Roger Redfearn-Tyrzyk: Extreme Ownership: Roger’s Insights on How Accountability Can Transform Your Career

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This is the thing for me success as a team is 10 times more or worth 10 times more than being successful individually it it just gives me this fulfilling thing like oh you know we're successful together this guy's successful he's successful she's successful because early on I I didn't have that person that would make me do this or celebrate this whether you're politician whether you are an owner of a company whether you have a family whether you work for this company whether you work for that company whether you were an artist whether you were Sports person right if you lie to yourself that means you're

going to lie to someone else you will never get to the point where you dream to be or where you want to be or what your potential is and I think if you're not accountable for your own actions then it's just you're not going to go anywhere I'm sat in New York I'm looking at the Empire State Building I've just become a director and I was like wow when I was younger like there was times in our family where we pretty much didn't have anything right I mean we ate rice and butter sometimes for lunch and to kind of go from that to this is

that moment was like wow this is really big and that was the first time when I kind of like consciously realized like I was proud of myself 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 as an exi gaming director turned performance coach I've worked with over 200 leaders from companies like entain 365 flter and many more to help them build the habits to achieve sustainable high performance in these episodes we share exactly what it takes for you to achieve the same so with that being said

let's dive in R welcome to the igaming leader super excited to have you here welcome to the show yeah thank you very much for the invite and uh you know really really happy know to be here with you hey I wanted to dve straight in you your growth in your career has been phenomenal you became a VP at a very young age uh I now 20 years 29 years old I think take us back to like that specific moment what was going on through through your mind when you got that news when you first were made into got that VP position how did that go

I take it a little bit further again because um you know sometimes we where we are in life and we are super busy and we do things you know it's like a reflex right and and I think the uh you know the kind of moment where I realized where I was going with my career was when we were doing some Market Research in the US and we were in New York there was a conference on the SBC Americas and you know we decided to go and see you know what's possible in the market what can we do etc etc and um at the same time

there was also obviously conversations about where I was going as a as a person at D now or while my career was going and uh we're having let's say like a final chat during in my time when I was in New York and I was sat in this in this coffee shop which was you know uh one of let's say one of the highest coffee shops you can have in uh in New York and uh I was sat in a you know silent corner and I was actually looking out at the Empire State Building and I was talking about you know becoming a which was

like like back then was director of sales and obviously like whil you talk about it it's like yeah you know I want to become this I want to become that but after the call when I was just you know sat there and obviously with my new salary and new responsibilities I was just like I'm sat in New York I'm looking at the Empire State Building I've just become a director and I was like Wow and and it always takes me back and I always say this when when I was younger like there was times in our family where we pretty much didn't have anything right

I mean we ate rice and butter sometimes for lunch or like you know bread or whatever there was right just to just to fill you up and to kind of go from that to this is sometimes like just take it for granted you know as as we all do I think certain things we take for granted but like that moment was like wow this is really big and that was the first time when I kind of like consciously realized like I was proud of myself of of what I achieved you know and it's a feeling that is hard to describe I think it's it's you

just have to experience it as like a quiet little minute that you have to yourself but then I was I had to jump in a in a customer call after so it's like you know you get to enjoy it and you know you back to normality and yeah like you said I think you know when when I be I became VP and I will forever be grateful to my old boss back then Oliver alayo who supported me took me on his wing show me different ways of thinking about business and really opened a lot of things for me a lot of ways of thinking a

lot of ways to just digest information and not to snappily react and react out the blue which I think will always be my weakness because sometimes it's like the emotions take over and your eagerness to do things and I need to react right now but sometimes just to sit back think about it have a night's sleep over it and yeah obviously when I let's say signed a new contract and everything it's just it is very American right I mean as Europeans I mean the job title is only been here for a few years I think but it's like you then kind of feel a different

way of responsibility if you know what I'm saying like even though I'm I don't own the company I'm not on the on the board or anything but you start feeling like a different responsibility like I have to do this in order to achieve this and then you start seeing the bigger picture and I don't know you just understand more things automatically you know after the whole journey that I've been on and I'm still on you kind of start to realize a few things it takes a lot out of you I would also say mentally of course but I think also physically because if you're traveling

you're under stress you have to be there you have to be here I'm running late with this or I have to deliver this by then and life in sales is not easy I mean know people always see like oh yes Sal people do this blah blah blah but you've seen in the in in the way and you've interacted with people of course um especially know new Venture now it's very stressful it takes a lot out of you and if you don't take care of yourself it then really starts you really didn't get into some sort of vicious circle because of you start putting on weight

then you know subconsciously like I don't feel well in myself I want to do this then you see pictures of yourself like wow Jesus I didn't realize I looked like the Michelin Man and stuff like that and let's say stop it and just have a minute and okay how am I going to do this and then I think whilst in work you always have goals you are setting yourself goals you want to go here you want to go there but then you really forget on the personal side that you should be doing that as well but you know it's so easy right you just get

home it's like ah order a takeway it's like yeah I I I'll start tomorrow like today's the last day then you maybe do one or two days then something happens and then your body and your brain is in the state oh yeah I need something sugary or I need this or I need that in order to cope with it it it's it's hard again when I started it which was at the end of July last year and I really did like very very strict three months on like 1,000 calories a day which the first two weeks it was headaches your body's on strike or your

brain sending signals I want this I want this but you're fighting it it was hell but then after 10 or 14 days you're like yeah this is actually fine I I feel well myself and I started being active again going to the gym going for walks and walks do wonders right literally when you just out by yourselfer you put your airpods in and you just start walking and I always say to everyone this is the best medicine for anything in life really just have some fresh air yeah he well done Roger uh I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the progress in

your career and and specifically what you said there earlier about you know you you come from a time and and family where it's not always has been easy you've had times where you've had it really tough and how's that shaped you as as a professional and how has that helped you maybe make the progress in your career that you have to date I think and you always see this with um see this with sports people I would say the most successful in example MMA uh Fighters right they come from nothing and I think it it shapes you in a way where you take nothing for

granted in terms of now have whatever I want you know foodwise on the table I now can do activities I didn't used to do I can now you know my kids don't have to experience any of that because they get well and not whatever they want for Christmas what I'm trying to say in in a way like like they don't have to struggle but I think once you've been in that struggle and you kind of experience it it it really gives you another gear and this is I think the advantage that I have over many many people in whatever function that is that I want

to do 110% because I want to to make sure that I don't have to struggle and then also at the same time your ego is there so you just want to be better I think Americans have a great way of describing it like you got a dog in you on the psychology side if that's the best thing to to have always flashbacks to like that struggle but it it hasn't been bad to me let's put it that way when you've been in that struggle and and people can fall into it at any point in life right I mean they might have a fantastic life but

then things can just go down or whatever and it's just really about how you pick yourself up and what you want to do with yourself I had to take that decision quite early on in my life to be better and I had to be better than everyone else in order to achieve certain things so that's why I'm so competitive when it comes to also playing Monopoly with the family or you know play football with my kids or whatever you know so it's finding out early that there is winning and losing and I think in our society now this is getting lost a little bit and

there's many opinions about it but my opinion is if you don't know what winning and losing is and you don't experience it you will always be expecting things in life and no one's going to put you a nice life on a silver platter have the right people around you to get to know people that will actually get you to the next step that you can learn from and uh also that you can kind of aspire to be like them many people don't have that experience unfortunately stagnate in a in a certain way or go backwards in a sense so coming back to to answer your

question I think it's it's probably been highly positive throughout my career and throughout my life as well that I exper experienced exactly that yeah it's it becomes your fuel right and I think many people when you allow it to become your fuel it also becomes your greatest driver and your competitive Advantage like you said but making that progress so quickly early on R must have also given you perhaps some doubts or perhaps that you know that impostor syndrome that we often talk about that feeling of having to prove yourself harder than everybody else like has that been true for you and if so how did

that show up for you I would say so yes because you just like oh yeah I got this now but I don't want to rest with this and I want to have more I want to be better than this and just trying to prove yourself wrong I think it it's true for for everyone like I was just describing that moment in New York it's not something that we do enough probably in order to realize where we are you know last week I had sort of like pretty similar conversation with my friends where was like I used to do this and I used to be that

and look at my kids now look at where my life is you know and it's like kind of for one or two minutes and then you're like let's talk about Football let's talk about NFL again but I think again that's a probably a man thing as well like a male thing where we feel that responsibility of having to be better I mean not saying that females don't do it but I think the way we as men talk about feelings and how we feel in ourselves we probably have that conversation with us whilst we're lying in bed and trying to fall asleep oh I should have

done this I should have done that I need to be better in this I need to be better than that sometimes I struggle an example to understand my feelings in a way because there maybe some personal trauma when I was little or whatever and there's certain things you're just trying to block out because you don't want to deal with it but at the same time and I've learned this through let's say talking to mental health coaches you know in order to overcome things you have to face those things because otherwise it's it will always come come back and bite you in the backside and I'm

not saying I'm perfect like that there's still certain things I don't want to kind of f and whatever but it's as long as people are aware or as long as you are aware that this is something you have to do at some point you will do it and whether that's whilst you're on a holiday or whilst you're on a plane or wherever it is in life I think you know as long as you start doing these things it will come back into your conscience and you will try and fight it or you will make out with it and be in peace with it and just

accept Okay this is this is what it is so yeah and let's just move on yeah thank you for sharing that R it's um it's difficult I think one of the one of the big things that I see with most high Achievers and I'm sure it's going to be the same with you is that we don't take a lot of time to celebrate our successes right we kind of shrug it off and go all right on to the next one we very often are the most critical person inside of our own head right like pushing ourselves harder and harder almost holding holding yourself up to

an imp impossible standard I'm sure that some of that is the same for you but what have you changed over time from kind of those things that you were you were saying to to deal with those perhaps those kind of things a little bit more effectively or or or in a way that is more supportive to to where you are today I think going back to let's say celebrating I think what what what I do now is that I strongly encourage people that work with me or work for me that they need to celebrate and I'm not shy to to let's say invest a couple

of hundred pounds to to buy something nice for the people or to like let's go out let's celebrate I mean some of the conferences always a good point to do it because then you can go to a restaurant or whatever and I think we as people we have to start being nicer to each other again this is something that over the years is because everyone kind of focuses on themselves we need to make sure that we are all right but let me tell you and this is the thing for me success as a team is 10 times more or worth 10 times more than being

successful individually it just gives me this I don't know what it is like a fulfilling thing like oh you know we're successful together you know like this guy's successful he's successful she's successful because early on like in my years I I didn't have that person that would make me do this or celebrate this and all you need is this one moment of appreciation where someone tells you hey mate here's a little bit of a thank you you know and these things they're not normal anymore right it's seen as some special thing which to me this is this is normality I want to give back back

to the people I want to make them feel special you know it's not just about me I mean I talk a lot publicly and people see me the whole time but and enough today it's the people that I work with that make it happen I'm I'm kind of in this cheerleader role where I would I would get sent to conferences and do those panels Etc and people didn't hear me talking and talking but the of the day it's people like Max Ronaldo Mike and Bruce that I work with and Gom that really make it work I just want to be I just want to appreciate

it first of all and want to hopefully show them something that they can use later when they become people managers because all of them have the skills and all of them are really good at their jobs when you are showing them it's like yes you did a great job let's appreciate you it's something that that is hugely important especially to also morale because loyalty is not won by paying someone the most money loyalty is having a team team spirit team workor people feeling as in as the a tightened group and that's how you take on the world and you don't Take On The World by

paying everyone the highest wage you know the people that you really want will will never leave the company because they're so attached to the team and I always say companies don't buy from companies it's people buying from people so it's hugely important that everyone is on board and appreciates each other as well this is super important and like you said it gets forgotten so so much and it's a shame I love it and actually to take that even a step further Ro people people don't work for businesses they work for people right so it's exact 100% 100% um quick break here if you're ahe of

director VP or executive in igaming who's successful at work but is finding it hard to achieve balance in life and switch off from work then I've got something that's going to help on the third of February we are launching the igaming leader reset a six- week coaching program in which I will personally work with 50 15 I gaming leaders to build habits for sustainable high performance all in just 20 minutes a day it's limited to only 15 leaders so if that's something that you want to know a little bit more about head over to igaming leer.com and I hope to see you there now let's

get back to our conversation hey so you've lost an insane amount of we mate it's like so so impressive like I've seen you change and it's it's been really inspirational but talk me through what was the pivotal moment for you that you thought I've I've just got to do something about this now what was the one moment where you thought this like enough is enough do you know what I don't think there's been like one big moment but I think it was just things leading up to it kind of in a way so at the start of the year we had eyes and obviously when

you in the Exel in London you kind of do like 20,000 steps easily every day because you walk in N1 to N1 from S1 to S8 then all that evening activity to realize Jesus like whilst I was walking like my my back started getting sweaty and like wet we went to the SBC Rio in Brazil and that was my first time I was ever in Brazil and what I saw there is no one here is really overweight everyone looks after themselves and I felt like kind of outside of the norm kind of thing you know then we went on holidays in mayorca with the kids

it's just when it's sunny and then you get all hot and flustered and you can't really walk the steps that you used to do or you can't run after them the way you used to or you just don't feel comfortable doing it because I've got a certain shirt on or whatever you know and this is me just openly speaking about I mean stuff like that this is H really what's going in my head here and and sometimes it was very hard to talk about it but when you actually talk about it actually helps you to realize these things and then kind of I was like

July and you know we don't have many hot days here in the UK you know so it's you know you know you know they're very spar right and and and and and it was like a really hot day you know and I was like literally sat like trying to work but feeling comfortable and it's like and then on like one day and I'm opening a a packet of crisps or chips if you're American sorry um you know and I'm and I'm about to go in and I and I take the first one out and like you know kind of biteen it but like as I'm

eating them I was like what am I doing I'm not even hungry just open them because I don't know if it's if it's that thing of like not having enough food back in the day so I don't know if there's a connection between I mean surely there must be but and I was like do you know what nah I I will start right now and I just literally I didn't say I will start tomorrow as I I put it away I will start right now and then I kind of said to myself look in order to lose weights there needs to be a calorie deficit

right so I was like okay so I need 2,500 3,000 calories a day I was like all right I'll try and do 1,000 it's a nice number then I don't need to calculate too much and so like next day I get up and I was doing intermittent fasting as well so I wasn't eating until like 1: or 2 p.m. because I think every time I eat breakfast it makes me eat more actually throughout the day so I started doing that honestly the first three or four days man there was like actual hell honestly it was like literally fighting with myself fighting urges and I could

just feel my brain is kind of depleted of sugar or depleted or MSG or whatever whatever there is I was getting headaches I was getting like mood swings I I was like oh my God is this the right thing to do I was like no no I I'll I'll stick this out yeah so like after 10 days 11 12 or whatever it was I was like uh I feel okay now and I think another thing though was I started drinking a lot more water instead of coke when I had the feeling when I drink more I actually feel less hungry and I don't know if

there is a scientific thing behind it but that's at least how I felt and like 2 weeks into it 3 weeks into it four weeks into it after four weeks I actually weighed myself the first time I was like oh my God I lost 10 kilos I was like what is going on here you know but then obviously the next two weeks I put on a little so like it wasn't going down as fast because I started going to the gym a lot more so obviously you build muscles we all know muscles and and fat have a different obviously muscles way more so it was

going down a lot slower but that was when I started to see the changes that was like after two months or after after nearly two months you know I was like putting on jeans or like you know chinos whatever it was I was like Jesus Christ man what's going on here because like when I'm at home I usually just wear short and and t-shirt or whatever and I like oh my God and then I started trying on my shirts that I would usually wear till the events and stuff like that was that oh my God they're like actually all too big or not even like

a little bit too big I was looking like I had a parachute on me basically you know and I I said look I'll do another four weeks then I'm then I'm going to the US for work and whilst I'm the US I don't want to have any constraints to food because everybody loves a nice burger or whatever or like some mozzarella sticks and the Americans know how to do it in straight away yeah yeah yeah so you know what and then um like like before this trip I had to go out and buy like pretty much my whole wardrobe again because everything was you know

I I mean seriously man like I was in waist size um in UK 44 which is I mean you know it's huge right I mean you know if you see the difference between a jeans that's I've got 36 on now you know so it's you know the difference is is so big and so you know I went to Miami there was Sigma molta so that was another one but I kind of didn't have to watch myself really because I I wasn't I was eating maybe like let's say naughty things as you would say and like not super healthy but I wasn't eating it all the

time so I wasn't having crisps and then eating crisps eating or whatever so I was having like two meals a day maybe a little bit too much or definitely not 1,000 calories and that's how to Journey was and then obviously during Christmas put a little bit on but I wasn't stressing myself because I said to myself look I'll take I'll take a little bit of time off and now since the first of January we're back on a train this time I'm also doing a little bit different so now in in January doing a carnival diet so I'm eating meat products only so let's see how

that goes so far the first six days absolutely fine feel good Within Myself and that's what really counts and like now I want to get down to 95 and then I want to stay around 95 100 like somewhere in between there because I think that's that's kind of also the weight that I would be comfortable with when you know I'm older not somewh more B that I can still swing around yeah well done man 21 kilos right yeah 21 so far yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah 21 then obviously put I think it was like four four and a half during Christmas and stuff like

that so which again which is fine because honestly like I I was probably eating uh around about you know 2 kilos of turkey and potatoes every day you know so yeah but well done R um hey beyond the scale beyond the scale what are the differences that you notice so in in work but also with your kids do you know what I think with work the biggest difference is not having this kind of like 3 pm crash where you just kind of feel tired and your focus drops and stuff like that so I think I can hold my focus a lot longer so that's for

sure I don't have any issues with that whatsoever and this goes this is a little bit more on the personal life side and a little bit more family you feel a lot more confid ident within you so you don't you don't look left and right and you can just focus on that one thing which is obviously like your family and kids and what not right and it's it's a lot more enjoyable in in a way because I can just chase after them I can bend down I can pick them up and run through them thank to all the squats that I was doing and whatnot

but when you feel well within yourself and you and you feel like okay I'm in a good place now and this is like probably 80 % of of where you want to be in life you know feel like you've done something and you are doing something to help it and you know the mood swings are a lot less Focus levels with the family and whatnot is totally different and I mean I I couldn't recommend it more to people and unfortunately in our industry or unfortunately a lot in the UK uh or let's say Western Europe there's a lot of people that have become overweight over

time because again it's just bad habits you know like it says behind you know habit re and that's what people really need to start doing and not just doing whatever is the simplest but I think again it's a little bit of reflection of society what I was saying before you know we want everything the easy way everything has to come to you but sometimes you got to do the Dirty Work to get to where you want yeah yeah I think that's true and you know what I think is beautiful about it Roger is that we often like you said we we often want the the

fast through right we want the pill to get there and uh the tick boox to do it but it's actually in a journey I think where all of the transformation happens you know it's realizing when you suddenly feel comfortable taking your shirt off you know when you suddenly have the energy again to run after your kids when you suddenly don't worry about dying of a heart attack at 50 and those are not tick box moments they happen along the journey they don't happen overnight so what are some of those realizations that you've had along that Journey if any actually before I answer this what what

were yours on your journey well the ones I just described you know like really about crashing after work feeling completely so so that's what happened to me all the time right I I would feel brain fried after work I would down a bottle of wine to unwind I would not have the energy to play with my kids I would just lie on the sofa I would go out all the time because I again I felt I didn't have a didn't have a life outside of outside of work MH um and it was that you know Fe feeling comfortable enough to take my shirt off on

the beach being able to run after my kids being able to just play with them again not having those energy crashes at work the mood swings I I would get angry all the time at work yeah kind of the things that you described I mean you know don't get me wrong I still get angry at work but uh no I think uh the realization that I had was when I was let's say in Miami and stuff like that and I didn't have a can in a world if if I had a shirt on or not you know and was like yeah like whatever then like

I said after the biggest realization was when I when I tried on all my shirts and stuff like that I was just thinking to myself wow man that's that's crazy like I was so big holy moly you know I think that was really when I can visualize things what I kind of achieved I think when it comes to that it's a fulfilling moment okay I'm on the right tracks here you know I'm I'm I'm I'm on the right tracks Roger I wanted to uh I know you mentioned that mistakes uh like you feel that that's the only way to really get better right and learn

I I completely agree with you uh however we all know in igaming that's not necessarily a shared mindset everywhere so can you tell me a little bit more about perhaps even a significant mistake that you've made that shaped you into a better leader today or how you perhaps use that approach in your day-to-day leadership mistakes are on a scale I think right so everything should be on a don't lose your license basically yeah yeah you know so so I think there is mistakes and there is like grave mistakes right so I'm not talking about those grave mistakes I'm talking about all this stuff when you're

kind of an example when you believe that person's word and then doesn't come off or you just not had a second look and believed it to be right because you trust in certain processes or people or whatever and it's just those those kind of moments right I think did something in a project and it was actually the wrong decision but it's still reversible and and it's fine right but again H how do I know that this is the right thing to do or how do I know that this is this is not the right thing to do I think mistakes are there to be learned

from but what I also say is don't do the same mistake twice because that's really going to cost you then I think making mistakes should be natural for everybody you know and it's something to learn from but you have to be accountable with yourself first of all and you have to come to the re realization that you have done a mistake and don't to try and blame someone else for it because trust me and I have luckily I have never done this but if you blame someone else behind their backs or whatever that person will defend themselves and they will have it written they will

have it somewhere somewhere will be there and it will come back to bite you 10 times more than whatever so it's just the realization okay I have made a mistake it was wrong to do this but I think in business if you come to someone and say hey look I have done this mistake I should have done this but I've done this right if you go to your line manager if you go to whatever department is concerns with and we all do mistakes there's not a single person in any company that has not made a mistake from CEO down to the maintenance person in the

office honestly we've we've all done mistakes which is fine do not do it twice and learn from it realize and just stand up for it and people will automatically respect you when you have that realization and when you tell them about it rather than trying to hide it because that's something that I hate like nothing more when people start making up some stories or whatever and want to hide their mistakes because again we we sometimes forget to just get on with things and solve things and just keep going on about the problem you just circle the problem and you're like oh this is so bad

this is yeah yeah it's so bad it's so bad but what are you going to do to make it better what does it need to make it better you know I think mistakes are there to make you better as a person if you don't make mist mes you are definitely doing something wrong so you know no Hest yeah the thing is you being mediocre like exactly yeah you just live in the middle and you like you'd be a mediocre so but what I hear back from you again and again through this entire conversation right is how much value you place on accountability and taking ownership

for your own actions so tell me a little bit more about that Ro like how why is that so why has that been so important for you probably throughout your career we all have some sort of moment back when we were like 16 17 18 or whatever when it just clicks and you're like okay now I need to focus on doing something in my life or there might be a next click even later when it comes to other life-changing decisions like having kids or buying a house or whatever right but once it clicked for me I was like okay what do successful people do and

I was looking at different people and and one that really stood out for me was Steve Jobs because he said openly and one of the presentations that we as a company and I as a person because I am responsible for this company have done wrong things but here's what we're going to do to solve them and I was like oh my God like why doesn't everybody else do that let's say you know people that are successful the most successful politicians even saying I I've done a mistake here and this is what we're going to do to make it better I don't want to hear like

all these excuses and whatever it is right and it goes through life whether you're a politician whether you are an owner of a company whether you have a family whether you have a wife husband whether you work for this company whether you work for that company whether you are an artist whether you a sports person right if you lie to yourself that means you're going to lie to someone else you will never get to the point where you dream to be or where you want to be or what your potential is and I think if you're not accountable for your own actions then it's just

you're not going to go anywhere you're going to stay in this little dream world of yours that you have and I just don't have the respect for those people I think the world would be in a lot better place if we would stop doing these things and again I'm not asking everyone to be perfect because we're not perfect but at least try to do it I still do some of these things right but I have the realization and I reflect on myself and think um you know what that wasn't that wasn't that cool let me go back to this person and say sorry I apologize

for what I did I can't reverse it words that I said were that's what I felt in a moment what can we do to make it better and that's that's all you need to do that's I love it no I love it Ro it's so so important extreme ownership is uh I think also the only way to go because then you then there's no one else to blame right it's just you it's just you and you can take action for the things that you can control and that's it and uh you take ownership and and and the best people around you and this is why

I I know some people that say that they have like 40 or 50 friends on nur's relationships but let me tell you what out of those 40 or 50 people there's probably only two or three that will actually tell you no what you are doing here is wrong like you know you need to need to look back and and these are the people you need to focus on you know not not the person that tells you oh you know Roger what you did here is so good and then you do something and they say yeah was so good Roger you know you are the best

person in the world and stuff like that there's a big big difference between friends and acquaintances right there's a huge difference and it will be the same for you we working in the industry is yeah you get to know so many people a lot of them are really cool people but work is work and personal is personal the issue is once you start Crossing this barrier it's then very hard to have that realization so what I try and and and and do is like okay who's actually the person that's going to tell me off for being an idiot so you know and that's going to

be like my my two or three really really good friend that I had all my life and and of course you can have new friends you know and I got to know some fantastic people since I moved from Germany here that also supported me and have been there for me one of the examples is one of my colleagues now James that I work with when I moved to another company he was there to Mentor me he was helping me with the language as well because let me tell you as a German I thought my English was brilliant and I could understand a lot and I

was really into hip-hop rap and whatnot right and I was watching us TV shows like when you come to Manchester there is no honestly there is eight different accents in Manchester right he helped me quite a lot with that and he translated a lot of jokes for me which you know it might seem stupid but there's not many people that would do that for you and still support you through the way so you know sometimes obviously because we work together and forget to do that kind of um you know the Friendship side of things when we do and when we talk with each other but

when you come back to each other you're like yes this and this and this and you have a great connection and also with people like Steven and those people are like really friends that I care a lot about their opinion I gen do if they tell me something like Roger maybe sto doing this or this was a little bit over the top or whatever like oh I don't just shrug it off I go back and think but yeah you right and we all need that we all need that sort of checking and the people to tell us off hey last question uh Roger you've you've

made some really fast progress in your career anybody kind of looking maybe feeling that they're let's say they late early 30s uh also maybe wanting to move in directorship VP type of positions perhaps they feel that they're a little bit out have a little bit of a ceiling somehow what's your best advice for someone that wants to progress in their career and you know move forward I think again like I said as long as you self aware and you set yourself goals and you want to go to these things but it's not as easy sometimes you have to be also at the right place at

the right time because certain politics and whatever and certain companies I mean you know it how it works sometimes you just can't get past that stage because those people have been around for 20 years or they are friends with and it is very hard you have to assess the situation as it is and just be as brutal as you want to be with yourself with the company with your situation with your career because that's the only way how you're going to move forward there is a difference between a company you not reaching that step because of certain political aspects but there might also be certain

aspects you have to show people growth and sometimes you also have to shout about it and I would just encourage anyone really whether you male female or whatever you class yourself as and just make sure that it is acknowledged don't do it silently every step of the way because people will just take it for granted and again going back to this conversation about celebration and whatever so like make sure that people acknowledge it but also at the same time you you have to have a manager that is supporting you for you to grow right because you have to have that person and if none of

these things are existed then there probably time for a change unless you want to look there's some people that feel very comfortable working 9 to5 and that's all they want to do right I I always say to people look that's absolutely fine because there's only 0.01% of people that have really let's say the qualities to be the lead leaders and to be persistent and to also have the nerves and to sacrifice the family time and whatnot and I mean it is it is what it is don't be drawn into these conversations where or or or or or like things that you see on social media

is like yeah you were born to be great and you have to do this and you have to do that no do what you are comfortable with but at the same time where do you want to go and it's a it's a very tough conversation but I'm sure Leo with your company um you know you also help a lot of people to realize I that and come to that realization what am I comfortable with what do I really want to do I can't recommend it enough to go and speak to you and just you know a good chat and you know with someone who's been

there done that and done it all the time and and and has like kind of reborn himself as like a rebirth of a person to go into direction for people is it's just like be honest with yourself you don't have to be the best person in the world you don't have to do that you can also be comfortable with living as you are and if you're happy then you know what you know then you are happy so what else do you want but for those people that really really want to take it far as like you have to assess the situation work damn hard for

it of course but also do not un underestimate the lucky Factor here there is luck in there and be with people that will be able to give you some new things in your life that are able to teach you something or that are able to pick you up you know be around positive people that's what I'm trying to say don't you know cut all the negativity out it kind of comes back to the same thing the journey is the goal right not the not the end result and I think very often we forget that the journey is actually where all of the happiness happens not

because when you look at the end goal uh for the happiness to happen you will never find it oh yeah 100% yeah and you will remember the taxi ride you had at 1:00 a.m. you know you will remember how you spilled the coffee over your shirt before a big meeting you will remember how you made a mistake here and you will remember what you did at that point in time but what you will not remember memb is signing a new employment contract that's the that I can tell you for sure so yes like you say you know the happiness comes in the process and you

but you just have to choose a journey to be in that process you know that's exactly it hey reer thank you very much for being on the I game me love talking to you thank you very much yeah thanks a lot and you know thanks for letting me talk for that long thank you for joining me on the igaming leader podcast if you enjoyed today's episode head over to igaming leer.com for more conversations and insights don't forget to subscribe to this podcast I'm your host Leo Judkins and hope to see you next week [Music]

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