why I should be having a brain stroke right and you know one of the things that that contribute to have the bra stroke is high cholesterol and bad diet but I was not over weight of any means things like that or or or overuse of of of drugs performing an drugs or anything like that also as an indicator I

they started questioning me about this and I was like I don't do any drugs and I don't do either what about so then they said how was your stress level I like well a discussion on its own yeah and then I saw explaining how my day today is and my responsibilities Etc and then they said well no wonder you got a stroke I say you better chase that right now or you're going to have another one so and they made that very clear if I continue down this road it would end in me die so it I had to be told basically and that made

you feel for having to make those changes did you feel scared about having to make those changes and and perhaps the consequence that might have professionally did you feel power to do it and we or we just only worried about your health what did that look like must be must have been some internal conflict there as well I suppose from having gone through that mindset for so long for so many years I completely surrendered basically when I realized that I basically almost died while I was having a third son that was a point of realization that I that just made me surrender tell me what

to do I'll do it don't eat this don't eat that don't do this I won't do it and I just completely surrendered I'm also very lucky I have a very supportive wife we live in Portugal but both our moms live very close to us so we have very good support system even though we have small kids I am able to go to bed at 9:00 p.m. and have my rest because I need it and my wife is Chef even though I'm on a diet because she she know has to make anything well or taste proper I completely surrendered and then with within two weeks I

I noticed the changes myself and I noticed I got color back in my skin and the sacks of and my eyes started disappearing a little bit I feeling better so I surrendered to the situation like if I don't do this then then it's the end of the Rope like literally as soon as I started surrendering to it I I noticed the differences that it made for me personally on my health and then I also saw the effect on the team I saw the team stepping up I saw the team doing well I saw that performance was better or or the same or if not better

and and why do you think that is my what are some of the the big the biggest uh changes you think that has affected that so when I was a compis consultant on my own I noticed why I'm doing the work that I'm doing which is because the the industry needs it and the quality is not as good everywhere and the level of compliance is not as good as it should be in some markets especially I'm very confident in my own work because of the way I've been doing it and the success that I've been getting from it and and the feedback that I've been

getting from it and then when you build a company you try to basically duplicate yourself and that is something you should not do which is for for any business owner out there if you were good on your own doing something and you want to make a bites out of it don't try to duplicate yourself because that's not how the world functions right growing a company and a team is far different than doing it than scaling what you are good at on your own be forced to delegate fully and build and build an approval systems QA system sys like funneling up to me instead of me

signing off and actually executing the last Parts I could see that they feel that they get more responsibility and therefore they want to do better cuz they want to deliver on on what is being assigned to them and my team also cares about me personally so yeah we were friends uh so they also felt the need like hey we really need to also support Mike in this right uh so they also had this need to to to to step up and then as soon as I saw how good they were doing this I started just praising it praising them on every single aspect to the

extent that you know we make jokes within the teams about being modest being humble where internally we're not humble at all everyone is great everyone's perfect you just you you boosted confidence a little bit internally and yeah it's been helping it's been working out it's been working out I love it man hey uh so you set some really some quite some strict boundaries around kind of how you manage time and when you shut off for the day when you start the day when you go to bed all super healthy right those those boundaries it however it comes also comes with some decision making our SPS

right because now you've got fewer hours that you're actually working in then you have had B so how do you how do you decide what's is going to happen within that fixed time box that you have now because one of the big things must also be that you're now saying no to more things that you weren't saying no to before as F yeah uh true uh good point so I really limited my work hours to 8: in the morning till 4: in the afternoon where together with our Brides director loose at the start of the week and at the end of the week we together

decide on a to-do list the planning for the week and and the the division of tasks uh and even though you know she reports into me on on on the compliance consultancy site she tells me what to do so we I I gave her the the the responsibility and the freedom to run the consultancy team on a own and to really basically guide me and tell me what to do I want to focus on two things cuz the two things that I'm good at is bringing in new business and executing that business I'm going to spend my time accordingly doing that about 50% of the

time doing sales and Business Development the other 50% of the time executing compliance work anything that is outside of that is done by someone else so we have dedicated CFO dedicated CMO dedicated CEO dedicated operations director HR and they they they they do what they are good at best within those eight8 hours eing breaks I need to both build the business and also execute uh the work on one hand on one side we do we do this allocation of task between medium bra director which is really which which works really well usually when you are on on top of the management layer you think like

you need to instruct people down in the in the hierarchy on what to do but if you hire the right people they know what they are good at and what they should be doing and you should be able in a position to allow them to tell you what needs to be what needs to happened uh in order to execute that is something I I learned by by doing this that especially the people ex security work and and and and and the middle layers have them tell you what needs to be done love it what a fantastic lesson mik I love that really really cool I

want to touch a little bit on neurodiversity as well this that'ss okay for you uh she mentioned beginning to tell me a little bit more about how that's really helped you and also where that maybe uh has made it really difficult for you what lessons you've learned through out time living with you know ADH and uh like how you actually use that day-to-day day-to-day life so I got diagnosed when I was about 10 years old 23 years ago I went through very extensive diagnosis and therapy sessions to really drill down to basically what is wrong with Mike because I was hyperactive not listening and not

focusing Etc so I went through this whole Mill of tests and any evaluations and they had the Dual diagnosis of ADHD and high intelligent a blessing and a curse it's it's occurs when you go to school it's a blessing when you find something that you're really good at and one thing that my mom was very quick about is that I'm not going to do medicine for all of my life because then you haven't treated the problem you're just treating the symptoms basically with medicine so we really at the start already we invested time in therapy and tips and tricks which you do with a lot

a failing in testing but I kind of learned what I should not be forting putting Focus towards and what and how I can utilize my neurod divergency so one of the things that ADHD kids especially really bad at is the small stuff you closing doors picking up your shoes hanging up your jacket don't forget your school lunch don't forget your books all all that kind of stuff and I learn like it doesn't matter how much time and effort I put into trying to fix that I will never ever fix that so why should I try fix something that I cannot fix well at the same

time I also am very good because of my ADHD at uh reading and digesting information and making decisions and creativity and because my mom also acknowledged that that she she saw that she the power of it now she she started to not tell me off when I forgot my jacket my shoes my lunch and anything my dad and and help me build system and tips and tricks around that you know for just small things like I this dedicated place near near the door which is made for me where i' put my keys my wallet my thing and everything and if not everything is not in

there and there someone else will seize my key somewhere we'll just pick up the keys and put it there instead of telling me Mike you forgot to put your key there again small things like different like tips and tricks on what you cannot fix it really helps uh now with school yeah the schools are fortunately what it is it is the system is what it is and you have to go through it and I started out on the highest uh level possible and I I went down to grades and it took me seven years to complete school and because one side of my uh grades

were amazing the other side was you could put as much effort into it as you want it will never go any better because it would it won't just it and I'm lucky that I have a supportive mom like that that really guided me through my teenage years in this and I'm really made me feel powerful as as a ADHD High intelligent kid and not as a weird kid that is that is busy and hyperactive so that really helps me and because I've been tutored that way basically I also took that with me into the wor Force so I don't focus on things that I'm not

good at I look like to have other people support me in that and I focus on what I'm really good at which is which made me like you said for you creative side really kind of reading up on things which I suppose great in compliance especially uh reading up on on stuff and making sure they make decisions that uh Drive throughout the business forward yeah yeah definitely definitely yeah which in the consulty space it it helps me a lot in terms of knowledge and expertise because I managed to soak up their tuition and create links between them in my head that that others are struggling

with with the difficult side however it go help see when when you have a brain like mine or the way that I that way I operate is pricey which might be a little bit surprising but the reason I'm saying it is because I I can do the work processes in my head like four or five times faster than than the average consultant does so if someone takes takes six hours to do something I can lightly do it with it in lesson two so should then should identify hour rate is three times as high but if I do that then everyone will be like why why

is your hour rate so high right why so you start need to explain your your pricing strategy then uh well it does well this justif fireable right if I if I do it three times or three times less the the amount of time then my rate should be three times as high so instead of doing that we more more work towards fixed fees for projects and deliverables because otherwise you're you're just competing with yourself or shooting yourself in the foot yeah that's what I was going to say you know then you just got to move to Value based pricing right because otherwise he makes those

I read this story a while back from a from a logo designer random but a logo designer and he's been doing it since 20 years so should be quick at making logos now should he charge you know way more per hour well I don't know he's quicker than somebody that has just started doing it but you should just charge the logo right and the quality of the logo of of course is going to make a difference and it's very similar for you I SP how do you how did you feel about making that change M kind of more towards Project based and value bra is

that is that typical incompliance consultancy or is that something that is I don't know how did that go oh yes and no Al so as be could ply we do we tailor up pricing to the client because we work with with startups and tier one operators and anything in between so some companies they want fixed fees for budgeting reasons others want flexibility because of budget reasons and flexibility reasons so whatever the client wants in terms of format we do my preferred way of working especially when we're working on license applications or audits or Ros is is is to work on a on a fixt basis

uh because it's very clear for everyone and on what is to be expected on that side uh and when we do go into uh to hourly rat or monthly retainers or or things like this it's not that they're buying the hours for me personally because we have a whole team that supports that reter and so we did manage to find a way and how to do it and the way that we are doing it is very clear very concise and there's no overcharging of coffee machine meetups in between their te either yeah love it kind of closing also a little bit m you've seen the

the heights of success in business and and R of the dangers of gaming right what would you what would your advice be to other leaders about uh sustainable success let me start with um the the duplication uh issue uh so especially leaders when they start companies they feel very good about what they can do and what they bring to the table the company is not about duplicating yourself that's the totally wrong way of doing it because there's only one of you and to start with uh so I would really not I would try to Not Duplicate you that should be an end you know it

should it should not be duplicating the the the founder or or or or the leader of the of the team you should be stering out from the drawing Lord what needs to be done and what kind of people do we need in order for that to be done uh and not oh I have this idea with this company so we should be doing these things I know I'm good at that and someone that is equally as good as me at doing this and don't go about it like that break it down into tasks and activities and what kind of people need to excel in those

tasks and activities and and build your team from the ground up in that way that is one thing that I I I tend to advise and the other one is is is your work life balance everyone says work hard play hard and oh I'm the owner of a company so I have to uh to work 80 hours a week on otherwise the the company is not succeeding well if the company is not succeeding and you are working 80 hours a week and the company is not succeeding because you are working 80 hours a week then that could very well be the reason why the company

should function within the boundaries that it's given so within the 40 hours within the with within the time constraints that they there if you're not succeeding within those boundaries don't expand the boundaries but work what is inside those boundaries I I really love that Mike so if if somebody that's listening is actually finding themselves there outw working 60780 hours and having no idea how to actually work fewer hours without having to compromise on their career or on their success in business how what should the first step be that they should take UCL have someone else tell you wow love that so that can be an

an a colleague internally can be can be someone from sea level can even can it be anyone that but that that understands your line of work you know don't don't discuss this with your spouse or your family because they don't understand the the the intricacies of your work this be some knows to work but you need to give them the power to tell you because if you are doing 60 70 80 90 hours and you're fully integrated in your way way of working and you're stu that means you're stu so don't try to unstuck yourself explain the problem to someone internity or the industry peer

or a coach or whatever whatever it is but explain it to them give them the power to tell you what to do and just try it out love it fantastic Mike hey thank you very much really inspirational talk I am so happy that you're on the menend and feel better and thank you for all the advice thank you for having me and now I'm great one thank you wow what an eye openening story from Mike it left me really inspired because I remember being at SBC getting ready for my presentation and seeing somebody really young walk around with a walking stick and I was quite

shocked seeing that because it's something that you don't see very often he had clearly had a stroke and I didn't know him so I didn't go over but I was curious to hear what was what was going on then he posted on LinkedIn and shared his story which I found so brave so I reached out to tell him how Brave I thought that was and I asked him to come on to the igaming leader where he's clearly shared his story um it left me with three very powerful insights that I think will help you as well the first one is how important it is to

find balance in life and to manage our own boundaries to not just set boundaries but to protect those boundaries as well so that we work within those constraints very often we shift our bound and we start compromising our own health and wellbeing as a result and that is very typical I think in ey gaming and something that most of us struggle with but operating within those boundaries is so important because as you can see he didn't even realize that he was having a stroke while he was inside of it right so very important to do it also leads me to the second point which is

that when you struggle to understand how to work within those boundaries and you never have the time time or the head space or the energy to actually figure it out it's important to get help from someone else somebody external that can help you see what's going on and where perhaps you're stuck and what the things are that you can do to improve your performance productivity time management leadership delegate whatever that is uh it's really important because when you're inside your own bottle it's impossible to read the label right and that's something that Mike does to to this day and he shared as well the third

thing is that it's really important to hire a team where you're not trying to duplicate yourself but you hire for a wide variety of roles Petro was talking about this in the second episode as well uh we've heard Maria talk about it on the last episode it is such a key thing to do because like Mike was saying when you actually give responsibility to that team and you step out and you are no longer a bottleneck you're no longer signing off but you give full responsibility to the team the business actually starts performing better but that's a little bit scary so really key skill to

develop as well how to Delegate for developing high performance teams so that's what I've got for you this week if you found this episode helpful and you took anything away from it please leave a rating and review it takes you less than 10 seconds and it really helps other igaming leaders like you find this podcast as well so that's it for this week next time we're talking to Lex Scott who is the vice president of gaming at ITV Studios he shares his journey on struggles with mental health and how fatherhood has really shaped his leadership style and what he does today to be a high

performance leader as well I hope to see you there and I hope you enjoyed today's podcast take care

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